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What is a progressive movement for social change aiming to?
To impose an ideal society model? Maybe an ideal model of man? To overthrow the capitalists? To abolish the police? To give money to everybody?
How can a progressive movement for social change be achieving its goals?
By continuous confrontation with the police? By sabotaging the state function and the means of production? By military confrontation?
The goals of a progressive movement for social change can be described in the context of the goal of
a peaceful world in which people live in dignity. Obstacle to the formation of such a world is not only capitalism by itself, but, even more, the dominance of behaviors and conceptions suggesting that humanity, people and societies, have no other choice but to evolve inside a never ending cycle of antagonism and growth. Capitalism, constitutes the most recent stage of a historic process which, in its total, is defined by the dominance of these specific behaviors and conceptions.
Therefore, what a progressive movement needs to overthrow isn't simply capitalism, but instead the behaviors-conceptions that maintain the cycle of antagonism and growth. These behaviors-conceptions are in constant movement from the persons to the society and vice versa, defining a collective imagination that feeds itself from the illusion of a steady course towards the "more" and the "better". This illusion is sustained by those who, for mainly accidental reasons, are not among those becoming prey in the struggle for growth and dominance. Also, this illusion directs those who sustain and reproduce it, to exclude from the frame of the reality all those who become marginalized and excluded from any mean of well being, those who are destroyed in "peripheral" wars in distant countries, those producing necessary or "necessary" products under slavery conditions in distant or near places, and so on.
The most important result coming from the cycle of antagonism and growth is the analgesia, the invalidation of the crucial for the human state idiom of empathy, the immanent interest for the condition of the co-human. At the same time, the cycle of antagonism and growth promotes to a crucial factor, the beliefs of exceptionalism and superiority of anyone who, for whatever reason, remains active in this cycle, opposite to all those seeing their lives becoming limited or totally destructed.
Therefore, a progressive movement for social change carries the responsibility to look for ways in order to achieve:
- the interruption of the cycle of antagonism-growth,
- the promotion of empathy as an important regulator for human relations,
- the depreciation of the mechanisms that import on the personal and social field any financial, national, cultural, religion, scientific, ideological, guild "superiority" as guides to social classification.
These three points along with the text of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights may constitute the best compass for a progressive movement for social change.
> How can a progressive movement for social change approach its goals?
We know that growth and enforcement constitute the necessary preconditions for the survival of any antagonistic-dominant system. Similarly, we know that the achievement of growth and the gaining of strength may turn, in almost an automatic way, any social environment to being antagonistic, starting the cycle of antagonism-growth. We also know that growth and enforcement can be supported most successfully only inside systems of centralized economy and commanding. In a few words, antagonism and centralization go hand by hand. Thus, we can easily conclude that centralization forms, maintains and strengthens authorities that consistently work, with any means available, for their self-preservation; along with the preservation of the antagonistic environment that themselves form and which is usually the one responsible for their extinction: destruction is always the peak in this sequence of aspirations.
We have all the needed facts to compose the critical knowledge regarding our origins as humans, and this knowledge suggests in a few words: Humanity during the distant past achieved progress by limiting, consciously, the destruction that antagonism brings. It shouldn't be paradox to place the beginning of humanity and human civilization at this very exact moment.
Reason, cooperation and creativity stand through out the whole of humanity opposite to antagonism, growth and destruction.
Contrary to the most common teachings, the "golden" period of humanity hasn't been the 50 years of the Athens "Democracy"
[1] but instead the, by far, longer period of the
free Prometheus[2] during which villages didn't need fortifications, there was no central authority, while at the same time products, knowledge and technologies were shared from the Caspian to the Mediterranean and the European river networks.
We became humans while trying to invalidate the destruction that antagonism brings. And we achieved this every time we used
reason to collaborate in equality for a cause: to not allow the concentration of any form of power in the hands of persons and groups. Most of the laws-taboos of the primitive societies show exactly this effort: to eliminate the possibility of concentration of wealth, power, and any kind of lasting authority inside the community.
Considering that our world moves around antagonism, growth, centralization, authority and destruction, it is easy to recognize the starting points for a progressive movement for social change: cooperation, size decreasing, decentralization, diversity, collectivity and creativity.
The security of the existing system is based on the perception imposed by itself, [3] that, each person should exist by successfully competing all other persons. The existing system teaches that, we become successful when we manage to impose our will upon other people, similarly to what elephant seals do, but with only difference that instead of growing our mass we should grow our extracorporeal supplies.
