Of Tiqqun’s magnum opus, Introduction to Civil War, there is a lot that I could say. I could extol the text for its artistry and theoretical aptitude, I could relate it to my own personal experience and eventual disillusionment with insurrectionary politics, or I could point out that to expect for anyone to have read the entire Homo Sacer Cycle before at all being able to understand what is written in a political tract was nothing but extraordinarily elitist. I would prefer, however, to give a Pacifist critique of the text.

In Stasis, Giorgio Agamben posits that “civil war” is a political paradigm. As per his interpretation of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, as soon as sovereignty is legitimated, or when power becomes constituted, the body-politic dissolves into heterogeneous multitude. By my own interpretation of his work, what this means is that because no person can, in good faith, agree to be subjected to the illusory solidification of the establishment of a glorified Symbolic in the formal constitution of a state, the State itself actually becomes constituted as a set of regimens vying for power through the deployment of divide and conquer strategies and other “Machiavellian” machinations. The State, in this sense, can be seen as the “entity” that creates the material conditions, or the various apparatuses of social control that seek to demarcate the circumstances of our lives. While the State no longer, and never really did, formally exist, it is what we refer to when we attempt to describe just what it is that has created the global situation of “civil war”. As the antithesis to what I can only to describe as the “Hegelian” State, “Communism” can be seen as a political project that seeks to abolish what we have come to understand as “the State”. It can also be understood as a utopian movement which seeks to advance the total liberation of all of humanity. I would, at this juncture, however, ask why it is that we should so radically reinterpret a political philosophy that has historically been manifested as an appalling ideology when there clearly already is another political philosophy which, were we to ascribe such a political movement with, would be nothing but apt. What the authors of Introduction to Civil War call “Communism” is Anarchism. While I do appreciate the developments in political theory that Communization theorists have made, the practical implementation of their ideas does not differ too much from that of either Mikhail Bakunin or Peter Kropotkin. While the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels can and should be salvaged from the history of their abuse, there is no reason to submit Anarchist philosophy to the framework of Marxism. Sincerely considered, Communization, Autonomism, and the theses of the Imaginary Party are all just “Anarchist” political philosophies. As, like Expressionism, it is currently impossible to transcend its ethos, there is no reason to either create new or substitute terms.

In Introduction to Civil War, Tiqqun attempts to provide a sanguine analysis of the global situation of “civil war”. By their interpretation of Giorgio Agamben’s thesis, people should actively engage in civil war. The text, like “La Marseillaise”, is a call to arms. Should we put aside both the apparent logistical obstacles to doing so and the actuality of what such an endeavor entails, such a stratagem is not theoretically sound. Because Empire does have a “monopoly on violence”, Anarchists are not capable of gaining the requisite access to the arms trade essential to carrying out a global insurrection. What “violent insurrection” more often than not amounts to are rash actions such as impolitically arming a squat. It is tragic that any person should be drawn towards political terrorism because of the many plights incurred through the maintenance of Empire’s various repressive regimens, but it is just that. Even Bommi Baumann came out against what has come to be called “adventurist terrorism” in his report on the West German movement, How It All Began. While the history of left-wing terrorism is as fascinating as it is complex, I have no desire to return to the Years of Lead, the Troubles, German Autumn, or the strategy of tension. While the Red Army Faction was supported by over ten percent of the West German student population at their zenith, such a base could not have effectively resulted in the “fifth column” that the RAF would have needed to carry out an effective revolution. It is also the case that the actions of the RAF and the groups that proceeded from them provided the justification for the militarization of the West German police. Terrorism fails as a strategy because it vindicates the militarization of civil society. The theoretical problem that I have with what Tiqqun avers relates to the militarization of civil society. According to Giorgio Agamben, the State responds to the crisis of the dissolved multitude by including those disaffected by it under the dominion of the law by their very exclusion in the form of a somewhat ritualized ban. This operation is constitutive of what he calls “the State of Exception”. By his interpretation of “the crown jurist of the Third Reich”, Carl Schmitt, a state does not, as we have been led to believe, secure power by relying upon the covenant between its citizens and its legal regimen in that all parties ostensibly agree to abide by its constitution, or, in short, that its stability can be determined by the faith that its citizens have in its constitution; its power is, rather, determined by how the law is delineated when the rule of law is suspended during “emergency” situations. The Third Reich was not founded as proceeding from the Weimar Constitution; It was created in exceptio in response to the Reichstag Fire. The situation of “civil war” seemingly vindicates the suspension of the rule of law and provides the justification for “absolutism” in the deployment of emergency powers. Many of the more despotic regimens of Empire would like for you to believe that all political situations are “states of emergency” and, as any genuine politic should controvert despotism, to sincerely engage in Politics does present them with an existential threat. While they are not necessarily wrong to assume that their attempts at securing power will be thwarted by that anyone who is capable of “free speech”, which is to just simply say “anyone”, will attempt to prevent them from securing power in the absolute, the situation that has been created by that some people are just simply megalomaniacal is absurd. There is no reason to agree to wage a political debate upon their terms or by their logic. That “the people” necessarily pose an existential threat to “the sovereign” may be a veritable axiom. It is not one, however, that we need to incorporate as a political substratum. The pathology of despotism should remain with despots. It should go without saying that a dissolved multitude is a natural response to the incongruity of sovereignty and not a mythical beast from the Book of Revelations. Should Tiqqun have decided to maintain their eschatological metaphor, then they should not have endorsed that people actually engage in the Babylonian chaos that can be described as “civil war”. I am, of course, being a bit too harsh. To more adequately deconstruct their weltanschauung, to actually “repair the world” would, in part, mean to actively disengage from the militarization of civil society which has been seemingly vindicated by the either real or perceived situation of “civil war” and more or less initiated by the divide and conquer strategy. I would, here, like to suggest that, given what we have come to understand about “the State”, Pacifism is truly a revolutionary philosophy. I do not, like Tiqqun, believe that “all thought is strategic” or that the plights incurred proceeding from the establishment of the State can be effectively countered by its very machinations. The maxim, “all thought is strageic” undercuts precisely the Ethical Egoist paradigm that the West adopted during the Cold War. A martial regimen will not be abolished by ceding to its axioms. To actively disengage from the battle for hearts and minds and to provide a way out of the contemporary situation of “civil war” is the only way that such a conflict can effectively be won. People will not become convinced to actually effect something like the end goals Communism through social disintegration and reterritorialization by “partisan war machines”. They will only be inspired to political action through being, for lack of a better term, enlightened to new political possibilities and alternatives to the ubiquitous despondency herein what we refer to as “Empire”.

