Villification and counter-villification

[Noam A]

Since Tuesday morning, we have all been paying close attention both to the
establishment's actions and propaganda, and to the response of the activist
community from around the world.

The rhetoric of the establishment has taken on a now totally predictable,
echo-chamber-like unanimity. So has that of the left, and more so. This, of
course, would not strike most of us as a bad thing; solidarity is never more
evident than in agreement, especially when that agreement is not constructed
by the forces of imperialism. However, there is a critical argument to be
made that in our rush to a clear, morally confident and active stance of
unity, we are establishing - or rather, reinforcing - a very destructive
habit of argument - the near exclusive reliance on comparative
counter-villification. Argument-wise, this method is both incomplete and
unsound. Tactically, it is likely to be as effective in its goal of creating
a sense of proportion among working class Americans as the tactic of direct
combat with the state is effective in crushing it.

The reports, analyses and arguments made by the establishment are partial,
out of context, and totally misleading. The left's arguments do not escape
these sins, but commit them on a far smaller scale. Too often, we imply
self-evident knowledge of a moral truth when in fact deep, contentious
ethical arguments exist - about what "murder" is, for example. Some of us
are even willing to dismiss the act of ethical argument itself as a
bourgeoius excersize, implicitly if not explicitly. But I think that these
are minor problems with our approach to argument.

The biggest problem is that of competing moral condemnation. What inspired
me to write this was a satire on Zmag.org of a speech Bush could give to
save the world, right now, if one of us took control of his brain (the
scenario wasn't as elaborate, but my elaboration does not injure the orignal
spirit of the satire). Over and over again, the focus was on comparison, on
scope, with over-simplistic shoe-on-the-other-foot excersizes, and above
all, the desire for a massive admission of guilt, guilt, and more guilt. One
almost thinks that if the U.S. were to suddently offer to change its whole
political and economic system so that it would emulate Cuba, but not admit
how wrong it was in the past, the writer would reject the offer.

This article is not that extreme an example of this trend in radical writing
and speech. Few of the arguments are pragmatic, let alone what they need to
be, and that is whole-systemic-analytic. They are overwhelmingly moral
arguments, using the same object-isolating, instrumentalist logic that the
right uses. The only lasting effect of all of them, whether intended or not,
is to convey that "X is good, Y is bad." And just like the right, when the
"good" party does something that human beings naturally find morally
repgunant, we step back, and stoically label it a logical systemic reaction.
When the "bad" does something repugnant, we act as if they are
metaphysically autonomous, holding perfect empirical knowledge and normative
wisdom, and apply stern, object-isolational condemnation. This is a flawed
and I think fundementally disingenuous form of argument. Just because the
right does the exact same thing only on much deeper and volumionous scale
does not make it right for us to do it.

And it certainly doesn't give us a tactical chance in this new emotionally
charged, flag-waving environment. Arguments that address moral repugnancy,
by their very nature, affect us in a primarily emotional way. Therefore,
while we win on points in terms of scale of villainy of the other side, we
get crushed by the geographic and media-encouraged displacement and skewed
focus. Most people, when confronted with both arguments, will retreat to the
easier, more "secure" answer, acknowledging breifly that both sides are
"evil in their own way" but forgetting that acknowledgement 30 minutes of
CNN later.

We need to be more holistic about both our analysis and our emotionally-felt
morals. Instead of saying "x is an outrage, but y is a bigger outrage, [so x
is cancelled out]" we have to say "x is part of the outrage, y is part of
the outrage, and the world system IS the outrage."

This involves certain sacrifices from what has been the left's overriding
approach in activism. We cannot think of a goal to liberate women, or
liberate workers, or liberate the 3rd world, or even liberate the oppressed,
as an isolated thing. Our goal is to change the world. We feel sympathy for
the oppressed, and it may be (and usually is, for hardcore activists) this
sympathy that leads us to want to understand change the system, but we must
always make it clear that it is the SYSTEM that is oppressing people, that
PEOPLE like George W Bush (especially) do not make perfectly autonomous
decisions, but are part of a system, that personalistically villifying a
leader or a state or even a corporation is innaccurate, unfair, inflammatory
both for and - mostly - against the cause, and ineffective against the same
tactic from a side that has a far greater capacity to use it more
effectively.

Systemic arguments are not naturally easy to make to people, especially in
the west. Detachment and patience with regard to emotions and morality is
very difficult for all of us, and all those we wish to join us. But the
systemic analysis approach has a profound advantage. It bypasses the head-on
battle of arguments that we have never won and will lose horribly in the
next few months. The systemic approach cannot be competed with by the media
in any way that they can use in sound-bite culture, and even in longer
forms, they will be forced to adopt systemic world views, or to combat the
idea of there being systemic issues at all - something I don't believe will
wash.

I am quite new to activism, though not to political observation, but I am
guessing that for some of you, I have revived fully-explored and happily
buried debates. But I fear that at the moment, this movement is at risk of
counter-villifying its way into irrelevency. Then, all that will be left
will be a world of villains - or rather, a totally villanous world.

Noam A