Anarchist Prophets

In Anarchist Prophets, James R. Martel makes a case for an anarchist form of collective vision that will counter dominant archist" forms of power-that is, power that is centralized, hierarchical, and commanding. Archism, Martel argues, dominates through its promises of safety, success, and exalted life (primarily through its religious grounding), and it relies on prophets or people who claim to have the power to see what counts as real. Martel's goal is to show how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can exist and flourish, even under less-than-ideal conditions of archist power. Drawing from a wide range of political cases and literary texts-Biblical texts, Hobbes, the Spanish revolution, Kurdish resistance in Syria, Octavia Butler's fiction-Martel traces out the theological roots of archist power and then offers examples of anarchist experiments with forms of collective prophecy that are liberatory rather than seeking to rule through a privileged form of vision. Martel points instead to ways in which people can "see together" in community through the "anarchist prophet" or the figure who helps a community to see through disappointment and by allowing for messiness and heterogeneity"--