I have said much of the theory offered by Tiqqun in Introduction to Civil War. Too much, perhaps, as I feel that I have been all too censorious of a text that I think is beautifully written and that I have been inspired by. I have said little, however, of the actuality that would be necessarily implied by that “civil war” has been an exception to the rule of law by which the State has been legitimated through the use of violence and has become a somewhat normalized “crisis” with the ascendancy of Empire. The situation is one of near total atomization. People are led to believe that there are political factions that are preferable to their rivals which, of course, is true. A revolutionary upstart who engages the spectacular battle for political power may deploy a regimen that is preferable to most of those that we find for ourselves to be subject to. They will never, however, fully abolish that a regimen is at all deployed. Genuine solidarity means to actively disengage from the induced acrimony of contested domination in the total liberation of all of humanity. People will not cease to be atomized by that they discover the right consociation to be a part of; they can only take part in the creation and development of free and equal communities. The creation of a commune is a potential solution to the crisis of “civil war”. To become a member of a coterie clearly is not. Tiqqun may not be as guilty of cabalistic affectation as some of their more malcontent detractors may suggest, but they certainly have made of habit out of delineating their praxis in a manner that could be considered to be nothing but recondite. As someone who actually enjoys deciphering their texts, I don’t necessarily mind that they have decided to sacrifice clarity for technique, but I just don’t think that political obscurantism necessarily has the virtues that a myriad of authors proceeding from the Situationist International assume for it to. I should hope that I can trust my audience enough for them to actually be able to understand what it is that I have stated. As I am only so articulate, I can only be so clear. As believe for my ideas to just simply be cogent and for them to be to your benefit, I try to delineate my theories in as explicit of a manner as possible. I’m not entirely sure as to why it is that other authors do not act in a similar manner. I assume for them to either be neurotic or untrustworthy. Both of these postulates are probably, to some degree, true.

If “Communism” is to occur as Tiqqun has suggested, then I would assume that it can not be limited to isolated events or to only do so in one country. The political démarche offered in Introduction to Civil War must emerge as a global phenomenon. As an actual process, I can only see this as being manifested as a civil war between what I can only think to call the “core” and the “periphery”. I have, of course, radically reconceptualized those terms so that they can more or less refer to Empire and everyone who has been marginalized by it. Aside from that such an event would be catastrophic and may look more like the end of the world than the final battle between good and evil, it is totally impossible to coordinate such an event. Unlike a strike or a mass protest, a revolutionary onslaught can not be orchestrated via information technology. The information system that we would need to have at our disposal is in the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency. A global revolutionary civil war is at its adulated best wishful thinking. There is, of course, Tiqqun’s averment that people will just simply hear “the Call”. While I find for this to be a rather hopeful explication of the seemingly serendipitous nature of clandestine information, I must regard it as being totally delusional. God will not call out to the Twelve Tribes of Israel in order to lead them on a conquest of the Promised Land. The dispersal of information technology will make it so that people can more freely communicate. It will not provide the material basis with which a global revolution can be successfully waged. We are, however, living through an era of revelation. Everyone is now becoming aware of what is happening in the world and the history behind such events. The ecstasy of realization should result in the creation of communities that are radically new. People should begin to experiment with new ways of life. While Anarcho-Pacifism may not seem quite as exciting as a revolutionary crusade, I do think that it is both more apt and ethically valid than what has been offered by Tiqqun in Introduction to Civil War. As critical of the text that I have been, I will state that I don’t dislike it. I spent years independently studying the works of Giorgio Agamben in order to gain a better understanding of it. While I have clearly become disillusioned with insurrectionary politics altogether, I don’t feel slighted for having read the text and done the somewhat extensive research required to understand it. To, perhaps, their dismay, it has made me feel more cultivated. As it is one of my favorite political texts, I would sincerely recommend reading the text and profoundly considering what it postulates. Like Tiqqun, I agree that “civil war” is a state of affairs. I have written this text to elucidate just how it is that I have come to differ upon what there is to be done given said state of affairs.

I should like to close this essay with a few points of clarification concerning Pacifism. Peace should not be considered as a bargaining chip or a regimen in its own right. “Pacification” vitiates the cause of Pacifism and should not be confused for it. I really do intend to create the substantial basis for peaceful communities to exist. I do not think that Anarcho-Pacifism is either only viable or felicitous in the West. I think that everyone in the world stands to have something to gain by becoming an Anarcho-Pacifist. I bring this up to point out that when we say “no war, above all, now war” we really do mean that in sincerity. The crisis of “civil war” can only be attenuated by its antithesis. Peace on Earth is not a mere reverie; it is the only viable solution to the universal atomization engendered by all that has proceeded from the consecration of the State.