TITLES

A Human approach to the World Peace by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Auroville Dream by Mother

Auroville Background by Aurovillians

Bodhisattva Warriors by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

Cutting through spiritual materialism by Chogyam Trungpa

Letter from inside the Black Bloc

Training the mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa

Universal Responsibility and our Global environment by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Anarchism: What it is and what is not by Joseph Labadie

Anarchy by Errico Malatesta

Mutual Aid by Errico Malatesta

Anarchism and Politics by David Miller

Utopist World Championship 2001

The Theory of Hierarchical Society by Emmanuel Coldstein

Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future by Noam Chomsky

The Idea of Good Government by Errico Malatesta

Subcomandante Marcos: The Death Train of the WTO

Life After Capitalism Essays : Towards an another anarchism by Andrej Grubacic

Thoughts for an Anarchism beyond Left politics by Dave Neal0

The Spirit of Revolt by Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Anarchy

Stateless Socialism Anarchism by Bakunin

George Orwell, 1984

Nietzchean Anarchy

Sutra on the 8 Realizations

KTD--The Manifestation of Compassionate Activity

Anarchism versus Socialism

Chomsky about absolutism

 

 A HUMAN APPROACH TO WORLD PEACE

by
His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso,
The Fourtheenth Dalai Lama



First published in 1984: 12,000 copies
Second printing July 1985: 10,000 copies
Third printing August 1987: 10,000 copies
Fourth printing March 1988: 10:000 copies
Fifth printing April 1989: 7,500 copies

ISBN 0 86171 027 4

Wisdom Publications
361 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02115

Copyright 1984 Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama


DharmaNet Edition 1994


This electronic edition is offered for free distribution
via DharmaNet by arrangement with the publisher.

Transcribed for DharmaNet by Mark Blackstad

DharmaNet International
P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley CA 94704-4951

   Introduction

When we rise in the morning and listen to the radio or read the
newspaper, we are confronted with the same sad news: violence,
crime, wars, and disasters. I cannot recall a single day without
a report of something terrible happening somewhere. Even in
these modern times it is clear that one's precious life is not
safe. No former generation has had to experience so much bad
news as we face today; this constant awareness of fear and
tension should make any sensitive and compassionate person
question seriously the progress of our modern world.

It is ironic that the more serious problems emanate from the
more industrially advanced societies. Science and technology
have worked wonders in many fields, but the basic human
problems remain. There is unprecedented literacy, yet this
universal education does not seem to have fostered goodness,
but only mental restlessness and discontent instead. There is
no doubt about the increase in our material progress and
technology, but somehow this is not sufficient as we have not
yet succeeded in bringing about peace and happiness or in
overcoming suffering.

We can only conclude that there must be something seriously
wrong with our progress and development, and if we do not check
it in time there could be disastrous consequences for the
future of humanity. I am not at all against science and
technology -- they have contributed immensely to the overall
experience of humankind; to our material comfort and well-being
and to our greater understanding of the world we live in. But
if we give too much emphasis to science and technology we are
in danger of losing touch with those aspects of human knowledge
and understanding that aspire towards honesty and altruism.

Science and technology, though capable of creating
immeasurable material comfort, cannot replace the age-old
spiritual and humanitarian values that have largely shaped
world civilization, in all its national forms, as we know it
today. No one can deny the unprecedented material benefit of
science and technology, but our basic human problems remain; we
are still faced with the same, if not more, suffering, fear,
and tension. Thus it is only logical to try to strike a balance
between material development on the one hand and the
development of spiritual, human values on the other. In order
to bring about this great adjustment, we need to revive our
humanitarian values.

I am sure that many people share my concern about the
present worldwide moral crisis and will join in my appeal to
all humanitarians and religious practitioners who also share
this concern to help make our societies more compassionate,
just, and equitable. I do not speak as a Buddhist or even as a
Tibetan. Nor do I speak as an expert on international politics
(though I unavoidably comment on these matters). Rather, I
speak simply as a human being, as an upholder of the
humanitarian values that are the bedrock not only of Mahayana
Buddhism but of all the great world religions. From this
perspective I share with you my personal outlook-that

1 universal humanitarianism is essential to solve global
problems;
2 compassion is the pillar of world peace;
3 all world religions are already for world peace in this way,
as are all humanitarians of whatever ideology;
4 each individual has a universal responsibility to shape
institutions to serve human needs.


Solving Human Problems through Transforming Human Attitudes

Of the many problems we face today, some are natural calamities
and must be accepted and faced with equanimity. Others,
however, are of our own making, created by misunderstanding,
and can be corrected. One such type arises from the conflict of
ideologies, political or religious, when people fight each
other for petty ends, losing sight of the basic humanity that
binds us all together as a single human family. We must
remember that the different religions, ideologies, and
political systems of the world are meant for human beings to
achieve happiness. We must not lose sight of this fundamental
goal and at no time should we place means above ends; the
supremacy of humanity over matter and ideology must always be
maintained.

By far the greatest single danger facing humankind -- in
fact, all living beings on our planet -- is the threat of
nuclear destruction. I need not elaborate on this danger, but I
would like to appeal to all the leaders of the nuclear powers
who literally hold the future of the world in their hands, to
the scientists and technicians who continue to create these
awesome weapons of destruction, and to all the people at large
who are in a position to influence their leaders: I appeal to
them to exercise their sanity and begin to work at dismantling
and destroying all nuclear weapons. We know that in the event
of a nuclear war there will be no victors because there will be
no survivors! Is it not frightening just to contemplate such
inhuman and heartless destruction? And, is it not logical that
we should remove the cause for our own destruction when we know
the cause and have both the time and the means to do so? Often
we cannot overcome our problems because we either do not know
the cause or, if we understand it, do not have the means to
remove it. This is not the case with the nuclear threat.


Whether they belong to more evolved species like humans or to
simpler ones such as animals, all beings primarily seek peace,
comfort, and security. Life is as dear to the mute animal as it
is to any human being; even the simplest insect strives for
protection from dangers that threaten its life. Just as each
one of us wants to live and does not wish to die, so it is with
all other creatures in the universe, though their power to
effect this is a different matter.

Broadly speaking there are two types of happiness and suffering,
mental and physical, and of the two, I believe that mental
suffering and happiness are the more acute. Hence, I stress the
training of the mind to endure suffering and attain a more lasting
state of happiness. However, I also have a more general and concrete
idea of happiness: a combination of inner peace, economic
development, and, above all, world peace. To achieve such goals I
feel it is necessary to develop a sense of universal responsibility,
a deep concern for all irrespective of creed, colour, sex, or
nationality.

The premise behind this idea of universal responsibility is
the simple fact that, in general terms, all others' desires
are the same as mine. Every being wants happiness and does not
want suffering. If we, as intelligent human beings, do not accept
this fact, there will be more and more suffering on this planet.
If we adopt a self-centered approach to life and constantly try
to use others for our own self-interest, we may gain temporary
benefits, but in the long run we will not succeed in achieving
even personal happiness, and world peace will be completely out
of the question.

In their quest for happiness, humans have used different methods,
which all too often have been cruel and repellent. Behaving in
ways utterly unbecoming to their status as humans, they inflict
suffering upon fellow humans and the other living beings for
their own selfish gains. In the end, such short-sighted actions
bring suffering to oneself as well as to others. To be born a
human being is a rare event in itself, and it is wise to use
this opportunity as effectively and skillfully as possible. We
must have the proper perspective, that of the universal life
process, so that the happiness or glory of one person or group
is not sought at the expense of others.

All this calls for a new approach to global problems. The world
is becoming smaller and smaller -- and more and more
interdependent -- as a result of rapid technological advances and
international trade as well as increasing trans-national relations.
We now depend very much on each other. In ancient times problems
were mostly family-size, and they were naturally tackled at the
family level, but the situation has changed. Today we are so
interdependent, so closely interconnected with each other, that
without a sense of universal responsibility, a feeling of universal
brotherhood and sisterhood, and an understanding and belief that we
really are part of one big human family, we cannot hope to overcome
the dangers to our very existence -- let alone bring about peace
and happiness.

One nation's problems can no longer be satisfactorily solved
by itself alone; too much depends on the interest, attitude, and
cooperation of other nations. A universal humanitarian approach
to world problems seems the only sound basis for world peace.
What does this mean: We begin from the recognition mentioned
previously that all beings cherish happiness and do not want
suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically
unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings
and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the
same human family. The wiser course is to think of others also when
pursuing our own happiness. This will lead to what I call 'wise
self-interest,' which hopefully will transform itself into
'compromised self-interest,' or better still, 'mutual interest.'

Although the increasing interdependence among nations might
be expected to generate more sympathetic cooperation, it is
difficult to achieve a spirit of genuine cooperation as long as
people remain indifferent to the feelings and happiness of
others. When people are motivated mostly by greed and jealousy,
it is not possible for them to live in harmony. A spiritual
approach may not solve all the political problems that have
been caused by the existing self-centered approach, but in the
long run it will overcome the very basis of the problems that
we face today.

On the other hand, if humankind continues to approach its
problems considering only temporary expediency, future
generations will have to face tremendous difficulties. the
global population is increasing, and our resources are being
rapidly depleted. Look at the trees, for example. No one knows
exactly what adverse effects massive deforestation will have on
the climate, the soil, and global ecology as a whole. We are
facing problems because people are concentrating only on their
short-term, selfish interests, not thinking of the entire
human family. They are not thinking of the earth and the
long-term effects on universal life as a whole. If we of the
present generation do not think about these now, future
generations may not be able to cope with them.



 Compassion as the Pillar of World Peace

According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles are due
to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we
misapprehend as enduring entities. The pursuit of the objects
of our desire and attachment involves the use of aggression and
competitiveness as supposedly efficacious instruments. These
mental processes easily translate into actions, breeding
belligerence as an obvious effect. Such processes have been
going on in the human mind since time immemorial, but their
execution has become more effective under modern conditions.
What can we do to control and regulate these 'poisons' -- delusion,
greed, and aggression? For it is these poisons that are behind
almost every trouble in the world.

As one brought up in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, I feel
that love and compassion are the moral fabric of world peace.
Let me first define what I mean by compassion. When you have
pity or compassion for a very poor person, you are showing
sympathy because he or she is poor; your compassion is based on
altruistic considerations. On the other hand, love towards your
wife, your husband, your children, or a close friend is usually
based on attachment. When your attachment changes, your
kindness also changes; it may disappear. This is not true love.
Real love is not based on attachment, but on altruism. In this
case your compassion will remain as a humane response to
suffering as long as beings continue to suffer.

This type of compassion is what we must strive to cultivate
in ourselves, and we must develop it from a limited amount to
the limitless. Undiscriminating, spontaneous, and unlimited
compassion for all sentient beings is obviously not the usual
love that one has for friends or family, which is alloyed with
ignorance, desire, and attachment. The kind of love we should
advocate is this wider love that you can have even for someone
who has done harm to you: your enemy.

The rationale for compassion is that every one of us wants
to avoid suffering and gain happiness. This, in turn, is based
on the valid feeling of 'I,' which determines the universal
desire for happiness. Indeed, all beings are born with similar
desires and should have an equal right to fulfill them. If I
compare myself with others, who are countless, I feel that
others are more important because I am just one person whereas
others are many. Further, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition
teaches us to view all sentient beings as our dear mothers and
to show our gratitude by loving them all. For, according to
Buddhist theory, we are born and reborn countless numbers of
times, and it is conceivable that each being has been our
parent at one time or another. In this way all beings in the
universe share a family relationship.

Whether one believes in religion or not, there is no one who
does not appreciate love and compassion. Right from the moment
of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our
parents; later in life, when facing the sufferings of disease
and old age, we are again dependent on the kindness of others.
If at the beginning and end of our lives we depend upon others'
kindness, why then in the middle should be not act kindly
towards others?

The development of a kind heart (a feeling of closeness for
all human beings) does not involve the religiosity we normally
associate with conventional religious practice. It is not only
for people who believe in religion, but is for everyone
regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. It is
for anyone who considers himself or herself, above all, a
member of the human family and who sees things from this larger
and longer perspective. This is a powerful feeling that we
should develop and apply; instead, we often neglect it,
particularly in our prime years when we experience a false
sense of security.

When we take into account a longer perspective, the fact
that all wish to gain happiness and avoid suffering, and keep
in mind our relative unimportance in relation to countless
others, we can conclude that it is worthwhile to share our
possessions with others. When you train in this sort of
outlook, a true sense of compassion -- a true sense of love and
respect for others -- becomes possible. Individual happiness
ceases to be a conscious self-seeking effort; it becomes an
automatic and far superior by-product of the whole process of
loving and serving others.

Another result of spiritual development, most useful in
day-to-day life, is that it gives a calmness and presence of
mind. Our lives are in constant flux, bringing many
difficulties. When faced with a calm and clear mind, problems
can be successfully resolved. When, instead, we lose control
over our minds through hatred, selfishness, jealousy, and
anger, we lose our sense of judgment. Our minds are blinded
and at those wild moments anything can happen, including war.
Thus, the practice of compassion and wisdom is useful to all,
especially to those responsible for running national affairs,
in whose hands lie the power and opportunity to create the
structure of world peace.


  World Religions for World Peace

The principles discussed so far are in accordance with the
ethical teachings of all world religions. I maintain that every
major religion of the world -- Buddhism, Christianity,
Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism,
Taoism, Zoroastrianism -- has similar ideals of love, the same
goal of benefiting humanity through spiritual practice, and the
same effect of making their followers into better human beings.
All religions teach moral precepts for perfecting the functions
of mind, body, and speech. All religions agree upon the
necessity to control the undisciplined mind that harbors
selfishness and other roots of trouble, and each teaches a path
leading to a spiritual state that is peaceful, disciplined,
ethical, and wise. It is in this sense that I believe all
religions have essentially the same message. Differences of
dogma may be ascribed to differences of time and circumstance
as well as cultural influences; indeed, there is no end to
scholastic argument when we consider the purely metaphysical
side of religion. However, it is much more beneficial to try to
implement in daily life the shared precepts for goodness taught
by all religions rather than to argue about minor differences
in approach.

There are many different religions to bring comfort and
happiness to humanity in much the same way as there are
particular treatments for different diseases. For, all
religions endeavor in their own way to help living beings
avoid misery and gain happiness. And, although we can find
causes for preferring certain interpretations of religious
truths, there is much greater cause for unity, stemming from
the human heart. Each religion works in its own way to lessen
human suffering and contribute to world civilization.
Conversion is not the point. For instance, I do not think of
converting others to Buddhism or merely furthering the Buddhist
cause. Rather, I try to think of how I as a Buddhist
humanitarian can contribute to human happiness.

While pointing out the fundamental similarities between
world religions, I do not advocate one particular religion at
the expense of all others, nor do I seek a new 'world
religion.' All the different religions of the world are needed
to enrich human experience and world civilization. Our human
minds, being of different caliber and disposition, need
different approaches to peace and happiness. It is just like
food. Certain people find Christianity more appealing, others
prefer Buddhism because there is no creator in it and
everything depends upon your own actions. We can make similar
arguments for other religions as well. Thus, the point is
clear: humanity needs all the world's religions to suit the
ways of life, diverse spiritual needs, and inherited national
traditions of individual human beings.

It is from this perspective that I welcome efforts being
made in various parts of the world for better understanding
among religions. The need for this is particularly urgent now.
If all religions make the betterment of humanity their main
concern, then they can easily work together in harmony for
world peace. Interfaith understanding will bring about the
unity necessary for all religions to work together. However,
although this is indeed an important step, we must remember
that there are no quick or easy solutions. We cannot hide the
doctrinal differences that exist among various faiths, nor can
we hope to replace the existing religions by a new universal
belief. Each religion has its own distinctive contributions to
make, and each in its own way is suitable to a particular group
of people as they understand life. The world needs them all.


There are two primary tasks facing religious practitioners who
are concerned with world peace. First, we must promote better
interfaith understanding so as to create a workable degree of
unity among all religions. This may be achieved in part by
respecting each other's beliefs and by emphasizing our common
concern for human well-being. Second, we must bring about a
viable consensus on basic spiritual values that touch every
human heart and enhance general human happiness. This means we
must emphasize the common denominator of all world religions --
humanitarian ideals. These two steps will enable us to act both
individually and together to create the necessary spiritual
conditions for world peace.

We practitioners of different faiths can work together for
world peace when we view different religions as essentially
instruments to develop a good heart -- love and respect for
others, a true sense of community. The most important thing is
to look at the purpose of religion and not at the details of
theology or metaphysics, which can lead to mere
intellectualism. I believe that all the major religions of the
world can contribute to world peace and work together for the
benefit of humanity if we put aside subtle metaphysical
differences, which are really the internal business of each
religion.

Despite the progressive secularization brought about by
worldwide modernization and despite systematic attempts in some
parts of the world to destroy spiritual values, the vast
majority of humanity continues to believe in one religion or
another. The undying faith in religion, evident even under
irreligious political systems, clearly demonstrates the potency
of religion as such. This spiritual energy and power can be
purposefully used to bring about the spiritual conditions
necessary for world peace. Religious leaders and humanitarians
all over the world have a special role to play in this respect.

Whether we will be able to achieve world peace or not, we
have no choice but to work towards that goal. If our minds are
dominated by anger, we will lose the best part of human
intelligence -- wisdom, the ability to decide between right and
wrong. Anger is one of the most serious problems facing the
world today.


  Individual Power to Shape Institutions

Anger plays no small role in current conflicts such as those in
the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the North-South problem, and
so forth. These conflicts arise from a failure to understand
one another's humanness. The answer is not the development and
use of greater military force, nor an arms race. Nor is it
purely political or purely technological. Basically it is
spiritual, in the sense that what is required is a sensitive
understanding of our common human situation. Hatred and
fighting cannot bring happiness to anyone, even to the winners
of battles. Violence always produces misery and thus is
essentially counter-productive. It is, therefore, time for
world leaders to learn to transcend the differences of race,
culture, and ideology and to regard one another through eyes
that see the common human situation. To do so would benefit
individuals, communities, nations, and the world at large.

The greater part of present world tension seems to stem from
the 'Eastern bloc' versus 'Western bloc' conflict that has been
going on since World War II. These two blocs tend to describe
and view each other in a totally unfavourable light. This
continuing, unreasonable struggle is due to a lack of mutual
affection and respect for each other as fellow human beings.
Those of the Eastern bloc should reduce their hatred towards
the Western bloc because the Western bloc is also made up of
human beings -- men, women, and children. Similarly those of the
Western bloc should reduce their hatred towards of the eastern
bloc because the Eastern bloc is also human beings. In such a
reduction of mutual hatred, the leaders of both blocs have a
powerful role to play. But first and foremost, leaders must
realize their own and others' humanness. Without this basic
realization, very little effective reduction of organized
hatred can be achieved.

If, for example, the leader of the United States of America
and the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
suddenly met each other in the middle of a desolate island, I
am sure they would respond to each other spontaneously as
fellow human beings. But a wall of mutual suspicion and
misunderstanding separates them the moment they are identified
as the 'President of the USA and the 'Secretary-General of the
USSR'. More human contact in the form of informal extended
meetings, without any agenda, would improve their mutual
understanding; they would learn to relate to each other as
human beings and could then try to tackle international
problems based on this understanding. No two parties,
especially those with a history of antagonism, can negotiate
fruitfully in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and hatred.

I suggest that world leaders meet about once a year in a
beautiful place without any business, just to get to know each
other as human beings. Then, later, they could meet to discuss
mutual and global problems. I am sure many others share my wish
that world leaders meet at the conference table in such an
atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding of each other's
humanness.


To improve person-to-person contact in the world at large, I
would like to see greater encouragement of international
tourism. Also, mass media, particularly in democratic
societies, can make a considerable contribution to world peace
by giving greater coverage to human interest items that reflect
the ultimate oneness of humanity. With the rise of a few big
powers in the international arena, the humanitarian role of
international organizations is being bypassed and neglected. I
hope that this will be corrected and that all international
organizations, especially the United Nations, will be more
active and effective in ensuring maximum benefit to humanity
and promoting international understanding. It will indeed be
tragic if the few powerful members continue to misuse world
bodies like the UN for their one-sided interests. The UN must
become the instrument of world peace. This world body must be
respected by all, for the UN is the only source of hope for
small oppressed nations and hence for the planet as a whole.

As all nations are economically dependent upon one another
more than ever before, human understanding must go beyond
national boundaries and embrace the international community at
large. Indeed, unless we can create an atmosphere of genuine
cooperation, gained not by threatened or actual use of force
but by heartfelt understanding, world problems will only
increase. If people in poorer countries are denied the
happiness they desire and deserve, they will naturally be
dissatisfied and pose problems for the rich. If unwanted
social, political, and cultural forms continue to be imposed
upon unwilling people, the attainment of world peace is
doubtful. However, if we satisfy people at a heart-to-heart
level, peace will surely come.

Within each nation, the individual ought to be given the
right to happiness, and among nations, there must be equal
concern for the welfare of even the smallest nations. I am not
suggesting that one system is better than another and all
should adopt it. On the contrary, a variety of political
systems and ideologies is desirable and accords with the
variety of dispositions within the human community. This
variety enhances the ceaseless human quest for happiness. Thus
each community should be free to evolve its own political and
socioeconomic system, based on the principle of
self-determination.

The achievement of justice, harmony, and peace depends on
many factors. We should think about them in terms of human
benefit in the long run rather than the short term. I realize
the enormity of the task before us, but I see no other
alternative than the one I am proposing -- which is based on our
common humanity. Nations have no choice but to be concerned
about the welfare of others, not so much because of their
belief in humanity, but because it is in the mutual and
long-term interest of all concerned. An appreciation of this
new reality is indicated by the emergence of regional or
continental economic organizations such as the European
Economic Community, the Association of South East Asian
Nations, and so forth. I hope more such trans-national
organizations will be formed, particularly in regions where
economic development and regional stability seem in short
supply.


Under present conditions, there is definitely a growing need
for human understanding and a sense of universal
responsibility. In order to achieve such ideas, we must
generate a good and kind heart, for without this, we can
achieve neither universal happiness nor lasting world peace. We
cannot create peace on paper. While advocating universal
responsibility and universal brotherhood and sisterhood, the
facts are that humanity is organized in separate entities in
the form of national societies. Thus, in a realistic sense, I
feel it is these societies that must act as the building-blocks
for world peace.

Attempts have been made in the past to create societies more
just and equal. Institutions have been established with noble
charters to combat anti-social forces. Unfortunately, such
ideas have been cheated by selfishness. More than ever before,
we witness today how ethics and noble principles are obscured
by the shadow of self-interest, particularly in the political
sphere. There is a school of thought that warns us to refrain
from politics altogether, as politics has become synonymous
with amorality. Politics devoid of ethics does not further
human welfare, and life without morality reduces humans to the
level of beasts. However, politics is not axiomatically 'dirty.'
Rather, the instruments of our political culture have distorted
the high ideals and noble concepts meant to further human
welfare. Naturally, spiritual people express their concern
about religious leaders 'messing' with politics, since they
fear the contamination of religion by dirty politics.

I question the popular assumption that religion and ethics
have no place in politics and that religious persons should
seclude themselves as hermits. Such a view of religion is too
one-sided; it lacks a proper perspective on the individual's
relation to society and the role of religion in our lives.
Ethics is as crucial to a politician as it is to a religious
practitioner. Dangerous consequences will follow when
politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we
believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every
religion.

Such human qualities as morality, compassion, decency,
wisdom, and so forth have been the foundations of all
civilizations. These qualities must be cultivated and sustained
through systematic moral education in a conductive social
environment so that a more humane world may emerge. The
qualities required to create such a world must be inculcated
right from the beginning, from childhood. We cannot wait for
the next generation to make this change; the present generation
must attempt a renewal of basic human values. If there is any
hope, it is in the future generations, but not unless we
institute major change on a worldwide scale in our present
educational system. We need a revolution in our commitment to
and practice of universal humanitarian values.

It is not enough to make noisy calls to halt moral
degeneration; we must do something about it. Since present-day
governments do not shoulder such 'religious' responsibilities,
humanitarian and religious leaders must strengthen the existing
civic, social, cultural, educational, and religious
organizations to revive human and spiritual values. Where
necessary, we must create new organizations to achieve these
goals. Only in so doing can we hope to create a more stable
basis for world peace.

Living in society, we should share the sufferings of our
fellow citizens and practice compassion and tolerance not only
towards our loved ones but also towards our enemies. This is
the test of our moral strength. We must set an example by our
own practice, for we cannot hope to convince others of the
value of religion by mere words. We must live up to the same
high standards of integrity and sacrifice that we ask of
others. The ultimate purpose of all religions is to serve and
benefit humanity. This is why it is so important that religion
always be used to effect the happiness and peace of all beings
and not merely to convert others.

Still, in religion there are no national boundaries. A
religion can and should be used by any people or person who
finds it beneficial. What is important for each seeker is to
choose a religion that is most suitable to himself or herself.
But, the embracing of a particular religion does not mean the
rejection of another religion or one's own community. In fact,
it is important that those who embrace a religion should not
cut themselves off from their own society; they should continue
to live within their own community and in harmony with its
members. By escaping from your own community, you cannot
benefit others, whereas benefiting others is actually the basic
aim of religion.

In this regard there are two things important to keep in
mind: self-examination and self-correction. We should
constantly check our attitude toward others, examining
ourselves carefully, and we should correct ourselves
immediately when we find we are in the wrong.


Finally, a few words about material progress. I have heard a
great deal of complaint against material progress from
Westerners, and yet, paradoxically, it has been the very pride
of the Western world. I see nothing wrong with material
progress per se, provided people are always given precedence.
It is my firm belief that in order to solve human problems in
all their dimensions, we must combine and harmonize economic
development with spiritual growth. However, we must know its
limitations. Although materialistic knowledge in the form of
science and technology has contributed enormously to human
welfare, it is not capable of creating lasting happiness. In
America, for example, where technological development is
perhaps more advanced than in any other country, there is still
a great deal of mental suffering. This is because
materialistic knowledge can only provide a type of happiness
that is dependent upon physical conditions. It cannot provide
happiness that springs from inner development independent of
external factors.

For renewal of human values and attainment of lasting
happiness, we need to look to the common humanitarian heritage
of all nations the world over. May this essay serve as an
urgent reminder lest we forget the human values that unite us
all as a single family on this planet.

I have written the above lines
To tell my constant feeling.
Whenever I meet even a 'foreigner,'
I have always the same feeling:
'I am meeting another member of the human family.'
This attitude has deepened
My affection and respect for all beings.
May this natural wish be
My small contribution to world peace.
I pray for a more friendly,
More caring, and more understanding
Human family on this planet.
To all who dislike suffering,
Who cherish lasting happiness--
This is my heartfelt appeal.







The publisher gratefully acknowledges the kind help of the
following for sponsoring the publication of this booklet:

East-West Foundation, Fullerton, California
Adam Engle, Boulder Creek, California
Potala Publications, New York
The Tibet Fund, New York
Tibet House, New York


Wisdom Publications

Wisdom Publications is a non-profit publisher of books on Buddhism,
Tibet, and related East-West themes. Our titles are published in
appreciation of Buddhism as a living philosophy and with the special
commitment to preserve and transmit important works from all the major
Buddhist traditions.

If you would like more information or a copy of our mail-order catalogue,
and to be kept informed about future publications, please write to us at:
361 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA.


The Wisdom Trust

As a non-profit publisher, Wisdom is dedicated to the publication of fine
Dharma books for the benefit of all sentient beings. We depend upon sponsors
in order to publish books like the one you are holding in your hand.

If you would like to make a donation to the Wisdom Trust Fund to help us
continue our Dharma work or receive information about opportunities for
planned giving, please write to our Boston office.



Wisdom is a non-profit charitable 501(c)(3) organization and a part of the
Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT).




Tibet House

Tibet House has been founded as a non-sectarian, educational
and cultural, not-for-profit institution, under the guidance of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader
of the Tibetan people.
Its purpose is:

* To preserve as a living tradition Tibet's cultural and
religious heritage,
* To present, as vital knowledge, Tibet's ancient traditions
of philosophy, art and science, and
* To share with the world community Tibet's unique
contributions to universal spiritual understanding and human
development.

Tibet House is currently seeking a permanent residence in
New York City. Through educational programs and lectures,
exhibitions, research facilities, publishing enterprises,
broadcast programming, concerts and special spiritual and
secular events, Tibet House will stir the heart of the visitor
who will encounter there the mystery, power and beauty of Tibet.


Programs

We have begun to realize Tibet House with the following
programs:

Tibet House has co-sponsored the North American tours of
several Tibetan performing arts group: the Gyuto Tantric
University Multiphonic Choir from October 1988 through February
1989; the Loseling Monastic University's Great Prayer Festival
program, "Sacred Music, Sacred Dance," in February 1989; and
the Namgyal Monastery's Kalachakra Dancers from July through
October, of 1989.

Tibet House is working with the American Institute of
Buddhist Studies and the New York Open Center to present a
series of seminars on Tibetan history, culture and religion at
the Open Center. The first, in the Fall of 1987, and the
second, in the Fall of 1988, were both well attended. Major
conferences on all aspects of Tibet will follow during The Year
of Tibet.

In 1991 Tibet House will sponsor a series of nationwide
cultural events to be called //The Year of Tibet//. At the heart of
this event is //Wisdom and Compassion// -- the most extensive
exhibition of Tibetan art yet seen. Organized in cooperation
with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the show will
include rare and extraordinary examples of Tibetan art and
sculpture from museums and private collections around the
world, as well as from the personal collection of His Holiness
the Dalai Lama. Many of these works of art are to be displayed
publicly for the first time. After its initial opening, //Wisdom
and Compassion// is scheduled to travel to major art museums in
Washington, New York and Chicago. Concurrently, plans are being
made to present a show of Traditional Tibetan Folk Art to be
seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.
Catalogues and related publications focusing on Tibetan art and
history are being developed with Harry M. Abrams, Inc. The Year
of Tibet will also mark the premiere of a newly commissioned
opera by Philip Glass at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, based
on the life of the great Tibetan saint Milarepa. A world tour
will follow.

Additionally, audiences across the country will have the
opportunity to see authentic Tibetan Opera, as performed by the
Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts from Dharamsala, India,
the capital of Tibet's government in exile. Complementing these
activities, a series of newly produced narratives and
documentary films, focusing on Tibet's culture and history,
will be shown on national TV stations. //The Year of Tibet// will
initiate the first annual Tibetan film festival.

Your help is needed and appreciated. Your contribution will
make these programs possible. If you with to be notified of our
future events and our progress or make a tax-deductible
contribution, payable to Tibet House, please contact: Tibet
House, 625 Broadway 12th Floor, New York, NY 10012. (212) 353-8823.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT

TITLE OF WORK: A Human Approach to World Peace
FILENAME: DL_PEACE.ZIP
AUTHOR: His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
AUTHOR'S ADDRESS: N/A
PUBLISHER'S ADDRESS: Wisdom Publications
361 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02115 USA
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1984
ORIGIN SITE: Access to Insight BBS, Barre MA * (508) 433-5847
(DharmaNet 96:903/1)

The publisher retains all rights to this work and hereby grants
electronic distribution rights to DharmaNet International. This work
may be freely copied and redistributed, provided that it is
accompanied by this Agreement and is distributed at no cost to the
recipient. If this work is used by a teacher in a class, or is quoted
in a review, the publisher shall be notified of such use.

It is the spirit of dana, freely offered generosity, which has kept
the entire Buddhist tradition alive for more than 2,500 years. If you
find this work of value, please consider sending a donation to the
author or publisher listed above, so that these works may continue to
be made available. May your generosity contribute to the happiness of
all beings everywhere.

DharmaNet International, P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley, CA 94704-4951

  top

 The  Dream Of Auroville



There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could
claim as its sole property, a place where all human beings of
goodwill, sincere in their aspiration, could live freely as citizens
of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme
Truth; a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting
instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of
his suffering and misery, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to
triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the
needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence
over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the seeking for
pleasures and material enjoyments.
In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally
without losing contact with their soul. Education would be given,
not with a view to passing examinations and getting certificates and
posts, but for enriching the existing faculties and bringing forth
new ones. In this place titles and positions would be supplanted by
opportunities to serve and organize. The needs of the body will be
provided for equally in the case of each and everyone. In the
general organisation intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority
will find expression not in the enhancement of the pleasures and
powers of life but in the increase of duties and responsibilities.
Artistic beauty in all forms, painting, sculpture, music,
literature, will be available equally to all, the opportunity to
share in the joys they bring being limited solely by each one's
capacities and not by social or financial position.
For in this ideal place money would be no more the sovereign lord.
Individual merit will have a greater importance than the value due
to material wealth and social position. Work would not be there as
the means of gaining one's livelihood, it would be the means whereby
to express oneself, develop one's capacities and possibilities,
while doing at the same time service to the whole group, which on
its side would provide for each one's subsistence and for the field
of his work.
In brief, it would be a place where the relations among human
beings, usually based almost exclusively upon competition and
strife, would be replaced by relations of emulation for doing
better, for collaboration, relations of real brotherhood.


Auroville Universal Township
webmaster@auroville.org.in

top

  The Background of Auroville




Auroville wants to be the first realisation of human unity based on the
teaching of Sri Aurobindo, where men of all countries would be at home.


Auroville
The city-in-the-making is located on the Coromandel Coast in south India.
It draws its inspiration from the vision and work of the renowned Indian
seer and spiritual visionary, Sri Aurobindo. His spiritual collaborator,
The Mother, founded the township in 1968 and gave its Charter, which you
find scrolling on our homepage. The writings of these visionaries, and the
specific guidelines for Auroville given by the Mother are crucial for
in-depth understanding of what is trying to be achieved in Auroville, a
collective experiment dedicated to human unity and international
understanding.
Human Unity
"With the present morality of the human race a sound and durable human
unity is not yet possible; but there is no reason why a temporary
approximation to it should not be the reward of strenuous aspiration and
untiring effort. By constant approximations and by partial realisations
and temporary successes Nature advances", writes Sri Aurobindo, and this
reality stands central in Auroville and acts as perpetual encouragement
for the residents to persevere. During all our meetings, deliberations and
plannings, we are acutely aware of how vast and how high our aim is, for
"--- in it must be found the means of a fundamental, an inner, a complete,
a real human unity which would be the one secure base of a unification of
human life. A spiritual oneness which would create a psychological oneness
not dependent upon any intellectual or outward uniformity."
Pondicherry
Auroville's location in south India is connected with the fact that the
Mother had been living in Pondicherry since 1920. It was there, in the Sri
Aurobindo Ashram in 1964 that the idea of Auroville was conceived. Both
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had expressed in their earliest writings the
necessity of starting, at some point, a collective experiment under
optimum conditions - ideally in the form of a city - in order to create a
bridgehead for a new consciousness which was seeking to manifest in the
world. The Ashram itself, formally created in 1926, was a first attempt in
that direction. It was only in 1964 that the Mother felt that the time had
come for such a bold experiment to be started on the bigger scale of a
township.
The name 'Auroville' was given in homage to Sri Aurobindo, while also
meaning 'City of Dawn'. The idea was recognised and taken up by the
Government of India. A location near to Pondicherry was found. The time
was right, the wheel set in motion, and support started coming in. The
inauguration took place on February 28th, 1968.
Worldwide support
Since the very beginning, Auroville has received the unanimous endorsement
of the General Conference of UNESCO in 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1983.
Governmental and Non-Governmental Organisations in India and abroad have
funded various development programmes, and donations have been received
from foundations in Europe and the USA, from Auroville International
Centres, and from private donors around the world. The residents
themselves have also made, and continue to make, a major contribution of
their resources and energy to the project.
Multifarious activities
Auroville is intended as a city for up to 50,000 inhabitants from around
the world. Today its inhabitants number around 1,500 people, drawn from
some thirty countries. They live in 100 settlements of varying size,
separated by village and temple lands and surrounded by Tamil villages
with a total population of over 35,000 people. Their activities are
multifarious, and include afforestation, organic agriculture, educational
research, health care, village development, appropriate technology, and
building construction, information technology, small and medium scale
businesses, town planning, water table management, cultural activities and
community services.
Independent legal body
In 1988, the Government of India passed the Auroville Foundation Act to
safeguard the development of Auroville according to its Charter. This Act
established three constituent bodies: the Governing Board, which would
oversee the development of the township in collaboration with its
inhabitants, the Residents Assembly and the International Advisory
Council, which can provide international support and advice, when
required, to the Governing Board.
Faith in humanity's future
As the world is rapidly changing and groping for new paradigms to re-model
itself, so Auroville stands poised at the start of a new millennium, ready
to enter a new phase of its development and growth, and aware of a new
flowering of the faith in humanity's future that it represents.
For a comprehensive overview of activities in the township, go to The City
the Earth needs

Auroville Universal Township
webmaster@auroville.org.in

top

 BODHISATTVA WARRIORS

   by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

Many great Buddhist masters have prophesied that centuries from
now, when the forces of aggression amass on earth and no reason can
turn them back, the kingdom of Shambhala will open its gates and its
enlightened warriors will come forth into battle. Whoever they
encounter will be given a choice--turn away from non virtue to virtue
or, by direct, wrathful intervention, be liberated into a pure land
beyond suffering.

