JazzRemington
12th July 2007, 17:45
I posted this in my blog a while back and I thought I would throw it out here to see if it is sound. It's basically a short critique of some things in CrimethInc's book "Days of War, Nights of Love." As noted below in the introduction, there were references in the form of foot notes, but these did not transfer well so I only reproduced the important, non-page number ones.
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This is a general critique of CrimethInc\'s Days of War, Nights of Love. This is mainly a critique of their concept of Freedom, Capitalism, the Bourgeoisie, and a few minor points. The numbers shown after certain passages are footnotes. Mainly, they are footnotes to pages in the work itself, but one is of another work and a few are a short asides. The asides are reprinted below the critique, the page numbers are not.
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Freedom
Crimethinc’s concept of freedom is highly individualistic. We mean this because they value the individual’s freedom even above social stability. To be completely free, one must be free from all external influences. One must find his or herself with little to no outside influences. This means, amongst other things, that one must be free of objective moral law because “if there is no moral law, that means we’re free.”
According to CrimethInc, “[o]nce upon a time almost everyone believed in the existence of God.” But, “one day, people began to wake up and realize that there was no such thing as God.” Thus, “[w]ithout God, there is no longer any objective standard by which to judge good and evil.” The main problem with this reasoning is that it is too vague. It seems as if people were just sitting around one day and then somehow decided that there was no such thing as a god, or gods for that matter. How did this happen? We are not told by the people at CrimethInc, but according to history[4], we are told that it was rapid development of science that lead to the questioning of a divine being.[5]
But regarding morals, “the real idea of universal moral law is that it asserts the
existence of something that we have no way of knowing anything about.” True, one cannot objectively measure morality as one can measure the temperature of water, or discover how something happens or why through scientific experimentation. But this does not say that morality in itself is anything useless. For any society, or even a small group of individuals, morals are important to keep the society together. For instance, the first moral laws grew out of early agricultural societies in which collective action in the fields was important and any shirking of duties was looked down upon. It was important that this happened for the sake of keeping people fed.
They place so much emphasis on individual freedom that it comes at the expense of stability. “If the abolition of the myths of moral law somehow causes more strife between human beings, won’t that still be better than living as slaves to superstitions?” But the idea that humans are naturally violent toward one another is dealt with rather correctly, in that they believe that humans are products of social forces so that anything they do is not considered natural. It is strange that they believe freedom can only come from being free from external influences, but claim that people are always being influenced by external forces. Thus, if someone were naturally violent, would it be considered wrong to try to exert force upon him to try to change him?
Another system that one must break free from is “hierarchy.” To CrimethInc, “hierarchy is a value system in which your worth is measured by the number of people and things you control, and how dutifully you obey those above you.”
While hierarchy itself is a problem, this definition poses an even bigger problem. It seems rather vague, but can be made clear. The first phrase in the definition, “the number of people and things you control” can be equated to your position in the hierarchy. Depending upon your place in the system, on control people below you (how many and how depends on the specific hierarchy). The second phrase, “how dutifully you obey those above you” is pretty self-evident. A would be a good employee if and only if A obeys his superior, B.
Two abnormalities cause the aforementioned confusion: that hierarchy is defined as a value system and the example CrimethInc gives of a hierarchy in action. By defining hierarchy as a value system, it becomes difficult to see who and what fits into what hierarchy, and how. For example, if A owns 1 home, 2 cars, and 3 television sets, and B owns 1 home, 1 car, and no television sets. Would A be valued higher than B? How? Who ranks A higher than B? In what hierarchy would A and B be placed?
Said confusion also comes about through one of their examples of hierarchy in action:
It is hierarchy at work when two hundred hardcore kids go to a rock club (already a mistake, but that\'s a subject for another article) to see a band, and for some stupid reason the club owner won\'t let them perform: there are two hundred and six people at the club, two hundred and five of whom want the band to play, but they all accept the decision of the club owner just because he is older and owns the place (i.e. has more financial clout, and thus more legal clout).
They seem to confuse power coming from property ownership and hierarchy. Because the club owner owns the club (i.e. it is his property), he has the power to not have said band play. It is not hierarchy that allows him to do this, but the power coming from owning the club.
CrimethInc admits that in our present society, “it is impossible to imagine living without authority, without laws or government.” They are correct in their assertion and propose that anarchism be resurrected as a personal approach to life. Thus, if one somehow breaks free from hierarchy, moral authority, etc., then one is practicing anarchism. But while doing all this might change the individual, it certainly will not change society as a whole. Freedom is not a state of mind.
