All activism, insofar as it aims to alter the existing social order, is a re-action to the actions of others. Every re-action, insofar as it is consciously provoked, mediates and fulfils the provocative action. Contemporary rulers aim to provoke everyone who can be provoked in order to elicit deterministic behaviour. Anyone who can be provoked by the ruling power, but is not provoked, may be provoked and thus controlled by someone else (an adversary). Everything the government does is a provocation. Everything the corporate media does is a provocation. Your re-action to every news story, law or event is the purpose of the story, law or event. Every re-action to a provocation provides a pretext for another action, another provocation. Democracy, as a process that normalises power, is no longer realised through voting, which is retained only as a self-legitimisation ritual, but by reciprocal provocations. A power that provokes can also be influenced by being provoked. Factions that comprise the ruling power can be provoked and polarised against one another. Those who provoke, gain; those who get provoked, pay. When mutual provocations (A) fail to have a predictable effect, we would have approached the state of rational discourse (B). The ultimate social challenge, in all situations of conflict, is to get from A to B.
Quote from opening pages of Rules for radicals, Alinsky's real hero.
"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first
radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know
where mythology leaves off and history begins—or which is which), the first
radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so
effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.
—SAUL ALINSKY"
Question is whether sophistication is ever possible. In 2020-2021 the friend enemy distinction was anti-lockdowners (me and my new "tribe") vs the establishment. Then in 2022-2023 the factions of antil-ockdowners vs the spike protein-o-phobes who could speak of nothing but the jab, or some us within the movement against the cringe, the fringe and the grifters and those who were to slow to understand the establishment was onto the next big thing to grasp the larger project
Quote from opening pages of Rules for radicals, Alinsky's real hero.
"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first
radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know
where mythology leaves off and history begins—or which is which), the first
radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so
effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.
—SAUL ALINSKY"
Question is whether sophistication is ever possible. In 2020-2021 the friend enemy distinction was anti-lockdowners (me and my new "tribe") vs the establishment. Then in 2022-2023 the factions of antil-ockdowners vs the spike protein-o-phobes who could speak of nothing but the jab, or some us within the movement against the cringe, the fringe and the grifters and those who were to slow to understand the establishment was onto the next big thing to grasp the larger project