The Call, by the "Invisible Committee"

[Os Cangaceiros]

I read this recently. It seemed a little more straightfoward than The Coming Insurrection, although it was still bogged down with too much French insurrecto-hipster pomo rhetoric IMHO. Still, it had some good lines, and I liked their anti-activist stuff. It's interesting that the group they seem to admire as a model for what they want to accomplish is the Black Panther Party.

Any constructive comments or trollish remarks are welcome.

[black magick hustla]

i discussed it with some people a while ago. i think its a good document as an introductory communist tract for like hipsters and 20somethings. it delineates a line against the left and it talks about communism as more than a political program. i also got a hard on when i saw them mentioning The Party as the bordigists usually do, except to them the party means the kid burning down dominos pizza joints. there is some stupid academic pomo bullshit but most of the text is fairly understandable if you wikipedia all that stupid shit about negri and foucault.

i think the IC is enamoured with criminality, and i am always suspicious about grad school dropouts who talk about criminality in that way (when they dont grow up in towns where people kill each other for coke). i think thats why they had a hard on the bpp. the bpp was a failure of an organization. it was always pretty small (around 5k), and there was always a lot of confusion among its ranks (some bpp members thought the bpp was just another gang, which in the way they behaved in some aspects they kindof where, except without the drugs).

i think the alternative they offer is not new even if the rhetoric might seem like it. they argue for dessertion, which is stupid and was what 19th century utopian socialists did. that shit doesnt work and if you read the vice article on the IC it seems living in tarnac in the middle of nowhere is boring as hell. that shit about throwing rocks at cops and sabotaging train rails and building the Party like that is just the same actvist bs they argued against except in steroids.

[RedSunRising]

Any constructive comments or trollish remarks are welcome.

Well as some one put it another thread...

"im so stoked about the communist revolution because their education credentials will be worth toiletpaper"

[StalinFanboy]

I don't think the Tiqqun people really care about their education credentials to be honest with you.


But I really liked Call, and is one of the reasons why I am absolutely in love with The Invisible Committee and Tiqqun, minus pretty much all of the criticisms raised by Maldoror. I haven't read it recently enough to make any real comments on the body of it, however.

[bcbm]

they argue for dessertion, which is stupid and was what 19th century utopian socialists did. that shit doesnt work and if you read the vice article on the IC it seems living in tarnac in the middle of nowhere is boring as hell.

it will probably get better when civilization starts to collapse from environmental strain

[Gorilla]

Does anyone have a link to it? I found a PDF but the formatting is all fucked up.

[RedSunRising]

Look this stuff is for middle class kids who cant make it in a career in law or medicine and business, professional acedemnics, fashionistas, etc. They view "communism" as something that gives them an oppurtunity to prove how clever they are, or how romantic and poetic they are, but God forbid that something should happen that would actually threaten their position. Remember Adorno calling the cops?

[RedSunRising]

I don't think the Tiqqun people really care about their education credentials to be honest with you.

Yeah that is what that lot say until exam time comes and suddenly they are very serious, or when they fail their exams as a way to compensate themselves emotionally.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Y'all better recognize (http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/11273)

[The Douche]

that shit about throwing rocks at cops and sabotaging train rails and building the Party like that is just the same actvist bs they argued against except in steroids.

Are we talking about RAAN now?

[bcbm]

no they don't worship trees

[StalinFanboy]

Yeah that is what that lot say until exam time comes and suddenly they are very serious, or when they fail their exams as a way to compensate themselves emotionally.

lol cool story. if you were ever invited to any sort of party you should tell it there

[The Douche]

no they don't worship trees

Could've sworn there were some tenuous connections between the Tarnac 9 and some nutty primitivist types.

[RedSunRising]

lol cool story. if you were ever invited to any sort of party you should tell it there

Its because I have been invited to wrong sort of parties that I know this shit honey. ;)

[bcbm]

Could've sworn there were some tenuous connections between the Tarnac 9 and some nutty primitivist types.

there are tenuous connections between like any anarchist and nutty primitivist types. i never got the impression they were primmies though.

[The Douche]

Well neither are any RAANistas, last time I checked.

[Gorilla]

there are tenuous connections between like any anarchist and nutty primitivist types. i never got the impression they were primmies though.

They like alternative medicine but basically that just means they are French.

There's also something about smashing the wall of the labratory that separates it from the world being transformed but I didn't read that as primmie per se.