A Buddhist story tells of a ferry captain whose boat was carrying
500 bodhisattvas in the guise of merchants. A robber on board planned
to kill everyone and pirate the ship's cargo.

The captain, a bodhisattva himself, saw the man's murderous
intention and realized this crime would result in eons of torment for
the murderer. In his compassion, the captain was willing to take
hellish torment upon himself by killing the man to prevent karmic
suffering that would be infinity greater than the suffering of the
murdered victims. The captain's compassion was impartial; his
motivation was utterly selfless.

Now, as I write this, the Middle East is inflamed with war.
Watching the television news, I pray that this war will prevent
greater wars, greater suffering, and that those opposed to war develop
the skills to bring about authentic peace. We cannot fully discern
the motivation of any participants involved in the conflict, but it is
unlikely that many have the ability to bring about ultimate liberation
for friends and enemies alike, or that they will be able to sustain
the bodhisattva's impartial compassion as they engage in conflict.

What we can know is our own minds. We can adhere to Buddhist ideals
in our activities, whether we are combatants, protestors, decision-
makers or concerned witnesses. We can pray that whatever virtue there
is in the situation prevails, that genuine peace be established. The
Buddha has taught that throughout countless lifetimes all beings have
been our parents and have shown us great kindness. Now they have
fallen under the sway of the mind's poisons of desire, anger,
ignorance, and they suffer terribly. Could we exclude any from our
compassion any more than the sun could exclude any from the warmth and
radiance of its rays.

As we aspire to peace, now and in the future cycles of our
existence, we cannot deny the possibility that each of us may be
confronted with the need for wrathful intervention in order to prevent
greater harm. May the spiritual mining we undertake now allow us to
enter such situations free from the delusions of the mind's poisons.
May we act with spontaneous compassion to bring ultimate liberation to
all alike, both victims and aggressors.

top
 

Shambhala Publications, Inc.; Boston, Massachusetts; 1973.

       
 Letter from Inside the Black Bloc

Mary Black*, AlterNet
July 25, 2001



I'm running as fast as my asthmatic lungs will allow in the
midst of what can only be called a mob. My friend from back
home and I hold hands so that we won't loose each other, but
I'm holding him back a little. He's in much better shape than
I am and he'd probably be out of range of the tear gas by now
if it wasn't for me.


A phalanx of riot cops is getting closer and I let go of my
friend's hand, so that at least one of us can get away. He
darts ahead of me onto a side street. I'm small, and now I'm
by myself, so I'm not attracting much attention from the cops.
I raise my hands in the air to show that I'm giving in, and
let the cops push me in the direction that they are pushing
all of us -- conventional protester and black clad rioter
alike -- down a blocked side street.


Probably there is no way out of this alley; it's a trap, but
the tear gas is too thick at this point for me to resist. I'm
fumbling for my gas mask, but I'm going where I'm being told
to go. I'm aware that some folks I've been marching with are
being picked out of the crowd and thrown to the ground. Folks
are trying to pull people out of the hands of the cops. One
guy gets yanked back from the police line and runs; he gets
away, but the friend I came here with is tackled. The last
time I see him that day he's face down on the cement, two big
undercover cops straddling him. Like most of the folks around
me, I run.


We're retreating, but only as much as we have to. And in a few
minutes we'll find our group again and advance back toward the
area that the cops have declared off limits to all but a small
group of extremely wealthy, extremely powerful, mostly white,
mostly men.


If words like "advance" sound militaristic in tone, that's
probably because I'm a part of a group that at least appears
paramilitary. Our clothes are uniform issue and intentionally
menacing: black bandanas, ragged black army surplus pants,
black hooded sweatshirts (with optional red and black flag or
slogan-covered patches) and shiny black boots (or for the
vegans in the crowd, battered black converse).


I'm part of a loosely affiliated international group of
individuals known as the Black Bloc. We don't have a party
platform, and you don't have to sign anything or go to any
meetings to join us. We show up at all kinds of
demonstrations, from actions to free Mumia Abu Jamal, to
protests against the sanctions in Iraq, and at just about
every meeting of international financial and political
organizations from the WTO to the G8. Although most anarchists
would never wear black bandanas over their faces or break
windows at McDonalds, almost all of us are anarchists.


Most folks I know who have used Black Bloc tactics have day
jobs working for nonprofits. Some are school teachers, labor
organizers or students. Some don't have full-time jobs, but
instead spend most of their time working for change in their
communities. They start urban garden projects and bike
libraries; they cook food for Food Not Bombs and other groups.
These are thinking and caring folks who, if they did not have
radical political and social agendas, would be compared with
nuns, monks, and others who live their lives in service.


There is a fair amount of diversity in who we are and what we
believe. I've known folks in the Black Bloc who come from as
far south as Mexico City and as far north as Montreal. I think
that the stereotype is correct that we are mostly young and
mostly white, although I wouldn't agree that we are mostly
men. When I'm dressed from head to toe in baggy black clothes,
and my face is covered up, most people think I'm a man too.
The behavior of Black Bloc protesters is not associated with
women, so reporters often assume we are all guys.


People associated with a Black Bloc may just march with the
rest of the group, showing our solidarity with each other and
bringing visibility to anarchists, or we may step up the mood
of the protest, escalating the atmosphere and encouraging
others to ask for more than just reforms to a corrupt system.
Spray painting of political messages, destroying property of
corporations and creating road blocks out of found materials
are all common tactics of a Black Bloc.


The Black Bloc is a fairly recent phenomenon, probably first
seen in the U.S. in the early '90s and evolving out of protest
tactics in Germany in the '80s. The Black Bloc may be in part
a response to the large-scale repression of activist groups by
the FBI during the '60s, '70s and '80s. It is impossible at
this point to form a radical activist group without the fear
of infiltration and disruption by the police and. for some,
taking militant direct action in the streets with very little
planning and working only with small networks of friends are
the only meaningful forms of protest available.


Although there is no consensus among us on what we all
believe, I think I can safely say that we have a few ideas in
common. The first is the basic anarchist philosophy that we do
not need or want governments or laws to decide our actions.
Instead, we imagine a society where there is true liberty for
all, where work and play are shared by everyone and where
those in need are taken care of by the voluntary and mutual
aid of their communities. Beyond this vision of an ideal
society, we believe that public space is for everyone. We have
a right to go where we want, when we want and governments
should not have the right to control our movements, especially
in order to hold secret meetings of groups like the WTO, which
make decisions that affect millions.


We believe that destroying the property of oppressive and
exploitative corporations like The Gap is an acceptable and
useful protest tactic. We believe that we have the right to
defend ourselves when we are in physical danger from tear gas,
batons, armored personnel carriers and other law enforcement
technology. We reject the idea that police should be allowed
to control our actions at all. Looking at Rodney King, Amadu
Dialo, Abner Ruima, the Ramparts scandal in Los Angeles and
the Riders in Oakland, many of us conclude that abuse by the
police is not only endemic, it is inherent.


We live in a society that is racist and homophobic and sexist
and unless that is taken out of our society, it cannot be
taken out of the cops who enforce the rules of our society. In
an even larger view, we live in a society that has agreed to
give some people the right to control what others do. This
creates a power imbalance that cannot be remedied even with
reforms of the police. It is not just that police abuse their
power, we believe that the existence of police is an abuse of
power. Most of us believe that if cops are in the way of where
we want to go or what we want to do, we have a right to
directly confront them. Some of us extend this idea to include
the acceptability of physically attacking cops. I have to
emphasize that this is controversial even within the Black
Bloc, but also explain that many of us believe in armed
revolution, and within that context, attacking the cops
doesn't seem out of place.


There have been hours of debate in both the mainstream and
left-wing press about the Black Bloc. For the most part, the
media seem to agree that the Black Bloc is bad. The mainstream
media's current consensus is that the Black Bloc is bad and
extremely dangerous. The progressive media's most common line
is that the Black Bloc is bad, but at least their aren't many
of us. Everyone seems to call Black Bloc protesters violent.
Violence is a tricky concept. I'm not totally clear what
actions are violent, and what are not. And when is a violent
action considered self defense? I believe that using the word
violent to describe breaking the window of a Nike store takes
meaning away from the word. Nike makes shoes out of toxic
chemicals in poor countries using exploitative labor
practices. Then they sell the shoes for vastly inflated prices
to poor black kids from the first world. In my view, this
takes resources out of poor communities on both sides of the
globe, increasing poverty and suffering. I think poverty and
suffering could well be described as violent, or at least as
creating violence.


What violence does breaking a window at Nike Town cause? It
makes a loud noise; maybe that is what is considered violent.
It creates broken glass, which could hurt people, although
most of the time those surrounding the window are only Black
Bloc protesters who are aware of the risks of broken glass. It
costs a giant multi-billion dollar corporation money to
replace their window. Is that violent? It is true that some
underpaid Nike employee will have to clean up a mess, which is
unfortunate, but a local glass installer will get a little
extra income too.


As a protest tactic, the usefulness of property destruction is
limited but important. It brings the media to the scene and it
sends a message that seemingly impervious corporations are not
impervious. People at the protest, and those at home watching
on TV, can see that a little brick, in the hands of a
motivated individual, can break down a symbolic wall. A broken
window at Nike Town is not threatening to peoples safety, but
I hope it sends a message that I don't just want Nike to
improve their actions, I want them to shut down and I'm not
afraid to say it.


The biggest complaint that the left has expressed about the
Black Bloc is that we make the rest of the protesters look
bad. It is understandably frustrating for organizers who have
spent months planning a demonstration when a group of scary
looking young people get all of the news coverage by lighting
things on fire. Yet what is missing in this critique is an
acknowledgement that the corporate media never covers the real
content of demonstrations. Militant demonstration and peaceful
protest alike are rarely covered by the media at all, let
alone in any depth. Although I too wish that the media would
cover all styles of protest, or, more importantly, the
underlying issues inspiring the protest, I'm also aware that
militant tactics do get media attention. And I think that is a
good thing.


I started my activist work during the Gulf War, and learned
early that sheer numbers of people at demonstrations are
rarely enough to bring the media out. During the war I spent
weeks organizing demonstrations against the war. In one case,
thousands showed up to demonstrate. But again and again, the
newspapers and television ignored us. It was a major contrast
the first time I saw someone break a window at a demonstration
and suddenly we were all on the six o'clock news. The militant
mood of anti-globalization protests in the last couple years
has undeniably contributed to the level of attention that
globalization is now getting in the media. And although the
Black Bloc is not the only reason for this, (a myriad of
creative, innovative strategies have helped to bring the
fickle eye of the media in the direction of the left), I
believe that George Bush II felt compelled to directly address
the protesters at the G8 summit in Genoa because of the media
coverage that our movement is finally getting.


A second complaint that I have heard from the left, and in
particular from other, non-Black Bloc protesters, is that they
don't like our masks. I've been yelled at by protester and cop
alike to take off my mask. This idea is impossible for most of
us. What we are doing is illegal. We believe in militant,
direct action protest tactics. We are well aware that police
photograph and videotape demonstrations, even when they are
legally disallowed from doing so. To take off our masks will
put us in direct danger of the police.


The masks serve another, symbolic purpose as well. Although
there are certainly those who wish to advance their own
positions or gain popularity within the militant anarchist
community, the Black Bloc maintains an ideal of putting the
group before the individual. We rarely give interviews to the
press (and those of us who do are generally frowned upon or
regarded with suspicion). We act as a group because safety is
in numbers and more can be accomplished by a group than by
individuals, but also because we do not believe in this
struggle for the advancement of any one individual. We don't
want stars or spokespeople. I think the anonymity of the Black
Bloc is in part a response to the problems that young
activists see when we look back at the civil rights, anti-war,
feminist and anti-nuclear movements. Dependence on charismatic
leaders has not only led to infighting and hierarchy within
the left, but has given the FBI and police easy targets who,
if killed or arrested, leave their movements without
direction. Anarchists resist hierarchy, and hope to create a
movement that is difficult for police to infiltrate or
destroy.


Some of the critiques of the Black Bloc by the left come from
our own acceptance of the values of our corrupt society. There
is outcry when some kids move a dumpster into the street and
light it on fire. Most people conclude the protesters are
doing this to give themselves a thrill, and I can't deny that
there is a thrilling rush of adrenaline each time I risk
myself in this way. But how many of us forgive ourselves for
occasionally buying a T-Shirt from The Gap, even though we
know that our dollars are going directly to a corporation that
violently exploits their workers? Why is occasional "shopping
therapy" more acceptable than finding joy in an act of
militant protest that may be limited in its usefulness? I
would argue that even if Black Bloc protests only served to
enrich the lives of those who do them, they are still better
for the world than spending money at the multiplex, getting
drunk or other culturally sanctioned forms of entertainment or
relaxation.


I have my own criticisms of what I'm doing and of the efficacy
of my protest tactics. Property destruction, spray painting
and looking menacing on TV is clearly not enough to bring on a
revolution. The Black Bloc won't change the world. I dislike
the feeling of danger or at least the fear of danger at
protests for those who do not want to be in danger --
particularly for the kids, pregnant women and older folks I
see there. I really hate the annoying use of pseudo-military
jargon like "communiquι" and "bloc" by my "comrades." But
mostly I hate hearing myself and my friends trashed by every
mainstream organizing group from the AFL-CIO to Global
Exchange and in every left-wing rag from Mother Jones to the
beloved Indymedia.org. Although this is not true for everyone
in the Black Bloc, I respect the strategies of most other
left-wing groups. At demonstrations I attempt to use Black
Bloc actions to protect non-violent protesters or to draw
police attention away from them. When this is not possible, I
try to just stay out of the way of other protesters.


Despite my concerns, I think that Black Bloc actions are a
worthwhile form of protest. And as I watch the increasingly
deadly force with which the police enforce the law at
demonstrations around the world (three protesters were shot
dead at an anti-WTO demonstration in Papua New Guinea in June,
two protesters were shot dead at an anti-globalization
demonstration in Venezuela last year, and Carlo Giulliani, a
23 year old, was killed by police during the G8 summit in
Genoa), I find it increasingly ironic that my actions are
labeled as violent and dangerous while even the left seems to
think that the police are "just doing their jobs."


I will continue to participate in protest in this way, and
anyone who cares to is welcome to join me. Bricks are easy to
find and targets are as close as your local McDonalds.
www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=1123...
add your own comments

Black Bloc (english)
by Seamus 9:33am Fri Jul 27 '01

This is one of the most well thought out, well worded defenses
of the Black Bloc I have ever read. I now find my viewpoint on
the subject slightly different than it was a minute ago.
The question it leaves me with is, what now? What creative new
tactics are we going to use now? Would the Black Bloc be
better utilized as guerilla saboteurs? Maybe they should step
back a bit from the limelight at the big events and focus more
on clandestine vandalism, along the lines of the ELF. This
keeps the issues in the news year round and not merely at
summits. It also limits the fears of more passive
demonstrators.
Perhaps we need to review street fighting tactics. With the
new fortification trend in recent summits, we are forced to
look more like the aggressor. It is rather an ingenious tactic
on their part. By building ramparts around the meetings they
get to gather with limited disturbance and still maintain the
appearance of the underdogs besieged by an unruly mob. In
Seattle, it was possible to close down the WTO because we
caught them more or less unawares. We established a blockade
before most of the delegates got there. This let us assume a
passive, defensive posture. They would have to attack us if
they wanted to have their little meeting and, of course, it is
always easier to defend then attack. Perhaps we need to find
ways to have them bring the battle to us, at a location of our
choosing, rather than throw ourselves again and again against
a wall of opposition.
Maybe the biggest problem with the Black Bloc is PR. There is
a definite stigma that goes along with bricks and Molotovs. If
there were something similar to the Teddy Bear catapult that
was used in Quebec, only more dramatic.
I don’t have the answers, unfortunately, only vague
suggestions. I know we don’t need to fight harder, nor softer,
just more intelligently.

Black Bloc's Tactical Future (english)
by Seamus 9:49am Fri Jul 27 '01

This is one of the most well thought out, well worded defenses
of the Black Bloc I have ever read. I now find my viewpoint on
the subject slightly different than it was a minute ago.
The question it leaves me with is, what now? What creative new
tactics are we going to use now? Would the Black Bloc be
better utilized as guerilla saboteurs? Maybe they should step
back a bit from the limelight at the big events and focus more
on clandestine vandalism, along the lines of the ELF. This
keeps the issues in the news year round and not merely at
summits. It also limits the fears of more passive
demonstrators.
Perhaps we need to review street fighting tactics. With the
new fortification trend in recent summits, we are forced to
look more like the aggressor. It is rather an ingenious tactic
on their part. By building ramparts around the meetings they
get to gather with limited disturbance and still maintain the
appearance of the underdogs besieged by an unruly mob. In
Seattle, it was possible to close down the WTO because we
caught them more or less unawares. We established a blockade
before most of the delegates got there. This let us assume a
passive, defensive posture. They would have to attack us if
they wanted to have their little meeting and, of course, it is
always easier to defend then attack. Perhaps we need to find
ways to have them bring the battle to us, at a location of our
choosing, rather than throw ourselves again and again against
a wall of opposition.
Maybe the biggest problem with the Black Bloc is PR. There is
a definite stigma that goes along with bricks and Molotovs. If
there were something similar to the Teddy Bear catapult that
was used in Quebec, only more dramatic.
I don’t have the answers, unfortunately, only vague
suggestions. I know we don’t need to fight harder, nor softer,
just more intelligently.

Experience of the Black Bloc in Quebec City (english)
by Lear's Shadow 10:35am Fri Jul 27 '01
dord@eol.ca
This is an excerpt from a letter sent to an activist colleague
after Quebec City, pertaining to questions raised about the
role of the Black Bloc there. It seems pertinent to the
commentary above:

One issue that you raise in your paper continues to perplex
me. This is the role – apparent, alleged, whatever – that was
played by the Black Bloc. I admit that I’ve by no means sorted
out my own feelings on this. The general insistence of most
people who were at The Fence, in one way or another, has been
that they were neither involved in nor supportive of acts of
violent provocation in regard to the police. And it seems to
me that both sides benefit, to some extent, from a
demonization of the Black Bloc: the authorities because the
simple presence of a group that could, through its actions, be
labelled “hooligans” and “anarchists” provided a rationale,
however flimsy, for the massive “defensive” preparations; and
the protesters because the presence of so clearly demarcated a
“minority” enables us to step back from the question (which I
fear may be legitimate) of whether violent response was both
called for & justified by the high-handed secrecy of what was
going on behind that Fence. I think the argument can be made
that what was going on behind The Fence was itself so
inherently violent – by virtue of the secrecy & the corporate
collusion that you again very aptly point out – that the
actions of the Black Bloc in making manifest this violence,
through extreme & indiscriminate police response, were to some
extent justified. This is, perhaps, a slippery slope, & I
don’t know where that slippery slope leads. Except that – & I
need to keep pointing this out to people – the Black Bloc did
not set in motion the utterly secretive & hierarchical process
of the Summit of the Americas. They did not, that is,
establish the slippery slope, but only make clear that the
slope already exists, & is very slippery.

I do know that on the occasions when, at The Fence, I was
proximate to operations by the Black Bloc, I was pretty
impressed at both their efficiency & determination. I honestly
do not know who these people were. In one instance, however, I
heard one helmeted & gas-masked figure, almost all in black,
say loudly & with authority “Black Bloc here.” Almost
instantly, he was surrounded by several other similarly
dressed figures. They also had a large plastic bin, from which
they withdrew a variety of makeshift shields & as I recall
large sticks. In terms of both anonymity & outfitting, then,
the similarity to the police themselves was striking. But
these were not the police. As I by then had a gas mask, I
actually attempted to accompany this group up a concealed
slope off Rue St. Jean, in what I assume was some sort of
flanking manoeuvre on The Fence to the west. But they were a
lot younger than I am, & a lot faster, & a lot less encumbered
by paraphernalia. I had also, at that point, not yet figured
out that I could remove the gas mask filter from its bulky
canvas bag, & strap it to my side. So basically, by the time I
got up the muddy slope, they were out of sight.

What I saw & heard there, however, & on a couple of other
occasions, leaves me in little doubt that the Black Bloc were
a real presence, & not a concoction of agents provocateurs
planted by the police. This is, in fact, my one reservation
about your paper: that you are – in the understandable
interest of maintaining, to a wider public, a certain moral
high ground of non-violent protest -- playing down the actual
role & presence of the Black Bloc in drawing out & making
manifest the terms of a violence that already exists
endemically, but that is generally well cosmeticized. As I
said, my feelings & thoughts on this are by no means fully
sorted through either. I’m hoping that the process of the
narrative I’m writing will help.
home.eol.ca/~dord

WE salute your self sacrifice but.... (english)
by Arena OF NO BRICKS 1:57pm Fri Jul 27 '01

Your (probabblebaby) Too young to remember Jetro Tull's THICK
AS A BRICK!! but anyway i'll try to get through the thick as a
brick skulls one more time!!

THE ARENA OF NO BRICKS and
we who go to die salute you We who go to die salute you!!
We all want to thank you for your noble sacrifice!!
But The problem is without any type of leardership you are
easily infiltrated and exploited. Your right about the
hierarchy of the past but you young bucks are being
infiltrated by other youth who say and go with you but who are
feeding info back to the gov pigs!!Sadly that's what happened
in italia. we Gladiators have a special type of reign not rule
but a reign and that reign revolves as a revolutionary
revolving and ever evolving door that spins from day to day.
For without some type of order you are too easily infiltrated
and it becomes a danger for you and other groups who want to
reach out in unionship with you all!! Most gladiators have
voted not to deal with you all at all for that reason, for it
puts to many others at risk!! Our dealings are far to deep to
deal with those without any responsibility or form of
reign!!But a great diversion you all are!!
Not really knowing who is who can be a danger !! that is why
your group is one of the most infiltrated and opened for
exploitation in the moviment!! Castro and other
revolutionaries havn't lasted for as long as he has by not
knowing who was really part of his moviment!! Remember you
have taken on a great responsibility to fight the evil system
and that is a noble responsibility which we all thank you
for!! Now freaken organize yourselves better and check out who
is really who so you and we and they can get the job done
better against the them!!CAPSCI!!
Sacrificing is one thing service another know the difference
and apply them correctly at need be when the time demands it
of you!! See further the distance!!
See the Divine Reason in Wisdom's grace and then make that
noble sacrifice in the service of Humanity's great Causes!
Hard to understand and harder still to put in practice but
when you do it holds the key to divine Enlightenment!!
Did you read our past post to you all on the Gladiator King of
Fools and our concepts on leadership!! And if your want to
really get wild fuck throwing bricks at a macdonalds window
come and become a gladiator so you can kill wild right wing
jerk offs in the Arena Of Death instead!!
WE are Swordsmen throwing bricks is pussys work!! I want the
rich ceo's and their henchmens heads fuck the building it can
turned into another use !! used as something more useful to
help women and their children or a place to help the poor!!
it's not the buildings (thick as a brick) its the assholes and
what they turn the structures into and their rotten purpose of
that structure!!
We salute your all self sacrificing ways but you must also
think also of service, sevice to whom, does it serve others
well the moviment as a whole service to others is a fine line
and watch that it then doesn't become just self serving like
the rotten pig gov's do!! sacrifice and service go hand in
hand walking a tight rope in balance and harmony if not then a
grand fall is eminent!! Waging war must be done carefully or
the stupid fool will fall at the hands of an evil dragon or
the smarter king of fools!!


MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU ALL!!

Signed at the swords edge!!
WE Bitter OVER BITTER Gladiators
Of the Society of the Sacred Sword

stupid it may seem (english)
by vlad 5:51pm Fri Jul 27 '01
tty@newmail.ru
stupid it may seem but why attack convensions and block
meetings. face-to-face allows to discuss a great deal of
things which you can't transfer over wire, but still those
things are rare and only bring havoc in the streets.
probably it is men you should block, not their summits.
consider putting some high-up under home arrest by peacfully
blocking all exits from his house. you have enough resources
for it. you'll get enough coverage i think. and probably
you'll be able to pass your message.

couldnt of said it any better.... (english)
by shame 2:53am Sat Jul 28 '01

Mary Black you couldnt of said it any better...i thank you for
bringing to light things that others can not put into
words...i shake your hand and stand next to you black
masked...in solodarity and forever fighting for revolution....


Arena:We Salute You But... (english)
by JA 3:51pm Sat Jul 28 '01
Arena@FullofShit.ten


Arena Author of We Salute Your Self Sacrifice But...

Arena
Is
A

DISINFORMATION SPECIALIST

DON'T BELIEVE HIS LIES

He immediately implies that the movement "Has A thick Skull,"
-This connotation is that the movement is misguideed
-Misguided due to lack of experience

Which certainly contradicts what Mary has written about. The
Black Bloc has taken on the most powerful institutions in the
world, the multinationals, thinktanks, and phony democratic
ideals perpetrated by wealthy individuals that say democracy
has only two sides

DEMOCRAT
REPUBLICAN
=
REPUBLICRAT
=
RATS
=
POLICE INFILTRATORS=CIAFBIBATFIRSNPSBIAJTFFEMAINS
POLICE PROVACOTEURS=CIAFBIBATFIRSNPSBIAJTFFEMAINS

POLICE=STATEKILLERS

3000 UNJUSTIFIED MURDERS USA/YEAR

We salute Arenas self sacrifice so that he may sap our hard
earned tax dollars to collect his weekly paycheck so that he
can afford to pay oil cartel prices, at $2.00/Gal to fill his
white SUV and write this utterly pathetic diatribe of false
psycho-babble fake intellectual fairy tale land fLuff,
utilizing silly reverse-psychology methods of "so-called"
appealing to the younger persons so often affiliated with our
diversity and power in numbers, you ARENA are sapping your
energy, may as well go back to that couch of yours and sit in
front of your big screen t.v., and waste your time watching
fake intellectually stimulating shows like Jeopardy to feed
your big rhino sized Ego.

DON'T FALL FOR ARENAS TRICKS

ARENA LIKES TO INCITE VIOLENCE
-Look for the clues in his post

Conclusion: Arena is a COPCOPS INCITE VIOLENCE

ARENA SUGGESTS WE SEEK LEADERSHIP

Now why would we seek leadership Arena? So that you can
inflitrate us and incite violence, and ultimately divide our
unified movement. Come on Arena, we know that's why you posted
this fluffy littly fairy tale shit to incite violence and
split the movement. That's why you keep collecting your
payroll check. We're going to downsize your department, and
then we'll see you on the streets, but then you'd shrivel up
and die anyway, cause your a spoiled government bureaucrat!!
Get a life loser



Signed UWSDWF, TNLPOPCPOTPWS

A coalition of members opposed to the systematic layering of
disinformation morons trolling this site creating
"Divide&Conquor" scenarios, disguised as sympathetic fairy
tale concepts of "Good vs. Evil", twisting, and manipulating
the very concept onto eachother in an attempt to create a
violent episode, or other divisive tactics like creating the
concept that BB is out of balance because there is no
leadership.

That my friends concludes GentrifiedAlphabetSoup:Their Methods
of Madness
Join us next week for "DunkingTheAlphabets" Starring Our
Newest Crime Fighter

ROBERRRRT MUELLLER

NEW CHIEF OF THE SECRET POLITICAL POLICE

THE FBIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Now we all feel so, so, so safe.





United We Stand Divided We Fall...
Theres Nothing Like The Power Of The People Cause The Power Of
The People Wont Stop
FBI.gov

Arena Is A Self Sacrificing Nut (english)
by JA 4:35pm Sat Jul 28 '01

Arena Author of We Salute Your Self Sacrifice But...

Arena
Is
A

DISINFORMATION SPECIALIST

DON'T BELIEVE HIS LIES

He immediately implies that the movement "Has A thick Skull,"
-This connotation is that the movement is misguideed
-Misguided due to lack of experience

Which certainly contradicts what Mary has written about. The
Black Bloc has taken on the most powerful institutions in the
world, the multinationals, thinktanks, and phony democratic
ideals perpetrated by wealthy individuals that say democracy
has only two sides

DEMOCRAT
REPUBLICAN
=
REPUBLICRAT
=
RATS
=
POLICE INFILTRATORS=CIAFBIBATFIRSNPSBIAJTFFEMAINS
POLICE PROVACOTEURS=CIAFBIBATFIRSNPSBIAJTFFEMAINS

POLICE=STATEKILLERS

3000 UNJUSTIFIED MURDERS USA/YEAR

We salute Arenas self sacrifice so that he may sap our hard
earned tax dollars to collect his weekly paycheck so that he
can afford to pay oil cartel prices, at $2.00/Gal to fill his
white SUV and write this utterly pathetic diatribe of false
psycho-babble fake intellectual fairy tale land fLuff,
utilizing silly reverse-psychology methods of "so-called"
appealing to the younger persons so often affiliated with our
diversity and power in numbers, you ARENA are sapping your
energy, may as well go back to that couch of yours and sit in
front of your big screen t.v., and waste your time watching
fake intellectually stimulating shows like Jeopardy to feed
your big rhino sized Ego.

DON'T FALL FOR ARENAS TRICKS

ARENA LIKES TO INCITE VIOLENCE
-Look for the clues in his post

Conclusion: Arena is a COPCOPS INCITE VIOLENCE

ARENA SUGGESTS WE SEEK LEADERSHIP

Now why would we seek leadership Arena? So that you can
inflitrate us and incite violence, and ultimately divide our
unified movement. Come on Arena, we know that's why you posted
this fluffy littly fairy tale shit to incite violence and
split the movement. That's why you keep collecting your
payroll check. We're going to
downsize your department, and then we'll see you on the
streets, but then you'd shrivel up and die anyway, cause your
a spoiled government bureaucrat!! Get a life loser
fbi.gov

don't blame the anarchists (english)
by @ 10:15pm Sat Jul 28 '01

I too have been rethinking the use of destruction
(not-violence), and have found myself agreeing with the
tactics of the alf/elf and Blac Bloc. I am begining to feel a
responsibility to create economic damage to those who are
creating suffering out of their own greed. I cannot let them
make money through suffering so I want to do anything possible
to make inhumane economic endevours unprofitable. I disagree
with the comment above that asks the blac bloc to tone down
their anti-summit acts. I think that the failure of these
tactics is that they are done only by a small group of
demonstrators. It seems to me that the G-8 protests migght
have been more effective at conveying a serious agenda if all
200,000 demonstrators picked up a brick or jumped a "red-zone"
wall. When there are scattered groups who destroy (or create
whichever way you view it) while others try to look
"professional" in front of media cameras, it allows the media
to make the protestors look confused, reactionary, or crazy.
We need to think of more ways by which we can make property
destruction look focused, and not random so the media can't
exploit it or compare it to crazy looters or causeless
vandals, which the media did quite well with the recent G-8
summit.
Also in regard to the issue of property destruction, i hardly
believe that anyone would repremand an abolitionist for
burning down a slave ship.

don't blame the anarchists (english)
by @ 10:15pm Sat Jul 28 '01

I too have been rethinking the use of destruction
(not-violence), and have found myself agreeing with the
tactics of the alf/elf and Blac Bloc. I am begining to feel a
responsibility to create economic damage to those who are
creating suffering out of their own greed. I cannot let them
make money through suffering so I want to do anything possible
to make inhumane economic endevours unprofitable. I disagree
with the comment above that asks the blac bloc to tone down
their anti-summit acts. I think that the failure of these
tactics is that they are done only by a small group of
demonstrators. It seems to me that the G-8 protests migght
have been more effective at conveying a serious agenda if all
200,000 demonstrators picked up a brick or jumped a "red-zone"
wall. When there are scattered groups who destroy (or create
whichever way you view it) while others try to look
"professional" in front of media cameras, it allows the media
to make the protestors look confused, reactionary, or crazy.
We need to think of more ways by which we can make property
destruction look focused, and not random so the media can't
exploit it or compare it to crazy looters or causeless
vandals, which the media did quite well with the recent G-8
summit.
Also in regard to the issue of property destruction, i hardly
believe that anyone would repremand an abolitionist for
burning down a slave ship.

You owe us DEATH DEVOTEES AN APOLOGY (english)
by ARENA OF DEATH 3:42am Sun Jul 29 '01
COMING TO STOMP YOU!!
Still some of you anarchist won't see the light !! WEll you
are truely ruining the hard work of many people who have been
fighting for a lot longer than your little punk asses have!!
We think the guy above is a fascist infilitrator so this is
for him!!!

You don't know us and too make blatently false statements like
that will in the end only make you look like an idiot and a
infiltrator right winger yourself!! You don't know our
lifestyle but you comment on it!! We don't own CARS
ASSHOLE!!!!!! You are the type of assholes that scare away the
middle of the road people with your rotten ignorance!!But we
know you are an infiltrator and you didn't really do your job
for we see through YOU!! DID WOOD PAY YOU OR WOODS BOSSES OR
IS THIS REALLY WOOD HIMSELF WHO WROTE THAT CRAP!!
For those who don't get the fight between us and Wood Go back
to past POSTS!!
Smarter Anarchist will see a new road of different tactics of
FORCE NOT VIOLENCE!! WELL PLANED AND TIMED and coordinated TO
THE SECOND!!! We have a base in all capital cities of the
world assholes!! You anarchist couldn't believe how many there
are of us out here if you tried!!
Most poor and average would follow death so they could live in
peace than some ultra right wing fascist or some ultra left
wing anarchist!! They respect death and with him shall danse
in a dansa macabra inrespect to the dead and through this
selfless act shall live longer than most of the rest.

But you extremist get everyone worked up and scared beyond
death that's why death must take the extremest out first!! So
the more middle of the road people can live longer without
having both of your extreme asses in their way!! And DEATH
will move both out of the fucken way... So The others can live
in PEACE and make the right deals to acheive balance and
harmony!!!! Those centered enough to do so!!
If you don't get certain people on your side they are going to
wipe your asses out!!! The pigs will not play with you any
more !!! The average people are getting more sick of you all
thah they are with the pigs and they are not to happy with
them either!!!Be careful in D.C. this time !!!

Your antics are driving average people away from the moviment
because you target the wrong things and are not only too
easily infiltrated but give the right lots of ideological
ammunition to use against the moviment as a whole!!!!!! they
want to come and protest with their kids and mothers but don't
not out of fear of the cops but you all starting shit with the
cops and getting them all pissed off!! You really until lately
knew nothing about us at all, or until recently that we even
existed. But we've always been there watching and waiting in
the shadows seeing through and into all sides!! We are all
those silent faces watching both sides going at it in the
streets and at each others throats like demonic morons!! We
call for a gladiator's arena !!You never mentioned that in
your piece above or that we are involved in the fight against
the prison industrial complex like we stated before or that we
are involved in the de brainwashing and deprogramming of
people!! Or that we fight against the Mortuary industrial
Complex like we've stated in past post!!But he states and
writes Nothing on who we are and what we do in the
underground!! Just made up CRAP!! Nothing complimentary!! He's
a right winger in disguise!! Cant you all tell by what and how
he wrote!!! DAMN we see through your infiltrators quicker than
you see your own infiltrators!! Damn are you all that thick as
a brick!!
Put the bricks down get a little more brains and better tatics
and clean out your infiltraTors~~~
Some of you did read our deal on force vs VIOLENCE!!! And some
of you showed us that it was worth thinking about!! Remember
the real aggitators in your groups are doing you wrong some
are paid by the right and like the guy above they are the ones
driving the white SUV's!!
Send us a Reprsentative and you'll see who we really are !!
You can meet us face to face and then you all will know!! We
are the masses of dead tired average people who are sick of
both the too far right and the too far left!!


