Research by Hasse-Nima Golkar
There are two important and fundamental questions about anarchism whose answers may help clarify its meaning and history.
Is anarchism primarily a movement or an intellectual tradition? And if it is both, which of the two takes precedence over the other?
The second question is this:
Can the history of anarchism be traced back thousands of years, with every anti-authoritarian idea from the past regarded as part of anarchism’s lineage?
A considered answer to these two questions seems to require distinguishing several concepts from one another.
Anarchism: A Movement or an Intellectual Tradition?
The short answer is this:
Anarchism is both a movement and an intellectual tradition. More precisely, however, it is best understood as an intellectual-practical tradition.
Anarchism is not merely a collection of philosophical theories developed in books, just as it is not merely a collection of social and political movements.
Modern anarchism emerged in the nineteenth century in connection with social struggles, the labor movement, critiques of the state and capitalism, and various experiments in anti-authoritarian forms of organization. At the same time, thinkers such as Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin sought to formulate the theoretical foundations of this opposition to the state, domination, and hierarchy.
Theory and practice, therefore, were never separate from one another from the outset.
If we understand anarchism solely as a movement, we lose sight of a substantial part of its reality, because over time anarchism has developed a body of serious debates concerning freedom, authority, the state, property, hierarchy, self-organization, mutual aid, and the relationship between the individual and the collective.
But if we regard it merely as a theory, we also fall into error, because anarchism cannot be understood independently of its historical movements, struggles, and practical experiences.
For this reason, perhaps the most appropriate formulation is the following:
Anarchism is neither merely a theory nor merely a movement. Rather, it is an intellectual-practical tradition in which theory and practice have continually influenced one another.
Does One Take Precedence over the Other?
If we are referring to historical precedence, we should say that modern anarchism took shape within the social movements and struggles of the nineteenth century, after which its theoretical formulations continued to develop.
Logically, however, the relationship is not so straightforward.
Every anti-authoritarian movement requires some conception of freedom, domination, justice, or the relationship between human beings and power. Conversely, anarchist theories have also been shaped by the actual experiences of movements.
It may therefore be better to speak of a reciprocal and historical relationship between thought and practice rather than searching for a simple sequence of “first” and “then.”
Is Every Anti-Authoritarian Idea Anarchist?
This is where the second question becomes more significant.
In accounts of anarchism’s history, references are sometimes made to the Cynics, the Epicureans, certain Eastern philosophers, some religious thinkers, skeptics, and other very ancient intellectual currents. These are then described as the “roots of anarchism.”
But we must proceed with caution.
Opposition to authority, by itself, does not make an idea anarchist.
If we accept such a criterion, we could classify almost the entire history of thought as a history of anarchism.
One thinker may have opposed the state, another social conventions, another religious authority, another moral hierarchies, and yet another private property.
But these forms of opposition do not necessarily constitute a unified theory.
Indeed, two thinkers may share an opposition to the same form of authority while disagreeing completely about economics, ethics, the individual, society, or the desirable form of social organization.
We must therefore distinguish between several concepts:
- Intellectual antecedents
- Intellectual affinities
- Historical lineage
Three Different Meanings of “Antecedents”
- Intellectual Antecedents or Precursors
A thinker from the past may have raised an issue that later became important to anarchists as well.
Examples include criticism of political power, distrust of authoritative institutions, and the defense of individual independence.
In such cases, we can say that the thinker’s ideas anticipated a question that would later become important within anarchism.
But this is different from saying that the thinker was an anarchist.
- Intellectual Affinity
A thinker’s ideas may resemble anarchist thought in certain respects.
For example, the Cynics can be examined in terms of how they challenged certain social values and conventions.
But the existence of such affinities does not mean that the Cynics were “early anarchists.”
- Direct Historical Lineage
This is the most precise of the three concepts.
If it can be demonstrated that a thinker or intellectual current actually influenced the formation of modern anarchism—for example, through the transmission of ideas, intellectual connections, direct engagement with texts, or demonstrable historical influence—then it is appropriate to speak of a historical lineage or influence.
Here, we are no longer dealing merely with conceptual resemblance.
The Cases of the Cynics and Omar Khayyam
The Cynics provide a useful example.
We can argue that certain aspects of Cynic thought, particularly their disregard for certain forms of authority, social norms, and accepted hierarchies, bear affinities with some anarchist themes.
But we cannot directly infer from this that:
“The Cynics were anarchists.”
The same issue arises in the case of Khayyam.
