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Title: Insurrection and Utopia, Part 1: “We are Eating From a Trashcan; This Trashcan is Ideology.”
Author: Dr. Bones
Date: November 9th 2015
Language: en
Topics: anarchism, Insurrection, ideology, statist ideology, Bourgeois ideology, utopia, slavery, wage slavery, democracy, resistance, anti-capitalism, surveillance
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20170211073930/https://godsandradicals.org/2015/11/09/insurrection-and-utopia-part-1-we-are-eating-from-a-trashcan-this-trashcan-is-ideology/

Dr. Bones

Insurrection and Utopia, Part 1: “We are Eating From a Trashcan; This

Trashcan is Ideology.”

It all started innocently enough. A friend asked me a question on

facebook:

“How can you advocate anarchic revolution when your political vision is

so far in the minority?”

The underlying premise was a good one: In a country of 300+ million, how

can you call for the upheaval of society, the breaking of societal and

political bonds, when so few would readily identify as

Anarchists/Socialists/Communists/Leftists/Anti-Capitalists/What-have-you?

It’s a question often thrown at the Left and unfortunately many haven’t

fully wrapped their heads around it.

In a way it’s a watermark. For an ideology or political vision to go

from outright dismissal and laughter to being asked to provide real

world examples of what would be done if it came to pass is a sign of

growth; it is a signal, an omen, that the winds are beginning to blow in

our favor and many want to know what might lie ahead. It’s one thing to

talk about “from each according to their ability, to each according to

their need” but it’s quite another to discuss how restaurants would be

run democratically and without profit or what exactly people might “do”

on a day to day level in a classless, stateless society.

Still, the question is not an easy one. We could argue that it is the

one question that has always plagued and nagged the Left: “Well that’s

all good and well, but how do you plan to achieve this? How does such a

world become born?” Staunch Marxists rely on a religious belief in the

inevitable procession of history, Syndicalists will rail about the need

for increased unionization, firebrand Neo-Bolsheviks plot to simply take

power and liquidate class enemies, while the newly minted faux-left

“Democratic Socialists” will hem-and-haw about passing enough laws to

magically change the balance of power.

All of these options present difficult problems. History has been shown

to be anything but inevitable (every year since 1914 has been “Late

Capitalism”), a worker-owned McDonalds is still a site of exploitation,

nobody ever bothers to explain just where all these people ready to kill

for the Revolution are to come from, and the ludicrous doctrine of the

Sandernistas that the wealthy and powerful will simply submit to higher

taxes and the rule of law is so preposterous it’s only response should

be derisive laughter.

So, where are we? Where do we go from here? How are we to change the

world?

I start first with a question: Whose world?

You Can’t Teach an Old Carrion-Eater New Tricks

Society, technology, language, and culture all bear the birth marks and

forms of the ideological underpinnings of the system they emerged from.

Marx notes:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e.

the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same

time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of

material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over

the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the

ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to

it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the

dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships

grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class

the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance.

The Ruling Class, whether Capitalist or State Socialist, informs and

projects its will and vision onto the rest of society by the sheer

nature of being the dominant force in that society. Of course we can see

this politically, but Marx notes this extends also into ideas, culture,

anything that could be identified as a byproduct of human interaction

and thinking.

The iron steel resolve and blatant disregard of human life so typical of

the fearsome Bolshevik Commissar was not so much traits born as traits

cultivated; ideals taken within the individual and digested. These

cultivated traits came directly from the ideological call for early

revolutionary Bolsheviks to identify themselves as “hards,” to be tough,

to be ruthless and uncompromising in their goals; when they took state

power it become propagated on a cultural level. This meme, this

political trait, spiraled out and became a creature, a position, a

symbolic figure to be adored/feared all onto its own. It transcended its

existence as a mere “idea” or feeling about how party members should

behave.

Uber, the trendy internet-based taxi service, could have just as easily

manifested into the world as a collectively owned, worker-managed co-op.

The internet platform itself is not that revolutionary, the people and

tools to create the business were there all along and yet….it did not.

Instead Uber emerged and was formed through an ideological lens that

made sense to the Ruling Class and by a CEO who’s practically a poster

boy for modern capitalism:

“Let’s consider how Kalanick treated his Uber taxi drivers in New York.

When he was trying to convince them to break the law to boost Uber’s

footprint in the city, Kalanick offered yellow cab drivers free iPhones

and promised to “take care of” any legal problems they encountered with

the TLC. A few short months later, when the service was forced to close,

those same drivers received a message to come to Uber HQ. Reports the

Verge ‘Multiple drivers said Uber called them into headquarters,

claiming they needed to come by in order to get paid and would get a

cash bonus for showing up. When the cabbies came in, Uber surprised them

by asking for the device back, informing them that taxi service was no

longer available in New York.'”