By invalidating this perception in real, the system will be left without its most effective ideological foundation.
> What is change?
We have consolidated that we shouldn't be considering as
change the switching from one system of dominance based on financial superiority, to another based on ideological, religious, military or any other superiority. Thus, any attempt to overthrow the financial dominance, should prior have securely embedd that it will not end up to the establishment of another kind of dominance.
It is important to refer specifically to a progressive social change and not in general to the overthrowing of the existing system, and therefore, in this context, we need to be looking both for the meaning of
progress and the meaning of
change.
The meaning of progress for the people and our societies could be described as, our ability to converse on what is
good and what is
fair, while putting effort so that the in-between-us relations are formed in the manner we choose.
It is most unlikely for a change to occur towards the direction of good and fair coming from physical inevitability. Such expectations corresponding to elephant seals should not refer to humans who may understand the consequences of the one or the other choice, and cooperate for the achievement of the one or the other cause. We can not expect for the 19 elephant seals that have been blocked from reproduction to cooperate in order to change minds to the one dominant seal for the mistreatment he imposes on them. Neither we can expect from these beings to cooperate in order to violently overthrow their oppressor and establish between them a fair social system.
Unfortunately for the elephant seals, only a physical causality could cancel the misery that a few put on all the rest. For us people though, the research for the more fair, along with the cooperation for its achievement, constitute actions that when we do not develop, even our substance as humans may be put under question.
The demand however for justice, is mostly limited to the personal living conditions having as criterion people gaining more than we do, while being indifferent for the condition of those who gain less or even nothing at all.
This self-interested justice id expressed in a paradox way:
The interest of most people is exhausted in the direction of the expansion of the wealth that each one can obtain privately having as criterion those who have more, and doesn't extend towards the direction of a fair sharing between the sum of the people.
The daily antagonistic routine supported by the dominant teachings lead people to conceive the social environment and oneself more like an elephant seal than a human being. In the system's terminology, the social injustice we cause is attributed to us as
success. Antagonism and the pursuit for success, become for every human the tangible goal from which if one deviate, one knows of the danger of being marginalized similarly to one of the 19 weak elephant seals. The meaning of justice, in this context, even in its most sensitive expression, is far away from including the sum of a community, and even more of the world.
Thus, besides excluding from the frame of social well-being the next-door people who have "failed", we do the same for the workers-slaves of the "developing" world who produce for us most of the products we consume. In both cases we show tremendous lack of thoughtfulness and great amount of analgesia.
Progress, as antagonism and growth, and success, as analgesia and inhumanity, are constantly presented around us teaching and urging us to reproduce a deeply inhumane social system.
There isn't any chance however for any kind of progress to occur, if it doesn't come as a product of choices made consciously by people in their effort to approach good and fair.
> Which are the available means to a progressive movement for social change?
In order to answer this question it would be useful to define progress as the result of our choices driven by the use of reason in the research of good and fair, while defining regression as the result of our choices driven by irrational impulsion.
Every human and every society struggles inside the contradiction created by the human substance, reason opposite to impulsion, good opposite to easy, fair opposite to available.
It would also be useful to keep in mind that this struggle will never end to a final conclusion, and that it wouldn't be possible to occur in one way, one method or with the presumption that our goals are being best served by specific actions chosen by specific people and not by other actions chosen for the same reason by other people.
Therefore, we could define as
progressive social change the moment that the struggle of every human and every society will start taking place, at the most, inside a context ruled by the reason of people, putting aside the existing context that promotes and legalize,s as a starting point for every effort, the leading-to-a-dead-end impulsion maintaining and being maintained by the ruling system of
antagonism-growth.
It becomes this way obvious that,
for every human and every community working for a progressive social change, the goal is the same as the mean, since the mean actually constitutes the goal in this endless effort.
By the time we accept that the mean constitutes the goal, it would be a paradox for a movement for the progressive social change to allege that "the end justifies the means" excusing this way any choices and any actions.
> Could there be then some authority that would relieve people from the sufferings that authority brings to them? Or, could there be some violence that would abolish violence?
Some, after having entitled themselves to the privilege of authority and violence, claim that, yes, there can be authority and violence for the benefit of the most. In their imagination, they are the most capable ones to run the State in order to practice these privileges in an ideal way, introducing a centralization for a good cause an a violence with kind intentions.
No matter how hard it is, we need to train ourselves in order to become able to recognize that
such overestimated beliefs are perfectly built in the system where each man and each group of people become forced to compete and magnify infinitely; regardless to whether the means for this cause are sometimes the means of production or, in other occasions, idealistic ideologies and superstitions.