In poems attributed to Khayyam, we may find themes consistent with skepticism, individual freedom, criticism of religious certainties, or distrust of certain absolute claims.
But this alone does not make Khayyam a “precursor of anarchism.”
Even if a contemporary anarchist draws inspiration from Khayyam, what we can confidently say is that:
Khayyam influenced that anarchist.
This is entirely different from claiming that:
“Khayyam himself was an anarchist.”
An Important Problem: Every Tradition Can Claim a Shared Past
A more interesting problem emerges here.
Suppose an anarchist says:
“The Cynics or Khayyam are my intellectual predecessors.”
An egoist could say:
“They are my intellectual predecessors.”
A libertarian might also say:
“I see important elements of my own libertarian tradition in their writings.”
Even a thinker belonging to a completely different tradition might interpret the same works through an entirely different theoretical framework.
We must therefore distinguish between drawing inspiration from a thinker and claiming historical ownership of that thinker.
No intellectual tradition can make a thinker from the past its exclusive property simply because it finds certain aspects of that thinker’s ideas meaningful today.
Resemblance does not establish historical ownership.
The History of Anarchism or the Genealogy of Anarchism?
Much of this disagreement may arise from a confusion between two concepts:
The history of anarchism and the intellectual genealogy of anarchism are not the same thing.
If we say:
“The history of anarchism begins thousands of years ago,”
we may create the impression that anarchism existed thousands of years ago as a distinct political and intellectual current.
But if we say:
“Some of the questions and ideas that later became important in the development of anarchist thought have antecedents far older than the emergence of modern anarchism,”
we are making a more precise claim.
In this case, we can discuss the Cynics, certain ancient philosophers, some religious and philosophical traditions, and other anti-authoritarian currents as part of the genealogy or intellectual antecedents of particular anarchist themes, without attributing an anarchist identity to them.
A Simple Test for Distinguishing among These Cases
To avoid historical exaggeration in this debate, we can ask three questions.
First:
Did this thinker or intellectual current oppose some form of authority or domination?
If the answer is yes, we have identified only one point of commonality.
Second:
Does this thinker’s critique of authority overlap with certain fundamental elements of anarchist thought?
If the answer is yes, we can speak of an intellectual affinity.
Third:
Is there a demonstrable historical relationship between this body of thought and the formation of modern anarchism?
If the answer is yes, we can then speak of influence, antecedents, or historical lineage.
If the answer to the third question is no, it is best to use labels such as “precursor of anarchism” or “early anarchist” with considerable caution.
Why Does This Distinction Matter?
At first glance, this debate may appear to be merely a disagreement over terminology, but it is not.
If we call every anti-authoritarian idea anarchist, the concept of anarchism becomes so broad that it encompasses almost every thinker who has criticized power.
In that case, we can no longer clearly identify what distinguishes anarchism from libertarianism, egoism, liberalism, skepticism, mysticism, Cynic philosophy, or other anti-authoritarian traditions.
On the other hand, if we disregard all these antecedents and claim that anarchism suddenly emerged from nothing in the nineteenth century, that too would provide an incomplete picture.
Modern anarchism did not emerge in an intellectual vacuum.
But having antecedents is not the same as being identical to them, and sharing a lineage does not mean sharing the same identity.
Conclusion
We can therefore argue that anarchism is both a movement and an intellectual tradition, but that, more precisely, it is an intellectual-practical tradition in which theory and social struggle have developed through their interaction with one another.
As for its past, modern anarchism has a relatively distinct history, but some of the intellectual questions and themes that later became important within anarchism have much older antecedents.
Accordingly, the Cynics, Khayyam, and other thinkers from the past may be discussed, where appropriate evidence exists, in relation to the intellectual antecedents, affinities, or genealogies of anarchism. But they cannot be called anarchists merely because they opposed one or more forms of authority.
Perhaps the most precise formulation is this:
Anarchism can investigate its own past, but it should not turn every freedom-oriented or anti-authoritarian idea from the past into part of its own exclusive history.
Conversely, anarchism should not be separated so completely from the history of thought that it appears to have emerged in the nineteenth century without any intellectual antecedents.
The question, therefore, is neither “Were the Cynics anarchists?” nor “Was there no connection whatsoever between them and anarchism?”
The more precise question is:
Which aspects of their thought bear affinities with anarchism, which aspects influenced the historical formation of anarchism, and what historical evidence do we have for each of these claims?
Rather than turning the past into the property of an ideology, this question allows us to read the history of ideas with greater precision.