Ebook: Anarchist Speculations: Writings by John Moore

John Moore is an under-valued voice in the realm of anarcho-primitivism most obviously, but also in a vision of anarchy as a flexible, current, non-ideological way of approaching life and thought. This over-due compilation of his three long-form essays and the most important shorter pieces (and some of his poetry), as well as what other folks had to say about him and his writings, demonstrates some of what anarchists lost when he died at a young age.

But unbeknownst to those immersed in classical anarchist traditions, a new, second-wave of anarchism (akin and indeed roughly contemporaneous with second-wave feminism) was stirring. The Situationists represent a convenient marker of the transition point, and serve as origin for the remarkable efflorescence of second-wave anarchism that is currently underway. Second-wave anarchism is still frequently not even recognised by anarchists and commentators who still cling to the idea that classical anarchism is the one and only true form of anarchism, even though first-wave anarchism was seen as moribund by Woodcock forty years ago. As a result, many outside the anarchist milieu are given the misleading impression that a) classical anarchism is anarchism, b) anarchism is therefore an historical phenomenon, and thus c) there are no current manifestations of anarchist praxis.

Originally writing from an autonomist perspective, John was heavily influenced by anarcho-primitivist Fredy Perlman, particularly his early-1980s mythopoeia classic Against His-Story, Against Leviathan! John's key pamphlets Anarchy & Ecstasy and Lovebite challenged boundary distinctions in almost every respect, certainly concerning authorial authority. These pamphlets' employment of myth to this end was widely misunderstood, particularly by willfully literal-minded reviewers at Fifth Estate, which led John to even more determined attempts to subvert the authoritative voice through "The Book of Leveling" and poetry emphasizing cultural challenges to the Totality.