دامون

Anarchism and The Sociological Imagination  An Interview with Dana Williams

(part1)

I think there are quite a few connections between the two, some major and better made, while other connections are a bit more tenuous and ambiguous. First, both anarchism and sociology are very interested in this thing called “society”. That itself is impressive, given how hard it is to often even think about something as complex and abstract as society. Both also agree that societies affect individuals. Within the sociological ranks, this was put most eloquently by C. Wright Mills and his analytical device of the “sociological imagination”. But, anarchists have also regularly considered large, macro-scaled institutions like capitalism, states, White supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, etc., rarely losing the forest for the trees. In other words: anarchists are not apt to dwell on how bad a certain president is for a society or how evil a particular corporation is behaving, but instead call-out the entire system for its negative consequences on society. If this sounds a lot like Mills’ sociological imagination, it might not be much of a coincidence. The same Mills who coined the phrase “new Left”―that early-1960s, anarchistic impulse that rejected state-socialism for participatory democracy―also called himself a “goddamn anarchist”. So, sociologists do much the same thing as anarchists and focus on society as their unit of analysis (while appreciating it is composed of individuals, groups, and organizations). In fact, sociologists very consciously eschew efforts to develop idiosyncratic theory based on particular people, situations, or events, and instead try to consider general patterns. This focus on society unites the two endeavors in a very immediate way.

Second, I think anarchism and sociology―in their better moments―do a bit of each other’s “typical” work. Anarchism has busied itself with attempts to transform society. Often this transformation is pursued through initially small acts of agitation (the formation of labor unions, community organizations, revolutionary cells and affinity groups), but also the encouragement of and participation in mass social movements, and broad insurrections and revolutions. Sociology, on the other hand, has for much of its history (and definitely during its periods with the greatest commitment to positivism) has tried to merely understand society, sometimes in the broadest, more “grand theory” strokes, sometimes in meticulous detail. Yet, anarchists have regularly pursued some of these more sociological endeavors, engaging in a rigorous critique of society, often very similar to sociologists. Much of the great classical-era anarchist theorists―such as Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin―were essentially thinking about sociological questions, having to do with social problems that people and groups in societies face. It’s one thing to desire change, but another thing to have a good, solid understanding of why that change is so necessary―anarchists are generally very thoughtful, well-informed individuals, who tend to think sociologically and just happen to want revolutionary change. And, sociologists have occasionally (but with astonishing regularity) wanted to go beyond mere analysis and participate in advocacy and even efforts to change society. Granted, most of the change sought assumes a liberal-reformist character, often focused on changes to particular laws. But, the very fact that sociologists are usually able to (sometimes with great prodding) draw conclusions and personal inspirations from what they study and eventually act, is important. Thus, sociologists do not necessarily always have their noses stuck in books, data, and abstract hypotheses.

