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Title: The moral split
Author: Alfredo M. Bonanno
Date: March 1988
Language: en
Topics: morality
Source: Original title: La frattura morale, *ProvocAzione* no. 12, March 1988, p.7

Alfredo M. Bonanno

The moral split

It is not enough for an action simply to be considered ‘right’ in order

for it to be carried out. Other elements, such as the underlying moral

judgement, are involved, which have nothing to do with the validity of

the action. This becomes obvious when you see the difficulty many

comrades have in carrying out actions that in themselves are in no way

exceptional.

A moral obstacle appears, leading to a real ethical ‘split’ with

unpredictable consequences. For example, we have been pointing out the

uselessness of huge peaceful demonstrations for some time now. Instead

we propose mass demonstrations that are organised insurrectionally,

supported by small actions against the capitalist structures that are

responsible for the present situation of exploitation and genocide all

over the world.

We think it could be useful to reflect for a moment on the different

attitudes that exist concerning such actions, beyond any question of

method or political choice

No matter how much we go into things theoretically, spooks remain inside

all of us. One of these is other people’s property. Others are people’s

lives, God, good manners, sex, tolerating other people’s opinions, etc.

Sticking to the subject: we are all against private property, but as

soon as we reach out to attack it an alarm bell rings inside us.

Centuries of moral conditioning set in motion without our realising it,

with two results. On the one hand there is the thrill of the

forbidden—which leads many comrades to carry out senseless little thefts

that often go beyond immediate and unavoidable needs—and on the other

the unease of behaving ‘immorally’. Putting the ‘thrill’ aside, which I

am not interested in and which I willingly leave to those who like to

amuse themselves with such things, I want to take a look at the

‘unease’.

The fact is, we have all been reduced to the animal state of the herd.

The morals we share (all of us, without exception) are ‘altruistic’.

That is, we are respectable egalitarian and levelling. The territories

of this morality have yet to be explored. How many comrades who superbly

declare they have visited them would recoil at the sight of their own

sister’s breast? Certainly not a few.

And even when we justify our attack on private property to ourselves—and

to the tribunal of history—by maintaining that it is right that the

expropriators be expropriated, we are still prisoners of a kind of

slavery—moral slavery to be exact. We are confirming the eternal

validity of the bosses of the past, leaving the future to judge whether

those into whose hands we have consigned what has been taken from us

personally be considered expropriators or not.

So, from one justification to another, we end up building a church,

almost without realising it. I say ‘almost’ because basically we are

aware of it but it scares us.

To take property from others has a social significance. It constitutes

rebellion and, precisely because of this, property owners must be part

of the property-owning class, not simply people who possess something.

We are not aesthetes of nihilist action who see no difference between

taking from the former and pinching money from the beggar’s plate.

The act of expropriation means something precisely in its present class

context, not because of the ‘incorrect’ way that those we intend to

expropriate have acted in the past. If that were our only point of

reference then the capitalist who pays union wages and ‘looks after’ his

workers, sells at reasonable prices, etc., would be excluded from the

legitimacy of expropriation. Why should we concern ourselves with such

questions?

The same thing happens when we talk about ‘destructive’ actions. Many

comrades know no peace. Why these actions? What is gained by them? What

is the point of them? They are of no benefit to us and only damage

others.

For the sake of argument, by attacking a firm that supplies arms to

South Africa or which finances the racist regime in Israel, one that

projects nuclear power stations or makes electronic devices with which

to ‘improve’ traditional weapons, the accent is put not so much on the

latter’s specific responsibility, as on the fact that they belong to the

class of exploiters. Specific responsibility only concerns the strategic

and political choice. The sole element for reaching the ethical decision

is the class one. Realising this enables us to reach a certain clarity

on the matter. The moral foundation for any action is the difference

between classes, the belonging to one of the two components of society

that are irreducibly opposed and whose only solution is the destruction

of one or the other.