To the infiltrator ABOVE~~~
You are the Most stupid Infiltrator disinformationalist we
have run into yet!! We see right through your right wing
infiltrator wanker crap!! NOW YOU but open your big mouth with
your disinformation!! Everybody knows about the ANARCHIST and
you fascist pigs!! But we on the other hand they don't know of
us too well or do they!! The middle of the road people know of
us its you extremist who dont because you never take the time
to find out!!! YOUR ALL Too busy yelling for your own shit all
the time to take the time out and hear what someone else has
to say or thinks on the matter!!! As we stated we are
REVOLUTIONARIES and transformationalist with a direction in
which to meet the event horizon for a future awakening!! BUT
YOU ANARCHIST seem to be WITHOUT TRUE DIRECTION!! Wanton
destruction is a mindless act without much forethought !!! But
what we do is much deeper and more lasting!! Anarchist are not
revolutionaries, all true revolutionaries will agree you are
fly by night hole in the wall destructionalist!! You haven't
even truely read our postings for if you had you would be
forming an allience with us!! perhaps??? But we think in this
case the jerk who wrote that is a infiltrator right winger
himself and he knows if we gladiators can get through to the
true brains of the anarchist moviment that
it would be truely dangerous to them!!! This is why we will
not talk to you all again until you get some leardership with
some brains so others can deal with you better!!
We have seen glints of wonderous brains coming from what we
think are the true movers of the Anarchist moviment!!
Hey we Gladiators have not caused any trouble for the moviment
they barely know of us themselves!!! But the peaceful
Protesters know only too well of what you have done and are
doing to the moviment!! Hey we are 10,000
times more Violent than you Anarchist can imagine!!
As we have stated we don't destoy with bricks thrown at a
MacDONALD's window, big deal if we wanted too we could take
down the whole fucken city block!! Get that through your thick
as a brick head!!
But that's not what we are about either!! We are in contact
with Terrorist groups around the globe as well as the military
and police guys and the mafia's worldwide!!! We see an
alternative way to all this Violence!! you anarchist are the
lowest form of them all and all three are getting pretty fed
up with all of you!! The Terrorist The military and the mafia
all have some bit of respect for the peaceful protesters and
they don't want or feel the need to really hurt or terrorize
them for they know they are the salt of the earth but you
anarchist get them all real pissed off!!

Thats why the peaceful ones mistrust you too look at italy
your group was totally infiltrated!! certain people who were
leaning towards the peaceful protesters way of protesting the
evil G8 are now backing away because of you anarchist, they
don't want to get involved with people like you so your doing
exactly what the right wingers want!!! I think who wrote that
about us is really a right winger in disguise trying to fuel
trouble between us!!
And we could give you the reasons but we will see who has the
brains to come up with it first!!

As we have stated we are not terrorist nor mafiosi nor
military or cops. we are truely revolutionary REALISTIC
DREAMERS..Average people basically!!. Most of us during some
stage of our lives have been in the military did it and left
most have worked for mafiosi and terrorist organizations in
the past !! Then we got sick of them all grew up, quit being
used for their dirty work and went deep to the UNDERGROUND!!
You all know nothing of us for we have lived in the shadows
from within a grave for a very long time!!! We now deem this
time as the time to come out from our graves!! We are LIBERTY
(MATRIARCHAL WORSHIPPERS OF AND FROM OUR SWWET MOTHERS) AND
Death Devotees (SHIVA DEVOTEES) SKELTONS FROM THE GRAVE!! WE
don't need ASSHOLES like YOU TO TELL US SQUAT!! DON'T YOU TELL
US WHAT WE ARE AND ARE NOT!! How we live our lives and what we
are all about you don't even know and what you state is as bad
and inflamitory as asshole Woods statements!! MAYBE YOU ARE A
FRIEND OF WOOD WELL YOU JUST GOT HIM IN MORE DOGGIE DO DO!!
You must be a fascist infiltrator in disguise for the truely
smart anarchists do have plans beyond some of the others!!!
Some of you Anarchist are OK but the jerk who wrote that above
about us must be an infiltrator!! THE SMART ANARCHIST HAVE
BEEN PRETTY CHILLED WITH US DEATH DEVOTEES!! You asshole
(probably connected to WOOD) above who wrote about us has
offended DEATH and death devotees by your words but we know
you must be an infiltrator asshole who talks a lot of bullshiT
!!!! And you owe us DEATH WORSHIPPERS AN APOLOGY!! if none
comes we will pray for death himself to come and pay you a
personal visit soon enough!!If You don't go and talk with
Mr.Woods and see if he's not worried about offending death
either!! Some just never learn!! Hey WOOD IT WOULD BE BETTER
TO COME OUT WITH A STATEMENT APOLOGIZING TO THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
!! MARK MY WORDS!! E MEGGHIU!!

"Alone of gods Death has no love for gifts,
Libation helps you not, nor sacrifice.
He has no altar, and hears no hymns;
From him alone Persuasion stands apart."

Aeschylus (525-465 B.C.) "Niobe"


FOR ALL MUST KNOW WHOEVER GETS THE DEATH DEVOTEE'S ON THEIR
SIDE SHALL BUT WIN!!
For DEATH IS THE GREATEST OF REVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMERS
SEEKING OUT BUT PERSUASIVE TRANSFORMATIONS!!

Without us on your side you LOSE!!
FEAR NOT...THOUGH…
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
- Bhagavad Gita

O DEATH DIVINE
AT WHO'S RECALL
RETURNETH ALL
GATHER THY CHILDREN
TO THY BOSOM STARRED
GIVE US BACK THE REST
THAT LIFE HATH MARRED (ALFRED VIGNY)

HALF IN LOVE WITH EASEFUL DEATH (KEATS)

"The End of Birth is Death;
The End of Death is Birth;
This is Ordained."
-The Bhagavad-Gita

Did you really but read and understand our hints of who we are
from previous post!! Now its been stated directly!!Like Mr.
WOOD whoever offends the Angel of DEATH AND THE DEAD!! without
making persuasive retitution and apology... DEATH WILL SOON
COME TO OVER TAKE YOU !! If your not scared of us like most
are( SMART PERSUASIVE ONES Never FEAR Us)man do we love
heartfelt intelligence and want to grasp hands in mutual
respect and unionship then we who go to die salute you but if
you are not true and faithfilled....BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FOR DEATH COMES TO DO HIS WORK AND HE WILL TAKE OUT BOTH THOSE
TO THE RIGHT AND THOSE TO THE LEFT AND ONE DAY ALL WHO STAND
IN BETWEEN!!

DEATH DEATH DEATH
COMES SWEEPING DOWN
FILTHY DEATH,THE LEERING CLOWN
DEATH ON WINGS DEATH BY SURPRISE
FAILING EVIL FROM WORDLY EYES
DEATH THATS BORN AS LIFE SUCCOMBS
WHILE DEATH & LOVE ARE TWO KINDRED DRUMS
SO KEEP THE TIME UNTIL JUDGEMENT DAY
AN ACTOR IN A PASSION PLAY
WITHOUT BEGINING, WITHOUT END
FOREVER MORE, AMEN.

Signed at the swords edge!!
WE Bitter OVER BITTER Gladiators
Of the Society of the Sacred Sword

DEATH THE LEVELLER
The glories of our Blood and state
Are Shadows,not substantial things;
There is no Armour against Fate;
Death lays His icy Hand on Kings:
Scepter and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the Dust be equals made
With the Poor crooked Scythe and Spade.
Some men with Swords may Reap the field,
And plant fresh Laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or Late
They stoop to Fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they,pale captives,creep to Death.
The Garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon Death's purple Alter now
See where the Victor-Victim bleeds:
Your Heads must come
To the cold Tomb;
Only the actions of the Just
Smell sweet,and Blossoms in their Dust.
-James Shirley (1596-1666)

P.S. This is the test for if you lefties don't except us on
your side and be as good and true to us as we would be to you
then do it without us and your left on your own !!Just what
the right once you to do!!
LAST TIME WE REACH OUT TO YOU ALL! AND WE ARE DEAD SERIOUS
ABOUT IT!!
You lefties in a way have offended us more than the right has
!!!Sad but true!!
DEATH DEVOTEE'S UNITE!! YOU WANT TO BE HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD
BUT A LOT OF YOU DONT WANT TO HEAR OUR SIDE OF THE MATTER OR
GIVE FORTH A LITTLE UNDERSTANDING!!!! AND THAT GOES FOR BOTH
SIDES AND ALL SIDES WHO ARE NOT DEATH DEVOTEE'S !!!!
The right can only divide you moviment by your own stupidity!!
Anarchists are way too easily infiltrated and few in the
moviment are anarchist anyway and you all have been getting
way to much attention in comparison to the real movers and
shakers of the moviment!! Sounds like you all want to take
over the moviment and radicalize it so we will never get
average joe blow on the side of the moviment!!!

Cops love Black Dog's action (english)
by panayotis 4:04pm Sun Jul 29 '01


I am very new in this site and I am sure I've missed many
relevant postings. In a few words, I wanted to ask how the
Black Dog people feel when they throw stones together with
disguized cops.

You think a 200.000 or more people peacefull demonstration
would not touch the media? Why do you think the police
provoques itself the violence?

Maybe I am too optimistic, but I think a huge -as the one of
Genoa- peacefull demonstration would have a much greater
impact on people's beliefs and thoughts than this vast amount
of violence that was showed.
The arguments that peacefull demonstrations never succeed to
gain attention are not valid, because noone has previous
experience of such huge ones in this context ..

By the way, in Greece we didn't see even one photo or clip who
showed the size of the demonstration, but just the acts of
violence ...

Discussion vs. blind swearing (english)
by 51 5:22pm Sun Jul 29 '01

I found the article on Black Bloc tactics, as well as the
discussion following, highly interesting, but what seems to be
happening now only adds to the feeling that Genoa created a
crossroads for a once united movement to fall apart again. It
is good and can be fruitful to have discussions about action
tactics and organisation forms. It is however, as useful as a
bucket of shit to start swearing at eachother, to call each
other disinformationists, police-infiltrators, or whatever.
Let's respect people in what they do, or at least discuss
instead of verbally stab eachother in the back.

About this crossroads, once again, thumbs up for the article,
it was comprehensive and created a bit of understanding. To me
at least, and me could more or less be described as one of
those 'conventional', or at least strictly non-violent
protestors. I hope this article will be spread further than
merely this indymedia-site, and that it might help to 'glue'
the movement together, to keep us all on the same track and to
ignore the crossroads.

New crossroads will come up all the time, whether created on
purpose by 'the powers that be' or by pure coincedence. The
skill is to know how to handle them. Respect eachother as much
as you can bear on the methods, recognize eachother on the
goals.

Protest to Revolution (english)
by Marlin in Seattle 1:02pm Mon Jul 30 '01

Thank you Mary Black.

I think that the cell model is good given the level of
potential infiltration. Tactics employed by the BB are, in my
opinion, the most advanced in regards to the whole of the
protest movements. These tactics attempt to inflict real
damages to the economic system that violently suppresses 95%
of the planet. They fail however, in and among themselves, to
bring forward the building of a broader movement necessary for
the overthrow of global capitalism and the institution of a
truly free & equal society. But they give me inspiration, and
I think that that is shared by third world revolutionaries.
Once again, THANK YOU!

Now, having said that, I think that we have a lot to learn in
regards to use of destructive & violent tactics in the
preparatory period prior to revolution. At least here in
America. Not that I believe property destruction violent, I
don't, but it is perceptually slanted that way out of
thousands of years of propertarian values.(and current
corporate media manipulation)

We are learning tactics in our demos that will help us to wage
& win state power. But it will take more organization than we
have at present. It will also take a much bigger & diverse
segment of our population. We need to communicate the tactics
used in street confrontations, property destruction &
clandestine activities more effectively to a larger group of
the progressive element of our society. The struggle over the
appropriate use of defensive (or even offensive) violence must
be engaged before it is too late.

Infiltration will happen, people will be hauled off by the
state. But the struggle must continue openly. We must engage
these discussions with our friends & neighbors daily to bring
forward better understanding of the need to overthrow the
system at present. But in the heat of battle or in any
situation that might deem its' necessity, we must work with
only those we know & trust.

We need to also engage the question of how to move from
protest to insurrection. The system isn't reformable, and our
worlds ecosystem is hanging in the balance. We don't have an
infinite amount of time, and engaging the cops at demos isn't
enough. We need to overthrow the system.

You see on the one hand, we need to build a broad movement
comprised of almost everyone to really make sustainable
change. On the other hand, Most of our population (here in the
US) sits on the fence politically while those in third world
countries are starved, oppressed & exploited to fill our
stores with consumables. Our earths resources are abused at a
level that will extinct most life within a century or two.

Someting drastic must be done to ebb the flow of global
exploitation immediately. But building the necessary mass
movement takes a lot of time. Raising consciousness is a slow
process.

There are those who take matters into their own hands, BB,
ELF, revolutionary communists in third world countries, etc. I
am heartened by their beliefs & actions. They are our moral
leaders in the sense that they are truly engaging the rulers
of the planet in a direct way.

There are also those who tirelessly struggle to raise
consciouness on an everyday basis. I truly admire them. In the
long run, it is this work which, if properly engaging the need
for revolution, will lead to a mass consciousness necessary
for sustainable change.

But all to often these agents of consciousness development are
reformist. Mostly they are trying to reach people where they
are at, and to then bring them forward. Well, we need to bring
them further forward, all the way into the next evolutionary
step. Global Human Harmony. That will require transformation
on a huge scale, but not an impossible scale. It requires us
to cease being revolutionary apologists. We have a lot to
learn from the likes of people like Marx. But we also need to
learn to love ourselves & those around us, to engage the
interpersonal shit we have.

Hell, I don't have the answers, but I'm SOOO ready to engage
the questions. So are many millions of others. Lets do it!

In solidarity,
--Marlin

no strategy, all mystique (english)
by kropotkin 5:52pm Mon Jul 30 '01

I appreciate the thoughtful posting.

The variety of anarchism you represent, has no organizing
project, It doesn't control one union local, one neighborhood
committee, one daycare center. It's all about purity. You have
no way to get "there"- alibertarian, unalienatated society,
from "here."

It's not about violence in the abstract. That is a useless
discussion (some kind of violence always accompanies social
change. But you haven't shown how showing up at mass
mobilizations against corporate global power dressed in black,
faces covered, and smashing shit, setting things on fire, and
throwing shit at the cops, actually advances the struggle. You
might be defending yourselves, but you're not defending the
mass of demonstrators. Anywat n on breask a window in
"self-defense." Real self-defense formations are restrained
and disciplined and work to minimize the amount of force used,
using it to protect but not inflame a situation where the
ruling class wants to portray us as "out of control."

If your tactics require that you cover your faces and make
yourselves look like a caricature of a "terrorist" maybe you
should rethink your tactics. Even the all-black look. I
understand the historical connotation, but to most people it
just looks ominous and threatening. It's like you're tone-deaf
to enything except your self-expression.

The problem is this: there are some incredibly butt-headed
things being done by some people on our side ( as well as
courageous and beautiful and self-sacrificing things)and
there's currently no way to hold anyone accountable.
Accountable to the social movement, to the class, to the goals
for which people are preparing to lay down their lives,
accountable morally, not just to your own small group where
you get more status the wilder you are.

Diversity of tactics needs limits. there is no point in trying
to organize a mass confrontation with authority if any asshole
can pull out a gun or a bomb. . . and there aren't even
political criteria to restrain him.

Guidelines-- like the ones the direct action network agreed to
at Seattle WTO-- are going to be necessary for many future
actions. It would be best if they were arrived at by as broad
a consensus with the movement as possible, but there isn't
going to be consensus with people who think that a mass
action, however confrontational, is the beginning of armed
arachist revolution. If the black block aren't mostly people
searching for a personal catharsis, then they need to not act
within larger actions in parasitic way. In Genoa we see how
thoughtless adventurism ahs even apparently provided an easy
way for the cops to pull off confusing, politically
damaging,mass provocations.

We need to critique the emerging fetich of violence, of
tactics as a substitute for politics, for strategy. Most
people won't join a kamikaze movement.

on with the discussion....

i heard someone saying the other day (english)
by not here 2:48am Tue Jul 31 '01

a friend of mine was walking around in vancouver BC and he
heard someone talking about how the movement is only
influtrated by ideas, not people. the person went on to say.

"as long as we keep a sense of personal responsibility and
respect for the environment, the complete environment, that we
live in, devision can not be established by an outside force.

<b>the people that we talk to:</b> we must find a way to break
down a power barrier, this can be accomplished by seeing the
person you are talking to as an equalm this means also not
seeing them as less than you if they have seperate ideals, but
to be respectful of the fact that they too are a product of
their environment and may not have chosen to be in the
situation that they are in. the best method to breaking down a
sense of hierarchy with another individual is to approach them
on as equal a means as you can and then attempt to change
their environment. this is usually done through forms of
positive re-inforcement. positive re-inforcement can come in
the form of a good conversation, spending time with that
person doing something constructive together, working towards
some common goal together, or bringing them something good to
eat.
it is, however, the case that these tactics can not and will
not work on some people in an attempt to change their
environment. please take in consideration, though, that this
has been succesful on police officers, ceo's of major
corporations, government officials. people have quit their
jobs which were contributing negatively to their over-all
evnironment and found more positive ways to go about living.

<b>in the case that positive confrontation does not work
</b>

i assume that the people who go about using some sort of
violent, or destructive tactics to go about changing their
environment are in that process trying to effect the over-all
environment for the positive. i respect and applaud this
endevour.
<b>some things to consider while undertaking violence or
destruction against an oppressor or a violent institution:</b>

what exactly are your goals and how do you plan on going about
acheiving them?
who are you representing while doing this?
who will be affected by your actions?
can you be identified as a protestor/activist/political
radical?
how far are you willing to go in your attempts to positively
effect your environment?

continue to learn, everything, continue to be smarter then the
people who are hunting and oppressing you

they cannot divide what is inside us, they can not infiltrate
our souls."

that's all my friend heard
52289 mah'B

We are humbled by your wisdom (english)
by Arena of thankfulness 9:57pm Thu Aug 16 '01

Not here,
We gladiators want to thank you on your fine posting and the
deep wisdom and enlightened thoughts there within....again
thank you and we will take it to heart in whatever future
endeavor we shall but find ourselves in.
may you find the peace your looking for in the environment
in which you find yourself in.

Same Old Thing (english)
by Mr. Ohio 9:02pm Fri Aug 17 '01

The Black Bloc continues to disrupt the protest/demonstrations
for reasons that defy ALL logic.
They continue to claim that they can win a violent struggle
using sticks and rocks against a world-wide
military-industrial establishment. Most of the protestors have
nothing in common with the Bloc.
The Bloc flaunts it's sexism and homophobia everywhere. They
seem to be interested only in their agenda- of returning to
alpha-male rule.
We need to stand against the Bloc and prevent their
interference with progressive movements.
-Mr.Ohio

Black Bloc's vision of Anarchy is nieve (english)
by Kaibosh 8:11am Sat Aug 25 '01
kaibosh1@excite.com
The vision of a better world offered by the author of the
Black Bloc letter is wonderful but nieve. She sees a world in
which there are no laws and we can do what we like, and this
will make a better world. (I'm simplifying her vision). But
one of the great fruits of our civilization at this point in
history is the development of laws that protect the individual
from the over weilding abuse of power.

What the Italian police did was a violation of a host of local
and international laws. Yes, that didn't stop them, however at
least the victims have a means of seeking justice through the
European Court of Human Rights, and now the Internatioal Court
of Justice.

If we didn't have a society with an advanced system of laws
that refect a desire to be deeply human, we will revert to the
law of the jungle where might makes right, and there would be
no civil recourse for the victems of Geneoa.

The Anarchist vision presented here does not address what
happens in lawless society when one person or a group of
people become more powerful and begin to terrorize other
people. What can the victems do?

The whole development of law has been about protecting people
from other people who act less than human.

Arguably it has also been about protecting the status quo, but
its very terms make change possible through the system.

top


Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness

by Chogyam Trungpa

Edited by Judith L. Lief
Shambhala, Boston & London, 1993



Introduction

In the mahayana tradition (1) we experience a sense of gentleness toward
ourselves, and a sense of friendliness to others begins to arise. That
friendliness or compassion is known in Tibetan as nyingje, which
literally means "noble heart." We are willing to commit ourselves to
working with all sentient beings. But before we actually launch into that
project, we first need a lot of training.

The obstacle to becoming a mahayanist is not having enough sympathy
for others and for oneself--that is the basic point. And that problem can
be dealt with by practical training, which is known as lojong practice,
"training the mind." That training gives us a path, a way to work with
our crude and literal and raw and rugged styles, a way to become good
mahayanists. Ignorant or stupid students of the mahayana sometimes think
that they have to glorify themselves; they want to become leaders or
guides. We have a technique or practice for overcoming that problem. That
practice is the development of humility, which is connected with training
the mind.

The basic mahayana vision is to work for the benefit of others and
create a situation that will benefit others. Therefore, you take the
attitude that you are willing to dedicate yourself to others. When you
take that attitude, you begin to realize that others are more important
than yourself. Because of that vision of mahayana, because you adopt that
attitude, and because you actually find that others are more important--
with all three of those together, you develop the mahayana practice of
training the mind.

Hinayana discipline is fundamentally one of taming the mind. By
working with the various forms of unmindfulness, we begin to become
thorough and precise, and our discpline becomes good. When we are
thoroughly tamed by the practice of shamatha discipline, or mindfulness
practice, as well as trained by vipashyana, or awareness, in how to hear
the teachings, we begin to develop a complete understanding of the
dharma. After that, we also begin to develop a complete understanding of
how, in our particular state of being tamed, we can relate with others.

In the mahayana we talk more in terms of training the mind. That is
the next step. The mind is already tamed, therefore it can be trained. In
other words, we have been able to domesticate our mind by practicing
hinayana discipline according to the principles of the buddhadharma.
Having domesticated our mind, then we can use it further. It's like the
story of capturing a wild cow in the old days. Having captured the cow,
having domesticated it, you find that the cow becomes completely willing
to relate with its tamers. In fact, the cow likes being domesticated. So
at this point the cow is part of our household. Once upon a time it
wasn't that way--I'm sure cows were wild and ferocious before we
domesticated them.

Training the mind is known as lojong in Tibetan: lo means
"intelligence," "mind," "that which can perceive things"; jong means
"training" or "processing." The teachings of lojong consist of several
steps or points of mahayana discipline. The basic discipline of mind
training or lojong is a sevenfold cleaning or processing of one's mind.

This book is based on the basic Kadampa text, The Root Text of the
Seven Points of Training the Mind, and on the commentary by Jamgon
Kongtrul. In Tibetan the commentary is called Changchup Shunglam. Shung
is the word used for "government" and also for "main body." So shung
means "main governing body." For instance, we could call the Tibetan
government po shung--po meaning "Tibet," shung meaning "government." The
government that is supposed to run a country is a wide administration
rather than a narrow administration: it takes care of the country, the
economics, politics, and domestic situations. Shung is actually the
working basis, the main working stream. Lam means "path." So shunglam is
a general highway, so to speak, a basic process of working toward
enlightenment. In other words, it is the mahayana approach. It is the
highway that everybody goes on, a wide way, extraordinarily wide and
extraordinarily open. Chanchup means "enlightenment," shung means "wide"
or "basic," and lam means "path." So the title of the commentary is The
Basic Path Toward Enlightenment.

The main text is based on Atisha's teachings on lojong and comes
from the Kadam school of Tibetan Buddhism, which developed around the
time of Marpa and Milarepa, when Tibetan monasticism had begun to take
place and become deep-rooted. The Kagyupas received these instructions on
the proper practice of mahayana Buddhism through Gampopa, who studied
with Milarepa as well as with Kadam teachers. There is what is known as
the contemplative Kadam school and the intellectual Kadam school. What we
are doing here is related to the Kadam school's contemplative tradition.
The Gelukpas specialized in dialectics and took a more philosophical
approach to understanding the Kadam tradition.

The word kadam has an interesting meaning for us. Ka means
"command," as when a general gives a pep talk to his or her troops or a
king gives a command to his ministers. Or we could say "Logos," or
"word," as in the Christian tradition: "In the beginning was the Word."
That kind of Word is a fundamental sacred command, the first that was
uttered at all! In this case, ka refers to a sense of absolute truth and
a sense of practicality or workability from the individual's point of
view. Dam is "oral teaching," "personal teaching," that is, a manual on
how to handle our life properly. So ka and dam mixed together means that
all the ka, all the commands or messages, are regarded as practical and
workable oral teachings. They are regarded as a practical working basis
for students who are involved with contemplative disciplines. That is the
basic meaning of kadam.

The few lists presented here are very simple ones, nothing
particularly philosophical. It is purely what one of the great Kagyu
teachers regarded as a "grandmother's fingerpoint." When a grandmother
says, "This is the place where I used to go and pick corn, collect wild
vegetables," she usually uses her finger rather than writing on paper or
using a map. So it is a grandmother's approach at this point.

In my own case, having studied philosophy a lot, the first time
Jamgon Kongtrul suggested that I read and study this book, Changchup
Shunglam, I was relieved that Buddhism was so simple and that you could
actually do something about it. You can actually practice. You can just
follow the book and do as it says, which is extraordinarily powerful and
such a relief. And that sense of simplicity still continues. It is so
precious and so direct. I do not know what kind of words to use to
describe it. It is somewhat rugged, but at the same time it is so
soothing to read such writing. That is one of the characteristics of
Jamgon Kongtrul--he can change his tone completely, as if he were a
different author altogether. Whenever he writes on a particular subject,
he changes his approach accordingly, and his basic awareness to relate
with the audience becomes entirely different.

Jamgon Kongtrul's commentary on the Kadampa slogans is one of the
best books I studied in the early stages of my monastic kick. I was going
to become a simple little monk. I was going to study these things and
become a good little Buddhist and a contemplative-type person. Such a
thread still holds throughout my life. In spite of complications in my
life and organizational problems, I still feel that I am basically a
simple, romantic Buddhist who has immense feeling toward the teachers and
the teaching.

What has been said is a drop of golden liquid. Each time you read
such a book it confirms again and again that there is something about it
which makes everythin very simple and direct. That makes me immensely
happy. I sleep well, too. There is a hard-edged quality of cutting down
preconceptions and other ego battles that might be involved in presenting
the teaching. But at the same time there is always a soft spot of
devotion and simplicity in mahayana Buddhism which you can never forget.
That is very important. I am not particularly trying to be dramatic. If
it comes through that way, it's too bad. But I really do feel
extraordinarily positive about Jamgon Kongtrul and his approach to this
teaching.



Point One

The Preliminaries, Which Are a Basis for Dharma Practice

1 First, train in the preliminaries.

In practicing the slogans and in your daily life, you should maintain an
awareness of [1] the preciousness of human life and the particular good
fortune of life in an environment in which you can hear the teachings of
buddhadharma; [2] the reality of death, that it comes suddenly and
without warning; [3] the entrapment of karma--that whatever you do,
whether virtuous or not, only further entraps you in the chain of cause
and effect; and [4] the intensity and inevitability of suffering for
yourself and for all sentient beings. This is called "taking an attitude
of the four reminders."

With that attitude as a base, you should call upon your guru with
devotion, inviting into yourself the atmosphere of sanity inspired by his
or her example, and vowing to cut the roots of further ignorance and
suffering. This ties in very closely with the notion of maitri, or
loving-kindness. In the traditional analogy of one's spiritual path, the
only pure loving object seems to be somebody who can show you the path.
You could have a loving relationship with your parents, relatives, and so
forth, but there are still problems with that: your neurosis goes along
with it. A pure love affair can only take place with one's teacher. So
that ideal sympathetic object is used as a starting point, a way of
developing a relationship beyond your own neurosis. Particularly in the
mahayana, you relate to the teacher as someone who cheers you up from
depression and brings you down from excitement, a kind of moderator
principle. The teacher is regarded as important from that point of view.

This slogan establishes the contrast between samsara--the epitome of
pain, imprisonment, and insanity--and the root guru--the embodiment of
openness, freedom, and sanity--as the fundamental basis for all practice.
As such, it is heavily influenced by the vajrayana tradition.



Point Two

The Main Practice, Which is Training in Bodhichitta

Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta

Ultimate Bodhichitta and the Paramita of Generosity

The ultimate or absolute bodhichitta principle is based on developing the
paramita of generosity, which is symbolized by a wish-fulfilling jewel.
The Tibetan word for generosity, jinpa, means "giving," "opening," or
"parting." So the notion of generosity means not holding back but giving
constantly. Generosity is self-existing openness, complete openness. You
are no longer subject to cultivating your own scheme or project. And the
best way to open yourself up is to make friends with yourself and with
others.

Traditionally, there are three types of generosity. The first one is
ordinary generosity, giving material goods or providing comfortable
situations for others. The second one is the gift of fearlessness. You
reassure others and teach them that they don't have to feel completely
tormented and freaked out about their existence. You help them to see
that there is basic goodness and spiritual practice, that there is a way
for them to sustain their lives. That is the gift of fearlessness. The
third type of generosity is the gift of dharma. You show others that
there is a path that consists of discipline, meditation, and intellect or
knowledge. Through all three types of generosity, you can open up other
people's minds. In that way their closedness, wretchedness, and small
thinking can be turned into a larger vision.

That is the basic vision of mahayana altogether: to let people think
bigger, think greater. We can afford to open ourselves and join the rest
of the world with a sense of tremendous generosity, tremendous goodness,
and tremendous richness. The more we give, the more we gain--although
what we might gain should not be our reason for giving. Rather, the more
we give, the more we are inspired to give constantly. And the gaining
process happens naturally, automatically, always.

The opposite of generosity is stinginess, holding back--having a
poverty mentality, basically speaking. The basic principle of the
ultimate bodhichitta slogans is to rest in the eighth consciousness, or
alaya, and not follow our discursive thoughts. Alaya is a Sanskrit word
meaning "basis," or sometimes "abode" or "home," as in Himalaya, "abode
of snow." So it has that idea of a vast range. It is the fundamental
state of consciousness, before it is divided into "I" and "other," or
into the various emotions. It is the basic ground where things are
processed, where things exist. In order to rest in the nature of alaya,
you need to go beyond your poverty attitude and realize that your alaya
is as good as anyone else's alaya. You have a sense of richness and self-
sufficiency. You can do it, and you can afford to give out as well. And
the ultimate bodhichitta slogans [slogans 2-6] are the basic points of
reference through which we are going to familiarize ourselves with
ultimate bodhichitta.

Ultimate bodhichitta is similar to the absolute shunyata principle.
And whenever there is the absolute shunyata principle, we have to have a
basic understanding of absolute compassion at the same time. Shunyata
literally means "openness" or "emptiness." Shunyata is basically
understanding nonexistence. When you begin realizing nonexistence, then
you can afford to be more compassionate, more giving. A problem is that
usually we would like to hold on to our territory and fixate on that
particular ground. Once we begin to fixate on that ground, we have no way
to give. Understanding shunyata means that we begin to realize that there
is no ground to get, that we are ultimately free, nonaggressive, open. We
realize that we are actually nonexistent ourselves. We are not--no,
rather. (1) Then we can give. We have lots to gain and nothing to lose at
that point. It is very basic.

Compassion is based on some sense of "soft spot" in us. It is as if
we had a pimple on our body that was very sore--so sore that we do not
want to rub it or scratch it. During our shower we do not want to rub too
much soap over it because it hurts. There is a sore point or soft spot
which happens to be painful to rub, painful to put hot or cold water
over.

That sore spot on our body is an analogy for compassion. Why?
Because even in the midst of immense aggression, insensitivity in our
life, or laziness, we always have a soft spot, some point we can
cultivate--or at least not bruise. Every human being has that kind of
basic sore spot, including animals. Whether we are crazy, dull,
aggressive, ego-tripping, whatever we might be, there is still that sore
spot taking place in us. An open wound, which might be a more vivid
analogy, is always there. That open wound is usually very inconvenient
and problematic. We don't like it. We would like to be tough. We would
like to fight, to come out strong, so we do not have to defend any aspect
of ourselves. We would like to attack our enemy on the spot, single-
handedly. We would like to lay our trips on everybody completely and
properly, so that we have nothing to hide. That way, if somebody decides
to hit us back, we are not wounded. And hopefully, nobody will hit us on
that sore spot, that wound that exists in us. Our basic makeup, the basic
constituents of our mind, are based on passion and compassion at the same
time. But however confused we might be, however much of a cosmic monster
we might be, still there is an open wound or sore spot in us always.
There always will be a sore spot.

Sometimes people translate that sore spot or open wound as
"religious conviction" or "mystical experience." But let us give that up.
It has nothing to do with Buddhism, nothing to do with Christianity, and
moreover, nothing to do with anything else at all. It is just an open
wound, a very simple open wound. That is very nice--at least we are
accessible somewhere. We are not completely covered with a suit of armor
all the time. We have a sore spot somewhere. Such a relief! Thank earth!

Because of that particular sore spot, even if we are a cosmic
monster--Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, or Hitler--we can still fall in love.
We can still appreciate beauty, art, poetry, or music. The rest of us
could be covered with iron cast shields, but some sore spot always exists

in us, which is fantastic. That sore spot is known as embryonic
compassion, potential compassion. At least we have some kind of gap, some
discrepancy in our state of being which allows basic sanity to shine
through.

Our level of sanity could be very primitive. Our sore spot could be
just purely the love of tortillas or the love of curries. But that's good
enough. We have some kind of opening. It doesn't matter what it is love
of as long as there is a sore spot, an open wound. That's good. That is
where all the germs could get in and begin to impregnate and take
possession of us and influence our system. And that is precisely how the
compassionate attitude supposedly takes place.

Not only that, but there is also an inner wound, which is called
tathagatagarbha, or buddha nature. Tathagatagarbha is like a heart that
is sliced and bruised by wisdom and compassion. When the external wound
and the internal wound begin to meet and communicate, then we begin to
realize that our whole being is made out of one complete sore spot
altogether, which is called "bodhisattva fever." That vulnerability is
compassion. We really have no way to defend ourselves anymore at all. A
gigantic cosmic wound is all over the place--an inward wound and an
external wound at the same time. Both are sensitive to cold air, hot air,
and little disturbances of atmosphere which begin to affect us both
inwardly and outwardly. It is the living flame of love, if you would like
to call it that. But we should be very careful what we say about love.
What is love? Do we know love? It is a vague word. In this case we are
not even calling it love. Nobody before puberty would have any sense of
sexuality or of love affairs. Likewise, since we haven't broken through
to understand what our soft spot is all about, we cannot talk about love,
we can only talk about passion. It sounds fantastic, but it actually
doesn't say as much as love, which is very heavy. Compassion is a kind of
passion, com-passion, which is easy to work with.

There is a slit in our skin, a wound. It's very harsh treatment, in
some sense; but on the other hand, it's very gentle. The intention is
gentle, but the practice is very harsh. By combining the intention and
the practice, you ae being "harshed," and also you are being "gentled,"
so to speak--both together. That makes you into a bodhisattva. You have
to go through that kind of process. You have to jump into the blender. It
is necessary for you to do that. Just jump into the blender and work with
it. Then you will begin to feel that you are swimming in the blender. You
might even enjoy it a little bit, after you have been processed. So an
actual understanding of ultimate bodhichitta only comes from compassion.
In other words, a purely logical, professional, or scientific conclusion
doesn't bring you to that. The five ultimate bodhichitta slogans are
steps toward a compassionate approach.

A lot of you seemingly, very shockingly, are not particularly
compassionate. You are not saving your grandma from drowning and you are
not saving your pet dog from getting killed. Therefore, we have to go
through this subject of compassion. Compassion is a very, very large
subject, an extraordinarily large subject, which includes how to be
compassionate. And actually, ultimate bodhichitta is preparation for
relative bodhichitta. Before we cultivate compassion, we first need to
understand how to be properly. How to love your grandma or how to love
your flea or your mosquito--that comes later. The relative aspect of
compassion comes much later. If we do not have an understanding of
ultimate bodhichitta, then we do not have any understanding of the actual
working basis of being compassionate and kind to somebody. We might just
join the Red Cross and make nuisances of ourselves and create further
garhage.

According to the mahayana tradition, we are told that we can
actually arouse twofold bodhichitta: relative bodhichitta and ultimate
bodhichitta. We could arouse both of them. Then, having aroused
bodhichitta, we can continue further and and practice according to the
bodhisattva's example. We can be active bodhisattvas.

In order to arouse absolute or ultimate bodhichitta, we have to join
shamatha and vipashyana together. Having developed the basic precision of
shamatha and the total awareness of vipashyana, we put them together so
that they cover the whole of our existence--our behavior patterns and our
daily life--everything. In that way, in both meditation and
postmeditation practice, mindfulness and awareness are happening
simultaneously, all the time. Whether we are sleeping or awake, eating or
wandering, precision and awareness are taking place all the time. That is
quite a delightful experience.

