Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm by Murray Bookchin

Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm Reviews

• 
  Aggrey Odera

  I'm reading this for a writing project I'm working on, and it's turning out to be quite valuable despite Bookchin's histrionics (great thanks to my top boy Carl F. for the rec).
  
  If "the left" can agree on anything, it's that we agree on nothing - on who the left consists of even, in the first place. Bookchin's particular gripe here is with a specific brand of anarchists - he terms them "lifestylists." For Bookchin, there are two kinds of anarchists. One lineage, the social anarchists, which starts at Kropotkin and Bakunin, has social "freedom" as its end goal. Thus social anarchism is definitionally transformative, i.e., it conceives of itself as firmly against capital; it organizes, struggles, with the view of achieving freedom for everyone. In this view of anarchism, interdependence always exists, freedom is always a social experience.
  
  The other brand of anarchism is lifestylism, a libertarian form of anarchism whose proto practitioner was Pierre Joseph Proudhon (the very same one whom Marx brutally excoriated in "The Poverty of Philosophy"). Lifestylism's inward turn marks it. Its object is individual autonomy. According to Bookchin, modern lifestylism, starting from the situationists, consists of no more than "petty-bourgeois exotica, ... middle-class indulgences" masquerading as politics.
  
  Lifestylists want, more than anything, to be left alone by the state to pursue their little projects of individual thriving. Having given up on their belief in the capacity of the state to change in fundamental ways, they resort to carving out spaces of transgression for themselves. Foucault then - with his notions of "personal insurrection" (and I suppose Judith Butler as well, with her thing about "playful subversion") is their high priest. What the lifestylists want is autonomy for themselves, the hollow cousin of freedom for all.
  
  Bookchin thinks that the kind of anarchism espoused by the lifestylists is socially innocuous, "merely a safety valve for discontent against the prevailing order". Its aversion to institutions and collective action, its largely subcultural orientation combined with its tendency towards hedonic pursuit, means that bourgeois liberal society has nothing to fear from it. In the end, thinks Bookchin, lifestylism is selfishness as politics - or, in this case, apolitics.
  
  I agree. There are few things more grating than running into a smug, self-satisfied leftist. Having given up on obtaining power (let alone using it) as a viable political project, this type of leftist - often a privileged one who can afford a sense of ironic detachment about the entire thing, resorts to criticism without material substance, to self improvement instead of collective organizing (and I have, many times, been this leftist). Thus, we end up being more interested in the minutiae of Lyotard and Deleuze's disagreements, for example, than in remediable actual life instances of poverty and other kinds of suffering in our communities. In turn, we forget that, as Rorty noted, we live in a real country populated by real people, and that the lives of these people could be transformed by organized and concerted pursuits of political power by the left.
  
  One need not even buy Bookchin's anarchism for this position to hold, Any encounter with power by those who do not have it results either in confrontation or in retreat. The sort of retreat Bookchin is locating in the lifestylists exists even in those leftists who are not anarchists. These leftists need not envision no state at all. They could be the kind whose politics call, instead, for a different kind of state - one that works for its people. Nevertheless, these leftists, by doing nothing to bring about such a state, deciding, instead, to "work on themselves", deserve Bookchin's criticism just as much.
  
  So while Bookchin here continues the grand old tradition of the left criticizing the left (for, funnily, being nothing more than an anti-materialist, purely rhetorically critical left), I think this is, despite his terrible style, one of those times it's warranted. Some of us fuckers on the left need to hear this shit.
• 
  Marty

  This book is really a big waste. Bookchin wanted to engage in a silly sectarian brawl and ends up a loser. His other works were influential in their time and have some interest still but i'd pass on this one.
• 
  Tiago

