I just received in the mail, kindly sent to me by Włodzimierz Gogłoza, a Polish libertarian magazine called MindFuck (pronounced, I assume, “Minndfootsk”) that includes translations into Polish of the libertarian feminist piece I wrote with Charles, Libertarian Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved?, as well as my blog post Against Anarchist Apartheid.
The magazine’s other articles, likewise all in Polish, are as follows (insofar as I’ve guessed/deciphered correctly); I’ve linked to the English versions: David Andrade’s What Is Anarchy?; Voltairine de Cleyre and Rachelle Yarros’s The Individualist and the Communist; Wendy McElroy’s American Anarchism; Murray Rothbard’s Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty and The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine; Bryan Caplan’s Anarcho-Statists of Spain; and three pieces I couldn’t find English versions of: an unsigned editorial on horror movies (I think), another on religious parodies (I think), and a piece by Gogłoza himself on Spencerian anarchist Wordsworth Donisthorpe.
There were also interviews with our own Kevin Carson, with Fred Woodworth of The Match!, with Tom Hazelmyer of Amphetamine Reptile, with “feminist pornographer” Erika Lust, and with anarchist musician Daniel Carter; the latter interview is the only one I believe I’ve identified an English version of, here.
So it’s safe to say that this is the sort of periodical I would read, if I could read Polish.
Tags: Anarchy, Feminism, Left and Right, Left-Libertarian, Personal
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Oh, and I just found this link which shows a picture of the cover, and also identifies it as issue 3 (I couldn’t find an issue number on the magazine itself).
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Hmmm, I remember being unimpressed with that Caplan essay. Don’t have time to look back for specifics right now though.
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I suspect Caplan probably overstates his case. And here’s Iain McKay’s response, which I suspect probably overstates the case in the opposite direction. Ne quid nimis.
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Yes, I remember getting the impression that Caplan and McKay were both primarily interested in discrediting each others’ philosophy.
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From McKay’s response:
Given that the population of Catalonia was nearly 3 million in 1936, a figure of 5 000 deaths hardly amounts to “large-scale” murder by any means.
So if some organisation would kill 500,000 Americans, McKay would not consider that large-scale murder…
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1. There’s a huge scaling problem there. 5,000 spontaneous assassinations (in the midst of a chaotic revolution) of known fervent supporters of fascist coup whose army is marching towards your city is plausible. 500,000 would require serious systematic effort.
2. Totally justified. I mean come on. What were they going to do, fucking imprison the fascists in the populace within the prisons they’d destroyed? Let’s not lose sight of the fact that those being targeted were fascists. Fascists. Not just people ‘we don’t like’. Not just people who end up supporting coercive, hierarchical power. People who directly see coercive, hierarchical power as the ENDS they’re seeking.
Caplan’s article is a big pile of shit. Saying that Iain overstates his case is both superfluous (it’s Mckay we’re talking about here) and disingenuous because it implies that the truth lies anywhere close to evenly between the two.
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1. There’s a huge scaling problem there. 5,000 spontaneous assassinations (in the midst of a chaotic revolution) of known fervent supporters of fascist coup whose army is marching towards your city is plausible. 500,000 would require serious systematic effort.
Ok, so would there have been 5000 people killed in the L.A. Riots (instead of 53), there would not have been large scale murder. Right.
2. Totally justified. I mean come on. What were they going to do, fucking imprison the fascists in the populace within the prisons they’d destroyed? Let’s not lose sight of the fact that those being targeted were fascists. Fascists. Not just people ‘we don’t like’. Not just people who end up supporting coercive, hierarchical power. People who directly see coercive, hierarchical power as the ENDS they’re seeking.
De Santillan isn’t talking about fascists, but “rightists (…) linked to political or ecclesiastical reaction.”
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> Ok, so would there have been 5000 people killed in the L.A. Riots (instead of 53), there would not have been large scale murder.
Killing is killing is a wrong. On a battlefield or in a church. But it’s a bit fucked up to completely set aside the importance of the political, social and military context those killings took place in. The LA riots are an incredibly poor comparison designed to make the killings appear similarly opportunistic and meaningless when in Spain they were anything but.
