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Title: Propulsive Utopia
Author: Alfredo M. Bonanno
Language: en
Topics: morality, practice, science
Source: Retrieved on September 1, 2009 from www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/putopia.html
Notes: Original title: L’utopia propulsiva, ‘ProvocAzione’ no. 1, January 1987, p.6; Il rifiuto delle armi, ‘ProvocAzione’ no.10, January 1988, p.10; Ma cos’è l’immaginario?, ‘ProvocAzione’ no.3, March 1987, p.6; Ma noi siamo moderni? ‘ProvocAzione’ no.20, May 1989, p.7; Prevalenza della pratica? ‘ProvocAzione’ no.13, April 1988, p.8; Il braccio armato della scienza, ‘ProvocAzione’ no.7, September 1987, p.8; La frattura morale, ‘ProvocAzione’ no.12, March 1988, p.7; La tirannia della debolezza, ‘ProvocAzione’ no.11, February 1988, p.5 Published by Elephant Editions. Translated by Jean Weir

Alfredo M. Bonanno

Propulsive Utopia

Preface

This is not the first time we find ourselves faced with a similar

dilemma. How can we transcend the limitation of means? Reach out beyond

the constriction of roles? Encounter those who have begun their

individual insurrection but find their path obstructed by a pile of

blunt instruments? Those who have decided to venture into the abyss and

have become exigent, want to invent their own methods, draw them forth

from the conditions they are constrained to live in against their will,

now, as the bosses' calendar indicates the arrival of the third

millennium. Those who want to dance with life in more than fleeting

encounters, in the adventure of discovery that illuminates destruction

in all its possibilities.

A contradiction emerges: in order to do this we need to activate the

techniques they taught us with other ends in view. To read, write,

analyze, discuss. But this time not to pass exams, get a job, acquire

social status, cultivate the admiration of others. No, here the effort

is exquisitely selfish. Not an accumulation of data, but ideas to

stimulate other ideas, questions to contrast facts. Roads towards action

to be explored. Paths to be forged or meandered along, as we learn to

recognise monsters behind their disguise and experiment the best weapons

to confront them with, those that enhance our indefatigable quest for

freedom.

This is the perspective that we have given ourselves and where we

believe others are venturing. That is why we have decided to set to

work, shooting a shower of arrows into the unknown, aware that by their

very form they risk turning up in the wrong place and violating the

tranquillity of those who seek in the written word confirmation, truth,

serenity, or simply an antidote to insomnia. However, we have decided to

adventure into the unexplored.

Perhaps one or two will strike, encounter those who will take up the

threads of the discourse, unravel them, re-elaborate them and in some

way make them part of their own project of liberation, transforming them

into active intervention.

The following articles were all published some years ago in the monthly

paper ‘ProvocAzione’ (now out of print). We are now making them

available to a wider readership, an invitation to question some of our

certainties and examine more closely some of the commonplaces we take

for granted.

Jean Weir

Propulsive Utopia

Some of us have lived through similar moments.[1] The incredible

thunderbolt of a propelling idea suddenly surges from the grey monotony

of everyday life. A desire to be beyond the abyss, well beyond it.

Many have lived through this and systematically put it out of their

minds. A tiny minority of old regulars at meetings and demos continue to

practice the liturgy of the incredible within the enclosure of

themselves, now convinced that the utopian proposal must come from

rewriters of theories clever enough to climb mountains within the four

walls of their own rooms.

The others are not even worth mentioning. Most of them had no inkling of

what one was dreaming about. They casually confused possibilism with

socialism in an indigestible mixture known as ‘democratic radicalism’.

But propulsive utopia, the lifeblood of the real movement, cannot be

found in books or even in the avant-garde theses of the elite

philosophers that clock in to the factory of prewrapped ideas like

clever shiftworkers.

It feeds off a hidden but burning collective desire, increasing its flow

in a thousand ways. Then suddenly you find it at the street corner. The

form it takes is not usually staggering. It is often shy and unsure of

itself and certainly does not conjure up a vision of lightning on the

road to Damascus. But for anyone able to read between the lines of the

real movement this and only this is the strong point of a phenomenon

that runs into a thousand rivulets, threatening to break up its unity in

models worthy of a hasty gazetteer.

Here and there, in the recent students’ and railway workers’

demonstrations in France, the slogan of great revolutions that we were

resigned to seeing diluted for ever into parliamentary speeches and pub

talk suddenly reappeared: Equality.

The real movement is finding itself in a little path in the forest by

pointing to a great utopian objective: go beyond rights to the full

reality of the deed.

A swallow does not mean spring, you might say. Correct. A banner, a

thousand banners are only words cried to the winds and are often blown

away by it. But words are not born inside stuffy libraries. When they

correspond to the spirit of thousands of people they suddenly break into

the collective consciousness that is the basis of the real movement.

Then and only then do they abandon their symbolic purpose and become a

simple covering over reality. They become the substance of a project

that is latent but at the same time is powerfully operative.

Today the macabre spectacle of equal rights is suffocating any desire

that glances beyond the barrier of the ready-made. But the student

movement’s refusal of politics is only a filter for the profound,

utopian request for immediate, total liberation. Out with all schemers,

in with freedom. Right. But when this freedom does not have a bodily

content, when it becomes a covering over well (or badly) construed

words, then it is no more than a new way of sealing up ideology.

Of course the struggle of those enclosed in the ghettoes, prisons,

factories, schools, racial and sexual discrimination, only aims at

breaking down the first barrier, the wall, the immediate enemy that one

comes up against in painful social discrimination. But although

comprehensible, that still does not correspond to a revolutionary

struggle for the equality of all, with the maximum exaltation of the

difference of each one. No matter how well it goes, the particular

struggle will be recuperated and transformed into further conditioning

because it is still a struggle for equal ‘rights’ and does not affect

situations of fact that are anything but equal so long as there remains

a field of political, therefore social, discrimination.

