PACIENCIA (Massimo Passamani)

En mi opinión, mucho de los malentendidos relacionados a la gestión democrática se originan en la ambigüedad del concepto de consenso social. El siguiente párrafo contiene una línea de razonamiento que ahora se ha extendido entre un buen número de anarquistas.

Cuando la base de la sociedad de dominación era visiblemente la brutalidad de la fuerza, el sentido de la práctica de la revuelta era obvio para los explotados. Si no se rebelaban, era precisamente porque el chantaje de la policía y el hambre los forzaba a la resignación y a la miseria. Por lo tanto, era necesario actuar con determinación contra este chantaje. Ahora, sin embargo, las instituciones del Estado se benefician a partir de la participación de las masas, no obstante inducidas, ya que la gran presión de una operación de condicionamiento las ha hecho consentir. Por esta razón la revuelta debe ser trasladada al plano de la deslegitimación, de la gradual y creciente erosión del consenso social. Consecuentemente, es empezando a partir de estas pequeñas zonas donde la autoridad ha perdido su legitimidad, donde se ha puesto entre paréntesis por así decirlo, que podríamos hacer que un proyecto de transformación social crezca. De otra manera la rebelión se convierte en un fin en sí mismo, en el mejor de los casos, un inútil e incomprendido acto de presencia; en el peor de los casos, una contribución a la represión y una peligrosa desviación de las necesidades de los explotados.

Me parece a mí que esta es la esencia de un debate que en diferentes momentos se viste de miles de formas distintas. En realidad, toda esta línea de razonamiento se basa en una falsa presuposición, esto es, en la separación del consenso social y la represión. Esta claro que el Estado necesita ambos de estos instrumentos de control, y creo que nadie cae en el insípido error de negarlo. Pero reconocer que el poder no se puede mantener solo con la policía, o solo con la televisión, no es suficiente. Lo que es importante es entender cómo la policía y la televisión se relacionan entre sí.

Legitimación y coerción solo parecen ser diferentes condiciones cuando el consenso social es pensado como un tipo de aparato inmaterial que da forma a la materialidad de comando [de mando]; en otras palabras, cuando uno piensa que la producción de un comportamiento psicológico específico –el de aceptación– se encuentra en algún lugar que no sea en las estructuras de explotación y obligación que están basadas en este tipo de actitud. Desde este punto de vista, si este tipo de producción sucede antes (como preparación) o después (como una justificación) es irrelevante. Lo que es de interés es que no sucede al mismo tiempo. Y aquí es donde la separación de la que he hablado se encuentra.

En realidad, la división entre la esfera interior de la conciencia y la esfera práctica de la acción solo existe en las cabezas –y los proyectos– de los sacerdotes de toda índole. Pero al final incluso ellos están forzados a darle a sus fantasías celestiales un área terrenal. Así como Descartes tuvo que hacer de la glándula pineal el lugar dentro de donde descansaba el alma, así también la burguesía designó la propiedad privada como la fortaleza de su empobrecido y sacrificado Yo. De un modo similar, el demócrata moderno, no sabiendo donde ubicar el consenso social, ha recurrido al voto y las encuestas de opinión. Como el último en llegar, el libertario a la moda sitúa la práctica deslegitimadora en una “esfera pública no-estatal” con límites misteriosos.

El consenso social es una mercancía como lo es una hamburguesa o la necesidad de la cárcel. De hecho, si la sociedad más totalitaria es aquella que sabe como darle a las cadenas el color de la libertad, se ha convertido en la mercancía por excelencia. Si la represión más efectiva es aquella que difama el deseo mismo de rebelión, el consenso social es represión preventiva, vigilancia de ideas y decisiones. Su producción es material al igual que la de los cuarteles o los supermercados. Los periódicos, la televisión y la publicidad son poderes iguales a los bancos y los ejércitos.

Cuando el problema se plantea de esta forma, resulta claro como la llamada legitimación no es otra cosa que el comando [el mando]. El consenso social es fuerza, y su imposición es ejercida a través de estructuras precisas. Esto significa –y aquí esta la conclusión que nadie quiere sacar de esto– que puede ser atacado. En la situación contraria, uno estaría confrontando con un fantasma que, una vez que es visible, ya ha ganado. Nuestra posibilidad de actuar sería completamente una con nuestra impotencia. Ciertamente podría golpear esta realización de poder, pero su legitimación siempre llega –de donde nadie sabe– antes y después de mi ataque y anula su significado.

Como pueden ver, la forma de entender la realidad de dominación origina la forma de concebir la revuelta. Y viceversa.

La participación en proyectos del poder se ha vuelto mas generalizada y la vida diaria es cada vez más colonizada. La planificación urbana hace al control policial parcialmente superfluo y la realidad virtual destruye todo dialogo. Todo esto aumenta la necesidad de insurrección (ciertamente no la elimina). Si fuésemos a esperar a que todos se convirtieran en anarquistas antes de hacer la revolución, decía Malatesta, estaríamos en problemas. Si fuésemos a esperar a la deslegitimación del poder antes de atacarlo, estaríamos en problemas. Pero afortunadamente, la espera no se encuentra entre los riesgos de lo insaciable. Lo único que tenemos para perder es nuestra paciencia.

