Letters of Insurgents 1: The Great Lesson

I want to preface this by stating that I am going to speak to Letters of Insurgents with a combination of personal journal and exposition as this is both a book that is very personal to me and deserves some analysis beyond the personal.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very angry person. I have been and continue to be motivated by anger. During the period when I was most influenced by Western (psychology) and Other (martial arts, meditation, etc) mental healing modalities this became a concern, since there was a limit to how “healthy” I could become if I was not going to resolve the underlying anger at the root of my personality. I needed to “let it go” if I were going to become a person at peace with myself.

Suffice it to say that I resolved never to be at peace with myself or my condition. I devoted my efforts toward using that anger as motivation to continue working on projects, relationships, situations even when they were boring, irrelevant, or ridiculous. Over time I came to realize that my anger was generally not personal (not about the seeming target). It was about me and my dissatisfaction with my condition. Generally it was not related to my particular impatience or the actions of those around me at the time. Anger remained the vibration that resonated with me but was not the entire scope of my interaction with each and every person at each and every moment.

Punk rock was the perfect milieu for anger, because within punk rock anger went without question. If you were a punk (in the mid eighties) you were pissed off. You came from some variation of a shitty background and/or were so fucking intelligent that you suffered the mediocrity of public education prison life. When punk dried up (for me) it seemed like I suddenly had to justify my dissatisfaction in a way that I never did in punk. Being pissed off wasn’t considered appropriate behavior, in particular in the let’s change the world crowd. I didn’t understand this at the time and I don’t understand it today. I want to destroy the world because of the horrors that it has turned beautiful people into, because of the pain I see around me, and because of the constraints everywhere. (The desire for) social transformation does not come out of the end of an intellectual process by which I have determined the best approach by which to create the ideal form. I do not use logic to express my motivation. I use anger.

In anarchist circles this punk approach is hard to find. While you can find people dressed in the right clothes (punk, neo-punk, gothic punk, crusty punk, hardcore punk, ad nauseum) and people who come out of the “punk scene” their fashion and music tastes usually come out of a really different set of motivations than their politics. Usually these punk rockers (which I will differentiate from a punk aesthetic or value) take on anarchist politics as an expression of seriousness. “I might look like this (threatening) and use this (anarchist) word to describe my political philosophy but that actually means this (direct democracy, sharing, caring, lots of meetings, etc).” This becomes a cipher, only comprehensible through the process of participation…

I am reminded of a parable I read in a biography on Prabhupada (the founder of ISKON aka the Hare Krishnas). I found him fascinating at the time because of the fact that his rhetorical skills were, in fact, an appropriate substitute for the emptiness of his religious point of few. (This is America where every silver tongued charlatan can make a million dollars if they set their mind to it, especially if they are selling a new way to reach God…) Anyway Prabhupada is walking along the beach with a Catholic priest discussing religion. The priest remarks to Prabhupada that Prabhupada would understand the importance of the trinity and other affectations of the priest’s order if Prabhupada were only to devote all of his time/energy to the priesthood for a period of time (a couple of weeks). Prabhupada’s pithy response was that of course! All the priest had to do to understand Krishna consciousness was the same. I am reminded of this story often when I think of rhetoric as a substitute for personal growth or shared realizations.

Somewhere in here is the distinction between belief, identity, and action that I’ll probably follow up upon during the next 10 weeks as I re-read the lovely “Letters of Insurgents” with you. For the sake of this discussion Letters of Insurgents can be referred to as a central text in my life. I first read Letters of Insurgents at the “right” time in my life. It was during a period of great loneliness when I was first confronted with the dilemma of scenes and friendship circles as poor (and rich) substitutes for relationships and family. This book was my guide from a certain kind of innocence to what I have become, and in the decade and a half since then this book stands out as something that cleared the way for me.

Chapter One

I’ll try to stick to a couple of conventions throughout this reading. Chapter One refers to the back and forth exchange between Yarostan (Y) and Sophia (So), Obviously each chapter bleeds into the next but the exchange of letters is a convenient device for the division of the book. I also am keeping a growing personal biography of each character as I write this book, adding to it as each character becomes more fully developed.