Beyond that delight, we also tend to develop a sense of friendliness
to everything. The early level of irritation and aggression has been
processed through, so to speak, by mindfulness and awareness. There is
instead a notion of basic goodness, which is described in the Kadam texts
as the natural virtue of alaya. This is an important point for us to
understand. Alaya is the fundamental state of existence, or
consciousness, before it is divided into "I" and "other," or into the
various emotions. It is the basic ground where things are processed,
where things exist. And its basic state, or natural style, is goodness.
It is very benevolent. There is a basic state of existence that is
fundamentally good and that we can rely on. There is room to relax, room
to open ourselves up. We can make friends with ourselves and with others.
That is fundamental virtue or basic goodness, and it is the basis of the
possibility of absolute bodhichitta.

Once we have been inspired by the precision of shamatha and the
wakefulness of vipashyana, we find that there is room, which gives us the
possibility of total naivete, in the positive sense. The Tibetan for
naivete is pak-yang, which means "carefree" or "let loose." We can be
carefree with our basic goodness. We do not have to scrutinize or
investigate wholeheartedly to make sure that there are no mosquitoes or
eggs inside our alaya. The basic goodness of alaya can be cultivated and
connected with quite naturally, in a pak-yang way. We can develop a sense
of relaxation and release from torment--from this-and-that altogether.



Relative Bodhichitta and the Paramita of Discipline

That brings us to the next stage. Again, instead of remaining at a
theoretical, conceptual level alone, we return to the most practical
level. In the mahayana our main concern is how to awaken ourselves. We
begin to realize that we are not as dangerous as we had thought. We
develop some notion of kindness, or maitri, and having developed maitri
we begin to switch into karuna, or compassion.

The development of relative bodhichitta is connected with the
paramita of discipline. It has been said that if you don't have
discipline, it is like trying to walk without any legs. You cannot attain
liberation without discipline. Discipline in Tibetan is tsultrim: tsul
means "proper," and trim means "discipline" or "obeying the rules,"
literally speaking. So trim could be translated as "rule" or "justice."
The basic notion of tsultrim goes beyond giving alone; it means having
good conduct. It also means having some sense of passionlessness and
nonterritoriality. All of that is very much connected with relative
bodhichitta.

Relative bodhichitta comes from the simple and basic experience of
realizing that you could have a tender heart in any situation. Even the
most vicious animals have a tender heart in taking care of their young,
or for that matter, in taking care of themselves. From our basic training
in shamatha-vipashyana, we begin to realize our basic goodness and to
let go with that. We begin to rest in the nature of alaya--not caring and
being very naive and ordinary, casual, in some sense. When we let
ourselves go, we begin to have a feeling of good existence in ourselves.
That could be regarded as the very ordinary and trivial concept of having
a good time. Nonetheless, when we have good intentions toward ourselves,
it is not because we are trying to achieve anything--we are just trying
to be ourselves. As they say, we could come as we are. At that point we
have a natural sense that we can afford to give ourselves freedom. We can
afford to relax. We can afford to treat ourselves better, trust ourselves
more, and let ourselves feel good. The basic goodness of alaya is always
there. It is that sense of healthiness and cheerfulness and naivete that
brings us to the realization of relative bodhichitta.

Relative bodhichitta is related with how we start to learn to love
each other and ourselves. That seems to be the basic point. It's very
difficult for us to learn to love. It would be possible for us to love if
an object of fascination were presented to us or if there were some kind
of dream or promise presented. Maybe then we could learn to love. But it
is very hard for us to learn to love if it means purely giving love
without expecting anything in return. It is very difficult to do that.
When we decide to love somebody, we usually expect that person to fulfill
our desires and conform to our hero worship. If our expectations can be
fulfilled, we can fall in love, ideally. So in most of our love affairs,
what usually happens is that our love is absolutely conditional. It is
more of a business deal than actual love. We have no idea how to
communicate a sense of warmth. When we do begin to communicate a sense of
warmth to somebody, it makes us very uptight. And when the object of our
love tries to cheer us up, it becomes an insult.

This is a very aggression-oriented approach. In the mahayana,
particularly in the contemplative tradition, love and affection are
largely based on free love, open love which does not ask anything in
return. It is a mutual dance. Even if during the dance you step on each
other's toes, it is not regarded as problematic or an insult. We do not
have to get on our high horse or be touchy about that. To learn to love,
to learn to open, is one of the hardest things for all of us. Yet we are
conditioned by passion all the time. Since we are in the human realm, our
main focus or characteristic is passion and lust, all the time. So what
the mahayana teachings are based on is the idea of communication,
openness, and being without expectations.

When we begin to realize that the nature of phenomena is free from
concept, empty by itself, that the chairs and tables and rugs and
curtains are no longer in the way, then we can expand our notion of love
infinitely. There is nothing in the way. The very purpose of discussing
the nature of shunyata is to provide us that emptiness, so that we could
fill the whole of space with a sense of affection--love without
expectation, without demand, without possession. That is one of the most
powerful things that the mahayana has to contribute.

In contrast, hinayana practitioners are very keen on the path of
individual salvation, not causing harm to others. They are reasonable and
good-thinking and very polite people. But how can you be really polite
and keep smiling twenty-four hours a day on the basis of individual
salvation alone, without doing anything for others? You are doing
everything for yourself all the time, even if you are being kind and nice
and polite. That's very hard to do. At the mahayana level, the sense of
affection and love has a lot of room--immense room, openness, and daring.
There is no time to come out clean, particularly, as long as you generate
affection.

The relationship between a mother and child is the foremost analogy
used in developing relative bodhichitta practice. According to the
medieval Indian and Tibetan traditions, the traditional way of
cultivating relative bodhichitta is to choose your mother as the first
example of someone you feel soft toward. Traditionally, you feel warm and
kind toward your mother. In modern society, there might be a problem with
that. However, you could go back to the medieval idea of the mother
principle. You could appreciate her way of sacrificing her own comfort
for you. You could remember how she used to wake up in the middle of the
night if you cried, how she used to feed you and change your diapers, and
all the rest of it. You could remember how you acted as the ruler of your
little household, how your mother became your slave. Whenever you cried,
she would jump up whether she liked it or not in order to see what was
going on with you. Your mother actually did that. And when you were
older, she was very concerned about your security and your education and
so forth. So in order to welcome relative bodhichitta, relative wakeful
gentleness, we use our mother as an example, as our pilot light, so to
speak. We think about her and how much she sacrificed for us. Her
kindness is the perfect example of making others more important than
yourself.

Reflecting on your own mother is the preliminary to relative
bodhichitta practice. You should regard that as your starting point. You
might be a completely angry person and have a grudge against the entire
universe. You might be a completely frustrated person. But you could
still reflect back on your childhood and think of how nice your mother
was to you. You could think of that, in spite of your aggression and your
resentment. You could remember that there was a time when somebody
sacrificed her life for your life, and brought you up to be the person
you are now.

The idea of relative bodhichitta in this case is very primitive, in
some sense. On the other hand, it is also very enlightening, as
bodhichitta should be. Although you might be a completely angry person,
you cannot say that in your entire life nobody helped you. Somebody has
been kind to you and sacrificed himself or herself for you. Otherwise, if
somebody hadn't brought you up, you wouldn't be here as an adult. You
could realize that it wasn't just out of obligation but out of her
genuineness that your mother brought you up and took care of you when you
were helpless. And because of that you are here. That kind of compassion
is very literal and very straightforward.

With that understanding, we can begin to extend our sense of
nonaggression and nonfrustration and nonanger and nonresentment beyond
simply appreciating our mother. This is connected with the paramita of
discipline, which is free from passion and has to do with giving in.
Traditionally, we use our mother as an example, and then we extend beyond
that to our friends and to other people generally. Finally, we even try
to feel better toward our enemies, toward people we don't like. So we try
to extend that sense of gentleness, softness, and gratitude. We are not
particularly talking about the Christian concept of charity, we are
talking about how to make ourselves soft and reasonable. We are talking
about how we can experience a sense of gratitude toward anybody at all,
starting with our mother and going beyond that to include our father as
well--and so forth until we include the rest of the world. So in the end
we can begin to feel sympathy even toward our bedbugs and mosquitoes.

The starting point of relative bodhichitta practice is realizing
that others could actually be more important than ourselves. Other people
might provide us with constant problems, but we could still be kind to
them. According to the logic of relative bodhichitta, we should feel that
we are less important abd others are more important--any others are more
important! Doing so, we begin to feel as though a tremendous burden has
been taken off our shoulders. Finally, we realize that there is room to
give love and affection elsewhere, to more than just this thing called
"me" all the time. "I am this, I am that, I am hungry, I am tired, I am
blah-blah-blah." We could consider others. From that point of view, the
relative bodhichitta principle is quite simple and ordinary. We could
take care of others. We could actually be patient enough to develop
selfless service to others. And the relative bodhichitta slogans [slogans
7-10] are directions as to how to develop relative bodhichitta in a very

simple manner, a grandmother's approach to reality, so to speak.


Ultimate Bodhichitta Slogans

2 Regard all dharmas as dreams.

This slogan is an expression of compassion and openness. It means that
whatever you experience in your life--pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness,
grossness, refinement, sophistication, crudeness, heat, cold, or
whatever--is purely memory. The actual discipline or practice of the
bodhisattva tradition is to regard whatever occurs as a phantom. Nothing
ever happens. But because nothing happens, everything happens. But in
this case, although everything is just a thought in your mind, a lot of
underlying percolation takes place. That "nothing happening" is the
experience of openness, and that percolation is the experience of
compassion.

You can experience that dreamlike quality by relating with sitting
meditation practice. When you are reflecting on your breath, suddenly
discursive thoughts begin to arise: you begin to see things, to hear
things, and to feel things. But all those perceptions are none other than
your own mental creation. In the same way, you can see that your hate for
your enemy, your love for your friends, and your attitudes toward money,
food, and wealth are all a part of discursive thought.

Regarding things as dreams does not mean that you become fuzzy and
woolly, that everything has an edge of sleepiness about it. You might
actually have a good dream, vivid and graphic. Regarding dharmas as
dreams means that although you might think that things are very solid,
the way you perceive them is soft and dreamlike. For instance, if you
have participated in group meditation practice, your memory of your
meditation cushion and the person who sat in front of you is very vivid,
as is your memory of your food and the sound of the gong and the bed
that you sleep in. But none of those situations is regarded as completely
invincible and solid and tough. Everything is shifty.

Things have a dreamlike quality. But at the same time the production
of your mind is quite vivid. If you didn't have a mind, you wouldn't be
able to perceive anything at all. Because you have a mind, you perceive
things. Therefore, what you perceive is a product of your mind, using
your sense organs as channels for the sense perceptions.


3 Examine the nature of unborn awareness.


Look at your basic mind, just simple awareness which is not divided into
sections, the thinking process that exists within you. Just look at that,
see that. Examining does not mean analyzing. It is just viewing things as
they are, in the ordinary sense.

The reason our mind is known as unborn awareness is that we have no
idea of its history. We have no idea where this mind, our crazy mind,
began in the beginning. It has no shape, no color, no particular portrait
or characteristics. It usually flickers on and off, off and on, all the
time. Sometimes it is hibernating, sometimes it is all over the place.
Look at your mind. That is a part of ultimate bodhichitta training or
discipline. Our mind fluctuates constantly, back and forth, forth and
back. Look at that, just look at that!

You could get caught up in the fascination of regarding all dharmas
as dreams and perpetuate unnecessary visions and fantasies of all kinds.
Therefore it is very important to get to this next slogan, "Examine the
nature of unborn awareness." When you look beyond the perceptual level
alone, when you look at your own mind (which you cannot actually do, but
you pretend to do), you find that there is nothing there. You begin to
realize that there is nothing to hold on to. Mind is unborn. But at the
same time, it is awareness, because you still perceive things. Therefore,
you should contemplate that by seeing who is actually perceiving dharmas
as dreams.

If you look further and further, at your mind's root, its base, you
will find that it has no color and no shape. Your mind is, basically
speaking, somewhat blank. There is nothing to it. We are beginning to
cultivate a kind of shunyata possibility; although in this case that
possibility is quite primitive, in the sense of simplicity and
workability. When we look at the root, when we try to find out why we see
things, why we hear sounds, why we feel, and why we smell--if we look
beyond that and beyond that--we find a kind of blankness.

That blankness is connected with mindfulness. To begin with, you are
mindful of some thing: you are mindful of yourself, you are mindful of
your atmosphere, and you are mindful of your breath. But if you look at
why you are mindful, beyond what you are mindful of, you begin to find
that there is no root. Everything begins to dissolve. That is the idea of
examining the nature of unborn awareness.



4 Self-liberate even the antidote.

Looking at our basic mind, we begin to develop a twist of logic. We say,
"Well, if nothing has any root, why bother? What's the point of doing
this at all? Why don't we just believe that there's no root behind the
whole thing?" At that point the next slogan, "Self-liberate even the
antidote," is very helpful. The antidote is the realization that our
discursive thoughts have no origin. That realization helps a lot; it
becomes an antidote or a helpful suggestion. But we need to go beyond
that antidote. We should not hang on to the so-whatness of it, the
naivete of it.

The idea of [that] antidote is that everything is empty, so that you
have nothing to care about. You have an occasional glimpse in your mind
that nothing is existent. And because of the nature of that shunyata
experience, whether anything great or small comes up, nothing really
matters very much. It is like a backslapping joke in which everything is
going to be hoo-ha, yuk-yuk-yuk. Nothing is going to matter very much, so
let it go. All is shunyata, so who cares? You can murder, you can
meditate, you can perform art, you can do all kinds of things--everything
is meditation, whatever you do. But there is something very tricky about
the whole approach. That dwelling on emptiness is a misinterpretation,
called the "poison of shunyata."

Some people say that they do not have to sit and meditate, because
they have always "understood." But that is very tricky. I have been
trying very hard to fight such people. I never trust them at all--unless
they actually sit and practice. You cannot split hairs by saying that you
might be fishing in a Rocky Mountain spring and still meditating away;
you might be driving your Porsche and meditating away; you might be
washing dishes (which is more legitimate in some sense) and meditating
away. That may be a genuine way of doing things, but it still feels very
suspicious.

Antidotes are any notion that we can do what we want and that as
long as we are meditative, everything is going to be fine. The text says
to self-liberate even the antidote, the seeming antidote. We may regard
going to the movies every minute, every day, every evening as our
meditation, or watching television, or grooming our horse, feeding our
dog, taking a long walk in the woods. There are endless possibilities
like that in the Occidental tradition, or for that matter in the theistic
tradition.

The theistic tradition talks about meditation and contemplation as a
fantastic thing to do. The popular notion of God is that he created the
world: the woods were made by God, the castle ruins were created by God,
and the ocean was made by God. So we could swim and meditate or we could
lie on the beach made by God and have a fantastic time. Such theistic
nature worship has become a problem. We have so many holiday makers,
nature worshipers, so many hunters.

In Scotland, at the Samye Ling meditation center, where I was
teaching, there was a very friendly neighbor from Birmingham, an
industrial town, who always came up there on weekends to have a nice
time. Occasionally he would drop into our meditation hall and sit with
us, and he would say, "Well, it's nice you people are meditating, but I
feel much better if I walk out in the woods with my gun and shoot
animals. I feel very meditative walking through the woods and listening
to the sharp, subtle sounds of animals jumping forth, and I can shoot at
them. I feel I am doing something worthwhile at the same time. I can
bring back venison, cook it, and feed my family. I feel good about that."

The whole point of this slogan is that antidotes of any kind, or for
that matter occupational therapies of any kind, are not regarded as
appropriate things to do. We are not particularly seeking enlightenment
or the simple experience of tranquility--we are trying to get over our
deception.





Notes

Introduction

1. Hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana refer to the three stages of an
individual's practice according to Tibetan Buddhism, not to the different
schools of Buddhist practice.

Point Two

1. The word not is a conditional one, as it is usually linked with an
object--not this or not that; the word no is unconditional: simply, No!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT

TITLE OF WORK: Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness
(Sneak Preview - Intro, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2)

FILENAME: TRAINING.ZIP

AUTHOR: Chogyam Trungpa

PUBLISHER'S ADDRESS: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
P.O. Box 308
Boston, MA 02117-0308
617-424-0228

DATE OF PUBLICATION: Copyright, 1993
Permission has been given for electronic
distribution of the introduction, first
and second chapter.

ORIGIN: Tiger Team Buddhist Information Network
(510) 268-0102 data (510) 540-6565 voice
 

 ORDERING INFORMATION: This book may be purchased by calling |
 Shambhala Publications at: 617-424-0228 |
 Cost: $9.00 + 3.00 S&H |
 You may also send a check directly to the |
 publisher |


The publisher retains all rights to this work and hereby grants
electronic distribution rights to the Tiger Team Buddhist Information
Network. This work may be freely copied and redistributed after
September 28, 1995, provided that it is accompanied by this
Agreement.

If you find this sneak preview is of value, please consider
ordering the book from the publisher (see ordering information).

Additional Sneak Preview books can be obtained by logging into the
Tiger Team Buddhist Information Network:

Tiger Team Buddhist Information Network
1920 Francisco St., Suite 112
Berkeley, CA 94709
510-540-6565 Voice
510-268-0102 Modem <------------------- (ANSI or RIP emulation, 8N1)
E-mail: info@tigerteam.org OR
gary.ray@tigerteam.org

top

Universal Responsibility and Our Global Environment

Dalai Lama [from: Tibetan Bulletin (March-April 1994)


Universal Responsibility and Our Global Environment
His Holiness the Dalai Lama


As the twentieth century draws to a close, we find that the world has
grown smaller. The world's people have become almost one community.
Political and military alliances have created large multinational
groups; industry and international trade have produced a global
economy. Worldwide communications are eliminating ancient barriers of
distance, language and race. We are also being drawn together by the
grave problems we face: overpopulation, dwindling natural resources,
and an environmental crisis that threatens our air, water, and trees,
along with the vast number of beautiful life forms that are the very
foundation of existence on this small planet we share.

I believe that to meet the challenge of our times, human beings will
have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of
us must learn to work not just for his or her own self, family or
nation, but for the benefit of all mankind. Universal responsibility
is the real key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world
peace, the equitable use of natural resources and, through concern for
future generations, the proper care of the environment.

That is why it is so heartening to see such non-governmental
organisations as yours. Your role in forging a better future is
absolutely essential. I have come across many such orgaisations built
by dedicated volunteers out of genuine concern for their fellow human
beings. Such commitment represents the forefront of both social and
environmental progress.

Whether we like it or not, we have all been born on this earth as part
of one great family. Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, belonging
to one nation, religion, ideology or another, ultimately each of us is
just a human being like everyone else. We all desire happiness and do
not want suffering. Furthermore, each of us has the same right to
pursue happiness and avoid suffering. When you recognise that all
beings are equal in this respect, you automatically feel empathy and
closeness for them. Out of this, in turn, comes a genuine sense of
universal responsibility -- the wish to actively help others overcome
their problems.

The need for a sense of universal responsibility is present in every
aspect of modern life. Nowadays, significant events in one part of the
world eventually affect the entire planet. Therefore, we have to treat
each major local problem as a global concern from the moment it
begins. We can no longer invoke the national, racial or ideological
barriers that separate us without destructive repercussions. In the
context of our new interdependence, considering the interest of others
is clearly the best form of self-interest.

We need to appreciate interdependence in nature far more than we have
in the past. Our ignorance of it is directly reponsible for many of
the problems we face. For instance, tapping the limited resources of
our world -- particularly those of the developing nations -- simply to
fuel consumerism, is disastrous. If it continues unchecked, eventually
we will all suffer. We must respect the delicate balance of life and
allow it to replenish itself.

Ignorance of interdependence has not only harmed the natural
environment, but human society as well. Instead of caring for one
another, we place most of our efforts for happiness in pursuing
individual material consumption. We have become so engrossed in this
pursuit that, without knowing it, we have neglected to foster the most
basic human needs of love, kindness and cooperation. This is very sad.
We have to consider what we human beings really are. We are not
machine-made objects. However, since we are not solely material
creatures, it is a mistake to seek fulfillment in external development
alone.

To pursue growth properly, we need to renew our commitment to human
values in many fields. Political life, of course, requires an ethical
foundation, but science and religion, as well, should be pursued from
a moral basis. Without it scientists cannot distinguish between
beneficial technologies and those which are merely expedient. The
environmental damage surrounding us is the most obvious result of this
confusion. In the case of religion, it is particularly necessary.

The purpose of religion is not to construct beautiful buildings, but
to cultivate positive human qualities such as tolerance, generosity
and love. Every world religion, no matter what its philosophical view,
is founded first and foremost on the precept that we must reduce our
selfishness and serve others. Unfortunately, sometimes in the name of
religion, people cause more quarrels than they solve. Practitioners of
different faiths should realise that each religious tradition has
immense intrinsic value as a means for providing mental and spiritual
health.

I have been extremely heartened to follow the recent developments in
the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Laying down
guns on both sides, and talking face-to-face is, in my opinion, the
only way to resolve such disputes. We must learn to live together in a
nonviolent way that nurtures the freedom of all people.

There is a wonderful verse in the Bible about turning swords into
ploughshares. It is a lovely image, a weapon transformed into a tool
to serve basic human needs, symbolic of an attitude of inner and outer
disarmament. In the spirit of this ancient message, I think it is
important that we stress today the urgency of a policy that is long
overdue -- the demilitarisation of the entire planet.
Demilitarisation would free great human resources for protection of
the environment, relief of poverty, and sustainable human development.

I have always envisioned the future of my own country, Tibet, as
founded on this basis. Tibet will be a neutral, demilitarised
sanctuary where weapons are forbidden and the people live in harmony
with nature. I have called this a Zone of Ahimsa or non-violence.
This is not merely a dream -- it is precisely the way Tibetans tried
to live for over a thousand years before our country was tragically
invaded. In Tibet, wildlife was protected in accordance with Buddhist
principles. We enacted decrees to protect the environment, but it was
mainly protected by the beliefs which were installed in use as
children.

I would like to conclude by stating that I feel optimistic about the
future. There are a number of recent trends which show our potential
for achieving a better world. The rapid changes in our attitude
towards the earth are a source of hope. As recently as a decade ago,
we thoughtlessly devoured the resources of the world as if there was
no end to them. We failed to realise that unchecked consumerism was
disastrous for both the environment and social welfare. Now, both
individuals and governments are seeking a new ecological and economic
order.

It is true to say that as late as the 1980s people believed that war
was an inevitable condition of mankind. The notion prevailed that
people with conflicting interests could only confront each other.
This view has deminished. Today people all over the globe are more
committed to peaceful co-existence, as is evident here in the Middle
East. This is an astonishingly positive development.

After believing for centuries that human society could only be
governed with rigid authoritarian discipline, people in all corners of
the world have woken up to the virtues of democracy. Speaking from
their hearts, they have shown that the desire for freedom and truth
and democracy stems from the core of human nature. Recent events have
proved that the simple expression of truth is an immense force in the
human mind, and as a result, in the shaping of history.

One of the greatest lessons for all of us has been the peaceful change
in Eastern Europe. In the past, oppressed people have always resorted
to violence in their struggle to be free. Now, these peaceful
revolutions, following in the footsteps of Gandhi and Martin Luther
King, have given future generations a tremendous example of
successful, nonviolent change. When, in the future, the need arises to
change society, our descendents can look back to 1989 as a paradigm
for peaceful struggle: a real success story on an unprecedented scale,
involving more than half a dozen nations and hundreds of millions of
people.

Meanwhile, there has been a growth of awareness of human rights.
Crude power can never subdue mankind's basic desire for freedom, truth
and democracy, which are our fundamental right. People simply don't
like a person or a system that bullies, cheats and lies. These
activities are essentially opposed to the human spirit.

All these encouraging signs reflect a renewed appreciation of the
benefits of basic human values. Because of the lessons we have begun
to learn, the next century will be friendlier, more harmonious, and
less harmful. Compassion, the seeds of peace, will be able to
flourish. At the same time, I believe that every individual has a
responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction.
Good wishes alone are not enough, we each have to assume
responsibility.

I hope and pray that in the days ahead, each of us will do all we can
to see that the goal of creating a happier, more harmonious and
healthier world is achieved.


[This is the text of the address delivered to the Society for the
Protection of Nature, Israel, on March 22, 1994]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT

TITLE OF WORK: Universal Responsibility and Our Global Environment
FILENAME: DL_ENVIR.ZIP
AUTHOR: His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso
AUTHOR'S ADDRESS: Thekchen Choeling, McLeod Ganj
Dharamsala, Distt. Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India
PUBLISHER: Tibetan Bulletin
Department of Information & International Relations,
Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala - 176215, H.P. India.
DATE OF PUBLICATION: March 22, 1994
ORIGIN SITE: BODY DHARMA * Berkeley CA 510/836-4717 * DharmaNet (96:101/33)

The author/publisher retains all rights to this work and hereby grants
electronic distribution rights to DharmaNet International. This work may
be freely copied and redistributed electronically, provided that the file
contents (including this Agreement) are not altered in any way and that
it is distributed at no cost to the recipient. You may make printed copies
of this work for your personal use; further distribution of printed copies
requires permission from the publisher. If this work is used by a teacher
in a class, or is quoted in a review, the publisher shall be notified of
such use.

It is the spirit of dana, freely offered generosity, which has kept the
entire Buddhist tradition alive for more than 2,500 years. If you find this
work of value, please consider sending a donation to the author or publisher,
so that these works may continue to be made available. May your generosity
contribute to the happiness of all beings everywhere.

DharmaNet International, P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley, CA 94704-4951

top

Anarchism: What It Is and What It Is Not
by Joseph Labadie

The following was
reprinted in the the dandelion, vol 3, no 12, Winter 1979, from "a pamphlet
originally published by the Liberty Club of Detroit"



So you want me to tell you what Anarchism is, do you? I can do no less than make
the attempt, and in my own simple way try to make you understand at least that
it is not what the uninformed and the capitalistic newspapers, liars, fools and
villains generally say it is.
In the first place, let me urge upon all who desire to learn the truth about
Anarchism not to go to its enemies for information, but to talk with Anarchists
and read anarchistic literature. And it is not always safe to take what one, two
or even a dozen persons may say about it, either, though they call themselves
Anarchists. Take what a goodly number of them say and then cancel those
statements in which they are not in accord. What remains in all probability is
true. For example, what is Christianity? Ask a dozen or more people and it is
likely their answers will not agree in every particular. They may, however,
agree upon some fundamental propositions. This more likely to be the correct
position of Christianity than the statements made by any one of them. This
process of cancellation is the best way of finding out what any philosophy is.
This I have done in determining what Anarchism is, and it is a fair presumption
that I have arrived tolerably near the truth.
Anarchism, in the language of Benjamin R. Tucker, may be described as the
doctrine that "all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or
voluntary associations, and that the state should be abolished."
The state is "the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a
band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire
people within a given area."
Government is "the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external
will."
Now, keep these definitions in mind, and don't use the word "state" or
"government" or "Anarchy" in any other sense than that in which the Anarchist
himself uses it. Mr. Tucker's definitions are generally accepted by Anarchists
everywhere.
The state, according to Herbert Spencer and others, originated in war,
aggressive war, violence, and has always been maintained by violence. The
function of the state has always been to govern - to make the non-ruling classes
do what the ruling classes want done. The state is the king in a monarchy, the
king and parliament in a limited monarchy, elected representatives in such a
republic as exists in the United States, and the majority of the voters in a
democracy as in Switzerland. History shows that the masses are always improved
in mental, moral, and material conditions as the powers of the state over the
individuals are reduced. As man becomes more enlightened regarding his
interests, individual and collective, he insists that forcible authority over
him and his conduct shall be abolished. He points to the fact that the church
has improved in its material affairs, to say nothing of the spiritual, since the
individual is not compelled to support it and accept its doctrines or be
declared a heretic and burned at the stake or otherwise maltreated; to the fact
that people are better dressed since the state has annulled the laws regulating
dress; to the fact that people are happier married since each person can choose
his own mate; to the fact that people are better in every way since the laws
were abolished regulating the individual's hair-cut, his traveling, his trade,
the number of window panes in his house, chewing tobacco or kissing on Sundays,
and so on without number. In Russia and some other countries even now you would
not be allowed to go into the country or come out of it without legal
permission, to print or read books or papers except those permitted by law, to
keep anyone in your house over night without notifying the police, and in a
thousand ways the individual is hampered in his movements. Even in the freest
countries the individual is robbed by the tax-collector, is beaten by the
police, is fined and jailed by courts - is browbeated by the authority in many
ways when his conduct is not aggressive or in violation of equal freedom.
It is a mistake often made, even by some Anarchists, to say that Anarchism aims
to establish absolute freedom. Anarchism is a practical philosophy, and is not
striving to do the impossible. What Anarchism aims to do, however, is to make
equal freedom applicable to every human creature. The majority under this rule
has no more rights than the minority, the millions no greater rights than one.
It assumes that every human being should have equal rights to all the products
of nature without money and without price; that what one produces would belong
to himself, and that not individual or collection of persons, be they outlaw or
state, should take any portion of it without his knowledge or consent; that
every person should be allowed to exchange his own products wherever he wills;
that he should be allowed to co-operate with his fellows if he chooses, or to
compete against them in whatever field he elects; that no restrictions
whatsoever should be put upon him in what he prints or reads or drinks or eats
or does, so long as he does not invade the equal rights of his fellows.
It is often remarked that Anarchism is an impractical theory imported into the
United States by a lot of ignorant foreigners. Of course, those who make this
statement are as much mistaken as though they made it while conscious of its
falsity. The doctrine of personal freedom is an American doctrine, in so far as
the attempt to put it into practice is concerned, as Paine, Franklin, Jefferson
and others understood it quite well. Even the Puritans had a faint idea of it,
as they came here to exercise the right of private judgement in religious
matters. The right to exercise private judgement in religion is Anarchy in
religion. The first to formulate the doctrine of individual sovereignty was a
blue-bellied Yankee, as Josiah Warren was a descendant of the Revolutionary
General Warren. We have Anarchy in trade between the states in this country, as
free trade is simply commercial Anarchy.
No one who commits crime can be an Anarchist, because crime is the doing of
injury to another by aggression - the opposite of Anarchism.
No one can kill another, except in self-defense, and be an Anarchist, because
that would be invading another's equal right to live - the antithesis of
Anarchism.
Hence assassins and criminals generally are called Anarchists only by the
ignorant and malicious.
You can't be an Anarchist and do the things which Anarchism condemns.
Anarchism would make occupancy and use the sole title to land, thereby
abolishing rent for land.
It would guarantee to each individual or association the right to issue money as
a medium of exchange, thereby abolishing interest on money in so far as
co-operation and competition can do it.
It denies the justice of patent and copyrights, and would abolish monopoly by
abolishing patent rights.
It denies the right of any body of people to tax the individual for anything he
does not want, but that taxation should be voluntary, such as is now done by
churches, trade unions, insurance societies and all other voluntary
associations.
It believes that freedom in every walk of life is the greatest possible means of
elevating the human race to happier conditions.
It is said that Anarchism is not socialism. This is a mistake. Anarchism is
voluntary Socialism. There are two kinds of Socialism, archistic and
anarchistic, authoritarian and libertarian, state and free. Indeed, every
proposition for social betterment is either to increase or decrease the powers
of external wills and forces over the individual. As they increase they are
archistic; as they decrease they are anarchistic.
Anarchy is a synonym for liberty, freedom, independence, free play,
self-government, non-interference, mind your own business and let your
neighbor's alone, laissez faire, ungoverned, autonomy, and so on.
Now that I am done, I find that you have been given only a faint outline of what
Anarchism is and is not. Those who desire to pursue the subject further will
find food for intellectual adults in Tucker's Instead of a Book; Proudhon's What
is Property? and Economical Contradictions; Tandy's Voluntary Socialism;
Mackay's The Anarchists; Auberon Herbert's Free Life; The Demonstrator; Lucifer,
and a lot of other books, papers and pamphlets which may be had by addressing
Henry Bool, Ithaca, NY, E.C. Walker, 244 West 143rd Street, NYC, "Liberty," Box
1312, New York, or "Mother Earth," P.O. Box 217, Madison Square Station, New
York City.



