Lifestyle anarchism is a term derived from
Murray Bookchin's polemical Social Anarchism
or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm.
He used it to criticize those anarchists who
dress the look or live in certain ways, but
who do not really act on the basic tenets
of anarchism at the expense of class struggle
or coherent and effective anarchist social
organization.
He also directed criticism against prominent
figures such as Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson)
and John Zerzan (who has also criticized Bey)
as having promoted anti-rationalism.
Bookchin gives several documented examples,
including a misnamed image by Francisco de
Goya placed on the Fall/Winter 1993 cover
of Fifth Estate, where the title, "The Sleep
of Reason Brings Forth Monsters", was altered
to "The Dream of Reason Brings Forth Monsters"
which changed its meaning to an attack on
human reason rather than support of it.
The term is sometimes used by anarchists as
a description of positions that concentrate
on specifically superficial changes to personal
behavior rather than the wholesale reorganization
or abolition of class and hierarchical society.
Critics of this term have claimed the definition
as a form of sectarianism.
Anarchist librarian and activist Chuck Munson,
for example, who first hosted the book on
his Infoshop web site, denies that lifestylism
exists and has decried the concept as "one
of the most divisive and destructive things
inflicted on the anarchist movement in recent
years".
In Munson's publication, Practical Anarchy,
he has said the "lifestylist" debate is "simplistic"
and exhorted anarchists to move on from it.
== See also ==
Individualist anarchism
Mark Andersen, critic of lifestylism
Post-left anarchy
Radical chic
== References ==
== More reading ==
Laura Portwood-Stacer.
Lifestyle Politics and Political Activism.
Bloomsbury.
New York and London.
2013.
== External links ==
"Evaluating Lifestyle Anarchism".
Libcom.org.
