Category: Αγγλικά / English

DOES WORK LIBERATE?

 Work penetrates and determines our whole existence. Time flows merciless at her rhythm as we commute through identical depressive surroundings at an ever increasing pace. Working time…productive time…free time…Every single one of our activities falls within her context: acquiring knowledge is considered an investment for a future career, joy is transformed into entertainment and delves into an orgy of consumption, our creativity is crushed within the narrow limits of productivity, our relationships -even our erotic encounters- speak the language of performance and usability… Our perversion has reached such a point that we search for any form of work, even voluntary, in order to fill our existential void, in order to “do something”.

We exist to work, we work to exist.

The identification of work with human activity and creativity and the complete domination of the doctrine of work as the natural destiny of humans have penetrated our consciousness to such a depth that the refusal of this enforced condition, of this social coercion, seems as sacrilege towards the very concept of humanity.

So any job is better than not having a job. This is the message spread by the evangelists of the existent, sounding the kick-off for the ever more frantic competition between the exploited for some scraps from the bosses’ table; for the instrumentalization and complete leveling of social relationships in exchange for some miserable job in the galleys of survival.

It is not, however, only the terms and conditions of work which create a dead-end. It is work as a totality, as a process of commercialization of human activity that reduces humans into living components of a machine consuming images and products. It is work as a universal condition under which relationships and consciousness are formed, as the backbone maintaining and reproducing this society based on hierarchy, exploitation and oppression. And as such, work must be destroyed.

So we don’t merely become more content slaves or better managers of misery. So that we can re-signify the aim and essence of human activity and creativity by acting together and driven by the search for the joy of live through knowledge, awareness, discovery, camaraderie, solidarity. For individual and collective liberation…

 LET’S LIBERATE OURSELVES FROM WORK

Athens-Thessaloniki Solidarity Collaboration

(text from solidarity poster with comrade Rami Sirianos)

To tell the truth, I don’t quite understand what is meant today when
people speak of “illegalism”. I thought this word was no longer in use,
that it could not slip out of the history books of the anarchist movement
any more, shut up forever with the equally ancient “propaganda of the
deed”. When I have heard it talked about again in recent times in such
shamelessly critical tones, I haven’t been able to hold back a sensation
of astonishment. I begin to find this mania for dusting off old arguments
in order to avoid dealing with new discussions intolerable, but there is
so much of this.

One thing, however, seems clear to me. The illegalism that is spoken
of (badly) today is not the concept that was debated with so much heartfelt
animation by the anarchist movement at the beginning of the 20th
century. At that time this term was used to indicate all those practices
prohibited by law that were useful for resolving the economic problems
of comrades: robbery, theft, smuggling, counterfeiting money and so on.
It seems to me that today some anarchists, lacking anything concrete
to discuss, are tending much too easily to claim that illegalism means
a refined glorification for its own sake of every behavior forbidden by
law, not only of those dictated by the requirements of survival. In short,
illegalism would become a kind of theoretical framework for erecting
illegality as a system, a life value.

Some people push it even further, to the point of censuring a no better
defined “illegalism at all costs”, yearning for comrades who would violate
the law even when they could do otherwise simply to savor the thrill of
the forbidden or perhaps in order to satisfy some ideological dogma. But
I ask, where have these comrades run across this illegalism at all costs,
who has spoken of it? Who would be such a fool as to challenge the
severity of the law when she could do otherwise? Obviously, nobody.

But there is probably another point on which it would be useful to
reflect. Can an anarchist avoid challenging the law? Certainly in many
circumstances this is possible. For example, at the moment I am writing
for a paper that is published legally; does this perhaps make me a legalist
anarchist? On the other hand, if I were to go this evening to put up
clandestine flyers, would this make me an illegalist anarchist? But then,
what would ever distinguish these two categories of anarchists?

