tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post2115287991193938395..comments2023-12-23T19:04:18.739-05:00Comments on The Crow's Eye: The blind-violence of pacifismJack Crowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499087036876745723noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-43838554228539143042012-03-18T17:18:54.007-04:002012-03-18T17:18:54.007-04:00mp,
I don't really spend a lot of time caring...mp,<br /><br />I don't really spend a lot of time caring about who is or is not an anarchist. The word loses its value the moment you try to assign it to tangible relations between more than two persons, as a bellwether for <i>right conduct.</i><br /><br />I hope its evident by now that my acceptance of violence as legitimate is tangled up in a reflexive willingness to avoid the idea of right conduct itself.<br /><br />And I can spell out any number of hierarchies which, by being hierarchies, can't possibly be an-archies. But, it gets a whole lot more difficult, immediately after that, to tell you what is anarchist, in the positive.<br /><br />That's not the aim of my arrow, anyway. <br /><br />For so long as it interests me, and when I'm not interested in the yumminess of low hanging fruit, I'd rather wobble-whimble about what ought not be than waste breath prescribing how others should live.<br /><br />Violence is part of that larger outlook - and it does connect burning the university down to a woman stabbing a rapist fuck in the throat. The connection is intimate, it's human flesh, it's lives which are lost by living them.<br /><br />How the victim strikes back is beyond judgment. That the victim gets to strike back - that's what intrigues.Jack Crowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07499087036876745723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-54151838935531850032012-03-18T10:13:54.208-04:002012-03-18T10:13:54.208-04:00oh, god, i just pulled a small-time appeal to auth...oh, god, i just pulled a small-time appeal to authority. not really my style. my point, i guess, is that the idea of defining an anarchist is fucking hard, and i don't find it as easy as others to say that only some approaches to anarchy can be called anarchist. the current "banishment" of anarchists based on, what, that they don't accept all the correct theories or approaches of their bloghosts is just silly.mpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-80226969666371110582012-03-18T10:04:56.952-04:002012-03-18T10:04:56.952-04:00re: "violence is never." i accept that c...re: "violence is never." i accept that criticism. self-defense is self-defense. <br /><br />burning universities is not self-defense from rape. <br /><br />as for the "voice for anarchism." just by defining when and how a person ceases to be anarchist, you are playing that role, and it's the basis of all your polemics. <br /><br />"for a better human race," you might reread your berkman. i don't agree with everything he says, but i don't doubt his anarchist bonafides either.mpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-85102350414052643002012-03-16T15:09:22.628-04:002012-03-16T15:09:22.628-04:00mp,
"...violence is never" is where you...mp,<br /><br />"...violence is never" is where you failed. Just plainly failed. The woman who stabs her attacker in the throat isn't imposing anything from a position of power. Full fucking stop.<br /><br />As for being a voice for anarchism or an ambassador for a better human race: fuck that shit. The moment a person decides on an image campaign for an anarchist existence, he or she ceases to be an anarchist.Jack Crowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07499087036876745723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-18224583117523703902012-03-16T12:52:55.413-04:002012-03-16T12:52:55.413-04:00Andrew, Obama didn't have a white man's li...Andrew, Obama didn't have a white man's life either. He had his life--the life of someone brought into the 1%, which is all about the color of money. Seriously, what is a "black man's life" today? Poverty? There are twice as many poor white folks as poor black folks, which was true in King's day, and the 1% has its share of black folks. This ain't to say racism is over--but Obama had to have encountered some racism in his life, because there isn't a traditional racist out there who would think he was white.Will Shetterlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539053268352597627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-22061611281815141742012-03-16T10:13:30.369-04:002012-03-16T10:13:30.369-04:00again, meh. the idea that pacifists don't know...again, meh. the idea that pacifists don't know anything about violence, or that it's just moral preening is absurd. it's a violent world, jack. i don't blind myself to it. but violence is never anything but a tool of compulsion, an imposition of power. one of the more disturbing aspects of your blog and blog posts is the consistent desire for violence against a wide swath of people. the old communist saw, breaking the omelets, etc. i don't think it helps much in the way of winning folks to anarchism. actually, it feeds the stereotype of anarchists as numbskulls ready to shoot and kill whoever. in short, these polemics are the cops' best friends.mpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-67804154141304349392012-03-16T03:11:52.176-04:002012-03-16T03:11:52.176-04:00Obama is black, or rather - beige, in nothing exce...Obama is black, or rather - beige, in nothing except his skin color. Read his fuckin biography, does that seem to you like a black man's life?Andrew not the Saintnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-91700165694024125042012-03-15T10:20:40.543-04:002012-03-15T10:20:40.543-04:00obama isn't white?
