“EVERYTHING MUST GO!”
Some Thoughts On Making a
Total Critique
“Think of another concept of strength. Perhaps this is the new poetry.
Basically, what is social revolt if not a generalized game of illegal
matching and divorcing of things.”
—At Daggers Drawn
The various
institutions of the state and the economy are spreading their net into every
corner of the globe and every moment of our existence. From the surveillance
camera on the street corner to the genetically engineered soy product, from the
strip mine in the West Papua jungle to the increasingly broad and far-reaching
“anti-terrorist” laws, the world is becoming an interwoven network of control
and exploitation coupled to an unending parade of environmental and social
catastrophes that are used to justify the increase in control. For those of us
who imagine and desire a world in which we, as individuals, truly determines
our own existence, together with those we enjoy sharing our lives with, it is
necessary to develop a critique of this world that goes to the roots of all
this, a total critique of the existence that has been imposed on us.
This is by no
means an easy task. We have been taught to simply accept things as they are,
and when we start to question, it is much easier to examine things piece-meal,
not trying to make connections or keeping those connections on a surface level.
This is easier on a number of levels. It not only does not require one to think
as deeply or examine reality as closely. It also makes for a critique that is
much more easily actively expressed without disturbing one’s own calm existence
too greatly. If we view the killing of an unarmed person by a cop, the war against
So it is clearly
necessary to go deeper, to make the connections between the various miseries
and disasters that we face. It is necessary for us to learn to make the
“illegal matches” that we have been trained to ignore, the connections that
allow us to begin to understand the totality of our existence. This is not as
simple as making blanket declarations that all of this is caused by the state,
by capital, by civilization. As true as this may be, all that we have done if
we do this is given a label to this totality, and labeling a thing is not the
same as understanding it adequately to be able to confront and challenge it. In
fact, without an adequate analysis of the nature of the state, capital or
civilization, they merely function as abstractions that can distract us from
the actual realities we face and may even end up become one’s role within the
activist milieu, the basis for a political identity that is placed in
contention with others in the ideological marketplace. This is itself enough to
indicate that such critiques are not yet total.
If one has not
overcome the method of critique that this society imposes, the piecemeal
critique of the parts without any conception of the whole, one’s attempts to
critique the totality of our existence may take the form of quantitatively
adding together a series of oppressions and/or institutions to be opposed. A
prime example of this is to be found in the statements of purpose of groups
such as Love and Rage, which may inform us that they oppose sexism, racism,
homophobia, classism, capitalism and the state. And those who want to be more
radical may add ageism, ablism, speciesism, civilization and so on. But this
still is a more like a laundry list than a serious critique, a list of issues
to deal with in a political framework. Deeper connections – connections that
show how the ruling order can recuperate partial oppositions (anti-racism,
feminism, gay liberation, even those forms of
opposition to capitalism, the state and civilization that continue to operate
within a political activist framework) to its own ends – can only spring from a
different kind of critique.
Even when a
critique places the various oppressions under a single conceptual umbrella
(e.g., the state, capital, patriarchy, civilization) in order to explain them,
this critique is not necessarily a total critique. Such critiques may in fact
be broad without having depth. When such critiques are partial this will become
evident first of all in the inability to apply the critique concretely to one’s
daily struggle against this social order. This indicates that although the
critique may indeed appear to have made the necessary connections, the “illegal
matches”, on the surface level, this has happened in such a realm of
abstraction that it does not allow for the “illegal divorces” – the singling
out of specific targets, the recognition of the physical body of the enemy – to
occur.
One of the primary
reasons for this is a failure to recognize and reject reification. Reification
is the ideological and social process of transforming an activity or social
relationship – something we do – into a being that stands above us and acts
upon us as if we were mere tools. An example of what I mean can be drawn from a
particular critique that has developed in certain anti-civilization circles. (I
choose this example because it so clearly expresses this failure and because my
own perspective also includes a critique of civilization, thus this is part of
a comradely critical discourse.) In recent writings, certain individuals in
anti-civilization circles have made a critique of reason that is actually an
ideological rejection of reason. Of course, their argument against reason is
always reasoned (even if often poorly so). However, the fact that this critique
may not be able to be fully realized in practice now (which anti-capitalist
lives absolutely without money? which critic of technology lives without any
products of the industrial system?) is not sufficient reason to discount it.
Where the problem lies is that if this critique cannot be applied usefully
precisely in the way we develop theory and critique, i.e., in the way we think
(and there is no evidence that it can), then it has no practical application to
our revolutionary struggle. The failure of this critique as revolutionary
theory stems from the fact that it accepts the concept of reason as a thing in
itself. In other words, it accepts the rationalist reification of reason and
bases its rejection of reason upon this. So this critique is really a mere
philosophical game, a game of words that allows the players to claim that their
critique of this society is more total simply because it is broader than that
of others. But a total critique requires depth; it needs to get to the bottom
of things, to the roots. And at bottom reason is not a thing in itself. It is
an activity we do, but one that has been reified in the form of rationalism
into an ideal above us precisely because it was socially useful. But the
absolute rejection reason is also a reified concept, an ideal that stands above
us, since even on the level of antagonistic struggle it can only exist as a
goal for a distant future. The rejection of reified reason would start with the
recognition that Reason, as a thing above us, does not exist. Rather each of us
reasons, and has his own reasons, and certain tools for critical thinking can
help us hone our capacity to reason into a weapon we can use in our lives and struggles.
In fact, a total
critique is qualitatively different from a partial critique. All partial
critiques, regardless of how extreme they may be, start from the perspective of
this society. (For instance, the critique of reason described above starts from
the social conception of Reason as defined by rationalism). The more extreme
and broader partial critiques simply lead to an ideological rejection of major
aspects of this society or even of all of it considered abstractly because this
society is deemed to have failed on its own terms. Such ideological rejections
offer little of practical use to the immediate struggle against this society
since they are based on the same reifications through which this society seeks
to justify itself. In developing a total critique, one starts from herself,
from her desire to determine his existence on his own terms. This critique is
thus the act – or better, the ongoing practice – of confronting this society
with oneself and one’s hostility to its intrusion into one’s existence. It is
from this basis that one can indeed plumb the depths of this society and begin
to recognize the intertwining networks of control through which it defines
every moment of our existence. This is also the practical basis from which to
make those “illegal matches and divorces” – the capacity to put together and
break apart in order to know how and why, when and where to attack. Since one
makes this critique starting from herself and her desire, it is not merely a
critique of the failures of this society, of what is worst in it; it is also a
critique of its success, of what is best in it, because even if this society
were to live up to all of its ideals, it would still demand the subjection of
our individuality, of our uniqueness to it, “to the common good”. Furthermore,
because it is an active critique, the intertwined theory and practice of our
enmity against this social order, it is never a finished critique. Rather it is
in continual development, honing itself as we struggles against the reality of
our current existence. When one starts from himself in developing his critique
of the social order, she recognizes this order as an enemy to be destroyed and
seeks the weapons she and the accomplices with whom he can attack this order.
And from here solidarity and revolutionary practice can develop.