The question of the relationship between an anarchist and the law cannot
be settled in such a hasty and misleading way. As I see it, the actions
of an anarchist cannot be conditioned by the law in either the positive
or the negative. I mean that it cannot be either the reverential respect
for the guiding standards of the time or the pleasure of transgression as
an end in itself that drives her, but rather his ideas and dreams united
to her individual inclinations. In other words, an anarchist can only be
an alegalist, an individual who proposes to do what most pleases him
beyond the law, without basing herself on what the penal code allows
or forbids.

Of course, the law exists and one cannot pretend not to see it. I
am quite aware that there is always a bludgeon ready to attend to our
desires along the way toward their realization, but this threat should
not influence our decision about the means to use to realize that which
is dearest to our hearts. If I consider it important to publish a paper
— a thing that is considered legal — I can easily attempt to follow the
provisions of the law about the press in order to avoid useless annoyance,
since this does not change the contents of what I intend to communicate
at all.

But, on the other hand, if I consider it important to carry an action
considered illegal — like the attack against the structures and people
of power — I will not change my mind simply because someone waves
the red flag of the risks I will face before my eyes. If I acted otherwise,
the penal code would be advising me about what my conduct should be,
greatly limiting my possibilities to act and thus to express myself.
But if it is an absurdity to describe an anarchist as “illegalist”, it would
be ridiculous to attribute the quality of “legalist” to her. How could an
anarchist, an individual who desires a world without authority, expect
to be able to realize his dream without ever breaking the law, which
is the most immediate expression of authority, that is to say, without
transgressing those norms that have been deliberately established and
written in order to defend the social order? Anyone who intends to
radically transform this world would necessarily have to place herself
sooner or later against the law that aims to conserve it.

Unless. . .Unless the desire to change that world that still smolders in
the hearts of these anarchists is in some way subordinated to the worries
about the risks they might face, about being persecuted by the police,
about being brought under investigation, about losing the appreciation
of friends and relations. Unless the absolute freedom that means so much
to anarchists is considered a great and beautiful thing, but mainly in the
realm of theory — manifesting itself in the inoffensive banter exchanged
fork the armchairs after a suffocating day of work — because from the
practical point of view the strength of domination offers no hope. Then
it is advisable to make utopia into something concrete, with its feet upon
the ground, uniting it with good sense, because revolution could never
be considered legal under any penal code.

Enough of dreaming the impossible; let’s try to obtain the tolerable.
Here it is, the invective against the myth of illegalism coming from
certain anarchists takes on a precise meaning, that of justifying their selfinterested
predisposition to conform to the dictates of the law, setting
aside every foolish, immoderate aspiration.
In the name of realism, of course.

(from the pamphlet “Articles from Cananero” published by The Anarchist Library)

Opinion is a vast merchandise that everyone possesses and uses. Its
production involves a large portion of the economy, and its consumption
takes up much of people’s time. Its main characteristic is clarity.

We hasten to point out that there is no such thing as an unclear opinion.
Everything is either yes or no. Different levels of thought or doubt,
contradiction and painful confessions of uncertainty are foreign to it.
Hence the great strength that opinion gives to those who use it and
consume it in making decisions or impose it on the decisions of others.

In a world that is moving at high speed toward positive/negative binary
logic, from red button to black, this reduction is an important factor in
the development of civil cohabitation itself. What would become of our
future if we were to continue to support ourselves on the unresolved
cruelty of doubt? How could we be used? How could we produce?

Clarity emerges when the possibility of real choice is reduced. Only
those with clear ideas know what to do. But ideas are never clear, so
there are those on the scene who clarify them for us, by supplying simple
comprehensible instruments: not arguments but quizzes, not studies but
alternative binaries. Simply day and night, no sunset or dawn. Thus they
solicit us to pronounce ourselves in favor of this or that. They do not
show us the various facets of the problem, merely a highly simplified
construction. It is a simple affair to pronounce ourselves in favor of a
yes or no, but this simplicity hides complexity instead of attempting to
understand and explain it. No complexity, correctly comprehended, can
in fact be explained except by referring to other complexities. There is
no such thing as a solution to be encountered. Joys of the intellect and
of the heart are cancelled by binary propositions, and are replaced with
the utility of “correct” decisions.

