CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
The Nature of This Project
WILD
DESTRUCTION Die Lunte
DEMOCRACY:
Choosing to Serve
WITHOUT
ASKING PERMISSION
THE
MILITANT ELECTRIC CHAIR…D. M
GROUPS
OF TWO OR THREE …Die Lunte
SO YOU DON'T VOTE
THE
ENDLESS DIALOGUE
AGAINST
AMNESIA (fragments)…(d)anger
A
EULOGY TO OPINION …Canenero
STEAL
BACK YOUR LIFE
THE
WILD DOGS HOWL
PIRATES
AND MERCHANTS…Canenero
BELIEF:
the enemy of thinking
AGAINST
CHARITY
THE
DREAM…L Argonauta
PLAY
FIERCELY: Thoughts on Growing Up
TRAINING
IN FUTILITY
FEAR
OF CONFLICT
THEIR
OWN GAME
MEDICAL
SCIENCE: A Lingering Disease
TECHNOLOGY:
A Limit to Creativity
I'LL
MAKE MY OWN PARADISE
INTRODUCTION:
THE
NATURE OF THIS PROJECT
Willful Disobedience is intended to express ideas that are part of my life projectuality. It is an explicitly anarchic project in the sense that it opposes to every form of authority the selfdetermination of individuals who refuse all domination; it is insurrectionary in its recognition that authority must be attacked and destroyed as an essential part of the project of creating our lives for ourselves based upon our desires. That means that this project is not a forum for democratic dialogue in which all ideas are equal and therefore equally vapid ... The understanding of anarchic insurgence underlying this project is as follows:
Within the present social context our lives
as individuals have been made alien to us, because society creates interactions
and activities for us which are not based on the singularity of our unconstrained
dreams and desires, but only serve the continuing reproduction of society by
channeling the energy of desire into that reproduction through a variety of
institutions and systems which integrate to form civilized society: the state,
capital, work, technology, religion, education, ideology, law ... Opposition to
this begins when we as individuals rise up in willful disobedience and
recognize the necessity of attacking and destroying all institutions of
domination, not as a cause, but for ourselves, because we want to create our
own games...
WILD DESTRUCTION
The burning fuse-a quiet hiss in this world in which
everything is talked to death and nothing is done.
Individualities who rise out of the mass and define
what we will do with our lives and why for ourselves.
Self-determination which can break out of the circle
of delegation and rules.
Passion that takes pleasure in the virtue of wild
destruction, announcing the battle against all oppression and authority.
Uncertainty and the lust for adventure against dogma
and guarantee. A dream of freedom for people and animals.
Sustaining free spirits in permanent insurrection
against control, war, racism, cages and religion.
Death to the symbols, the gods, the compulsion of
survival, the flags and hierarchies.
Unity only as the individual desires, not in a
preexistence group or collective reality.
-from
Die Lunte
DEMOCRACY:
CHOOSING TO SERVE
The more participatory a
social system is, the more total its control is because the individual
identifies herself with his role within the system. In other words, a
democratic structure is the most efficient way yet developed to integrate
individuals into a social system, to make them feel that they are essentially a
part of a social machine. Partial rebellions, in the form of "radical
"issues, which use democratic methods or demand more justice, equality or
participation in democratic processes become lubricant for the machinery of
social control.
Those who rebel against the
social context in its totality as they confront it in their lives are called
hooligans, delinquents, enemies of “the People”. They cannot be tolerated in a
democratic system (not even the consensus process systems of certain so-called
radical and anarchist groups) because their actions undermine the ideological
basis of such systems, by showing that individual freedom grows out of
self-determined activity, not any sort of decision-making process. Radical
groups will merely expel such troublemakers, but within the larger social
context, they must be punished, rehabilitated or destroyed if caught.
Democracy is never anarchic, no matter how
direct. Democratic decisions are not the decisions/actions of free individuals.
They are merely choices made between the options offered by the social context,
choices separated from the actions of individuals and used to control those
actions, to subject them to the will of the group, the society. So to choose to
participate in democratic processes is to choose to serve, to be a slave to a
will outside of oneself. No free-spirited individual would accept the will of
the majority or the group consensus as a way of determining how to live anymore
than she would accept the will of a dictator or the central committee. I do not
merely a want a say in how society creates my life. I want my life to by my own
to create as I desire.
The social system that
surrounds us is immense, a network of institutions and relationships of
authority and control that encompasses the globe. It usurps the lives of individuals,
forcing them into interactions and activities that serve only to reproduce
society. Yet this vast social system only exists through the continuing
habitual obedience of those whom it exploits.
While some wait for the
masses or the exploited class to rise up, I recognize. that masses and classes
are themselves social relationships against which I rise up. For it is my life as a unique individual with
singular desires and dreams that has been usurped from me and made alien in
interactions and activities not of my own creation. Everywhere there are laws
and rules, rights and duties, documents, licenses and permits... Then there are
those of us who never again want to ask permission.
Knowing that the
reproduction of society depends upon our obedience, I choose a life of willful
disobedience. By this, I do not mean that I will make sure that every action I
take will break a rule or law-that is as much enslavement to authority as
obedience. Rather I mean that with all the strength I have, I will create my
life and my activities as my own without any regard for authority... or
regarding it only as my enemy. I do all I can to prevent my life from being
usurped by work, by the economy, by survival. Of course, as I go about making
my living activities and interactions my own, all the structures of social
control move to suppress this spark of life that is my singularity. And so I
mercilessly attack this society that steals my life from me with the intent of
destroying it.
For those of us who will have our lives as
our own without ever asking permission, willful disobedience must become an
insurrection of unique individuals intent on razing society to the ground.
THE MILITANT ELECTRIC CHAIR
by
D. M.
(from the
German anarchist paper, Die Lunte)
"One person is too few,
two people are good, three people are many, more than four people seem to me to
be the masses." Personally, I had a different opinion for a long time. I
always thought that many people accomplished more than few and that it probably
also looked better to those outside when there were as many people as possible
at a gathering. One day, however, I came to understand that quantity without
quality makes no sense. It became clear to me that it simply isn't adequate to
march through the streets with people who-in the best of cases-mean well, but
who cannot break the tension with their own ideas and the joy of struggle.
Eventually, I began to ask myself why these people were in the scene. The
longer I observed these people, the more convinced I became that they would
feel more comfortable in a therapy center. Since I did not want to take on the
role of judge or psycho-trash remover, I began to consider how I could avoid
this situation without, thus, having to give up my passion for the struggle.
It was a long and hard road;
naturally it is easier to remain in a larger family where one may be given the
impression that she is safer from the cruel society. The wishful thinking is
the same and the scene offers one a feeling of security. My hope, however, was
not to find a substitute family, but rather to find people like me who feel the
impulse and the need to fight against this system, to destroy it in order to be
able to live together in a new society. After a long, agonizing search, I came
to know some of these "militant" people. Their sort inspired me at
first, but I very quickly realized that these people would also feel much more
at ease if they were in a therapy center. Often the alleged militancy was just
a pretext to put down those who ventured to express their own ideas rather than
following the head militant like a herd of sheep. The idea of militancy itself
already disturbed me. I didn't want to have anything to do with the militant
outlook and that's why I decided to say farewell to the militant family. I am
still surprised when I receive a pamphlet that, with an excess of
superficiality, speaks of "our Palestinian comrades." My comrades, or
rather my friends, are the people with whom I start a project and at least
attempt to carry it through. There are plenty of people in the world who have
every reason to revolt, but this does not, by a long shot, mean that I consider
them as my comrades. When I come to know someone, I may find that it is not
even possible to drink a beer with them, let alone open a revolutionary
discussion. Of course, the group dynamic that is based chiefly on quantity
belongs to the militant scene as well: meetings that go on for hours,
groundless discussions, grand slogans with nothing behind them. A sad picture.
