1998 by Chaz Bufe
This document is an updated, considerably expanded version of the speech,
Political Aspects of Network for a New Culture, which was delivered
by Chaz Bufe at Winter Camp on Friday, March 1, 1996
Preface
For the last quarter-century, the American left has been in disarray.
The (unfounded) optimism of the 1960s has given way to the pessimism
of the '70s, '80s and '90s. As we near the year 2000, the left simply doesn't
exist on the national level except as a myriad of single-interest groups--
pro-choice, environmental, animal rights, and gay rights groups being
the most prominent. To put it another way, since the 1960s the focus of
the left has narrowed. In the '60s there was, at least in some quarters, a
feeling (however delusional) that real, major change--a social revolution
--was possible, indeed inevitable; and many activists of the time had hope
in their hearts and revolution as their goal. In contrast, most activists
today have no hope for major change (at least any time soon), and the
single-issue battles they're fighting are almost exclusively defensive
battles, which seem very unlikely to foster broad social change. As well,
because their struggles seem, ultimately, so hopeless, single-interest
groups are plagued by burnout and membership turnover. The end
result is that corporate capitalism reigns triumphant, and what little
opposition to it that exists is weak and divided.
How did this come to pass? And what can we do about it? Answering
these questions is the purpose of this pamphlet. Because we're in such a
disorganized state, I do not consider grand schemes for the reorganization
of society; instead, I look at principles, practices, and projects that
can help the left rejuvenate itself, and that can, I believe, lead to real
social change, if widely adopted. (Those interested in blueprints for a
future social/economic order should look at the valuable works of Murray
Bookchin, Cornelius Castoriadis, Michael Albert, and Tom Greco.)
In order to bring about meaningful change, it's first necessary to
understand the society in which we live. So, I begin by looking at the
social and economic conditions that induce fear, loneliness, violence, and
economic insecurity. I then examine the conditioning processes and
agents that produce the masses of people who accept such conditions
with hardly a whimper. Those that I examine include sexual repression,
the patriarchal family, the education system, organized religion, and the
mass media.
Continuing from there, I take a brief look at the two major revolutionary
ideologies of the past century, anarchism and marxism; and I
analyze the very different reasons why both have failed. I then look at
some of the self-generated problems that have rendered the American
left so impotent. And, finally, I suggest a number of principles, procedures
and projects that, if widely adopted, could lead to a resurgence of the left
and, eventually, to social r/evolution--a juster, freer, happier world.
These suggestions are not a call to self-sacrifice. Rather, they
recognize that means determine ends, and that making oneself miserable is
not a good way to eliminate social misery. Thus, my suggestions are designed
as much to help social activists lead happier, more productive lives in the
here and now as they are to transform society in the long run.
--Chaz Bufe, March 21, 1998
A Future Worth Living
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden
We live in a world which is deeply unsatisfying for most people, a
world in which many of our most basic needs--for love, peace, freedom,
security, and meaning in life--are not being met. Most of us face
constant worry about economic survival, loneliness and isolation, or fear
of it, and a constant feeling that there's never enough of anything good
to go around, be it love, sex or money.
As well, for many--probably most--people, there's a constant fear of
violence. And for even more, there's a feeling of powerlessness. The end
result is hopelessness, apathy, and often bitterness, meanness, and, all too
often, outright sadism.
Why do these conditions exist? There's no grand conspiracy, but there
are a number of reasons for this lousy situation, and it's important to
understand what we're dealing with if we're going to change it.
Insecurity and Perceived Scarcity
The economic situation is a major reason for our present societal
difficulties. At present, most people in this country own almost nothing.
The top 1% of the population own more than the bottom 90% of the
population combined. The top 1% own 40% of the nation's wealth and
the next 9% own another 30%, which means that the top 10% own 70%
of the nation's wealth; that leaves another 30% of the wealth for the
remaining 90% of us, with most of that distributed toward the top end.
So, the bottom 50% of the population own nearly nothing--maybe a car
and, if we're lucky, a heavily mortgaged house. It's also worth noting that
there has been a distinct trend over the last 20 years or so toward a
redistribution of wealth toward the upper end of the scale. In other
words, since around the time Reagan was elected president, the rich have
been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer; and this
trend is continuing under Clinton.
At the same time--notwithstanding the recent small increases--real
wages have declined roughly 15% since the mid 1970s. The end result is
that people are having to work harder and longer to make ends meet. To
top things off, the era of job security is long gone. Instead, we live in
the era of corporate takeovers, "downsizing," and "restructuring," and in
which our job skills seemingly become obsolete every few years.
All of this leads directly to feelings of loneliness, insecurity, and
scarcity. Most of us are so preoccupied with paying the rent or mortgage
and with keeping our families fed that we have little time for social
contacts and, since we're in such a hard space, naturally assume that we
live in a world of scarcity. Another result is that because of very real
economic insecurity, artificial scarcity, and feelings of personal
powerlessness, a great many of us spend our entire lives working at jobs we
barely tolerate, if not outright hate. To put it another way, we're stuck on
the bottom rungs of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and never move up the
ladder to satisfy our creative needs and the need for self-actualization.
The Problem of Violence
Compounding the economic insecurities most of us face is the
problem of physical danger, and the fear of it. Many of the reasons for
violence can be traced to economic inequalities, but even more basic is
the common belief in violence and coercion as means to an end. This
belief is so pervasive that we're often not even aware of it. Perhaps the
most important example of this is government. Belief in the necessity of
coercion is the foundation of government. Belief in the necessity of
coercive organization, that is, government, springs from the belief that
people are incapable of voluntary cooperation, and that the only way to
get them to behave in a civilized manner is to force them to do so--at the
point of a gun if necessary. This leads to things such as extortion (that is,
taxation) and military conscription. Ultimately, it all boils down to the
belief that it's OK to push people around if you're powerful enough to
do it.
This belief is, of course, reflected in daily life. All too many of us
consider violence a means to get what we want, be it money, possessions,
or dominance. There are millions of petty criminals who use
violence--muggings, armed robberies, and carjackings--to get what they want.
And there are literally millions of other thugs who intimidate, beat and
rape those weaker than themselves--often, their wives and children--in
order to (temporarily) feel the power and dominance that they crave.
