Why centralize?
As much as I love, or think I love little red spaces, little red “us”, as much as I affectively want a little group, a community, a sense of belonging, I have to examine closely why, why do we, and I, in particular, might want to separate, isolate, be against? In my neurodivergent naivete, I actually have never wanted to be apart. I've always wanted to consume and be consumed by a larger entity – an organisation, a family, a colony of ants, or, better yet, bees. A hive, where everyone's role is clear and concise, where you do for the collective good, and questions are not needed because the goals are out in the open, the vision is shared. And, interestingly, despite a lifelong fear-filled caution, I've never feared the big brother dominating my conscience, I've never suspected the betrayal. If we do it right, we ought to succeed, the ideal us, the honest drive for freedom and equality, we cannot possibly betray that!.. The suspicion is contagious, though, and not everyone is Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. Not everyone can, or knows how, to put the collective interest first... And into the depths of doubts, I have been thrown, time and time again, all the what ifs sternly asserting their presence – what if there is a rotten apple among us... What if an opportunity too good to decline arises... What if a power of desire, mightier than one's good conscience, creeps upon an unsuspecting comrade... Comrade Kropotkin gives me reassurance – if one suspects a snake in oneself, he ought to come and confess and demand that fellow comrades help rid the community of it, of the snake... What if I become the snake?.. What if, in my weakness, I am not to confess?.. Am I earnest enough?.. Do I have enough good sense to notice?.. And in this paralyzing doubt, arises a glimpse of the truth – well, I am the snake, and so are you. It's not the essence of the snake, not the “spirit” of opportunism we concern ourselves with; it is the consequence, the aftermath, the accumulation of power we are against. There is no need to punish the intention. To fear the snake in one is a religious, idealist notion – it doesn't matter, if the “evil” resides in you. I fear no evil when I understand its roots. When I know the consequence of a deed, I am free to make a decision – for benefit, my own, or collective. If I see my own process of “perfecting” myself as the remedy, well, the resolution is apparent – I will NEVER be enough of a faithful comrade. And no one will. And in this collective imperfection, we can find our strength, in our human limitation we can see just how much we depend on one another. To be apart is to fail – construction is never an individual endeavour, it is never a single one's effort. You cannot build on your own. When we are apart, we are floating in the loose spaces that are too dim and too fog-filled for us to see, to understand, let alone build. There are too many individual factors to consider – one's chemical composition changes so often, one's mood is way too unpredictable for a rationalist approach to fulfill its purposes in reality. Only in each other, and with each other, can we begin to see an ever so mundane fuller picture; only when comrades are there to help, not ostracize can we strive for the building of the new world. So, why centralize?.. If I were to give a simple answer, I would say – because we, humans, have been born by an intricate process of socialisation, and only together we are fully human. No man, no matter his strength and virtue, can bear the burden of collective responsibility. And why would we want to place such responsibility on individuals? Why are we so blinded by the idea of a great man? No single man's greatness can solve our collective woes. And I assert, again, that in separation, in the divide, we will find our demise. Only in a united effort, and, to an extent, in forgetting and/or ignoring one's individual interest, can we move forward. No, not in a hypocritical “sacrifice” I see us propelled into the bright red future, but in a realization that each one of us is only made whole by another.