One day it dawned on me that
when there was discord in my circle of friends, I was quick to strike the
friends involved from my address book. So I transferred this to the scene as
well and thus became aware for the first time of how one get trapped in the
scene. As a comrade, one can be as human as the thing allows; what matters is
that one is a militant. That it is a matter of militant nosiness is gladly
overlooked. And because it pursues this nosiness to such a degree, truly
unpleasant and unmanageable situations arise in which individuals are condemned
without any possibility of defense and executed on the militant electric chair.
Yet, this is all done in the name of a dubious anarchism. No one seriously
questions how this all came to be, so nothing changes.
More and more people are in
committed groups, so in becomes increasingly difficult to respect and enact the
wishes and radical actions of the single individual. And the group mentality is
limited by this: discussing for hours makes no real sense since there will
never be agreement between everyone. And so it comes to this: everyone returns
home frustrated and everything remains as it was.
So why not tackle the
question differently. It might work if each individual only came to terms with
those who really had the same conceptions of the struggle or at least the
conceptions closest to one's own. This way, all psycho-discussion, all debate
about that about which we can do nothing, disappears and we can finally get
down to what matters. It is easier to find one or two people who think
similarly to me than to join together with twenty people who have nothing more
in common than that if they are form Munich they drink Augustiner beer and if
they are from Berlin they drink the Berliner wheat beer. Why discuss every time
whether to have a demonstration or not? Those who want to have them should
carry them through. Those who are against them can do something else. Why must
everyone take the same view? The same applies to actions. It them becomes
possible to think through to the second or third action without depending on
ten other people! Many small actions also produce a large outcome. But as long
as the aim is to have enough people ready in order to carry out a large action,
there will always be problems in the early stages with the result that
generally nothing happens.
Basically, it should be
obvious to anarchists that each individual must be responsible for her own
actions. Furthermore, this means that every form of delegation must be
destroyed. As I see it, direct action is essential to anarchy. But this should
mean not only material destruction, but mainly the changes in people's heads.
In a free society there could be neither cops nor judges nor prisons. And so
everyone would be dependent upon themselves to determine how they would act in
the case of a dispute. When it comes to a harsh quarrel (anarchy does not mean
that one allows every insolence to occur). The individuals involved should
decide between themselves how things will be settled.
The group dynamic, however,
leads directly toward delegation. Two people argue, five interfere, four spread
rumors and three demand more control and discipline in the group. This is the
correct thing to do according to the logic of the state, but not at all in the
anarchistic sense. Self-determination and the destruction of delegation also
imply that only those comrades who are really personally involved in a
situation will concern themselves with it. Many people from the scene have
problems and continually attempt to draw others into them. They expect a
response and support from us which means hat they are not capable of managing
their lives themselves. This devil's circle should be broken and destroyed. A
person who understands this concept (and then carries it out) also comprehends
why it is simple superficial to speak of "our comrades" who fight a
struggle that often leads to prison or even death. I would personally consider
it arrogant if I were in the clink for life and I was sent a pamphlet in which
I was represented as a comrade of some group which has an aim different from
mine, and, besides, does nothing more than march along in peaceful
demonstrations. As a counter-argument, the militant circle will immediately
tell me something about international solidarity. In this case, we should all
ask ourselves what is meant by solidarity. When a squat is evicted and other
individuals squat two more houses in the same way as an act of solidarity, this
can be called true solidarity. However, if this solidarity is only expressed in
a pamphlet, I would, at best, describe it as commentary and, in the worst
cases, as a form of sympathy card. Solidarity can only take place as direct
action, the rest is a side issue.
GROUPS OF TWO OR THREE
(from Die Lunte)
The north side of Paris
consists of a large area of social housing. The old industrial area has
gradually been compressed into the east side; in between, on the northeast
side, the mansions and villas of the rich spread out.
The police guard the
industrial works and of the east side and the houses of the northeast. But they
rarely dare to venture into the north side. There the night is dangerous. When
the police do venture into the north side, it is at great risk and those who do
so are not squeamish. If a youth does not stop when ordered to, a cop shoots,
or if the youth is on foot, he will simply be run over by a patrol car.
Something happened, centered
in the city quarter of Noisy-le Grand. Hundreds of people took to the streets,
and not just young people but adults as well, and not just blacks. It was
reported as several confrontations between the police and the people in revolt
and a few burning cars. Then it was claimed that the situation had normalized.
But in the days that
followed, completely different characteristics developed: people did not appear
in the open on the street corners to demonstrate, but joined in the complicity
of the night. They formed into groups of two or three people, hundreds of small
groups for systematic attack. A high school was completely destroyed. Three
occupational schools blazed. Hundreds of parked cars functioned as chains of
light. A bank was attacked and destroyed with molotov cocktails. In the city
center there were hardly any shop display windows that were not destroyed or
plundered. Fire extinguishers were demolished. Gas and water pipes were
sabotaged and garbage cans were set ablaze.
-the authors: vanished in the night
SO YOU DON'T VOTE
It goes without saying,
anarchists don't vote. After all, we don't want to delegate our lives, we want
to live them directly. Wouldn't contradict our anarchist principles to vote?
But what does it mean to be
an anarchist? How many use this label as they continue to go to work every day
in order to pay the rent and the bills, keep their car on the road and feed
their family-as nuclear as the power that that feeds their stereos, TVs and
computers? Or maybe they are sitting in the halls of academia, earning multiple
degrees-finding a place in the hierarchy of the intelligentsia... but they do
not vote. Them there are those who think they have dropped out of society by
choosing to be its bottom rung-living off its handouts and trash and scamming
just enough to buy the latest sub-cultural commodities and the next cheap
40-ouncer of beer. None of these people vote; they must be anarchists.
Certainly, to be an
anarchist in this society is to know a life full of contradictions. There are
no easy answers on how best to live a life in perpetual conflict with
authority. But to be an anarchist-if this is to mean anything-is not a matter
of beliefs, causes or ideals. It is the decision to refuse to let one's life be
determined by any authority, to refuse the alienation imposed by society, to
the full extent to which one is capable.
Those who call themselves
anarchists, but continue to live in subservience might just as well vote. Those
who call themselves anarchists, but continue to climb the ladder to academic
success might just as well vote. Even those who have chosen to embrace the
bottom rung of this society, living off its trash and charities, might as well
vote if this is how they define their revolt. Because all of these choices are
simply choices of the place one will take within this society rather than the
choice to oppose it. As humiliating as it may be to choose one's masters, if
one is going to live as a slave, one may as well try to choose the gentles,
most generous, least demanding master possible. But can those who choose to
live as slaves rightly be called anarchists?
