The Anarchist Turn by Jacob Blumenfeld Chiara Bottici & Simon Critchley

Author:Jacob Blumenfeld, Chiara Bottici & Simon Critchley [Blumenfeld, Jacob, Bottici, Chiara and Critchley, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Pluto Press

For her, anarchy is mostly ‘refusing to be a follower and to be a leader. Never trust leaders.’ She ends by commenting how ‘anarchism can exist without the analysis of capitalism and imperialism. It questions the state, but it does not change the state. It has a flow but it is an expression of freedom.’

Her account of feminism starts with a self-reflection: ‘I never thought of myself as a female; I was so conscious of class. I was discriminated because poor not as a girl. [Then] Simone’s [De Beauvoir] Second Sex in 1963... I was a teenager in the 50s and read everything translated!’ In a sex-segregated social context where she lived, feminism at first meant, ‘Understanding how women do act out the roles of patriarchy’, which had to do with the ‘common resentment toward the mother’. Her mother had become an alcoholic and died from it. Anger and bitterness were ‘part of the feeling of sisterhood with other women ... at that time Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol [which allowed us to] understand the “crazy woman” and the source of one’s violence’.

While she was doing her doctorate, ‘anti-militarism and anti-violence led to feminism, mutual support and mutual assistance, health centers, challenging the state, and the Vietnam War’. In that period, the writing of ‘William Hanton, Fan Chen Village’ was crucial. ‘During [the] cultural revolution [the book[ helped us for our own organizing – so young feminists picked up also anti-imperialism’. Then it was the time of ‘Daring to be Bad in the 80s – the divide between cultural and political feminists, and lesbian feminism, the purple menace with the pink triangle.’

Roxanne’s ecological awareness started during the anti-Vietnam war activism, with the information about ‘Agent Orange and chemical warfare’ and in the anti-nuclear movement, later in promoting pesticide awareness. For her what is very important is the struggle for ‘health and environment, [since] the beginning chapter of Marx’s Capital – [the parts on] deforestation, pollution, slums, colonialism] ... the less known ecological part of Marxism’ is the one she refers to as the most useful.

Finally, ecological thought played a crucial role in her decision of ‘becoming a vegan, aware of animal rights, and politicize my behavior about how to respect the planet – which is related with my being a Native.’ At the end, her Native identity, her familial heritage, became an identity choice encompassing even her recent choices. Her very roots, enriched with the consciousness she acquired during her life (through personal experience, readings, sharing with others) closed the circle of the interview in a meaningful way.

GIVE ME FIVE: DEFINITIONS

Now let us look at eight interviews of students (who also engage in precarious work) and manual workers, followed by eight interviews of intellectual workers (scholar-activists). This part of the research was named ‘give me five’. I asked the subject to provide five definitions for each signifier (anarchism, communism, feminism, ecology). The following results should be read as synthetic narratives, as semi-precious raw stones excavated from the mine of individual and social memory.

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