Massimo Passamani

E SE PERDESSIMO LA PAZIENZA

Molti degli equivoci a proposito della gestione democratica del potere nascono, a mio avviso, dall’ambiguita’ del concetto di consenso. Un ragionamento ormai diffuso tra un buon numero di anarchici e’ quello che segue.
Quando il fondamento della societa’ del dominio era visibilmente la brutalita’ della forza, le pratiche di rivolta risultavano evidenti, nel loro significato, agli sfruttati. Se questi non si ribellavano era proprio perche’ il ricatto della polizia, e quello della fame, li costringeva alla rassegnazione e alla miseria.
Contro quel ricatto, quindi occorrevano agire con determinazione. Oggi, invece le istituzioni dello Stato godono della partecipazione, per quanto pilotata, delle masse, poiche’ una presssante operazione di condizionamento le ha rese consenzienti. Per questo motivo, la rivolta deve essere spostata sul piano della delegittimazione, dell’erosione graduale e allargata del consenso. Di conseguenza, e a partire da quelle piccole zone in cui la presenza dell’autorita’ delegittimata, per cosi’ dire messa fra parantesi, che si puo’ far crescere un progetto di trasformazione sociale. Diversamente, la ribellione diventa un agire fine a se stesso, nel migliore dei casi un inutile e incompreso gesto di testimonianza, nel peggiore un contributo alla repressione e un pericoloso allontanamento dai bisogni reali degli sfruttati. Quest mi sembra la sostanza di un discorso che, di volta in volta, viene agghindato in mille modi diversi.
Tutto questo ragionamento si basa in realta’ su un falso presupposto, cioe’ sulla separazione di consenso e di repressione. Che lo Stato abbia bisogno di entrambi questi strumenti di controllo e’ chiaro e credo che nessuno incorra nel banale errore di negarlo. Ma rendersi conto che il potere non puo reggere solo con la polizia, o solo con la televisione, non basta. Cio’ che importa e’ comprendere in che rapporto polizia e televisione stanno tra di loro.
Legittimazione e coercizione appaiono condizioni diverse solo se si considera il consenso una sorta di apparato immateriale che plasma la materialita’ del comando; in altri termini, se si ritiene che la produzione di un determinato atteggiamento psicologico – quello, appunto dell’accettazione – sia altrove rispetto alle strutture dello sfruttamento e dell’obbligo che su un simile atteggiamento si fondano. Da questo punto di vista, che una tale produzione avvenga prima come preparazione e dopo come apologia e irrilevante. Cio’ che interessa e’ che non avviene contemporaneamente. Ed e’ proprio qui che si colloca la separazione di cui parlavo.
In realta’, la divisione tra la sfera interiore della coscienza e quella pratica delle azioni esiste solo nella testa – e nei progetti – dei preti di ogni colore. Ma alla fine anche costoro sono costretti a dare una ragione terrena alle proprie fantasie celesti. Come Cartesio aveva dovuto inventarsi la valvola pineale quale luogo dove imporre l’anima, cosi’ il borghese ha designato la proprieta’ privata quale feudo del proprio misero io santificato. Non diversamente, il moderno democratico, non sapendo dove localizzare il consenso, ricorre alla simulazione del voto e del sondaggio. Ultimo arrivato, il libertario al passo con i tempi situa la pratica delegittimazione in una ‘’sfera pubblica non statale’’ dai misteriosi confini.
Il consenso e’ una merce come lo e’ un hamburger o il bisogno del carcere. Anzi, se la societa’ piu’ totalitaria e’ quella cha sa dare alle catene il colore della liberta’, esso e’ divenuto la merce per eccellenza. Se la repressione piu’ efficace e’ quella che cancella il desiderio stesso della ribellione, il consenso e’ repressione preventiva, polizia delle idee e della decisione. La sua produzione e’ materiale come quella delle caserme e dei supermercati. I giornali, la televisione e la pubblicita sono potere al pari delle banche e degli eserciti.
Cosi’ posto il problema, risulta chiaro come la cosiddetta, legittimazione non sia altra cosa del comando. Il consenso e’ forza, e la sua imposizione e’ esercitata da precise strutture. Questo significa – ecco la conclusione che non si vuole trarne – che lo si puo attaccare. In caso contrario, ci si scontrerebbe con un fantasna che, quando si fa’ visibile, ha gia’ vinto. La nostra possibilita’ di agire sarebbe tutt’uno con la nostra impotenza. Io posso ben colpire questa realizzazione del potere, ma la sua legittimazione arriva sempre – da dove non si sa – prima e dopo il mio attacco, a nientificarne il senso.
Come si vede, dal proprio modo di comprendere la realta’ del dominio ne discende il proprio modo di concepire la rivolta. E viceversa.
Il fatto che la partecipazione ai progetti del potere e’ divenuta piu’ ampia, e la vita quotidiana e’ sempre piu’ colonizzata; il fatto che l’uranistica rende in parte superfluo il controllo poliziesco e la realta’ virtuale distrugge ogni dialogo; tutto questo accresce, non certo elimina, la necessita’ dell’insurrezione. Se aspettassimo che tutti diventino anarchici prima di fare la rivoluzione, diceva Malatesta, staremmo freschi.
Se aspettassimo di delegittimare il potere prima di attaccarlo, staremo al fresco. Ma l’attesa, per fortuna, non passa tra i rischi degli incontentabili. Da perdere non abbiamo che la nostra pazienza.

Massimo Passamani.

dal settimanale Anarchico CANE NERO N.36 – 25 ottobre 1996.

IL DISORDINE DELLA LIBERTA’

IL DISORDINE DELLA LIBERTA’
La massima espressione dell’ordine istituzionale e’ rappresentato dallo Stato. Lo Stato e’ un modello di organizzazione sociale costruito sulla gerarchia, sul controllo e sulla coercizione. Secondo una analisi che molti anarchici condividono, l’ordine istituzionale non sarebbe altro che l’usurpazione di un diverso ordine che si potrebbe definire sponteneo.
La tesi e’ che la vita sociale si realizza attraverso regole che le sono intrinseche, che tendono cioe’ a verificarsi in ogni contesto. Questa capacita’ autoregolamentativa dell’insieme sociale sarebbe soffocata dall’intervento esterno ‘’cioe’ rispondente ad altre regole, quelle appunto dell’ordine istituzionale’’ dello Stato. Ed e’ su questa spontaneita’ che gli anarchici hanno sempre ipotizzato e praticato i propri progetti rivoluzionari.
Spontaneita sia nel momento insurrezionale dello scontro con le forze statali, sia nell’organizzazione dal basso della societa’ quando l’intervento delle varie archie politiche ed economiche viene sospeso dalle lotte in corso. In condizioni di relativa assenza di potere, gli sfruttati tendono a soddisfare i bisogni della produzione e della distribuzione in modo orizzontale.
Da questa angolazione, l’ordine vero non e’ quello statale, che anzi crea disuguaglianza, dominio e quindi guerra civile, ma proprio quello spontaneo. Ed il pensiero di Proudhon esprimeva con la famosa frase ‘’la liberta’ e’ madre e non figlia dell’ordine’’. Un ordine imposto dall’alto finisce per soffocare la liberta’, mentre mantiene e accresce l’organizzazione rigida e sempre piu’ razionale delle tecniche di governo. L’espressione completa della liberta’ eliminerebbe invece le ragioni del disordine sociale.
Io non condivido questo modo di impostare il problema. Di certo si tratta di un problema di considerevole importanza. Querlli che seguono vanno quindi letti come interrogativi, primo fra tutti per chi scrive.
Tra societa’ e Stato non e’ possibile individuare una netta separazione. Non esistono un interno ed un esterno. Infatti, se e’ vero che lo Stato trasforma in forza coercitiva quello che si produce nelle relazioni sociali, e’ altrettanto vero che il potere di alienare e di organizzare questa forza gli viene dalla societa’ medesoma. Lo Stao di suo non ha alcunche’. Non solo. Ogni contesto sociale tende ad istituzionale i rapporti fra gli individui. Quando e’ il contesto a condizionare le relazioni di un organismo piu’ ampio. Senza l’incessante volonta’ di unirsi e di determinare a partire dai propri desideri le proprie unioni, la societa’ diventa un appartenersi reciproco, un legame che riproduce a autonomizza l’unico elemento comune: la mancanza di liberta’.
Cio che voglio dire e’ un po’ diverso dalla considerazione che il dominio e’ un prodotto dei dominati. Che se nessuno ubbidisce, nessuno comanda, come diceva Belleguarrigue, mi sembra difficilmente contestabile. Ma non e’ questo che qui mi interessa. Credo, detto altrimenti, che non esista una spontaneita’ autoregolamentativa che lo Stato estorce. Meglio, credo che il potere e la gerarchia siano spontanei tanto quanto la liberta’ e la differenza. Anzi, forse e’ proprio il dominio a esprimere la spontaneita’ sociale ‘’ senza per questo cadere in una lettura alla rovescia di Resseau’’. In piu’, il concetto di ordine e’ stato troppo spesso utilizzato come sinonimo di assenza, o per lo meno di ragionevole contenimento, dei conflitti. Proprio perche’ lo Stao a creare i conflitti, una societa’ libera dalla sua ingerenza sarebbe ordinata. A mio avviso, invece, l’autorita’ non nasce dalla contesa, dall’impossibilita’ di armonizzare cio’ che e’ distinto, bensi’ un tentativo di imporre l’armonia in modo coattivo, di risolvere, cioe’ di annientare, i contrari. La divisione in classi e la gerarchia sono l’espressione di una differenza mutilata.
Un concetto diverso di ordine, e quello che fa della differenza stessa l’elemento comune, lo spazio della compenetrazione dei contrari. Solo che i contrari non si possono armonizzare, se non con il risultato di rendere la diversita’ una semplice funzione di qualcosa di superiore. Semmai dovrebbe essere l’ordine di essere in funzione della diversiata’. In altre parole, non e’ la liberta’ tollerata o garantita nell’intento di creare una societa’ armonica cio’ che esprime la singolarita’ ‘’quella singularitas che per i latini era totalmente distinto’’. Lo spazio dell’individualita’ e’ un’unione sempre mutevole che non diventa mai mero contenitore.
Identificare dei principi di spontaneita’ sociale, caricandoli di una valenza che va’ ben oltre l’elemento puramente descrittivo, significa individuare gia’ dei doveri e dei fini. Secondo me non e’ scritto da alcuna parte che la societa’ senza Stato debba essere libera. Da qui nasce il fascino della liberta’, proprio dal suo essere decisione, sia nel senso di artificio che va oltre il semplice sviluppo sponteneo, sia nel senso di rottura, di differenziazione. Si possono realizzare rapporti di reciprocita’ e di non comando solo con una costruzione, e non per sottrazione di qualcosa. Se esistono delle forme di ordine sponteneo esse possono essere tuttalpiu’ una base di partenza. Una base reciprocatamente antisociale.
Sbarazzandosi tanto dei destini della sponteneita’ quanto dalle imposizioni di ogni istituzione, il concetto di ordine diventa uno spazio piu’ linguistico che reale. In questo modo, forse, si spiega la profonda antipatia che nei suoi confronti ha sempre avuto ogni ribelle. ‘’Liberi, cioe’ ordinati’’ ho letto tante volte. Suvvia, non scherziamo.

