Thoughts on the Zimmerman Verdict Protests

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action, community leaders, george zimmerman, non-profit, organization, police, police brutality, politics, pracitce, praxis, property, protest, state repression, theory, trotskyism, vanguardism, verdict

What is the nature of spontaneous protest and outrage?

Does it inevitably entail appeals to the state wherever there is not symbolic destruction of property?

I recognize how this might lend itself to vanguardism but that strategy seems disconnected and separate from the sentiments of oppressed communities.

The trotskyists would say such movements are unproductive and necessarily reformist unless they involve the direct power of the working class, but then the ability of the working class to spontaneously respond in solidarity to such actions seems unrealistic given the state of unions bureaucrat politics

what then is there left?

Theoretically I imagine an organization of leftists trained to react to spontaneous actions, focused on the safety and protection of the group regardless of the nature of the action as it develops. Keeping the lines of communication open within the group would be absolutely necessary. Such an organization would also have to be armed with sharp polemics aimed at reformists, apologists, and the state.

As I see it, I anticipate non-profits and community “leaders” apologizing for those people engaged in direct action and herding the outraged many into reformist actions and appeals to the state for justice. Granted, such a movement likely is not necessarily revolutionary in the sense that it grows to a point where control over community resources is contested by the oppressed and working class people, however, this does not mean that such a movement of people should be abandoned nor does it mean we should march blindly into actions or collaborate with the allies of the state.

Revolutionary intervention is still possible without the imposition of party politics and recruitment tactics.

The Basis of Belief and Self-Disgust Under Capitalism

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antonio damasio, belief, bourgeoisie, Emotion, feeling, marxism, neuropolitics, Neuroscience, oppressed, organization, pedagogy, politics, praxis, proletariat, revolution, rita carter, self-disgust, vangaurd party

For those of you who have not read any of my neuropolitical theory, much of it rests on the following premise: In political spaces designed for the facilitation of discussion, exchange, and political action much is lost, discarded, or simply rejected because of the emotions they trigger in individual minds. With this understanding, political organizations must look to reconstruct a new ethical system as well as new organizational models which address these situations of social and emotional friction. 

From Rita Carter’s latest reference book about the brain, incorporating recent neurological findings,

“Belief and disbelief are driven by parts of the brain to do with emotions, not reasoning. Belief activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which processes reward, emotion, and taste, while disbelief is registered by the insula, which generates feelings of disgust.”

Pause a moment and consider this. Beliefs and Disbeliefs, in all forms (political, religious, common sense, etc.) are driven emotionally, not necessarily rationally. Our logic is what rationalizes the existence of these emotions within us. I have been meditating on this information and it has allowed me some insight into what this means in political landscapes.

With that being said, I’m sure many of you who are political have been in a situation where you or one of your comrades have begun to make a broad political point, but are interrupted by someone who has misunderstood you. What follows is a negative political appraisal, refuting your statement, whether or not their negative interpretation was your intention or meaning.(This happens especially when two activists of different political thought interact). Usually in these scenarios you must then spend minutes, hours, days, or sometimes years speaking to this person about the object of their “disgust” or “fear” of your opinion. I believe most heated political exchanges, at root, play on these structures in the brain to the dismay of all those involved in the discussion.

Now, if we take into consideration that

“Emotional responses are considerably customized relative to the causative stimulus…Influenced by the culture in which we grew up, or as a result of individual education, we have the possibility of controlling, in part, our emotional expressions. (Damasio)”

The implications of this are quite astonishing. Indeed, culture influences directly that which we interpret as “disgusting” or “pleasing.” Society, almost by definition, plays the largest role in shaping the beliefs of individuals within that society. We know now that these beliefs are processed emotionally, triggering an emotional cascade of information for the brain to interpret AFTER its own brain state has been altered by the same emotional reaction to an external stimulus. Ideas which are abstractly “opposed” to each other must amplify these emotional contradictions, which are largely generated and promoted by those who rule society.

Political education in particular (and I include religious education when it educates people about ethics and political questions) is particularly volatile because it deals with continual process of political re-education. This introduces a certain chaos to the landscape of beliefs an individual has prior to interacting with a political organization. This process of self-recreation, I believe, involves utilizing a person’s “self-guilt” as a motivating force for emotional, mental, and physical change. On the surface, this can be likened to a person “growing up” from infantile beliefs, shedding a lesser shell for a stronger one. However, the political conclusions (which ultimately spur actions) of many organizations adhering to systems of beliefs which preceded the discovery of these neurological structures, I feel deal too harshly individuals who do not share the same belief.

