the anti-mass

“ Slowly you realize that you have become a spectator, an object. Your politics take place on a stage and your social relations consist of sitting in an audience or marching in a crowd. The fragmentation of your everyday experience contrasts with the spectacular unity of the mass.
By contrast, the priority of local action is an attempt to unify everyday life and fragment the mass. This level of consciousness is a result of rejecting the laws of mass behavior based on Leninism and TV ideology. It makes possible an enema of the brain which everyone so desparately needs. ”

“ What has happened to all thinking can best be seen in the degeneration of class analysis into stereotyped, obese definitions. There is little difference between the theory-mongers of high abstraction and the sloganeers of crude abstraction. Theory is becoming the dialect of robots, and slogans the mass production of the mind. But just because ideas have become so mechanical does not mean we should abandon thought. Most people are not willing to face the fact that they are living in a society that has yet to be explained. ”

“ The collective is the organizational nucleus of a classless society. As a formal organization it negates all forms of hierarchy. The answer to alienation is to make yourself the subject, not the object, of history.
One of the crucial obstacles to the formation of collectives is the transitional period-when the collective must survive side by side with a disintegrating movement and a mass society. The disintegration of the movement is not an isolated phenomenon but reflects the weakening of the major institutions in American society responsible for our alienation. ”

“ The collective knows it will be the last to enter the new world.
The doubts people have about local action reveal how dependent they are on the glamour of mass politics. Everyone wants to project themselves on the screen of revolution-as Yippies or White Panthers. Having internalized the mass, they ask themselves questions whose answers seem logical in its context. How can we accomplish anything without mass action? ”

“ What is a class? A class is a consciously organized social force. For example, the ruling class is conscious and acts collectively to organize not only itself but also the people (mass) that it rules. The corporation is the self-conscious collective power of the ruling class. We are not saying that class relations do not exist in the rest of society. But they remain passive so long as they are shaped simply by objective conditions (i.e. work situations) . What is necessary is the active (subjective) participation of the class itself. Class prejudice is not class consciousness. ”

“ An underground strategy puts the impulse of confrontation into perspective. We must fight against the planned obsolescence of confrontations which lock us into the lime-span of instant revolution. Going underground means having a long range strategy-something which plans for 1985. The iceberg strategy keeps us cool. It trains us to control our reflexes and to calculate our reponses.
The underground strategy is also necessary to maintain autonomy. Autonomy preserves the organizational form of the collective which is critical to the sharpening of its politics. ”

“ How do we defend adopting the style of advertising when its function is so oppressive? As a medium we think that it represents a revolutionary mode of production. Rejecting it has resulted in the stagnation of our minds and a crude romanticism in political culture. Those who turn up their noses at ads think in a language that is decrepid. Using the ad technique transforms the person who does it. It makes writing a pleasure for anyone because it strives for orality in print. ”

“ Developing an analysis requires new ways of thinking. Without new ways of thinking we are doomed to old ways of acting.
The question of what are we going to do is the hardest to answer and the one that ultimately will determine whether a collective will continue to exist. The difficulty of the question makes analysis all the more necessary. We can no longer afford to be propelled by the crudest forms of advertisement-slogans and rhetoric. The function of analysis is to reveal a plan of action. ”

“ This debate is a struggle between two conceptions of the world. One believes in struggle, the other in unity. The two sides have drawn a dear line between them and their arguments are diametrically opposed. ”

“ By all means, the collective also communicates with other people, but it never views them as a mass-as a constituency or audience. The collective communicates with individuals in order to encourage self-organization. It assumes that people are capable of self-organization and given that alternative they will choose it over mass participation. The collective knows that it takes time to create new forms of organization. It simply seeks to hasten the crumbling of the mass. ”

“ Know where your ideas come from and what their relation is to the dominant ideology. You should ask the same questions about those who make the accusations. What is their class background and class interest? So far many people have reacted defensively to the charge of elitism and, thus, have avoided dealing with the issue head on. That in itself is a class reaction.
The internal is a mirror of the external. The best way to avoid behaving like an elite is to prevent the formation of elitism within the collective itself. ”

“ Unless we can begin to solve problems at this level collectively, we are certainly not fit to create a new society. Contrary to what people are led to think, i.e. united we stand, united we fall, it will be harder to destroy a multitude of collectives than the largest organizations with centralized control.
Size is a key to security. But its real importance lies in the fact that the collective reproduces new social relations-the advantage being that the process can begin now. ”

“ We are all living in a mass society. We didn’t get that way by accident. The mass is a specific form of social organization. The reason is clear. Consumption is organized by the corporations. Their products define the mass. The mass is not a cliche-the “masses”-but a routine which dominates your daily life. Understanding the structure of the mass market is the first step toward understanding what happened to the class struggle. ”

“ There is an unspoken feeling either that the problem should not exist or that it is beneath us to talk about it. Let’s get it out in the open. Size is a question of politics and social relations, not administration. Do you wonder why the subject is shunted aside at large meetings? Because it fundamentally challenges the repressive nature of large organizations. Small groups that function as appendages to larger bodies will never really feel like small groups.
The collective should not be bigger than a band- no orchestras or chamber music please. ”

“ You will be accused of factionalism. Don’t waste time thinking about this age old problem. A collective is not a faction. Responding to Pavlov’s bell puts you in the position of a salivating dog. There will be no end to your hunger when who you are is determined by someone else.
You will also be accused of elitism. This is a tricky business and should not be dismissed lightly. A collective must first know what is meant by elitism. Instead of wondering whether it refers to leadership or personalities, you should first anchor the issue in a class context. ”

“ Often when charges of elitism are true, they reflect the same class relations internally.
The ways of undermining the autonomy of a collective are many and insidious. The call for unity can no longer be responded to automatically. The time has come to question the motives and effectiveness of such actions-and to feel good (i.e. correct) in doing so. Jargon is pidgeon talk and is meant to make us feel stupid and powerless. Because collective action is not organized as a mass, it does not have to rely on the call of unity in order to act. ”

“ Local action should be based on the global structure of modern society. There can be no collective action without collectives. But the creation of a collective should not be mistaken for victory nor should it become an end in itself. The great danger the collective faces historically is that of being cut off (or cutting itself off) from the outside world. The issue ultimately will be what action to take and when. Whether collectives become a social force depends on their analysis of history and their course of action. ”

“ They are all products of a specific social organization. Ours.
Of course, no one sees themselves as part of the mass. It’s always others who are the masses. The trouble is that it is not only the corporations which organize us into the mass. The “movement” itself behaves as a mass and its organizers reproduce the hierarchy of the mass.
Really, how do you fight fire? With water, of course. The same goes for revolution. We don’t fight the mass (market) with a mass (movement) . We fight mass with class. Our aim should not be to create a mass movement but a class force. ”

“ The size of a collective is essentially a limitation on its authority. By contrast, large organizations, while having open membership, are exclusive in terms of who shapes the politics and actively participates in the structuring of activities. The choice is between joining the mass or creating the class. The revolutionary project is to do it yourself. Remember. Alexandra Kollontai warned in 1920, ‘The essence of bureaucracy is when some third person decides your fate.”
the strength of a collective lies in its social organization not its numbers. ”

“ Class is a product of hierarchic divisions of labor (including forms other than wage labor) . There are three basic relations which can produce anti-work attitudes. The working class expresses its anti-work attitude as a rebellion against routinized labor. For the middle class, the anti-work attitude comes out of the ideology of consumer society and revolves around leisure. The stereotype of the “lazy native” or “physically weak woman” is a third anti-work attitude which is applied to those who are excluded from wage labor. The dream of automation (i.e. no work) reinforces class prejudice. ”

“ The small group can be a stage in the development of the collective, if it developes a critique of the frustrations stemming from its external orientation. The formation of a collective begins when people not only have the same politics but agree on the method of struggle.
Why should the collective be the primary form of organization? The collective is an alternative to the existing structure of society. Changing social relations is a process rather than a product of revolution. In other words, you make the revolution by actually changing social relations. ”

“ Always keep part of your strategy underground. Just as analysis helps to differentiate the enemy so it should provide you with different levels of attack. Mao says: “Flexibility is a concrete expression of initiative.”
Going underground should not mean dropping heroically out of sight. There will be few places to hide in the electronic environment of the future. The most dangerous kind of underground will be one that is like an iceberg. The roles created to replace our identities in everyday life must become the disguise of the underground. ”

“ Rarely, do people prepare themselves for a meeting, nor do they feel the need to. Often this situation does not become evident precisely because the few people who do work (those who run the meeting) create the illusion of group achievement.
Because people see themselves essentially as objects and not as subjects, political activity is defined as an event outside them and in the future. No one secs themselves making the revolution and. therefore, they don’t understand how it will be accomplished.
The short span of attention is one tell tale symptom of instant politics. ”

“ The collective will be subject constantly to pres- sure from outside groups demanding support in one form or another. Everyone is always in a crisis. Given these circumstances, a group can have the illusion of being permanently mobilized and active without ever having a politics of its own. Calls for unity channel the political energies of collectives into support politics. So, as a precaution, the collective must take time to work out its own politics and plan of action. ”

“ The small group is the coming together of people who feel the need for collectivity. Its function is often to break out of the mass--specifically from the isolation of daily life and the mass structure of the movement. The problem is that frequently the group cannot create an independent existence and an identity of its own because it continues to define itself negatively, i.e. in opposition. So long as its point of reference lies outside of it, the group’s politics tend to be superimposed on it by events and crises. ”

“ Relations of inequality can be seen more clearly within a collective and dealt with more effectively. “Whatever the nature of authority in the large organization, it is inherent in the simple organization unit.” [1] A small group with a "leader” is the nucleus of a class society. Small size restricts the area which any single individual can dominate. ”

“ Thinking should help to distinguish between what is important and what is not. It should breakdown complex forces so that we can understand them. Break everything down. In the process of analyzing something you will discover that there are different ways of acting which were not apparent when you began. This is the pleasure of analysis. To investigate a problem is to begin to solve it. ”

“ Analysis should help us to express anger intelligently. Learning to think, i.c. analysis, is The first step toward conscious activity.
No doubt you feel yourself tightening up because you think it sounds heavy. Really, the problem is that you think much bigger than you act. Be modest. Start with what you already know and want to know more about. Analysis begins with what interests you. Political thinking should be part of everyday life, not a class privilege. To be practical analysis must give you an understanding of what to do and how to do it. ”

“ The automation of the working class has become the ideology of post-scarcity radicals-from the anarchists at Anarchos to SDS’s new working class. Technological change has rescued them from the dilemma of a class analysis they were never able to make. With the elimination of class struggle by automation (the automation of the working class) the radicals have become advocates of leisure society and touristic lifestyles.
This anti-work attitude leads to a utopian outlook and removes us from the realm of history. It prevents the construction of collectivity and self-activity. ”

“ The dominant issue will be how collectives can become part of history -how they can become a social force. There is no guarantee and we should promise no easy victories. The uniqueness of developing collectives is their definitive break with all hierarchic forms of organization and the jeconstructing of a classless society. ”