The Fabulous Forager

I just finished reading an excellent article by Urban Scout that discusses the prominent strain of assholery (it’s a word!) in the anarchist subculture. While many anarchists argue on a logical level for cooperation, many scarcely know how to cooperate with each other, and often create hierarchical relationships in the name of equality. Now, I admit that I’ve got a lot of social problems, even more than the average person raised in civilization. My intense social anxiety and awkwardness, combined with the paranoia I picked up in sixth grade when the other girls in my classes trained me to assume that niceness was just a sarcastic method of teasing, is my biggest roadblock to rewilding. Well, that and my fear of insects. And arachnids. And snakes. And greasy skin. Okay, fine, maybe I have a lot of roadblocks to rewilding. But hey, I know that’s a problem and I’m working on it. Because here’s the dirty little secret that chills my antisocial heart to the pulmonary artery: rewilding is all about friendship.

Daniel Quinn once pointed out (don’t quite remember which book, and can’t look it up because all my books are in boxes at the moment, but I’m fairly certain it was My Ishmael) that walking away isn’t all about giving things up–things like TV, the Internet, iPods, tomatoes in winter, coconuts year-round, etc.–but demanding more of what you really need. We have lots of things. What we don’t have is supportive relationships, real relationships, and freedom, and lots of spare time in which to play games and tell stories and paint pictures and sing songs and do whatever it is we find fulfilling, or spend as much time as we need to to find out what we will find fulfilling. You can’t walk into a room full of people born and raised in civilization and demand that they give up their much-treasured comforts–their TV shows or dance clubs or whatever helps them forget the long day they spent at work. You have to show them how they won’t need any of those comforts because the tribal way of life doesn’t involve long days at work. You have to show them that they’re begging for their band-aids that cover up the stab wounds they receive everyday, while we’re suggesting that we all stop stabbing ourselves (and each other).

The Christians would call it “being a good witness”: showing all the doubters on the sidelines what a healthy community should look like by forming healthy communities of our own. Being a living example of our philosophy. As Tamarack Song has pointed out, social technology is the most vital technology in rewilding–and the most commonly overlooked. Many anarchists are so focused on taking down civilization that they don’t know how to build anything else up. But let me tell you something: the biggest threat to civilization is not some dude in a black ski mask with some dynamite and access to a dam. The biggest threat to civilization is basic human kindness.

Which brings us to the Christmas truce of World War I, made famous by the John McCutcheon song, “Christmas in the Trenches.” World War I was the awkward missing link between the highly ritualized warfare that existed through most of recent European history and the new, technology-driven, dehumanized warfare of the 20th century that would come to be personified in images of gas chambers and atom bombs. At that time, war was still considered in terms of sporting metaphors: soldiers didn’t think of the opposing side as the enemy, but as a different team. This attitude, which still recognized the humanity in the other side, would be severely challenged when they found themselves in the trenches, forced to fight brutally and mercilessly with machine guns and nerve gas.

In the beginning, temporary, off-the-cuff armistices were fairly common: one soldier would call over to another trench: “We won’t shoot if you won’t,” and they’d agree, and for a brief period of time (i.e., until the officers put their feet down) they could all concentrate on brighter things, like the freezing cold or the rats or the gangrene. This desire to not kill people shot fear into the hearts of those who stood to benefit from the war (i.e., the rich and powerful). In many ways, this was the birth of modern-day wartime propaganda: the governments fighting the war spent obscene amounts of money cranking out stories and cartoons about the barbarism and inhumanity of the other side, trying desperately to convince the people to hate their neighbors. That government-created hate, and fear of punishment from higher up, was pretty much the only thing keeping soldiers fighting other soldiers who, after all, were just drafted kids like them. Not that that completely stopped the brief armistices from happening.

The most successful and well-known informal armistice of all these was the Christmas truce in December of 1914. There were actually several separate truces all along the Western Front, all of them initiated by privates disobeying their “superiors.” The stories are scattershot and have mingled together in the public imagination, and it’s difficult now to piece together which truce was which. But the most famous story begins when, on Christmas Eve, a single German soldier started to sing Stille Nacht (Silent Night), and then the other Germans in the same trench joined in, and then the English soldiers across no-man’s-land joined in, and soon they were all singing Christmas carols together. Soon, another German soldier climbed out of his trench and began walking across no-man’s-land armed only with a small, candle-lit Christmas tree. English soldiers in their trench had their guns pointed at him. One officer ordered them to fire. A private piped up, “Shut up, Sergeant, it’s Christmastime!”

The next morning, the soldiers abandoned their trenches and met each other in the middle of no-man’s-land. An impromptu party broke out between the trenches. They all shook hands, exchanged rations, showed each other pictures of their families and friends and sweethearts. They buried their dead comrades (whose bodies were scattered across no-man’s-land, left where they fell) and played soccer. They all hoped that, the next day, they wouldn’t be forced to begin killing each other all over again.

But, of course, they would be. Some Christmas truces lasted all the way to New Year’s Day. Most were stamped out as quickly as possible. All governments involved levied harsh penalties against any officer that allowed an armistice to occur under his command. Many were court marshaled and dishonorably discharged. The propaganda war picked up steam. It’s hard to overstate how terrified these European governments were by the possibility of soccer games. They treated fraternization with the “enemy” as a serious threat, perhaps a greater threat even than the enemy’s gunfire.

This is what the hippies were talking about when they asked, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” The type of anarchists who advocate the blow-shit-up method of revolution often point out that there are more of us than there are of them: the people in charge are a tiny handful of the global population, kept in power only by the willingness of those below them to follow their orders. Without our compliance, they are nothing. And since their most useful tactic is “divide and conquer,” our most useful tactic is “unite and walk away.” What if all those soldiers had kept playing soccer? What if they’d all decided, “You know what? Our officers have guns. They have the power to kill us. But so does the other side. We’re already here, we’re already getting shot at, we’re already risking our lives. But there are fewer officers than there are privates, and they can’t shoot us all–not if we keep working together”? What if all those soldiers had kept the armistice going? Could World War I have ended then, in January 1915, due solely to lack of participation? I know it’s embarrassingly idealistic to say all this, but is it so much better to have your realism and your common sense and therefore never try to change anything? What’s the point of living if you’re just going to lay back and watch TV?

In the end, what we’re really fighting is hatred and fear. And our greatest weapon is our basic human decency. And I know we’re all scared because we’ve been carefully taught to fear each other. But at some point, if you’re willing to create a better world, you need to climb up out of that trench. How do we beat civilization? With things like soccer and Christmas trees. With parties and art and jokes and everything that makes humanity so, well, human. The art of walking away is to hear a government official give you an order, and then laugh in his face. “Shut up, Sergeant, it’s Christmastime!”

And, no, you don’t need to wear black or stick paper clips in your ears to do this. You don’t even need to know who Daniel Quinn or Derrick Jensen or John Zerzan are. Sometimes all you need is a Christmas tree.