Submitted by existential1 in Anarchism

I've gotten the idea that many here are against platformists...I'm wondering what the general stance is on social insertion, which seems to be something platformists believe in as a means to influence the non-anarchists.

10

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

An_Old_Big_Tree wrote (edited )

edited:

I'm not sure what social insertion is, in reality, for platformists. I've met platformists before and in practice they seemed generally to be the in-groupy basic conservatives I had hoped they weren't. Anyway, exceptions exist everywhere.

What I have done recently probably looks a little bit like what a good version of social insertion might look like.

Where I am, there aren't anarchists. So if I want to collaborate with people, I usually go and look for the most radical events happening and start helping out (because I want them to grow and succeed). I look for the most radical people with the most interesting politics while I'm there, and with a bit of time opportunities will arise for me to chat with them. Usually we'll understand quite quickly if we are walking in the same directions. I'm not dishonest with them about it.
If I'm lucky, I'll come out of those events with a friend or two. Over time we'll be in reading groups together, doing basic illegal stuff together, building on each other's projects in various ways, and ultimately working towards bigger projects with other people.

Which is to say, I think it depends on your context.

I've also lived in towns with infoshops and towns with many anarchists, and they each came with their own ways of doing anarchist things. I think in general I'd like to do both work with only anarchists and also work to make more anarchists at any time. Not because I want to build a critical mass, but because I like anarchists and friends!

5

Cheeks wrote (edited )

Platformists in the sense of Kropotkin, I wouldn't say that's entirely true. But platformist in a more modern liberal view, then definitely there is apprehension. We have learned that the former is incredibly counter productive to our goals as anarchists or even Socialists or communists outside of the newer definition of those ideas which is essentially state capitalism. *edit * to correct auto-correct.

3

behemoth wrote

Note: I'm not a platformist.

When discussing these things, I think it is best to start by clarifying a definition.

The Black Rose Anarchist Federation (platformist) defines 'social insertion' as "Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements".

"Social insertion means anarchist involvement in the daily fights of the oppressed and working classes. It does not mean acting within single-issue advocacy campaigns based around the involvement of expected traditional political activists, but rather within movements of people struggling to better their own condition, which come together not always out of exclusively materially-based needs, but also socially and historically rooted needs of resisting the attacks of the state and capitalism. [...] Especifismo’s conception of the relation of ideas to the popular movement is that they should not be imposed through a leadership, through “mass line,” or by intellectuals. Anarchist militants should not attempt to move movements into proclaiming an “anarchist” position, but should instead work to preserve their anarchist thrust; that is, their natural tendency to be self-organized and to militantly fight for their own interests. This assumes the perspective that social movements will reach their own logic of creating revolution, not when they as a whole necessarily reach the point of being self-identified “anarchists,” but when as a whole (or at least an overwhelming majority) they reach the consciousness of their own power and exercise this power in their daily lives, in a way consciously adopting the ideas of anarchism. An additional role of the anarchist militant within the social movements, according to the Especifists, is to address the multiple political currents that will exist within movements and to actively combat the opportunistic elements of vanguardism and electoral politics"

Source: https://blackrosefed.org/especifismo-weaver/

I believe 'social insertion' as an explicit strategy first came about in reaction to the dominant attitude of anarchists at the time that they should not participate in struggles unless they were specifically anarchist, an attitude that isolated anarchists from popular struggles and revolts, and fed into ideological elitism.

Many anarchists outside of the platformist/especifismo tradition made similar arguments, perhaps without the 'social insertion' jargon, for example Errico Malatesta.

Taken to simply refer to anarchist engagement with the struggles of the exploited and oppressed, regardless of whether they identify with anarchism and its methods, and then as autonomous participants of such struggles encouraging direct action and self-organisation while fighting off emergent authorities and recuperation, at the same time as spreading a revolutionary perspective, I think most anarchists today except for the nihilists would have little to disagree with, except perhaps the unnecessary jargon.

2