The Communitarian, Mystical, Responsible Anarchism of Gustav Landauer

Gustav Landauer's conception of Anarchism can be described as communitarian and even mystical. It is also responsible Anarchism. It places the nature and make-up of the State squarely on the shoulders of those who make up the State - WE. "We are the State", declares Landauer.

While I would certainly recommend reading the entire article: http://tinyurl.com/9t9kj and this only to whet your appetites to learn more about him and read the works of this great Spirit, I should like to turn your attention to two passages from the article. Quote: "Note how he does not reify the State by turning it into an object above us and how he refuses to turn politicians into scapegoats."

Landauer does not bellyache about how politicians are ruining society. We are the State.

Quote: "The following quote is probably the only bit of Landauer's writing that is fairly well known, among anarchists, at least. The State is a condition, a certain relationship among human beings, a mode of behavior, we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one and other... We are the State and continue to be the State until we have created the institutions that form a real community..."(Lunn, Eugene - PROPHET OF COMMUNITY, Univ. of California 1973, pg. 226)

Anyone who has grasped this principle understands that all of the critique of regimes in the world, be it at the highest pinnacles of the academic and journalistic ivory towers or on the lowest, knock-down-drag-out message boards that occupy so much bandwidth will avail anything.

We are the State and continue to be the State until we have created the institutions that form a real community.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com