Talk:Lifestyle anarchism

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This article was nominated for deletion on 221005. The result of the discussion was keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

Contents 1 social anarchism 2 what the hell? 3 chuck's edits. 4 Accuracy 5 Hakim bey 6 Nominated for deletion

[edit] social anarchism

• Typically the term is counterposed with "social anarchism".
• Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm oft-cited article by Murray Bookchin

This text and link have been removed repeatedly. I see that a google search brings up many hits for the two terms together. Is it untrue that lifestyle anarchism is contrasted to social anarchism? -Willmcw 23:34, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] what the hell?

i'm about to revert this to the last version by func. i've been familiar with your work for a long time chuck, but i think you're just wrong on this, and you shouldn't let your own personal distastes color what you are doing to this article. lifestylism is only a term of criticism to some; it isn't about using anarchy as a fashion statement, its about making changes on the individual, spiritual, personal and etc levels, about throwing out the marxist dichotomies of "class struggle" and instead altering our lives, living the lives we want to live. the definition given before: The term is now in general use as a description of positions that concentrate on changes to personal behaviour rather than wholesale reorganisation or abolition of class society. In general, those described as lifestyle anarchists deny that they reject social or class struggle, sometimes by rejecting the distinction between individual and class behaviour. explains lifestylism quite well. are you really claiming that crimethinc is not lifestylism? that lifestylism is really just nothing but a derogatory term used against those who are anarchists as nothing but a fashion statement? because that really just seems silly, chuck . . .

if you want to leave out the bookchin, fine. but lifestyle anarchism is much more than the derogatory term you use it as.

--Heah (talk) 02:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

links discussing lifestyle anarchism in a way beyond what chucko says-

• zmag
• bookchin clearly demonstrating that chuck is wrong

This essay by Bookchin doesn't disprove my point. Bookchin is backpeddling and trying to argue that his book was about lifestyle anarchism. I read his book. It's not about lifestyle anarchism. It lumps all of his critics together and hangs the "lifestyle anarchism" label on them. What the hell does former Bookchin comrades John Clark and L. Susan Broawn have to do with John Zerzan. This is just shoddy thinking and SALA was a book that never should have been published. On the other hand, it's even worse that some anarchists have seized on the *title* of the book to justify what they see as a political divide within the movement. This is just bullshit. I will try to get this entry fixed so that it is accurate. I also plan to create a page on Infoshop.org which will debunk this "lifestyle anarchism" nonsense. 24.94.181.211 01:58, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I proposed (and did) remove the bookchin at some point, and that wasn't good enough for you. And really, it should be there anyways, for any version- the term originated with bookchin, regardless of whether or not it is used as he used it. as the article stands currently, it does offer a disclaimer to that effect: He used it to criticise anarchists who he believed advocated individualism at the expense of class struggle. The term is now in general use as a description of positions that concentrate on changes to personal behaviour rather than wholesale reorganisation or abolition of class society. making the difference clearer- the disclaimer is rather subtle- is probably a good idea. --Heah (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

• an encyclopedia
• an encyclopedia

if you revert again i am going to request a block on this page. i don't care if you dislike zmag and have your own interpretations of bookchin and don't beleive the factuality of some online encyclopedias, because this is rediculous, chuck.

i, for instance, proudly call myself a lifestyle anarchist. of course, i'm not a citable source. but i am not bringing politics into this- i'm just a simple demonstration that some people do consider themselves lifestyle anarchists, and that it used as more than a derogatory term for people who become anarchists as a "fashion statement". if you want citations discussing what lifestylism is sometimes considered to be, click above.

[edit] chuck's edits.

this is copied from user talk:chuck0 --Heah (talk) 18:51, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

first, chuck, i'm not "unfamiliar with anarchism." i'm also not unfamiliar with you- i remember being on an e-mail discussion list with you maybe 7 years back. and you're not all that unfamiliar with me, at least by sight- guess who's getting hit over the head on infoshop's "anarchists in trouble" banner?

my objection, chuck, is that lifestylism is used as more than a derogatory term for those who adopt anarchism as a fashion statement. as i said on the talk page, i am a lifestylist. it is not a fashion statement. i am not an anarchist because it is cool. rather, after being an anarchist for some time, i came to beleive that replacing one materialist system (capitalism) with another (eg syndicalism) is useless. we need something much deeper than changing ownership. we need an entirely different relation to our world, to ourselves, an entirely different worldview, where the world is no longer seen as objects for our use, to be consumed and discarded. the syndicalists don't get this.

