@RenonKoral When you look at Crimethinc, anarcho-primitivists, "post-left" anarchists and the various right wing ideological groupings (capitalists, neo-fascists) trying to claim the name of anarchism, can you really blame Murray for declaring himself a libertarian municipalist?
We also have to remember that Communalism held as (part of) its theoretical foundations the concept of Social Ecology. This provides Communalism with justified rejection of racism on an ethical basis (from my understanding, similar to Moral Naturalism, though not necessarily resulting in virtue ethics/neo-Aristotelianism) and a biological basis (interdependence, diversity and mutualism in ecosystems).
Don't quote me on Social Ecology and Moral Naturalism, though. I have never read any work by Bookchin in which explicitly states his support for Moral Naturalism or virtue ethics, although he does like Aristotle quite a bit. It's just that in my studies of Moral Naturalism and Social Ecology I see somewhat similar concepts.
@RenonKoral I think you're absolutely correct. However, even towards the end Bookchin was committed to the "ideal;" however, as these things go, there's always the doctrinal, philosophical and ego issues that color one's thinking.
if you go to the Archive of spectacle[dot]com there is a 30 odd videos of MB giving a biography of his life and his thoughts, excellent. When are we gonna see this whole interview?
Fuck, why does the video break off at the crucial moment. Bookchin seems to be endorsing a system of associative democracy, vis-a-vis a reading of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Damn!
To paraphrase Bookchin: "You should never disregard ideas, but sublate them, and incorporate them into your own."
To all the uninformed and merely acquainted people who choose to voice their opinions, I strongly suggest you read what he had to say. Such poor critical thinking you exhibit is the disease of ignorance, much as if the "truth" about something was imbued to people at birth or through minimal mental labor.
Also I said nothing about disregarding ideas, we are talking about the complexity of politics where people cannot merely incorporate old ideas into their own, they have to think about how they are going to make them a reality in organisations. I also to a large degree he threw the baby out with the bath water as far as Anarcho Syndicalism was concerned.
You were not talking about the complexity of politics, you were addressing Bookchin's supposed contradictory political life. Did he "merely" just incorporate the "old ideas" into his, and apparently unrealistically so? I'd like to hear your analysis of how-so.
As far as throwing everything out in regards to Anarcho-Syndicalism: is that why Bookchin made confederalism and "the Commune of commues" one of the main tenets of libertarian municipalism? I'd like to know where he erred in his analysis
Murray absolutely contradicted himself almost through out his political life. He seems to have bounced from Marxism to Trotsky-ism to anarchism and finally to a political ideology of his own devising. He was a great writer and activist but he made the mistake of dropping a political movement when he discovered it had flaws. By the end he had driven himself into a pessimistic cave.
This is contradictory? A true revolutionary does not dogmatically adhere to an ideology, and where such ideologies are archaic or have submerged themselves in irrationalism it only makes sense to leave them. Murray took what was best about The Enlightenment, Marxism, and anarchism along with his own great insights in ecology to forge social ecology and communalism. Was Marx a hypocrite to no longer be a Hegelian? Your ahistorical approach demonstrates the lack of who and what Murray stood for.
It is not a matter of dogmatic adherance, it is about abandoning any movement because it has flaws, rather than trying to make changes to it from within. Ahistorical how?
Bookchin left Marxism and its variants because of the dogmatical historical materialism, centralization and datedness (Marx was before ecology: he regarded nature as something that needed to be wrestled and subdued--an idea which has led to much of the current ecological problems.)
Bookchin left anarchism because of the degradation of the movement into the widened dichotomy between individual and social anarchists etc. You can read it in Janet Biehl's "Bookchin Breaks with Anarchism".
Vice81: You can argue that "he was never an anarchist in the sense of identifying with the tradition."
BUT
You are dead-wrong with your assertion that "he had an academic interest in it as a means of carving out his place as a left wing intellectual first and foremost." There is no basis to support that assertion. You clearly didn't know him.
He was first and foremost, in his own mind, a revolutionary, as he defined it. He walked away from academia as soon as he could.
The Funny thing is the director was forced to admit a number of things that Bob Black nailed on him. He was never an anarchist in the sense of identifying with the tradition. He had an academic interest in it as a means of carving out his place as a left wing intellectual first and foremost.
