> And what it did for him was to provide him with a
> fantasy — a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the
> revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against
> their oppressors. By participating in a violent
> anti-
> war demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at
> coercing conformity with his view — for that would
> still have been a political objective. Instead, he
> took his part in order to confirm his ideological
> fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of
> feeling himself among the elect few who stood
> with the angels of historical inevitability. Thus,
> when he lay down in front of hapless commuters on
> the bridges over the Potomac, he had no interest in
> changing the minds of these commuters, no concern
> over whether they became angry at the protesters or
> not. They were there merely as props, as so many
> supernumeraries in his private psychodrama. The
> protest for him was not politics, but theater; and
> the
> significance of his role lay not in the political
> ends his actions might achieve, but rather in their
> symbolic value as ritual. In short, he was acting
> out a fantasy.
An and yet . . .
Taking the proverbial kernel out of the reactionary context, couldn't one counter this by asking - so what? It seems to me too newtonian, not to mention moralising in this case, to try and chart explicit intentionality in the political objectives of protest.
At the level of the subject, fantasy is an organizing principle, period. This is neither right nor wrong. It's what new organizing the protest makes possible that matters.
Having zero organizing experience in these matters, of course, I see it from an arm-chair theoretical point. But I do see what Carrol is saying when he talks about black bloc-style - speaking somewhat figuratively - anarchists being useful in particular contexts. Beyond that, some other principle . . .
Alec
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