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Title: Working “Within the System” Author: CrimethInc. Date: September 11, 2000 Language: en Topics: system, reformism, reform Source: Retrieved on 7th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2000/09/11/working-within-the-system
So… you’re in a band, with a really important message, and you want to
get it out to as many people as possible — so you’re trying to get
really popular and sell lots and lots of records. Or perhaps you’re a
political activist and you think that it’s necessary to use the
mainstream media to educate people about certain issues. It seems to
make sense that you should use these methods to reach people, because
otherwise, who will notice you? Yes, you realize that you’re making
compromises with the very system you’re trying to fight, but it’ll be
worth it in the end… and we all have to make compromises, don’t we? It’s
worth considering whether we really do after all, just as it’s worth
questioning whether getting ahead in their system of cutthroat
competition and mass-marketing can ever really help us change the world.
What would happen if we stopped compromising, stopped playing their game
altogether and concentrated all our efforts on creating channels of our
own for spreading ideas in new ways?
Of course they want you on their television show, radio program, rock
festival, major label. They don’t care whether they’re selling mouthwash
or anarchist revolution as long as they can keep people watching and
buying. They know that sooner or later people are bound to get bored and
fed up with the mindless, passionless drivel that they normally have to
offer, and they count on you to keep new ideas and styles coming for
them to exploit; without that, they’d have nothing new to sell people.
They know if they can find ways to sell your own expressions of outrage
back to you, to cash in on the very frustration that their system
creates, they’ve got you beat. They know that no message you could
spread through their channels could be more powerful than the message
that your use of their medium itself sends: stay tuned. No awareness you
could possibly raise through television or CDs sold in shopping malls is
more important than the awareness of the power of individuals to act for
themselves. Television watching and supermarket shopping keep people
passive, watching things that they can never take part in and people
they can never meet, buying what is marketed to them by corporations
rather than making their own music, their own ideas, their own lives. To
motivate people to act for themselves, you have to contact them more
directly.
We’re taught to think of our success in terms of numbers, aren’t we? If
touching one person’s life is a good thing, then touching one thousand
people’s lives must be a great thing. It’s easy to see where we learned
to think this way: our whole society revolves around mass production.
The more units we can move, the more customers we can serve, the more
votes we can get, the more money and stuff we have, the better, right?
But maybe it’s not possible to touch a thousand people as deeply or as
powerfully as one person or ten people. And maybe it’s not really so
revolutionary after all to have one person or group telling everybody
else what’s right. Wouldn’t it be better to try a decentralized approach
where everyone works closely with those around them, instead of a few
people leading an anonymous mass? Do you, or your band, or your label
have to save the world all by yourselves? Why don’t you trust anyone
else to do it with you? (And have you noticed how much you have to stomp
all over everyone else to get that success you plan to use to spread
your message?)
One political band playing a show to nine hundred people can recite
revolutionary slogans for everyone present to stand and listen to, but
they remain out of arm’s reach of most of the people there, up on a
pedestal as “musicians,” “artists,” “heroes.” On the other hand, one
band playing an equally impassioned show to forty people, in a more
intimate setting, can interact on a personal level with everyone there,
and make it clear that everyone is capable of doing what they do. Thus
they have the potential to spark four more bands (or similar
revolutionary projects), increasing their impact exponentially. The same
goes for record labels, for writers, for speakers and artists, and of
course for “leaders” of any kind.
Most of us don’t get much pleasure out of the things we have to do to
work inside the system. We’d rather be reading books on our own than
writing assigned papers for school, rather be using our skills, energy,
and time to work on projects of our own choice than selling ourselves to
employers. But we feel like we have to work for them, whether we like it
or not. It never occurs to us how much more fun, and perhaps more
effective, it could be to take our labor out of their hands and do
something else with it. Sure it would be hard at first, but nothing
could be harder than to have to put up with this bullshit for the rest
of our lives, right? Better we dedicate ourselves to replacing it than
just dealing with it.
But, you protest, you’re still going to be fighting the status quo,
you’re going to change things from the inside, right? That’s what they
tell you, at least. Of course the system has “appropriate procedures”
for people with grievances to go through to try to make things better;
that’s the safety valve to release pressure when people get too worked
up. Do you think the powers that be would really let anyone use their
own laws and methods to depose them? If this system provided
opportunities for real change, people would have taken advantage of them
a long time ago. Countless generations have set out convinced that they
would succeed where other had failed — that’s where lawyers and
reporters come from, you know. They’re the cynical corpses of idealistic
young men and women who thought the system could be reformed.
Besides, can you trust yourself to work “within the system” for the
right reasons? We’re all programmed to want “success,” to measure
ourselves by wealth and social status, whether we like it or not. Could
it be that you want to become a journalist or professor of political
science or rock star because you can’t bring yourself to consider any
other options seriously, because you’re afraid to try cutting to the
safety line that ties you to the security of a mainstream lifestyle? And
how can you be sure that it isn’t that dark corner of your heart pushing
you to seek success, the part that loves the attention and feelings of
greatness your popularity and social standing bring? Sure it feels great
to be able to tell your parents what your goals are and have them
applaud your decisions… but is that any way to decide how to go about
changing the world? Let’s listen to our hearts, trust our instincts, and
refuse to participate in anything that bores or outrages us. We need to
nourish our idealism and our willingness to take risks, not work out new
ways to integrate our frustration and our desperation for change back
into the society that engendered them. Remember, every day we spend
“using the system” is another day longer we’ll have to wait until new
networks and better ways of life replace the old ones.
Yes, it often seems like there’s no alternative to working “within the
system” if we want to get things done and not keep our ideas quarantined
within the narrow confines of the underground. But why keep the
underground quarantined to narrow confines? Surely if we put all our
energy into expanding the spaces in which we can interact as free, equal
human beings, rather than trying to repair the burning machinery of this
doomed society, we could make at least as much of an impact. Imagine
what we could achieve if we kept all our potential in our own hands, and
refused to waste it ever again working for their system for even a
minute. There’s no excuse to let even a fraction of our lives go by
doing things we don’t love, or to let any of our talents and efforts
serve to prop up a world order we oppose. Instead, let’s fight so hard,
and live so hard, that others inside the cages of mainstream life can
see us and are inspired to join us in our complete rejection of the old
world and all its bullshit. And let’s make our communities something
greater than they are; let’s make them more open and more capable of
offering life-support, so that others really will be able to join us.
The system we live under offers only losers’ games: economic competition
instead of cooperation, popularity contests in place of community, the
struggle to measure up to social norms instead of the pursuit individual
dreams. The reason we’re working towards something better in the first
place is that everyone loses in these games — so why play them? It’s up
to us to create new games, more joyful, exciting games to replace the
old ones. Let’s not try to beat them at their games, but make them join
us in ours!