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Title: Practical Tips for CrimethInc. Agents Author: CrimethInc. Date: May 1, 1997 Language: en Topics: practice, Harbinger Source: Retrieved on 3rd November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/1997/05/01/practical-tips-for-crimethinc-agents
Today it is impossible to avoid hypocrisy in any struggle against the
status quo.
The political and economic structures are constructed so that it is
practically impossible to avoid being implicated in their workings.
Today, whatever a man thinks of the employment opportunities available
to him or of our economic system itself, he has almost no choice except
to work if he does not want to starve to death or die of an illness for
which he could not afford health care. If he does not believe in
material property, he still has no choice but to buy all the food and
clothing he needs and to buy or rent living space (that is, if he is not
ready to live at odds with our very effective legal system)—for there is
no free land left that has not been claimed by someone, almost no food
or other resources anywhere that are not someone’s “property.” If a
woman wants to distribute material criticizing the capitalist system of
production and consumption, she still has no way to produce and
distribute this material without paying to produce it, and selling it to
consumers—or at least selling advertising, which encourages people to be
consumers—to finance production. If a woman does not want to finance the
brutal torture and slaughter of animals in the name of capitalism, she
can stop eating meat and dairy products, purchasing health products
which are tested on animals, and wearing leather and fur; but there are
still animal products in the films in her camera and the movies she
watches, in the vinyl records she listens to, and in countless other
products which she will be hard-pressed to do without in modern society.
Besides, the companies she buys her vegetables from are most likely
connected to the companies who make meat and dairy products, so her
money goes to the same ends; and these vegetables themselves were
probably picked by migrant workers or other oppressed labor.
And at the same time, modern Western culture is so deeply ingrained in
our minds, indoctrinated with it as we are from an early age, that it is
practically impossible to avoid being influenced in our actions by the
very assumptions and values which we are struggling against. After a
lifetime of being taught to place a financial value on the hours of our
lives, it is hard to stop feeling like one must be rewarded materially
for an activity for it to be worthwhile. After a lifetime of being
taught to respect hierarchies of authority, it is very difficult to
suddenly interact with all human beings as equals. After a lifetime of
being taught to associate happiness with passive spectatorship, it is
hard to enjoy building furniture more than watching television. And of
course there are ten thousand more subtle ways in which these values and
assumptions manifest themselves in our thoughts and our actions.
This does not mean that resistance is futile. Indeed, if our choices
today are so limited that we cannot act without replicating the
conditions from which we were trying to escape, resistance is all the
more crucial. This does mean that “innocence” is a myth, a
counter-revolutionary concept which we must leave behind us with the
rest of post-Christian thinking. The traditional Christian demand upon
human beings is that they be innocent, that they keep their hands clean
of any “sin.” At the same time, “sin” is so difficult for the Christian
to avoid (as counter-revolutionary activity is today, for us) that this
demand leads to feelings of guilt and failure in the believer, and
ultimately to despair, when he realizes that it is impossible for him to
be “innocent” and “pure.” In fact, by forbidding “sin,” Christian
doctrine makes it all the more tempting and intriguing for the believer;
for whether the mind does or not, the human heart recognizes no
authority and will always seek out that which is not permitted to it.
We must not make the same mistakes as Christianity. The demand that
people be free from hypocrisy, free from any implication in the system,
will result in the same effects as the Christian demand that people be
free from sin: it will create frustration and despair in those who would
seek change, and at the same time it will make hypocrisy all the more
tempting. Rather than seek to have hands that are clean of implication
in the systems we struggle against, we should aim to make the inevitable
negative effects of our lives worthwhile by offering enough positive
activity to more than balance the scales. This approach to the problem
will save us from being immobilized by fear of hypocrisy or shame about
our “guilt.”
Besides, demands that we avoid hypocrisy deny the complexity of the
human soul. The human heart is not simple; every human being has a
variety of desires which pull him or her in different directions. To ask
that a human being only pursue some of those desires and always ignore
others is to ask that he or she remain permanently unfulfilled… and
curious. This is typical of the kind of dogmatic, ideological thinking
which has afflicted us for centuries: it insists that the individual
must be loyal to one set of rules and only one, rather than doing what
is appropriate for his or her needs in a particular situation.
It might well be true that the whole self can only be expressed in
hypocrisy. Certainly a person needs to formulate a general set of
guidelines regarding the decisions he will make, but to break
occasionally from these guidelines will prevent stagnation and offer an
opportunity to consider whether any of the guidelines need reevaluation.
A person who is not afraid to be hypocritical from time to time is in a
great deal less danger of selling out permanently one day, because he or
she is able to taste the “forbidden fruit” without feeling forced to
make a permanent choice. This person will be immune to the shame and
eventual despair that will afflict the person who strives for perfect
“innocence.”
