Some comments on “activism” from the article ‘The Arms of Exploitation: On development and technology’ in issue two of A Murder of Crows: For social war and the subversion of daily life (worth a read).
Since [the Interstate 69 Highway project] was merely in the preliminary stages, activity against it lulled. In 2002 though, when the State of Indiana was deciding which route to pick for the I-69, opponents participated in state-sponsored public forums, sent letters to their representatives, and on one occasion presented over 125,000 signatures against the planned route to the governor’s office. Once the official route was picked in January 2003, there was further letter writing, an Earth First! banner-that-failed-to-even-unravel drop, and in late 2004, members of environmental and citizen’s groups gave the new governor anti-I-69 literature in the hopes he would consider their alternative plan. Hilarious.
All of these tactics read straight from the citizen activist’s handbook; it could be any issue, and the list of activities would read the same: letter writing, petitioning, symbolic protests, dialogue with state officials, and of course mandatory whining, begging and grovelling. The types of tactics, promoted by the state, capitalists and micro-politicians, serve to undermine social conflict, to transform it into am easily manageable situation where “the people” work together with “their representatives” to come to an agreement. After all, we’re all on the same team.
In addition, this model presents further problems. Without going into a lengthy critique of activism, it suffices to say that activism is an historical social-construct, meaning that like everything else in this world, it is a product of a particular time period and of particular social relations. Housewives, police, and activists are social categories that serve particular roles in this society. Activists fulfil the role of specialists in social change who intervene in conflicts in order to act as representatives of the people involved and as those who also represent the conflict to the media. It is not a matter of ill-intentions, but rather a matter of social roles. Activists are politicians, albeit on a smaller scale.
Therefore as specialists in the field of social change, it should come as no surprise that activists further specialise in a particular niche, in the same way an academic carves out some obscure area of study in order to make his or herself more valuable. Rather than attacking the social order, activism is a practice that focuses on “solving” various problems and issues that have their roots in the same system that activists work within. Whatever conflict they are involved in, they in turn reduce them to preordained categories that fit perfectly within a framework that is easily digestible for the media and easily defused by the state. Thus in the fight against I-69, various groups were formed to oppose only parts of the plan: its effects on the environment, the “unwise” and “inefficient” use of taxpayer money, its effects of rural residents and so on. These ignore the fundamental causes and overall role of the I-69 extension and play into the hands of politicians who can cater to these partial critiques. They took a diverse area of social conflict and fragmented it into many issues in order to effectively manage the situation.
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June 15, 2007 at 12:04 am
guerilla
very interesting, so how would a group move outside of that in a campaign in say aotearoa?
June 15, 2007 at 11:12 am
Sam Buchanan
“Rather than attacking the social order, activism is a practice that focuses on “solving” various problems and issues that have their roots in the same system that activists work within.”
So if you ARE atttacking the social order, you are not an “activist”? What exactly does this mean? It just seems to be either an intellectual word game or a call to retreat from political organising for a lifestylist approach.
June 15, 2007 at 11:43 am
anarchafairy
Hi Guerilla,
It may also be of interest to check out a critique of activism from a number of years ago in Do or Die, and its follow up. These critiques are derived, in part, from the Situationist International and in particular the work of Raoul Vaneigem in his book The Revolution of Everyday Life, and are closely tied up with their notion of the totality.
Take Happy Valley for example: This is treated strictly as an environmental campaign, occasionally (but seperately) as a campaign concerned with indigenous land rights, and more recently a campaign calling for “responsible” SOE practices (I mean, wtf??). In separating the campaign out into these constituent parts the underlying unity and totality is hidden. Indeed, the fact that this campaign is characterised as being simply environmental has stopped any decent critique of of the general social relations that make environmental degradation commonplace, that were the basis for iwi dispossession, etc. Happy Valley should be a campaign not simply aimed stopping one mine (and thus functioning so as to better manage the environment under the relations of capital) but rather as a campaign which tries to push the critique to its logical limits.
