A few notes on Catholic anarchism
I am often asked to write a more elaborate statement of what “Catholic anarchism”—as it seems to me—is all about. People like blueprints after all. Generally, I hesitate to do so as the relationship between the two terms is not fixed or final, but always moving and flexible. The best I can do—especially using the medium of a blog which I consider to be a sort of “testing ground” for tentative and evolving ideas—is offer some thoughts here and there toward what a Catholic anarchism might look like.
Of course, “Catholic anarchism” is not my invention. Catholics such as Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy called themselves “anarchists.” Day explained her self-description this way:
The word anarchist is deliberately and repeatedly used in order to awaken our readers to the necessity of combating the ‘all-encroaching state,’ as our Bishops have termed it, and to shock serious students into looking into the possibility of another society, an order made up of associations, guilds, unions, communes, parishes, voluntary associations of men [sic], on regional vs. national lines, where there is a possibility of liberty and responsibility for all men. [Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker, December 1949, cited in Mark and Louise Zwick, The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins (New York: Paulist, 2005).]
But although Day used the term and frequently cited her admiration for classical anarchists like Kropotkin, her anarchism was not deeply theorized and obviously much time separates Day from ourselves, so while she is a great example and a saintly frontrunner of “Catholic anarchism,” her relevance for today perhaps has its limits.
Obviously my thoughts on faith and politics do not come out of no where, and I am often able to clarify my thinking in response to people’s questions. Today a reader asked in the combox why I choose to identify with “the revolutionary tradition of anarchism” rather than as a socialist, and it gave me the opportunity to get a few thoughts down, so I thought I’d repost them here.
As for the relationship between anarchism and socialism, I don’t see the two as opposed, but rather the former is a subset of the latter. I would certainly identify as a “socialist” but I always want to narrow it down a bit further as the term “socialist” can mean a variety of very different things. (To the american right, “socialist” means “Obama” for example.) It is also important to point out that anarchism is not one tradition but many. So when asked about my identification with “the” revolutionary anarchist movement, I’d want to be careful and insist that I probably do not completely identify with whatever one has in mind when referring to “the movement,” presumably 19th and early 20th century (usually European) anarchism. I agree with some of those ideas, but I also agree with Colin Ward who argued that anarchism is a tendency that has been present in various ways throughout history and in various if not all cultures. Anarchistic types of social relations exist, for example, in various indigenous cultures and in social movements, communities, and structures that operate apart from, parallel to, or even “beyond” the state.
I use the term anarchist because I think it is a more inclusive term than socialism in that it points to various interlocking oppressions rather than just economic oppression. It obviously includes a radical critique of the state which is not always present in “socialism,” understood generically. Linked to this, it includes an emphasis on radically participatory politics, economics, etc. as well as direct action.
In terms of its compatibility with Christianity, there are clear streams of tradition in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that are critical of “the powers,” and that indeed encourage God’s people to live out the Kingdom, under the “lordship” of another King whose lordship is not like the caesars of this world. These streams are obviously in tension with other streams of tradition, but they are there, and it is important to realize that such tensions are difficult if not impossible to reconcile.
But what of the state in Roman Catholic tradition? Although the church obviously became “statist” along the way and continues to be to this day, there are aspects of its social teaching, for example, that encourage a suspicion of the state as the church has always warned—alas, sometimes merely out of a concern for self-preservation—that the state is not absolute. Of course, when the church does teach about the dangers of nationalism, for example, american Catholics are usually completely blind to the possibility that these warnings might apply to them. Despite this blindness in the american context, the church’s “built-in” critique of the state is real. It is so real, I think, that I would argue it is possible to hold the view that all modern nation-states end up being idolatrous and should be opposed as obstacles to the flourishing of human communities, and that this view is not in opposition to Catholicism. And obviously, since the emergence of Catholic Christianity predates the emergence of the nation-state, it makes little sense to consider the modern state a permanent feature of “Catholic social teaching.” Finally, although the Roman Catholic Church has been at the center of the history of colonization in the West, and although a statist view of things is largely assumed in Catholic social teaching, it does not seem that the church of today would insist on Western/modern forms of political organization for all peoples everywhere. There are peoples who live outside of the “state system,” and thus in some ways “anarchistically,” and these peoples would obviously not be seen by official Catholicism to be organizing themselves in ways that are contrary to Christian faith.
I agree with alot of your Anarchist ideas, but to defend the Catholic Church a little, there’s no way historically you could say it was ‘at the centre of colonization’. Protestantism was really the religion of colonization. The Anglican, Lutheran, and Dutch Reformed churches were all flagships of empire as well. Probably the CofE was much more notorious than Catholicism as it openly held the head of state was the head of the church and Catholicism usually just had an unspoken truce with France, Spain, Portugal, etc.