There is no doubt that, a progressive change can be succeeded by the weakening of the authority, the weakening of violence and the weakening of the centralized State, which was meant to be the ideal carrier of any growing authority and any growing violence.
Authority and violence, nevertheless, might occur anywhere, even outside the context of a centralized State and this should be well known to all of the people.
Legislators in modern societies have long forgotten the foundations of the rules of the primitive societies according to which,
for every thing that all would wish to obtain but they shouldn't, since the pursuit of acquisition will bring antagonism and destruction, the society defines limits so that finally no one shall obtain it. The simplicity and the effectiveness of the application of such restrictions in the small numbered primitive societies wouldn't be possible to apply to the numerous populated societies that, meanwhile, have occurred by the need of the authorities to strengthen through growth and in which are formed castes of representatives and bureaucratic organizations with instincts and reflections of self-preservation.
It isn't, however, the great number of people that chain modern societies to the system of antagonism-growth but two more worrying causes:
- the establishment of the belief that not all people are entitled to an equal level of well being, and,
- the establishment of a state protector of the dominants, that constantly upgrades its capabilities in order to keep the dominants safe from the destruction they cause around them, treating all other humans as disposable herds.
> Which is anyway this progressive movement for social change and when is it going to make its presence noticeable?
This movement sometimes exists as flares of thought, while other times as behaviors and actions coming from people and movements since thousands of years; doubtless ever since a man was enslaved for the first time. It would be desirable, for this movement to make its presence decisive before the teachings of arrogance along with irrational impulses destroy everything beautiful in the world and everything good that people have made or that are capable of making.
> Acting now
The value of human life
- Can we reject as anti-human the classification of human life to worthy and unworthy?
- Can we reject as anti-human the idea that, for granted there are people succeeding and others failing and that, those failing are guilty and responsible for their incapability towards the demands of life?
- Can we search, reveal and reject any expressions of "success" aiming to dominance through the depreciation of other people?
- Can we control our need to feel important in a manner that doesn't include dominance upon others?
- Can we, in any action of imposition and dominance, recognize our hideous and anti-human self?
- Can we not recognize any man as authority in matters regarding our existence and co-existence?
- Can we recognize in every human being marginalized by the mechanisms of the "successful" ones the right to revolt in order to void the unfairness and to regain the coequal human substance?
At the same time,
- Can we not participate in any growth intended to maintaining authorities?
- Can we question and void anything that can turn to a tool of authority in the hands of the strong?
- Can we redefine the meaning and the use of property?
- Can we protect every human being from its transformation to useful equipment, production number or monetary measure?
- Can we turn our back to everything that limits the perspective of a
humane life for today's generations and the generations to come?
We doubtlessly can and, in any case, there are always people trying this in, sometimes, more and, sometimes, less effective manners. What is important though, is that for the application of the most of these, is needed a personal and collective effort in the context of culture. Meaning, there is needed a new narrative both for the
meaning of well being and the
meaning of social bonding, which will void the narratives of private well being, of the monetary-quantitative growth, of hierarchy and enforcement.
The importance of synthesis and diversity
Authoritarian formations have failed since, besides being easily corrupted by various authorities,
[4] they reproduce accurately the structure of the system that we want to free ourselves from.
Ideological formations on the other hand, fail constantly and this is reasonable since, every ideology is a product of the knowledge and the perceptions of a specific era. Any established view of the world, within a minimum of the historic time becomes outdated.
The most important issue though, regarding both authoritarian and ideological formations in general, is that the solutions proposed by each one of these formations are antagonistic to the proposals stated by all the other. In a few words the core of each such formation, consists of the same substances as the culture of antagonism, growth and enforcement.
In his book
The perfect State: The night of the reptiles, Andreas Georgiou refers to the "ideal" peak of social formation, in a system where everything will be calculated to the last detail, either for the benefit of few or in the name of the most, as the humanity's worst nightmare.
In a few words, there is no ideological formation on which we should concede the "salvation" of humanity because instantly, even if -by a miracle- such a magnificent plan becomes real, humanity will be trapped inside an extreme and catastrophic dead end.
On the other hand,
anything that can react, composing itself and its environment, along with recomposing itself constantly, producing innovation and diversity, starting from behavior, to production of goods, and to theory formulation, and all this with respect and love towards the uniqueness of each human being, curing to search for the good and the fair, constitutes the fire fly, the torch or the star that lightens for the people a humane path.
