Nas2EndWork "Pamela's Blogs":
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Blog 1: "You Know How I Know You're a Slave?"
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Blog 2: "Where the Hell is Vasquez When We Really Need Her?"
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Blog 3: "How Do I Con Thee? Let Me Count the Ways...Or: What Is 'Individual Freedom'?"
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Blog 4: "Is It Never Too Late to Be the Parent I Should Have Been?"
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Blog 5: "Are We Innocent When We Dream?"
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Blog 6: "To Enlarge the Realm of the Possible"
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Blog 7: "Bury the Corpse!"
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Blog 8: "Just Say NO! Make Coke the First Corpse to Go!"
Blog 9: "Compassion Always Comes Too Late"
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Blog 10: "To Live and Die a Slave?"
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Blog 11: "Crime Is The Flip Side"
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Blog 12: "Rocket Science Ain't Rocket Science"
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Blog 13: "The Fuck-It Factor"
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Blog 14: "How Do You Organize (Our World) Without Hierarchy?"
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Blog 15: "Eating What The Earth Gives Me"
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Blog 16: "When You Become A Voice Of The Voiceless"
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Blog 17: "You Got To Sucker The Corn Or the Ears Won't Be Worth Nothin'"
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Blog 18: "Packaging Our Children For The Podrunks"
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Blog 19: "The Good Livers"
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Blog 20: "Is There Such A Thing As "Voicelessness"?"
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Blog 21: "Brandon Terrell Jones"
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Blog 22: "Our Real Work"
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Blog 23: "Gennenice Chapman Johnson"
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Blog 24: "What Is Your 'Theory of Change'?"
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Blog 25: "The Plum Tree"
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Blog 26: "Wholism Is A Health Issue"
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Blog 27: "Who's Loving You Michael?"
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Blog 28: "Getting Busy"
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Blog 29: "Depopulation"
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Blog 30: "Growing A Mass Movement"
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Blog 31: "Ridley's Choice"
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Blog 32: "Children Of The Technology"
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Blog 33: "The Devastated Earthscapes From Lawrence Summers' "Logic""
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Blog 34: "How Do We Grow A Mass Movement?"
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Blog 35: "We Have To Make A Loud Noise"
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Blog 36: "The Phoenix"
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Blog 37: "Wind-Blown Seeds Need Roots"
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Blog 38: "Embracing The Plural"
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Blog 39: "Round And Round And Round We Go But Not Merrily"
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Blog 40: "Unplugging"
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Blog 41: "Thank You Sandy From Petaluma"
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Blog 42: "You Got City Hands Mr. Hooper"
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Blog 43: "Letter to Michael Reynolds"
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Blog 44: "The Last Civil Rights Movement"
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Blog 45: "The 4 R's: The Ruses Used To Rend Us...Race, Religion, Reason, and Recognition - 1"
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Blog 46: "The 4 Ruses - 2"
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Blog 47: "The 4 Ruses - 3"
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Blog 48: "The Responsibility Of The Intellectual"
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Blog 49: "The Hidden Malevolence: AKA Michael Moore's Dilemma"
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Blog 50: "Wading Into The Muck Of State"
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Blog 51: "Seeing The Communal Alternative"
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Blog 52: "Becoming The Function"
Pamela's Blog 48
[In Progress] 1st draft published on Monday, September 28, 2009 by Nas2EndWork.org
“The Responsibility Of 'The Intellectual'” (Part 1)
(This blog will be discussed in part in the Waking Up Radio show of June 23, 2013…. The transcript of this show is posted on: To Rebuild Our Freedom: Taking A Look At the Galbraith Book… and What It Means To Defer To 'The Economy' … :
[Also discussed in: OTheRLogs 28 and 70, and The Power-Down Implications Of The Right To Shelter .
