Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Some Theses on the Use of Words"

Council for the Use of Words

in 1: the introduction of an old idea;
in 2: critique of separation by words;
in 3: three questions;
in 4: the pleasures of bodies and minds gathered, making art as space;
in 5: the purpose of the use of words, the quest by posing of questions;
in 6: the use of words in organizations, and the ways to judge them;
in 7: what the poets do, practically, if not nothing;
in 8: the relation between users of words, organized life, and research;
in 9: a formulation and a dissolution.

1. We are definitely not the first, and perhaps not the last in a historical series of poetic groups that have suggested the route elaborated in this vulnerable text. But that is not the point. The route proposed has all the characteristics of a modern, that is to say a romantic movement. It is romantic because we place in the forefront our urgent desire at the present moment, and its practical form. And it is modern because we have no desire at all to return to, or reproduce in new forms the poverty and endless repetitions of this world. Instead we have chosen to surpass it completely, starting from the present state of things in order to realize a world of poetry, and through it to realize our desires for a new life made by none other than ourselves. It is not a new idea…2. Separation is still one of our main problems. The names of so-called “political” movements have for a long time separated all the lost partisans of the historical movement: all those moving in common towards a certain conception of the world and a desired life in freedom. Is it untrue that we have learned nothing by comparing and debating endlessly the philosophical foundations or essential disagreements of “anarchism,” “socialism” or “communism”? All of them were once new words invented out of nothing to take the place of some denounced and critiqued predecessor, but what their ideologues never saw is that such ideological constructs are moving only in their heads, not in the world. What we need is not new words, but rather a critique of words themselves.

3. What can be the importance of such reflections, if there is no examination of the impact made by such “movements” upon the qualitative development of the real movement in society, its way of thinking about itself? Indeed: if no concrete examination is made of that crisis-ridden, fragmentary and unconscious twitching towards abstract negation, not yet thinking of total transformation and unaware of the possible creative abolition of the entire state of things, then what is the purpose? And what is the purpose of a movement that does not produce new realities, new moments of life, new questions to wonder about and resolve practically?

4. The route proposed has all the characteristics of a modern, we said a romantic movement: it proposes the gathering of minds and bodies in precise locations, their combination in endless pleasures and conflicts, and the production of definite qualities of cultural works. It proposes the renewed development of powerful means of circulation, and circulation which is anchored in the fabric of everyday relations, in encounters of bodies and minds. It proposes to fill the space of the city with more dirt, more paintings, posters and writings on walls. Because the majoritarian tendency of our group has observed an already impressive presence of autonomous, gratuite imagery in said space – an imagery, despite its qualities, which appears sometimes to lack a clear awareness of the transformative project – we have chosen to name ourselves according to the other element; the use of words.

5. Simply put: the use of words intends to destroy the reified and ridiculous abstractions of language; not ALL of language, but precisely that language that intends to intervene in the development of the real movement referred to above. The proposed style of practical intervention seeks to transform the use of words in such ways as to empty the language vaults of social specialists (whether they represent Power in the present state or within the movement that mobilizes against it), display their contents and to redistribute the benefits of the use of words to everybody, irrespective of their social position in the present state. It implies a permanent quest for the language of social transformation, and a permanent battle on the field of language against ideological representations of social struggles, which always destroy the awareness of their real content and promise. Bad use of words prevents good questions: what actually did happen, when and where? Who did and said what?

6. The partisans – we would call them by another name if we chose to – of the use of words do not intend to organize themselves in a formal party, federation or any other official organization; they know that an antagonism is alive in every such gathering on the basis of the separation of those who create and recreate a dominant vocabulary, and those who suffer this violence. In every organization a certain relation exists between words used to frame a certain privileged reality, and the other realities neglected or muted in such a use. The people that we are talking about are those dissatisfied with this state of things, and who are aware that in most organizations this phenomenon occurs, and occurs silently, with people appalled and silenced by the tacit limitations on innovative use of spoken and written language. One can recognize the reified standardization in the content of newspapers and communications produced by many movements of contestation, standardization often passing as theory. In this problematic and fertile relationship (the use of words) we can discover the youthfulness or the organized misery of a movement, and its transformative will can be measured on the same scale: by the intensity of the search for new languages of social struggle, new modes of communication, new types of poetry beginning with the refusal of recuperative, organized language.

7. What then, one will ask, do users and researchers of words actually do - if not forming organized organizations? Do they simply do nothing? An answer to this question would require a definition of “doing nothing.” In the prevailing social relations, the use of words is often considered a useless, unproductive activity. If not selling the products of one’s activity as commodities to abstract others, being indifferent of their further application, activities are not considered as useful to society, but rather as a drain on its resources. Strange though this may be: the poet is not very costly to reproduce, requiring for his poetic life only cities, food and shelter. Not many poets, if we take a broad definition of the term, are even employed as poets or making money by their activity as poets, instead working jobs they consider as not much more than a waste of their time, serving only the perpetuation of this waste. Strangely, in spite of their real passion for the use of words, most of them do not even consider themselves poets. Precisely for this reason, as a transitional use of words, we do not speak of poetry or the poet, words to which cling the pathetic image past poets have accumulated.

8. Users of words, then, do not have a single mode of organization, no single, pre-packaged organizational form which History (kneel before the Capital H!) has demonstrated or privileged to be the most effective. Unlike the advocates of movements whose names we have temporarily forgotten, they do not re-enact the disputes fought out by the great users of words from their respective “traditions.” Rather, they examine the actual use of words and what they refer to, defiant of all the usual separations and assumptions of established knowledge. They have no interest in conquering such knowledge kept in vaults. They are no longer interested in all the “isms and schisms” (to quote that very effective user of words, Bob Marley, who was also a singer) of old language. They choose instead to bring together the bodies and minds for their researches into the use of words; this is basically one and the same process, of organizing and transforming at the same time. How to use words will be discovered in talking and trying to create songs and paintings from words. The general guideline is to specialize at all times in what one is not good at, and to work firmly on this basis.

9. Those who couldn’t tried to learn, and those who could tried to forget. It is time to disband our party, and open the council.