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Title: Action and Response Author: Anonymous Date: Spring 2015 Language: en Topics: ITS, Deep Green Resistance, Black and Green Review, Kevin Tucker, strategy, green, anarcho-primitivist, anti-civ Source: Retrieved on November 28th, 2015 from http://www.blackandgreenreview.org/2015/11/bagr1-action-and-response.html
There has been an uproar, stemming from the logical and important
critique of activism, that fears the reemergence of a civil disobedience
ethic. On the other side of action, theoretically, sits ITS. The
Individualists Tending Towards the Wild (ITS) are individuals who have
sent bombs to numerous universities, professors, researchers, as well as
journalists and non-profits in the name of wild human nature. ITS has
its cut throat communiqués stylized to provoke anger and wrought with
strands of logic pulled harshly and quickly together, making arguments
that seem pointless to engage with. In its communiqués ITS, though
contradictory at times, aims to be another theoretical bullet (as
opposed to the actual bombs) against the plague of pointless property
destruction and “sentimental environmentalism”. Swallowed in is indeed
civil disobedience and all other actions that would seem trivial
(including non-human targeted arson as they have specifically named ELF
as a sentimental “group”) in the face of a bomb.
But how real are the differences from a strategical perspective? ITS has
not aimed to disable areas of the grid or take out large swaths of data
(no matter who they kill the cloud holds all). Though they have taken
the most serious actions in terms of prosecution and state punishment
have they nevertheless been culled by the plague of sentimentalism?
Surely only the sentimental would play into the cultural idea of murder
being the worst and most effective crime when there may be more
effective non-murder focused tactics?
The answer seems obvious enough, of course they are drawn into a
sentimental and fundamentally emotional reality when confronted with the
daunting question of “what to do” in the face of a civilization gripping
at the final fuels, the final predators, caught in the last series of
pushes before a cascading and dynamic shift that will be more horrific
than any mail bomb.
Civil disobedience, in particular Earth First! has been condemned in
this supposed resurrection of demonized tactics, is not evil. The
discussion between these two tactics, though I don't think they are
adequately described as “ends of the spectrum”, is vital. ITS has made
numerous dubious claims about the legitimacy of its targets, which have
included establishment journalists and Greenpeace. They refuse to
acknowledge when an attack goes awry, saying that an unintended casualty
does nothing to deter their struggle for ego driven wildness. ITS opens
themselves up for maximum prosecution but their obsession with Ted
Kaczynksi makes them zealots for the killing of humans with no desire to
understand the inherent limitations of their tactic. This is not to make
an argument that “they have become like that which they fight”. My point
here is to engage with our biases. Because something is more extreme
does not make it more effective. We seem perfectly capable of
criticizing civil disobedience, and I understand how easy that critique
rolls off the tongue, but other tactics become immune from engagement,
even more so as we turn to an egoist and radically subjective view of
the world.
In this egoist turn away from our inherent sense of connectedness we see
each action as existing in a bubble and the analysis of ITS among some,
including the fine folks at Free Radical radio, has boiled down to ITS
“destroying something that is ugly to them”. This hollow and pointless
analysis leaves us in a vacuous space filled with ambiguous meandering.
The subjective nature of “destroying something ugly” can only lead to an
ultimately moralistic view of the world where purged and un-purged egos
sit apart from each other. Always purge your ego of every perceivable
reified notion or that ego will be “tainted” by something or possibly,
if you are a nihilist, everything. The ugly can become anything. With no
grounding, no analysis, action departs from effectiveness. The analysis
of civilization is left by the wayside as we search down pathways of
logic devoid of the material culture which constructs our daily
behavior. The struggle is isolated and subjectiveness takes the reigns
as community becomes more and more irrelevant to our analysis.
