We want this to contribute to challenging our own lives as much
as yours. As part of doing that we have collected together here
various writings attacking this society - both by ourselves and
also by others that we have some sympathy with. We have no
pretension to providing 'authoritative' texts - on the contrary,
we have tried to avoid formulae that could pin us definitively
down, categorise us and limit us, and consequently we sometimes
tend to ramble, putting in lots of ifs and buts and on
the other hands; rather than being the eternally relevant last
word on anything, the thoughts presented here - if they are to
have any subversive use - can only be a historical reference
and partial jumping-off point for the readers' own explorations
in theory and practise. Moreover, the content of this site is
partly subject to your input: critical contributions will all
be taken into consideration and may be used
(though going by past experience, written reader response has declined from minimal to almost
non-existent…).
The present period of defeat we are living through – whose beginning we
would date from the end of the miner’s strike in 1985 – is unprecedented. The difference
between earlier defeats in working class history and the present period is that whilst
certain groups of workers and their communities would suffer defeats, by and large they
remained in existence through generations to fight another day. There was a long period
of history - probably up to as recently as the early 90s - when proletarians had
at least some general vague conception that revolution was possible, even amongst those
who thought it undesirable. It was part of the culture. But nowadays
if you talk about revolution you are usually made to feel like a member of the Flat Earth
Society. Environmental changes
(gentrification, urban regeneration), technological (IT, closure of major manufacturing)
and social restructuring and ideological colonisation have destroyed this consciousness and
largely destroyed the
communities at work and at home in which such a consciousness was partly based.
The loss of consciousness and memory of the over 200 year old traditions of struggle,
solidarity and mutual self-help have been a disaster for all who have suffered it. This
is the unspoken secret of recent history that defines the present day. Everywhere, capitalist
totalitarianism increasingly seems to prevent the possibility of opposing this totality and of
creating very different social relations in the process.
Wherever there was a community capable of resistance now it seems there’s
an empty shell dominated by decay; anti-social behaviour fuelled by psychotic zombie
crackheads and gangs of vicious nihilistic youth; instilling fear and paranoia into social
life, driving the most vulnerable out of the public spaces where once they could maintain
social networks and interaction. Admittedly, overall this is a onesidedly bleak picture, but
there are many particular places – from ex-mining villages to inner city estates – where
this is not by any means an exaggerated description. And even where things are not this
bad, the nagging threat of such invasions and deterioration produces its own narrow
suspicion and tension.
Few believe in even the possibility of qualitative improvement through
social change to any mild degree, never mind the task of creating a radically different
society. The most that is aspired to is the prospect of slogging your guts out for a
lifetime in the hope you’ll have paid off a mortgage leaving you with enough savings to see
you through old age. Or the outside chance of the fantasy of a Lottery win coming true.
Or just getting into a position of enough status to make you feel a little more secure,
superior and/or smug than those beneath you (without ridding you of the deeper insecurity
that feeds the need to feel ‘superior’). Or just devoting all one’s energies to crawling
over the backs of everyone else in the pursuit of fame and wealth as a celebrity and/or
businessperson; it’s either exploit or be exploited, folks…
Doubtless there are many who will say that what we have written
here is a miserably pessimistic vision. Doubtless they are partly right; at least they are
right in so far as the present era offers few options for these insights to be tested by
practice - the excited buzz of positive connection that comes from making breakthroughs
against what crushes you arises from what you consciously
do with negative insights,
and what you do is up to you – within given circumstances. On the other hand, we have
no desire to be identified with those extremely irritating negativists who use their
‘insights’ as an excuse not to do anything, complaining and moaning uselessly: they
are as unattractive as the positivists who are endlessly upbeat about everything. The
miserablist is just cynical and bitter, and thinks they are rebellious because
they are not as naïve as the positivist. Both the positivists and the negativists
have the overwhelming weight of this world on their side, its apparently absolute
power. But in critiquing and attacking we diminish that power. We suspect that
what people really mean when complaining about how negative is what’s written
here, is that –
1) we dwell too much on past defeats; but those who fail to understand the past really are
condemned to repeat its mistakes.
2)
we offer no positive prescriptions. If we don’t say
do this it’s not just because this
would
invite a hierarchical respect that goes against the kind of social relations we want, but also
because we too don’t know all the answers. This is not said as an excuse for a fence-sitting
wimpy libertarian position of
safe indecisiveness; we do have strong opinions but we
really
are unsure about so much. We can only constantly, uncertainly search for these margins of
positivity ourselves, despite this world – and we’re well aware that we are usually no
better at that than you.