Political and strategic foundations, on the other hand, require a series

of considerations that can be quite contradictory. All the objections

listed above concern this latter aspect and have nothing to do with the

underlying moral justification.

But, without our realising it, it is in the field of moral decision that

many of us come up against obstacles. The basically peaceful (or almost

peaceful) marches, no matter how demonstrative of our intentions

‘against’, were quite different. Even the violent clashes with the

police were quite different. There was an intermediate reality between

ourselves and the ‘enemy’, something that protected our moral alibi. We

felt sure we were in the ‘right’ even when we adopted positions (still

in the area of democratic dissent) that were not shared by the majority

of the demonstrators. Even when we smashed a few windows things remained

in such a way that this could be accommodated.

Things are different when we act alone or with other comrades who could

never give us a psychological ‘cover’ such as that which we so easily

get from within the ‘mass’. It is now individuals who decide to attack

the institution. We have no mediators. We have no alibi. We have no

excuse. We either attack or retreat. We either accept the class logic of

the clash as an irreducible counterposition or move backwards towards

negotiation and verbal and moral deception.

If we reach out and attack property—or something else, but always in the

hands of the class enemy—we must accept full responsibility for our

deed, without seeking justification in the presumed collective level of

the situation. We cannot put off moral judgement concerning the need to

attack and strike the enemy until we have consulted those who, all

together, determine the ‘collective situation’. I shall explain better.

I am not against the work of mass counter-information or the

intermediate struggles that are also necessary in a situation of

exploitation and misery. What I am against is the symbolic (exclusively

symbolic) course that these struggles take. They should be aimed at

obtaining results, even limited ones, but results that are immediate and

tangible, always with the premise that the insurrectional method—the

refusal to delegate the struggle, autonomy, permanent conflictuality and

self-managed base structures-—be used.

What I do not agree with is that one should stop there, or even before

that point as some would have it, at the level of simple

counterinformation and denunciation, moreover decided by the deadlines

provided by repression.

It is possible, no, necessary, to do something else, and that something

needs to be done now in the present phase of violent, accelerated

restructuring. It seems to me that this can be done by a direct attack

on small objectives that indicate the class enemy, objectives that are

quite visible in the social territory, or if they are not, the work of

counterinformation can make them so with very little effort.

I do not think any anarchist comrade can be against this practice, at

least in principle. There could be (and are) those who say they are

against such a practice due to the fact that they see no constructive

mass perspective in the present political and social situation, and I

can understand this. But these actions should not be condemned on

principle. The fact is that those who take a distance from them are far

fewer than those who support them but do not put them into practice. How

is that? I think that this can be explained precisely by this ‘moral

split’, which a going over the threshold of the ‘rights’ of others

causes in comrades like myself and so many others, educated to say

‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ for the slightest thing.

We often talk about liberating our instincts, and—to tell the truth

without having any very clear ideas on the subject—we also talk about

‘living our lives’ (complex question that merits being gone into

elsewhere). We talk of refusing the ideals transmitted from the

bourgeoisie in their moment of victory, or at least the bogus way in

which such ideals have been imposed upon us through current morals.

Basically what we are talking about is the real satisfaction of our

needs, which are not just the so-called primary ones of physical

survival. Well. I believe words are not enough for such a beautiful

project. When it stayed firmly within the old concept of class struggle

based on the desire to ‘reappropriate’ what had unjustly been taken from

us (the product of our labour), we were able to ‘talk’ (even if we

didn’t get very far) of needs, equality, communism and even anarchy.

Today, now that this phase of simple reappropriation has been changed by

capital itself, we cannot have recourse to the same words and concepts.

The time for words is slowly coming to an end. And we realise with each

day that passes that we are tragically behind, closed within a ghetto

arguing about things that are no longer of any real revolutionary

interest, as people are rapidly moving towards other meanings and

perspectives as Power slyly and effectively urges them on. The great

work of freeing the new man from morals, this great weight built in the

laboratories of capital and smuggled into the ranks of the exploited,

has practically never begun.