Anarchist Library

top

Anarchy An Online Research Center on the History and Theory of Anarchism
Malatesta Archive
 

Anarchy: a pamphlet
by Errico Malatesta



Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and
signifies, strictly speaking, "without government": the state
of a people without any constituted authority.
Before such an organization had begun to be considered
possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to
be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of
the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word
"anarchy" was used universally in the sense of disorder and
confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the
ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the
truth.
We shall not enter into philological discussions, for the
question is not philological but historical. The common
interpretation of the word does not misconceive its true
etymological signification, but is derived from it, owing to
the prejudice that government must be a necessity of the
organization of social life, and that consequently a society
without government must be given up to disorder, and oscillate
between the unbridled dominion of some and the blind vengeance
of others.
The existence of this prejudice and its influence on the
meaning that the public has given to the word is easily
explained.
Man, like all living beings, adapts himself to the
conditions in which he lives, and transmits by inheritance his
acquired habits. Thus, being born and having lived in bondage,
being the descendant of a long line of slaves, man, when he
began to think, believed that slavery was an essential
condition of life, and liberty seemed to him impossible. In
like manner, the workman, forced for centuries to depend upon
the goodwill of his employer for work, that is, for bread, and
accustomed to see his own life at the disposal of those who
possess the land and capital, has ended in believing that it
is his master who gives him food, and asks ingenuously how it
would be possible to live, if there were no master over him?
In the same way, a man whose limbs had been bound from
birth, but who had neverless found out how to hobble about,
might attribute to the very bands that bound him his ability
to move, while, on the contrary, they would diminish and
paralyze the muscular energy of his limbs.
If then we add to the natural effect of habit the
education given to him by his master, the parson, the teacher,
etc., who are all interested in teaching that the employer and
the government are necessary, if we add the judge and the
policeman to force those who think differently -- and might
try to propagate their opinion -- to keep silence, we shall
understand how the prejudice as to the utility and necessity
of masters and governments has become established. Suppose a
doctor brought forward a complete theory, with a thousand ably
invented illustrations, to persuade the man with bound limbs
that, if his limbs were freed, he could not walk, or even
live. The man would defend his bands furiously and consider
anyone his enemy who tried to tear them off.
Thus, if it is believed that government is necessary and
that without government there must be disorder and confusion,
it is natural and logical to suppose that anarchy, which
signifies absence of government, must also mean absence of
order.
Nor is this fact without parallel in the history of words.
In those epochs and countries where people have considered
government by one man (monarchy) necessary, the word
"republic" (that is, the government of many) has been used
precisely like "anarchy," to imply disorder and confusion.
Traces of this meaning of the word are still to be found in
the popular languages of almost all countries.
When this opinion is changed, and the public are convinced
that government is not necessary, but extremely harmful, the
word "anarchy," precisely because it signifies "without
government," will become equal to saying "natural order,
harmony of needs and interests of all, complete liberty with
complete solidarity."
Therefore, those are wrong who say that anarchists have
chosen their name badly, because it is erroneously understood
by the masses and leads to a false interpretation. The error
does not come from the word, but from the thing. The
difficulty which anarchists meet in spreading their views does
not depend upon the name they have given themselves, but upon
the fact that their conceptions strike as all the inveterate
prejudices which people have about the function of government,
or "the state," as it is called.
Before proceeding further, it will be well to explain this
last word (the "State") which, in our opinion, is the real
cause of much misunderstanding.
Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean
all the collection of institutions, political, legislative,
judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which
management of their own affairs, the guidance of their
personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety
are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals,
and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested
with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain
the public to respect them, making use of the collective force
of the community to this end.
In this case the word "State" means "government," or, if
you like, it is the abstract expression of which government is
the personification. Then such expressions as "Abolition of
the State," or "Society without the State," agree perfectly
with the conception which anarchists wish to express of the
destruction of every political institution based on authority,
and of the constitution of a free and equal society, based
upon harmony of interests, and the voluntary contribution of
all to the satisfaction of social needs.
However, the word "State" has many other meanings, and
among these some that lend themselves to misconstruction,
particularly when used among men whose sad social position has
not afforded them leisure to become accustomed to the subtle
distinction of scientific language, or, still worse, when
adopted treacherously by adversaries, who are interested in
confounding the sense, or do not wish to comprehend it. Thus
the word "State" is often used to indicate any given society,
or collection of human beings, united on a given territory and
constituting what is called a "social unit," independently of
the way in which the members of the said body are grouped, or
of the relations existing between them. "State" is used also
simply as a synonym for "society." Owning to these meanings of
the word, our adversaries believe, or rather profess to
believe, that anarchists wish to abolish every social relation
and all collective work, and to reduce man to a condition of
isolation, that is, to a state worse than savagery.
By "State" again is meant only the supreme administration
of a country, the central power, as distinct from provincial
or communal power, and therefore others think that anarchists
wish merely for a territorial decentralization, leaving the
principle of government intact, and thus confounding anarchy
with cantonical or communal government.
Finally, "State" signifies "condition, mode of living, the
order of social life," etc., and therefore we say, for
example, that it is necessary to change the economic state of
the working classes, or that the anarchical State is the only
State founded on the principles of solidarity, and other
similar phrases. So that if we say also in another sense that
we wish to abolish the State, we may at once appear absurd or
contradictory.
For these reasons, we believe that it would be better to
use the expression "abolition of the State" as little as
possible, and to substitute for it another, clearer, and more
concrete --"abolition of government."
The latter will be the expression used in the course of
this essay.
We have said that anarchy is society without government.
But is the suppression of government possible, desirable, or
wise? Let us see.
What is the government? There is a disease of the human
mind, called the metaphysical tendency, that causes man, after
he has by a logical process abstracted the quality from an
object, to be subject to a kind of hallucination that makes
him take the abstraction for the real thing. This metaphysical
tendency, in spite of the blows of positive science, has still
strong root in the minds of the majority of our contemporary
fellowmen. It has such influence that many consider government
an actual entity, with certain given attributes of reason,
justice, equity, independent of the people who compose the
government.
For those who think in this way, government, or the State,
is the abstract social power, and it represents, always in the
abstract, the general interest. It is the expression of the
rights of all and is considered as limited by the rights of
each. This way of understanding government is supported by
those interested, to whom it is an urgent necessity that the
principle of authority should be maintained and should always
survive the faults and errors of the persons who exercise
power.
For us, the government is the aggregate of the governors,
and the governors -- kings, presidents, ministers, members of
parliament, and what not -- are those who have the power to
make laws regulating the relations between men, and to force
obedience to these laws. They are those who decide upon and
claim the taxes, enforce military service, judge and punish
transgressors of the laws. They subject men to regulations,
and supervise and sanction private contracts. They monopolize
certain branches of production and public services, or, if
they wish, all production and public service. They promote or
hinder the exchange of goods. They make war or peace with
governments of other countries. They concede or withhold free
trade and many things else. In short, the governors are those
who have the power, in a greater or lesser degree, to make use
of the collective force of society, that is, of the physical,
intellectual, and economic force of all, to oblige each to
their (the governors') wish. And this power constitutes, in
our opinion, the very principle of government and authority.
But what reason is there for the existence of government?
Why abdicate one's own liberty, one's own initiative in
favor of other individuals? Why give them the power to be the
masters, with or against the wish of each, to dispose of the
forces of all in their own way? Are the governors such
exceptionally gifted men as to enable them, with some show of
reason, to represent the masses and act in the interests of
all men better than all men would be able to act for
themselves? Are they so infallible and incorruptible that one
can confide to them, with any semblance of prudence, the fate
of each and all, trusting to their knowledge and goodness?
And even if there existed men of infinite goodness and
knowledge, even if we assume what has never happened in
history and what we believe could never happen, namely, that
the government might devolve upon the ablest and best, would
the possession of government power add anything to their
beneficent influence? Would it not rather paralyze or destroy
it? For those who govern find it necessary to occupy
themselves with things which they do not understand, and,
above all, to waste the greater part of their energy in
keeping themselves in power, striving to satisfy their
friends, holding the discontented in check, and mastering the
rebellious.
Again, be the governors good or bad, wise or ignorant, how
do they gain power? Do they impose themselves by right of war,
conquest, or revolution? If so, what guarantees have the
public that their rules have the general good at heart? In
this case it is simply a question of usurpation, and if the
subjects are discontented, nothing is left to them but to
throw off the yoke by an appeal to arms. Are the governors
chosen from a certain class or party? Then inevitably the
ideas and interests of that class or party will triumph, and
the wishes and interests of the others will be sacrificed. Are
they elected by universal suffrage? Now numbers are the sole
criteria, and numbers are clearly no proof of reason, justice,
or capacity. Under universal suffrage the elected are those
who know best how to take in the masses. The minority, which
may happen to be the half minus one, is sacrificed. Moreover,
experience has shown it is impossible to hit upon an electoral
system that really ensures election by the actual majority.
Many and various are the theories by which men have sought
to justify the existence of government. All, however, are
founded, confessedly or not, on the assumption that the
individuals of a society have contrary interests, and that an
external superior power is necessary to oblige some to respect
the interests of others, by prescribing and imposing a rule of
conduct, according to which each may obtain the maximum of
satisfaction with the minimum of sacrifice. If, say the
theorists of the authoritarian school, the interests,
tendencies, and desires of an individual are in opposition to
those of another individual, or perhaps all society, who will
have the right and the power to oblige the one to respect the
interests of the other or others? Who will be able to prevent
the individual citizen from offending the general will? The
liberty of each, they say, has for its limit the liberty of
others: but who will establish those limits, and who will
cause them to be respected? The natural antagonism of
interests and passions creates the necessity for government,
and justifies authority. Authority intervenes as moderator of
the social strife and defines the limits of the rights and
duties of each.
This is the theory; but to be sound the theory should be
based upon an explanation of facts. We know well how in social
economy theories are too often invented to justify facts, that
is, to defend privilege and cause it to be accepted tranquilly
by those who are its victims. Let us here look at the facts
themselves.
In all the course of history, as in the present epoch,
government is either brutal, violent, arbitrary domination of
the few over the many, or it is an instrument devised to
secure domination and privilege to those who, by force, or
cunning, or inheritance, have taken to themselves all the
means of life, first and foremost the soil, whereby they hold
the people in servitude, making them work for their advantage.

Governments oppress mankind in two ways, either directly,
by brute force, that is physical violence, or indirectly, by
depriving them of the means of subsistence and thus reducing
them to helplessness. Political power originated in the first
method; economic privilege arose from the second. Governments
can also oppress man by acting on his emotional nature, and in
this way constitute religious authority. There is no reason
for the propagation of religious superstitions but that they
defend and consolidate political and economic privileges.
In primitive society, when the world was not so densely
populated as now and social relations were less complicated,
if any circumstance prevented the formation of habits and
customs of solidarity, or destroyed those which already
existed and established the domination of man over man, the
two powers, political and economic, were united in the same
hands -- often in those of a single individual. Those who by
force had conquered and impoverished the others, constrained
them to become their servants and to perform all things
according to their caprice. The victors were at once
proprietors, legislators, kings, judges, and executioners.
But with the increase of population, with the growth of
needs, with the complication of social relationships, the
prolonged continuance of such despotism became impossible. For
their own security the rulers, often much against their will,
were obliged to depend upon a privileged class, that is, a
certain number of cointerested individuals, and were also
obliged to let each of these individuals provide for his own
sustenance. Nevertheless they reserved to themselves the
supreme or ultimate control. In other words, the rulers
reserved to themselves the right to exploit all at their own
convenience, and so to satisfy their kingly vanity. Thus
private wealth was developed under the shadow of the ruling
power, for its protection and -- often unconsciously -- as its
accomplice. The class of proprietors arose, and, concentrated
little by little into their hands all the means of production,
the very fountain of life -- agriculture, industry, and
exchange -- ended by becoming a power in themselves. This
power, by the superiority of its means of action and the great
mass of interests it embraces, always ends by subjugating more
or less openly the political power, that is, the government,
which it makes its policeman.
This phenomenon has been repeated often in history. Every
time that, by military enterprise, physical brute force has
taken the upper hand in society, the conquerors have shown the
tendency to concentrate government and property in their own
hands. In every case, however, because the government cannot
attend to the production of wealth and overlook and direct
everything, it finds it necessary to conciliate a powerful
class, and private property is again established. With it
comes the division of the two sorts of society, and that of
the persons who control the collective force of society, and
that of the proprietors, upon whom these governors become
essentially dependent, because the proprietors command the
sources of the said collective force.
Never has this state of affairs been so accentuated as in
modern times. The development of production, the immense
extension of commerce, the extensive power that money has
acquired, and all the economic results flowing from the
discovery of America, the invention of machinery, etc., have
secured the supremacy to the capitalist class that it is no
longer content to trust to the support of the government and
has come to wish that the government composed of members from
its own class, continually under its control and specially
organized to defend it against the possible revenge of the
disinherited. Hence the origin of the modern parliamentary
system.
Today the government is composed of proprietors, or people
of their class so entirely under their influence that the
richest do not find it necessary to take an active part
themselves. Rothschild, for instance, does not need to be
either M.P. or minister, it is enough for him to keep M.P.'s
and ministers dependent upon him.
In many countries, the proletariat participates nominally
in the election of the government. This is a concession which
the bourgeois (i.e., proprietory) class have made, either to
avail themselves of popular support in the strife against
royal or aristocratic power, or to divert the attention of the
people from their own emancipation by giving them an apparent
share in political power. However, whether the bourgeoisie
foresaw it or not, when first they conceded to the people the
right to vote, the fact is that the right has proved in
reality a mockery, serving only to consolidate the power of
the bourgeoisie, while giving to the most energetic only of
the proletariat the illusory hope of arriving at power.
So also with universal suffrage -- we might say,
especially with universal suffrage -- the government has
remained the servant and police of the bourgeois class. How
could it be otherwise? If the government should reach the
point of becoming hostile, if the hope of democracy should
ever be more than a delusion deceiving the people, the
proprietory class, menaced in its interests would at once
rebel and would use all the force and influence that come from
the possession of wealth, to reduce the government to the
simple function of acting as policeman.
In all times and in all places, whatever may be the name
of that the government takes, whatever has been its origin, or
its organization, its essential function is always that of
oppressing and exploiting the masses, and of defending the
oppressors and exploiters. Its principal characteristic and
indispensable instruments are the policeman and the tax
collector, the soldier and the prison. And to these are
necessarily added the time serving priest or teacher, as the
case may be, supported and protected by the government, to
render the spirit of the people servile and make them docile
under the yoke.
Certainly, in addition to this primary business, to this
essential department of governmental action other departments
have been added in the course of time. We even admit that
never, or hardly ever, has a government been able to exist in
a country that was civilized without adding to its oppressing
and exploiting functions others useful and indispensable to
social life. But this fact makes it nonetheless true that
government is in its nature a means of exploitation, and that
its position doom it to be the defense of a dominant class,
thus confirming and increasing the evils of domination.
The government assumes the business of protecting, more or
less vigilantly, the life of citizens against direct or brutal
attacks; acknowledges and legalizes a certain number of rights
and primitive usages and customs, without which it is
impossible to live in society. It organizes and directs
certain public services, such as the post, preservation of the
public health, benevolent institutions, workhouses, etc., and
poses as the protector and benefactor of the poor and weak.
But to prove our point it is sufficient to notice how and why
it fulfills these functions. The fact is that everything the
government undertakes is always inspired with the spirit of
domination and intended to defend, enlarge, and perpetuate the
privileges of property and of those classes of which the
government is representative and defender.
A government cannot rule for any length of time without
hiding its true nature behind the pretense of general utility.
It cannot respect the lives of the privileged without assuming
the air of wishing to respect the lives of all. It cannot
cause the privileges of some to be tolerated without appearing
as the custodian of the rights of everyone. "The law" (and, of
course, those who have made the law, i.e., the government)
"has utilized," says Kropotkin, "the social sentiments of man,
working into them those precepts of morality, which man has
accepted, together with arrangements useful to the minority --
the exploiters -- and opposed to the interests of those who
might have rebelled, had it not been for this show of a moral
ground."
A government cannot wish the destruction of the community,
for then it and the dominant class could not claim their
wealth from exploitation; nor could the government leave the
community to manage its own affairs, for then the people would
soon discover that it (the government) was necessary for no
other end than to defend the proprietory class who impoverish
them, and would hasten to rid themselves of both government
and proprietory class.
Today, in the face of the persistent and menacing demands
of the proletariat, governments show a tendency to interfere
in the relations between employers and work people. Thus they
try to arrest the labor movement and to impede with delusive
reforms the attempts of the poor to take to themselves what is
due to them, namely, an equal share of the good things of life
that others enjoy.
We must also remember that on one hand the bourgeoisie,
that is, the proprietory class, make war among themselves and
destroy one another continually, and that, on the other hand,
the government, although composed of the bourgeoisie and,
acting as their servants and protector, is still, like every
servant or protector, continually striving to emancipate
itself and to domineer over its charge. Thus, this seesaw
game, this swaying between conceding and withdrawing, this
seeking allies among the people and against the classes, and
among classes against the masses, forms the science of the
governors and blinds the ingenuous and phlegmatic, who are
always expecting that salvation is coming to them from on
high.
With all this, the government does not change its nature.
If it acts as regulator or guarantor of the rights and duties
of each, it perverts the sentiments of justice. It justifies
wrong and punishes every act that offends or menaces the
privileges of the governors and proprietors. It declares just
and legal the most atrocious exploitation of the miserable,
which means a slow and continuous material and moral murder,
perpetrated by those who have on those who have not. Again, if
it administers public services, it always considers the
interests of the governors and proprietors, not occupying
itself with the interests of the working masses, except
insofar as is necessary to make the masses willing to endure
their share of taxation. If it instructs, it fetters and
curtails the truth, and tends to prepare the minds and hearts
of the young to become either implacable tyrants or docile
slaves, according to the class to which they belong. In the
hands of the government everything becomes a means of
exploitation, everything serves as a police measure, useful to
hold the people in check. And it must be thus. If the life of
mankind consists in strife between man and man, naturally
there must be conquerors and conquered, and the government,
which is the means of securing to the victors the results of
their victory and perpetuating those results, will certainly
never fall to those who have lost, whether the battle be on
the grounds of physical or intellectual strength, or in the
field of economics. And those who have fought to secure to
themselves better conditions than others can have, to win
privilege and add domination to power, and have attained the
victory, will certainly not use it to defend the rights of the
vanquished, and to place limits to their own power and to that
of their friends and partisans.
The government -- or the State, if you will -- as judge,
moderator of social strife, impartial administrator of the
public interests, is a lie, an illusion, a Utopia, never
realized and never realizable. If, in fact, the interests of
men must always be contrary to one another, if, indeed, the
strife between mankind has made laws necessary to human
society, and the liberty of the individual must be limited by
the liberty of other individuals, then each one would always
seek to make his interests triumph over those of others. Each
would strive to enlarge his own liberty at the cost of the
liberty of others, and there would be government. Not simply
because it was more or less useful to the totality of the
members of society to have a government, but because the
conquerors would wish to secure themselves the fruits of
victory. They would wish effectually to subject the vanquished
and relieve themselves of the trouble of being always on the
defensive, and they would appoint men, specially adapted to
the business, to act as police. Were this indeed actually the
case, then humanity would be destined to perish amid
periodical contests between the tyranny of the dominators and
the rebellion of the conquered.
But fortunately the future of humanity is a happier one,
because the law that governs it is milder.
Thus, in the contest of centuries between liberty and
authority, or, in other words, between social equality and
social castes, the question at issue has not really been the
relations between society and the individual, or the increase
of individual independence at the cost of social control, or
vice versa. Rather it has had to do with preventing any one
individual from oppressing the others; with giving to everyone
the same rights and the same means of action. It has had to do
with substituting the initiative of all, which must naturally
result in the advantage of all, for the initiative of the few,
which necessarily results in the suppression of all the
others. It is always, in short, the question of putting an end
to the domination and exploitation of man by man in such a way
that all are interested in the common welfare, and that the
individual force of each, instead of oppressing, combating, or
suppressing others, will find the possibility of complete
development, and everyone will seek to associate with others
for the greater advantage of all.
From what we have said, it follows that the existence of a
government, even upon the hypothesis that the ideal government
of authoritarian socialists were possible, far from producing
an increase of productive force, would immensely diminish it,
because the government would restrict initiative to the few.
It would give these few the right to do all things, without
being able, of course, to endow them with the knowledge or
understanding of all things.
In fact, if you divest legislation and all the operations
of government of what is intended to protect the privileged,
and what represents the wishes of the privileged classes
alone, nothing remains but the aggregate of individual
governors. "The State," says Sismondi, "is always a
conservative power which authorizes, regulates, and organizes
the conquests of progress (and history testifies that it
applies them to the profit of its own and the other privileged
classes) but never does it inaugurate them. New ideas always
originate from beneath, are conceived in the foundations of
society, and then, when divulged, they become opinion and
grow. But they must always meet on their path, and combat the
constituted powers of tradition, custom, privilege and error."

In order to understand how society could exist without a
government, it is sufficient to turn our attention for a short
space to what actually goes on in our present society. We
shall see that in reality the most important functions are
fulfilled even nowadays outside the intervention of
government. Also that government only interferes to exploit
the masses, or defend the privileged, or, lastly, to sanction,
most unnecessarily, all that has been done without its aid,
often in spite of and opposition to it. Men work, exchange,
study, travel, follow as they choose the current rules of
morality or hygiene; they profit by the progress of science
and art, have numberless mutual interests without ever feeling
the need of ant one to direct them how to conduct themselves
in regard to these matters. On the contrary, it is just those
things in which no governmental interference that prosper best
and give rise to the least contention, being unconsciously
adapted to the wish of all in the way found most useful and
agreeable.
Nor is government more necessary for large undertakings,
or for those public services which require the constant
cooperation of many people of different conditions and
countries. Thousands of these undertakings are even now the
work of voluntarily formed associations. And these are, by the
acknowledgment of everyone, the undertakings that succeed the
best. We do not refer to the associations of capitalists,
organized by means of exploitation, although even they show
capabilities and powers of free association, which may
extended until it embraces all the people of all lands and
includes the widest and most varying interests. We speak
rather of those associations inspired by the love of humanity,
or by the passion for knowledge, or even simply by the desire
for amusement and love of applause, as these represent better
such groupings as will exist in a society where, private
property and internal strife between men being abolished, each
will find his interests compatible with the interest of
everyone else and his greatest satisfaction in doing good and
pleasing others. Scientific societies and congresses,
international lifeboat and Red Cross associations, laborers'
unions, peace societies, volunteers who hasten to the rescue
at times of great public calamity, are all examples, among
thousands, of that power of the spirit of association which
always shows itself when a need arises or an enthusiasm takes
hold, and the means do not fail. That voluntary associations
do not cover the world and do not embrace every branch of
material and moral activity is the fault of the obstacles
placed in their way by governments, of the antagonisms create
by the possession of private property, and of the impotence
and degradation to which the monopolizing of wealth on the
part of the few reduces the majority of mankind.
The government takes charge, for instance, of the postal
and telegraph services. But in what way does it really assist
them? When the people are in such a condition as to be able to
enjoy and feel the need of such services they will think about
organizing them, and the man with the necessary technical
knowledge will not require a certificate from a government to
enable him to set to work. The more general and urgent the
need, the more volunteers will offer to satisfy it. Would the
people have the ability necessary to provide and distribute
provisions? Never fear, they will not die of hunger waiting
for government to pass a law on the subject. Wherever a
government exists, it must wait until the people have first
organized everything, and then come with its laws to sanction
and exploit what has already been done. It is evident that
private interest is the great motive for all activity. That
being so, when the interest of every one becomes the interest
of each (and it necessarily will become so as soon as private
property is abolished), then all will be active. If they work
now in the interest of the few, so much more and so much
better will they work to satisfy the interests of all. It is
hard to understand how anyone can believe that public services
indispensable to social life can be better secured by order of
a government than through the workers themselves who by their
own choice or by agreement with others carry them out under
the immediate control of all those interested.
Certainly in every collective undertaking on a large scale
there is need for division of labor, for technical direction,
administration, etc. But the authoritarians are merely playing
with words, when they deduce a reason for the existence of
government, from the very real necessity for organization of
labor. The government, we must repeat, is the aggregate of the
individuals who have received or have taken the right or the
mean to make laws, and force the people to obey them. The
administrators, engineers, etc., on the other hand, are men
who receive or assume the charge of doing a certain work.
Government signifies delegation of power, that is, abdication
of the initiative and sovereignty of everyone into the hand of
the few. Administration signifies delegation of work, that is,
the free exchange of services founded on free agreement.

This page has been accessed 195 times since October 12, 2001.

OWN YOUR OWN COPY OF ANARCHY ARCHIVES


top

Mutual Aid - an essay
by Errico Malatesta
 

(from MALATESTA: LIFE AND IDEAS, Verne Richards' ed.)
(London: Freedom Press, 1965)


Since it is a fact that man is a social animal whose existence depends on the
continued physical and spiritual relations between human beings, these relations
must be based either on affinity, solidarity and love, or on hostility and
struggle. If each individual thinks only of his well being, or perhaps that of
his small consanguinary or territorial group, he will obviously find himself in
conflict with others, and will emerge as victor or vanquished; as the oppressor
if he wins, as the oppressed if he loses. Natural harmony, the natural marriage
of the good of each with that of all, is the invention of human laziness, which
rather than struggle to achieve what it wants assumes that it will be achieved
spontaneously, by natural law. In reality, however, natural Man is in a state of
continuous conflict with his fellows in his quest for the best, and healthiest
site, the most fertile land, and in time, to exploit the many and varied
opportunities that social life creates for some or for others. For this reason
human history is full of violence, wars, carnage (besides the ruthless
exploitation of the labour of others) and innumerable tyrannies and slavery.

If in the human spirit there had only existed this harsh instinct of wanting to
predominate and to profit at the expense of others, humanity would have remained
in its barbarous state and the development of order as recorded in history, or
in our own times, would not have been possible. This order even at its worst,
always represents a kind of tempering of the tyrannical spirit with a minimum of
social solidarity, indispensable for a more civilised and progressive life.

But fortunately there exists in Man another feeling which draws him closer to
his neighbour, the feeling of sympathy, tolerance, of love, and, thanks to it,
mankind became more civilised, and from it grew our idea which aims at making
society a true gathering of brothers and friends all working for the common
good.

How the feeling arose which is expressed by the so-called moral precepts and
which, as it develops, denies the existing morality and substitutes a higher
morality, is a subject for research which may interest philosophers and
sociologists, but it does not detract from the fact that it exists,
independently of the explanations which may be advanced. It is of no importance
that it may stem from the primitive, physiological fact of the sex act to
perpetuate the human species; or the satisfaction to be derived from the company
of one's fellow beings; or the advantages to be derived from union in the
struggle against the common enemy and in revolt against the common tyrant; or
from the desire for leisure, peace and security that even the victors feel a
need for; or perhaps for these and a hundred other reasons combined. It exists
and it is on its development and growth that we base our hopes for the future of
humanity.

"The will of God ", " natural laws ", " moral laws ", the " categoric
imperative" of the Kantians, even the " interest clearly understood " of the
Utilitarians are all metaphysical fantasies which get one nowhere. They
represent the commendable desire of the human mind to want to explain
everything, to want to get to the bottom of things, and could be accepted as
provisional hypotheses for further research, were they not, in most cases, the
human tendency of never wanting to admit ignorance and preferring wordy
explanations devoid of factual content to simply saying " I don't know."

Whatever the explanations anyone may or may not choose to give, the problem
remains intact: one must choose between love and hate, between brotherly
co-operation and fratricidal struggle, between " altruism " and " egoism." l

The needs, tastes, aspirations and interests of mankind are neither similar nor
naturally harmonious; often they are diametrically opposed and antagonistic. On
the other hand, the life of each individual is so conditioned by the life of
others that it would be impossible, even assuming it were convenient to do so,
to isolate oneself and live one's own life. Social solidarity is a fact from
which no one can escape: it can be freely and consciously accepted and in
consequence benefit all concerned, or it can be accepted willy-nilly,
consciously or otherwise, in which case it manifests itself by the subjection of
one to another, by the exploitation of some by others.

A whole host of practical problems arise in our day-to-day lives which can be
solved in different ways, but not by all ways at the same time; yet each
individual may prefer one solution to another. If an individual or group have
the power to impose their preference on others, they will choose the solution
which best suits the* interests and tastes, the others will have to submit and
sacrifice their wishes. But if no one has the possibility of obliging others to
act against their will then, always assuming that it is not possible or
considered convenient to adopt more than one solution, one must arrive by mutual
concessions at an agreement which best suits everyone and least offends
individual interests, tastes and wishes.

History teaches us, daily observation of life around us teaches, that where
violence has no place [in human relations] everything is settled in the best
possible way, in the best interests of all concerned. But where violence
intervenes, injustice, oppression and exploitation invariably triumph.

The fact is that human life is not possible without profiting by the labour of
others, and that there are only two ways in which this can be done: either
through a fraternal, equalitarian and libertarian association, in which
solidarity, consciously and freely expressed unites all mankind; or the struggle
of each against the other in which the victors overrule, oppress and exploit the
rest....

We want to bring about a society in which men will consider each other as
brothers and by mutual support will achieve the greatest well-being and freedom
as well as physical and intellectual development for all....

The strongest man is the one who is the least isolated; the most independent is
the one who has most contacts and friendships and thereby a wider field for
choosing his close collaborators; the most developed man is he who best can, and
knows how to, utilise Man's common inheritance as well as the achievements of
his contemporaries.

In spite of the rivers of human blood; in spite of the indescribable sufferings
and humiliations inflicted; in spite of exploitation and tyranny at the expense
of the weakest (by reason of personal, or social, inferiority}; in a word, in
spite of the struggle and all its consequences, that which in human society
represents its vital and progressive characteristics, is the feeling of
sympathy, the sense of a common humanity which in normal times, places a limit
on the struggle beyond which one cannot venture without rousing deep disgust and
widespread disapproval. For what intervenes is morality.

The professional historian of the old school may prefer to present the fruits of
his research as sensational events, large-scale conflicts between nations and
classes, wars, revolutions, the ins and outs of diplomacy and conspiracies; but
what is really much more significant are the innumerable daily contacts between
individuals and between groups which are the true substance of social life. And
if one closely examines what happens deep down, in the intimate daily lives of
the mass of humanity, one finds that as well as the struggle to snatch better
working conditions, the thirst for domination, rivalry, envy and all the
unhealthy passions which set man against man, is also valuable work, mutual aid,
unceasing and voluntary exchange of services, affection, love, friendship and
all that which draws people closer together in brotherhood. And human
collectivizes advance or decay, live or die, depending on whether solidarity and
love, or hatred and struggle, predominate in the community's affairs; indeed,
the very existence of any community would not be possible if the social
feelings, which I would call the good passions, were not stronger than the bad.

The existence of sentiments of affection and sympathy among mankind, and the
experience and awareness of the individual and social advantages which stem from
the development of these sentiments, have produced and go on producing concepts
of " justice " and " right " and " Morality" which, in spite of a thousand
contradictions, lies and hypocrisy serving base interests, constitute a goal, an
ideal towards which humanity advances.

This " morality " is fickle and relative; it varies with the times, with
different peoples, classes and individuals; people use it to serve their own
personal interests and that of their families, class or country. But discarding
what, in official " morality ", serves to defend the privilege and violence of
the ruling class, there is always something left which is in the general
interest and is the common achievement of all mankind, irrespective of class and
race.

The bourgeoisie in its heroic period, when it still felt itself a part of the
people and fought for emancipation, had sublime gestures of love and
self-abnegation; and the best among its thinkers and martyrs had the almost
prophetic vision of that future of peace, brotherhood and well-being which
socialists are struggling for today [1909]. But if altruism and solidarity were
among the feelings of the best of them, the germ of individualism (in the sense
of struggle between individuals), the principle of struggle (as opposed to
solidarity) and the exploitation of man by man, were in the programme of the
bourgeoisie and could not but give rise to baneful consequences. Individual
property and the principle of authority, in the new disguises of capitalism and
parliamentarism, were in that programme and had to lead, as has always been the
case, to oppression, misery and the dehumanization of the masses.

And now that the development of capitalism and parliamentarism has borne its
fruits, and the bourgeoisie has exhausted every generous sentiment and
progressive elan by the practice of political and economic competition, it is
reduced to having to defend its privileges with force and deceit, while its
philosophers cannot defend it against the socialist attacks except by bringing
up, inopportunely, the law of vital competition.

top

Anarchism - Politics

by David Miller

A political ideology whose central tenet is that the state must be
abolished and society organised by voluntary means without resort to force
or coercive authority. Whereas conservatives, liberals, and socialists all
assign the state an essential role in their contrasting visions of good
society, anarchists seek its outright destruction.

In support of this position they make two general claims. First, those who
staff the various branches of the state-politicians, civil servants,
judges, the police, and the military- together form a ruling class that
pursues its own interests and exploits the rest of society, especially the
working class. Second, insofar as the state does attempt to promote
general social interests, the means that it has at its disposal – laws and
other directives emanating from the center and coercively enforced- are
ineffective for this purpose. Societies, anarchists believe, are highly
complex entities, and they should be organised from the bottom up, with
full attention paid to the varying need of individuals and localities.

Anarchists therefore look to voluntary associations to maintain social
order, to organise production and exchange, to protect the environment,
and to perform other necessary functions. But different anarchists hold
different views of how a society organised by voluntary means might
function. Individualists, such as the American anarchist Benjamin Tucker
(1854-1939), envisaged a market-based system of free exchange and
contract, with private protective associations acting to safeguard the
rights of each individual who bought their services. In contrast,
collectivists such as Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and communists such as
Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921) sought to transcend the market and believed
that social needs could be met through voluntary co-operation in
workplaces and local communes. These bodies might federate for special
purposes (such as organising a transport system), but the federal body
would not have the right to compel its constituent parts if they dissented
from its decisions. These socialist forms of anarchism have had the
greatest political influence, helping to radicalise the workers’ movements
of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe, especially in
France, Italy, and Spain. Anarchism had its greatest practical success at
the outset of the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, when many areas came for
a time under anarchist control, but subsequently its influence has waned.
Anarchists today are effective chiefly through their participation in the
peace and ecology movements.

Anarchists have been harsh critics of representative democracy on the
Western model. Their critique can be boiled down to three essential
points. First, a democratic state is still a state: its way of operating
shows the same insensitivity to social needs as do other, more overtly
authoritarian political institutions. Second, democrats often claim that
what is represented in representative democracy is the will of the people,
which informs and controls government policy. But, according to
anarchists, the idea of a single, consistent popular will is a myth.
People are divided in their opinions, their ideas are shifting, some are
better informed that others. It is absurd to suppose that a majority view,
expressed in a ballot at one moment in time, constitutes the will of the
people. Third, anarchists attack the idea of popular representation in
legislative assemblies. They argue that people, when called upon to choose
their representatives, are very likely to vote for those who appear well
educated and articulate – in other words, aspiring members of the middle
class. But even if members of the working class were willing to select
representatives from their own number, those would soon be corrupted by
their new position as servants of the state.

In a famous passage, Bakunin argued that workers elected to form
government would be transformed almost at once from democrats into a new
authoritarian aristocracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), the most
influential of the French anarchists, confirmed this principle for himself
when he was elected to the Constituent Assebly in 1848. Absorption in the
business of government, he found, quickly distanced him from the needs and
desires of his constituents.

Except in very special circumstances, therefore, anarchists have favoured
a policy of political abstention and have sought to encourage a
revolutionary transformation of society through a variety of
extraparliamentary means, including propaganda, direct action,
syndicalism, and finally insurrection. But does democracy play any part in
their ideal society of the future? For anarchists of an individualist
persuasion there is little room, if any, for collective decision making in
such a society. Each person would make his or her own contractual
arrangements with others according to tastes and preferences. Agreeing to
decide certain matters by democratic vote would not be excluded, but
neither would it be required.

For other anarchists the issue is a little more complicated. Inevitably
questions will arise within workplaces and local communities that require
collective decision. Ideally, these would be resolved unanimously, but if
unanimous consent proved to be impossible the majority would have the
decide. The minority would then face a choice: either to go along with the
decision reached or else to withdraw and allow the majority to proceed. No
anarchist would allow the minority to be forced to comply with the
majority decision. To force compliance would be to reintroduce coercive
authority, the hallmark of the state.

Direct democracy would, then, have some place in the visions of most
anarchists, but it would be subordinate to the principles of free
agreement and noncompulsion. Even this arrangement would be going too far
for some: the English philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836), the first
systematic exponent of an anarchists political philosophy, argued against
popular assemblies on the ground that the consensus they tended to produce
resulted from irrational forms of persuasion, corrupting the independent
judgement of each participant. Anarchist suspicion of democracy in any of
its forms runs very deep.



 

top

 Utopist World Champioship 2001THE UTOPIAN W.C. 2001/ THE FINALISTS

Name:
T.R.O.Y.
Country:
Sweden
Title:
The New World Disorder, a global network of direct democracy
and community currency. Sex:
male
Birth year.
1969
More about participant < main next finalist >

The New World Disorder a global network of direct democracy and
community currency


Introduction
"There is no alternative."
Margaret Thatcher
"All that is held under power must someday revolt."
Inayat Khan
"Grant me the courage to change the things that I can, the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the
difference."
Serenity Prayer

Ever since St. Thomas More wrote 'Utopia', which can be an allusion
to either 'Outopia' (no-place), 'Eutopia' (the good place), or both,
the word has often been associated with the unattainable, the
impossible dream. And when one considers that More's own vision
included both slavery and the death penalty one might be happy to
not live in his utopia -or even next door.
The Bolshevik dream of a communist and stateless society that never
emerged was another sort of utopian quest yet, despite establishing
a certain amount of economic equality, it resulted in a nightmare
for many a soul who lived under its yoke. And is not capitalism
itself with 'the American Dream' as its ultimate promise also a
utopian myth of sorts? For we are told, in a grand quixotic
challenge to basic mathematics, that all people have a chance to
become a part of the wealthy minority. The truth is that a third of
the world earns about 90% of the world's income. That leaves the
other two thirds of the people to fight amongst themselves for the
remaining 10% and the result is a nightmare that equals its Soviet
counterpart in sheer brutality.
People have tried, and are still trying, to create free and
egalitarian alternatives. They have demonstrated that a wide variety
of community structure is possible. Still others have created
half-worlds based upon a single aspect of life. Initiatives such as
organic farming, rehabilitation programs, community currencies,
worker run co-ops, alternative schooling have all come from people
who have helped us see new possibilities that are available to us
here and now. Their successes and shortcomings can give us insight
as we continue our journey towards a better society for all. Through
their example we can see that Utopianism may turn out to be a
journey in itself rather than a final destination point. A way to
move through rather than a place to move to.
This Essay
"Which or whose Utopia? The kind of those involved,
of course. Many different kinds."
Karl Hess, Community Technology
"We want a world in which there are many worlds,
a world in which our world, and the worlds of others will fit:
a world in which we are heard, but as one of many voices."
Zapatistas
This vision of utopia is not a singular vision but a vision that has
space for many visions. It is not a vision of a perfect world, but
rather a vision of a possible world. One of many possibilities. It
depicts a world that is beautiful and harmonious, yet ugly and
chaotic. A world where the answers are not given to us but have to
be continually created by us. For the challenges, like the
questions, never end.
The links provided within this essay are portals to other worlds.
Real worlds in real-time. These worlds that hide amongst words are
steps - steps to the world of greater possibilities, to your dreams,
to the utopian scenario you're about to read, to anyone's hope for a
better world. What determines whether or not these worlds are ever
attained or to what degree they are attained depends on one factor:
what you are willing to do to make it happen.
T.R.O.Y. 2001

IT'S THE END OF HISTORY AS WE KNOW IT
"The commodity description of labor, land, and money is
entirely fictitious. Nevertheless, it is with the help of this
fiction that the actual markets for land, labor, and money
are organized."
Karl Polanyi
"People are the experts; they know what it is they need.
It's just that nobody listens."
Jean Trickey
Another World is Possible
Nobody saw it coming. Few thought it possible. And yet it happened.
It seemed to be sparked by a similar spirit to the one that had
brought about the end of the Soviet Empire in 1989. After little
more than a decade of free market dominance spearheaded by the
United States and powerful trans-national corporations it was
capitalism's turn. The Great Fall of capitalism came nearly as
suddenly as its Iron Curtain counterpart. The very market of
hyper-capitalism got a global aneurysm and it imploded. When the
international economic collapse came about in 2007 national
governments, bureaucratic armies, and state institutions were
ill-prepared for the chaos that ensued. Their authority suddenly
vanished.
It was necessary to find new ways of organizing the society and,
ultimately, the power of local communities overcame the brutality of
bullets and the manipulation of money-based organizations. While the
former centers of power quickly disintegrated, local organizations
and networks had to fill the vacuum that was left in its wake. There
was an inevitable power struggle between the haves and the
have-nots, between those who had power and those who lacked it but
as the rules for the game were suddenly changed, the former
underdogs gained the upper-hand.
Who were the underdogs? What was the power struggle about? Kevin
Danaher, in the book "Democratizing the Global Economy" put it like
this: "The mass media talk about globalization as if it were a
unified, all-encompassing entity. But there are two kinds of
globalization: elite globalization and grassroots globalization. The
top-down globalization promoted by the big corporations is
characterized by a constant drive to maximize profits...people are
encouraged to pursue an unsustainable pattern of resource
consumption; and social inequality has reached grotesque
proportions. In the face of this predatory type of globalization,
there is another kind of globalization being forged; a globalization
that reaffirms the primacy of the ethical principles that form the
foundation of true democracy: equality, freedom, participation,
human diversity, and solidarity. This grassroots movement is made up
of many large movements: the fair trade movements, micro-lending
networks, the movement for social and ecological labeling, sister
cities and sister schools, trade union solidarity across borders,
and many others."
It was these socially active groups who, through their
person-to-person contact across the world developed
counter-institutional networks that sowed the seeds for future forms
of organization.