Abstention from voting-this
particular refusal-only has meaning as an aspect of the creation of life that
refuses all delegation and that
attempts to destroy all authority and open the fullest possibilities to
self-created living.
There are those for whom
ideas are merely opinions-maybe ideals for a distant future-to be endlessly
debated and argued, always respected-even venerated-but always kept separate
from life. Then there are those for whom ideas are an integral part of their
life projectuality, of the creation of a selfdetermined way of living. These
latter, anarchic in attitude even if they don't use the label anarchist, appear
to the former as dogmatists.
Within this society the
ideal of democracy reigns. It creates an ideology of dialogue in which the
exchange of opinions is venerated for its own sake. Ideas become independent
entities separate from the individuals who express them, and in this way become
the commodity, opinion. As such, these ideas become sacred, not so much in
themselves (that is in their content) as in the context in which they are
expressed. It is not what one says that matters, but the fact that one can say
it. The context of this exchange of opinions is democracy which presents itself
at the same time as merely one idea among many and as the space where the
confrontation between all ideas can occur. When one criticizes democracy, it is
not seen as a criticism of a determined and concrete vision of life, but as a
refusal of the exchange of opinions. Moreover this critique is recuperated by
democracy as further evidence of tolerance-that is, the democratic way-and the
dialogue it allows. It is one's right to critique-and, like all rights, it is
without the power of those who grant it.
And so the endless dialogue
begins-this game where life slips away as everything is talked to death. The
first rule of this game is that individuals must disappear-their lives, their
passions, their projects all forgotten-so that their opinion appears with all the sterile purity of merchandise on
display in the ideological marketplace. When ideas are drained of their
content, when they are merely opinions, disconnected from the real lives of
individuals, then the clash of ideas dissolves into the community of opinion
where even the cop and the anarchist may respect each other's opinion.
But then there are those who won't play by the rules: for example, the one who considers the cop her enemy even if the cop claims to be an anarchist himself. For this individual it is no longer a matter of opinion-the endless dialogue is over. For in dialogue, each one must have their say, and anyone who contests this is undemocratic.
But anarchists-if by this one means those who choose to create their lives as their own in opposition to every authority do not consider choice and self-determination to be mere opinions. They are not interested in the right to express their opinions-a mere confirmation of the democratic method of the spectacle-but rather in the rupture of the rules that keep the endless dialogue yammering on and on. Anarchy is not democratic so such anarchists are considered dogmatists.
Even within the context of the anarchist milieu, the bullshit about dialogue and democracy, fairness and respect weighs down any potential for unconstrained lives, self-determined projectuality, uncommodified desires and dreams. At anarchist gatherings and in the letters sections of the anarchist press, the endless dialogue winds along its useless path to nowhere. Rarely do the ideas expressed reflect the lives of those expressing them. No, it is to be the friendly exchange of opinions-a glorious expression of the fact that though we may do nothing, we can say anything. And so the same debates rage eternally and tedium reigns along with a sense of futility. Finally, one who has become fed up with this tiresome Ouroboros calls bullshit bullshit, puts an end to her part in this endless debate; instead of politely saying, "This is my opinion, what's yours?", he cries, "I will project my life in this way; if you're heading the same way, feel free to join me for a- while. If not, fuck off!" This one is called dogmatic, absolutist, even moralistic (though her life defies every morality) simply for choosing to live his own life. The totalitarian nature of the endless dialogue becomes evident as attempts to determine one's life for oneself are suppressed by the demands for respectful dialogue and toleration.
Most so-called anarchists in the United States are little more than debaters. Their activity is not a life project, but an imitation of leftist activism with the additional slogan: "Smash the state!" Thus, their "anarchism" is merely an opinion to be discussed, an opinion that could be readily shared by university professors, union bureaucrats, even judges-since it has no real connection to life choices. If I call myself an anarchist, it is because I choose to live as best I can a life in opposition to all authority, a life that rebels because I desire an expansiveness of existence that cannot be ruled. My ideas are not merely opinions, but an integral part of my life projectuality, of my struggle for a passionate selfdetermined existence. So of what use to me is this endless dialogue, this mercantile display of opinion, with its consequent demands for toleration and compromise? No, I don't want to know your opinions-I want to know if possibly, for a while, we can enhance each others lives, project together, support each other's struggles against authority-with the ability to easily go our own separate ways when this is no longer possible, or simply when we desire to do so. For me, the endless dialogue has ended and my life has begun.
AGAINST AMNESIA
(fragments)
by
(d)anger
There are those moments when
life seems entirely impossible. All the crazy dreams of rebellion disappear.
The desire to revolt against the society of the civilized is lost to futility,
the open but empty hand. All the late-night laughter-filled conversations, the
meanderings and wanderings of those intoxicated with adventure, begin to seem
naive and empty. One comes to the conclusion that one is accomplishing nothing:
destruction and creation seem equally without attraction. One abandons one's
own imagination and returns to the old trap of fear. The existential idiot
occupies one's head.
Here is the point where the
misery of this society completes itself. This society strengthens itself by
continually forcing the individual to disappear; the individual disappears when
the individual gives in to the misery of this society. One begins to accept the
limitations imposed by this society as one's own. To experience comes to mean
to repeat oneself. One begins to feel one has nothing to offer in defiance,
nothing to give: every gesture becomes a blank stare. Passion is pacified.
Desire is rationalized away. The forbidden remains forbidden.
_This supreme moment of
misery marks nothing less than the triumph of amnesia. Such a complete
abandonment of life's adventures is the surrender of one who has forgotten all
previous rebellion and all desire to revolt. Memory has ceased to be a
pleasure; the misery of the moment stretches backwards forever. Amnesia is
essential to civilizing human beings: when one forgets the possibilities (the
richness of past present and future) one is domesticate, one disappears.
Amnesia is the colonization
of memory. One is forced to forget everything rebellious about one's life. The
colonized mind is less likely to imagine a total revolt against this society if
all traces of earlier revolts are suppressed. Everything from simple negative
gestures to the hand in the cookie jar to late night crimes make memory
precious to the individual; as soon as these breaches are forgotten the present
becomes less and less pregnant: the stem of the flower is cut before the flower
blooms. One is in despair over the absence of freedom simply because the
residue of past freedoms have been purged from one's memory.
When asked how one knows
that freedom is possible, the rebel responds with examples of past freedoms.
The rebel remembers the events, movements and moments of one's past that mark
breaks with the dominant order. One knows that freedom is possible, because one
has experienced freedom: the taste of paradise is in our mouths. To forget this
is fatal. Amnesia can be combated by constantly digging back into our memories,
by constantly becoming more and more aware of our mistakes and victories. No,
we must not dwell in the past, we must be cruel with our pasts (and those who
would keep us there), and yet we must be greedy with our pasts (and wary of
those who would paint those pasts with the blackness of misery and impossibilities).
The rebel must return to their own past with a bouquet of flowers in one hand
and knife in the other.
A EULOGY TO OPINION
(translated from Canenero)
Opinion is a vast
merchandise, possessed and used by everyone. Its production involves a wide
slice of the economy, and its consumption takes up much of people's time. Its
main characteristic is clarity.