> De Santillan isn’t talking about fascists, but “rightists (…) linked to political or ecclesiastical reaction.”
I don’t know if that distinction is a good one to make. It seems pretty clear that “rightist” in context means support for Franco. (Not, for example, petite bourgeois shopkeepers.) There were certainly many, many times 5,000 people in Catalonia who ardently supported Franco’s coup and actively participated in hindering the revolutionary forces. (Priests snipering workingmen from the belltowers, etc) So given all I’ve read, it seems ridiculous that that 5,000 would have any significant composition other than the fascists (and, yes, some small level of the same opportunistic/populist murder that happens in ANY chaotic much less such a profound revolutionary setting).
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Look here, McKay’s point is that 5000 isn’t all that much because it’s 5000 out of 3 million. I say 5000 out of 3 million *is* a lot. I compare it to the L.A. riots because L.A. has about the same population size. Maybe all 5000 were hardcore storm troopers but that’s not the point McKay is making, so it’s not what I am countering.
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“I conclude with a philosophical dissection of the Spanish Anarchist movement, showing that their horrific behavior was largely the result of their… emotional way of thinking.”
I stopped round about there.
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Oh yeah, congrats for being translated! Sounds like a cool journal.
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Congratulations!
My impression of the Polish libertarian movement had been rather bad; I remember reading a Polish libertarian organisation’s website which prominently promoted abortion criminalisation. But this sounds wonderful.
I don’t know why “feminist pornographer” should be in quotation marks. There’s an entire genre of erotic cultural production created by and/or for women flowing from explicit feminist politics. A few examples are Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle (who gave a presentation at the Eris Society), Veronica Hart, the Herotica series. Sex-positive feminism is actually doing pretty well against the Dworkinite variety off the university campus.
in New Zealand the two feminisms have blurred together with some pretty bizarre results, such as a sex toy store run by feminists who morally disapprove of all pornography as objectifying women. The staff looks like Church Lady’s lesbian sister holding a vibrator instead of a Bible. I knew a self-described anarcha-feminist (she didn’t seem very “anarcha” to me) who believed all the standard Dworkin stuff (except with primarily French feminist references), who nevertheless encouraged me to use her place for work… tho’ I think that may have been partially to get some kind of revenge on her ex-husband and his mistress in Singapore.
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Like Aria Ly?
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I think you would like a phrase like that to be non-controversial, but to some it isn’t. Some might object to pornography in feminist terms; some might have no problem with it, but not consider her a feminist; some might not have an objection to either, but think they don’t go together, etc. One person with a problem could lead a lengthy exchange which could involve all sorts of nastiness. You’ve read and participated in lengthy back and forths on this kind of stuff, so you can probably unstand why. The post is more generally about MindFuck than about any specific part of the contents. Just think, what if Brian Caplan decides to respond to what William wrote? I’ve had many a conversation that ended up being completely sidetracked by something only intended to illustrate a wider point.
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For that matter, Bryan Caplan might also take issue with me for misspelling his name.
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I put “feminist pornographer” in quotes mainly because I don’t know anything about her or her work (other than that, upon a quick websearch, I learn that she’s generally so described) and so have no idea whether, or how, the term might properly apply to her.
As for the Caplan/McKay dispute, I haven’t studied the topic well enough to have much of an idea where between the two the truth lies.
So what may have seemed like I was taking a position on some controversial issue was, in both cases, mere boring non-committal ignorance.
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Roderick, apologies. I didn’t think you meant any unkindness whatsoever, and I shouldn’t have allowed my general frustration and defenciveness blurred over towards you. I just don’t know how to process a world where everyday society is kind to me but the libertarian movement is a hostile territory. And I’ve never been good at breaking up.
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The libertarian movement is full of cranky sorts who are hostile to pretty much everyone outside of their narrowly-defined philosophy of liberty/enlightenment/rationality/AllTranscendentPhallus or whatever (including the majority of other folks in the libertarian movement).