so if lifestylism doesn't exist, what am i? i mean, you could also say that i am a primitivist, but that isn't quite what i'm talking about here. i beleive that our lives, our existences, ourselves, need to be radically changed, and not through mass protest or working class organization. not to discount the untility of either of those. it just isn't all that we need. we don't need workers controlling factories, we need to destroy the factories; life and work needs to be art. "lifestylism" seems like a perfect term for this.

i'm not saying any of this to try and convert you or something like that, i just want to demonstrate that lifestylism exists, as more than a fashion statement to be derided. and like i said on the lifestylism talk page, as this is an encycolpedia, i'm not a citable source. apparently the citations there weren't good enough for you, so this time i'd like to point you to an article by Dave Neal from practical anarchy, as you of course know, the "official magazine of infoshop.org":

One issue that remains unresolved within the anarchist movement revolves around the nature of anarchists themselves. If you've perused these pages, you by now know about social anarchism versus lifestyle anarchism as the most public schism among anarchists, with the latter deriding class struggle as fruitless, pointless, and irrelevant, and the former declaring that the latter aren't anarchists at all, but are rather bourgeois poseurs.

To the casual browser, it seems a silly, pointless debate. And in many respects, you're right! The social versus lifestylism debate revolves around the idea of what it means to be an anarchist.

However, underlying this debate is a less obvious thread, namely whether anarchism is an ideology -- a set of rules and conventions to which you must abide, or whether anarchism is a methodology -- a way of acting, or a historical tendency against illegitimate authority. I believe this debate underlies the social versus lifestylism dilemma, and will attempt to elaborate on it. [1]

so, if we are to use only your definition of lifestylism, the "schism among anarchists" is between social anarchists and people who are anarchists to be cool? that the question of what it means to be an anarchist revolves around whether it is a fashion statement or class struggle? that social anarchists beleive in the methedology, while poseurs beleive in a historical tendency against illegitimate authority?

the schism is there, chuck- i am familiar with anarchism- and if we are to adopt your narrow definition of lifestylism, this debate is being censored and covered up. more than that, it is being skewed in favor of the social anarchists- after all, if the schism is between the anarchists and the posers that don't even exist, it's obvious who is in the right. but the debate is much deeper than that. to deny one entire side of this debate is obviously not in line with wikipedia's npov policy.

so once again, chuck, i am reverting. my personal feeling was that the compromise in my first reversion should have been satisfactory- both commonly used definitions are in there. if the word is used both ways- and it is- both definitions should be there.

this will also be copied to the lifestylism talk page.

thank you. --Heah (talk) 18:49, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

2 more citations:

• (see section on "factionalism")
• [2]

again, if the word is used both ways, both should be represented here.

[edit] Accuracy

When this page is unfrozen, I'm going to revert this entry back to the version that is accurate, specifically the version that describes "lifestyle anarchism" as a a form of insult towards people who dress and act like anarchists but who don't engage in the politics. This is the way this term is normally used. Frankly, this entry really should be deleted as it is a marginal term in the anarchist movement, not to mention how trivial it is for an online encyclopedia. I will also point out that some anarchist sectarians are trying to establish their take on this phrase, which more or less labels all anarchists as lifestyle anarchists. That's pretty crazy and shouldn't be the basis for a factual encyclopedia entry. Lastly, I will point out once again that Murray Bookchin's book was NOT about lifestyle anarchism--it was a broadside against all of his critics, lumping them all together into some kind of unified opposition. Read te book. It's all there in pathetic exposition. A horrible book which Bookchin should never have written. Chuck0 16:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

But, chuck, you haven't responded to any of my comments. Perhaps the most common use of the term is as you use it, but the fact remains, it is used the other way as well- or else articles from your paper such as i cited above wouldn't make any sense. why would practical anarchy have an article on the "most public shism in anarcism" being "social anarchism versus lifestyle anarchism" if this is simply a "marginal term" within the anarchist movement, a term simply used as derogetory towards people becoming anarchists as a fashion statement?

