💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › kidyellow-a-handful-of-objections.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 11:40:51. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: A Handful of Objections
Author: kidYELLOW
Date: Summer 2018
Language: en
Topics: civilization, desertion, Insurrection, criticism and critique, Tiqqun, the invisible committee, The Local Kids, The Local Kids #1, response
Source: Retrieved on 05-21-22 from https://thelocalkids.noblogs.org/files/2018/07/tlk01.pdf
Notes: From The Local Kids, #1

kidYELLOW

A Handful of Objections

This is a jotted-down reflection of some thoughts triggered by the

reading of An Invitation to Desertion by Bellamy Fitzpatrick; the first

article in the first issue of Backwoods (A journal of anarchy and

wortcunning, Spring 2018). In order to develop my own objections and

rejections of the theory (named as such by the author), I will break it

down in circumscribed parts. This partly corresponds with the sequence

from the original text, partly it is my own imposition on it since the

author wanders off from time to time. Deconstructing the theory to

digestible bits, is something I do at my own risk (of missing the point,

and consequently being off mark with my critique) and it is neglecting

the text as a creative work (since all the literary qualities are thus

dispensed of). But it is also a necessity to make way for my own trail

of thoughts to develop.

The parts this theory consists of are; (1 ) a framing of this society as

“civilization” (an outcome of its historical process and a

continuation/deepening of it), (2) the shortcomings of the critiques

against it (the reformist as well as the revolutionary ones – left,

right and anarchist) and (3) a proposal for its negation (or its

bypassing?). This seems an improbable feat to accomplish in one article

and indeed the text is rather condensed and at times feels like a

compilation of arguments instead of an argumentation (a mould I have,

admittedly, not been able to escape from...).

1.

When Bellamy describes the current situation as “largely decided for us,

overdetermined by existing social norms that we can influence only

minutely, allowing us only a little room to maneuver in decisions about

how we want to live and what values we want to pursue”, I feel it as

quite accurate since it’s close to my own experiences. It is interesting

though to see which statements about society apparently call for a

reference (academic in lots of cases) and which not. I’m not against

listening to what people who have chosen to study a specific field are

thinking. But these quantifying and categorizing exercises are not my

first way of understanding to go to, and they shouldn’t have to be. Are

we not witnesses to the destruction and pollution of our surroundings?

Is there a need for statistics to talk about the current crisis? Do we

want to reproduce definitions and categories used by specialists? For

example: depression. What do medical professionals understand as

depression? Is there a default state of happiness? How can it be

compared over time; did we always reflect on ourselves with the same

criteria? Isn’t more measuring, measuring more? From the moment a

medical diagnosis (with which kind of criteria?) and treatment

(effective or not, and to what end?) has been created, the numbers will

increase. So, if 17% of Americans are afflicted by depression; what does

that mean? If you describe to me how you feel and how you understand

others around you are feeling, I will probably be able to recognize that

(wholly or partly, in myself or in my friends). That is more meaningful

to me than how many times a box was ticked in a survey. I’m not saying

we should only talk in truisms, but while the conclusions of scientific

research are supposed to be just accepted, talking out of personal

experiences makes a conversation possible.

But maybe that’s not enough for someone who wants to talk about

“civilization”. The rejection of the simile of life offered by this

society and the exploration of yourself and your relations, will lead

one (better sooner than later) to make an attempt at understanding the

obstacles on the way (the authority of one over the other; would be – in

short – an anarchist response). There’s a difference between this effort

to analyse the social system (and its crises) and the apparent need to

go back hundreds of years to a point in time and designate it as the

nexus of the problem. Necessarily there is no first-hand experience of

before or during this moment of transformation that can be or has been

communicated, only contemporary interpretations and extrapolations based

on few elements. In what way can we understand the qualitative

difference in relations from before and after? And why do we care so

much? Do we think we can recreate the before? Probably not, but why then

construct this spectre that transgresses my faculties to grasp reality?

