by Alyce Santoro
Truthout
March 4th, 2014
Social geography is the study of how landscape, climate, and other
features of a place shape the livelihoods, values, and cultural
traditions of its inhabitants (and vice versa). Frenchman Elisée Reclus
(1830 – 1905), a progenitor of the discipline, believed strongly in the
rights and abilities of people to manage themselves in relation to their
local bioregion, free from rule by a remote, centralized government.
His approach to anarchy was unique in its emphasis on the environment –
Reclus understood that a mindset that encourages one person or people’s
domination over another must, in the race to profit from natural
“resources”, also foster domination over nature. Like the social
ecologists who have succeeded him, Reclus believed that solutions to
ecological crises must involve restoring balance, equality, and a sense
of interrelationship between humans and other humans, and between humans
and the biosphere.
The first half of the recently-published Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus, edited
and translated by John Clark and Camille Martin, forms a comprehensive
critical survey of Reclus’ philosophy and political theory,including
biographical information and historical context. The “modern”
manifestations of oppression (including the concentration of wealth and
power, surveillance, racism, sexism, and ecological degradation) that
concerned Reclus in late-1800s Europe, the United States, and Central
and South America are indeed still strikingly – infuriatingly – present.
The second half of the book consists of translations of several pieces
from Reclus’ extensive oeuvre, some of which have never before appeared
in English translation.
AS: Can you describe how anarchy –
specifically the kind based in mutual aid and environmental
responsibility in service to a greater good illuminated here by Reclus,
and by you in your book The Impossible Community, differs from other
conceptions (or misconceptions) of anarchy, and how it might (as
contrasted with other ideologies) be useful to us now?
John P. Clark: The world is rife with misconceptions about anarchism.
The
most historically and theoretically grounded definition – the one that
goes back to classical figures like Elisée Reclus – is quite simple:
anarchy consists of the critique of all systems of domination and the
struggle to abolish those systems, in concert with the practice of free,
non-dominating community, which is the real alternative to these
systems. Anarchy is the entire sphere of human life that takes place
outside the boundaries of arche, or domination, in all its forms –
statism, nationalism, capitalism, patriarchy, racial oppression,
heterosexism, technological domination, the domination of nature,
etc. It rejects the hegemony of the centralized state, the capitalist
market, and any hybrid of the two, and seeks to create a society free of
all systematic forms of domination of humanity and nature. It envisions
a society in which power remains decentralized at the base,
decision-making is carried out through voluntary association and
participatory democracy, and larger social purposes are pursued through
the free federation of communities, affinity groups, and associations.
Anarchism is not merely about a transformation of social institutional structures, however. As further discussed in my book The Impossible Community,
it also encompasses a fundamental transformation of the social
imaginary, the social ideology, and the social ethos. Communitarian
anarchism assumes that social transformation, to be successful, must
encompass all major spheres of social determination. It recognizes that
there are ontological, ethical, aesthetic, psychological, and spiritual
dimensions of anarchy or non-domination. According to Reclus and other
communitarian anarchists, these are not just vague ideals to be achieved
in some future utopia; rather, such a transformation is immediately
realized here and nowwherever love and solidarity are embodied in
existing human relationships and social practice. Anarchism is strongly
committed to “prefigurative” forms of association, and to the idea of
“creating the new society within the shell of the old.” In fact, the
communities of liberation that we create here and now do more than
“prefigure” the ultimate goal; they are actual “figurations” of our
ideals, actually giving a form, or a face, to them in the present.
By
demonstrating that the most deeply rooted social order arises not out
of coercion, oppression, and domination, but out of mutual aid and
cooperation, communitarian anarchism is a truly revolutionary project.