  Já não lia algo tão estúpido e ridiculamente patético há imenso tempo, talvez desde o Esquerdismo. O Bookchin arrogantemente constrói um espantalho enorme e luta com ele chegando às vezes até a perder, tal a sua estupidez. É que nem é uma arrogância estimulante de ser ler como acontece com vários autores, mas uma arrogância amarga própria de um loser que foi humilhado pelos situacionistas e não o conseguiu esquecer durante trinta anos até escrever o que será talvez a pior polémica que alguma vez li (e eu até sou fã de polémicas!). Uma polémica tão pobre que até o poucochinho que se aproveita desta escrita miserável e claramente deficiente do ponto de vista intelectual e de compreensão dos autores que critica só serve para criticar os próprios fãs dele que comem com todo o gosto este gigante prato de merda que ele serve.
• 
  Valdemar Gomes

  Although this beautifully refutes all the bullshit so dominant in nowadays' left, it does so in the most sectarian of ways.
  I've found it quite easy to decide and act with both anarcho-individualists and social anarchists. The big obstacle being sectarians from either side. Toleration really is a gift.
  Not so much an unbridgeable chism, but an overblown and unnecessary reaction to an anarchist quism.
• 
  Ganglion Bard-barbarian

  Dogmatic crap.
• 
  Andrea

  i read this a few days ago as a PDF that my friend sent to me and i didn't realize it was listed as a book on goodreads until yesterday, so here's my belated review. i think bookchin effectively identifies a corruptive force within the anarchist community, that being the lean towards petty bourgeois individualism. this is the idea that one's (privileged) choices to live outside of capitalism and focus upon self-improvement rather than building power is of any value in achieving socialistic anarchist ends, which bookchin argues, and i agree, it does not. he provides plentiful material for dunking on the dumpster-divers and camo-wearers who have never made any attempt at community organizing, at building power and working towards liberation for actual working class people, because of course the material conditions of lifestyle anarchists don't necessitate such action.
  
  as someone quite immersed in this community, i had lots of fun with his message. that being said, this was boring and needlessly bogged down by discourse about other contemporary anarchist writers which, as someone who has yet to read much anarchist theory, i had a difficult time getting through. my real qualm with this book, however, is bookchin's complete dismissal of indigenous peoples, and, to a lesser extent, other non-western spiritualities or philosophies. he claims that anthropologists misunderstand and misinterpret the indigenous peoples they study, and he would be correct, but without having any knowledge of his own about the many, greatly varied cultures about which he is writing, he dismisses all indigenous cultures uniformly as following the same core tenants of western culture, of being exploitative of land and spiritually inept. he prioritizes enlightenment thinking above all, dismisses non-western thought and the immeasurable, irreversible damage western culture has done to the many colonized peoples of the world and the planet itself, and somehow considers this a takedown of zine-writers living off of daddy's money in gentrified neighborhoods.
• 
  Lori

  Viewed by many as dogmatic sectarianism this book has stirred much hatred for Bookchin and his work, and has almost irreparably destroyed his reputation.
  
  Almost needless to say that such reactions are grounded very little in reality. Herein one finds very valid critiques (and even by Bookchin's admission incomplete) of what he deemed what is essentially anti-social behavior—or in other words: a commitment to oneself and a fuck-everyone else attitude. The notion that this is somehow sectarian is absolutely absurd, what Bookchin decries is that one cannot engage in any meaningful organization with people with these kinds of attitudes, which is almost a truism. Most poignantly, one must observe that these attitudes antagonistic to social organization are also to be found amongst the most avid liberals who know nothing but capitalism, and it is the saddest state to see the same mirrored in the left.
  
  I have barely encountered few individuals with unwavering commitment to egoism (not even in a Stirnerite sense), and it was impossible to work with them on the most mild of things without stretching my wits to the limit. I cannot even imagine the pent up frustrations Bookchin had when writing this given his lifelong experience.
  
  Now, besides a personal defense of these two essays it is important to emphasize that Bookchin also makes some very important clarifications regarding his work thus far, as a response to his critics.
  