It's not inhibiting growth, that's the whole thing about capitalism, remember the maxim of "grow or die". Inner-cities becoming impoverished has to do with white-flight in the 1950's, when all the white people moved to the suburbs, largely a reaction to desegregation and the domino like affect a poor house has on the value of homes around it. I'm just as much anit-capitalist as the next socialist, but what Bookchin was saying is quite correct.
Bookchin had a lot of rich historical data, but he never had any analysis.
he was so confused.
He always confused form and content. He was always very entranced by political forms. All you have to do is see that the forms he likes coexisited with and carried out capitalism (like a town meeting in a capitalist town), and then its obvious that these forms are not capbaility of being revolutionary.
Tell the Spanish anarchists of the 1930's that town meetings are un-revolutionary. Also Bookchin was full of analysis, in fact the majority of his writings are analysis! In reference to the first sentence, go read the analysis "The Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism" by Bookchin.
The situation during the Spanish revolution was different, than nowadays. Of course, if everbody is anarchist in the town, the town meeting will be revolutionary.
I agree somewhat with your critique, however, I think his point with the town meeting is to actually create more of a revolutionary consciousness in people. To create institutions based on libertarian socialist principles that can then expand. It's really about how to begin organizing. We can either sit around and wait for a spontaneous revolution, or we can work towards one with people that are familiar with the kinds of institutions that would exist in a libertarian socialist society.
i agree, he was talking about a dual power, a sustained civic effort at consciousness towards popular power growing from within the capitalist society. obviously this is a specific type of "town hall" meeting and effort, rather than an all encompassing category that would included meetings facilitating the capitalist state
@UrbanPirateMedia Not just revolutionary consciousness though; let's also recall that all the "class struggle anarchist" modes of self-management are rooted in the notion of localized institutions of direct democracy. Township politics-- "ward republics" as Jefferson called it-- would be rather impotent without workers' control of the means of production and market abolitionism. Via the local delegation of democratic power to the regional, and to the national, anarchism is federalist.
Are you kidding? Bookchin in this interview is talking about his breaking with anarchism because anarchism is mainly just a lifestyle. Bookchin broke with anarchism in 1999 and situated his thought in communalism and libertarian socialism/communism
I'm an anarcho-communist, and bookchin's insistence on individuality bothers me. Isn't rampant individualism a problem right now? that we see no relationship between us all?
3. Finally, if you read his "Third Revolution series, you will find that he NEVER stopped being a revolutionary. I can tell you this also from first-hand experience. He never expected to live as long as he did because he always thought he would die at the hands of the state.
2. I spent 15 years studying with Murray. He said that Marx was wrong when Marx believed that capitalism had limits. Capitalism, Bookchin told us ("us" being those in his living room that evening) insted that capitalism was a cancer, and like cancer has no limits, short of death of the host itself. Thus, the ONLY limit to capitalism is ecology.
Interesting comparison of capitalism to cancer & ecology. I would have loved to have spent even an evening listening to Bookchin and absorbing his thoughts.
Blobulous, 1. actually, the answer to your question is "No."The crux of our modern ecological crisis (is NOT the fact that capitalism is impeding technological improvement. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
Thank you so much for this. I had no idea there was any more footage like this of him. Hope you don't mind me throwing up my favorite part of his from "Anarchism in America". If you would, check out my other vids too.
Is not the crux of our modern ecological crisis(Bookchin's expertise supposedly) the fact that capitalism is impeding technological improvement? Not just in the sense of better technology but in the sense of improving technology itself in its relationship to human society. Also, plenty of major revolutions have occurred completely spontaneously without prior organization. Bookchin has abandoned the most fundamental aspect of the socialist movement: the need for revolution.
Blobulous, 1. actually, the answer to your question is "No."The crux of our modern ecological crisis (is NOT the fact that capitalism is impeding technological improvement. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Capitalism isnt "impending" technological improvement but has BEEN technologically improving. And no major revolution has ever "occurred completely spontaneously without prior organization"--the Russia Revolution (which in my opinion ended in Oct. of '17) had been developing for generations, as had the Spanish Revolution. Paul Avrich's "The Russian Anarchists" and Bookchin's "The Spanish Anarchists" documents this.
I just want to extend a posthoumus thank you to Bookchin. I imagine he would reject praise for his work, so I will only go so far as to say his words will be missed.