The Bourgeoisie
We are told by CrimethInc that the Bourgeois lifestyle is boring, prude, tiring, and all around hollow. What is interesting to note, is that their use of the term “bourgeois” is similar to how “trendy” or “rich” people use it to describe something that is boring, prude, tiring, and all around hollow. More troubling is how they set up a straw man in regards to making the “bourgeois individual” seem like an actual, material individual. But they then claim that this individual is inside us all.
This presents a problem. Is the bourgeois individual an actual person or a consciousness? If the bourgeois individual is an individual person then we have no problem with this argument. People do belong to the bourgeois class. But the real problem is defining bourgeois as a consciousness independent. We mean that if one behaves internally (i.e. has the same mentality, beliefs, ideals, etc.) as a member of the bourgeoisie, then hypothetically everyone is a member of bourgeoisie. Also, where did this consciousness come from? Did it just arise spontaneously without any pretense? How does one obtain this consciousness? Does it just happen? By the logic of defining bourgeoisie as a consciousness independent of material reality, would it be correct to say that if I say or believe that I am a wealthy person, despite not actually being materially wealthy, would I be correct? To have a certain class’ consciousness does not mean one is of that particular class. Bourgeoisie consciousness and the material class itself are not two separate things.
Capitalism
CrimethInc has a relatively sound view of the affects of contemporary Capitalism on generally non-economic spheres. They view it as oppressive, creating false needs, stupefying people into being complacent individuals through Spectacular relationships, etc. They refer to Capitalism as being value on what people have as opposed to what they do. There are a few minor points of this inversion. Contemporary Capitalism (from about the 1950s up to the present time) has inverted life from having into appearing. Having is still important, no doubt. But appearance is an important factor in our contemporary, Spectacle-driven Capitalism.
Which brings us to our next point: CrimethInc has a strong grasp of commodity fetishism. They write that advertisement agencies and businesses work hard to show that one needs a certain commodity. They do not seem to relate it to commodity fetishism, per say; however, it is important to note how this sort of thing is related to commodity production and exchange.[18]
Next, we have the strange notion that “bosses and workers are brought together under mutual duress.” It is true that a capitalist needs a worker in order to obtain surplus-value, his livelihood, and that a worker needs a capitalist to work for to obtain the wages necessary to obtain his livelihood. But, the duress is not as mutual as one would imagine. A capitalist will always have people to pick from to employ, due to the nature of the labor market. A worker, on the other hand, cannot go for long without being employed because of the nature of the labor market. Also, a capitalist and a worker have two separate material interests: the capitalist needs high surplus value and the worker needs high wages. The two cannot coexist with any lasting, meaningful peace.
In terms of an alternative, they believe that “we need to develop an economy that is based on giving rather than trading.” But we are not told how this is to be done, or how a gift economy would counter-act the Spectacular relationships provided in Capitalism.
Miscellaneous Stuff
Here, the author would like to show various problems with CrimethInc’s work that could not be expanded upon into a larger section.
First, CrimethInc’s critique of gender seems a bit shallow. They have it correct that gender, as opposed to sex, is something social, not physical. Thus, a person who dresses in frilly clothing, wears lipstick, and plays with dolls would probably be considered a female, despite being physically male. But we aren’t presented with a good, detailed critique. We are informed that “gender is another false division of life,” and we are told how it is harmful, but nothing beyond this.
Second, their criticism of history is a bit strange. They maintain that history is oppressive because people get stuck in it and it holds people back (hence, it is a “dead hand” upon one’s self). But they don’t seem to understand that it is not history itself that is oppressive and terrible, but rather how it is used or presented. They cite that history has become the property of a few people, in the sense of being subverted and controlled. An example would be the memory hole from George Orwell’s 1984. They say that myth (being history without time) should replace history, because hypothetically myths belong to everyone.
But this is an outright laughable criticism. Certainly, history can be subverted by people to show something subjective as objective. But that does not mean history is bad. It can be very useful to study the past and see what did work and did not work. They maintain that history prevents people from finding new solutions to old problems, but they don’t seem to realize their beliefs are about as old as history itself. So, is history really the “dead hand of the past?”
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Footnotes
4. Their arguments regarding history are discussed later.
5. Though the development of science is in itself an entirely different story, it is important to note that without said development, there would be no rejection of a god.
18. Yes, as I stated before commodity fetishism (as well as all Spectacular relationships in general) came from generalized commodity exchange. It would seem obvious from here that no commodity exchange would mean no commodity fetishism. But according to CrimethInc, commodity fetishism seems to be something “next to” Capitalism, not that it comes from it somehow.