What makes this even more destructive than it is in and of itself is that
children see this type of behavior modeled by their parents and other
adults, and then imitate it when they're adults, at which point their
children see it modeled, and later imitate it, continuing the chain
through generation after generation. The end result is that we live in a
culture of violence, in which many, many people live with violence on a
day-to-day basis, and in which almost everyone stands at least some risk
of being violently assaulted.
Compounding all of this, psychologically, is the constant portrayal
(and often glamorization) of violence in the media. The end result is that
even those of us at low risk of becoming victims are often at least
unconsciously preoccupied by the possibility of it, and almost no one can
see any solution to violence except more violence, usually in institutional
form--more cops, more prisons, more sadistic sentencing, and more
barbaric prison conditions. That these things do nothing to eliminate the
roots of violence is hardly surprising.
The Role of Patriarchal Religions
What makes things even worse is that most people not only see
violence as the solution to violence, but that they think they have the
right to use violence and coercion to force other people to be "moral."
This belief comes squarely from the "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots"
of patriarchal religions such as christianity and islam, both of which have
long and bloody histories of murdering and torturing nonbelievers,
nonconformists, and heretics. So, it's no surprise that those who adhere
to such religions have no hesitation in using violence to force others to
submit, or simply use it for the sheer joy of inflicting pain. A couple of
quotes from the bible illustrate the religious submit-or-die attitude:
But these mine enemies, which would not that I should reign
over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. --Luke 19:27:
And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put
to death. --Leviticus 24:16
The ironic thing about all this is that many of the religious folk most
intent upon using violence and coercion to enforce "morality" are
themselves quite fearful of becoming victims of violence. Yet the cruel
policies they support produce violence.
A good example of this association of violence with "morality" is the
war on drugs. It's painfully obvious that drug prohibition is not only
destroying our civil liberties, but is also producing a lot of violence and
property crime because of the combination of illegality and high profit
margins; this results in turf wars by dealers, and crimes committed by
drug addicts to support the high price of their habits. All of this should
be, and is, obvious, but there is so much fear, authoritarianism and
sadism in the general population, and so little ability to analyze data,
that the war on drugs continues. And we all pay the price for it through
destruction of our liberties, sky-high taxes, and the creation of what
could well become a police state.
This, however, should be no surprise, given that another effect of
patriarchal religions is the degradation of human reason. One of the
primary messages of patriarchal religions seems to be, "You have a brain,
but don't use it. Believe, don't think." Two of the most famous
manifestations of this attitude are the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books,
which was in force for hundreds of years, and the contract that Iran's
fundamentalist government put out on Salman Rushdie's life over a
decade ago.
The following quote from Pope Gregory XVI's encyclical, Mirari Vox,
provides a good example of the religious attitude toward the human
intellect:
From the polluted fountain of indifferentism flows that absurd
and erroneous doctrine, or rather, raving, which claims and defends liberty
of conscience for everyone. From this comes, in a word, the worst
plague of all, namely, unrestrained liberty of opinion and freedom of
speech.
(This encyclical, incidentally, was written in relatively modern times, in
the mid-19th century; Gregory XVI was pope from 1831 to 1846.)
An even more direct statement deriding human intellect comes from
Martin Luther in his "Table Talk": "Reason is the greatest enemy that
faith has."
This distrust and depreciation of human intelligence has influence far
beyond the religious sphere. It results in a general inability to think
critically, in contempt for logic and reason, and in the widespread
holding of absurd beliefs that can't stand up to a moment's critical
examination. In the United States, the most christian country in the
western world, this is especially pronounced. In regard to even slightly
complex questions, most people in this country are simply incapable of
applying logical processes to observed facts in order to arrive at the most
probably correct conclusions. Worse, they don't even care that they can't
do this, and often have contempt for those who can. Many people
actually believe that their own wishful thinking and uninformed opinions
are every bit as valid as scientific theories formulated after years of
careful study and testing. (Probably the most blatant current example of this
tendency is the equation of religious dogma with scientific theory in
so-called scientific creationism, which presents biblical myths as "science.")
The end result of all this is that we have a population which is not
only frustrated, fearful and mean, but that doesn't think very well.
Put another way, our society faces a grave spiritual crisis: most people
feel so alienated, hopeless, and out of control, that they've abandoned (if
they ever pursued) intellectual honesty and the search for truth, and
instead blindly grab at any concepts and any movements, no matter how
absurd, that seem to offer an easy way out of (or even a glimmer of hope
in) what they perceive as a hopeless situation. Cults such as Heaven's
Gate and the People's Temple are only the most obvious manifestation
of this desperate longing for certainty in an uncertain world. Astrology,
fundamentalist christianity, and narcissistic, you-create-your-own-reality
belief systems are less dramatic, but equally real, manifestations of this
desperate, facts-be-damned longing for certainty. What all of these things
have in common is that while they can't stand up to a moment's critical
scrutiny, they provide easy answers. To some extent they relieve their
believers of the "burden" of being critically minded adults; and many of
them almost entirely relieve their believers of that "burden." What makes
many providers of easy answers, especially fundamentalist religions, truly
dangerous is that they not only appeal to the most intellectually craven
parts of the human psyche, but that they organize their believers into
herds intent on imposing their beliefs on others.
(Even though they may appear very dissimilar to the irrational beliefs
of those searching for certainty, other absurd common beliefs, such as
those in alien abductions and widespread satanic ritual abuse, serve a
similar function. Although many believers in alien abductions and satanic
ritual abuse cast themselves as victims, their beliefs, like those of
new-age narcissists, provide them comfort--their beliefs supply a handy excuse
for personal insecurity, neuroses, and lack of accomplishment in life.
Like other irrational beliefs, these particular beliefs provide their holders
with a means of escaping the "burden" of being responsible, critically
minded adults.)
Of course, there are other factors involved in producing current social
reality, and we'll get to them shortly. But patriarchal religions and the
degradation of human reason have played a larger role than is commonly
recognized.
Patriarchal Religions and Competition-Based Economics
At the dawn of the modern state, patriarchal religion combined with
competition-based economics to produce some truly toxic effects. Put
briefly, these effects were the degradation and sexual enslavement of
women, and the creation of the patriarchal family.