But no one is stupid enough to believe that the world rests on two
logical positive and negative binaries. Surely there is a place for understanding,
a place where ideas again take over and knowledge regains
lost ground. Therefore, the desire arises to delegate this all to others who
seem to hold the answers to the elaboration of complexity because they
suggest simple solutions to us. They portray this elaboration as something
that has taken place elsewhere and therefore represent themselves
as witnesses and depositories of science.

So the circle closes. The simplifiers present themselves as those who
guarantee the validity of the opinions asked, and their continual correct
production in binary form. They seem to be wary of the fact that once
opinion — this manipulation of clarity — has destroyed all capacity to
understand the intricate tissue that underlies it, the complex unfoldings
of the problems of conscience, the fevered activity of symbols and meanings,
references and institutions, it destroys the connective tissues of
differences. It annihilates them in the binary universe of codification
where reality only seems to have two possible solutions, the light on or
the light off. The model sums up reality, cancels the nuances of the latter
and displays it in pre-wrapped formulas ready for consumption. Life
projects no longer exist. Instead symbols take the place of desires and
duplicate dreams, making them dreams twice over.

The unlimited amount of information potentially available to us does
not allow us to go beyond the sphere of opinion. Just as most of the
goods in a market where every possible, useless variety of the same
product does not mean wealth and abundance but merely mercantile
waste, an increase in information does not produce a qualitative growth
in opinion. It does not produce any real capacity to decide what is true
or false, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. It merely reduces one of these
aspects to a systematic representation of a dominant model.
In reality, there is no good on the one side or bad on the other. Rather
there is a whole range of conditions, cases, situations, theories and practices
which only a capacity to understand can grasp, a capacity to use the
intellect with the necessary presence of sensibility and intuition. Culture
is not a mass of information, but a living and often contradictory system,
through which we gain knowledge of the world and ourselves. This is a
process which is at times painful and hardly ever satisfying, with which
we realize the relationships which constitute our life and our capacity
to live.

By canceling out all of these nuances, we again find ourselves with a
statistical curve in our hands, an illusory course of events produced by a
mathematical model, not a fractured and overwhelming reality,
Opinion provides us with certainty on the one hand, but on the other
it impoverishes us and deprives us of the capacity to struggle, because we
end up convinced that the world is simpler than it is. This is totally in the
interest of those who control us. A mass of satisfied subjects convinced
that science is on their side, that is what they need in order to realize
the projects of domination in the future.

(from the pamphlet “Articles from Cananero” published by The Anarchist Library)

In my travels over the past several months, I have talked with many anarchists who conceive of anarchy as a moral principle. Some go so far as to speak of anarchy as though it were a deity to whom they had given themselves–reinforcing my feeling that those who really want to experience anarchy may need to divorce themselves from anarchism.

The most frequent of the moral conceptions of anarchy I heard defined anarchy as a principled refusal to use force to impose one’s will on others. This conception has implications which I cannot accept. It implies that domination is mainly a matter of personal moral decisions rather than of social roles and relationships, that all of us are equally in a position to exercise domination and that we need to exercise self-discipline to prevent ourselves from doing so. If domination is a matter of social roles and social relationships, this moral principle is utterly absurd, being nothing more than a way of separating the politically correct (the elect) from the politically incorrect (the damned). This definition of anarchy places anarchic rebels in a position of even greater weakness in an already lopsided struggle against authority. All forms of violence against people or property, general strikes, theft and even such tame activities as civil disobedience constitute a use of force to impose one’s will. To refuse to use force to impose one’s will is to become totally passive–to become a slave. This conception of anarchy makes it a rule to control our lives, and that is an oxymoron.

