The World - An Idea Project, by Ed Whitfield

There is now very little I haven't written ten or twenty times already. It is now time to quit writing and go outside and begin living. In sum, however (oh one more time wont kill you!), I would like to conclude by over viewing the whole written project.

I began with introducing my beliefs on Abstractism, that alternative views are held by people and if they were to think about these feelings then perhaps they could begin creating a new reality. A different world is possible, one where everyone understands and is aware of power and because of that general awareness authority may not develop and power could remain in the hands of everyone. It is possible to create a world where everyone realises that for an overall sense of happiness we must concentrate on supporting, rather than controlling.

I looked then at some of the possible roots of modern society. The French revolution and the group of philosophers known as the enlightened. The revolution replaced god, the pope and the monarchy with the free market system, an elite class of economists and democratic governments. The enlightened, through thinking and writing, had destroyed the foundations of reality and had written their own. It just so happened, however, to turn out quite similarly to the order it replaced, where the people were still exploited by a 'higher' class. In order to eradicate this exploitation we must strive to create our own order, replacing god and economics with a view that creating a natural balance upon the entire planet ought to be our only rule, our authority, so to speak. To create our own order replacing the clergy and corporate economists with the view that life around us is the only 'word' we must listen to. Life is the only thing that can teach us anything, not books on fictional spirits or destructive markets and 'development plans'! We must create an order where, instead of bowing to a king or to a leader of any sort, we can bow to our own desires without feeling guilt. Our ancestors survived before the days of kings and gods so self belief must be in our heads somewhere.

More roots of how societies are built are to be found in studying ideologies and the systems and revolutions they can bring about. First I looked at the current, neo-liberal system of the west and how the US are spearheading this campaign by ensuring global compliance to free trade with threats of economic exclusions, trade embargos and coercive invasion. This is called foreign policy and they have a record of 'intervention' running over a century. Their view since then is to build an empire that will outweigh any, and all that have gone before!

It is up to the people at grassroots level to realise their own plight and begin to resist. But not in the classical sense as history has taught us that revolution and counterrevolution will never really sort out the problem, as they seem to either bring about bloody, drawn out situations or new structures in place of old ones, which nurture leaders and exploitation just as well as the old ones had. It is up to the new revolution to delete power and leave it in the hands of everyone by creating autonomous communities with no overall leadership on the scale that we have today. There is no point in voting in government after government either. This is the time to strike as it seems to be a general transitional period in many areas around the globe, from the old social democratic governments to the new neo-liberal forms of politics that concentrate on economics where faceless TNCs hold the authority. But it is not too late, like I said, this is the transitional period, a time of change and a huge shift is occurring. When the dust settles it is either going to be us or them that emerge from the rubble. People or profit.

I made a quick note of how violence might have a hand in revolution and how pacifism is a virtue as I would wish this new world not to be born to violence but through peaceful means. There are degrees of violence however, and in my view it is quite reasonable to inflict violence upon inanimate objects and also when oppressed under coercive situations.

The ideologies behind all these shifts in society must be looked at to fully understand why people do these things. Or why people do a lot of things, whether or not they are fully conscious or aware of the fact. For instance the neo-liberals implement psychological strategies and propaganda to influence the public into thinking along their own ideology. What ideologies are, are maps of political beliefs one might have, such as the social democrats that the liberals replaced in Britain due to the collapse of the economy. Or socialism that believes in propagating the rights of the proletariat. Anarchy, which claims it is not an ideology or a way as it is what way the people create on their own, after there is no state or authority of any kind that is the point in this extreme libertarian concept. Looking back over history we can see how powerful ideologies, which are essentially ideas that individuals came up with that then snowball into movements, are in shaping the reality of the world we live in.