My guess, after reading Artnoose’s first article is that there will be two kinds of readers of Letters of Insurgents. There will be those who identify more with Sophia’s character (and by extension with Fredy) and those who more-or-less identify equally with everybody. I fall in this second category as my personal experiences have some overlap with every major character in this book and, as a personality type, I have been fully committed (for better AND worse) to each of the decisions as I made them. I have tended not to worry much (especially when I was younger) about the consequences of my behavior. Perhaps more accurately “worrying” wouldn’t be the best description of how I contemplate activity. Perhaps this brings us back to the question of this.

Prior to reading Letters of Insurgents I was trapped inside the terminology of “this”. I wore this, I lived like this, I ate this, I dated like this; entirely circumscribed by a scene that raised me, demonstrated the acceptable models of behavior and ways to discover knowledge. I knew the hand-wave shortcuts because I was writing them while I was contained within them. Letters of Insurgents was the first text, that I was prepared for, that criticized me accurately. At the end of my reading I wasn’t left empty, valueless on the side of the turnpike as the right answers flew by me, but I was forced away from the comfort of waving hands and shared this into something new.

One way I can speak to this book perhaps differently than others will is that I am the beneficiary of the section of the anarchist milieu that has been most directly influenced by this text in particular. Perhaps this will be a disagreeable thing to say but I believe that Letters of Insurgents is a book of ethical criticism targeted in particular at the anti-authoritarian milieu of the 60s-70s but almost as relevant to the anarchist space of today. The section of this space that has been most active in the critical analysis of it has to be somewhere between the publications “Fifth Estate” (which Fredy was an important participant of) and “Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed” which I have until just recently been a publisher of. My five years of publishing Anarchy magazine also represents an intense critical engagement with the milieu/space that is similar, although not identical by any stretch, to Fredy’s. At the very least it is safe to say that we had all read Letters of Insurgents with great interest and attention and believed ourselves to be informed by Fredy’s eye on our progenitors.

Finally, chapter 1

It is striking to observe communication by the old pen-to-paper mechanism of the letter. The message in a bottle that may-or-may-not make it to its target. The languid attention to mundane aspects of daily life and on painting a canvas with subtle shades. This is entirely different than our time where this kind of personal textual communication is extinct or nearly so. In a world where each of us is party to so much text this might seem impossible to say but my own experience is that I have stopped communicating in the loving way shared by this novel since the rise of digital communication in my life and I know of only a very small percentage (less that 5%) of my close friends who write letters at all (and even fewer who don’t use a keyboard to do it). This creative form is dying and at what cost? Obviously hundreds of thousands of words have been typed asking this question but the particularity of this question for the anarchist space, for the world destroyers and dreamers of dreams is slightly different than for the publishers of newspapers and sellers of calligraphy equipment. Perhaps the short answer is that our communication has become more practical and disconnected from humanity. We no longer are expressing, in great detail, the horror show of our daily lives to each other outside of journalism. We aren’t sharing our stories with individuals but in a way that is only possible with copy and paste. We are receiving stories in a similar manner, which requires content filters that weren’t required when we would receive but a letter or two a day.

There is actually a tendency in our space that is reverting to an analog discursive regiment or never left it. The vanguard of this is the publication “The Match” out of Tucson Arizona that has never been available online or digitally in any form . Since then there are new publications like “Communicating Vessels” out of Portland and Letters Journal (Kentucky) that maintain a similar pen-and-ink aesthetic. In all cases this involves reproduction of long form letters and an attention to different details than that allowed for by Google search results and mass appeal. Similarly there is still a generation of letter writers (of which John Zerzan is the best known) who spend a considerable part of their day doing correspondence in the old school.

There are only a few themes covered in the first two letters that I have anything to say about. The first is the dangling issue of Sabina’s criticism of the project of revolt described by the Events at the Box Factory (EBF). “An old boss was thrown out and a new one replaced him, that’s all.” The second is the question of identification–whether it is as an expression of common heritage (humanism) or something more existentially potent (the proletariat, the whatever being, etc). The third is about social conventions (“Father”, “daughter”, “Mother”, “son”). Finally is the question of the good revolutionary.

Sabina and EBF

I identify strongly with Sabina’s criticism of the EBF as “nothing.” I agree that the general project of the Left as it expresses itself in strikes, protest, and even revolution has been woefully inadequate to the circumstances of their times and is even more hilariously inept and inadequate to the circumstances of today. I basically believe that this shared criticism goes without saying which is why I do not participate in the debates on the matter which swirl around the projects I partipate in.