The attempt to make a moral principle of anarchy distorts its real significance. Anarchy describes a particular type of situation, one in which either authority does not exist or its power to control is negated. Such a situation guarantees nothing–not even the continued existence of that situation, but it does open up the possibility for each of us to start creating our lives for ourselves in terms of our own desires and passions rather than in terms of social roles and the demands of social order. Anarchy is not the goal of revolution; it is the situation which makes the only type of revolution that interests me possible –an uprising of individuals to create their lives for themselves and destroy what stands in their way. It is a situation free of any moral implications, presenting to each of us the amoral challenge to live our lives without constraints.

Since the anarchic situation is amoral, the idea of an anarchist morality is highly suspect. Morality is a system of principles defining what constitutes right and wrong behavior. It implies some absolute outside of individuals by which they are to define themselves, a commonality of all people that makes certain principles applicable to everyone.

I don’t wish to deal with the concept of the “commonality of all people” in this article: My present point is that whatever morality is based upon, it always stands outside of and above the living individual. Whether the basis or morality is god, patriotism, common humanity, production needs, natural law, “the Earth,” anarchy, or even “the individual” as a principle, it is always an abstract ideal that rules over US” Morality is a form of authority and will be undermined by an anarchic situation as much as any other authority if that situation is to last.

Morality and judgment go hand in hand. Criticism–even harsh, cruel criticism–is essential to honing our rebellious analysis and practice, but judgment needs to be utterly eradicated. Judgment categorizes people as guilty or not guilty–and guilt is one of the most powerful weapons of repression. When we judge and condemn ourselves or anyone else, we are suppressing rebellion–that is the purpose of guilt. (This does not mean that we “shouldn’t” hate, or wish to kill anyone–it would be absurd to create an “amoral” morality, but our hatred needs to be recognized as a personal passion and not defined in moral terms.) Radical critique grows from the real experiences, activities, passions and desires of individuals and aims at liberating rebelliousness. Judgment springs from principles and ideals that stand above us; it aims at enslaving us to those ideals. Where anarchic situations have arisen, judgment has often temporarily disappeared, freeing people of guilt– as in certain riots where people of all sorts looted together in a spirit of joy in spite of having been taught all of their lives to respect property. Morality requires guilt; freedom requires the elimination of guilt.

A dadaist once said, “Being governed by morals… has made it impossible for us to be anything other than passive toward the policeman; this is the source of our slavery.” Certainly, morality is a source of passivity. I have heard of several situations in which fairly large-scale anarchic situations started to develop and have experienced minor ones, but in each of these situations, the energy dissipated and most participants returned to the non-lives they’d lived before the uprisings. These events show that, in spite of the extent to which social control permeates all of our waking (and much of our sleeping) lives, we can break out. But the cops in our heads–the morality, guilt and fear–have to be dealt with. Every moral system, no matter what claims it makes to the contrary, places limits on the possibilities available to us, constraints upon our desires; and these limits are not based on our actual capabilities, but on abstract ideas that keep us from exploring the full extent of our capabilities. When anarchic situations have arisen in the past, the cops in peoples’ heads–the ingrained fear, morality and guilt–have frightened people, keeping them tame enough to retreat back into the safety of their cages, and the anarchic situation disappeared.

This is significant because anarchic situations don’t just pop out of nowhere–they spring from the activities of people frustrated with their lives. It is possible for each of us at any moment to create such a situation. Often this would be tactically foolish, but the possibility is there. Yet we all seem to wait patiently for anarchic situations to drop from the sky– and when they do explode forth, we can’t keep them going. Even those of us who have consciously rejected morality find ourselves hesitating, stopping to examine each action, fearing the cops even when there are no external cops around. Morality, guilt and fear of condemnation act as cops in our heads, destroying our spontaneity, our wildness, our ability to live our lives to the full.