The available evidence indicates that relations between the sexes in
human societies tended to be relatively egalitarian during prehistoric
(hunting and gathering) times. But that all changed about 8,000 years
ago when human beings began to practice agriculture (large-scale food
production). That made it possible, for the first time in human history,
for people to create and to accumulate surplus goods on a relatively large
scale. There's fairly convincing evidence that almost as soon as this
happened inequalities arose (or at least greatly intensified) between the
sexes, and that a ruling elite first appeared.
There are various theories to explain this sudden inequality. The one
that makes the most sense to me is the theory that during prehistoric
times woman's primary economic role was that of gatherer. Once man
began to practice agriculture, the primary economic role of woman
disappeared, and with it the basis for her equality with man. With that,
man began to call the shots.
Since one of the functions of a ruling class is to perpetuate itself--and
because the early ruling classes consisted of royal families--female sexual
exclusivity soon became mandatory. The ruler wanted to know that his
children were, in fact, his. A similar thing happened in the lower classes
with the advent of private property. Men who accumulated even small
amounts of wealth wanted to pass it on to their heirs. So, the patriarchal
family was born.
(At this point it's probably good to mention that, largely because of
this enslavement of women, a lot of people tend to romanticize pre-historic
societies. This is a mistake. While there were undoubtedly a lot
of good aspects to prehistoric societies, there were also a lot of bad ones.
The most obvious is the early age of death. The average age of death in
prehistoric societies, according to many forensic studies, ranged from
about 25 to about 35. As well, women suffered greatly from preventable
[in modern times] health problems; due almost certainly to the lack of
safe, effective contraception, the life expectancy of women was several
years shorter than that of men in prehistoric societies.)
Regardless of the positive and negative aspects of such societies, we
know that early historic societies were rigidly hierarchical and
authoritarian, and that women in them were degraded and sexually enslaved.
Naturally, this inequality, degradation and enslavement needed justification,
and patriarchal religions arose to provide it. Judeo-christianity is a
good example. In many judeo-christian "holy" texts, women are treated
as unclean, as property, as inferior to men, and, as such, subject to rule
by men. Here are a few divinely inspired words on women:
How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be
clean that is born of a woman? --Job 25:4
These [redeemed] are they which were not defiled with women.
--Revelation 14:4
Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the
man. --1 Corinthians 11:9
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of
the church... --Ephesians 5:22
Thus, the contribution of patriarchal religion to our social situation
includes not only contempt for the human intellect, an authoritarian,
thou-shalt-not "morality," and the embracement of violence as a means
to enforce that "morality," but also (along with competition-based economics)
the subjection and degradation of women. The contributions of
patriarchal religion and competition-based economics hardly end there,
though.
Social Ramifications of the Patriarchal Family
We've seen that female sexual enslavement and the rise of monogamy
(at least for women) arose with the advent of agriculture and private
property, and that the justification for this was provided by religion. Just
as important, however, was the concurrent advent of the patriarchal
family--also sanctioned by religion.
While the form of the patriarchal family has changed over the
ages--from large extended families (of married adult brothers, ranked by age)
to isolated, nuclear families--it has retained its most important feature:
male domination and female subservience. And it has retained its role as
a bulwark in maintaining an authoritarian, hierarchical social order.
Only over the last century or so has anyone made a serious study of
the role of the patriarchal family in society. Probably its most acute
observer was Wilhelm Reich, a prominent psychologist and political
radical who fled Germany upon Hitler's rise to power. Here, in a
nutshell, is Reich's view of the function of the patriarchal family:
Its cardinal function, that for which it is mostly supported and
defended by conservative science and law, is that of serving as a factory
for authoritarian ideologies and conservative structures. It forms the
educational apparatus through which practically every individual of
our society, from the moment of drawing his first breath, must pass.
--The Sexual Revolution
Reich posited that the obedience and deference to parents inculcated
in children in the patriarchal family is transferred in their adulthood to
other authority figures--bosses, politicians, and, in a more general sense,
to the entire governmental and economic apparatus. It seems equally
likely that the social identification with the family developed in childhood
is later transferred to other social entities, such as employers and the
state. We're all familiar with workers who fiercely identify with their
employers, even when their employers are paying them lousy wages or
are causing great and obvious social harm--for example, through clear-cutting
forests or by producing land mines. We're equally familiar with
the multitudes who, especially in time of war, blindly identify themselves
with "their" governments, who ardently support suppression of dissent
and destruction of civil liberties, and whose most fervent desire seems to
be submersion in the "patriotic" herd.
As is obvious, such misguided loyalty is seldom returned in kind.
Employers usually think nothing of abandoning sick or injured employees,
and mass firings--to use the current euphemism, "downsizings"
--are simply business as usual. Most governments do little to reward their
partisans either, as the often-shabby treatment of veterans demonstrates;
and the powers ceded to government by "patriots" are often turned
against them when the "patriots" cease to serve the government's needs.
Clearly, rational thought plays equally little part in obedience/deference to
authority figures and in identification of the self with external entities.
But what replaces rational thought in modern society? Reich's answer
is that powerful, largely unconscious psychological forces are at work,
and that the source of these psychological forces lies in sexual repression.
Maurice Brinton, a modern interpreter of Reich, paints an entertaining
portrait of the repressive conditioning process:
Rigid and obsessional parents start by imposing rigid feeding
times on the newborn. They then seek to impose regular potting habits on
infants scarcely capable of maintaining the sitting posture. They are
obsessed by food, bowels, and the 'inculcating of good habits.' A little
later they will start scolding and punishing their masturbating five year
old . . . They are horrified at their discovery of sexual exhibitionism
between consenting juniors in private. Later still, they will warn their
12-year-old boys of the dire danger of 'real masturbation.' They will
watch the clock to see at what time their 15-year-old daughters get
home, or search their sons' pockets for contraceptives. For most
parents, the child-rearing years are one long anti-sexual saga.
