“As if Power did not Exist”: Ontology and Politics of Postanarchism

Abstract

The proposal review is devoted to the book by S. Newman “Postanarchism” presented in April 2021 by the “RIPOL Classic” publishing house. The translation into Russian of this text, the original of which was published in 2016, seems significant not only in the context of familiarization the little-known in Russia politico-philosophical concepts of the West, but also from the position of analyzing contemporary practices of political resistance to the state. The radicalism of these practices stimulates philosophical reflection on the ontological, epistemological and ethical contours of this resistance, an example of which is Newman's work reviewed here. At the same time, the book is neither a program document of the modern anarchist movement, nor a guide to political action. It represents a quite original optics, which the author builds with the help of an interpretive assembly of anti-authoritarian motives extracted from the works of thinkers of the past and present.