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
"Civilizing capitalism will only be possible globally, if at all."
Elmar Altvater
The Global Alliance
The Global Alliance (GA), is the name given to what arose from the
World Social Forum http://www.worldsocialforum.org as it, and other
NGOs gathered up the remains of the United Nations. Many grassroots
organizations participated and structural advice on the new alliance
came from groups such as the Campaign for a More Democratic United
Nations http://www.oneworld.org/camdun
The GA came to provide a much-needed stability for the new structure
of worldwide interaction and cooperation. All decision-making is now
made through direct democracy wherein all participants engage
themselves as equal members in a system of rotation that enables a
minimum of bureaucracy.
Furthermore, it has maintained, from the very start, a highly
flexible membership policy.
The GA allows for the creation and recognition of new nations and
new 'states' according to a very basic criteria:
1) that it agree to the constitution of the Global Alliance which
includes the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights http://www.un.org/overview/rights , International Covenants
on Civil and Political Rights
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr and on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr as
well as Agenda 21 http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21
2) that it consent to monitoring by fellow members, and
3) that it sees to provision of the needs and welfare of its
membership. Under these guidelines, nearly any community or group of
communities has the possibility to be recognized as an autonomous
entity.
Peacekeeping forces, comprised of GA members, are used no more often
today than they were during the days of the United Nations and when
they are used the emphasis is decidedly on dialogue and peaceful
conflict-resolution. All parties are brought into dialogue and not,
as was the case in Somalia 1992-95, only those parties who have
military or economic power. Internal grassroots organizations,
cooperatives, clan/tribal leaders, and cultural consultants as well
as non-partisan mediators from outside the area are taken in. It is
through the continual networking that goes on in today's direct
democratic process that enables early warning s of tension build-up
to be quickly addressed. Focus is thus more on pre-conflict
resolution as opposed to the direct use of peacekeeping forces.
Immediately after the Great Fall disarmament became a top priority.
If any sort of global security was to be established, it had to be
free of the threat of military power and large scale war. The
achievements of a universal ban on nuclear weapons followed by a ban
on national armies were major victories. The model of Costa Rica
which hadn't had an army in ages proved to be the shining example
which everyone else followed. As the bans were simultaneous and
universal there was little room for the military to protest. And as
this coincided with the collapse of profit-oriented economy there
was hardly any economic incentive to maintain military power and the
arms industry.
Furthermore the GA, unlike the UN was neither dominated by nor
dependent upon the United States nor did it include any sort of
permanent Security Council membership as the UN once did. Direct
democracy ensured that the voice of the GA was that of the people of
the world and not merely certain heads of state.
Community Networks

"...They had worker's patrols instead of police...There was no
unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low;
you saw very few beggars ...Above all, there was a belief in the
revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged
into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying
to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist
machine... I was breathing the air of equality..."
George Orwell (describing what he saw in Catalonia, Spain in
December 1936)
The new form of organization turned out to be grounded in grassroots
communities. The communities are largely centered around common
principles and/or cultural associations. They can be based upon
common beliefs, a common trade, a common jobsite, a common
neighborhood, a common language etc. A community can also be formed
out from an apartment complex, neighborhood area, or plot of land.
People are free to choose as to which community they wish to be
associated but are limited to one official choice through which
their democratic representation takes place.
These communities then coordinate themselves into Community Networks
(or Networks for short). Each Network consists of a specific
geographic boundary and anywhere from roughly 200 to 1 million
members. Currently, the Community Networks account for the
predominant form of autonomous unit in modern-day society. Community
Networks are, quite simply, networks of communities where the basic
regulations for the local society are determined.
Networks function as mini-versions of countries and are granted
recognition status equal to that of traditional countries in the
Global Alliance based, like traditional countries, upon number of
members. Members of the communities are thereby accountable to the
Network and each Network is, in turn, accountable to the Global
Alliance.
The nation-state is, for the most part, gone and in its wake are
thousands upon thousands of Networks linked together into various
formal and informal alliances. Some areas, however, have chosen to
maintain the traditional nation-state structure. These countries are
then granted the same representation within the GA as the Community
Networks.
Though Community Network is the formal name, it is possible for a
single community to register itself as a Network if it is able to
fill the basic requirements for self-sustainability and
self-governance. What they gain in autonomy, however, they may lose
in social, cultural, and economic variety. The larger Community
Networks usually consist of hundreds of small communities.
These Networks and their subsequent subdivisions have a wide variety
of internal structures from consensus-based anarchy to hierarchical,
from religious collectives to majority-based democratic rule. The
criteria for granting autonomy have ensured that people across the
world who have been struggling for centuries for democratic
self-determination, from the Kurds to the Oglala Lakotas have
finally heard their cries answered. In whichever case, the Networks
operate on the basis of self-sustainability creating whatever they
need for themselves and trading for whatever they can't create.
A final form of organization is that of nomadic communities. These
groups form their own community Network, one that is not formed out
from a specific geographic area as normal. These people include
sailors, circus artists, transportation workers, musicians, Romani,
performance groups, hunter & gatherers, and so on.
An odd little development along the way has been the prevalence of
micro-nations http://www.micro-nations.org who often exist as
mini-nations within nations. Whereas they were previously reserved
for eccentric artists and activists they have become a common sight
at international gatherings with their flamboyant style of dress and
preposterous rituals.
GA and democracy
"Development must be decentralized in order to involve communities
in formulating and implementing the decisions and programs that
affect their lives. Such a decentralization need not conflict with
a global system and strategy, but would in fact ensure that
development processes are adapted to the planet's rich cultural,
geographic, and ecological diversity."
Bahα'ν International Community Earth Charter
By the year 2012 the GA had achieved a stable membership of
approximately 25,000 autonomous entities representing more than 6
billion people. And when the GA celebrated five years of cooperation
during the same year the mood was festive. It was Porto Alegre's
turn to host the conference and it served as a sharp contrast to the
tense atmosphere surrounding many of the large political-economic
meetings in the years before the Great Fall. Whereas cities like
Quebec, Washington D.C. and Genoa were made to look like police
states in which both taxpayers and democracy itself paid high
prices, Porto Alegre 2012 was a city with hardly a police in sight.
Networks are equally represented according to population.
Representation is both proportional numerically as well as socially
with each GA member sending a delegation that reflects its own
diversity. Often this mix is attained in a single delegate, someone
who is appointed by the communities, not for their own personal
views but for their ability to relay the views of others. Each
delegate is appointed by their Community Network and serves a
maximum 6 year term with the possibility for instant recall by their
respective Network.
The Gathering, as it is called, begins informally with a series of
debates, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, performances,
concerts and festivity. The informal context allows delegates to
meet each other on purely human scale before they begin their
dialogues.
This dialogue period in itself is an extension of the sort of
discussions and planning that occur via the Internet discussion
groups prior to the actual Gathering. It is during the period of
Internet discussion that suggested proposals are sent in and by the
time each delegate arrives they have each received an entire list of
all the proposals that are to be discussed when the GA is in
session. Since the matters being discussed have already been talked
about for a long time in advance, the issues have had time to reach
the entire membership behind each delegate and are therefore as
democratic as possible. As this method varies little from the
previous standard of 'motions', the change from before the Fall has
more do with who participates rather than how they do it.
Then follows a period of 30 mini-assemblies of less than a thousand
delegates each. These assemblies meet over a period of days and come
to specific proposals on the basis of 2/3 majority rule. If there is
any contingent radically opposed a motion then the issue is taken
up, reexamined and a compromise or alternative approach is attempted
before a final proposal is formulated. Though the decision is made
by vote the goal is, in each case, to find solutions that are
satisfactory to all. Hence these meetings are mediated by several
non-partisan facilitators elected by the assembly whose role is to
simply ensure a spirit of cooperation and communication. It is not
their place to take sides on any issue but to ensure that all voices
are heard and all concerns are dealt with accordingly. At the end of
each day of discussion, each assembly is present with information
presented instantly electronically as to the developments in the
other assemblies.
There is a break for a few days as the seminars, debates and
festivities continue and it is also during this period in which
unresolved issues are further discussed and delegates have the
chance to consult with their communities back home via Internet.
Finally it concludes with a series of meetings in which all
delegates participate. The proposals are presented and the final
decisions are made through a voting process with a required Ύ
majority rule.
The basic intent of the structure is that decisions shall be handled
as locally as possible and as few matters as possible should be
decided on the structural level of the GA. In most cases, the GA is
to provide a statement of general direction and it is up to the more
localized regions to interpret each declaration as it pertains to
them. In a few cases, such as the decision to employ peacekeeping
forces, a specific matter requires very particular attention and, in
the case of the peacekeeping forces, a majority 4/5 majority rule is
required in order to achieve authorization.
The ideological base for the GA is that all decisions should be made
out from an general interest for the well-being of all of the
world's population and a worldwide ecological sustainability and
therefore it is essential that all decisions are made by an
overwhelming majority of the membership.

The Regional Alliance

"I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I
understand."
Kong Fu-Tse
There is no blueprint for social change. Most of it has to be
learned as one goes along. And in this case, there was no clear plan
from the beginning as to how to organize society such learning was
an immediate necessity. Decisions were therefore made according to
the needs that arose.
As there became a discrepancy between the Global Alliance and the
tiny size of its particular members, the need arose quite early on
to have an intermediary organization that could fill the gap and
address the more specific needs of each region. Thus, the Regional
Alliance was born and was introduced as part of the Treaty of Global
Promise in 2010 as a means to facilitate the direct democracy of the
GA and its membership -in other words, to answer to, not preside
over, the needs of the various Networks according to their regional
location. The Regional Alliances, of which there are 23 across the
world (i.e. East Asia, Eurasia, West Europe, Mediterranean, Central
Africa, South India, etc...), have specific boundaries that were
drawn up by the various Networks according to continental location.
Regional Alliances have several functions. First, they act as
custodians of the decisions made by the Networks via the GA.
Secondly, they help meditate inter-Network conflict and dialogue.
And thirdly, they administer and regulate regional economy.
Regional Alliances consist of direct proportional representation of
the state or Network membership. The positions are rotational so
that each community is enabled to participate equally. As the
decisions made at the GA level are usually not specific, it is up to
the communities that comprise the Regional Alliance to decide for
themselves how to best implement those goals.
One such example is the distribution of material wealth. Though the
GA agreed upon certain principles, such as land that is not lived on
cannot be owned but is a shared inheritance and that all natural and
human resources belong to all people equally, it has been somewhat
of an open question as to exactly how these resources should
distributed.

top

The Theory of Hierarchical Society
by Emmanuel Coldstein


Based on George Orwell, 1984


Publisher's note: Chapters 1 and 3 of this book were previously published in
George Orwell's 1984 (London: 1949). This edition is complete and unexpurgated.



Contents
Chapter 1: Ignorance is Strength
Chapter 2: Freedom is Slavery
Chapter 3: War is Peace
Chapter 4: God is Power
Chapter 5: The Proles



Chapter 1: Ignorance is Strength

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there
have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low.
They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different
names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude toward one another,
have varied from to age to age; but the essential structure of society has never
altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the
same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always
return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.
The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High
is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the
High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding
characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more
than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -- is to
abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.
Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs
over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but
sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief
in themselves, or their capacity to govern efficiently or both. They are then
overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them
that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached
their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of
servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits
off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins
over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily
successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that
throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in
a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he
was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no
reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer. From
the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a
change in the name of their masters.
By the late nineteenth century the recurrences of this pattern had become
obvious to many observers. There then arose schools of thinkers who interpreted
history as a cyclical process and claimed to show that inequality was the
unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course, had always had its
adherents, but in the manner in which it was now put forward there was a
significant change. In the past the need for a hierarchical form of society had
been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and
aristocrats and by the priests, lawyers, and the like who were parasitical upon
them, and it had generally been softened by promises of compensation in an
imaginary world beyond the grave. The Middle, so long as it was struggling for
power, had always made use of such terms as freedom, justice and fraternity.
Now, however, the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people
who were not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long.
In the past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and
then had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old ones were overthrown.
The new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand. The new
movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names
and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to
arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. The familiar pendulum
swing was to happen once more, and then stop. As usual, the High were to be
turned out by the Middle, who would then become the High; but this time, by
conscious strategy, the High would be able to maintain their position
permanently.
The new "spectacular" doctrines arose partly because of the accumulation of
historical knowledge, and the growth of the historical sense, which had hardly
existed before the nineteenth century. The cyclical movement of history was now
intelligible, or appeared to be so; and if it was intelligible, then it was
alterable. But the principal, underlying cause was that, as early as the
beginning of the twentieth century, human equality had become technically
possible. It was still true that people were not equal in their native talents
and that functions had to be specialized in ways that favored some individuals
against others; but there was no longer any real need for class distinctions or
for large differences of wealth. In earlier ages, class distinctions had been
not only inevitable but desirable. Inequality was the price of civilization.
With the development of machine production, however, the case was altered. Even
if it were still necessary for human beings to do different kinds of work, it
was no longer necessary for them to live at different social or economic levels.
Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups that were on the point of
seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a
danger to be averted. And so the idea of earthly paradise -- which had haunted
the human imagination for thousands of years -- came into discredit at exactly
the moment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever
name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation.
As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, the new aristocracy was
less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above
all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing
opposition. This last difference was cardinal. By comparison with that existing
today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The
ruling groups were always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were
content to leave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act, and to be
uninterested in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church of
the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this
was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under
constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to
manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process
further. With the development of television and the personal computer, and the
technical advances which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously
on the same instrument, private life came to an end. Every citizen, or at least
every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for
twenty-four-hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of
official propaganda, with all other channels of information closed. The
possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State,
but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first
time.
Nothing the citizen does is indifferent or neutral. His or her friendships,
hobbies, behavior towards his or her spouse or lover, facial expressions,
gestures, characteristic movements, tones of voice, words muttered while asleep
-- all are jealously scrutinized. Not only any actual misdemeanor, but any
eccentricity, however small, any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that
could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle, is certain to be detected.
Endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and disappearances are
inflicted both as punishments for crimes which have been actually committed and
as the systematic wiping-out of any persons who might perhaps commit a crime at
some time in the future.
And so today the determining factor in perpetuating a totally obsolete
hierarchical society is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself. The
problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously molding
the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group
that lies immediately below it. Skepticism and hesitancy among the ranks of the
rulers must be prevented. (As will be seen in Chapter 3, the best method of
molding consciousness is continuous warfare.)
The consciousness of the masses (the "proles"), by contrast, needs only be
influenced in a negative way. The masses could only become dangerous if the
advance of industrial technique made it necessary to educate them more highly:
but, since military and commercial rivalries are no longer of primary
importance, the level of popular education is actually declining. What opinions
the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked upon as a matter of indifference.
They can be granted intellectual liberty because it is thought that they have no
intellect. In a member of the ruling elite, on the other hand, not even the
smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.
All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize
our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the rulers and prevent
the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. A member of the
elite is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts.
Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him or her are never plainly
stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradiction at the
heart of modern-day hierarchical society. To maintain this regime, a continuous
alteration of the past is necessary. Both the elites and the masses will
tolerate present-day conditions because they have no standards of comparison.
Everyone must be cut off from the past, as well as from other countries, because
it is necessary for one and all to believe that everyone is better off than his
or her ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is rising. But
by far the most important reason for the constant readjustment of the past is to
safeguard the validity of the system itself. It is not merely that speeches,
statistics, and records of every kind can and must be constantly brought up to
date in order to show that the fundamental principles of society are sound. No
change in these basic principles -- work, commodity production, private
property, the State -- can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind is a
confession of weakness, and weakness cannot be tolerated in a "perfect" system.
If human equality is to be forever averted -- if the High, as we have called
them, are to keep their places permanently -- then the prevailing mental
condition must be controlled insanity. And so, in our society, those who have
the best knowledge of what is actually happening are also those who are furthest
from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the
greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane. This is the inner
meaning of the slogan IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.


Chapter 2 : Freedom is Slavery

Given this background, one could infer, if one did not know it already, the
general structure of modern capitalist society. At the apex of the pyramid comes
Big Brother. Big Brother -- in whose person the functions of military
commander-in-chief, political leader and religious figure are combined and
integrated -- is infallible and all-powerful. Compared to him, the average
person (the human individual) is absolutely powerless, even nonexistent. Every
success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all
knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly
from Big Brother's leadership and inspiration. Despite the fact that Big Brother
is always watching everyone, nobody has ever seen him. Strictly speaking, Big
Brother does not exist and thus can be "replaced" at any time. The personality
and image of Big Brother is a merely a composite of several unusually ambitious
and charismatic people. He is a silent pair of eyes, an inscrutable face on
billboards, televisions, and computer screens. We may reasonably be sure he will
never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty among his many
biographers as to when he was born. Big Brother is the spectacular guise in
which the ruling class chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is
to act as a literal focusing point for love, fear, and reverence -- emotions
which are more easily felt toward an individual than toward an organization.
It is important to note that Big Brother is not Big Father: The parallel with
the Christian myth of Jesus Christ (the Son of God) is striking and intentional.
Big Brother is not God the Patriarchal Creator; he was created by God the
Father, as were we all. Fraternal and earthy, Big Brother fought the revolution
against the oppressive Father with us. If Big Brother rules with an iron fist
and a boot upon the back of the neck, this is because he knows what is good for
us, for all of us, because he is one of us. The immense global oligarchy at
whose apex he stands is a collectivist one. Big Brother was democratically and
unanimously elected, and is democratically and unanimously re-elected every time
he runs for office. As long as there is a hierarchical society to be ruled, Big
Brother will always be in office.
And yet capitalism -- let us not forget that Big Brother presides over an
integrated, global capitalist system -- must be democratic, because it cannot be
anything else. Capitalism could only grow hand-in-hand with democratic society.
To deploy itself fully over the face of the whole planet, capitalism must even
now permanently assure everyone of a choice, the outcome of which it has
determined in advance. One must be able to choose between two indistinguishable
politicians or two indistinguishable political ideologies because one chooses
between two indistinguishable commodities. If there is no appearance of
political democracy, there can be no sustainable capitalist system. This has
been proven to be true by the permanent atrophy of the merchants in oriental
despotism, by the ultimate defeat of Hitlerian and Mussolinian fascism, and by
how poorly bureaucratic capitalism was managed by Stalinism.
Every commodity -- whether it is a brand of shampoo or a brand of political
ideology -- fights for itself, cannot acknowledge the validity of the others,
and attempts to impose itself everywhere as if it were the only one. What can be
called the spectacle is the epic poem of this machinic struggle, an epic which
cannot be concluded by the fall of any Troy. The spectacle does not sing the
praises of men and their weapons, but of commodities and their passions. In this
blind struggle, every commodity -- pursuing its totalitarian passion --
unconsciously realizes something higher, which is the becoming-world of the
commodity, which is also the becoming-commodity of the world. Thus, by means of
a ruse of commodity "logic," what's specific in the commodity (the use-value)
wears itself out in the fight, while the commodity-form (exchange-value) moves
toward its absolute realization.
What hides under the spectacular oppositions between commodities and political
ideologies is a unity of misery -- the misery experienced by wage slaves, by
people who have always worked and must continue to work for a living, no matter
what product they buy or who wins the election. Behind the masks of total choice
and total freedom, different forms of the same alienation and oppression
confront each other -- all of them built on real contradictions which are
repressed. The fraud of satisfaction exposes itself by being replaced, by
following changes of products and changes in the general conditions of
production. That which asserted its definitive excellence with perfect impudence
nevertheless changes; it is the system alone which must continue. Stalin as well
as the outmoded commodity are denounced precisely by those who imposed them.
Every new lie of advertising is also an avowal of the previous lie. The fall of
every figure or object with totalitarian power reveals the illusory community
which had approved of it unanimously, and which had been nothing more than an
agglomeration of fragments.
And so the satisfaction which no longer comes from the use of abundant
commodities is now sought in the recognition of their value as commodities: the
on-going use of totally unsatisfactory commodities becomes sufficient unto
itself; the consumer is filled with religious fervor for the commodities'
sovereign freedom. Waves of enthusiasm for a given product, supported and spread
by all the media of communication, are thus propagated with lightning speed.
Just when the mass of commodities slides toward puerility, the puerile itself
becomes a special commodity; this is epitomized by the gadget.
We can recognize a mystical abandon to the transcendence of the commodity in
free gifts, such as "I love Big Brother" watches which are not bought but are
included by advertisers with prestigious purchases. The fanatic who collects
these watches, which have been manufactured precisely for collectors, produces a
glorious sign of his or her presence among the faithful. The reified person
advertises the proof of his or her intimacy with the commodity as such, and not
merely with certain commodities. This fetishism -- and Big Brother himself is
nothing if not one big fetish-object -- reaches moments of fervent exaltation
similar to the ecstasies of the convulsions and miracles of the old religious
fetishism. The only use which remains here is the fundamental use of submission
to a "higher," external power.
The unreal unity proclaimed by the society of the spectacle (the modern
war-machine) masks the class divisions -- Low, Middle and High -- on which the
real unity of the capitalist mode of production rests. What obliges workers to
participate in the construction of the hierarchical world is also what separates
them from it. What brings together people freed from the constraints of local
and national boundaries is also what pulls them apart. What requires a more
profound rationality is also what nourishes the irrationality of hierarchic
exploitation and repression. What creates the abstract power of society creates
its concrete unfreedom. This is the inner meaning of the slogan FREEDOM IS
SLAVERY.


Chapter 3: War is Peace

War is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early
decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between
combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for
fighting, and are not divided any genuine ideological difference. This is not to
say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude toward it, has
become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is
continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the
slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and
reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are
looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by
the enemy, meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers
of people, mostly highly trained specialists, and causes comparatively few
casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers
whose whereabouts the average person can only guess at, or around the military
bases which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centers of
civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumer goods, and
the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths.
War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war
is waged have changed in their order of importance. Motives which were already
present to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth century
have now become dominant and are consciously recognized and acted upon.
The primary aim of modern warfare is to use up the products of the spectacular
machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of
the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumer
goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings
even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not
have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work.
The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world
that existed before 1945, and still more so if compared with the imaginary
future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth
century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly and
efficient -- a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white
concrete -- was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person.
Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed
natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen,
partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and
revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the
empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented
society. As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years
ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some
way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but
experiment and invention have largely stopped.
From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all
thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great
extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used
deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could
be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any
such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by producing wealth which it
was sometimes impossible not to distribute -- the machine did raise the living
standards of the average human being greatly over a period of about 50 years at
the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. But it
was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction
-- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a
world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house
with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed an automobile or even an
airplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality
would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer
no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth,
in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed,
while power remained in the hands of a small privileged elite. But in practice
such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were
enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied
by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and
when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the
privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long
run, hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.
The problem was thus how to keep the wheels of industry turning without
increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need
not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by
continuous warfare.
War, it will be seen, not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but
accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be
quite simple to waste the surplus labor of the world by building temples and
pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast
quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only
the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is
concerned here is not the morale of the masses, whose attitude is unimportant as
long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the elite itself. Even
the humblest bureaucrat is expected to be competent, industrious, and even
intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he or she should
be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred,
adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he or she
should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter
whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is
possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is
needed is that a state of war should exist -- and so we have been confronted
with the war on poverty, the war on crime, the war against drugs, the war
against international terrorism, etc. etc.
Modern war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is
merely an imposture and a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups
of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and
therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and
the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting
against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its
own subjects, and the object of war is not to make or prevent conquests of
territory, but to keep the structure of global society intact. The effect would
be much the same if the world's ruling classes, instead of (pretending to be)
fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate
within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained
universe, freed forever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace
that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This is the inner
meaning of the slogan WAR IS PEACE.


Chapter 4: God is Power

The heavenly masters -- the gods -- were cast in the mold of the ruling class
(the "High" of Chapter 1) and require similar sacrifices. Because the rulers
were themselves the product of alienated thought, the heavenly masters -- even
God himself -- could not hope to be anything other than alienated. What were
honest, self-respecting people to think of these "gods," who are supposedly
robed in omnipotence and yet are beholden to human beings and their stupid
prayers as if the "gods" were not fundamentally different from the earthly
masters, who are answerable to their human slaves? Are these Gods -- is God --
then merely the sum of absent life? No, not even that. God is merely the gaping
void that swallows up the impotence that we call the "power" of the strong and
the rich, and all the despair that we call the "hope" of the weak and poor. God
is merely the totalitarian projection of the economics of exchange and survival.
"He" is nothing more than the false illusion of life.
And yet many people blithely proclaim that God is dead, and therefore powerless.
It is quite true that the death of God created the chaos out of which both the
person of and the need for Big Brother came. But even the self-avowed atheists
continue to genuflect. God is "dead" as a sovereign entity, as master of the
world, but he lives on in the very power structures that originally gave birth
to him by submitting humanity to economic alienation, to thought separated from
life, and to human bodies weakened, mutilated or broken in the name of labor.
There is no God whose power is not based on the negation of life and on the
inversion of pleasures; there is no power that is not based on God and the
oppressive and hierarchical "natural order of things" he both created and was
created by.
And so it remains true that the first critique is the critique of religion; the
first revolt is against the supreme tyrannies of theology and the phantom of
God. Ever since the fantasy of a Divine Being took shape in humanity's
imagination, God -- all gods, and among them above all the God of the Christians
-- has always taken the side of the strong and the rich against the ignorant and
impoverished masses. Through his presence, he has blessed the most revolting
privileges, the basest oppressions, and the vilest of exploitations.
As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth, and our
reason and ability to create our own lives will be annulled. As long as we
believe that we must unconditionally obey -- and, vis-a-vis God, no other
obedience is possible -- we must of necessity passively and totally submit,
without the least reservation, to the holy authority of all his agents,
messiahs, prophets, divinely-inspired lawmakers, emperors, kings, and all their
functionaries and ministers, representatives and consecrated servants of the two
greatest institutions which impose themselves upon us, and which are established
by God himself to rule over men and women -- namely, the Church and the State.
All temporal or human authority stems directly from spiritual and/or divine
authority.
Authority is the negation of freedom, of human self-determination and
self-management. God, or rather the fiction of God, is the consecration and the
intellectual and moral source of all slavery on earth, and the freedom of
humanity will never be complete until the disastrous and insidious fiction of a
heavenly master is annihilated. To annihilate totally hierarchical power and
thereby bring about human equality, it is necessary to annihilate God; to "kill"
God, it is necessary to annihilate totally hierarchical earthly power. This is
the inner secret of the slogan GOD IS POWER.


Chapter 5: The Proles

Very little is known about the proles. As far as Big Brother is concerned, it is
not necessary to know much. So long as they continue to work and do not riot in
the streets, their other activities are without importance. To keep them under
control is not difficult. A few police spies always move among them, spreading
false rumors, and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who are
judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt is made to indoctrinate
them with political ideas. It is not desirable that the proles have strong
political feelings of any kind. All that is required of them on occasion -- on
the "occasion" of continuous warfare, that is -- is an alienated patriotism
which can be appealed to whenever it is necessary to make them accept longer
working hours or less pay.
And yet, if there is hope, it lies -- it must lie -- in the proles, because only
there, in those swarming disregarded masses -- eighty-five percent of the
population -- can the force to destroy hierarchical society be generated. The
society watched over by Big Brother can not be overthrown from within, or by
partial revolutions: the revolution against it must come from without and must
be total. Unlike those we have called the High and the Middle, the proles -- if
only they can somehow become fully conscious of their own strength -- have no
need to conspire, no need to become members of secret revolutionary
brotherhoods. The proles need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse
shaking off flies. For the proles are loyal to each other. They have stayed
human; they have not become hardened or dead inside; they have held on to the
basic instincts and emotions which the power elites and their bureaucratic
priests have to re-learn by conscious effort.
The uprisings in Russia in 1905 and then again in 1917 -- the uprisings in
Germany in 1918, in Kronstadt in 1921, in Spain in 1936 -- all these historical
events show that the proles are quite capable of revolting against both the
Middle and the High, of organizing on their own to fight for their own
interests, and of attacking hierarchical society at its root. In all these
uprisings, workers refused to work, but their refusal was made outside of the
traditional, hierarchical structures of the trade union and the "alternative"
political parties. The workers spontaneously organized themselves into
autonomous and deliberately anti-hierarchical councils and committees, and began
to plan and execute the re-organization of all of society in accordance with the
principle of total human equality. It was precisely as a result of these
uprisings -- and their ultimate likelihood of success -- that Big Brother fought
and won the revolution in the first place. Given the fact that the material
bases for a non-hierarchical society have now existed for decades, it is
inevitable that Big Brother will continue to be challenged by the proles and
their "spontaneous" uprisings for some time to come.

[Publisher's note added 1998: it would seem that history has indeed continued to
prove that Dr. Goldstein's analysis is correct. Since the publication of this
book in 1949, there have been proletarian uprisings in East Germany in 1953; in
Hungary and Poland in 1956; in Belgium in 1961; in the United States in 1965; in
France, Czechoslovakia and Mexico in 1968; in Italy in 1969; in Poland in 1970;
in Portugal in 1974; in Italy again in 1977; in Romania in 1989; in Russia in
1991; in Mexico again in 1994; in France again in 1995, in Albania in 1997, etc.
etc. And yet Big Brother is still watching us.]



Contact the Surveillance Camera Players
By e-mail mailto:notbored@panix.com
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City
10009-9998


top

Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future by Noam Chomsky



Noam Chomsky on
Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future
First published in Red & Black Revolution No 2 1996
From the All about Anarchism page

Noam Chomsky is widely known for his critique of U.S foreign policy, and
for his work as a linguist. Less well known is his ongoing support for
libertarian socialist objectives. In a special interview done for Red and
Black Revolution, Chomsky gives his views on anarchism and marxism, and
the prospects for socialism now. The interview was conducted in May 1995
by Kevin Doyle.

RBR: First off, Noam, for quite a time now you've been an advocate for the
anarchist idea. Many people are familiar with the introduction you wrote in 1970
to Daniel Guerin's Anarchism, but more recently, for instance in the film
Manufacturing Consent, you took the opportunity to highlight again the potential
of anarchism and the anarchist idea. What is it that attracts you to anarchism?
CHOMSKY: I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon as I began to
think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much reason
to revise those early attitudes since. I think it only makes sense to seek out
and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect
of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given,
they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human
freedom. That includes political power, ownership and management, relations
among men and women, parents and children, our control over the fate of future
generations (the basic moral imperative behind the environmental movement, in my
view), and much else. Naturally this means a challenge to the huge institutions
of coercion and control: the state, the unaccountable private tyrannies that
control most of the domestic and international economy, and so on. But not only
these. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the
conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it
should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met. Sometimes the burden can be
met. If I'm taking a walk with my grandchildren and they dart out into a busy
street, I will use not only authority but also physical coercion to stop them.
The act should be challenged, but I think it can readily meet the challenge. And
there are other cases; life is a complex affair, we understand very little about
humans and society, and grand pronouncements are generally more a source of harm
than of benefit. But the perspective is a valid one, I think, and can lead us
quite a long way.
Beyond such generalities, we begin to look at cases, which is where the
questions of human interest and concern arise.
RBR: It's true to say that your ideas and critique are now more widely known
than ever before. It should also be said that your views are widely respected.
How do you think your support for anarchism is received in this context? In
particular, I'm interested in the response you receive from people who are
getting interested in politics for the first time and who may, perhaps, have
come across your views. Are such people surprised by your support for anarchism?
Are they interested?
CHOMSKY: The general intellectual culture, as you know, associates 'anarchism'
with chaos, violence, bombs, disruption, and so on. So people are often
surprised when I speak positively of anarchism and identify myself with leading
traditions within it. But my impression is that among the general public, the
basic ideas seem reasonable when the clouds are cleared away. Of course, when we
turn to specific matters -- say, the nature of families, or how an economy would
work in a society that is more free and just -- questions and controversy arise.
But that is as it should be. Physics can't really explain how water flows from
the tap in your sink. When we turn to vastly more complex questions of human
significance, understanding is very thin, and there is plenty of room for
disagreement, experimentation, both intellectual and real-life exploration of
possibilities, to help us learn more.
RBR: Perhaps, more than any other idea, anarchism has suffered from the problem
of misrepresentation. Anarchism can mean many things to many people. Do you
often find yourself having to explain what it is that you mean by anarchism?
Does the misrepresentation of anarchism bother you?
CHOMSKY: All misrepresentation is a nuisance. Much of it can be traced back to
structures of power that have an interest in preventing understanding, for
pretty obvious reasons. It's well to recall David Hume's Principles of
Government. He expressed surprise that people ever submitted to their rulers. He
concluded that since Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors
have nothing to support them but opinion. 'Tis therefore, on opinion only that
government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most
military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. Hume was
very astute -- and incidentally, hardly a libertarian by the standards of the
day. He surely underestimates the efficacy of force, but his observation seems
to me basically correct, and important, particularly in the more free societies,
where the art of controlling opinion is therefore far more refined.
Misrepresentation and other forms of befuddlement are a natural concomitant.
So does misrepresentation bother me? Sure, but so does rotten weather. It will
exist as long as concentrations of power engender a kind of commissar class to
defend them. Since they are usually not very bright, or are bright enough to
know that they'd better avoid the arena of fact and argument, they'll turn to
misrepresentation, vilification, and other devices that are available to those
who know that they'll be protected by the various means available to the
powerful. We should understand why all this occurs, and unravel it as best we
can. That's part of the project of liberation -- of ourselves and others, or
more reasonably, of people working together to achieve these aims.
Sounds simple-minded, and it is. But I have yet to find much commentary on human
life and society that is not simple-minded, when absurdity and self-serving
posturing are cleared away.
RBR: How about in more established left-wing circles, where one might expect to
find greater familiarity with what anarchism actually stands for? Do you
encounter any surprise here at your views and support for anarchism?
CHOMSKY: If I understand what you mean by established left-wing circles, there
is not too much surprise about my views on anarchism, because very little is
known about my views on anything. These are not the circles I deal with. You'll
rarely find a reference to anything I say or write. That's not completely true
of course. Thus in the US (but less commonly in the UK or elsewhere), you'd find
some familiarity with what I do in certain of the more critical and independent
sectors of what might be called established left-wing circles, and I have
personal friends and associates scattered here and there. But have a look at the
books and journals, and you'll see what I mean. I don't expect what I write and
say to be any more welcome in these circles than in the faculty club or
editorial board room -- again, with exceptions.
The question arises only marginally, so much so that it's hard to answer.
RBR: A number of people have noted that you use the term 'libertarian socialist'
in the same context as you use the word 'anarchism'. Do you see these terms as
essentially similar? Is anarchism a type of socialism to you? The description
has been used before that anarchism is equivalent to socialism with freedom.
Would you agree with this basic equation?
CHOMSKY: The introduction to Guerin's book that you mentioned opens with a quote
from an anarchist sympathiser a century ago, who says that anarchism has a broad
back, and endures anything. One major element has been what has traditionally
been called 'libertarian socialism'. I've tried to explain there and elsewhere
what I mean by that, stressing that it's hardly original; I'm taking the ideas
from leading figures in the anarchist movement whom I quote, and who rather
consistently describe themselves as socialists, while harshly condemning the
'new class' of radical intellectuals who seek to attain state power in the
course of popular struggle and to become the vicious Red bureaucracy of which
Bakunin warned; what's often called 'socialism'. I rather agree with Rudolf
Rocker's perception that these (quite central) tendencies in anarchism draw from
the best of Enlightenment and classical liberal thought, well beyond what he
described. In fact, as I've tried to show they contrast sharply with
Marxist-Leninist doctrine and practice, the 'libertarian' doctrines that are
fashionable in the US and UK particularly, and other contemporary ideologies,
all of which seem to me to reduce to advocacy of one or another form of
illegitimate authority, quite often real tyranny.