The statement that appeared in the streets of Paris showed a serious

attempt to go beyond the trap the ideologues built long ago,

conveniently camouflaging it in the suggestion that students beware of

outside elements, politics, provocateurs, etc. This is an old story that

the managers of power always circulate at opportune moments because they

are indirectly in control through the channels of consensus and the

conditioning of information. It is a technique they use to warn against

dangers relating to one part of themselves so as to detract attention

from another part that they want to bring into effect.

Now, by opposing genuinely revolutionary opposition to such underhand

plots the real movement is rediscovering the explosive potential of

utopia. It is acting in such a way that its radical critique of the

process of recuperation cannot be recuperated. It is no coincidence that

this position has appeared at a time when economic claims are

diminishing in importance. There equality was seen as the result of the

repartition of produced value beyond the endemic division between

capitalists and proletarians. But we are sure that any society that were

to pass more or less violently from capitalism to post-revolutionary

socialism through the narrow door of syndicalism would necessarily be a

grey parody of a free society. The heavy trade union self-regulating

mechanism with its ideal of the good worker and the bad skiver would be

transferred to society as a whole. The students have faced the problem

of the impossibility of any outlet in the labour market. But their

analysis strengthens (or should strengthen) the conviction that only

with a radically utopian way of seeing the social problem will it be

possible to break through the boundaries of a destiny that those in

power seem to hold in their hands. Theirs is certainly not the kind of

equality that is being talked about in France today. The same goes for

the railway workers, perhaps in an even more obvious way as they make no

reference to arguments of an economic or at least wage-claiming kind.

Why, one might ask, are we so sure of the revolutionary content of an

idea that, after all, has moved with varying fortunes in the world

revolutionary sphere for at least two hundred years? The answer is

simple. The propulsive value of a concept cannot be understood in social

terms if one limits oneself to examining existing conditions. In fact

there is no causal relationship between social conditions and a utopian

concept. The latter moves within the real movement and is in deep

contrast to the structural limits that condition but do not cause it. On

the contrary the same concept can move around comfortably in the

fictitious movement. Here, in the rarefied atmosphere of the castle of

spooks the utopian concept, having become devoid of meaning, is no more

than a product of ideology like so many others. Research into the causes

of utopia or rather utopian desire could certainly be interesting but

would give poor results if one were to limit oneself to studying the

social and historical conditions in which the concept suddenly appears.

For this reason we cannot outline the limits of a presumed operativity

of a utopian concept starting from these conditions. It could go well

beyond the latter, in other words could itself become an element of

social change.

Now, equality is a contradictory concept that exists within each one of

us.

On the one hand we feel profoundly different to others and tend to

defend and encourage this diversity. We consider uniforming ourselves

and accepting orders and impositions to be unworthy of us, even though

we often see ourselves forced to put a good face on things for the needs

of the moment. On the other hand everyone sees these radical differences

as a value that exists within the context of a substantial equality.

Equality of conditions, possibilities, freedom, values, social space and

so on, all in the more profound difference of desires, feelings, aims,

interests, culture, physical aspects, etc.

But this concept has only been perceivable throughout history as an

attempt to transform man into a herd animal. In order to become equal to

another he had to become a sheep and not think about what made him

profoundly different to the shepherd that guides the herd and does the

shearing. Democracy has always been seen (and is still seen today) as

equality of rights, not conditions. To the hypothetical equality of

rights there has always corresponded a substantial inequality of

conditions. And differences between people, instead of being related to

the nature of their individuality, have always been marked by the

different basic conditions they live in as they struggle against the

suffocating artificial divisions imposed on them by power.

Incredible things can happen when an idea like equality erupts into the

real movement and succeeds in breaking through the conditions that had

forced it to remain occult till then. The mortifying reality of the

present does not necessarily imply a negative outcome. In practice

anything could happen. If some revolutionaries exist before the

revolution, most of them are born during it. The strength of the utopian

concept multiplies to infinity precisely at the moment in which it is

proposed, so long as it emerges within the real movement and is not an

ideological plaything within the fictitious one.

The proposal of equality radically transforms the superficial existence

of the equality of rights.

The exploited make egalitarian utopia their own from the moment they

hoist the flag, thus putting an end to the existence of the equality of

rights that was nothing other than the basis of their exploitation. The

revolutionary idea ceases to be utopia, transforming itself into events

that upturn the social order far beyond what could have been predicted

from an analysis of the political situation. The power structure has

turned equality into something sacred, imposed the stigma of a right

upon it. In this way it has transformed the underground utopian thrust

of centuries deep within the real movement into a further means of

exploitation and recuperation. The struggle for rights has taken the

place of the struggle for real equality.

Only the concrete experience of freedom can lead to real equality (in

the profound differences between each one). No freedom can be conceded

as a right. Not even the freedom to demonstrate. And it seems that the

French students grasped the utopian essence of equality at the moment in

which they made utopia the aim of their action, exposing the swindle

that presented their demonstration in the streets as a demonstration for

rights. It remains to be seen whether the real movement will be able to

use this concept, or whether it will succumb to the process of

recuperation in course aimed at putting everything back into the

paraphernalia of rights. If they were to make revolutionary use of

egalitarian utopia, this would become operative immediately in the same

way that whoever takes freedom is not freed, but is free.

Equality is defiance of today’s society, the utopian decision to act

differently to what the general idea imposes. But this concept has been

internalised by most people and become the very foundation of repression

and death by uniformity, boredom, suffocation.

This concept of equality, which has made faint hearts fear for the sort

of the individual throughout history, represents the most explosive road

for safeguarding the real differences and characteristics of each one,

beyond the social conditions that chain them to the mediocrity of

illusory ones. So equality is the defiance of order that only the real

movement can throw in the face of society.

In the streets of Paris they are perhaps beginning to see a clearer road

for getting out of the swamp of possibilism. It could be a false alarm,

it could be a sign of an underground tumult, it could even be an

operative indication to be put into practice, now, everywhere. It is up

to the sensitivity of individual comrades to decipher this indication.

Men of power have been doing it—to their own exclusive benefit—for a

long time.

