Why I'm an anarchist | Sophie Scott-Brown full interview | Anarchy and democracy

I would fall into Paradox very very quickly if I start dictating to you how to be free right we all know you can't be forced to be free right but what I could do instead is ask well in any given situation how might you increase the amount of Freedom that's available to [Music] you hi so Sophie um when most people think about um Authority and Leadership they tend to think about you know big calized bodies like the state um but in your work you think of it slightly differently could you tell us a bit about

that please yes I do so I work a lot on um well post-war Anarchist thought and um in particular I mean because anarchism is a very broad church with many different forms of it and I'm particularly interested in pacifist forms I'm particularly interested in those forms that are very Community Based very Grassroots um very focused around PE uh people and direct ocracy and obviously in when you sort of look at at these sorts of ideas uh these Notions of leadership and Authority you know they they're quite they um they take on of new and challenging

forms now some people sort of think immediately make the Assumption well it's anarchism right by definition that means there can be no leader or no no forms of authority um and in fact no organization in fact most for most people anarchism is just is chaos and it's something to be feared and something to be um something to be avoided but actually the sort of uh ideas that I look at have a slightly different take and they say that actually there's nothing inherently wrong with leadership in and of itself but there is something wrong when that

becomes permanent and that becomes institutionalized um what is more interesting to these kind of thinkers um one of the figures I work on for example is an individual called Colin Ward and he wrote a book called Anarchy in action and it was very much based on on how in our everyday lives in our sort of workplaces and our communities and our homes our families and our friendship groups um we are constantly busy negotiating or discussing uh working out what we're going to do how we're going to do it and we don't actually need to appoint

some permanent forms of leadership in order to achieve this sometimes you know sometimes that there is that presence in some family structures uh they they cleave to a very particular form of of um interaction perhaps as a male head of the family perhaps a female but actually in many um places and circumstances you don't have that so I think um the interesting thing for me when I was sort of moving through these ideas and working through them was to get rid of this idea you have to eliminate leadership in this sort of great fraternal cuddly

sense of absolutely everyone in agreement it's you you know it's not necessarily you need to get complete consensus on something it can be that there is someone who has a particular strength or a particular understanding a particular Insight on something that you want to achieve and then by all means people should listen to them or if there is a sort of natural sense to which they are able to to direct or guide or facilitate something happening then by all means respect that but the big thing is it doesn't become permanent and that when things change

and change is possibly the most important factor in this form of Anarchy um and acknowledge change and living with the fact that things change in a meaningful way at some point somebody else is going to be better placed to take that role so that's sort of that's the kind of nuance to leadership that I think these Anarchist ideas bring yeah thank you that makes a lot of sense so um in your in your answer there you mentioned direct democracy and obviously you know this has been discussed in the UK before um I think maybe the

consensus view is that um even though the ideal of direct democ rcy is um very worthy it's something I think people would like to embody um there's a general consensus that it's sort of unlikely to work on the scale of the United Kingdom even though it might work at more local levels um could you speak to us about you know what what does the anaka say to that kind of worry few interesting um um points there but yes absolutely it's generally it's not just that it's sort of laudable but unrealistic some people actually very much

don't feel it's it's laudable at all some people um sort of think it's veering being towards kind of more dangerous forms of populism and you can't deny that it does have that within the tradition there are certain voluntary groups that have existed in history um that are spontaneous and cooperative and and and work for very very questionable or or frightening things and we are to some degree seeing things like that and that's something that you know I certainly feel that I need to address and confront and not evade um the other big um sort of

stereotype that goes with it is that if it's direct democracy then you're going to be having lentils for lunch there's going to be a drum circle and at some point the incense is going to be lit um and I'd avoid the brownies if I were you yep that's in there too that I means most stereotypes kind of have sufficient grains of Truth in order to keep them perpetuating and these are sort of factors that do put people off I think a lot of people don't realize the extent to which they're already practicing direct democracy and