  Furthermore, the last essay, "The Left That Was: A Personal Reflection", is nothing short of heartbreaking, showcasing the tragedy of the left:
  
  "If no such politics [anti-militarist, anti-nationalist, internationalist left] does not exist, the term Left should be permitted to perish with honor."
• 
  Alex

  bookchin goes too far in his attempt to create an "unbridgeable chasm" between "social anarchists" and "lifestyle anarchists" in this polemic. there are a lot of good points here, mostly in relation to individualism and how it can degrade movements for social change. but bookchin takes it too far, lashing out at everything he identifies with a left-too-new, and his essay, "The Left That Was", at the end of the book is pure nostalgia and reveals his pessimism and lack of understanding over the Left That Is. i'm not saying the current left isn't without it's problems, including a focus on lifestyle changes rather than systemic changes, but bookchin goes too far in condemning movement activists of today.
  
  also, he lashes out against spirituality and primitivism because they're not reasonable enough (bookchin favors the "Enlightenment"). again some good points, but he also reveals his unwillingness to adapt to new information and realities, such as the overwhelming anthropological research that shows a higher quality of life for 'primitive' people, living without classes and a State that force us to work and consume needlessly, such as in the industrial capitalism of today. i don't see how you can proclaim the end of classes and the State, then turn around and bash those cultures who live(d) without classes and the State as "harsh" and "brutish".
  
  sorry if this review makes it seem like bookchin is a technophile anti-environmentalist, he is certainly not. i agree with him 98% on everything. he's 2% a grump.
• 
  Rui Coelho

  Bookchin's worst book is a total waste of time. Don't pick it up unless you're interested in dogmatic rants and sectarian infighting.
• 
  Koen Crolla

  This book comprises two essays: Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism and The Left That Was: A Personal Reflection.
  
  The first, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism, contrasts good and decent anarchist movements (social anarchists) with what Bookchin designates "lifestyle anarchism", by which, it turns out, he means any anarchists he doesn't like.
  
  

  In the traditionally individualist-liberal United States and Britain, the 1990s are awash in self-styled anarchists who — their flamboyant radical rhetoric aside — are cultivating a latter-day anarcho-individualism that I will call lifestyle anarchism. Its preoccupations with the ego and its uniqueness and its polymorphous concepts of resistance are steadily eroding the socialistic character of the libertarian tradition. No less than Marxism and other socialisms, anarchism can be profoundly influenced by the bourgeois environment it professes to oppose, with the result that the growing “inwardness” and narcissism of the yuppie generation have left their mark upon many avowed radicals. Ad hoc adventurism, personal bravura, an aversion to theory oddly akin to the antirational biases of postmodernism, celebrations of theoretical incoherence (pluralism), a basically apolitical and anti-organisational commitment to imagination, desire, and ecstasy, and an intensely self-oriented enchantment of everyday life, reflect the toll that social reaction has taken on Euro-American anarchism over the past two decades.

  
  So far so good, mostly, but the execution leaves much to be desired, consisting as it does mainly of quoting various relatively high-profile anarchist writers who may or may not actually be awful people (Hakim Bey certainly is), laying out a few things they said, and expecting you to find them self-evidently objectionable. The fact that most of these people and much of their considerable following almost certainly would not reject or even take significant issue with the label "individualist" should be evidence enough that this is in no way sufficient.
  Having not dealt with individualists that way, he then turns his attention first to poststructuralists and finally to primitivists, which have in common with individualists that they something something. He handles them in the same way, and when it comes to primitivists specifically agrees with some of their arguments and offers caveats that few actual anarcho-primitivists I've known would disagree with (though Zerzan, Bookchin's main foe for this section, presumably would). He also clearly has a view of pre-industrial and paleolithic societies that was many decades out of date even in 1995, however, and ironically at least as shaky as that of the worst primitivists, just in a different way.†
  There are some good quotable lines in the conclusion,‡ but they feel like they should be following a much better essay. It's not that (all of) Bookchin's positions are bad—far from it! It's that unless you already agree with them—and many people, myself included, will—this essay will do nothing whatsoever to convince you or even to explain why things are the way they are. At best it should be seen as words of courage to a beleaguered majority-that's-convinced-itself-it's-a-minority, but that only works to the extent that only the choir it preaches to reads it; its actual effect has been and will continue to be to stoke sectarian infighting while contributing nothing except another set of names to call people.
  