--The Irrational in Politics
According to Reich and Brinton, most children--who originally,
innocently engaged in normal childhood sexual exploration--rebel
against this anti-sexual crusade by masturbating or engaging in other
sexual "misbehavior." They are then repeatedly punished until they
submerge their sexual feelings (or at least actions). But the submerged
feelings (and resentments) don't go away; instead, they resurface in
nonsexual forms of rebellion, which are again punished. So, sexual
feelings and rebellion--in all forms--become associated with punishment,
and thus associated with fear. To survive, children become compliant;
often, children become so afraid of their sexual feelings, and
indeed of revolt in any form, that punishment becomes no longer
necessary in producing obedience. Another form of adaptation is
overcompensation. To win parental favor, children become servile and,
especially when their families are members of anti-sexual religions,
puritanical. They identify themselves strongly with their families, with
their (subservient) place in their families, and with their families'
prudish, authoritarian belief systems.
But this adaptation is far from stable, because the children's new
behaviors and beliefs are fundamentally in conflict with their deeper,
suppressed desires for individual and sexual expression. And the longer
the suppressive adaptations continue, the greater the tension in the
individual. For this reason, sexually repressed individuals are almost always
hypersensitive to the sexual behaviors and sexual expressions of others,
because these expressions and behaviors arouse anxiety; they threaten to
arouse deeply suppressed sexual longings fundamentally at odds with
expressed beliefs. So, the sexually repressed are often noticeably rigid,
and are always at the forefront of "moral" crusades for censorship
and for suppression of individual sexual freedom.
But, in addition to producing fear of rebellion, fear of sexuality,
obedience, servility, abandonment of self, identification with external
entities, and repressive, authoritarian behavior, sexual repression has
another unfortunate effect as well: a blunting of reason and intelligence.
In Brinton's words, "it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual
thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical
faculties."
He sums up: "In brief, the goal of sexual repression is that of
producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and
who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation . . . [The
individual] has developed a whole system of reactions, repressions,
thoughts, rationalizations, which form a character structure adapted to
the authoritarian social system."
Aggravating Factors
This type of familial repression and conditioning is pervasive. It
affects nearly everyone to a greater or lesser extent. To make matters even
worse, it's reinforced by other, albeit less powerful, forms of
authoritarian conditioning in the religious, educational, and mass media
spheres. Familial repression ties in neatly with anti-sexual patriarchal
religions, whose "thou shalts," "thou shalt nots," believe-don't-question
teachings, and hierarchical, authoritarian structures reward their sexually
repressed followers with feelings of superiority over their "animalistic"
fellow humans. Members of such religions feel several rungs up on the
rest of us morally, and thus feel no compunction--indeed, they often feel
pleasure--when attempting to impose their repressive beliefs on those
they consider beneath them.
The educational system is also an important authoritarian conditioning
agent. In primary and secondary education, children are subjected
to a type of Pavlovian conditioning utilizing bells and buzzers,
interspersed with domination and submission rituals. They are quickly forced
to become aware of their "natural" place in the administrator-teacher-student
pecking order, and to accept it unquestioningly. All of this serves as a
powerful reinforcement to the sexually repressive, authoritarian conditioning
that they receive at home and at church, and it helps to prepare them for
"normal" roles in adult life.
To a great extent higher education retains the authoritarian structure
of primary and secondary education, the seeming purpose of which is to
habituate children to life in a hierarchical, authoritarian society. It is true
that some academic disciplines, especially the fine arts and sciences, often
encourage students to express themselves, to think for themselves, and
to develop questioning attitudes. (It's no accident that the leading
dissidents in the former Soviet Union were in the arts and hard sciences.)
But in most other academic disciplines, for example, business administration
and engineering, the emphasis is purely on learning utilitarian
skills useful in making money. As well, higher education retains the
hierarchical administrator-teacher-student pecking order, and there is,
if anything, an even greater emphasis on grades (that is, competition
among students) than there is in primary and secondary education. So,
despite some mitigating factors, the overall role of higher education is to
reinforce the authoritarian lessons learned in grade school and high
school.
The third important conditioning agent is the mass media. In addition
to presenting violence and coercion as acceptable, desirable, or even the
only means of solving problems (as on TV cop shows), the media
reinforces authoritarian structures in a more subtle way: it routinely
presents such structures as not only being normal, but as being
inevitable.
Even at the height of the Cold War, when power-grubbing sociopaths in
Washington and Moscow stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to turn the
Earth into a burned out cinder--and came within an eyelash of doing so
in 1962--one never found even the faintest suggestion that there was
any way to organize social life other than through coercive, hierarchical
structures controlled by power-mad politicians holding the power of life
and death over the rest of us. In part because of the media, most people
won't even consider the possibility that there are alternatives to
domination, submission, hierarchy, and coercion.
Some Failed Attempts at Change
At present, we're faced with what we've been faced with ever since the
dawn of what passes for civilization: an authoritarian, hierarchical society
in which women are oppressed, in which sexuality is repressed, in which
it's dangerous to have unorthodox ideas or to engage in unorthodox
behaviors, in which there's a gross maldistribution of wealth and income,
in which a small elite controls all of the major institutions--and in which
most people see all of this as normal.
Over the last hundred years, there have been many attempts to create
a new society through political means. Some have partially succeeded,
some have been ineffectual, and some, almost unbelievably, have made
things worse--in some cases, far worse.
Marxism & Leninism
The most important of these attempts at change has been marxism,
more specifically, leninism and its variants. While some portions of the
marxist analysis of capitalist economics are valid, the political approach
of leninism has been so hideously and obviously wrong that it merits little
discussion. Suffice it to say that the many leninist attempts to build free,
peaceful, egalitarian societies through the systematic use of coercion,
violence, and terror by small elites have not been huge successes. The
contradictions between means and ends doomed the leninist project to
failure--but not, unfortunately, before leninism doomed tens of millions to
prison, concentration camps, and death. (It's also worth noting that almost
all leninist societies have been pronouncedly sexually repressive.)
Nonleninist marxist approaches haven't been very successful either.
The most important of these, social democracy--in which "socialist"
political parties take over government through democratic
elections--has fallen far short of its followers' expectations. It's largely
delivered more of the same-old-same-old, sugar coated with a few mild
reforms.
