Another world is possible: Build it and they will become
Be realistic, demand the impossible. (graffiti, Paris 1968)
If you haven’t perused this short post of mine, please do so now:
Let's imagine the state of the planet as a fire raging through a high-rise building. How would the powers that shouldn’t be react?
A. They'd immediately call on the corporate media to make certain that most of the general population refuses to acknowledge even the smell of smoke, never mind the flames. In fact, with enough programming, mainstream America would opt to perceive "rumors" of a large fire as some kind of socialist scheme. Once the masses have been sufficiently pacified, well… there's a shitload of money to be made off the inferno and many, many future blazes to be planned.
Meanwhile, “activists” would behave like a dysfunctional fire department. They'd bicker over tactics, debate who pulled the fire alarm first, complain about which of them gets to hold the fire hose or drive the fire truck, get distracted by discussions about electing a new fire chief, and waste a whole lot of time imagining how to salvage the building within its original framework.
I say: Let the building burn. The structure is not salvageable so let it smolder right down to its foundation.
I say this because our global "problems" are not merely flaws within a basically fixable configuration. Economic inequality isn't a hiccup. Epidemics of preventable diseases are not an anomaly. Tyranny and censorship are not mere blind spots. Predatory capitalism — hell, all forms of industrial culture — cannot be tenderly reformed into sustainability.
Let's not waste resources putting out fires set by the Parasite Class™. Let's instead build our own structures so that those people yet to embrace their free-thinking status are better able to visualize an alternative to the way of life to which they fearfully cling.
I remember chatting about this concept with a friend named John, one of the original Occupy Wall Street drummers. We've talked about how people — even if they are utterly miserable — are often too afraid to detach from the only way of life they've ever known. The culture as a whole is designed not only to nurture such fear but also to convince us that the system can be tweaked and reformed and made more tolerable.
To paraphrase John: "They try to convince us that hell can be improved, that it can be turned into heaven. But hell is hell and it'll never be heaven. If we want heaven, we have to create something totally different. If we stop concentrating on trying to fix hell, we can create our own promised land, our own heaven on earth. Then you watch and see how many others join us.”
Such a radical departure from archetypical activism requires a steadfast commitment to cultivating deeper and deeper solidarity among those already rebelling while simultaneously toiling — day and night — in the essential realm of outreach.
One possible method to achieve both of these objectives is to foster more and more small-scale and/or short-term alternative community models.
The predictable, frightened response to this holistic and revolutionary approach goes a little something like this:
"You gotta stop dreaming. Get realistic and learn how to play the game."
"Don't you understand that things just don't work like that?"
"What you're talking about is Utopia."
Blah, blah, fuckin' blah…
Mutual aid and cooperation aren't utopian. They are our last best chance. So, while the dominant hierarchy drowns in its own hypocrisy, fear, and greed, let's use our energy and passion to create a whole new model.
A lot of Covid dissidents understand this, but the alternatives have to be economic too, and hardly anyone knows what that would look like. Mathew Crawford said something similar in his livecast last night, that we need to build alternative economic systems that simultaneously bankrupt the existing power structure. A superficial example might be, a bunch of companies are now refusing to advertise on twitter, so make a list of all those companies, don't buy anything from them, and disparage their name in every way? I think I am going to think about some fiction about this going deeper, while I am deer hunting....
There's a ton of pragmatism to this. Humans learn best from active participation. Reading and listening only go so far. There is nothing as educational as hands-on, cooperative effort. The major prerequisite is humility.