That said, I have no doubt that I would personally have been a totally engaged participant in those events had they occurred at my place of work. I would consider others who shared that experience some of the most important people of my life and that moment a special one indeed. I almost fear an event of real magnitude happening in my life as I believe that, were I to survive, the rest of my life would seem a pale reflection of the time when something occurred.

As a partial example of this, my affinity group participated in the closure of San Fransisco in 2003. We were one of the hundred of bands of people who wandered around town closing intersections, stopping traffic, and generally just enjoying wandering around a city that is usually filled with crap (and cars) while it was peaceful. It was lovely seeing the incompetence of the cops and the futility of the car drivers. I was even bum rushed by one of them (which was harmless and amusing). Locally there has been a generation of people who look back on that day as the high point of their political and social life. And they could be right, but I continue to believe that it was just an enjoyable day in the sun in the wonderful company of people I care for and little more.

Sabina would put voice to what is generally considered the “AJODA” (Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed) point of view and continues to be one that I essentially agree with, but it is generally read as being a statement that begins AND ends the conversation. I believe that is wrong. I think you can both not believe in the total righteousness of your project (political or not) AND still partipate in it. We are not Crusaders, the revolution is not just around the corner, the means by which the world will be changed, and more importantly how we will live a meaningful life, is not simply defined or stated.

Identification

Y identifies with prison guards in his first letter and is rebuked by Sophia

It’s simply ridiculous to identify yourself with them. The people who arrested me weren’t workers but police agents. They had never been committed to the self-liberation of workers; on the contrary, their lifelong commitment was to establish a dictatorship over the workers, to transform society into a beehive and themselves into queen bees, to become the wardens of a vast prison camp. They won and we lost. That sums up the entire history of the working class. But how can you say
those who fought against them contributed to their victory?

While I would take great exception to defining my own project as that of the working class (and likely Fredy concurs since Against His-tory Against Leviathan was written later) I think that the thrust of this is a great challenge for those who would live the great struggle. If you can’t find a way to identify with those who (to put it frankly) oppress you then how will you survive at work, on the roads, or in the queue for a social service or a beverage? Somewhere in this question is the difficulty of the revolutionary project…

Sidebar: the revolutionary project is convenient shortcut terminology (jargon) for the idea that one desires a totally different world, believes that achieving that world will require a break (whether that is bloody, merely cognitive, or psychic is hypothetical) with the existing order. Traditionally the term revolution evokes images of storming the Bastille (France) or Summer Palace (Russia) which more-or-less makes the terminology moot during the period of online petitions and social networking protests against conditions that do not give a fuck.

…which is why I don’t really use the word. To survive in this world there is an expectation of civil humanistic behavior. The break from this world requires experience in uncivil, a-human behavior. This is a tantalizing thread for me.

Social Conventions

This will be teased out a bit in the later letters but the family (Sophia, Luisa, Sabina) that escaped to the West did so because of class privilege and family relations. It is more than a little unfair for Sophia to speak from that place of privilege against the institutions that have benefited her. Unfair but not wrong. We live in this world and are shaped by it. In attempting to find our way a central challenge is to find the structural mechanisms by which we can preserve ourselves when convention surrounds us. The nuclear family is an embarrassment of submission and sublimation but is also a way to communicate the pressures and hierarchy that shapes and hardens us.

The classic anarchist family problem is one of providing children a lack of structure and as a result creating a person who does not have the ability to create boundaries for themselves. Each of our criticisms, to the extent that we actually put them into a meaningful practice, have consequences that are worth consideration. Criticism (and this is a theme I will be returning to a lot) is not the end of the conversation but the start of a different, and hopefully more interesting one.

The Good Revolutionary

Luisa serves as a punching bag in this chapter (and most of the book), as someone whose life is filled with unrewarding work, but outside of the book this archetype is still held up as a positive model of social change. Whether this is as the “grassroots organizer” who toils for decades to no avail or the proponents of a movement with no form or substance it is still convention that the great makers are also great sufferers. I guess for now I’ll finish up by saying that this book really cured me of my fetishization of the Good Revolutionary and I look forward to our greater success at leaving behind their models of social change. I could go on spitting at particular anarchist figures who I believe exemplify this strategy but I’ll leave them between the lines this week and dig into their particular backwardness as the story speaks to it.

