The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common

Socialist Revolutions, Climate Disasters, and Anomie

According to Alain Badiou — French philosopher and avowed Communist — we need to revive the traditional terms that point toward collective emancipation as a legitimate political option, even though the words have become objects of ridicule:

“We must be able to go on saying 'people', 'workers', 'abolition of private property', and so on, without being considered has-beens, and without considering ourselves as has-beens. …We have to put an end to the linguistic terrorism that delivers us into the hands of our enemies. Giving up on the language issue, and accepting the terror that subjectively forbids us to pronounce words that offend dominant sensibilities, is an intolerable form of oppression.”

Perhaps what we need is a new language, rhetoric, and narrative which allows us to speak about such things in a register appropriate to our strange, alienated present-day reality?

Certainly, “the revolution,” in a classical sense, seems highly unlikely. On the other hand, one never knows. The prospect that Europe would plunge back into a World War Two style combat arena of tank brigades, trenches, and artillery — “Putler” and “Rascists” updating Hitler and Fascists — also seemed very likely, almost impossible, until it happened.

It seems absurd to maintain a severe Leftist—even, in some sense, Communist — viewpoint today, within the current rhetoric. Yet the perceived split between a Capitalist, market-based, hyper-individualized system and a planned, cooperative society also seems illusory — the distinction melts away during emergencies, whether wars, disasters, or pandemics. We are not actually that far from a tightly controlled socialist or Communist society. It is just a “socialism for the 1%,” designed to protect the interests of the ruling elite, above all, shielded by a thin veneer of Democracy, rather than safeguarding the highest good of the collective (as we saw with the bailouts of the financial institutions after the 2008 financial collapse).

Who, today, can imagine saying seriously, as Black Panther Fred Hampton did in 1969 (shortly before the Police and FBI off’d him):

“I believe that I’m going be able to die high off the people. I believe that I will be able to die as a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle. And I hope that each one of you will be able to die in the international proletarian revolutionary struggle or you’ll be able to live in it. And I think that struggle’s going to come.

Why don’t you live for the people?

Why don’t you struggle for the people?

Why don’t you die for the people?”

I find it strange to imagine identifying with “the people,” as an abstract entity, to such an extent that I would be willing to sacrifice my life for them (I did feel this more intensely, years ago). Who feels such a strong sense of shared fate — of human connectedness — anymore?

That is one of the startling, inspiring lessons of the Ukraine war: We are shown, once again, that this metaphysical limit exists. People will unite as a unified community — they will become “The People” once again — against a common enemy, an existential threat. In finding common cause, they transcend their own obscure, personal fates. Collectively, they become something greater.

Most of the time I feel, at best, I am part of, “the community of those who have nothing in common,” as anthropologist Alphonso Lingis put it. Yet I find Hampton’s incandescent life and death to be not only exemplary but truly spiritual. In his dedication to the collective, he embodied a metaphysical purity. Many of us feel this to some extent, particularly when we are young.

Two recent cases of self-immolation as ecological protest gained considerable media attention. A few years ago, David Buckel, a 60-year-old Brooklyn lawyer and environmental activist, burned himself to death in Central Park, around dawn. Last month, Wyn Bruce, a 50-year-old Colorado man, set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court. A Buddhist friend of Bruce’s called it, “a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis.” These men followed the examples of the Cambodian monks who immolated themselves to protest the US war in their country. Yet in our context, these acts seem peculiarly isolated and futile. I suppose we never know in advance what individual act or extreme gesture might spark a greater awakening. I find it hard to understand the inner logic that led to these acts — paradoxically, I feel both repulsion and a tiny, uncomfortable pull of attraction to the deed.