“Liberated desire is an expansive energy—an opening of possibilities—and wants to share projects and actions, joys and pleasures, love and revolt. Insurrection of one may indeed be possible. I would even argue that it is the necessary first step towards a shared insurrectional project. But an insurrection of two, three, many increases courage and enjoyment and opens a myriad of passional possibilities.” Wolfi Landstreicher “Against the Logic of Submission,” Willful Disobedience (95)
The notion that there is an impossible conflict between the individual and the social remains on a shallow level. A tension, certainly, but not a contradiction. It is through just these sorts of tensions that greater levels can be achieved. Shallow thinkers have proposed that one must choose between individualism and the communal. Yet it is possible to have community, friendship, and alliances while still remaining individualist. These are the good things that communism supposedly brings, but really it doesn’t. Communism is an ideology based on a shallow reification of these values. Actually, my individualism is enhanced by the presence of others whom I value. This doesn’t invalidate the sentiments of pessimism towards others that is so easy to feel, merely negates the universality of the proposition. William Burroughs called the sort of person who one can find affinity with, but is able to mind their own business and not manipulate others, a Johnson. He said “Yes, you found a Johnson, but you waded through shitville to find him. You always do. Just when you think the world is exclusively populated by shits, you find a Johnson” (Burroughs x). Much of the time it does feel like every person encountered is terrible, but there are always people to connect with through bonds of friendship and affinity. There is no need for a mass or majority in order to begin the war. In fact, it is an impossible place to start.
When individuals come together based on affinity, they are able to accomplish greater things than alone. These bonds of affinity take the form of synergistic mutuality: the combination of forces do not function together as arithmetic, but as a gestalt greater than the sum of their parts. When these connections are based on affinity they are the opposite of the herd. Instead, they are an amplification of the individual, the union of self-owning ones. Contrasting his preferred view of individualist organization against the hive society and the state, Max Stirner said “For me, the egoist, the welfare of this ‘human society’ is not in my heart. I sacrifice nothing for it, I only use it, but to be able to use it completely, I transform it instead into my property and my creation; in other words, I destroy it and in its place form the association of egoists” (Stirner 192). In a way I like the more archaic translation that was used by Stephen Byington: the “Union of Egoists,” as it more directly contrasts this view of affinity to leftist collectivism.
It isn’t always easy to find these connections (Nietzsche said: “I had reason to look about me for scholarly, bold, and industrious comrades (I am still looking)” (21)). The desire for affinity and community can take the form of a selfish one. “If I write, it is not as they say, ‘for others,’” said Raoul Vaneigem, “I have no wish to exorcise other people’s ghosts. I string words together as a way of getting out of the well of isolation, because I need others to pull me out” (Vaneigem 111). The best way to look at this selfish affinity is as friendship. Passionate friendship can take a form that is extreme, intense. Or, as George Orwell described a soldier in the Spanish Civil War, “It was the face of a man who would commit murder and throw away his life for a friend” (3).
The notion that the needs of the individual and the social are irreconcilable is a miserabilist notion. One does not need to choose between being an individualist or a communist. Bob Black suggests the reconciliation take the form of “Marxism-Stirnerism,” through which “every orthodoxy prating of freedom or liberation is called into question, anarchism included” (Black Abolition 130). It might be said that one could be an egoist communist, but even this is misleading. Individualists have always desired affinity, compassion, and mutuality. In short, a communal structure. The communal structure must be flexible and malleable to do this, a sort of chaotic system. This is intrinsic to the anarchist project to begin with. The classical anarcho-communists were individualists. The classical individualist anarchists believed in community. Yet even though this is intrinsic, both sides unfortunately forget in practice. Anarcho-communists become ideologues for the organized collective (now more than ever). Individual anarchists fall into atomized alienation. Bob Black, expanding from his concept “Marxism-Stirnerism,” proposed the idea of “Type 3” anarchism—both communist and egoist: “the Type 3 anarchist categorically rejects categorization” and “takes more out of anarchism than anarchism takes out of her” (Black Defacing 54-55). It is leftist dogma that a moral person who desires liberation must reject selfishness. With this they throw away a great weapon and draw to them the chains of a reified notion of liberation. My selfishness includes the selfishness for a world where my friends and loved ones are free, vital, and feral. My selfishness might, like James Walker’s selfishness, “hope better things from you” (Walker 5).
Max Stirner explained this affinity by stating “if the world is ours, it no longer attempts any violence against us, but only with us. My selfishness has an interest in the liberation of the world, so that it will become my property” (Stirner 318). Alienation does nothing for the health of my subjectivity. It craves the nourishment of the subjectivities of others. Bob Black described this expansive egoism: “The radically and rationally (self)conscious egoist, appreciating this, enriches him-self in and through other subjectivities. In social life at its (con)sensual and satisfying best—sex, conversation, creation—taking from and giving to others constitutes a single play-activity rich with multiplier effects. For the lucid and ludic egoist, anything less than generalized egoism is just not enough” (Black Abolition 129).