This is an "open encyclopedia" chuck, one that officially disallows original research. Your own interpretation of the bookchin isn't enough to swing this article in the direction you would like it to go. At least four people have reverted your deletions, the article was up in its current form for a while without any vocalized objections before you started your deletions, and i've provided a number of citations to show that the term is used in both ways. When the majority of people here disagree with you, when the citations don't support your position, you cannot assert your own will and vision over everybody else. (you are familiar with such systems of operation, no?)

This isn't a case of editors who know nothing stalking you and enforcing petty rules. I'm not stalking you, i'm not editing outside my area of expertise, and this isn't about petty rules- its about the usage of the term "lifestyle anarchism". You haven't been able to back up your position, chuck.

--Heah (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hakim bey

chuck-

you really just seem to be missing that this is an encyclopedia. Hakim Bey is often accused of being a lifestyle anarchist regardless of whether or not he is, and that is what the article says. the Hakim Bey article mentions this too. it IS a fact that Hakim Bey is often called a lifestyle anarchist by his opponents, and that's what the article says, so it is not in any way "non-factual" and it is certainly not name calling!

--Heah (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

• One of the most unsavory examples of lifestyle anarchism is Hakim Bey's (aka Peter Lamborn Wilson's) T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchism, Poetic Terrorism, a jewel in the New Autonomy Series (no accidental word choice here), published by the heavily postmodernist Semiotext(e)/Autono'media group in Brooklyn By Murray Bookchin Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
• 18 February 1997: The Ambivalent Legacy of Murray Bookchin "Lifestyle anarchists" Ann-Marie Hendrickson, Bill Weinberg and Sharon Gregory defend the honor of anarcho-mystic Hakim Bey against the Eurocentric attacks of Murray Bookchin, grand old daddy of the Social Ecology movement.Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade/WBAI
• Murray Bookchin’s work “Social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgeable chasm” first published in 1995 provoked the most heated debate of the late 90’s in the US anarchist movement. Essay was the beginning of Bookchin’s departure from anarchist politics. It begins as an attack to anarcho-individualistic thinking, and continues with labelling Hakim Bey and primitivists as “lifestyle anarchists” as well, a label which I suppose nobody has ever adopted voluntarily.([http://www.infoshop.org/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=10355& An enquiry to modern anarchist movement in the USA (a draft)
• Hakim Bey is the best of the lifestyle oriented anarchist writers. His ideas are clear (or at least clearer than many others) and his writing style is attractive. Too bad his ideas are so silly.Amazon reviewer
• After the success of the TAZ, he followed up with “Permanent TAZs”[17], praising hobbyist communities and the already existing ‘communities’ that line and oppose every existing class and subculture. Where it was tempting to make a lifestyle of it (something Bey has repeatedly had to grapple with, given the importance of “lifestyle” in anarchist debate in the 1990’s), the TAZ is better off expanded "Hakim Bey" by Chuk Moran (sic)

Based on these quotes, Bey seems to be notably referred to as a lifestyle anarchist. -Willmcw 22:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nominated for deletion

I've nominated this page for deletion. I have to say that this page is a perfect illustration of the worthlessness of Wikipedia. What was once an interesting and promising collaborative project has turned into something that is suitable for settling bar bets. I am a professional librarian of 15 years with training in reference works and I've been an anarchist for 20 years. I'm currently compiling an anthology about the last 45 years of North American anarchism titled "North American Anarchist Thought Since 1960". I've seen my edits to this trivial entry reversed by people who are obviously unfamiliar with North American anarchism, including the period of the late 1990s. This entry represents a political effort by a small group of anarchists to call other anarchists names, in fact, the vast majority of American anarchists.

Here is why this entry should be deleted.

