The Skeptic's Attic

Towards a Democratic Rebellion

2012-01-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

What is meant by the phrase 'democratic rebellion', and what does this mean for the broader OWS movement? What I have in mind is this: the OWS movement and its offshoots should consider modeling itself on popular insurgencies, revolts, and uprisings. To further define the idea, let me emphasize here that we are currently in a classic struggle to win the "hearts and minds" campaign, and we should study and follow (where applicable) the lessons of historical groups who have found themselves in this position. Make no mistake: our enemies have defined the struggle in precisely these terms, and it would show a level of much-needed maturity for our side to adopt the strategies and tactics of popular revolt. After all, protracted insurgencies have brought down the former U.S.S.R., outlasted the mighty U.S. military in Vietnam, and toppled regimes in numerous countries, to cite a few brief examples.

Balance as a strategic initiative

It is one thing to allocate precious time and energy to the struggle against injustice, but this cannot always be the only reason one gets out of bed in the morning. There is no doubt that a popular struggle against injustice is a good thing, only if there is a clear definition of 'injustice' followed by carefully planned strategies and precisely executed tactics that serve to combat that which has been defined.

Nevertheless, my reason for this short article is to focus on one thing: winning the "hearts and minds" battle. Let's face it: the broader OWS movement in general and the OA branch in particular will only tear itself to shreds (and ultimately disintegrate) if it cannot move beyond the narrow confines of us who already sympathized with OWS tendencies before the movement began. In other words, for this movement to work, we must reach out to people who may be skeptical of our intentions at best, and who may sympathize with our ultimate objectives but decide that our methods are not for them. We must not only reach out to them, but we must win their approval and backing, and possibly even convert them completely to our side. We must show that this movement is a popular movement, and not just another marginal fad. How do we manage this? What is to be done?

Winning the communities

To answer those questions, we must pose two others:

(1) Who can/should we help?
(2) How can we help them?

To win popular support for our cause, we need to do more than just occupy parks, stage flash mobs, provoke cops, and smash the windows of upscale boutiques. We need to evolve into more than that. Those tactics have done an immense amount for our cause; without the occupations, it is difficult to think of how the national discourse about inequality would have ever become so mainstream. And don't get me wrong: we should not abandon occupations or any of the other tactics that have emerged from this movement. But the movement needs to evolve, build up greater popular support, bring out greater and greater numbers and persuade them to take up our banner.

When I talk to people about the OWS movement, attempting to clear up misconceptions and such like, some of the most frequents things I hear are statements like: "What are their specifics? What policies do they suggest?"; "Why don't they do more than occupy parks?" and so on. I'm sure many of you have heard similar things, fielded similar questions. These questions, I admit, have usually caught me flat-footed, and I wish it was the case that such questions did not need to be asked in the first place. The reason that these questions are still being asked is because we have not yet answered them with actions.

Suggestions in search of more suggestions

In my mind, the OWS movement is a long overdue response to economic injustices, unchecked corporate power/greed, and government collusion at the highest levels. It is about overturning the nihilistic plutocracy that has us all under its boot. With that in mind, it seems clear to me that our limited time, energy, and resources should be directed only towards this goal: smashing the plutocratic regime. The entire country, from one side of the political spectrum to the other, is of like mind with this sentiment. Why have we failed to capitalize (for lack of a better word) on this popular discontent?

Bringing the focus in a bit: it is now common knowledge that Georgia has taken an economic body-shot since the crisis began. We at OA should be able to turn this into something; if we can't, we deserve to fail. Instead of wasting time devising a plan to stage some kind of barricades plot or any other nonsense, we should be looking at the readily available economic data and finding out which communities have been most devastated by the crisis, and secondly, how can we help to mitigate the plight of families within these communities, since these people have been largely abandoned by the state.

We should consider:

(1) staging benefits (concerts, art shows, whatever) to build up funds for desperate families;
(2) establishing a tax-exempt, non-profit shell to allow for donations, etc.;
(3) food drives and clothing drives for needy families/individuals;
(4) going out into communities to help in whatever way we can;
(5) perhaps setting up a barter-type network along the lines of the Greek model to help unemployed people make ends meet;
(6) petitioning the GA legislature for extended unemployment benefits (publicity);
(7) drafting referendums that favor our objectives (Yes, GA is a referendum state! Use it!);

and so on. I'm sure other OA members have more and better ideas, but this is all I could come up with tonight. The point is that we should be utilizing our limited resources in such a way that everything we do builds community support, strengthens community ties, prevents communities from collapsing, and puts our best collective efforts in the limelight. Granted, none of these suggestions are as glamorous as plotting the next Battle of Seattle, but then again, what happened to Seattle?

As an aside, I would also like to consider one major project: the Million Person Occupation of D.C. for this year's 4th of July. That would be rather interesting, in my opinion.