Massimo Passamani

Testo estratto da CANE NERO n.20 2 marzo 1995

The Logic of Measure by Massimo Passamani

Many are the things that cannot be measured but nothing is more immeasurable than man.—Sophocles


The meaning of measure. It is an enclosure that is simultaneously a dispute with and management of life, a prison that poses the existence of people equal to zero.

And yet, as Protagoras said, the human being is the measure of all things. His intelligence is the place in which they are linked together. If the human being herself is this measure, this threshold, it means that he has no place and that her home is atopia.

A measure to impose, and the punishment for those who arrogantly go beyond it, only has meaning if it provides a boundary, a homeland, to human life. And this homeland is nothing more than the designation of a space built around the limits in which one tries to constrain that which is particularly unlimited, singularity.

But it is really the place of the limit to create trans-gression, and to justify itself as limit through punishment.

Errare divinum est (To err is divine), said Savinio. Only when we pose the measure of individuals as something that transcends them do crime and punishment have a foundation. “To err” pertains to the gods. If their empire, their measure, falls, the limits created in their image and likeness fall as well. The human being cannot help but go beyond the limits, since he himself is the limit, the boundless threshold. Furthermore, only in this hubris, in this arrogance, is her possibility for affirming herself as individual to be found.

As Holderlin understood with regards to Sophocles’ Oedipus, the human being questions and lives “immeasurably”. Relegating his individuality to the place of law, aberrations will always occur, because ab-errare [“in wandering” as well as “in error” – translator] is where one’s individuality has its place. To the extent that the individual is her own measure, she succeeds in not sacrificing her atopia, in being rooted in the absence of place.

This absence of place is an utter absurdity for philosophy. And this is why its words have always advised moderation, the truth that stands in the middle. But that middle makes the human being into a puppet of god (and of every authority), a result of hubris and power, a mistake that poses a remedy.

The measure is god’s, the state’s, society’s. All attempts to harmonize, to tolerate difference refer to a limit that is always collective. Whether this boundary is the one and indisputable truth or the multiplicity of truths is of little importance. If the truths are constrained to compose a social ensemble of which they end up being a part, there is no space for singularity, but only for different appraisals with respect to the techniques with which to preserve these walls which one could not want to destroy. Each in her own way can only be a slave. The ensemble of society—the meaning of measure—is that which one need not take into account, “except as the object of destruction.”

The uniqueness of each of us cannot be an element of something else because difference is itself the common space. The only place for difference is the absence of place. Individuality must defend its difference and want the difference of others to exist as well. My difference is revealed because that of others exists.

Power, on the contrary, is the foundation of a territory of identity and measurement, a territory from which it is impossible to escape without destroying the community of those who have been made equal to zero (that Michelstaedter called the “wicked clique”) and building the common difference.

I think that affirming one’s singularity is the exact opposite of the defensive armoring of oneself, that prison-like enclosure from which (as the skeptical “reaction” to the religion of the common good and sacrifice would have it) to control the world with the disenchantment of doubt. Difference is not a slit through which to spy on the movements of the other, afraid that she might go too far in making his way and thus could disturb our tranquility. There isn’t any kitchen garden to cultivate as Voltaire believed. Distrust, the fear of the other that makes us move away suddenly when we touch a strange body, is an ivory tower under siege. The immeasurable dimension in which it is possible to live together without domination and abuse, and so also without their double, Harmony, can “settle” in no one place.

Singularity has no homeland because the homeland is power.

The individual in revolt is a “restless place between the night and the light”, between destruction and creation. And more. The light itself is darkness, since Phanes “sits inside, in the sanctuary of the night.” But not even the liquidation of the dialectic that always transforms the negative into the positive, annihilating it, is capable of becoming a certainty. If we were to look for the measure, the one of being against or outside, in the sanctuary of the night, we would end up becoming evangelists of demolition, pensioners of revolt.

In its endless skirmishes, the Logic seems unshakable. And yet its rigid form cannot resist anyone who wants to live without measure.

Once again, more than a project, it is a question of knowing how to live.


https://sites.google.com/site/anarchyinitaly/canenero/the-logic-of-measure

The Body and Revolt by Massimo Passamani

The entire history of western civilization can be read as a systematic attempt to exclude and isolate the body. From Plato on, it has been seen at various times as a folly to control, an impulse to repress, labor power to arrange or an unconscious to psychoanalyze.

The platonic separation between the body and the mind, a separation carried out to the complete advantage of the latter (“the body is the tomb of the mind”), even accompanies the seemingly most radical expressions of thought.

Now, this thesis is supported in numerous philosophy texts, almost all except those that are alien to the rarefied and unwholesome atmosphere of the universities. A reading of Nietzsche and of the authors like Hannah Arendt has found its appropriate scholastic systematization (phenomenological psychology, idea of difference and a way of pigeon-holing). Nonetheless, or actually because of this, it does not seem to me that this problem, the implications of which are many and fascinating, has been considered in depth.

A profound liberation of individuals entails an equally profound transformation of the way of conceiving the body, its expression and its relations.

Due to a battle-trained christian heritage, we are led to believe that domination controls and expropriates a part of the human being without however damaging her inner being (and there is much that could be said about the division between a presumed inner being and external relationships). Of course, capitalist relationships and state impositions adulterate and pollute life, but we think that our perceptions of ourselves and of the world remain unaltered. So even when we imagine a radical break with the existent, we are sure that it is our body as we presently think of it that will act on this.

I think instead that our body has suffered and continues to suffer a terrible mutilation. And this is not only due to the obvious aspects of control and alienation determined by technology. (That bodies have been reduced to reservoirs of spare organs is clearly shown by the triumph of the science of transplants, which is described with an insidious euphemism as a “frontier of medicine”. But to me the reality seems much worse than pharmaceutical speculations and the dictatorship of medicine as a separate and powerful body reveals.) The food we eat, the air we breathe and our daily relations have atrophied our senses. The senselessness of work, forced sociality and the dreadful materiality of chit-chat regiment both mind and body, since no separation is possible between them.

The docile observance of the law, the imprisoning channels into which desires, which such captivity really transforms into sad ghosts of themselves, are enclosed weakens the organism just as much as pollution or forced medication.

“Morality is exhaustion,” said Nietzsche.

To affirm one’s own life, the exuberance that demands to be given, entails a transformation of the senses no less than of ideas and relationships.

I have frequently come to see people as beautiful, even physically, who had seemed almost insignificant to me until a short time earlier. When you are projecting your life and test yourself in possible revolt with someone, you see in your playmates beautiful individuals, and not the sad faces and bodies that extinguish their light in habit and coercion any more. I believe that they really are becoming beautiful (and not that I simply see them as such) in the moment in which they express their desires and live their ideas.

The ethical resoluteness of one who abandons and attacks the power structures is a perception, a moment in which one tastes the beauty of one’s comrades and the misery of obligation and submission. “I rebel, therefore I am” is a phrase from Camus that never ceases to charm me as only a reason for life can do.

In the face of a world that presents ethics as the space of authority and law, I think that there is no ethical dimension except in revolt, in risk, in the dream. The survival in which we are confined is unjust because it brutalizes and uglifies.

Only a different body can realize that further view of the life that opens to desire and mutuality, and only an effort toward beauty and toward the unknown can free our fettered bodies.

https://sites.google.com/site/anarchyinitaly/canenero/the-body-and-revolt

Freedom's Disorder by Massimo Passamani

The state is the supreme expression of institutional order. It is a model of social organization built on hierarchy, control and coercion. According to one view that many anarchists share, institutional order is nothing other than the usurpation of another kind of order that could be described as spontaneous.

The theory is that social life is realized through rules that are intrinsic to it, i.e., rules that tend to occur in all contexts. This self-regulating capacity of the social whole is suffocated by the external intervention of the state (an intervention, that is to say, which corresponds to other rules, precisely those of institutional order). And anarchists have always based their theory and revolutionary projects on this spontaneity. Spontaneity both in the insurrectional clash and in the organization of society from the base when the intervention of the various political and economic activities is suspended by the struggle in course. Where there is a relative absence of power, the exploited tend to satisfy the requirements of production and distribution in a horizontal manner.

Seen in this way, real order is not that of the state which creates inequality, domination and consequently civil war, but precisely that which is spontaneous. This is the idea that Proudhon expressed with the famous phrase: “Freedom is the mother, not the daughter of order.” Order imposed from above ends up suffocating freedom while maintaining and expanding the rigid and increasingly rational organization of techniques of government. On the other hand, the complete expression of freedom would eliminate the reasons for social disorder.

I do not agree with this way of formulating the problem. And it is certainly a problem of considerable importance. What follows should therefore be read as a series of questions, above all for the writer.

It is not possible to make a distinct separation between society and the state. There is no inside or outside. In fact, if it is true that the state transforms what is produced into coercive strength in social relations, it is just as true that the power to alienate, transfer and organize this strength comes from society itself. The state has nothing of its own. And that’s not all. Every social context tends to institutionalize relationships between individuals. When it is the context that conditions relations, these become mere functions of a broader organization. Without the ceaseless will to come together and determine our associations starting from our desires, society becomes a reciprocal belonging, a bond that reproduces and autonomizes the only common element: the absence of freedom.

What I am trying to say is something a bit different from the idea that domination is a product of the dominated. It seems difficult to me to contest that if no one were to obey, no one would be able to command, as Belleguarrigue stated. But that is not what interests me here. To put it another way, I believe that there is a self-regulating spontaneity that the state extorts. Or rather, I believe that power and hierarchy are just as spontaneous as freedom and difference. Furthermore, it may be precisely domination that expresses social spontaneity (without, for this reason, falling into a reverse reading of Rousseau). Moreover, the concept of order has been used far too often as a synonym for the absence, or at least the reasonably containment, of conflict. Since it is the state that creates conflict, a society free of its interference would be ordered. In my opinion, however, authority does not originate in dispute, in the impossibility of harmonizing what is different, but rather in the attempt to impose harmony by force, to resolve, which is to say to annihilate, contraries. Class division and hierarchy are expressions of mutilated difference.

Another conception of order makes difference itself the common element, the space of the interpenetration of opposites. But the only way opposites can be harmonized is by making difference a mere function of something greater. But instead, it should be order that is a function of difference. In other words, the freedom that is tolerated or guaranteed with the aim of creating a harmonious society is not the sort that expresses singularity (that singularis which for the Latins was totally distinct). The space of individuality is a union that is always changeable and can never become a mere container.

Identifying principles of social spontaneity, charging them with a value that goes well beyond the purely descriptive aspect, really means singling out tasks and aims. As I see it, there is no guarantee that society without the state would necessarily have to be free. This is where freedom’s charm originates, precisely from the fact that it is a decision, both in the sense of a stratagem that goes beyond merely spontaneous development, and in the sense of rupture, of differentiation. Relations of mutuality without command can only be realized by constructing something, not by taking something away. If spontaneous forms of order exist, they can at most be a basis from which to start, a mutually anti-social basis.

