Murray Bookchin, 1921-2006

Murray,

I'm honestly at a bit of a loss as to what to say, here. Our interactions were few, and left me feeling as though you'd resigned yourself to whittling away the last of your years as a bitter old curmudgeon. It always put me in an odd position; you were so preoccupied with establishing your legacy that you probably never knew that you'd blown my mind years before.

I stand by my position from our last argument, by the way. Whatever brought about your disillusionment, anarchism is not antithetical to organization, and I'm honestly still a little embarrassed that (having written all you had) you couldn't do better than parroting the most cliche caricature in the book. Rumor has it that, in your final book, you went through all the adjectives you'd used in The Spanish Anarchists, and replaced them with the worst insults you could think up. Well done, I guess.

Hopefully, your legacy will reflect your less bitter moments. Either way, there really isn't anyone stepping up to fill your shoes.

Last summer, I said my final goodbye to the Institute. It was really fucking hard. A school house where I'd studied under some of the most insightful, understated people I've ever met, and gathered for weekly community meetings where I internalized that we can actually do this shit. A bathhouse where I'd traced the body of a lover I no longer hear from, and the adjacent woods where we spent our first moments alone. A kitchen that taught me more than I could've imagined about empathetic joy, learning how to know and appreciate the people working next to me. A wood-frame barn I helped raise and plaster, the only sustainably-built structure I've ever laid my hands on. The pond in which we drowned a host of inhibitions, and the library that provided the inspiration for my own. All gone. Never to return.

It was empty that last morning. Ben was serving as groundskeeper since the programs had been canceled, and had offered us the opportunity to sleep there rather than the floor of the anarchist labor hall in Barre. I couldn't escape the thought that when we pulled out of the parking lot, it would never come back. This place that represented probably the most intense moments of healing and redemption that I've ever known would never come back. This place that represented the possibility of so many things, this place where I'd watched people organically draw out each other's best selves would never come back. This place that gave breath to the possibility of an integrated radical intellectual life would never come back. There was definitely something in me that felt if I just didn't leave, it wouldn't have to end. And while I don't often cry over much of anything, I felt that tense, burning in my gut and temples that would otherwise set the process in motion.

Murray, I didn't know you well. And you kinda pissed me off that last time I was at your place. I'd actually brought a copy of The Ecology of Freedom with me, to have you sign for me, but by the time you'd finished talking, I was so put off by your bitterness and your badly veiled, desperate insecurity that I didn't bother. It was miserable. I didn't even feel guilty when Brooke gave me shit afterward, for putting my head down on my arms and nearly falling asleep. You were a shell of whoever produced the work that still routinely speaks through me, that guy was nowhere to be found.

And now all possibility of catching a glimpse of him is gone. Never to return.

And I'm having a really hard time absorbing that, brother. Mostly, I'm aware of how your passion and steadfastness spoke through the Institute, and what that's written on me. And I'm really fucking sorry I never fully realized it, or thanked you for it. I'm really sorry you left us without hearing me say it, Murray. It was a beautiful and sorely understated gift to us all, and it saved my fucking life. You deserve far more for that than your 85 years could've probably afforded. And I'm sorry I never told you that.

Safe travels.

"To speak of ‘limits to growth’ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be ‘persuaded’ to limit growth than a human being can be ‘persuaded’ to stop breathing. Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.” - M. B.