resistance

In the violin world when people ask questions like “how do I maintain motivation to keep practicing?” the answer is: habits are better than motivation. Instead of relying on motivation or inspiration to hit, you should make a plan, have a routine, build the habit of practicing day in day out. Politics are the same. When folks ask "how do we get people to care?" the answer is: culture and ideology are better than individual feelings. Instead of hoping people feel moved to act on a specific topic we need to build norms, and yes, habits.

Part of the power of unions is inculcating that culture and identity of “we are union people, which means we show up in solidarity when shit goes down.” Part of the power of anarchism is that you have a ready ideological framework for understanding power and don't have to reanalyze every new situation from scratch. You know what side you're on. You know what to do. You’ve practiced this with your friends.

I know the pervasive Liberalism of our age makes many uncomfortable with this idea. A call for constructing “the human nature of the revolutionary,” or whatever, sound hopelessly outdated. People like to seem themselves as approaching everything with an open mind and thinking for themselves. But that’s a trap. Having the right “hot take” isn’t politics. That’s how you end up arguing about Musk’s Nazi salute is a true reflection of his interiority and whether to be kind to people who voted for Trump and generally feeling overwhelmed, paralyzed, and isolated.

When shit gets real you need to have community and habits to fall back on. You get there by building a shared culture of resistance where norms and practices have become not just second nature but, yes, the new human nature of the revolutionary.

I’m seeing a lot posts from folks in the US-sphere about how to “prepare” for the next four years. And they’re mostly good, (though, not entirely¹) and folks are right to fear what may come. For a lot of folks the coming years are going to be hell; let’s call that category 1. But, in a way, I’m more afraid that, for many nothing, will come at all, or at least only very little will change for them. I don’t mean the rich and racist who are salivating for future horrors; let’s call that category 3. I mean all the folks who with a small shrug and a bit of adaptation will blithely and happily continue along with their lives. This is category 2. The thing is, I strongly suspect that a lot of folks (not everyone; I’m not saying that at all) posting, reading, thinking about “preparing” actually fall into this second category, even though they might think they are in the first.

I think a lot of folks are going to be all geared and gussied up to fight fascism and then find that it has come in the night to beat up some folks in that other neighborhood (you know the one) and they at most heard some sirens in the night. I think folks are so focused on being prepared, on their own safety, on knowing how to react, on being the target that they’re going to miss the fact that fascism might not care about them all that much. A story my Grandmother used to tell was that after the war ended a neighbor a few doors down knocked on their door and said proudly (smugly?) “I knew what you were doing and I didn’t rat you out to the Germans.” and my Grandmother politely said “thank you” but in her mind was thinking “That’s the absolute bare minimum you asshole [I’m paraphrasing here]; that’s not being part of the resistance. That doesn’t make you one of the good ones.”

I’m not saying bad shit isn’t going to happen and lots of folks aren’t going to get hurt. That is definitely going to happen. But, well, for example. You’re book club isn’t going to pick Trump’s “Stories of True Patriots™”…but it only has 4 members. The local church, a nice normal church, might though because Lucy really wants to, and the President did ask everyone to read it, and what’s one book to stay friends with Lucy? You aren’t part of that church. What are you going to do about it?

I’m glad so many folks are interested and eager to think about the work ahead. I really am! And I’m not offering a full blown solutions here, which is a weak-sauce cop-out, I know. But I would like to offer one small correction and one small addition to the present discourse. First, yes be prepared but be realistic about what you—you specifically—are actually going to face. Second, to that end, look more closely at how historical and present day fascist and totalitarian states operate. Present day Hungary and India, recently Philippines and Poland, historically East Germany and Portugal are all good examples. Unfortunately there are many. The scenes that play in the popular imagination of jackbooted thugs smashing down your door and sending you to a camp to die the day after you dared say “the Leader is a poo-poo head” are … simplistic. Those regimes are/were scary and awful as fuck. But also more complex and janky than a Hollywood hero movie.

And now this post is starting to veer into what fascism actually is and isn't and how it's not just anything ultra conservative or any big shot who wants to be a dictator but a specific combination of the two that has love of Power (with a specific capital P) combined with a totalitarian outlook, and totalitarian not just in the political sphere but also the cultural, civic, and social sphere which I think we haven't seen play out in the U.S. to the same extent yet.

But that's not what I wanted to say today! I just wanted to say (tl;dr:) I’m glad y’all are thinking about how to prepare but just keep in mind they might not actually be coming for you, or even your next door neighbor, and certainly not necessarily in an overt show of force way and you should also be ready to handle a thousand soft choices while the black shirts are terrorizing that other neighborhood (you know the one) and do you actually know anyone over there? Because—and be honest with yourself about this—your neighborhood might actually continue unscathed for a good while yet. That’s one of the scariest things about fascism.

My grandparents were in the resistance during WWII. They mostly forged and printed identity documents and ration cards. At the end of 1944 they produced a booklet containing a short story by Vikenty Veresaev called «The Star». A few years ago I translated it from their Dutch edition into English. And now you can read it too. I don't entirely understand why, in such a dark hour, they chose to use precious resources to share this particular haunting story.

• The Star — screen
• The Star — print