The current change that ideologies can be accounted for in today's world is post industrialism (this would apply more specifically to the west). Neo-liberalism is largely accountable for this shift. Post industrialism is basically where the heavy industries have been replaced by knowledge and service based industries that has created more dynamic and flexible markets throughout the world. It is essential for companies to move with the flows and ebbs of global markets to remain competitive and survive. These shifts have made the Marxist ideas, such as class and industrial solidarity, slightly outdated as class stratifications can now be allocated down to the individual rather than groups, and unions have become weak as the majority of heavy industries have been relocated to third world dictatorships where union leaders are shot. Back in the first world barely anyone has a job for life now as most jobs are temp as the flexible fashion sweeps Europe and the US.

Another phenomenon of neo-liberalism in today's world is globalisation. The internationalist view of how globalisation ought to be is that of a world with no borders, where people are free and fully autonomous, where nations don't exist and (racial) prejudice is a mere blemish on the face of our history. However, as American economic might races across the planet in order to strategically hold all the planet's resources and therefore control trade and the planet a tragic form of globalisation is developing. In the same way that Wal-Mart enters a town and wipes out competition with high wages and low prices, then, once there is no competition, wages drop and prices rise, the American Empire is entering every nation and taking over through implementation of economic principals directed by the likes of the WTO and the IMF. And when there is no competition left, when America truly does control the world, what is the life of the regular person going to be like? A far cry from the utopian internationalists view at any rate!

lump those who struggle against neo-colonialism together and make them out to be the bogey man! Where anarchism actually is, in today's world, a name for those who believe in themselves. Those who trust themselves with the ability to live their own life without interference from state or any other authority. Those who believe that the best way for the communities they live in, to survive is to gain autonomy from the state and then sustain themselves. An 'anarchist' believes in breaking up power and leaving it in the hands of everyone.

With this in mind I went on to describe some of my views on activism. There seems to be a lot of cynicism regarding activism and anti-globalisation. But globalisation is destroying the world and creating more misery every day. These cynics don't appear to believe that there are viable alternative systems. What that would mean to an anarchist is that they don't believe in themselves. Another reason for the cynicism might be the seemingly futile techniques of protest marches and boycotts. But what activists must strive to achieve is to create their own techniques. Forming an affinity group helps with this process.

Regarding the formation of affinity groups, and also what the whole project was leading up to, came 'The Self', the first step in the spiral dynamics of 'An Idea Project'. The core idea of the whole project is that if one feels an affinity with any of what has been mentioned throughout, then they must think within themselves as what to do about the situation. Once a conclusion has been reached they must begin to 'spiral' out of their head, as in stop thinking, and begin to 'polarise' their environment, as in start doing. And when one begins to create changes within their personal space it is almost inevitable that they will enter conflict where a compromise must be reached if possible, or a unified relationship where a network is established. These networks, or strong relationships of agreement, are the foundations of the affinity group.

The second step is to then 'spiral' out of your personal space and into the immediate environment, being your housing estate, village, town etc. This is where the affinity group really gathers momentum as the projects you may take upon yourself at this stage will certainly need help. The help you may receive, this is your affinity group. It can be in the form of a band, a collective, whatever, but it must be democratic and without internal hierarchy. It must be autonomous and all decisions must be reached fairly and by everyone.

This was as far as I had reached with the project. At the start of this particular essay I mentioned that it was time to quit writing and go outside… Well I have done quite a bit regarding the first step myself, and am about to embark on the second step with the New Kilcoole Collective. Soon I hope to begin the third step. This is where your group 'spirals' out of your community and onto the national / international stage. An affinity group is pretty useless on its own, particularly in spicing up a day of action. The third step is where the group begin to network. You must get in contact with similar groups and become apart of the international, anti-globalist movement of movements, where people are already fighting and working against the 'system'. Through linear forms of communication and non hierarchal forms of organisation this force has been quite effective in shutting down large conferences and being the vigilant voice of opposition in the face of the American Empire, which, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, is quite essential. All you have to do is get out there so that one day all of us can spiral out of this world and into our dreams. . .

"When the whole world lets you down and there's nowhere for you to turn
'Cuz all of your best friends let you down.
Then you try to accumulate but the world is full of hate
So all of your best thoughts are just drifting through space.
I know a place where we can carry on. . ."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bob.

-- Ed Whitfield, March 2004

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