Anyway, good post, but just with that one historical objection.
First, this is a great post. Thank you for extrapolating your ideas. What do you think of the term social anarchist? I think you make a good point about how socialism means different things and many of those things can be greatly opposed to your ideas (like massive power for example), but so does anarchism. Whether fair or not, often in American media anarchism is related to lawless violence. Social anarchism seems to be a way of distinguishing from both. Anyway, that was just a thought, not at all a critique of your choice in labeling.
Second, with your concerns for statism and nationalism I have to ask: have you read Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities? I am currently reading it for the second time. It is a great exegesis on nationalism and the conceptualization of the state. In this second reading, it has caused me to reflect on deeper issues of identity.
Sorry for delay in responding
Thanks you for your well-written reply. I would follow up your response, however, by expressing my doubts about anarchism. First, I think it ignores the brute fact that one needs to create some type of organization of power if one is to resist the powers of the world. Second, if one is successfully overthrow the order of the modern nation state, one needs to a certain extent seize the mechanisms of the the existing state apparatus (while always, however, holding the destruction of the state as the final goal). Finally (and this addressed more to your pacifism then to your anarchism), I think war, just war, is required in many circumstances if the oppressed are to liberate themselves.
Anarchism, as I understood, believe in equal power, not concentrated or hierarchical political and economical power. So if an “organization of power” means this organization is run democratically and in a decentralized manner, that means it is a legitimate organization in anarchy.
To Andrew Cottrill:
While Protestantism played a large role in colonization, the Roman Catholic Church did as well. San Francisco? San Diego? Los Angeles? All of the Spanish-speaking parts of the New World (South and Central America, along with Mexico and the American-annexed pieces of Mexico like CA and NM) were colonized by the Jesuits. Florida is also included in this. Don’t forget about the Western hemisphere!
Does critiquing the state make you an anarchist? I join Dorothy Day and her opposition to the all-encroaching state. The modern state works, with democratic approval, at consuming all the functions traditionally performed by the smaller communities she mentions.
Am I an anarchist? I love these smaller communities – Church, Family, friendly associations, guilds, unions, clubs – and I think they are essential to true human flourishing. I do not think they can be replaced by the state – which is necessarily impersonal and bureaucratic. I think they stand as testimony to the imperfections and deficiencies of the state, and that the state, even though it doesn’t know it, is dependent upon their health.
I think it’s wrong to suggest, however, that the state is necessarily an idol. You cannot speak for everyone else. A person has to choose to have an idol; a person has to choose to put something before God. We may be a nation that thinks of our country before we think of God, but in this we are no different than any other nation on Earth. Some philosopher said somewhere that human beings do not want a Father God in Heaven, they want a King god on Earth. And so we try to make our rulers into god and become wrathful when they disappoint us. In one way this is original sin – we put ourselves before God because we are proud.
Zach
“We may be a nation that thinks of our country before we think of God, but in this we are no different than any other nation on Earth.”
You just admitted here, albeit half-heartedly, that all nation states on earth function by the placing the state before God; and that is the very definition of idolotry. That everyone does it is no excuse.
I don’t see the Catholic Church as statist. I haven’t found any document saying that the State must exist for the order of society, or condemning any ideas that sought to replace the State completely with voluntary institutions like cooperative markets, guilds, unions, collectives, or communes. I don’t think it was “the Church” that depended on the State to enforce orthodoxy, it probably was the Church’s human leaders practicing their temporal power. But the temporal power of the Church’s human leaders, isn’t the Church itself. The Church allows the use of the political temporal power, but it is not a moral ideal in itself. The Church in itself has no political nor economical power. She can choose to utilize it, but it doesn’t mean that it must use it. Anarchists basically wants to focus on creating a society without political or economical hierarchy, and I think there’s nothing morally wrong with it except for practical arguments.
One question that is in my mind and to which I have never found a satisfactory answer is this:
Is it easier to be an anarchist in some countries (forgive the generic terminology) than in others? For example, is the anarchism of many in the U.S. made possible precisely because of the fact that they live in a liberal capitalist democracy? This gives them something against which to be anarchic and also gives them the freedom (I use this term loosely) to be anarchic? Or can one be an anarchist no matter what country/government one finds oneself in/under?
I am not trying to be antagonistic….I am honestly curious as to how you would answer this.
Although I am not a “full” Anarchist in a certain sense, it is probably the closest political philosophy that I hold. I’m an Indonesian, who is currently living in Australia. I don’t see how it is any more difficult being one in my home country or here. But it probably is way more difficult in a more authoritarian countries, such as North Korea. It is probably considered as one of the greatest heresy in a totalitarian State.
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