Stephen Duncombe provided a model of how such a union of self-owning ones might function in the form of the zine network (which still defiantly exists, despite the technocracy’s frantic pleas that we believe in its death): “a zine network proposes something different: a community of people linked via bonds of difference, each sharing their originality… This model is the very essence of a libertarian community: individuals free to be who they want and to cultivate their own interests, while simultaneously sharing in each other’s difference” (Duncombe 58). In this way it can be an example of an unfolding heterotopia, a community of difference. Other examples of such structures based on radical difference might be found in queer communities, particularly in examples like radical faeries. Radical faeries are particularly notable in this regard, as they arose as the opposition party within the opposition party of gay liberation. They adopted a stance of being intrinsically different, rather than a marginal political group that would be just like anyone else if afforded political protections. Instead they tended towards a chaotic paganism for spirituality and the anarchic for politics. Most importantly they embrace the dropout ethics, trying to build rural land bases that could serve as a point of escape, even if on a temporary basis. Jack Davis, participant, provided this definition: “Radical Faeries tend to be the people who don’t fit into any mainstream—gay or otherwise. When I went to my first Radical Faerie gathering, I saw all these other fags didn’t fit in, either. They were political, they did ritual, and they were funny. It felt like ‘coming home’—finding all these other weird people who only did the same crazy things I did—they appreciated that I did them” (Vale and Sulak 189).
The informal organization of the anarchist hunter gatherer societies exhibits many of the traits I have been talking about. There is a strong sense of sharing, gift giving, and reciprocation. Yet there is not a formal sense of obligation, or a permanent tie to one relationship. One anthropology text described how “social density always seems in a state of flux as people spend more or less time away from camp and as they move to other camps, either on visits or more permanently” (Haviland 160). This can be for external reasons, such as resource shortage, or for internal reasons, such as conflicts that can’t be resolved or just getting on each other’s nerves. Either way, this is one way to preserve the community, by not making the ties rigid and permanent.
A strong resistance, an insurrectionary situation, can often be actualized when a multitude comes together. The anonymous tract At Daggers Drawn said “to say we are the only rebels in a sea of submission is reassuring because it puts an end to the game in advance. We are simply saying that we do not know who our accomplices are and we need a social tempest to discover them” (23). Sometimes an isolated individual is capable of only a futile thrashing out, a meaningless violence. A multitude can apply strong pressure with the use of almost no violence and break down structures of domination. The multitude is capable of some level of success, the individual capable only of becoming a martyr. Ideally this works synergistically, with individual acts leading to a spreading affinity. This union further valorizes the individual. Ideally this creates a feedback loop “in the spreading revolt we will really be able to perceive a marvelous conspiracy of egos aimed at creating society without bosses or domination. A society of free and unique individuals” (At Daggers Drawn 29).
To be clear though, the multitude are often highly problematic. Even though structures and processes are presented as non-authoritarian alternatives, such as consensus decision-making, these processes can be dangerous in that they conceal power dynamics which have been internalized. They also encourage abstractions such as “the consent of the people,” which are highly destructive. There is no such thing as “the people,” only specific groupings of people. To gain consent of such a massive grouping is functionally impossible. Those who claim to have such are fooling themselves with illusion. The structures of mass society have rendered a large portion of people into a herd or cog state (as many, or more, of these people can be found among the anarchist subcultural scene). The class struggle social democrat faction of anarchism does nothing to alleviate this problem, merely attempting to manipulate the masses into their organization federation pyramid/ponzi schemes. If they were to succeed it would be an even more dehumanizing scenario than our current corporate state. Luckily the average person hasn’t been destroyed enough (even after school and work!) to fall for these federation schemes.
This isn’t necessarily the most cynical view. Organization can easily be temporary and pragmatic. Renzo Novatore stated that he intended to find struggles that he felt affinity with but after the struggle was complete continue on a line of flight: “When you will be ready—God, what an endless wait!—it won’t nauseate me to go along the road a while with you! But when you stop, I shall continue on my mad and triumphant march toward the great and sublime conquest of nothing!” (135). This isn’t against affinity or action, this is against permanence and rigid organization.
What this leaves is the affinity group. The majority will never change anything, but a small group of dissatisfied weirdos who come together based on affinity could throw off the constraints of authority and liberate their desires. They would be an irresistible force, totally seductive. This conspiracy might even actualize our wildest dreams, an abolition of the mass because the mass refused to be herded. They could become autonomous individuals, a rising of free spirits! And even if this fails, it’s better than a lifetime of misery.
Works cited:
Anonymous. At Daggers Drawn. Trans. Jean Weir. Portland OR: Eberhardt Press, 2009.
Black, Bob. The Abolition of Work and Other Essays. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited, 1986.
Black, Bob. Defacing the Currency. Berkeley CA: LBC books, 2012.
Burroughs, William S. Queer. NY: Penguin, 1985, 1987.
Duncombe, Stephen. Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. Bloomington, IN: Microcosm, 1997, 2008.
Haviland, William. Cultural Anthropology (10th edition). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, 2002.
Landstreicher, Wolfi. Willful Disobedience. Berkeley, CA: Ardent Press, 2009.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Genealogy of Morals & Ecce Homo. Trans. Walter Kaufman. NY: Vintage, 1967, 1989.
Novatore, Renzo. The Collected Works of Renzo Novatore. Trans. Wolfi Landstreicher. Berkeley, CA: Ardent 2012.
Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1952.
Stirner, Max. The Unique and Its Property. Trans. Wolfi Landstreicher. Baltimore, MD: Underworld Amusements, 2017.
Vale, V and John Sulak. RE/Search: Modern Pagans. San Francisco: RE/Search Publications, 2001.
Vaneigem, Raoul. The Revolution of Everyday Life. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, London: Rebel Press. 1983, 1993, 2006.Walker, James L. “What is Justice?” Enemies of Society: An Anthology of Individualist and Egoist Thought. Berkeley CA: Ardent Press, 2011.