[bcbm]

Well neither are any RAANistas, last time I checked.

i didn't say they were, it was a jab at the new agey drugged out spiritualism that was floating around when i looked at their forum like 800 months ago ;)

[StalinFanboy]

Its because I have been invited to wrong sort of parties that I know this shit honey. ;)

Oh damn you've met the tarnac 9? Or are you just assuming that anyone who uses multi-syllable words and talks about power is someone who has a vested interested in the education system?

So what you're saying is that only people with college degrees can understand or appreciate the sort of stuff like The Coming Insurrection or Call?

[The Douche]

Oh damn you've met the tarnac 9? Or are you just assuming that anyone who uses multi-syllable words and talks about power is someone who has a vested interested in the education system?

So what you're saying is that only people with college degrees can understand or appreciate the sort of stuff like The Coming Insurrection or Call?

In all fairness I have to read their shit like 6 or 7 times to get the most cursory understanding, and my understanding is nowhere near the level of understanding that other people get from it. And I don't consider myself to be that stupid or uneducated.

Like, An Introduction To Civil War, man I've read that thing so many times and I still don't really get it.

[bcbm]

there was a good summary of intro to civil war on @news awhile back, which was the first time i understood what it was about

[StalinFanboy]

In all fairness I have to read their shit like 6 or 7 times to get the most cursory understanding, and my understanding is nowhere near the level of understanding that other people get from it. And I don't consider myself to be that stupid or uneducated.

Like, An Introduction To Civil War, man I've read that thing so many times and I still don't really get it.

I mean I have to go back through Marx a couple of times too. I do this with most theory to be honest with you.

I'm just really, really against this strain of thought that I find all too often that anything that might have been written by people who went through college, or uses words like forms-of-life or just uncommon words in general is like not prole or something. As if we should only be reading things at a newspaper level. Frankly it's insulting.

[bcbm]

if i can't understand it drunk from pbr it isn't worth reading

[Os Cangaceiros]

I didn't really get Introduction to Civil War either.

[bcbm]

this (http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/13773) explains it pretty well, i think

[The Douche]

this (http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/13773) explains it pretty well, i think

Felt lost while reading that.:blushing:


I really want to fit in and like civil war, and the call, and bloom, and Dauve, and PINAB and shit, but, man, I feel so confused while reading it, and I feel like I have absolutely no concept of the philosophical base that it builds on.

Usually what ends up happening is me and my girl sitting on the couch reading parts from it and bust up laughing cause it sounds so lofty and certain parts sound so outrageous. I ask her for help a lot, she was a philosophy major for three years and did well at it, definitely has a much deeper basis in philosophy than me, and she couldn't be of much help.

[StalinFanboy]

Felt lost while reading that.:blushing:


I really want to fit in and like civil war, and the call, and bloom, and Dauve, and PINAB and shit, but, man, I feel so confused while reading it, and I feel like I have absolutely no concept of the philosophical base that it builds on.

Usually what ends up happening is me and my girl sitting on the couch reading parts from it and bust up laughing cause it sounds so lofty and certain parts sound so outrageous. I ask her for help a lot, she was a philosophy major for three years and did well at it, definitely has a much deeper basis in philosophy than me, and she couldn't be of much help.

Please don't lump shit like PINAB in with Dauve or Tiqqun. Not that Dauve or Tiqqun are anything alike. But for real, PINAB is so dumb :(

But anyhow, I haven't ever found Dauve to be really hard as far as theorists go. What were you reading by him?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I actually kind of like the retro insurrectionary stuff like KKA and Venemous Butterfly. I read some leaflet called "Some Notes On Insurrectionary Anarchism" (can't remember who put it out), and was suprised at how much I liked it.


But anyhow, I haven't ever found Dauve to be really hard as far as theorists go.

Yeah, me either. He seems to be one of those guys that anarchists read when they want to give their theory a little more substance. I was very influenced by one of his works.

[StalinFanboy]

I like some of Wolfi's older stuff like Autonomous Self-Organization and the Anarchist Intervention. I'm not into his weird primitive shit, or when he gets boners for like Stirner and shit, but whatevs.

[Gorilla]

Felt lost while reading that.:blushing:


I really want to fit in and like civil war, and the call, and bloom, and Dauve, and PINAB and shit, but, man, I feel so confused while reading it, and I feel like I have absolutely no concept of the philosophical base that it builds on.

