Yeah, I don’t understand that at all. I feel like you lost the plot here.
We’re talking about the possibility of violent state repression, right? If everyone in your movement, but just the people in it, got so pissed off they decided to take up arms against the government, would that be enough to overthrow it? Or would you also need the support of people not in your movement? You know, the ones who aren’t anarchists and don’t follow your ideology. If you present a problem for the state’s control, then the reason they don’t just round you up and shoot you is because of the possibility of a backlash from the broader public. But if that broader public is manipulable or unreliable, then you don’t really have a guarantee of safety - which is all I’m really saying here.
This shows me you don’t understand prefiguration. Prefiguration is about improving people’s lives in the here and now by practicing anarchism in the here and now. The people are “in the movement” by practicing prefigurative direct action. And that action, along with the knowledge people instructing on how to do prefiguration, radicalizes these people to oppose hierarchies because they see how their lives materially improve away from them.
If/When a state directly takes arms against prefigurative movements, those people can either flow away into other direct action if they can’t fight it, or if there’s enough of them, fight back against state oppression.
So then, do you agree that a community of people promoting community and opposition to hierarchy can be violently suppressed, under certain circumstances? It isn’t, like, an inherent trait of the universe, and you have to look at the specific conditions to evaluate it?
You still don’t get it. The “community of people promoting community and opposition to hierarchy can be violently suppressed” is distributed widely among the whole population and impossible to stamp out like a small isolated community.
But there has been a broader surge in popularity for that ideology. The reasons for that have little to do with any sort of significant, long running movement and more to do with modern politics and circumstances.
MLs theory prominence always waxes and wanes in the low percentile digits. A little bit like Randian intellectual masturbation does as well. However it never materially changes things for people in capitalist societies so it never catches hold.
MLs theory prominence always waxes and wanes in the low percentile digits. A little bit like Randian intellectual masturbation does as well. However it never materially changes things for people in capitalist societies so it never catches hold.
The most prominent example that comes to my mind of Western Marxist-Leninists were the Black Panthers. They made the exact same assessment and employed the exact same strategy that you’re advocating for. Namely, they recognized that the way to win people over was to provide direct, material improvements to people’s lives. So they looked at what the community needed, and they saw that poor black kids were going hungry, which was bad enough on its own, but also made them struggle in school, which perpetuated the cycle of poverty.
So they started a program where they handed out free breakfast to hungry kids. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, declared this program to be an existential threat to the government and authorized using any means necessary to put a stop to it. The night before they were set to open, the cops broke in and pissed on their food. They went door to door, spreading rumors that the food was poisoned. The news warned everyone that they were luring people in to teach them to hate white people.
Even so, it succeeded. Eventually, the liberals in government figured out that the easiest way to stop the Panthers from handing out free breakfasts was to just do it themselves. And so now, thanks to the Panthers, there’s a national program to provide free breakfasts to poor kids.
I understand the concept of prefiguration (even if the specific term is unfamiliar to me), just like the Panthers did, and just like the FBI did. It’s not a particularly new idea, it has been tried before, and it has both succeeded and failed. The only part that we disagree about regarding it is that I view it as a strategy, useful in some circumstances but not others, while you seem to regard it as inherently true and universally effective, despite a lack of evidence to back that up.
You admit it yourself, that even the failed attempt at prefiguration actually worked ultimately! And yes sure, the BP movement ultimately failed because of how profoundly racist USA was and still is, but it still had an impact in failure. As such, we just need more of the same.
You completely missed the point. Why would I even bring up a successful example if my argument was that prefiguration never works? I’m not trying to be adversarial here. The point is that you’re not the first person to think of doing this. It can work, yes, that I never disputed. But you need to look at history to see when it has succeeded or failed. I’m not arguing against the idea, I’m only arguing against treating the idea as sacrocant and infallible.
I actually believe it not always works in the long term, but it’s the only thing that works. State reaction can of course shatter the occasional direct action movement or mutual aid group, but it cannot do so against everyone, especially if people are cognizant of the state danger. And the fact that these actions actually improve the lives of people, is what causes more people to join in doing them.
The history of previous movements crushed only to have their goals implemented anyway at the height of capitalist power is just more evidence of what we’re saying it correct.
To actual falsify the idea that anarchist prefiguration doesn’t work you need to show that it either doesn’t improve the lives of the people practicing it outside of external factors (i.e. state reaction), or that when widespread it doesn’t actually lead to anarchism.
But I’m not trying to prove it doesn’t work. There are successful examples, like the one I mentioned.
If you go back to my original comment, it was in response to someone saying, “The US army won’t drone strike a community meal,” and “the heinous acts were only possible by othering the foreigners.” If you agree that the state does sometimes successfully employ force to stop peaceful community building, then we are in agreement.
