I was reading the newspaper this morning and thinking about history and such and about assassination and such
(just as a concept... as a strategy I don't see it as being particularly effective for our ends... qua anarchists)
And I was thinking about how much Barack Obama is an embodiment of the idea that if we just have the right person in charge things will work out fine
then we can have real change
I guess something like
“The right man in charge can change the whole world”
And then I came back to this quote which I attributed to some Communist leader (Mao or Lenin or Che Guevara, etc.)
“One man can change the whole world with a bullet in the right place”
[Now that I try to figure out who actually said this, it may have originated in this film I saw a few months ago: if... starring Malcolm McDowell. On the whole not a great film.. I mean Malcolm is Malcolm and I enjoyed it as far as he was concerned but it didn't really stand on its own very well, I didn't think..]The idea that both these quotes have in common is that what's wrong with things right now is that the person in charge is just fucking things up.
Now, granted the second quote is mostly negative, i.e., it doesn't say that the person that that bullet kills should be replaced by anybody, but I don't think that anyone who has ever said that meant that the problem with the world today is the people in charge
I think that the problem is much larger... it concerns the concept of systems and such... the way society works..
The problems with the world today are not dependent upon the person in charge.
Changing who is in charge will not change the system.
Hm this needs more thought... how do systems change?
that sort of thing
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"Since the social organization is always and everywhere the only cause of crimes committed by men, the punishing by society of criminals who can never be guilty is an act of hypocrisy or a patent absurdity. The theory of guilt and punishment is the offspring of theology, that is, of the union of absurdity and religious hypocrisy. The only right one can grant to society in its present transitional state is the natural right to kill in self-defense the criminals it has itself produced. but not the right to judge and condemn them This cannot, strictly speaking, be a right, it can only be a natural, painful, but inevitable act, itself the indication and outcome of the impotence and stupidity of present-day society. The less society makes use of it, the closer it will come to its real emancipation. All the revolutionaries, the oppressed, the sufferers, victims of the existing social organization, whose hearts are naturally filled with hatred and a desire for vengeance, should bear in mind that the kings, the oppressors, exploiters of all kinds, are as guilty as the criminals who have emerged from the masses; like them, they are evildoers who are not guilty, since they, too, are involuntary products of the present social order. It will not be surprising if the rebellious people kill a great many of them at first. This will be a misfortune, as unavoidable as the ravages caused by a sudden tempest, and as quickly over; but this natural act will be neither moral nor even useful.
History has much to teach us on this subject. The dreadful guillotine of 1793, which cannot be reproached with having been idle or slow, nevertheless did not succeed in destroying the French aristocracy. ‘ne nobility was indeed shaken to its roots, though not completely destroyed, but this was not the work of the guillotine; it was achieved by the confiscation of its properties. In general, we can say that carnage was never an effective means to exterminate political parties; it was proved particularly ineffective against the privileged classes, since power resides less in men themselves than in the circumstances created for men of privilege by the organization of material goods, that is, the institution of the State and its natural basis, individual property." Micky Bakunin
Speaking with my systems analyst hat on... in order to change a system you have to understand the factors that lead it, inevitably, to be as it is. Which, at this point in history, is probably best done by studying the relavant works in social network theory, complexity, game theory, and social pyschology.. alongside those of traditional radical political theory.
Personally I feel that in a way some of the most promising principles and insights that could be put to a-better-nation building come from software development; particularly the use of modular vs. monolithic application building.
That and design patterns. A market is a pattern, a co-op is a pattern, a friendly society is a pattern, a bank is a pattern... And all are forms of sets or superclasses, from which (often wildly) varying instances may be created, depending on their initial paramaters (which in political terms could be such things as social contracts, forms of democratic control implemented, etc.).
People tend to get religious about their chosen pattern (e.g. The Market), but probably the best solution involves a multiplicity of them, not just one. Horses for courses, and all that jazz.
Stuff like this http://raforum.info/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=2 is promising.
e.d. just for the record I really don't agree with everything in that Bakunin quote. But do with the concept that violence is (almost always) most effective in changing names, not effecting real change.
I never know how to respond to your comments. Just "yeah." thanks for leaving them.
I really appreciate it.
Always helpful and insightful
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