Naw, I agree. Part of it isn't even the references to Negri, etc. but the style is aphoristic and uses a lot of paradox. A sentence like "Communism is now not merely necessary, but possible." you have to first skip back a couple times to make sure you caught it right and then again to actually unpack it. Three to four such sentences on a page and I just might end up going back 6 or 7 times to get a basic grasp of it.

Not that this is a bad thing necessarily. Clear, limpid prose is often characteristic of reactionary jerkoffs e.g. Orwell.

[StalinFanboy]

Honestly, it's usually just a matter of reading more and more. The Coming Insurrection used to be kinda hard to read when I first got into that shit, but now that I've read more, it's a lot easier to get.

[The Douche]

Why can't the just explain the invisible party or whatever on an episode of Law & Order?

[black magick hustla]

dauve is pretty easy to read if you have a cursory understanding of marx

[black magick hustla]

deeper basis in philosophy than me, and she couldn't be of much help.

im a physics major and bcbm is a dropout im sure you can get it

[The Douche]

Realized I was thinking of Dupont not Dauve.


im a physics major and bcbm is a dropout im sure you can get it

1) Is it really worth it?
2) It should not be this hard. And if they were writing about ideas that could potentially change the world they should make them accessible, not act like pretentious dickheads.

[black magick hustla]

= not act like pretentious dickheads.
oh i agree. i hate academic language. although to be honest, the dupont stuff is pretty devoid of most jargon except some marxist jargon here and there. its difficult sometimes because its full of poetics, but its not necessarily full of obscure jargonized concepts.

[Ravachol]

Look this stuff is for middle class kids who cant make it in a career in law or medicine and business, professional acedemnics, fashionistas, etc. They view "communism" as something that gives them an oppurtunity to prove how clever they are, or how romantic and poetic they are, but God forbid that something should happen that would actually threaten their position. Remember Adorno calling the cops?

You're a moron who should read the shit he's commenting on instead of acting tough-guy maoist guerilla on the internet, seriously.

On topic: Most of the 'hipster communist' literature is full of heavy jargon and especially Introduction to Civil War which I found readable only because I'd read works by Foucault, Deleuze and Agamben before. And to be honest a political tract shouldn't require that. On the other hand, who cares about political tracts. Ideas, books and pamphlets included, don't make this world. Historical expressions of the communist tendency weren't born from bearded soap-box shouters reading Marx or from scarve and skinnyjean-wearing hipsters reading Tiqqun. The communist tendency is born from people fed up with the shit thrown at them by the daily onslaught of Capital's megamachine. Sure, some theoretical insights might prove to be very valuable in understanding mistakes of the past and possible directions for the future but they aren't the make-it or break-it of the communist movement.

Also, all cliques tend to be fond of their own jargon, whether it's hipster intellectuals saying things like 'form-of-life' and 'apparatus', Maoist guerilla tough-guys saying 'Revisionist Brezhnevite' or whatever academic clique using obscure terms. Sometimes it's even easier to use jargon because it has certain connotations and content that cannot be expressed in one or two words. I mean If I had to fully phrase the meaning of 'species being' every time I used to word, mother of god....

[Zanthorus]

I'm not sure how 'form of life' is 'hipster' jargon, in fact I believe the term originated with Wittgenstein, although I'm unsure what the 'hipster' position on Wittgenstein would be. I also don't think explaining the concept of 'species-being' is all that difficult, and Marx himself at least seemed capable of explaining the concept without ever using the term 'species-being' in a number of works written after the 1844 manuscripts.

As a side note to this already off topic post, a good strategy for coping with reading incomprehensible texts is to read Hegel. Practically everything reads like a childrens picture book next to Hegel.

[black magick hustla]

I'm not sure how 'form of life' is 'hipster' jargon, in fact I believe the term originated with Wittgenstein, although I'm unsure what the 'hipster' position on Wittgenstein would be. I also don't think explaining the concept of 'species-being' is all that difficult, and Marx himself at least seemed capable of explaining the concept without ever using the term 'species-being' in a number of works written after the 1844 manuscripts.

As a side note to this already off topic post, a good strategy for coping with reading incomprehensible texts is to read Hegel. Practically everything reads like a childrens picture book next to Hegel.
Yes I agree. a lot of the Call had wittgensteinian references. "form of life", "language game", the talk about "worlds" etcetera. I doubt they really read wittgenstein though, rather those terms were passed down through post structuralism.

