THE DESIRE FOR PROMOTION
 The militant talks a lot about the masses. His activity is centred on them. He acts to convince them, to make them « achieve consciousness ». And yet the militant is separated from the masses and their possibilities for revolt. This is because he is separated from his own desires. The militant feels the absurdity of the existence that is imposed on us. In « deciding » to become militant, he tries to find a solution to the gap which exists between his desires and the life which he really has the possibility of living. His decision is a reaction against the misery of his own life. But he commits himself to a dead end. Although he is dissatisfied, the militant remains unable to recognise and face his desires. HE IS ASHAMED OF THEM. This leads him to replace the promotion of his desires, with the desire for promotion. But the feelings of guilt which he maintains are such, that he cannot contemplate a hierarchical promotion within the framework of the system, or rather he is only ready to fight for a good position, if at the same time, he can obtain an assurance that this is not just for his own benefit. His militancy enables him to elevate himself, to place himself on a pedestal, without this promotion appearing to others, or even to himself, as what it really is. ( After all, the Pope himself is only the servant of the servants of God ! ). Putting oneself at the service of ones own desires doesn't mean retreating into one's shell, and has nothing to do with petit-bourgeois individualism. On the contrary, it can only proceed through the destruction of the armour of selfishness, which confines us in bourgeois society, and the development of a true class solidarity. The militant who claims to place himself at the service of the proletariat ( « the workers are our masters » Geismar [2] ), only places himself at the service of the idea that he has of the proletariat's interests. Thus by a paradox which is only apparent, in truly putting oneself at the service of oneself one comes back to helping others, and doing so on a class basis, while in placing oneself at the service of others one comes to protect a personal hierarchical position. To be militant, doesn't mean trying hard to transform ones daily life, or directly revolting against oppression, but on the contrary means fleeing this terrain. However, once it is understood that our everyday life is colonised by capital, and ruled by the laws of commodity production, this is the only revolutionary terrain. In politicising himself, the militant is in search of a role which places him above the masses. Whether this « above » takes the form of « vanguardism » or of « educationism » changes nothing. Already he is no longer a proletarian who has nothing to lose but his illusions; he has a role to defend. In revolutionary periods, when all roles crumble under pressure from the desire to live without restriction, the role of « conscious revolutionary » is the one which survives best. In being militant he gives substance to his existence, and his life finds a meaning. However he does not find this meaning within himself, in the reality of his subjectivity, but in his submission to external necessities. In the same way that at work he is subjected to goals and rules which escape him, as a militant he obeys the « necessities of history ». Obviously one cannot put all militants on the same level. Not all of them are as deeply affected. Among them one finds naive individuals who, not knowing what to do with their spare time, possessed by loneliness, and deceived by revolutionary phraseology, are led astray; they will seize the first excuse to leave. Buying a television, meeting your hearts desire, working overtime to pay for the car, all decimate the ranks of the militant army. The reasons which impel people into militancy are not products of modern society. On the whole they are the same for militant trade unionists, catholics and revolutionaries. The reappearance of revolutionary mass militancy is related to the current crisis of commodity societies and the return of the « old mole » of revolution. The possibility of a social revolution appears sufficiently serious that militants take a gamble on it. This is all reinforced by the collapse of religions. Capitalism no longer needs systems of religious compensation. Having arrived at maturity, it no longer has to offer an extra portion of happiness in the hereafter but all happiness in the here-below, through the consumption of its material, cultural and spiritual goods ( metaphysical anguish promotes sales ! ). Bypassed by history, the religions and their faithful can only move on to social action or.... maoism. Leftist militancy primarily affects those social categories which are in the process of accelerated proletarianisation ( high-school pupils, students, teachers, socio-educational personnel.... ), who have no possibility of fighting concretely for short-term advantages, and for whom to become truly revolutionary presupposes a very profound personal reassessment. The worker is much less complicit in his social role than the student or teacher. For the latter, being militant is a compromise solution which enables them to shoulder their fluctuating social role. In militancy they find an importance that the deterioration of their social standing denies them. To call themselves revolutionaries, to occupy themselves with the transformation of the whole of society, permits them to minimise the transformation of their own social status and personal illusions. Within the working class, trade unionism has a virtual monopoly of militancy, it assures the militant immediate satisfaction, and a position whose advantages can be concretely measured. The worker who is tempted by militancy will most probably turn to trade unionism. Even the anti-union committees of struggle tend to become new style trade-unionism. For militant workers politics is only an extension of trade union action. Militancy hardly attracts workers, especially young workers, since they are the most clear-sighted proletarians when it comes to the misery of their work in particular and of their life in general. Little tempted, as a whole, by trade unionism, they are even less attracted by the nebulous advantages of leftism. That said, when the reign of the commodity and of consumption dissolves during a revolutionary upheaval, trade unionism, whose importance is based on wage demands, will be ready to survive by turning to revolutionary militancy. It will take up the most extreme slogans, and will then be much more dangerous than the leftist groups. Following May 68, we have already seen how the CFDT [3] blended the term self-management into its neo-bureaucratic gibberish. Notes [2] Alain Geismar - a member of the Parti Socialist Unifie ( a small left socialist party ) and president of a university teachers union at the start of May 1968, Geismar became one of the most prominent personalities created by the May movement. After it ended he became close to the March 22nd Movement and in early 1969, along with other members, he joined La Gauche Prolétarienne ( GP ) the leading group in the activist wing of French Maoism. ( See footnote 5 ) He became a public spokesman for GP and a cause célèbre in his own right when he was imprisoned in 1970 for incitement to riot. In later years he was able to resume his career as an academic and by the end of the century was a ministerial advisor to the socialist government ( translators note ). [3] CFDT - Confédération Français Démocratique du Travail - French trade union federation. After May '68 ( which it was more sympathetic to than the Communist Party linked CGT ) it developed strong ties to the Parti Socialist Unifie and became strongly identified with the cause of workers management ( « autogestion » ). In later years has moved closer to the Socialist Party ( translators note ). |