just not realizing it like I said in my um previous uh previous response on the question of leadership so many times if you are capable of being within a group of friends and organizing something or deciding on something then you're actually capable like the the raw skills and processes and mechanics of that um you've got them they're in there so it's not so I sort of push back on the on the on the notion that it's impossible human beings living together and trying to work that out is in essence what we're talking about here now

you also mentioned in the question sort of okay but how would this work on a United Kingdom scale and indeed you know how would you work that on a kind of global scale we we have to sort of look at the issue these direct democracy communities such as might have been en visaged by someone like Jean Jac rouso for example even he back in the sort of 18th century said well it's too late now modern societ modern industrial society is too complex we can't go back to nice little cozy peasant communes um no matter how

hard we try um and part of me is attracted to the cozy little peasant commune apart from the fact that you know having grown up in a very rural part of part of Britain um and the idea of being enclosed in that Community it's not all candle foot people that's all I'm going to say um so yeah interesting notion now the sort of anism I'm committed to I could speak to you about Federated communities or you know and and the the fact that far from being an acronis you know these sorts of models of federation

so for example you've got kokkin notion of Federated communities slightly updated by I think of gdh Cole in the mid in the mid-century he talked about Guild socialism and those sorts of Notions how you organize sort of a complex modern industrial society by through sort of syndicates or workers control there are all those models out there and they're useful to be able to sort of present the sort of anarchism I um that interests me the most doesn't really like to kind of paint ideal social orders for me it's always far more of a of a

practice and in this in this sense I sort of cheat a little bit so I say well I don't need to worry about how you would necessarily organize or institutionalize direct democracy de direct democracy that sort of implies that that's it's direct democracy is sort of a means to an an end like the end being you know this perfect social order where everything's jolly and lovely and equal and just and all those good things now that would be nice but actually I sort of come in slightly differently and say well for me direct democracy is

kind of the end and the means Allin one so if I can see any opportunity in any space existing spaces and cre and and new ones you know but uh it's perfectly possible within existing spaces where people can just increase the amount of democratic practices that are available to them with existing means now that to me is a is a possibly more interesting interesting angle although it does feel to some people like I'm evading the question of how it might work on a large scale but I sort of think I don't I would I would

fall into Paradox very very quickly if I start dictating to you how to be free right we all know you can't be forced to be free right but what I could do instead is ask well in any given situation how might you increase the amount of Freedom that's available to you and that would be Good Start yeah so so it's about um taking the practices and some of the skills and the activities that we're already engaged in because the whole thing about direct democracy if it's not voluntary and spontaneous then it's not direct democracy so

if you invent a new system and say to everyone this is going to work you have to do it like this now that's actually very um it's a logical fallacy it sort of it collapses in on itself immediately uh you have to where people are actually at with what they're doing with where they already are and respecting them as as already thinking and intelligent beings that that are capable of making decisions are capable of cooperating may not want to do it in the patent or to the order that you've got in mind and that doesn't

mean that doesn't mean you tolerate anything of course it's an exchange it's a discussion democracy is that it's not for me democracy is not about achieving a complete consensus and that's the only means by which it can function right right right it's actually about how you have conflict that's creative rather than catastrophic good so so I wanted to bring you back to the worry that you mentioned which which is that there are um some instances of the past and unfortunately maybe in the future as well of people using these kinds of methods but coming to

form groups that have ideologies or moral views which we now find to be generally um and I guess the question I have is how are we to you know without sort of disturbing the Democratic nature of this process how are we to nudge our way off that path so for example I think when you nodded your head to it the um the the new Italian leader is you know further right than maybe some people are hoping across Europe um and there are those sentiments um and I think they need to be taken seriously as a

matter of Dem ratic practice right this is an embodiment of what the people of Italy wanted um but you know I for one I'm concerned and I get the sense of many other people too so how how are we going to use this direct Democratic procedure to nudge away from some results um yeah for me so I think you're you're going somewhere it's s really interesting here because and the difference maybe in the first instance between liberal democracy is a noun for a set of Institutions and a historical formation a sociopolitical formation um that sort