The Refusal of Arms

The ‘refusal’ of arms is an implicit in antimilitarism. But this concept

is taken for granted and is hardly ever gone into in any depth.

Being precise objects, weapons are certainly the fundamental instruments

that not only the army as an organisation (which would not make sense if

it were unarmed), but also the military mentality (which has derived a

series of authoritarian deformations from the use of weapons) is based

on.

This is so. Armies have always been armed, and have created a particular

form of hierarchical organisation with a fixed, rigid level of command

precisely because the use of weapons is—or at least is believed to

be—rigid and must obey precise rules. The same goes for the mentality.

The ‘armed’ individual feels different, more aggressive, and

(apparently) more easily overcomes the frustrations that everyone has in

them, so ends up becoming overbearing and cowardly at the same time.

But militarism cannot, even in its own opinion, make an ‘optimal’ use of

weapons. It must insert their possible use within the political and

social context of an unstable equilibrium, both nationally and

internationally. At the present time a purely ‘militaristic’ use of arms

would be inconceivable. That leads those who carry weapons, as well as

their bosses and the arms producers, to developing an ideology of

defence with which to cover not only their use but also their production

and perfectionment in the negative sense.

When antimilitarists limit themselves to simple declarations of

principle, weapons remain something symbolic, i.e. they remain the

abstract symbols of destruction and death. On the contrary, if

antimilitarism were to go forward concretely and open up the road to

liberation in the material sense, then it would not be able to limit

itself to a symbolic refusal of arms, but would have to go into the

problem more deeply.

In fact weapons, being objects, are considered differently according to

the point of view they are being looked at from. That goes for anything,

and weapons are no exception. This is not a relativist conception, it is

a simple materialist principle. Arms as inert objects do not exist. What

do exist are arms in action, i.e. that are used (or waiting to be used)

in a given perspective. That is so for all things if we think about it.

We tend to imagine things cut off from their historical and material

context, as though they were something abstract. But if that were so

they would become meaningless, reduced to the impotence we would like to

reduce them to in the case of weapons. In fact things are always ‘things

in action’. Behind the thing there is always the individual, the

individual who acts, plans, uses means to attain ends.

There is no such thing as an abstract weapon (taken as an isolated

object), therefore. What do exist are weapons that the army uses in its

projects for action. These are given a specific investiture as

instruments for the ‘defence of the homeland’, ‘maintaining order’, ‘the

destruction of the infidels’, ‘the conquest of territory’, etc. The

soldier is therefore in possession of a vast outfit of ideologies or

value models, which he acts out when he uses weapons. When he shoots he

feels, according to the circumstances, defender of the homeland, builder

of the social order, destroyer of the infidels, engineer of social

territory, etc. The more his role corresponds to that of the crude

executioner, the more he is at the mercy of the fabricators of ideology

and capitalist rule, the more the weapons he bears become blind

instruments of oppression and death. Even if he were to lay them down

they would still be objects within a general framework that qualifies

them as instruments of death.

Now, if the project is different, if the aim of the action is different,

the significance of the weapon changes. As a means, it can never be

absolved of its limitations as an object with which it is possible to

procure damage and destruction with a certain ease (which is what

distinguishes the object ‘weapon’ from other objects many of which can

also become such when necessary). We are not trying to say that the

end—liberation, the revolution, anarchy or whatever other liberatory,

egalitarian dream—justifies the means, but it can transform weapons into

different ‘objects in action’. And this different object in action also

comes to be a part of the antimilitarist struggle, even although to all

effects it remains a weapon.

In a project of liberation, behind the weapon lies the desire to free

ourselves from our rulers and make them pay for the damage they are

responsible for. There is class hatred, that of the exploited against

the exploiters, there is the concrete material difference of those who

continually suffer offence to their dignity and want to wipe out those

responsible.

That is all radically different to any ideological chatter about order

and defence of the homeland.

But What is the Imaginary

One of the new concepts that is tending to appear with increasing

frequency is that of the ‘social’, or ‘collective’, ‘imaginary’. It is

nearly always thrown at you as though it were something that everyone is

aware of, and is leading to attitudes and deductions that do not seem to

me to be all that well founded.

Hence the need to clarify some of the aspects of this ‘concept’, which

presents not a few difficulties.

As far as we can see the term ‘social’ or ‘collective’ imaginary is used

to refer to the feelings that a socially significant event or situation

gives rise to in society as a whole. But there is also an implicit

reference to the means of communication that realise the passage of such

events from being circumscribed facts to their spreading in space and

persistence in time as never before. In other words it would seem to be

an unconscious (therefore irrational) mechanism by which members of

society interpret particular events, in exactly the same way as the

media do, i.e. in the way desired by the dominant political-cultural

structure.

It is taken for granted that this actually occurs, and in fact there can

be little doubt that the great mass of people are taken in by the

information culture and the ideas elaborated by power. Nor can there be

much doubt that most people react in such a uniform way as to make it

possible to realise reliable political forecasts and projects even from

quite modest samples. Mass society thinks and acts in a massified

therefore foreseeable way, far more so than when social cohesion was

guaranteed by vast analphabetism.

So far so good. Yet much could be said as to how this uniformity could

be broken up to make it become critical and contradictory, confused and

desperate, rather than remain inert and consenting.

In actual fact quite the opposite happens. And this also goes for the

revolutionary movement, precisely those who should be bringing about, or

at least considering the problem of how to bring about, an operation of

deconsecration and rupture. Instead the ‘imaginary’ has come to be

accepted as a possible point of reference. Something homogeneous that

exists and which pressure can be put upon. Something—precisely what is

not clear—that can be considered for revolutionary purposes.

When this claim is more articulate, something rare today in times of

great analytical poverty, it is said that the ‘imaginary’ is the sum of

the various levels of class consciousness or, more simply, that it

transforms class differences into sensations and personalised images

such as production, social mobility, the structures society is divided

into, etc. So through this filter the individual is able to grasp his or

her ‘position’ within the social body and identify with one class as

opposed to another.

It seems to me that we urgently need to consider a number of problems.