Yes, you're right. The same people at Pacific St. Films, producers of Anarchism in America, arranged the interview. The entire uncut piece runs about 90 minutes.
Currently, Pacific Street is looking for a way to distribute the interview more or less in its entirety.
is the extended interview available on DVD anywhere? The interviewer sounds like the same guy that did "Anarchism in America". RIP Murray. I read a lot, and it's a rare book that opens me up to a whole new way of seeing, and changes my mind - Ecology of Freedom was one of those.
@RenonKoral When you look at Crimethinc, anarcho-primitivists, "post-left" anarchists and the various right wing ideological groupings (capitalists, neo-fascists) trying to claim the name of anarchism, can you really blame Murray for declaring himself a libertarian municipalist?
agapeiron 9 months ago
@RenonKoral
To add to Renon's post:
We also have to remember that Communalism held as (part of) its theoretical foundations the concept of Social Ecology. This provides Communalism with justified rejection of racism on an ethical basis (from my understanding, similar to Moral Naturalism, though not necessarily resulting in virtue ethics/neo-Aristotelianism) and a biological basis (interdependence, diversity and mutualism in ecosystems).
SteelCityEcologist 9 months ago
@SteelCityEcologist
Don't quote me on Social Ecology and Moral Naturalism, though. I have never read any work by Bookchin in which explicitly states his support for Moral Naturalism or virtue ethics, although he does like Aristotle quite a bit. It's just that in my studies of Moral Naturalism and Social Ecology I see somewhat similar concepts.
SteelCityEcologist 9 months ago
@RenonKoral wouldn't Communalism break society into small ethnical groups, and eventually turn out to be one of the most racist movemets?
DaSkinnyApe 11 months ago
@RenonKoral I think you're absolutely correct. However, even towards the end Bookchin was committed to the "ideal;" however, as these things go, there's always the doctrinal, philosophical and ego issues that color one's thinking.
pacfilm 1 year ago
arrrgggh..... where's the rest of this?
peeklip 1 year ago
Rest in Peace,comrade Bookchin!!!
anarksee 1 year ago
Is that George Costanza's dad?
MANFATHERS 2 years ago
if you go to the Archive of spectacle[dot]com there is a 30 odd videos of MB giving a biography of his life and his thoughts, excellent. When are we gonna see this whole interview?
pkunzipstardotstar 2 years ago
Fuck, why does the video break off at the crucial moment. Bookchin seems to be endorsing a system of associative democracy, vis-a-vis a reading of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Damn!
satarrant 3 years ago
interesting comment
siadbarrbar 2 years ago
@satarrant
I agree, highly frustrating...
peeklip 1 year ago
Regardless, Bookchin's development from a Stalinist to a communalist shows, if anything, the dialectic at work.
Humanist1793 3 years ago
To paraphrase Bookchin: "You should never disregard ideas, but sublate them, and incorporate them into your own."
To all the uninformed and merely acquainted people who choose to voice their opinions, I strongly suggest you read what he had to say. Such poor critical thinking you exhibit is the disease of ignorance, much as if the "truth" about something was imbued to people at birth or through minimal mental labor.
Humanist1793 3 years ago
I have read him you arrogant fool.
FA8T 3 years ago
The "To paraphrase" comment was not to you. It does, however, in some respect apply to you.
Humanist1793 3 years ago
Also I said nothing about disregarding ideas, we are talking about the complexity of politics where people cannot merely incorporate old ideas into their own, they have to think about how they are going to make them a reality in organisations. I also to a large degree he threw the baby out with the bath water as far as Anarcho Syndicalism was concerned.
FA8T 3 years ago
You were not talking about the complexity of politics, you were addressing Bookchin's supposed contradictory political life. Did he "merely" just incorporate the "old ideas" into his, and apparently unrealistically so? I'd like to hear your analysis of how-so.
As far as throwing everything out in regards to Anarcho-Syndicalism: is that why Bookchin made confederalism and "the Commune of commues" one of the main tenets of libertarian municipalism? I'd like to know where he erred in his analysis
Humanist1793 3 years ago
Murray absolutely contradicted himself almost through out his political life. He seems to have bounced from Marxism to Trotsky-ism to anarchism and finally to a political ideology of his own devising. He was a great writer and activist but he made the mistake of dropping a political movement when he discovered it had flaws. By the end he had driven himself into a pessimistic cave.
