Friends, I have no cartoon to post for you this week--I've been busy writing an article called "Bookchin Breaks with Anarchism." I realized after Murray died that some people didn't realize that late in life he'd broken with anarchism, or if they did, they didn't understand the reasons. I saw what happened during the late 1980s and 1990s, and how the break unfolded, so in this article I recount what I observed. The article (it's rather long!) will be published in an anthology called ANARCHISM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, by Red Lion Press. I'll announce it here when the book is published.
Speaking of publications, A.K. Press has just published a new anthology of Murray's later writings called SOCIAL ECOLOGY AND COMMUNALISM, edited and introduced by Eirik Eiglad. It's a fine collection, whose highlight is "The Communalist Project" (2002), Murray's last important theoretical work (and the place where he broke with anarchism in writing). I recommend it--essential reading for social ecologists and anyone interested in Murray's work.
Here's a photo I took of Murray in 1998 or 1999. Enjoy it! More cartoons coming starting in September.
1 comment:
Thanks for that essay, Janet. It's really interesting. I find it kind of sad looking at the state of anarchism over there in the States that Murray should have felt the need to disassociate himself from it. I'd find it inconceivable that anarchists would not define themselves as socialists; even the contemporary altermondist strand within anarchism has a very definite communalist basis. Primitivism and its ilk look like very eccentric philosophies from this side of the Pond.
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