62 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
62 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
The following appeared in the Winter, '93, issue of ANARCHY: A Journal of
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Desire Armed.
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AGAINST AMNESIA
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by (d)anger (POB 203, Portland, OR. 97207)
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There are moments when life seems entirely impossible. All the crazy
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dreams of rebellion disappear. The desire to revolt against the society of the
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civilized is lost to futility, the open but empty hand. All of the late-night
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laughter filled conversations, the meanderings and wanderings of those
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intoxicated with thoughts of adventure, begin to seem naive and empty. One
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comes to the conclusion that one is accomplishing nothing: destruction and
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creation seem equally without attraction. One abandons one's own imagination
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and returns to the old trap of fear. The existential idiot occupies one's
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head.
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Here is the point where the misery of this society completes itself.
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This society strengthens itself by continually forcing the individual to
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disappear: the individual disappears when the individual gives in to the
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misery of this society. One begins to accept the limitations imposed by this
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society as one's own. To experience comes to mean to repeat oneself. One
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begins to feel one has nothing to offer in defiance, nothing to give: every
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gesture becomes a blank stare. Passion is pacified. Desire is rationalized
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away. The forbidden remain forbidden.
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This supreme moment of misery marks nothing less than the triumph of
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amnesia. Such complete abandonment of life's adventure is the surrender of one
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who has forgotten all previous rebellion and all previous desire to revolt.
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Memory has ceased to be a pleasure: the misery of the moment stretches
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backwards forever. Amnesia is essential to civilizing human beings: when one
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forgets the possibilities (the richness of past, present, and future) one is
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domesticated, one disappears.
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Amnesia is the colonization of memory. One is forced to forget
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everything rebellious about one's life. The colonized mind is less likely to
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imagine a total revolt against this society if all traces of earlier revolts
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are suppressed. Everything from simple negative gestures to the hand in the
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cookie jar to late night crimes make memory precious to the individual; as soon
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as these breaches are forgotten the present becomes less and less pregnant:
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the stem of the flower is cut before the flower blooms. One is in despair over
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the absence of past freedom simply because the residue of past freedoms have
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been purged from one's memory.
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When asked how one knows that freedom is possible the rebel responds
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with examples of past freedoms. The rebel remembers the events, movements, and
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moments of one's past that mark breaks with the dominant order. One knows that
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freedom is possible because everybody has experienced freedom: the taste of
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paradise is in all our mouths. To forget this is fatal. Amnesia can be
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combatted by constantly digging back into our memories, by constantly becoming
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more and more aware of our mistakes and victories. No, we must not dwell in
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the past, we must be cruel with our pasts (and those who would keep us there),
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and yet we must be greedy with our pasts (and wary of those who would paint
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those pasts with the blackness of misery and impossibilities). Rebels must
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return to their own past with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a knife in
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the other.
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--(d)anger
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reprinted from:
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ANARCHY: A Journal of Desire Armed
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B.A.L. Press
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P.O. Box 2647
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Stuyvesant Station
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New York, NY 10009
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