20. In Ancient Greece, for example, the Stoics were individuals who thought that one should be free of external influences and deliberately did provocative acts to flaunt their freedom and ridicule the standards of the time. The Hippies in the 1960s advocated the “drop out” lifestyle that CrimethInc does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a general critique of CrimethInc\'s Days of War, Nights of Love. This is mainly a critique of their concept of Freedom, Capitalism, the Bourgeoisie, and a few minor points. The numbers shown after certain passages are footnotes. Mainly, they are footnotes to pages in the work itself, but one is of another work and a few are a short asides. The asides are reprinted below the critique, the page numbers are not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Freedom
Crimethinc’s concept of freedom is highly individualistic. We mean this because they value the individual’s freedom even above social stability. To be completely free, one must be free from all external influences. One must find his or herself with little to no outside influences. This means, amongst other things, that one must be free of objective moral law because “if there is no moral law, that means we’re free.”
According to CrimethInc, “[o]nce upon a time almost everyone believed in the existence of God.” But, “one day, people began to wake up and realize that there was no such thing as God.” Thus, “[w]ithout God, there is no longer any objective standard by which to judge good and evil.” The main problem with this reasoning is that it is too vague. It seems as if people were just sitting around one day and then somehow decided that there was no such thing as a god, or gods for that matter. How did this happen? We are not told by the people at CrimethInc, but according to history[4], we are told that it was rapid development of science that lead to the questioning of a divine being.[5]
But regarding morals, “the real idea of universal moral law is that it asserts the
existence of something that we have no way of knowing anything about.” True, one cannot objectively measure morality as one can measure the temperature of water, or discover how something happens or why through scientific experimentation. But this does not say that morality in itself is anything useless. For any society, or even a small group of individuals, morals are important to keep the society together. For instance, the first moral laws grew out of early agricultural societies in which collective action in the fields was important and any shirking of duties was looked down upon. It was important that this happened for the sake of keeping people fed.
They place so much emphasis on individual freedom that it comes at the expense of stability. “If the abolition of the myths of moral law somehow causes more strife between human beings, won’t that still be better than living as slaves to superstitions?” But the idea that humans are naturally violent toward one another is dealt with rather correctly, in that they believe that humans are products of social forces so that anything they do is not considered natural. It is strange that they believe freedom can only come from being free from external influences, but claim that people are always being influenced by external forces. Thus, if someone were naturally violent, would it be considered wrong to try to exert force upon him to try to change him?
Another system that one must break free from is “hierarchy.” To CrimethInc, “hierarchy is a value system in which your worth is measured by the number of people and things you control, and how dutifully you obey those above you.”
While hierarchy itself is a problem, this definition poses an even bigger problem. It seems rather vague, but can be made clear. The first phrase in the definition, “the number of people and things you control” can be equated to your position in the hierarchy. Depending upon your place in the system, on control people below you (how many and how depends on the specific hierarchy). The second phrase, “how dutifully you obey those above you” is pretty self-evident. A would be a good employee if and only if A obeys his superior, B.
Two abnormalities cause the aforementioned confusion: that hierarchy is defined as a value system and the example CrimethInc gives of a hierarchy in action. By defining hierarchy as a value system, it becomes difficult to see who and what fits into what hierarchy, and how. For example, if A owns 1 home, 2 cars, and 3 television sets, and B owns 1 home, 1 car, and no television sets. Would A be valued higher than B? How? Who ranks A higher than B? In what hierarchy would A and B be placed?
Said confusion also comes about through one of their examples of hierarchy in action:
It is hierarchy at work when two hundred hardcore kids go to a rock club (already a mistake, but that\'s a subject for another article) to see a band, and for some stupid reason the club owner won\'t let them perform: there are two hundred and six people at the club, two hundred and five of whom want the band to play, but they all accept the decision of the club owner just because he is older and owns the place (i.e. has more financial clout, and thus more legal clout).
They seem to confuse power coming from property ownership and hierarchy. Because the club owner owns the club (i.e. it is his property), he has the power to not have said band play. It is not hierarchy that allows him to do this, but the power coming from owning the club.
CrimethInc admits that in our present society, “it is impossible to imagine living without authority, without laws or government.” They are correct in their assertion and propose that anarchism be resurrected as a personal approach to life. Thus, if one somehow breaks free from hierarchy, moral authority, etc., then one is practicing anarchism. But while doing all this might change the individual, it certainly will not change society as a whole. Freedom is not a state of mind.
The Bourgeoisie
We are told by CrimethInc that the Bourgeois lifestyle is boring, prude, tiring, and all around hollow. What is interesting to note, is that their use of the term “bourgeois” is similar to how “trendy” or “rich” people use it to describe something that is boring, prude, tiring, and all around hollow. More troubling is how they set up a straw man in regards to making the “bourgeois individual” seem like an actual, material individual. But they then claim that this individual is inside us all.