Our self is a manifestation of experience and neurosis as well as
conscious and unconscious absorption of ideas, senses, and
communication. That this blurry matrix of self-realization or
ego-actualization is a starting point for action seems, at best,
unhelpful. Destroying something ugly is meaningless in and of itself,
the world driven by ego is manifested in countless ways and the end
point is left purposely undefined to such a degree that no one, not even
the ones taking action, have any idea what sort of world they want. The
contradictions develop quickly as the hyper consciousness of our “self”
spins into an idea of subjectiveness that can only be described as
pointless and, ultimately, if we are to believe the premise, completely
unrelatable. If it is true that our subjective experience is all that
matters then we can just turn to transhumanism to fulfill the goal of
realizing our true self.
Analysis matters. Infrastructure matters. For action to be effective we
must simply look at implications not divinate for one truth. There is no
precedent for an ego driven world yet anarchists seem to think they can
open up a portal to liberation through a convoluted notion of a
perceivable self that is a manifestation of a multitude of inputs both
known and unknown, those in our consciousness and those not.
All actions are open to discussion. We can decide amongst ourselves
which seem worthwhile and respect a large array. It isn't about drawing
lines, it's about understanding where we are and where we want to go.
One could easily posit that me making such claims, or calling into
question ITS tactics, is heretical and that to denounce such
“productive” actions, while seemingly defending remnants of petty and
“outdated” tactics, does nothing to enhance our level of praxis. All
this is under the deluded supposition that one day we may just happen to
stumble upon an answer of “what to do?” There is no shortage of prophets
on the left and right spending countless hours trying to articulate a
“rational strategy” that changes the world. The baseline lunacy of this
claim is self-evident and, historically, easy to rebuke. Success stories
of theory and tightly woven praxis are not in ample supply.
To intellectually beat down the one asking the question, or the one with
the U lock, does not create or clarify our praxis. The negation of
strategical techniques once and for all is simply about purity. This
goes both ways.
There is of course plenty of room for debate and questions addressing
these issues, particularly around the notions of violence, property
destruction, and moralistic pacifism. But discussion and critiques
cannot, by a matter of necessity and actuality, exist apart from action.
This is why discussion on ITS is important, at least tactically.
Addressing the philosophical musings of ITS is tantamount to addressing
Ted K's take on anthropology, forever frustrating and never satisfying.
What this says about the psychology of those who see humans as the only
legitimate targets is something worth thinking about.
However, ITS is presenting a praxis of some sort and they are forthright
about their immediate goals. We can dig into their formulations, we can
actually discuss the implications of it from the perspective of what is
currently happening. It would be easy to construct numerous ways to
knock it down, feel as though we had philosophically kicked its ass and
put the final word on “murder” as a tactic. As I read Black Seed I
wonder what the reaction to an article titled “Two Steps Back: the
Return of Murder in Ecological Resistance” would be. Didn't FC show us
the abundant failure of a few (or one) murderous earth avengers mailing
bombs? But for some reason, mostly aesthetic, there is a hesitation to
make those claims. I see that as a good thing, we shouldn't be making
blanket claims about tactics. But that hesitation does not extend, for
reasons that are, again, mostly aesthetic, to civil disobedience. This
is despite the fact that Earth First! has had some, albeit quite small
in the scale of global civilization, successes protecting isolated
areas. Of course there are serious strategical problems with saving
isolated areas but it does not follow that those areas are irrelevant or
that I am not personally happy that they still exist in some less
mediated state of wildness. All wild places matter. With 75% of the
surface area of the earth under human control, influence or habitation
it seems relevant to stop new areas from being taken over. If we want a
future primitive, this may be one of the most important things
happening. Wild spaces re-appear fast but healthy ecosystems take time.
Overall, however, this is a large scale failure, more is destroyed
daily. While I appreciate the spaces “saved” there are several missing
pieces and each Earth First! campaign can be looked at individually,
something Black Seed does do. They make a blanket assertion in the
article but truthfully it is a critique of select campaigns.