We hasten to point out that
there is no such thing as an unclear opinion. Everything is either yes or no.
Different levels of thought or doubt, contradiction and painful confessions of
uncertainty are strange to it. Hence the great strength that opinion gives to
those who use it and consume it in making decisions, or impose it on the
decisions of others.
In a world that is moving at
high speed toward positive/negative binary logic, from red button to black,
this reduction is an important factor in the development of civil cohabitation
itself. What would become of our future if we were to continue to support
ourselves on the unresolved cruelty of doubt? How could we be used'? How could
we produce?
Clarity emerges when the
possibility of real choice is reduced. Only those with clear ideas know what to
do. But ideas are never clear, so there are those on the scene who clarify them
for us, by supplying simple comprehensible instruments: not arguments but
quizzes, not studies but alternative binaries. Simply day and night, no sunset
or dawn. Thus they solicit us to pronounce ourselves in favor of this or that.
They do not show us the various facets of the problem, merely a highly
simplified construction. It is a simple affair to pronounce ourselves in favor
of a yes or no, but this simplicity hides complexity instead of attempting to
understand and explain it. No complexity, correctly comprehended, can in fact
be explained if except by reference to other complexities. There is no such
thing as a solution to be encountered. Joys of the intellect and of the heart
are cancelled by binary propositions, and are substituted with the utility of
"correct" decisions.
And since no one is stupid
enough to believe that the world rests on two logical binaries, positive and
negative, since there is surely a place for understanding, a place where ideas
again take over and knowledge regains lost ground, the desire arises to
delegate this all to others, to those who, by suggesting simple solutions to
us, seem to hold the answers to the elaboration of complexity as something that
has taken place elsewhere, so they represent themselves as witness and
depositories of science.
So the circle closes. The
simplifiers present themselves as those who guarantee the validity of the
opinions asked, and their correct continual production in binary form. They
seem to be wary of the fact that, once it has destroyed all capacity to understand
the intricate tissue that underlies it, the complex unfoldings of the problems
of conscience, the frenetic action of symbols and meanings, references and
institutions, opinion, this manipulation of clarity, destroys the connective
tissues of differences, annihilates them in the binary universe of codification
where reality only seems to have two possible solutions, the light on or the
light off. The model sums up reality, cancels the nuances of the latter and
displays it in pre-wrapped formulas ready for consumption. Life projects no
longer exist, rather symbols take the place of desires and duplicate dreams,
making them dreams twice over.
The unlimited quantity of
information we potentially dispose of does not allow us to go beyond the sphere
of opinion. In the same way that most of the goods in a market where all the
possible and useless varieties of the same product does not mean wealth and
abundance but merely mercantile waste, an increase in information does not
produce a qualitative growth in opinion, it does not produce any real capacity
to decide what is true and what is false, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. All
it does is reduce one of these aspects to a systematic representation of a
dominant model.
In reality, there is no good
on the one side or bad on the other, but a whole range of conditions, cases,
situations, theories and practices which only a capacity to understand can
grasp, a capacity to use the intellect with the necessary presence of
sensibility and intuition. Culture is not a mass of information, but a living
and often contradictory system, through which we gain knowledge of the world
and ourselves, a process which is at times painful and hardly ever satisfying,
with which we realize these relationships which constitute our life and our
capacity to live.
By canceling all of these
nuances, we again find ourselves with a statistical curve in our hands, an
illusory course of events produced by a mathematical model, not fractured and
overwhelming reality.
Opinion provides us with certainty on the one hand, but on the other it impoverishes us and deprives us of the capacity to struggle, because we end up convinced that the world is more simple than it is. All that is in the interest of those who control us. A mass of satisfied subjects convinced that science is on their side. That is what they need in order to realize the projects of domination in the future.
Economy-the domination of
survival over life-is essential for the maintenance of all other forms of
domination. Without the threat of scarcity, it would be difficult to coerce
people into obedience to the daily routine of work and pay. We were born into
an economized world. The social institution of property has made scarcity a
daily threat. Property, whether private or communal, separates the individual
from the world, creating a situation in which, rather than simply taking what
one wants or needs, one is supposed to ask permission, a permission generally
only granted in the form of economic exchange. In this way, different levels of
poverty are guaranteed to everyone, even the rich, because under the rule of
social property what one is not permitted to have far exceeds what one is
permitted to have. The domination of survival over life is maintained.
Those, of us who desire to create our lives
as our own recognize that this domination, so essential to the maintenance of
society, is an enemy we must attack and destroy. With this understanding, theft
and squatting can take on significance as part of an insurgent life project.
Welfare scamming, eating at charity feeds, dumpster diving and begging may
allow one to survive without a regular job, but they do not in any way attack
the economy; they are within the economy. Theft and squatting are also often
merely survival tactics. Squatters who demand the "right to a home"
or try to legalize their squats, thieves who work their "jobs" like
any other worker, only in order to accumulate more worthless commodities-these
people have no interest in destroying the economy ... they merely want a fair
share of its goods. But those who squat and steal as part of an insurgent life
do so in defiance of the logic of economic property. Refusing to accept the
scarcity imposed by this logic or to bow to the demands of a world they did not
create, such insurgents take what they desire without asking anyone's
permission whenever the possibility arises. In this defiance of society's
economic rule, one takes back the abundance of the world as one's own-and this
is an act of insurrection. In order to maintain social control, the lives of
individuals have to be stolen away. In their place, we received economic
survival, the tedious existence of work and pay. We cannot buy our lives back,
nor can we beg them back. Our lives will only be our own when we steal them
back-and that means taking what we want without asking permission.
A story is told of Diogenes,
probably the best known of the ancient Greek cynics: It is said that one day,
as he was sunning himself in the bathtub he called home, Alexander the
"great" came to speak with him. This emperor of many nations said,
" I am Alexander, prince of Macedonia and the world. I have heard you are
a great philosopher. Do you have any words of wisdom for me?" Annoyed at
such a petty disturbance of his calm, Diogenes answered, "Yes, you're
standing in my sun. Get out of the way." Though this story is most likely
fictional, it reflects the scorn in which cynics held all authority and their
boldness in expressing this scorn. These self-proclaimed "dogs" (wild
dogs, of course) rejected hierarchy, social restraints and the alleged need for
laws and greeted these with sarcastic mockery.
How utterly different this
ancient cynicism was from what now goes by that name. Several years ago, a
radical group in England called the Pleasure Tendency published a pamphlet
entitled "Theses Against Cynicism". In this pamphlet, they criticize
an attitude of hip detachment, of shallow, sarcastic despair - and particularly
the penetration of this attitude into anti-authoritarian and revolutionary
circles.
The proponents of this
present-day "cynicism" are everywhere. The hip, sarcastic comedy of
Saturday Night Live or the Comedy Channel presents no real challenge to the
ruling powers. In fact, this smirking know-it-all-ism is the yuppie attitude par excellence. It has nothing to do
with a real understanding of what's going on, but is rather a justification for
conformity. "Yes, we know what the politicians and corporate executives
are up to. We know it's all a dirty game. But there's nothing we can do about
it, so we're gonna get our piece of the action". There's nothing we can do
about it - that is the message of this modern cynicism-not disdain for
authority, but disdain for those who still dare to challenge it rather than
joining in its game with a knowing smirk.
