“The general level of insight now is more educated, curiosity is wide awake, and judgments are made more quickly than formerly; so the feet of them which shall carry thee out are already at the door” — Hegel[1]

A Word from the Author

In 1997, C.A.L. Press published my Anarchy after Leftism, which took the form of a point by point (or tit for tat) refutation of Murray Bookchin’s Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm (A.K. Press [who else?] 1996). In the course of the writing, which occupied two months in 1996, I had the occasion to consult some previous books by the Director Emeritus, as I was sure that he was contradicting most of his previous positions. He was. What only his inner circle then knew is that Bookchin had privately renounced anarchism in 1995 (cf. the “communalism” website maintained by his remaining acolytes, www.communalism.org). When, in the book, I demonstrated that Bookchin was not an anarchist, leftists castigated me for my “purism.” They now observe a discreet silence.

My readings, however, revealed that SALA was not just a senile aberration. Across the board and from start to finish, Murray Bookchin Thought was authoritarian, obscurantist, conceited, self-contradictory, ahistorical, hypocritical, even racist. As to how he ever maintained a reputation as a great anarchist theorist, I offer some thoughts in the following pages. I undertook to read or reread nearly all of his books. It was an ordeal, but it was worth it, because it equipped me to write Nightmares of Reason. Here I show that Bookchin’s errors (some qualify as lies) abound in every area he bumbled into, be it history, anthropology, philosophy, political theory, cosmology, or even lexicography. I adduce example after example of the falsity, bad faith and even brutality of his polemics. Leftists who suppose — mainly on his say-so — that Bookchin was a great scholar will learn here why no scholars think so.

More or less unexpectedly, this book gave me the opportunity to develop my own ideas, some of which find their first or fullest expression here, and influence my future direction. This is where I came to the conclusion that the rejection of democracy is the most important task for contemporary anarchists. Portions of this book have appeared as articles, usually in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, and in Bob Black, Withered Anarchism (London: Green Anarchist & Eugene, OR: Anarchist Action Collective, n.d. [1997]). C.A.L. Press would like to publish the text in hard copy, but lacks the financing. Perhaps some of my readers would like to help out.

Bob Black
P.O. Box 3112
Albany, NY 12203 U.S.A.
abobob51@verizon.net