First, the fact that the concept of ‘imaginary’ (social and collective)

comes ‘dangerously’ close to the concept of ‘myth’. Not that Sorel

scares us, what does is an ill-considered, acritical use of mass

irrational processes, especially when considered in a revolutionary

perspective. Second, it is not in fact true that there is a direct

relationship between the ‘imaginary’ and class consciousness in general,

if for no other reason than because it is impossible to make a clear

separation between exploiters and exploited through processes of induced

collective feelings such as those stimulated by the media. Let us take

the ‘imaginary’ of nuclear ‘fear’ for example, such as it developed in

the wake of Chernobyl. Here a great amorphous fear spread throughout all

the social classes, going beyond ‘differences’ by uniting everyone under

the common denominator of death by radiation. What emerges in any

discussion on this element of the ‘imaginary’ (social or collective) is

a connection, not with levels of consciousness, but with a collective,

irrational reaction. In other words we are far from the project of the

‘myth of the general strike’ which could only be perceived (but not

brought about) by the proletariat according to Sorel’s thesis.

Third, the consideration that there is such a thing as a reservoir of

potential that is simply waiting to be tapped for any revolutionary

project we have in mind, is certainly negative. That would lead to the

belief that the media could be used to divert such a reservoir (the

‘Imaginary’) to the advantage of the revolutionary movement, whereas in

reality it can only be reached, expanded or modified to the exclusive

benefit of the projects of power. If we were to accept that point of

view we would tend to choose the kind of actions of attack we think

would be most easily understood in an ‘imaginary’ key, not realising

that this is managed by power through ‘its’ information.

But let us look at things from a different point of view, one which is

of more interest to us in my opinion. That the social or collective

‘imaginary’ be ‘an organisation of images’ is undoubtedly the case.

Otherwise why use this horrible neologism? Whoever uses it must have in

mind not a woolly impenetrable muddle of images but a whole fairly clear

structure. So if we want to use this term we should use it in the sense

of something organised at the level of imagination, something that

concerns symbols, feelings, sensations, images produced by reality

(‘socially significant facts’), then transferred to the collectivity by

the classical instrument of the media.

Now, if we consider this carefully we see that ‘an organisation of

images’ is what Sorel used to define as ‘myth’. He even uses the same

words: ‘the myth is an organisation of images’.

In recent years (which could explain the confused immersion of this

concept into the revolutionary movement) there has been not so much a

revival of Sorel as of the concept of the myth, with analyses by Levi

Strauss and Barthes, up to Douglas and Godelier. This has happened

parallel to the profound changes in the productive and social

structures, new cultural stimuli and the collapse of the old system of

centralism and State planning. As capitalism moves towards restructuring

on the basis of everything being ‘provisional’ in a reality charged with

tension and lack of permanence where all the certainties of the past are

being replaced by probabilistic models, the concept of ‘political myth’

is taking up its trajectory again in the new guise of ‘social’ (or

collective) ‘imaginary’.

Not only are we against the acritical use of such a term, we consider it

indispensable to see what the consequences of considering such a concept

within a revolutionary project would be. This is particularly necessary

in a situation of social disintegration such as the present. We need to

examine and clarify how the powers of persuasion work, how the

irrational (therefore also imaginary) forces that the profound

structural modifications are causing in society also work, and

understand why the new concepts that are taking the place of the idols

of the past are so fascinating and mystifying.

We are not saying we are for a cold analysis that states things with

clarity, wanting to plant an ideological tree in place of a luxurious

spontaneous jungle of exotic plants. We are only saying we cannot accept

complex and contradictory concepts as though they were acclaimed usable

instruments for our daily struggle against the State and capital.

Our main point of reference remains the whole of the exploited,

particularly the part who are about to be thrown out of the work market

due to the process of capitalist restructuring. This whole can

undoubtedly be reached through the flux of the ‘organisation of images’

that power brings about for its own aims, but this process has not been

fully perfected. Contradictions are opening up in it. People might

convince themselves of something but at the same time they cannot avoid

harbouring suspicion and a potential for revolt. This potential is

gradually increasing alongside power’s attempts to obtain consensus and

adhesion, as the new systems of exploitation (ferocious restructuring

and destruction of the old work identity) become clearly visible. Power

cannot prevent such elements from entering the process of ‘organisation

of images’ that it is working to produce. And this is the place for our

intervention.

So we can only take into account what is wrongly defined as the

‘imaginary’ in part, using precisely that area of it that power cannot

control, not the whole of the flux of images it manipulates to transmit

to and implant in people. And this part can only be reached by stimuli

of rebellion, by—if you like—the irrational consequences of violent

modifications in the productive structures, themselves indirectly caused

by the flux of information and centralised control.

So, we suggest a critical examination of the concept of ‘imaginary’ in

such a way as to make it possible to individuate elements that are

‘accidental’ or ‘uncontrollable’ as far as power is concerned. We

believe the revolutionary movement should make reference to these and

these alone, not to some hypothetical collective ‘imaginary’ seen as an

immense reservoir from which it is possible to draw subversive

potential.

Are We Modern?

It is not just a question of words. There is a common line of thought

that sees those who want to conserve the past as being quite separate

from the supporters of a future that is still to be built. The first are

seen as old and stupid, linked to institutions and structures surpassed

in time, the second as addicted to transformation and innovation. In

between, rooted in the past but with an eye turned to the future, are

the so-called reformists and their desires for hazy half measures.

It should be said right away that, although we are convinced that this

division has seen its day, it still persists in our minds, a mental

category we cannot free ourselves from because we do not want to face

it. Most of us would never admit that the ‘future’, i.e. modernity, and

‘revolution’ i.e. violent transformation, could do anything but stand

together. But is that really so? A progressive idea of history cannot

but say it is. But what has historicism led to? Without doubt it has

built concentration camps. Also model prisons, but these came later.

Millions of people have been slaughtered in the name of the objective

spirit that realises itself in History (therefore comes about gradually,

in modernity, in the future), and all with the best of intentions.

