20th January 2025:
There has long been a critique of activist cultures and movements as consisting of little more than identity politics. In this blog I want to offer my own perspective on this issue, and present my own analysis of activist subcultures in the UK based on my own experience over 20 years in a wide variety of different grassroots movements, affinity groups and organisations.
One concept that is very important to understand at the outset is that of ressentiment. The term as I use it relates to the philosophy of Nietzsch, who used it to critique the ‘master-slave’ morality that democratic, liberalist, and progressive movements were rooted in, but my own familiarity with the concept comes from an anarchist zine, Second Wave Anarchy, which contains an essay by Saul Newman entitled Anarchism & the Politics of Ressentiment (the zine is not available online, but the essay in question can be found here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/saul-newman-anarchism-and-the-politics-of-ressentiment).
In this article Saul talks about how modern day anarchy (known as second wave anarchy, to distinguish it from the mass movements of the early 20thC) is dominated by a politics of ressentiment, and how important it is for contemporary anarchists to be aware of that so that their political ideals and practice can mature. That’s a really rough breakdown of the article, which was in my view a really outstanding piece that gave important insights into the politics of contemporary anarchist subcultures and spaces and that chimed with my own nascent understanding of the real flaws of anarchist politics and anarchist subculture as it manifests today.
So I want to adapt Saul’s article and bring to it my own experience of anarchist subculture in order to explain some really fundamental flaws in anarchist political thinking and practice.
As I said at the beginning, identity politics has long been critiqued, but it isn’t often very well understood. You’ll often find people heavily involved in identity politics critiquing identity politics without being aware that they themselves are a classic example of it. One the things that is characteristic of identity politics is the formation of an ‘in-group’ and an ‘out-group’. Today identity politics often has as its basis class, gender, diet, or some other value. A group may get together to take action on veganism, and then develop a system of values where anyone who isn’t vegan is deemed as ‘bad’, and anyone who is vegan is deemed as ‘good’. You have an identity, that of being vegan, and a system of in-groups and out-groups whereby those who are not vegan are shut out and deemed to be the problem in the world (the archetypal scapegoat).
Identity politics is basically formed on a ressentiment narrative that inverts the values of the oppressive system (vegan/non vegan, capitalist/anti-capitalist, racist/anti-racist, patriarch/feminist etc) and creates a new system of values that, while different, is often equally if not more oppressive than the old. Identity politics may have well-meaning intentions, but it is subverted by a deep and abiding hostility towards the wider system it critiques, and this latent hostility is what creates the ‘in-group/out-group’ mentality that typifies spaces and subcultures dominated by identity politics and the accompanying ressentiment based ideologies. This in-group/out-group mentality is oppressive to those who are not deemed part of the in-group, and a new subculture is formed based upon those who conform to the rules of the in-group, rules which are heavily policed by the social authoritarians within the in-group who control these spaces.
In anarchist circles today the most common forms of in-groups are those of anarcho-feminists, vegans, working class anarchists and trans anarchists. These form tight in-groups with very sharp judgements on those who do not conform to their in-group identity and who are then excluded. And that is really the point of many of the critiques of identity politics, which is that it generally forms really oppressive cultures that are often more oppressive than the wider culture they critique for being oppressive. If you are not counted as part of the ‘in-group’, then you will experience really severe and chronic oppression by these groups, despite the fact they consider themselves libertarian and egalitarian in nature. These groups tend to be incredibly hostile to those not counted as part of the ‘in-group’, and their communistic sense of being egalitarian and libertarian is only maintained within the in-group and is not extended to those deemed outside of it. Thus the anarchy practiced is an exclusive one, one achieved by excluding anyone who isn’t deemed part of the ‘in-group’, and in this way all dissenting voices are also excluded, and that exclusion and oppression is justified due to a political narrative that says those who are not vegan or feminist or trans or anarchist are oppressive and evil, and so must be excluded.
It should be obvious that being anarchist, vegan, feminist, trans or working class does not make you a better human being, and neither does it make you any more or less authoritarian than the rest of the population. Being vegan does not mean you are less likely to rape or kill someone or oppress someone, and neither does being feminist or being trans. By reducing the value of a human being to whether or not they are vegan or subscribe to anarchy or agree that trans women are real women, you have committed a really fundamental abuse of human nature. A human being is much more complex, and the problems in the world are also much more complex, and cannot be reduced to these simple black and white approaches.
The culture we live in legitimises many forms of authoritarianism and domination. Some people are better at this than others, and many of those seeking to dominate others in order to gain status, wealth, sex, friends or fame for themselves will find themselves out-competed by the authoritarian sharks in the mainstream cultures who are better at it. In my experience such people tend to gravitate towards subcultures where there is less authoritarianism, precisely so they have a much better chance of being able to dominate others and gain status for themselves. And what better subculture to gravitate to as an authoritarian seeking an empire than anarchist subcultures where there is a much larger proportion of vulnerable people who are also much more susceptible than most to being dominated? After all, that is the reason many people gravitate to anarchist subcultures and spaces, because they are really tired of being dominated and exploited by the wider culture, and this is often because they are more vulnerable to this due to childhood trauma than others. The subcultures that are formed in this way and taken over by the authoritarian sharks are utilised in the main not for the greater good or for movement building but for social status and dominance.