The point here is to address the way we view debating tactics and
strategy in a largely theoretical vacuum. Theory and practice may very
well be tied together but words, much like a sanctioned march, are
ineffective at actualizing action in the here and now. The words may be
more important than the march but to say that our theory can firmly
define our praxis verges on a neo-Marxist argument that the people just
need a rational argument, upon the perfect articulation revolution
happens. The likes of Deep Green Resistance and the Revolutionary
Communist Party have already found their perfect articulation in Derrick
Jensen and Bob Avakian respectively, and look how far they have come!
Action is tantamount to existing as a human, an agreement I share with
the ITS articulation of being human, but there is often a chain of
evasiveness in how we, as anti-civilization anarchists, address action.
There are some decent and grounded reasons for this, prison among them,
but the evasiveness needs to be acknowledged.
A program is hardly needed, a look to DGR solidifies this point. No one
needs another “above ground” political apparatus dictating ideology with
a “below ground” (that no one, in any circumstance, should ever admit to
knowing about) committing actions which the “above ground” may or may
not take credit for. This party-action structure has shown itself
historically to be not only authoritarian but ineffective. Nonetheless,
we can be more instructive about action when we talk, discuss, and
confront. The discussion usually shifts around issues of legality and or
violence. It may be more important to clarify what we want from actions
and think about our goals.
I do not think ITS (or its contemporaries, Wild Reaction, Obsidian Point
to name a couple) is harboring an effective strategy. This is less to
say about the moral affect of those participating and more about the
obviousness of their failure. Civilization still exists, the
universities still exist, the papers, the environmental groups, even
nanotechnology still exists. Worse off, they are expanding. So where are
we left with this “destroy what is ugly to you” strategy? In the same
place as the revolutionary as we can only possibly hope, in order for
total destruction of the reified world, that there is a mass rising of
egos motivated to destroy, in a nihilistic fashion, all possible
impediments to the ego. The self at the center of actions seems
increasingly bizarre in cases of meticulous planning, particularly when
that planning involves conspiracy to commit an act which may lead to
significant, if not permanent, prison time.
Somewhere in the middle of this we have black bloc and other supposedly
radical tactics loosely associated with the idea of “insurrection”.
While helpful in many ways, and more often than not worth supporting,
the idea of effectiveness hinges upon mass participation. While a move
to lawlessness creates more opportunities for individuals and small
groups the setting is exceedingly important and what we can say for ITS
is that at least some planning is necessary to reach your short-term
goal. Is that goal embedded in an overall strategy? A question worth
asking, though the answer need not only be yes.
Liberating your individual person is a tiresome job and our
concentration upon the fulfillment of our egos, even in their supposed
and likely “union”, leads us to a strategy or pure self-determination
destroying manifestations of ideas, with our very own idea that
liberation will come from their destruction. The institutions will have
their illusion shattered and then something will happen. The exciting
nature of this seemingly unexplored space is liberating for a moment but
does this radical strategy of waiting for the theoretical hammer to drop
do anything?
I do believe there is an effective strategy, I know that it cannot be
fully articulated for reasons that go beyond law. We can create massive
disruptions and heed the destruction of wildness, both internal and
external to ourselves and our families. The answers are far less complex
than we would like to believe. Continuing to hype an insurrection coming
any day, or supporting actions because of their ego liberating bent, as
well as demonizing any of these actions including all civil disobedience
is not generally helpful. We may harbor the day of insurrection and I do
believe that the unexpected is possible, even likely in the face of our
ultra-domesticated day to day, but ultimately the collapse of global
civilization will not have its primary driver be an insurrection or mass
revolt. The infrastructure and armies cannot continue if we wish for a
world of wildness. This is undeniable. It may be necessary that
consciousness shift but that does not mean that civilization will fall.
To put it bluntly: I do not mourn the nano-tech scientist, I celebrate
wild lands, and insurrection in the streets brings us each and
collectively closer to touching experience, but civilization will exist
as long as the material structure exists with the fuel to run it. The
reality is simple, the implications are striking, but we are stuck
celebrating ineffectiveness, rallying the masses, and diminishing any
victories not deemed radical enough in methodology. The implications of
a critique of civilization are widespread and in front of our faces.
Let's not forget them.