See also: "Round And Round And Round We Go But Not Merrily"
And see Part 2 (below) of: “The Responsibility Of 'The Intellectual'” *** ]
by Pamela Satterwhite
To the degree to which organized labor operates in defense of the status quo, and to the degree to which the share of labor in the material process of production declines, intellectual skills and capabilities become social and political factors. Today, the organized refusal to cooperate of the scientists, mathematicians, technicians, industrial psychologists and public opinion pollsters may well accomplish what a strike, even a large-scale strike, can no longer accomplish but once accomplished, namely, the beginning of the reversal, the preparation of the ground for political action. That the idea appears utterly unrealistic does not reduce the political responsibility involved in the position and function of the intellectual in contemporary industrial society. The intellectual refusal may find support in another catalyst, the instinctual refusal among the youth in protest. It is their lives which are at stake, and if not their lives, their mental health and their capacity to function as unmutilated humans. Their protest will continue because it is a biological necessity. (Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, p. xxv)
"Thinker," "Intellectual"...such toxic words...
...generally representing for toxic functions in our fear-and-force-based system.
Still...I know what Marcuse means, and I agree...
But I think the responsibility of "the intellectual" (...and all those who "represent" for our future freedom) today is what it's always been: to stand with "the people"...and renounce the privilege of standing apart.
One of the reasons I decided to embrace "The Fuck-It Factor" was because "the pundits," "intellectuals," "thinkers"...whatever...never seemed to speak for me. It made me feel crazy. What seemed obvious to me – and to most just-plain-old-folks in general, I discovered – never seemed to occur to "the thinkers."
[See also "Rocket Science Ain't Rocket Science" and "Thank You, Sandy From Petaluma" ...and surely it's our collective responsibility, especially 'intellectuals,' to further the goal of "Unplugging"?]
We have been excused from the discussion...told that if we do not think in impermeable categories...we do not 'think' at all.
It seems not to occur to "the thinkers" that this belief rules in a class system because it serves class rule.
So...for our collective pondering, I offer three comments on three "thinkers."
...On Democracy Now! this morning * I caught part of an interview with Grace Lee Boggs. Near the end she talked about the amazing transformative power of the people, turning vacant lots into gardens in Detroit.
Juan asked the question I was hoping would be asked. In essence:
"But what when the City – whether through the manipulation of real estate prices by their deep-pocket friends or...just because...(if by then no artifice is needed) – what when the City wants the land back?"...
...wants it back for the 'Knowledge Workers' of the future, doing all that important work to save the planet and manage 'scarcity.'
I was surprised when she dodged the question.
I'd have thought that by the time you get to ninety, if you're trying to grow your soul even a little (and Grace Lee Boggs more than corresponds with that category), you'd be well beyond the seductive power of praise...
...And Michael Moore, also this morning, also surprised me, when I heard him repeat the con that we need 'business' to 'innovate.'
We have to do better than this.
The right wing structures its organizing around straight-forward messages that resonate...like:...
"We need the state off our backs."
This message works because it's true.
Imagine if we mobilized around a message that was not only as straight-forward and resonant, but simultaneously swept the right's organizing point into our own – used their wave to enlarge ours?
We on the progressive-end tend to fruitless struggles over the value of "the state." Podrunks attack 'government' so we defend it.
We can nuance better than that...and be straight-forward while we're at it...honest...
...Honest...
...our ace in the hole. [OTR 28, (09.14.09)]
Rather than defend "the state," why not advance "Freedom"? Why not say: "we have the means for all of us to be free. Now. Today. Wage work is a con."
As long as we keep mythologizing 'innovation,' we're stuck in Division Work, delaying our Culture Work, wasting precious time...
...which is not (Utah Phillips' hopefulness notwithstanding) on our side.
...
And, finally...on the subject of how Debt Slavery is being used by the podrunks to – "clear out the deadwood"...(meaning mostly we dark ones...as they want the cities back)...
...the podrunks are finally smelling 'success' with their demonic carpentry skills (structural adjustment) applied to the U.S.
So mayors, across the nation, justify their heartlessness by holding up the seeming rock-solid authority of the seemingly neutral budget...governors likewise...on up the line...