The authoritarian individuals that gravitate to anarchist subcultures cannot get away with open displays of domination and aggression, such as physical intimidation, verbal abuse or physical violence, as they would not get away with it. Anarchist subcultures are generally very good at evicting these open forms of domination and control from within their ranks, just as they are with dealing with open displays of racism of sexism. Where contemporary anarchist spaces fail however is dealing with passive-aggression, and especially the most extreme forms of passive aggression that can produce intense states of fright, terror, anxiety and dread within an individual. These forms of domination go unnoticed, and not only that, they are not even identified or treated as authoritarian, despite the fact that these are the most common forms of authoritarianism in the wider social body and within anarchist cultures today, and I expect always have been.
The metaphor I use to explain these forms of passive-aggression is the ‘lion in the room’ metaphor. Imagine you are in your front room and a lion walks in, what are you going to feel? The likely answer is extreme levels of fright, terror, acute anxiety, dread, all of the emotions that come with being in fear for your life. Now take the lion away, and instead insert someone who passive-aggressively uses menace and threat that induces these states in others, and you will start to understand the insidious way that authoritarians get away with authoritarianism within anarchist subcultures, and also in the wider social body. They may look like humans, but they are lions, savage and full of murderous intent.
I remember when I was a teacher how many teachers would talk to me about how frightened and intimidated they were whenever they were with the headmaster, and many people will talk similarly about their boss. I have no doubt we all know some people we are scared or frightened of, not because they have threatened us with violence, but because they are scary people and frighten others through passive-aggressive levels of threat and menace. These cues are picked up by our deeper biology and produce a reaction in us that is similar to the reaction we would get if a lion walked into the room.
When you are dealing with multiple people then these threat response levels can rise astronomically. Take a consensus meeting in an anarchist space. Supposedly anyone is allowed to speak and have their say, but this is not true, as the fact is if you want to e.g. challenge veganism or the trans narrative around gender, you will find that you are unable to speak because of the threat and anxiety that you feel, because the room is fulled with lions who control what can and cannot be said or discussed in these spaces. This control is exerted passive-aggressively and is experienced as anxiety, fright etc. I have no doubt that every single person who reads this will have experience of how a conversation can be immediately shut down when a certain person enters the room because people are too afraid to speak their minds when that person is around. That is a mild example of how passive-aggression can control a space and what can and can’t be said in it, even while openly proclaiming that it is an anarchist space where everyone listens to each other and practices consensus.
Anarchist subcultures all over the UK mirror this dynamic of an in-group/out-group structure justified and held in place by some form of ressentiment based political narrative. These ‘anarchist ghettoes’ generally have very sharply defined boundaries and contain within them authoritarians with their own empires and who not only use their social power to control these spaces, but they and their retinues also use extreme forms of passive-aggression to control what can and cannot be said and who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. In this way these spaces are generally very authoritarian and exploitative, including sexually.
What we need is an anarchist culture that openly talks about this form of authoritarianism and that gives examples of it, that calls it out, that educates people about it, where victims can come forward and talk about it in order to help others overcome it, and where those who abuse others this way are outed. We don’t have such cultures, and that is why anarchist cultures, full as they are of vulnerable people, are so horrifically exploited by these ruthless authoritarians who wield social power and extreme forms of passive-aggression.
As another example, in the trans community you will find that women who regard womanhood to be rooted in biology are derogatively referred to as ‘TERFs’ (trans exclusive radical feminists) because they maintain that being a woman is rooted in biology and not something you choose. In this case the ‘oppressive system’ is considered to be second wave feminism, and the trans community takes a system of values that is ‘anti’ second wave feminism and says that anyone can be a woman. These values are deemed correct, and so to be part of this scene you need to accept these values, otherwise you are excluded.
You can see here that this ‘ressentiment’ foundation of the trans community – the inversion of some of the values of second wave feminism and the wider culture - leads to the formation of a tightly controlled ‘in-group’, people who agree to the new value and accept it without question, and a definite ‘out-group’, which are those people who adhere to the values of second wave feminism.
The in-group is generally brutally policed by authoritarians within that subculture to maintain conformity to the new doctrine, and in the trans case, we have seen over the last ten years countless examples of brutality dished out to feminists who are real biological women and who are deemed ‘TERF’s’, with violence being openly used, intimidation and aggression at anarchist gatherings, and extremely sexist language being deployed. The most recent example was July last year (2024) at the Trans Pride event in London, where one trans woman got up on the stage and proclaimed ‘if you see a TERF, punch them in the f**king face’, with widespread cheering and applause. Really nothing but male thugs openly calling for violence against women, and this being applauded and considered ‘progressive’.
In short, the trans ‘in-group’ are deeply oppressive and offensive to those in the ‘out-group’, and this typifies ressentiment subcultures – that they are often equally if not more oppressive than the wider culture whose values they call into question and consider oppressive. What’s more, they are policed internally by authoritarians who wield terrific levels of passive-aggression.