Anarchism
The other major revolutionary ideology of the last century has been
anarchism. Many of anarchism's ideas should be fundamental to any new
culture. These include the concepts of mutual aid, noncoerciveness,
voluntary cooperation rather than competition, nonhierarchical
organization, decentralization, and individual freedom coupled with
individual responsibility. Still, anarchism has not succeeded and has,
rather, remained a marginal, misunderstood, largely ineffectual
ideology. Given the attractiveness of many anarchist concepts, why is this
so?
Neglecting the baleful influence of irresponsible, mean-spirited,
anti-organizational, and just plain crazy "anarchists" (a problem I dealt with
in Listen Anarchist!, and which Murray Bookchin has dealt with more
recently and at greater length in Social Anarchism or Lifestyle
Anarchism), the most likely explanation is that anarchism has failed
because it addressed, and for the most part continues to address, only
political and economic (that is, external)issues. It ignores the
psychological factor, and
so is, by and large, ineffective. Anarchists seem unaware that the people
they address are, for the most part, lonely, insecure, and have a scarcity
mentality which makes them afraid of each other. Anarchists appeal to
reason and ignore the fact that most people never learned to think very
well in the first place. And they ignore the fact that most people are
sexually repressed and fearful, and that as a result have poor self-images,
crave "strong leaders," and feel at home in rigid hierarchies based on
domination and submission. In short, anarchism has failed because it has
relied on education and intellectual persuasion, an approach that deals
with external social realities. As long as it continues to do so, it
will continue to fail. To put it another way, anarchism has failed because it
expects people to act as responsible, rational, self-directed adults without
giving them a means of getting from here to there. (This isn't to say that
the educational approach is useless--far from it; rather, it's to say that up
till now the educational approach has been fragmentary and is not
sufficient in itself to produce fundamental change.)
A cogent explanation of the failure of the purely rational, educational
approach to social change is contained in Michel Cattier's biography of
Wilhelm Reich, La Vie et l'Oeuvre du Docteur Wilhelm Reich:
It would be wrong to believe that working people fail to
revolt because they lack information about the mechanisms of economic
exploitation. In fact, revolutionary propaganda which seeks to explain
to the masses the social injustice and irrationality of the economic
system falls on deaf ears. Those who get up at five in the morning to
work in a factory, and have on top of it to spend two hours of every day
on underground or suburban trains, have to adapt to these conditions
by eliminating from their minds anything that might put such
conditions in question again. If they realized that they were wasting
their lives in the service of an absurd system they would either go mad
or commit suicide.
Maurice Brinton adds (in The Irrational in Politics), "They
repress anything that might disturb them and acquire a character structure
adapted to the conditions under which they must live. Hence it follows
that the idealistic tactic consisting of explaining to people that they are
oppressed is useless, as people have had to suppress the perception of
oppression in order to live with it."
Avenues to Change
Obviously, any approach that will produce fundamental social change
must address psychological realities--and not in a purely theoretical,
educational way. How is this to be done? How are we to produce a
movement that will create real change? Here are a few avenues worthy of
exploration:
First, a workable approach must take into account the individual's
sexual longings and repressions. These are at the core of the average
individual's identity and desires--and at the core of his or her
authoritarian personality structures. It's almost certain that Wilhelm Reich
was right when he said (in The Mass Psychology of Fascism) that,
"The interest of the mass individual is not political, but sexual." So,
any realistic movement toward real social change must address sexual
issues.
Second, such an approach must be both theoretical and experiential.
It must be theoretical if it's to be cohesive, and if those in it are to
understand its goals, purposes, and to maintain their motivation--that
is, to have a motivating higher vision. And it must be experiential if any
real change is to occur in the psyches of those in it, and in those of the
people they're trying to reach. Lacking such psychological change, the
old authoritarian structures will continue to reproduce themselves no
matter what the level of theoretical understanding.
Third, a successful movement for change must be self-sustaining.
Probably the most desirable way to achieve this self-sustainability is that
those in the movement derive enough benefits and support from
participating in it, and understand its purposes well enough, that they
remain motivated and active. And the experiential aspects can provide
the motivating benefits.
Fourth, in order to provide those benefits, any successful movement
will need to provide its members considerably more pleasure than pain.
One of the main reasons that the left is so dull is its emphasis on
self-sacrifice to the exclusion of pleasure, and its use of guilt as a means
of manipulation; many leftist groups are outright puritanical, and even the
most enlightened usually treat pleasure as something frivolous, as something
unworthy of attention. As a result, participation in most political
groups is about as enjoyable as a visit to the dentist. The results of this
are a high dropout rate and the continued participation of only the most
self-sacrificing members--who, of course, feel justified in demanding (or
at least expecting) similar self-sacrifice from everyone else, which
contributes to the high dropout rate, and so on.
Historically, leftist groups have never recognized that people are, by
and large, not altruistic. Instead, they're fearful, insecure and,
above all, lonely; and most join political groups as much to meet their own
social needs as they do to advance the causes of the groups. When their needs
aren't met or, worse, are ridiculed, they leave in droves. What this means
is that any successful movement for social change must pay considerable
attention to the social and emotional spheres--it should provide forums
in which its members can explore their desires and motivations, and it
should also organize many primarily social events. Of course, this approach
would be unworkable under extreme circumstances, as in Nazi-occupied Europe,
but in relatively open (and anomistic) western societies, it makes eminent
good sense.
Fifth, a workable movement for change must have clearly delineated
positive goals. One of the primary reasons for the failure of the left
in the United States is that it never put forth a positive, clearly outlined
vision of a better society; and, given the lack of a clear vision, it has done
very little to create positive alternatives. Instead, the left has concentrated
on campaigns against the various excesses of capitalism--against
the Viet Nam war; against nuclear power; against racial and
sexual discrimination;
against environmental despoliation; etc., etc., etc.
When the left has outlined positive alternatives, they've been fragmentary
and unconnected (as with the solar power and the pro-choice
movements). Worse, at times the left's vision has been so myopic that it's
promoted destructive programs (for example, so-called affirmative
action) that implicitly accept the concept of a scarcity economy and that
are seemingly designed to put the working class at war with itself.