I look forward to your letters.

Aragorn!

Another Surgery For a Battered Soul

Just about exactly 20 years after a “Skinhead brawl” put my roommate into a grave and me into “stable condition with stab wounds on his left side” I might be seeing the end of the second chapter of the complications the incident on my life. While on the one hand it is easy, and true, to blame the aleopathic approach of treating symptoms in my situation for it coming back to haunt me 20 years later I am also feeling pretty thankful for planning ahead on this situation.

I have always been committed to not living “life as usual” from fighting Nazis as a young man, to rejecting the nuclear family (and relationship), and the life of criminal boredom (read: career) I’ve made choices that made some sense to me even though there have been consequences. The primary consequence, one I usually share with 40 million other residents of this country, is a habitual lack of health insurance. I survived the initial stabbing because of a California program around “victims of violent crime” but as my old wound began to herniate I wouldn’t have such honor. I’d either have to suck up tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills (probably six figures due to the complications) or get a job with seriously good health insurance. This I did and continue to be trapped in until I am fully recovered from this second chapter.

As you can read in my old blog (which I am going to migrate to here one of these days) the first part of this chapter didn’t go so well. Perhaps I’ll do an equivalent of Bad Medicine in a pamphlet form with some of this material. BTW if you haven’t read the Spring 2010 The Match there is a fantastic (quality) and terrifying (in content) article on hernia surgery that coupled with my story should put the Fear into all men.

But I believe that this time the surgery went well. The massive distention I’ve had in my belly the past 6 months is gone. I can imagine a non-mutant future for myself. I think I will heal. Last time I wasn’t so sure.

That said today was the first time I really examined myself without bandages and materiel. I am going to be a very different creature emerging from this whole situation. My belly, still stapled, shaved, and pasty from my hospital visit also has a kind of un-living characteristic that I am really disturbed by. It is flatter but I can feel the sides of the surgical material under my skin still not integrated into my body. I will survive but I will be beyond scarred. I will be transformed. The new me will be physically weaker (no more Muay Thai for me!). I will have to slowly strengthen my core to achieve baseline. I am, on some level, middle aged before my time. I am not ready.

I am about to hit 40. I am going to have a funny birthday party where people I have made fun of get to respond in kind. I am ready for the next stage of life but not quite for the implications of being not just not-young but actually old. I figured I would be able to fake it, on some level, for another 5-10 years. It just isn’t true. I have some thinking to do about how few peers I have, about how that isn’t going to change anytime soon, and how about my body isn’t going to win me any medals at any future derby. I will have to make do with the steel trap inside my head. Obviously I am going to be just fine but the illusion, the imagination, is gone. Regards.

End of the chapter where a couple things happened of no consequence

Spring is about over and to close it out I took one last trip before my next hospital visit. If all goes well I will emerge from this visit healthier, stronger, and without the absolute need for bi-weekly medical visits (and insurance). I am getting nervous about abandoning these golden handcuffs but can’t wait to have time again to think outside of the 40 hour a week monotony.

Last weekend I was in the Olympia-Tacoma area giving a presentation at the Northwest Anarchist Conference which was a small event funded by the Evergreen and attended by around 50 people over the course of the weekend. I wish I could say that it was a swimming success but I am pretty critical of my own presentation (which I’ll dig into) and am not sure how convinced I am that this kind of a conference is worth the time and energy put into it. That said I continue to really enjoy the people who live in the NW and look forward to the possibilities of further collaboration with them.

Check out http://tan.anarchyplanet.org to see many of their projects advertised.

I am starting to think about taking a bit of a different approach to presentations. I have, for years, started every presentation with something like a “postion paper” in mind. I prepare, more-or-less from scratch, every presentation with the goal being the writing of some sort of 2500-3000 word essay. I spend a few days mulling the implications of what I want to say and the framing of the presentation to a different/new audience. I try to be contextual. I always take on a far bigger speculative project than I am capable of presenting honesly in a limited period of time and never make enough time to write enough words to share a document of my ideas. This is bad and neither benefits an audiece as much as limited essay writing would OR take advantage of my own conversational skills as much as I’d like.

Sucks.