We also recognise that our own disappointments in life and desperate need
for change will
find some expression in our writings here - as a sometimes over-negative or over-positive
outlook on things. (Hey, we’re human too, folks – or trying to be…)
If a new social movement is to have any chance of developing against the
insanity that capitalism has made of life it is going to have to renew the attack on the
totality of hierarchical social relations - war, politics, economics, work, culture and
the separation of men and women, and reflect on the repressed and contradictory history of
class struggle that has always expressed this desire for freedom. Writing is a moment in
this movement, but certainly can't be fetishised: how great it would be if this paragraph
felt like a tongue lightly delicately licking around the inside of a vagina. But, despite
pornography’s ostensible attempts at arousal, writing cannot substitute for the act, the
practice. What we say here only makes sense in what you and we do with it. Can writing
coming from the history of subversion contribute to subverting this senile world? It still
remains to be seen. We hope so, but experience has yet to show it, at least in the present
era.
A note on theory and its language
Of course we should try to express ourselves as clearly, and with as little
obscure language, as possible. But there is a contradiction that has to be
dealt with – much
of what is known as “common sense” is the medium or currency for the circulation of the
taken-for-granted dominant values of this society. To express the subversive through
language it is sometimes necessary to use words that have retained a clearer meaning
through less use. Everyday language is a terrain largely occupied by the enemy: we tend to
speak the language of our masters. (A beautiful example of a counter-tendency to this
occurred in the 1992 LA Riot when the rioters coined the phrase “image looters” to describe
the media: a neat reversal of perspective.)
In a world where appearances and the truth of things almost never coincide theory is
necessary to penetrate the lies. This society encourages a fragmented consciousness that
craves only immediacy in its consumption (e.g. tabloidism). But a partially understood
text that resists complete immediate understanding may not be just unnecessarily dense
and wordy. It may be that it has a depth, subtlety and value that is worth pursuing. And
it may grasp and reflect more accurately the real complexities of class society.
“I
assume of course they will be readers who will be prepared to think while they are
reading.” – Marx on ‘Capital’.
Where we're coming from.....
The totalitarian nature of modern capitalism is
not the monolithic authoritarian dictatorship as imagined half a century
ago in the "Brave New World" and "1984" novels. It's a far
more subtle regime ruled by a bewildering diversity of means
penetrating more and more into areas of life previously uncolonised and uncommodified; in the realms of the geographical,
sensory, emotional, genetic, etc. It separates people like
never before, with nuances that invade you like never before.
The technological growth of the capitalist mode of production
that fuels these new invasions is an increasing threat to the
chances of simple biological survival.
This threat to the vast
majority of the planet is based also on the increasing destruction of individuality,
community and rationality. What calls itself ‘rationality’ in this world is generally no more than justifications by specialists
and experts for the continuation of a society that has lost all ability for self-reflection; therefore its ‘rationality’ is mainly
rationalisation after the event for what market forces have imposed on it, whatever the consequences. What calls itself 'community'
in this world is generally no more than the community of different business or political hierarchies vying for their niche in the
market. What calls itself 'individuality' in this world is generally no more than various individuals repressing themselves in
different unique ways in order to develop the individuality of a rôle enabling them to function better within the constraints
of the market and to not recognise themselves in other individuals.
Yet if
we want to rediscover individuality, community and rationality,
if we want to clearly oppose this world, we have to bring these
contradictions to the front of our minds, become conscious of
them, describe them, analyse them, give them a name. And act
on them. It never goes without saying. It never goes without
doing.
The 1960s and 70s and 80s were high points of class
struggle
in the UK and elsewhere. It was in this epoch that this futureless
world was far more seriously challenged than ever since
(and possibly before).
In the 70s, the Social Contract, a negotiated
compromise between the classes guaranteeing increased productivity in exchange
for higher standards of living, could not indefinitely
maintain social peace. As the working class gained confidence
through struggle, demands and perspectives grew to imply a
more general critique of the boredom and alienation of this
society, both in its work and its consumerism. The working
class appeared to be becoming uncontrollable, as strike waves
(mainly wildcats) escaped the control of bosses, union leaders
and politicians alike. Struggles outside production in fields
such as housing, race and gender occasionally overlapped with
workplace agitations. Thatcherism set itself the explicit task
of crushing this movement and was remarkably successful - from
being "the sick man of Europe" with some of the lowest productivity
and highest strike levels the UK was transformed to such
an extent that by the 90s strike levels had hit a record low. A
restructuring of economic conditions - the creation of the share
holding, stakeholding, property owning, gentrifying society -
democratised speculation for the masses and outmaneuvred traditional
forms of struggle. The defeat in 1985 of the miners'
strike was a turning point - the failure of existing forms of
struggle by its most advanced practitioners which signalled the
end of the post-war era of labour relations/conflict - and ushered
in the bleak social reality of the victorious new economic order.
