A day ago, the reel captioned I think this is how we do it guys. 🌱🫘 was uploaded to Instagram. In the video, OP described what they envision a "Gen Z solar punk revolution" to look like.
The main theses of the reel are as follows:
- The Gen Z revolution would be achieved without strong organization or centralized discipline, but instead arise by Gen Z collectively decide to "stop playing the game." A movement that is "a little feral, a little chaotic and completely impossible to control."
- By collectively deciding to opt out of the system and building our own networks of mutual aid and community, the world might be changed without a direct and violent confrontation with capitalism. "the Gen Z revolution isn't going to look like a war, it's going to look like a giant party."
- The Gen Z revolutionaries create a "parallel power" –– an alternative mode of production to the dominant power under which goods are produced communally and shared freely.
- The example of living a better life can be spread online, inspiring more people to do the same.
Despite its unfounded level of confidence and its grandiose proclamation of revolution, the video is misguided, infantile, and reeks of the worst excess of liberal mysticism.
To start with the most obvious critique, the OP's commitment to non-violence (thesis 2) seems totally absurd in the face of what they wish to achieve. In a different reel defending this commitment, OP claims that the creation of parallel power –– mutual aid networks, growing one's own food and sharing them for free –– is more dangerous to capitalism than an angry man with a gun. They do not seem to recognize that this threat to capitalism necessitates violence, whether they like it or not. Two examples of parallel powers in recent memory: the Black Panther Party and Hamas, are groups that fill in the needs that the dominant power fails to satisfy and gain legitimacy through that act. Absolutely! But neither of these parallel powers are short of angry men with guns. How this violence is to be avoided by the parallel powers they do not say, preferring instead moralizing slogans like "violence is the language of the empires, it's what they're most prepared for." (In fact, there is not much argumentation happening in these videos, only plenty of one-liners and zingers masquerading as arguments.)
Aside from the quasi-logical moral "arguments" advanced above, OP also attempts at making historical arguments. The problem is that OP doesn't seems to know much history and wish instead to will historical fan fictions into reality. "Look at history," they say, "the most transformative movements in the world did not win because they were more violent than the empire. They won because their pacifism, their commitment to integrity, honour, justice......made the empire morally and socially unstable and unsustainable." They claim that "...the revolutions we remember are the ones that begin with some dramatic event and it's usually super violent, but the ones that stick are the ones that just kinda like... happen when people stopped playing by the old script." They do not disclose which secret revolution they are speaking of, nor do they discuss the Algerian revolution, October revolution, Haitian revolution, French and American revolutions or any other massively transformative and incredibly violent revolutions of recent history. The most revealing entry of this flaccid historical argument is a joke video captioned Me Explaining How Violent Revolution Leads to Violent Societies and Peaceful Revolutions Lead to Peaceful societies, in which they show an image of the French revolution when discussing a violent revolution and then a stock image of a block party when discussing peaceful revolutions. An astonishing appropriation of history, an incredible rhetorical escape from the reality principle any postmodern fascist would no doubt envy.
OP occasionally exclaim what seems to be their catchphrase, "respect existence of expect resistance," which is the only situation in which resistance is named. But if he "draws a firm line" at violence, what does this resistance look like? How are we to resist in any meaningful way in the face of the destruction of the parallel power we wish to build? Is there any historical example we can learn from? With the OP not addressing these questions, I can only conclude that they are deeply confused and unserious about their own project.
The difficulties with thesis 1 is very much continuous with that of thesis 2 described above. Refusing to view the reaction of the bourgeoisie –– organized consciously and without hindrance around a common interest while having access to the repressive state apparatuses –– as a real threat, OP favours sporadic, uncontrolled, and structure-less activities that are "a little feral, a little chaotic and completely impossible to control." They speak disapprovingly of "waiting for the political moment or the perfect coordinated date where everyone rises up at once" without realizing that that –– organization, coordination, a united front, centralization and discipline –– is the only means we can take advantage of our numbers, which is our only edge against our more powerful enemy. As Lenin wrote so convincingly in 1920,
how is the discipline of the proletariat’s revolutionary party maintained? How is it tested? How is it reinforced? First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism. Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and—if you wish—merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people—primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian masses of working people. Third, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, by the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that they are correct. Without these conditions, discipline in a revolutionary party really capable of being the party of the advanced class, whose mission it is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and transform the whole of society, cannot be achieved.
The fact is that when facing the stronger class the timeless revolutionary motto, apes together strong, holds true. Revolution, then, is hard work, requiring not only heroism but also persuasion, creating broad but wise coalitions, tactics and much more.
Compared to Lenin's vision of revolution, OP's ideas of revolution are painfully childish. In an absolutely embarrassing moment in the video, OP describe the style of their revolutions as "Like, remember when our generation was literally stealing toilets out of high school bathrooms? Like, there was no meeting! There was no manifesto! We just started doing that shit!" The "revolution" turns out to be nothing but a pubescent lashing out.