And we are nearly all, anarchists included, children of historicism; at

least until proved otherwise. We deduct from this that more or less all

of us are for progress (whoever would admit to anything else?) and

believe that either we are moving towards a final catastrophe or to a

profound, radical change in values. This idea of history as something

that is marching to its destiny is reassuring, even when we see this

destiny as a complete holocaust

This incapacity to question our cultural origins, in the first place

historicism, then determinism, scientism, eclecticism (a decent analysis

of Malatesta’s thought is necessary here), prevents us from seeing our

own condition clearly

We nearly all believe we are ‘post’ something or other. Personally I

think we are in a post-industrial era and have thought so since at least

the end of the Seventies, but this no longer conveys much. Industry such

as Ford, Taylor and Marx imagined it has seen its day, and the trades

unions and syndicalist organisations, even those we conceived ourselves,

have also seen their day.

The management of capitalism at world level depends less and less on a

concept of life based on the accumulation of value. That is to say that

if industry in terms of machinery and skilled labour was the basis of

the social transformation that led to the modern world, the end of

industry—now replaced by electronically controlled diffused

production—marks its eclipse.

A new Middle Ages? An absurd question, just as the answers on all sides

have been. It is pointless to attempt to see historical ‘remakes’. The

political pragmatism of daily adjustments is leading to long term

changes in the social whole, where new possibilities of dominion and

forms of struggle against oppression are emerging. The acid test of the

class struggle is always reality in all its forms, and these forms taken

individually, cannot be considered more modern than those that have been

supplanted because they no longer correspond to certain aims. This

philosophical necessity of choice is purely hypothetical. In reality

things are different. Choices from a wide range of variants are possible

because the basic values affecting the judgements that produce these

choices exist. Considered concretely, i.e. as their effect as elements

capable of transforming reality, these values are neither ancient nor

modern. The very idea of progress is antithetical to them and produces

incredible confusion.

For example, is equality an ancient or a modern value? It is impossible

to answer this question. Given that it has never existed in reality, at

least in recent history, one deduces that it must be related to the

future. But is the future modern? We do not know. There are, however,

different ways of believing the realisation (or prevention) of equality

to be possible. Seen in relation to their effectiveness and their

response to social conditions at a given historical moment, these can be

considered to be either ancient or modern. And is the accumulation of

value ancient or modern for capitalism? Given the conditions at the

present time one could say that it is no longer a modern value and that

new aims are appearing on the horizons of those in power. Distinction

could be one of these values, the distance between two world concepts:

those who control the levers of power (the included) and those who must

simply obey and have been programmed and conditioned for this (the

excluded). Reductive values such as nihilism, neo-formalism,

analphabetism, velocism, supra-nationalism, etc. are also modern values

that reconfirm this final separation between included and excluded. But

is it possible to consider such values in historicist terms, as being

more advanced than those of the past? I really don’t think so.

We have often asked ourselves whether it is absolutely necessary to

destroy technology or whether we should guarantee its safe revolutionary

passage to a possible future ‘good’ use. Then we realised that the

technology of computers and universal control could never be useful to a

society that starts off from the real liberation of all as opposed to

that of a privileged minority. Hence destruction as a necessary fact, a

value. Modern? We do not know. There have also been moments of

destruction that seemed reactionary in the past (there are still some

who speak of the Vendee as something negative, but do so due to their

personal historical ignorance) which since have been reexamined more

closely. The peasants’ insurrections burned castles. Were they modern?

We do not care a bit. Is a struggle today against neo-machinery modern?

It is for us because we are trying, not without difficulty, to see

things from a point of view that is not totally historicist. Think of

the arguments about nuclear power. Ourselves against the bosses who turn

out to be—some of them—in favour of it. But on each side of the clash,

hallucinations of the Apocalypse. Undoubtedly an effect of historicist

culture on both sides. So at a point it is easy for the bosses to reject

nuclear energy and transfer their interests and projects elsewhere.

The same thing goes for atomic war and the atmosphere of millenarian

catastrophe we breathe all around us today. The end of a millennium is

fast approaching and the circle will present itself again, always the

same and always different The rapid destruction of world resources

carried out by the plunderers in power is an inescapable fact. This will

either be brought to an end, or it will be transformed when the included

of tomorrow build one world suited to their own needs and another for

the needs of others. In other words, even the present battle against the

wastage of natural resources could become an industry in the future, the

foundation of the exploitation of tomorrow. That it is why we propose an

immediate systematic attack on all the forms of capitalist expression,

both the backward ones still linked to rapid and irrational exploitation

and the more advanced ones linked to the electronic control of the

planet. In a not too distant future they will shake hands, crushing us

in the middle.

In order to do this we must have the courage to look backwards as well

as forwards. Backwards to seek certain values that are no longer

considered ‘modern’. In this research we could single out a few elements

that relate to human action: constancy, courage, respect for one’s

fellows (human or animal), being harsh with oneself, frugality, a

correct consideration of the environment. But others too that are only

apparently in contrast: play, love, fantasy, joy, tenderness, dreams.

In order to make these things our own, critically, not as dogmas imposed

by a globalising concept of the world, we must move towards a radical

contrast with the present social situation as a whole. We do not accept

compromise. We are not points of reference to be taken for granted. We

are not supplying a formula for numerical growth.

Now, this position seems to strongly contradict some of the essential

points of historicism. Not only does it go against the idea of the

Spirit that realises itself in history, it eliminates any privileged

point of reference, even, let’s be clear about this, Anarchy. To be

against power, the State, class domination and all forms of exploitation

is all very well. But to oppose all that with an ideological, dogmatic

juxtaposition instead of action, no, absolutely not. If we must reduce

anarchy to this in the name of our great ideal, I do not agree. Anyone

who enjoys this weekend pastime may do as they please, we will certainly

not be the ones to prevent them from walking. But they should not

complain if we start running while they are still claiming their rights

as free afternoon ramblers. We have never wanted to know anything of

these rights.

