Why I Have No Reason To Be An Activist
Well, England’s a fucking mess isn’t it.
It would simultaneously be too easy and too exhausting for me to list every single one of England’s (and note, I do not say Britain’s) terrors, mistakes, and outright cruelty during this, the latest history lesson for homo sapien sapiens. If you are reading this, it is unlikely you feel differently than I do about Matt ‘Secret Thunderbird Puppet’ Hancock killing our NHS workers, or Priti ‘I Masturbate Over Drowned Children’ Patel trying to start concentration camps, or, if I dare look across the barren oceans, Kamala ‘Samuel Jackson in Django Unchained’ Harris bragging how much weed she smokes whilst incarcerating black teenagers for the very same ‘crime’, so I will not attempt to begin this ‘article’ with a run-down of England’s quasi-colonial wankery.
But it is very apparent that many people do feel differently to myself. 41% of voters think that Alexander DePfeffel and his cabal of Skeksis should continue to rule, and believe he has done an upstanding job considering the circumstances. We activists try, every day, to utilise our energies to make it apparent to these folk that Alexander DePfeffel, living up to his Vogon appearance, would rather piss on his own second-mistress than save the kids, but this merely pushes rightwingers further into the torrid fields of wheat where they keep their unempathetic opinions of the world. What to do?
As you may have noticed, I am a cishet white dude, and this basically means all of history is entirely mine. I can, in the words of Louis CK (what happened to you…) get into a time machine and head to any period of history and I am, for all intents and purposes, going to be just fine. If I was black, I couldn’t go back even 20 years, and as recent events have shown, I can’t even travel to the bloody present. Other than perhaps class disparities, if I ceased to be an activist of any kind, the world would be unchanged for me; there is no reason for me to continue being an activist for personal reasons, other than perhaps to argue for Universal Basic Income. There is, of course, a more nuanced discussion about what privileges I have and what the world oppresses me with (I’m disabled now!) but for the sake of this rant, let’s assume I am the hunkiest, sexiest cishet white dude in all of Albion.
So why do I even try? Is what I say even considered to be activism? Am I helpful, or am I just posturing, especially as I started this article comparing Kamala Harris to a house slave? Is it racist to think that a black woman crying over an assassinated president who supports kids in cages is like a house slave? I don’t know anymore.
There are three key points to note with politicised information. Where did the information come from originally? Who is telling you this information now? And who benefits/profits from this information? When it comes to my hatred of Priti Patel, I don’t benefit from stopping kids drowning in the ocean, other than a moral certitude. If tomorrow, I stopped caring about kids drowning, I would still receive my Universal Credit, I’d finish my post-brexit novel, I’d play Tetris on my mobile phone. So my attempts at awakening a population to her crimes against humanity, and the war-crimes of our leaders, is to help benefit a social order, or at least, to act educationally. The information comes from a cishet white dude, so I don’t blame you at all if you want to take what I say with a pinch (a bag) of salt. And my original ideas come from reading black philosophers, left-wing journalism, anarchist publications, tweets, memes, and experiential knowledge — in short, it isn’t perfect. I’m not in Calais, or in Kent. I’m in a little village enjoying a nice big house. The information holds more weight because it doesn’t benefit me at all, and this gives the information more credence, but if anything, treat me as a gateway drug to the more hardcore philosophers, activists, theorists, and radicals in the world. What I say is not gospel, or even reliable.
Compounding the above are two more elements to activist discussions and education. Firstly, we do not plant the seed to sit under the shade of the tree. And secondly, reality is not objective.
I am, also, a cishet white dude that practices zen buddhism he found in a second-hand book in a hippies shop once, so if you need any more reasons to stop reading, there’s a big one. We’re all tired of the ukulele playing idiot who stayed at Paul McCartney’s ashram, who thinks they understand what it means to be a woman because they wore a dress once. I promise I am not that bad, but I wouldn’t blame you for turning back now. One thing anarchists, and activists as a whole, need to learn, is how to take a loss.
But Buddhism did teach me that I am not going to change the world immediately, that nothing really matters in the grand scheme, and, like Tony Soprano, I should revel in the misery of the world. I’m bad at it. But one koan that stood out for me is that one about the seed. A lot of activists think their constant tweeting will change the world in their life time. We are not looking to end racism tomorrow, this is undeniably impossible; look at how they turned Martin Luther King into a coffee mug for fuck sake. We are planting a seed for future generations. Gen Z (or whatever atrocious lettering the Daily Mail decides to appoint them next) are already laughing at us millennials as Harry Potter fanatics with a penchant for gardening; I love them for it. We plant the seed that will make us outdated, lazy, boring, useless. I pray this day comes in my lifetime.
What may have struck you more though is my assertion reality is not objective. As with anything — and this is what my chaos magick teachings have taught me, reason 105 not to listen to me — everything is layered, stacked, and even the notion that reality isn’t as real as we presume is one to be unpacked. I will save you the lessons in Crowley and Osman Spare, and focus instead on Yaxley-Lennon clowns praying to their one true god, Winston Churchill.