When we rid ourselves of the destinies of spontaneity as well as the impositions of every institution, the concept of order becomes an area that is more linguistic than real. Perhaps this is how one could explain the profound antipathy that every rebel has always felt towards it. “Free, that is to say ordered,” I have read it so often. Come on, let’s not be silly.

https://sites.google.com/site/anarchyinitaly/canenero/freedom-s-disorder

Children's Thoughts by Massimo Passamani

Yes, I know, we are all against axioms, guarantees, certainties.

But can we really live without sharing our being against—without depending upon this sharing?

The search for identity is not always oriented toward the mass, toward the great crowds of followers. Even the small group can become our safe space. What’s more, the very refusal of every group and of any form of membership can construct its own arrogant, solitary radicality through the play of recognition.

My stubborn solitude is fed by what it opposes; it even—or maybe, above all—feeds on criticisms.


To appear to be against someone or something that seems to assume the features of authority—a charismatic person, a common truth—is not always an act of revolt. Its origins could be, for example, the desire to receive part of the light of that which one challenges by taking the role of challenger. As if saying: I beg you to notice that I have no leaders.


I believe that the reality of not being esteemed (which is to say valued and measured)—even in the form of a certain hostility—by a group has greater significance in the renunciation of revolt than repression. And there is no resigned desistence that does not degenerate into resentment, quick to assemble in new, spiteful herds.


Two or three words, the same ones, repeated in some meeting, and there they are joining the discussion that unfailingly ensues, in hope that other words—two or three—will replace them.

All right, it is as you say, I am going too far. But doesn’t seem to you that this all consolidates the group and calcifies thought?

Starting from myself, what is said to me always seems so imprecise and reassuring, that hearing it continually repeated is frankly too much.


Deepening relations of affinity would have to mean making difference emerge (otherwise, on what do we base affinity?). And yet one doesn’t escape homogeneity (the fact that some anarchist use this word in a positive sense makes my head spin) by refusing conferences, membership cards and other blatantly formal fixations.

The mechanisms—I hesitate to say rhythms, but perhaps they really are rhythms—, the rhythms, then, of participation and compromise stress our lives well beyond measure. Thinking for ourselves, as Lessing expressed it, is never the outcome.


What would the desire to rebuild be if it never leads us to destruction? What would it be if it anchored us to the role of destroyer?

Gottfried Benn said that the one who loves ruins also loves statues. And with regard to statues, Benn, it was understood.


Perhaps it is anxiety about the future that transforms individuals into puppets of a group. A life considering needs a solid basis. Obedience and calculation live under the sign of an eternal tomorrow.

But aren’t ideas—coagulants of language—giving us the awareness of time?

Thought is born only when desire grows pale. Living the moment, the immediacy of existence, completely, does one have no future, does one have no time—does one have no ideas?


If all values collapse (is it possible?), only “because it pleases me, that’s why” remains.

So many acrobatics to discover what children have always known.

The relation of mutuality—in no way a moral good, in no way a duty—is maybe really a relationship between children.

https://sites.google.com/site/anarchyinitaly/canenero/children-s-thoughts

¿Y si perdiésemos la paciencia?

Muchos de los equívocos referentes a la gestión democrática del poder provienen, a mi parecer, de la ambigÜedad del concepto de consenso. Lo que sigue es un razonamiento actualmente difundido entre un buen número de anarquistas.

Cuando el fundamento de la sociedad de la dominación era visiblemente la brutalidad de la fuerza, el significado de las prácticas de revuelta resultaba evidente para los explotados. Si éstos no se rebelaban era precisamente porque el chantaje de la policía y el hambre les obligaba a la resignación y a la miseria. Contra ese chantaje por tanto, era necesario actuar con determinación. Hoy, por el contario, las instituciones del estado cuentan con la participación, dirigida, de las masas, puesto que una acuciante operación de condicionamiento les ha hecho consentir. Por este motivo la revuelta debe desplazarse al plano de la deslegitimación, de la erosión gradual y ascendente del consenso. Por tanto, sería a partir de esas pequeñas zonas en las que la presencia del poder no está legitimada, en las que está puesta entre paréntesis, por así decirlo, que se puede hacer crecer un proyecto de transformación social. De otra manera la rebelión se convierte en un actuar como fin en sí mismo, en el mejor de los casos un inútil e incomprendido gesto testimonial, en el peor una contribución a la represión y un peligroso alejamiento de las necesidades reales de los explotados. Ésta me parece la esencia de un discurso que viene frecuentemente adornado de mil maneras distintas.

Todo este razonamiento se basa en realidad en una premisa falsa, según la cual existiría una separación entre el consenso y la represión. Que el estado necesita de ambos instrumentos de control es algo evidente y creo que nadie incurre en el error de negarlo. Pero darse cuenta de que el poder no puede sostenerse solo con la policía o la televisión, no basta. Lo impotante es comprender en qué proporción están relacionadas entre sí.

Legitimación y coerción parecen ser condiciones distintas sólo si se considera el consenso como una especie de aparatoninmaterial que plasma la materialidad de la autoridad; en otras palabras, si se considera que la producción de una determinada actitud psicológica (la acepta)ción) se da en otro lugar distinto a las estructuras de explotación y de la imposición basadas a su vez en actitudes semejantes. Desde este punto de vista resulta irrelevante si esa producción viene de antes (como preparación) o después (como apología). Lo que interesa es que no se producen a la vez. Y es justo aquí donde se abre la separación de la que hablábamos.

En realidad, la división entre la esfera interior de la consciencia y la de la práctica de la acción, existe sólo en la cabeza (y en los proyectos) de los curas de todos los colores. Pero al final tembién ellos están obligados a otorgar un región terrenal a sus fantasías celestes. Como Descartes tuvo que inventar la glándula pineal como lugar donde reside el alma, así el burgués ha designado la propiedad privada como el feudo de su mísero yo santificado. De igual modo, el demócrata moderno, no sabiendo dónde ubicar el consenso, recurre a la simulación del voto y del sondeo. El último en llegar, el libertario a la altura de los tiempos sitúa la práctica deslegitimizadora en una "esfera pública no estatal" de misteriosos confines.

El consenso es una mercancía como lo es una hamburguesa o la necesidad de cárceles. Es más, la sociedad más totalitaria es la que sabe dar a las cadenas el color de la libertad, la mercancía por excelencia hoy en día. Si la represión más eficaz es la que anula el deseo mismo de rebelión, el consenso es represión preventiva, policía de las ideas y las decisiones. Su producción es tan material como la de los cuarteles y los supermercados. Los periódicos, la televisión y la publicidad son poder como lo son los bancos y los ejércitos.