...and laterally...
...and I find myself surprised again because Ralph Nader believes that "only the super-rich can save us."
How can this be?...when not long ago he told this story...(I paraphrase):
It was right after Congress repealed Glass-Steagall. He found himself on the same plane with Lawrence Summers. Summers came over to him, so Nader asked, "You think the banks are powerful enough now?"
To which Summers replied: "Not yet."
So I know Nader knows what they're up to...and why...
...and so his response...
...that the "super-rich" (I know, I know...the good ones) must save us...
...boggles me...
...It implies a belief system and a state of mind utterly at odds with where I am, and what I've seen. It implies that agency does not reside in 'we-who-do-the-work.'
Perhaps one reason he may believe this is illustrated with this story:
When circumstances seem propitious I engage folks I meet on the subject of the book. One man I offered it to, a surveyor, said, "I'm too tired from working to read a book about not working." We all laughed, he, his partner and I – I, sadly.
But what this story implies, to me at least, is that those who see our future freedom bear the responsibility of advocating for it...of representing for those who are too tired from working to think about how we can get to a future when our labor is not coerced.
*** “The Responsibility Of 'The Intellectual'” (Part 2)
There is an awareness solidifying, even among the progressive punditry, that organized 'Power' can only be checked by organizing a mass movement to check it. This is good news as it means that unity on the left is building around that point...
...but around the key question of "how?"...
...we do not yet have a solidifying awareness....
Waking Up is my attempt to synthesize and advance the gift of our ancestors' thoughts on this question –
(The ancestors don't exist...
...for us to scrounge around in...
...searching for something...
...to take to market.
[from You Got City Hands])
– in my own voice (speaking in our own voices being in and of itself an advance)...
...as it is the responsibility of those of us who believe in a future freedom without bosses to renounce Division by speaking plainly and helping to ensure that we all get on the same page...
...which, for we-who-do-the-work – and therefore for everyone – is critical...
...if we are to move forward to what comes next.
This need to move forward means it's not good enough, after all our ancestors' work, to promote "Just Say No!" as the way to go...to suggest by our fondness for critique that the height of our activism is just to speak...to reply with futile injunctions when folks are unable to shake off their "functions"...
...to tell our neighbors that "climate disruption" (or any other 'idea' you could name – "freedom," "peace", "happiness,"...whatever...) demands they make "fundamental change"...to say...
...that unless we want famine for our future or manufactured chaos to be our lot, "reliance on fossil fuels has got to stop"... – it's not enough to say "we need a mass movement"...we must say what mass movement...and, most importantly...
...how we will accomplish it (if we're serious)...
...and start crafting all our actions and organizing to the accomplishment of that plan.
Moving forward also means that it's completely unacceptable to keep rediscovering the same 'truths' generation after generation – for which service the podrunks and their agents make a great to-do of us, tell us how 'smart' we are, reward us with paychecks...
...and then wait for the next crop of "really smart people" to rediscover the same truths again....(You can always get paid for doing Division Work.)
...One pundit 'discovers' that 'Power' profits from disaster...and so causes it...another that dissent is commodified...and progressive thought compromised...still another that 'Power' lies...and survives by finding politicians and media products to buy....
These are akin to "discoveries" carefully harvested from torture, like: "infant monkeys separated from their mothers suffer...."
When will the pundits stop leaping to be first to make the next 'discovery,' and instead put our responsibility to our children and our earth first...before their regular meal ticket?...and start making...with their ears and eyes, hands and feet...our future...by organizing those excluded from all the recognition that the pundits bask in...by organizing for land...held in common by those who need homes...by organizing for land...held in common by those who need food....
Rather than expending our limited time deconstructing crimes – which offer few substantive distinctions generation to generation (over the course of class society) – why not find out what is true, fertilize it, and help it spread round the globe like mycoremediates cleansing subterraneously. Let's make hearty progeny...fling our seeds raucously. Rather than waste precious time striving to be "the best!" let's rack our brains for ways to save the whole of humanity...and all the earth's progeny....