In working to regenerate community at the most fundamental level, it
seeks to reverse the course of thousands of years of history in which
relations of solidarity have been progressively replaced by market
relations, commodity relations, bureaucratic relations, technical
relations, instrumental relations, and relations of coercion and
domination. The ecocidal and genocidal effects of such relations compel
us to consider whether we will remain on history’s present catastrophic
course, or seize the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the
flourishing of both humanity and the whole of life in the biospheric
community. In the work of Reclus we find universally accessible,
immediately implementable alternatives.
Reclus cites some of the
anarchic forms of human community that have made up much of world
history, and remarks that “the names of the Spanish comuñeros, of the
French communes, of the English yeomen, of the free cities in Germany,
of the Republic of Novgorod and of the marvelous communities of Italy
must be, with us Anarchists, household words: never was civilized
humanity nearer to real Anarchy than it was in certain phases of the
communal history of Florence and Nürnberg.” Today we can add the names
of many movements that span the century since Reclus: the collectives in
the Spanish Revolution; the Gandhian Sarvodaya Movement; the global
cooperative movement; the rich history of libertarian intentional
communities; the Zapatista Movement; radical indigenous movements
throughout the world; the global justice movement; and recently, the
“horizontalist” practice of the Occupy Movement.
AS: In his 1898
essay “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal” Reclus reflects
on “the spirit of the strike” and various kinds of cooperative
associations (such as bartering of goods and services, collaborative
communities, and consumers’ associations) as effective ways to build
solidarity. He claims that it is “in struggling for a common
cause” together that we form the bonds necessary for the ongoing project
of social revolution. In an 1895 letter to Clara Koettlitz he advises
the aspiring anarchist to “work to free himself personally from all
preconceived or imposed ideas, and gradually gather around himself
friends who live and act in the same way. It is step by step, through
small, loving, and intelligent associations that the great fraternal
society will be formed.” Can you speak on the transformative power of
the process itself? Can you recommend some constructive immediate steps
for today’s revolutionaries?
JPC: The spirit of the strike,
which means essentially the spirit of active and creative resistance,
has enormous significance in the everyday life of any person who is
committed to liberatory social transformation. In our present epoch of
looming ecocidal and genocidal catastrophe, each person must make a
basic decision. It is a “living, forced, momentous option,” to use
William James’s famous terms. Each must answer the question, “Am I a
resister or am I collaborator?” This is as true for us today as it was
for anyone living in Vichy France in the early 40s. We must decide
either for solidarity with humanity and nature or for betrayal of both
in the struggle against domination. For this reason we might say that
authentic anarchists are not merely an-archists but anti-archists. To be
an “an-archist,” one who is “not an archist,” might imply something
like “domination just isn’t my thing,” or “I’m not comfortable with
domination.” But the true spirit of anarchism, that is, anti-archism,
implies that “domination is an intolerable thing,” that “when I see
domination in any form I become indignant.”
I agree with Reclus’
contention that “small, loving and intelligent associations” are thekey
to breaking out of the cycle of social determination and regenerating
free community on the larger social level. Such micro-communities are
“small” in the sense that they are the locus of primary, intimate,
face-to-face relationships, they are “loving” in that they are founded
on the practice of solidarity, mutual aid, compassion, and cooperation,
and they are “intelligent” in that they are self-consciously
transformative, awakened to their own meaning and purpose, the primary
social space in which theory and practice converge. As primary
communities of solidarity they are the only basis on which a solidarity
economy and a larger solidarity society can be created. Reclus believed
that these “small, loving and intelligent associations” should not
isolate themselves, but on the contrary should develop their lives
together in close relationship to their larger communities, always
considering their role in the evolution of the whole society toward “the
great fraternal society” of the future.
