My apologies for this not being particularly well-organized.

To Whom it May Concern,

While I am not an active member of CAN due to my excessively busy schedule, I self-identify as a Chicago anarchist and, as such, have been deeply saddened by what I feel to be increasingly juvenile, hostile, and counter-intuitive pseudo-debate coming from all sides with particular regard to the firestorm after Jevon's contoversial post, the nitty-gritty of which I will not dwell on but which was needlessly inflammatory and aggressive.
I feel that this, and the comments that followed it represent a tendency that threatens anarchism not simply in Chicago but across the US and quite possibly other countries as well. It began with such irate polemecizing as Murray Bookchin's Social Anarchism vs. Lifestye Anarchism and with the equally hostile and ad-hominem response from such authors as Jason McQuinn and Bob Black. Such unfortunate pseudo-discourse can also be seen in the debates on so-called post-left anarchy where McQuinn and Peter Staudenmaier (primarily) have squared off with incessant ad-hominem attacks and have successfully avoided a meaningful discourse on the direction of critical anarchist thought.
The tone of these feuds has been all -too- exactly reproduced in Chicago anarchist discourse. Instead of trying to reconcile misdeeds and attempt to cooperatively work to deepen anarchist praxis and critique, most all parties involved unfortunately fell back into side-taking, partisan spats which soon degenerated into out-and-out racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.
I feel that we anarchists cannot allow this status quo of debate that makes Bill O'Rielly look like a bastion of reasoned discourse to contiue. I advocate neither the suspension of ongoing critical debate, nor any sort of purge-mentality with regard to specific actors. On the contrary, I believe that we should take it upon ourselves to consciously construct an environment for discourse where all can feel comfortable clearly and respectfully viocing divergent opinions.
It seems to me, however, that we must realize that we are an extremely minoritarian tendency both in the US and in the world. That said, we have no excuse to have anything other than finding the most common ground as priority 1 in any discourse. While there is no catch-all definition for anarchism, it can be safely said that anarchists in general wish to see the abolition of all forms of domination, be they capitalism, the State, racism, sexism, homophobia, ecological destruction, etc. and that we work for a society based on varying forms of mutual aid, self-management, and cooperation. Folks, that is ALOT we agree on! If we put aside our differences for just a moment (by no means permanently) and agree that we do have alot in common, that we do want a respectful, constructive space for open debate, and that whatever we do, we should have the goal of creating liberating social forms and/or experiences in mind, I think we can begin to extract ourselves out of the ideological quicksand with which we've become unfortunately encumbered.
I am not proposing any concrete measures, but simply a mindset: that we should see free discourse as a means to realizing anarchy to the utmost, that we should engage in respectful, constructive debate with those in anarchsim whom we have differences, and that we should allow ourselves to be open enough to find good ideas where we least expect them and always be seeking to find common ground and improve ourselves as a general tendency without for a minute sacrificing our autonomy and integrity as groups and individuals to think our own thoughts and dream our own dreams.
It is my hope that those who read and agree with this message pass it on through word and deed and work to construct a non-sectarian, open anarchism from the ground up, where dissent and dissension are looked upon as positive possibilities and where we can begin to cultivate the cultures of respect, mutal aid, cooperation, and unity-in-diversity that we seek to realize in the world. Maybe this writing is in vain, but I hope at the bottom of all hopes, as an anarchist with my own positions and opinions, that it is not.

With the utmost solidarity and best wishes,
max

P.S. I would just like to make it known that, while I have my disagreements with them as with other anarchist writers which I would be more than happy to discuss at another time, I have great respect for Peter Staudenmaier, Jason McQuinn, and anyone else I mentioned specifically in this piece.