By Cake Boy

So, this was another attack on the pluralist project and Preston’s third-wave anarchism ideas.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/matthew-n-lyons-rising-above-the-herd

I want to analyze parts of this text and respond to them.

Witness the rise of so-called National-Anarchism (NA), an offshoot of British neonazism that has recently gained a small but fast-growing foothold in the United States. National-Anarchists advocate a decentralized system of “tribal” enclaves based on “the right of all races, ethnicities and cultural groups to organize and live separately.” National-Anarchists criticize statism of both the left and the right, including classical fascism, but they participate in neonazi networks such as Stormfront.org and promote anti-Jewish conspiracy theories worthy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Anti-statism is a key part of National-Anarchism’s appeal and helps it to deflect the charge of fascism.[2]

There is no rise of national anarchism. In Europe, there are maybe twenty national anarchists. Worldwide, anarchism consists of leftist anarchists, libertarians, and some mutualists in America. There are maybe a hundred national anarchists worldwide, and nobody ever hears anything from them. This national anarchism is a chapter we will leave behind very soon. I’m sorry if I hurt the feelings of some of you; I’m not going to sugarcoat it.

If you are not a Nazi, why would you participate in Stormfront? I don’t get what they want. Your national anarchist concept is not helpful for Nazis, and it’s not practical for anarchists.

His “anarcho-pluralism” represents a sophisticated reworking of far right politics that is flexible, inclusive, and appeals to widely held values such as “live and let live

Live and let live is a classical liberal way of looking at the world, not a far-right way.

Far-right politics often aren’t very flexible, inclusive, and appealing.

In this article I will outline the major features of Preston’s political program, strategy, and underlying philosophy. Although Preston claims that implementing anarcho-pluralism would result in an expansion of freedom, in reality it would promote oppression and authoritarianism in smaller-scale units

How would it lead to authoritarianism if you could leave these social zones/political units? And if a lot of these units are based on classical liberal or socialist politics, then why would it be authoritarian?

Authoritarianism can’t really be a problem if you can leave it. The whole problem with, for example, fascist and communist authoritarianism was/is that you could/cannot leave these systems.

Digging deeper, Preston’s opposition to the state is based on a radically anti-humanistic philosophy of elitism, ruthless struggle, and contempt for most people.

It’s not about anti-humanism or elitism. It’s about what can work in the world. What could survive in a world? A federation consisting of different social units, with an army that upholds diplomatic relationships, could exist worldwide. This, then, could be called pluralist anarchism, pluralist liberalism, or federalism (something we can talk about later on how to call it)

The world is just about ruthless struggle. Somehow, silly Antifa leftists don’t understand this. If you can’t defend yourself, as political unit/state/body, you can’t be something, you can’t create political realities. Antifa people are still in their idealist adolescence phase. They are dreamers who do not understand that we live in a material world.

I haven’t noticed contempt in Preston’s writings, by the way.

he offers a closely related form of revolutionary right-wing populism. Above all, Preston and his rightist allies embody the main danger associated with fascism — to preempt the radical left as the main revolutionary opposition force.

I am not a revolutionary. Revolutions are authoritarian, so I don’t think they can lead to forms of anarchism.

But I believe a decentralized/pluralist system could exist, and I think it would have positive sides that neoliberal and communist states do not have. This pluralist system would be a bit like Switzerland, but a more radical version. A radically decentralized sort of liberalism/modernity

It could arise in a period of conflict or after a period of conflict. But it could not itself start ‘a revolution’.

In “My Life as an Anarcho-Leftoid,” Preston writes that he became an anarchist at age twenty-one and was active for several years in “hard leftist” circles, including the Industrial Workers of the World and the 1989 founding conference of the Love and Rage network, but became alienated by what he saw as the movement’s dogmatism and sectarianism

The left pushes people away. People hate the leftist sectarianism. The left alienates people, and then they react in anger about the fact that these people leave their cults. They do this themselves.

The leftist anarchists in this country are a bit like the very strict Christians. The Christians also think they are always right, they don’t listen to other people, and they are extremely arrogant and bitter. Leftist anarchism here is just a post-Calvinist cult, it seems.

