Emancipation Notes
27th June, 2000
What Is To Be Done in a Real, Concrete, Material World?
One thing is for sure: NOT to Work, NOT to Labour! But, What Then?
Well, if we have nothing else than work to do, if we
know nothing else than toiling, then
the problem is solved. However, unfortunately, this
is not our case!
Hence, as was the case in previous chats, we have to
differentiate between
toiling Alienation and active Emancipation, between
alienating Work or Labour and emancipatory Acting or Doing.
Certainly, we could learn something from friendly, loving, beautiful Mother Nature, but not from maltreated, cruel, brutal Father Nature, in other words, not from "human" nature.
Not everything around us, which cannot "speak" or "think" is necessarily Mother Nature. From street dogs, domesticated bourgeois cats, Beverly Hills poodles, police dogs, definitely we can not learn anything about acting, about naturally doing something.
How lovingly, charmingly, we relate to insects, plants,
trees, animals and our Crew, determine their
re-actions, their re-lations, also the inter-relations,
emancipatory acts.
We all know how lovingly cats or dogs behave, act,
when we are natural, historical to them. And all this has nothing to do
with work. Watering and caring for a tree could supply one with delicious,
sweet fruits,
without damaging one's stomach or the tree.
Natural hens to whom one talks, caressing them, lay healthy fresh eggs. Baby goats, who have lost their mother, and you feed them lovingly, will follow you everywhere, playing with you, having great fun.
Natural canaries, well-fed, well cared for, could sing melodic songs, which turns the infernal noise coming out of modern technological block-busters, out of "His Master's Voice", into boredom. No symphony of any feudalist genius has a chance against the melody of a healthy, happy canary.
So, if we have forgotten to act naturally, which is surely the case, due to de-naturalization processes, ever since the cradle, well then, we could study Mother Nature, that what is still left of her.
If not, if there is nothing natural anymore in Watts or Calcutta, in the Bronx or Timbuktu, then we could apply our epistemology and method.
Firstly, what is to be done? Negation!!! To negate, to do exactly the "opposite" of what everybody does or expects from one, the "negation" of what is "in", of what is "cool", of what is "good".
We know for sure what everybody affirms. What we affirmed our whole life. 90% of our daily "activities" concern these "acts". Thus, we can derive from our very own "actions" exactly the very opposite, and apply this knowledge concretely, naturally, praxically, scientifically.
Doing this, will not convert us into "communists", "terrorists" or "out-casts". Simply, because we are not going to act like an European foot-ball fan, a skin-head, a Florence Nightingale, an Albert Schweitzer, a Che Guevara, the Mother of Calcutta, like Jesus Christ, we won't have problems.
If we act like this, concretely, praxically, scientifically, no "normal" human being, neither of the Illuminati, nor of the bourgeoisie, nor of the CIA, nor of the proletariat, nor even of the lumpen-proletariat, would even notice what we're doing.
They might even consider us as being worthy candidates for an Oscar, the Nobel Peace Prize, or a Doctorate Honoris Causa. This is not a joke, this could happen, if we know to apply our method of acting and thinking scientifically and philosophically.
The Negation of "good" is not "bad", it's "not good", "no good". The Negation of "bad" is not "good", it's "no bad", "not bad" at all. "No good" is not "bad", and "not bad at all" is not "good". The formal-logical opposites are not Negations!!
For example, to act in a certain way that one becomes
a fool, becomes used and abused by the "poor",
is not the negation of being a "bad guy".
However, acting like that knowingly, knowing that the "poor" do not know that one allows her/himself consciously to be apparently used or abused, this is another story.
It's acting which "negates", which has certain emancipatory or selfdefense matters in mind. A capitalist, a worker, cannot apply this method.
But, negating, "negative action" is only the point of departure. Permanent "negative" action could very easily lead to self-destruction, to a no-man, to the "opposite" of a yes-man, to nothing, to nihilism. It's just as dangerous as permanently affirming, "affirmative action". "positive attitudes", "positive action".
The crucial point of "What Is To Be Done?" is "to act
a n d not to act" ! To Do a n d Not To Do.
Generally, not to do anything is to do the opposite,
to be lazy, to do nothing. In our case, what we "do not do" is negating,
is THINKING.
We Do a n d We Think!
Now, what do we do a n d How do we think. Notice the "do's" in the previous sentence, both are forms of "doing", of "acting" naturally.
When yo do the thing a n d do not do the thing, in other words, when you think, who "normally" would notice this? In this world we have two types of "humans"; only those who only do things, and, separated from them, only those who only think.
In other words, only those who labour, and formal-logically, separated from them, by political, economic and social apartheid, and only those who do not labour, who exploit, dominate, discriminate de-naturalize dis-socialize, dis-sociate.
Now, "What Is To Be Done?" has been related to a degree,
to a "higher" form, to: What Is To Be Done
a n d How To Think".
"What Is To Be Done?" is a unilateral, one-sided question, in fact, an extremely dangerous "action". It is a product of the labour process; it is a relict of obsolete, physical labour.