(Affirmative action is an approach made in heaven for the ruling class.
It produces no fundamental social change. It hides the economic nature
of exploitation under a racial veneer. And it takes the price of the small
improvements it produces out of the hide of the white working
class--thus setting workers of different races at each other's throats.)
Given this lack of a holistic positive vision, it's little wonder that the
left is dispirited and disorganized. This situation will change only when we
outline a comprehensive, positive vision based on daily life, a vision that
will address the real needs and desires of the average person.
Sixth, any meaningful movement toward social change must have a
utilitarian side. It must have actual, ongoing projects not related to its
own maintenance in which members can actively participate. One of the
primary reasons that the American left has been so dead for so many
years is that leftist organizations almost invariably have been fixated upon
themselves. The primary goal of a good many--especially political parties
--has seemingly been merely to sign up new members and to "build the
organization," which largely accounts for why leftist groups and meetings
are almost always deadly dull. Other leftist groups are organized so that
a small staff does all of the real work (if any), while the inactive
"members" are looked upon merely as cash cows. Both approaches are recipes
for lifeless, do-little organizations.
Other groups, especially antinuclear groups, have sporadic projects,
come to life during the projects, and then fall apart as soon as they're
over. The Livermore Action Group (LAG) in the San Francisco Bay Area
in the 1980s is a good example. LAG had no ongoing projects, but rather
lurched from one nonviolent direct action to another (against the
Lawrence Livermore Lab--a nuclear weapons development facility).
During the time leading up to the action, LAG came alive; but as soon as
the action was over, all energy drained from the group. There are lessons
to be drawn from this.
It certainly appears that having some kind of outward-focused,
ongoing project--especially one related to the group's aims--is vital to any
political group. There are many possibilities. Projects that I'm aware of
that have helped to cement groups include bookstores, cafes, coffee
houses, bars, lecture series, meeting/lecture/dance halls, pirate radio
stations, and publishing projects. Food Not Bombs, which is organized
around delivering food to the hungry and homeless (while exposing the
reasons that there are so many hungry and homeless), is an excellent
example of a political group with a solid utilitarian side.
Seventh, and importantly, means determine ends. The methods and
organization of a movement toward real change must mirror its goals.
This means, among other things, the embracement of voluntary cooperation
and noncoerciveness; nonhierarchical organization; decentralization
(that is, local autonomy); and spontaneous leadership.
Voluntary Cooperation / Noncoerciveness
Voluntary cooperation is an important principle. At present, our most
important social institutions--government, business, and religion--are
all organized around a diametrically opposed principle: coercion. All of
these institutions rely upon coercion to achieve their ends. Government
does this directly through the threat (and often the use) of armed force.
Business relies on governmental coercion to maintain an inequitable
social system in which it can flourish; it often battens off contracts funded
by the monies that the government extorts from the public (through
taxation); and it often influences the government to give it unfair
advantages, either through subsidies or through artificial limitation of
competition. As for religion, when they've had the power to do so,
patriarchal religions such as christianity and islam have invariably used
coercion to enforce their "moral" dictates. In the West, the declining
power of the christian churches has forced them over the past 200 or 300
years to rely upon government to do their coercive dirty work. In recent
years, however, religious zealots have again taken to direct use of violence
and coercion to achieve their ends. This is most noticeable in the
activities of the so-called right to life movement, which has employed
physical harassment, arson, bombings, and murder to achieve its ends.
The end result of all of this institutionalized violence and coercion is
a seemingly endless cycle of authoritarian attempts to control others, with
attendant resistance, followed by further increases in the use of violence
and coercion by the controllers. The truly sad thing about all this is that
those who are the victims of violence and coercion often see no other way
to resist but through their own use of violence and coercion (either
directly or via the government)--and so the cycle continues, generation
after generation.
Given that means determine ends, it's essential to abandon coercion
if a peaceful, free, and nonviolent society is the goal. This means that any
movement for fundamental change cannot rely on violence and coercion
(governmental or direct) to achieve its ends. It must, instead, rely upon
persuasion, education, and psychological understanding, and must also
provide models of voluntary cooperation for others to emulate.
The ZEGG intentional community in Germany provides a good
example of the voluntary approach. One of the primary reasons that
participation in social change groups is so stultifying is that most such
groups--if they do anything other than meet--sponsor group projects in
which all members are expected to participate. The result is that members
often participate in projects in which they have little if any interest; so,
many of them become resentful and drop away from the projects and
groups. Another result is that such group projects, and the groups
sponsoring them, very often lack dynamism and end up mired in internal
power struggles and squabbling (with the different factions wanting
everyone to work on their projects). ZEGG has avoided this trap. ZEGG
largely functions as an umbrella organization in which individual and
small group projects arise. At ZEGG, individuals and small groups originate
projects, and only those who feel drawn to the projects participate
in them. This avoids the group-projects trap.
Nonhierarchical Organization and Decentralization
In addition to relying on coercion, all of our major social institutions
are also hierarchically organized. The destructive effects of such an
organizational structure are manifold. The first and most obvious is that
it results in a lot of stupid decisions, with a lot of resultant harm and
waste. The most important reason for this is that those at the top, the
decision makers, cannot have a full grasp of the facts when they make
decisions. To give an example, let's take a large corporation with 100,000
employees. Let's say that this corporation has a small research branch
employing 100 people working on one particular problem. Who will be
better informed about possible solutions to the problem--the 100
people working on it, or the 10 people on the corporation's board of
directors who receive their boiled-down information through a chain of
command? Complicating matters is the tendency of those in positions of
command to blame the messenger when bad news arrives. This
often--one is tempted to say always--results in those in subordinate
positions hiding anything negative, and thus those at the top often
receive very skewed information. It's little wonder that hierarchies are
plagued with inefficiencies and that those at the top so often make bad
decisions.
There are also harmful psychological aspects to hierarchical organization.
The most obvious are the development of abusive personalities
among bosses and festering resentments among their subordinates. Even
when bosses are relatively decent individuals, it's very difficult for real
friendship to develop between them and those below (and above) them.