Preston argues further that “the first purpose of any politics or ethics beyond the purely material or defensive” must be to protect and foster these rare, superior individuals, the anarchs. “It is apparent that the political framework most conducive to the advancement of the anarch is some sort of anarchism.” In other words, the main reason Preston supports anarchism is not to liberate all people — but to help a handful of superior individuals rise above the bestial mass of humanity.[14]

No, the pluralist movement wants the masses to have more autonomy within a political body or within political bodies.

He argues that “multiculturalism will not work out in the long run because human beings are by nature tribal creatures.

If he said this, I would disagree with him. There is nothing wrong with multiculturalism. I have friends with different cultural backgrounds, and this was never a problem. I grew up in a multicultural city, where all kinds of ‘races’ and cultures lived among each other. Modernity is multi-cultural because people can and will live everywhere, like nomads.

Preston ignores or trivializes the dense network of oppressive institutions and relationships that exist outside of, and sometimes in opposition to, the state

A classical liberal or anarchist system can’t eliminate these issues because it can’t micromanage. I wrote about this before. In an anarchist system, what do you want to do if people use the word ‘gay’ to swear? Put them in jail? You would need communism to reach your cultural goals. This is why all of you are just confused communists.

These oppressive issues you talk about do not really have something to do with anarchism or any political ism. For example, in both a social democrat, neoliberal or anarchist system, people could call women ‘sluts’ and ‘whores’ etc. In both of these systems, feminists could campaign against these social/cultural realities. But a specific political/economic arrangement can’t do something against it. At least, not that much. The social democrat politicians and the neoliberal politicians can’t really stop the people from using the word ‘gay’ as a swearword. If people should stop using this word as a swear word, then the culture has changed, not the economics and not the politics.

The non-statist forms of insensitivity/cruelty you talk about can be combated, but not through politics. It will be a cultural battle and take place within the domain of free speech. You could, for example, write books about the harms of homophobia. Or you could go to schools to talk about what it means to be gay, etc. However, these practices have nothing to do with an anarchist way of organizing a society. This struggle is bigger/more complex than any kind of political ism.

First, we can ask ourselves, what are the culturally harmful practices? Is it masculine hip-hop music? Is it pornography? And if so, you could campaign against it. In a way, it’s post-political. For the last years, people have confused this cultural struggle for anarchism.

It seems to me that it mainly came out of young women. Young women pushed for the cultural agenda. They talked about themes like abortion, inclusivity, LGBTQ, safe spaces, ‘queer’ etc. Then, people started to call these issues ‘anarchism’ as an umbrella term for activism in that direction. This caused a lot of confusion.

Dismantling the central state won’t abolish other systems of oppression. It will simply create a power vacuum where they can function in a more fragmented, unregulated way. This is a recipe for warlordism, a chaotic society where anyone with enough physical force can make the rules. As Kersplebedeb has argued, “There is an organic tendency towards warlordism in communities that have tasted capitalism and patriarchy and colonialism. Even oppressed communities.”[17] This is a problem if your goal is to dismantle systems of hierarchy and oppression, but not if your goal is to help a handful of superior individuals rise up through ruthless struggle.

The idea would not be warlordism. It would be a federation of social units that work together to oversee the whole. Something like this could be seen as a state, but it depends on your definition of a state (I will talk about this later). The struggle is not to dismantle all forms of hierarchy and oppression because that would be impossible. You would need a centralized state to do that.

Warlordism would be the case if the social units would fight each other. This is not the idea of the theory. The idea is that you have a region in which, for example, six big political units exist, in combination with some revived commons/full autonomous zones (where, for example, native Americans could live). These six political units are autonomous, but they come together to manage the whole of the federation. If these units fight each other, there is no harmony.

Of these various right-wing decentralist currents, libertarianism is the one that has had the biggest influence on Preston’s politics. This is the source of his simplistic claim that the fight against oppression can be reduced to dismantling big government. Preston is neither a white nationalist nor a Christian anything, and his affinity to the Patriot movement is based on militant hostility to globalizing elites, not conspiracism or crackpot legal theories. Yet all of these currents have contributed to a broader right-wing discourse that blends decentralism with a belief in social hierarchy, populism with elitism. Preston’s work is important, in large part, because of the ways it touches and blends with these other currents in Alternative Right circles. Moreover, Preston’s big-tent approach to radical change supports and promotes all of these currents, and all of them would play a big role in shaping the society he hopes to create.