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JOR-
I do two days of volunteer work each week, for a thrift shop affiliated with the social anarchist movement. I have lots of customers come through, mostly working class women, few of them PC inquisitors like myself. Somehow I get along well enough with the vast majority of them. Actually, it’s more than well enough; I signed on for the virtually free access to good-as-new high end clothes and accessories, but I’m increasingly staying just for the contacts the work provides
I’ve had one case of bigotry in the shop, and I had him thrown out. Similarly I had one cases of bigotry with a flatmate- and this time he was the one who had to find other accomodations.
Today I managed to pass charisma checks with 1) a colleague who’d just left an escort agency in protest of abusive policies and 2) an art student willing to do photo sessions for free (altho’ I’d insist on paying her something; more self-esteem means better pictures).
It’s not me. Yesterday I took a trip out to a bedroom community that was a rural town one generation ago. It’s the kind of place where, had I been in America, I would have been harassed by the police, taunted on the street, given suspicious looks and zero service by shopkeepers, and maliciously refused use of public restroom facilities (where America even has such things; I guess they’re too socialist or something).
But this is New Zealand, so the worst I received were one guy’s bad directions. Everyone else related to me well even tho’ I was in a bitchy mood through some of it (lugging around two bags of clothes in a corselet and heels under the summer heat while under a deadline tends to sour the countenace).
Everything that’s so impossible in Greater Libertaria is easily possible here. The reason is very simply that this country is fracking educated and that here I don’t have to fight for my social citizenship or for basic Enlightenment social standards. People somehow manage not to slant my gender identity into every conversation and they also somehow manage not to need to debate whether black people are inherently intellectually inferior. Women someone gets listened to before their words get repeated by a man. Agnostics (and agnostic women) become prime ministers. Somali Moslems smile and wave when I pass on the street. And people recognise that I have a brain and relate to me accordingly. They get who I am and what I want, and most of them are at least tolerant enough to be civil and conduct business fairly. The bigots are a minority and the social rules and the powers-that-be will usually back me up me against them, and they know it. There isn’t always some Christian playing games to wreck my ability to function socially in every movement, group, or room I walk into. I can even actually get an apartment just like everyone else. Heck, I can even feel safe walking out my own damn door, which is more than rugged individualist America could ever manage.
Libertarianism could have held itself to the same standards. In some ways, Angela Keaton tells me, it once did.
Of course that would have meant ceasing to shelter bigotry under the excuses of individual rights and telling people who never went through the French Revolution to go enjoy the pleasure of their own company. It’s really not that hard. Entire countries do it. But not those who claim to believe in individual liberty. Oh, no. Only people who accept government involvement in everyday life can do that. Being treated like a human being, you see, requires, for me, a state.
Human interests are in essential disharmony, and the stars are black and cold.
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I’m not sure how that rant is a response to me at all. I guess you agree with me that the Libertarian Movement is full of mutually hostile cranks; all the stuff about New Zealand leading up to your closing statement seems like a huge non sequitur, anyway, since if human interests are in essential disharmony without a state, they remain that way with a state (which is just a bunch of people with all their essentially disharmonious interests). If you’re comparing New Zealand to America, with America supposedly being some paradise of individual freedom according to Teh Libertarianz, however you visualize them and their ideal society – well, America probably isn’t any less statist than New Zealand, in any case.
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“I think you would like a phrase like that to be non-controversial, but to some it isn’t…. You’ve read and participated in lengthy back and forths on this kind of stuff, so you can probably un[der]stand why.”
And I’m tired of endlessly defending myself in such conversations and warring for basic self-respect and recognition, and being told what expectations of respect are reasonable. I’ve no doubt that Roderick meant no harm, but the farang world ought to understand that people can only take so much of this before giving up and learning not to care about the world. It took me twelve years to learn that my choices were sanity or just that.
I’m not saying that you personally deserve this anger, but it is comments like this which remind me why I’ll not ask for the world’s respect again until I have acquired the power to command it. Debating the truth is endless pain unless you can feel secure that you don’t have to ask for your dignity, when your dignity is one of the things open for debate.
Friends, you asked for it. And there are people in the world who will demand that my dignity be accepted without controversy.
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When you take the power to command others, you’ll naturally need to dispatch your enemies, and enforce your will upon the weak and powerless masses.
