This is the reformist motto: “Yes, things are bad, but it’s not too late!”
Hope can be transformative, but can also trap us in dialectical struggle.
Something will always be bad, and whatever it is at a given moment is what will receive the attention of the elite. And what is the steady reply? We’ve got to work harder, ride the storm, persevere. But wait, good things are paraded by the elite as well, right? And this inspires complacency. We look at things as better and worse and believe we must strive toward the better. In a local context–where better and worse are value judgments rooted in community dialog–this is true. In a broader context–where better and worse become abstractions–this kind of thinking is paralyzing.
Blind faith in the possibility of perfection keeps us stuck in mediocrity. We need to keep ultimate goals in mind while working on our immediate situations. Abandonism offers this solution: utilize local resources to effect change on a level proportional to our constituency. By circumventing institutional channels we sacrifice the phantom of widespread change for feasible local improvements. This does not mean we ignore the institutions; we still put pressure in the right places to keep the tyrants at bay, but our chief concern is how we can make local improvements.
The importance and feasibility of change are inversely proportional to degrees of separation from the self. The most important and most likely locus of change is yourself. Then your family, your block, neighborhood, city, and region. We suffer the same misperceptions at each degree: make a good thing better, or overhaul it completely. Reformers of self advocate topical change without confronting life issues, and self revolutionaries offer pipedream self help advice.
We must abandon dichotomy. In the filth of crisis lie the minerals needed for growth. Basic Abandonism says this: we do what we can with what we have. No matter the locus of change, we start by asking what do we have?
November 24th, 2008 at 11:33 am
It has been a pleasure to read your material.
Do you think that it is possible for local change to be replicated to the extent that it produces widespread systemic change?
Is changing the world really a “phantom” or is it just too big of a step from where we are?
Do you have to reject reform and revolution to be a “abandonist” or just the false dichotomy of them as opposites? It seems to me that if change is the desired end result, using whatever vehicle is most advantageous is appropriate.
Loved the Barack - Curtis video.
DWB
November 30th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I think it is possible for the structure of local change to be replicated on a widespread level, but not the content. We might invent systems and practices that are effective, and the methodology may be shared between communities. The goals, however, should be informed by local discourse, so insofar as different communities have different values the results will vary between communities.
In fact the goal of Abandonism is to start building local structures so that when the superstructure crumbles we have something to fall back on.
So I do think the world can change, but the scope of uniform change must be limited such that it deal with values as little as possible. I think our fundamental value should be freedom, or, the absence of coercion. If we value the absence of coercion, it’s difficult to agree on many if not any other values. So we can inform our structures such that they are consensus-driven, but the products of consensus will be particular to the communities.
Abandonism is informed by postmodernism, so it eschews absolutes. That is to say, I would not say we must absolutely reject reform or revolution. We start with the acknowledgement that reform is generally ineffective and revolution is highly impractical.
Change is the desired result. The target of change is to reduce coercion. So yes we should choose an appropriate vehicle, and on the road to freedom our methods must not be coercive. I believe reform and revolution, in their simplest forms, are both coercive.
Thanks for reading and commenting, keep up the discussion.