FA8T 3 years ago
This is contradictory? A true revolutionary does not dogmatically adhere to an ideology, and where such ideologies are archaic or have submerged themselves in irrationalism it only makes sense to leave them. Murray took what was best about The Enlightenment, Marxism, and anarchism along with his own great insights in ecology to forge social ecology and communalism. Was Marx a hypocrite to no longer be a Hegelian? Your ahistorical approach demonstrates the lack of who and what Murray stood for.
Humanist1793 3 years ago
It is not a matter of dogmatic adherance, it is about abandoning any movement because it has flaws, rather than trying to make changes to it from within. Ahistorical how?
FA8T 3 years ago
Bookchin left Marxism and its variants because of the dogmatical historical materialism, centralization and datedness (Marx was before ecology: he regarded nature as something that needed to be wrestled and subdued--an idea which has led to much of the current ecological problems.)
Bookchin left anarchism because of the degradation of the movement into the widened dichotomy between individual and social anarchists etc. You can read it in Janet Biehl's "Bookchin Breaks with Anarchism".
Humanist1793 3 years ago 2
Vice81: You can argue that "he was never an anarchist in the sense of identifying with the tradition."
BUT
You are dead-wrong with your assertion that "he had an academic interest in it as a means of carving out his place as a left wing intellectual first and foremost." There is no basis to support that assertion. You clearly didn't know him.
He was first and foremost, in his own mind, a revolutionary, as he defined it. He walked away from academia as soon as he could.
diblock318 3 years ago
The Funny thing is the director was forced to admit a number of things that Bob Black nailed on him. He was never an anarchist in the sense of identifying with the tradition. He had an academic interest in it as a means of carving out his place as a left wing intellectual first and foremost.
Vice81 3 years ago
A brilliant man, 85 years was too short for him.
comradepinko 3 years ago 9
It's not inhibiting growth, that's the whole thing about capitalism, remember the maxim of "grow or die". Inner-cities becoming impoverished has to do with white-flight in the 1950's, when all the white people moved to the suburbs, largely a reaction to desegregation and the domino like affect a poor house has on the value of homes around it. I'm just as much anit-capitalist as the next socialist, but what Bookchin was saying is quite correct.
IntelligentHoodlum 3 years ago
I love it, he understands basic cinematography in addition to social and political systems.
iamjackscolin 4 years ago 2
Bookchin had a lot of rich historical data, but he never had any analysis.
he was so confused.
He always confused form and content. He was always very entranced by political forms. All you have to do is see that the forms he likes coexisited with and carried out capitalism (like a town meeting in a capitalist town), and then its obvious that these forms are not capbaility of being revolutionary.
fastmailfm 4 years ago
Tell the Spanish anarchists of the 1930's that town meetings are un-revolutionary. Also Bookchin was full of analysis, in fact the majority of his writings are analysis! In reference to the first sentence, go read the analysis "The Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism" by Bookchin.
IntelligentHoodlum 4 years ago
The situation during the Spanish revolution was different, than nowadays. Of course, if everbody is anarchist in the town, the town meeting will be revolutionary.
mindhijacker09 4 years ago
I agree somewhat with your critique, however, I think his point with the town meeting is to actually create more of a revolutionary consciousness in people. To create institutions based on libertarian socialist principles that can then expand. It's really about how to begin organizing. We can either sit around and wait for a spontaneous revolution, or we can work towards one with people that are familiar with the kinds of institutions that would exist in a libertarian socialist society.
UrbanPirateMedia 3 years ago 4
i agree, he was talking about a dual power, a sustained civic effort at consciousness towards popular power growing from within the capitalist society. obviously this is a specific type of "town hall" meeting and effort, rather than an all encompassing category that would included meetings facilitating the capitalist state
jklasdfjdfksl 3 years ago
@UrbanPirateMedia Not just revolutionary consciousness though; let's also recall that all the "class struggle anarchist" modes of self-management are rooted in the notion of localized institutions of direct democracy. Township politics-- "ward republics" as Jefferson called it-- would be rather impotent without workers' control of the means of production and market abolitionism. Via the local delegation of democratic power to the regional, and to the national, anarchism is federalist.
agapeiron 9 months ago
A great anarchist thinker.