This attitude has entered
the circles of so-called revolutionaries and anarchists through the back door
of post-modern philosophy in which ironic hyper-conformity is presented as a
viable revolutionary strategy. With a straight face (or just the trace of a
smirk), the most radical of the post-modern philosophers tell us that we need
only push the logic of capitalism to its own "schizophrenic" extreme
and it will break down on its own. For these present-day "radical"
cynics, attempts to attack and destroy this society are foolish and
ineffective, and attempts to create one's own life in opposition to this
society is attachment to an out-dated individualism. Of course, these mostly
French philosophers are rarely read. Like mainstream "cynicism", postmodern
"cynicism" needs it hip popularizers-and they certainly have
appeared. Sarcastically tearing down every significant insurgent idea or
activity of the past century while promoting pathetic liberal eclecticism and
ridiculous art or mystical movements as "revolutionary" or
"iconoclastic", these alternative yuppies-who often claim to reject
individuality mainly just to promote themselves and their own pathetic
projects. One needs only to notice Steward Home's Mona Lisa smirk to realize he
is just Jay Leno with a shaved head and a pair of Docs.
Perhaps the worst effect of
the post-modern penetration into anarchist circles is its reinforcement of a
tendency to reject theory. any attempts to understand society in its totality
in order to fight it more effectively are either called dogmatic or are seen as
proof that those who make such attempts are hopelessly naive with no
understanding of the complexity of "post-modern" postindustrial
society. Of course, the "understanding" these oh-so wise(-ass)
anti-theorists have is simply their faith in the impossibility of analysis, a
faith which allows them to continue their ritual of piecemeal activism which
has long since proven ineffective for anything other than occasionally pushing
the social system into making changes necessary for its own continued
reproduction. Those who continue to make insurgent theory are accused by the
self-proclaimed activists of sitting in ivory towers, regardless of how much
this insurgence is put into practice.
When one considers the original Greek cynics, one is averse to using
the same term for their modern namesakes. Yet the present-day
"cynics" are much more like the dogs we are familiar with-pathetic,
dependent, domesticated pets. Like well-trained puppies, they rarely make it
past the front yard gate before they run back cowering to the safety of their
master's house; then they learn to bark and snarl at the wild dogs who dare to
live outside the fence and, in exchange for a milkbone, lick the hands that
keep them on the leash. I would rather be among the wild dogs howling out my
scorn for every master, prepared to bite any hand that tries to tame. I reject
the sarcastic despair that passes as cynicism today, in order to grasp as a
weapon the untamed cynicism which dares to tell authority, "You're
standing in my sun. Get out of the way!"
PIRATES AND MERCHANTS
(translated from Canenero)
Symbol of a freedom acquired
and maintained in a savage way, though not without rules and norms, pirates
once sailed on the sea and robbed the large galleons of their treasures. Maybe
the style was not all too refined, but what is fascinating about them is the
determination with which they took all that they desired without any lengthy
negotiations.
Today, all those who allow
themselves to copy books, films discs and music cassettes-armed with
photocopiers, video cameras, cassette recorders, computers and talent without
asking anyone's permission are called pirates. There are many of these
present-day pirates, very many, too many if one considers the counter-campaign
that has been started: television announcements, persecution of the black
market, announcements by the ASCAP, BMI, FCC and similar organizations
screaming against it in the name of respect for culture. A respect, one
discovers, that is only to be found again in the payment of the copyright.
It is well known that people
always want what they cannot have. Everyone demands her right, most commonly be
begging from the state, and each feels in his own way that she is missing
something.
The scandal about which the
copyright is concerned is not so much the ruined beauty of a piece of art or
disrespect for the artist. This scandal cannot be kept secret any longer: all
that is missing for some people is the certainty of seeing their bank account
grow.
BELIEF:
the enermy of thinking
It is not uncommon in
american anarchist circles to hear someone say, "I believe in
fairies", "I believe in magic", "I believe in ghosts"
or the like. Only rarely do these believers claim a direct experience of the
phenomena they claim to believe in. Much more often it is a friend, a relative
or that standard favorite, "someone I met" who supposedly had the
experience. When there is a direct experience, a little bit of questioning
usually reveals that the actual experience has, at best, a very tenuous
connection to the belief it is used to support. Yet if one dares to point this
out, one may be accused of denying the believer's experience and of being a
cold-hearted rationalist.
Neo-paganism and mysticism
have penetrated deeply into the american anarchist scene, undermining a healthy
skepticism that seems so essential to the battle against authority. We were all
well trained to believe to accept various ideas as true without
examination and to interpret our experiences based on these beliefs. Since we
were taught how to believe, not how to think, when we reject the beliefs of the
mainstream, it is much easier to embrace an alternative belief system than to
begin the struggle of learning to think for ourselves. When this rejection
includes a critique of civilization, one can even justify the embrace of
mystical beliefs as a return to the animism or earth religion attributed to
non-civilized people. But some of us have no interest in belief systems. Since
we want to think for ourselves, and such thinking has nothing in common with
belief of any sort.
Probably one of the reasons
american anarchists shy away from skepticism--other than that belief is
easier-is that scientific rationalists have claimed to be skeptics while
pushing a plainly authoritarian belief system. Magazines such as the Skeptical Inquirer have done much of worth in debunking new age
bullshit, mystical claims and even such socially significant beliefs as the
"satanic abuse" myth, but they have failed to turn the same mystical
eye on the mainstream beliefs of established science. For a long time, science
has been able to hide behind the fact that it uses some fairly reliable methods
in its activities. Certainly. observation and experimentation are essential
tools in the development of ways of thinking that are one's own. But science
does not apply these methods freely to the exploration of self-determined
living, but uses them in a system of beliefs. Stephen Jay Gould is a firm believer
in science; he is also unusually honest about it. In one of his books, I found
a discussion of the basis of science. He states clearly that the basis of
science is not, as is popularly thought, the so-called "scientific
method" (i.e., empirical observation and experimentation), but rather the belief that there are universal laws by which nature has consistently
operated. Gould points out that the empirical method only becomes science when
applied within the context of this belief. The scientific rationalists are glad
to apply their skepticism to belief in fairies or magic, but won't even
consider applying it to the belief in scientific laws. In this, they are acting
like the christian who scoffs at hinduism. Anarchists are wise to reject this
rigid and authoritarian worldview.
But when the rejection of
scientific rationalism becomes the embrace of gullibility, authority has been
successful in its training. The ruling order is far less interested in what we
believe than in guaranteeing that we continue to believe rather than beginning to think, beginning to try to understand the world we encounter
outside of any of the belief systems we've been given to view it through. As
long as we are focused on moons or fairies, quasars or goddesses,
thermodynamics or astral projection, we won't be asking any of the essential
questions, because we'll already have answers, answers that we've come to
believe in, answers that transform nothing. The hard road of doubt, which
cannot (tolerate) the easy answers of either the scientist or the mystic, is
the only road that begins from the individual's desire for self-determination.
