Anarcho-Syndicalism Isn't Chaos

Recently one or another of the nephews has been learning about various political whatchamacallits. The official answer for Anarchism is chaos. I've been reading Orwell on Spain. He does a really nice job of liming Anarcho-Sydicalism and, I think, Anarchism more generally in Chapter 5 of Homage. This post does a nice job of differentiating Hitchens from Orwell, although I think he underestimates Orwell condescension toward the "common man"; nonetheless, Orwell  was on the right side of this debate:



And this one:




Hitchens wasn't. More importantly, the one or another of the nephews' teacher fails entirely to understand that Anarchism is the logical culmination of buy local or think global act local arguments.It is also, pace theological nonsense, the logical culmination of Camus faith in humanity's ability to perfect the world, which is closely allied to Havel's notion of hope in the face of absurd death.

In short, the Anarchist argument hinges on the humanist impulse and the humanist impulse hinges on the "Enlightenment Project" of leaving self-imposed tutelage and thinking for one's self. It is true, as Hamann argued, that Kant suggests the tutelage of reason instead of the unreason of faith. It is also true that Kant was right and Hamann wrong.