This presents a problem. Is the bourgeois individual an actual person or a consciousness? If the bourgeois individual is an individual person then we have no problem with this argument. People do belong to the bourgeois class. But the real problem is defining bourgeois as a consciousness independent. We mean that if one behaves internally (i.e. has the same mentality, beliefs, ideals, etc.) as a member of the bourgeoisie, then hypothetically everyone is a member of bourgeoisie. Also, where did this consciousness come from? Did it just arise spontaneously without any pretense? How does one obtain this consciousness? Does it just happen? By the logic of defining bourgeoisie as a consciousness independent of material reality, would it be correct to say that if I say or believe that I am a wealthy person, despite not actually being materially wealthy, would I be correct? To have a certain class’ consciousness does not mean one is of that particular class. Bourgeoisie consciousness and the material class itself are not two separate things.
Capitalism
CrimethInc has a relatively sound view of the affects of contemporary Capitalism on generally non-economic spheres. They view it as oppressive, creating false needs, stupefying people into being complacent individuals through Spectacular relationships, etc. They refer to Capitalism as being value on what people have as opposed to what they do. There are a few minor points of this inversion. Contemporary Capitalism (from about the 1950s up to the present time) has inverted life from having into appearing. Having is still important, no doubt. But appearance is an important factor in our contemporary, Spectacle-driven Capitalism.
Which brings us to our next point: CrimethInc has a strong grasp of commodity fetishism. They write that advertisement agencies and businesses work hard to show that one needs a certain commodity. They do not seem to relate it to commodity fetishism, per say; however, it is important to note how this sort of thing is related to commodity production and exchange.[18]
Next, we have the strange notion that “bosses and workers are brought together under mutual duress.” It is true that a capitalist needs a worker in order to obtain surplus-value, his livelihood, and that a worker needs a capitalist to work for to obtain the wages necessary to obtain his livelihood. But, the duress is not as mutual as one would imagine. A capitalist will always have people to pick from to employ, due to the nature of the labor market. A worker, on the other hand, cannot go for long without being employed because of the nature of the labor market. Also, a capitalist and a worker have two separate material interests: the capitalist needs high surplus value and the worker needs high wages. The two cannot coexist with any lasting, meaningful peace.
In terms of an alternative, they believe that “we need to develop an economy that is based on giving rather than trading.” But we are not told how this is to be done, or how a gift economy would counter-act the Spectacular relationships provided in Capitalism.
Miscellaneous Stuff
Here, the author would like to show various problems with CrimethInc’s work that could not be expanded upon into a larger section.
First, CrimethInc’s critique of gender seems a bit shallow. They have it correct that gender, as opposed to sex, is something social, not physical. Thus, a person who dresses in frilly clothing, wears lipstick, and plays with dolls would probably be considered a female, despite being physically male. But we aren’t presented with a good, detailed critique. We are informed that “gender is another false division of life,” and we are told how it is harmful, but nothing beyond this.
Second, their criticism of history is a bit strange. They maintain that history is oppressive because people get stuck in it and it holds people back (hence, it is a “dead hand” upon one’s self). But they don’t seem to understand that it is not history itself that is oppressive and terrible, but rather how it is used or presented. They cite that history has become the property of a few people, in the sense of being subverted and controlled. An example would be the memory hole from George Orwell’s 1984. They say that myth (being history without time) should replace history, because hypothetically myths belong to everyone.
But this is an outright laughable criticism. Certainly, history can be subverted by people to show something subjective as objective. But that does not mean history is bad. It can be very useful to study the past and see what did work and did not work. They maintain that history prevents people from finding new solutions to old problems, but they don’t seem to realize their beliefs are about as old as history itself. So, is history really the “dead hand of the past?”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
4. Their arguments regarding history are discussed later.
5. Though the development of science is in itself an entirely different story, it is important to note that without said development, there would be no rejection of a god.
18. Yes, as I stated before commodity fetishism (as well as all Spectacular relationships in general) came from generalized commodity exchange. It would seem obvious from here that no commodity exchange would mean no commodity fetishism. But according to CrimethInc, commodity fetishism seems to be something “next to” Capitalism, not that it comes from it somehow.
20. In Ancient Greece, for example, the Stoics were individuals who thought that one should be free of external influences and deliberately did provocative acts to flaunt their freedom and ridicule the standards of the time. The Hippies in the 1960s advocated the “drop out” lifestyle that CrimethInc does.