This is how Uber is evolving, this is how the entire concept other

companies will build off is evolving: through actions committed under

the dictate and logic of a particular ideology. Taken as gospel or

rejected as too harsh new companies will only differ themselves in

shades from this first “business plan” and mold their own social and

economic arrangements within this ideological parameter. Even the

technologies, once thought to be “pure” of politics develop along

political lines.

“In an even stronger sense, many technologies can be said to possess

inherent political qualities, whereby a given technical system by itself

requires or at least strongly encourages specific patterns of human

relationships. Winner (1985, 29–37) suggests that a nuclear weapon by

its very existence demands the introduction of a centralized, rigidly

hierarchical chain of command to regulate who may come anywhere near it,

under what conditions, and for what purposes. It would simply be insane

to do otherwise. More mundanely, in the daily infrastructures of our

large-scale economies — from railroads and oil refineries to cash crops

and microchips — centralization and hierarchical management are vastly

more efficient for operation, production, and maintenance. Thus the

creation and maintenance of certain social conditions can happen in the

technological system’s immediate operating environment as well as in

society at large.”

What’s interesting is the feedback loop this creates: technology is

warped and shaped by the society(and thus dominant ideology), while at

the same time the society becomes molded by the technology.

“As technologies are being built and put into use, significant

alterations in patterns of human activity and human institutions are

already taking place … the construction of a technical system that

involves human beings as operating parts brings a reconstruction of

social roles and relationships. Often this is a result of the new

system’s own operating requirements: it simply will not work unless

human behavior changes to suit its form and process. Hence, the very act

of using the kinds of machines, techniques and systems available to us

generates patterns of activities and expectations that soon become

“second nature.”…

Winner gives several examples of technologies employed with intention to

dominate, including post-1848 Parisian thoroughfares built to disable

urban guerrillas, pneumatic iron molders introduced to break skilled

workers’ unions in Chicago, and a segregationist policy of low highway

overpasses in 1950s Long Island, which deliberately made rich, white

Jones Beach inaccessible by bus, effectively closing it off to the poor.

In all these cases, although the design was politically intentional, we

can see that the technical arrangements determine social results in a

way that logically and temporally precedes their actual deployment.

There are predictable social consequences to deploying a given

technology or set of technologies.”

In effect we our trapped in a web: We exist in a world not only molded

and shaped by a Hierarchical and Capitalist mentality, but the very

tools we use including our social selves maintain and reinforce this

artifice. The ideology molds the world which molds the people which

molds the technology which molds the world which molds the people, etc,

etc, etc. As Slajov Zizek points out even those who wish to rebel

against the system seem doomed(as if by design?) to remain within it:

“If, today, one follows a direct call to act, this act will not be

performed in an empty space — it will be an act WITHIN the hegemonic

ideological coordinates: those who ‘really want to do something to help

people’ get involved in (undoubtedly honorable) exploits like Medecins

sans frontiere, Greenpeace, feminist and anti-racist campaigns, which

are all not only tolerated, but even supported by the media, even if

they seemingly enter the economic territory (say, denouncing and

boycotting companies which do not respect ecological conditions or which

use child labor) — they are tolerated and supported as long as they do

not get too close to a certain limit. This kind of activity provides the

perfect example of interpassivity: of doing things not to achieve

something, but to PREVENT from something really happening, really

changing.”

Even if State power is seized, if the old masters are cast out, the very

throne itself acts like a cursed object and corrupts those that sought

to destroy it. People who fought for the worker’s emancipation end up

crushing strikes, Greens end up debating just how much depleted uranium

to bury underground and how much to fire out of tanks, anti-austerity

Leftists end up dispatching riot police to break up protests, the list

goes on and on throughout history. The simple truth is you can take the

most noble pauper and make him a king, and he may be a great king, but

he must still maintain certain conditions(however unjust) by simply

being king. The more he becomes attached to this position the more

“pragmatism” takes over, excusing acts once thought unthinkable in the

name keeping the current conditions going if only to “continue to do

good things.” Hugo Chavez and Castro can speak all day of “people’s

liberation” but the fact is people aren’t liberated if simply holding a

different opinion is so threatening to your revolution they have to be

jailed. And thus the throne lives on. While the Kings may change shape

or party color the throne of the State and Capital continue to exist,

continue to propagate exploitative and domineering cultural memes,

social conditions, and technological apparatus.