That this is what we must do is rock-solid true....if we are to beat back the pitiful-power-drunk-few.
Once we all – or a significant percentage thereof – understand that subjecting the many (and the earth) to serve the few is a mistaken project, we can consider the possibility of being willing to dedicate our lives to ending this mistaken project – for our children, and theirs....
And while the vast majority has 'heart' enough to help its fellow humans find ways to move us all along to a future that's healthy, that 'heart' cannot be moved simply by our saying it's the right thing to do...
...we must show how we will do it, and light the way....
And the light and the way must be based in reality, our human capacity...i.e. what we are inherently....
...and it must be a way that will work...i.e. is based in an analysis that explains what holds us back...and why...
...and is based in our human nature...our need to be powerful and free...
[Consolidating our refusal in a movement to end wage work appeals to our need to feel powerful – that's the 'gap' we want to fill, along with fellowship, and the earth's caress – not our 'morality' or 'good sense.' (See, e.g. False Sweetness, "Determination 17")]
The analysis of society and of the historical process must begin with man, not with an abstraction, but with the real, concrete man, in his physiological and psychological qualities. It must begin with a concept of the essence of man, and the study of economics and of society serves only the purpose of understanding how circumstances have crippled man, how he has become alienated from himself and his powers. The nature of man cannot be deduced from the specific manifestation of human nature as it is engendered by the capitalist system. Our aim must be to know what is good for man. (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, p. 254)
...and our habit of thinking metaphorically...as we can only "figure things out" by merging with the earth itself...(Continued at: ...we are all poets...)
...by going home...("free is how you is from the start...").
Home...
When I was a child children still studied 'nature,' a.k.a. the earth. The world outside your door was not all concrete then. Most folks grew some little something in the backyard. Children and dogs roamed the streets in packs. The heart still beat that wanted its earth back.
A little more wild, a little more free somehow, than what we are now...
...trapped in pre-packages...
...asking permission of 'masters' to...
...to move...or think thoughts pre-approved...
– so absorbed on our techno-teat...
...ignoring those chains 'round our feet?
Home...
In Waking Up I wrote that these words held me pinned and speechless:
"Memory seems too slight a word, too evanescent."
I think "home" is where the 'meld' is...the places where, and moments when,...we dissolved.
Today, 'home' for far too many young people, is a screen, an electronic face that directs the 'self' not into the ever-widening, spiraling circle (up...and outwards, embracing the 'all') of 'Life'...but rather into the closed, locked circle of 'Death'...
...the room of mirrors...
...the Echo Chamber...
...which leads a lot of young people to see the reverb as 'reality'...the tinsel as true...the plug-in as replenishment...
...while the earth's mere 'synopsis' ...
...of the Podrunkopolis.
...False-Faces abound in Podrunk-Town....
Which makes the collective envisioning of our future – a future with our intimate relationship with the earth re-found – difficult.
And up to now the 'intellectual' has mostly exacerbated this problem by reinforcing the lie that the mental-manual divide is the only way we can 'manage' our 'complex' 'economy.'
We've lacked the language of poetry and of direct connection with the earth...the gifts that so-called 'ordinary folks' are much more abundant in...than the pundits –
– who are all angles...and stiffness...and fear.
So as we all bear the responsibility of 'giving back'...
......and as we in America, and pundits particularly,...
...have been taking of the earth unstintingly...
...and hoarding as good misers do...
...all the elevated 'stuff'...
...that 'distinguishes' us (we're told)...
...from those left 'in the dust'...
– while our souls run away from us....
Perhaps it's time to take all that energy...
...of Division Work we do for free –
– well-lit exhibits in "the system's" case for slavery –
...and compost it...into poetry.
When we become passive consumers of pre-packaged 'knowledge' products, we're made dependent on those who rule us for our interpretation of the world. [This discussion is continued from: Determination 8.]
