http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/atoz/asfuck.php
http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/atoz/infighting.php
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/07/evangelical-atheism.html
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Feeling the Fear
OK, you know how I mentioned that I used to hang out with Tories when I was university? I've just done something a little rash, and invited two of them to come and stay with me in Sheffield for a few days next month. On Tuesday I got a message from the more - erm, committed - of them on facebook. I reproduce in full:
Alright, a quick survey of friends attached to your recent photo albums reveals that most if not all have 'Nobody Likes A Tory' badge attached to their respective Fbook pages, as though this were something every thoughtful, halfway decent human being ought to brandish before breakfast. I beg (emphatically) to differ, and am much looking foward to an encounter with this gaggle of collectivists of yours come the early part of next month.
Can't wait to see you again, I hasten to add, and advise that I am practicing a special pie in honour of the occasion.
PS: no need to worry about protection rackets. Frankly, not sure Armstrong's whiff of gentrified Buttskillism is going to be much of a softener. More like blood in the shark's tank. But what the hey: it will, at the very least, be an enlivening culture clash.
Love
So, I'm mainly writing about this because the point of this blog is exploration. And for this to have any meaning, this has to be real exploration, not just the kind where you spend half an hour every day on the internet reading the Daily Mash and a bunch of blogs about how it's probably ok to watch pornography because, actually, like, everything's sexist really, yeah?* Which means proper conflict, which means putting people whose opinions I respect in the same room for a little while and seeing who comes off with fewer chunks missing. I just wish that it was possible for this to happen without feeling as if I genuinely might be risking a few relationships that I value hugely and possibly alienating people who I not only respect but love. And the love that I feel for people that I don't agree with - Anarchists, Trots, Neo-Liberals, Catholics** - has always been a reason not to involve myself in politics. And I suppose that this post is actually asking: is it right to love somebody whose political commitments you feel range from misguided to actively insidious?*** Because even if you believe that this commitment stems from their own good faith, and even if you know for certain that such people are vastly more inteligent - and vastly better read - than you are on almost any topic you care to mention, isn't it the case that your relationship with them is predicated on the unspoken agreement that for much of the time you are covering your metaphorical eyes with your metaphorical hands and singing 'LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA' at the top of your metaphorical voice?
But then you have to ask yourself at what point you think that this stops. Isn't any political organisation essentially a group of people who have decided together what is an acceptable level of LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA? It strikes me that the Left in particular would benefit from a bit more of this, and a bit less in the way of in-fighting and bitchery. But that's always been a problem for idealists - by definition, they don't like compromise. Which is one of the very things that makes them attractive. But essentially, the thing that makes me *want* to commit to some form of leftist politics - the point at which it diverges from policymaking and electioneering - is that in almost all its forms it is based on trying to make the world an easier place to love other people in. You can call yourself a Marxist, and claim that you seek a world in which the worker owns the means of production, or you can call yourself an Anarchist and say that you want to live in a world free from the oppressive power of a faceless governmental beaurocracy - and also that you want to Smash Shit Up - but essentially, what you mean is that you want to live in a world where the relationships that you form on a daily basis aren't tainted - or, god, at least - are less tainted - by the everpresent facts of competition, cruelty, jealousy and exploitation. That holds not just for broad, overarching structural analyses - you know, the kind that deserve capital letters, like Anarchism and Communism - but also movements that allow a large number of less radical participants, like the Woman's Lib or the Civil Rights Movement. What I find unattractive about the Left is that in practice this does not happen - vitriol is as much an ingredient of early 21st century politcal practice as cloak-and-dagger terrorism and propaganda by the deed was in the late C19th. And Ben, I think, is quite right to criticise the impulse to join the 'No One Likes A Tory' club on Facebook. I don't think that in all good conscience I can truly belong to any movement that mainly likes to combat its opponents through the medium of facebook and name-calling. And I know that this isn't solely a problem of the left - I've seen the EDL graffiti off London Road in Sheffield - but this is kind of the point. We're meant to be better that. Or at least, anything that I want to belong to has to be better than that.