Isn’t Civilization another disguise of Empire, or Capitalism? Hovering

over our heads, always there but impossible to grasp in everyday

relations (on a theoretical level maybe yes, with the help of some

specialists), let alone defeat. There’s a lot to learn from history, but

I become a bit wary when history teaches us.

Summarized it goes something like this; civilization means cities,

cities mean agriculture. Or the other way around. That’s the material

side of it. The psychic side is reification and the voluntary submission

to authority. I would suggest that some of the (problematic because

alienating) characteristics ascribed to civilization may also be found –

for example – in historical accounts of groups of people accumulating

wealth through plundering or people living in clusters of villages that

together make up a self-sustaining territory. Were they not capable of

reification? Also, in most civilizations a significant amount of people

living inside its physical boundaries were nevertheless outside of its

economy and not particularly influenced by its reifications. That some

social systems get labelled civilization and others not and thus the

first deserve more of our ire seems unwarranted from a position of

critique of authority. Further on BF argues that “the anti-civilization

critique goes far beyond that on offer by the Left, the Right, or the

majority of the anarchists.” I would argue that the anti-civilization

critique is only a more comprehensive version of an anti-capitalist,

anti-fascist etc. critique since it criticizes a specific

crystallization of authoritarian relations. Anarchist critique however

criticizes authoritarian relations wherever it encounters them.

2.

I have never used the adjective insurrectionary for me or the projects I

was taking part in. Anarchist suffices. So it can be fairly true what

Bellamy says about the majority of insurrectionary kinds (self-defined

as such or labelled by BF), that they are just promising Revolution 2.0

(decentralised and with users’ participation) or Revolution Zero –

Without (Authoritarian) Additives. But it is far removed from the

reasons I feel an attraction to insurrectionary moments.

Instead of the first baby steps of a coming revolution, insurrection

means a rupture. It is when normality is not normal any more and other

possibilities open up. Already now we are refusing to submit, finding

loopholes – alone or with friends. But we bump into limits of overcoming

alienation and repression. An insurrectionary moment is a qualitative

leap, a negation of existing social relations on a whole other level.

From there ugly things can happen, beautiful things also. What has

changed is our power to make things happen. Surely repression (in old or

new forms) will try gathering force to hit everyone back in submission.

And will surely succeed since death always has the last word. History

says so too. In the end, life is self-defeating. But to start from there

must be a misunderstanding, because insurrection is exactly the refusal

of history and the affirmation of life.

There are those invested in the politics of insurrection, working in the

tradition of the authoritarian Blanqui. An Eric Hazan and his Factory

(producing theory for the aspiring intellectuals) have measures to

implement, the (not so) Invisible Committee has the strategy (tested

before and failed) and its (not so) Imaginary Party has the cadre

(wannabe politicians) and the infrastructure (thanks to wealthy lefty

benefactors). Cynical people willing to manipulate others to realize

their authoritarian projects. Nothing new there. It’s up to persons with

anarchist sensitivities to recognize these intentions and subvert them

(if they care enough). Admittedly, a lot of the radical milieu got

seduced by their mystifications. If it’s still needed one can take a

look at To Our Customers (although the English version lacks the playful

and scathing tone from the French one) criticizing the political theory

and rhetoric of the Committee and The Movement is Dead, Long Live. .

.Reform! (A Critique of “Composition” and its Elites, from the ZAD in

Notre-Dame-des-Landes) criticizing the political practices of the Party

members and their allies. So I’ll leave the remark of Bellamy about “the

cadre of insurrectionaries” in their corner.

To attack authority you don’t need to be an anarchist (unconsciously or

consciously). You just need to be able to situate the source of your

misery. Lucidity and irony are more helpful at that than anarchist

theory. All of us are alienated to some extent and contribute ourselves

to that alienation in some measure. Some might be content with the toys

they are given and the mirages of material comfort they see appearing

before them. Others experience daily the emptiness of what society has

to offer them. Probably more shift between these positions on a regular

basis. Anarchists don’t have models that people can follow to overcome

alienation, only experiences that give a taste of something different.