Movements without Leaders

2012-01-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

Political movements, like other social formations, are either hierarchical or non-hierarchical. While both types have existed for centuries, the historical record shows a preponderance of the former over the latter. Recent history, however, shows that this disparity may be coming to an end. The Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movements, the Color Revolutions of former Soviet satellite states, etc: these events demonstrate a powerful new trend in social and political movements that opts for a bottom-up, non-hierarchical organizational method. The most urgent questions facing groups that adopt this strategy are: (1) Can these non-hierarchical movements sustain themselves, or will they devolve into hierarchical formations, and (2) Can these non-hierarchical formations develop their theories and practices as they evolve in the political arena?

Clearly these are not the only significant questions facing such movements. But in this essay I want to focus on these two central questions, and answer these questions within the context of the Occupy movements within the United States.

Top-down or Bottom-up?

The history of the hierarchical organizational structure is notable for any number of reasons. Most governments, organized religions, military organizations, family or clan structures, and corporate entities are organized on the hierarchical principle. That principle localizes absolute power at the top of the structure, and then distributes power down the formation to subordinates in the lower levels. Reference is usually made to a pyramid-like structure, where the overwhelming majority of persons contained within an organization of this type are located at the base, and usually only one person (or a small group) located at the top.

Apologists for hierarchy maintain that such stratification brings stability to complex societies; that such structures are more efficient in the decision-making process; even that hierarchical structures are "natural." Indeed, a survey of the literatures concerning hierarchy suggests that the number of apologists is much greater than the number of critics, but the impetus for this particular essay is that I have noticed several statements made on OWS affiliated sites where some individuals are now calling for the establishment of an OWS leadership, whether local, regional or national. Let me offer a counterpoint.

In a word, establishing an OWS leadership, or introducing any kind of hierarchical structures, would signal the death knell of the movement. The OWS movement did not arise because of some grandiose scheme concocted by a brilliant leadership clique; the movement emerged from the conditions of a society in which economic hierarchy (inequality) has become so antagonistic and unsustainable that people began taking to the streets in order to make their grievances known and to alter the course of events.

Not only would the establishment of leadership/hierarchical structures be an affront to the origins of the OWS movement, it would be a grave strategic mistake. Quite simply, though it appears that the city governments know how to handle the various occupations and demonstrations, the opposite is in fact the case. Governments at all levels would prefer nothing more than for the OWS movement to reorganize itself into something familiar: another hierarchical structure, complete with an easily identifiable chain of command and leadership cadre. Leaders of movements give governments easy targets for smear campaigns, misinformation, arrest or capture, and in some cases even assassination. History abounds with examples confirming that claim. Leaderless resistance movements and non-hierarchical structures, on the other hand, are supremely more difficult (if not impossible) for governments to stamp out. Antagonistic governmental powers simply do not know where to strike, and as a consequence reveal their ineffectiveness and barbarity when trying to control and suppress non-hierarchical movements.

Rhizomatic Political Practices

Normally in an essay such as this I would prefer to leave out references to other authors, so as to avoid any appearances of appealing to authority. Nevertheless, I am going to cite the ideas of a few authors here in this section, to avoid having to reinvent contemporary political wheels, as it were.

Some readers may already notice from the title of this section that Gilles Deleuze has inspired some of what follows. Deleuze and Guattari's concept of 'rhizome' is remarkable in that it anticipates a number of factors at work in the non-hierarchical practices of the OWS movement, and suggests directions for further development.

At this point I will quote the entire preface by Michel Foucault as it speaks volumes toward this theme:

"During the years 1945-1965 (I am referring to Europe), there was a certain way of thinking correctly, a certain style of political discourse, a certain ethics of the intellectual. One had to be on familiar terms with Marx, not let one's dreams stray too far from Freud. And one had to treat sign-systems -- the signifier -- with the greatest respect. These were the three requirements that made the strange occupation of writing and speaking a measure of truth about oneself and one's time acceptable.

Then came the five brief, impassioned, jubilant, enigmatic years. At the gates of our world, there was Vietnam, of course, and the first major blow to the powers that be. But here, inside our walls, what exactly was taking place? An amalgam of revolutionary and antirepressive politics? A war fought on two fronts: against social exploitation and psychic repression? A surge of libido modulated by the class struggle? Perhaps. At any rate, it is this familiar, dualistic interpretation that has laid claim to the events of those years. The dream that cast its spell, between the First World War and fascism, over the dreamiest parts of Europe -- the Germany of Wilhelm Reich, and the France of the surrealists -- had returned and set fire to reality itself: Marx and Freud in the same incandescent light.

But is that really what happened? Had the utopian project of the thirties been resumed, this time on the scale of historical practice? Or was there, on the contrary, a movement toward political struggles that no longer conformed to the model that Marxist tradition had prescribed? Toward an experience and a technology of desire that were no longer Freudian. It is true that the old banners were raised, but the combat shifted and spread into new zones.

Anti-Oedipus shows us first of all how much ground has been covered. But it does much more than that. It wastes no time in discrediting the old idols. even though it does have a great deal of fun with Freud. Most important, it motivates us to go further.

