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The Anatomy of the Encounter
The Anatomy of the Encounter
September 7,
2013 Shawn
P. Wilbur Contr’un
If I’m right about Proudhon’s anarchism [specifically here,
and then here],
then everything depends on understanding the nature of what I’ve been
calling the anarchic encounter. (If I’m wrong, I wish someone
would point out where I’ve gone astray.) If we apply the lessons of
Proudhon’s critical period, and take up the tools of his transitional
period, nothing is exactly simple, but we know that amidst all the
complexities one pattern repeats which at least has very few moving
parts—“an equation and a collective power.” I’ve been encouraging people
to think of this repeating pattern, this repeating moment, as a
creative moment, pregnant with possibility. “Another world is possible,”
every time equal uniques, free absolutes, meet on a
terrain shaped by any number of histories but no structures of
authority. And from the association of these free absolutes
something else is inevitably born, though at the scale we’re talking
about it may be a rather ephemeral something. But we know that
our focus on any one instance of this encounter is just a sort
of “Crusoe economics” in a field that may or may not turn out to be
primarily economic, and we have at least made a start at wrestling with
the more powerful, persistent varieties of these offspring of
association—the State, the Market, etc.
But it’s hard to address relations at those much more extensive
scales, if we can’t come to terms with the fundamental dynamics of the
encounter. So we’ll linger just a bit longer and play with
those few moving parts.
- We begin with these free absolutes, these uniques.
According to the first, Proudhonian designation, we are dealing with
individuals, groups organized according to an unfolding law of
development, but with a consciousness of their nature and a capacity for
self-reflection. They may, on the one hand, be inclined to
absolutism, to taking their internal law for the law of the
world, but they are also capable of recognizing another like themselves,
and understanding that in a world of absolutes either some must be
masters of others, or there must be balance. With no criterion of
certainty for their observations or judgments, beyond the apparently
similarity—in this absolutist dimension—of these otherwise unique
beings, with incommensurable experiences and unknowable essences, they
find themselves with equality, Proudhon suggests, as the only
basis on which to proceed from individual isolation to society.
And this is the heart of Proudhon’s “system.” Although he doesn’t share
the same vocabulary, or a number of philosophical assumptions, his free
absolutes rather closely resemble Stirner’s “unique,” which is always in
an important sense a singular being, irreducible even to a
class of uniques. The singularity of the unique is not
simply a unity; it is not simple, and it is in-progress—or it is, like
Proudhon’s “Revolution,” always in the midst of a play between
conservation and progress, change and persistence. Resisting any
reduction to static singleness and simplicity, these subjects of the
encounter are one sort of contr’un.
- We have these selves, which might be just as well
designated as these others, meeting on a terrain without
hierarchical elevations, without laws of the land. While there are any
number of material constraints on every encounter, and any number of
histories weighing on the moment, the thing that we should probably be
concentrating on is the enormous range of possibilities facing every new
encounter, presenting options for new associations. If Proudhon’s whole
anarchic social system begins with an equation, then to follow
him onto the terrain of his anarchy, we probably have to set
aside a lot of our usual guides—a priori axioms, natural laws, rights
and duties, even some kinds of “common sense.” Or if we choose to employ
them, we probably have to really choose to employ them, to take
responsibility for them. By Proudhon’s criteria, these guides are likely
to resemble the outcomes of metaphysical speculation—we can’t help but
speculate, but our generalizations are at best approximations,
which we should jettison as soon as our observations of relations, the
real matter of all the sciences, prompt us to. By the time Proudhon has
had his way with philosophy and the various sciences, equality stands as
essentially the sole criterion for a whole range of operations and
justification—balance—appears to be the essence of method. (Though,
naturally, we speak of essencesonly with reservations.) Whether
or not we follow Proudhon this far in practice, there seem to be lots of
good reasons to attempt to at least understand where that move would
leave us. If at first it appears a bit like Dr. Suess’ Prairie of Prax
(meeting-place of the stubborn, stationary Zax), maybe that’s not too
far off, except that our north-going and south-going absolutes
are budding mutualists, and they can be assumed to find means to either
associate or step aside.
- We have association, mutualism, the constructive
side of anarchy, and before we have any issue from the encounter, we
have an assemblage of sorts, a coming-together which is not fusion and
does not create a single, simple individual—or does not simply
create one—but creates what I what to call the mechanism of
justice. Proudhon had, in the “Catechism of Marriage,” identified
what he considered the “organ of justice” in the married couple, but as
we attempt to avoid the obvious missteps in that work and push beyond
some of Proudhon’s weaknesses I think we can generalize from his
observations and locate the relationship that he gave special prominence
at the heart of the family wherever the encounter leads to
association. Stripped of the categorical roles Proudhon
couldn’t abandon with regard to men and women, and rid of the fairly
unavoidable phallic associations of the term “organ” (which were
remarked upon by at least one of Proudhon’s female contemporaries), we
have another sort of contr’un, and a comparatively simple sort of
collectivity, which is presumably the mechanism by which balance is
achieved between individuals and interests which are not simply unique,
but in important senses are incommensurable. But the details are perhaps
a little counterintuitive. There is no question of these individuals and
interests taking their place on some scales of justice, because their
assemblage is itself the scales of justice. Together, our
free absolutes make incommensurable things equal, according to a
convention—exchange, or perhaps equal
exchange—according to which that sort of operation is possible. For
those who assume that Proudhon’s understanding of mutuality never
developed beyond his equal-pay speculations in What is
Property? there is probably a fairly rude awakening awaiting. The
conventional equality obviously can’t be just anything. We know at least
that there are quite a range of explanations for familiar relations—such
as those surrounding property and its rights under capitalism, or the
State as “external constitution of society”—which just don’t hold up to
any sort of scrutiny, and which are irreparably compromised by their
dependence on fundamentally authoritarian or governmentalist notions.
The material consequences of various conventions have demonstrated, or
will demonstrate, their insufficiency. No instrumentalization of
equality-in-uniqueness is likely to satisfy completely. At the
same time, perhaps many approaches will satisfy under many specific
conditions, in the context of specific moments, specific
encounters.
- Alongside these other concerns, there will be the question of what
will issue from these comings-together—and here we should probably just
let the sexy word-associations snowball—what we will be bringing into
the world as a result of our associations. Like children, these new
collectivities will tend to have minds or at least interests of their
own. They will be organized according to their own laws of development,
and while they may be expected to exhibit valuable sorts of collective
reason, and powerful sorts of collective force, these expressions will
be both somewhat alienand, in at least the usual senses,
inarticulate. They will not be free absolutes, but
absolutes of another sort. And we may have to assume a sort of tutelage
over them, taking responsibility for loosing them upon the world, even
as our basic principle suggests that when we encounter them it must be
as at least potential equals.
From this point, the isolated encounter obviously begins to weave a
web of new encounters—and we never really start with the
isolated encounter, being always already in relations with a
range of persistent collectivities, including families, States, markets,
etc. We are always navigating a complex web of relations.
What I want to suggest, with regard to Proudhon’s philosophy and
social science, is that if we are armed with his critique of all that
might be based on authority or governmentality in those relations, then
we can take the next step by beginning to analyze them on the basis of
this notion of the anarchistic encounter, a notion which we can
also apply moving forward into new relations.
As a next step, I want to compare the encounter with a more overtly
commercial sort of exchange, or transaction, and see what the contrast
reveals.
About Shawn P. Wilbur 2714
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Independent scholar, translator and archivist.
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