ILLUSTRATIVE OPPOSITION
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overwhelmed by the complexity and urgency of social and ecological crises,
they express frustration at the imperative to create a coordinated sufficient
condition. They may reason, “Well, as long as we all do our own little
necessary part, then eventually it will all form a sufficient whole.” Such a
response, while again understandable, fails to convey that if we each choose a
necessary part, without consciously integrating those parts into a larger
sufficient whole, we will keep the social project from realizing its full
potentiality.
It is insufficient for one group to fight racism over here, while another
group struggles against toxic dumping over there, while still another individual
organizes a food coop some place else. This kind of ‘piece work’ is insufficient
because it is non-holistic. When we see our activism as a series of single issues,
we end up arranging the pot, the water, and the heating coil in different places
at different times, failing to form a coherent vision of what we are striving for: a
dazzling image of society boiled over, making room in the social stew for ever
new revolutionary possibilities.
Once we have asserted the general idea of non-hierarchy as the
integrated and coordinated sufficient condition for a free society, we may draw
out the many necessary and specific forms of non-hierarchy needed to remake
society. By differentiating the idea of non-hierarchy, we begin to educe a fully
differentiated vision and plan for social and political reconstruction.
TIhe Spheres Of Our Lives: WI-iere HiERARcky Uves
In order to move toward a reconstructive vision, we need to comprehend die
structure of the society we wish to transform. Just as the idea of non-hierarchy
must be fully differentiated to understand the complex quality of institutional
power, the idea of society must also be fully differentiated in order to convey
the specific locations of institutional power.
When we diink of society, we rarely think of the distinct spheres which
give shape to our everyday lives. We usually refer to society as a monolithic
structure as if we lived in a completely undifferentiated societal realm. Yet
society is constituted of three distinct realms: the social, the political, and the
State.
The social sphere is comprised of community and personal life. It is the
sphere in which we create the everyday aspects of our existence as social
beings. It is the realm of ‘works and plays’, the place in which we engage in
production and distribution, fulfill community obligations, attend to practices of
education, religion, as well as participate in a range of other social activities.
While there is a public dimension to social activities such as work, school, and
community life, there is also a private or personal component to social life as
well. This is die space in which we reproduce the conditions of our most