106 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
106 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
Some of you may have seen Molly Tov's editorial in several anarchist papers
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and zines. Here's Bob Black's response which he sent to me:
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REFLECTIONS ON, REACTIONS TO MOLLY TOV
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by BOB BLACK
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In "A Message to 'Anarchist' Men, and Then Some" (in *Profane
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Existence* and *Practical Anarchy), Molly Tov voices so many criticisms of
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anarchist men that she understandably overlooks the way several of them
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apply to anarchist women -- or at least to Tov herself -- too.
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For awhile as I read her rant I was congratulating myself that an
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anarcha-feminist had come, ten years after my "Feminism as Fascism," to my
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point of view, but I was the one who had come -- too soon. Tov complains
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that anarchist men have learned to mouth feminist rhetoric to get laid or
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otherwise get women to do what they want. I said so ten years ago,
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although I also observed, as Tov does not, that women, such as leftists
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and/or lesbians, can mouth feminist catchphrases for the same self-serving
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reasons.
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Even those men, if there are any, who aren't just feminists for
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immediate personal gain are feminists, Tov suggests, the way they are
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everything else-ist's: in descending order of self-interest. Anti-racism
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is easiest since it authorizes fighting with skinheads, etc. with, finally,
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ageism (they being young) and ableism (they being able enough to fight with
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skinheads) bringing up the rear somewhere behind anti-sexism even if they
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are sincere about all of this.
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Preliminarily, why *shouldn't* people start with their *own*
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oppression? There's no better place to start. And then, for them to
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notice others, too, are oppressed, often by a common enemy. For example,
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point out to black sexist men that they are treating women the way whites
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treat blacks, or point out to Jewish Zionists that Israel treats
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Palestinians the way Zionists complain Gentiles have long treated Jews.
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"How did some isms become more important to others you ask?"
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Actually, I didn't ask, Tov did, but what is her answer? Is there an
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objective rank-ordering of victim-groups in descending order of suffering
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or powerlessness? I doubt very much anarchist theory, or any theory,
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provides one. Certainly Tov doesn't have one, since she contradicts
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herself back-to-back on this one. "We [sic] already know that all men are
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sexist, just as all white people are racist..." Okay, so what happens when
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a white woman (all whites are racist) squares off ideologically against a
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black man (all men are sexist)? This is no hypothetical, it's been
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happening since the 1860's.
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Tov's hypothetical of anarcho-male priorities was amusing but what
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are *her* priorities? I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that
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Ms. Tov, is a white female who is not a victim of speciesism (since she is
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human), not a victim of ageism and not a victim of ableism. I might be
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wrong in one or more of these assumptions, but I'll make book I'm not wrong
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about all of them.
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What then id Tov's first priority? Ableism? Speciesism? Ageism?
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Racism? hell no it's FEMINISM, which she prefers to her second choice,
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ANARCHISM, apparently. But isn't it SELFISH of her to place FEMINISM,
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becuase it benefits her, above ableism, speciesism etc. in which she has no
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immediate personal interest? How does this differ from how the anarchist
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men she berates arrange their priorities? Is *she* the member of each and
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every possible downtrodden group? If not, how does she decide which ones
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to put any effort into succoring? In the unlikely event she *is* a member
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of every known victim-group she is probably too powerless to do anything
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for any of them and the rest of us, more favored if maybe not by much, will
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have to make our own choices.
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My impression is that Tov's critique is very specific -- and if it
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is, this adds to its power -- to a very specific setting, the
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leftists-anarchist *scene* (perhaps the one in Minneapolis, although I am
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sure what she says applies to others). A *scene* is just that, a stage, a
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public arena. She is talking about a situation in which activists are
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actors for one another. i consider these scenes pernicious. They are
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encapsulated in subcultures (usually punk) which provide social (and
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sexual) fields for some of those alienated from the usual fare, but they
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fail to reach out to the general population to just the extent they succeed
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in pulling their wagons into a circle to protect their own. Group dynamics
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in such scenes (or, as they sometimes turn into, cults) are intense,
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introspective and in time pathologiacl for the minority which they haven't
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driven away.
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Maybe Tov should drop the quotation marks, stop worrying so much
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about "anarchists" vs. anarchists, "anti-sexism" vs, anti-sexism, and
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instead of complaining why some ism's are more equal than others, blow off
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ism's altogether, including feminism. And get out of whatever ghetto has
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so soured her on her "anarchist" fellows. Just as Christians are the best
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argument against Christianity, it is all too often true that anarchists are
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the best argument against anarchism. But lon after anarchism has withered
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away, the dream of ANARCHY will live on.
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Bob can be reached at:
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PO Box 3142
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Albany, NY 12203-0142
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*Black's essays convinced me long ago to avoid using the word "anarchism,"
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so now I usually just say anarchy. There are a lot of anarchistic people
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out there who aren't anarchists --chuck*
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@ Chuck Munson @
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@ Media and Microcomputer Center @
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@ College Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison @
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@ Internet: ctmunson@macc.wisc.edu @
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@ Bitnet: ctmunson@wiscmacc.bitnet @
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@ @
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@ "a library without walls tends to fall down" @
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@ "The human tendency prefers familiar horrors to unknown @
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@ delights." --Fred Woodworth @
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