Features > February 9, 2007

Dreaming Up New Politics

Thinking different in an age of fantasy

By Stephen Duncombe

In the autumn of 2004, shortly before the U.S. presidential election and in the middle of a typically bloody month in Iraq, the New York Times Magazine ran a feature article on the casualty of truth in the Bush administration. In a soon-to-be-infamous passage, the writer, Ron Suskind, recounted a conversation between himself and an unnamed senior adviser to the president:

The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’

It was clear how the Times felt about this peek into the political mind of the presidency. The editors of the Gray Lady pulled out the passage and floated it over the article in oversized, multi-colored type. This was ideological gold: the Bush administration openly and arrogantly admitting that they didn’t care about reality. One could almost feel the palpable excitement generated among the Times liberal readership, an enthusiasm mirrored and amplified all down the left side of the political spectrum on computer listservs, call-in radio shows and print editorials over the next few weeks.

What worried me then, and still worries me today, is that my reaction was radically different. My politics have long been diametrically opposed to those of the Bush administration, and I’ve had a long career as a left-leaning academic and a progressive political activist. Yet I read the same words that generated so much animosity among liberals and the left and felt something else: excited, inspired … and jealous. Whereas the commonsense view held that Bush’s candid disregard for reality was evidence of the madness of his administration, I perceived it as a much more disturbing sign of its brilliance. I knew then that Bush, in spite of making a mess of nearly everything he had undertaken in his first presidential term, would be reelected.

How could my reaction be so different from that of so many of my colleagues and comrades? Maybe I was becoming a neocon, another addition to the long list of defectors whose progressive God had failed. Would I follow the path of Christopher Hitchens? A truly depressing thought. But what if, just maybe, the problem was not with me but with the main currents of progressive thinking in this country? More precisely, maybe there was something about progressive politics that had become increasingly problematic.

For years progressives have comforted themselves with age-old biblical adages that the “truth will out” or “the truth shall make you free.” We abide by an Enlightenment faith that somehow, if reasoning people have access to the Truth, the scales will fall from their eyes and they will see reality as it truly is and, of course, agree with us. But waiting around for the truth to set people free is lazy politics.

The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: it must be told, and we need to learn how to tell the truth more effectively. It must have stories woven around it, works of art made about it; it must be communicated in new ways and marketed so that it sells. It must be embedded in an experience that connects with people’s dreams and desires, that resonates with the symbols and myths they find meaningful. We need a propaganda of the truth.

Progressives like to study and to know. We like to be right (and then complain that others are not). But being right is not enough—we need to win. And to win we need to act. I propose an alternative political aesthetic for progressives to consider, a theory of dreampolitik they might practice.

Go to Grand Theft Auto school

Progressives need to study dreams. Fortunately, we have a ready-made laboratory at our disposal. Unfortunately, it takes the form of something progressives traditionally disdain: commercial culture. Recognizing the importance of commercial fantasies does not necessitate some sort of pseudo-populist embrace of the entirety of popular culture. But it does mean that we need to recognize that in these expressions some popular will is being expressed. How that will is being manifested in popular culture may be something to condemn—or applaud—but the will itself has to be dealt with. Acknowledging the present passions of people is not the same thing as accepting things as they are. Instead, current desire is the fulcrum on which to leverage future change.

As unlikely as it seems, progressives can also learn a lot from a best selling shoot-‘em-up video game like Grand Theft Auto. Yes, all the hand-wringing, wet-blanket, moralistic critics of video games are right: Grand Theft Auto is apocalyptically violent. But there is something else about these games, especially morally suspect ones like Grand Theft Auto, that demands our attention. They are wildly popular. Why?

Video games like Grand Theft Auto may appeal to our worst libidinal instincts—a bit of eros and a whole lot of thanatos—but these games also demand the participation of the gamer; new worlds open up to the player as he or she develops new skills, and characters respond based upon the player’s past actions. In video games, unlike almost all other mass media, the spectator also becomes a producer.

This runs counter to much of how progressive politics is done these days. Consider the typical “mass” demonstration. We march. We chant. Speakers are paraded onto the dais to tell us (in screeching voices through bad sound systems) what we already know. Sometimes we sit down in a prescribed place and allow the police to arrest us. While these demonstrations are often held in the name of “people’s power,” they are profoundly disempowering. Structured with this model of protest is a philosophy of passive political spectatorship: they organize, we come; they talk, we listen. Progressives need to re-think our game. If people aren’t joining us maybe it’s because the game we’re playing just isn’t much fun to play.