It would be a mistake to read Anti-Oedipus as the new theoretical reference (you know, that much-heralded theory that finally encompasses everything, that finally totalizes and reassures, the one we are told we "need so badly" in our age of dispersion and specialization where "hope" is lacking). One must not look for a "philosophy" amid the extraordinary profusion of new notions and surprise concepts:Anti-Oedipus is not a flashy Hegel. I think that Anti-Oedipus can best be read as an "art," in the sense that is conveyed by the term "erotic art," for example. Informed by the seemingly abstract notions of muliplicities, flows, arrangements, and connections, the analysis of the relationship of desire to reality and to the capitalist "machine" yields answers to concrete questions. Questions that are less concerned with why this or that than with how to proceed. How does one introduce desire into thought, into discourse, into action? How can and must desire deploy its forces within the political domain and grow more intense in the process of overturning the established order? Ars erotica, ars theoretica, ars politica.

Whence the three adversaries confronted by Anti-Oedipus. Three adversaries who do not have the same strength, who represent varying degrees of danger, and whom the book combats in different ways:

The political ascetics, the sad militant, the terrorists of theory, those who would preserve the pure order of politics and political discourse. Bureaucrats of the revolution and civil servants of Truth.

The poor technicians of desire -- psychoanalysts and semiologists of every sign and symptom -- who would subjugate the multiplicity of desire to the twofold law of structure and lack.

Last but not least, the major enemy, the strategic adversary is fascism (whereas Anti-Oedipus' opposition to the others is more of a tactical engagement). And not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini -- which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively -- but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

I would say that Anti-Oedipus (may its authors forgive me) is a book of ethics, the first book of ethics to be written in France in quite a long time (perhaps that explains why its success was not limited to a particular "readership": being anti-oedipal has become a life style, a way of thinking and living). How does one keep from being fascist, even (especially) when one believes oneself to be a revolutionary militant? How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behavior? The Christian moralists sought out the traces of the flesh lodged deep within the soul. Deleuze and Guattari, for their part, pursue the slightest traces of fascism in the body.

Paying a modest tribute to Saint Francis de Sales, one might say that Anti-Oedipus is an Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life.

This art of living counter to all forms of fascism, whether already present or impending, carries with it a certain number of essential principles which I would summarize as follows if I were to make this great book into a manual or guide for everyday life:

Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.

Develop action, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization.

Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic.

Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality (and not its retreat into the forms of representation) that possesses revolutionary force.

Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.

Do not demand of politics that it restore the "rights" of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power. What is needed is to "de-individualize" by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of de-individualization.

Do not become enamored of power.

It could even be said that Deleuze and Guattari care so little for power that they have tried to neutralize the effects of power linked to their own discourse. Hence the games and snares scattered throughout the book, rendering its translation a feat of real prowess. But thse are not the familiar traps of rhetoric; the latter work to sway the reader without his being aware of the manipulation, and ultimately win him over against his will. The traps of Anti-Oedipus are those of humor: so many invitations to let oneself be put out, to take one's leave of the text and slam the door shut. The book often leads one to believe it is all fun and games, when something essential is taking place, something of extreme seriousness: the tracking down of all varieties of fascism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everday lives.

It is no accident that Foucault contrasts these developments to the fascist tendencies of hierarchical structures and practices. This is not to say, of course, that anyone who suggests that the OWS movement should adopt a leadership is a fascist; it does, however, illuminate the dangers of "becoming enamored" of leaders and of desiring the latent oppressive tendencies of hierarchical formations, whether social, economic, or political.

Currently I do not feel as if the OWS movement is in immanent danger of devolving into such a structure. But I have noticed some calls for just this kind of thing. The reality is that this movement does not need to ever develop into some kind of hierarchical, monolithic beast. We should strive to: maintain our autonomy from organized politics; to refrain from electing any leaders or establishing any hierarchical models; to advance the dynamism inherent in the movement; to embrace multiple political tendencies that share our ethos; to promote the decentralized, bottom-up model of political practice. Only in this way can the OWS movement sustain its vibrancy and effectiveness and ultimately to effect real and meaningful change.

On the subject of continuous essays

2011-12-30T21:35:00.000-08:00

Continuous essays are made possible by modern technology. Here the possibility of composing studies or trials becomes fluid, dynamic; responses and feedback can be almost instantaneous, thus allowing for corrections or modifications to the underlying assumptions of particular trials. Notes can be compared. References can be updated by further evidence.

In short, abolishing and relinquishing the comfort of so many idees fixes. My preference for the notion of continuous thought in general is directly related to my suspicion of monolithic claims. When I say "monolithic claims," let it refer to the well-abused and routinely slandered concept of Platonic Ideas. Be that as it may, I am not much interested in that worn controversy. My interest is in the potential for the opposite, actually. The practice is already established even, though of a noticeably low standard colored with vitriolic and savage hyperbole - often precisely where one longs to be persuaded by intellect and pragmatism.

In the same spirit, my first response to this theme is that it is not very revolutionary, since we could simply think of the evolution of writing, data accumulation, literature, history - the entire treasure of human knowledge - as just this sort of thing. Granted. But there exists the difference with regards to the immediacy and speed whereby knowledges and techniques today are generated and forced to adapt, and such a difference calls out for positive exploitation. Forums should be arenas as well as forums, and all ideas should be open for any challenge. Even my own. Especially my own.