The Spanish Revolution

RBR: In the past, when you have spoken about anarchism, you have often
emphasised the example of the Spanish Revolution. For you there would seem to be
two aspects to this example. On the one hand, the experience of the Spanish
Revolution is, you say, a good example of 'anarchism in action'. On the other,
you have also stressed that the Spanish revolution is a good example of what
workers can achieve through their own efforts using participatory democracy. Are
these two aspects -- anarchism in action and participatory democracy -- one and
the same thing for you? Is anarchism a philosophy for people's power?
CHOMSKY: I'm reluctant to use fancy polysyllables like philosophy to refer to
what seems ordinary common sense. And I'm also uncomfortable with slogans. The
achievements of Spanish workers and peasants, before the revolution was crushed,
were impressive in many ways. The term 'participatory democracy' is a more
recent one, which developed in a different context, but there surely are points
of similarity. I'm sorry if this seems evasive. It is, but that's because I
don't think either the concept of anarchism or of participatory democracy is
clear enough to be able to answer the question whether they are the same.
RBR: One of the main achievements of the Spanish Revolution was the degree of
grassroots democracy established. In terms of people, it is estimated that over
3 million were involved. Rural and urban production was managed by workers
themselves. Is it a coincidence to your mind that anarchists, known for their
advocacy of individual freedom, succeeded in this area of collective
administration?
CHOMSKY: No coincidence at all. The tendencies in anarchism that I've always
found most persuasive seek a highly organised society, integrating many
different kinds of structures (workplace, community, and manifold other forms of
voluntary association), but controlled by participants, not by those in a
position to give orders (except, again, when authority can be justified, as is
sometimes the case, in specific contingencies).

Democracy

RBR: Anarchists often expend a great deal of effort at building up grassroots
democracy. Indeed they are often accused of taking democracy to extremes. Yet,
despite this, many anarchists would not readily identify democracy as a central
component of anarchist philosophy. Anarchists often describe their politics as
being about 'socialism' or being about 'the individual'- they are less likely to
say that anarchism is about democracy. Would you agree that democratic ideas are
a central feature of anarchism?
CHOMSKY: Criticism of 'democracy' among anarchists has often been criticism of
parliamentary democracy, as it has arisen within societies with deeply
repressive features. Take the US, which has been as free as any, since its
origins. American democracy was founded on the principle, stressed by James
Madison in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, that the primary function of
government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority. Thus he
warned that in England, the only quasi-democratic model of the day, if the
general population were allowed a say in public affairs, they would implement
agrarian reform or other atrocities, and that the American system must be
carefully crafted to avoid such crimes against the rights of property, which
must be defended (in fact, must prevail). Parliamentary democracy within this
framework does merit sharp criticism by genuine libertarians, and I've left out
many other features that are hardly subtle -- slavery, to mention just one, or
the wage slavery that was bitterly condemned by working people who had never
heard of anarchism or communism right through the 19th century, and beyond.

Leninism

RBR: The importance of grassroots democracy to any meaningful change in society
would seem to be self evident. Yet the left has been ambiguous about this in the
past. I'm speaking generally, of social democracy, but also of Bolshevism --
traditions on the left that would seem to have more in common with elitist
thinking than with strict democratic practice. Lenin, to use a well-known
example, was sceptical that workers could develop anything more than trade union
consciousness- by which, I assume, he meant that workers could not see far
beyond their immediate predicament. Similarly, the Fabian socialist, Beatrice
Webb, who was very influential in the Labour Party in England, had the view that
workers were only interested in horse racing odds! Where does this elitism
originate and what is it doing on the left?
CHOMSKY: I'm afraid it's hard for me to answer this. If the left is understood
to include 'Bolshevism,' then I would flatly dissociate myself from the left.
Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism, in my opinion, for reasons
I've discussed. The idea that workers are only interested in horse-racing is an
absurdity that cannot withstand even a superficial look at labour history or the
lively and independent working class press that flourished in many places,
including the manufacturing towns of New England not many miles from where I'm
writing -- not to speak of the inspiring record of the courageous struggles of
persecuted and oppressed people throughout history, until this very moment. Take
the most miserable corner of this hemisphere, Haiti, regarded by the European
conquerors as a paradise and the source of no small part of Europe's wealth, now
devastated, perhaps beyond recovery. In the past few years, under conditions so
miserable that few people in the rich countries can imagine them, peasants and
slum-dwellers constructed a popular democratic movement based on grassroots
organisations that surpasses just about anything I know of elsewhere; only
deeply committed commissars could fail to collapse with ridicule when they hear
the solemn pronouncements of American intellectuals and political leaders about
how the US has to teach Haitians the lessons of democracy. Their achievements
were so substantial and frightening to the powerful that they had to be
subjected to yet another dose of vicious terror, with considerably more US
support than is publicly acknowledged, and they still have not surrendered. Are
they interested only in horse-racing?
I'd suggest some lines I've occasionally quoted from Rousseau: when I see
multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure
hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel
that it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.
RBR: Speaking generally again, your own work -- Deterring Democracy, Necessary
Illusions, etc. -- has dealt consistently with the role and prevalence of
elitist ideas in societies such as our own. You have argued that within
'Western' (or parliamentary) democracy there is a deep antagonism to any real
role or input from the mass of people, lest it threaten the uneven distribution
in wealth which favours the rich. Your work is quite convincing here, but, this
aside, some have been shocked by your assertions. For instance, you compare the
politics of President John F. Kennedy with Lenin, more or less equating the two.
This, I might add, has shocked supporters of both camps! Can you elaborate a
little on the validity of the comparison?
CHOMSKY: I haven't actually equated the doctrines of the liberal intellectuals
of the Kennedy administration with Leninists, but I have noted striking points
of similarity -- rather as predicted by Bakunin a century earlier in his
perceptive commentary on the new class. For example, I quoted passages from
McNamara on the need to enhance managerial control if we are to be truly free,
and about how the undermanagement that is the real threat to democracy is an
assault against reason itself. Change a few words in these passages, and we have
standard Leninist doctrine. I've argued that the roots are rather deep, in both
cases. Without further clarification about what people find shocking, I can't
comment further. The comparisons are specific, and I think both proper and
properly qualified. If not, that's an error, and I'd be interested to be
enlightened about it.

Marxism

RBR: Specifically, Leninism refers to a form of marxism that developed with V.I.
Lenin. Are you implicitly distinguishing the works of Marx from the particular
criticism you have of Lenin when you use the term 'Leninism'? Do you see a
continuity between Marx's views and Lenin's later practices?
CHOMSKY: Bakunin's warnings about the Red bureaucracy that would institute the
worst of all despotic governments were long before Lenin, and were directed
against the followers of Mr. Marx. There were, in fact, followers of many
different kinds; Pannekoek, Luxembourg, Mattick and others are very far from
Lenin, and their views often converge with elements of anarcho-syndicalism.
Korsch and others wrote sympathetically of the anarchist revolution in Spain, in
fact. There are continuities from Marx to Lenin, but there are also continuities
to Marxists who were harshly critical of Lenin and Bolshevism. Teodor Shanin's
work in the past years on Marx's later attitudes towards peasant revolution is
also relevant here. I'm far from being a Marx scholar, and wouldn't venture any
serious judgment on which of these continuities reflects the 'real Marx,' if
there even can be an answer to that question.
RBR: Recently, we obtained a copy of your own Notes On Anarchism (re-published
last year by Discussion Bulletin in the USA). In this you mention the views of
the early Marx, in particular his development of the idea of alienation under
capitalism. Do you generally agree with this division in Marx's life and work --
a young, more libertarian socialist but, in later years, a firm authoritarian?
CHOMSKY: The early Marx draws extensively from the milieu in which he lived, and
one finds many similarities to the thinking that animated classical liberalism,
aspects of the Enlightenment and French and German Romanticism. Again, I'm not
enough of a Marx scholar to pretend to an authoritative judgment. My
impression, for what it is worth, is that the early Marx was very much a figure
of the late Enlightenment, and the later Marx was a highly authoritarian
activist, and a critical analyst of capitalism, who had little to say about
socialist alternatives. But those are impressions.
RBR: From my understanding, the core part of your overall view is informed by
your concept of human nature. In the past the idea of human nature was seen,
perhaps, as something regressive, even limiting. For instance, the unchanging
aspect of human nature is often used as an argument for why things can't be
changed fundamentally in the direction of anarchism. You take a different view?
Why?
CHOMSKY: The core part of anyone's point of view is some concept of human
nature, however it may be remote from awareness or lack articulation. At least,
that is true of people who consider themselves moral agents, not monsters.
Monsters aside, whether a person who advocates reform or revolution, or
stability or return to earlier stages, or simply cultivating one's own garden,
takes stand on the grounds that it is 'good for people.' But that judgement is
based on some conception of human nature, which a reasonable person will try to
make as clear as possible, if only so that it can be evaluated. So in this
respect I'm no different from anyone else.
You're right that human nature has been seen as something 'regressive,' but that
must be the result of profound confusion. Is my granddaughter no different from
a rock, a salamander, a chicken, a monkey? A person who dismisses this absurdity
as absurd recognises that there is a distinctive human nature. We are left only
with the question of what it is -- a highly nontrivial and fascinating question,
with enormous scientific interest and human significance. We know a fair amount
about certain aspects of it -- not those of major human significance. Beyond
that, we are left with our hopes and wishes, intuitions and speculations.
There is nothing regressive about the fact that a human embryo is so constrained
that it does not grow wings, or that its visual system cannot function in the
manner of an insect, or that it lacks the homing instinct of pigeons. The same
factors that constrain the organism's development also enable it to attain a
rich, complex, and highly articulated structure, similar in fundamental ways to
conspecifics, with rich and remarkable capacities. An organism that lacked such
determinative intrinsic structure, which of course radically limits the paths of
development, would be some kind of amoeboid creature, to be pitied (even if it
could survive somehow). The scope and limits of development are logically
related.
Take language, one of the few distinctive human capacities about which much is
known. We have very strong reasons to believe that all possible human languages
are very similar; a Martian scientist observing humans might conclude that there
is just a single language, with minor variants. The reason is that the
particular aspect of human nature that underlies the growth of language allows
very restricted options. Is this limiting? Of course. Is it liberating? Also of
course. It is these very restrictions that make it possible for a rich and
intricate system of expression of thought to develop in similar ways on the
basis of very rudimentary, scattered, and varied experience.
What about the matter of biologically-determined human differences? That these
exist is surely true, and a cause for joy, not fear or regret. Life among clones
would not be worth living, and a sane person will only rejoice that others have
abilities that they do not share. That should be elementary. What is commonly
believed about these matters is strange indeed, in my opinion.
Is human nature, whatever it is, conducive to the development of anarchist forms
of life or a barrier to them? We do not know enough to answer, one way or the
other. These are matters for experimentation and discovery, not empty
pronouncements.

The future

RBR: To begin finishing off, I'd like to ask you briefly about some current
issues on the left. I don't know if the situation is similar in the USA but
here, with the fall of the Soviet Union, a certain demoralisation has set in on
the left. It isn't so much that people were dear supporters of what existed in
the Soviet Union, but rather it's a general feeling that with the demise of the
Soviet Union the idea of socialism has also been dragged down. Have you come
across this type of demoralisation? What's your response to it?
CHOMSKY: My response to the end of Soviet tyranny was similar to my reaction to
the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini. In all cases, it is a victory for the human
spirit. It should have been particularly welcome to socialists, since a great
enemy of socialism had at last collapsed. Like you, I was intrigued to see how
people -- including people who had considered themselves anti-Stalinist and
anti-Leninist -- were demoralised by the collapse of the tyranny. What it
reveals is that they were more deeply committed to Leninism than they believed.
There are, however, other reasons to be concerned about the elimination of this
brutal and tyrannical system, which was as much socialist as it was democratic
(recall that it claimed to be both, and that the latter claim was ridiculed in
the West, while the former was eagerly accepted, as a weapon against socialism
-- one of the many examples of the service of Western intellectuals to power).
One reason has to do with the nature of the Cold War. In my view, it was in
significant measure a special case of the 'North-South conflict,' to use the
current euphemism for Europe's conquest of much of the world. Eastern Europe had
been the original 'third world,' and the Cold War from 1917 had no slight
resemblance to the reaction of attempts by other parts of the third world to
pursue an independent course, though in this case differences of scale gave the
conflict a life of its own. For this reason, it was only reasonable to expect
the region to return pretty much to its earlier status: parts of the West, like
the Czech Republic or Western Poland, could be expected to rejoin it, while
others revert to the traditional service role, the ex-Nomenklatura becoming the
standard third world elite (with the approval of Western state-corporate power,
which generally prefers them to alternatives). That was not a pretty prospect,
and it has led to immense suffering.
Another reason for concern has to do with the matter of deterrence and
non-alignment. Grotesque as the Soviet empire was, its very existence offered a
certain space for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical reasons, it sometimes
provided assistance to victims of Western attack. Those options are gone, and
the South is suffering the consequences.
A third reason has to do with what the business press calls the pampered Western
workers with their luxurious lifestyles. With much of Eastern Europe returning
to the fold, owners and managers have powerful new weapons against the working
classes and the poor at home. GM and VW can not only transfer production to
Mexico and Brazil (or at least threaten to, which often amounts to the same
thing), but also to Poland and Hungary, where they can find skilled and trained
workers at a fraction of the cost. They are gloating about it, understandably,
given the guiding values.
We can learn a lot about what the Cold War (or any other conflict) was about by
looking at who is cheering and who is unhappy after it ends. By that criterion,
the victors in the Cold War include Western elites and the ex-Nomenklatura, now
rich beyond their wildest dreams, and the losers include a substantial part of
the population of the East along with working people and the poor in the West,
as well as popular sectors in the South that have sought an independent path.
Such ideas tend to arouse near hysteria among Western intellectuals, when they
can even perceive them, which is rare. That's easy to show. It's also
understandable. The observations are correct, and subversive of power and
privilege; hence hysteria.
In general, the reactions of an honest person to the end of the Cold War will be
more complex than just pleasure over the collapse of a brutal tyranny, and
prevailing reactions are suffused with extreme hypocrisy, in my opinion.

Capitalism

RBR: In many ways the left today finds itself back at its original starting
point in the last century. Like then, it now faces a form of capitalism that is
in the ascendancy. There would seem to be greater 'consensus' today, more than
at any other time in history, that capitalism is the only valid form of economic
organisation possible, this despite the fact that wealth inequality is widening.
Against this backdrop, one could argue that the left is unsure of how to go
forward. How do you look at the current period? Is it a question of 'back to
basics'? Should the effort now be towards bringing out the libertarian tradition
in socialism and towards stressing democratic ideas?
CHOMSKY: This is mostly propaganda, in my opinion. What is called 'capitalism'
is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely
unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy,
political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close co-operation
with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and
international society. That is dramatically true of the United States, contrary
to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to face market
discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine
for the general population. Merely to cite a few illustrations, the Reagan
administration, which revelled in free market rhetoric, also boasted to the
business community that it was the most protectionist in post-war US history --
actually more than all others combined. Newt Gingrich, who leads the current
crusade, represents a superrich district that receives more federal subsidies
than any other suburban region in the country, outside of the federal system
itself. The 'conservatives' who are calling for an end to school lunches for
hungry children are also demanding an increase in the budget for the Pentagon,
which was established in the late 1940s in its current form because -- as the
business press was kind enough to tell us -- high tech industry cannot survive
in a pure, competitive, unsubsidized, 'free enterprise' economy, and the
government must be its saviour. Without the saviour, Gingrich's constituents
would be poor working people (if they were lucky). There would be no computers,
electronics generally, aviation industry, metallurgy, automation, etc., etc.,
right down the list. Anarchists, of all people, should not be taken in by these
traditional frauds.
More than ever, libertarian socialist ideas are relevant, and the population is
very much open to them. Despite a huge mass of corporate propaganda, outside of
educated circles, people still maintain pretty much their traditional attitudes.
In the US, for example, more than 80% of the population regard the economic
system as inherently unfair and the political system as a fraud, which serves
the special interests, not the people. Overwhelming majorities think working
people have too little voice in public affairs (the same is true in England),
that the government has the responsibility of assisting people in need, that
spending for education and health should take precedence over budget-cutting and
tax cuts, that the current Republican proposals that are sailing through
Congress benefit the rich and harm the general population, and so on.
Intellectuals may tell a different story, but it's not all that difficult to
find out the facts.
RBR: To a point anarchist ideas have been vindicated by the collapse of the
Soviet Union -- the predictions of Bakunin have proven to be correct. Do you
think that anarchists should take heart from this general development and from
the perceptiveness of Bakunin's analysis? Should anarchists look to the period
ahead with greater confidence in their ideas and history?
CHOMSKY: I think -- at least hope -- that the answer is implicit in the above. I
think the current era has ominous portent, and signs of great hope. Which result
ensues depends on what we make of the opportunities.
RBR: Lastly, Noam, a different sort of question. We have a pint of Guinness on
order for you here. When are you going to come and drink it?
CHOMSKY: Keep the Guinness ready. I hope it won't be too long. Less jocularly,
I'd be there tomorrow if we could. We (my wife came along with me, unusual for
these constant trips) had a marvellous time in Ireland, and would love to come
back. Why don't we? Won't bore you with the sordid details, but demands are
extraordinary, and mounting -- a reflection of the conditions I've been trying
to describe.







For an excellent collection of anarchist resources, please visit the All about
Anarchism page.
 

top

The Idea of Good Government
by Errico Malatesta

(from Umanita Nova 1920; included in 'Malatesta: Life
and Ideas', Freedom Press)


None can judge with certainty who is right and who is
wrong, who is nearest the truth, or which is the best
way to achieve the greatest good for each and everyone.
Freedom coupled with experience, is the only way of
discovering the truth and what is best; and there can be
no freedom if there is a denial of the freedom to each other.
But when one talks of freedom politically, and not
philosophically, nobody thinks of the metaphysical body
of abstract man who exists outside the cosmic and social
environment and who, like some god, "could do what he
wishes" in the absolute sense of the word.
When one talks of freedom one is speaking of a society
in which no one could constrain his fellow beings
without meeting with vigorous resistance, in which,
above all, nobody could seize and use the collective
force to impose his wishes on others and on the very
groups which are the source of power.
Man is not perfect, agreed. But this is one reason more,
perhaps the strongest reason, for not giving anyone the
means to "put the brakes on individual freedom".
Man is not perfect. But then where will one also find
men who are not only good enough to live at peace with
others, but also capable of controlling the lives of
others in an authoritarian way? And assuming that there
were, who would appoint them? Would they impose
themselves? But who would protect them from the
resistance and the violence of the "criminals"? Or would
they be chosen by the "sovereign people", which is
considered too ignorant and too wicked to live in peace,
but which suddenly acquires all the necessary good
qualities when it is a question of asking it to choose
its rulers?



top

 Subcomandante Marcos: The Death Train of the WTO



Search CounterPunch

September 12, 2003

The Death Train of the WTO
The Slaves of Money...and Our Rebellion

By Subcomandante MARCOS

Brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world, who are gathered in Cancun
in a mobilisation against neo- liberalism, greetings from the men, women,
children and elderly of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. It is an
honour for us that, amid your meetings, agreements and mobilisations, you
have found time and place to hear our words.
The world movement against the globalisation of death and destruction is
experiencing one of its brightest moments in Cancun today. Not far from
where you are meeting, a handful of slaves to money are negotiating the
ways and means of continuing the crime of globalisation.
The difference between them and all of us is not in the pockets of one or
the other, although their pockets overflow with money while ours overflow
with hope.
No, the difference is not in the wallet, but in the heart. You and we have
in our hearts a future to build. They only have the past which they want
to repeat eternally. We have hope. They have death. We have liberty. They
want to enslave us.
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the people who
think themselves the owners of the planet have had to hide behind high
walls and their pathetic security forces in order to put their plans in
place.
As if at war, the high command of the multinational army that wants to
conquer the world in the only way possible, that is to say, to destroy it,
meets behind a system of security that is as large as their fear.
Before, the powerful met behind the backs of the world to scheme their
future wars and displacements. Today they have to do it in front of
thousands in Cancun and millions around the world.
That is what this is all about. It is war. A war against humanity. The
globalisation of those who are above us is nothing more than a global
machine that feeds on blood and defecates in dollars.
In the complex equation that turns death into money, there is a group of
humans who command a very low price in the global slaughterhouse. We are
the indigenous, the young, the women, the children, the elderly, the
homosexuals, the migrants, all those who are different. That is to say,
the immense majority of humanity.
This is a world war of the powerful who want to turn the planet into a
private club that reserves the right to refuse admission. The exclusive
luxury zone where they meet is a microcosm of their project for the
planet, a complex of hotels, restaurants, and recreation zones protected
by armies and police forces.
All of us are given the option of being inside this zone, but only as
servants. Or we can remain outside of the world, outside life. But we have
no reason to obey and accept this choice between living as servants or
dying. We can build a new path, one where living means life with dignity
and freedom. To build this alternative is possible and necessary. It is
necessary because on it depends the future of humanity.
This future is up for grabs in every corner of each of the five
continents. This alternative is possible because around the world people
know that liberty is a word which is often used as an excuse for cynicism.
Brothers and sisters, there is dissent over the projects of globalisation
all over the world. Those above, who globalise conformism, cynicism,
stupidity, war, destruction and death. And those below who globalise
rebellion, hope, creativity, intelligence, imagination, life, memory and
the construction of a world that we can all fit in, a world with
democracy, liberty and justice.
We hope the death train of the World Trade Organisation will be derailed
in Cancun and everywhere else.
Subcomandante Marcos is the leading voice of the Zapatista movement, which
fights for the rights of Mexico's 10 million indigenous people. This is
the transcript of a message - Marcos's first international communiqué for
four years - delivered on Wednesday to the anti-globalisation conference
taking place alongside the WTO global trade negotiations in Cancun.
Weekend Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003

Keep CounterPunch Alive:

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!


top
 

Life After Capitalism Essays : Towards an another anarchism

by Andrej Grubacic


Rough transcript of a talk given by Andrej Grubacic as part of the Life After
Capitalism forum (WSF3, Porto Alegre, 2003.)

by Andrej Grubacic


A friend of mine has written recently that: "no one needs another -ism
from 19th century, another word which imprisons and fixes meaning, another word
that seduces a number of people into the clarity and comfort of a sectarian
box and leads others in front of the firing squad or a show trial. Labels lead
so easily to fundamentalism, brands inevitably breed intolerance, delineating
doctrines, defining dogma, and limiting the possibility of change."

It is really difficult not to agree with this attitude. However, today it is
exactly my pleasant duty to present an -ism, and that is the - ism which is
the dominant perspective of today's post-Marxist global social movement. It is
anarchism. This idea, the idea of anarchism, has colored the sensibility of
the "movement of movements" of which we are the participants, and has stamped
it with an essential inscription. Anarchism, its ethical paradigm, represents
today the basic inspiration of our movement, which is less about seizing state
power than about exposing, de-legitimizing and dismantling mechanisms of rule
while winning ever-larger spaces of autonomy and true self-management.

It is my intention, in this couple of minutes that I have at my disposal, to
present to you in short the history of anarchism, to be able to subsequently
suggest a model of modern anarchism and strategic implications which follow
from accepting such a model.

I am inclined to agree with those who see anarchism as a tendency in the
history of human thought and practice, a tendency which cannot be encompassed
by a general theory of ideology, that strives to identify compulsory and
authoritarian hierarchical social structures by posing the question of their
legitimacy: if they cannot answer to this challenge, which is most often the
case, then anarchism becomes the effort to limit their power and to widen the
scope of liberty.

Anarchism is, therefore, a social phenomenon and its contents as well as its
manifestations in political activity change with time. One thing that is
special about anarchism is that, unlike all major ideologies, it could never
have had a stable and continuous existence on the ground through being in
government or a part of a party system. Its history and contemporary
characteristics are therefore determined by another factor - cycles of
political struggle. As a result, anarchism has a 'generational' tendency in
the sense that you can identify pretty discreet phases of its history
according to the period of struggle in which they were shaped. Naturally, as
any other attempt at conceptualisation, this one is also doomed to be
simplified. I hope that, regardless of this, it will be useful for the
understanding of this social phenomenon.


Historically, the first phase was shaped by late 19th century class struggles
in Europe and is exemplified both theoretically and practically by the
Bakuninist faction in the 1st international. It starts in the run-up to 1848,
peaks with the Paris Commune (1871), and dwindles through the 1880's.

It is quite an embryonic form of anarchism, mixing together anti-state
tendencies, anti-capitalism and atheism, while retaining an essential
dependence on the skilled urban proletariat as a revolutionary agent. Bakunin,
that magnificent dreamer, that "dynamite, not a man", who, in 1848, shouted
that "Beethoven's Ninth symphony should be saved from the coming fires of the
world revolution at the price of giving up one's life", has bequeathed to us
one of the most beautiful and perhaps the most precise descriptions of a
single leading idea within the anarchist tradition: "I am a fanatic lover of
liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence,
dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal
liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie
which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on
the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and
fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.-J. Rousseau and other schools
of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men,
represented by the State which limits the rights of each -- an idea that leads
inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only
kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full
development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent
in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those
determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be
regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside
legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very
basis of our material, intellectual and moral being -- they do not limit us
but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom".


The second phase, from the 1890's to the Russian civil war, sees a
considerable shift to Eastern Europe and is thus of a clearer agrarian focus.
Theoretically this is where Kropotkin's anarcho-communism is the most dominant
feature. It peaks with Makhno's army and carries over, after the Bolshevik
victory, to a central-European undercurrent. The third stage, from the 20s
until the late 40s, is again focused on Central and Western Europe and is
again industrially oriented.

Theoretically it is the peak of anarcho-syndicalism, with much of the work
being done by exiles from Russia. In this moment the differentiation between
two basic traditions in the history of anarchism has become clearly visible:
anarcho-communist and one might think, say, of Kropotkin as a representative -
and, on the other hand, the one of anarcho-syndicalism which simply regarded
anarchist ideas as the proper mode for organization of highly complex,
advanced industrial societies. And that tendency in anarchism merges, or
inter-relates, with a variety of left wing Marxisms, the kind one finds in,
say, the Council Communists that grew up in a Luxembourgian tradition and that
is later represented, in a very exciting fashion, by Marxist theorists like
Anton Pannekoek.


After World War 2 anarchism had a major downturn due to economic reconstruction and
surfaces only marginally in anti-imperialist struggles in the South that are,
however, quite dominated by a pro-Soviet influence. The struggles of the 60s
and 70s did not contain a serious upsurge of anarchism, which was still
carrying the dead weight of its history and could not yet adapt to a new
political language that was not class-oriented. Thus you may find anarchist
leanings in very diverse groups ranging through the anti-war movement,
feminism, situationism, black power etc., but not anything that is positively
identifiable as anarchism. Explicitly 'anarchist' groups from this period were
more or less a restatement of the previous two stages (communist and
revolutionary syndicalist), and quite sectarian - instead of engaging with
these new forms of political expression they closed themselves off to them and
usually adopted very rigid charters like the anarchist of so called
"platformist" Maknoist tradition. So this is a 'ghost' fourth generation.


Arriving at the present, we have two co-existing generations within anarchism:
people whose political formation took place in the 60s and 70s (which is
actually a reincarnation of the second and third generations), and younger
people who are much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous,
feminist, ecological and culture-criticism thinking. The former exists as
various Anarchist Federations, the IWW, IWA, NEFAC and the like. The latter's
incarnation is most prominent in the networks of the new social movement. From
my perspective Peoples Global Action is the main organ of the current fifth
generation of anarchism. What is sometimes confusing is that one of the
characteristics of current anarchism is that its constituent individuals and
groups do not usually refer to themselves as anarchists. There are some who
take anarchist principles of anti-sectarianism and open-endedness so seriously
that they are sometimes reluctant to call themselves 'anarchists' for that
very reason.

But the three essentials that run throughout all manifestations of anarchist
ideology are definitely there - anti-statism, anti-capitalism and
prefigurative politics (i.e. modes of organization that consciously resemble
the world you want to create. Or, as an anarchist historian of the revolution
in Spain has formulated "an effort to think of not only the ideas but the
facts of the future itself".) This is present in anything from jamming
collectives and on to Indy media, all of which can be called anarchist with
the understanding that we are referring to a new form. There is quite a
limited degree of confluence between the two coexisting generations, mostly
taking the form of following what each other is doing - but not much more.

The basic dilemma that permeates contemporary anarchism, therefore, is the one
between traditionalist and modern conceptions of anarchism. In both cases we
are the witnesses of the "escape from tradition" of its kind.

I dare say that "traditionalist anarchists" have not fully understood the
tradition. The very word "tradition" has two historical meanings: namely, one
is more familiar and more widespread, and that is the meaning of folklore -
"tales, beliefs, customs and behavioural norms", while the other meaning is
less familiar, and that reads: pass on, hand down, articulate, confer,
recommend.

Why do I call attention to, but also over-emphasize, this difference in the
explanation of the word tradition? Exactly because of the possibility that the
term tradition can, in the history of ideas, be comprehended in two different
ways. One way (probably a more common one) is that tradition is accepted as a
completed structure that cannot or should not be changed further on, but
should be preserved in its solid state and passed on into the future,
unchanged. Such an understanding of tradition is connected to that part of the
human nature which is referred to as conservative, and which is prone to
stereotypic behavior, Freud would even say " the compulsion of repetition".
The other meaning of tradition, which I advocate here, relates to the new and
creative way of reviving the experience of tradition. Such a, let us say
immediately, positive way of conveying, has been put into effect of the other
side of the general human nature, provisionally deemed revolutionary, along
the lines of paradoxically expressed truth: a wish for a change and, at the
same time, a healthy need to remain the same.

Another form of the "escape from tradition" is the one that takes refuge in
various post-modern interpretations of anarchism.

I think it is high time for a certain, to quote Max Weber, "dis-illusioning"
of anarchism, an awakening from the dream of post-modernist nihilism,
anti-rationalism, neo-primitivism, cultural terrorism, "simulacrums". It is
time to restore anarchism to the intellectual and political context of the
Enlightenment project that is nothing else but understanding that "objective
knowledge is a tool to be used so that individuals could take informed
decisions on their own". Reason, says the famous Goya's painting, doesn't
produce monsters when it dreams, but when it sleeps

I would say that today the dialogue between different generations within the
modern anarchism is necessary. Modern anarchism is imbued with countless
contradictions. It does not suffice to surrender to the habit of the majority
of contemporary anarchist thinkers who insist on dichotomies. It would be good
to abandon the exclusiveness of the "or - or" way of thinking, and enter into
discussions, in search of synthesis. Is such a synthetic model possible? It
seems to me that it is.


A new model of modern anarchism, which can be discerned today within the new
social movement, is the one that insists on widening the anti-authoritarian
focus, as well as on deserting the class reductionism. Such a model endeavors
to recognize the "totality of domination", that is, "to highlight not only the
state but also gender relations, and not only the economy but also cultural
relations and ecology, sexuality, and freedom in every form it can be sought,
and each not only through the sole prism of authority relations, but also
informed by richer and more diverse concepts. This model not only doesn't
decry technology per se, but it becomes familiar with and employs diverse
types of technology as appropriate. It not only doesn't decry institutions per
se, or political forms per se, it tries to conceive new institutions and new
political forms for activism and for a new society, including new ways of
meeting, new ways of decision making, new ways of coordinating, and so on,
most recently including revitalized affinity groups and original spokes
structures. And it not only doesn't decry reforms per se, but it struggles to
define and win non-reformist reforms, attentive to people's immediate needs
and bettering people's lives now as well as moving toward further gains, and
eventually transformational gains, in the future."

Anarchism can become effective only if it contains three, encompassed,
components: worker's organizations, activists, and researchers. How to create
a basis for a modern anarchism on intellectual, syndicate, and popular level?
There are several interventions in favor of another anarchism, which would be
capable of promoting the values I mentioned above. First of all, I think it is
necessary for anarchism to become reflexive. What do I mean by this?
Intellectual struggle must reaffirm its place in modern anarchism. It appears
that one of the basic weaknesses of the anarchist movement today is, with
respect to the time of, say, Kropotkin or Recluse, or Herbert Read, exactly
the neglecting of the symbolic, and overlooking of the effectiveness of
theory.

Instead of the anarchists' criticizing of the popular Marxist's post-modern
fairy-tale "Empire", they should write an anarchist Empire. Marxist religion
has, for a long time, referred to the theory and, by this, has given itself a
scientific appearance and the possibility to act as a theory. What anarchism
today requires is the overcoming of extremes of anti-intellectualism and
intellectualism. Like Noam Chomsky, I also have neither sympathy nor patience
for such ideas. I believe that the antagonism between science and anarchism
should not exist: "Within the anarchist tradition there has been a certain
feeling that there is something regimented or oppressive about science itself.
There is no argument that I know for irrationality, I don't think that the
methods of science amount to anything more than being reasonable, and I don't
see why anarchist shouldn't be reasonable". Like Chomsky, I have even less
patience for an unusual trend that has spread, in various manifestations,
within anarchism itself: "It strikes me as remarkable that left intellectuals
today should seek to deprive oppressed people not only of the joys of
understanding and insight, but also of tools of emancipation, informing us
that project of Enlightenment is dead, that we must abandon the illusions of
science and rationality - a message that will gladden the hearts of the
powerful..."

Before us, further on, lies the assignment to envision a type of an anarchist
researcher. What would be the role of an anarchist researcher? She would
certainly not lecture, like the old left intellectuals do. She should not be a
teacher, but someone who envisages a new and a very difficult role: she must
listen, explore and discover. Her role is to expose the interest of the
dominant elite carefully hidden behind supposedly objective discourses.

She has to help activists and to supply them with facts. It is necessary to
invent a new form of communication between activists and activist scholars. It
is necessary to create a collective mechanism that would connect liberterian
scientists, workers and activists. It is necessary to found anarchist
institutes, reviews, scientific communities, internationales. I believe that
sectarianism, unfortunately a very widespread phenomenon in modern anarchism,
would in this way loose its power, as the consequence of such an effort. One
of the organized attempts to resist sectarianism in modern anarchism is the
outline of the new anarchist international, which I have recently been given,
and which I will now read to you.


THE ANARCHIST INTERNATIONAL is an initiative meant to provide a venue for
anarchists in all parts of the world who wish to express their solidarity with
each other, facilitate communication and coordination, learn from one
another's efforts and experiences, and encourage a more powerful anarchist
voice and perspective in radical politics everywhere, but who wish to do so in
a form which rejects all traces of sectarianism, vanguardism, and
revolutionary elitism.

We do not see anarchism as a philosophy invented in 19th century Europe, but
rather, as the very theory and practice of freedom - that genuine freedom
which is not constructed on the backs of others - an ideal that has been
endlessly rediscovered, dreamed and fought for on every continent and in every
period of human history. Anarchism will always have a thousand strands,
because diversity will always be part of the essence of freedom, but creating
webs of solidarity can make all of them more powerful.

********* HALLMARKS: *********

1) We are anarchists because we believe that human freedom and happiness would
be best guaranteed by a society based on principles of self-organization,
voluntary association, and mutual aid, and because we reject all forms of
social relations based on systemic violence, such as the state or capitalism.

2) We are, however, profoundly anti-sectarian, by which we mean two things:

a) we do not attempt to enforce any particular form of anarchism on one
other: Platformist, Syndicalist, Primitivist, Insurrectionist or any other.
Neither do we wish to exclude anyone on this basis - we value diversity as a
principle in itself, limited only by our common rejection of structures of
domination such as racism, sexism, fundamentalism, etc.

b) since we see anarchism not as a doctrine so much as a process of movement
towards a free, just, and sustainable, society, we believe anarchists should
not limit themselves to cooperating with those who self-identify as
anarchists, but should actively seek to cooperate with anyone who are
working to create a world based on those same broad liberatory principles,
and, in fact, to learn from them. One of the purposes of the International
is to facilitate this: both to make it easier for us to bring some of those
millions around the world who are, effectively, anarchists without knowing
it, into touch with the thoughts of others who have worked in that same
tradition, and, at the same time, to enrich the anarchist tradition itself
through contact with their experiences

3) We reject all forms of vanguardism and believe that the proper role of the
anarchist intellectual (a role that should be open to everyone) is to take
part in an ongoing dialogue: to learn from the experience of popular
community-building and struggle and offer back the fruits of reflection on
that experience not in the spirit of the dictat, but of the gift

4) Anyone who accepts these principles is a member of the Anarchist
International and everyone who is a member of the Anarchist International is
empowered to act as a spokesperson if they so desire. Because we value
diversity, we do not expect uniformity of views other than acceptance of the
principles themselves (and, of course, acknowledgement that such diversity
exists)

5) Organization is neither a value in itself nor an evil in itself; the level
of organizational structure appropriate to any given project or task can never
be dictated in advance but can only be determined by those actually engaged in
it. So with any project initiated within the International: it should be up to
those undertaking it to determine the form and level of organization
appropriate for that project. At this point, there is no need for a
decision-making structure for the International itself but if in the future
members feel there should be, it shall be up to the group itself to determine
how that process should work, provided only that it be within the broad spirit
of decentralization and direct democracy.