  The Left That Was is a shorter piece lamenting the decline of internationalism in modern leftist movements compared to those of the 19th and early 20th centuries (including the rise of allegedly leftist "national liberation" movements), and is generally less objectionable, though his historical overview is obviously guilty of the expected ahistorical and fundamentally idealist criticism levelled at the Soviet Union. It, too, exists only to whine that leftists are lefting wrong, and it, too, is right but not as persuasive as it could and should have been.
  
  One day I'm going to find an anarchist writer who doesn't make me hesitant to call myself an anarchist too loudly, but it wasn't today.
  
  --------
  
  † Also: "
  Ironically, even the collective that produces Fifth Estate found it could not do without a computer and was “forced” to purchase one — issuing the disingenuous disclaimer, “We hate it!” Denouncing an advanced technology while using it to generate antitechnological literature is not only disingenuous but has sanctimonious dimensions:Such “hatred” of computers seems more like the belch of the privileged, who, having overstuffed themselve with delicacies, extol the virtues of poverty during Sunday prayers."
  
  ‡ "To argue that democracy and anarchism are incompatible because any impediment to the wishes of even “a minority of one” constitutes a violation of personal autonomy is to advocate not a free society but Brown's “collection of individuals” — in short, a herd. No longer would “imagination” come to “power.” Power, which always exists, will belong either to the collective in a face-to-face and clearly institutionalized democracy, or to the egos of a few oligarchs who will produce a “tyranny of structurelessness.”"
• 
  Kevin

  As an anarchist who seeks a revolution in social and economic relations, what can one make of those who also claim the the anarchist label, but whose ideology seems not to stray beyond dumpster-diving and primitivism? Bookchin tackles this latter group – the “lifestyle anarchists,” as opposed to the “social anarchists” – head-on, forcefully arguing that their political program (if they can be said to have one) is inconsequential, able to be accomodated within existing power structures, and “insulat[ed:] from social reality.” What else to make of an ideology that for many means a return to a non-existent harmonious past, the elimination of technology, or even “voluntary illiteracy”? I would like to see more from Bookchin on the adherents of lifestyle anarchism rather than just the theorists, though he does ably dispose of the latter in short and convincing order.
• 
  abclaret

  Exhibit A: a good short introduction into what's plaguing modern anarchism. Saying there are bourgeois influences within anarchism is nothing new. Chomsky had stated long ago anarchism can absorb a plethora of influences, which is to its credit and hindrance. This book particularly has
  Hakim Bey and a number of others in its cross-hairs for promoting that which is the antithesis of social anarchism; safe lifestyle choices. Any option to overturn the state and capital requires social antagonism and grounded on a movements, and Bookchin really stresses this against various offenders who are peddling mysticism, individualism, anti-civilisation doctrines. A little over-stated at times but required reading nonetheless.
• 
  Nic Rueth

  I think the reviews on this text are hilarious (insomuch as they are, in some sense, ridiculous). As far as the title goes, Bookchin does what he wants to do, for the most part. He repudiates lifestylism effectively through his four tenets of social anarchism, including critiques of its mysticism, egocentrism, and vagary. Fans of Stirner beware! (Tbh, I've not read Stirner much, but this text has convinced me to read briefly.)
  
  Bookchin, at one point, attempts anthropology of indigenous cultures to prove the unsustainability of lifestylists' mystic and anti-primitivist idealizations. It's fine, but not well-researched/cited.
  