The population is divided (remember: 41% love Alexander dePfeffel) on whether Winston Churchill was the hero that won the war, or a racist prick who thought the Irish were a lesser species, and starved an entire population for ‘shits and giggles’. We have all seen the memes where people try and coalesce the two forms, that he was a bit of both, that we must measure a man by all his actions. We all know this is like listening to that very same ashram-loving, jodhpur-adorned open-mic singer teaching us about feminism. Winston Churchill, like Schrödinger’s Cat, is both racist and hero. We do not balance the equation as one man, we accept there are two.
When we posit a philosophical argument, we have to set the terms. X means X. Y means Y. Language is a mutable series of codes to help indicate something to someone else; we have to establish norms (even if we don’t entirely agree with them) in the argument so we both know what we are arguing, debating, discussing. The problem with Tories is that they don’t understand this, and the problem with philosophers is they spend so much time debating the principles, they don’t actually do anything useful.
We establish that hundreds of homeless people are dying every day, and we need to utilise spaces to not just stop the spread of a virus, but to save human life. If the person you are debating with (a) doesn’t believe their are homeless people or (b) doesn’t believe it’s wrong we allow homelessness to exist, then the grounding principles are so different there is no point trying to educate. The Tory will pronounce you are intolerant, or that you don’t understand opinions. Even if you fully appreciate there are other opinions — or alternative perceptions of reality — you cannot have the discussion because the inherent principles of discussion are so vastly different. You can’t have a discussion how to save the children if the person in authority fundamentally does not care about children. You are wasting your breath. And this isn’t because of a moral conundrum (although we all know Tories are immoral creatures of the damned), it is because the very act of having a discussion cannot function if the basic principles are different for both debaters.
When I say there is no objective reality, I mean that people view the world in such vastly different ways that we cannot find that holy middle ground that Reform Party ableists talk about on Jeremy Vine continuously. This isn’t to say that the alternative reality(ies) doesn’t effect you, this is some of the first Hermetic Principles (sorry, I won’t talk magick again, promise), but if you are in a position of authority (say, the state, government, parliament) and you decide that everyone is spreading the virus and it isn’t because you won’t pay people to stay at home like EVERYWHERE ELSE, that becomes the dominant ideology that alters, warps, and effects reality. Even though I fundamentally view reality in a different manner, the authoritative force can alter my world. In magick we call it a hex. In politics we call it propaganda. In media, we call it client journalism.
In this regard, the stronger reality — that of Winston Churchill being a hero; DePfeffel is trying his best; concentration camps are a good thing actually — is perfect for me. I’m white, I could easily do admin on Ascension Island. Nothing bad would befall me. There is no reason for me, individually, to be an activist.
However, the seed must be planted that adjusts the view screen of this torrid little world. We know we can’t adjust the ethics of conservative voters, and after the next election (where I will bet my money the Conservatives win again, and even if Labour win, the Conservatives still won), it will prove once-and-for-all which side everyone is on (or, which reality people prescribe to). Activism is about trying to make the kinder reality take precedence. It is a long job, and we will never see the fruits of our labours. I am an activist (whatever that even means) because I want the world to be a kinder place.
Who, then, are the people we should target? If it isn’t parties of individuals injecting a reality of misery and death into the skein of the world, then who? If the seed we are planting doesn’t even upend the fundamental philosophies of ‘the right’, then how should we use our activism?
This is not an easy question, and I once again remark that I am but a door to people with better answers than I. Read philosophers of colour, read theorists from all over the world. Remember that a tribe in the Amazonian jungle has as much to offer the conversation as a Harvard hardback. We are codified what information is useful entirely by The Enlightenment, a movement of white men against The Church; we talk about World Wars, but it doesn’t mean the world, does it? It means white men’s countries. I don’t just say this to be on my moral high horse — oo, I know about Pemulwuy! — but because it is sincerely exciting to read things outside your frame of reference. How the landscape changes when you can put it into a truly global context. And I don’t even think I’m very good at it. My bedside table is mostly white dudes.
Liberalism balks at this previous paragraph as much as the far-right. For every tweet about ACAB the same person is praising a police union. They see the word union, and think they are doing the right thing. Liberals, like fascists, see politics as a game. Why do you think Jimmy Kimmel can get away with creating propaganda that puts North Korea to shame? Because liberals are those on the left who are comfortable. Much like myself, they have no reason to challenge the status quo. Even people of colour, and queer members of our communities, can fall into these categories: RuPaul doesn’t discuss non-binary people on their show…
It is one thing to want to abolish the police, and another to want more women running ICE detention centres. It is one thing to believe that black lives matter less in the discourse, and to discredit this by saying David Lammy exists. Priti Patel has a name like an immigrant, but she has renounced her sense of identity and self the moment she punished the very people that are thematically her ancestors. To summarise, there is a distinct difference between smashing the glass ceiling, and being the woman who, once on the other side of the glass, helps thicken it with nail varnish. The ‘girlboss’ narrative helps no one, as do the countless equivalents in all other areas of oppression and privilege. Liberalism thrives off this half-baked attempt at doing the right thing, but they epitomise the third reality, between that of our authoritative overlords, and us on the left fighting for something better. Do not waste your breath on Tories, focus on those who may understand what kind of seed we want to plant.
But what, cishet white dude who thinks he has something to say, do we do with the Tories? What do we do with the manifestation of evil in the world?
I won’t say any more, I’ve said enough. I have books to write, PIP to sort, and Tetris to play. But I’ll share this, again, always, forever, as what we do with Tory scum. Thank you, and good night:
