How do we defend adopting the style of advertising when its function is so oppressive? As a medium, we think it represents a revolutionary mode of production. Rejecting it has resulted in the stagnation of our minds and a crude romanticism in political culture. Those who turn up their noses at ads think in a language that is decrepit. Using the ad technique transforms the person who does it. It makes writing a pleasure for anyone because it strives in orality in print.
What we mean by the use of ad technique is to physically use it. Most of the time we are unconscious of ads and, if we do become conscious, we don't act upon them -- don't subvert them. Ads are based upon repetition. If you affect one of them, you affect all of them. Know the environment of the ad. The most effective way to subvert an ad is to make the contradiction in it visible. Advertise it. The vulnerability of ads lies in the possibility of turning them against the exploiters.
Jerry Rubin says you should use the media all the time. At least he goes all the way. This is better than the toe-dipping approach that seems so common these days. Of course, there are groups who say don't use it at all and they don't. They will probably outlast Jerry, since the basic technique of mass media is overexposure. That is why Jerry has already written his memoirs. The Situationists say, "The revolt is contained by over-exposure. We are given it to contemplate so that we shall forget to participate."
We are not talking about the packaging of politics. Ramparts are the Playboy of the Left. On the other hand, the underground press is pornographic and redundant. Newsreel's projector is running backwards. And why in the era of Cosmopolitan magazine must we suffer the stodigness of Leviathan? We much prefer reading Fortune -- the magazine for "the men in charge of change" -- for our analysis of capitalism.
There is no getting around it -- we need new formats, entirely new formats. Otherwise, we will never sharpen our wits. To break out of the spell of print requires a conscious effort to think a new language. We should no longer be immobilized by other people's words. Don't wait for the news to tell you what is happening. Make your headlines with presstype. Cut up your favorite magazine and put it together again. Cut big words in half and make little words out of them -- like ENVIRON MENTAL CRISIS. All you need is a good pair of scissors and rubber cement. Abuse the enemy's images. Turn the Man from GLAD into a Frankenstein. Make comic strips out of great art. Don't let anything interfere with your pleasure.
Don't read any more books -- at least not straight through. As G.B. Kay from Blackpool once said (quoting somebody else), "Reading rots the mind." Pamphlets are so much more fun. Read randomly, write on the margins and go back to comics. You might try the Silver Surfer, for a start.
There are two basic things underlying these unfortunate circumstances: 1) people's idea of how something (like revolution) will happen shapes our work habits; 2) their class background gives them a casual view of politics.
There is no doubt that the Pepsi generation is more politically alive. But this new energy is being channelled by organizers into boring meetings which reproduce the hierarchy of class society. After awhile, critical thinking is eroded and people lose their curiosity. Meetings become a routine like everything else in life.
A lot of problems which collectives will have can be traced to the work habits acquired in the (mass) movement. People perpetuate the passive roles they have become accustomed to in large meetings. The emphasis on mass participation means that all you have to do is show up. Rarely do people prepare themselves for a meeting, nor do they feel the need to. Often this situation does not become evident precisely because the few people who do work (those who run the meeting) create the illusion of group achievement.
Because people see themselves essentially as objects and not as subjects, political activity is defined as an event outside them and in the future. No one sees themselves making the revolution and, therefore, they don't understand how it will be accomplished.
The short span of attention is one telltale symptom of instant politics. The emphasis on responding to crisis seems to contract the span of attention -- in fact, there is often on time dimension at all. This timelessness is experienced as the syncopation of over-commitment. Many people say they will do things without really thinking out carefully whether they have the time to do them. Having time ultimately means defining what you really want to do. Over-commitment is when you want to do everything but end up doing nothing.
The numerous other symptoms of casual politics -- lack of preparation, being late, getting bored at difficult moments, etc. are all signs of a political attitude which is destructive to the collective. The important thing is recognizing the existence of these problems and knowledge of what causes them. They are not personal problems but historically determined attitudes.
Many people confuse the revolt against alienated labor in its specific form with work activity itself. This revolt is expressed in an anti-work attitude.
Attitudes toward work are shaped by our relations to production, i.e., class. Class is a product of hierarchic divisions of labor (including forms other than wage labor). There are three basic relations which can produce anti-work attitudes. The working class expresses its anti-work attitude as a rebellion against routinized labor. For the middle class, the anti-work attitude comes out of the ideology of consumer society and revolves around leisure. The stereotype of the "lazy native" or "physically weak woman" is a third anti-work attitude which is applied to those excluded from wage labor.
The dream of automation (i.e., no work) reinforces class prejudice. The middle class is the one that has the dream since it seeks to expand its leisure-oriented activities. To the working class, automation means a loss of their job, preoccupation with unemployment, which is the opposite of leisure. For the excluded, automation doesn't mean anything because it will not be applied to their forms of work.