Rest in peace Murray.
Solidarity to all anarchist comrades!
DJWelfare 4 years ago 3
Well said DJ
iamjackscolin 4 years ago
Are you kidding? Bookchin in this interview is talking about his breaking with anarchism because anarchism is mainly just a lifestyle. Bookchin broke with anarchism in 1999 and situated his thought in communalism and libertarian socialism/communism
SearcherForETI 4 years ago
I'm an anarcho-communist, and bookchin's insistence on individuality bothers me. Isn't rampant individualism a problem right now? that we see no relationship between us all?
clennon84 4 years ago
Wow. You think "rampant individualism" is a problem? You sound just like Lenin.
Maybe you're thinking of "lifestyle obsession"?
meowtek 4 years ago
3. Finally, if you read his "Third Revolution series, you will find that he NEVER stopped being a revolutionary. I can tell you this also from first-hand experience. He never expected to live as long as he did because he always thought he would die at the hands of the state.
diblock318 4 years ago
2. I spent 15 years studying with Murray. He said that Marx was wrong when Marx believed that capitalism had limits. Capitalism, Bookchin told us ("us" being those in his living room that evening) insted that capitalism was a cancer, and like cancer has no limits, short of death of the host itself. Thus, the ONLY limit to capitalism is ecology.
diblock318 4 years ago 3
Interesting comparison of capitalism to cancer & ecology. I would have loved to have spent even an evening listening to Bookchin and absorbing his thoughts.
IntelligentHoodlum 4 years ago
Blobulous, 1. actually, the answer to your question is "No."The crux of our modern ecological crisis (is NOT the fact that capitalism is impeding technological improvement. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
diblock318 4 years ago
Is Pacific Street Films making any progress in finding a way to release the full interview you spoke of?
SearcherForETI 4 years ago
Only some of his books are there lying next to him. Everyone should read some of his texts.
expobib 4 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Thank you so much for this. I had no idea there was any more footage like this of him. Hope you don't mind me throwing up my favorite part of his from "Anarchism in America". If you would, check out my other vids too.
Oh Ron Paul '08 and such :)
Darganot 4 years ago
No problem... The more of Murray, the better.
pacfilm 4 years ago 2
Is not the crux of our modern ecological crisis(Bookchin's expertise supposedly) the fact that capitalism is impeding technological improvement? Not just in the sense of better technology but in the sense of improving technology itself in its relationship to human society. Also, plenty of major revolutions have occurred completely spontaneously without prior organization. Bookchin has abandoned the most fundamental aspect of the socialist movement: the need for revolution.
Blobulous 4 years ago
Blobulous, 1. actually, the answer to your question is "No."The crux of our modern ecological crisis (is NOT the fact that capitalism is impeding technological improvement. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
diblock318 4 years ago
Capitalism isnt "impending" technological improvement but has BEEN technologically improving. And no major revolution has ever "occurred completely spontaneously without prior organization"--the Russia Revolution (which in my opinion ended in Oct. of '17) had been developing for generations, as had the Spanish Revolution. Paul Avrich's "The Russian Anarchists" and Bookchin's "The Spanish Anarchists" documents this.
IntelligentHoodlum 4 years ago
when's this movie actually coming out?
i went to the website a while ago but didn't find anything about it.
gooseabuse 4 years ago
I just want to extend a posthoumus thank you to Bookchin. I imagine he would reject praise for his work, so I will only go so far as to say his words will be missed.
patrickracine 4 years ago
Yes, you're right. The same people at Pacific St. Films, producers of Anarchism in America, arranged the interview. The entire uncut piece runs about 90 minutes.
Currently, Pacific Street is looking for a way to distribute the interview more or less in its entirety.
pacfilm 5 years ago
is the extended interview available on DVD anywhere? The interviewer sounds like the same guy that did "Anarchism in America". RIP Murray. I read a lot, and it's a rare book that opens me up to a whole new way of seeing, and changes my mind - Ecology of Freedom was one of those.
myroncope 5 years ago
1 interview with bookchin.
available.
yes.
: )
sasvari 5 years ago
This is a short segment from a very long interview with Murray filmed in Summer 2004.
pacfilm 5 years ago
thanks for adding this. i was sad to see there was only 1 vid avaible so far
sasvari 5 years ago