* I will probably have to make up my mind about this at some point. Patience, patience!
**I'm a slut like that.
***Have just re-read the sentence, and should probably note that I am aware of the fact that 'misguided' and 'actively insidious' aren't ever more than a succesful election campaign apart from one another.****
**** Ooops, sorry, said 'election'. Must try harder.
Alright, a quick survey of friends attached to your recent photo albums reveals that most if not all have 'Nobody Likes A Tory' badge attached to their respective Fbook pages, as though this were something every thoughtful, halfway decent human being ought to brandish before breakfast. I beg (emphatically) to differ, and am much looking foward to an encounter with this gaggle of collectivists of yours come the early part of next month.
Can't wait to see you again, I hasten to add, and advise that I am practicing a special pie in honour of the occasion.
PS: no need to worry about protection rackets. Frankly, not sure Armstrong's whiff of gentrified Buttskillism is going to be much of a softener. More like blood in the shark's tank. But what the hey: it will, at the very least, be an enlivening culture clash.
Love
So, I'm mainly writing about this because the point of this blog is exploration. And for this to have any meaning, this has to be real exploration, not just the kind where you spend half an hour every day on the internet reading the Daily Mash and a bunch of blogs about how it's probably ok to watch pornography because, actually, like, everything's sexist really, yeah?* Which means proper conflict, which means putting people whose opinions I respect in the same room for a little while and seeing who comes off with fewer chunks missing. I just wish that it was possible for this to happen without feeling as if I genuinely might be risking a few relationships that I value hugely and possibly alienating people who I not only respect but love. And the love that I feel for people that I don't agree with - Anarchists, Trots, Neo-Liberals, Catholics** - has always been a reason not to involve myself in politics. And I suppose that this post is actually asking: is it right to love somebody whose political commitments you feel range from misguided to actively insidious?*** Because even if you believe that this commitment stems from their own good faith, and even if you know for certain that such people are vastly more inteligent - and vastly better read - than you are on almost any topic you care to mention, isn't it the case that your relationship with them is predicated on the unspoken agreement that for much of the time you are covering your metaphorical eyes with your metaphorical hands and singing 'LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA' at the top of your metaphorical voice?
But then you have to ask yourself at what point you think that this stops. Isn't any political organisation essentially a group of people who have decided together what is an acceptable level of LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA? It strikes me that the Left in particular would benefit from a bit more of this, and a bit less in the way of in-fighting and bitchery. But that's always been a problem for idealists - by definition, they don't like compromise. Which is one of the very things that makes them attractive. But essentially, the thing that makes me *want* to commit to some form of leftist politics - the point at which it diverges from policymaking and electioneering - is that in almost all its forms it is based on trying to make the world an easier place to love other people in. You can call yourself a Marxist, and claim that you seek a world in which the worker owns the means of production, or you can call yourself an Anarchist and say that you want to live in a world free from the oppressive power of a faceless governmental beaurocracy - and also that you want to Smash Shit Up - but essentially, what you mean is that you want to live in a world where the relationships that you form on a daily basis aren't tainted - or, god, at least - are less tainted - by the everpresent facts of competition, cruelty, jealousy and exploitation. That holds not just for broad, overarching structural analyses - you know, the kind that deserve capital letters, like Anarchism and Communism - but also movements that allow a large number of less radical participants, like the Woman's Lib or the Civil Rights Movement. What I find unattractive about the Left is that in practice this does not happen - vitriol is as much an ingredient of early 21st century politcal practice as cloak-and-dagger terrorism and propaganda by the deed was in the late C19th. And Ben, I think, is quite right to criticise the impulse to join the 'No One Likes A Tory' club on Facebook. I don't think that in all good conscience I can truly belong to any movement that mainly likes to combat its opponents through the medium of facebook and name-calling. And I know that this isn't solely a problem of the left - I've seen the EDL graffiti off London Road in Sheffield - but this is kind of the point. We're meant to be better that. Or at least, anything that I want to belong to has to be better than that.
