By Lawrence K. Helm
J. L. Speranza makes an interesting observation in his comment upon my note at http://griceclub.blogspot.com/2010/05/meager-principles-of-anarcho.html#comments
"For the 'liberal' -- whom I interpret alla British thought, to cover mainly Locke -- the 'co-operation' between individuals seems enough. But this 'co-operation' is NOT anarchic. There IS a principle that the anarchist, if he exists, must deny."
Speranza wasn't specifically disagreeing with me, but it was clearly an inconsistency in Sartre if one took the term "anarchy" in some strict sense. Consider http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-p/ In this reference Storm Heter, authored an essay entitled "Sartre's Political Philosophy", and wrote, "While never presenting a complete portrait of his ideal society (whether in fiction or non-fiction), Sartre was a lifelong advocate of socialism. In interviews late in life Sartre allowed himself to be called an 'anarchist' and a 'libertarian socialist' (See 'Interview with Jean-Paul Sartre' in The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, ed. P. A. Schilpp, p. 21.). . . ."
I'm not sufficiently tempted to buy Schilpp's book. I know Simone De Bouvier was very critical of Benny Levy for the "interviews" (http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Now-Interviews-2007-publication/dp/0226476316/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274220456&sr=1-1) he extracted from Sartre late in life: "Sartreans, including Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's longtime companion, were furious when these interviews between Sartre and his secretary, Levy, appeared in Le Nouvel Observateur a few months before Sartre's death in 1980, interviews whose authenticity Sartre confirmed. The critics claimed that Levy, a Maoist convert to orthodox Judaism, exploited Sartre's failing health, forcing him to abandon his leftist principles and to adopt a messianic Judaism." Sartre was nearly blind and of doubtful strength if not of his own faculties. She clearly didn't credit Benny Levy's interview.
Surely Speranza is correct in saying that anarchy precludes cooperation, but I would have said the same thing about Existentialism, that it precludes or at least makes bizarrely unnecessary, cooperation, and yet Sartre wrote a good deal about cooperation without ever relinquishing his Existentialism.
Then too anarchists can't do without some sort of cooperation. Note that Noam Chomsky calls himself an Anarcho-syndicalist. The form of cooperation, without calling it cooperation, Anarcho-Syndicalism advocates is "trade unionism." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism
Posts
Thanks, Larry. Excellent commentary. Loved your quotations of Sartre´s inconsistent self-labels, and all!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, "principle" is a bit of a trick. For Aristotle, an "arkhe" (Latin principium) is something we ´state´ as an ´axiom´, rather than a rule of action -- but I can see the connection. You are crediting the anarchist with too much of a virtuous ethic if you allow him a principle, even a meagre one. He is a man of No principle!
ReplyDeleteBorges, who is one of my mentors, would often define himself as an "anarchist" alla Spencer, but I never was able to trace back THAT reference. I´m sure it´s Not Sartrean!
No. No need for the Schlipp. Schilpp´s volumes are overrated, even if R. B. Jones´s loves his own -- which contains Carnap´s "Intellectual Autobiography". I once browsed the Strawson volume, and though thick, it is hardly illuminating! (Although it contains a good reference to Grice in his own "Intellectual Autobiography").
One is tempted to think of something as an Occam Razor, ¨Do not multiply principles beyond necessity", so in a way, a meagre principle should be TOO much to grant to an anarchist, as I say. The idea of one big principle out of which other things follow is a Kantian trait that Grice assumed. His cooperative principle (principle of cooperation, rather) he thus saw alla Kant as the ONE source out of which "maxims of behaviour" -- some of which WERE universalisable -- as a valuable feature of his ´scheme´. In his previous lectures, he would have referred to ¨helpfulness¨ rather, and to subsidiary principles of benevolence and self-love (along with desiderata of candour and clarity). All one needs to enter happily the Grice Club! (I long for the day his 1964 Logic and Conversation Oxford lectures are edited by Grice´s executors. So far the archival material comes from Grice´s biography by Chapman).
ReplyDeleteI think you are both party to the most elementary mistake that can be made about the nature of "anarchism", which is to suppose that anarchy is in this context a lack of order.
ReplyDeleteThe "archy" at stake here, which is being rejected by anarchists, is not order, organisation, structure or cooperation. It is control, compulsion. It is the idea that society should be organised by subjugating the will of the many to the authority of the few, or even to the dictatorship of the majority as in democracy.
The anarchist believes in wholly voluntary cooperation and in sufficiency of social order based on cooperation rather than compulsion.
Or (for the anarcho-capitalist) he believes that the most efficient society arises from competition in free marketplaces, this is the chaos from which all good things emerge as if by magic.
RBJ
Thank you, Roger. I will address some of the points in a specific blog post, and will let of course Helm address your points, too, which I hope he will!
ReplyDelete