And we contradict historicism, or so it seems, with our craving desire

for action. We cannot simply wait for things to come to an end in our

absence. We want to be in the game. We want to contribute to

transformation in the direction we believe is right, now, not in the

sense of a dogma that has been fixed for ever in time. We cannot wait so

are acting here and now, recognising no point of reference on which to

pin our hopes and expectations. Nor do we recognise the existence of

some ‘objective spirit’ or lay god that might be working for our

liberation. In the deep of the night where all values tend to be

zeroised, if anything lights them up we want it to be the light of our

explosions.

The Priority of Practice

When we look at the actions of others we tend to see in them a priority

given either to practice or to theoretical reflection.

Neither of these satisfies us.

When we observe others we often ask ourselves why they tend one way or

the other on the scales of an ideal equilibrium that clearly only exists

in our dreams.

Is this due to specific interests? Ideological preclusion? Narrow

mindedness? Intellectual poverty, or simply stupidity? There is no lack

of choice. And usually, often without realising it, we make precisely

the judgement that happens to be the most convenient to us, either to

take a distance from a practice we do not want to have anything to do

with, or so as not to get involved in theoretical positions we do not

share.

But human beings act within a whole flux of relations where it is not

always possible, and never easy, to see clearly where practice ends and

theoretical considerations begin. When this impossibility is taken to

the extreme limit, theory and practice become one. This is only possible

for the sake of argument. Abstract elements are isolated, i.e. taken

from a wider context, and the more obvious components emerge. This

problem does not only concern theory, it also concerns practice. In

other words, by acting in this way we are able to make not only

theoretical but also practical ‘abstractions’ We thereby deduce that

there is no absolute correlation between ‘abstractness’ and theory at

least in the way that those in favour of practice would have us believe.

From the moment in which an individual finds himself in a personal and

social situation, i.e. from birth and even beyond physical death, they

begin working out a theoretical elaboration for all their actions, even

the most seemingly blind and conditioned of them. This is constantly

present putting, order, within certain limits, into that acting no

matter how spontaneous it might appear to be. So theory is part of the

experience of life itself the way others bring themselves to our

attention in action, joy, feelings, disappointments or in the ideas we

allow to penetrate us through reading, studying, looking, talking,

listening, but also from transforming, working, destroying.

There is not one ‘place’ for theory and another for practice therefore,

except in an abstract consideration suspended like a ghost outside the

world. The fact that this ghost turns out to be anything but outside

this world but acts and produces effects inside it merely confirms what

we have just said. In other words there are relations of reciprocal

exchange between these two moments of human experience which are

themselves part of a general flux, not separate objects in space. We can

make a clearer distinction when we speak of how someone who acts tries

to set about their action in respect to others. Again it is only

possible to identify an ‘orientation’ up to a point, certainly not a

constant relationship of cause and effect. This orientation gives us an

indication of the actor’s intentions and the condition of who is at the

receiving end of the action, all within the vast flux of relations that

cannot be isolated in reality, merely singled out for the love of

clarity. Whoever acts in any one of a hundred, a thousand, ways makes

their intentions known concerning the aim of their action. At the

margins these intentions melt into a fluid context, but in their

nucleus, during the most significant moments of the event or events that

solidify them as intentions, there is considerable orientation

indicating the choice of means, clarifying the objective, transforming

relations, and all this does not leave reality as a whole unchanged.

Here the leaning can be practical or theoretical, according to the

actor’s intentions, If on the other hand the prevalence is accidental,

comes about by mistake whereas the intention had been quite different,

the relation between orientation and objective is reversed. The action

takes place with the consequent transformation of individual and

collective relations as a whole. But the greater the number of elements

of disturbance capable of acting on and reversing the results, the

further it will be from the original intention.

Criticism, if one really intends to do something and not just give

oneself an ideological cover up, must grasp these discrepancies between

intention and objective, aims and action. Criticism that degenerates

into simple statements such as those describing the forms taken by the

intention/objective relationship is pointless.

To say that a given position gives priority to ‘practice’ or that

another privileges theory is senseless. It is necessary to see in depth

how the action in question can be reached (or at least got a glimpse of)

through its orientation. And this cannot start from a positive or

negative consideration of practice or theory. Worse still, it cannot

come from a judgement that gives complete preference to either theory or

practice concerning the subject under discussion.

All critical analysis should therefore examine the orientation, its

adequacy concerning the objective, and this cannot end up with a value

judgement. We shall try to be more clear. ‘Inadequate’ interventions

take place for various reasons, not all of which are the ‘fault’ of

whoever is directing the orientation. From personal incapacity to

inadequate decisions (but who establishes how and what—qualitative or

quantitative-should be done?) the arc is extremely wide. Basically,

adequacy should be looked for on the basis of the whole orientation

proposed, that is to say it should be ascertained whether there are

contradictions within the orientation itself rather than contrasts

between proposal and objective. The roads to accomplishing an aim are

not always easily grasped, at least not right at the beginning, and it

is easy to be led astray by one’s convictions and conditioning. Instead,

and this is the point, some research on contradictions is important.

Can a reasonable person say then unsay something? Our culture says no,

absolutely not. We are the offspring of western rationalism and do not

admit contradiction in our orientations. The fact remains that the

latter exist, and the results of their unrecognised presence are,

unfortunately, always very bitter. Analyses should move in this

direction, not cry scandal (when some speak then contradict themselves),

but show how and with what consequences the contradictions revealed

produce greater or lesser possibilities of reaching the objective

chosen. Because that is the way things are, the road of action is not

always straight.

And the most relevant contradictions, those that make people cry out

right away about the inadequacy of the direction when not—and here the

cry would definitely be gratuitous—about privileging theory as opposed

to practice or vice versa, are precisely those who are unable to make up

their minds about the effects of the theory-practice relationship,

claiming to separate the inseparable.

To conclude this now long precision, let us say that the real problem is

not so much that of tracing a uniform way of acting towards an objective

as of grasping the orientation in its entirety, seeing the totality of

theory and practice as direct action and the transformation of reality

as a whole. It is here that the value of what we do lies, not in

so-called claims to purity or coherence at all costs, not enclosing

everything in a region where the air is so pure one cannot allow any

contrast or contradiction.