In such situations, the boss always has to be sensitive to the possibility
that he'll be perceived as abusing his power, as pushing his subordinate
around, and the subordinate always lives with the fear that should he say
or do anything to displease his boss, the boss will retaliate. To put it
another way, hierarchical structure results in social insularity; it makes it
nearly impossible for those with different amounts of status and power
--that is, those on different levels of the hierarchy--to relate genuinely
to each other.
To get away from the stupid decision making, waste, lack of genuineness,
and social isolation engendered by hierarchy, nonhierarchical,
decentralized organization is necessary. In a social change group, this
implies several things: 1) that organization be kept to the minimum
necessary; 2) that all members have an equal say in decisions affecting the
group as a whole; 3) that local groups be autonomous--that is, that they
be independent groups bound only by common ideals, that they be
unbeholden to any central authority, and that the individuals in the
independent groups voluntarily cooperate on common projects, with
only those who feel called to do so taking part.
A familiar example of this type of nonhierarchical, decentralized
organization is the religious group, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which
despite its destructive social effects and its pronounced cult-like
characteristics is a model of anarchist organization. Anyone interested
in decentralized, nonhierarchical organization would do well to study AA's
organizational structure and its organizational principles. On a mass,
industrial scale, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists demonstrated the
practicality of this type of organization during the Spanish Civil War.
Those interested in this organizational model would also do well to study
the many books available on the constructive work of the Spanish
anarchists.
Spontaneous Leadership
Spontaneous leadership is also important. Rather than adopt the old
model of a fixed leadership in a hierarchy telling everyone else what to
do, social change groups would do well to adopt a new model of spontaneous
leadership in a horizontal, that is decentralized, organization.
In the '60s and '70s many leftist and feminist groups agonized over
how to eliminate leadership, equating all leadership (including temporary,
task-based leadership) with authoritarian leadership. Their fruitless efforts
confirm what the more astute anarchists have been saying for
over a century--that it's a mistake to think that any kind of group or
organization can exist without leadership; the question is, what kind of
leadership is it going to be? The old model insists that a static leadership
direct everything, regardless of the interest, motivation, or expertise of
the leaders, and that others follow the orders of these leaders, no matter
how stupid. In the new model, those who have the most expertise, the
most interest, and the most commitment provide the leadership. The key
here is that they derive their authority not through coercion, but precisely
through their interest, expertise, and commitment; as well, only
those who feel attracted to their projects will (temporarily) follow them
--and, ideally, these temporary followers will, at one time or another, be
leaders of other projects. Another key element is that, in this new model,
leadership is permeable--anyone who has sufficient motivation and
commitment will likely become part of the multifaceted, de facto, and
ever-changing leadership within a nonhierarchical organization.
To coordinate activities, nonhierarchical organizations often create
service positions, with those entrusted with the positions taking on
certain routine administrative and secretarial functions. To help ensure
that such positions do not metamorphose into power positions in a
hierarchy, nonhierarchical groups normally install the safeguards of
mandatory rotation of offices and immediate recallability. That is, any
individual can only serve a limited term and then must exit any given
position, and the group as a whole can dismiss office holders at any time
should they abuse their positions.
Sexual and Psychological Issues
Finally, any political movement that hopes to fundamentally restructure
social life must openly address sexual issues (and the psychological
issues they give rise to). Not only are such issues at the bottom of the
average person's identity and desires, but failure to address them
cripples political movements. Obviously the degree to which groups need
to address sexual and psychological matters varies with the aims of the
groups and with how tightly they're organized. But even in the loosest
groups with the most limited aims, it's harmful to ignore sexual and
emotional issues when they arise, because when ignored these matters
can create a tense, poisonous atmosphere. In tightly knit groups with
ambitious aims, such as intentional communities, it's a dreadful mistake
not to address sexual issues and the personal tensions they give rise to.
The ZEGG political project/intentional community in Germany
provides a good example of a tightly knit group that successfully
addresses sexual and psychological questions.
Perhaps the primary reason that ZEGG has succeeded to the extent
that it has is that, almost uniquely among such projects and communities,
ZEGG has treated sexual matters openly--making them "transparent."
Individual freedom and individual choice are honored at ZEGG, but
when potentially disruptive sexual issues and tensions arise (for example,
jealousy), these matters are openly, and sometimes publicly, addressed,
and the individuals involved are helped, if they so desire, to work
through their emotions.
In virtually all other political groups and intentional communities,
sexual questions are ignored, or even considered a "distraction" from the
"serious" purposes of the group or community. (This is a telling indication
of the puritanical, anti-pleasure bias of all too many leftist groups
and intentional communities.) Because sexual issues will inevitably arise
in any human project, failure to deal with them ensures that when sexual
tensions arise they'll leak out in all sorts of destructive, often indirect
ways. One would hope that other social change groups will learn this
lesson quickly, will begin to recognize the importance of sexual issues
(and the psychological issues they give rise to), and will begin to address
them openly.
Realistic Tactics
Any successful movement toward real change will provide models to
be emulated, based on the above-listed principles. If this decentralized,
noncoercive approach is to succeed, clearly the only way it will succeed
is if it's voluntarily adopted by people the world over. You can't achieve
a noncoercive society through the use of coercion. Thus, one of the tasks
of any movement toward real change is to provide models attractive
enough that others will want to adopt them.
There are several advantages to this approach. First, it actually has a
good chance of succeeding--eventually. Second, it should help those
taking part in it lead happier, more meaningful lives while the process of
change occurs. And third, such a movement stands less chance of being
attacked by the government than more overt political movements dedicated
solely to making external changes through political means. The
reason for this is that even though old-style political-change movements
are not a real threat to the hierarchical, authoritarian structure of society,
the government often perceives them as such.
So, the government attacks them with all the means at its disposal,
including disinformation campaigns, frameups, infiltration, agents
provocateur, and, occasionally, outright murder. A few famous instances that
come to mind are the Haymarket frameup, the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
COINTELPRO during the Viet Nam War, and the hundreds of FBI
burglaries of CISPES offices during the 1980s. Thus, direct attempts to
impose external political change not only don't produce fundamental
structural change, but they can be dangerous to participate in. This
makes a noncoercive, evolutionary approach all the more attractive.
