A call to action in London, a call for involvement and discussion from everyone with anti-capitalist sentiments.
EDINBURGH, AND A LONDON ACTION
I have just been in Edinburgh but had to leave early. It was wonderful to be in a place where people had the energy and idealism to try and ‘change the world’. I did not agree with many things that went on – e.g. the make poverty history march, random acts of senseless violence, etc, but I still approve and admire the feeling and thought that went into them. But my time there also made me feel that the movement as a whole is attending purely to the outer world and not the inner. Hopefully I have explained what I mean by that in the course of this article.
To that end, I have used the term ‘action’ deliberately misleadingly here. I will not list details of a march in the streets, or a blockade of Shell Offices, or anything along those lines.
But I am issuing a call to action and it is one I desperately wish will be heard, because it is an action that I think is crucially important.
As far as I can see, any kind of personal involvement in a reformist (or revolutionary) movement needs to consist of two types of things. First, and most popularly, there has to be engagement with and protest against things in the world. So, for example, engagement with trade policies, protesting against the G8, blockades of nuclear plants, that kind of thing.
Second, and less popularly, there has to be a personal change in the way one lives and interacts with society. This is one of the creative sides of dissent and is particularly hard, for me, anyway, to come to terms with. On one level it involves changing consumption choices which is in principle easy, though much harder in practice. But it also involves philosophical, behavioural and attitudinal change. (This is necessarily vague because I do not have any certain answers; I am looking for others who are asking the same questions.) Essentially, I guess what I’m saying is that while it is essential to attempt to change the world, it is equally essential to change ourselves and the society we create around us – we need a solid centre from which to spread a message, whatever that message may end up being.
As importantly, if we are to entertain any thoughts of actual success, we need to develop coherent and persuasive alternatives to the existing systems. I do not see the point or the persuasiveness of simply, noisily, being against the way society is organised. Nor do I think it persuasive to suggest alternative ways of organisation without actually putting them into practice. Further, our academic ideas are properly tested by reality, and this testing is essential to the development of ideas and also their credibility.
This, so far, is pretty banal and obvious. It stops being banal (though it remains obvious) when we attempt to do something about it. To that end, here are my proposals, laid out in numbered statements so it is easier for people to argue against them:
1. The ultimate aim is to establish, maintain and develop a community that lives a moral life in every way.
2. This is the aim for 2 reasons – 1) it is good, in itself, to live in ways we think moral and correct; 2) it will be hugely helpful as an intellectual exercise, in trying to think of convincing alternatives to current situations.
3.The only real way to establish how we should live, and how societies should operate, is through trial and error.
4.To that end, we must aim to establish a physical space, that is eventually self-sustaining, that is free from the possibility of legal interruption (so, for example, I would rule out squatting as long-term solution), that is open to all and is a beacon of possibility in a world bereft of light.
5.I have ideas, but no dogmas, about how this is to proceed and on what lines we could construct our alternatives. But really, I am ignorant and seeking knowledge. So I welcome everyone, and I hope you email with thoughts and ideas, criticism and support. The plan is to get lots of people involved, with varying perspectives, skills and knowledge, and see what we can develop from there.
Incidentally, to pre-empt a certain kind of criticism, I am not arguing for an ivory-tower type of society. I think it is crucially important that we engage with the world, and that we continue to do such things as we think are necessary to make the world a better place, whether that be protest against the G8, campaign against identity cards, for asylum seekers, etc. My suggestions do not imply anything different.
I hope everyone who finds this interesting, or thinks I have a point, or wants to correct some of my ideas, gets in touch. I am very serious about making this happen, but it will only happen with the involvement of people and it will only be worthwhile with that involvement.
My email is
dissentspace@gmail.com. I live in London, and will be here for the foreseeable, which is why I have titled my post London action. But everyone is welcome to contribute; indeed, I hope they will.
I have just been in Edinburgh but had to leave early. It was wonderful to be in a place where people had the energy and idealism to try and ‘change the world’. I did not agree with many things that went on – e.g. the make poverty history march, random acts of senseless violence, etc, but I still approve and admire the feeling and thought that went into them. But my time there also made me feel that the movement as a whole is attending purely to the outer world and not the inner. Hopefully I have explained what I mean by that in the course of this article.
To that end, I have used the term ‘action’ deliberately misleadingly here. I will not list details of a march in the streets, or a blockade of Shell Offices, or anything along those lines.