Enfocando así el problema, resulta evidente que la denominada legitimación no es otra cosa que autoridad. El consenso es fuerza, y su imposición se ejercita desde estructuras concretas. Esto significa que puede ser atacado. De lo contrario chocaremos siempre con un fantasma que, cuando se hace visible, ya ha vencido. Nuestra posibilidad de actuar iría a la par que nuestra impotencia. Se puede golpear esta realización del poder, pero su legitimación llega siempre -de donde no se sabe- antes y después de mi ataque, para anular su sentido.Como se ve, de la manera de concebir la realidad de la dominación deriva la manera de concebir la revuelta. Y viceversa.

El hecho de que la participación en los proyectos del poder es cada vez mayor, la vida cotidiana está cada vez más colonizada, el hecho de que el urbanismo hace que el control policial sea en parte superfluo y la realidad virtual destruye todo diálogo; todo esto incrementa (ciertamente no la elimina) la necesidad de insurrección. Si tenemos que esperar a que todos se hagan anarquistas para hacer la revolución, decía Malatesta, vamos listos. Si tenemos que esperar a deslegitimar al poder para atacarlo, vamos listos. Pero los anhelantes, por suerte, son poco dados a la espera. Que perder, sólo tenemos la paciencia.

Massimo Passamani

CHILDREN’S THOUGHTS by Massimo Passamani

CHILDREN’S THOUGHTS

by

Massimo Passamani



Yes, I know, we are all against axioms, guarantees, certainties.

But can we really live without sharing our being against—without depending upon this sharing?

The search for identity is not always oriented toward the mass, toward the great crowds of followers. Even the small group can become our safe space. What’s more, the very refusal of every group and of any form of membership can construct its own arrogant, solitary radicality through the play of recognition.

My stubborn solitude is fed by what it opposes; it even—or maybe, above all—feeds on criticisms.



To appear to be against someone or something that seems to assume the features of authority—a charismatic person, a common truth—is not always an act of revolt. Its origins could be, for example, the desire to receive part of the light of that which one challenges by taking the role of challenger. As if saying: I beg you to notice that I have no leaders.



I believe that the reality of not being esteemed (which is to say valued and measured—even in the form of a certain hostility—by a group has greater significance in the renunciation of revolt than repression. And there is no resigned desistence that does not degenerate into resentment, quick to assemble in new, spiteful herds.



Two or three words, the same ones, repeated in some meeting, and there they are joining the discussion that unfailingly ensues, in hope that other words—two or three—will replace them.

All right, it is as you say, I am going too far. But doesn’t seem to you that this all consolidates the group and calcifies thought?

Starting from myself, what is said to me always seems so imprecise and reassuring, that hearing it continually repeated is frankly too much.



Deepening relations of affinity would have to mean making difference emerge (otherwise, on what do we base affinity?). And yet one doesn’t escape homogeneity (the fact that some anarchist use this word in a positive sense makes my head spin) by refusing conferences, membership cards and other blatantly formal fixations.

The mechanisms—I hesitate to say rhythms, but perhaps they really are rhythms—, the rhythms, then, of participation and compromise stress our lives well beyond measure. Thinking for ourselves, as Lessing expressed it, is never the outcome.



What would the desire to rebuild be if it never leads us to destruction? What would it be if it anchored us to the role of destroyer?

Gottfried Benn said that the one who loves the ruins also loves the statues. And with regard to statues, Benn, it was understood.



Perhaps it is anxiety about the future that transforms individuals into puppets of a group. A life considering needs a solid basis. Obedience and calculation live under the sign of an eternal tomorrow.

But aren’t ideas—coagulants of language—giving us the awareness of time?

Thought is born only when desire grows pale. Living the moment, the immediacy of existence, completely, does one have no future, does one have no time—does one have no ideas?



If all values collapse (is it possible?), only “because it pleases me, that’s why” remains.

So many acrobatics to discover what children have always known.

The relation of mutuality—in no way a moral good, in no way a duty—is maybe really a relationship between children.


--from
Willful Disobedience Vol. 2, No. 12:

Like a Church --Massimo Passamani

LIKE IN CHURCH

by

Massimo Passamani



A known and hospitable place. I think that for the most part this is the image we have of the assembly. We read in a journal or on a poster that there is a meeting, a debate, and we find ourselves seated, almost always in a circle (perhaps in homage to the Enlightenment idea of "Encyclopedia", that really means circular learning), waiting for someone to introduce and elucidate the topic for us. If the theme of the discussion is specific enough, we are convinced that expertise is required and so participation is quite limited. On the other hand, if it is a bit broader and more complex, everyone has her say without any deference. And yet in the end, one always remains a bit frustrated.

This is because, whatever is actually being discussed that, upon consideration, encourages to take part, the assembly in which it takes place is viewed as external, a well from which one draws, and, for the most part, draws little. In this way, the criticism is focused on the assembly and never on one's own participation.

Of course, we meet with people with whom we get along and do projects and initiatives outside the debates, but participation in an assembly as such is not the outcome of an inquiry and a ripened interest. There is hardly any element of continuity between the various meetings, the reflections that precede them and those that follow them. Just as no one asks us first what the topic of discussion means for us, so also there is little to remind us of it afterwards. At any rate, if one were to organize a meeting on the some topic after some time had passed, the discussion would start over again, each one giving a monologue in company.

In my opinion, this is not merely due to the insufficient determination of those who participate passively in the assemblies (even the act of speaking can be an element of passivity), but to something a bit deeper. In order to discuss together-in a meeting atmosphere, because in more limited contexts the discussion changes-it is necessary to have a determined set of words in common. The further one goes beyond the sphere of the specialty, the less one has to say. The proper words are lacking. This can be verified in many ways. If we take sufficiently specific contexts-let's say that of anarcho-syndicalism or the occupation of spaces-and, for fun, proclaim the ten words that so often form the language and mental universe of those who are involved in them, we realize that one couldn't even write a flyer. Maybe someone will say I exaggerate. Perhaps. But I am certain that they are the very words that they do not manage to find when they encounter topics of a more general range.

Though it may seem strange, another limit is the necessity to perceive the immediately expedient twists and turns of the discussion at all costs. To achieve this aim that is somewhat forced, thought cannot always be freely developed. Ideas have need of empty space in which to move. And I believe that it is from this very emptiness that a real practice of liberation is born, a void that often brings rending where we thought the most solid unity existed.

As long as we meet to confront, let us say, more theoretical questions, delegation is reduced to a mere lack of deepening (which phenomena of charisma and subordination can determine) but when there are important decisions to be made that presuppose knowledge of the subjects upon which the possible choices bear, anyone who has a greater knowledge of the matter has the power to direct the discussion. Or rather, considering the disparity of knowledge and the precise will to impose one's resolutions, there is no better environment than this in which to meet. In the long run, the technique of participation obtains better results than what one would get through unilateral propaganda or with the ex cathedra lecture.