We're taught a regurgitation mindset, even in the progressive media / academia / venues for all our mutual-claquing....
An active (engaged) uncovering of what is sound – and therefore may support significant edifices – rejects a Breathless Gossip ('the news') in favor of Seeing Behind. [You Got City Hands (Part 2) is building a discussion based on Fromm's distinction between 'Intelligence' and 'Reason'.]
To excavate that which is systematically hidden – or hides itself – requires tools that have been stolen or concealed from us, tools that would allow us to construct the frame, the filter, the lens, that Unmask 'Power' (and the excretions of 'Power') and reclaim our stolen gifts.
An active uncovering of what is hidden requires developing our capacity to reason, which means seeing the filters in "the system" we live in that screen out what we're not allowed to think, and build our own –
– the lens that 'Power' doesn't want us to have and will always try to prevent us from developing.
It is the 'job' of 'reason' to discover that, and provide those filters / lens / thoughts.
Only a large-scale popular movement toward decentralization and self-help can arrest the present tendency toward statism.
The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is the truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects...totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals. But silence is not enough. If persecution, liquidation and other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of propaganda must be made as effective as the negative. The most important Manhattan Projects of the future will be vast government-sponsored enquiries into what the politicians and the participating scientists will call "the problem of happiness" – in other words, the problem of making people love their servitude. Without economic security, the love of servitude cannot possibly come into existence...The love of servitude cannot be established escept as the result of a deep, personal revolution in human minds and bodies....Today, it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us within a single century....[We] have only two alternatives to choose from: either a number of national, militarized totalitarianisms...or else one supra-national totalitarianism... (Aldous Huxley writing in 1952, quoted by Erich Fromm, The Sane Society)
Will the man of today have strength to carry out what the spirit demands from him, and what the age would like to make impossible?
In the over-organized societies which in a hundred ways have him in their power, he must somehow become once more an independent personality and so exert influence back upon them. They will use every means to keep him in that condition of impersonality which suits them. They fear personality because the spirit and the truth, which they would like to muzzle, find in it a means of expressing themselves. And their power is, unfortunately, as great as their fear... (Albert Schweitzer, writing in 1951, quoted by Erich Fromm, The Sane Society)
[The Right makes "government" the evil because it's the visible public face of the depersonalization we all hate. But...make no mistake...it's also in us (The Mr. Smith Virus must be actively countered. See: Becoming The Function).]
What has forestalled our building on our ancestors' gifts?
The electronic toys...certainly...
...but the ancestors' figured out and presented to us – not quite as good as gift-wrapped as the most important clarifying lens was beyond them –
– that 'Reason,' 'Race,' 'Civilization,' and 'Western Culture,' are cons...
...masks to justify the abandonment of good fellowship –
– almost all we need to know to shine the light toward freedom...
...so...we've been forestalled by 'Mind-Worship,' which keeps us from crafting an accurate lens.
The assumptions of progressive thought have been faulty – the very basis of thought must be 're-thought'...
"You never know what events will transpire to bring you home."
Home...
I grew up in predominantly black Detroit, Michigan (U.S.).
When I went to school I didn't leave it behind, as if irrelevant. It was the fire of my casting and I knew that – intuitively.
I 'knew,' if only unconsciously, that it had taught me some things that were true, sound, and could be built upon. It showed me the possibility...of good fellowship – that we are all in this together.
(And we all come from the 'river' knowing that...and our feet try to keep the sweet feel of that track...'til the superfluity of 'functions' destroys that conjunction...)
But 'school' contradicted this...
You know the tunes they make us dance to...
..."be the best"...
..."rise above the rest"...
..."show a command of the reins...
...worthy of superior brains"...
..."if you want the keys...
...you best to show some authority"...
...and we all know what that means...
...you got to be willing to bust some knees (metaphorically speaking)...
...and sent me spiraling into more questions: which was 'right'? which was 'true'? And what did the contradiction mean?
My body told the truth and I mostly trusted it, but the 'world' was arrayed against that truth.
