[Edited excerpts from a reply to a reply to the previous article.]
PUBLICITY OF THE ORGANISATION AND
THE ORGANISATION OF PUBLICITY
The Animal remains a Paper Tiger
Reply to the reply from Animal.
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[…]
For a start, Animal’s whole
response is written as if the article is the work of Aufheben – yet
this is obviously not true, as its clearly stated at the top of the page that
this is an Intake – coming from outside their group. So all
criticism based on the idea that Paper Tiger was written by an
intellectual is mistaken; like everyone else I have an intellect that I
sometimes use, but that does not make me an intellectual. Its not my job
or defining social role. Its not even true that Aufheben are just
intellectuals uninvolved in real struggles (but they are quite able to defend
themselves and I’ll deal with my own criticisms of them further on). But even
if it had been written by an “intellectual” that wouldn’t in itself
invalidate all criticisms; you can’t try to dodge difficult questions by
tagging dismissive labels on to those who ask them or assume that CW’s
supposed working class pedigree always ultimately wins the argument. Which is
not to say that intellectuals don’t need criticising…
The “stillborn” article is
written as if only middle class intellectuals would make these kind of
criticisms – ignoring the fact that some of them were also made inside
CW during its history (but were not allowed to surface publicly).
The Animal reply continually
distorts what I actually said in my article; or asks me to defend things
I never said. It also asks questions whose answers can easily be found in my
original article. Some examples; Animal asks for an example of “occasions
when the group orthodoxy became an obstacle to action”. Well, one example
is given in the first footnote on the first page in the quote from an ex-CW
member;”…the leadership… managed to impose its diversions: At the end
of the miners’ strike…no revolutionary critique of the NUM was published for
fear of putting off the miners…” even though there were those in
CW who saw the necessity for such a critique. And the Bash The Rich March was
another example; a pretended attack preventing a real one occurring. They ask “Do
you really think you can organise anything effectively without
publicising it?” Of course you can – if CW really wanted to go
into Hampstead and do some bashing they could have quite easily have secretly
organised it amongst themselves, gone in and done it and disappeared into the
night.
But instead they organised a big publicity stunt, thereby forewarning the cops
and media, and were prevented from even entering Hampstead – as CW must have
known would happen. But the real goal of the event was achieved –
CW’s lifeblood, publicity of the organisation and the organisation of
publicity. […]
But the most
revealing thing about the Animal reply is that as they try to refine and
justify the logic of their position they only expose more of their own
contradictions; for instance, while claiming that CW have always encouraged the
working class to realise that “the rich are always greedy selfish gits” CW
were always ready to suck up to and praise various soap (Lofty) and pop stars
such as Joe Strummer – whose early presence in Notting Hill encouraged the
gentrification of the area – as long as CW could gain more publicity from it. “The
Rock Against The Rich Tour” starring the extremely rich bastard Strummer
trying to revive both his and CW’s flagging career and fading pseudo-rebel
image – pathetic. And a recent issue of Animal continues this with an
article slavishly praising super rich footballer Eric Cantona, basically because
he mouthed a few vague liberal sentiments saying that poverty and inequality are
bad. No criticism is made of his extreme wealth and exclusive lifestyle, his
advertising appearances (for products of Third World sweatshops) and his readiness to
play his part in the star system that reinforces this hierarchical society.
Where do CW think these celebrities invest their vast fortunes? In business and
trade, meaning investing in the exploitation of the working class. Presumably CW
are happy to ignore all this because one of their present campaign bandwagons is
for a better deal for football supporters – and they don’t want to alienate
potential recruits from the terraces by dissing their heroes. Footballers (along
with many other sport and music stars) get much of their influence from the fact
that most of them are from working class backgrounds and therefore represent one
of the few escape routes to wealth and fame. You can’t say anything very
meaningful or useful about football (or the rest of culture) without dealing
with these kind of contradictions. But CW, so desperate to popularise
themselves, are too afraid to criticise what is popular with the sections of the
working class they want to recruit from, so instead they opportunistically
ignore these contradictions. But by pretending they don’t exist they reinforce
them… “It’s the old con. Present yourselves as allies of what’s going
on (which means opportunistically refraining from what you know to be its
weaknesses), and hope to add your “political dimension” once
you’ve won confidence and been accepted as knowing the business.”
