I’ve given more thought to your ode to Murray, above. While I agree with your facts, we interpret some of the facts differently.

I knew Murray for 25 years, from 1981 until he passed away in 2006. I moved up to Vermont, at Dan Chodorkoff’s suggestion, to study with Murray, in various study groups, until I moved back down to New York in 1997.

First, you ask: “Was Bookchin successful?” You answer “No,” and most of what you write in that paragraph cannot be refuted. He WAS successful, however, in STOPPING things; he was successful fighting against the luxury condos on Burlington’s waterfront. He was successful fighting against changing Vermont’s two-year term for the Governor. He was successful, years ago, fighting a nuclear reactor in Queens, NY, across the East River from the UN. He had his victories, fighting against things. But no, he could not create a movement, for reasons you mention, and others I will get to below.

In your dillema section, you write, “First, we believed that he had discovered principles of social development that, if applied to the world, would eliminate hierarchy and reconcile humanity with nature.”

Yes, that’s true.

“Second, we held that capitalism would destroy the ecosystem if we did not apply his principles. In other words, we felt that we not only should embrace his teachings in order to build a good society but also had to do so if we wanted to prevent an ecological apocalypse. “

I agree with that as well. You follow, though, with:

“Accordingly, Bookchin’s ideas played a quasi-religious role for us and he became something of a prophet.”

NO. I don’t know anyone – not Brian Tokar, not even Chiah, not even Janet, who saw Murray as “quasi-religious.” John Kenneth Galbraith (what’s HE doing in this discussion?) once said that “A prophet is simply the first to report the inevitable.” In that sense, and in that sense only, can Murray be considered a prophet, “quasi-“ or otherwise. There was no deification of Bookchin in the years I studied with him. On the contrary, there were a lot of demonizations!

You write that “he seemed to fear” that if we explored other writers it might threaten his hold upon us. You have two presuppositions in that statement: first, that he had a hold on us, second that he feared that some things would break that hold. Yet, as you write, he was very quick to “break” with people, to use his words (He “broke” with me at least twice, by the way, but we patched things up both times). If he really wanted to hold us, he would not be so quick to jettison us. He didn’t want a “hold” on us. He did know that there were some writers who were inconsistent with what he was teaching. There was no “fear” involved, that I witnessed. If you were studying Marx, for example, it would not be valuable to read Ayn Rand, for example, unless you were deliberately looking for opposing viewpoints.

This idea does a great disservice to Murray and his memory.

Then you write that

“Bookchin’s elevated stature nurtured a highly undemocratic political among us that compromised our ability to elicit insights from within our own circles.“

Murray wrote extensively about the difference between the “equality of unequals” and the “inequality of equals.” We were not his equals. To each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. If I was on a basketball court on Michael Jordan’s team, I would not be telling him that I wanted to shoot as often as he did. I might not be asking to shoot at all. Murray was the teacher; we were his students. There was nothing democratic about it, and there was no pretense of democracy about it. Some, like Janet, Brian Tokar, Dan, and Chiah, learned enough that they had something to teach. Murray certainly learned from Janet’s research and incorporated some of it in his books (giving her credit). This had less to do with her being his companion than it did with her having something to offer. When I had a point to make, or a reference that was helpful to his research, he accepted it, as rare that it was that I had something of value to add to what Murray was teaching. I heard a lot of that type of complaint when I was studying with Murray. I dismissed it then, and I dismiss it now. Classrooms are not democratic. Murray told me once when I was taking him to a medical appointment that Lenin said “Never go to a comrade doctor.” There is hierarchy between a doctor and a patient, and there is a hierarchy between a teacher and a student. To pretend otherwise, or to pretend that we could learn more from each other than we could learn from him is just silly. To suggest that it was important for us to teach as equals for the sake of democratic ideals is also just silly.

Yes, it is true that “[i]n those classes, he simply read from manuscripts that he was preparing, interrupting himself only for occasional digressions (typically to polemicize against another thinker). We sat around him in the room, furiously taking notes. We submitted no papers and took no exams: our job was solely to absorb his insights.” I did that, but not “slavishly,” as you suggest. I take great exception to that idea. I was there because there was no other place in the world that I could learn what Murray was teaching. I understood who Murray was, and was able to separate his ideas and his teachings from his personality. In this I may have been unique; but it was the best way to learn from him, and you could not learn his ideas in this way anywhere else.

