the few(others) rule the rest.

Democracy instead con-

stitutes autonomy: Everyone rules himself/herself.
Heteronomy is a condition in which the power of
everyone to govern himself/herself has been alie-
nated, expropriated by an organ, a few, an-other.
Democracy insists that people never agreed to surren-
der their power in the first place. The state cannot live
without our desire to be ruled.
To become democratic is to become adult; it is to
rule oneself, to struggle every day to be autono-
mous. For Wallace, it is extremely hard to grow
up because we are afraid to experience this anxiety,
we want to remain infants, to be passive, to be taken
care of. He even suggests that this desire for the crib
is stronger than any other desire, even stronger than
our desire to stay alive.
Ipso facto, the first step for democracy is
awareness by understanding that the addiction
becoming-passive is a problem. When people
become active, they can radically increase their
estimation of their own abilities. That people
believe they are incapable of ruling themselves
and that there would be chaos without any hier-
archical authority is the general agreement that
legitimate power rests on. To say we are too
immature for democracy and therefore we must
be ruled by an oligarchy that would be to cure
the disease with the germ that is making us sick.
Democracy and activity are, as Lefebvre says, a
horizon. They are something we aim at and struggle
towards, a destination we want desperately to reach,
even though we knowwe never can. We can never be
democratic, we can only ever be in progress of
becoming democratic. Democracy can only ever be
the struggle for democracy, the journey down a path
towards more democracy, autonomy, and activity.
Spatial Delight and the Possibilities
of Childhood
Reviewed by: Simon Springer, University of Victoria,
Canada
When I was a child I used to play a game, spinning a
globe or flicking through an atlas and jabbing down
my finger without looking where. If it landed on land
Id try to imagine what was going on there then.
How people lived, the landscape, the time of day it
was, what season. My knowledge was extremely rudi-
mentary but I was completely fascinated by the fact
that all these things were going on now . . . Its partly
a way of imagining how things are for friends in other
places; but its also a continuing amazement at the
contemporaneous heterogeneity of the planet. . . . And
this is where space comes in . . . it is quite reasonable
to take some delight in the possibilities it opens up.
Doreen Massey (2005: 14)
No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy,
the kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a
child. The effort of every true educator should be to
unlock that treasure.
Emma Goldman (1931/2011: 409)
Let her go places that weve never been, trust and
delight in her youth.
Neil Gaiman (2011: n.p.)
Mark Purcells (2013) latest book, The Down-Deep
Delight of Democracy is a tremendously important
political intervention that comes at exactly the right
moment. As humanity collectively chokes on the
miasma of the neoliberal present, wherein capital-
ism has become explicitly punitive, the apparatus
of the state has lost all false claims to benevolence,
individualism has metastasized in the form of
apathy and alienation, and the spirit of democracy
has been incinerated in the inferno of an ever-
tightening security regime of militarism and fear,
Purcell boldly sounds a clarion call to resistance.
The oligarchies of oppression that deprive our free-
doms, sequester our desires, and divide our commu-
nities, while undoubtedly extremely powerful in the
current conjuncture, are not without challenge.
Reflecting on the importance of theorizing and prac-
ticing democracy in a radical sense of autonomy,
Purcell links his understandings of collective
empowerment to a more relational and processual
conceptualization of space. Viewing democracy as
a forever-unfolding stream of becoming, it is in this
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protean and fluidic character that he finds a source
of hope, an expectation of courage, and a promise
of delight. There is much to love about Purcells
book and its vehement appeal to the constituent
power of democracy as a living process of autono-
mous organization. His optimism is illuminating,
his writing lucid, his argument persuasive, and his
passion infectious. Built upon the structures laid
down by great thinkers like Henri Lefebvre, Jac-
ques Rancie`re, Antonio Gramsci, Chantal Mouffe,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guat-
tari, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri, Purcell
constructs an argument that explores why democ-
racy is not only our best hope for an emancipated
future, but an aspiration that speaks to the collectivity
of human experience. If we are to live together in the
world, then we must learn democracy, not as an asce-
tic demand but as a joyful exploration. Purcell
doesnt teach us how to do this so much as he allows
us to recognize that if we hope to breathe life into the
lungs of democracy, then we must be willing to
laugh, cry, howl, sputter, rage, giggle, wheeze,
scream, and gasp for breath in our ambition for free-
dom as we attempt, once and for all, to exhale the
fumes of authority. It is in the exertion of this infi-
nitely demanding struggle, and the range of emotions
such action elicits, that the noxious haze of hierarchy
may be cleared, replaced by an intuitive sense of
democracy that settles deep down in the core of our
being to become the oxygen of our shared politics.