Neither do I hope others to be latent anarchists (whatever that means),

but I cannot stop myself from recognizing myself in others when they

struggle with their contradictions (isn’t that the empathy Bellamy was

looking for?). More so when they express their unrest through acts of

rebellion against their repression and self-alienation.

Acts of rebellion come in multiple shapes and forms. A lot can be said

about them. Rioting can be one of them. A lot can be said about it. How

it can be used as a symbolical threat to social peace by a reformist

group to gain more negotiation leverage. How it is necessary for people

to understand the risks they are taking and to avoid unnecessary ones

(what is an unnecessary risk is up to the persons involved to define).

How repression against rioters is framed to legitimize or delegitimize

their ideas (martyrs for the first, mindless criminals for the second).

Etcetera. It would be a bit too easy to present these as conclusions

already reached and not discussions to have inside specific settings.

Like in other situations I would like people to be consciously active in

it (which can also mean to not take part). Intentions are diverse and

outcomes are not so clear-cut as BF presents them (is it about material

damage vs arrests?). I can share my critical thoughts with others but

it’s not up to me to decide for others if it is all worth it (what I

could consider foremost as a potentially self-destructive act might be

primarily self-realizing for someone else, that doesn’t mean that I’m a

coward and neither the other to aspire to be a martyr).

Victimization is not the privilege of rioting. Neither does repression

need an insurrection to humiliate and stamp out people. Insurrection

wouldn’t be the original “deeply traumatic experience” for those who

desire to be mere followers. Authoritarian society has its own

catastrophes which legitimize the existence of its leaders. Trauma and

powerlessness are bound together. There is something quite contradictory

in insisting on a bleak image of civilization with its all-encompassing

repression and self-alienation, and the impossibility of the majority of

“slaves” to be something other than slaves; and on the other hand, to

warn against acts of rebellion because they might provoke or not be able

to overcome repression and self-alienation. A theory tends to come up

with logical explanations for every phenomenon it encounters, and

becomes deterministic on the way (it is what it is, it was what it was

and it couldn’t have become something else). So eventually everything

can only be futile against or complicit with domination. But then who is

this Bellamy Fitzpatrick that he against all odds is ready “to rise to

the terrifying responsibility of freedom”? Why is he not one of those

who “have bee born and bred as slaves” and thus “are far more likely to

feel comfortable becoming a new kind of slave”? What is his secret and

why doesn’t it belong to the possibilities of others, namely “people”

aka “slaves”, to do the same?

It seems that it is the frustration and disappointment stemming from the

ineffectiveness of reform and revolution to defeat civilization, that

leads BF to reject them. But is there even such a thing as a definitive

victory over repression and alienation? I have this nagging idea that

the desire to dominate others and the desire to submit oneself are

intrinsically human. The social system we’re living in promotes – or

rather imposes – these desires over all others. So for those who have

the desire to self-realization, it is necessary to create situations

where these are pushed back. What can be such a situation?

3.

The proposal of Bellamy (and Backwoods) is desertion, meaning “moving

toward the abandonment of civilization, both materially and

psychically”. This leads further to autarky; “the knowledge and practice

of providing one’s subsistence [...] for and by oneself in an

unalienated relationship with one’s habitat and in voluntary cooperation

with others with whom one freely associates”. The outcome of desertion

and autarky is reinhabitation; “it is, in the most profound sense, being

somewhere”, “a sense of place requires a sense of belonging”. “To truly

flourish as organisms in communion with our habitats, we must live in a

way that nourishes the human psyche: in small, sustained, face-to-face,

autarkic communities of kinship.”

The picture presented here is a bit too harmonious for my taste. Those

that grew up in a small village (or a close-knit community inside a

city) know that “face-to-face” relationships come with their own vicious

feuds and relentless norms. And for those who managed to leave these

suffocating places, a statement like “our culture of late modernity,

where one can disappear into anonymity and find a new social group at

the first sign of conflict or disappointment, is the grotesque

antithesis of healthful human relations” would set off all the alarm

bells (besides, I would say that a lot of people are stuck into

destructive relations because they fear to be alone in a world where it

is extremely difficult to make true friends). But that is in this world.