(Anarchism Exposed, London 1985).
According to CW, “if you’re not
popular you’re nothing.” So
their politics are always going to be led and defined by the other far stronger
forces in society that determine what is immediately popular. Tail-ending the
dominant media and cultural forces is not much of a recipe for autonomous class
struggle or a radical critique of such forces.
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CW’s tabloid populism was a triumph of
style over substance and form over content. Creating genuinely subversive
relationships amongst even a minority (whether through writing or whatever
activity) is ultimately worth far more than all CW’s fleeting moments of media
attention and popularity. The theory that has been shown to have any lasting
value is not at all that which was immediately the most popular – when times
of upheaval arrive this becomes clear. CW seem to think about tabloidism and
fame the same way others mistakenly think about Parliament
- that it’s a neutral form which, if it only had the right people
installed in it with the right ideas, then it would cease to have any harmful
effect and become beneficial. But the form to a large degree determines
the content and traps people in pre-determined, static social relationships.
Which leads to CW’s simplistic analysis, opportunism etc.
Of course we should try to express
ourselves as clearly as possible. But there is a contradiction that has to be
dealt with – much of what is known as “common sense” is the medium or
currency for the circulation of the taken-for-granted dominant values of this
society. To express the subversive through language it is sometimes necessary to
use words that have retained a clearer meaning through less use. Everyday
language is a terrain largely occupied by the enemy: we tend to speak the
language of our masters. (A beautiful example of a counter-tendency to this
occurred in the 1992 LA Riot when the rioters coined the phrase “image
looters” to describe the media: a neat reversal of perspective.)
In a world where appearances and the truth
of things almost never coincide theory is necessary to penetrate the lies. This
society encourages a fragmented consciousness that craves only immediacy
in its consumption (e.g. tabloidism). But a partially understood text that
resists complete immediate understanding may not be just unnecessarily
dense and wordy. It may be that it has a depth, subtlety and value that is worth
pursuing. And it may grasp and reflect
more accurately the real complexities of class society. “I assume of
they will be readers who will be prepared to think while they are reading.”
– Marx on ‘Capital’.
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Animal say we are wrong to say that “the
desired effect of all populist journalism (of whatever creed) is to suspend
critical thought on the part of the reader and to reduce choices of opinion down
to a simple duality – good/bad, black/white – through a simplistic
representation of reality…” because, according to Animal, “it
implies that people are already capable of critical thought which is gradually
closed down (can younger people immediately read well?)…” This is more
of CW’s patronising attitude revealed – why is the ability to think
critically automatically identified with being able to already read well? A
strangely elitist intellectual view.
CW’s idea of theory/critical
thought as something separate and external to the working class that they have
to learn from reading and more “educated” people (such as CW of course) is
influenced by Paulo Freire, whose book they quote from at length. CW are always
ready to throw the accusation of “intellectual”
at those they see as their rivals and critics in the political arena, yet they
rarely if ever attack the role of the professional intellectual and their
ideas.
Freire puts a libertarian gloss on his ideas by saying that educators and
educated should work together in creating “educational projects”; the
educators are middle class radicals and/or the “the revolutionary
leadership” and the educated the ignorant masses incapable of liberating
themselves by their own efforts alone. Freire praises the Stalinist regimes of
Cuba and China as fine examples of his theories being practiced! (p. 36, p. 75,
p. 145-6 – Penguin 1996 edition.) And according to Animal, “what Class
War does is in the same league as Paulo Freire”, this great friend
and defender of these butchers and dictators. Freire, the Stalinists – and
apparently CW – all share the belief that they are the necessary bearers of
consciousness that the working class lacks.
The Stalinists and other leftists use this belief as a justification for their
leadership and authority over the working class. Animal are using it as a
justification for CW’s populist style – either way, it’s elitist bullshit.
CW seem unaware that throughout their lives
people use critical thought to make decisions and form opinions - the schoolkids
who turned their school chemistry labs into Molotov-cocktail factories during
the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 didn’t need to “read well” to be capable
of critical thought” and practice it. Neither did the peasants, mostly
illiterate, who created the Mexican Revolution. And the slave revolts?
