armed joy
Armed Joy (1977) by Alfredo M. Bonanno
via 28 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-armed-joy]
notes/quotes:
6
Pay attention, comrade. There is a smell of bookkeeping here. We are talking of consumption and production. Everything is still in the dimension of productivity. Arithmetic makes you feel safe. Two and two make four. Who would dispute this ‘truth’? Numbers rule the world. If they have done till now, why shouldn’t they continue to?
lit & num as colonialism et al
And so on. Anyone who decides to organise my life for me can never be my comrade. If they try to justify this with the excuse that someone must ‘produce’ otherwise we will all lose our identity as human beings and be overcome by ‘wild, savage nature’, we reply that the man-nature relationship is a product of the enlightened Marxist bourgeoisie. Why did they want to turn a sword into a pitchfork? Why must man continually strive to distinguish himself from nature?
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
8
How good it is to count ourselves. It makes us feel strong. The unions count themselves. The parties count themselves. The bosses count themselves. So do we. Ring a ring o’ roses.
graeber violence/quantification law et al.. of math and men et al..
10
We must counter the satisfaction of spectacular needs imposed by consumer society with the satisfaction of man’s natural needs seen in the light of that primary, essential need: the need for communism.
need deeper.. need both missing pieces: attachment and authenticity.. for the dance to dance
need 1st/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs
In this way the quantitative evaluation of needs is overturned. The need for communism transforms all other needs and their pressures on man.
yeah.. if just ‘communism’ ness.. the maté trump law ness keeps keeping us from us
brown belonging law et al
The only way for the exploited to escape the globalising project of capital is through the refusal of work, production and political economy.
any form of re ness.. ie: refusal et al.. is cancerous distraction
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
11
But revolutionaries are dutiful people and are afraid to break with all models, not least that of revolution, which constitutes an obstacle to the full realisation of what the concept means. They are afraid they might find themselves without a role in life. Have you ever met a revolutionary without a revolutionary project? A project that is well defined and presented clearly to the masses? Whatever kind of revolutionary would be one who claimed to destroy the model, the wrapping, the very foundations of the revolution? By attacking concepts such as quantification, class, project, model, historical task and other such old stuff, one would run the risk of having nothing to do, of being obliged to act in reality, modestly, like everyone else. Like millions of others who are building the revolution day by day without waiting for signs of a fatal deadline. And to do this you need courage.
?
12
In the illusory world of commodities, play is also an illusion. We imagine we are playing, while all we are really doing is monotonously repeating the roles assigned to us by capital.
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
art [play/whatever] (by day/light) and sleep (by night/dark) as global re\set.. to fittingness (undisturbed ecosystem)
13
There is no joy in work, even if it is selfmanaged. The revolution cannot be reduced to a simple reorganisation of work. Not that alone. There is no joy in sacrifice, death and revenge. Just as there is no joy in counting oneself. Arithmetic is the negation of joy.
kilpi work law et al.. supposed to’s of school/work et al.. any form of m\a\p
It is essential to understand that the work ethic is the foundation of the quantitative revolutionary project. Arguments against work would be senseless if they were made by revolutionary organisations with their logic of quantitative growth.
rather.. missing pieces are.. khan filling the gaps law et al..
The substitution of the work ethic with the aesthetic of joy would not mean an end to life as so many worried comrades would have it. *To the question: ‘What will we eat?’ one could quite simply reply: ‘What we produce.’ Only production would no longer be the dimension in which man determines himself, as that would come about in the sphere of play and joy. One could produce as something separate from nature, then join with it as something that is nature itself. So it would be possible to stop producing at any moment, when there is enough. Only joy will be uncontrollable. A force unknown to the civilised larvae that populate our era. A force that will multiply the creative impulse of the revolution a thousandfold.
*or just what we find.. if quit trying to manage/produce everything..
14
The revolution is the negation of labour and the affirmation of joy. Any attempt to impose the idea of work, ‘fair work’, work without exploitation, ‘self-managed’ work where the exploited are to re-appropriate themselves of the whole of the productive process without exploitation, is a mystification.
aka: whalespeak
16
Play is characterised by a vital impulse that is always new, always in movement. By acting as though we are playing, we charge our action with this impulse. We free ourselves from death. Play makes us feel alive. It gives us the excitement of life. In the other model of acting we do everything as though it were a duty, as though we ‘had’ to do it.
play.. et al
graeber fear of play law et al..
17
The supporters of quantity, lovers of arithmetic, will be first on and will be blinded by the limelight, dragging the masses of necessity and the ideologies of redemption along behind them.
Let us leave those who like the spectacle of capitalism alone. *Those who are quite happy to play their parts to the end. **These people think that reforms really can change things. But this is more an ideological cover than anything else. They know only too well that changing bits is one of the rules of the system. It is useful to capital to have ***things fixed a little at a time.
*rather.. appear to be quite happy.. kafka real face law et al
**rather.. all of us are playing the part\ial ness game to some degree.. for (blank)’s sake
***lynch fixed hidden law et al
Then there is the revolutionary movement where there is no lack of those who attack the power of capital verbally. These people cause a great deal of confusion. They come out with grand statements but no longer impress anyone, least of all capital which cunningly uses them for the most delicate part of its spectacle. When it needs a soloist it puts one of these performers on stage. The result is pitiful.
left off top 18
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be you. 