Lifestyle anarchism is a term derived from
Murray Bookchin's polemical essay "
Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm." He used it to criticize those
anarchists who dress the look or live in certain ways, but who don't really act on the basic tenets of anarchism at the expense of
class struggle or coherent and effective anarchist social organization. He also directed criticism against prominent figures such as
Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson) and
John Zerzan (who has also criticized Bey) as having promoted
anti-rationalism. Bookchin gives several documented examples, including a misnamed image by
Francisco de Goya placed on the Fall/Winter 1993 cover of
Fifth Estate; the title, "
The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters" was altered to "The Dream of Reason Brings Forth Monsters" which changed its meaning to an attack on human reason rather than support of it. The term is sometimes used by anarchists as a description of positions that concentrate on
specifically superficial changes to personal behavior rather than the wholesale reorganization or abolition of
class and hierarchical society.
