unity

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Common Struggle's picture
Common Struggle
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Sep 8 2006 04:41
unity

correct me if i'm wrong, but in terms of class struggle, doesn't continuing relevancy of the resistance movement and the potency of the rebellion against empire depend on the strength of praxis? if praxis is the falsification of inauthentic ideas through the lessons of experience and the falsification of inauthentic practise through the lessons of reflection and introspection, then surely it can only operate effectively when we have unity within the movement. without unity our praxis becomes weak, our effort is wasted and the empire continues unchallenged.

seems to me that somehow we've lost a sense of practical tactics that breathes so much life into the histories of past struggles. things are harder and conditions change so much more quickly and in a way maybe we're suffering from a sort of future shock; maybe we've been a little overcome. no one really talks about basic values like unity anymore. if some of the threads on this forum are anything to go by unity as a basic building block of movements of refusal have largely disappeared from our discourse.

obviously there can be no effective movement, let alone effective change, without the ability to overcome our isolation, atomisation and alienation by the market. my understanding of mass anarchist or libertarian organisations has always been that they were meant to facilitate a pooling of strengths and to empower the individual and overcome the anomie and confusion that keeps us dependent on the powers that be. we have a variety of syndicalist groupings and a hodge-podge of collectives, but unless it's just me, we seemed to have forgotten the concept of mass organisation -- and in that i mean, organising separately from the rest of society on the explicit basis of our refusal of institutionalised, coercive authority and of our desire for an order based on the assumption of individual responsibility as opposed to the fetishising of idols.

i don't know; i get the feeling that we're stuck in purgatory a lot of the time. we know what we're against and what we want but we've gotten a little off track in terms of our ability to realise it. we're a little lost, a little in the dark. for my part i guess i feel a bit despondent, but at the same time have a strong desire to regain a sense of pride in the movement of which i count myself a part; when it comes down to it we're not really that united, and without a strong culture of unity we seem to lack the self-pride to gather a positive momentum.

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Joseph Kay
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Sep 8 2006 05:37

for future reference, i'd stick calls for unity in intro, a lot of people have had this discussion a few times wink

Horselover Fat wrote:
inauthentic

what do you mean by this? Afaik Heidegger meant 'aware of your own mortality', the frankfurt school and then the situationists used it as a counter-part to the fakeness of the culture industry/spectacle, but didn't really explain it.

Horselover Fat wrote:
no one really talks about basic values like unity anymore. if some of the threads on this forum are anything to go by unity as a basic building block of movements of refusal have largely disappeared from our discourse.

the first thing to remember is that as an 'internal' board for people who are mostly libertarian communists already, so the debate focusses on points of difference, rather than people restating all the things he have in common, 'you know what, the state and capital are rubbish' - 'yeah, damn right' wink

secondly, what do you mean by unity in concrete terms? practical unity and solidarity with each other as workers? whenever there's a strike most people here do what they can to support it, and the newswire reports workers struggles everywhere in an attempt to show the commonality of workers everywhere. Or do you mean a unity of ideas? wouldn't that be boring?

It's not that people aren't trying to organise and outreach, but that this is hard work,

Horselover Fat wrote:
organising separately from the rest of society on the explicit basis of our refusal of institutionalised, coercive authority and of our desire for an order based on the assumption of individual responsibility as opposed to the fetishising of idols.

well i don't think we should organise 'separately from the rest of society', and a big part of the problem is that co-ercive authority has been really toned down in much of modern management - i have no authority to hire or fire or discipline people, but i have to get people above me, including directors to do things for me as part of my job. all this 'team' bollocks is a load of bullshit and widely seen as such, but that doesn't mean it isn't harder to organise when there isn't a clearly delineated 'us' and 'them', which is pretty much the point of it.

coffeemachine
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Sep 8 2006 09:05

i am always impressed when someone attempts to open up the field of debate. I am equally impressed when someone immediately tries to close it down again.

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Joseph Kay
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Sep 8 2006 09:14

thanks for that cm, a nice contribution to the debate. you'll notice my fairly lengthly post leaves all sorts of things open and asks various questions - what do you think then? (that is what do you think when not trying to drag the thread off into a sniping match thus closing down debate wink )

the reason i said it should go in intro is precisely to allow debate, with revol's hostile response to Horselover's last posts in mind.

coffeemachine
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Sep 8 2006 09:36

apologies, doing a lazy isn't my forte wink.

But horselover obviously sees there is a problem and in trying to articluate that problem trying to move the debate forward. Your response seemed to say 'there's no problem mate, don't worry about it, we're doing fine'.

I genuinely impressed by the fact horselover is obviously concerned about he state of anarchism as political entity coupled with our dismal failure to apply those ideas in any concrete practical ways in the real world.

What i will do is read and re-read what horselover has put forward, absorb, reflect, ruminate a little and then reply.

Joseph Kay's picture
Joseph Kay
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Sep 8 2006 09:37

Ok you do that, being Lazy (riser) is obviously harder than it looks.

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jef costello
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Sep 9 2006 08:11
Joseph K. wrote:
the reason i said it should go in intro is precisely to allow debate, with revol's hostile response to Horselover's last posts in mind.

Intro, Organise, Thought and Current Affairs are all supposed to be non-flaming forums.

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Joseph Kay
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Sep 9 2006 09:02
jef costello wrote:
Intro, Organise, Thought and Current Affairs are all supposed to be non-flaming forums.

i know wink

... ok i'll shut up with all the meta-discussion now and leave the actual discussion of the thread uninterupted wink

Common Struggle's picture
Common Struggle
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Sep 11 2006 04:37

sounds good.

Dundee_United
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Sep 12 2006 11:08
Quote:
without a strong culture of unity we seem to lack the self-pride to gather a positive momentum.

Yes. There is a need for much better co-ordination and a more powerful central voice. It should not however be built on a foundation of sand - the collapse of the SSP is a salutory lesson there.

So for that reason I propose we shoot all the syndicalists NOW! wall