Response to: "The Incredible Lameness of Left-Anarchism" by Jason McQuinn

(See: http://tinyurl.com/d6bwt)

I fully agree with Mr. Quinn that the Anarchist movement should distance itself from the ills that have beset the Left for all of the reasons he states in this article and more.

However, I must ask: why did the author find it necessary to indulge in the sarcasm that has gone past being ubiquitous to the point of being de rigueur?

Can't a bit of Anarchist spirit be applied here too and can we not resist the temptation to use expressions like: "Duh!" and "Wow!" that litter so much of the writings on the internet and mar an otherwise intelligent essay that pains were obviously taken to craft?

There is simply no room for sarcasm, which evinces surrender to one's visceral emotions, when writing an essay that also expresses the wish to be accepted on its intellectual merit alone.

Secondly, and more importantly, why is post-Marxist/Leninist /Maoist Anarchism called post-Leftist?

Gustav Landauer was a Leftist also, yet he was anti-Marxist and predicted with preternatural prescience what would happen if governments were to be based on Marxist theory. Yet, he called himself a Socialist and published a paper called Der Sozialist.

You, Jason, speak against the reification of the state, and quite correctly so. Was it not Gustav Landauer who spoke most eloquently against the reification of the state?

Most importantly, and this is what Landauer's Socialist Anarchism included that Marx's did not, was his full acceptance, nay embracing, of Geist (Spirit). Landauer was not only a great mind and a great heart, he was a man of great Spirit, who did not shy away from using the term Spirit. Fom that Spirit derived his vision, his energy, his perseverance and his bravery even when being faced with murder.

Had the Socialism of Landauer not been eclipsed by that of Marx the entire 20th C. would have been different. It behooves us to delve deeply into the human psyche to understand why the teachings of Marx were found to be so very attractive, while those of Gustav Landauer were rejected during his lifetime for the most part and thereafter as well.

When I think that while the Nazi machine churned, the Stalinist purges ravaged the USSR and the orgy of violence that was called the "Cultural Revolution" raped The People's Republic of China, even as the words of Gustav Landauer went unheard in obscurity, I feel an indescribable depth of sadness at the needless tragedy.

And so, Jason, I would recommend to you not to call the Anarchist movement that you set yourself in contradistinction to "Leftist Anarchism" or call it "lame", but rather call it what it is – soulless. Being soulless was the undoing of Marxism from its inception.

May we have the robustness and the courage to embrace an Anarchy that is infused with Spirit.

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