Anarchist Prophets : Disappointing Vision and the Power of Collective Sight

In Anarchist Prophets James R. Martel juxtaposes anarchism with what he calls archism in order to theorize the potential for a radical democratic politics. He shows how archism—a centralized and hierarchical political form that is a secularization of ancient Greek and Hebrew prophetic traditions—dominates contemporary politics through a prophet’s promises of peace and prosperity or the threat of violence. Archism is met by anarchism, in which a community shares a collective form of judgment and vision. Martel focuses on the figure of the anarchist prophet, who leads efforts to regain the authority for the community that archism has stolen. The goal of anarchist prophets is to render themselves obsolete and to cede power back to the collective so as to not become archist themselves. Martel locates anarchist prophets in a range of philosophical, literary, and historical examples, from Hobbes and Nietzsche to Mary Shelley and Octavia Butler to Kurdish resistance in Syria and the Spanish Revolution. In so doing, Martel highlights how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can provide the means to overthrow archist authority. "In Anarchist Prophets, James R. Martel makes a case for an anarchist form of collective vision that will counter dominant "archist" forms of power-that is, power that is centralized, hierarchical, and commanding. Archism, Martel argues, dominates through its promises of safety, success, and exalted life (primarily through its religious grounding), and it relies on prophets or people who claim to have the power to see what counts as real. Martel's goal is to show how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can exist and flourish, even under less-than-ideal conditions of archist power. Drawing from a wide range of political cases and literary texts-Biblical texts, Hobbes, the Spanish revolution, Kurdish resistance in Syria, Octavia Butler's fiction-Martel traces out the theological roots of archist power and then offers examples of anarchist experiments with forms of collective prophecy that are liberatory rather than seeking to rule through a privileged form of vision. Martel points instead to ways in which people can "see together" in community through the "anarchist prophet" or the figure who helps a community to see through disappointment and by allowing for messiness and heterogeneity."-- Provided by publisher James R. Martel juxtaposes anarchism with what he calls archism--a centralized and hierarchical political form based in ancient Greek and Hebrew prophetic traditions--in order to theorize the potential for a radical democratic politics.