So be proud of yourself as you are, don’t try to get the inconsistencies
in your soul to match up in a false and forced manner or it will only
come back to haunt you. Rather than holding inflexibly to a set system,
let us dare to reject the idea that we must be faithful to any
particular doctrine in our efforts to create a better life for
ourselves. Let us not claim to be innocent, let us not claim to be pure
or right! But let us proclaim proudly that we are hypocrites, that we
will stop at nothing, not even hypocrisy, in our struggle to take
control of our lives. In this age when it is impossible to avoid being a
part of the system we strive against, only blatant hypocrisy is truly
subversive—for it alone speaks the truth about our hearts, and it alone
can show just how difficult it is to avoid living the modern life which
has been prepared for us. And that alone is good reason to fight.
The CrimethInc. collective is a perfect example of the difficulties a
subversive organization will encounter in seeking to avoid hypocrisy,
and of the liberating possibilities that embracing hypocrisy can create.
Harbinger exists to criticize such modern phenomena as advertising,
which is fundamentally an effort on the part of modern businesses to
influence people to purchase their products whether or not this is in
their best interest. And yet CrimethInc. must sell advertising in the
pages of Harbinger in order to finance its publication. Harbinger exists
to warn against those who would sell ideologies that prescribe certain
kinds of thinking and acting, whether or not these manners of thinking
and acting are in the best interest of human beings. And yet, in order
to compete with these forces, CrimethInc. too must sell an ideology of
sorts: an ideology of “thinking for yourself,” but an ideology all the
same. Certainly we may claim that our products, our ideologies, really
are in the best interest of human beings, but isn’t that what every
corporation and political party claims?
Thus it is impossible for us in CrimethInc. to pursue the goals we seek
without simultaneously betraying those goals. Just as we strive to fight
against the system, we replicate it. Selling “revolutionary” ideas is
still selling ideas, and as long as buying and selling are taking place,
nothing truly revolutionary is happening. Indeed the fact that
“revolutionary” ideas are being used to perpetuate the status quo means
that whatever resistance there might be is neutralized and assimilated
from the start.
On the other hand, activity is better than inactivity, and perhaps the
efforts that we make here will still be able to have positive effects
despite being necessarily compromised. And perhaps our willingness to
point out where we are compromised will prevent those compromises from
rendering our efforts useless. It might be possible to incite genuine to
change in the lives of human beings, despite the implication inherent in
any kind of activity today; and even if it is not, it must still be
worth a try.
Of course, perhaps this sort of idealism will only serve to trick us,
with the best of all possible intentions, into betraying the very ideals
which we seek to promote. Perhaps we are sealing our own fate by
transforming whatever genuine desires for change people may have into
ultimately ineffectual activities such as purchasing “revolutionary
products” and discussing the ideas of others rather than creating their
own. Perhaps the advertising we sell in Harbinger will only lead people
to purchase the products advertised (and thus be forced to remain
trapped in the wage slavery system), rather than just harmlessly raising
the funds necessary to publish our demand for the end of this system. Or
maybe this hypocrisy is merely a cover that allows us to go about our
business of revolution without appearing to be much of a threat, by
making us appear to be another innocuous, pseudo-revolutionary group;
perhaps we only appear to be hopelessly compromised so that the forces
that have a stake in the status quo will not recognize the threat that
we do pose until it is too late. And it might even be that CrimethInc.
is actually orchestrated by those very forces, to lead those who do
desire change astray into expending their efforts uselessly! Even then,
it might have unforeseen effects… Who can tell for sure?
The thing is to act, to act joyously, not to accept that we are helpless
to effect change, even if we really are. For if we seek to resist the
roles and lives set forward for us, if we fight a spirited fight against
the forces that would keep us in despair, if we dare to act on our own
and to act passionately and joyously, then that is in itself the
revolution we seek.
The marketplace of ideas, like any marketplace, is fit only for looting.
We have all been taught from our youth that “there is nothing new under
the sun.” Whenever a child has an exciting idea, an older person is
quick to point out either that this idea has been tried before and
didn’t work, or that someone else not only has already had the idea but
also has developed and expounded upon it to greater lengths than the
child ever could. “Learn and choose from the ideas and beliefs already
in circulation, rather than seeking to develop and arrange your own,”
seems to be the message, and this message is sent clearly by the methods
of “instruction” used in both public and private schools throughout the
West.
Despite this common attitude, or perhaps because of it, we are very
possessive of our ideas. The concept of “intellectual property” is
ingrained in the collective psychosis much deeper than the concept of
material property. Plenty of thinkers have appeared who have asserted
that “property is theft” in regard to real estate and other physical
capital, but few have dared to make similar statements about their own
ideas. Even the most notoriously “radical” thinkers have still proudly
claimed their ideas as, first and foremost, their ideas.
Consequently, little distinction is made between the thinkers and their
thoughts. Students of philosophy will study the philosophy of Descartes,
students of economics will study Marx-ism, students of art will study
the paintings of Dali. At worst, the cult of personality that develops
around famous thinkers prevents any useful consideration of their ideas
or artwork; hero-worshipping partisans will swear allegiance to a
thinker and all his thoughts, while others who have some justified or
unjustified objection to the conceiver of the ideas will generally have
a difficult time not being prejudiced against the ideas themselves. At
best, this emphasis upon the “author-owner” in the consideration of
propositions or artwork is merely irrelevant to the worth of the actual
propositions or artwork, even if the stories about the individual in
question are interesting and can encourage creative thinking by
themselves.
