The Feral Underclass
27th November 2006, 12:15
Originally posted by
[email protected] 18, 2006 12:06 am
I have read throughout this forum several critiques of "lifestyle anarchists/communists". After much thought and examination I have come to think that Lifestyle Leftists do touch on a subject that is rarely explored by serious Progressive thought.
Why do you think that? Murray Bookchin for example wrote a very strong polemic against lifestyle anarchism, as have many other anarchists in various different ways including Malatesta.
That subject is of course the practicality of the ideals we disseminate, and to a greater extent our willingness to sacrifice for those ideals.
Having read through your post there seems to be no logical basis to what "the practicality of the ideals we disseminate" means?
I want to understand what you think society is? What is it you want to change and why? And how then do you suggest we change it?
You use the word sacrifice, but you don't elaborate on what that means? What are we to sacrifice?
I personally have little patience with the ivory tower intelligentsia of this movement...
What intelligentsia? Are you talking about theoreticians who conceptualise their ideas in order to understand them or something else; because the former is totally necessary.
If we don't think about what we believe in, then how can we possibly be able to understand why we should think it? If we don't know why we think what we think, how are we to "disseminate" these ideas?
...and I do somewhat distrust the bourgeoisie student class because to me their commitment is often fleeting and easily quelled with age and maturity.
What "bourgeoisie students". You mean students who come from middle class families? You don't trust them because of the family they were born into?
But the Lifestyle Leftists at least attempt to live by our codes and principles i.e. community, cooperation, respect for and acceptance difference (equality), little to no regard for property or at least the Capitalists definitions etc. So why does there seem to be so much ill will towards these members?
Because it won't achieve the destruction of capitalism and the state and won't create a communist society!
If we look at the lifestyle milieu and what the practicalities of this "community, co-operation, respect etcetc" actually is we can see that it is something that isn't necessarily what everyone wants.
For example, living in a squat; eating out of food bins; being vegetarian etc. These things are lifestyles, not political tools to destroy capitalism and they are also things that the vast majority of people - working class people - have no interest in being apart of.
That's not to say that people shouldn't live like this if they choose to. I have lived in squats before and I am likely to do it again - but to propagate that lifestyle as a vehicle for societal change is based in no rationale or logic other than 'idealist anticipation.'
I think we all should try to incorporate our socio-economic principles into our daily lives.
That's rarely possible when you have a full time job or dependents. It is only possible for young people who make a conscious decision to opt out of capitalist society and usually, in my experience, have a safety net in their education or parents.
Capitalism can only be destroyed when those who work within it cease to do so, take control of the means of production and defend those gains by violence if necessary.
There is no other way to destroy capitalism other than by those it directly exploits. Students, punks, activists have the power to help the workers defend their gains and fight the state - but without the workers refusing to work, thus refusing to make capitalism function - we will never see it end.
If you believe that a group of activists living out their utopia within capitalism can bring capitalism down then I want to see a comprehensive explanation how that is possible?
I for one do not dine at restaurants
Why? Eating at restaurants is fun! If you are to take this route, then you'll never be able to get on a train or a bus - You won't be able to do anything. We live in a capitalist society and there is no way to avoid it until it's destroyed.
And though my actions probably have no impact on the system, someone could easily recognize my non-conformity and from this recognition there could be a dialogue and dialogue is a necessity to initiate social change.
And then what...? Just creating one conversation will not initiate social change. You have to maintain those conversations and at times people stop listening. In order to challenge capitalism and the state and ensure those "dialogues" lead to people actively fighting you need to build mass movements.
Lifestyle Leftists in my opinion are a billboard of the movement and from this advertisement perhaps the greater mass will begin to ask more questions about the society in which they live.
That, as praxis, has consistently failed. Lifestyle anarchy has existed for decades, and has done little to nothing in "advertising to the greater mass".