Although I am thoroughly onside with Purcell
and have no reservations in calling his book a land-
mark text in contemporary geographical thought,
I did have some trouble with Purcells concluding
argument surrounding infantilization. I appreciate
the criticism that is being raised here and its partic-
ular concern for the ways in which we must be col-
lectively willing to take up the difficult task of self-
organization and refuse the logic of a wise or even
omniscient authority that ostensibly knows what is
best for people. Yet I cant help but notice how the
argument also risks contributing to ageist and colo-
nialist connotations inasmuch as Purcell (2013: 143)
suggests democracy entails a process of growing
up. Clearly the perpetuation of violent ideologies
is not at all his intent, but the discourse of colonial-
ism in its construction of the other as infantile had
much to say about the lack of maturity of alternative
systems of organization, while there is a deeply
ingrained authoritarianism that is imbued within
many cultural understandings of age. To meet the
demand of delight that Purcell evokes, isnt it neces-
sary to trust in youth, to accept a childlike imagina-
tion that demands possibility from what seems like
impossibility? Democrats are adults, Purcell
(2013: 144) tells us, or at least they are engaging
in a conscious effort to grow up, to become-adult
and become-democratic. Are children also not
capable of growing, learning, reflecting, and
becoming? Surely an adult has as much to learn
from a child as a child can stand to learn from an
adult. This is the message I take away from Ran-
cie`res (1991) The Ignorant Schoolmaster, and such
egalitarianism is infused within his political concept
of an-arkhe, the assumption that anyone at all is
capable of taking part (Purcell, 2013: 68). The pre-
supposition of equality that Rancie`re (1999) insists
upon, which cuts across age and education as much
as it does gender, sexuality, race, ability, class, eth-
nicity, or any other category identity we can think
of, is also an inextricable component of anarchist
thought (Springer, 2014b). Thus, although gestured
at in arguing that Democracy presupposes anarchy
(Purcell, 2013: 64), a deeper engagement with the
emergent anarchist geographies literature could
have been useful here (see Rouhani, 2012; Springer,
2012; Springer et al., 2012), as unfortunately the
notion of adulthood that Purcell wants to assign to
democracy contradicts his anarchistic formulation.
Potentially more problematic though is that Pur-
cell risks recapitulating the fraught notion that chil-
dren arent capable of autonomy by reinforcing a
dichotomous reading of adult/child. The hidden
marginalization of children has long been recog-
nized in geographical scholarship (Matthews,
2003; Philo, 1992; Ward, 1988), and given that
approximately half of the worlds population is
under the age of 25, isnt the very idea of adult-
hood itself an oligarchy of the sort Purcell dis-
avows? And what of the artificial age boundary?
This is clearly a relativist construction as there is
no clear delineation of adulthood within most cul-
tures, let alone one that is shared between them.
So the line of division between child and adult
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becomes blurred, as indeed it should (Valentine,
2003). Yet if democracy is to be understood as a pro-
cess, a view I share very strongly with Purcell,
doesnt this also mean that it is an ageless phenom-
enon? Democracy doesnt exist in a transcendental
plane that eschews temporality. This is a key mes-
sage Purcell wants to impart in his readers, as he
rejects the end-state politics that conceives of
democracy as a project that is achievable in some
concretized sense. Instead it is in the demand for
temporality as a continuing unfolding that democ-
racys agelessness becomes manifest. Of course,
Purcell is not incorrect to suggest that the struggle
for democracy is a responsibility, but there are many
ways to interpret and promote this idea and we cant
simply discount children as agents of social change.
A child is a political actor with as much constituent
power as anyone else, a vital component to the inte-
gral multitude that Purcell locates at the heart of
democracy. We cannot be led by oligarchy as we
move down the path towards democracy, Purcell
(2013: 145) fittingly contends, We must walk that
road ourselves. All of us together. But isnt the
same true for children? They dont learn as a process
of being taught, which is indicative of elaborate
planning and manipulation to produce a particular
condition, but rather as an outcome of uninhibited
exploration, adaptation, and participation in mean-
ingful settings (Holt, 1983; Illich, 1971).