Real thinking is based in hard and probing questions the first of which are:
why is my life so far from what I desire, and how do I transform it? When one
leaps too quickly to an answer based upon belief, one has lost one's life and
embraced slavery.
Skepticism is an essential
tool for all who want to destroy authority. In order to learn how to explore,
experiment and probe that is, to think
for oneself-one must refuse to
believe. Of course, it is a struggle, often painful, without the comfort
of easy answers; but it is also the adventure of discovering the world for
oneself, of creating a life that, for its own pleasure, acts to destroy all
authority and every social constraint. So if you speak to me of your beliefs,
expect to be doubted, questioned, probed and mocked, because that within you
which still needs to believe is that within you that still needs a master.
AGAINST CHARITY
In many cities in the United
States, anarchists have organized "Food Not Bombs" feeds. The
organizers of these projects will explain that food should be free, that no one
should ever have to go hungry. Certainly, a fine sentiment... and one to which
these anarchists respond in much the same way as Christians, hippies or left
liberals-by starting a charity.
We will be told, however,
that "Food Not Bombs" (FNB) is different. The decision-making process
used by the organizers is non-hierarchical. They receive no government or corporate
grants. In many cities, they serve their meals as an act of civil disobedience,
risking arrest. Obviously, FNB is not a large-scale charitable bureaucracy; in
fact, it is often a very slipshod effort... but it is a charity-and that is
never questioned by its anarchist organizers. [FNB is not, in fact, anarchist
in origin, but rather an activist project. However, most currently existing FNB
feeds are operated by anarchists. A few also operate more as a meal shared
among friends and acquaintances than as a charity, but almost all tend to
remain dependent upon the charity of businesses to supply them with food.]
Charities are a necessary
part of any economic social system. The scarcity imposed by the economy creates
a situation in which some people are unable to meet even their most basic needs
through the normal channels. Even in nations with highly developed social
welfare programs, there are those who fall through the cracks in the system.
Charities take up the slack where the state's welfare programs can't or won't
help. Groups like FNB are, thus, a voluntary workforce helping to preserve the
social order by reinforcing the dependence of the dispossessed on programs not
of their own creation.
No matter how non-hierarchical the decision-making process used by the organizers may be, the charitable relationship is always authoritarian. The beneficiaries of a charity are at the mercy of the organizers of the program and so are not free to act on their own terms in this relationship. This can be seen in the humiliating way in which one must receive charity. Charity feeds like FNB require the beneficiaries to arrive at a time not of their choosing in order to stand in line to receive food not of their choosing in quantities doled out by some volunteer who wants to make sure that everyone gets a fair share. Of course, it's better than going hungry, but the humiliation is at least as great as that of waiting in line at the grocery store to pay for food one actually wants and can eat when one wants it. The numbness we develop to such humiliation-the numbness that is made evident by the ease with which certain anarchists will opt to eat at charity feeds every day in order to avoid paying for food, as though there were no other options-shows the extent to which our society is permeated with such humiliating interactions. Still one would think that anarchists would refuse such interactions insofar as lies within their power to do so and would seek to create interactions of a different sort in order to destroy the humiliation imposed by society. Instead many create programs that reinforce this humiliation.
But what of the empathy one may feel for another who is suffering from a poverty one knows all too well; what of the desire to share food with others? Programs like FNB do not generally express empathy, they express pity. Doling out food is not sharing; it is an impersonal, hierarchical relationship between social role "donor" and social role "beneficiary". Lack of imagination has led anarchists to deal with the question of hunger (which is an abstract question for most of them) in much the same way as christians and liberals, creating institutions which parallel those which already exist. As is to be expected, when anarchists attempt to do an inherently authoritarian task, they do a piss-poor job... Why not leave charity work to those who have no illusions about it? Anarchists would do better to find ways of sharing individually if they feel so moved, ways which encourage self-determination rather than dependence and affinity rather than pity.
There is nothing anarchist about FNB. Even
the name is a demand being made to the authorities. This is why its organizers
so frequently use civil disobedience-it is an attempt to appeal to the
consciences of those in power, to get them to feed and house the poor. There is
nothing in this program that encourages selfdetermination. There is nothing
that would encourage the beneficiaries to refuse that role and begin to take
what they want and need without following the rules. FNB, like every other
charity, encourages its beneficiaries to remain passive recipients rather than
becoming active creators of their own lives. Charity must be recognized for
what it is: another aspect of the institutionalized humiliation inherent in our
economized existence, which must be destroyed so that we can truly live.
Unreal, surrealistic,
utopian, in any case it is a dream. In the universe of dreams nothing is
codifies, preprogrammed or placed in rational order. Will they remain dreams or
will these dreams become reality? We trust the infinite possibilities of
chance.
In a certain metropolis,
there were thousands of machines, huge colossi of the mechanical and electrical
facilities. Each particular machine had a special function. One' produced
toothbrushes, another paper with which to wipe one's ass, the next produced
polyester chairs. All of these machines produced 20, 50, 100 times as much as
was actually necessary for the inhabitants of the metropolis.
Where the hell this excess
production went, no one knew. Dubious figures known by the name
"Worker" settled around this technological monster. They also had a
special role in production. They were responsible for assuring that the entire
technological apparatus function and had to monitor the end product. This was
the universe of the factory. In this universe, the workers used up eight hours
of their wretched and insipid existence each day. But the workers were sick.
They suffered from a strange disease that was particularly dangerous, even
deadly. The disease in question was the morbid syndrome, Paroxysmus Affection Productionismus. The medical specialists
couldn't diagnose the source. Some believed it was a question of an
occupational deformation; others thought that it was a spiritual deformation.
Indeed, the workers did not wish to leave their machines after eight hours of
work, even though their bosses ordered them to go home. The workers protested
in various ways. Some chained themselves to their machines, others suffered
attacks of depression, still others threatened to kill themselves if they were
not allowed to keep working. Often the bosses had to call the guardians of
order to make the work hungry workers leave the factories.
The PAP syndrome complicated
the lives of the workers in strange ways. The most frequent symptom of the
disease was that the worker had a compulsion to identify with the products they
produced. Those who operated the machines that made toothbrushes were convinced
that they were toothbrushes. Others identified with toilet paper and
continually tried to lick the asses of their bosses clean while they were in
the factory. Workers competed with each other to produce more. Hostility spread
like wild fire, finally becoming a harsh war of competition.
There was only one
exception, in perpetual conflict with the workers: it was the unemployed,
everyone who, out of a lack of enthusiasm or due to circumstances beyond their
control, had no work. The dimensions of the struggle were appalling: workers sold
heroin to the unemployed in an attempt to exterminate them. In return, the
unemployed set fire to the workers' cars so that they could not drive to and
from the work place.
One night, however, a large
black cloud descended upon the metropolis and the people stayed in their
apartments, because they could see nothing outside. The next day the thick fog
was still there and the desperate workers did not know how they would get to
their jobs. A few stubbornly tried to go on ;'1e street, but as fate would have
it, they ran face first into the electric poles on the street corners.
