Ballerinas Dance with Machine Guns

EROS // REVOLUTION // OCCUPY // EROTIC POWER

Occupy Wall Street 

I haven’t written about the “Occupy” movement on here. I’ve been biting my tongue, trying not to be too cynical as a result of my sour experiences/disillusionment with the Baltimore encampment. You can read the Baltimore Feminist Reading Group’s analysis from the Women and Trans* Conspiracy from Hell (WATCH) here.

Most of the camps have been evicted, but there are residual traces of the spirit of resistance lingering in the bodies of those who participated and, perhaps for the first time, felt powerful…activated by their newfound comraderie and the thrill of confrontation (hopefully with the police). Part of the beauty of the “Occupy” movements lies in what I would call the mingling of eros and revolution. George Katsiaficas has done a bit of research on this topic. Long before OWS took off, George articulated the “eros effect” as the following:

I have developed the concept of the eros effect to explain the rapid appearance of revolutionary aspirations and actions. By the eros effect, I mean the spontaneous chain reaction of uprisings and the massive occupation of public space –both of which are examples of the entry into history of millions of ordinary people who act in a unified fashion, intuitively believing that they can change the direction of their society. (From the article “Comparing Uprisings in Korea and Burma”)

Cairo

George first developed this concept in relation to “the synchronicity of worldwide revolts in 1968.” The Arab Spring might be an a good present-day example of this effect, though it’s good to keep in mind that there was spontaneity and a good deal of planning required to carry out the revolutions.

Frantz Fanon acknowledges this phase of energy and intimacy, but says that it can only sustain a movement for 3 days to 3 months, max. The OWS camp started in NY on Sept 17 and was evicted on Nov 15—slightly under 2 months. According to Fanon, the movement dies prematurely because their blind optimism prevents them from readjusting their tactics when they become ineffectual (they might not even realize that their approach is no longer working). Also, the movement relies too heavily on the energy and solidarity generated by police repression. The police may notice this and become nice in order to defuse the hatred of the resisters by making them feel that this “trivial handout” (being treated gently by the police) is a battle won. In Baltimore, the vast majority of protesters were on the side of the police from the beginning (“they are the 99% too!”). The repression of the Occupy encampments all over the country did not even lead the development of a critical perspective on the police among the Bmore protesters, let alone rage. Oakland seemed far more critical (perhaps because the city’s history of resistance to police brutality), and the New Yorkers seemed split (even after the round-up of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge, some were still singing to the cops).
 
Oakland, early November 

It is interesting to read the chapter in Fanon’s “Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity” (chapter 2 in Wretched of the Earth) in relation to the events that transpired during the Occupy movement as well as the overall framing of the movement, though I am totally aware that the historical circumstances and character of the struggles are not isomorphic. Still, I think his comments are somewhat germane. Fanon writes:

All of this [solidarity, unity among the colonized, energy] is reminiscent of a religious brotherhood, a church, or a mystical doctrine. No part of the indigenous population can remain indifferent to this new rhythm which drives the nation.

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This solidarity grows much stronger during the second period when the enemy offensive is launched.

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The optimism of the initial phase had made them intrepid, even rash.

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But it soon becomes clear that this impetuous spontaneity, which is intent on rapidly settling its score with the colonial system, is destined to fail as a doctrine.

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Neither the heroic fight to the finish nor the beauty of the battle cry is enough.

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They discover that in order to succeed the struggle must be based on a clear set of objectives, a well-defined methodology and above all, the recognition by the masses of an urgent timetable. One can hold out for three days, three months at the most, using the masses’ pent-up resentment.

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During the struggle the colonists and the police force are instructed to modify their behavior and “to become more human.” They even go so far as to introduce the terms “Sir” or “Ma’am” in their relations with the colonized. There is no end to the politeness and consideration.

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When the actual objectives of the struggle are described, they must not think they are impossible. Once again, clarification is needed and the people have to realize where they are going and how to get there.