But I am issuing a call to action and it is one I desperately wish will be heard, because it is an action that I think is crucially important.
As far as I can see, any kind of personal involvement in a reformist (or revolutionary) movement needs to consist of two types of things. First, and most popularly, there has to be engagement with and protest against things in the world. So, for example, engagement with trade policies, protesting against the G8, blockades of nuclear plants, that kind of thing.
Second, and less popularly, there has to be a personal change in the way one lives and interacts with society. This is one of the creative sides of dissent and is particularly hard, for me, anyway, to come to terms with. On one level it involves changing consumption choices which is in principle easy, though much harder in practice. But it also involves philosophical, behavioural and attitudinal change. (This is necessarily vague because I do not have any certain answers; I am looking for others who are asking the same questions.) Essentially, I guess what I’m saying is that while it is essential to attempt to change the world, it is equally essential to change ourselves and the society we create around us – we need a solid centre from which to spread a message, whatever that message may end up being.
As importantly, if we are to entertain any thoughts of actual success, we need to develop coherent and persuasive alternatives to the existing systems. I do not see the point or the persuasiveness of simply, noisily, being against the way society is organised. Nor do I think it persuasive to suggest alternative ways of organisation without actually putting them into practice. Further, our academic ideas are properly tested by reality, and this testing is essential to the development of ideas and also their credibility.
This, so far, is pretty banal and obvious. It stops being banal (though it remains obvious) when we attempt to do something about it. To that end, here are my proposals, laid out in numbered statements so it is easier for people to argue against them:
1. The ultimate aim is to establish, maintain and develop a community that lives a moral life in every way.
2. This is the aim for 2 reasons – 1) it is good, in itself, to live in ways we think moral and correct; 2) it will be hugely helpful as an intellectual exercise, in trying to think of convincing alternatives to current situations.
3.The only real way to establish how we should live, and how societies should operate, is through trial and error.
4.To that end, we must aim to establish a physical space, that is eventually self-sustaining, that is free from the possibility of legal interruption (so, for example, I would rule out squatting as long-term solution), that is open to all and is a beacon of possibility in a world bereft of light.
5.I have ideas, but no dogmas, about how this is to proceed and on what lines we could construct our alternatives. But really, I am ignorant and seeking knowledge. So I welcome everyone, and I hope you email with thoughts and ideas, criticism and support. The plan is to get lots of people involved, with varying perspectives, skills and knowledge, and see what we can develop from there.
Incidentally, to pre-empt a certain kind of criticism, I am not arguing for an ivory-tower type of society. I think it is crucially important that we engage with the world, and that we continue to do such things as we think are necessary to make the world a better place, whether that be protest against the G8, campaign against identity cards, for asylum seekers, etc. My suggestions do not imply anything different.
I hope everyone who finds this interesting, or thinks I have a point, or wants to correct some of my ideas, gets in touch. I am very serious about making this happen, but it will only happen with the involvement of people and it will only be worthwhile with that involvement.
My email is
dissentspace@gmail.com. I live in London, and will be here for the foreseeable, which is why I have titled my post London action. But everyone is welcome to contribute; indeed, I hope they will. 
e-mail:
Comments
Hide the following 11 comments
this is crap ...
06.07.2005 12:39
Jon
My response to Jon
06.07.2005 12:47
I don't have any idea where we can get a physical space from. But that's precisely the kind of problem that we can solve if we believe it's worth solving. And as for the rest, well, I did explicitly say that I wasn't suggesting an ivory tower existence.
About being selfish: I dont know if you're right or not. I can see some truth in it and it makes me guilty. But then every minute we spend not feeding the starving, say, is selfish. That may be true but it makes life impossible to live. And I think what i'm suggesting is worthwhile, even if not the most humanitarian thing one can directly do.
Does this make sense? I'm confused about these issues and the right thing to do and think, so I'm quite likely to not be making sense :)
P
e-mail:
dissentspace@gmail.com
Anti-Corporation Share Prices
06.07.2005 12:54
Despite your efforts in helping to chase the heels of the 'corporate machine' you'll be pleased to know using gmail has managed to shoot yahoo up higher in the US stock market by $3.10 a share. Congratulations on your attemps to hound big business while using same big business to make millionaires more millions!
Jo Jo
Good to read something positive
06.07.2005 13:45
As for thinking of yourself while others are starving, i find this a very narrow view - surely you can do both and what's the point of helping others if you aren't also helping yourself?
