I spend part of each morning and evening assembling essays for online publication. This means I see not only what arrives directly in my email but also more online around the world. I should perhaps say, it often feels masochistic, and I am no masochist.
Finding material gives me an anecdotal vantage point on the ebb and flow of progressive, radical, and revolutionary focus. Sadly, with each passing year, I find it harder to endure what this vantage point reveals.
Of course revelations vile injustice and pain are hard to bear, but that is not my topic here. Rather, what is increasingly battering my equilibrium is seeing what we write about. It is some things, but not other things.
Don’t get me wrong. No individual is at fault. We collectively generate essays, each one good and warranted. The problem is the collective redundancy. If most energies go to x, it means y and z aren’t heavily addressed. If y and z need more attention, but x gets it all, we have a problem.
We seek people controlling their own lives, enjoying equitable circumstances, and living in a welcoming natural and social environment. Mutual aid, equity, self management, and sustainability. We know that to win all this will require huge involvement byĀ informed, committed, and active people.
If you reject that claim, you may as well stop reading now. The rest of what I offer won’t make sense. However, if you agree with the claim, please continue.
Clearly, most people are not currently informed, committed, and sustainably and massively clamoring for social change. Here are three reasons why.
1. People don’t accept that current society is horrible. Trying to replace current society rather than enjoy itĀ makes no sense to them. Why reject a great system?
2. People agree that current society oppresses but believe we have no alternative beyond trying to make do. Seeking change is futile because there is nothing better to change to. Why reject a least bad system?
3. People agree that society oppresses but believe you can’t win against its defenders. Trying to replace current society is a flea trying to out weigh an elephant. Why fight a losing battle?
To address reason 1, I think we can all agree it makes senses to explain what is wrong with current society. This is x, earlier, where I said we do tons of x. We now repeatedly show what is wrong, why it is wrong, and how it is wrong.
To address reason 2, I think we can agree it would make sense to describe what a new society could look like, why it would be possible, and why it would be desirable. This is y, earlier, where I said we do little y. Showing what a better society could look like, and its benefits, barely gets addressed at all, now.
To address reason 3, I think we can all agree it would make sense to describe the kinds of activities that we can plausibly connect into possible and viable program and strategy by which a new society could be attained. This is z, earlier, where I said we do little z. Showing a programmatic plan by which a new society might be attained and motivating its components barely gets addressed at all, now.
What I see while finding material is too much material addressing 1, not enough material addressing 2 and 3. More, this ratio is not imposed by coercion from the state, or from any other outside force. It arises from choices by those on the left.
Any individual who desires a new world can personally choose to do more vision and strategy and less cataloging crime, of course, but I think we have a more collective issue to address. Why do our cumulative efforts collectively harp so overwhelmingly on repeating why and how things are bad and give so little attention to what we should desire and how we should achieve it?
- Is it that we really do think reason 1 for there being a relative lack of mass involvement is the only important reason, so of course we focus on only that?
- Is it that we do what we have done. We do what we are learned about and know we can do well?
- Is it we don’t want to say things that may prove wrong so we stick to what we are totally sure about instead of trying to become informed and adept about what is needed?
- Or is it , at bottom, that we don’t address what we want or how to get it, because, well, we just don’t have a fighting and optimistic mindset, aimed at winning, but more like a tread water mindset, aimed at not losing more?
Whatever combination of factors are at work, the situation needs to change. Without vision and strategy, not just aboutĀ tomorrowĀ or the next few months, but extending into a fundamentally better future, cataloging ills begins to feel like whining. Without addressing vision and strategy, two bedrock reasons for left weakness persist and, as well, fundamental change isn’t even sought, and so certainly fundamental change won’t be won.
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7 Comments
Americans no longer engage in life-mattering things. We have morphed into a subdued and unresponsive society, living vicariously through our cell phones, computer programs, WIFI and zombified television. We are monitored, spied upon, dumbed down, subliminally messaged, drugged, poisoned and lied to. Diversity has become a life-threatening word. We have lost hands-on tangibility, shopping online and never “fingering the cloth” before we buy it. We become more and more satisfied to settle for subpar, uncreative mass production which reflects our quality quantity of life and what we are willing to do, in other words, our comfort zone in the new normal. If it isn’t convenient, we are too lazy to find it. We text in cryptic language bites instead of having real face-to-face conversation, discussion or debate. We live second-handedly, removed, insulated, believing we are actually alive, accepting what we are told, defying nothing. And the next generation is becoming even more “remote” while the beast, just below the surface, is growing stronger every day. Something should matter. If it does, we are labeled “terrorists.” So, really, we don’t much give a damn. Too bad. We should.
The only way change is going to occur is when people’s lives are on the line like they were in this country when there was a draft. When draft-aged kids are FORCED into dying/killing for their country in a losing/un-winnable war, they (and many of their parents) respond to the threat of futile death with increasing resistance (as in the western Ukraine currently.) It is self-preservation.
Tom Engelhardt lays it out rather succinctly in his recent article; ‘Demobilized in the USA: Why There Is No Massive Antiwar Movement’
“…What’s missing is any sense of connection to the government, any sense that it’s “ours” or that we the people matter. In its place — and you can thank successive administrations for this — is the deepest sort of pessimism and cynicism about a national security state and war-making machine beyond our control. And why protest what you can’t change? “
BTW, here’s ‘Why are you telling me?’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFFCaKtDzuA
It seems to me that there are three necessary ingredients to significant social change. The first is the collapse of the means of livelihood for a significant percentage of the population. The second is a small nucleus of activists who are clear about a new course that will not restore the old order, but use the opportunity to guide the desperate unemployed to a new way of relating and working in a self regulating way. The third is a state government that, though it may not be itself inclined towards radical change, is nevertheless, so desperate to get any kind of economy moving again they will permit any solution that works, even if it offends their sense of the proper order in which the elite continue to rule.
