myers (04/17/83)
Truth and Beauty has had its day, how about the relation of individuals to philosophy? (call for comments) Philosophies in general do not in fact exist. Various philosophies or conceptions of the world exist, and one always makes a choice between them. How is this choice made? Is it merely an intellectual event, or is it something more complex? And is it not frequently the case that there is a contradiction between one's intellectual choice and one's mode of conduct? Which therefore would be the real conception of the world: that logically affirmed as an intellectual choice? or that which emerges from the real activity of each man , which is implicit in his mode of action? And since all action is political, can one not say that the real philosophy of each man is contained in its entirety in his political action? from "Selections from the Prison Notebooks" by Antonio Gramsci
ucbesvax.turner (04/19/83)
#R:uwvax:-82700:ucbesvax:11400001:000:3064
ucbesvax!turner Apr 18 22:13:00 1983
Anecdotal evidence, of a sort:
I was a libertarian between ages 13 to 22. I am now an anarchist.
The pivotal event for me was in 1977. I took a room in building that
had been owned by the U.C. Student Housing Co-op, but was sold and came
under private management.
The landlord based her rents on what students had paid, believing
this to be rather more on the charitable side than otherwise. She
lived (unlike the former Co-op managers) far away, in a wealthy suburb.
She hired house-managers to take care of day-to-day concerns.
Increasingly, these house managers simply took part in the general
decay of conditions.
The decay was considerable: much drug-dealing, many crazy people,
occasional fights, some of them bloody. The kitchen, which had been
managed communally, turned into a garbage heap. In short, private
(mis-)management resulted in a place that was unclean and unsafe.
A tenement, in a word.
Some of the more responsible tenants chose to stay and try to
turn things around, rather than flee. Eventually, realizing that
that the landlord was not going to intervene as long as she was
getting her rent checks, some of these people decide to hold a
rent strike.
This strike failed. The city inspectors would come, agree that
conditions were illegal, and never file their reports. Calls to the
local "progressive" pro-rent-control political party were not returned.
We could not even get the police to show up on time when a knife-fight
broke out. The only agency ready to take any interest in us was the
sherriff's department, to perform evictions.
I took part in the strike, belatedly. I squatted for about six
weeks after it failed, until I realized that living there was just
too dangerous. I had no money, and I ended up sleeping in parked
buses, on rooftops, and in school-buildings until I found a job
and got a paycheck. Fortunately, this period only lasted about a
couple of months, and the permanent affects on my health are very
slight.
I became a libertarian at 13, because I hated authority (at that
point embodied in teachers and principals.) I became an anarchist
at 22 when I discovered, through this rather harrowing sequence of
events, that I also hated authority in the form of property --
specifically, property as protected by government without regard
for people. I now see this problem as inherent in both government
and property.
Was this a change in my philosophy? Or just in my political
views? It's hard for me to say -- it was not anything as coherent
as a calm deliberation to a final conclusion. It is, rather,
a process that continues inside me. I tried to live my political
philosophy (property rights are supreme, people should do whatever
they please as long as they don't hurt others) and was physically
battered by the actual contradictions in it. I am now living in
contradiction.
Michael Turner
ucbvax!esvax:turner