Re: AUT: The Body As a Weapon for Civil Disobedience

[Montyneill@xxxxxxx]

Just got around to reading this piece.

Back in the late 70s when Midnight Notes published "Strange Victories," (by
pm), we included a critique of civil disobedience. (SV is in Midnight Oil,
not on our web; however, the shorter Oil version does not include the
critique -- and I don't have it on line to paste it in; critique is in part
III.)

The essence of the critique is that it depends substantially on the value of
the body (a brief excerpt): <the social power of nonviolent civil
disobedience is based on the value embodied in the human capital of the
nonviolent militants (invested in them by <general capital>). Nonviolent
civil disobedience is a potentially very effective strategy  as long as the
value of the labor force involved (e.g., in the case of intellectual workers,
especially in New England) is high.... Non-violent militants use their value
to <shame the state...Thus nonviolent civil disobedience cannot be a
universal remedy, for its effect depends upon who does it...>

Note also that such N-V CD discussed here is that engaged in by a relatively
small band of activists -- relative to the general, non-participating
population. This is clearlyl a different situation than say in India with
Gandhi who recognized the tactic as a mass activity, causing therefore real
and sustained disruption (not symbolic or brief). I think another aspect was
that "world opinion" would recognize some value to the Indian body, more so
than perhaps a century before, and also took advantage of the growing
planetary capacity of mass media. All the above is from me quite conjectural.

Anyway, I add this as a question/thought for those thinking about strategies
and tactics in light of class composition.

Monty Neill
Midnight Notes


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