A third connection I see is there has often been fraternization between anarchists and sociologists; they have read and considered each other’s ideas, and, occasionally, they have been some of the same people. Consequently, their ideas have―whether the purists in each camp wish it or not―influenced each other. For example, Bakunin intensively studied Comte’s positivism (liking his general impulse, but rejecting Comte’s more messianic pretensions). Weber spent time vacationing around anarchists, especially Europe’s more libertine cultural anarchists. Pitrim Sorokin―the first chair of Harvard’s sociology program―personally knew and admired Kropotkin. Kropotkin himself translated some of Herbert Spencer’s work and later Spencer signed a petition to the French government demanding Kropotkin’s release from prison. More recently, the rebellious tendencies of earlier radical culture―infused with anarchism―inspired numerous sociologists, perhaps most important Mills who often wrote favorably of rebels, like the Wobblies. Today, the connections between anarchists and sociologists are much more muted, but maybe even more widespread than at any time in the past. The movements of the 1960s and 70s reinvigorated radical sociology and, especially in the United States, led to an explosion in self-identified “Marxist sociologists”. The radicalism of the Black Power and anti-war movements inspired young people with rediscovered/recycled Marxist ideas, some of whom chose to enter graduate school (or who were already there). This new generation of sociologists, helped shift the discipline back towards its progressive roots and (at least partially) away from instrumental positivism and structural-functionalism. Given that many of today’s popular and radical social movements are strongly inspired by and designed on anarchist principles (with a significant collection of actual anarchist participants), there has been a similar in-fill of anarchists into sociology in the last decade and a half. I have heard that approximately one million people in the US take sociology classes each year and surely a few thousands of those people are anarchists (or anarchist-friendly). Hundreds of anarchists are potentially majoring as sociologists and dozens are likely in graduate school. This has resulted in an up-swell of university-trained anarchist-sociologists (whether self-identified as such or not). I am one of that increasing number of people. Consequently, due to this influx of anarchist-movement-inspired personnel into the academy, I do not, universally, receive blank-looks when discussing anarchism or the anarchist movement amongst sociologists. Although there is often still some confusion and misunderstanding as to what anarchism is, many sociologists now acknowledge anarchism as a legitimate school of ideas and the movement as something real that is having a definite impact on the world. This is a clear change of earlier generations (especially from the dismissive generations of Albion Small or Talcott Parsons). As time goes one, I assume and hope that anarchism and sociology continue to learn more from each other.

Following on from that, what connections between anarchism and sociology would you like to see developed further?”

All sorts of closer connections could be developed! And, I think these two different things―anarchism and sociology, whether we consider them to be disciplines, ideologies, or approaches―can also be grown together, in-tandem. Let me tell you a story that I think illustrates this: near where I used to live there was a tree close to a chain-link fence and at some point, the tree began to grow into and through the fence. Not just a branch going through the fence, but the actual rings of the tree merging with the fence! Each new years’ worth of tree-growth emerged, in part, on the other side of the fence. The fence supported and redirected the trees’ growth, and the tree has now sturdied an otherwise rickety fence. Today, that tree and fence are hopelessly intertwined with each other, you couldn’t take down one without affecting the other. That’s sort of how I’d like anarchism and sociology to become (and I won’t say which is the fence and which is the tree!). I think each could not only benefit from the other, but also they could grow stronger together. This is sort of how Marxism and feminism are today for sociological theory. It’s hard to imagine talking about social change, class inequality, gender, and so forth without directly referencing the contributions of those two philosophies (which are of non-sociological origins). And Marxism and feminism have gotten all sorts of validation, institutional support, and proliferation due to their affiliation with sociology. I think it’d be great if anarchism were to intertwine itself, strategically, with sociology. And I think―in my more optimistic moments―that might already be starting to happen.

But to more specifically answer your question: I would like to see a certain sociological appreciation become more commonplace within anarchist circles. In other words, it’s be great if sociological ideas could help support and strengthen anarchist theory and the anarchist movement. For example, anarchists could benefit from an understanding of how people learn, adopt, and maintain their commitments through socialization. Since anarchists want to help people find pathways to a more liberatory future, dealing with all the practices that inhibit better social relations is going to be necessary. It’ll be important for people to more widely adopt radical social norms, which will require intensive resocialization―something anarchists already do, instinctively, but maybe not as reflectively as necessary. Knowing what socialization is and how norms work will help anarchists think more critically about their self-education strategies and also appreciate how really hard long-lasting social change is to achieve. Even insurrections and open-revolts can easily roll-back into counter-revolutionary and reactionary behaviors if a period of resocialization doesn’t occur. I think that’s an important lesson to be learned from the Russian and Spanish revolutions during the twentieth-century. I suppose another level of sociological understanding that anarchists could benefit from is a deeper understanding of how formal organizations (especially bureaucracies) work. They are neither completely inefficient, nor completely rational. Instead, bureaucracies are somewhere in-between. And since the majority of people in modern societies are trapped somewhere within multiple such organizations, it seems crucial for anarchists to know how this embedding works, the best ways to extricate folks from hierarchical structures, and why radical movements like anarchism meet resistance when trying to do so.

