4 ms·

Fascinating to think that the organizational methods I saw on Youtube videos of OWS decision making groups last year is an echo of a response to Leninism. Any r

by xaritas 13y ago

Fascinating to think that the organizational methods I saw on Youtube videos of OWS decision making groups last year is an echo of a response to Leninism. Any recommendations to sources on this connection in case I want to follow up?

_delirium 13y ago
Ah, good question. Establishing causality is tricky. I think it's a widely held view that the non-hierarchical approach gained popularity on the left, especially among younger people in the West, partly as a reaction to Leninism. But I don't know if anyone's explicitly written on that; I would be interested in someone tracing that myself. Someone recommended to me David Graeber's The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement (2013), an account of the origins/ideology of Occupy Wall Street, but I haven't read it and don't know if it covers that. (Graeber is an anarchist politically and an anthropologist by training, so read accordingly.) The origins of the hierarchy/nonhierarchy dispute on the left are a bit clearer, if that's what you're looking for. The polemics between Marx and Bakunin would be one place to start to see that side of it. To over-simplify, Bakunin thought that Marx's views had a dangerous authoritarian tinge that risked just replacing one kind of authoritarian government with a different one; while Marx thought Bakunin was an idealistic hippie out of touch with real-world situations, whose views would at best go nowhere, and at worst result in the workers' movement getting crushed as they spent all day holding disorganized meetings. For a later historical episode, something about the May '68 protests in France would probably have something informative. They were led by young leftists with non-hierarchical views, and opposed by the more orthodox French Communist Party. But I don't know as much as I'd like about that period, either, apart from the Situationists producing a lot of clever slogans.
- xaritas 13y ago
  I'm familiar in passing with Bakunin and Marx, so I'm not really surprised by anarchist tendencies in modern progressive movements. The passing down of mores, forms and customs among groups that tend to eschew tradition is interesting to contemplate. This particular thread of transmission (if it holds) has a satisfying symmetry to it. Especially if you, uh, enjoy historical ironies.
steveklabnik 13y ago
Read David Graeber's "The Democracy Project." The parent mentions it, but it does specifically talk about this kind of organizing and why OWS used it.

by xaritas 13y ago

_delirium 13y ago

Ah, good question. Establishing causality is tricky. I think it's a widely held view that the non-hierarchical approach gained popularity on the left, especially among younger people in the West, partly as a reaction to Leninism. But I don't know if anyone's explicitly written on that; I would be interested in someone tracing that myself. Someone recommended to me David Graeber's The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement (2013), an account of the origins/ideology of Occupy Wall Street, but I haven't read it and don't know if it covers that. (Graeber is an anarchist politically and an anthropologist by training, so read accordingly.) The origins of the hierarchy/nonhierarchy dispute on the left are a bit clearer, if that's what you're looking for. The polemics between Marx and Bakunin would be one place to start to see that side of it. To over-simplify, Bakunin thought that Marx's views had a dangerous authoritarian tinge that risked just replacing one kind of authoritarian government with a different one; while Marx thought Bakunin was an idealistic hippie out of touch with real-world situations, whose views would at best go nowhere, and at worst result in the workers' movement getting crushed as they spent all day holding disorganized meetings. For a later historical episode, something about the May '68 protests in France would probably have something informative. They were led by young leftists with non-hierarchical views, and opposed by the more orthodox French Communist Party. But I don't know as much as I'd like about that period, either, apart from the Situationists producing a lot of clever slogans.

xaritas 13y ago
I'm familiar in passing with Bakunin and Marx, so I'm not really surprised by anarchist tendencies in modern progressive movements. The passing down of mores, forms and customs among groups that tend to eschew tradition is interesting to contemplate. This particular thread of transmission (if it holds) has a satisfying symmetry to it. Especially if you, uh, enjoy historical ironies.

steveklabnik 13y ago

Read David Graeber's "The Democracy Project." The parent mentions it, but it does specifically talk about this kind of organizing and why OWS used it.