AGAINST THE
LOGIC OF SUBMISSION:
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�� The desire to change the world remains
merely an abstract ideal or a political program unless it becomes the will to
transform one�s own existence. The logic of submission imposes itself on the
level of daily life offering thousands of reasons for resigning oneself to the
domination of survival over life. So without a conscious project of revolt and
transformation on this level, all attempts to change the world remain basically
cosmetic�putting band-aids on gangrenous ulcers.
�� Without an
intentional projectuality toward freedom and revolt here and now a myriad of
potentially worthy projects�the occupation of abandoned spaces, the sharing of
free food, the publication of a bimonthly anarchist periodical, sabotage,
pirate radio stations, demonstrations, attacks against the institutions of
domination�lose their meaning, becoming merely more hustle and bustle in a
confused and confusing world. It is the conscious decision to reappropriate
life in defiance of the present reality that can give these activities a
revolutionary significance, because this is what provides the link between the
various activities that make up an insurgent life.
�� Making such a
decision challenges us to figure out how to realize it practically, and such a
realization is not just a matter of involving ourselves in a variety of
projects of action. It also, and more essentially, means creating one�s life as
a tension toward freedom, thus providing a context for the actions we take, a
basis for analysis. Furthermore, such a decision takes our revolt beyond the
political. The conscious desire for total freedom requires a transformation of
ourselves and our relationships in the context of revolutionary struggle. It
becomes necessary not merely to rush into this, that and the other activity,
but to grasp and learn to use all of those tools that we can take as our own
and use against the current existence based on domination, in particular,
analyses of the world and our activity in it, relationships of affinity and an
indomitable spirit. It also becomes necessary to recognize and resolutely avoid
those tools of social change offered by the current order that can only
reinforce the logic of domination and submission�delegation, negotiation,
petition, evangelism, the creation of media images of ourselves, and so on.
These latter tools precisely reinforce hierarchy, separation and dependence on
the power structure�which is the reason why they are offered to us for use in
our struggles. When one resorts to these tools, revolt and freedom degenerate
into a mere political program.
�� Analysis that
does not arise from one�s desire to reappropriate life here and now tends to
reinforce domination, because it either remains baseless or turns to an
ideology or political program as its base. A great deal of what passes for
social analysis today falls into the former realm. Having no base from which
they make their critique, those who follow this path tend to fall into a
ceaseless round of deconstruction that ultimately concludes that domination is
everywhere and nowhere, that freedom is impossible and that, therefore, we
should just make the best of it either through conformity or the staged
oppositional games of groups like tute bianche (the famous �white
overalls�) which are intended to challenge nothing. Arguably, this is not
analysis at all, but an excuse for avoiding real analysis, and with it concrete
revolt.
�� But the road of
political ideology and programs is no more useful to the project of subversion.
Because this project is the transformation of existence in a way that destroys
all domination and exploitation, it is inherently anti-political.
Freedom, conceived politically, is either an empty slogan aimed at winning the
approval of the ruled (that American �freedom� for which Bush is fighting by
bombing Afghanistan and signing increasingly repressive laws into effect) or
merely one end of a continuum with domination. Freedom and domination become
quantitative�matters of degree�and the former is increased by decreasing the
latter. It is precisely this sort of thinking that caused Kropotkin to support
the Allies in the First World War and that provides the basis for every
reformist project. But if freedom is not merely a question of degrees of
domination�if bigger cages and longer chains do not mean greater freedom, but
merely the appearance of greater mobility within the context of continuing
enslavement to the rulers of this order�then all the political programs and
ideologies become useless to our project. Instead it is precisely to ourselves
and our desires that we must turn�our desires for a qualitatively different
existence. And the point of departure for the transformation we seek becomes
our lives and relationships. It is here that we begin to undermine the logic of
submission with the aim of destroying all domination. Then, our analyses of the
world are aimed at achieving an understanding of how to carry out our own
struggle in the world and to find points of solidarity (where we see our
struggle in that of others) to spread the struggle against domination, not at
creating an interpretation of the world in terms of an ideology. And our
analyses of our activities are aimed at determining how useful they really are
for achieving our aspirations, not at conforming our actions to any program.
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If our aim is the transformation of existence, then the development of
relations of affinity is not just a tactical maneuver. It is the attempt to
develop relationships of freedom within the context of struggle. Relationships
of freedom develop through a deep and ever increasing knowledge of the
other�knowledge of their ideas, their aspirations, their desires, their
capacities, their inclinations. It is knowledge of similarities, yes, but more
significantly, it is knowledge of differences, because it is at the point of
difference that real practical knowledge begins, the knowledge of whether and
how one can carry out projects and create life with another. It is for this
reason that among ourselves�as in our relationship to that which we are
struggling against�it is necessary to avoid the practice of compromise and the
constant search for common ground. These practices are, after all, the heart
and soul of the democratic form of domination that currently rules in the
world, and thus are expressions of the logic of submission that we need to
eradicate from our relationships. False unities are by far a greater detriment
to the development of an insurrectional project than real conflicts from which
individual intelligence and creative imagination may flower brilliantly. The
compromise from which false unities develop is itself a sign of the submission
of the insurrectional project to the political.
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Unities brought about through compromise are, in fact, the very opposite
of affinity since they spring from a suppression of knowledge of oneself and of
the other. This is why they require the creation of formal decision-making
processes that hold the seeds of a bureaucratic methodology. Where there is
real knowledge of the others with whom one is carrying out a project, formal
consensus is not necessary. The awareness each has of the others� individuality
creates a basis where decision and action need not be separate. This is a new
form of sociality that can be brought into existence here and now in struggle
against the order of domination, a form of sociality grounded in the full
enjoyment of the singularity of each individual, of the marvelous difference
that each of us carries within ourselves.
�� On the basis of
these relationships of affinity, real projects that reflect the desires and
aims of the individuals involved, rather than simply a feeling that one must do
something, can develop. Whether the project is a squat, a sharing of free food,
an act of sabotage, a pirate radio station, a periodical, a demonstration, or
an attack against one of the institutions of domination, it will not be entered
into as a political obligation, but as a part of the life one is striving to
create, as a flowering of one�s self-determined existence. And it is then and
only then that its subversive and insurrectional potential blossoms. If joy and
wonder, and a beautiful, indomitable existence are what we want, we need to try
to achieve this here and now in rebellious defiance against all domination,
eradicating the logic of submission from our lives, our relationships and our
revolutionary struggle�for the destruction of politics and the creation of life
without measure.
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