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"US" Versus "THEM": The Eternal Myth and Paradox 1. Identity and the Scarcity Economics of Self After we met Alec, Jackson remarked: "When I meet a person, I don't like it if he immediately starts talking shit about other people. I don't want to hear about which groups he is against, but what he is doing, himself." Well, Jackson, I think in his own crippled way Alec was trying to tell you what he's doing: what he's doing is simply "being against" the cliques he was talking about. Perhaps he has no notion of how to do anything more positive than to take an opposing stance. He's certainly not the only one. Competitive human relations depend on and perpetuate a feeling of impoverishment in the individual, a scarcity economics of the soul: for in the status quo she is unable to do what she wants, and at the same time she must feel this helplessness and poverty of life to be willing to play instead the loser's game of power. To assuage this feeling of impoverishment, the individual seeks - more than mere physical possessions, which are just a means to this end - identity, the consolation for lack of freedom (if "I can't," at least "I am..."). Identity, as a concept, works in terms of contrast: one "is" a fill-in-the-blank, as opposed to the "others," who are not...thus, to the desperate lost soul of modern society, nothing is more precious than opponents, people to despise, so he can reassure himself of his own worth: as a faithful patron of brand X ideology, for example. The young "activist," though heretofore unaware of it, has quite a stake in maintaining the alienation of others, and it should not be surprising when he acts superior, threatening, etc. in order to maintain the distance between himself and the "normal" people. To be effective at acting radically (rather than just acting radical!), one must be disinterested in being radical or "an activist," but only desire to help make radical things happen. So no more stupid conflicts and infighting, for heaven's sake! In a system which is conflict systematized as social relations, in which society is a network of struggles arranged as social structure, getting along is practically the definition of the radical act. Until we are able to leave our "identities" behind, whenever we come together it will merely be a case of images meeting and clashing - with the humans behind them unable to even see each other. 2. Fight war and wars This being the case, we can't spend all our energy on our efforts simply to defeat the State, corporate tyranny, etc. - for even if we do succeed, as long as most people are unable to work together (and thus unaware of their own potential), we can only be another vanguard/ruling party. Under such conditions, the struggle with the state is just another power-struggle substitute for free action. We need to strive simultaneously for freedom from external constraints and for the strength to love and forgive and cooperate, and for this project we absolutely must be ready to shake off our need for Identity in the traditional sense. What we need most now are ways to speak that can give others voices of their own (contrary to the aforementioned social scarcity economics, in which the very act of speaking monopolizes expression and denies it to others), ways to act that can activate - these will be the weapons no power can defeat. What is needed above all, then, is the self-confidence to talk with and listen to others, to find magic tricks by which old conflicts can be superseded and people like Alec and his rival factions discover ways to coexist and support each other. For revolution is not making everyone the same in their ideologies or relations with each other, but simply establishing mutually beneficial relationships between different individuals and groups. I would do better myself to think about how Alec and I can transcend our predictable interactions, instead of just analyzing him in a way that makes me feel so much smarter and more mature. adapted from Stella Nera's journals

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