Anarchism with rules? see Graham Benton TRP and the Philosophy of Anarchism

[alice wellintown]

a good question, surely anarchism, like democracy, is a complex idea
and so it is not merely the opposition to law. Again, Conrad, in his
little tales, the anarchist and the informer, and in his brilliant
short story, the secrt agent, provides an excellent fictional view of
anarchy. But those looking for a political philosopher can not rely on
Conrad or Pynchon, but can find better sources in the critical
literature and in the works of political philosophy propper.

yeah, anarchy with rules, sure...when the _Oklahoma City Law Review_
issue on Pynchon was published (Fall 1999), the subject was not much
discussed in P ciricles or the P-industry, but post-AGTD, it seems
fairly obvious to anyone who haqs actually read the book, and I think
there are fewer of these than of any of his other works, though it is
his best effort to date, that P, a student of Henry Adams and Joseph
Conrad, a student who slowly learned, not only from Orwell, but from
reading books like To The Finland Station, that political philosophy
was a subject he would include in his fictions, though it took him
some time to see how this subject and others, was in the way, at
times, of his development as author, for he was a poor creator of
characters and a weak writer of dialoge, to note but two of this most
glaring weaknesses, but P is an author who, from the start, has been
writing about labor, and American labor, and that he would knot into
anarchy, especially given the post 9-11 revistings of america's labor-
anarchists & co., into the complex and dynamic themes that anarchy
invites.

so, yeah I think the journal can be located online. Benton, who was a
candidate for phd. when he published his essay, has also written about
Dickens and Paulo Friere. Much talk of Dewey and Blake, of late here,
but Friere is also quite important to the notion of pragmatism and how
a people might gain an education and make progress if not order  [
;-).

see  Graham Benton, Pynchon's Topographica Americana: City Planning,
Urban Blight and the Wild West
Transit of Venus: 6th International Pynchon Conference
June 8-11, 2004  | Valletta, Malta

see Unruly Narratives: The Anarchist Dimension in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon