The Futility of Struggle

Pushing a boulder up a mountain

From: https://raddle.me/f/Anarchism/137232/oc-the-futility-of-struggle by ziq

To struggle is to embody the activist mentality. To struggle is to take up the role of activism. The activist belongs to the struggle, gives themself fully to the cause, makes it their job, their mission, their whole existence.

Social struggle is activism, it's protest, it's empty ritual, it's imposing sanctimonious moral values on others, it's collectivizing people into in-groups and out-groups so they can better do war with each other, it's entrenched in dogmatic ideology and personality cults, it's self-aggrandizing and endlessly congratulatory, it's a constant push and pull between the system and those who struggle to seize control of it to reboot it in their own image, appointing themselves as the beloved God-given saviors of The People™, the purveyors of fairness, equality and rational world building.

Tearing authority apart needn't be done in the name of an epic global struggle for the greater good or to achieve the grand master plan set out for us by the masters of anarchy in their uplifting manifestos promising us a new world order dedicated to worker-led factories and social justice for all.

Destroying authority where you see it isn't a struggle for revolution, it doesn't need to be done in pursuit of anything bigger than a simple personal desire to watch tangible instruments of authority burn to embers right in front of you so they no longer blight your senses.

The actions we take don't need to be in pursuit of an amazing utopian society dreamed up by a long-dead Russian prince or an epic battle between good and evil of our own imagining where we cast ourselves as the heroic protagonists in a brutal social war where victory is everything and there can be no rest or amusement until the glorious end goal is achieved.

An anarchist's actions don't need to be connected to anything beyond what we see and feel right in front of us: A tangible, immediate outcome we can perceive with our own senses in this time and space. What we do doesn't need to be presented as part of some incredible 4D chess move to build a new, 'better' society or government, to ignite a new age of egalitarianism that promises to solve all of humanity's problems by putting the right people in charge of constructing the right systems.

I can paint over a billboard or spike a tree or tear up a road or stab a dictator or spread dandelion seeds in a wheat field without it being a struggle to upend society to conform to my favored vision of how society should be run. I can be an agent of chaos simply because it feels good to be. I don't need to lie to myself or to you and claim my actions or your actions are going to bring on a new dawn of civilization if only we all struggle enough together.

I can deal blows to the imposing instruments of authority that surround me just because I want to, without ever believing any of my actions will lead to a social revolution to remake the world in my (or my God's) image. Without ever thinking I'm a mighty warrior fighting the good fight, a worker's Messiah sent to Earth to right all the wrongs of humanity and lead the chosen people to anarchist Mecca.

Or in Aragorn!'s words:

(Strugglismo is) a critique of boring, stale, ineffective, ritualized activity and, recently, has given birth to a bunch of stale, boring, sanctimonious projects.

I can destroy the instruments of authority that work to slowly crush me under their weight without needing to craft a meticulous plan to build nicer replacements for them.

I destroy that which crushes me because I don't find being crushed to be very pleasant. I don't destroy authority because I'm under the impression I'm saving the world by crushing it.

I have no delusions of grandeur. I can't save civilization or build a better civilization. I'm not a vessel for change, I'm not the trigger for a new world order, I'm not the purveyor of universal justice.

All I am is a walking, talking brick and what I can do is break the object I aim myself at. Whatever rifts may or may not form from that action are beyond my control and I'll be too busy aiming myself at the next grotesque object of authority to notice anyway.

There are 5 Comments

wow, ziq really loves to reduce things down to cartoonishly bad anarchist dogma, hey?

this is a frustrating set of strawman arguments much like this other one
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-anarchy-vs-archy-no-justifie...

oh, you haven't had the pleasure? here, let me summarize

NO HIERARCHY NEVER EVER!!! YOU'RE HITLER IF YOU FUCK WITH HIERARCHY!!!

NO STFU, STOP POINTING OUT HOW THAT STATEMENT IS INCOHERENT DEPENDING ON WHAT IS MEANT BY WORDS!!! GO LICK CHOMSKY'S GERIATRIC BALLS! *mic drop*

Anarchists being against archy is incoherent? Ok champ.

All of a sudden you start using "champ" when before this comment https://anarchistnews.org/comment/39380#comment-39380 you had never used it. This is descriptive of a larger problem with you on this website.

This is the power of suggestion and a soft, impressionable brain. This is why one must never let the fascists have the street.

lumpy was not saying that anarchist being against rulers was incoherent. I hope you absorb that fact just like you did the usage of "champ" and all the other virulent memes that have seeped into your Being.

Don't cop my style, Dr.Benway... I mean 11:00. It's really unBecoming.

okay, enough is enough. if you insist on using this rather decent neologism, at least have the decency to carry through your adoption of pseudo-Spanish. "strugglismo" is an ideology; an idiot who supports and/or champions it would be properly called a strugglista (one who struggles). all you need to do is reference the struggle called zapatismo, whose adherents and practitioners are called zapatistas. if you don't care about using the terms correctly, you're just being a typical ugly American who can't be bothered to learn anything outside of typically crappy anglophone linguistic colonization.

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