Look at the willingness of children to embrace
the immanent and recognize difference not as a tool
for oppression but as part of the worlds kaleido-
scopic beauty. Children live in the now which
enables them to think gloriously big and intrepidly
in favor of alternative modes that dont always
result in the intended consequence, but nonetheless
often resonate with glowing success. The moments
of failure are crucially important too, not as para-
meters that license anguish and dismay, but insofar
as they point us toward new ideas, and the same is
true, Im sure Purcell would agree, in our collective
quest to become democratic. Children can, of
course, also be cruel, but this is a learned behavior,
and it is one that we can collectively unlearn when
we allow children the space and confidence to
explore their relationships unencumbered by pre-
conceived notions of the normative and unchained
from the shackles of authoritarian discipline. In
short, there is an ontology to childhood that is fier-
cely aligned to liberation, and an epistemology that
is all at once open to process, creativity, and inclu-
siveness. Colin Ward (1978) argued that it is
through the processes of play and imagination that
children can counter adult-based intentions and
interpretations, thereby potentially creating a much
more beautiful model for politics. Jeff Ferrell (2001:
235) has similarly advocated for the primary impor-
tance of adopting a sense of play and pleasure
among the ruins of hierarchical social relations that
continue to betray us even as we reveal their ines-
capable mortality. Hierarchy is a system of organi-
zation that only lives because we allow it to
(Springer, 2014a), and we eradicate it every time
we summon the nerve to laugh in its face.
To live into the processual possibility of democ-
racy, which exists latently as a fundamental pre-
cept of space (Springer, 2011), we must interpret
our lives as possibilities and processes as well.
Recognizing that there is no dichotomous line
where we cross from childhood to adulthood is
accordingly a step toward the horizon of democ-
racy (Purcell, 2013: 28), as it allows us to embrace
imagination, laughter, and play alongside responsi-
bility, struggle, and hard work as constituent pieces
of becoming democratic. As Massey hints in the epi-
graph that opens this paper, spatial delight is the
childlike wonder that manifests when we finally
realize that geography is not destiny, but owing to its
relational and processual qualities, it is in fact an
endless unfolding of possibilities. Democracy, Pur-
cell (2013: 21) contends, is much the same, not con-
tent to be subdued as an idle fantasy, but through an
exploration and amplification of practices and ideas
that are already taking place, we may cut a path . . .
toward a possible world yet to come. Space is
accordingly the field of possibility, democracy the
exploration of freedom, and childhood the engine
that drives imagination forward. When we acknowl-
edge that each resonates as a fractal of the other, we
witness the heterogeneity of the former collide with
the sympathy, kindness, and generosity of the latter,
and it is in this moment of impact that we can rejoice
in the radiance of autonomy. Such a vision lets us go
places weve never been, and we must maintain a
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youthful exuberance, for democracy is a long and
arduous journey.
References
Ferrell J (2001) Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in
Urban Anarchy. New York, NY: Palgrave.
Gaiman N (2011) Blueberry Girl. New York, NY:
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Goldman E (1931/2011) Living my Life (Two Volumes in
One). New York, NY: Cosimo.
Holt J (1983) HowChildren Learn. NewYork, NY: Merloyd
Lawrence.
Illich I (1971) Deschooling Society. NewYork, NY: Harper
and Row.
Massey D (2005) For Space. London, UK: Sage.
Matthews H (2003) Coming of age for childrens geogra-
phies. Childrens Geographies 1: 36.
Philo C (1992) Neglected rural geographies: a review.
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Purcell M (2013) The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy.
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Rancie`re J (1991) The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons
in Intellectual Emancipation. Stanford, CA: Stanford
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anarchism in and out of the classroom. Antipode
44: 17261741.
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tions on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism
and violence. Antipode 43: 525562.
Springer S (2012) Anarchism! What geography still ought
to be. Antipode 44: 16051624.
Springer (2014a) Human geography without hierarchy.
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32513508208
Springer S (2014b) War and pieces. Space and Polity.
DOI: 10.1080/13562576.2013.878430
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anarchist geographies: a new burst of colour. Antipode
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Valentine G (2003) Boundary crossings: transitions from
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Response
On Democracy, Revolution, and
Opening Out onto the World
Response by: Mark Purcell, University of
Washington, USA
I want to begin by sincerely thanking the contribu-
tors to this forum. They have produced really
thoughtful and productively critical responses to the
book, and I very much appreciate their efforts.
While there are many worthwhile points raised
across the five reviews, I want to draw out three
threads in particular that I find particularly compel-
ling and worth further discussion.
The first is the Eurocentric nature of the books
argument. I use that term descriptively rather than
pejoratively: The theory I engage deeply in the book
is all firmly rooted in the European experience. I
love this theory, and cannot imagine thinking with-
out it (nor do I want to). But at the same time, of
course, this theory is particular and limited, not uni-
versal. I do not assume that the democracy I advo-
cate can travel unproblematically to any place in
the world. Rather it has to enter into conversation
with multiple experiences in multiple contexts.
Solomon Benjamin is optimistic that my ideas about
democracy can be helpful in thinking about Indian
cities, as is Melis Oguz with respect to the recent
events in Turkey. But at the same time, both quite
rightly explore the ways that the very different
experiences of cities and political communities in
the global South might trouble my imagination of
democracy, and indeed push it to continue develop-
ing in newdirections. For example, at times I suggest
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