There is no such thing as a dichotomy between those who elaborate theory

and those who act, but between those (both in the realms of practice and

theory, as their apparent orientation might be, at least according to

them) who want to contribute to transforming things from their actual

‘normal’ state to one which is radically different, and those who do

not. There are servants of power who feel good in their uniforms and

people who want to free themselves, and for this reason have decided to

struggle.

The Armed Wing of Science

There is a precise relationship between the means we have at our

disposal and our capacity to self-manage and defend ourselves against

any form of power and exploitation. The more effective and sophisticated

the means, the easier it is for them to fall into the hands of a

minority who use them for their own projects to control the rest of us.

It derives from this that developments in technology—the ‘armed wing’ of

science—are going towards a perfectioning of dominion running parallel

to the few minimal improvements conceded in general living conditions.

I do not know if the present level of scientific (and consequently

technological) development should make us fear that catastrophe is

imminent. I do not give much credit to catastrophe theories personally,

in fact I believe they could be designed to scare people. Nevertheless I

am certain that not only is it no longer possible to control

technological advance because of the incredible speed at which it is

developing new means and perfectioning new instruments, but also that

the rulers themselves are no longer able to coordinate them in a

rationally planned project. Not only would it be impossible to put much

of what is being produced to any good use, most of it is no more than a

reproduction of conditions that cannot be brought to a halt, at least in

the present political and social situation.

Over the next few years each single technological innovation could give

rise to an exponential growth of unknown dimensions, both in terms of

their effects and application. This will lead to an ‘explosion’ not in

the specific atomic, genetic or electronic sense so much as an

uncontrollable spreading of even more technological developments.

Many comrades see technology in terms of the friendly computer, the

super fridge, the old TV set that gave us a few pleasant evenings

(disturbed at times by the criticism of overbiased theorizers), so a

condemnation of technology as a whole shakes them. On the contrary, we

believe that the danger lies not in specific technological choices but

in the speed—now crazily out of control—at which they are being applied,

This has led to a widening of the distance that has always existed

between ‘knowledge’ and ‘technical means’. We now find ourselves faced

with an unbridgeable gap. Not so much in terms of ‘controlling’ the

means, understanding them and using them within the limits and awareness

of the risks that any ‘prothesis’ implies. We are convinced that this

distance has grown, not just concerning the exploited class who have

been led far away from any possibility of taking over the available

technology by force, but also as regards the dominant class, the

so-called included with their highly specialised technicians and

scientists.

This disturbing thought can be illustrated by looking at some of the

experiments carried out by the ‘apprentice sorcerers’ in the past.

Certainly having fewer means at their disposition, but presenting just

as many dangers that were faced with the same superficiality. The

exploitation of the planet’s resources, atomic energy, the division of

the world into areas of influence with projects of genocide concerning

the most economically backward populations, capitalist accumulation, the

cynical arms market and many other such nice activities are but a few of

the consequences. And these are all quite rudimental if we consider the

risks that an uncontrolled acceleration in technological experimentation

could give rise to today.

We do not know what consequences the genetic changes in the animal and

vegetable selection presently being experimented will lead to. What

scares us most is that we do not know what the results of an advance in

the technological application of this research will make possible in the

near future. The first fear would still hold even if technology were to

put a brake on itself and science were to stop ‘thinking’. That being

impossible, the second is more than well-founded.

All this constitutes a real danger, one that technology as the armed

wing of science is no longer able to put a halt to, making us risk more

and more as each year goes by.

How are the social and political (therefore also political and moral)

structures responding to this situation? With pitiful calls to

scientists to act with prudence and a sense of responsibility, to

politicians for more control, along with vague denunciations of the

dangers of this or that branch of research. As though there was such a

thing as good and bad technology, and as though the whole of science

(including its armed wing) were not involved in a process of development

that will require something far more complex than the bleating of

reformist politicians or proposals for an ecological orientation to put

a stop to.

Behind science stands international capital, behind each individual

scientist (but how many of them are there now, certainly no more than a

couple of dozen in the world, for the rest it is a question of highly

specialised workers) there are massive State investments, military

projects of control and economic projects for capitalist accumulation.

And above all there is technological development.

That is why we are against the whole of technology and do not agree that

it can be divided in two, one part to be rejected (where to?) and the

other accepted. Our road is quite a simple one. It does not stumble over

a thousand obstacles like that of the opportunists, in fact it is the

only practicable one in the present state of affairs. The propulsive

outlet must be revolution. A profound upheaval of social political,

cultural and moral relations. These are the only conditions under which

it will be possible to put an end to the exponential processes of

technology with all their consequences.

We all know, and there is no need to continually be reminded of it, that

this revolutionary outlet seems far away today. But we must not forget

that it is precisely the perverse mechanism of the productive structure

itself that we must take as our point of reference, as our subterranean

ally. On one side, the side of the exploited, we have the will and

determination of a few revolutionaries capable of working constantly

within the various contradictions caused by the production process as a

whole. On the other, the perversity of the technological process along

with the obtusity of the managerial class and their incapacity to

control the means at their disposal. A new model of class division is

emerging, a different way of conceiving the struggle and involvement in

the clash.

We are convinced that today’s technology will never be of any valid use.

Not because we are luddites. Or if we are it is certainly in ways and

with aims that are quite different to those of the last century. The

fact is that as a whole, technology today is moving unequivocably and

unchecked towards a quite perverse accumulation. The struggle against

technology is therefore in itself a revolutionary struggle, even though

we know perfectly well that in an acute phase it will not be possible to

reach its abolition completely. But objective conditions will have

changed, and the field that this technology finds itself operating in

will be different. For the same reason we find those who accuse us of

using the technology we hasten to condemn ridiculous. It is certainly

not by coming out in crusades against the peripheral products of

technological capitalism that we will be able to face the class struggle

and the new (vertiginously new) conditions of the clash. To simply

refuse this technology would lead to sclerotisation, a sacralisation of

fear, creating myths where we would end up playing into the hands of all

those who have an interest in increasing fragmentation and endless

circumscribed sectors.