The second question is already "modern", it concerns Intellectual Labour; it negates concrete, artificial Intellectual Labour.
The "intelligentsia" intellectually "think" and the machines, the computers, physically, do the work. Now Father Nature works for Man, for Mankind. Previously, the domesticated Ox or Donkey laboured for Man, and for sure, from these animals we can't learn anything about acting a n d thinking anymore.
The problem is that, in the meanwhile, there are nearly 5 billion domesticated pack-animals, dominated "oxen and donkeys" roaming and vegetating across the planet. And they are as out-dated as the stage-coach.
And now, comes the "excellent" mension of "What Is To Be Done?". The emancipatory sphere!
The first, the natural level is to get matters straight with one's mother, with Mother Nature.
The ontic degree was to settle the matter with one's father, with Father Society, who always "thinks", and we the "children" have to do the do.
The transcendental mension is to settle matters "once and for all", with Father Nature and with Father Society, but especially with his "thoughts", with his "Reason", with "Our Father".
These THREE have one factor in COMMON, we ourselves have to act, to think, to excel, all of, by and for ourselves, here, now, and always. This is the Excellence, Truth, Joy and Beauty of Emancipation.
What does the latter concretely mean? It firstly means that all along the way, from the cradle to the grave, and transcending beyond them, we have already been acting, thinking and excelling.
it means that always we have known, do know, and always
will know how to act. And why? Simply,
because we do not have a maltreated, perverted relation,
neither to Nature, nor to Society, nor to History.
It also means that we are neither angels, nor devils, because, if this were so, then we would have no necessity to emancipate ourselves from anything.
Also, that we do not "believe" in anything, in neither God, nor Satan. We act and think and excel in, out, here, elsewhere, now, then, straight, of, by and for ourselves.
Now, we can get down to concrete brass tacks, and discuss "concrete" emancipatory acts!
Franz:
I have positioned "What is to be done?" as a multi-faceted question to start the emancipatory thinking process. The initial answer is the generality "to transcend and excel." This leads to the question "How do we excel and transcend?" One answer is replace alienating labor with creativity -- create art, music, etc., and thereby replace alienating labor.
Of course, there are other questions and answers, but
"What is to be
done?" starts the process. In my estimation, the key
issue is how a thinking style is used, not the thinking style per se.
For example, various groups such as geekforce at http://geekforce.org
and netropolis at http://goto/netropolis
use negation of the negation, and they show an interest in and potential
for development of emancipatory
ideas. In transcending negation of the negation, the
independent film site at http://www.koyaanisquatsi.org,
produces some interesting ideas while the extremely popular Delphi Soul
and Spirituality forum results in irrelevant fantasies.
Possibly, in the 1950's, Franz Fanon developed his emancipatory transcendent ideas, particularly regarding the conflict between the loyalty of the colonized to themselves and to the colonizer, after initial failures of this conflict of loyalties among the Algerian populace during the French-Algerian War.
In the recent movie "The Matrix", the
rebel (the so-called terrorist) vs. the techno-cyber system is just as
much of a conformist to his own way of thinking as the hoi polloi.
They all end up loving "Big Brother or Sister" Until we all become emancipated,
we will all continue to be: Big Brother = The Establishment = Labor = Alienation
= etc., etc., etc.
Regards.
Carl
Thanks for your comments and contribution. As always,
they are warmly welcome.
I checked the sites, which you suggested, and for
"beginners" they are educative and informative.
However, for us, who are "neither beginners nor endders", they are highly illustrative and descriptive, lacking analytic and methodic excellence. Of course, we don't expect that they would, but they aid our illustrations and data-base.
It is true that you suggested "What Is To Be Done?" as a "starting-point" in flux, as a "multi-faceted question". I just tried to "develop" it "further", indicating its levels, degrees, mensions and spheres.
Definitely, we can't read all published books, also we cannot study all sites on the web, this would devour precious "time"; furthermore, we cannot be "up-to-date" with all that has been thought, said or published about our topics. However, what we do and think is new, original and authentic for us; more we do not claim.
Our task is by no means easy, it is complex, vague
and pioneering, but "there's a method in our madness".
I remember that William James once wrote the following
about "the classic stages of
a theory's career". Any new, original, authentic theory
is at first "attacked as
absurd. then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant,
finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they
themselves discovered it."
I can assure you that, forever, our "theory" will be declared as being "absurd" and "stupid". If I should err, then for sure "humanity" would still have a "last opportunity"; nonetheless, then I would be the first person to recognize and celebrate my equivocation.
Now, concerning "How Do We Excel And Transcend?",
this topic should be treated in the next chat. Meanwhile, we can just underline
that this faculty is obscured and deformed by religious and theological
"transcendence" and spiritual hocus-pocus.
We have to surpass the labour barriers, our working
and ideological modus operandi et vivendi ,
which is, in reality, the emancipatory process. Emancipation is not another
idee fixe, another static status; it is neither a status
operandi nor a status nascendi. It
is simply our very historicization.
Greetings,
Franz.