of takes acknowledges or takes its cues from from particular ideas of ancient Greece or the ancient um Greek world for example and has had the majority of its concentrated development in the west and in America and places like that and and now finds itself facing a lot of questions and and challenges and then there is a certain degree of irony to which in order to protect itself this liberal democracy capital L capital D proper noun has to actually kind of to what extent does it feel that it needs to abandon um democracy as an adjective

or a verb for a certain way of practicing and being and and sort of deliberating on decisions which is what we're essentially talking about when we talk meaningfully about democracy and It's Tricky one of so my first protocol with the this the the The Great Wave of populism as it's being referred to F first of all I I think it's difficult to think about it that way and get any and get much further along along the tracks the leader I mean the and it's something the political right has always been remarkably good at and the

political left has always been remarkably bad at the political right have an ear to the ground More Than People realize and they very good at picking up perfectly concerns or fears or worries that are not in them in and of themselves completely unreasonable and turning them into a very well-crafted rhetorical political campaign uh Margaret thater was you know she uh Someone I used to work on quite carefully was the the historian Raphael Samuel and he once said uh Margaret that just stole the left libertarian best lines and used them and used them for for the

right she understood what people were objecting to and played that to her advant AG a lot of these movements are simply recognizing that many people feel very anxious worried they are conscious that they're living in systems that don't seem to be working that there's a a disjunction or um Distortion between what they are being told should be the case and what they are actually experiencing in their lives again if you sort of drill in and start trying to avoid sort of mass or mob thinking when it comes to populism you'll have a tiny small minority

of people who are hardcore committed to these views and a larger group of people who don't are not finding any other forms of expression or representation anywhere else and they are being welcomed and they're being given dignity and respect by these sort of these other sort of sources of power so they're gravitating towards them I'm not sure like so in my ideal um having more democracy right now democracy the adjective the verb would be the best way of protecting the liberal democracy proper noun as a system um that would be what I would would Advocate

that we have come so far away from a culture where we are willing to listen to people's fears or concerns especially when they check or go or run counter to what we want to hear and so that's for me that's that's an important starting place but it's a frightening one because obviously it takes time takes time to win that respect and create those um cultures of discussion and we are living at times where uh we don't know how much time we have for certain things yeah I mean that I think that's that sounds right and

the the Insight that the right has been better at listening to concerns that people have and turning them into a political campaign that Rings very true and I me we saw that in 2016 yeah exactly exactly so obviously thater but um it's happening right now it's happening it's happening as we speak uh in the cabinet office um so uh I thought we could turn to some biographical questions um so You' spoken in the past about your sort of libertarian beginnings and I wondered if you could if you could give us a sort of potted history

of how you came to this interest and anarchism and how you came to these views so I was definitely an anarchist before I knew I was an anarchist um my mom was a teacher and she uh she made the Cardinal error of teaching both my brother and I to read when we were very very little before we started school and saying to us if you can read the world's open to you you won't you know you won't need anything else oh she should said that um I tried school and found that I didn't like like

instinctively I reacted against the regiment the regimented nature of the day the fact that I was in cloes the fact I was told what to read when to read how to read it before I even had anything resembling a sort of critical or an analytical language for these things it was just and I think this is probably the case for many people it's an instinctive gut reaction and I had a few choices um I could do what many of my peers did and sort of it was the Prototype of quiet quitting so you just go

there and you just get through the day and you just wait for break time lunch time and home time those are the three highlights of the day or another group that just um kind of sort of uh disrupted their own lives by by basically rebelling being um badly behave what have you I decided to take a third option that that was simply I just w away I I I continued to um reject or refuse it was uh yes it was my first example of resistance I suppose and uh I was very lucky I had understanding

