Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Black Bloc and the Low-tech Awesomeness of Ideas

Who could have thought an idea could be described as a trinket or gadget? ME THAT'S WHO.

For starters: I am an ardent defender of the black bloc. For those of you who don't know what that is, please look it up. I am WAY to fucking lazy to define it.

Seriously, look it up and come back. I'll wait.

Thanks. Now that you've done your own goddamn research and left me free to do my shit, I just want to say that the black bloc is not persuasive strategy. It is reactionary. The purpose is simple: a loud, caustic, public confrontation with police and the capitalist state in which some big business windows get broken, but no person or animal is hurt. Except maybe people who get beat to shit by police.

They are not trying to convince YOU of shit. They are doing what they mean to do: publicly confront.

Now, while I don't participate in the black bloc, it is necessary to realize its importance. In the context of civilization, societal blowback is a constant. Those who would break Wells Fargo or Bank of America's windows are people who are NATURALLY reacting within an aggressive social framework.

These banking institutions are super, super EVIL. Even those of us who BANK with them hate their fucking guts. Yet, when the only discipline these organizations EVER receive are broken windows, people are repulsed. We deplore such "violent" behavior. And then we knowingly elect murderers and thieves and are content with our decision. I'm confused.

Now, back to why civilization is so fucked up and why the block bloc is so good. While actions like the black bloc are alienating and highly risky for the participants, they also serve to alienate the institutions of civilization (the state, big business, etc.) which are, well, KILLING EVERYBODY.

The opportunity the black bloc gives the rest of us is to start exchanging ideas about these institutions and why they are so destructive, and how we can work to move beyond them with our neighbors.

There is a reason why the windows are being broken, and it's not because some dumb kids just want to break shit.

The black bloc provides instant windows for agorism, or the counter-economy, as we can use these times to shift the marketplace of ideas away from these aggressive institutions, counter-ideas that can subtly change how people behave, and so, before they know what they've done, civilization might just be behind us and we could be a whole lot freer, living in decentralized communities, living sustainably.

Pulling out the supports of these villains may be much easier than we could imagine.

The black bloc helps grant us this vision of something new. The future. Understand that newness need not arise from destruction, but broken bank windows aren't really destruction so much as a symbol of our destructive culture.

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