this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2024
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The most prominent example that comes to my mind of Western Marxist-Leninists were the Black Panthers. They made the exact same assessment and employed the exact same strategy that you're advocating for. Namely, they recognized that the way to win people over was to provide direct, material improvements to people's lives. So they looked at what the community needed, and they saw that poor black kids were going hungry, which was bad enough on its own, but also made them struggle in school, which perpetuated the cycle of poverty.
So they started a program where they handed out free breakfast to hungry kids. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, declared this program to be an existential threat to the government and authorized using any means necessary to put a stop to it. The night before they were set to open, the cops broke in and pissed on their food. They went door to door, spreading rumors that the food was poisoned. The news warned everyone that they were luring people in to teach them to hate white people.
Even so, it succeeded. Eventually, the liberals in government figured out that the easiest way to stop the Panthers from handing out free breakfasts was to just do it themselves. And so now, thanks to the Panthers, there's a national program to provide free breakfasts to poor kids.
I understand the concept of prefiguration (even if the specific term is unfamiliar to me), just like the Panthers did, and just like the FBI did. It's not a particularly new idea, it has been tried before, and it has both succeeded and failed. The only part that we disagree about regarding it is that I view it as a strategy, useful in some circumstances but not others, while you seem to regard it as inherently true and universally effective, despite a lack of evidence to back that up.
You admit it yourself, that even the failed attempt at prefiguration actually worked ultimately! And yes sure, the BP movement ultimately failed because of how profoundly racist USA was and still is, but it still had an impact in failure. As such, we just need more of the same.
You completely missed the point. Why would I even bring up a successful example if my argument was that prefiguration never works? I'm not trying to be adversarial here. The point is that you're not the first person to think of doing this. It can work, yes, that I never disputed. But you need to look at history to see when it has succeeded or failed. I'm not arguing against the idea, I'm only arguing against treating the idea as sacrocant and infallible.
I actually believe it not always works in the long term, but it's the only thing that works. State reaction can of course shatter the occasional direct action movement or mutual aid group, but it cannot do so against everyone, especially if people are cognizant of the state danger. And the fact that these actions actually improve the lives of people, is what causes more people to join in doing them.
The history of previous movements crushed only to have their goals implemented anyway at the height of capitalist power is just more evidence of what we're saying it correct.
To actual falsify the idea that anarchist prefiguration doesn't work you need to show that it either doesn't improve the lives of the people practicing it outside of external factors (i.e. state reaction), or that when widespread it doesn't actually lead to anarchism.
But I'm not trying to prove it doesn't work. There are successful examples, like the one I mentioned.
If you go back to my original comment, it was in response to someone saying, "The US army won't drone strike a community meal," and "the heinous acts were only possible by othering the foreigners." If you agree that the state does sometimes successfully employ force to stop peaceful community building, then we are in agreement.
You also still seem to be caught up on this "gotcha" of like, "The example that you said used our methods and succeeded used our methods and succeeded! Ha!" Like, yes, that's what I said. You seem to think that I brought it up as some kind of cautionary tale.
yes and I directly responded to that argument with
Which is my point in that state violence can repress one small community or movement like the BPs but cannot easily do so on widespread prefiguration.
And I pointed out that a lot of society is not practicing prefiguration. Meaning that you can't currently treat it as a guarantee of safety while you attempt to reach the point where a lot of society is practicing it.
The point being that since prefiguration is the only thing that's been shown to work, this is what we do. The fact that everyone is not doing it is irrelevant.
It's completely relevant. The problem is that you're completely missing the point of the conversation, because you're too concerned with arguing a point nobody has disputed.
The point is that being right doesn't stop bullets. The point is that your safety is not guaranteed just because you're doing a good thing. At no point have I claimed that prefiguration doesn't work. I've been abundantly clear the whole time that it can. It's like you've invented a version of me in your head who you're arguing against instead of listening to what I actually say.
I don't understand where you saw me arguing that it can stop bullets. I honestly don't even know what your point is by now. That revolution is gonna be hard? No shit
I already spelled it out to you several times, but here you go again:
I don't see what's unclear about that. You might not have said that being right was a protection against force, but I didn't think that that was at all clear from what the other person was saying.
There wasn't really a need for any of this to be an argument. It was just a reminder that it's not always safe, and not to rely too much on ideology for protection. If you think that's valid, I mean, that's what I was saying from the start and I'm not sure what I could've said or done differently that would better communicate that.
Yes, my point is broadly speaking about, "Revolution is hard" - in a certain, specific way. Is it not valid to look at the history of people trying to build community power and identify various unexpected dangers they encountered? It's like, "Hey, be careful, there's a spike pit after this jump," "So what? You're telling me this level has things that can kill me? No shit." If we both agree there's a danger there, then I don't understand what I actually said that you take issue with.
I'm not taking an issue with anything. I just thought you were making a point more salient than "the capitalist state is dangerous and hostile to anarchist praxis" which every anarchist recognizes.