Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them, Janus Rose writes.

On this server we are often victim of this stuff, i hope we can all improve

  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1·
    9 months ago

    Here is another excerpt which is more relevant to more extreme acts of political violence, which is referencing this essay:

    text

    Events in recent years have amply demonstrated the correctness of its main points: 1) That means determine ends—the use of horrifying means guarantees horrifying ends; 2) That urban guerrillaism almost always leads to repression and little else—which makes it very difficult to engage in constructive political work such as organizing and education; 3) That “successful” urban guerrillaism leads to authoritarian outcomes; 4) That these results are determined by the nature of guerrillaism. Guerrillaism relies upon the capitalist media for much of its impact, presenting political acts as spectacles divorced from the day-to-day lives of ordinary people (reducing them to passive spectators), while providing the corporate media with a perfect opportunity to frighten the public into the “protective” arms of the state. To put it another way, guerrillas presume to act for the people—attempting to substitute individual acts for mass actions—thus perpetuating the division between leaders and followers (in this case, vanguardists and spectators). While the authors of You Can’t Blow Up a Social Relationship reject terrorism, it should be emphasized that they are not arguing for political passivity. They are not arguing against the many forms of direct action which form an essential part of any mass movement for fundamental social change. (Examples of such direct action include wildcat strikes, factory occupations, and civil disobedience.) Neither do they discount the quieter but equally essential efforts of those doing educational work. Finally, it should be noted that the authors are not pacifists; they believe that situations may arise in which armed self-defense becomes necessary.

    So there’s a lot of reasons, only one of which is “uninvolved people clutch their pearls” ie. fear is generated and authoritarians get fed political capital to make things worse. There’s also direct relevance to the point being made in the OP article: its actual impact focuses on media spectacle, in which most participants are reduced to unconnected spectators. This leads to the narrative

    writing itself into a corner:

    By the time the drama has become tragedy and the guerrillas lie dead about the stage, the audience of masses finds itself surrounded by barbed wire, and, while it might now feel impelled to take the stage itself, it finds a line of tanks blocking it and weakly files out to remain passive again. Those individuals who continue to object and call on the audience to storm the stage are dragged out, struggling, to the concentration camps. Guerrillaism is in the tradition of vanguardist strategies for revolution. While in general it merely leads to repression, should the strategy succeed it can only produce an authoritarian leftist regime. This is because the people have not moved into the building of a democratic movement themselves.

    After all, that CEO was replaced immediately, they’re still doing the same things, just now a lot of people are having fun posting memes about it, which is cathartic and enjoyable without being difficult or risky or meaningfully improving the situation. It doesn’t put them in a position where they have habits and social relationships that would enable them to actually do anything to help each other or exercise direct political involvement. From the OP article:

    But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.