The working class can use various sources
critically in the development of its own theory – but it has to be a
process located in people’s own activity and circumstances. Theory is not a
product of intellectuals that can be taken ready-made off the shelf of the
ideological supermarket. Nor can theory and consciousness be reduced to verbal
and written forms of expression. Acts of solidarity and subversion, writing and
discussions, spontaneity and reflection – all are components of the expression
and development of theory.
Animal talk about theory as if it is a
body of written knowledge that can be learned off by heart and mastered – a
typical bourgeois and leftist assumption. This “theory” is really only
ideology – a set of fixed ideas, congealed eternal truths – “ideas that
serve masters” very well as party lines and group orthodoxies.
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The letters from prisoners that Animal
quotes show that CW is doing some useful prisoner support work. Animal
preface the letters with a long quote from the Freire book. (The quotes are not
actually Freire’s words at all, but are from the foreword by R. Shaull.) They
say that CW, like Freire, work on the basis of “dialogical encounters with
others” where these others, when provided by CW “with the proper
tools for such encounter, the individual can gradually perceive … reality as
well as the contradictions in it, become conscious of his or her own perception
of reality, and deal critically with it”. A very touching image of CW
kindly providing us all “with the proper tools” for “ becoming
conscious”.
Bet you weren’t so explicitly patronising in your “dialogical encounters”
with the prisoners whose letters you quote.
The letters show that the prisoners are
grateful for the help and support that CW provide – and all due respect goes
to CW for doing so. But if CW are trying to claim that the letters are examples
of how, in a Freire-like fashion, the prisoner “comes to a new awareness”
and how their “eyes have been opened” due to their contact with CW
then this is just unconvincing (and probably gives a worse view of CW’s
prisoner support work than it deserves). Having read the full letters you sent
to us, its clear that the prisoners’ hatred of authority, the rich, the system
etc is a result of their real experiences, the struggles they have lived – and
are positions they had developed long before they had any “encounter”
with CW. Most other groups doing similar work could produce similar letters. The
letters prove only that the prisoners are grateful and see CW as being on their
side – and nothing else. And there’s little evidence of a “critical
dialogue” going on.
It seems odd that CW should choose these
letters as supposed evidence of their educating efforts and popularity. After
all, prisoners mainly doing long stretches, (armed robbers and the like), in
isolated conditions whose main form of contact with the outside world is via
letter writing – these are hardly the most typical representatives of the
working class. But then even in the heyday of its 15 minutes of fame the CW
paper was always a bit short of letters from their readers. CW even felt obliged
to sometimes make them up – as was admitted in their Internal Bulletin
(no. 18, Minutes of delegate meeting). Again, creation of the right image being
more important than honesty.
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Even on its own terms, the populist
strategy has failed. Most of the shrinking CW Federation were eventually forced
to admit the absurdity of a populism that is less and less popular. The decline
and split of CW is a reflection of the double-edged apathy towards politics
amongst the working class; a healthy cynicism towards all the political rackets
that claim to represent others - but also a resignation
and acceptance of conditions born of the defeats of the past 15 years.
CW could at least be seen as a (voluntarist)
attempt to assert a collective class identity and subjectivity when all such
subjectivity is being crushed under the weight of isolation and uniformity being
imposed on social relations. (In this sense society is more totalitarian now
than ever). To retain any meaningful subjectivity is to retain a point of
view – and the ability to act on it. The old forms of struggle and
communication have been outmanoeuvred and the working class have yet to
adequately create new ones. The tragedy is that CW have tried to resist these
developments by adopting the same methods that created them – marketing of
politics, simplistic “analysis”, tabloidism etc. (Described in more detail
in my original article).
CW constantly compare themselves favourably
to the rest of the Left. Yet Militant in the 1980’s and early 90’s
had a far better claim to the popularity, influence and membership among the
working class that CW dreamed of and still seek – and their politics were
still total crap. Which only goes to show the limits of populism and the appeal
of simplistic solutions and mechanical activism. [….]
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·
- ACATAC
- Summer 2000
A Class Act To Abolish
Classes