It seems to me this was the case prior to the successful worker takeover of bankrupt businesses after the Argentinian economic crisis, in Rojava, the Zapatistas, perhaps In Greece with Syriza in the near future, Bottom up is the driver but a measure of top down is necessary as a catalyst.
Its significant to me that in the Argentinian case the workers keep their different jobs with different skills and levels of responsibility but award themselves all exactly equal pay. This is a simpler idea to administer than the Parecon notion of rewards proportional to degree of effort and sacrifice, because the question always arises, how do you measure these?
Michael, I feel your pain. Part of my own existential malaise comes from spending too much time on the internet, trying to understand what is going on and finding some encouragement on how best to continue resisting. One reason, I no longer have much interest in Marxism and other political critiques is both a feeling of dĆ©jĆ vu ā been there, done that ā and desire to move beyond obstructive politics to more constructive programs. One of the reasons the left is so weak is that too few have learned from Gandhi, that effective political action must be based on a strong constructive program. A lesson well illustrated by the Zapatistas and in Rojava. People who are building a non-hierarchical society under the worst of conditions are the best antidote to too much negative critique and whining (especially by relatively privileged Western writers and activists). Part of the tension that you sense between 1, 2 and 3 is between obstructive political and constructive cultural programs.
That is also why I feel it is important to move beyond the 20th Century political ideologies like capitalism, socialism, Marxism, anarchism, fascism, representative democracy etc. to embrace new non-ideological frameworks for viewing the organization of human society. Frameworks like horizontalism and participatory economics and democracy. I also believe that real transformational change is driven primarily by culture ā the way we make a living ā and not politics. It is from that perspective, that I also see the home, workplace and local community, the extended micro-economy, as the crucial engine for change. Along with the political ideologies, I reject most of the last 200 years of political economy which posits the macro-economy as the primary determinant of social change.
For me the obvious remedy to existential malaise is to take action (and thereby spend a lot less time on the internet). But again, I look to the micro-actions, the everyday relationships with family, friends and co-workers rather than the necessity of macro-actions, building and participating in large social movements. While social movements are very important to change, they are ultimately rooted in individual relationships. We build movements by changing the way we relate to each other in making our collective livings. That is why prefigurative politics are so important to social movement building. Iāve always tried to follow the organic model, which holds that the strength and resiliency of an ecosystem is its diversity. In that regard, I very much believe in the Zapatista notion of āone world, where many societies fit.ā Only, itās not just many societies, but diversity of individual actions and approaches to change. One world where many forms of resistance and rebuilding fit.
I agree totally and have for a while. It is one of the reasons I read far less on Z than I used to because of the redundancy. Most on the left, and others, I have found don’t actually like the idea of vision beyond a vague notion, or are more excited when practical examples break out here and there, like in Rojava at the moment. Models like Parecon annoy or scare people, I think, because it kind of locks them in to on going advocacy, which they don’t want. Or, some may be in favour of it but mention it very very rarely out of a kind of fear of being labelled and having to fend off criticism. Or in the name of diversity redefined as some sort of all inclusiveness one should talk about or embrace everything that’s out there, so no-one really ever collapses the wave function and makes a decision so nothing really gets discussed or looked at seriously, for any length do time. It seems most like the idea of vision arising out of practical application, like Gar Alperovtiz (who, along with Dave Harvey, seems to think now is the time to come up with serious vision – with a degree of participatory planning – without or at least very rarely mentioning the fact that models , like Parecon, or others like Inclusive Democracy (not as coherent to me as Parecon), already exist. Or the future just arises out of a kind of “lifestyle”, local, community organising/activism under this notion of all inclusiveness, which some of the time doesn’t appear to be as all inclusive as it makes out it is. Hence much of the concept of vision remains embedded in the practical implications of projects in the here and now, so vision (like Parecon as a coherent economic alternative to both capitalism and centrally planned economies, with clear institutional structure that could be discussed regularly and debated, massaged, tweeked, experimented with, compared or contrasted with other more embryonic ideas like a peer to peer economy, various community economics, Inclusive Democracy, The Simpler Way etc. and would make for interesting reading and dialogue – which some like Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel and some others promote regularly), isn’t really needed!
Hear, hear! This is exactly what I’ve been telling my fellow activists needs to change urgently. The self-defeating quality of argument, critique and policy of the more politically involved (e.g. parties) does nothing to recruit new supporters but instead affirms the isolation and “whining” of those already convinced… A strategy of transition is what we should all be thinking about!
To add to your list:
The notion of “controlling your own life” ought to be both a vision and a strategy. For example, take CODE PINK and groups with similar agendas: while I support their work (and this is a friendly critique) and admire Medea’s (and leaders like her) constancy, such groups, which are emblematic of the left, leave in place institutional arrangements and hierarchies generally. Financially and intellectually secure people call attention to and advocate for those victimized, oppressed, and less fortunate. Such activism, to me, feels like religion or charity with an overlay of grad school analysis. Work, community, and family situations are not being transformed. Hence, I’m the need for PARECON or similarly new senses of self, ways of living, that can be won – ie, felt, touched, and tasted – in our lifetime. Change may follow contradiction, but I’m more inclined to believe that change also follows from situations in which one/many come to know and feel the alternative.