In the trans case this form of ressentiment discourse has also aggressively colonised other activist spaces, including anarchist spaces, to the point where any ‘anarchist’ space today is policed by the trans zealots and everyone has to accept their critique or be thrown out and excluded by the ‘trans mob’. A recent example was The London Anarchist Bookfair, which a few years ago was taken over by a trans mob who basically used force and aggression to shut down the original and replace it with their own, renamed The Anarchist Bookfair in London. At last years ‘Anarchist Bookfair in London’ a working class socialist group was excluded because the trans elements deemed an obscure line in one of their pamphlets as ‘anti-trans’, despite them openly proclaiming their support for trans rights.
That is not anarchy, and neither is it consensus, it is oppression, authoritarian oppression by the trans ‘Stasi’.
In my experience the ressentiment discourse and the ‘in-group’ mentality that results (the identity politic) dominates all activist spaces in the UK, such as anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, feminism, anarchy (anti-authoritarianism), EF!, socialist groups, and so on. The wider culture’s values are critiqued and an opposing set of values set up (e.g. anti-capitalist values), and those who adopt these values are considered part of the ‘in-group’, whereas those who do not are demonised, tarred and feathered, and treated with contempt and often outright ridicule.
I have long standing activist friends with whom I was part of an affinity group with for years who sacrificed all relationship with me in order to maintain their status within their ‘in-group’. They faced intense levels of passive-aggression that in some cases resulted in a breakdown, and also intimidation, ridicule and exclusion from the ‘in-group’ if they did not and they have not been willing to stand up to it. So it is pretty obvious to me that any position within an ‘in-group’ requires the oppression and marginalisation of others, as I have experienced it myself.
I want to finish off with a few words about maturation, and how our activist spaces can overcome these debilitating problems and actually mature, which is really what the world needs.
Experiencing trauma during childhood or as an adult generally causes an energetic blockage in the body which curtails development (the removal of which is known in psychoanalysis as catharsis and is a key method of healing and maturation). The experience of trauma will generally create hostility to the wider culture if that pattern of trauma is not addressed by the wider culture, and the blocking of development by the trauma in the body will result in an individual who is unable to properly mature and who is also vulnerable to domination and exploitation.
Radical subcultures are in my experience typified by people with trauma from their childhood, and who have not undergone any ‘catharsis’ or equivalent process of healing. Many have genuine intentions for the greater good but have been caught in these in-group/out-group subcultures due to their own oppression and the fact it makes them vulnerable to being dominated by the thugs that haunt these counter-cultural spaces. This is in my view why activist spaces, and especially radical spaces such as anarchist subcultures, are dominated by the ressentiment discourse and remain in a state of immaturity: many of the individuals experienced childhood trauma (whether they remember it or not), and as a result have high levels of latent hostility towards the wider culture. This produces a need for a discourse that condemns the wider culture, and thus ressentiment discourses abound in anarchist subcultures. Moreover, due to their vulnerability these subcultures tend to be dominated and policed by authoritarians with their own empires to protect and defend. This in turn prevents these spaces from healing and maturing as the discourse is controlled and kept within a framework that never challenges the status quo of the authoritarians who rule these spaces.
What grassroots activism really needs are mature anarchist movements composed of people who have matured beyond their early traumas and who are capable of standing up to social authoritarianism and keeping these thugs at bay, and who are not hostile to the wider culture. We do not have these kinds of movements, and instead have movements that are generally kept in an immature state by the rife authoritarianism within them.
The real revolution will happen when people openly confront the authoritarians in their lives, and for most people that is their friends, neighbours, family and work colleagues, and not the state. With anarchy still rooted in a ressentiment discourse that blames the state for everything, the real lions are totally ignored and the problem of authoritarianism is not dealt with. Dealing with social authoritarianism is where the real revolution begins, and though there will likely be no guns or physical fighting, it is nonetheless a fight to the death where you will go head to head with the Franco’s in your life, and they are genuine monsters that wield terror, anxiety and fright to a very chronic degree to control those they consider their subordinates, and that is murder, pure and simple, because your true life is curtailed and instead you live out a life in obedience to your masters in your social milieu.
It is in my view high time for anarchy to put the state aside and instead take on the social authoritarians*.
*(As a final aside, I recall an anarchist colleague who had been arrested multiple times on actions against the state and big corporations. She had been at it for perhaps 7 years but was still too afraid to tell her parents she had been arrested. She did not seem to be aware that the real authoritarians in her life were not these global actors, but her own parents, and others in her social milieu. Taking direct action and getting arrested, or rioting and breaking the windows of corporations is easy compared to confronting the real authority in our lives, but doing this is where anarchy really matures as a movement. Also, by developing these tools and methods for dealing with social authoritarianism, we will also be able to spread libertarian and egalitarian values much more quickly and effectively throughout the population. Outside of intellectual culture people are not interested in anarchy as a political theory, but they are interested in overcoming the controlling authoritarians in their lives, and helping people do this is in my view the best way to spread libertarian values and prepare the ground for the social revolution we all dream of.)