You also still seem to be caught up on this “gotcha” of like, “The example that you said used our methods and succeeded used our methods and succeeded! Ha!” Like, yes, that’s what I said. You seem to think that I brought it up as some kind of cautionary tale.
And I pointed out that a lot of society is not practicing prefiguration. Meaning that you can’t currently treat it as a guarantee of safety while you attempt to reach the point where a lot of society is practicing it.
The point being that since prefiguration is the only thing that’s been shown to work, this is what we do. The fact that everyone is not doing it is irrelevant.
This shows me you don’t understand prefiguration. Prefiguration is about improving people’s lives in the here and now by practicing anarchism in the here and now. The people are “in the movement” by practicing prefigurative direct action. And that action, along with the knowledge people instructing on how to do prefiguration, radicalizes these people to oppose hierarchies because they see how their lives materially improve away from them.
If/When a state directly takes arms against prefigurative movements, those people can either flow away into other direct action if they can’t fight it, or if there’s enough of them, fight back against state oppression.
You still don’t get it. The “community of people promoting community and opposition to hierarchy can be violently suppressed” is distributed widely among the whole population and impossible to stamp out like a small isolated community.
MLs theory prominence always waxes and wanes in the low percentile digits. A little bit like Randian intellectual masturbation does as well. However it never materially changes things for people in capitalist societies so it never catches hold.
The most prominent example that comes to my mind of Western Marxist-Leninists were the Black Panthers. They made the exact same assessment and employed the exact same strategy that you’re advocating for. Namely, they recognized that the way to win people over was to provide direct, material improvements to people’s lives. So they looked at what the community needed, and they saw that poor black kids were going hungry, which was bad enough on its own, but also made them struggle in school, which perpetuated the cycle of poverty.
So they started a program where they handed out free breakfast to hungry kids. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, declared this program to be an existential threat to the government and authorized using any means necessary to put a stop to it. The night before they were set to open, the cops broke in and pissed on their food. They went door to door, spreading rumors that the food was poisoned. The news warned everyone that they were luring people in to teach them to hate white people.
Even so, it succeeded. Eventually, the liberals in government figured out that the easiest way to stop the Panthers from handing out free breakfasts was to just do it themselves. And so now, thanks to the Panthers, there’s a national program to provide free breakfasts to poor kids.
I understand the concept of prefiguration (even if the specific term is unfamiliar to me), just like the Panthers did, and just like the FBI did. It’s not a particularly new idea, it has been tried before, and it has both succeeded and failed. The only part that we disagree about regarding it is that I view it as a strategy, useful in some circumstances but not others, while you seem to regard it as inherently true and universally effective, despite a lack of evidence to back that up.
You admit it yourself, that even the failed attempt at prefiguration actually worked ultimately! And yes sure, the BP movement ultimately failed because of how profoundly racist USA was and still is, but it still had an impact in failure. As such, we just need more of the same.
You completely missed the point. Why would I even bring up a successful example if my argument was that prefiguration never works? I’m not trying to be adversarial here. The point is that you’re not the first person to think of doing this. It can work, yes, that I never disputed. But you need to look at history to see when it has succeeded or failed. I’m not arguing against the idea, I’m only arguing against treating the idea as sacrocant and infallible.
I actually believe it not always works in the long term, but it’s the only thing that works. State reaction can of course shatter the occasional direct action movement or mutual aid group, but it cannot do so against everyone, especially if people are cognizant of the state danger. And the fact that these actions actually improve the lives of people, is what causes more people to join in doing them.
The history of previous movements crushed only to have their goals implemented anyway at the height of capitalist power is just more evidence of what we’re saying it correct.
To actual falsify the idea that anarchist prefiguration doesn’t work you need to show that it either doesn’t improve the lives of the people practicing it outside of external factors (i.e. state reaction), or that when widespread it doesn’t actually lead to anarchism.
But I’m not trying to prove it doesn’t work. There are successful examples, like the one I mentioned.
If you go back to my original comment, it was in response to someone saying, “The US army won’t drone strike a community meal,” and “the heinous acts were only possible by othering the foreigners.” If you agree that the state does sometimes successfully employ force to stop peaceful community building, then we are in agreement.
You also still seem to be caught up on this “gotcha” of like, “The example that you said used our methods and succeeded used our methods and succeeded! Ha!” Like, yes, that’s what I said. You seem to think that I brought it up as some kind of cautionary tale.
yes and I directly responded to that argument with
Which is my point in that state violence can repress one small community or movement like the BPs but cannot easily do so on widespread prefiguration.
And I pointed out that a lot of society is not practicing prefiguration. Meaning that you can’t currently treat it as a guarantee of safety while you attempt to reach the point where a lot of society is practicing it.
The point being that since prefiguration is the only thing that’s been shown to work, this is what we do. The fact that everyone is not doing it is irrelevant.