Written: March or April 2012
Radical
The only true aristocracy is that of
consciousness. -D.H. Lawrence
It is
a Sunday, 9:57 PM in a small town of Northern California in the United States
of America. I am sitting in a studio apartment with central heating and slabs
of concrete and lock that guard me from the outside. One can hear the 21st
Century Western World’s symphony; the refrigerator hum, gas heater and “Smart”
meter drone, and the clicks of cellphone and laptop. My tap water gushes with
fluoride and high fructose corn syrup sits in most of my food. Unperturbed by
these facts, I feel placid, so warm upon this frilled carpet, with instant tea
from my gas stove. This is Now. This is a blip in time and space where every
action of every genealogy of the entire planet (and many argue galaxies beyond)
has culminated in this moment. Not in a linear structure have these moments
compounded, but in an intersectional way, criss-crossing like matrices upon
matrices, like spiral fractal equations. With each sun and moon exchange, the
spiral fractal of the universe further propels, both sustaining and sustained
by each moment, action, and idea. My eyes bathe in the disinfected light of a Macbook©
and I see that change is inevitable, the only true constant. Political
radicalism already exists in the bodies of humans new, and old; it exists in
all bodies of today. It is a root felt deep underground, and beginning to be
realized.
Political
radicalism, at its very base, is movement. It is energy that transfers and
changes existing human organization. It cannot be not defined in a linear
fashion, as in who or what. And it cannot be answered in some
singular magical instant of time, as in when.
Like an infinite spiral fractal, the existing social narratives that shape the
inside and outside of my apartment are corroding and reforming under the cruel
sands of time, the changing frequency of color. The when, funnily enough, is NOW.
Merely existing and surviving today,
in a system that does not value humanity beyond monetary standards, is politically radical. The root of
political change is in a rebirth of a widespread Consciousness that, I argue,
is the vanguard of political radicalism today. This awakening is happening now,
could not have happened without the totality of all that came before, and is the movement. It is not an isolated
happening in houses of white or in one major protest movement, but rather in
the physical bodies of millions of people around the globe. This movement to consciousness
is political radicalism. As Herbert
Marcuse states in One-Dimensional Man:
“[People] must come to see it and to find their way from false to true
consciousness, from their immediate to their real interest. They can do so only
if they live in need of changing
their way of life, of denying the positive, of refusing.”
The
Conscious Vanguard, the root of radical politics (yes, they, the root of the
root) are not merely those who exist, but those who are conscious of their
movement, and use the force of such to envision a reality not yet born. They
are propelled to create change,
inevitable and new. The propulsion is a necessity, a reaction to the current
social organization that breaks apart not only nature but man, to exploit the
whole world of itself, like a self-masticating goldfish. Just as Karl Marx
described the necessity of capitalism to birth a communist future, the present
global society that falls into an ever deeper self-estranged sleep paves the
way for a universal awakening of one which is Conscious.
The
actions of the growing Conscious are sparked by inner truths found in their
waking, which now begin to erect the vision of a world that is true, that is
one, and not falsely scattered in isolating narratives. The theorists we’ve
perused so far analyze the epoch of a fragmented world, and here, now, I offer
my observation of the growing synthesis of the universal soul in an inevitable
and radically changing world. As the current institutions of these broken
worlds whirl deeper into disparity, more and more individuals search for their
true purpose and awaken not only to individual truths, but universal truths as
well. In this search beyond narratives and numbers they realize that the earth,
too, is whole. The era of analysis is over, and the synthesis is beginning. I
argue that the inevitable synthesis, of conscious body to Conscious world, is
the politically radical, Now.
Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason
that it is not only apolitical but anti-political, perhaps the most powerful of
all anti-political human forces.”
-Hannah Arendt, German Political Theorist (1906-1975)
The
tagline for the current US Occupy Movement is “Love”. In fact, a documentary
titled Occupy Love succinctly
explains the unexplainable—love as the force for revolution, love as radical.
Love, a movement in itself, simultaneously strengthens and is strengthened by
consciousness; they function in an intertwined symbiosis. Consciousness
manifests itself in the ever-growing recognition that we are made of this
world, not apart from it. Love, which is enhanced by a growing consciousness,
is the “logic of the heart”, the expression of the innate human spirit. When
feminist theorist Chandra Mohanty envisions the “forming of strategic
coalitions that cross class, race and national boundaries”—as well as
boundaries of gender, age, and ability— consciousness and love become a
unifying force for an intersectional and eclectic humanity. Charles Eisenstein,
who speaks in Occupy Love and is the
author of Sacred Economics, describes
the visceral unifiers of consciousness and love as:
“[T]he
felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you
is less for me.' But the lover knows that more for you is more for me too. If
you love somebody, their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain.
Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness
is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%."
Eisenstein
senses an awakening of a new universal consciousness as a reaction to the
current mass suicidal reality. The present survival and growth of the Conscious
Vanguard is inherently radical, for they are not only the conduits of
consciousness, but of love as well. These people, who may or may not yet know
it, allow for a future that is today’s antithesis: a return to love and human
essence. Just as Marx spoke little of his ideal communist future, the details of
a Conscious World where love trumps money are presently unimaginable. However, unlike
Marx’s communism that never truly came to be, this present reality depends upon
it for survival; capitalism cannot adapt to a situation where there is no more room for growth. As of now, the
planet Earth needs a miracle to save its biosphere, and humanity needs a new
world system of sustainable living. It is impossible for these goals to be met
within the patriarchal capitalist system we live in today. But it can become
possible within the infinite potential of the human spirit, within the shift to
consciousness and the forging of a creative community.
