[EDITOR'S NOTE: this is a response to Andy Price's "Communalism or Caricature."
I will post my own reply shortly. ~ Chuck Morse]
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Praying the Hail Murray, Again
By C.N. Tell
Was Murray Bookchin perfect personally and politically, or was he, like all of us, a vibrant and flawed example of imperfect historical processes? Who more accurately applies the lessons of Bookchin’s intellectual and political legacy, those who are willing to courageously initiate a constructive dialogue about a major radical thinker’s strengths and weaknesses, or those who narrowly defend a body of work—including the personality and relationships of the author– against any criticism? I value Andy Price’s response to Chuck Morse’s “Being a Bookchinite” because it unwittingly affirms that the new Bookchinism is not much different than the old variety. While abstractly committed to dialectical reflection and democratic processes, Bookchinism is still practically mired in flattened anti-dialectical logic and an all too predictable dogmatic sectarianism. This is not that surprising, because, as Morse implies in “Being a Bookchinite,” dogmatism may be (gasp!) endemic to Bookchinism in general.
I will briefly focus on two major points in Andy Price’s essay. First, Price asserts that Morse’s use of personal examples is “gossipy” and therefore illegitimate. An argument for a strict personal/ political or personal/theoretical dichotomy is tricky in critical exchanges (and as I note later, Price himself does not refrain from such tactics in his own response). After all, one of the most attractive aspects of the anarchist tradition is the inclusion and centralization of the personal in politics. This includes examination of egoism, opportunism, and ulterior motives in political groups and movements. What struck me about Morse’s essay the first time I read it is that he was being gracious when using personal examples. I know that there were even more egregious examples he could have used to illustrate Bookchin’s trademark self-aggrandizement and political territorialism. These trademark personality traits were frustrating and destructive, but they could also be comical and endearing at times. It just depended on the context. This is one reason why people have complex responses to Bookchin personally and politically.
Morse was intimately involved in Bookchin’s inner circle, and I knew him to be one of Bookchin’s most intimate confidantes and loyal supporters for several years. Given this fact, Morse obviously wanted to avoid making this into a pissing match about someone’s good or bad behavior because, if that were the case, he would have provided plenty more examples. I applaud Morse for his self-restraint in choosing the so-called “personal recollections” that he shares. But far from mere recollections or insinuations, these were real lived experiences from which important political lessons can be gleaned.
Many of us who studied Bookchin’s ideas thought it would be a challenge—maybe even an impossibility–to apply a political practice cultivated in the New England town meeting tradition to complex multi-racial urban environments. That was a fairly standard issue in Burlington when I moved there in 1991, and it was one of the factors involved in people’s decisions to study other thinkers and movements and pursue political projects beyond New England’s social ecology community. Price responds that Morse’s “most specious accusation” against Bookchin is that Bookchin inadequately addresses white supremacy and race issues in his works. However, I think this is one of the most obvious points to make, and shouldn’t be considered such a dramatic accusation. Also, lacking substance in the face of Morse’s supposedly specious accusation, Price contradicts his earlier dismissal of the critical legitimacy of personal examples when he cites Bookchin’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement. If that biographical fact is fair game, then so are other biographical facts.
Clearly Morse appreciates Bookchin’s talent for understanding, as Price puts it, the “dialectical development of oppositional thought in light of the ever-shifting terrain of capitalism.” Contrary to Price’s abstract references to dialectics in the review portion of his essay, Morse’s balanced assessment of Bookchin’s contributions and failings is true dialectical criticism. He recognizes that Bookchin both acted against and was acted upon by history, including the history of white supremacy as it plays out in the movements and theories of Bookchin’s expansive time. It is this more complex framing that continues the best aspects of Bookchin’s legacy. Another “Hail Murray” tract, like Price’s, simply foregrounds Bookchin’s closed dogmatic side over the generous and open one. While it may be a harder pill to swallow, acknowledging Bookchin’s shortcomings as manifested in the personal interactions he had in groups and movements, the organizations he founded and participated in, and his writings, is an important step in the very process of historical consciousness and uncompromising critique that Bookchin so consistently championed.
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