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Title: The Criminal Bee Author: Hakim Bey Date: February 1993 Language: en Topics: individualism, TAZ, crime, illegalism Source: Retrieved on 17th May 2021 from https://hermetic.com/bey/bey_criminal_bee Notes: Transcribed by Ovid from the Tribal Donut #5 cassette which contains a recording of a performance in San Francisco, Feb. 1993.
Nietzsche says somewhere that the true, free spirit will not wish to see
the laws of the herd abolished, lest there exist nothing to struggle
against and overcome. Little danger of such an abolishment at this
point, one might suppose. Since Nietzsche’s time law has perhaps mutated
from a complex but many-dimensional tool of the oppressor class to the
subtle, fatal, all-pervasive self-image of the spectacle. Law simulates
the dictatorship of community forever promising & forever withdrawing
the utopia of justice. Our founding myths here in America, which take
the form of such texts as a declaration of independence or a bill of
rights etc. prove so infinitely flexible as to become, like all myths,
their opposites. The law no longer seems like a dialectical edge as it
was for Nietzsche, but rather a viral ooze, infecting the very fabric of
language & thought. One can no longer distinguish between cops & cop
culture. The media-induced hallucination of a society defined by its
lawyers & police. Ten minutes in a video store should convince any
impartial observer that we live in a police state of consciousness, far
more pervasive than the Nazis, those crude pioneers of amphetamine
television & ballistics. What, for example, would a UFO alien visitor
think of a planet whose favorite icon appeared to consist of an angry
law enforcement officer pointing a gun at the observer ? Some few
subjects may free their minds for brief moments from the flickering
omnipresence of this one true axiomatic image of our moment in time as
Nixon used to call the present. No doubt they will at once begin to
wonder about the possibility of overcoming the law, both as a social
code which labels our desires as forbidden, and as an ectoplasmic super
ego, or cop of the inner landscape suffocating us with the fear of our
own passions.
The first step in any real utopia is to look in the mirror and demand to
know my true desire, an action which already presupposes at least
temporary overcoming of unconditional anxiety, of the fear that a daemon
may appear in the glass, or a daemonic cop. Now what do I see ? The
first image to float to the surface of the scry stone, the magick
mirror, is the criminal: my desires are illegal. My manias are forbidden
in civilization. The moral code, embedded within the legal code defines
my appetites as injury. Fourier & Nietzsche both defined the criminal as
a natural insurrectionary spirit in revolt against the stifling
repression of the social consensus. The criminal’s tragedy , however,
lies in being nearly the opposite of the cop: a mirror image, and
therefore equally an image, a trap, a definition imposed within the
language of control. And in any case, the deeper I look in the glass,
the less I see any desires which I myself might label wrong, according
to my own personal code of ethics. Wrong for me means counterproductive
and ultimately self-immiserating. I don’t want to realize my desires at
the expense of other people’s misery. Not because such action would be
immoral but because it would be psychically self-defeating: misery
breeds misery. Those caught in the trap of trying to realize their
desires by hurting others are all, in my experience, themselves
psychically poor. Crime in this sense of the word pays, but it doesn’t
pay enough! I reject it for purely selfish reasons – to realize my
desires, I must overcome or even break the law, but I do not to do wrong
according to my own light, nor will I accept the consensus label of
criminal.
This explains why fascism is not an answer. Fascism is a
desiring-machine but only for an amoral elite who achieve their goals
through the creation & destruction of enemies and victims, as in Marquis
de Sade. Fourier, however, asserts that desire itself remains impossible
unless all desires are possible. That passion involves the Other, and
therefore defines the only possible or real society. This realization
draws the boundary between Fascism and Anarchism.
Gazing deeper into the mirror, in fact, I begin to see that I am not
alone there. That the Self implies others, that we are co-implicated i
each other’s desires. And here we come to a stage higher, in NIetzsche’s
view, than mere criminality: the society of free spirits, or as Max
Sterner called it The union of Self-owning Ones. A form of organization
exists which evades the murderous dialectic of institutions, the
paradoxical counter-productivity of institutions as Ivan Illich calls
it. This different kind of group might be identified with Fourier’s
passional series, the psychically linked number of humans needed to
express and realize a shared or common pasional goal. Such harmonic
associations are prevented from coming into being, Fourier insisted, by
civilization itself, which is founded on mass immiseration. He believed
that Utopia would first have to be established in order for true series
to form spontaneously out of various passions, for sensual & sexual
fulfillment, for attractive labor, and for the total physical & psychic
realization of the individual in society. In other words, Fourier made
an absolute category of society just as Nietzsche & Sterner made an
absolute category of the individual. Our task is not to follow either of
these ideas, but to deconstruct, synthesize & reconstruct. Out of this
process, we hope to see arise not merely another ideology or another
no-place (U-topos)- which is what Utopia means — however brilliant or
imaginally stimulating; rather, we hope to create a praxis, a mode of
action for realizing the series and manifesting its passion here and now
or so close to hear and now that we can taste it.