And BF is talking about another world, one where “a true union of

individualities could grow” while “it would be possible to know

everyone’s story, to count on another, and to be united in a common

purpose”. Bellamy insists that “such a group would not be a suppression

of individuality through stifling and incessant collectivism”. I guess

I’m not so easily convinced by (certain specialists of) anthropology,

neurobiology and ethnography that such a thing exists, could exist or

existed. And although Bellamy also acknowledges “human conflict and

suffering”, he directly brushes it aside as “misfortune” (dealt with

through a culture based on “the combination of loving and shaming that

comes from sustained intimacy”). Ironically, the reproaches from Bellamy

directed at insurrectionaries, could also be applied to desertionaries.

Do you expect people to be latent anarchists, just waiting to be in a

context of small face-to-face groups with a sense of belonging and

purpose to start behaving with respect to each other? Surely

desertionism must be “afflicted with the most poisonous sort of magical

thinking and optimism about human beings”. And, indeed, there are some

who already have created a “collective mythos” on the same theme, namely

the Commune (see ‘our friends’ from the Committee and Party). And they

are quite honest about the suppression of individuality (according to

them a modern invention and thus, to be abandoned) and the patriarchal

character of a family and a tribe (“less preferably” as labels than “a

band society”, according to BF).

While the full weight of history is thrown against the false critiques

of civilization, the proposal of desertion is presented to us as

something completely novel (otherwise it might have to be discarded with

the rest as futile or complicit?). Are there no past experiences to

learn from? We don’t need to go too far back in time, since at least the

end of the 60s lots of drop-outs (from society and the protest

movements) turned their backs to the cities to have their own

experiments with face-to-face communities and self-sufficiency. History

books don’t have to tell us much about these (not so spectacular)

moments, but the people that were/are part of them still can. From their

accounts it transpires that it is not that evident to desert

self-alienation and repression, nor to create autarky. Which territories

can we inhabit? Given the relations of power, probably not the most

hospitable ones. Are these places not always precarious? Threats from

infrastructural projects, bureaucratic rules and regulations, hostile

neighbours, are real. H ow to avoid a relative and self-chosen isolation

becoming inescapable and suffocating? How free is free association when

there are no other places to go to? Even with all good intentions,

relations can turn sour. Until which point should the project be

defended in spite of the persons involved, or vice versa? A current

publication like Nunatak (Revue d’histoires, cultures et luttes des

montagnes) talks about issues of living in the mountains and the

conflicts with society it comes with (leisure industry, infrastructural

projects, food and health regulations, etc.). These questions raised

might not be enough reasons to abandon desertion, but – at least – to be

less affirmative about all the blessings to be expected.

What does it mean that “desertion will not and cannot be quick or total,

but it can nonetheless meaningfully be incremental and partial, pushing

toward ever-greater withdrawal”? Where is the line between partial

desertion and – for example – just being a part of local, artisan

economy? Isn’t it conceivable that a part of the so-called “creative

classes” forced out of the city centres by the so-called

“gentrification” they were once part of, turn to “pockets of happiness”

as a kind of alternative, more satisfying suburbia? Or is it that, since

to a certain extent there is still a need for money (to pay the rent for

example), it is just convenient that a small amount of time is dedicated

to a well-paying, skilled job done over the internet? Who draws the line

between the reformer – “who might imagine himself the staunch social

critic” – and the deserter – incremental but still partial – the

anti-civ cadre?

