FW: [ASDnet] Are the Black Bloc police agents?

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema crdbronx at erols.com
Thu Jul 26 10:21:16 PDT 2001


Thanks Carrol. Calling it a twin probably is too facile, and your comments are helpful. I am not against non-violent action, nor do I think non-violence is the only way to go under all circumstances. I agree with this, certainly --

Carrol Cox wrote:


> "armed struggle"
> has misleading connotations outside peasant societies, in which
> "prolonged struggle" necessarily includes, at some point, "prolonged
> armed struggle."

At the same time, isn't this about conditions that are more part of the past than the present, even in the less developed countries?


>

This gets closer to what I meant --


>
> Pacifism puts makes the question of force a metaphysical choice; the
> opposite would be a theory which glorifies violence for its own sake.
> Both are idealist in that they assume the priority of thought to action
> rather than seeing thought as emerging from and making sense of ongoing
> social activity. I don't know how to label accurately the opposite of
> pacifism; only from a pacifist perspective is its opposite violence.
>
> One can also say of both pacifism and its unnamed opposite that they
> turn a question of tactics and strategy into a question of metaphysical
> morality.
>
> Carrol

Actually, when I called pacifism and "armed struggle" (in quotes because I agree it's not a good term for what I mean) twins, I had in mind a psychological unity between the disposition towards the two political approaches. I recall, all too clearly, people who flipped over from a commitment to non-violence to what they themselves called armed struggle. In both cases the commitment was essentially a narcissistic moralism. For example, in both phases they saw their activities as acts of moral witness, and said things like "I cannot stand idly by......" etc.

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema



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