In the past - the 1980s - people said that a new
generation
was being brought up which had never known a normal life.
Today we have the opposite. A new generation is being brought
up which has
only known a normal life. And normality is social
disintegration. In the 80s we knew there was "No Future" outside
of a social movement. And this Future is it: ecological collapse,
capitalist wars, suicidal terrorism, mass depression and real opposition
portrayed as a hopeless case and hardly ever talked about.
Global recession pushes more and more people into a precarious
balancing on the edge of life, which intensified isolation, along
with mushrooming increases in illnesses (the physical bodily
symptoms of a lack of social resistance) pushes increasing
numbers over. This so scares people that they can't bear (or
bother) to think about it. Yet it's at the back of everyone's
mind. Bringing it to the front of their mind - to remind people
of the possibility and necessity of revolution - is like talking about
intense sex to someone who's long been celibate. How many want to look at
this, at what is new in this intensified alienation? A symptom of
this alienation is to be indifferent to anything beyond one's own
immediate wants and needs, which are increasingly narrowly reduced
to only what is immediately approved of by this commodity-defined
world - just getting through the day. Questioning this would mean,
against virtually all the odds, not just admitting this is hell but
finding a way out of it, honestly. Revolt and its theoretical weapons
means, as always, beginning again. But with defeat and retreat there
are less and less people who try to look at any new developments, both in the ruling show and
in the everyday life of those who are forced to endure it and in those visible sparks of
opposition to the crap (this lack includes most of those who consider themselves
revolutionaries – such as those obsessed with Marxist categories or with the final goal of
revolution).
Areas of life previously relatively undominated (or far less so)
by market forces have been intensively colonised; childhood is a good example. The expanded
proletarianisation of life as economy is accompanied by the emergence of a petit-bourgeois
consciousness as a dominant model of relationships and behaviour - entrepeneurialism (cultural
and economic - drugs and housing for example), the gang as the dominant youth social/economic
unit, intensified functionalising of friends, the anxious "narcissistic personality" hungrily
consuming and reproducing therapies and "expert" self-help as a compensation for the increased
isolation of the social self, a self which becomes increasingly narrow and touchy, making
mountains out of
petty molehills, whilst trivialising the essential.......
It wasn't always so - this naked vulnerability to the ice cold
winds of market "realism". There was a time when revolution was a genuine possibilty, despite
the retrospective doubts that this was the case (mainly borne either out of an understandable
incomplete knowledge of the
atmosphere of the time, a rather intellectually absolutist notion of what revolution means,
or, far worse and unforgiveably, out of the superior contempt for the
working class of those who sold out for some safe lucrative professional career). But the
counter-revolution ultimately won. It is
as important to understand this counter-revolution as a result of this
defeat as it was to understand fascism and Stalinism as a result of the
defeat of the revolutionary uprisings in Germany, Italy and Russia.
Since ideas come from practice and are a means towards practice then a
comprehension of the effects of this defeat and of what might be a
new movement vaguely feeling its precarious way has to be developed.
To vaguely assert some optimism is as pointless as crossing your
fingers and hoping to win the lottery. And to accept the insanity can
only drive you insane. Whatever doesn't kill the commodity economy
makes it stronger. Defeat has meant that fewer and fewer dare try to
struggle out of their narrow lives defended by narrow ideas. The
collapse of traditional forms has been accompanied by the collapse
of the conscious shared memory of that defeated tradition - we need
to look at past flames of opposition to unearth tentatives that
should have gone further.
Who remembers much about the 70s and the '78/'79
Winter of Discontent? Who also remembers much about the glorious
summer of 1981~the riots? What useful reflection has there been on
the miners strike (1984-5), the riots of 1985, the Wapping dispute
(1986-87), Poll Tax (1990) and various other aspects of class
struggle. We are not looking at all this as history safely in the past but as one of the
ways of inciting lived history in the future.
Who remembers the revolutionary critique of art and culture generally now
forgotten and
abandoned as of no importance? We desperately need to update that critique.
We must also look
at the the defeat of the traditional combative working class. Brutal and painfully sickening
that it was and is, it has not, however, meant the end of opposition in the UK - but it has
made it marginal. We look at some of this marginal opposition in our critiques of Reclaim
The Streets and the fuel protests of Autumn 2000; despite their weaknesses compared to past
struggles, it is in these new movements that have appeared periodically that we can also see a
tentative searching for innovation in theory and practise.
As we build this website up we intend to begin again an investigation of
the totality of
the new and horrendous conditions of an increasingly unimaginable alienation. The website
tentatively tries analysing the enormity we face. It is a small contribution to the
desperate efforts being made to fight this increasingly mad world of commodity fetishism
and the ruling show that maintains these dangerously crazy contradictions. To analyse the
new forms of totalitarianism requires pioneering effort and in these texts we look through
some keyholes at modern attitudes, keyholes which hopefully will open onto a clearer view
of, and confrontation with, modern totalitarianism. These keyhole fragments of analysis are
always open to criticism and to more precise concrete examples by those not into rivalrous
attitudes.