I was somewhat inspired by the presentation Magpie did around his Mythbreaker and Lawbreakers tour. He goes for cutsey a bit more than I think is necessary but I guess it fits into his style. I do think I would benefit a lot from the kind of presentational logic that Magpie used. Even though there is a war against it.

Sewer rats & cockroaches – NYC at its best

NYC is a lovable shithole that drives people crazy.

I just did a whirlwind tour of the town, from the best of it (the food!) to the worst (the wingnuts), all in the context of the NYC @ book fair. This year went by so fast that its hard to believe that I am already back with a day of work under my belt before another trip.

Here are some highlights…

NYC Bookfair: Probably the most intense bookfair with a very packed room and a very sophisticated audience. While our “west coast” vibe isn’t that popular over here it seems to finally be making some cracks in the autonomous-academic-leftoid axis.
Reverend Billy: I hear that one of the organizers of the NYC book fair invited this fool to the event but they were misguided. Anarchists don’t give a fuck about his “life after shopping” church and to the extent to which there is a postmodern tongue-in-cheek statement to be made about the book fair itself it is definitely lost in the one man megaphone show that is Reverend Billy. Chaos ensued and a drenched and battery-less RB left the event dejected and ejected.
APOC gone wild: I don’t know the context outside of seeing it happen a million times before but I saw this… philly APOC bullying the fuck out of some clueless white kid ending their articulate chest thumping (and jacket throwing) conversation with spittle in the poor kids face. Then they turned on anyone who would look at them cross-eyed… This shit is officially ridiculous
Non-violent children: The Greeks gave a presentation on much of the theoretical orientation of the Assemblies and the Greek Insurrection. They did it in front of a non-violent activist whose child more or less controlled the entire event. Quote from her “I can’t control him, but you are welcome to.” Pacifism for the WIN!
Autonomedia: I made my journey to the warehouse on Monday and like usual it was a pleasant and enjoyable time. I was there with people from all over the globe and was reminded of how much I want a space like this of my very own.
Curly’s: I am a simple person. I ate the vegan Cubano + mango shake twice. I am very lucky that I get to do such things.

Report back from 8 days of Anarchy

The Good

The BASTARD Conference

Yes, the Greeks were inspiring and what I hoped for. Yes, the comedy was funny (Crudo was particularly good) & bizarre (I’ll upload a picture of McQuinn as robot later). Even my workshop went pretty well (I was really surprised how many people got up that early (10 am Daylight Savings) to see me), but I was right next to the entrance. I have a bothersome habit that I’d like to cure myself of. I over-prepare with too little time, don’t finish, and as a result have about the first 1/3 of what I’d like to do totally nailed. The rest I end up having to wing.

BASTARD can be a little surreal. We hold it at UCB for lack of a better (large & free) space but often times it means sharing space with the ISP (insane student posse). This year they were marching, waving colored flags, and singing the national anthem in an area where the reception was chillier than they are probably used to. I am still cursing the lack of total occupation on March 4th.

the minor 8 Days events

The big events during 8 days are always the ones that stick out in our memory but it is the smaller events; showing a film, the reading of the BASTARD surveys (which were particularly dull this year… since everyone said the same thing) that really make me glad that I live in the Bay Area. I am not alone. I might convince myself that I am from time to time, but I am not.

Spending time with the Greeks

We got to discuss exactly how different the social mores and attitudes are in Greece. I imagine many @ from the (identity) left would be uncomfortable there. I am not sure I have the energy myself for what seems like an intense place but the difference is exhilarating and I look forward to visiting one day.

A house full of guests

The house I live in is not designed for guests. We rarely have them and aren’t willing to make many accommodations for them. Over the weekend we had about 20 different people sleeping on our floors and couches. It was awesome. Even better were the hang out sessions and off-time with all these people. I like shooting the shit. I will not lie.

The political line of the PCWC

At the top of the pile of these off sessions was a breakdown of the Phoenix Class War Council political positions. That shit blew my mind.

