Introduction

Announcing the 9th Annual Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research & Development (BASTARD) conference. The conference will happen Sunday March 15th 10 am - 6 pm at UC Berkeley.

The Theme

This year's theme is going to be anarchist principles. What are anarchist principles? How did anarchists practice these principles in the past? How do they practice them today? How have they changed?

We have a working hypothesis that the anarchist principles (version 1) are Mutual Aid, Solidarity, and Direct Action. At best our conference will have workshops on these principles, how they have been tested and shown to be relevant, practical and inadequate. This is an opportunity to examine anarchist practice through the principles that individual anarchists and anarchist groups and organizations hold in common.

This year we are going to continue our experiment from last year which we consider a success, The Open Space Thread. The idea was to provide a place for structured conversations on specific topics without requiring a talking head to lead the conversation. The conversations between like-minded strangers were inspired and we look forward to what develops from this years theme.

This Years Workshops!!!

Resisting and Surviving the Capitalist Meltdown

Economic meltdown? Recession? Depression? What are we to do? How will working people fare? Will the catalyst for change come from above or below? What lessons can we learn from the past and what are urban homesteaders already doing to localize the economy at the neighborhood level? With historical, practical, and theoretical information and brainstorming.

Back to Anarchist -- not leftist -- Principles

Anarchists historically developed a core set of effective principles that have -- for a variety of reasons that need to be explored -- been compromised by a range of accommodations with leftism. Come prepared to sort out anarchist from leftist principles and to look at the historical dialectic of their interaction. (Or, for critics, bring some sensible arguments against distinctions between anarchism and leftism, and try to offer alternative explanations for the incoherence of left anarchism. This latter will be a limited part of the discussion.)

Non-Violent Communication (NVC) and Anarchist Principles

All of us have similar basic human needs and experience similar human emotions. Living together without hierarchy, coercion or violence requires identifying and recognizing our own emotions and needs, and those of others. From this groundwork, we can cooperatively choose strategies for meeting all of our needs. These ideas are at the heart of non-violent communication (NVC). This workshop will utilize brief lectures, discussion, and exercises, to explore how non-violent communication dovetails with basic anarchist principles of solidarity, mutual aid and direct action.

Activist or Anarchist?

This workshop will explore the ideological nature of activism and how many of the tenets found in activism are not congruent with anarchist principles. We will talk about current anarchist ideas and how these ideas do or do not fit into activism. Join this workshop for a discussion about anarchist principles and activist principles and let’s see if the two shall meet.

The New Anarchist Principles

If by anarchist principles we are refering to the anarchist practice of everyday life and if Mutual Aid, Solidarity, and Direct Action are the original anarchist principles then how were they practiced? What did this look like then, does it look the same now? Should it?

If times have changed and the priorities of anarchists have changed then how have they changed and how have anarchist principles, as the everyday practice of living, changed along with them.

BASTARD Revisits Rabelais (a talk followed by a game)

Rabelais published Gargantua in the 1540s. The book ends with an account of the Abbey of Thelema, a warm and anarchic utopia. [Compare with Bacon’s New Atlantis, a cold and regimented one.] Within the Abbey, the Thelemites engage in Laudable Emulation. Implicit in this practice are the principles of voluntary association and mutual aid. Further, cultivating this art encourages both collective action and individual initiative.

This workshop was done at an anarchist conference some years ago, and is offered again in light of continued research and development.

Poly-anarchy

Is being polyamorous the only way for anarchists to have relationships that are true to their politics? Is good communication all you need to have a healthy poly relationship? Are you either polyamorous or monogamous? I hope to briefly raise some of these topics and then time and space permitting have participants break into several theme-based discussion groups with a report back at the end.

Open Space Thread

The BASTARD conference has always been a place that attempts to take anarchist ideas seriously. As a result we spend one day a year talking about these ideas and engaging with each other about them. One idea that we have often been confronted with but rarely challenged is the idea that the common model for workshops (someone presenting to a mostly passive audience) limits our discussions. This year we continue our experiment with a parallel track of workshops that are not directly led by a presenter; instead these will be semi-open discussions on the specific facets of the conference topic with a few people per session providing framing and inspiration. The Open Space Thread aims to challenge the one-to-many problem of workshops while keeping the constraint of the conference’s theme. We look forward to your feedback on this method.

OST - Mutual Aid

Kropotkin defined mutual aid as a scientific law of nature and contrasted it to Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest.

As we struggle to engage with and practice anarchy, how do we understand mutual aid and explain its connection to ideas of science and human nature? How does the principle of mutual aid inform the way that we (as anarchists) balance our desires to live autonomously, with our desires to interact with each other?

OST - Direct Action

In its original anarchist meaning, direct action refers to any action undertaken without the permission, and outside the interest, of governmental institutions. It can refer to volunteering with Food Not Bombs, going on strike (especially without the approval of a union), shoplifting, or setting up a micro-powered radio station. Direct action has nothing to do with pressuring any part of a government to alter a policy — direct action is by definition anti-statist. Attempting to alter a government policy is lobbying; it is aimed at representatives, and so cannot be direct action. Direct action is when we do things for ourselves, without begging or demanding that someone in authority help us.

OST - Solidarity

According to Bakunin, solidarity is a quality in individuals that makes them join with others to create viable groups. In a more modern sense, solidarity is the idea of supporting prisoners & other radicals whether or not one has a personal relationship with them. Differently from mutual aid, solidarity (since it is offered to and asked for by ad hoc allies) needs to include the reality of reciprocation; otherwise it is nothing but charity. In these days of militant property destruction around the world (sometimes even in the name of social change) what does it mean to show solidarity? What is good about how people have expressed this principle recently, and what could be better?

OST - Whither principles?

Principles or ideology? What is helpful about principles? What is limiting about them? What are the indicators that we have become owned by our ideas? What is the point of calling ourselves anarchists (or anything else) at all? To the extent that we are a coherent group, is it because of cultural factors (aesthetics, anger, rejection), or theoretical ones (principles we hold consciously)? What is the value of being a coherent group? Some answers will be attempted, however relativistic.

Finally

The BASTARD conference promotes the understanding that there are multiple valid approaches to anarchism, each of which has points that are worth examining. Please come and share your approach. Participate in a commerce-free event with other anarchists who are interested in the theory and philosophy of where we've come from, where we are, and where we're going.