The concept of “ desertion” doesn’t bring us closer to self-realization,

because it is based on an illusion. That “ attentat” (no idea why

Bellamy has a preference for that word instead of “ attack”; to me it

smells of the People and/or Revolution mythos) is something

hypothetical, that it “ may well be necessary and appropriate to resist

more confrontationally at certain junctures”. M ay? At certain

junctures? Why not now? Let me clarify myself. Insurrectionary moments

have a value to me, but they are not my telos. The projects I want to

engage in – the instruments of my self-realization – have two

guidelines; direct action (acting without mediation) and

self-organization (having an understanding of our differences and acting

together with respect towards them). If for anarchists direct action

also includes to attack, this is because given the existing social

relations wanting self-realization means conflict. This conflict can

express itself in different forms and mostly we’ll be reactive towards

it. But to be able to negate the repression/self-alienation spectrum,

we’ll have to choose ourselves a moment and place to act. Thus, to go on

the offensive. Not making conflict an integral part of our projects, can

lead us to being unarmed when repression and/or self-alienation become

an existential threat to our projects (and arguably then it’s already

too late). Unarmed as well on a level of critical thinking; being able

to recognize where one is complicit, as on the level of action; how to

stop retreating. How can we not accommodate and compromise when

repressive relations are imposed upon us if we didn’t create the

conditions for another response? On a side note here; making conflict

part and parcel of our projects goes a long way in avoiding sterile

discussion with those for whom anarchy is just a pose or an opinion and

opens up possibilities to meet people who have started to act without

mediation and on their own terms (again, there’s no expectation to

discover latent anarchists, only a potentially enriching encounter).

At one point Bellamy argues that in opposition to most forms of sabotage

and attack, “desertion does harm the ruling order by depriving it of the

resource on which it totally depends: the daily submission of slaves”.

Society might depend on submission, that doesn’t lead it to depend on my

submission. Then maybe does BF propose a generalized desertion as a sort

of boycott of civilization? Does victory over civilization look like a

strategic retreat? He contradicts such a position further on; “it is a

modern, utilitarian moral calculus that measures the value of a course

of action in terms of its expected quantitative consequences”.

What Bellamy forgets to mention is; where are the wild places? No places

in Europe (and presumably also in the US) are outside of this society.

Places that we could appropriate are more likely the ones that have been

pushed to the margins of society (instead of overlooked – by property

rights? by pollution? by capitalist profit-seeking? by land use rules?)

and these can be found in urban environments as well as in the

countryside. This probably implies developing to some extent new

knowledge and skills. Being in the margins also implies that society

didn’t disappear and might impose itself sooner or later in full force.

Refusing to be instruments of this recuperation will certainly include

offensive practices.

I do think we should attempt to create the conditions for

self-realization. This can mean looking for less hostile surroundings

(what defines as hostile depends greatly on the project and on the

individual). But I don’t think our projects will take shape totally

outside of the existing social relations. And while the concept of

desertion may be based on the illusion that there is a safe place to

escape to, I don’t want to reject all of the practices it contains.

Endnotes.

I concede this is a theory we are presented with. But more than being a

“whole way of seeing” (as Bellamy defines it); a theory is based on

generalizations and abstractions. At the best of times, a theory can

provide us with tools to find a more conscious relation with what is

surrounding us. Mostly though, theory produces crude categories that are

imposed on complex beings and dynamic realities; reductions that are

counter-productive to understanding. Moreover, a theory that is not

understood as having its limitations and shortcomings (and thus, as

being a peculiar way of seeing), but instead as forming a complete

picture produces its own mystifications and idealizations. This is not a

postmodernist stance. The values and ideas I hold, are true. For myself.

And I’m willing to act upon them. But I don’t hold them as universally

true for other people embedded in situations I don’t fully grasp and

don’t have influence over. Even so, I do want to communicate with others

(through conversations or stories), to understand my motives better, to

deepen (or alter) my critique and to sustain my empathy. As I said

before, anarchist critique criticizes authoritarian relations wherever

it encounters them. The most important of these encounters are part of

my own experiences, the least important happen in theoretical

abstractions and history teachings.

Several points I didn’t go into, some because of lack of (head)space and

some because I don’t know where to start. There’s mention in the text of

“world-soul” and “self-conscious animality”. These are concepts I don’t

have a reference point for, and neither does the theory provide me one.

As always it is the points one doesn’t agree with that trigger the most

articulated response. Several parts of the text I did enjoy (partly

recognizable here in some of the vocabulary I have taken on from

Bellamy’s text). If there weren’t any I wouldn’t make the effort of

writing this text. So I would recommend people to get hold of a copy of

Backwoods and read it for themselves.