Power is really seeking to take away our words and our critical capacity to reflect in order to then give us the possibility of expressing our opinion on everything.

Nothing more can come to us from assemblies than what each of us as individuals strives to put into them. At best, those intuitions that our personal exploration suggests to us could be developed.

When there is no openness to listening, that is to say, to paying attention to new realms of thought, of one's own thought, we will always find ourselves saying the same things, whatever the topic of discussion may be.

Anchored to our faith like in a church (the name of which comes, perhaps not by chance, from the Greek ecclesia, that means, precisely, assembly), we repeat our rituals in order to go on back to our houses with little questioned as always. Until the next discussion.

from
Willful Disobedience Vol. 3, No. 2:

Más, mucho más (Massimo Passamani) Ediciones Intemperie

Desde que Conspiración de Células del Fuego iniciase sus ataques y sus comunicados explicando su concepción de una tercera vía revolucionaria (nihilista-individualista, frente a la social y la insurreccional) son bastantes los debates que se han generado a su alrededor. Si bien no han sido los primeros, ni mucho menos, en pensar y actuar de esta forma, sí han sido los primeros en articular un discurso, apoyado en una poderosa práctica, muy coherente y extenso. Sus críticas han sido muy certeras y sus acciones, como no podía ser de otra forma, también. Pero hasta qué punto nos puedan ser útiles sus ideas y prácticas es cosa a ver en el tiempo que tenemos por delante. Por el momento, otrxs ya han cogido el relevo, y lxs que se han declarado miembros del grupo en prisión continúan con decisión y firmeza su acción (desde negarse a participar del juicio farsa revocando a sus abogados e insultar a lxs lacayxs del Sistema durante el juicio hasta atacar a los enemigos de la libertad en prisión).

Para contribuir al debate dejo un texto del ámbito anarquista insurreccional italiano en que se cuestiona la dicotomía pasividad-banda armada. Un artículo publicado en la revista Canenero hace unos años y publicado en castellano en forma de libreto recopilatorio de varios artículos de reflexión, 'El desorden de la libertad', de Ediciones Intemperie.

Los administradores de la pasividad han impuesto siempre una falsa alternativa: o inmovilismo o banda armada. Cualquiera que escape de los roles de la normalidad debe entrar a la fuerza en los de la emergencia. El juego tiene sus reglas: o se acepta el poder o se limita. Todo esto, además de para el poder, es de gran utilidad para quienes aún declarándose revolucionarios quieren edificar un nuevo Estado. ‘Sin poder militar no hay poder político’ era la divisa no hace muchos años. Y poder militar no sólo implica una organización jerárquica y autoritaria que transforma a los individuos en soldados, sino que es además la representación de una contraposición entre Estado y partido armado que querría hacer de nosotros simples espectadores, inocuos hinchas prestos a hacer masa en torno a uno u otro contendiente, el más fuerte de los cuales, el Estado, se asegura la victoria.
El terreno común de este enfrentamiento representado es el del sacrificio y el eslogan, la especialización y la ideología. Y la pérdida de todo placer y autonomía, la negación de todo proyecto apasionante de subversión. Es la separación producida entre la vida cotidiana y la transformación de lo existente, la fragmentación de la totalidad y la sustitución por un presunto centro a conquistar y –como una imagen invertida- al que contraponerse. Sin poder militar no hay poder político. Exacto. ¿Y los anarquistas? Si se quiere destruir el poder político, ¿qué hacer con el poder militar? Nada. O mejor, hacer con él medida en negativo de la coherencia entre nuestra teoría y nuestra práctica.
Estos razonamientos parecen ligados a una realidad, la de los años setenta, hoy extinta. Ejercicios de memoria histórica, les suelen llamar. Y sin embargo resurgen ahora de la mano de la tan bufonesca como infame fiscalía de Roma. Si el objeto de este montaje judicial[1] fuese sólo reprimir a los anarquistas arrestados y, más en general, al resto de investigados, el razonamiento serviría al único fin de desmontar las manifiestamente absurdas acusaciones lanzadas por los jueces. Pero no es sólo eso. Los jueces saben bien que no existe la organización anarquista de la que hablan. Saben que el modelo de banda armada –obtenido mirándose en el espejo- no lo pueden aplicar a las relaciones reales entre anarquistas. Individuos que se juntan sobre la base de la afinidad, esto es, partiendo de la diferencia y desarrollando iniciativas sin formalizar sus uniones; individuos que se organizan, cierto, pero nunca de manera rígida o vertical, no pueden ser una ‘banda armada’. Y no sólo porque rechazan la clandestinidad (rechazo significativo, en cualquier caso), sino porque no aceptan encuadrarse –ni tampoco por tanto siglas ni programas- en una estructura que hace del enfrentamiento armado una realidad separada de la totalidad subversiva. Nada de esto cambia si algún anarquista, individualmente y asumiendo sus propias responsabilidades, decide usar armas. Pero incluso si todos los acusados, o incluso todos los anarquistas del mundo hubieran –además de escribir, debatir, hacer el amor, pegar carteles, insultar a sus jefes, desertar del trabajo, ocupar espacios, saquear mercancías- usado armas, tampoco esto haría de ellos una ‘banda armada’. Es el poder quien necesita inventarla. Pero como decíamos, el problema no se puede reducir a esta cuestión, hacerlo significa comprender de manera parcial el proyecto represivo del Estado.
Lo que los jueces pretenden promover es, una vez más, la idea de que fuera de la supervivencia y la espera sólo está la organización armada. Así, una vez consumado miserablemente el espectáculo de los partidos combatientes, se pone fuera de juego cualquier discurso insurreccional. Todo el que quiera insurrección es en el fondo un leninista enmascarado (en este sentido la teoría policial de los ‘dos niveles’ es una auténtica joya[2]); el cambio sólo puede ser gradual –so pena de convertirse en ‘terrorista’-, esto es, democrático. Del objetivo inmediato de parar por el mayor tiempo posible a una docena de anarquistas, se pasa al de –este bastante más serio- acabar con toda la tensión subversiva, todo ataque al Estado y el Capital. Esto afecta a todos, y ningún anarquista puede sentirse a salvo. Por suerte la insurrección no es lo que los órganos represivos querrían que fuese.
En un mundo en el que las fuerzas de la dominación y la alienación son cada vez más solidarias entre ellas, en el que la producción de mercancías, el control totalitario del espacio, la fabricación publicitaria de falsas necesidades y la negación sistemática de los deseos son elementos inseparables de un mismo proceso; en tal mundo de terror, la insurrección tiene cada vez más la concreción de la totalidad y el gozo de la impaciencia. No existe ningún centro de esta sociedad del trabajo, y de las clases, de la jerarquía y del deber, que se pueda asaltar. Y es por esto que los amos de la separación nos quieren encerrar en una banda, para sustituir el cambio real por su imagen embustera.
Un proyecto revolucionario es un movimiento colectivo de realización individual o no es nada. O implica, como dijo Fourier, un ensalzamiento inmediato del placer de vivir, o es falso. Quien se erige en especialista de las armas es un enemigo. La fiesta revolucionaria no es una ‘lucha armada’, porque es mucho más. La transformación subversiva es más amplia, consciente y apasionante y el enfrentamiento militar es menos necesario. Es la pasividad lo que crea la lucha armada, y viceversa. El teorema del Estado por tanto está al revés. Del control político y sindical, del embellecimiento reformista de la miseria cotidiana, nace la falsa necesidad de la banda armada. De la teoría práctica de la insurrección nace por el contrario la acción creadora, la poesía de la vida que liquida la obediencia a los amos, que une en la diferencia y arma a todos contra el poder, el sacrificio y el aburrimiento. Y los deseos armados pondrán el mundo patas arriba.
Como ven, señores jueces, el juego es mucho más peligroso.

