Suppose there is a farmhouse in which 20 people live… it's all they've got, they built it from the ground up, they feed much of the local community, and they are likely to be out on the streets freezing to death if the barn is demolished — which just so happens to be scheduled. For whatever reason, although otherwise sensible people, they've decided by consensus that they have no better option than to sit in the barn and go down with it when it gets bulldozed tomorrow. One person pointed out that the bulldozers could easily be decommissioned the night beforehand with sugar in the gas-tanks and a few monkey-wrenches but they decide to ignore this person (consensus minus one) even though they have little to lose, the risk of getting caught and punished is small, and better solutions could be presented in the time bought. Should this person (or even an outside sympathizer) allow this idealized farmhouse (a center of the community for the sake of argument) to be simply and unnecessarily destroyed by some malevolent force which could perhaps be weakened even further in the near future? If you said "yes," congratulations… you are not a vanguard! If on the other hand, you decided to take action on your own, or with a small group of others in defense of the farm… you might be a vanguard. Personally, I see more shame in the former as opposed to the latter.

I see insurrectionary anarchists, in general, as a vanguard — and was thus surprised to see a bashing of that idea here on the VOID blog. I see John Brown as vanguardist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_%28abolitionist%29) and also as a most necessary revolutionary archetype. It does not seem out of the question for a group of good people to be too downtrodden, weak, and or naive for them to effectively identify threats and/or to defend themselves in the most dire moments. In this instance, a vanguard seems to be entirely justified and necessary (even without the tacit permission of the larger group involved).

Do you disagree? I'll try to reread this post again after it's reformatted and maybe clarify some points if I'm off base here or unclear. But, in general, vanguardism seems to be more in line with anarchism than consensus-based decision making. And so… I have to wonder about this article. What does it mean? Do you stand behind this as a collective? Can anyone post anything to site with any political position whatsoever?

Sincerely,
Nihilo Zero

Let me preface this comment by saying that I am a regular reader of the VOID blog and post all the articles (even this one) on my twitter page @NihiloZero. I say "even this one" because talk of consensus organizing makes me roll my eyes and bashing vanguardism, while easy to do for obvious reasons, is probably often counter-revolutionary. Also, I should admit that I'll have to come back and finish trying to read all of this article because the formatting is currently atrocious.

First of all, concerning consensus… I have begrudgingly been to scores of consensus based meetings and generally feel that they aren't any more effective at getting things done than with a voting system with a small group of people in one room. One major problem is that consensus organizing amongst radical activists is often done without those involved people adequately expressing their personal perspectives beforehand and sometimes are coordinated in such a way that any random member of the public can show up and (subtly or overtly) derail such meetings. Consensus organizing is often only as strong as the most ignorant and/or malevolent member of the group.

Another serious problem is that the consensus process is often taken over (or controlled from the start) by the strongest personalities (like those who called the meeting to begin with or perhaps those who have been to the previous meetings). In this circumstance people often tend to just go with the flow, i.e., "Oh, THAT is what YOU want to do and that's what this meeting is all about? Well, OK I guess, I'm not going to rock the boat." Oftentimes nobody wants to be the odd woman out and block something that the group (or a socially savvy individual wants to do). Nobody wants to be the person who says "no" or wants to be seen as someone who is holding up some project or another. Despite reassurances that they will not be ostracized or shunned, I think this often occurs if someone is not sticking with the program. To the extent that you modify consensus around this person (however justified you are in doing so) you only reduce the likelihood of anyone trying again to ever block anything the perceived group wants to do. And I say "perceived" groups because I often feel that consensus based meetings are held simply to get people to agree and help with a project that core members of the group have already decided to undertake. This is especially true if this is just some fly-by-night group working on some action or another.

So what we see are two extremes failure within the consensus process, A) The process is only as strong as the most ignorant and/or malicious member, and B) The process can be a mere formality for those who are coordinating the meetings to begin with so that they can get their way. It strengthens the "in" group of core individuals as well as the "out" group who actually wish the group no success at all. The rest are either content to let others do their thinking for them or don't want to speak up and may just end up abandoning the group anyway. I know that we'd like to pretend that there aren't any weak people who can be manipulated or manipulative that way, but such is reality. And this leads into, and relates, to vanguardism.