Thesis 3 seems like an reasonable statement for a left-leaning person to make. Yet with theses 1 and 2 –– that is, without a strong centralized organization nor a the willingness to use violence –– thesis 3 becomes laden with problems of its own. Without the forceful seizure of land, where will this society plant food for the entire community? Without seizing the means of production, how will we produce enough goods to satisfy people's needs? Paying closer attention to OP's language, "Build tree houses, start little forest tribes," it is exceedingly clear that instead of addressing these problems, OP can only paper over them with a condescendingly European fantasy of a primitive society, in harmony with nature and disconnected with the modern means of production (or all technology for that matter). A society "less like cyberpunk, a little more like Minecraft."
Mark Fisher pointed out the pitfalls of this anti-modernist Pocahontas ideology in his now iconic blog post about James Cameron's Avatar (blue Pocahontas). "What is foreclosed in the opposition between a predatory technologised capitalism and a primitive organicism, evidently, is the possibility of a modern, technologised anti-capitalism. It is in presenting this pseudo-opposition that Avatar functions as an ideological symptom." It is not difficult to understand why people distrust technology and modernity. After all, technology as we know it is the most effective instrument of domination and control. But to identify technology fully and totally with capitalism, to equate a historical form of appearance of technology with technology as such, is pure ideology. Under capitalism, technology is developed to increase productive capabilities, to ensure labour's submission, to extract resources and surplus value wherever it finds itself –– to serve capital. It cannot appear in any other form under this mode of production. But to turn against technology and embrace primitivism is not only to embrace a false idealization of premodern life, but also to forego the great emancipatory potential technology presents.
The great insight of Marxism against utopian socialism of Marx's time is that we cannot conjure a better world out of thin air, nor can we discern its shape from first principle.
"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."
The revolution and the world it ushers in must be grounded by the understanding of the opening presented by the contradictions of capitalism and the material conditions it creates. It cannot work otherwise.
The truth is that we can now and only now build a better world not because people in the past didn't understand having fun is fun, but because for the first time in history the productive power and technology is so developed that we as a species may finally be liberated by necessity and scarcity. That the only viable path forward is not the gruelling return to back-breaking premodern life (for it will look nothing like Minecraft) but to seize technology thus developed to the ends of human emancipation. There is no way out of capitalism except for going through it.
Permeating through all three theses, I think, is an understanding that the state of a movement is determined not by the material conditions it exists under but by the positive or negative attitudes of its members; that the masses may will an entirely new world, willy-nilly and untainted by the old world, into existence –– in short, idealism of the most vulgar and unsophisticated kind.
By idealism, I do not mean it in the colloquial sense of striving towards an ideal, the opposite of realism; but rather in the Marxist sense of the upside-down view of history as shaped and driven first and foremost by human intentions and will. The OP argues for this position explicitly when they say that social movements "won because their pacifism, their commitment to integrity, honour, justice......made the empire morally and socially unstable and unsustainable." or more pithily and proclaimed in a arrogantly matter-of-fact fashion, "politics is downstream of culture."
The problem with idealism is that it posits the human mind to be apart and above the material world, the breath of God inside the sons of Adam that are ordained to shape the world to their liking, when in reality the mind is inextricably a part of the material world. Human ideas, then, does not arise in a vacuum, but from the human engagement with the sensuous world and is constantly tested and confirmed by it. Marx wrote in Theses on Feuerbach,
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
It must be noted that for Marx the material condition doesn't only mean the natural world, but also the social reality, i.e. the practical engagement with nature by humanity, her ever changing ways of organizing production, distribution, and reproduction –– the social world. It is in this two-fold world that humanity is thrown in, where she must form her ideas of truth and justice, where she must develop her culture and her relationship to art and music and dance and joy, where she might try to effect change. To stand OP's upside-down statement on its feet, we can say that politics –– understood as the struggle to alter the material conditions, the relations of production, and the relations of domination therein –– determines the shape of culture.
It is simply insufficient to build OP's solar punk utopia through good vibes alone. "...little seeds of cooperation, resistance, creativity, love," is absolutely meaningless without the collective ownership of the means of production, without the fundamental restructuring of the capitalist social relations.
To envision a utopia, to dare dreaming of a better world after the collapse of the USSR and the pronouncement of the end of history, is a rather difficult business. To OP's credit, it is good that in the current crisis people like them are once again daring to dream. To say that a different social order, one we might actually want, is possible.
It is true that, as revolutionary writer Anton Ego wrote, "...the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment...... But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."
It is therefore not the intention of the present blog to discourage the dreamers, finally shedding the shackles of neoliberal era left wing melancholia, to continue his approximation of the future they want. The hope is rather that the dreams might, through this critique, come into clearer focus. That the dreamers might look onto comrades and movements before us for inspirations and lessons to learn, rather than seeking a clean break from their tradition.
The task is thorny and terrifying, but to quote the immortal words from The Communist Manifesto, "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
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