You forget that pluralist liberalism/anarchism could also consist of different leftwing units/zones. You act as if it’s only a right-wing theory. You want to attack the theory, and therefore, you make things up. This is not a professional way of relating to politics.

Pluralist theory wants to create a system in which libertarians and communists could live together next to each other. By definition, such a system is not a right-wing theory.

Anarcho-pluralism is a dangerous and deceptive ideology, but rather than impose one comprehensive repressive order, it would foster a multiplicity of repressive orders.

No, this is not the goal of the theory. The goal is to make individual freedom bigger. This freedom would be bigger if one could choose between a social democratic or a libertarian zone. You act as if these social zones would all be repressive. Why would they be like that? Most people in the West are classical liberals or social democrats. So, pluralism would probably mainly consist of classical liberal, social democratic political bodies. Progressive or conservative political bodies.

But anarcho-pluralist revolution is hypothetical, while oppression and exploitation are immediate, brutal realities for most people in the United States — not to mention the rest of the world. Given this, why should we care about Preston and his allies? Not because of any imminent threat that they will win power, but rather because they have the potential to “take the game away from the left,” as Tom Metzger urged neonazis to do in the 1980s. Don Hamerquist’s warning about emerging fascist movements applies equally to Preston-style right-wing revolutionaries: The real danger from such forces “is that they might gain a mass following among potentially insurgent workers and declassed strata through an historic default of the left.”[39]

The left destroyed itself by being a woke cult. Preston could never do as much damage to the left as they did to themselves. They thoroughly dismantled themselves with their bizarre cultural radicalism.

Meanwhile, the populist right got to power, attracting a lot of working-class people that the left should actually reach, in theory.

The left is as incompetent as can be, and therefore, they, in a way, campaigned for the Trump right. But they are still too narcissistic/brainwashed to see this because they think they are enlightened warriors who will bring about a new era of ‘trans joy.’

In conclusion, Preston argues that “the relevant future political struggles [will be] a kind of intra-Left civil war between the totalitarian humanist establishment and an anarchistic opposition that rejects the left-right paradigm, adopts a populist outlook, organizes among the lumpen elements of urban areas, is primarily though by no means exclusively youth oriented, and is allied politically with more conventionally right-wing populist sectors originating from more conservative or sparsely populated regions, and with revolutionary right-wing elements who have rejected this system in favor of a ‘post-America’ of more decentralized politics and seceded regions.”

If a pluralist system were to arise, it would be after a conflict, after a civil war, on the ashes of the old world. It would be a new liberalism after the collapse of neoliberalism.

For example, social democracy could become a political reality after World War II. There was space for a new experiment.

Like other forms of revolutionary right-wing populism, Preston’s anarcho-pluralism calls for a dual response from the left. Part of the response is to expose the oppressive and authoritarian reality behind Preston’s claims to be promoting diversity and freedom. The other part — much more difficult but ultimately much more important — is to build a revolutionary left that functions as a serious opposition whether the government is controlled by conservatives or liberals, Republicans or Democrats. Unlike Preston’s version of revolution, that means fighting not just centralized state power, but all forms of oppression.

Yes, and then, let’s keep in mind that to the left, ‘oppression’ is when a woman doesn’t want to compete with a transgender woman in sports. To the left, ‘oppression’ is when parents don’t let kids get a gender transition. ‘Oppression’ is disagreeing on campus with woke teachers. “Oppression’ is not taking the corona vaccine. ‘Oppression’ is using the freedom of speech. ‘Oppression’ is reading a book written by a libertarian.

The left this Lyons is coming from is death. The masses go for Trump, they don’t go for your vague ‘anti oppression’ speculation.

So, here we see two things. The left doesn’t understand Preston’s theory because they are not educated enough (they are not educated in philosophy, most of the time). And Preston made some mistakes in formulating and communicating his theory.

It seems that anarchism is now in a sort of transition period. It has to break with the new left/woke. But it should also not look like some silly white supremacist/militia movement.

I think I did a good job outlining what a post-neoliberal, decentralized movement could look like for now.