Furthermore, anarchism must turn to the experiences of other social movements.
It must be included in the courses of progressive social science. It must be
in collusion with ideas that come from the circles close to anarchism. Let's
take for example the idea of participatory economy, which represents an
anarchist economist vision par excellence and which supplements and rectifies
anarchist economic tradition. It would also be wise to listen to those voices
that warn of the existence three major classes in advanced capitalism, not
just two. There is also another class of people, branded coordinator class by
these theoreticians. Their role is that of controlling the labor of the
working class. This is the class that includes the management hierarchy and
the professional consultants and advisors central to their system of control -
as lawyers, key engineers and accountants, and so on. They have their class
position because of their relative monopolization over knowledge, skills, and
connections. This is what enables them to gain access to the positions they
occupy in the corporate and government hierarchies.

Another thing to note about the coordinator class is that it is capable of
being a ruling class. This is in fact the true historical meaning of the
Soviet Union and the other so called Communist countries. They are in fact
systems that empower the coordinator class.


Finally, I believe that modern anarchism has to turn to envisioning of
political vision.

This is not to say that various schools of anarchism did not advocate very
specific forms of social organization, albeit often markedly at variance with
one another. Essentially, however, anarchism as a whole advanced what liberals
are calling 'negative freedom,' that is to say, a formal 'freedom from,'
rather than a substantive 'freedom to.'

Indeed, anarchism often celebrated its commitment to negative freedom as
evidence of its own pluralism, ideological tolerance, or creativity. Medjutim,
failure of anarchism to enunciate the historical circumstances that would make
possible a stateless anarchic society produced problems in anarchist thought
that remain unresolved to this day. One friend has, not so long ago, told me
that "you anarchists always strive to keep your hands clean, so that
eventually you are left with no hands at all." I believe that this remark
relates exactly to the lack of more serious thinking about political vision.

Pierre Joseph Proudhon attempted to formulate a concrete image of a
libertarian society. His attempt turned out to be a failure, and viewed from
my perspective, utterly unsatisfactory. However, this failure shouldn't
discourage us, but point to the path followed by, for example, social
ecologists in North America - a path leading to the formulation of a serious
anarchist political vision. Anarchist model should also encompass the attempt
to answer the question: "what are the anarchist's full sets of positive
institutional alternatives to contemporary legislatures, courts, police, and
diverse executive agencies." To "offer a political vision that encompasses
legislation, implementation, adjudication, and enforcement and that shows how
each would be effectively accomplished in a non-authoritarian way, promoting
positive outcomes would not only provide our contemporary activism much-needed
long-term hope, it would also inform our immediate responses to today's
electoral, law-making, law enforcement, and court system, and thus many of our
strategic choices."

Finally, what would be the strategic implications of promoting of such a
model?

I have, several times in contact with anarchist activists, heard a strategic
proposition for which I have neither sympathy nor explanation. We should, they
say, to make an effort and live worse in order for things to be better. As
opposed to this extraordinary logic, which reads "the worse, the better", I
think it would be wiser, and far more sensible, to listen to the advice of
Argentinean anarchists which advocate a strategy of "expanding the floor of
the cage". Such a strategy will understand, instead, that it is possible to
fight for and win reforms short of revolution in way that both improve
people's conditions and options now, and that also create opportunities for
further victories in the future. This strategy will understand, that is, that
to be an advocate of a new society does not warrant ignoring people's current
pain and suffering, but does warrant that when we work to address current ills
and work to make things immediately better, we should do so in ways that raise
our consciousness, empower our constituencies, and develop our organizations
and that therefore lead to a trajectory of on-going changes culminating in new
defining economic and social structures. Expanding the floor of the cage will
not dismiss people's short run struggles for higher wages, an end to a war,
affirmative action, better work conditions, a participatory budget, a
progressive or radical tax, a shorter work week with full pay, abolishing the
IMF, or whatever else - because it will respect the reality of how people's
consciousness and organizations develop through struggle, and, aggressively
avoid the kind of contempt among activists for people's courageous efforts to
improve the quality of their lives.

To conclude, I think that such a model of modern anarchism could have a
significant role which is to build, amidst the current horrors of capitalism,
a post- Marxist movement that would reclaim the values of the Enlightenment
and make them finally realize their full potential.

Thank you.

* I would like to thank my friends David Graeber, Uri Gordon and Michael
Albert. Any idea you read here might very well actually have ben invented by
one of them.


top

Thoughts for an Anarchism beyond Left politics by Dave Neal

"It's an odd feature of the anarchist tradition over the years that it seems to
have often bred highly authoritarian personality types, who legislate what the
Doctrine IS, and with various degrees of fury (often great) denounce those who
depart from what they have declared to be the True Principles. Odd form of
anarchism." --Noam Chomsky

ANARCHISM: IDEOLOGY OR METHODOLOGY?

One issue that remains unresolved within the anarchist movement revolves around
the nature of anarchists themselves. If you've perused these pages, you by now
know about social anarchism versus lifestyle anarchism as the most public schism
among anarchists, with the latter deriding class struggle as fruitless,
pointless, and irrelevant, and the former declaring that the latter aren't
anarchists at all, but are rather bourgeois poseurs.
To the casual browser, it seems a silly, pointless debate. And in many respects,
you're right! The social versus lifestylism debate revolves around the idea of
what it means to be an anarchist.
However, underlying this debate is a less obvious thread, namely whether
anarchism is an ideology -- a set of rules and conventions to which you must
abide, or whether anarchism is a methodology -- a way of acting, or a historical
tendency against illegitimate authority. I believe this debate underlies the
social versus lifestylism dilemma, and will attempt to elaborate on it.
I'll call ideological anarchists Anarchists -- big "A" anarchists, and
methodological anarchists anarchists -- small "a" anarchists, so you know who
I'm referring to.
Anarchism clearly means a particular thing. For example, it is defined by the
American Heritage Dictionary as:
1. The theory that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable, and
should be abolished; 2. Active resistance and terrorism against the state, as
used by some anarchists; 3. Rejection of all forms of coercive control and
authority.
So, in this sense, an anarchist is one who finds all forms of government
oppressive and undesirable, and rejects all forms of coercive control and
authority. A person who doesn't fit this criterion is no anarchist.
This supports the idea that anarchism is an ideology -- a consistent set of
ideas based on a core principle. Does that mean, however, that every person who
says they're an anarchist IS an anarchist?
Clearly not, which forms the basis for the lifestylism argument, as well as
anarchist opposition to the intellectual affront that is "anarcho-"capitalism.
But there's a difference between ideological objection and methodological
opposition. For the Anarchist, they say "X is NOT anarchism" with the implicit
understanding that THEY know what anarchism is about. For them, there is no need
to prove or demonstrate it -- their statement alone is fact enough.
To the anarchist, lifestylism and "anarcho-"capitalism are rejected because,
methodologically, they aren't the way to arrive at anarchism. They use the wrong
means to achieve similar ends -- namely, human happiness.
See the difference in approaches?

METHOD VERSUS MADNESS

The Anarchist stresses ideological conformity as the prerequisite for social
revolution -- in other words, you swallow A,B, and C doctrines and THEN you are
an Anarchist. Their plan of action revolves around: 1) creating a central
Anarchist organization; 2) educating (e.g., indoctrinating) the working class as
to the tenets of Anarchism; 3) thereby building a mass movement; 4) creating a
social revolution.
The Anarchist is comfortable with the idea of a manifesto, platform, or other
guiding doctrine as the means of "spreading the gospel" -- their emphasis is
unity in thought and action, and ideological conformity as the basis for
effective organization.
The anarchist, however, rejects all of this. We hold, instead, that: 1)
anarchist organizations cannot be created before the demand for them exists; 2)
indoctrinated people are not free people; 3) a movement based on a central
authority (e.g., the central Anarchist organization) and on masses of
indoctrinated followers will be an elite, political one, NOT a popular, social
one; 4) the social revolution will invariably be betrayed by such an effort,
becoming a political revolution whereby the Anarchists seize power.
This is not a semantic difference; rather, it strikes at the heart of the
movement itself, and the roots of this debate go back to the founding of the
first International, which was why I posted those essays by Bakunin.
Who is right? I hold that the methodology of anarchism is more important and
vital than the ideology of it. That's because I recognize that language,
particularly in the services of the ambitious, is routinely turned on its head
in the service of power elites.
A group could call themselves Anarchists, but that surely doesn't make them
anarchists, does it? You'd do well not to take them at their word blindly, but
rather approach them on your own terms.
The two models of social struggle from history are the Marxist model -- the idea
of a political vanguard guiding the masses to a socialist society; and the
Bakuninist model -- the idea of rejecting all political authority and using
popular direct action as the means of realizing socialism in the here and now
versus some unforseen future.
To date, the Marxist model has dominated the radical left for over a century,
although recently, with the demise of the USSR, we see the ideological air
clearing for the first time in decades. This is why the debate is so timely and
critical, if anarchism is to proceed and grow.
My main objection to ideological Anarchism is that it depends not on
freethinking and direct action, but on obedience, passivity, and conformity to
an externality -- either a manifesto, platform, or other mechanism of control.
Further, it focuses on a top-down, centralized organization as a means of
bringing Anarchism from the center outward.
It is ludicrous to assume, however, that you can use unfree means to attain a
free society. It is similarly ridiculous to try to create a popular, libertarian
organization before you have a mass following! What you'd get, instead, is an
elite cadre of activists, which, unsurprisingly, parallels the current situation
of the radical left!
Further, since doctrinal purity is most important to the ideologue, they end up:
1) eternally quarrelling about minor points; 2) forever looking for and purging
heretics; 3) alienating potential fellow travellers through this elitism.
Anarchism isn't "anything goes" -- it means something. However, a working person
shouldn't have to be indoctrinated to make them "suitable" to the movement. Noam
Chomsky put the methodological view of anarchism best when he said that he saw
anarchism as the historical tendency of people to rise up against illegitimate
authority.
For example, when the sailors of Kronstadt rose against the Bolsheviks in 1921,
they were engaging in methodological anarchism -- direct popular action against
illegitimate authority -- whereas the Bolsheviks had betrayed the Revolution by
securing themselves in power, despite their claims to the contrary.

ANARCHISM, NOT ANARCHISTS

Anarchists should focus on passing along anarchist ideas and, most importantly,
anarchistic ways of organizing, rather than trying to turn people into
Anarchists. It's a fine, but an important distinction.
Anarchists hold that the social struggle itself -- propaganda by the deed --
politicizes and radicalizes the masses. When they get a sense of their own
empowerment, attained through collective direct action, what you get are
"anarchized" people -- folks who will understand the ideas of anarchism in
practice rather than doctrinally, which is where it matters. You get empowered,
active freethinkers, who are not afraid to engage in direct action -- in other
words, anarchists.
Not to say that all activists are anarchists, because they aren't. The right
wing has a fair share of reactionary activists, but they are, in truth,
functionaries of a larger authority structure -- drones, who jump when their
bosses order them to. Or (more commonly), they are well-meaning people who have
been duped and manipulated into supporting a position contrary to their real
interests.
But when you get a group of people working together, organizing and engaging in
direct action against illegitimate authority, you're more likely to have folks
sympathetic to anarchism than to any other doctrine, which calls for obedience
and passivity. The social struggle itself promulgates the anarchist idea, when
waged anarchistically.
Sadly, what we have today are a plethora of Anarchists -- ideologues -- who
focus endlessly on their dogma instead of organizing solidarity among workers.
That accounts for the dismal state of the movement today, dominated by elites
and factions, cliques and cadres.
And, since the Cardinal Rule of Ideology applies -- that the ideologue is not,
and cannot ever be wrong -- what it means is the disputes never, ever end, and
everyone divides into countless little, irrelevant enclaves.
Methodology is far more open -- there is that which works, and that which
doesn't, and degrees between those points. If one strategy doesn't work, you
adjust until you get something that does work.
The anarchist holds that the working person is ready in the here and now for
social revolution, in terms of inclination and instinct -- people want to be
free; they want an improvement in their circumstances and quality of life.
People don't want to be slaves -- those in power spend much time convincing
people that they're free when, in fact, they aren't. We believe that everyone
values their freedom, whereas the Anarchist holds that the working people are
too racist, sexist, apathetic, homophobic to "get the message" -- they view the
masses with almost Marxist contempt.
In fact, when things don't go the Anarchists' way, they blame everyone but
themselves, which accounts for the isolation and elitism of the left wing -- you
working people are just "too stupid/racist/sexist" to get their Lofty Ideas.
With that attitude, you can see why working people ignore the radical left.

IDEOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE

One thing ideologues of all stripes share is a negative view of human nature --
they see us all as basically bad, and in need of improvement (achieved by a
period of indoctrination, naturally, which they offer). Further, ideologues hold
themselves exempt from this principal of negative human nature -- that is, they
are okay, but the rest of the world is screwed.
However, this view is incompatible with anarchism, and entirely appropriate to
authoritarian ideologies -- authoritarians all view people as basically bad, and
in need of education, supervision, and above all, control, which they are all
too willing to provide.
The anarchist, conversely, holds that human beings are basically good and not in
need of guidance, coercion, and control -- indeed, we hold steadfastly to the
idea that the only evils in society come about when some seek to control and
coerce others, and that the mechanisms of power, privilege, and control turn
even the saintliest stalwart into a connniving manipulator.
In other words, anarchists view people as good, and systems of control as bad,
whereas ideologues hold the other view -- that people are bad, and systems of
control are good (so long as THEY control those systems -- if someone else
controls them, then they're bad -- that's how they seem anti-authoritarian when
out of power -- but just wait until they do get a measure of power, and you'll
see). It's an important difference, and determines the nature of the
organization that arises from these foundations.
The organization based on a negative view of human nature will focus on power
and control, centralizing these things in as few hands as possible -- the people
who can be trusted with such power (meaning, the most obedient and doctrinally
sound), whereas the organization based on a positive view of human nature will
seek to disseminate power and eliminate control, decentralizing and dispersing
these in as many hands as possible.
The most pernicious threat of the ideologue is that they exempt themselves from
their own rules -- again, stemming from the notion that THEY have "seen the
light" and the rest are either: 1) idiots; or 2) evil (for turning their backs
on the Truth). Thus, they can never be reasoned with, because they are
irrational themselves -- if you object to their program, regardless of the
reason, then you are at fault, not them.
That's why a natural corollary of the ideologue is the use of force -- because
they are dogmatic and irrational, all they can ultimately rely on for legitimacy
is force, which necessitates centralization and control of force -- e.g., the
State, in a newer, more pernicious form.
In a sense, the ideologue is a closeted authoritarian, which is why they are so
treacherous. They seem anarchistic because they reject authority that exists
when they have no part in it; however, they are really objecting to being
disempowered themselves, rather than rejecting authority itself. When they
attain a position of authority, they turn as despotic as anyone who preceded
them.
Their Authority is in their ideology itself--their Big Idea--which you resist at
your own peril. It was this that caused the Galleanists (Italian anarchist
followers of Luigi Galleani) to engage in several bombing campaigns, even
against innocent passerby--to the Galleanists, anyone who didn't get The Idea
wasn't innocent.

THE TRUTH IS: THERE IS NO TRUTH!

This may seem paradoxical coming from a political Web page, but that's okay --
the anarchist holds that Truth tends to end up in the back pocket of the most
powerful -- that is, the most powerful hold that their views are the Truth, and
woe to you if you say (or even think) otherwise.
There's nothing more ideological than pretensions toward ultimate Truth, and
anarchists should have no part of it. Our view, conversely, is that the only
truth worth holding is that there is no truth, because there is no external
truth out there for us to perceive -- there is merely that which makes sense to
us and that which doesn't.
Reality exists (although some philosophers debate that, too) -- reality is
objective, whereas truth is entirely subjective. If you hold out a rock and let
it go, it will drop. That's because gravity is an objective force -- it's an
aspect of what IS -- reality. Truth derives from reality (e.g., let go of a rock
and it will drop), not the other way around.
The subjectivity of truth is something authorities are very uncomfortable with,
because it's a revolutionary concept -- if truth is subjective, then the
framework of our society collapses -- law, religion, the State -- all implode if
you recognize that what some claim to be Truth is, in reality, opinion backed by
force. Where power is concerned, what is considered Truth ends up, in reality,
mythmaking, lies, and superstition.
Anarchists hold that truth is subjective, or they should, which forms the basis
for our rejection of dogma and manifestos. No Anarchist can come up with an
ultimate manifesto which can account for every possible human encounter and
interaction, although some do try.
Freethinking is the only methodology you can safely rely on, in the absence of
external Truth -- that is, thinking and evaluating for yourself what is and
isn't, rather than letting someone else define your world for you. And the
currency of this type of exchange is reason, rather than force.
Authoritarians hold to an objective ideal -- the Truth -- which only they can
see, of course. And your role in the process is to obey their Truth or suffer
accordingly. Thus, the liberty-cherishing capitalist puts a "Trespassers will be
shot" sign on "his" property and sleeps easy at night (even though the original
title holder trespassed and shot others to get that property!), and the
god-fearing Christian puts a witch to the torch, while preaching "love one
another" from the Good Book.
Ideologues are forever trampling their lofty words by their atrocious deeds --
and anarchists want no part of it. We reject them and their Truths!

ANYTHING GOES?

Does anarchist rejection of Truth mean that anarchism, in turn, means anything
goes? Yes, and no -- that which destroys illegitimate authority is anarchistic;
that which doesn't, isn't. That is the basis for our methodology, and for our
resistance to the privileged and powerful.
It means that the only legitimate authority is that which is freely accepted, in
the complete absence of coercion -- e.g., free association. This allows for an
extraordinarily wide range of human activity, and creates the appearance of
"anything goes" -- anarchy -- but this can only be attained through consistent,
dedicated organizing on the part of the members of society.
In this manner, we reject lifestylists, because what they seek -- narcissistic
autonomy -- is impossible in our interconnected society, and is not anarchistic,
because it disdains class struggle and organization in favor of turning inward
and abandoning human solidarity.
The methodological basis for our rejection of lifestylism is that it liberates
no one, including the lifestylist, and is thus no threat to illegitimate
authority whatsoever. The "temporary autonomous zone" is a pipe dream, as it
leaves the prime source of oppression -- the State -- untouched, unchallenged,
and intact.
It's the wrong method, even if the lifestylist disdain for ideology is
well-founded. Social anarchists should leave lifestylists to their antics,
rather than forever arguing with them. For the social anarchist, the goal,
instead, is to organize effectively, rather than deriding lifestylists for their
way of life.
Anarchism is a rational theory and philosophy, requiring observation and
thought, and above all else, organizing and action.

DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE ANARCHISTS

While on the topic of reason and rationality, there is something which
distinguishes the ideological Anarchist from the methodological anarchist --
namely, deduction versus induction. I'll elaborate.
Deduction is where you proceed from a premise. For instance, if I say:
"I am an Anarchist, therefore all which I do is anarchistic."
I am being deductive in my assessment of my anarchism. If you say that something
I'm doing isn't anarchistic, I'd disagree for that reason -- I'd say, "no,
you're wrong, because I'm an Anarchist -- I know what Anarchism is -- Anarchism
is what I do. And, since you are disagreeing with me, and I am an Anarchist,
then you must be an authoritarian -- you, therefore, are my enemy."
See the problem? Now, this kind of deductive ideology isn't confined to
Anarchism -- in fact, it's even more common among all the authoritarian
ideologies out there, in which people say one thing and do quite another.
However, with anarchism, this kind of thinking is positively deadly -- it gets
in the way of freethinking and closes your mind.
Inductive anarchism, rather, looks at what you do and why, and comes to the
conclusion that you are an anarchist based on what you do, not on what you say.
Not everyone who is fighting illegitimate authority is an anarchist -- that's
not the case at all. Rather, what inductive anarchism means is that one's
actions become the criterion of judgment, not one's claims.
This is a very important distinction, because it allows you to be on guard for
creeping authoritarianism and vanguardism within the movement itself. That's
what Bakunin noticed when he was confronting Marx -- Marx and his gang all said
they were for socialism, and wanted everyone to embrace their program as the
"best" way to get to it, even as their program proved to undermine and destroy
the socialism it claimed to be for.
The same risk exists with anarchism. Where deductive Anarchism can be easily
turned on its head by authoritarian opportunists within the movement (and are
unlikely to be challenged because such movements discourage dissent and
disagreement in favor of ideological conformity) -- meaning that such
opportunists won't be challenged within their own groups!
Inductive, or methodological anarchism, however, can't be so readily betrayed,
because it involves adding everything up and determining for yourself if it
balances out, rather than letting someone else tell you it does. It means
thinking for yourself instead of letting others think for you.
Deductive Anarchists are fond of manifestos and platforms -- tracts and
doctrines which they produce and expect you to learn, memorize, and obey. They
think that if they could just convert enough of you to THEIR way of thinking,
then Anarchy will be possible. They hold that you're not ready for it yet.
Inductive anarchists think that's ridiculous -- we hold that no tract or
manifesto can possibly cover all human dreams, hopes and aspirations. Further,
we hold that everyday people are already able to understand anarchist ideas, and
put them into practice -- they earn this faith on our part by virtue of being
human.
Humans don't like being told what to do, or being kept in bondage. If they did,
those in power wouldn't spend so much time, energy, and money hoodwinking you
into thinking you're free when in truth you're a slave. The anarchist's role in
all of this is merely to create that initial awareness, and to communicate
organizational methods that weaken and destroy authority, and let the process
take care of itself.
The Anarchist, conversely, wants a more active, vanguardist role -- since they
hold that only their tribe can be trusted with the Truth only they can see, they
see themselves as the shadow guides who'll keep everything in line from behind
the scenes, because everyone knows you poor slobs can't be trusted to do it
yourselves.
That attitude is why the radical left so often derides the working class as
apathetic, reactionary, racist, sexist, homophobic -- a thousand maladies. They
see you as lesser beings who are in need of their guidance and instruction.
As an anarchist, I think that attitude is insane -- indoctrinated people are
unfree, and it is impossible to create a free (that is, anarchist) society using
unfree methods.

SO, WHAT'S THE POINT?

The point is that only two things really matter: 1) organizing solidarity among
working people; 2) encouraging popular direct action. That's the goal of
anarchists, or should be. It's not our purpose to teach others how to behave, or
what to think -- that's their own business, certainly not ours.
The Anarchist holds that "if only the rest of the world were Anarchists (like
me) everything would be fine" -- they hold themselves as the sum total of
anarchistic purity -- but that's a vanguardist sentiment in the extreme, and is
Marxist at root, and ultimately, in effect.
The methodology of anarchism is most important, because it's so easy to
determine if you're off course or not, whereas words and doctrines are hollow
and meaningless -- they can be wrapped around the basest tyranny and made to
seem sweet and true. All the enemies of freedom practice this -- the US carpet
bombs people and assassinates democratically elected leaders in the name of
"democracy" and "freedom" -- a claim that holds up only if you embrace the
Ideology of America, rather than the methodology of democracy!
In fact, if you examine the US system of government methodologically, you find
that it doesn't even remotely approximate "democracy," "freedom," "popular
will," or "representation" -- but all of these words are used with nauseating
frequency by the elites in power.
Lenin, while attempting to rally support for the Bolsheviks, made "all power to
the soviets" the slogan of his party, knowing that popular self-rule was what
the workers wanted. The workers put their faith in Lenin and Trotsky to do this,
and lo and behold, when the Bolsheviks came to power, they quickly shifted
gears, and destroyed every worker soviet they came across -- "all power to the
soviets" in practice became "all power to the Bolsheviks" (which really meant
The State). The "Communist" Party destroyed communism, because the latter
threatened their power base!
The anarchist's job is solely to shows the means by which libertarian social
revolution can be carried out -- the anarchist's toolkit, if you will, rather
than a roadmap. And this strategy is more anarchistic than the other route,
because it leaves the initiative where it should be: on the street, at the shop
floor, in the classroom -- a thousand arenas where individuals band together to
fight illegitimate authority.

Dave Neal
9/17/97

top
 

The Spirit of Revolt (1880)

by Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)



There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes
an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas
germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an
application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose
interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling
atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution
of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic
interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable
criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises,--in
drawing room as in cabaret, in the writings of philosophers as in daily
conversation. Political, economic, and social institutions are crumbling; the
social structure, having become uninhabitable, is hindering, even preventing
the development of the seeds which are being propagated within its damaged
walls and being brought forth around them.
The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established
morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life,
no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seemed just is now felt to be a
crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting
immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames up in
every class of society, in every possible environment, in the very bosom of
the family. The son struggles against his father, he finds revolting what his
father has all his life found natural; the daughter rebels against the
principles which her mother has handed down to her as the result of long
experience. Daily, the popular conscience rises up against the scandals which
breed amidst the privileged and the leisured, against the crimes committed in
the name of the law of the stronger, or in order to maintain these privileges.
Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into
practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous,
humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus
constituted; they perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which
will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath,
and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism,
without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete
disintegration.
In periods of frenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation
and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of great industries and the ephemeral
expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous fortunes amassed in a
few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economic
institutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to
society the prosperity which they are supposed to guarantee; they produce
precisely the opposite result. Instead of order they bring forth chaos;
instead of prosperity, poverty and insecurity; instead of reconciled
interests, war; a perpetual war of the exploiter against the worker, of
exploiters and of workers among themselves. Human society is seen to be
splitting more and more into two hostile camps, and at the same time to be
subdividing into thousands of small groups waging merciless war against each
other. Weary of these wars, weary of the miseries which they cause, society
rushes to seek a new organization; it clamors loudly for a complete remodeling
of the system of property ownership, of production, of exchange and all
economic relations which spring from it.
The machinery of government, entrusted with the maintenance of the
existing order, continues to function, but at every turn of its deteriorated
gears it slips and stops. Its working becomes more and more difficult, and the
dissatisfaction caused by its defects grows continuously. Every day gives rise
to a new demand. "Reform this," "reform that," is heard from all sides. "War,
finance, taxes, courts. police, everything must be remodeled, reorganized,
established on a new basis," say the reformers. And vet all know that it is
impossible to make things over, to remodel anything at all because everything
is interrelated; everything would have to be remade at once; and how can
society be remodeled when it is divided into two openly hostile camps? To
satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents.
Incapable of undertaking reforms, since this would mean paving the way
for revolution, and at the same time too impotent to be frankly reactionary,
the governing bodies apply themselves to halfmeasures which can satisfy
nobody, and only cause new dissatisfaction. The mediocrities who, in such
transition periods, undertake to steer the ship of State, think of but one
thing: to enrich then.selves against the coming débâcle. Attacked from all
sides they defend themselves awkwardly, they evade, they commit blunder upon
blunder, and they soon succeed in cutting the last rope of salvation; they
drown the prestige of the government in ridicule, caused by their own
incapacity.
Such periods demand revolution. It becomes a social necessity;
the situation itself is revolutionary.


When we study in the works of our greatest historians the genesis and
development of vast revolutionary convulsions, we generally find under the
heading, "The Cause of the Revolution," a gripping picture of the situation on
the eve of events. The misery of the people, the general insecurity, the
vexatious measures of the government, the odious scandals laying bare the
immense vices of society, the new ideas struggling to come to the surface and
repulsed by the incapacity of the supporters of the former régime,-- nothing
is omitted. Examining this picture, one arrives at the conviction that the
revolution was indeed inevitable, and that there was no other way out than by
the road of insurrection.
Take, for example, the situation before 1789 as the historians picture
it. You can almost hear the peasant complaining of the salt tax, of the tithe,
of the feudal payments, and vowing in his heart an implacable hatred towards
the feudal baron, the monk, the monopolist, the bailiff. You can almost see
the citizen bewailing the loss of his municipal liberties, and showering
maledictions upon the king. The people censure the queen; they are revolted by
the reports of ministerial action, and they cry out continually that the taxes
are intolerable and revenue payments exorbitant, that crops are bad and
winters hard, that provisions are too dear and the monopolists too grasping,
that the village lawyer devours the peasant's crops and the village constable
tries to play the role of a petty king, that even the mail service is badly
organized and the employees too lazy. In short, nothing works well, everybody
complains. "It can last no longer, it will come to a bad end," they cry
everywhere.
But, between this pacific arguing and insurrection or revolt, there
is a wide abyss,--that abyss which, for the greatest part of humanity, lies
between reasoning and action, thought and will,--the urge to act. How has this
abyss been bridged? How is it that men who only yesterday were complaining
quietly of their lot as they smoked their pipes, and the next moment were
humbly saluting the local guard and gendarme whom they had just been
abusing,--how is it that these same men a few days later were capable of
seizing their scythes and their iron-shod pikes and attacking in his castle
the lord who only yesterday was so formidable? By what miracle were these men,
whose wives justly called them cowards, transformed in a day into heroes,
marching through bullets and cannon balls to the conquest of their rights? How
was it that words, so often spoken and lost in the air like the empty chiming
of bells, were changed into actions?
The answer is easy.
Action, the continuous action, ceaselessly renewed, of minorities
brings about this transformation. Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice,
are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.
What forms will this action take? All forms,--indeed, the most
varied forms, dictated by circumstances, temperament, and the means at
disposal. Sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, but always daring; sometimes
collective, sometimes purely individual, this policy of action will neglect
none of the means at hand, no event of public life, in order to keep the
spirit alive, to propagate and find expression for dissatisfaction, to excite
hatred against exploiters, to ridicule the government and expose its weakness,
and above all and always, by actual example, to awaken courage and fan the
spirit of revolt.
When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit
of revolt is sufficiently awakened in the masses to express itself in violent
demonstrations in the streets or by rebellions and uprisings, it is through
action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of independence and
that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head.
Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the
means to transform them into action,--men of integrity for whom the act is one
with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life
contrary to their principles,--intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to
dare in order to succeed,-- these are the lonely sentinels who enter the
battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the
banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their
rights.
In the midst of discontent, talk, theoretical discussions, an
individual or collective act of revolt supervenes, symbolizing the dominant
aspirations. It is possible that at the beginning the masses will remain
indifferent. It is possible that while admiring the courage of the individual
or the group which takes the initiative, the masses will at first follow those
who are prudent and cautious, who will immediately describe this act as
"insanity" and say that "those madmen, those fanatics will endanger
everything."
They have calculated so well, those prudent and cautious men, that
their party, slowly pursuing its work would, in a hundred years, two hundred
years, three hundred years perhaps, succeed in conquering the whole
world,--and now the unexpected intrudes! The unexpected, of course, is
whatever has not been expected by them,--those prudent and cautious ones!
Whoever has a slight knowledge of history and a fairly clear head knows
perfectly well from the beginning that theoretical propaganda for revolution
will necessarily express itself in action long before the theoreticians have
decided that the moment to act has come. Nevertheless, the cautious
theoreticians are angry at these madmen, they excommunicate them, they
anathematize them. But the madmen win sympathy, the mass of the people
secretly applaud their courage, and they find imitators. In proportion as the
pioneers go to fill the jails and the penal colonies, others continue their
work; acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of vengeance, multiply.
Indifference from this point on is impossible. Those who at the
beginning never so much as asked what the "madmen" wanted, are compelled to
think about them, to discuss their ideas, to take sides for or against. By
actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people's minds
and wins converts. One such act may, in a few days, make more propaganda than
thousands of pamphlets.
Above all, it awakens the spirit of revolt: it breeds daring. The
old order, supported by the police, the magistrates, the gendarmes and the
soldiers, appeared unshakable, like the old fortress of the Bastille, which
also appeared impregnable to the eyes of the unarmed people gathered beneath
its high walls equipped with loaded cannon. But soon it became apparent that
the established order has not the force one had supposed. One courageous act
has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make
the colossus tremble; another revolt has stirred a whole province into
turmoil, and the army, till now always so imposing, has retreated before a
handful of peasants armed with sticks and stones. The people observe that the
monster is not so terrible as they thought they begin dimly to perceive that a
few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in
their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to
revolt, it is always hope, the hope of victory, which makes revolutions.
The government resists; it is savage in its repressions. But,
though formerly persecution killed the energy of the oppressed, now, in
periods of excitement, it produces the opposite result. It provokes new acts
of revolt, individual and collective, it drives the rebels to heroism; and in
rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary
party is strengthened by elements which up to this time were hostile or
indifferent to it. The general disintegration penetrates into the government,
the ruling classes, the privileged; some of them advocate resistance to the
limit; others are in favor of concessions; others, again, go so far as to
declare themselves ready to renounce their privileges for the moment, in order
to appease the spirit of revolt, hoping to dominate again later on. The unity
of the government and the privileged class is broken.
The ruling classes may also try to find safety in savage reaction. But
it is now too late; the battle only becomes more bitter, more terrible, and
the revolution which is looming will only be more bloody. On the other hand,
the smallest concession of the governing classes, since it comes too late,
since it has been snatched in struggle, only awakes the revolutionary spirit
still more. The common people, who formerly would have been satisfied with the
smallest concession, observe now that the enemy is wavering; they foresee
victory, they feel their courage growing, and the same men who were formerly
crushed by misery and were content to sigh in secret, now lift their heads and
march proudly to the conquest of a better future.
Finally the revolution breaks out, the more terrible as the preceding
struggles were bitter.
The direction which the revolution will take depends, no doubt, upon the
sum total of the various circumstances that determine the coming of the
cataclysm. But it can be predicted in advance, according to the vigor of
revolutionary action displayed in the preparatory period by the different
progressive parties.
One party may have developed more clearly the theories which it defines
and the program which it desires to realize; it may have made propaganda
actively, by speech and in print. But it may not have sufficiently expressed
its aspirations in the open, on the street, by actions which embody the
thought it represents; it has done little, or it has done nothing against
those who are its principal enemies; it has not attacked the institutions
which it wants to demolish; its strength has been in theory, not in action; it
has contributed little to awaken the spirit of revolt, or it has neglected to
direct that spirit against conditions which it particularly desires to attack
at the time of the revolution. As a result, this party is less known; its
aspirations have not been daily and continuously affirmed by actions, the
glamor of which could reach even the remotest hut; they have not sufficiently
penetrated into the consciousness of the people; they have not identified
themselves with the crowd and the street; they have never found simple
expression in a popular slogan.
The most active writers of such a party are known by their readers as
thinkers of great merit, but they have neither the reputation nor the
capacities of men of action; and on the day when the mobs pour through the
streets they will prefer to follow the advice of those who have less precise
theoretical ideas and not such great aspirations, but whom they know better
because they have seen them act.
The party which has made most revolutionary propaganda and which has
shown most spirit and daring will be listened to on the day when it is
necessary to act, to march in front in order to realize the revolution. But
that party which has not had the daring to affirm itself by revolutionary acts
in the preparatory periods nor had a driving force strong enough to inspire
men and groups to the sentiment of abnegation, to the irresistible desire to
put their ideas into practice,--(if this desire had existed it would have
expressed itself in action long before the mass of the people had joined the
revolt)--and which did not know how to make its flag popular and its
aspirations tangible and comprehensive,--that party will have only a small
chance of realizing even the least part of its program. It will be pushed
aside by the parties of action.
These things we learn from the history of the periods which precede
great revolutions. The revolutionary bourgeoisie understood this
perfectly,--it neglected no means of agitation to awaken the spirit of revolt
when it tried to demolish the monarchical order. The French peasant of the
eighteenth century understood it instinctively when it was a question of
abolishing feudal rights; and the International acted in accordance with the
same principles when it tried to awaken the spirit of revolt among the workers
of the cities and to direct it against the natural enemy of the wage
earner--the monopolizer of the means of production and of raw materials.

Notes on translation and transcription
This article first appeared in Le Révolté in 1880. English translations
appeared in Commonweal, 1892 and Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, 1927.
The postscript version was OCR'd by lamontg@u.washington.edu from The
Essential Kropotkin, 1975 which was based on the aforementioned 1927
translation.