Re: AUT: RE: antiwar movement

[Thiago Oppermann <thiago_oppermann@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 28/3/2004 4:03 PM, ".: s0metim3s :." <s0metim3s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> Thiago:
>
> : When I look at that closely, I see
> : people scheming and operating in a
> : political element that is every bit as
> : ordered and hierarchy-inducing as the
> : maligned organizations. Worse, in fact,
> : since the whole thing is informal
> : and far more fluid, and so capable of
> : avoiding any of the criticisms which
> : are so pointlessly easy to level
> : against some party.
>
>
> The critique of informal hierarchies is a handy
> cliche. True but a cliche that makes it seem as if
> formal organisations are indeed capable (or more
> capable) of addressing criticisms regarding
> political practices and that they similarly don't
> include established ways of relating which are
> neither transparent nor open to discussion. No
> communication is all that transparent, as you
> note; but no amount of formal proceduralisms or
> ongoing organisations will make it so.

Cliche or not - the word rhizomatic, in my view, couldn't be more cliche if
it got piercings and danced to electroclash - the point I am making is that
the problem here isn't one of formalism or bureaucracy. These things have to
be approached from a strategic perspective, and I think that while
bureaucratic party structures are instruments of control and discipline,
usually self-serving ones, they are also forms of non-self-serving control.
Often they are very useful. You mention managerialism, and one important
aspect of that is accountability. Who is accountable if the language and
organization just evaporates at each turn? Maybe nobody should be
accountable - I am prepared to countenance that, so long as I don't end up
having to be feel crap for not having enough piercings and hating
electroclash. Or Rage against the Machine. Blecht. With a party, or
something that has a platform and offices, you can at least appeal to
irrelevance of this stuff, and a have a state-like institution to back you
up. Which is extremely dangerous, like everything else.

You say the DSP modus operandum is to discipline people with the threat of
social isolation. That is true, up to a point, and the effect is often
observed where someone is ejected right out of politics by frustration,
etc... But that is practically the sole organizational principle of a lot of
anarchists I know. That's serious problem, and not one of stupidity of
foolishness but rather a characteristic of the project right down to its
roots. I agree very much with the criticism of the rule of law which is the
meat on the bone here, but I am yet to hear even the vaguest theory of
non-statist justice that doesn't hinge on ostracism, shaming or ad hoc
punishment. Or worse yet: hope.  Or maybe I haven't read enough, though that
is something I am less and less willing to accept. Maybe there is some great
big mystery here that I haven't been initiated into, or maybe I am too
stupid to understand it, which I am somewhat more willing to accept.

Besides, you can't have it both ways. The private/public distinction you
introduce doesn't just enable the criticism of certain practices on the
grounds that they enable social control by handlers. It also means people
have a social life, often with very meaningful and satisfying relationships.
And are they exclusive and pathological? Probably not. I wonder if that is
even an acceptable question. In the event, the power of the threat to
ostracism is severely limited both by the small size of these organizations
and by the existence of a wider social sphere. I have observed these people
for a long time. When they get pissed off at their comrades, they float off
somewhere else. These groups are not endogamous, not by a long shot.


Thiago














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