But there is hope, even on the hinterlands of the oh-so-popular activism

of today, in that seemingly bizarre behavior the State displays when

people, protests, and organizations are met with overwhelming force. Why

can millions march up and down streets freely “as long as they do not

get close to a certain limit” of behavior? What is this Hedge, this

boundary we must cross? What is this line so jealously guarded?

Push it to the Limit

Remember the Cuban Missile crises? Where the big bad Soviet Union

brought us within an inch to war, ready to point nuclear warheads

stationed in Cuba right at us? And how it was only through tough

diplomacy and American bravado that we got them to turn around? No?

Good, because it didn’t happen like that at all. The Soviets, arming an

ally after a recent American-backed invasion, made the deal, not us:

Remove the missiles stationed in Turkey(a country that shared a border

with the USSR) pointed at Moscow and they would do the same. Kennedy

liked the deal and took it. This brought horror to the

Military-Industrial establishment; they saw it as backing down to the

Soviets. Remember that ideology bit? They didn’t see it as two

individuals avoiding nuclear war; their ideological lens would not

permit them to. They instead saw it in a hierarchical, dominating

dialectic: we had been submissive towards another power. But the Soviets

didn’t see it that way, and neither did much of the world, and therein

lay the true danger: a new way of thinking, a shift in vision had been

displayed and put into practice. And this would not stand.

Others have covered just how against the grain Kennedy went, and how

often those who went against him howled for war. I leave the fact that

one of those two combatants is dead under your feet for you to play with

and ponder. I could mention that right when Nobel Laureate Martin Luther

King started talking about “economic justice” and planned on occupying

DC until the Vietnam war was ended he too ended up dead. Interestingly

enough his family won a wrongful death suit(full court transcripts

available) alleging the government killed him. But I’ll instead stick

with “accepted” facts like the long history of COINTELPRO, an FBI

program specializing in infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting

domestic political organizations. And this wasn’t a kids games either.

“Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political

activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very

presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters.

The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as

agents.

Psychological warfare: The FBI and police used myriad “dirty tricks” to

undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and

published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted

groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made

anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and

events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and

manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school

officials and others to cause trouble for activists. They used

bad-jacketing to create suspicion about targeted activists, sometimes

with lethal consequences.

Legal harassment: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass

dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law

gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext

for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily

enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous

surveillance, “investigative” interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an

effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.

Illegal force: The FBI conspired with local police departments to

threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search

dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and

assassinations. The object was to frighten or eliminate dissidents and

disrupt their movements….

The FBI also conspired with the police departments of many U.S. cities

(San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Chicago)

to encourage repeated raids on Black Panther homes—often with little or

no evidence of violations of federal, state, or local laws—which

resulted directly in the police killing many members of the Black

Panther Party…In order to eliminate black militant leaders whom they

considered dangerous, the FBI is believed to have worked with local

police departments to target specific individuals, accuse them of crimes

they did not commit, suppress exculpatory evidence and falsely

incarcerate them.”

Anyone who thinks this has ended is sorely mistaken. Really, really

mistaken.

“Participants were tasked to “identify those who were ‘problem-solvers’

and those who were ‘problem-causers,’ and the rest of the population

whom would be the target of the information operations to move their

Center of Gravity toward that set of viewpoints and values which was the

‘desired end-state’ of the military’s strategy.”

Let me translate that for you: “We are actively studying political

movements, identifying people whom might actually change things and are

using propaganda techniques to change the conversations they have as

well as they views they hold to better suit the military’s domestic

strategy.” Let that one sink in.

Truth be told we may never fully know how deep the rabbit hole goes. But

there is a unifying factor here: the State clamps down hard whenever the

ongoing narrative, the ideology itself is shown not to be the only one.

They’re afraid of ideas, because these things are what sparks action.

The greatest threat to the system isn’t just learning things aren’t what

they appear to be, but beginning to imagine a world where things are

different. If something is outside the “parameters of acceptance” for

the dominant ideology it presupposes that there are limitations to the

system; if there are limitations to the system it can become old, worn

out, made useless, and ultimately replaced.

So the Ruling Class will violently defend it’s doctrines at all costs.

Can we beat such an invincible enemy, an enemy whose literally shaped us

all our lives? How can we achieve that? Can we ever free ourselves and

stop eating out of the trashcan of Capitalist Ideology?

Follow me down a rabbit hole of our own making, lets…

Find Each Other!