Thickheaded workers ran their cars into trees. There were countless accidents,
injuries and deaths that day. The frightened people barricaded themselves in
their apartments. Forced to stay at home, they began to enjoy the small
pleasures of life without the compulsion of work. The people became happier and
laughed; they talked with each other and helped each other out. Something new
and wonderful happened to the people. They became more and more human and less
and less workers. Gradually the addiction to work disappeared.
Finally the huge black cloud
disappeared and the factories opened their doors again. But nobody returned.
The days passed by, but not a trace of the workers. The bosses were shaken and
depressed as they saw their unproductive machines and began to kill themselves
one after another. Detox centers were built for workers, and the most stubborn
work addicts who tried to return to their machines and produce had their hands
sewn into their pockets.
With such good will all the
workers were healthy again. The unemployed were no longer a threat to anyone
and ceased to be treated as outsiders. The bosses and capitalists who had
survived the suicide phenomenon took their place. The factories were burnt
down, and with them, the banks, the malls, the official press, all the
political and social institutions that had guaranteed the exploitation of some
people by others.
This is the only new society worth conceiving.
To hell with work and exploitation...
-"L' Argonauta"
PLAY FIERCELY:
Thoughts on Growing Up
To become an adult in this
society is to be mutilated. The processes of family conditioning and education
subtly (and often not so subtly) terrorize children, reducing their capacity
for selfdetermination and transforming them into beings useful to society. A
well-adjusted, "mature" adult is one who accepts the humiliations
that work-and-pay society constantly heaps upon them with equanimity. It is
absurd to call the process that creates such a shriveled, mutilated being
"growing up.
There are some of us who
recognize the necessity of destroying work if we are to destroy authority. We
recognize that entirely new ways of living and interacting need to be created,
ways best understood as free play. Unfortunately, some of the anarchists within
this milieu cannot see beyond the fact that the adult as we know it is a social
mutilation and tend to idealize childhood in such a way that they embrace an
artificial infantilism, donning masks of childishness to prove they've escaped
this mutilation. In so doing, they limit the games they can play, particularly
those games aimed at the destruction of this society.
At the age of forty, I am
still able to take pleasure in playing such "children's" games as
hide-and-seek or tag. Certainly, if growing up is not to be the belittling
process of becoming a societal adult, none of the pleasures or games of our
younger days should be given up. Rather they should be refined and expanded,
opening up ever-greater possibilities for creating marvelous lives and
destroying this society.
The games invented by those anarchists who have trapped themselves in their artificial infantilism are not this sort of expansive play, or not nearly enough so. Becoming "mud people" in the business district of a city, playing clown at a shopping center, parading noise orchestras through banks and other businesses is great fun and can even be a wee bit subversive. But those who consider these games a significant challenge to the social system are deluding themselves. People working in offices, factories, banks and shops do not need to be taught that there are better things to do with their time than work.
Most are quite aware of this. But a global system of social control compels people to participate in its reproduction in order to guarantee themselves a certain level of survival. As long as the domination of this system seems to be inevitable and eternal, most people will adjust themselves and even feel a resigned contentment with their "lot". So anarchist insurgents need to develop much fiercer, riskier games - games of violent attack against this system of control.
I
have been chided many times for associating play with violence and destruction,
occasionally by "serious revolutionaries" who tell me that the war
against the power structures is no game, but more often by the proponents of
anarcho-infantilism who tell me that there is nothing playful about violence.
What all of these chiders have in common is that they do not understand how
serious play can be. If the game one is playing is that of creating and
projecting one's life for oneself, then one will take one's play quite
seriously. It is not mere recreation in this case, but one's very life. This
game inevitably brings one into conflict with society. One can respond to this
in a merely defensive manner, but this leaves one in a stalemate with retreat
becoming inevitable.
When one's passion for
intense living, one's joy in the game of creating one's own life and
interactions is great enough, then mere defense will not do. Attack, violent
attack, becomes an essential part of the game, a part in which one can take
great pleasure. Here one encounters an adventure that challenges one's
capabilities, develops one's imagination as a practical weapon, takes one
beyond the realm of survival's hedged bets into the world of genuine risk that
is life. Can the laughter of joy exist anywhere else than in such a world,
where the pleasure we take in fireworks increases a hundred-fold when we know
that the fireworks are blowing up a police station, a bank, a factory or a
church? For me, growing up can only mean the process of creating more intense
and expansive games - of creating our lives for ourselves. As long as authority
exists, this means games of violent attack against all of the institutions of
society, aiming at the total destruction of these institutions. Anything less
will keep us trapped in the infantile adulthood this society imposes. I desire
much more.
Nonviolence training
programs have existed for many years in the United States. In the past, this
method of channeling resistance against the powers that be into polite, moral,
inoffensive forms has mostly centered around training activists in
"managing" (i.e., repressing) their anger in the face of police and
other defenders of the status quo and offering passive "resistance"
when they are arrested. The unspoken assumption is that it is not authority
itself that is the problem, but merely its misuse, and that the authorities
could be "morally persuaded" to do "the right thing".
Over time, the concept of
nonviolence has gone through some changes. On the one hand, even verbal
expressions of anger have been labeled as "violence" by the
repressive idiots who promote the ideology of nonviolence. On the other hand,
acts of civil disobedience have had to become physically strenuous to compete
for attention in the media circus, thus requiring more specific training.
So in 1995, the Ruckus
Society began raining people at "Action Camps across the country in skills
necessary for the more strenuous forms of non-violent civil disobedience. The
present-day activists are taught how to die strong knots and pull themselves up
scaffoldings six stories high by rope-and of course, how to create a good media
image in the process. What is the purpose of this strenuous training? To give
these activists the abilities climb up the fronts of tall buildings or
suspension bridges to hang banners with slogans. Supposedly these slogans,
combined with the willingness of these extremely civil dissidents to accept
arrest for their cause will "educate" people about the issue at hand
and so "effect change".
Of course, one must consider
the sort of people these training camps tend to attract. There was one such
camp held in Malibu, one of the wealthiest places in the United States, at the
time I started writing this. The camp was free-and so, technically open to
participation by anyone-but, as one would expect with such a carefully chosen
location, the actual participants were predominantly middle to upper-middle
class professionals, such as Michelle Sypert, an environmental lawyer from
Beverly Hills. Actor Woody Harrelson has also participated in these Action
Camps. In fact, it seems that most, if not all, of the participants in these
camps are people who have a significant stake in maintaining the present social
order. They have no desire to destroy authority; they merely want to curb what
they view as some of its aberrant excesses.
In an attempt to appear "militant",
the Ruckus Society has labeled the nonviolent civil disobedience that they
promote as "direct action". If the purpose of these actions is simply
to create a media spectacle, then I suppose they could rightly be called "direct
action"-because that is all they directly create. But these activists
claim that they are trying to prevent the destruction of wild places and to
save the environment. How does climbing a building in a city and putting up a
banner do this? What is direct in this action, if their goal is what they claim
it is?