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The objectives of the struggle must not remain as loosely defined as they were in the early days.

[What do you think of this perspective?] 

Hakim Bey—best known for theorizing the temporary autonomous zone—seems to think that the eros itself is a sort of “win” because it breaks the boredom and alienation we feel under capitalism. About the Occupy movement, he writes:

Sharing things is inefficient and bad for Capitalism — but (or rather — so) it’s got a pleasure nexus in it, an intimacy and human fellowship that millions of Americans now lack and miss.
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However I intend to go on acting and writing as if I believe it can be SAVED — why? — because pessimism is so boring.

In fact boredom is already a sign that the enemy is very near — it’s the sine qua non of consumer trance and obedient wage slavery. Cheat boredom (as the Sits used to say) and already you’re winning something back.
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Such organizing certainly doesn’t “take the place” of resistance (including even riot and crime, much less squatting or debt refusal). It already IS a form of resistance — but also a pleasure in itself — a prime reason for human sociality — a structure for creativity and imagination — for poeisis or aesthetic making, whether it be tools or human relations or music or gardening or shelter or just normal everyday conviviality — that lost ideal.

As a poet and someone interested in the (re)introduction of intimacy, affect, and imagination into revolutionary praxis (a radical conference that I started with friends was named after the situationist slogan “All Power to the Imagination!”)—I can sympathize with this position. But a part of me also feels that many of the unwritten foundational assumptions of OWS perpetuates, what my friend Lawrence might call, an epistemology of ignorance (in that it is normalized from a particular subject position—namely white, middle class [or recently bumped out of middle class]).

The eros-aesthetic position may feed into the assumption that boredom is the biggest problem, that material demands are unnecessary, that a symbolic re-orientation or pleasurable experience is the end in itself. This is exemplified in the conclusion to the article “Occupy Wall Street and the Poetry of Now-Time,” which say, “But by a different measure, the occupiers had already won. Their lives felt meaningful, were meaningful, in a way they hadn’t been before.” It seems kind of premature to declare that the occupiers have won when, say, the majority of the Baltimore public schools don’t even have water that is safe to drink. While the symbolic domain is important, we need to materially dismantle and recreate social relations (though I understand that the they are inextricably connected). Poetic existence+materially liberated existence. 

 
The People’s Library, OWS 

And then there is eros+struggle taken too far, like when poet and co-founder of the Occupy Wall St. Poetry Anthology Stephen Boyer says in a poem, “Get down here and gang bang for democracy,” or in an interview, “you just want to walk through [the occupy encampment] and have sex with everyone.” Like my friend in the Baltimore Feminist Reading Group said, about the line “gang bang for democracy,” no word in that phrase is okay! (Err…except maybe for.) First listed definition for the term gang bang: “the successive rape of one person by a group of other people.” And democracy—liberal democracy and the American mythology of freedom is perhaps the precise place where we should wage war—in our context, it is what is holding capitalism in place. 

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Going back to this question of eros and revolution—yes, there is power in pleasure, in intimacy, in erotic energy, in spaces that are radiant and psychically charged. Perhaps I might also want to decouple eros and sex(uality), as well as sexuality and freedom—it’s fine not to want to fuck. I am thinking of the erotic as articulated along the lines of Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic, the Erotic as Power”—a reservoir of emotional power and energy that is corrupted and distorted by oppression. But I think it might be strategically ineffectual to think of any struggle as a kind of drug that will deliver us from boredom. Framed this way, it will become an experience to be consumed and not a struggle to actually commit oneself to. Following the logic of consumerism, there will be a initial spike in excitement that will evaporate and fade quickly before plunging us right back into our initial dissatisfaction. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There can be both excitement and commitment. No successful struggle can exist without both.

Notes:

1. interrogative reblogged this from loneberry and added:

   Plus, I might not want to fuck creepy dudes, or any men at all, ever. Hell it actually might feel kind of violating to...

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5. critischism reblogged this from loneberry and added:

   really well written article...new college. i didnt know her very well,

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