Listening, caring, becoming
anarchism as an ethics of direct relationships
pp. 186-207
in: Benjamin Franks, Matthew Wilson (eds), Anarchism and moral philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2010Abstract
Anarchism is notoriously difficult to define. It has been referred to as an ideology, a discourse (Williams, 2007), a political culture (Gordon, 2008), a utopian philosophy and even a "definite trend" in the history of humankind (Rocker, cited in Chomsky, 2005: 9). And that is just among its supporters. Here, I want to add to this polyvocal effort to understand and explore anarchism with a complementary notion: that of anarchism as an ethics of relationships. Ecological and social, embodied and symbolic, interpersonal and interspecies, of class and race and gender and nation, anarchist ethics apply to relationships of all sorts.