Human Iterations

(Dirty Hippies And Long Posts)

I've got some friends down in the Biscuit right now, and was struck by Rabble's recent post on John Robb's proposal that eco-activists adapt contemporary guerilla tactics (most definitely not the first time such has been discussed).

This is vaguely timely, as a little while ago I took some flak for supposedly condemning ELF for not being hardcore enough. Of course, that was not at all what I was saying. Rather, I was laughing at how ELF, by nature, is locked into the same old ineffectual actions. And not only 'cause they’re lazy dirty hippies.

I despise anarcho-primitives with the sheer force only available a net addict, sci-fi junkie and convicted physicist to boot. But, putting aside my personal animosity for a few minutes, I figure I should explain why ELF is so extraordinarily positioned as an ineffectual organization.

I like the environment. Hell, I've got a mad crush on the entire Cascadia region. And I’m a strong proponent of ecological preservation from a very pragmatic systems-dynamics approach. But, as much as I deeply oppose the rape of these lands, one cannot simply up the Direct Action until victory. In this case, the harder ELF pushes the harder they screw themselves. And it’s not just a case of underestimating the US’s counter-terrorist resources.

Blowing up SUVs is very symbolic. It symbolically pisses people off. And, although sabotage is highly effective in the short term, the resistance it offers tends to peter out in no time.

Don’t get me wrong, the concept of upping the ante against the destructive industrial system by creating colossal blackouts is very logical, but, like all blunt plans, it's absolute crap.

See people like freedom. Turns out it's a very emergent element of any body politic. Just about every modern political institution or meme has been built around corralling and directing these feelings into power and political action. And, one of the core things the anarcho-primitives never seem to grasp is that technology is about freedom. Technology is, by definition, the conversion of our intellectual knowledge of the universe into direct mastery of mind over inert matter. Political freedom is fine and dandy, but physical freedom means not being prostrate before the whimsy of the mechanistic natural world.

These forms of freedom are not diametrically opposed. They're interdependent.

Yes, prehistory is filled with examples of functional proto-Anarchist societies. Yes, modern faith and the nation state are relatively new constructs. Yes, they're idols that we should rather shake off than lose ourselves in subservience too.

But. They're also developments in reaction to our universal effort to shake off the cruel physical restrictions we were born with. In order to test a simple hypothesis in physics, circa 1950, millions of Marx's work hours are necessary. Industrial factories stretching across the Earth. And the economic systems of oppression that drive hammers to stone, forcing and then exploiting a lack of self-reliance so that thousands may play their part in an experiment they likely neither care nor know about.

We created our modern systems of power because it's easy to oppress in pursuit of material strength. Easier to fan a dictator, play a part in the complex system, than resist. We plan our social projects by how we can force one another into work rather than persuade or enlighten.

The economic interconnection driven by our infrastructure makes playing a part easier than achieving self-reliance.

But primitivism simply doesn't offer self-reliance.

Switching from dependence on the economy to the biosphere isn't an improvement at all if the biosphere remains entirely an organic system. Then you enter a relationship, as the doe-eyed ramble, with Mother Earth. Blindly placing oneself prostrate to another’s mood swings is called an abusive relationship. (Worse still is when the other isn’t even an individual but a dynamic and unpredictable system of mentally-inert matter.) Primitivism, like other forms of problem solving by blunt force, simply swings the abusive relationship in the opposite direction. Without absolute understanding of our environment and without tools to self-reliance independent from it we will remain subjects of it.

Intelligent environmentalism stems from the recognition that blunt force is no way to deal with complex and dynamic systems. Carving up the planet in our present overaggressive and ramshackle fashion is not good science. It's not good anything. Like running into a nuclear plant and pushing the buttons that look pretty.

Now, given an infinitely forgiving environment and all the typical caveats about not pulverizing ourselves anytime soon, we’re set to reach a level of self-sustainability that would make scarcity economics and biosphere maintenance seem amusingly passé. The goal of technology is to make ourselves unto gods. Not a bad goal. Not one that we’re presently in any danger of achieving… but not bad.

The thing is, though, despite the ill-planned and haphazard nature of our modern infrastructure, despite all the social power structures tied up in it, our technological civilization offers hope. Improvement. Change. Strength.

Now radical environmentalists and primitivists have greatly varying views on the degree of technological regression supposedly necessary. But any technological regression is an outright attack on the freedoms that we Americans treasure. And, like any attack on personal freedom, that makes folks mad.

Instead of seeking to eradicate social power (oppression) like contemporary anti-authoritarians, primitivists attack the foundations of what we consider personal power.