I've since found others – mostly dead – that I consider my 'tribe,' because they speak plainly, are motivated by good fellowship, and care about the "yet unborn these."
And they warn, to the best of their ability, about the choice before us.
In the nineteenth century men with vision saw the process of decay and dehumanization behind the glamour and wealth and political power of Western society. Some of them were resigned to the necessity of such a turn toward barbarism, others [Burckhardt, Proudhon, Tolstoy, Baudelaire, Marx, Kropotkin] stated an alternative. But whether they took the one or the other position, their criticism was based on a religious-humanistic concept of man and history. By criticizing their own society they transcended it. They were not relativists who said, as long as the society functions it is a sane and good society – and as long as the individual is adjusted to his society he is a sane and healthy individual....Man is the end, and must never be used as a means; material production is for man, not man for material production; the aim of life is the unfolding of man's creative powers; the aim of history is a transformation of society into one governed by justice and truth – these are the principles on which explicitly and implicitly, all criticism of modern Capitalism was based. (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, p. 233)
But I was never altogether at home in this tribe because they didn't question the given terms of 'thought' – 'Western-culture'-style – itself (excepting maybe Melville). And when I realized this I felt truly alone. They were never able to turn, with apology, with acknowledgment...with thanks...
...with humility and respect...and request...
...to the 'Unhistorical' – included in which are the tribal peoples and cultures of Europe.
That job falls to us.
Because...if solidarity must (in order to supercede capitalism and usher in a future without coercion of any kind)...
...because if solidarity must be our watchword – across time, culture and nation...
...before we can begin anew, we have some housekeeping chores to do...
...on behalf of all those misused, maligned, dismissed, dissed, abused and refused...
...pushed to the fringes...told we're irrelevant...
...and told that if we dare presume to 'think' it must be in the prescribed categories which cast our enslavement in the first place...
...and continue to circumscribe our existence...
(...What is 'allowed'...
...is tightly bound...
...to "what-is"...
...even (or especially)...
...in the so-called "progressive"....)
...and because most self-described 'intellectuals' or 'pundits' have no experience in the trades, they imagine that we down-here-on-the-ground hardly 'think' at all –
– imagine us as passive imbibers of received propaganda.
It's worth a thought that the opposite may be true. At the least the pundits are misinformed. Folks who work with their hands understand the importance of ignoring the surface and looking behind.
If everything was clean on the surface, it certainly wasn't underneath!. (Emile Zola, Germinal)
Mental workers, on the other hand, too often take the shiny surface...
...and slide on it...
...'democracy,' 'technology,' 'innovation,' 'science,' 'experts,' 'professionals,' 'managers,' 'engineers' –
– these categories of thought that exclude (by definition) everyday folks the pundits take at face value.
...this explains why pundits need the inspiration of "the grassroots" –
– academia squelches independent thought (authentic thought)...the capacity to reason...
...and if the pundits' poverty of thought was the only cost...
...derived from this mindset so mindlessly internalized...
...then "the system's" strokes of pitiable folks...
...who need to believe in their supposed 'superiority'...
...would be merely a joke.
But, unfortunately, this "joke's" on us all... [and there we discuss the necessity of ending all divisions between us.]
...cuz...
...When the "mind-worker" sets him or herself up as "thinker"...she automatically reproduces the system he says he wants to move beyond.
Because until we are living that world – in which conception and execution are once again merged, the act of conception, whether you will it or not, is used by the system as self-validation...
Let me give you an example that occurred today (03.23.10)...
...when I heard Howard Zinn say:
If you don't have 'history' then you're a blank slate....You have no cause for being skeptical [of what governments tell you]....Did Americans know where the Gulf of Tonkin was [when we were being lied to about it]?
Did the Iranian child in The Mirror (See False Sweetness, "Determination 17") have to know 'biology' to know that acting small can make her so?...any more than the cat who's incensed...when you seek to limit...his freedom of movement?