The very assumptions behind the concept of “intellectual property”
require more attention than we have given them. The factors that affect
the words and deeds of an individual are many and varied, not the least
of them being her social-cultural climate and the input of other
individuals. To say that any idea has its sole origins in the being of
one individual man or woman is to grossly oversimplify. But we are so
accustomed to claiming items and objects for ourselves, and to being
forced to accept similar claims from others, in the cutthroat
competition to acquire and dominate (before we are acquired and
dominated) that is life in a market economy, that it seems natural to do
the same with ideas. Certainly there must be other ways of thinking
about the origins and ownership of ideas that warrant consideration… for
our present approach does more than merely distract from the ideas.
Our tradition of recognizing “intellectual property rights” is dangerous
in that it results in the deification of the publicly recognized
“thinker” and “artist” at the expense of everyone else. When ideas are
always associated with proper names (and always the same proper names,
in point of fact), this suggests that thinking and creating are special
skills that belong to a select few individuals. For example, the
glorification of the “artist” in our culture, which includes the
stereotyping of artists as eccentric “visionaries” who exist at the edge
(the “avant garde”) of society, encourages people to believe that
artists are significantly and fundamentally different from other human
beings. Actually, anyone can be an artist, and everyone is, to some
extent; being able to act creatively is a crucial element of human
happiness. But when we are led to believe that being creative and
thinking critically are talents which only a few individuals possess,
those of us who are not fortunate enough to be christened “artists” or
“philosophers” by our communities will not make much effort to develop
these abilities. Consequently we will be dependent upon others for many
of our ideas, and will have to be content as spectators of the creative
work of others—and we will feel alienated and unsatisfied.
Another incidental drawback of our association of ideas with specific
individuals is that it promotes the acceptance of these ideas in their
original form. The students who learn the philosophy of Descartes are
encouraged to learn it in its orthodox form, rather than learning the
parts which they find relevant to their own lives and interests and
combining these parts with ideas from other sources. Out of deference to
the original thinker, deified as he is in our tradition, his texts and
theories are to be preserved as-is, without ever being put into new
forms or contexts which might reveal new insights. Mummified as they
are, many theories become completely irrelevant to modern existence,
when they could have been given a new lease on life by being treated
with a little less reverence.
So we can see that our acceptance of the tradition of “intellectual
property” has negative effects upon our endeavors to think critically
and learn from our artistic and philosophical heritage. What can we do
to address this problem? One of the possible solutions is plagiarism.
Plagiarism is an especially effective method of appropriating and
reorganizing ideas, and as such it can be a useful tool for a young man
or woman looking to encourage new and exciting thinking in others. And
it is a method that is revolutionary in that it does not recognize
“intellectual property” rights but rather strikes out against them and
all of the negative effects that recognizing them can have.
Plagiarism focuses attention on content and away from incidental issues,
by making the genuine origins of the material impossible to ascertain.
Besides, as suggested above, it could be argued that the genuine origins
of the contents of most inspirations and propositions are impossible to
determine anyway. By signing a new name, or no name at all, to a text,
the plagiarizer puts the material in an entirely new context, and this
may generate new perspectives and new thinking about the subject that
have not appeared before. Plagiarism also makes it possible to combine
the best or most relevant parts of a number of texts, thus creating a
new text with many of the virtues of the older ones—and some new
virtues, as well, since the combination of material from different
sources is bound to result in unforeseeable effects and might well
result in the unlocking of hidden meanings or possibilities that have
been dormant in the texts for years. Finally, above all, plagiarism is
the reappropriation of ideas: when an individual plagiarizes a text
which those who believe in intellectual property would have held
“sacred,” she denies that there is a difference in rank between herself
and the thinker she takes from. She takes the thinker’s ideas for
herself, to express them as she sees fit, rather than treating the
thinker as an authority whose work she is duty-bound to preserve as he
intended. She denies, in fact, that there is a fundamental difference
between the thinker and the rest of humanity, by appropriating the
thinker’s material as the property of humanity.
After all, a good idea should be available to everyone—should belong to
everyone—if it really is a good idea. In a society organized with human
happiness as the objective, copyright infringement laws and similar
restrictions would not hinder the distribution and recombination of
ideas. These impediments only make it more difficult for individuals who
are looking for challenging and inspiring material to come upon it and
share it with others.
So, if there truly is “nothing new under the sun,” take them at their
word, and act accordingly. Take what seems relevant to your life and
your needs from the theories and doctrines prepared by those who came
before you. Don’t be afraid to reproduce word for word those texts which
seem perfect to you, so you can share them with others who might also
benefit from them. And at the same time, don’t be afraid to plunder
ideas from different sources and rearrange them in ways that you find
more useful and exciting, more relevant to your own needs and
experiences. Seek to create a personally constructed body of critical
and creative thought, with elements gathered from as many sources as
possible, rather than choosing from one of the prefabricated ideologies
that are offered to you. After all, do we have ideas, or do they have
us?