With Reclaim the Streets (RTS) we tried playing by different rules. For five years I was an organizer with the New York City franchise of this international direct-action group. Beginning in London in the early ’90s as an unlikely alliance between environmentalists and ravers, Reclaim the Streets merged protests with parties, taking over streets and turning them into pulsing, dancing, temporary carnivals in their demand for public space.

The RTS protest model proved popular. From its relatively small first reclamation of Camden High Street in 1995, demonstrations grew steadily in size and scope; the model spread to cities across the United Kingdom and Europe, then Australia, Israel, South America, and the United States.

Acting autonomously, activists adapted the London model to local conditions. In New York, RTS protested everything from the privatization of public space to the World Trade Organization, throwing demonstrations to draw attention to the destruction of community gardens and highlight the exploitation of Mexican American greengrocery workers. Political targets shifted with location and over time, but the method of protest—and the philosophy behind the method—remained constant. RTS believes that political ends must be embodied in the means you use. Giving the idea of “demonstration” new meaning, protests should literally demonstrate the ideal that you want to actualize.

When RTS organized a protest what we were really organizing was a framework for activity. We would decide upon a place and time and put out a call. We printed up propaganda and press releases, trundled in a sound system, and set up legal teams to get people out of jail if they get arrested. But the actual shape the protest took on was determined by who showed up and what they did. We saw what we were doing as opening up a space: literally, in terms of reclaiming a street from auto traffic and specialized use, but also metaphorically by opening up a space for people to explore what political activism could mean for themselves. We turned spectators into producers.

Think different

Violent video games aren’t the only popular fantasies that progressives can learn from. As much as it might pain us to acknowledge, we can also learn a great deal from advertising. Progressives traditionally respond to the fantasies of Madison Avenue as reactionaries. We’re against it, and we want to oppose it with what we know: reason. But perhaps there are other ways for progressives to think about advertising. We need to burrow deep into it, drilling past the sizzle into the steak. There we’ll find its DNA, the code that guides its various permutations, no matter what product is being sold. From these building blocks I believe we can reassemble a model of communication and persuasion that is true to progressive ideals and effective in today’s world. In brief, we need to heed the call of Apple Computer’s grammatically challenged campaign and “think different” about advertising, and our politics.

All advertising is about transformation. The product advertised will transform you from what you are (incomplete, inadequate, and thoroughly normal) into what you would like to be (fulfilled, successful, and completely special). Transformation was once the property of progressives. What were democracy, socialism, anarchism, civil rights, and feminism if not dreams of a world transformed? Advertising is, in essence, a promise—often a false promise, sometimes ironic, but a promise nonetheless. Progressives need to work on our promises.

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• Reader Comments

  Lovely ideas, Stephen.

  Stories, associations, branding, whooping it up! All good stuff.

  I’m still having a bit of trouble getting past the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ prejudice, since the level of rudeness is pretty extreme, but see what you mean. We can keep our integrity and still reach across idealogical borders…

  Posted by jimprues on Feb 9, 2007 at 2:35 PM

  It’s much simpler and less either-or than the author makes it out to be.  Brillant plan or demented rulers can exist together, and have existed together throughout human history.

  As for the rest of the essay, so-called progressives need to learn from Dick Cheney. The example I have taken to using is the vice presidential debate of 2004. Gwen Iffel asked a question about African American women and HIV/AIDS. Cheney looked directly at the moderator and said he never had thought about it; John Edwards ignored the moderator and the question, choosing instead to ramble on about some earlier ineffective comment he had made.  Then, when the 2005 State of the Union rolled around, lo and behold, George Bush made a comment about African American men and HIV/AIDS.  I like Dick Cheney, in so far as I know him; I have come to respect him as a political leader. However, I do not want Cheney’s policies to be anywhere near my government or in control of my life. I lost any respect I had for John Edwards as both an individual and as a political leader, and never trusted his foreign policy anyway.

  What I have learned through hard experience over the past 15 years is that progressives do not listen. They are so caught up with their own ideals of change, even though they frequently find it hard to articulate those ideals and even harder to change their plans when people who would have to live by them point out little, or not so little, errors.  As a person who now lives in an early presidential selection state, I am looking very, very hard at any candidate with ties to the Democratic Leadership Council. I think that the DLC is so concerned with upper middle income families that they have chosen to wipe out the lower and moderate income earners, which also hurts the upper lower-income class.