While ambivalent
towards, and even skeptical of, the role of small cooperatives and
intentional “communes” or “colonies” separate from the local community,
Reclus believed that an indispensable part of the process of social
transformation is the creation of institutions that embody a growing
spirit and practice of solidarity at the most basic levels of society.He
stressed the importance of the development of a “spirit of full
association” in which local communities collectively take on many
cooperative projects. He looked to already-existing practices of mutual
aid and cooperation as a kind of material basis on which further
developments could be grounded.The Reclus family’s life, which was
pervaded by love and cooperation, was described by Elisée’s nephew and
biographer Paul Reclus as “putting communism into practice.” Thus,
Reclus’ own family was in effect a libertarian communist or
communitarian anarchist affinity group, his most immediate evidence of
what is possible in a future society.
In The Impossible Community,
I refer to “communities of liberation and solidarity,” but these have
gone under many names, notably, the “affinity group” in the anarchist
movement, the “base community” in Latin American social justice
movements, and the “ashram” in the Gandhian Sarvodaya Movement. In all
of these cases, the fact that they have been integral parts of
transformative social movements has helped protect them from the
pitfalls of self-obsession and self-marginalization that Reclus saw in
some intentional communities. Rather than one-sidedly turning inward,
they turn both inward and outward simultaneously, and act as the
foundation for larger federative activity. We might call them the
material and spiritual base for social evolution and social revolution.
Reclus’
insights into the “spirit of full association” are desperately needed
by today’s anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and all those who are
concerned with liberatory social transformation. On the one hand, many
of those who have the most far-reaching visions of social change remain
trapped in marginal projects and relatively isolated subcultures. On the
other hand, almost all those who are most actively engaged with local
communities are in the end co-opted into single-issue politics and
innocuous reformism. Reclus urges activists, (who must be, he says, at
once “evolutionists” and “revolutionists”) to become deeply engaged in
the struggles of actually-existing communities, focusing on the needs
and aspirations of ordinary people, while at the same time helping to
create new expressions of communal solidarity that are a revolutionary
challenge to the existing system of domination.
AS: The caption
to an illustration of the globe being held up by two hands that appears
in the preface to Reclus’ 3,500-page masterwork L’Homme et la
Terre (reproduced in this edition of Anarchy, Geography, Modernity)
contains one of his best-known maxims: “L’homme est la nature prenant
conscience d’elle-même” – translated here as “humanity is nature
becoming self-conscious.” Do you think (or might Reclus have thought)
that humans are the only biological creature that is an artifact of
nature becoming conscious of itself?
JPC: Human beings are
certainly not the only form of nature’s consciousness. Of course, all
consciousness is nature’s consciousness, and since the objects of this
consciousness are also nature, there is a sense in which all
consciousness is nature’s self-consciousness, as I’m sure Reclus would
agree. But the idea that humans are self-conscious nature in a strong
sense means that not only do we possess consciousness,we are capable of
knowing that we have this quality and guiding our actions accordingly.
There is a degree of self-consciousness that makes possible a sense of
wonder at the natural world and a sense of responsibility concerning it.
It is this self-consciousness that makes possible a narrative
understanding of our place in the natural world.
We are only
now beginning to see the way in which Reclus’ thought made a major
contribution to the dawning awareness of humanity’s place within a
larger story of the earth. His conviction that “humanity is nature
becoming self-conscious” belongs to certain wide-ranging tendencies in
Nineteenth Century thought. On the one hand, German idealist philosophy
(Hegel, Schelling) and Romantic literature (Wordsworth, the
transcendentalists) reinterpreted all of reality as aspects of a
Universal Spirit that encompasses humanity and nature, and was becoming
conscious of itself in history. But these insights stayed largely on an
idealist and aesthetic level, and Spirit remained largely divorced from
scientific and material realities. Marx’s historical materialism
contributed much of what was lacking in such idealist accounts, in that
it interpreted history as the story of the alienation of humanity from
its own life activity and productive processes, and of the overcoming of
this split and the ideologies that mystify it. This account was in many
ways a great advance, in that it was grounded in material reality and
took seriously the insights of modern science. Yet it tended toward a
reductionism that ignored many of the dimensions of nature and spirit
that idealism and Romanticism uncovered. Reclus’ thought was the first
attempt at a real synthesis and transcendence of these two perspectives.
