From: Celinec-AT-aol.com
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 19:24:37 -0400
Subject: Re: ancestral diaphrams


Frank writes:

>Unfortunately, the time is not yet right for talking about
>science, as William's 
>last reply to me shows. 

Now this is just the time we should be talking about this. I have
this notion that if you and I were to get onto this discussion we
might find a meeting ground.

>We want the same kind of society.

Now this is very interesting. I sit in a box in the dark and you
sit under a tree in the sun and yet we both share the same sight!
Now the question that may first arise is how to get there, but of
course this is a ridiculous question, because we both already
know the answer. For we are both already there, you when you see
the poetry in life, me, when I am floating in creative activity. 

And as we all know and perhaps live (I tried to explain this when
I wrote on how I have had to avoid connections with institutions,
etc.) there are many ways to live in a capitalist or whatever
society and circumvent it or not support it. We don't have to buy
what is on the shelf, we can make something ourselves instead.  
We don't hace to accept it as our reality. So all this is perhaps
a first small step, it is an individual move and certainly a way
of setting an example. Now how to make this flow to the rest of
the population... and how to create something strong enough to
survive the machine's last suicide explosions.

Of course an individual can't ignore the machine forever, and
ignoring it (unless we get everyone to ignore it), will not make
it go away. And as Pierre I'm sure will point out as long as it
is there it will be crushing at least one of my fingers,
deadening a portion of my brain and if I turn my back on it for
too long it will surely run me over completely.

But what if there was some way to encourage everyone or most
everyone to turn away from this machine and instead inhabit and
by their persence strengthen the society we see?  

One of the many powers of art is that in its own "passive" way, it
can be a slap in the face to the sleeping conscious. And this
perhaps more for the one who creates than the one who interacts
with the creation, but this is perhaps mainly because most don't seem to 
take the time to interact deeply enough with art.
  

See to me to simply kill the people that fuel the machine is not
the answer. Is this not the same power play, competitive action that we have
all admitted we abhor? And I do not believe in evil but only in stupidity. In
other
words this machine is even hurting those who think they are
benefitting from it, they're just too blind to realize it.

So again I see the act of revolution as having to be something
that  works from the inside out to allow complete autonomous
freedom. And the means cannot justify the end, because the act,
in the moment, is the result.      

Pierre takes all this much deeper:    

>Stopping it is not too difficult. 
>Just await its sure self destruction.

>More interesting problems could be 
>- how do WE avoid to be destroyed in the process
>- what step could we take for avoiding falling into a worse
>situation

  
>The problem lies with the way tooling, technology, THINGS
>take their roots in our body/mind.

>That's why it is so deeply rooted.
>We are a technical species, we see tools everywhere: 
>also in mirrors and also in beds (SM)
 
>We should indeed cherish everything useless.

This is very much what I mean to express. What I keep thinking in
these discussions is that Frank and I are acting a war between
the active and the contemplative, rather than merging these two
into one which is what they are and which we even demonstrate by
the fact that Frank and I both oscilate from one role to the
other in moves that seem highly hypocritical.

>We have to fight the "spirit" of the tool. 
>But we are all possessed by it.

>Theorically speaking, It is that simple.

This explains why I refuse to see art as a tool. And maybe this is at the
real root of our differences, Frank, over the word "politics." 

Celine