Abandoning old-fashioned political movements that cannot produce
fundamental change is no sign of cowardice. (One could just as easily
argue that avoiding pointless physical danger, as in skydiving or
mountain climbing, is "cowardice.") Rather, it's realism. It's recognizing
that one has limited time and resources, and that investing them in
confrontational campaigns (no matter how real the evils confronted)
diverts one from the fundamental task of building better alternatives to
the present social structure.
Practical Approaches
There is no one single way to change society. But, fortunately, there
are many different, mutually reinforcing approaches, all incorporating
the concepts of noncoerciveness, voluntary cooperation, nonhierarchical
organization, decentralization, and spontaneous leadership, and all
recognizing the psychological realities that make authoritarian, coercive
"solutions" so attractive to so many people. Among the many possibilities
are free schools aimed at educating children in noncoercive, nonhierarchical
environments; educational efforts in the print and electronic
media advocating anarchist concepts and, importantly, exposing the
psychosexual roots of authoritarian attitudes and conditioning; theater,
musical and artistic projects with the same aims; workplace
(anarcho-syndicalist) groups with the aim of restructuring work life along
nonhierarchical, decentralized lines; and model intentional communities
aimed at putting all of these values into practice in daily life--at helping
their members overcome their own authoritarian conditioning, at
dealing openly with sexual issues, and at serving as launching pads for
other projects aimed at social liberation.
Positive Models
At present, projects--albeit small ones--exist in the United States
pursuing the first four of these five approaches (and others as well), but
at present there is no project pursuing the fifth approach. One recent
attempt to organize model communities called Network for a New
Culture is all but dead for a number of reasons: 1) excessive emphasis on
sexual liberation and intentional community in outreach materials; 2)
incorporation of new-agey, "feminist" elements (basically sociobiology
from a female-superior viewpoint) borrowed from Germany's ZEGG
experiment; and 3) insufficient emphasis on the social, psychological and
political goals of the project. The end result was that Network for a New
Culture attracted very few people with social/political understanding and
commitment. Instead, it attracted a large number of individuals (mostly
men, of course) interested primarily, if not exclusively, in sex; a large
number of new age types; and a large number of individuals attracted to
intentional community for no other reason than that they saw it as an
easy means of meeting their economic, social, and intimacy needs. It's
small wonder that such people contributed little to the project, and that
most of those doing the real work necessary to maintaining the Network
burned out. Probably the best thing to be said for Network for a New
Culture is that it provided a number of object lessons in what
not to do.
The situation in Europe is somewhat better. There, the ZEGG experiment
is made up largely of individuals with political understanding
and political backgrounds (many from the student, feminist, and anti-nuclear
movements). It's apparently prospering and spawning offshoots,
despite its being burdened with a "feminist" sociobiological ideology
(that posits that attitudes and traits such as cooperativeness,
noncompetitiveness and nurturance are inherently female, and that
women, therefore, must lead the way for men),
(1) a disturbing reverence
for the project's founder (which, to his credit, he does not encourage),
and a generally uncritical acceptance of the sometimes exotic,
unsupported concepts of the group's leaders.
While there's a need for model communities presenting a positive
alternative to authoritarian, sexually repressed, hierarchical society, none
exist in the United States at present. The relatively few nonhierarchical
communities that do exist are all small, and they mostly ignore the
psychological and sexual questions at the root of authoritarian conditioning
and personality structures. So their effectiveness is severely
limited, and the need for positive alternatives still exists.
The essential elements of such positive alternatives would be a
minimum of organization, a minimum of rules, direct democracy,
noncoerciveness, voluntary cooperation, self-exploration, individual
development, and a willingness to face sexual and psychological issues.
The purpose of such communities would be not only to provide a supportive
atmosphere in which members could discover who they are and what they want,
but to serve as models for a new society.
The nearest thing that we have to such a community at present is the
ZEGG experiment in Germany. While it's far from perfect (see above
comments), ZEGG is an exciting place, filled with idealistic, mutually
supportive people pursuing their passions, and which incorporates amny
of the healthy, anti-authoritarian elements outlined above. One can only
hope that a similar experiment comes into being sometime soon in the
North America.(2)
There's a clear need for one. It would be tremendously useful to have
even a small-scale model that would demonstrate--at least to the extent
possible given our larger social context--life in a free society. It's one
thing to read descriptions of free societies; it's entirely something else
to visit even a very imperfect model of such a society, as I did in Germany
two years ago. I found that experience more motivating than all of the
anarchist theoretical texts I've ever read. It's a very good bet that others
would find a similar model here equally motivating.
Many Roads, One Destination
There are many valid approaches to a free society--though I believe
that any successful approach will incorporate the principles outlined
above--and different approaches will appeal to different people. By
following our individual inclinations, while adopting common principles,
we can help to realize our common purpose--a free society.
In the end, the goal of our various projects must be to produce large
numbers of self-directed, conscious, determined people who know what
they want and will work to make it reality. When that happens, real
change will occur in all areas of society. Authoritarian society cannot
meet fundamental human needs (for meaning, love, peace, and freedom), and
it's our task to help our fellow human beings to understand that, and to
offer them positive alternatives.
1. At present, it's far from certain to what extent
typically "male" and typically "female" traits are the result of biology, and
to what extent they're the result of social conditioning. Even in areas where
there do seem to be biological differences, as with males, on average, having
better spatial perception than females, the average differences between
individuals are not great. When one graphs such biological differences, one
normally sees two bell curves (one for males, one for females) that almost
entirely overlap, with major differences showing up only on the extreme high
and low ends and involving relatively few individuals. Because of this
overlap, it's nonsensical to argue, for in stance, that women as a category
should not became airline pilots because of their "lesser" spatial-perception
abilities. It's equally nonsensical to argue that women must "lead the way"
for men because of men's "lesser" ability to cooperate. It makes far more
sense to simply insist upon, and to model, such forms and values as
cooperation, noncompetitiveness, nurturance, and nonhierarchical organization
in both sexes.
2. I'd like to hear from others with a desire to
create such an experiment here in North America. Please contact me by
e-mail or at the following
address:
See Sharp Press
P.O. Box 1731
Tucson, AZ 85702
Phone: (520) 628-8720
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