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Title: Forward! Author: CrimethInc. Date: September 11, 2000 Language: en Topics: utopian Source: Retrieved on 7th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2000/09/11/forward
People from the (rapidly splintering) “mainstream” of society in Europe
and the United States today take a peculiar pleasure in considering
themselves “normal” in comparison to legal offenders, political
radicals, and other members of social outgroups. They treat this
“normalcy” as if it is an indication of mental health and moral
righteousness, regarding the “others” with a mixture of pity and
disgust. But if we consult history, we can see that the conditions and
patterns of human life have changed so much in the past two centuries
that it is impossible to speak of any lifestyle available to human
beings today as being “normal” in the natural sense, as being a
lifestyle for which we adapted over many generations. Of the lifestyles
from which a young woman growing up in the West today can choose, none
are anything like the ones for which her ancestors were prepared by
centuries of natural selection and evolution.
It is more likely that the “normalcy” that these people hold so dear is
rather the feelings of normalcy that result from conformity to a
standard. Being surrounded by others who behave the same way, who are
conditioned to the same routines and expectations, is comforting because
it reinforces the idea that one is pursuing the right course: if a great
many people make the same decisions and live according to the same
customs, then these decisions and customs must be the right ones.
But the mere fact that a number of people live and act in a certain way
does not make it any more likely that this way of living is the one that
will bring them the most happiness. Besides, the lifestyles associated
with the American and European “mainstream” (if such a thing truly
exists) were not exactly consciously chosen as the best possible ones by
those who pursue them; rather, they came to be suddenly, as the results
of technological and cultural upheavals. Once the peoples of Europe, the
United States, and the world realize that there is nothing necessarily
“normal” about their “normal life,” they can begin to ask themselves the
first and most important question of the next century: Are there ways of
thinking, acting, and living that might be more satisfying and exciting
than the ways we think, act, and live today?
If the accumulated knowledge of Western civilization has anything of
value to offer us at this point, it is an awareness of just how much is
possible when it comes to human life. Our otherwise foolish scholars of
history and sociology and anthropology can at least show us this one
thing: that human beings have lived in a thousand different kinds of
societies, with ten thousand different tables of values, ten thousand
different relationships to each other and the world around them, ten
thousand different conceptions of self. A little traveling can still
show you the same thing, if you get there before Coca-Cola has had too
much of a head start.
That’s why I can’t help but scoff when someone refers to “human nature,”
invariably in the course of excusing himself for a miserable resignation
to our supposed fate. Don’t you realize we share a common ancestor with
sea urchins? If differing environments can make these distant cousins of
ours so very distant from us, how much more possible must small changes
in ourselves and our interactions be! If there is anything lacking (and
there sorely, sorely is, most will admit) in our lives, anything
unnecessarily tragic or meaningless in them, any corner of happiness
that we have not yet thoroughly explored, then all that is needed is for
us to alter our environments accordingly. “If you want to change the
world, you first must change yourself,” the saying goes; we have learned
that the opposite is true.
And there is another valuable discovery our species has made, albeit the
hard way: we are capable of absolutely transforming environments. The
place you lie, sit, or stand reading this was probably altogether
different a hundred years ago, not to mention two thousand years ago;
and almost all of those changes were brought about by human beings. We
have completely remade our world in the past few centuries, changing
life for almost every kind of plant and animal, ourselves most of all.
It only remains for us to experiment with executing (or, for that
matter, not executing) these changes intentionally, in accordance with
our needs and desires, rather than at the mercy of irrational, inhuman
forces like competition, superstition, routine.
Once we realize this, we can claim a new destiny for ourselves, both
individually and collectively. No longer will we be buffeted about by
powers that seem beyond our control; instead, in this exploration of
ourselves through the creation of new environments, we will learn all
that we can be. This path will take us out of the world as we know it,
far beyond the farthest horizons we can see from here. We will become
artists of the grandest kind, painting with desire as a medium,
deliberately creating and recreating ourselves—becoming, ourselves, our
own greatest work.
To accomplish this, we’ll need to learn how to coexist and collaborate
successfully: to see just how interconnected all our lives are, and
finally learn to live with that in mind. Until this becomes possible,
each of us will not only be denied the vast potential of her fellows,
but her own potential as well; for we all make together the world that
each of us must live in and be made by. The other thing that is lacking
is the knowledge of our own desires. Desire is a slippery thing, amoebic
and difficult to pin down, let alone keep up with. If we’re going to
make a destiny out of the pursuit and transformation of desire, we first
must find ways to discover and release our loves and lusts. For this,
not enough experience and adventure could ever suffice. So the makers of
this new world must be more generous and more greedy than any who have
come before: more generous with each other, and more greedy for life!
Even from here, I can taste the question already on the tip of your
tongue: isn’t this utopian?
Well, of course it is. You know what everyone’s greatest fear is? It is
that all the dreams we have, all the crazy ideas and aspirations, all
the impossible romantic longings and utopian visions can come true, that
the world can grant our wishes. People spend their lives doing
everything in their power to fend off that possibility: they beat
themselves up with every kind of insecurity, sabotage their own efforts,
undermine love affairs and cry sour grapes before the world even has a
chance to defeat them… because no weight could be heavier to bear than
the possibility that everything we want is possible. If that is true,
then there really are things at stake in this life, things to be truly
won or lost. Nothing could be more heartbreaking than to fail when such
success is actually possible, so we do everything we can to avoid trying
in the first place, to avoid having to try.
For if there is even the slightest possibility that our hearts’ desires
could be realized, then of course the only thing that makes sense is to
throw ourselves entirely into their pursuit and risk that heartbreak.
Despair and nihilism seem safer, projecting our hopelessness onto the
cosmos as an excuse for not even trying. So we remain, clutching our
resignation, as secure as corpses in coffins (“better safe and sorry”)…
but this still cannot ward off that dreadful possibility. Thus in our
hopeless flight from the real tragedy of the world, we only heap upon
ourselves false tragedy, unnecessary tragedy, as well.
Perhaps this world will never conform perfectly to our needs—people will
always die before they are ready, perfect relationships will end in
ruins, adventures will end in catastrophe and beautiful moments be
forgotten. But what breaks my heart is the way we flee from those
inevitable truths into the arms of more horrible things. It may be true
that every man is lost in a universe that is fundamentally indifferent
to him, locked forever in a terrifying solitude—but it doesn’t have to
be true that some people starve while others destroy food or leave
fertile farms untilled. It doesn’t have to be true that men and women
waste their lives away working to serve the hollow greed of a few rich
men, just to survive. It doesn’t have to be that we never dare to tell
each other what we really want, to share ourselves honestly, to use our
talents and capabilities to make life more bearable, let alone more
beautiful. That’s unnecessary tragedy, stupid tragedy, pathetic and
pointless. It’s not even utopian to demand that we put an end to farces
like these.
If we could bring ourselves to believe, to really feel, the possibility
that we are invincible and can accomplish whatever we want in this
world, it wouldn’t seem out of our reach at all to correct such
absurdities. What I am begging you to do here is not to put faith in the
impossible, but have the courage to face that terrible possibility that
our lives really are in our own hands, and to act accordingly: to not
settle for every misery fate and humanity have heaped upon us, but to
push back, to see which ones can be shaken off. Nothing could be more
tragic, and more ridiculous, than to live out a whole life in reach of
heaven without ever stretching out your arms.
— by NietzsChe Guevara