Yes, he was a polemicist. He was at his best and his most passionate writing polemics. As Greg Guma wrote, “Whenever I saw Murray in an activist setting, he played the role of insurgent or obstructionist. Though he wanted to build a movement, he was, in the end, better at finding the flaws.” He could work well in coalition politics working against things, such as within the Clamshell Alliance, or fighting to protect the two year term for Governor in Vermont, or fighting against the luxury high-rise development that Mayor Bernie Sanders – now Senator from Vermont – wanted to build on the shores of Lake Champlain. He was good at that.

The problem with building a movement that Murray had – and he did – is that he subscribed to Eugene V. Debs’ notion that “It is better to fight for what you want and NOT get it, than to fight for what you DON’T want, and GET it.” When you made that deal with the Democratic candidate that you mentioned, you entered a slippery slope. Murray, to his credit or detriment, never stepped foot on that slope. Murray understood what happened to “Der Grunen” when the”Fundi’s” fought the “Realo’s.” He saw it dozens of times, if not hundreds of times, in his researching of “The Third Revolution.” He knew that the two greatest tragedies of the last millennium were the failure of the French Revolution and the success of the Russian Revolution. Every time an affinity group or a movement he was part of made any kind of compromise, he attempted to destroy it, because once compromised it could not, in his estimation, create the change needed. You can criticize that all you want; he had the historical knowledge to know what to expect once you compromised like that.

And he was probably right.

So there was no movement. He could fight against things far more effectively than he could fight for things, for the simple matter that there were far more ways to take things apart than there were to put things together exactly right, by his standards. His standards were impossibly high, and yet it could well be true that without those standards a movement would not succeed without being corrupted.

Michelle, above, writes,

“If you think you have a full-proof flawless theory of social change, then the theory functions like religious doctrine. There are those who are enlightened and those who are incapable of seeing the light. Enlightened ones become suspicious of the seemingly unenlightened, or come to disregard their relevance altogether. I see this all the time in radical/ left/ progressive circles. As you suggest, there is then little room to ask about how conditions shape consciousness, praxis, political priorities for various groups/ movements etc.”

Yet one of the brilliant things about Murray is that his work never reified. He constantly worked, read, and modified his work, until the day he died. You can see movement in his work from Post-Scarcity onward. You can see his gradual disenchantment with Horkheimer & Adorno, his relationship with the works of Hegel, his work on Urbanization, and his staying current on ecological issues. Unlike many great thinkers, his work evolved and became more nuanced over time.

In sum, his personality certainly got in his way. He left the YCL back in the thirties, but the YCL never fully left him. The YCL informed his concept of organizing throughout his life. His would accept nothing less than his ideals when organizing for a revolutionary Social Ecological society, and so it could never happen.

Fortunately, his works live on. Future generations can read his writings, divorced from his personality, and perhaps figure out how to achieve what he could not. After all, who alive knows the personality of Hegel? People may well be reading what he wrote perhaps long after you and I are gone. We don’t yet know what will become of his genius and his passion. That is for history to tell.

Someone just pointed out your essay to me, and here I am, responding, well over a year after you wrote it, and several months after the last reply.

I, too, was a Green in Burlington, Vermont. I moved up to Vermont at the suggestion of Dan C., for the express purpose of studying with Murray (I call him “Murray.” The first time I met him, I called him “Mr. Bookchin.” He said, “Please, call me ‘Murray.’ Only the FBI calls me ‘Mr. Bookchin.’”) I spent 15 years in Vermont, studying at Murray’s knee, writing down every word he said. I was in that class he gave on “The Politics of Cosmology” as well as the one on “The Third Revolution.”

You make some very astute observations about Murray and about the period in question, and I agree with many of them. I do want to address some questions Chuck asks about Vermont and Bookchin’s silence on white supremacy and racism.”

Like most of Murray’s positions, his position on race was very nuanced. As a white man, Murray was very aware of what was appropriate for him to do or say about racism and what was not. During the time of the Freedom Riders, for example, Murray participated in sit-ins during the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Flushing, NY, over segregation within participating governments. On the other hand, he also saw, he told us, the Black Panthers take advantage of their oppressed status to run roughshod through anti-war movements in the late 60’s. He told me specifically of one time when Panthers came in, put a gun on the table, and took all of the money that was meant to be distributed to various organizations. Murray recognized power and hierarchy where he saw it, and did not appreciate it from any angle.