I hate the old leftist slogan “power to the people” like no one’s business. What is “power to the people” but the reassignment of authority and slave-mastery to the indistinct political concept of “the people”? Just another cheap way to oppress individuals in the name of the community. Same ol' Bolshevik bullshit, right? But there's a reason the slogan has so much appeal in low-income communities. Power can also mean control over your own life. Choices and leisure.

You may not want electricity. But some of us do. And an attack against the tools we use in our everyday life is an attack against us. When people feel unnecessarily deprived of these they tend to band together, sacrificing social liberty to seek personal comfort. If you’ve ever bothered to turn on the news since September 11th then I aint telling you anything new. And there’s no way eco-activist attacks on the American infrastructure would be lost in the static of the “war.” Or that the government would fail to correctly identify the perpetrators. Such thoughts are ridiculously uninformed as to the basic position of the US within the greater conflict as well as to the density of surveillance in the States.

But the point is: All possible attempts to force a primitivist revolution in the American infrastructure are doomed to categorical backfire.

ELF is situated in a hilarious position as a guerilla/terrorist/liberation fighter/whathaveyou organization because they cannot even hope to force their win scenario. They can conduct extraordinarily effective sabotage operations against logging companies to halt deforestation. But the closer they strike against the source of our society's driving need, the deeper they will find society aligned against their goals.

Other guerilla organizations typically form with the express intent of playing the role of a classic military. Get guns and shoot the enemy until they retreat.

Terrorism, or the utilization of strikes against non-classically “acceptable” targets to induce the same forceful effect upon an enemy state as would a normal military attack, doesn’t have the most amazing track record as a useful strategy.

In fact, its generally accepted that the most terrorism can hope to accomplish is the long-term maintenance of a conflict. Eventually, the idea goes, the conflict will motivate the emergence of actual military or political conflict (see Iraq) and then onto some victory. Of course, the fact that terrorism-inspired victory has never really happened is usually deemed irrelevant.

But all these organizations are organized on us-vs-them terms. ELF’s charter is a much more vague. Evolving from internal political origins rather than nationalistic ones, they seek inspired social change rather than the obliteration or subjection of some opposition group. –The distinction here is between aggressive faction-style violence (see Tamil Tigers, Red Army Fraction...) and a campaign that isn't out to seize the echelons of national power.

We all know changing people's minds is harder than slaughtering them outright. But, so long as ELF focuses on the symptoms of the underlying problem (i.e. sabotage against logging companies) they know they will make no headway against what many in the widespread, decentralized network consider to be the root problem; the civilization driving technological advances and infrastructure growth.

So. Attack the civilization, force part of the supposedly inevitable collapse of our environmentally-abusive infrastructure and watch as people respond passively, adapting to the alternatives.

Heh.

The reality of course, is that attacks against the infrastructure, by nature of its position in assuring us many deeply appreciated personal freedoms, polarize into attacks against our freedom. ELF is already about as deeply radicalized as they get for blowing up SUVs (something in a much similar vein to attacking power grids than corporate sabotage, 'cause nobody really gives a shit about inhuman corporations). To switch tactics over to infrastructure disruption would propel ELF from their self-imagined position as friendly neighborhood crusaders to social manipulators. Orchestrating de facto economic power over their subjects. Something ELF was not created to do.

You see, in order to ever hope to accomplish their goals, ELF has to break with its core anarchistic philosophy.

They can do it, of course (and have been doing it). Nothing has ever stopped folks from intense political hypocrisy. But with the morph necessary to justify the attacks proposed would emerge political instabilities on a absolutely debilitating level.

They would, for example, lose every last goddamn supporter they ever had. Or, worse, in the inevitable military campaign against them, they might end up polarizing support from folks who would only ally with primitivists to fight the greater evil of US imperial power. Dragging many good anti-imperialists down with them.

Now there's a whole plethora of ways to adapt technology to maximize individual self-reliance with minimal fucking with the biosphere. But these adaptations are things that require thinking. And talking to people. Doing actual fucking work instead of shooting for single-use solve-all solutions. Blowing up shit is always easy. Forcing folks to do your bidding is always easy. Much harder is accomplishing anything more than surfing an adrenaline buzz with folks like yourself.

ELF wants to blow up SUVs and logging equipment. That's fine and dandy. I like blowing stuff up too. But though destroying even larger aspects of folks' everyday life may give one a sense of power, it sure as hell won't inspire environmental reform.

And, at a certain level, I think its members realize this.