What's vital in all this is that the reader, as much as ourselves, is provoked to consider
the questions raised here and their practical implications; we can’t satisfy any search for
easy answers – the answers lie in the process of asking and the practical testing and
questioning of proposed solutions
***
The following was originally on this homepage, but after some
reflection we thought the homepage was too long and so we've put this article
(now including some notes on Marseille and Corsica September - October 2005)
separately - click on title for a link.
notes on class, struggle
and class struggle
* * *
***
Essentially this website is not like a book (something fixed in a form inherited from
literature) but a process in motion and though we won't change original texts from years
ago (though we might add, and maybe subsequently change, various footnotes or
introductory notes ), some of our more
recent texts we are presently working on and,
depending on feedback, our own self-critical reflections and unpredictable developments,
will alter in time. For the sake of clarity, we shall highlight the most recent changes in purple.
.
***
And who is the
'endangered
phoenix'?
We all are.
***
"The phoenix...is a bird roughly the size of an
eagle with brillantly colored plumage that varies with origin. Its
coloring is either purple with a collar of gold or a mixture of red,
gold and blue. The phoenix is the sole one of its kind and lives in
Arabia. At the end of an epoch, as it feels death drawing near, it
builds a funeral pyre of sweet spices. Sitting upon its pyre it sings
the sweetest five-note song we can imagine. The rays of sun ignite the
pyre and the bird is reduced to ashes. From the ashes crawls a worm,
which matures into an adult phoenix. Its first task is to gather the
ashes of its parent from which it emerged and bury its parent in a
temple in Heliopolis (the City of the Sun) to return to Arabia."
-
Man, Myth & Magic.
The revolt of dispossessed individuals... is a class struggle with
brilliantly colored plumage that varies with origin. It is colored by
its purple desire to free itself from even the most beautiful collars.
The revolt of the masses of individuals is as unique as its epochs and
its initiatives and lives everywhere. At the end of an epoch, as it
feels brutal repression drawing near, it explodes the sweetest fury
we can imagine until it burns itself out and is extinguished by its
failures, reduced to ashes. From the ashes crawls a worm, which maybe
will mature into a full blown revolution. But maybe it won't - it will
remain a worm and the phoenix of revolution will never fly again. So,
if it is to get beyond being a worm, one of its first tasks must be to reflect
on the past defeats from which it has emerged, and bury this past in the
sunlight of new risks and insights so as to return.
The phoenix of mass
revolt
is an
endangered species.
Are we to remain worms...?
Will we ever return to the Arabian Nights of our dreams?
(Watch this space and tune in soon for the next epoch…)
***
“...If the designing of the future and the proclamation of ready-made
solutions for all time is not our affair, then we realise all the more
clearly what we have to accomplish in the present - I am speaking of
a ruthless critique of everything existing in two senses: criticism
must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the
powers that be. I am therefore not in favour of setting up any
dogmatic flag. On the contrary, we must try to help the dogmatics
to clarify to themselves, the meaning of their own positions....
Then we shall confront the world not as doctrinaires with a new
principle: “Here is the truth, bow down before it!” We do not
say to the world, “Stop fighting! Your struggle is of no account.
We want to shout the true slogan of the struggle at you.” We only
show the world what it is fighting for, and consciousness is s
omething that the world must acquire, like it or not....
enabling the world to clarify its consciousness which is
unclear to itself... Then it will transpire that the world
has long been dreaming of something that it can acquire if
only it becomes conscious of it. It will transpire that it
is not a matter of drawing a great dividing line between past
and future, but of carrying out the thoughts of the past. And
finally, it will transpire that mankind begins no new task,
but consciously accomplishes its old tasks... So we can express
the trend of our journal simply: the task of our time to
clarify to itself, the meaning of its own struggle and its
own desires. This is a task for the world and for us. It
can only be the task of joint forces." -
Karl Marx, 1843.
(The division of this site into 4 general categories - Daily Life, Culture, Class Struggle
Histories, War & Politics - as above - is merely for convenience and does not in any way imply
that in reality these categories are separate; it's a question of the angle of reality we
emphasise under
each category).
?
We were at one time involved in setting up another site called “Revolt Against an Age of Plenty”
but we fell out with them. This accounts for some overlap in content between the
two sites.
However,
the contents of most of the articles which appear on the two sites are at least a
bit
different on this site.
*
Unless otherwise stated, all articles are wholly or in part written by
endangered
phoenix
*********************
visits since September 7th 2005