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Paths towards an in-the-heart solution

Section 8 of 10
Previous section
NOTE: my main *index of sections* has been apparently deleted; probably my accident...hope to soon have a new version up...in the meantime, following is a list of the critiques leading up to this page:
What most people--the critical mass--probably want
Section one, a kind of introduction to the next sections
Old Europe imaginations
Leftism critiqued
Rightism critiqued
The sources (books, etc.) i used to come to the conclusions i have

solutions for radical's radicals--those with the nerve to REALLY dig deep

note: this area has been deeply inspired by the writings of Jason McQuinn; especially in his writings about "post-left anarchy"

NOTE: i compose text like a painter who paints many paintings at once. The thought-provoking depth wants OUT, yet may not be fully de-abstracted for weeks, and sometimes months, while i work on other similar depth projects. In my case, these paintings are “edited” and re-edited so much that were this text actual paint, it would be so THICKLY layered as to turn into more of a sculpture! (heh heh)  Sooo, dear reader, I suspect that you will find this page a bit too wordy, tangent-tending, and not easy to read (even tho this is the second attempt at editing); I hope you will perservere, though, and at least scan/hop around for the nuggets of value which i claim are here. Composing text is not "first nature" for me...

 d;]

  "...Any politics we pick up and follow, they are...alien politics...[and] do not reflect the reality of who we are, but our culture and art does. ...if we are going to use [politics] then let's recognize that's what we are doing. It's a tool. It's not an identity..."--John Trudell

points to be considered:
informal organization, the meta game, intellectual self-defense, informal resistance consciousness, a new imagination, liberation of our desire and an obstacle, Continue the war, or understand and implement liberatory desires?
spirit liberation or psychological ju-jitsu, crazy people, a personal example, another example, the problem of institutionalized fear.

 

Informal self-organization
(See discussion of formal organization in Section one) Informal resistance offers much room, at least as far as the informal member's individual imagination may be "allowed" to go, either by chance, spiritual path, or error. With no one to coerce or manipulate a member's ideological conformity or keep them from going into "dangerously" independent inquiry, or even simply escaping the list of tasks given by organizational functionaries, informal resisters have much more freedom to explore areas that interest them.

This especially rings true when we see that informal resistance motions are usually made up of individuals who are oriented to working/playing on their own, or with small groups of friends or "affinity groups". They may come together in order to carry out direct actions, but most of their time is spent doing activities they, individually, are enamored to. They remain focused on the activities they're interested in, whereas in formal organizations, they may become *burnt out* by tasks which run far from their original desires (re: fund-raising, newsletter editing and mailing, and other secretarial duties). They can still take advantage of peer critique or support, when they ask, but the interaction remains much more oriented to directness, and has less of a chance to be clouded over by the need to conform ideologically, and remain "in good standing" in the formal group.

Further, when we organize ourselves informally, we are also not limited by ideological demands about what sources we may make use of. In fact, we may utilize a broad variety of resources. This is what has been called creative self-mobilization... Myself, i've found much value in insights found in methodological anarchy and situationism, as well as from Reader's Digest and other places one wouldn't normally expect to find gems. The trick is *reading between the lines* and keeping one's ability to compare and try out, intact; this comes back to critical thought and intellectual self-defense.

the meta game
Depending on how meaningfully deep one has allowed themselves to delve, one may begin to see a pattern of similarity between ALL the vast, seemingly terribly complicated and divergent views and beliefs we have as individuals. Notably, we all are similar, it's just that we've been socialized/programmed/enculturated into a seemingly huge diversity of rigid difference. This kind of realization is typically not allowed by formal, ideologically-challenged organization, which seems to need to keep a rigid dichotomy between "us" and "Them". The reason for this I haven't yet been able to put my finger on, but perhaps there is insight to be found in the *meta game* as played by the elites of every formalized group (i.e. every group articulating itself towards being better understood and seeking "reform"/assimilation or "revolution"/changing of the boss). As R.D. Laing says:

"...I discover there is a meta-road...[Society] is playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing the game."--R.D.Laing, in a biography called A Divided Self p.151

We see this meta game all throughout the imagination called society and culture, and as well, formalized concepts of organization and resistance. Parents and other conscious adults play it upon persons called children. Teachers play it upon parents and kids. Administrators play it upon implementers of policy called teachers. Elite policy makers play this meta game upon elite implementers. All throughout our imagination we are neatly corralled and confined within something like Oz, though for me, a more exacting insight is to call this prevailing and imposed imagination *Is*. **The Wizards of Is** keep us "properly" subordinated, unthreatening, tooled, and mentally confined. We are modern-day peasants with neon. "Dark ages with neon glasses" as John Trudell would say.

Why this happens, why this meta game has to be played at all, probably has something to do with our "information society" being one completely subordinated to the needs and values of *propaganda* (see J. Ellul). All institutions and their public relations aparatuses utilize propaganda--manipulation--as THE method of choice for getting mass audiences/"consumers" to pay attention. Since we are basically a WAR-oriented culture, the war of propaganda comes with the territory. And thus the game that "must" be played while not speaking of the game; and those who do, being viewed as a danger because they might ruin a particular aspect of the propaganda that "MUST" rein.