 This is true of political organizations on both sides of the “spectrum,” but I will focus my time and attention on the radical left as it is the environment I find myself in. This harshness is especially difficult for members of radical organizations which utilize advanced political theories which are consciously removed from public access at large by the ruling class of a society in order to protect its societal position of rule. We see this now in Arizona as they have banned books concerned with racial equity and marxist deconstruction of capitalism. Members of these organizations find themselves isolated, not because their theories and ideas do not connect with reality, but because their “belief” is too novel in comparison with the population of an oppressed people raised to be blind to its own power. This is not to say that their understanding of society must be abandoned, in fact I mean quite the opposite. I make this point to suggest that the left can be better reformed to consider these neurological facts in order to create a more humanizing praxis which will ideally be more easily digested by the unradicalized population of oppressed people.

• As a result of the absence of a neuropolitical praxis, these radicalized minds sometimes respond with disgust towards oppressed people—people who will ultimately become their most important comrades in the revolution—problematically rejecting, not only the bourgeois false consciousness of the ruling class, but the working class and oppressed people which have fallen victim to these societal fallacies. As a result, many leftists entrench themselves in their own political circles—writing for an already radicalized audience, organizing with those who share similar beliefs rather than branching out and reaching other circles, or articulating their disgust and rejection of other populatations instead of creating plans for their radical unity. These are the major seeds of sectarianism.

• As an aside, I think it is important to acknowledge that the bulk of people who reject doctrines such as marxism, anti-capitalism, anti-war, socialism, and communism do harbor reactionary beliefs which are not being consciously deconstructed. It is important to note that all people must be focused upon deconstructing any and all reactionary opinions they harbor because they assist bourgeois rule in oppressing the proletariat. Those who refuse to accept this societal responsibility are not the fault of radical organizers.

• Self-Disgust is the major catalyst here because it is both the driving emotion which educates the individual and ultimately the same emotion which isolates the individual from those who do not share the same moral disgust. The latter part of this process is of course the part we aim to undercut with a more humanizing pedagogy. Vangaurd Parties play on this emotional dynamic consciously by labeling those outside of the party “counter-revolutionary,” thus scaring their own members from becoming that which disgusts them. On the surface, as individuals struggle for a reason to no longer be “disgusted” with themselves by aiming to obtain a more desirable identity and purpose which will banish this fear, they seem to be on a harmlessly fruitful path. Yet it is this fear which continually lives inside of them. It is this fear which keeps them from radicalizing the unradicalized. We must learn to check this fear, always.

What are your thoughts?

“The Emotional Brain” Submerged in the Left (part 3)

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action, consciousness, environmental consciousness, Fuse Development with Support, neuropolitics, organization, protest, Rationalize Action, science, Unify Seats of Consciousness

In this final part of “The Emotional Brain” Submerged in the Left I’d like to propose 4 principles which must exist in an organization in order for it to be healthy and successful. These principles are all based upon the concepts discussed in the previous parts. If you have not read them, I strongly suggest doing so before proceeding.

Part 1 (The Science)

Part 2 (The Politics)

I) Promote Environmental Consciousness

An organization which aims to change society must be fundamentally committed to learning about the class nature of the society in which it exists. Without this, the development of its political worldview becomes severely flawed, divorced from reality. This blindness, in effect, is submission to the oppressive class forces which exist in society. Historically, this political awareness in Marxist circles has been referred to as Class Consciousness. I believe this point is more accurately called “environmental consciousness.” Despite the fact that class is the predominant force that defines the trajectory of society, it runs far deeper than simple economics. Environmental Consciousness refers more broadly to a person’s awareness of the many manifestations of oppression in the environment that influences, either positively or negatively, an individual’s perception of the world around them. This includes oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and class.

Environmental Consciousness extends the Marxist method beyond economics simply by connecting it to our emotional appraisals of the world around us. Concretely, this means spending an adequate amount of time on research and analysis of a topic that individual comrades find interesting and important. All this must occur, while also sharing each other’s personal encounters with oppression. This process of exchange and education should be a communal one, as well as an individual, to establish a culture of environmental consciousness.

