Democracy, Experience, and Antifa

• In Event: Pragmatism, Populism, and Democratic Theory

Abstract

Much modern and contemporary democratic theory is implicitly premised on a sharp distinction between thought and decision, on the one hand, and action and implementation, on the other. Some approaches emphasize critically analyzing the discursive processes and practices for making decisions, and largely bracket the practical problem of what comes next. Others focus on the apparent inability of many ordinary people to live up to ideal standards of rational decision-making, understood as detached, intellectual and reflective. Still others stress the need to separate the moment of popular decision from the moment of authoritative action -- in order to make temporal room for persuasion and rethinking. While most members of the contemporary antifascist (Antifa) movement would likely have little patience for these approaches to democratic theory, one thing they do seem to share with these theories’ proponents is an implicit conceptual bifurcation between thought and action. The difference is that instead of valorizing deliberation, rational thought, or considered judgment, Antifa’s defenders position themselves on the side of action, as they see it. That is, they favor direct confrontation of violent far-right forces as against what they see as “doing nothing” – against ineffectual attempts to win such forces over with argument and persuasion. In contrast to many contemporary democratic philosophies, John Dewey’s theory rests on an understanding of “experience” that denies the coherence of any sharp bifurcation between decision and action. For Dewey, action should be understood as a continual flow of action, undergoing of consequences, and reflection – followed always by more action. From the standpoint of a Deweyan theory of experience, Antifa’s tactics appear not to result from valuing action over thinking, but rather from valuing certain kinds of actors, certain kinds active interventions, and certain kinds of active experience over all others. It is a type of political response that arises when politics and social life degenerate so as to break down healthy channels of action and reflection. This essay will explore what a Deweyan understanding of Antifa strategies and their political context might look like.

Author

• John N. Medearis, University of California, Riverside