news to me..obama isn't white?<br />news to me..gamefacedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16562522181852339258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-51858961929205013402012-03-14T22:16:59.390-04:002012-03-14T22:16:59.390-04:00Brian, the language of race has gotten really, rea...Brian, the language of race has gotten really, really strange. I noticed it sometime before I saw Things White People Like, which was actually Things Rich People Like, as anyone who knows any bougie black or Asian folks can verify.Will Shetterlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539053268352597627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-83001902717295798632012-03-14T13:09:33.213-04:002012-03-14T13:09:33.213-04:00will, very true about their words and deed. what ...will, very true about their words and deed. what i meant is that, now that they are dead and the counter-revolution to their movements have been successful, they have now be appropriated as white. and by white, i dont mean skin color, but mean white=empire.<br /><br />in that sense, obama is a white as they come.briannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-48825635904328352172012-03-14T12:08:52.346-04:002012-03-14T12:08:52.346-04:00Jack, you gotta know your enemy. Obama ain't w...Jack, you gotta know your enemy. Obama ain't white, y'know.<br /><br />I should've added that, as usual, I agree with much of what you say. There are people who use pacifism to oppress. Don't get me ranting about Tibet under the Dalai Lamas.<br /><br />Brian, sure, but Gandhi's and King's words and deeds were nonetheless fully consistent with non-violent resistance, a term that I find more useful than pacifism, which too many people confuse with a philosophy of passivity.Will Shetterlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539053268352597627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-82849384326128148812012-03-14T10:12:32.020-04:002012-03-14T10:12:32.020-04:00while mlk and gandhi were obviously not-white in l...while mlk and gandhi were obviously not-white in life, the images of them that have circulated and been venerated after their deaths -- their ghosts, or the way their images have been appropriated and used -- are definitely white.<br /><br />but you know, once you die, THEY can make your image into anything.briannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-30684300496434821132012-03-14T06:57:58.654-04:002012-03-14T06:57:58.654-04:00Will,
The majority of people who've taken umb...Will,<br /><br />The majority of people who've taken umbrage with my anti-pacifist position, over the last two years, have been white people. It's not that I've never ever encountered non-white pacifists, it's that they haven't bothered to lecture me from the position of rec'd wisdom and spiritual purity.<br /><br />RQ,<br /><br />Being a deeply flawed man, I try to recognize where my <i>personal</i> overlaps the <i>communal and public</i>. I imagine I fail to do so, often, coming up short with the vim usually reserved to card games and russian roulette. <br /><br />But, not when it comes to "non-violence." Those of us who've been involuntarily inducted into the fellowship of the violated body are in the right here: we know that the fuckers only stop when they physically can't manage to cause suffering anymore.Jack Crowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07499087036876745723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-85589055679219239142012-03-14T00:57:33.236-04:002012-03-14T00:57:33.236-04:00I've never understood pacifism exactly. I'...I've never understood pacifism exactly. I've never been one. I am a firm believer in self-defense however (thanks to a similar childhood). And "non-violence" is never actually non-violent. It's just choosing to allow the violence to happen in a very public way.The Red Queenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05878357454951384602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9102937856333775840.post-5444382396428699122012-03-14T00:01:15.193-04:002012-03-14T00:01:15.193-04:00Most pacifists will come to a point where they'...Most pacifists will come to a point where they'll use violence. They just choose to be a lot slower to rely on the favorite tactic of violent shitheads.<br /><br />But I gotta put up my usual quibble about "white": what color do you think Gandhi and King were?Will Shetterlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539053268352597627noreply@blogger.com