Elsewhere I have considered a number of possible forms for such groups,
including the loosest, most temporary and ad hoc organizational
agglomerations. Here however, I want to consider only one aspect of such
groupings, that is their illegality. I will argue that illegality means
more than mere law-breaking. Illegality, as a positive attribute of the
Temporary Autonomous Zone implies that the very structure or the deepest
motivation of the TAZ group contravenes or necessitates the overcoming
of consensus values. And that this is true even when no statue or
regulation has been broken. But in order to avoid as much metaphysics as
possible here we can discuss some actual existing groups or situations
which approximate the TAZ concept to some degree. ( And by criticizing
their shortcomings perhaps we can arrive at a clearer view of
possibilities for the immediate future.)
Computer hacking has so far turned up nothing that has enhanced my life.
Nor can I detect much enhancement in the lives of the hackers
themselves. The goal of liberating all information is noble but
ludicrously unobtainable. This should by now be obvious to all those who
watched while the state smashed to a pulp a few hapless liberators of a
few bits of information. The potential for liberation inherent in the
BBS as a tool for social projects has not yet been realized. The BBS
Meganet involves untold thousands of e-mail enthusiasts who have so far
not sent or received one real good.
Someone please tell me I’m wrong (Audience: You’re wrong!)O.K., we can
talk about that afterwards. I would like to hear it. I really want to be
told I’m wrong. But 99% is idle chatter, 1% maybe interesting
information. But no chicken stew, no orgies and no enlightenment
(Audience: Orgies …) Orgies ? Where, on the computer network ? Give me a
break. Now at last hackers have begun to experiment with cryptology –
cypherpunks boast that soon secure networks will be available to e-mail
users. One might issue the hackers a challenge: deliver to me one thing
which is illegal and which I want, and which I could not have obtained
so easily or at all without a computer network. I’d even accept a nice
bit of high resolution pornography. Prove that computers can supply, or
at least expedite something more than publishing or creepy sounding
synthetic music (Laughs). I demand secrets and I’m getting bored with
waiting, thanks to a lifetime spent reading science fiction.
Considered as a TAZ. The gathering can be called and held without any
computer assistance which is indeed fortunate because the gathering is a
vital necessity. Now, today. And it is already evolving spontaneously,
out of this need. A number of kind of gatherings aspire to manifest as
TAZ: the neo-pagan festivals, the Rainbow camps, collaborative art
events, open conspiracies such as Queer Nation or WACK, Raves, anarchist
collectives, hypercultural international communities, secret societies
meeting for risky or illegal or insurrectionary goals etc., drug
dealers.
These groups or gatherings constitute the only viable immediate means of
realizing passional series in real-time, every day life. In opposition
to the forces of dissipation, alienation and suffocation by which the
consensus visciates & dissolves all human aspiration to solidarity &
festal values. Any critique leveled at these existing groups or
gatherings therefore is meant as constructive in every sense of the
word. The problems lie in 2 areas: philosophical & organizational. Some
groups fail to realize the full implications of their reaction against
the spectacle, which remains instinctual & hence philosophically
unsound. For example, the 1960’s delusion that we can use the media for
our own ends still persists so that many groups are ruined by the very
publicity they thought they needed in order to attain their goals. Once
such a group allows itself to become recuperated as part of the
spectacle of counterculture dissent, the Punch & Judy Show, starts.
An understanding of the dialectics of media should enable the group to
devise a strategy of organization & praxis based on evasive or nomadic
models of resistance rather than the old New Left shibboleths of
“confrontation & seizing the media.” On levels of tactics of
organizational detail and specific projects, this philosophical
preparedness should result in more effective means for expression,
realization, manifestation of desire on the level of every day life.
Publicity is a bad tactic, while tact & virtual clandestinity are good
tactics….
Converts attracted by the media are usual summer soldiers & neurotics &
if the wrong politician happens to catch your broadcast you may end up
as the next bad example. Crushed beneath the boot of history, for all to
see, live at 5. “It’s your world, get this close,” as the ads for PBS so
breathlessly express it. “Let Geraldo rattle your cage.” Maybe you
haven’t heard that slogan out here. To give an example of some
organizations: NAMBLA & NORML have both had their membership lists
seized by the police, the price of 60’s media idealism. NAMBLA & NORML
have achieved absolutely nothing of their reformist goals & may have
done damage to their own causes through their misunderstanding of the
media.
This is not the 1960’s when the CIA could still lose control to LSD to a
bunch of hippie publicists or television inadvertently contribute to
anit-war sentiment by neglecting to censor the body bag count. We’ve had
decades of Republican intelligence late capitalist control conspiracy
power mongering since then. Communism is dead & now YOU’RE the enemy.
Wake up. Wise up. Most of the world has sunk deep in media trance — they
can’t wake up and smell the coffee because the coffee has no smell. It’s
become pure image. Television is the real world. Real thing now. And if
you don’t believe it you’re outside reality. This is far worse than
being a criminal. At least the criminal has some relationship with the
consensus. One must pity the radicals whose plans of battle always
include open boastings about their intransigent opposition to all
establishment values, alerting the enemy as if only 5 seconds on the
evening news or the “lifestyle report” could possibly validate their
revolutionary ideas and their pathetic personalities. Once and for all,
insurrection is not a commodity, my desires are not a commodity. And the
media cannot reproduce them, much less satisfy them. One doesn’t need to
be a media ecologist, recommending a media fast to see that all the big
media must be understood, criticized & overcome or at least evaded if
we’re to get anywhere with our project.
