Thursday, March 01, 2007

"Where License Reigns With All Impunity" : An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity

There is a major historical examination of the Rotinonshón:ni, or Iroquois Confederacy, up on the NEFAC site.

The essay tries to place discussion of the traditional way of life of the Iroquois within the framework of anarchist (and marxist) theory, while not shying away from criticisms of the latter. This is always a risky endeavour, trying to bridge what at first blush may appear as radically different traditions, but this essay seems to be one of the better attempts to do so. Regardless of whether or not one agrees that indigenism is the ancestor of anarchism, it's an interesting read.

i had hoped to have something beyond a simple recommendation to say about this (and maybe i will at some future point), but don't feel i know enough about history of the Rotinonshón:ni to actually chance more than this for the time being...



2 comments:

  1. Anarchism is the ideological crystallization of the best principals and tendancies,that are truly present, within human nature.
    there has always been a tendency toward anarchy as their is always a competing tendency toward tyranny apathy and egoism. what tendancy wins out depends greatly on material and cultual conditions.
    So anarchism as a descriptor of a tendancy makes sense when the behavior and essential belief is similar though the language and culture is different

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  2. Also this article helps us both learn from and not romanticize the past.

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