Anarchism
and The Sociological Imagination An
Interview with Dana Williams
(part1)
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I
first came across Dana Williams and his work on an anarchist academics email
list about three years ago. I was excited to find another person bringing
anarchism and sociology together! There were, I believe, literally only a
couple that I knew of already (Jonathan Purkis and Ian Welsh). Over the last
couple of years, that number has expanded steadily and I now see that there
is quite an upsurge in interest in bringing anarchism and sociology together.
Dana’s talk at the North American Anarchist Studies conference last year
particularly interested me in this regard. I wasn’t brave enough to travel to
Toronto in February and am very appreciative to have been able to take in the
talk in comfort via YouTube. Entitled “Defining an Anarchist-Sociology (A
Long-Anticipated Marriage)”, Dana’s argument intrigued me and I wanted to
find out more. The following interview took place by email between March and
July 2011
My
first question is, what connections do you already see existing between
anarchism and sociology?
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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.