For years, there have been those who have, indeed, taken direct action against the destroyers of wildness. Their action has included sabotage and destruction of the machinery and property of the corporations and institutions that are eating away at the wild places and at our lives. They have certainly been disobedient, but never civil and never accepting of the nonviolent code of martyrdom which embraces arrest. The authorities and their media have labeled this form of truly direct action as "terrorism" in an attempt to equate the individuals involved in these actions with the power-hungry cadres of political organizations who blow up subway stations or taverns full of people to promote their political agenda. It seems that the Ruckus Society may have bought into this false equation of the authorities. Certainly, their claims that symbolic, media-oriented, nonviolent civil disobedience is "direct action" can be a way to misdirect some more insurgent individuals into ineffective activity and to isolate those who take genuine direct action, making them out to he dangerous, divisive elements. Yet anyone who observes the actual results of nonviolent civil disobedience knows that every one of its "victories" has been a compromise in which the authorities simply put off the exploitation of one area, because they have others on hand to exploit. Even these minor concessions have usually only been "won" because there was a covert violent struggle going on at the same time as the public, nonviolent pseudo-struggle. Those of us who recognize that he destruction of wildness, both in the world and in ourselves, will continue as long as authority, capital, in fact, the totality of civilization continue to exist, know us well that training in nonviolent civil disobedience is training in futility.
“Truly it is not a failing
in you that you stiffen yourself against me
and assert your distinctness or peculiarity: you need not give way or
renounce yourself”-Max Stirner
Whenever more than a few
anarchists get together, there are arguments. This is no surprise, since the
word "anarchist" is used to describe a broad range of often
contradictory ideas and practices. The only common denominator is the desire to
be rid of authority, and anarchists do not even agree on what authority is, let
alone the question of what methods are appropriate for eliminating it. These
questions raise many others, and so arguments are inevitable.
The arguments do not bother
me. What bothers me is the focus on trying to come to an agreement. It is
assumed that "because we are all anarchists", we must all really want
the same thing; our apparent conflicts must merely be misunderstandings which
we can talk out, finding a common ground. When someone refuses to talk things
out and insists on maintaining their distinctness, they are considered
dogmatic. This insistence on finding a common ground may be one of the most
significant sources of the endless dialogue that so frequently takes place of
acting to create our lives on our own terms. This attempt to find a common
ground involves a denial of very real conflicts.
One strategy frequently used
to deny conflict is to claim that an argument is merely a disagreement over
words and their meanings. As if the words one uses and how one chooses to use
them have no connection to one's ideas, dreams and desires. I am convinced that
there are very few arguments that are merely about words and their meanings. These
few could be easily resolved if the individuals involved would clearly and
precisely explain what they mean. When individuals cannot even come to an
agreement about what words to use and how to use them, it indicates that their
dreams, desires and ways of thinking are so far apart that even within a single
language, they cannot find a common tongue. The attempt to reduce such an
immense chasm to mere semantics is an attempt to deny a very real conflict and
the singularity of the individuals involved.
The
denial of conflict and of the singularity of individuals may reflect a fetish
for unity that stems from residual leftism or collectivism. Unity has always
been highly valued by the left. Since most anarchists, despite their attempts -
to separate themselves from the left, are merely anti-state leftists, they are
convinced that only a united front can destroy this society which perpetually
forces us into unities not of our choosing, and that we must, therefore,
overcome our differences and join together to support the "common
cause". But when we give ourselves to the "common cause", we are
forced to accept the lowest common denominator of understanding and struggle.
The unities that are created in this way are false unities which thrive only by
suppressing the unique desires and passions of the individuals involved, transforming
them into a mass. Such unities are no different from the forming of labor that
keeps a factory functioning or the unity of social consensus which keeps the
authorities in power and people in line. Mass unity, because it is based on the
reduction of the individual to a unit in a generality, can never be a basis for
the destruction of authority, only for its support in one form or another.
Since we want to destroy authority, we must start from a different basis.
For me, that basis is
myself-my life with all of its passions and dreams, its desires, projects and
encounters. From this basis, I make "common cause" with no one, but
may frequently encounter individuals with whom I have an -affinity.
It may well be that your desires and passions, your dreams and projects
coincide with mine. Accompanied by an insistence upon realizing these in
opposition to every form of authority, such affinity is a basis for a genuine
unity between singular, insurgent individuals which lasts only as long as these
individuals desire. Certainly, the desire for the destruction of authority and
society can move us to strive for an insurrectional unity that becomes
large-scale, but never as a mass movement; instead it would need to be a
coinciding of affinities between individuals who insist on making their lives
their own. This sort of insurrection cannot come about through a reduction of
our ideas to a lowest common denominator with which everyone can agree, but
only through the recognition of the singularity of each individual, a
recognition which embraces the actual conflicts that exist between individuals,
regardless of how ferocious they may be, as part of the amazing wealth of
interactions that the world has to offer us once we rid ourselves of the social
system which has stolen our lives and our interactions from us.
THEIR OWN GAME
It is easy to belittle
taggers-those who choose to spray-paint initials or nicknames on walls to show
that they've been there. Certainly, they could leave a message, an insurgent
slogan, an explicit expression of rage or rebellion. Wouldn't that be more
worthwhile? I used to be among those who made such complaints about taggers,
putting them down for the lack of content in their graffiti. But one day, as I
was walking through the city where I lived, I began to notice the places where
taggers would leave their marks. I realized that although most taggers are not,
by any means, insurgent anarchists, there are aspects of their activity that
challenge some of the fundamental aspects of this society, and do so in a
playful and adventurous way. They are playing their own game.
One of the most basic
institutions of this society is exclusive property. Every space is the legally
protected property of a particular person, institution or collectivity. When individuals
use spaces that are not legally theirs for their own purposes without asking
the legal owners permission, it is considered a crime. This is what taggers do.
Tagging can be seen as an
unconscious challenge to officially recognized property rights, to the law and
to cops. So as not to delude ourselves though, it is necessary to be aware that
some tagging is done by gangs who are seeking to establish their power and to
claim a certain space as their exclusive property within the subcultural
context of gang society. There is nothing the least bit insurgent, even in a
latent, unconscious sense, in this gang usage of tagging. It is merely a
subcultural reflection of the dominant culture's values. However the majority
of taggers either play solo or in tag teams which are not street gangs, but
exist solely for the game of tagging.
And what a game! Late in the
night, these adventurous vandals climb twelve-foot fences topped with razor
wire. They scale vertical walls without ladders. They venture into subway tunnels
and up on to billboards. All of this while having to keep an eye out for the
cops and other upholders of the law and property rights. It is certainly a game
of wits, strategy and creative imagination. It involves an energetic, practical
defiance of the law and property rights. And it is a game that is played purely
for the pleasure that is found in the risk of such practical defiance.
Those of us who have a consciously insurgent perspective, who know that we want to destroy this society and its institutions might do better to learn from these games rather than belittle them. Compared to the safe little backroom orgies and the street theater/performance art pieces that all too often seem to be the sum total of "insurgent" games played by anarchists, this game seems much more challenging both to the institutions of society and for the players. It requires real courage and wits. The sorts of activities pursued by most anarchists to "challenge" the institutions of society indicate an underlying belief that these institutions are predominantly mental constructs that merely have to be argued away or symbolically exorcised. In tagging, the physical reality of these institutions is squarely faced and recognized as an essential aspect of what must be attacked. Not that the psychological aspect of these institutions is unreal, but it is an outgrowth of the physical basis of power. T