* I will probably have to make up my mind about this at some point. Patience, patience!
**I'm a slut like that.
***Have just re-read the sentence, and should probably note that I am aware of the fact that 'misguided' and 'actively insidious' aren't ever more than a succesful election campaign apart from one another.****
**** Ooops, sorry, said 'election'. Must try harder.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
The Manifesto
Right, this is the idea: I am 24 years old. A brief sixth-form flirtation with socialism aside, I have always been apolitical. Resolutely so, in fact. To illustrate - a brief resumé:
WHEN GEO HUNG OUT WITH THE TORIES:
At university I spent most of my time hanging out with other-worldly would be academics who sported tweed jackets sans irony and were conservative without having to think about it. Thinking about it, 'hanging out' might be too strong a phrase. During this period in my life, I was known as 'the ill-informed but well meaning Guardian reading one'. This appelation is still more or less accurate...
WHEN GEO MOVED TO SHEFFIELD:
...but has been attenuated by the fact that I now live in Sheffield, where it is mandatory that you want Thatcher dead and were arrested during the miner's strike. This even holds for people who are undergraduates here. Generally speaking, the character of the city is slightly to the left of Trotsky.
WHEN GEO HUNG OUT WITH THE TROTS:
When I first moved, I shared a house with two members of a Marxist organisation called the Allianc for Worker's Liberty. I went to their meetings occasionally until one of their members told me that he'd advised the organiser of the branch against attempting to recruit me because he had 'met more left-wing policemen.' Also, I accidentally slept with this guy's mate, and then I felt a bit embarrassed. Anyway, after that:
WHEN GEO WENT GREEN AND BASICALLY SLEPT IN A PLANT:
I kind of fell in with this crowd of unbelievably beautiful eco-hipsters who ate paté out of bins a lot and introduced me to the idea of Temporary Autonomous Zones and allotments. About this time, I started to neurote about turning the heating on and eating sea-food. I still did it, though. In fact, my only concessions to the political convictions of my social circle that I've made thus far are a) that I now feel self-conscious consuming diet-coke in company and b) I bought a bike. So anyway, that pretty much brings me up to around last October...
WHEN GEO STARTED SLEEPING WITH AN ANARCHIST:
Does what it says on the tin, really. I started seeing this guy who's an anarchist. Only it wasn't just that I started seeing the guy: I actually started listening to him. And now I'm going to reading groups and can make cracks about doctrinaire Marxists without having to surreptitiously check the terminology that I've written on the back of my hand first. I'm not going to vote in the coming election, and I've even worked out why.
EVERYTHING IS CHANGING:
Essentially, EVERYTHING IS CHANGING. And I'm not entirely sure I like it. Sure, I was a wooly, ill-informed, Guardian-reading liberal before, but at least I was my wooly, ill-informed, Guardian-reading liberal. So this is what this blog is here to do, really: a sort of ebb and flow chart of my thoughts about what I've heard, said and read over the past six months, and what I will be reading, hearing, saying and thinking in the future. This will almost certainly be sloppy, ill-thought out and badly researched half of the time, if not more - I'm only a beginner at this game, remember. But it represents my attempt - long delayed but I guess necessary - to work out what I think is wrong with the Way that Things Are Currently Organised - and to try and decide what, realistically, I can do about it. I'm not on here to proselytise or even particularly to justify my apathy - because I am apathetic a great deal of the time, I know - but because I find those blank white MS Word documents desperately daunting and I think that putting my thoughts into a public forum might help me to keep thinking them. I'd like to hear about the conclusions that other people have come to: whether you're an embittered old bastard with a gin problem and only a handful of rusty red star badges and a divorce to show for twenty year's devotion to the cause, or a fully-fledged eco-anarchist with twenty-six partners who's recently given birth to a tree. Tell me what you've been reading, and what you thought about it. Tell me how many fights you've been in recently. Tell me about this really great forgotten post-punk outfit who've developed the knack of neatly constructing damning critiques of 20th century consumer capitalism in two and a half minutes, complete with glitteringly jangling guitars. Fuck it, man. I'm ready. Bring it on.