Over the past decade they have been in a (hot but not humid) revolutionary laboratory distilling the good bits out of every tendency of the modern anarchist milieu into a extract that can only be called good old American eclecticism. Not wingnuts (although perhaps a little) the PCWC is totally passionate about the connections they have made between the different strands and their project of revolutionary change. In their words…

PHOENIX CLASS WAR COUNCIL is a fanatical, revolutionary anarchist group pressing the attack against capitalism, the state and all systems of hierarchy and oppression. We fight for a self-determined, projectual life for ourselves and all humanity. We oppose those who hinder working class self-organization. We are libertarian and libertine. We support movements but we don’t wait for them. We are in the thick of it.

The crazy thing for me is that they actually took a social situation, with a room of near-stranger anarchists, to make their case for what boils down to a program for anarchist revolution. I haven’t had someone try to actually win me over in years and I barely knew what to say. It didn’t help that they had knocked back a few before they came over but I really feel like I got the full monty on the PCWC and it was a blast. I’m not exactly applying for a membership card but I applaud their passion, the disparate sources that they draw their position from, and mostly… their passion.

The Bad:

Broken Windows

As many of you may have heard the vehicle that the Greeks were using for their tour was broken into. Fucking drag, mostly because they were told by their collective that bringing the projector to the States was a bad idea and they were feeling really bad about having it stolen. The response to this has been great though.

It could always be better
$20 via Little Black Cart
$5 via Little Black Cart

Tech incompetence & lack of planning

I dropped the ball in regards to recording all the presenters. I just didn’t leave enough time to test the new recorders I got for the event. Luckily the Greeks recording from BASTARD can be found on Indybay.

The Loot:

Every year I get far more literature than I have time to review. They are slowly piling up in my library to share (although no one every sticks around for long enough to really dig into it). This year I will share the list and take advice on which of these things you’d like to see me review first.

The Theory of Bloom (also found on Zine Library)
winding down of the clockwork lips (can be found on The Anarchist Library)
The Coming Community. (3) by Agamben
Blocs and Tactical Evolution
The Match #108
Rolling Thunder #8
the enemy of mankind speaks power
Din&#201. O’Odham. Anarchist. Reflections on the DOA Bloc
Kanellos: Athens riot dog
It’s easy to attack: A sharpening of the anarchist struggle in Barcelona
Rolling Thunder #9
Anarchist International Action Against Francoism From Genoa 1949 to The First of May Group
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #68/69
La Calle Desde el Tejado
We are an image from the future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008 (the first AK title I have purchased new in many years)
Used books: Pistoleros!, A Seasion in Hell by Rimbaud, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Carroll, Freakonomics by Levitt, Genius by Bloom

I am just whittling away

Taking on an enormous pile of long range projects has really helped me, psychologically, become a better person. I am happy to make excuses for the person I was before all of these things took over my life, but they would be excuses. Sitting here furiously working on projects of no great import outside my imagination has left me no time for distraction. No time for wandering eyes or hobbies beyond the greatest hobby of them all. Changing the world.

These little things: learning how to set up monitoring so that I can have a longer conversation with a person about their project that I am going to help them make real. Moving resources around so that I am constantly optimizing my mix of spend vs usable resources. Figuring out how to organize things so that I can allow people to grow into resources that they aren’t really helping upkeep. Infinite support. Planning for the future. Spending everything on the greatest project I’ve ever had, and taking myself out to dinner as often as I’d like.

I’ll make an announcement next week getting all of you up to date on what I have been doing the past six months. I have accomplished at least 2/3 of what I had planned on. This is pretty fucking incredible all things considered and would never have been possible without the incredible work of people-who-cannot-be-mentioned and a childhood of abuse and torment that has inspired me to be greater than where I come from.

For now I am finishing up a website. Going to write a couple things in the next 24 hours that should have some impact. Write a couple press releases. Learn about litescribe and root on the events of the next week. I doubt California will be turned to ash but the hopelessness of our time may become a beacon that changes more lives than just mine.

Feburary blues

I’d like to start having conversations at Anti-Politics again. Join me if you aren’t an idiot.

I have a couple projects that I am launching this month that I am really excited to see people get involved in and check out. I’m not going to link to them here but I’d love to hear opinions about the ideas

A site of popular culture review
A portal/blogging aggregator where other web-like services can live
The initial scratchings of a place where a tech collective can work together
Three new books (the first one could be arriving this week)
Preparation for March: 8 days

I think I need to take a break soon.