In his work, Hegel’s story of “Spirit” and Marx’s story of “Man” are
raised up (aufgehoben) to the level of the “Earth Story”, a narrative in
which humanity is seen as developing in dialectical relation to nature,
and in which the opposition between spirit and matter is overcome…or,
minimally, that the project of overcoming it is posed seriously.
Prior
to the late twentieth century,broad, encompassing, synthesizing
conceptions of the global and of “globalization” had not pervaded the
general consciousness. Yet, well before the end of the Nineteenth
Century, Reclus had already begun developing a theoretically
sophisticated historical and geographical conception of globalization,
one that encompasses the geological, geographical, ecological,
political, economic, and cultural spheres. Reclus is thus a crucial
figure in the emergence of a conception of globalization that remains
more advanced than the ones that predominate even today. He urged us,
long before this language even existed, to overcome the “centrisms” that
have doomed us. He attacked the egocentrism that raises one individual
above others and the anthropocentrism that subordinates the natural
world to humanity. But not least of all he challenged his age to
overcome Eurocentrism and adopt a truly global perspective. He asks,
“Hasn’t it become obvious to members of the great human family that the
center of civilization is already everywhere?” [AGM, p. 222]. In the
end, Reclus is a visionary and prophet of earth-consciousness and
world-consciousness in their deepest senses, senses that are still only
beginning to dawn on humanity.
Reclus summarizes his project in
his two great works, The New Universal Geography and Humanity and the
Earth (which together run to nearly 20,000 pages) as “the attempt to
follow the evolution of humanity in relation to forms of life on earth,
and the evolution of forms of life on earth in relation to
humanity.” [Élisée Reclus, Leçon d’ouverture du cours de Géographie
comparée dans l’espace et dans le temps. Extrait de la REVUE
UNIVERSITAIRE, Bruxelles, 1894, p. 5, my translation]. It is for this
reason that he deserves recognition as a founder not only of social
geography but also of social ecology. In fact, his rich, detailed
development of social ecological analysis makes most of what has gone
under that rubric since his time seem amateurish in comparison. We need
to reinvigorate social ecology today with the kind of scientific and
historical grounding found in Reclus but with a theoretical rigor that
goes far beyond his efforts.
Reclus’ announcement that “humanity
is nature becoming self-conscious” is a quite momentous one, and is
certain to become even more fateful as global climate catastrophe
accelerates and as we move more deeply into the Sixth Mass Extinction of
life on Earth.We need to ponder what is at stake today in the question
of whether humanity can actively assume its role as self-conscious
nature. Reclus was confident that it would succeed in doing so, and in
the process demonstrate that another world is possible beyond the limits
of domination. Today, in our much less optimistic age, it is much more
difficult for many to believe that such an “other world” is at all
possible, despite the fact there are ever stronger indications that the
present one is becoming less possible day by day. This world’s ultimate
impossibility, even if it is inevitable, remains implausible. For its
productive powers, imaginary powers and ideological powers are all
seeming testimony to its insuperable reality, and these powerscontinue
to expand. In reality, we have good reason to ask whether, if another
world does not rapidly become possible, any world at all will remain
actual. The impossible community, the Reclusian community of love and
solidarity, is a practical and dialectical answer to this more than
theoretical, more than rhetorical question. In the midst of a
world-destroying epoch, the impossible community presents itself as a
world-making and world-preserving community. In the midst of egocentric
cynicism and moral paralysis, it is a charismatic community of gifts and
of the gift. It is an ethos that inspires and reawakens the person,
sweeping him or her into a new realm of deeper reality and more
compelling truth. It is our ultimate hope for the world.
Alyce Santoro’s interview with John P. Clark on his book The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism published in Truthout on June 9, 2013 can be found here.
Back to John P. Clark’s Author Page | Back to Camille Martin’s Editor Page