Or, anarchists―and social movements more generally―could benefit from knowing a bit of social movement theory, the kind of stuff that sociologists study about social movements. And, although this research is often imperfect, there’s a lot to potentially learn from it. There’s certain aspects of movement-building and movement-work that activists ought to at least reflect upon in a systematic fashion. For example, questions about framing, resources, political opportunities, and so on. But, as my co-author Jeff Shantz has said, the attention given to radical movements that see the entire social system as inherently off-kilter, self-destructive, brutal, etc., is almost non-existent. So, sociologists ought to start thinking about and studying those social movements that have no interest in influencing the state (except to dissolve it)!

Then, the flipside of this coin is where things might get even more interesting: taking anarchist concerns or subjects, and inserting them into Sociology. I think it would be great to have anarchist ideas pop-up more regularly in sociology classes, within sociology’s many subfields, or be included as references in journal article literature reviews. And, most importantly, have those ideas treated as the serious intellectual traditions they are! What if all those aforementioned college students started encountering anarchist ideas in their introduction to sociology classes or if sociology majors started to discover a highly-libertarian form of socialism that has valid ideas and precepts, that are independent of Marxism?

Imagine if sociological theory classes taught Bakunin alongside his intellectual and activist counterpart in the First International, Marx. Both crafted their words from ideas being generated in the same radical labor milieu, but Bakunin’s warnings turned out to be more prophetic than Marx’s musings, when he predicted Marx’s socialist vision (led by and encapsulated in the state) would become as bureaucratic and tyrannical as state capitalism. Or, more interestingly, imagine Kropotkin’s ideas of “mutual aid” being treated as seriously as Durkheim’s ideas of solidarity. The similarities are, at points, astounding, and to have Kropotkin’s politically-infused analyses of survival, sociability, and justice presented with the same worth as Durkheim, would be an amazing step forward for both anarchism and sociology. Heck, most classical-era anarchist thinkers still, even today, sound like and share a lot of the same concerns as sociologists: folks like Emma Goldman, Gustav Landauer, Voltairine de Cleyre, Errico Malatesta, and Elise Reclus, and so on…

Or, more recently in the anarchist tradition, consider how devastating Murray Bookchin’s focus on hierarchy and domination as the ultimate engines of inequality (not just economic exploitation) would be for students of social inequalities, or students of modern conflict theory. And I think it is high-time to give proper credit to the anarcha-feminists of the 1970s for their role in influencing feminism’s “third wave” (as learned about by countless sociology majors in contemporary theory and gender classes). The crossover between anarcha-feminists, black feminists, black anarchists, and others in nurturing a radical, intersectional approach to inequality is a linkage still begging further exploration.

I suppose another thing that could result from drawing anarchism and sociology closer together would be an appreciation of the horizontal, cooperative social organization that is needed for social transformation. Some of this is being considered along the lines of network theory, but something more deliberate (and, frankly, more anarchist) needs to be considered here. To me, this seems to require a pro-active/positive form of sociology that studies the best avenues for social transformation, with a vested-interest in seeing those changes come to pass!

Those are just some immediate ideas of how anarchism could be sociologized and sociology could be anarchized―if those are even appropriate words! Otherwise, some anarchists working in (and around) sociology have already started to consider what an “anarchist social science” would be: Would it be “applied”? Radical? Self-critical? Maybe decentralized and autonomous from the academy? Or perhaps it’d be directly in the hands of everyday people? A lot of these intellectual efforts (both epistemological and ontological) are trying to consider the revolutionary pathways of social change and how anarchism (and maybe sociology) plays a role in that. So, on one hand, an anarchist-sociology could illuminate society―as it presently is―for us, but it could also light the way towards practical solutions for overcoming all the hierarchical crap that keeps people from taking control of their lives and communities.