parents and here's the here's where the direct democracy came in they were both of them willing to hear my point of view even as a child and the the point you can I was always told you you can make your case you're going to receive criticisms on it but you must if you can make your case if you can put your point point across we will listen that was the deal no guarantees and agreement but certainly I got a hearing and so one way or another somehow I managed to sort of bumble struggle through so

the the you know 18 years I I took the exams fairly independently so I had a very in andout very checkered very minimal relationship with formal education and now I come to look back and I think that that was sort of extremely important from a very young age I got very used to being very self-reliant from deciding what I was going to read how I was going to learn if I had been forced through school I think my passion and enthusiasm for all that sort of thing would have been completely extinguished pretty much annihilated by

the time I got to 18 um the fact that I was choosing what to pursue and how and in that process found that things that I wouldn't normally have wanted to do like mathematics or science they weren't sort of natural things for me but through needing to know wanting to know about certain things I sort of quite organically found myself just being interested in everything and seeing the value and the and and the potential value of of everything so that in a very everyday boring non- exiting way um was the roots of it and that's

why I suppose when I come ac across radicalism capital r glamorous Chic you know sort of um with all your sort of factions and groups and that that's that's not that's not the sort of culture that um that I kind of gravitate towards there it is strongly sort of individualist in my case but never sort of in the isolated individual it's my way of constantly moving through the world and being a part of the relationships and the interactions that I'm in rather than simply going along with anyone else's other pattern of life that leads me

to my final question so I wanted to ask and in fact there might actually be two questions here now so um obviously I'm sure there are lots of thinkers that you would have liked to meet that you never had the chance um so I was going to ask um what sort of historical Anarchist figure would you like to have a sort of lively dinner conversation with and what would you choose to speak about but perhaps there are two questions in the sense that maybe one answer for a younger version of yourself you know who was

experiencing this passion for certain projects and certain things end in school education stifling and then now someone who's embraced this knowingly you know self- knowledge of what you are and how it fits with anarchism and where you fit in in the anarchist Community well [Music] um so my younger self once I got to the point where I realized that there could actually be sort of politicized ways of talking about how I was feeling and going towards those early kind of that classic George Woodcock history of anarchism which uh sort of I I I I don't

think any any student could have got through the 60s without having a copy I would hope not but that was actually really important and that book is I mean within the anarchist Cannon it does the useful job of setting out the ancestors so it's got kokkin in there and it's got banin and it's got prudon and it's got tolto and you it's not compulsory to come from Russia and have a great beard if you're an anarchist but it helps and I suppose for me any figure from that book I was a bit disappointed that there

weren't too many sort of really interesting sort of female figures um Emma Goldman is obviously a sort of interest but but I suppose when I was younger that was quite important to have this sort of sense of a a deep a deep history um and these quite glamorous exciting figures with their sort of big ideas and mutual Aid and so I suppose if I was to narrow it down when I was younger I think it it would it would have to be kokkin thing but now actually in the sort of work I do I I

do a lot of work through intellectual biography because to me it's a really useful way of showing how the individual is never an isolated private separate entity that actually if you look at biography if we tell the story of Our Lives we can't do that without showing all the social relationships and interactions that go into to forming any one life and so the thinkers I look at now um are really interesting from that respect so Colin Ward for example Raphael Samuel EP Thompson um and at the moment I'm doing a lot of work on fig

like who you wouldn't even and who would never have called themselves Anarchist people like gdh Cole or Isaiah Belin now before I'm I'm not but I'm not saying for one moment that they were anarchists but what's really interesting about what these people are trying to do is what I'm trying to do it's work out how to be politically committed without having to have all the answers and work out how actually democracy the conditions for democracy as a concept are satisfied by practice you don't always have to have the finished result to say that you are

um you you are experiencing radical democracy brilliant thank you very much I think we might wrap up there thank you for coming my pleasure for more debates talks and interviews subscribe today to The Institute of Arts and ideas at iitv