This might be a bit vague and I don't have much time but hopeful some of the feeling comes across. We need positivity, even if some ideas come to nothing lots do come to something and that's how change comes about in ourselves and in the rest of the world.
Catherine
If it's not the way we want it it's not good enough
06.07.2005 13:55
Damn your stupid ideas.
You're just a corporate suckup.
If you wanna be a real activist you have to fit in. (Like Jon and Jo Jo who are obviously really cool and hard and know what they are talking about. Go Guys you are the best. Shoot him down. )
The Nazi
Responses to Catherine and JoJo
06.07.2005 13:57
Catherine: thanks for the support :) It's much appreciated. Drop me an email when you can, if you can. It'd be good to talk about these things with people.
P
e-mail:
dissentspace@gmail.com
Ah lads,
06.07.2005 14:11
It's the projection of this "more ethically correct and holier than thou" attitude by a minority of "do-gooders" that prevents others from participating and attempting to make the world better in some small way.
Ye don't have a monopoly on knowing how people should live their lives, and the slagging he's getting now is exactly the response that undermines people's honest and genuine efforts to make a stand.
Sure, yahoo aint great, but lets be honest, anyone using a computer out there is participating in some way in the capitalism they protest against. All we can do is our best at any given time, and if those efforts are heart-felt, then that's what's important.
And as they say, charity does start at home - when people seriously try to live better lives in their own little way, they are far more likely to be motivated to think of the greater good. Coz as everyone keeps saying, dishing out wads of cash isn't going to save the millions, only changing how the world works at a very fundamental level will.
So fair play!
purple_splat
Yep, me again
06.07.2005 14:12
by the way nazi, thanks for the laughs :)
P
e-mail:
dissentspace@hushmail.com
I'm in favour, but ...
06.07.2005 14:24
braddock
e-mail:
braddock@hotmail.co.uk
re: Anti-Corporation Share Prices
06.07.2005 21:22
I'm genuinely curious, and i'm not saying you're lying as you never know with companies like these but how is Google (the company behind Gmail) a "wing" of Yahoo! Inc. ? The last i heard was that Yahoo! Inc. where not on best terms with Google following a somewhat public dispute in late 2003 which resulted in Yahoo! dropping support for Google's web search on it's site and third party businesses back in February '04 - i can't see how Google could be responsible for a $3.10 rise in it's share price - it's more like Yahoo! has actually being doing rather well on it's own lately with some big improvements to its search facilities, it's mail and a big announcement recently regarding a new music download service to compliment its LaunchCAST media service - that would be enough to get any stoke broker jerking off. Unless that is, you know something i don't in which case i'd love to read what you've been reading.
But anyway, re: Gmail and privacy... Gmail is no more and no less private than any other commercial email service. While Gmail has software, which it does openly admit to scanning your mail for keywords to bring up related advertisements that isn't any different to any other commercial mail provider in that your mail can be scanned and read without you knowing it, the only difference was that Google make you aware of it - and Hushmail is absolutely no different as any email it receives it not secure during transit and further more just like any provider, Hushmail must and will open up your account to the authorities when it is ordered by a court to do so.
neil
neil
re: Anti-Corporation Share Prices
06.07.2005 21:44
I'm genuinely curious, and i'm not saying you're lying as you never know with companies like these but how is Google (the company behind Gmail) a "wing" of Yahoo! Inc. ? The last i heard was that Yahoo! Inc. where not on best terms with Google following a somewhat public dispute in late 2003 which resulted in Yahoo! dropping support for Google's web search on it's site and third party businesses back in February '04 - i can't see how Google could be responsible for a $3.10 rise in it's share price - it's more like Yahoo! has actually being doing rather well on it's own lately with some big improvements to its search facilities, it's mail and a big announcement recently regarding a new music download service to compliment its LaunchCAST media service - that would be enough to get any stoke broker jerking off. Unless that is, you know something i don't in which case i'd love to read what you've been reading.
But anyway, re: Gmail and privacy... Gmail is no more and no less private than any other commercial email service. While Gmail has software, which it does openly admit to scanning your mail for keywords to bring up related advertisements that isn't any different to any other commercial mail provider in that your mail can be scanned and read without you knowing it, the only difference was that Google make you aware of it - and Hushmail is absolutely no different as any email it receives it not secure during transit and further more just like any provider, Hushmail must and will open up your account to the authorities when it is ordered by a court to do so.
neil
neil