The campaign similarly shouldn’t seek to “solve” the problem, as if stopping one mine could ever be considered a solution. It should, rather, seek to draw out social conflict and push that to its limits and hope that this could, one day, lead to a radical break with the current social relations.
To quote Vaneigem:
“In a caricature of antagonisms, power urges everyone to be for or against Brigitte Bardot, the nouveau roman, the 4-horse Citroën, Italian cuisine, mescal, miniskirts, the UN, the classics, nationalization, thermonuclear war and hitchhiking. Everyone is asked their opinion about every detail in order to prevent them from forming one about the totality.“
June 15, 2007 at 11:50 am
anarchafairy
Sam said:
So if you ARE atttacking the social order, you are not an “activist”? What exactly does this mean? It just seems to be either an intellectual word game or a call to retreat from political organising for a lifestylist approach.
It’s a critique of the specialised role of activism, as separated from the rest of society. And it’s a critique of activism that functions so as recuperate dissent into (partial) solutions within the existing framework of capital, and thus serve to prolong the social role of activist. They would compare the role of activist with the revolutionary, which (should) have as its aim either the dissolution of itself as a category, or the expansion of the category so as to include everyone (both are the same).
This critique is especially obvious when directed at professional activist organisations, like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, etc. But the insightful aspect is precisely how much the same critique applies to those who entertain radical ideas.
Oh, and I’m not even dealing with your second sentence (I mean honestly? lifestylism?? …such a throwaway word).
June 15, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Sam Buchanan
It’s only a ‘throwaway’ word if you use it as such. I was using it to describe the position of rejecting political organising in favour of finding ways to live one’s life in a way that comes closer to one’s ideals. What’s wrong with that usage?
This seems to be one of those critiques which picks out a word – in this case ‘activism’ and ascribes to it all the characteristics the author dislikes, you then ascribe positive characteristics to a differnt word (revolutionary).
The question for revolutionaries, as you describe them, is what to do if they find themselves in a specialised role, given everyone else may not want to take on that role, nor will revolutionaries find much value in their own dissolution into the rest of society.
June 16, 2007 at 3:41 am
Scott
‘the fact that this campaign is characterised as being simply environmental has stopped any decent critique of of the general social relations that make environmental degradation commonplace’
But you don’t need to wade through a lot of Situationism to make this point. It’s related to certain tendencies in the green movement and amongst the liberal left, surely? I had a rant about this, a couple of years ago:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2004/08/give-coasters-break.html
Since 2004 a number of radical young enviro-activists seem to have gravitated towards politics that place more emphasis on class, gotten involved with unions etc
On the other hand, the Green Party has moved further and further to the right, to the point where a deal with National in 2008 is a real possibility.
June 19, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Omar
Activist vs. Social Warrior as our Insurrectionist comrades divide the movement is just a slight deviation on the Reformist vs. Revolutionary debate that has been going for centuries. I personally feel the distinction is important but we must go beyond it. We must embody activism and social war into our theory and action.
It’s nice of our insurrectionist comrades to update the debate with new examples and some thoughtprovoking critique, but it must be understood within the context that insurrectionists advocate SPONTANEOUS social rebellion.
Being part of revolutionary organisations and supporting revolutionary movements (such as the anti-monarchy Tongan movement and the Zapatistas) must go hand in hand with our reformist activism whether it be in union work, anti-deportation struggles, eco-campaigns or the anti-war movement.
However I feel that “social warrior” or “insurrectionary” is just as confining and specialised definition that can only be done long term in non-revolutionary times by a tiny elite.
June 28, 2007 at 11:19 am
guerilla
i would imagine then it would be important for environmentalists (for lack of a better word) in aotearoa support Tuhoe and indigenous struggles that involve the environment as one of its issues. Rio Tinto wants to do seabed mining, Solid Energy wants as much coal as it can carry and those are just two companies with full state support.
This is not mexico we do not have an insurrection or anything more than strong activist and community groups. However in the pacific there is, and in the past there has been very strong movements in aotearoa. I think we need broader participation, and wider goals – like you said going after more than one mine, going after more than mines.