Suprisingly tolerant

I am starting to get a reputation (if only in my head) for being surprisingly tolerant. I have become aware of this at work because I have worked closely with two of the most difficult people to work with at the company. Being a person who can deal with these people comes from my many years of dealing with very difficult to work with people in anarchist circles, in my social life, and perhaps, because of dealing with me.

I continue to find difficult people to be far more interesting than ‘nice’ people. I’ve never found nice to be, on its own, a particularly endearing trait. Frankly, I think it obscures far more than it demonstrates. But that ability to deal with difficult people comes at a price.

My skin is callused and thick.

I still feel it when a controversy blows by me, or there is a repercussion, but its less and less over time. I’d go so far as to say that I wouldn’t recommend learning my lesson as the consequences aren’t really for you.

A letter to close 2009

screamingmugs
Friends,

Big changes in the air, which is a great, as 2009 has been utter shit. A horrible year that I am happy to see behind me. I’ll review.

Work

I am still working full time. The job is increasingly grueling as my tasks become more cyclical (month-to-month) and less problem solving (day-to-day or hour-to-hour). My job has become very social in that I work in a “team” where there is an expectation to socialize. This makes side project or learning new tech exceedingly difficult during the week. Very frustrating with no end in site…

Health

As many of you know I had a wretched year health wise. The worst in my life.

First I went in for a simple laproscopic hernia operation. It seemed to go well but instead almost killed me twice. First time, by freezing my GI system forcing a return visit to the hospital for a couple of days of stomach pumping. That was a blast. The second time with an infection that required pumping out two liters of material, a couple of weeks in the hospital, and surgery after surgery.

After all this was wrapped up (which it still isn’t, of course, since I still have a large wound in my abdomen) I had a brain hemmorage. This necessitated two days of symptoms, three days of hospital stay, and three trips to the MRI terror show. We will see what the results are early next year.

Projects

The projects are going well. The print projects are changing but include a total of four books in the process for publication (at this time). We hope that all of them will be ready by March 2010.

Nihilist Communism
Willful Disobedience: Anthology
Til the Clock Stops: Beginning Texts for the Constitution of A War Machine
Anarchy Works – by Peter Gelderloos

For 2010 we (Ardent) have quite a few books lined up (we hope for four releases in 2010) and are already planning for 2011.

The web projects continue to thrive. The news site is still very active and has been frustrating me less and less as time has gone on. The library site has been amazing and continues to inspire me with the dedication and diligence of the new librarians (and old) who have made the project a pleasure to be a part of.

The big new web project (which is evidenced in this URL) has been slow moving but hopefully will launch in full effect sometime in January or Febuary 2010. The idea is to provide a set of web services and portal like functions to the milieu. We will be providing blogging, email, instant messaging and a series of new sites for interested parties. I can’t wait to launch it and start working with an active technical group on a proactive project they can all be involved in.

Travel

This year I mostly traveled for bookfairs. I made it to San Francisco, New York (twice, once to go to CT), Portland, Santa Cruz, Seattle, and missed my flight to go to Tacoma. Hopefully next year I will slow down that pace and spend a bit more time in some places so I can spend quality time with friends and comrades.

Taking Ourselves Seriously (IAS) – Part II

Criticism and Framing

I am hesitant to even offer my thoughts, in the way of analysis, of the IAS event. The feedback that I received to Part I (offline) was typical of what my worst expectations would be for the effort. I was corrected, copy editor style, and reprimanded for not truly being a neutral reporter of the event. I find this kind of “meta-framing” to be fucking obnoxious and exemplary of something I see a lot in anarchist circles. If I am talking about you (your project, your effort, your ideas) that means that I am paying attention to you. Imagine all of the things that I could be talking about that I am not. My time is precious and I am choosing to spend it on reviewing an IAS event. I will never be a member (or invited) to the IAS. I will never be funded by or published by the IAS. I don’t share a lot of affinity with the politics of the group, as I understand them, and yet here I am, caring enough about the project to think about it and sharing those thoughts publicly. To parse the IAS to an audience that would otherwise ignore them (perhaps rightfully).

Instead of feeling complimented, or even honored, the response is that I am somehow “out of box” because my perspective of the IAS, and their presentation, is not the one that they have of themselves or that they would prefer the public to have of them.