As
Friedrich Nietzsche scrawled in the moments before his imprisonment, the only
savior of a diseased humanity, the only direction to consciousness, will be
art. Art, or more broadly the act of creation, can be done only in
consciousness. No art is done without direction and change. Our ability to
create gives our lives meaning through movement; whether it be in creating solar
panels, vegan cookies, dance routines, theoretical dialogues, writings, etc.
Furthermore, in a shared creation of two or more bodies, we share unique
abilities and our consciousness and innovation grow infinitely more. Eisenstein
speaks specifically of the profound bonds built upon shared creation versus the
false bonds of shared consumption. The bonds of love and community are solidified
through shared imagination— compared starkly to the society that wishes us only
to consume ever more, regardless of the consequences. If humans are to survive
on the planet, creation must be about creating community and combating
isolation. An example of community creativity is in the budding Occupy
movement, which holds the idea of “gift economics” as its vision. The movement
forwards the idea that each and every human is a creative individual who can
share their unique talents within a community to enrich it, ie. sharing their
gift. Occupy sees the “gift economy” as a direct shift from a “money economy”.
This notion, although newly imagined today, has existed in time before. And in
as much time as it took to deviate from creative communities, it shall take
many cycles to return back (as well as certain areas of transcendence). Ye, it
is here now, radical and political. It all begins with the birthed
consciousness of an individual, who then recognizes their universal community.
"Dismayed by the actions of political "leaders"?
Toppling any particular rulers, cliques, or elites is irrelevant unless we
overthrow the sour, puckered mass hallucination that is mistakenly called
"reality" -- including the part of that hallucination we foster in
ourselves. The revolution begins at home. If you overthrow yourself again and
again, you can earn the right to overthrow the rest of us." -Rob Brezsny
Politic
theorists the world over have speculated as to a return, or transcendence, to
the true essence of the human.
Although Fanon sees violence, not love, as the cathartic return to
consciousness, he still wishes for those oppressed to recreate their individual
and communal identities. He succinctly states, “the rebel’s weapon is the proof
of his humanity”, illuminating on the idea that a return to self is what is
needed to reverse the hierarchical oppression of humanity. The community bonds
that develop through creation, not destruction, (as in Fanon’s cathartic
violence) are more potent as they produce rather than obliterate. The
productivity of communal creation not only provides evidence of synthesized
personalities, but allows for the sustainment of a society, where life is art,
and life is conscious. A life of art is the antithesis of what Foucault
describes through the analogy of the institutions of punishment in modern
society. He sees non-corporeal punishment, or violence against the mind, as a reshaping
tool of the soul that fragments communities into isolated, mistrustful
individuals, estranged from their communities and themselves…entirely asleep to
any notion of consciousness and oneness. A society where punishment is replaced
with creation, allows for community members to have purpose in their lives and
to maintain consciousness. Without consciousness of our universal reality,
without the recognition that everything is connected and we are all One, there
appear cavernous spaces for violence. Foucault aptly describes the society now
that begins to fall out of its disillusioned dream, in the bodies of the
Conscious Vanguard.
Although
the abstractions of love and consciousness are revolutionary instruments, the
path to universal consciousness is not as clear cut and simplistic as stated in
the previous lines. Consciousness begins on an individual level, within one’s
self. For such awareness to take place, the environment must be conducive to
self-exploration. A certain sense of safety and foundation must be had for
humans to delve into their creative expanses. This safety must come from
community, for today our biggest fear is not of predators in the jungle, but rather
violent other humans and their institutions. The institutions of today function
to reverse any such chance for self-awareness. Michel Foucault amasses a
genealogy of a societal internalization of docility that has so plagued
contemporary man. As in the Panoptic architecture of our fragmenting and
oppressive institutions, the threat of an ever-watching, all-seeing eye has
lulled the people into a frightened and blasé “walking-dead”. This passivity
can be witnessed in the societal obsessions with consumption: a globalizing
culture that imbibes exorbitant amounts of food, product, media and drugs. As both Foucault and Frantz Fanon
describe, docility affects not only the so-called civilized world, but the
colonized world as well. In either case, of master or slave, docility is
required of each man. An estrangement from the soul occurs in either the
exertion of power, or the submission to it. Today’s society relies on the
estrangement of all humans, those “powerful” and those powerless. This totality
of docility is a disease, a euphoric unhappiness; one that gradually but
forcefully necessitates a shift to consciousness.
All motion is cyclic. It
circulates to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting
point. -Robert Collier
A
finger could not fall from above into this spiral multidimensional planet,
complex and yet simplistically universal, and point out the Conscious Vanguard,
the directed creators of a new future. Some of them are dead, in the soils, and
some are reduced to abstract thoughts. Some build solar ovens in a sunshine
state, some meditate, and others help children learn to sing. In infinite more
categories, creative communities exist and are further arising. For however
cunning, resilient, and adaptive the current system of power-relations finds
itself to be, the human race is that much more cunning, resilient, and
adaptive. The Now, this very moment, my eyeballs glazed over a disinfected
white-light screen, I can feel the humans around me, those awake and those at
the end of a docile dream. As they wake up more and more, new ideas and the
ideas of those long gone are reawakened within them, and the shifting of a
paradigm happens. I am aware of what surrounds me, and I become more so each
day. In my art and in my thoughts, I share beauty and I share dialogue. And
although I am but one individual, I feel wholeness with my being and every
other being. I now choose to be a precious element of a creative community that
already exists, deep within my heart. From the Occupy Movement to my radical
political theory class, I know I am not alone. There awakes a Conscious
Vanguard.
