Anarchist Academics

[Idealism]

why arent there more of them?

[Matina]

There are a lot. The majority of the anarchist and marxist academics are petit bourgeois though. They are champagne revolutionaries.

[Jack]

There's David Graebar, one of the leading anthropologists in the world, he taught at Yale but was sacked because of his politics.A Russian anarchist professor recently got sacked because of his politics too.

Most of the Marxist academics are leftovers from the student radicalism of the 60's.

[#FF0000]

The academic departments at least in the US are dominated for most part by liberals, one can find Marxists and right-libertarians here and there. Apart from Chomsky, I'm not sure who else is an anarchist academic.

Oh there are a few. Lots in Antrhopology I think, for some reason.

[Jack]

This is Graeber's explaination of why there are more marxist than anarchist academics, along with a short bio: http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/49

There's some criticisms of him on Anarkismo, by other anarchists.

[The Idler]

Ward Churchill,
Michael Parenti,

[Charles Xavier]

Ward Churchill,
Michael Parenti,


Those guys are very good authors. But they aren't anarchists.

[The Idler]

Those guys are very good authors. But they aren't anarchists.Howard Zinn?

[Hit The North]

I find Graeber's reasons for why there are fewer anarchist academics than Marxist ones, unconvincing. For a start there is no reason why Marxists are more amenable to the hierarchy and bureaucratic exercise of power in universities than anarchists, as he suggests. Secondly, if the reason was that anarchist academics are fewer because they run into trouble with the university authorities, then we would expect to find many instances of anarchist academics being expelled or sacked by the universities and this just isn't the case.

I think the truth is that Anarchism in the industrialised northern hemisphere has not had the weight of support and power that Marxism has had in forcing its way into academia. Marxism has, in the past, represented greater social forces and consequently imposed itself on the social science disciplines which universities have nurtured.

[jake williams]

There's a pretty good professor at the University of Ottawa, he self-identifies as an anarchist. He's probably getting sacked though. He's actually a physics professor.

Denis Rancourt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Rancourt)

He gave a talk in my town but I was in Montreal and I missed it. Sounds like it was good though.

[Devrim]

I find Graeber's reasons for why there are fewer anarchist academics than Marxist ones, unconvincing.

I do too. I think if we look at the English speaking world the prime reason would be numbers. If there are more Marxists than anarchists*, which there clearly are, one would expect, all things being equal, there to be more anarchist academics. Maybe a comparison with Spain, where anarchist tendencies were strong, would show a different tendency.

I think there are also two other reasons. Firstly anarchists tend to be not so theoretically inclined. I can imagine more Marxists studying political economy, for example than anarchists.

Secondly, in my experience anarchists tend to have a higher percentage of 'blue collar' workers than Trotskyist or Maoist groups, and you are comparatively less likely to find as many students in them.

Devrim

*When I use the word anarchists I mean people who are members of anarchist political organisations, not any hippy who calls himself an anarchist.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Howard Zinn?

Zinn isn't an Anarchist either. To be honest I am actually happy there aren't many.

[Sean]

This is Graeber's explaination of why there are more marxist than anarchist academics, along with a short bio: http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/49

There's some criticisms of him on Anarkismo, by other anarchists.
More of Gaeber on the subject in an essay written a few years back:


[S]o far anarchist ideas have received almost no attention in the academy. There are still thousands of academic Marxists, but almost no academic anarchists. This lag is somewhat difficult to interpret. In part, no doubt, it's because Marxism has always had a certain affinity with the academy which anarchism obviously lacked: Marxism was, after all, the only great social movement that was invented by a Ph.D. Most accounts of the history of anarchism assume it was basically similar to Marxism: anarchism is presented as the brainchild of certain 19th century thinkers (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin...) that then went on to inspire working-class organizations, became enmeshed in political struggles, divided into sects...
Anarchism, in the standard accounts, usually comes out as Marxism's poorer cousin, theoretically a bit flat-footed but making up for brains, perhaps, with passion and sincerity. Really the analogy is strained. The "founders" of anarchism did not think of themselves as having invented anything particularly new. The saw its basic principles-mutual aid, voluntary association, egalitarian decision-making-as as old as humanity. The same goes for the rejection of the state and of all forms of structural violence, inequality, or domination (anarchism literally means "without rulers")-even the assumption that all these forms are somehow related and reinforce each other. None of it was seen as some startling new doctrine, but a longstanding tendency in the history human thought, and one that cannot be encompassed by any general theory of ideology.Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century (http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/9258)

[Tjis]

*When I use the word anarchists I mean people who are members of anarchist political organisations, not any hippy who calls himself an anarchist.
I'm not an anarchist?
In fact, I'm a hippie?

Wow. Thanks for enlightening me.

[Sean]

He never said that Tjis, and as annoying as it is, that difference has to be spelled out in nearly every discussion about anarchists. There are lots of self-styled anarchists who don't give a shit about anarchism at all. But again, as Dev points out, there are lots of anarchists who aren't into theory, which for me is quite simple because anarchy is completely logical and you don't need to read that much into it. That isn't to say that due to its lack of proponents with tenure in some institution that its half assed in any way, but its absence in mainstream intellectual discussion can sometimes give this impression.

[black magick hustla]

Marxism is very popular in academia for two reasons. One, atleast in the US, is because of the remnants of the new left, who many of them were students and academically inclined. Second, marxism is very theoretically inclined, and a lot makes itself evident in academia through the writings of the frankfurt school. In fact, critical theory owes a lot to marxist theory. theoretically inclined does not mean necessarily correct: the frankfurt school is a nonsense school, specialized in pretending that wordplay are real arguments.

[Post-Something]

A lot of academics over here are Anarchists. Lot's in my Philosophy department anyways..