• Heah attempts above to justify that there is a factual basis for this entry and that it is an important topic by citing opinions from Amazon.com reviews and Internet discussion boards. I believe this constitutes "original research" if not simply a sad effort to justify this entry.
  • My citations were not to show that this article should be here, but rather that "lifestyle anarchism" is used in two ways, not just one. my citations, which are all above, did not include amazon or any discussion boards. several are websites which probably don't demonstrate much, but two were from other internet encyclopedias, one was a bookchin essay, one was from zmag, and one was from practical anarchy, a magazine that chuck0 used to run. --Heah (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Are insults something that should be included in an encyclopedia of any kind? Especially insults that are are limited to a specific community or subculture? Are insults traded among Trekkies, for example, of interest to the readers of Wikipedia? Lifestyle anarchism isn't even a term used by many anarchists, for that matter.
• This entry went from bad to worse when Heah added the line about Hakim Bey. That line, if anything, shows why this entry should be deleted. Of what use is an encyclopedia that characterizes people with insults that they don't embrace? A few people call me an individualist--which I'm not--does that mean that name-calling like that should be added to my entry?
  • I did not add the hakim bey thing, although i was one of several people who reverted chuck's removal of it. if bookchin had explicitly mentioned chuck, as he did hakim bey, then yes, perhaps chuck should be here too.
• "Is not suitable for Wikipedia" - See my above comments.
• "Original research" - See Heah's citations, which come from bulletin boards and Amazon.com reviews. If anything, my original edits were the most accurate description for this trivial topic.
  • I think i already answered this. none of my citations were from bbss or amazon; regardless, they were CITATIONS. however, Chuck's own (uncommon) interpretation of bookchin and his own claims to authority as a long time anarchist certainly qualify as original research. --Heah (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• "Completely idiosyncratic non-topic" - Yep!
• Political attack - This page has been altered by people who intend to use this entry to justify their sectarian infighting against other anarchists. They've prevented people such as myself from providing an accurate entry for this topic.
  • my edits were explicitly to make sure that lifestyle anarchism is here both as an insult and as a term simply describing one form of anarchism; it was chuck, in fact, who deleted the latter so the page was purely about the term as an insult. I am not using this page to fight against "lifestylists"- in fact, (although this is irrelevant), i'm probably one of the few people who actually identify themselves as such. chuck, however, IS trying to censor a debate within the anarchist community that he does not beleive should exist. he does not beleive the term should be used at all- but given the prominence of the term, the bookchin, the articles from anarchist magazines talking about the social anarchy vs. lifestylism dispute as THE central debate within anarchism today, chuck shouldn't be allowed to delete this page.--Heah (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• "Dispute over article content" - Pretty much sums up the worthlessness of this "article". The only purpose of this article is to attack anarchists and misrepresent our recent history.
  • See above. this page attacks no one. --Heah (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• "Such a minor branch of a subject that it doesn't deserve an article" - Lifestyle anarchism is an insult used by some anarchists against other anarchists. It is not something of any prominence in contemporary anarchism.
  • see above again. --Heah (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Chuck0 20:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll be happy to repeat all of this on the currently non-existant vfd page when chuck actually goes through the steps of nominating this article for deletion instead of just tagging it. --Heah (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Who the fuck are you? What track record of activism and writing in the anarchist movement have you established? You go in here and post these trivial replies to each one of my points without listening. Are you one of those geeks with too much time on his hands? See, this discussion proves the point that Wikipedia has devolved into worthlessness. People who know something about a topic contribute something and then the peanut gallery of Wikizealots comes along and pecks an entry to death. Jesus F. Christ, this is so fucking ridiculous! You have the balls to argue that if Murray Bookchin called me an "individualist" that I should be indentified as such when I reject the label! Holy shit, Captain Kirk, is there any intelligence here? That's like saying that if some accused me of being a Scientologist, that I should be identified in articles here as a Scientologist. Come on, you don't post accusations and name-calling as facts in an encyclopedia! Do you even fucking understand what an encyclopedia is? Do you? Chuck0 22:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

wow.

well, first, what i meant was that if you had been one of the people murray bookchin labelled as a lifestyle anarchist, then the fact that you were one of the people he used the term to describe should be here. you should not be identified as a lifestyle anarchist, in your article or here; but the fact that bookchin used the term to describe you adds context to this article. It connects an abstract term bookchin used to concrete experiences, people, events, etc. saying "bookchin used the term in reference to such activists as chuck munson", or as in reality to hakim bey, does not identify someone as a lifestylist but rather explicates bookchin's use of the term.

If someone wrote and published a book about scientology, critiquing it for being a cult or whatever, and you were identified as one of the culprits in the book- regardless of the whether or not you are a scientologist- that could deserve inclusion in the article. it adds context.

again, and again and again and again, the "name-calling" itself is the fact being presented. it is not taking an attack to be a factual representation of the target, but rather saying that the attack happened, that it is a fact that the attack occured, further detailing and adding context to bookchin's use of the term.

--Heah (talk) 23:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)