The cops in our heads will continue to suppress our rebelliousness until we learn to take risks. I don’t mean that we have to be stupid–jail is not an anarchic or liberatory situation, but without risk, there is no adventure, no life. Self-motivated activity–activity that springs from our passions and desires, not from attempts to conform to certain principles and ideals or to blend in to any group (including “anarchists”) -is what can create a situation of anarchy, what can open up a world of possibilities limited only by our capabilities. To learn to freely express our passions–a skill earned only by doing it–is essential. When we feel disgust, anger, joy, desire, sadness, love, hatred, we need to express them. It isn’t easy. More often than not, I find myself falling into the appropriate social role in situations where I want to express something different. I’ll go into a store feeling disgust for the whole process of economic relationships, and yet politely thank the clerk for putting me through just that process. Were I doing this consciously, as a cover for shoplifting; it would be fun, using my wits to get what I want; but it is an ingrained social response–a cop in my head. I am improving; but I have a hell of a long way to go. Increasingly, I try to act on my whims, my spontaneous urges without caring about what others think of me. This is a self-motivated activity–the activity that springs from our passions and desires, from our suppressed imaginations, our unique creativity. Sure, following our subjectivity this way, living our lives for ourselves, can lead us to make mistakes, but never mistakes comparable to the mistake of accepting the zombie existence that obedience to authority, morality, rules or higher powers creates. Life without risks, without the possibility of mistakes, is no life at all. Only by taking the risk of defying all authority and living for ourselves will we ever live life to the full.

I want no constraints on my life; I want the opening of all possibilities so that I can create my life for myself–at every moment. This means breaking down all social roles and destroying all morality. When an anarchist or any other radical starts preaching their moral principles at me–whether non-coercion, deep ecology, communism, militantism or even ideologically-required “pleasure”–I hear a cop or a priest, and I have no desire to deal with people as cops or priests, except to defy them. I am struggling to create a situation in which I can live freely, being all that I desire to be, in a world of free individuals with whom I can relate in terms of our desires without constraints. I have enough cops in my head –as well as those out on the streets–to deal with without having to deal with the cops of “anarchist” or radical morality as well. Anarchy and morality are opposed to each other, and any effective opposition to authority will need to oppose morality and eradicate the cops in our heads.

(from Anarchy: A Journal Of Desire Armed #24, March-April 1990.)

The door closes and opens, then closes and opens again. Three months of prison. A year of prison. I need to know if others are thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about them. The days can’t go by fast enough now. Four-hundred-eighty-two days of prison. Four-hundred-eighty-three days of prison. Four-hundred-eight… I’ve lost count. Fuck. It’s better that way. Counting is no good in prison. The arithmetic makes no sense whatsoever. Prison has its own smell. A smell that gets all over you and follows you around. I’ll never manage to get it off me. Yesterday marked two calendars in prison. Two fucking years. I don’t get any sleep. I’ve forgotten how to smile and now I can’t dream. “Clink clink” in the night. They wake me up for a search. Maybe they’ll find the shanks. Seven-hundred-fifty-one days of prison. Are you satisfied, my dear judges? Pigs. Seven-hundred-fifty-two days of prison, pigs. Seven-hundred-fifty-three pigs. Coming and going and off I go. Coming and going and off I go. My cell is three meters by three meters. From the second floor window I see 20% of the sky over the top of the fucking prison wall. I walk through the yard like an automaton. I walk kilometres in a yard measuring just a few meters. Boredom and boredom again. Today I vomited my very soul. I vomited bars, walls, solitary confinements, years of prison, judicial sentences. I vomited three years of prison. I don’t want to count anymore. I completely close my eyes and think. I think about my comrades, whom they’re keeping far away from me in other prisons. I think about fires on the prison roofs. I think about everything prison has tried to make me forget. I think about a smile, a caress, a journey that doesn’t end over there where the wall ends, a glance that isn’t trapped behind the fucking prisons bars. I stop thinking. I open my hand. I look at the metal file I have. Now I know. I know exactly what I have to do. Let’s go then, once again. This time with feeling. Until the end. Long live anarchy.

An altered except from the text signed by J. And V.

(from bristol abc)

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