May 2021 from Autonomies collective. by Amedeo Bertolo
Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance. Fernando Birri quoted by Eduardo Galeano
There can be no radical political project – in the broadest sense of “political” -, without myth. And myth projected into the future is utopian.
This is not to abandon the critique of ideology, of hegemonic ideology and its monstrous children: social and/or political vanguards,power as a monolith to be taken or lost, homogeneous space and linear time as the frame of history, moral utilitarianism and instrumental reason, and so on.
Utopia as freedom or freedom as utopia exists in continuous and ever possible tension within itself, defying all homogeneity and fixity. It is condemned to plurality, multiplicity, metamorphoses, collapse, destruction and creation. It is anarchy, the anarchy that sustains anarchism(s) as ideolog(y/ies). And so argues Amedeo Bertolo in the essay that we share below.
With this post, we close our collection of essays by Amedeo Bertolo, part of our series grouped under the title, “writers of May 68”, within which we have included Jaime Semprun, Miguel Amorós, Eduardo Colombo and Amedeo Bertolo.
The reference to “May 68” is a political metaphor in this instance, for aside from Semprun, the other three writers were in their respective countries of origin at the time (Amorós was in Spain, Bertolo in italy, and Colombo in Argentina), but all four writers would be profoundly marked by the events of May and would endeavour to rethink anarchism in the wake of those events.
This is the sixth of five essays by Bertolo already published: A life in anarchy, Authority, power and domination, Democracy and beyond, Fanatics of freedom, The subversive weed.
Three of the essays that we will share in English translation were passed onto us by others. They are: “Authority, Power and Domination”, “Fanatics of Freedom”, “Democracy and Beyond”. We have made changes to the translations only when we believed it was necessary
Our modest effort is dedicated to the memory of Amedeo.
**************
The Utopian Function in the Anarchist Imaginary
(A text presented at the seminar, “Les Incendiaires de l’Imaginaire”, Grenoble, March 19-21, 1998, and published in AA.VV., Les Incendiaires de l’Imaginaire, Atelier de Création Libetraire, Lyon, 2000).
Continue reading “The Utopian Function in the Anarchist Imaginary-“