[1] Se refiere al montaje Marini.
[2] Para la fiscalía romana los anarquistas encausados desarrollarían actividades ‘públicas’ como publicación de libros o periódicos, asistencia a asambleas, etc, como coartada para sus actividades terroristas. Se vino a denominar ‘teoría de los dos niveles’.

http://www.amotinadxs.blogspot.com/2011/04/mas-mucho-mas.html

MORE MUCH MORE-A collection of writings by Italian insurrectionary anarchist Massimo Passamani.

A collection of writings by Italian insurrectionary anarchist Massimo Passamani.

Untorelli Press
untorelli (at) riseup.net
untorellipress.noblogs.org

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http://zinelibrary.info/files/more.pdf

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http://zinelibrary.info/files/more-imposed.pdf

THE BACK SIDE OF HISTORY: By Massimo Passamani

THE BACK SIDE OF HISTORY

By

Massimo Passamani



Putting the past back in play in order to make an adventure of the future. I believe that the reasons for keeping past theoretical and practical experiences from becoming material for historians are contained in this perspective.

History is always the history of the masters, and this is not just because, as is well known, they are the ones who write it, but also because this world, their world, forces us to look at it through its own eyes. The organizers of obedience have always used the past for police and propaganda purposes, but this did not keep them from knowing it. On the contrary, precisely this knowledge has allowed power to unite events in the coherence of control, sacrifice and repression. For the past to carry out its function as an argument for the current society, it is necessary, as a minimum, to know what to remove, which is to say, the most significant reasons and episodes of the struggles of the exploited – everything that history presents merely as defeats. The exploited, on the contrary, have rarely been able to rescue history from a dull chronology – or a calendar vision with so many dates to celebrate – in order to find another coherence for it, that of revolt, and so to understand the motives, the most radical moments, the limits of the latter.

The apologists for domination have obviously not given up rewriting the past, but they are increasingly unfamiliar with it. In a world where one responds to every cause for malaise with a remedy that is even worse and that guarantees only the complete irresponsibility of the one who applies it; where the passivity of work is extended into “free time” through the contemplation of a screen (television or the computer); in which the masters themselves – powerful because of the submission that is conceded to them in the hope that they, at least, know where this world is going – are that much more self-assured because they have increasingly made the law “as long as it lasts” their own – in such an idiotic world that desires eternity, the past has no meaning. Now, if, on the one hand, this reinforces the totalitarianism of the present society (outside of me there is nothing), on the other hand, it renders its administrators more stupid. For the moment, since they can allow it. The intelligence – even historical – of a strategy of preservation is proportional to the dangers of revolt.

On the same level (here is why I said that one looks at history with the eyes of the masters), even subversives have felt “freer” once relieved of the weight of knowledge of the past. This is the idea that history (not just that of specialists, but even that which does not separate ideas and actions, that is written out of desire and that arms the intelligence) ends up imprisoning life. What goes unnoticed is just how historical this idea is. (What is the difference whether a reflection originates from reading what someone has said or whether it originates in knowing what someone has done? Let’s think of it as so many individuals together. Why is the first reflection considered, for example “philosophy”, while the second is considered “history”? In my opinion, there is no distinction.) Paraphrasing a well known aphorism, one can only say that the present ignorance has retroactive value. Now, this ignorance has many faces, if, as is evident, its distributors are, above all, the historians (including those “of the movement”).

So as not to go on for too long, it is enough to consider all the advertising noise with regard to a film on the Spanish revolution. To many anarchists this did not seem right. At last, the black and red banner, the revolutionary union, the collectives, self-management, Durutti. Now, to tell the truth, we ourselves are speaking.

Personally, to make myself clear, I have nothing against the discussions and books about the Spanish revolution. But has all this talk about it contributed to making us understand this distant event better (and this “better”, for anarchists, would have to be in the sense of a current perspective)? Frankly, I don’t think so. It seems to me, on the contrary, to contribute more to mummification, to testimonial, to monumental history. As often occurs, the occasion predetermined the contents. Books on libertarian revolution have increased. And yet, what does one say about a revolutionary movement – not just Spanish – like that of the 1930’s? What would self-management of the factories mean now? What do we do about unions? To which places of capital could an insurrectional conception now be linked? How do we create the possibilities so that in the revolutionary moment it passes suddenly, without transition, to the destruction or radical transformation of these places? What does it mean, in reality, to overthrow authority, what does it mean to abolish the market? Only by posing questions like these does discussion of revolutionary Spain take on significance. Only in this way does it become an open question in itself. But one can understand little if one looks to it as the realization, however temporary, of an ideal. With such an approach, all that is left to do is to distribute the small images of the saints. And then, for this celebration, it is necessary to dress up the events (even the bureaucratic control and the counter-revolution of leading “anarchists”) in their Sunday best. Why, for example, is so little known about the days of May 1937 in Barcelona? Why does no one speak of the calls from the uncontrollables who said that the “anarchist” ministers were reactionaries like all the rest, and that it was necessary to shoot them as well, just like all the others?

A few pages of history says more than an entire encyclopedia when the theoretical suggestion for a practice of reinventing it is read into the events themselves. One need only read in this way to know it. It would then be interesting to really reflect on the dirty tricks and the mistakes (and also on the splendid, joyous strengths) of those days. To connect those days to other insurrections and to other errors. To connect them to the present. To give an example, one could reread the history of insurrectional movements through the fracture – moral rather than police-related – represented by money (one thinks of the refusal to attack banks, starting from the Paris Commune, passing through revolutionary Spain, ending up at the French May [1968]; or, on the other hand, of the expropriations by workers in insurgent Patagonia in the 1930’s). Just as one can read it under the subterranean sign of gratuity and of the festival, or of amorous relationships. Or, or…

But those who attack property, silence leaders and shake up current social relationships without any aims, what might they tell us about individuals who tried to do this yesterday, the day before, or seventy years ago?

from
Willful Disobedience
Volume 4, number 3-4, Fall-Winter 2003