I’d like to answer those critics who’ve accused the TAZ of being an
evasion or a postponement or a substitute for the insurrection or even
for the revolution. In part these criticisms come from Latin American
comrades who seem to uneasy about the adventurous aspect of the TAZ and
from North Americans who called it “anarchist Club Med.” Both critiques
are important. The TAZ is not and idea or an ideology but something that
is happening: as such, it needs good criticism. On the contrary, I’ve
tried to emphasize over & over again: the TAZ is another way of building
the kernel of the new society within the shell of the old (as the
Wobblies used to say). And that the TAZ should serve as the matrix for
the emergence of a Sorelian model of uprising (Georges Sorel, I highly
recommend it).
However, it must be also be repeated that the USA, at any rate, can
scarcely be described in 1993 as a pre-revolutionary society. The
election of a corrupt, venal pseudo-liberal regime which will smooth
over the few rough spots in the spectacle while the Republicans
reorganize to continue building the New World Order in 1996 makes the
possibility of an American uprising even less likely. Are we to postpone
all liberatory action until things get worse again? This would scarcely
be logical or creditable. Those of us who feel so irrationally unhappy
with the wonderful world of commodities & neo-puritan reaction cannot
justly be denied the chance of local & transient experiments of Utopian
realization now, or as soon as possible. In our lifetimes, in our lives.
And this struggle is not without relevance to those people elsewhere in
the world whom we may consider our natural allies, such as indigenous &
tribal groups or revolutionary movements. In this sense the Temporary
Autonomous Zone is like a pre-echo of the insurrection. A foretaste of
its great liberatory energies and can even be seen as a necessary step
toward the revolution which will realize the Utopia.
Thus it should be emphasized that the TAZ has not only a festaludic,
celebratory or material bodily principle in view, but also like yang to
yin, an inevitable measure of insurrectionary risk and intention to
remake the world. The TAZ cannot be realized solely as a hedonic
exercise (any more than the revolution can be realized without dancing,
as Emma Goldman put it) which would lead to just charges of Club Med-ism
or even crypto-fascism. The TAZ goes beyond the merely hedonic because
it wants to expand & multiply until it infects or even becomes the
social. And therefore even though the TAZ may be secret & closed &
intensely pleasurable for its members, it must be seen as a struggle
which opens itself potentially to all kindred spirits & fellow warriors.
Most of the TAZ-like groups, gatherings known to me fail to measure up
in one or other of these areas. The political groups have still not
mastered the pleasure principle, while the lifestyle groups have still
not mastered politics. Political praxis of some sort of course addsss to
the risk involved in the TAZ, and therefore increases the need for tact.
Bit it also increases the pleasure. The group jouissance, the group
coming, within TAZ — this pleasure results from the very sense of
overcoming, first mentioned by Nietzsche, when he spoke of the free
spirits’ joy at evading the law of the herd. And if this sounds elitist,
remember, from the anarchist point of view, the herd consists precisely
of those who agree to be herded. After the revolution, no doubt, free
spirits would find some other sources for overcoming.
However, until then, the law still exists as an edge to sharpen our
lives. But revolution in a certain sense can be said not to exist, since
it has not happened within the history it wishes to claim as its field
of activity. As for the law, it exists only as spectacle and as a
pattern of spasms of terror. But the TAZ is rooted, however
evanescently, within the life we live, within the material and imaginal
world which WE have our genuine being, however fragmentary and even
tragic. And within the celebratory mode of pleasure enhanced by doubling
and redoubling which is the only excuse for society we know. Rather than
crime, it might make more sense, or better poetry, to speak to sorcery
which has all the connotations of secrecy and power we desire for the
emerging TAZ. An air of menace, of invisibility & of the realization of
desire. As for illegality, well, a quilting bee is not illegal yet it
can be a perfect TAZ. Sooner or later, however, even a quilting bee runs
the danger of becoming the object of tourism. It will become a banal
imitation of itself, unless it can create, at least for a moment, an
economy of life capable of persisting even if only briefly outside the
prison of work, consume, die. And that economy by its very nature
threatens the spoof world of control. Eventually the bee will be
illegal, since it’s already considered insane. And so the… quilting bee
should begin now to act as if it’s already illegal,to embrace a
philosophy of illegalism. Today quilt, tomorrow, perhaps the uprising.
Our kind of bee might be devoted to sex, info exchange, tax evasion,
hashish farming or even to orgies, credit scams or gun running. It will
still have the structure of the… quilting bee. And so the … quilting bee
should already anticipate a possibility to run guns or stage orgies. It
should be prepared to act within the cracks of the monolith of
simulation like a true gang of Johnsons. Like a swamp of Callahads. Like
conspirators whose purpose is really to breathe together. Like criminals
for the human race. Like pirate Utopians for peace. Like guerillas for
harmony.