"The people must fight for the law as for the city wall."
--Heraclitus (circa 500 BC)
Honourable companions,
I write on the occasion of recieving word that a momentous gathering of
world leaders had occurred*, and that many hundreds of people who
objected to the policies of those leaders gathered to voice their
opposition in civil and nonviolent protest. I have heared that the voice
of the people was silenced by the media in its failure to accurately
represent them. I have heared that the voice of the people was silenced
by the pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, and
truncheons of the guardians of the law.
If I could instruct the warriors, as the ancient Druids did, my teaching
might go something like this.
The phenomena of life is action, perception, and consciousness. Every
process that drives towards new and hitherto unknown life activity is
also part of the phenomena of life. When no force drives towards the
repression of life activity, all is well and we have no need for
warriors. When the conditions of civil society oppress life, then
disobedience becomes a virtue. Disobey, then, with a view to the
maintenance of the world,* and to the empowerment of life everywhere. Of
its own accord, life will cause to perish all that is contrary to life.
At the event of disobedience, the forces of law will resist you, and
there will be a battle. This is an excellent occasion for the pagans
among us who are on the warrior path to exercise the self-mastery and
discipline that
one needs to win a battle. The way to win a battle is simply to deny
the opponent the power to intimidate you. But not to intimidate back.
Nothing perplexes a bully more than a victim who is not intimidated, and
who does not try to intimidate him back, not just because the victim has
no fear, but because the victim does not play the opressor's game.
Know the source of your power. Be aware of the source of your power at
all times. But do not let the opponent know the source of your power.
It is enough to let the opponent know that you have power. Let him
speculate about its nature, and he will almost certainly conclude that it is
threatening to him. We fear what we do not know.
Be unafraid of power. Be unafraid of the opponent's power, but especially
be unafraid of your own power.
The opponent will preach to you, taunt you, harass you, and threaten you.
The opponent will try to intimidate you with a dramatic display of
bravado, and belittle you with irrelevant facts that appear to invalidate
your voice. The opponent wins when this has the result of generating
anger within you. The anger is the enemy, not the opponent. Opponents
come and go, but the anger is within you and so it remains.
Know who your allies are. Your solidarity with them is a source of power
for you.
Have a plan. Have a backup plan. Be mindful of opportunities to reach
your ultimate achievement.
Do not jingle like the jewels. Rumble like the rocks.*
Do not fight fire with fire. This creates a conflagration that becomes
all the more damaging. Rather, deny fuel to the fire, and it will
extinguish of its own accord. In other words, give the opponent no reason
to hate you. Let the opponent hang himself with his own prejudices.
Pagans are, among other things, rebels. We are rejecting the authority of
traditional religious structures, and replacing it with our own. The
common rebel breaks the rules with anger and rage. The great rebel breaks
the rules with style and laughter. But even the great rebel is attached
to the rules of other people. The truly superior rebel makes her own
rules.
The dangers that threaten the tribe
The three greatest threats to the continued existence of human life are
nuclear and biological war, international capitalism, and the state
endorsement of religion. All three of these situations focus exorbiant
measures of political, economic, and millitary power on a small class of
people, not one of whom has any reason to look beyond their own interests
and the interests of their class to the interests of all life. Each
situation divides humanity into a false dichotomy of two groups: we are
all either rich or poor, citizens of either good or evil nations, either
saved or damned. No standard of morality exists to tell us how to treat
the people on the wrong side-- we may harm and slander them with
impunity-- but even on the right side it is still a small group of people
who control the power, and who decide whether you or I stand on the right
or the wrong side of the division. Do not be fooled, for we are all
human beings. There are no divisions in our natures. Some create them
with their decisions and impose them on others. They do not come from
within us all.
As soon as an idea is institutionalised with effective power, either by a
state or a church or an army or any other social organisation, then comes
the beginning of division, and all is lost. Then comes the need for a
hero to bring it all to a crashing end with a sacred "No".
Objection
Thank the Gods that there are organisations that institutionalise ideas
with effective power! They endorse justice and by exercise of power they
remove crime. They endorse freedom and by exercise of power they remove
slavery. They state endorse peace and by exercise of power they remove
violence. As long as we live we are saturated with value, and because we
live so, our lives are empowered. There is need for a hero to rejuvinate
life again with a sacred "Yes" to values.
The Rules
The philosopher asks, what are rules? The rebel says, rules are what I
break, what I overthrow, what I ignore. The philosopher asks, how do you
do that? The rebel answers, by shouting at leaders, throwing rocks,
burning flags, beating drums, being prominent in the house where dwells
the deaf. The philosopher asks, why are you a rebel? The rebel says,
because the rules no longer serve me, but rather they restrict me. The
rules no longer protect me, but rather they confine me. And to live free
I cannot be confined. I love freedom, and I deny everyone the power to
take that away from me.
I too love freedom, says the philosopher. But where is the noble soul
whose rebellious spirit leads him not to shout and throw stones, but to
dance? Where is the bright one who penetrates the labyrinth of power not
to slay the minotaur who lives there, but to laugh at him? Who among you
rebels is so free that he is not controlled by his values? Who among
you is not constrained by habit, pattern, custom, convention,
expectation, or any other repressive structure of intellectual
conformity? Who has freed their mind? How has abandoned the impersonal
and the mechanical for the spontaneous and organic? Who is both
prominent and yet also silent, in the house where dwells the deaf? He is
the true rebel, says the philosopher, and I have yet to find him.
Cathbad
Writing from the grove,
And in the season of Samhain, the year 1999.
Notes:
*"a momentous gathering of world leaders" The World Trade Organisation
summit, in Seattle, Washington, USA, December of 1999.
*"The maintenance of the world" Bhagavad Gita 3:20
*"Do not jingle..." Lao Tzu, ch. 39.