  Worth a read if you're interested in lifestyle vs. social anarchism, but doesn't have much else to offer. I picked it up because of a Facebook thread lol.
• 
  Arno Mosikyan

  Autonomy, like liberty, refers to the man (or woman) who Plato would have ironically called the "master of himself," a condition "when the better principle of the human soul controls the worse."
  
  Brown's work exhibits the extent to which concepts of personal autonomy stand at odds with concepts of social freedom. In essence, like Goodman she interprets anarchism as a philosophy not of social freedom but of personal autonomy.
  
  To be an anarchist - whether conuriunist, individualist, mutualist, syndicalist, or feminist -is to affirm a commitment to the primacy of individual freedom"
  
  In any community, dissensus and dissident individuals -prevent the community from stagnating.
  
  The most creative feature of traditional anarchism is its commitment to four basic tenets : a confederation of decentralized municipalities; an unwavering opposition to statism; a belief in direct democracy; and a vision of a libertarian communis t society.
  
  In short, social anarchism must resolutely affirm its differences with lifestyle anarchism. If a social anarchist movement cannot translate its fourfold tenets - municipal confederalism, opposition to statism, direct democracy, and ultimately libertarian communism into a lived practice in a new public sphere; if these tenets languish like its memories of past struggles in ceremonial pronouncements and meetings; worse still, if they are subverted by the "libertarian" Ecstasy Industry
  
  Everyone who sincerely wishes peace and international justice, should once and for all renounce the glory, the might, and the greatness of the Fatherland, should renounce all egoistic and vain interests of patriotism.
• 
  Joe

  As a firmly communist, syndicalist, or indeed "social" anarchist, I did not expect to come away from this text feeling /more/ sympathetic towards Post-Leftism.
  
  It is poorly argued, uses generalisations very liberally (especially by lumping all anarchism he doesn't like into "lifestylism"), and fails to engage with the specifics of Post-Leftism. I am still in agreement with Bookchin that individualist anarchist tendencies, especially those of the late 20th Century, are often irritating, pretentious, and in many cases useless - but he just does not argue his case very effectively.
  
  I also noticed this tendency to overgeneralise in his shorter essay on anarcho-syndicalism, which he simplistically claimed to be dead, despite evidence to the contrary in Spain (well into his later lifetime).
  
  I would say that the term "lifestylism" has some genuine use (but only as a pejorative and not a serious ideological descriptor) because of how insular and ineffectual some anarchists are, but the book overall is not especially brilliant. It is worth reading, but it should be from a critical angle.
• 
  Sern

  
  Should/Can anyone have a legitimate authority to define anarchism? Should we consider "Lifestyle Anarchism" within the tradition of Anarchist thought and action? These are difficult questions to respond to. I think, Bookchin's work may prove to be useful for those people who are unwilling to reduce Anarchism to "class-struggle" type of Anarchism on one hand, have distant feelings towards "Lifestyle Anarchism" on the other. Because of the time Bookchin wrote this book, his work doesn't address more contemporary tensions within Anarchism. However, in a world which turns every authentic value into a simulation, I believe Bookchin's arguments are quite relevant to present-day Anarchism's experience. Having said that, I felt the book had been based on exclusively Western Anarchism.
• 
  Bastián Olea Herrera

  Un 80% del libro se trata de citar a autores anarquistas de bajo nivel para burlarse de sus argumentos o bien presentarles críticas obvias. Si hubiera sabido que gran parte del libro iba a ser refritos de ideas anarquistas desviadas, entonces sinceramente no lo habría leído. Rescato algunos puntos sobre comunismo libertario y el pensamiento de Kropotkin y Bakunin en los primeros capítulos, y el último capítulo donde propone una elaboración interesante sobre anarquismo social. El resto es meramente burlarse de anarquistas new age, primitivistas, egoístas y estilodevidistas, cuyas ideas no merecían ser reiteradas por casi 3/4 del libro.
• 
  Clare

  Bookchin offers a critique of "Lifestyle Anarchism" which he groups certain behavior in, namely primitivism, some aspects of situationist theory, anti-civ, and temporary autonomous zones specifically that lack a social struggle goal but only offer an individualism that negates collective liberation. He posits they are devoid of the original intent of past left or anarchist struggles. Social anarchism is said to be the past intention and should be the current intention of the left, progressive, or anarchist struggles.
• 
  Zeke Jakub

  Bookchin content exemplary, the format hortible
  
  Here you can read a thorough critique Bookchin makes of "lifestyle" anarchism which is exemplary in all respects.
  