He came to Vermont, originally, because students at Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont, including Dan Chodorkoff, invited him to speak, and then Dan and other students helped to create the Institute for Social Ecology which was affiliated with Goddard. I do believe that the libertarian aspects of Vermont’s culture and politics appealed to him (the town meeting, 2-year terms for Governor, etc.).

So I hope that answers your questions about race and Vermont.

As for his health issues, you seem to believe that he was on death’s door to gain sympathy. I met him first in 1981, and he was dying back then, and I know exactly what Chuck is talking about. I would joke with Murray about it. When he turned 80, for example, I told him that he only had 40 years before he turned 120, and to use them wisely. But he knew when he was really dying. During my last conversation with him, a few months before he died, I asked him why he kept telling us that his demise was immanent. He said “A Revolutionary never expects to live to an old age, and I’m a Revolutionary.”

Anyway, I enjoyed reading your reminescences. They brought back a lot of memories, and reflection on my part.

(Karl is referring to a critical discussion of this essay on the Communalism website. My comments begin on the second page.)

I appreciated your response to the discussion of your essay on the Communalism forum; I’ve posted a reply.

Best,
Karl

First, let me say that this was a very informative essay, and masterfully written. I find your analysis of Bookchin’s character very enlightening. It places the writings of his later years in a very important context, and has helped make my understanding of them more complete.

I am currently a college freshman at Montana State University, Bozeman. I picked up Bookchin’s works at the recommendation of a friend and fellow anarchist my Junior year in high school, and my life has not been the same ever since. I never had the privilege of meeting Bookchin in person, since he was already on his deathbed by the time I began my journey into the revolutionary left. It truly is a privilege to be able to learn from the experiences of individuals who new the man during his life.

I feel that your analysis of Bookchin’s character faults is spot on. I can see much of what you talk about reflected in his writings, particularly his polemics. Understanding Bookchin as a human, not a demigod communicating through abstract written pages, is what is necessary to move forward on the journey that he began but could not complete.

Thanks for your insights.

Jordan Majszak, fellow traveler of the libertarian communist tradition

Thank you for giving me an insightful analysis of my early years as a political conscious young man. I was a part of the Bookchinite movement for many years. And like you, I’ve leart everything about studying history and engaging politically from this milieu. As “futurebliss” have already said, it is good that you’re not disillusioned, but being realistic about Bookchin’s legacy. I hope that the some of the answers form current Social Ecologists will be able to fathom the main points in your criticism, instead of shooting at what is provocative, or irrelevant inexactitudes.

I just wanted to express my gratitude to everyone who has commented on my essay. I have really enjoyed reading your responses to it as well as your own reflections on Bookchin’s legacy. Thanks so much!

Best,
Chuck

I didn’t knew much about Bookchins personality, but from your writings on his personal characteristics, I now more closely understand the legacy he left upon cadres of the communalist/social anarchist/left green/whatever-tendency.

I agree with your criticism of all out voluntarism. I agree with the criticism of over-prioritizing polemics, as opposed to dedicating more time to constructive ideological work, when still being stuck in the faze of being a rather marginal tendency.

I even agree that for Bookchins own writings to captivate a mass audience, it lacks a certain coherence. And may i supplement: I think his writings also lacks concrete suggestions. Like when you depict the informal decay of democratic praxis in a milieu that formally adheres to some of THE most directly democratic theory. I can’t stop thinking this is PARTLY because his writings seemed to lack concrete direct democratic alternatives. His critiques of hypocracy-democracy is alright, but his alternative was draped in abstract and distant, value based theory (such as the classical Greek city states). (I wish I could refer to a pamphlet I’ve written on direct democracy which I made as concrete as it could possible be, but alas it’s only available in my mother tongue – Norwegian =( An English translation is due sometime though.)

It’s a really fine achievement to write such a sharp and lucid criticism which manage to pinpoint both the positive and negative aspects of his legacy. The best part of the essay is that you don’t regret and ain’t disillusioned, but summarize the period as inspiring and instructive, and continue fighting!

Bookchin is dead, most of the organizations and initiatives he started and inspired have either ceased existing or are utterly marginal. Let’s leave those ideas of Bookchins that were negative and insufficient behind, and continue to carry those of his ideas we see fit, as we move on and build a mass movement for a free world!

Comradely greetings from a Norwegian libertarian communist.