This kind of feedback, this suffocation, is exactly why people who have disparate world views tend to avoid one another. Why reinvent the wheel with every person you meet? Why argue about why criticism may be healthier and more useful than nodding your head in agreement? Why use public forums to talk about ideas where they will be “reality checked”? Why explain yourself when you are doing someone a service that may not be particularly helpful to them but may be helpful to others?

Frustration aside I will honor the IAS, and the other people who are interested in the IAS event, through my (!!!) editorial lens, with the rest of my thoughts about their event last weekend (now a couple weekends ago).

What was done well and not so well

The panel was well attended. Probably 60+ people who were engaged and didn’t interrupt the presentation in a way I usually would expect from a Bay Area event. I think the organizers of the event did a good job of “Internet outreach” which worked surprisingly well. There was representation of at least 1/2 of the Bay Area anarchist tendencies which is a pretty good showing of the popularity of the panelists and lack of general distain of the IAS by the Bay Area Anarchist fighting factions (BAAFF).

The presenters did not seem to ramble very much and completely filled 2 hours with words. This was one of the reasons that there were no interruptions is because the 3 people up front actually talked the entire time. They didn’t appear that they would have even stopped if it weren’t for the self-imposed time limit. This “east coast” style of the presentation was probably so shocking to the audience generally that they were stunned into silence. I doubt a second panel like this one would go as smoothly.

Instead of having a Q&A session they gave the audience 30 minutes to “share their thoughts” which was also a great technique of crowd control because instead of the rambling incoherent thoughts of people being directed at the three people up front (who may or may not have handled them well) they were diffused into the crowd, for long enough for the next person to start speaking.

There was surprisingly little hostility expressed from the crowd toward the presenters which I give credit to the IAS members for. By not engaging directly with potential and probable hostility (mostly by ignoring it), by talking the audience into submission (thought their own endurance and lack of breaks), and by leaving very little time for the drained audience to even respond they were successful in holding an event without acrimony. Perhaps also without the discussion they claimed to want, but definitely without rancor. These are all successes, of a sort.

What they didn’t do well was also what they did do well. This was not a discussion about anarchist strategy, this was a presentation of “the IAS approach” to strategy.

What does all of this mean?

At the end of the day the IAS approach is more like a category (or approaches) rather than a specific approach. It is humanist. It is dialectical. It is leftist. I say these terms not as pejoratives, although perhaps it is fair to say that they are that too, but as clarification to what would otherwise be a little confusing for me. I don’t exactly understand when I am listening to the arguments of the IAS members WHY I don’t feel comfortable with what they are saying but I really do. Not quite idiot shivers level of discomfort but something is wrong here and I search for the words. Right or wrong these three seem fair.

Bear with me while I work through something here, history of ideas style, relating IAS ideas and Murray Bookchin’s breaking down of of nature into first and second nature. The story goes that we (humans) are natural and part of biological evolution (aka first nature) but we (humans) are also unique (says Bookchin) in our social awareness and this is second nature. When I hear social ecologists, or really just people in the left who aren’t particularly deep green talk about the environment I usually wonder what in the hell they are talking about. This is why.

At the end of the day it just seems like they are interested in policy or the metaphysics of justice. I guess that is fine, not my thing, but just fine. I don’t understand the connection, it literally escapes me. Nature is just a word, sure, a metaphysical concept. That concept, that word, is a study, a concern totally unrelated to how we do, could, or should live in the world (natural or not). My sense is that the verbage. The terminology has fascinated a certain body of thinkers for too long and that they are confused about where the study begins and ends and where relationships are, and are not, mappable to that territory. More on this another time.

Next point. Humanism. I don’t consider humans to be at the center of my understanding about power relationships or at the center of my view of a better world. I understand that the conflict we are in is with humans but that just informs my understanding of humans as the enemy, not as the center. Anarchism as a humanist project feels like a poor fit. It makes sense if you want to leverage disciplines like social work, cooperatives, and social ecology into a form that is useful for anarchist analysis, or perhaps better said for analyzing anarchists and anarchism, but they continue to feel like projects with their own biases that are not commutable to the project of freeing us from hierarchy, power over, and the domination of exchange relationships.

Final point. Democracy. Democracy is not Anarchy. They are different political positions and the only reason one would try to conflate them is if ones goals are propagandistic, political (as in a politician) or (self)deceptive. I don’t understand why this is even a discussion. Actually it isn’t.