There is a 'knowledge' that's earth-given that is more at odds with this system than what's in academes.
The point may seem small...
...but obedience-trained youth in lecture halls...
...will need a jump-start...
...before taking to heart...
...that their bodies' truth is the 'art'...
...most needed today.
This isn't about 'getting off duffs'...
...it's about 'trust'...
...and learning to see 'nature' in 'us.'
We've got better things to do...
...that to get stuck in the dead-end groove...
...called "I challenge you to prove how smart you are."
...leaving the folks with the most 'heart' out of the game...
...and the movement hopelessly maimed...lamed...tamed.
Now is the time to set aside...
...the red-herring project called...
..."perfection of 'mind'"....
Because it's not true that our 'smarts' are the issue...
...our 'smarts' are just fine...
...the issue is we're not organized...
...we'll find our 'smarts' are intact...
...once 'power's' off our backs.
The 'system' focuses its every move...
...on the effort to prove...
...we're not 'smart' enough to 'rule'...(our own lives / world / earth / tools)...
It's obscene to suggest that that's our "work" too.
One small example from right here, from this chair I occupy in my branch library...
...Just a few days ago a woman at the next screen was surreptitiously watching me....Later as we were both leaving she said the sight of me typing was intimidating....Now, it wasn't her words so much as her manner that spoke to me of insecurity.
I've seen this manner so much over the years...that fear of "not being smart enough"...
...and it's just so...not...so.
But the eyes of others upon us are so seductive in a non-culture of invisibility...that it's tempting to just soak it up...and not ponder the cost to our solidarity...of all the false praise.
Few care about 'common' plights,
state-sponsored slights...
...and diminishments.
Do most shrink from imagined taint?
...or from finding their 'specialness'...
...ain't?
...And our 'ordinary' 'common' toil, because of its 'everyday,' 'common' invisibility, demands our notice...
...demands place even over the 'Big Events'...our concentrated protest...
There's nothing 'wrong' with the concentrated massing of protest, but it could be that those who find it their 'complete' ...
...a finger-laced meeting 'neat' to 'neat'...
...are those most needed elsewhere...
– those who would most usefully revisit their earliest dreams...
...as well as the most "uneasy corners of [their] consciousness"...
Because if "distributed generation" is the only effective stratagem for confronting organized and concentrated 'Power'...
...then the for-the-day [...or week] lights of protest may better serve the goal of universal freedom by shining brightly where they live every day...
...by making 'refusal' 'normal', 'expected', 'fun'...
...by inspiring and encouraging those in the very town whose streets they walk...every day...
...by encouraging those whose weight 'society' would will away from the earth 'Mind-Worship' walks.
I suspect that what many young radicals want...
(...what they'd see themselves...
...if sufficiently attuned to their most honest 'self'...)
...is to have their cake and eat it too...
...to denounce 'privilege' while commanding it...
...craving the thrill of a beloved belonging....
...with the straight-backed, full-bellied, elevated 'tribe'...
...of 'Mind'...
When to do what will work wars...
...with that empty 'within'...
...that craves recognition...
...above all else...then...
...what will not work will be...
...magically wrought...
(in thought)
...into a winning stratagem...
[...to be continued.]
* Friday, September 18, 2009.
Early this morning (Valentine's Day, 2010) I dreamed I was telling another black woman electrician about an incident that happened when I was an apprentice. I'd been watching still another black woman electrician manage a tricky maneuver with a concrete wall when I said to her cheerfully, "Wow, that was really hard." To which she replied, coldly (which hurt my feelings at the time), "It was what it was."
Facing reality.
Last night, night before, I'd watched a film called Imaginary Crimes about a man unwilling to face up to his crimes. It was psychologically revealing...and this morning I found myself thinking...
...the West never wants to face up to its crimes...(look at what your favorite son Hegel says...)
The film (and presumably the book on which it was based) was an exercise in metaphor [see also: OTheRLog 85].
© Nas2EndWork (the NEW)