Enjoying a good blood-letting as I do, I’d appreciate the opportunity to lead the armies of darkness that will act as peacekeepers in the new order.
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I regret to inform you that I’ve already found a general. The armies of darkness are still partially in studio.
As for the new order:
http://www.hrc.co.nz/home/hrc/humanrightsenvironment/humanrightsinnewzealand/billofrightsact.php
http://www.hrc.co.nz/home/hrc/humanrightsenvironment/humanrightsinnewzealand/humanrightsact.php
I would have little trouble finding a friendly lawyer and know individuals with positive personal experiences with the Human Rights Commission. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.
Of course I would prefer a society in which organised opposition to premodern tribal heirarchies is maintained by libertarian means. But no such society exists at the moment, and no libertarian society exists which doesn’t enable nonstate oppression. And politics exists for human individuals, not human individuals for politics. I’ll defend a world I find worth living in, against libertarians if necessary. And I must say that at this point I’d find a deep personal satisfaction in seeing some paleolibertarian landlord or employer fall under the Commission’s scrutiny. Oh, I’d technically disapprove on principle, but emotionally I’d like to see them given a Palestinian hanging. Or you can do unbearable things to people with nothing but a bare hand.
But then, New Zealand does not practice open torture.
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I’ve thought about living in New Zealand. How are the taxes? Are there property taxes?
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I don’t think you’d like it here.
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Too many taxes?
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The social environment is leftist enough that I can be happy, and that a fair degree of tolerance is a social expectation, at least in Auckland and Wellington. Much of this stems from New Zealand’s identity as a working class country with a lot of “firsts” in cultural progress (first country to extend voting rights to women, to elect a transgendered state legislator, to decriminalise prostitution, etc.) To a moderate degree it is a legal expectation, which has limited direct effect but significantly alters the prevelant social and contractual expectations. The Wellington tenancy tribunal is staffed by social democrats.
My impression was that this state of affairs was not to your liking. If I am wrong in this, then I offer my sincere apology. If you support a society where (noncoercive) social standards promote respectful acceptance of everyone regardless of race, sex, sexuality, bohemian lifestyle, etc., then I’d love to see you here, and be happy to answer any questions you have about this country.
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I don’t blame you for thinking that I would be intolerant or what have you, because I enjoy playing devil’s advocate too much.
It’s true that I don’t think that the issue you mentioned have anything to do with libertarianism as a political philosophy and I think there are a lot of issues int he world that need far more immediate attention by libertarians.
But beyond that, whatever anybody wants to do is fine by me.
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Brandon-
Very well, but please understand that if your political philosophy openly places low priority on the conditions for my survival and flourishing, then it cannot expect me to place a higher priority on its’ constituencies’ flourishing. If you associate with enemies who can grievously hurt me, then please do not be offended if I associate with enemies who could grieviously hurt you. I don’t like this situation, but I will do what I can with it without further shame. If libertarianism was ever willing to institutionally guarantee (by written or unwritten constitution) the rights of ethnic or cultural minorities de facto as well as de jure, then I would feel differently.
That said, you duel fairly, and I’ll trust that the devil is well represented. What do you wish to know about New Zealand? I’ve not a clue as regards property taxes, as I have difficulty imagining trusting a city enough to become tied to property, and have generally related to landlords as class enemies. You could try writing to the Libertarianz, if you relate well to Objectivists.
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Well, New Zealand’s better than Canada on taxes but that ain’t sayin’ much.
I think the best country I’ve investigated on that is the UAE. Unless you own a foreign bank or an import business, you’re not paying anything except the occasional sales tax…
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I wish to visit Holland, Germany, and Sweden myself. What is it with the high correlation between mature liberal democracies and dismal meteorology?
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Did they pay you for the items they printed that you wrote?
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Should somebody add an “Intellectual Property” tag?
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They sent me a magazine.
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There is a language you can’t read?!
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About Roderick T. Long
The Empirical Me
I’m Roderick T. Long, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. I’m an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. (More about me here.) This blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, is a continuation of my earlier blog, archived here.
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