futility of struggle

The Futility of Struggle (2021) by ziq via 2 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-the-futility-of-struggle]

notes/quotes:

To struggle is to embody the activist mentality. To struggle is to take up the role of activism. The activist belongs to the struggle, gives themself fully to the cause, makes it their job, their mission, their whole existence.

Social struggle is activism, it’s protest, it’s empty obsessive-compulsive ritual, it’s imposing sanctimonious moral values on others, it’s collectivizing people into in-groups and out-groups so they can better do war with each other, it’s entrenched in dogmatic ideology and personality cults, it’s self-aggrandizing and endlessly congratulatory, *it’s a constant push and pull between the system and those who struggle to seize control of it to reboot it in their own image, appointing themselves as the beloved God-given saviors of The People™, the purveyors of fairness, equality and rational world building.

*to me that’s what bricks ness does as well..

*Tearing authority apart needn’t be done in the name of an epic global struggle for the greater good or to achieve the grand master plan set out for us by the great elders of anarchy in their uplifting manifestos promising us a **new world order dedicated to worker-led factories and social justice for all.

*i see ‘tearing authority apart’ and ‘struggle’ ness as same song.. both forms of re ness

**to me.. if about worker-led factories and justice ness.. not new/diff/free

Destroying authority where you see it isn’t a struggle for revolution, it doesn’t need to be done in pursuit of anything bigger than a simple personal desire to watch tangible instruments of authority burn to embers right in front of you so they no longer blight your senses.

oooof.. cancerous distraction

The actions we take *don’t need to be in pursuit of an amazing utopian society dreamed up by a long-dead Russian prince or an epic battle between good and evil of our own imagining where we cast ourselves as the heroic protagonists in a brutal social war where victory is everything and **there can be no rest or amusement until the glorious prophesized end goal is achieved.

*agree on the dreamed up by part.. but we legit let go of authority ness.. aka: any form of m\a\p.. we would have an amazing ‘utopian’ society.. one that each heart craves..

**to me.. takes a lot of work ness is a red flag we’re doing it/life wrong

*An anarchist’s actions don’t need to be connected to anything beyond what we see and feel right in front of us: A tangible, immediate outcome we can perceive with our own senses in this time and space. What we do doesn’t need to be presented as part of some incredible 4D chess move to build a new, ‘better’ society or government, to ignite a new age of egalitarianism that promises to solve all of humanity’s problems by putting the right people in charge of constructing the right systems.

*but to me.. this is missing hari rat park law and imagine a turtle.. has to be all of us for the dance to dance

I can paint over a billboard or spike a tree or tear up a road or stab a dictator or spread dandelion seeds in a wheat field without it being a struggle to upend society to conform to my favored vision of how society should be run. I can be an agent of chaos simply because it feels good to be. I don’t need to lie to myself or to you and claim my actions or your actions are going to bring on a new dawn of civilization if only we all struggle enough together.

so he’s speaking from whales claiming revolution et al..

I can deal blows to the imposing instruments of authority that surround me just because I want to, without ever believing any of my actions will lead to a social revolution to remake the world in my (or my God’s) image. Without ever thinking I’m a mighty warrior fighting the good fight, a worker’s Messiah sent to Earth to right all the wrongs of humanity and lead the chosen people to anarchist Mecca.

but that doesn’t fit with none of us are free ness.. we can’t have us & them ness and claim we’ve abolished authority.. us & them ness perpetuates/assumes/models/demans authority ness

Or in Aragorn!’s words:

(Strugglismo is) a critique of boring, stale, ineffective, ritualized activity and, recently, has given birth to a bunch of stale, boring, sanctimonious projects.

I can destroy the instruments of authority that work to slowly crush me under their weight without needing to craft a meticulous plan to build nicer replacements for them.

true.. don’t want to replace things.. don’t want to plan things.. but crushing things is also still a cancerous distraction

I destroy that which crushes me because I don’t find being crushed to be very pleasant. I don’t destroy authority because I’m under the impression I’m saving the world by preserving myself or that something as innately crushing as mass society can even be made to be fair and equitable.

I have no delusions of grandeur. I can’t save civilization or build a better civilization. I’m not a vessel for change, I’m not the trigger for a new world order, I’m not the purveyor of universal justice.

true.. one person can’t/won’t.. has to be all of us for the dance to dance

What I can do is pick up a brick, and I can break the object I fling the brick at.

oh my ziq.. how is that brick not authority ness?

Whatever rifts may or may not form from that action are beyond my control, and I’ll be too busy aiming the brick at the next grotesque object of authority to care.

I have power over the things right in front of me that I can affect. A brick through a windshield is an immediate cause and effect action with no ego trip behind it to pretend the brick is bigger than it is. I’m under no impression a brick is a symbol in the battle between good and evil, just and unjust, left and right, prole and capital. A brick is just a brick. A tool to achieve a measurable, immediate result.

aka: violence et al.. graeber violence/quantification law et al

I don’t have power over things far bigger than myself, I can’t force society or economics to bend to my will. I can’t control how millions or billions of people live. I only have power over the brick in my hand and the things I throw it at.

maybe let go of thinking you have to have power over anything.. isn’t that authority ness?

Struggling to affect outcomes you have no power over is a life spent in miserable exasperation and futility. You have no ability to mount a struggle to correct all of society’s ills. Every hard-fought revolution in history has only further entrenched structural oppression and mass subservience.

this is true.. but it’s not a reason to resign yourself to ie: brick throwing..

it’s a reason to realize that nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem

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

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.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..

The brick I pick up off the ground and hold in my hand has infinitely more value to me and to anarchy than a thousand years of desperate struggle to knock kings off their thrones and bring in new kings and new thrones.

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