The same goes for science, the concepts of science, not the people who

set themselves up as scientists to better qualify their role as the

servants of power. We are not against ‘thought’ of course, what we are

against is ‘specialisation’. No matter what area it comes from it is

always the harbinger of new power systems, new forms of exploitation.

Thought is free activity and we anarchists will certainly not be the

ones to propose its limitation. But we are not so stupid as to request

‘self-limitation’ by those who gain huge profits from thinking as well

as the benefits of status and a career. The first prospect would be

authoritarian and liberticide, the second simply stupid.

Those who make thought an element of privilege in order to ensure the

continuation of power today will unfortunately continue to act in order

to maintain the underlying conditions that make such forms of thought

possible. In the meantime some of them could be brought to face the

weight of their responsibility, but that would be a question of marginal

deeds that cannot clean out the sewer completely.

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.

The Tyranny of Weakness

We came up against weakness everywhere today. We are weak, or act as

though we are for fear of seeming different.

It is no longer fashionable to be self-assured or to have knowledge of

oneself or others or things. It seems old fashioned, almost bad taste.

We no longer make any effort to do things well, and by that I mean the

things we have chosen to do, that we believe we would do at any cost.

Against logic itself, we do them badly, superficially, without paying

any attention to detail. We do not exactly boast about this weakness of

course, but use it as a kind of screen to hide behind.

So we have become slaves to this new, rapidly-spreading myth. What we

want to do here is not talk about ‘strength’—which has never been

anything but a disguised form of weakness—but rather try to bring this

situation to light. It is a question of a flattening of values and a

distortion of the instruments we need to acquire in order to live and to

attack our enemies. The prevailing model at the present time is that of

the loser, renunciation, abandoning the struggle or simply slowing down.

The power structure has every interest in seeing that this disposition

continues. We hardly think at all and reason inadequately, passively

submitting to the messages that are put out by the various information

channels. We do not react.

We are building a personality that is halfway between the idiot and the

stamp collector. We understand little, yet know a lot: a multitude of

useless dispersive things, pocket encyclopedia knowledge.

We are convinced that we have a right to be stupid and ignorant, to be

losers.

We have sent efficiency back to the adversary, considering it a model

that belongs to the logic of power. And that was right, indispensable

once. When it was a question of damaging the class enemy it was right to

be absenteeists and against work. But now we have introjected this

attitude and it is our adversary who is winning the return game. We have

given up, even as regards ourselves and the things we really want to do.

And so we have turned to the butterfly-catching of oriental philosophy,

alternative products and ways of thinking, models that are of little use

and which lack incisiveness. Instead of waiting for our teeth to fall

out, we are pulling them out one by one. Now we are happy and toothless.

The laboratories of power are programming a new model of renunciation

for us. Only for us, of course. For the winning minority, the

‘included’, the model is still aggressivity and conquest. We are no

longer the sanguinary, violent barbarians that once let loose in

insurrections and uncontrollable revolts. We have become philosophers of

nothing, sceptical about action, blase and dandy. We have not even

noticed that they are shrinking our language and our brains. We are

hardly able to write any more, something that is important in order to

communicate with others. We are hardly able to talk any longer. We

express ourselves in a stunted jargon made up of banalities from

television and sport, a barrack-style journalism that apparently

facilitates communication, whereas in reality it debases and castrates

it.

But worse still, we are hardly able to make an effort to do anything any

longer. We do not commit ourselves. Few deadlines, a few things to be

done, not much reading. A meeting, an action here and there and we are

prostrated, done in. On the other hand we spend hours listening to

(without understanding) music that is devoid of content, songs in

languages we do not understand, noises that imitate the factory, racing

cars or motorbikes. Even when we lose ourselves in the contemplation of

nature (what little remains of it) we do not really go for a walk, it is

the walk that enters us. We accept the banality, the ecological and

naturalist models that capitalism (in its new alternative version, of

course, even worse than what went before it) is coming out with. But we

have no experience of any real relationship with nature, one that

requires engagement and strength, aggression and struggle, not mere

contemplation.

And don’t talk to me about the aggressive behaviour of the capitalists

in contrast to which we should be developing tolerant behaviour. I know

perfectly well what the aggressivity of capital means, or that of the

participants in the Paris-Dakar race. That is not what I am talking

about. In fact I do not mean aggressivity at all. Words can be

deceiving. What I mean is that it is necessary to act instead of idling

one’s time away while the boat goes up in flames.

Either we are convinced that far-reaching changes are taking place or we

are not. Capitalism and power are undergoing a transformation that will

upset the present state of our lives for goodness knows how many

decades. If we are not profoundly convinced of this then we might as

well carry on chasing the butterflies of our dreams, the myths of

buddhism, homeopathic medicine, Zen philosophy, escapist literature,

sport or whatever else we fancy, including an agreeable distancing

ourselves from grammar and language.

But if we are convinced of the first hypothesis, if we are convinced

there is a project in course that is bent on reducing us to slaves,

principally to a cultural slavery that is depriving us of even the

possibility of seeing our chains, then we can no longer put up with

tolerance or the tendency to give up or abandon the struggle. And it

should not be thought that what we are saying here is only valid for

comrades who have already put revolutionary engagement behind them and

are now quite tranquilly grazing among the greens, the oranges, the

Buddhists or other such herds. We are also referring to those who

maintain they are still revolutionaries but are living the tragedy of

progressive physical and mental pollution day by day.

This is not a simple call to action. The cemeteries are full of such

calls. We are talking about a project that has been studied in the

laboratories of capital and is now being applied to perfection. It is

aimed at gradually and painlessly turning us away from our capacity to

struggle. This project is moving hand in hand with the profound

restructuring of capital. Ours is not a call to voluntarism, or if you

like, a cry in the wilderness. We hope it will be, even if limited and

approximate, a small contribution to an understanding of the profound

changes that are taking place in the world around us.

[1] 1987 — Student and railway workers rebel in France. What follows are

a few disconcerting notes that beyond the specific moment