[gorillafuck]

It's funny when people like the Invisible Committee trash talk activists since they are activists, just not the kinds that go to protests. They're activists in the same way that crimethinc are, except they don't come off as morons like crimethinc do.

[Ravachol]

It's funny when people like the Invisible Committee trash talk activists since they are activists, just not the kinds that go to protests. They're activists in the same way that crimethinc are, except they don't come off as morons like crimethinc do.

Perhaps you would like to clarify this statement...

[RedSunRising]

Usually what ends up happening is me and my girl sitting on the couch reading parts from it and bust up laughing cause it sounds so lofty and certain parts sound so outrageous. I ask her for help a lot, she was a philosophy major for three years and did well at it, definitely has a much deeper basis in philosophy than me, and she couldn't be of much help.

Isnt the obscurity part of the fun with things such as this? Could it possible be deliberate? I why bother saying things clearly when you can be esoteric, cool and hip?

[gorillafuck]

Perhaps you would like to clarify this statement...They are activists. They actively propagate for and promote insurrection, and they propagate a sort of criminalism/vandalism/lifestylism approach to anti-capitalist activity. They just don't consider themselves activists because they don't march and because they don't like the usual left. But they are activists.

They're just a style of activist popular among some of the anti-left communists/anarchists.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think it's pretty clear who they're refering to when they say "activists". I don't think that they're refering to anyone who engages in an activity.

[nuisance]

I like some of Wolfi's older stuff like Autonomous Self-Organization and the Anarchist Intervention. I'm not into his weird primitive shit, or when he gets boners for like Stirner and shit, but whatevs.
Wolfi ain't a primitivist, he's an anti-civilisationist and rejects anarcho-primivitism as just another ideology.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Wolfi_Landstreicher__A_Critique__Not_a_Program__Fo r_a_Non-Primitivist_Anti-Civilization_Critique.html
Also, Stirner is shit hot!

[black magick hustla]

I think it's pretty clear who they're refering to when they say "activists". I don't think that they're refering to anyone who engages in an activity.
it has nothing to do with "activity". insurrectionists are endemic with a voluntaristic attituide, because they consider themselves to be participant of a nonexistent "global civil war" or "social war". so in the sense of being voluntaristic they are activists. so even if there is no class struggle or a class attitude, they will barricade the roads to attack the smooth functioning of society. i sympathize with the sentiment (solos contra fucking todos motherfuckers), but i dont think it is a sentiment borne out of much thinking.

[Zanthorus]

I agree with maldoror and Zeekloid. The 'Invisible Committee' may critique 'activism' but if it replaces 'activism' with what Zeekloid calls 'criminalism/vandalism/lifestylism' then it's clear that their position on activism is not in line with the Communist critique (Articulated clearly in 'The False Resource of Activism (http://signalfire.org/?p=9499)' by Bordiga), which positions itself squarely against the idea that individual actions as such can replace the movement of the working-class generated by the movement of capital itself.

[Os Cangaceiros]

insurrectionists are endemic with a voluntaristic attituide, because they consider themselves to be participant of a nonexistent "global civil war" or "social war".

Well it's pretty easy to think of yourself as a participant in that, if every illegal action you take has some kind of significance in the "social war".

That shit's hardly new. Ben Morea and "Black Mask" (the so-called American section of the SI, even though the French Situationists hated them) were praising the ghetto rebellions in places like Newark and Detroit as insurrections before the Invisible Committee was even a glimmer in their parents eyes.

I think what Zeekloid was saying though was that having beliefs and merely endorsing or living according to those beliefs makes you an "activist", which I don't really think is true, at least that's not what I consider an activist to be.

[gorillafuck]

People who distribute literature advocating insurrection and do voluntaristic, individualistic actions to bring about insurrection against capitalism are clearly activists.

They are clearly campaigning for social change through distributing materials to people to turn them to their ideology and going about with individual, voluntaristic actions against capitalism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You could define activism that way if you wanted, but I don't think that's the definition they were operating under when they wrote the piece.

[gorillafuck]

What's their definition?

[Decolonize The Left]

Who cares? If you are active in the revolutionary struggle then you're an activist. Being active in the revolutionary struggle can mean a lot of things, but it seems pretty self-explanatory.

- August

[nuisance]

Who cares?
People wanting to fully understand the critique being levelled.

[Tim Finnegan]

Question: Is a title like "the Invisible Committee" indicative of a retention of hypocritically authoritarian Bakuninite conspiracy-fetishism, or I am being unfair to them?