A N N E X Ι
A fictional community
If we imagined ourselves inside a small-numbered and magically self-sufficient community, let's say of about 30 persons, that would all have to work, what would be the rules of co-existence and administration?
- Would we choose to pair in free will and equally, or some would have special privileges?
- Would we choose for some to have greater access to goods?
- Αν ένας ήταν τυφλός θα τον εξαπατούσαμε σε κάθε ευκαιρία;
- If a blind person was among us, would we cheat on him in every possible occasion?
- If one was mentally disabled would we share equally the time needed for his care?
- Would we grant special privileges to the physician and the judge opposite to the stonemason and the baker?
- Would we allow to one of us to concentrate privileges in order to use it to impose his will upon the rest of us?
- Would we expect from the farm-worker to work more and for more years than the teacher?
- Would we choose someone for mayor?
- Would we expect from all to become mayors, or we would consider that, let's say, the builder or the farm worker aren't qualified for this?
- Would we approve of any expression of the individual personality? Let's say, what if this individual personality was expressed through being dominant? If it was expressed through the concentration of wealth? If it was expressed through secret attempts to form dark networks serving the interests of a small group in the community?
Then lets wonder:
What is restricting us from forming our societies in the way that we would form social relations in a small numbered environment of familiar persons?
A N N E X Ι Ι
Starting points for the constitutional declaration of a progressive movement for social change
- We the people choose that all the people, regardless the differences in the look, the personality, the abilities, the origins and everything that might differentiate us, we are equal between us and the life of each one has the exact same value as of everybody else.
- We the people choose that every person can and should contribute for the survivor and the well-being of his own and of all of the people, depending on his abilities and his interests. Accordingly, we choose that every man should be in position to become, in an equal manner, receiver of the other peoples contribution to the common well-being.
- We the people choose to see in every natural good, like the land, the water, and the air, every human creation and every knowledge, as a public domain available to all people and all future generations, which by no-means anyone might privatize in order to turn it against other people and future generations.
- We the people choose to encourage and reward creativity in all aspects of human activity, like producing goods, developing services, sciences, arts, political and social education, and so on.
- We the people choose to work, for the development and maintenance of diversity on all levels of human activities, for the development of complex networks connecting communities, for the support of people and communities whose efforts find a dead-end or fail.
- We the people choose to protect our lives and the lives of the future generations from the concentration of wealth, power, authority and any form of "superiority" left in the hands of social groups or people, by constantly practicing discourse and by staying socially and politically vigilant, by developing social consciousness, and by forming and keeping social rules.
- We the people choose to determine ourselves as the beings that live while searching for the
good and
fair through the development of our consciousness, rather than the beings looking for the
more and the
needed through the development of their technologies.
- We the people choose to synchronize our needs and our impulsion, to the capabilities of the environment, which in any case will be the most important heritage to the future generations.
N O T E S
[1] The Athens Democracy had not been a naturally occurring creation of reason, as some present it, since it had been the attempt of a rational adjustment of the ancestral egalitarian rules of the Athens tribes, in the new conditions defined by the productive use of enslaved humans. As one would expect, inside a class society any such attempt is doomed to fail since the belief that there are superior and inferior humans sooner or later effects the forming of the social rules among the "superior" free citizens.
[2] This period, on the Cyclades for example, seems to gradually end 4.300 years ago, when settlements move to naturally or artificially fortified locations, while at the same time powerful authorities are been established from Mesopotamia to Egypt.
[3] The meaning of system
here, is not limited to capitalism but expands to any system of dominance as formed through time since the invention of slavery.
Teachings that have imposed this perception of the antagonistic "nature" of human appear since the Homer era. It should be a rational choice of every progressive person to recognize in Iliad and Odyssey, instead of a magnificent work of poetry, a blatant, anti-humane propaganda of a newly established system of authority.
In Iliad, Thersites -exponent of the human rationalism, becomes ridiculed and humiliated by Odysseus, while in Odyssey, it is the one king [άνακτας, ανακτώ - recapture
] killing the many deliberately morally depreciated contenders, reversing the egalitarian totemic tradition of the equals and justifying the prior to civilization, animal structure of human societies.
[4] Any formation, and not only authoritarian ones, might become corrupt by the State and its side mechanisms. A possible shield that movements can develop might be the scholastic keeping of the rules of equality, democracy and transparency, along with the agreement on constitutional principles supposed to stay inviolable in any case.