  The quality and formatting of this book is sad at best and clearly was posted for sale with zero quality control.
  
  Almost unreadable the formatting is poor, lots of mistakes and true crap too be honest.
  
  If I wasn't so interested in Bookchins content I would have returned for a refund.
• 
  Kersplebedeb

  from memory, this was a well-written book, so it gets three stars. convincing too. however, in retrospect i think Bookchin really overstates his case and would have done better to spend time critically examining both the positive and negative aspects of the counter-culture, rather than just lumping it all together as lifestylism.
• 
  քամի

  կամ ես եմ վատ գրքեր ընտրում անարխիզմի վերաբերեալ, կամ իրօք մեծամասնութիւնը ջուր ծեծոցի ա։
  վերցնել ծեծուած թեմա, ծեծուած գաղափարներ ու դրանք աւելի մեծ ուժգնութեամբ ծեծել։
  ինչեւէ, շարունակում եմ որոնել իմ ուզած գիրքն անարխիստական։
• 
  Chuck

  Murray Bookchin's worst book. The second part about gun control is worth reading.
• 
  George Jones

  Bookchin makes some good points, but I'd recommend reading "Anarchy After Leftism" by Bob Black to get both sides of the story.
• 
  RuloZetaka

  Bookchin nos acerca al pasado, nos narra una historia que sucedió en un "underground" las disputas ideológicas anarquistas que sucedieron, y suceden, por circuitos ajenos a las superficies académicas, activistas o públicas. A través de medios más bien marginales se disputa el potencial de lo primitivo, la ponderación del ego ante la colectividad, las tensiones entre autonomía y libertad y el anarquismo colectivista o social.
  
  Todas estas discusiones nos ponen en contexto ante los opositores de bookchin, los anarquismos que ponderan al individuo sobre lo colectivo y que más se parecen a los neoliberales que a los grupos que buscan una profunda transformación social de raíz.
  Editorial Virus nos trae un documento profundamente interesante para pensarnos y pensar nuestros roles en la colectividad mientras descubrimos si el mundo que soñamos tiene sentido o solo es una utopía.
  
  No le pongo mejor calificación porque me parece que es un libro de difícil acceso, pues las discusiones que suceden en espacios de este corte son para grupos selectos, agradezco que ahora se pueda leer en español y tener a la mano el recurso para re-visitarlo a la menor provocación.
• 
  Cev

  really interesting takes. he criticizes anprim types for decontextualizing humanity from its developmental history alongside technological advances, similarly he criticizes egoists for decontextualizing freedom and making it an individual thing whereas he sees it as something inherently defined socially. thus both focus less on broad social movements and have a tendency toward commodifying their philosophy/politics -- aka lifestyle anarchism. he concludes with some a historical reflection which is mostly anti-imperialist and anti-nationalist (in a Nuanced TM way)
• 
  Nevra Arslanturk

  Bookchin için iyi bir giriş kitabı olabilir. Başları olmasa da kolay okunuyor. Toplumsal anarşizm ve yaşam tarzı anarşizmi ayrımını çok iyi yapmış, örneklerle gösteriyor. İkinci bölümde de bir zamanlar sol değerlendirmesi var. Hiyerarşik bakış açısından kurtulmadıkça solun bir yere gidemeyeceğini söylüyor Bookchin, oportünist tavırlar ile zaten bir yere gidilmediği bence de net. Ben sevdim kitabı, kafa açıcı.