And, on that note: I might go and read about anarchy for a little while. Laters.
WHEN GEO HUNG OUT WITH THE TORIES:
At university I spent most of my time hanging out with other-worldly would be academics who sported tweed jackets sans irony and were conservative without having to think about it. Thinking about it, 'hanging out' might be too strong a phrase. During this period in my life, I was known as 'the ill-informed but well meaning Guardian reading one'. This appelation is still more or less accurate...
WHEN GEO MOVED TO SHEFFIELD:
...but has been attenuated by the fact that I now live in Sheffield, where it is mandatory that you want Thatcher dead and were arrested during the miner's strike. This even holds for people who are undergraduates here. Generally speaking, the character of the city is slightly to the left of Trotsky.
WHEN GEO HUNG OUT WITH THE TROTS:
When I first moved, I shared a house with two members of a Marxist organisation called the Allianc for Worker's Liberty. I went to their meetings occasionally until one of their members told me that he'd advised the organiser of the branch against attempting to recruit me because he had 'met more left-wing policemen.' Also, I accidentally slept with this guy's mate, and then I felt a bit embarrassed. Anyway, after that:
WHEN GEO WENT GREEN AND BASICALLY SLEPT IN A PLANT:
I kind of fell in with this crowd of unbelievably beautiful eco-hipsters who ate paté out of bins a lot and introduced me to the idea of Temporary Autonomous Zones and allotments. About this time, I started to neurote about turning the heating on and eating sea-food. I still did it, though. In fact, my only concessions to the political convictions of my social circle that I've made thus far are a) that I now feel self-conscious consuming diet-coke in company and b) I bought a bike. So anyway, that pretty much brings me up to around last October...
WHEN GEO STARTED SLEEPING WITH AN ANARCHIST:
Does what it says on the tin, really. I started seeing this guy who's an anarchist. Only it wasn't just that I started seeing the guy: I actually started listening to him. And now I'm going to reading groups and can make cracks about doctrinaire Marxists without having to surreptitiously check the terminology that I've written on the back of my hand first. I'm not going to vote in the coming election, and I've even worked out why.
EVERYTHING IS CHANGING:
Essentially, EVERYTHING IS CHANGING. And I'm not entirely sure I like it. Sure, I was a wooly, ill-informed, Guardian-reading liberal before, but at least I was my wooly, ill-informed, Guardian-reading liberal. So this is what this blog is here to do, really: a sort of ebb and flow chart of my thoughts about what I've heard, said and read over the past six months, and what I will be reading, hearing, saying and thinking in the future. This will almost certainly be sloppy, ill-thought out and badly researched half of the time, if not more - I'm only a beginner at this game, remember. But it represents my attempt - long delayed but I guess necessary - to work out what I think is wrong with the Way that Things Are Currently Organised - and to try and decide what, realistically, I can do about it. I'm not on here to proselytise or even particularly to justify my apathy - because I am apathetic a great deal of the time, I know - but because I find those blank white MS Word documents desperately daunting and I think that putting my thoughts into a public forum might help me to keep thinking them. I'd like to hear about the conclusions that other people have come to: whether you're an embittered old bastard with a gin problem and only a handful of rusty red star badges and a divorce to show for twenty year's devotion to the cause, or a fully-fledged eco-anarchist with twenty-six partners who's recently given birth to a tree. Tell me what you've been reading, and what you thought about it. Tell me how many fights you've been in recently. Tell me about this really great forgotten post-punk outfit who've developed the knack of neatly constructing damning critiques of 20th century consumer capitalism in two and a half minutes, complete with glitteringly jangling guitars. Fuck it, man. I'm ready. Bring it on.
And, on that note: I might go and read about anarchy for a little while. Laters.
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