The automation of the working class has become the ideology of post-scarcity radicals -- from the anarchists at Anarchos to SDS's new working class. Technological change has rescued them from the dilemma of a class analysis they were never able to make. With the elimination of working class struggle by automation (the automation of the working class) the radicals have become advocates of leisure society and touristic lifestyles. This anti-work attitude leads to a utopian outlook and removes us from the realm of history. It prevents the construction of collectivity and self-activity. The issue of how to transform work into self-activity is central to the elimination of class and the reorganization of society.
Self-activity is the reconstruction of the consciousness (wholenes) of one's individual life activity. The collective is what makes the reconstruction possible because it defines individuality not as a private experience but as a social relation. What is important is to see that work is the creating of conscious activity within the structure of the collective.
One of the best ways to discover and correct anti-work attitudes is through self-criticism. This provides an objective framework which allows people the space to be criticized and to be critical. Self-criticism is the opposite of self-consciousness because its aim is not to isolate you but to free repressed abilities. Self-criticism is a method for dealing with piggish behavior and developing consciousness....
Learn to be shrewd. Our first impulse is always to define our position. Why do we feel the need to tell them? We create space by not appearing to be what we really are.
Shrewdness is not simply a defensive tactic. The essence of shrewdness is learning to take advantage of the enemy's weaknesses. Otherwise, you can never win. The rule is: be honest among yourselves, but deceive the enemy.
There are at least three ways of dealing with a situation. You can neutralize, activate, or destroy. "Neutralize" is to create space. "Activate" is to gain support. "Destroy" is to win. What's more, it is essential to learn how to use all three simultaneously.
Struggle on many levels begins with the activation of all the senses. We must be able to conceive of more than one mode of acting for a given situation. The response, i.e. method of struggle, should contain three elements: 1) a means of survival; 2) a method of exploiting splits from the enemy camp; 3) an underground strategy.
The fundamental tendency of corporate liberalism is to identify with social change while trying to contain it. Wouldn't it be ironic (and even a relief) if we could turn the threat of co-option into a means of survival?
The fear of co-option often leads people to shun the challenge of corporate liberals. Some of the purest revolutionaries prefer not to thin about using the co-opter for their own purposes. Too often the mentality of the "job" obscures the potential for subversion.
The existence of corporate liberalism demands that we not be sloppy in our own thinking and response. The strength of the position is that it forces us to acknowledge our own weaknesses -- even before we engage in struggle against it. The worst mistake is to pretend that this enemy doesn't exist.
Urban struggle requires a subversive strategy. Concretely, working "within the system" should become for us a source of money, information, and anonymity.... daily life is nighttime for the enemy -- when he cannot see us. The process of co-option should become an increasingly disquieting exercise for them.
Exploiting splits within the enemy camp does not mean helping one segment defend another. The basic aim is to maintain the splits. There are significant differences among the oppressors. These have the effect of weakening them. Under certain circumstances, these splits may provide a margine of maneuverability which may be strategic for us. The main thing is not to view the enemy monolithically. Monolithic thinking condemns you to one way of acting.
There is a tendency to see the most degenerate forms of reaction as the primary enemy. The corporations are consciously pandering to such ideas through films like Easy Rider which also attempts to identify with young men. The function of analysis is to break down and specify the different forces within the enemy camp.
The spaces created by these splits are of crucial importance to the preparation of a long-range strategy. It will be increasingly difficult to survive with the visibility that we are accustomed to. The lifestyles which declare our opposition are also the ones which make us easy targets. We must not mistake the level of appearances for new cultures. The whole point is not to make a fetish of our lifestyles. In the psychedelic atmosphere of repression, square is cool.
Always keep part of your strategy underground. Just as analysis helps to differentiate the enemy so it should provide you with different levels of attack....
Going underground should not mean dropping heroically out of sight. There will be few places to hide in the electronic environment of the future. The most dangerous kind of underground will be one that is like an iceberg. The roles created to replace our identities in everyday life must become the disguise of the underground.
As underground strategy puts the impulse of confrontation into perspective. We must fight against the planned obsolescence of confrontations which lock us into the time-span of instant revolution. Going underground means having a long-range strategy -- something which plans for 2004. The iceberg strategy keeps us cool. It trains us to control our reflexes and calculate our responses.
The underground strategy is also necessary to maintain autonomy. Autonomy preserves the organizational form of the collective, which is critical to the sharpening of its politics. Nothing will be achieved by submerging ourselves in a chaos of revolutionary fronts. The principle strategy of the counterfeit Left will be to smear over differences with appeals to a class unity that no longer exists. An underground strategy without a revolutinary form of organization can only emerge as a new class society. To destroy the system of oppression is not enough. We must create the organization of a free society. When the underground emerges, the collective will be that society.
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