Intellectual self-defense

Intellectual self-defense has been deeply articulated by the much despised luminary, Noam Chomsky. Basically, the method is to "undertake a course" (of self-instruction via Chomsky et al's *institutional analysis*) so that we may better understand how we are collectively manipulated via notable methods of thought control: i.e. by major influence institutions like the mainstream media and the State.

 

Informal resistance consciousness
Additionally, John Trudell (a still quite well-marginalized figure) articulated this idea in a very basic way in his *We Are Power* speech, shared with his fellow indigenous people in 1980. Basically, I see this way as a way of utilizing (tooling) the excellent values of formal resistance, while not letting the destructive sides of formal resistance tool us.

a new imagination
The only way out that i can see, beyond continuing to naively strengthen that (including propaganda) which systematically attacks all of us in continually rotating ways (continually finding new differences amongst us to exploit our fears and keep us alienated and/or against each other), is by escaping the heart of the situation, and bringing forth a new imagination.

My study and experience leads me to the conclusion that FEAR, followed closely by severe alienation, is the heart of our challenge as humans at this juncture.

We need to liberate ourselves from this imagination which has been imposed upon ALL of us (including elite policy makers) from times when war was viewed as the only option (as in the history of all so-called "civilized" organization (popularly, it is also believed that pre-"civilized" groups, like the American indigenous folks, were committed to senseless violence; yet I maintain that there is a context to that which cannot be easily understood by domesticated man's severely confined imagination)).

Liberation of our desires and an obstacle
We can see already where our desires tend to want to escape to, when we think of young children of age 3 or 5. Their spirit is still full of the "spirit of discovery" and the love of life, and the misery of "Reality" has not yet been imposed upon them (via our social norms). The lucky few (those who see this anyway) that find time to walk down paths with them and notice things that otherwise would be missed, says oodles about this all too private joy, alone.

Parents have regularly spoken fondly of "being able" to "revisit childhood" through their youngchildren. Through this imagination we call "childhood" we experience a renewing of our own spirits, and this is to be celebrated; yet, at the same time, due to our alienated conditionining, this way has turned into a way which we *mine* for our own nursings, while allowing little vitality to escape to where our children may grow and become stronger.

In our single-minded, severely alienated interests, we've turned the youngpersons moving through us into objects. An object similar to what John Holt characterized, in his book _Escape From Childhood_, a "superpet". A youngperson not allowed to be viewed as fully human alongside us (thanks to the work of the convenient, and the systematically superficial analysis of the highly political, state-subordinated, social sciences).

Probably because of this value that we find in this somewhat natural time of life, the whole realm of "childhood" has become a highly sentimentalized time of all-too-escapist entertainment, aloof play, unthreatening fantasy, industry and business, keeping the very *objects* we claim to so avidly cherish and wish to "protect" locked up in a 'prison garden called childhood' (John Holt; see also: Paul Goodman: _Growing Up Absurd_ and Gerald Farson: _Birthrights_). We think nothing of this, until, for whatever reason, we finally allow ourselves to step back and look at a bigger picture. (Perhaps we are moved by youth liberationists of yesteryear or today, or remember our own feelings as kids)

Continue the war, or understand and implement liberatory desires?
The trick, then, is to not allow our severely alienated desires to get the best of us.
(Perhaps this is where the danger of "ego" crops up, though I wonder at the validity of this characterization; is it too simplified? Reducing too quickly? I prefer a word which sheds light on the context of our resorting to all shades of allegedly bad selfishness.) This is the juncture where liberation may be had, or where struggle/war may continue (even inarticulately, as we see with so many kids now being labeled "oppositionally defiant disordered" and so on).

Liberation is the situation in which people learn the value of shirking off confined imaginations about themselves and others. Liberation is when many many people start to let their imaginations freer than ever thought "possible" before. The 1960s/early 70s was such a time of liberation (called a "crisis" by the ruling war order). Quite suddenly (all too quickly for the war powers), due to the example of a heightening black civil rights and anti-war movement, all sorts of groups and individuals were starting to think that they might be able to be heard if they dared to speak up about their intutions and awareness about the plight of themselves and those they'd been moved by.

Where the 1960s/70s liberation movement went wrong, in my view, is that they got stuck up in the game that their consciously political "leaders" played. Reformist-oriented or "revolutionary", the same underlying "Us vs. Them" dichotomy was (and continues to be) as rigid and **unempathetic** as the established mindset (and this goes for all the anarchists as well, even if they are not ideologically-oriented). Of course, most of those who thought nothing of following along, didn't see this. They didn't see that they were being manipulated against each other; tooled. For the needs and interests of their even more severely alienated "leaders" and owners and puppeteers.

Go to next section (2 of 2): includes Spirit liberation, Crazy people, the value of "crazy" for human liberation, making sense?, Jumping into my fear, Good Peasant Bad Peasant, Problem of institutional fear.

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