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The Logic of History?

Would that there were a logic to history! Instead, as Schopenhauer taught, there is Wille (brute, wanton, grasping, desire) and, thankfully, Vorstellung (the ability to envision).

Using Vorstellung, we can "discern" distinct patterns in human behavior through time--because human beings appear to have a woefully limited repertoire of action and imagination.

If we pay attention to these patterns (i.e., study history) we discover that there are ways to channel Wille to positive ends--but it takes vision. We know this; we've seen it in action. Great spirits rise up and dream generous, life-affirming dreams. In trying to implement those dreams they provide us a temporary respite--a "Sabbath" as it were. Then the forces of Wille re-group and Dreamland is, once again, laid to waste. The darkness descends; but there are always sparks, here and there, to light our way.

The only thing to do is to stay close to the sparks. And once in a while, if the opportunity presents itself, to leave some obstacle, some debris in the way of Wille.

The best way to do this--as we learn from Etienne de la Boetie's Discourse of Voluntary Servitude--is simply non-cooperation. The problem is that this takes a great deal of self-discipline. And it can be dangerous. Discretion is always the better part of valor.

In the immortal words of Bruce Springsteen:

Badlands/You've gotta live it every day/Let the broken hearts stand/As the price you gotta pay/Keep movin' till its understood/And these Badlands start treatin' us good...

The desire to escape the same dull round, to believe that the cycle has been broken and we are heading into a New Age, can be overwhelming at times; but we must not kid ourselves: if we are fortunate, we will experience from time to time what Schopenhauer termed a "Sabbath of the Willing." In those moments of respite when "these Badlands start treating us good," we should not hesitate to relax and celebrate. But we should also always remember to "keep our powder dry"--for the anti-life forces of reaction are ever present and threatening.

Martin, Malcolm, and Mao

"Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul." Mao Tsetung

When I was in Leiden in 2006, I thought I saw signs of a new "european" youth culture that was ethnically diverse, culturally globalizing, and anxious to shake off the insularity of the past. But then there were reports of the return of fascism and xenophobia redux. The subsequent financial collapse might be just the thing the rising generation needs to convince it that their parents have had their heads up their collective arses and that it is time to strike out in a new direction. Then again, there's nothing like economic hardship to encourage a circling of the wagons...

Here in the land of the free, the self-delusion seems to thicken by the minute. Obama is a fraud--like everyone else in his party--and the Republicans are quite literally insane. And since there is no alternative available in the so-called democratic system, there is nowhere for people to go. The "occupy" movement seems to have lost whatever momentum it might have had. As Herbert Hoover said after using troops to crush a protest of WWI vets looking for promised benefits: "Thank God we still have a government in Washington that knows how to deal with a mob."

Hoover was succeeded by FDR. The invisible Whitmanian republic had a chance to blossom, but then FDR caved to the militarists after Pearl Harbor and the corporatocracy picked up where it left off after WWI. Since then, we've been off to the races. Pockets of disaffection won't stop the juggernaut; collective action probably won't either, but it might slow it down. One problem that we face is that we lack visionaries willing to risk all--like Malcolm X and MLK. But there is another, deeper problem:

"If we tried to go on the offensive when the masses are not yet awakened, that would be adventurism. If we insisted on leading the masses to do anything against their will, we would certainly fail...Commandism is wrong in any type of work, because in overstepping the level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary mass action it reflects the disease of impetuosity." Mao Tsetung.

Mao was a virtuoso when it came to reading the will of the Chinese people but, in the end, success spoiled him; he contracted the disease of impetuosity and gave in to Commandism. He was a revolutionary Marxist, not a Whitmanian republican or Tolstoyan anarchist.

I suspect that it will be generations before a critical mass of the awakened will be moved to collective action on a scale that will reveal the reactionaries for the paper tigers that they are. But, until then, we live in hope.

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