From Lincoln Finch

I should say that my views have changed and that the prior posts of this blog are no longer accurate of how I feel now. I should say how that is, a little, apropos the ism in general, anarchism, primitivism, nihilism, and radical ecology.
Firstly I’ve changed my attitude toward the act of identifying with or believing in something. Beliefs change and restructure with each other all the time. The mind or soul is something of an open space for these, something I like to garden or tend to like a garden, but I am not trying to keep any of the crops in it eternally alive or perfectly protected, and this includes any principle which an attitude of an ism can seize and protect and attempt to keep alive. Maybe some are like trees that will outlast me so to speak, but everything dies if it’s a thing. Another metaphor is that beliefs are like a set of sandcastles, which disappear in the waves, and the mind is where they are spontaneously being built anew, despite their inevitable disappearance. The point is the gardening or the sandcastle making activities themselves, the background conditions that allow them and must be worked with, more so than the crops or sandcastles themselves. Now, I realize this point can itself be suffixed with an ism, and in that case, I am an ist of whatever it is. But still I distance myself from the ism’d phenomenon. So what is it to ism?
I take ‘ism’ to mean ‘a practice, way of life, or movement based on the principle, x [or whatever is meant by the morpheme(s) suffixed by the ism].’
Now, practices, ways of life, and movements of ours do follow certain principles, in retrospect, quite naturally, although maybe not the one’s we’d like. However there is a prescriptive and prospective attitude that comes along with current use of the ism, as well as the assumption that the principle is understood and ready to be applied or followed, upon which following one becomes, through struggle or with ease, the respective ist by consciously and deliberately following it. I think it is futile to try or want to be an ist in the sense of being part of an intentionally directed movement, of collective will and action. In one’s practices and maybe broadly in one’s way of life, I think it is possible to be an ist. Depending on the principle this can look religious, moral, ascetic, or it can be too easy, for example alive-ism, the way of life characterized by simply being alive. This is too easy and everyone follows it.
With this in mind I think we could be more modest in our ism-dropping to describe ourselves or others. But there is also the sociology of how different ists categorize each other and treat each other once and only once they see each other and declare themselves as ists. This is the sociology of identity, performances of declaration and flag-raising. It is all of this that, in its current state at least to me, is something very worth withdrawing from. Or I think we should at least be more linguistically generous here, articulating the principles we follow and the contexts in which they make sense, before declaring the isms. It is too easy and rather ridiculous or naive to simply declare oneself an ist of some type and then let the audience treat one accordingly without any further clarification. Perhaps one wants to alienate oneself, though, and that could be choiceworthy. I don’t know.
But mainly, I think principles are re-formulated, dropped or adopted, and re-prioritized according to our interpretations of the situation and our own judgments. Call this a situational particularity. Or at least principles should be treated this way, I think, and an unchanging set of commandments or formulae is similar to a rule of thumb chosen on the fly only by virtue of their having been made at one point. But relying on the former, especially when they come from another time, place, and people, are not questioned (especially against the context one is in) and so not understood, is utterly irresponsible and is exactly how some anarchists and most other people behave. You can call this thought of theirs different forms of generalism, in that they think there is a code of principles which can hold generally / for all situations. (Although I don’t think one has to make a rule of thumb per situation, that would be exhausting, unless one is extraverted or something.) You can call the thought of mine here, particularism (in the analytic tradition), but it goes back to the phronesis of Aristotle, the Te of Lao Tzu, the being-there as being-in of Heidegger.
I am for anarchism in the sense that I am against the behemoth of the state or any other institution at that size and degree of rigidity, or a reliance on a constitution or governmental form which never changes, or changes much too slowly, or too quickly for the sake of change itself, or pretends to govern a system too complex for it (I doubt any number of people that is over Dunbar’s number can work as a single political unit. Although maybe the Iroquois were onto something.) But I am also against anarchism in a certain sense, and for the same reason.
I take arkhos to be a leader or ruler, who is such by virtue of embodying or having access to arkhei, principles (in the way similar to that above). The person who does this could be a social outcast as much as the well-born and fortunate person of good looks. The fact that the person is usually of the latter type is a result of other, side-constraining principles of genetics and upbringing, rather than decided by the situation itself. I think situations change so much that we cannot rely on an unchanging set of principles or constitution based on them. Besides I don’t think we can always know what they are at all times, and at all levels of complexity of the phenomena we are trying to understand. That is, I think there are realms of anarchy (definitely the national or international realms), realms of chaos, as well as times of anarchy, irrespective of realm, so times of anarchy within oneself maybe. These are ontological terms beyond value to me, although they can be valued of course. But I also think there are times when one sees the principles by which to act, and one acts on it, and thus can or sometimes even should become a ruler or a leader.
There is another sense in which anarchism accepts certain kinds of leaders or authorities, e.g. ad hoc leadership or authoritative, non-authoritarian authority. Here, again it is the attempt to find an unchanging principle, to sort these sociological positions out once and for all. More fundamentally it is taken as an ethics of voluntary association, mutal aid, and direct action. I agree with the principle of voluntary association as being quite reliable, that is, as holding sway through many different situations. I agree with an ethics of free-spiritedness. But when one sees that a principle is relevant to a certain situation, or makes/finds a relevant one, and that it would be best to act on it, and one sees how, when, why, in what way, in what audience or setting, out of what attitude, etc etc, then one is accessing and following a way or principle, and is thus potentially leader or ruler, if others agree (with the results). Being an ist, in this way, can set a precedent, set a pattern of power.
So the dilemma I see for anarchism is that it either rules out something it shouldn’t, or it contradicts itself in an etymological way.
The point, to me, is that hopefully the precedent or structure of power (structure of agreement and thus coordinated effort of a group), can be flexible enough to meet the situation, which is a changing, composite and odd thing and is, largely, quite out of our control and purview, as it includes the environment, the world, the earth, the epoch.
In respect to primitivism and nihilism, I find them to be on somewhat better footing, because neither falls into a dilemma. But the ism for both the primitive and the nothing makes little sense. We should pay heed to the nothing, and to what comes first, although these change too, depending on the topic or realm (and in respect to the nothing, depending on time, whether the nothing is now nihilating as failure, rejection, existential death or physical destruction, or simply as distinction). I think when it comes to the origins of human beings, anthropology as well as mythology are intertwined and both necessary as vehicles of accounting for what came first. And both come with their own baggage and can be made anew. One shouldn’t take our anthropological data and theories as more than they are, or as themselves principles. And one shouldn’t take our myths to be more than metaphorical. Although metaphors are greater than people admit today.
And finally in respect to ecology, I think we have a long way to go in understanding these principles. For we have deferred our individual connections to the earth, to very indirect, complex systems of interrelation, e.g. global markets. It takes something other than interpretation and judgement to understand. Reason, maybe. The principle(s) or laws of (wild) nature, physis, or the tao are shaping and inclusive of the world and situation, but are themselves greater. They are on par with existence, being itself, the nothing, and must be accounted for in any cosmology worth the name. I am too humble to call myself a taoist (sage), metaphysician / physicist, or philosopher who can understand all this. And calling oneself a radical ecologist, or someone who has gotten to the root of our home (eco, or home in the sense of the earth) and is now navigating its way, is being laughably grandiose. But I accept that it could happen. It is usually meant in another way anyway.