  Posted by SillyLeftist on Feb 10, 2007 at 5:39 AM

  Lots of stuff here.

  I love this idea of throwing street parties and Mr Duncombe nailed it:  protests are boring. 

  People feel passive, lectured; and marching around stopping traffic doesn’t engender a feeling of involvement.  Video games are popular because, unlike television, some interaction is going on.  Organizing a good party is challenging.  And I’d think it would be tough to get people to rock out while getting political.  So maybe the trick is to keep it light and just use the fun to build up a sense of cool.  Luckily, lots of party people tend to be progressive from the get-go, because the staid and stolid conformists already frown on their activities.  (I can’t remember which Prodigy album had the painting of a bunch of police stopped at a chasm on the other side of which was a party in full swing after the rope bridge had been been severed, but it’s a relevant image.)

  Anyway, reading these ideas brought some of Oscar Wilde’s to mind.

  Duncombe: ‘Karl Marx once argued that only socialism could unlock the material promise of capitalism; today I believe that only progressive politics can free the fantasies trapped within advertising.’

  Wilde: ‘There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.’

  Zizek echoed a similar sentiment about Soros, Gates, et al. in an ITT (and LRB) article, ‘The Liberal Communists of Porto Davos’.

  I recommend all progressives read Wilde’s The Soul of Man if they have not.  There’s a lot in there about individualism, joy, sympathy, etc.

  As for branding, it’s been done.  (www.disinfo.com).

  I think a lot has to do with attitude.  Fact: a lot of today’s progressives come across as milksops and do-gooders.  Where are the laughs? the guts?  The scorn?  You need these to get others to want to better the world with you.

  If progressives want to get something accomplished they’ll have to really start mucking around in mass consciousness.  Personally, I think this entails abandoning simple activism (which is usually boring) for good art (which never is).

  Posted by TheoPapathanasis on Feb 10, 2007 at 5:55 AM

  I have two problems with this statement: “The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: it must be told, and we need to learn how to tell the truth more effectively.”

  Those problems are… A. What and B. How to sell it
  --------------------------

  A. What:  “The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth:”
  --------------------------

  Consider this: “We hold these Truths to be SELF EVIDENT...”

  What is true is so — regardless of our perceptions, hopes and wishes. Eventually it will be revealed. It may not be as soon as we want and may not be what we thought, but truth will ultimately be what it is.

  We are overloaded with people proclaiming their truths from every corner of the world at literally the speed of light and we are still left with the age old question, “What is truth?”

  Perhaps all we need to do is measure it against those broad principles declared in The U.S. Constitution. How does this candidate or party’s ideas hold up against the preamble?

  Our current problems have mostly come from those who are positive know they know the truth (their truth) and are on a mission to see that we get it (whether we want it or not). While their truths are advertised for all, the benefits go to those “more equal than others.”
  --------------------------

  B. How to sell it: “...it must be told, and we need to learn how to tell the truth more effectively.”

  Proposing to follow this author’s line of reasoning and adopting these practices is not “New Politics” — it is as old as politics and what we should be trying to overcome. Adopting the techniques and schemes of the Republican, the Democrats or any other “successful winning team” is totally repugnant. The credibility of both parties is at a low as the “truth” of their actions and inactions has surfaced.

  As one who worked in advertising for over forty years I find the author’s proclamations absurdly naive. The media is NOT the message — the ad is NOT the product.

  “We need to burrow deep into it, (advertising) drilling past the sizzle into the steak. There we’ll find its DNA, the code that guides its various permutations, no matter what product is being sold.”
  
  Nonsense!

  All that sizzles is not steak and when you end up with hamburger you’ll know it. Only the most gullible customer falls for the snake oil sales pitches. Only an idiot becomes a return customer.

  We are need candidates with goals and ideas for a better America. Their ideas will stand or fall on their own merit. They need to promote the general welfare for ourselves and our posterity. (Does that sound familiar?) We need to be on guard against a well spun ad program.
  
  When you see the ad, “One size fits all!” be on guard.

  Posted by whattheheck on Feb 12, 2007 at 8:07 AM

  America needs a one term political system. Perhaps a lottery..... two years in any term and out you go. No more billions on election campaigns. No more political parties.

  Posted by texasindependent on Feb 12, 2007 at 7:00 PM

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Also by Stephen Duncombe

• Dreaming Up New Politics
  Thinking different in an age of fantasy