Most existing organizations focus their energies on assimilating new members to a party line by directing their attention towards a pre-existing list of essential works. These works, in the view of the organization, are integral to constructing an informed worldview. This is a static and alienating political tactic, regardless of how strict or militant an organization’s political program is. It naively presupposes there is one lens, one seat of consciousness, which is necessary and essential for affecting social change. It is in limiting a person’s environmental consciousness to the issues with which an organization concerns itself that isolation begins. It is political isolation which inspires sectarianism.

By being committed to flexibility and acceptance, an organization challenges its members to seize knowledge and share it. This principle encourages rather than alienates.

II) Unify Seats of Consciousness

The second principle of radical organizing stems directly from the first: while environmental consciousness, as the term suggests, refers to types of oppression in the environment around an individual, a seat of consciousness refers specifically to an individual’s rationalization of his or her life within that same environment. Rather than approaching different views as counterposed to one another, this principle aims to unite what is common. This is not something as narrow and superficial as looking for what is agreed upon by two conflicting views. It is a determination to find why a particular political view comes into existence. To do this, one must accept the unity between a person’s environmental consciousness and how this ultimately shapes one’s particular seat of consciousness. This starts with placing more value on WHY a person holds a particular opinion than on WHAT their opinion is. It is through seeking this deeper understanding, upon which sympathy and empathy are founded, that we achieve unity.

Establishing a safe emotional space for healthy exchange is a prerequisite for unifying seats of consciousness. Conventionally, there is far too much at stake in debates and political exchanges, especially public ones. It is in this atmosphere that people become concerned with being correct and besting the other, instead of encouraging understanding and clarity between different people. This practice should be just as informative for comrades working together as it is for the oppressed who may attend these forums of debate and exchange.

By encouraging all leftists to join and create such spaces, we strengthen our movement by including a diversity of perspectives. This is not something that stops when “everyone agrees,” but rather a non-stop process of discussion and expansion.

In unifying these perspectives, we create not assimilation, but tolerance and acceptance.

III) Rationalize Action

When a community of leftists feels confident in its existence as a body, the question of communal action comes into play. Before elaborating on this third principle, I want to make clear that no organization should ever restrict its members from acting autonomously politically. This is an unconditional freedom. That being said, when it is decided that a collective political action is appropriate, there must be a degree of discipline and structured procedure for the sake of individual as well as for organizational clarity. This is accomplished by requiring that all propositions for collective actions have a clearly articulated goal, means to accomplish the goal, and period of reflection that follows.

Once proposed, all members of an organization must dialogue and reach an agreement on the action. It is here where suggestions and feedback on the means of accomplishing the action’s goal must be submitted and discussed as well. This extends the democratic process beyond deciding on a simple proposition to the ideological makeup that inspires an action. By fusing education with every action, necessitating competence and seriousness between comrades, this establishes a professional attitude about the political work. By doing so, leftists are enriched by the communal discussion of action regardless of its outcome.

If the action is solidified and carried out, a period of reflection must follow where comrades meet and discuss the successes and failures of the action. This principle aims to synthesize action with reflection. It is a principle of Praxis.

IV) Fuse Development with Support

This fourth principle is the foundation on which the others rely. While the appeal of most organizations is embodied in what they offer programatically in addition to how they support a particular “cause,” rarely do they support their members’ livelihoods. I believe this is why there is a crisis of “cadre” (full-time activists). This was not always true for organizations. Being a professional revolutionary used to mean something tangible. Although this privileged status was given almost exclusively to vanguard parties with the financial means to pay their members’ expenses, the strategy is effective. It allows current and future members to fight with minimal dependence on capitalism as a means of subsistence. This frees them to pursue a more ambitious place in the left and provides the organization with a more effective means of acting within society.

A healthy leftist organization must offer both political development as well as socio-economic support to all of its members. The aim of this principle is to better equip leftists as agents of social change. Undercutting dependence on capitalism through organizational support eases the intensity of the workweek, opening up more opportunities for political work and education. This is a friendly gesture, which acknowledges the toils of oppressed working people rather than demanding yet more work from the masses. This is also something that can take on many different forms – communal spaces, food kitchens, donations, childcare, education, etc.

When we, as leftists, step back and commit ourselves to growing as a social force that interacts with the oppressed working class people, we can create a political environment of radical ideals, education, and communal resources.

For newly developing organizations or ambitious leftists looking to organize, I hope these four principles are useful guiding steps.