Abbie Hoffman, Monkey Warfare, and The Future of Evolver
posted by Charley Wininger | March 19, 2010
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IcerocketI’ve been reading for a while now about Evolver Social Movement; the future of Evolver; etc. And I think Daniel Pinchbeck is a brilliant man, and I’m personally grateful to him for many things. The “principles and goals” he outlines go far in articulating a vision most of us (including me) can sign on to. But isn’t he – and aren’t we – forgetting something?
So I figure it’s my job, as the Joy Project guy and Geezer Hippie In Residence, to point out this missing ingredient.
Daniel himself says, “think of Burning Man as a model…” without identifying the single most obvious element of that culture…and perhaps our best selling point.
It’s the dirtiest word in America:
F….
U…
N!
One of my favorite cultural heroes from the sixties was a New Yorker named Abbie Hoffman. He may have been demented, but he was a demented genius and a mastermind at manipulating the media.
My favorite counter-culture story of all time is a famous one. Abbie and his friends, in 1967 (the same year he and Jerry Rubin formed the Yippies) were looking for a way to express the radical hippie ethic of anti-materialism.
So think -- if that were part of your philosophy (and hey — isn’t it?) what would you do to express it?
Abbie and gang gathered all the money they could – several hundred one dollar bills -- and rode the subway downtown to the N.Y. Stock Exchange. Up they went to the visitor’s gallery, which overlooked the exchange. Below them were stockbrokers scurrying about like so many ants around the anthill.
“Here! It’s money you want?! Have some!” And they opened their bag of bills and threw them onto the stock exchange floor.
Well, as you can imagine, all hell broke lose! Here were all these guys, busting their asses to make some bucks, and these freaks overhead were giving them away! It totally blew their minds! (Though this didn’t stop them from scooping them up!)
Abbie and the others were escorted out. And you know what the upshot was? The Stock Exchange built a plastic barrier in front of the Visitor’s Gallery to make sure that no one would ever give away their money again!
You might call this Giving Till It Tickles.
Abbie called it “monkey warfare.” The stunt got instant publicity, and every kid in America got the joke.
Hippies were all about community and belonging. But all that was all about fun. Even when we’d attend a serious demonstration in Washington and get our heads bashed in, it wasn’t all grim. Abbie came up with the idea to “levitate the Pentagon” -- to raise it 300 feet, using psychic energy to twirl it around until it would turn orange and begin to vibrate…and exorcise the evil spirits!
The whole hippie idea behind “flower power” was completely outrageous. National Guardsmen would be called out to intimidate demonstrators, and beautiful long-haired teenage girls would place daisies in their drawn rifles, which blew their minds!
While America was intent on “fighting fire with fire” in Vietnam, its children thought it better to fight fire with water – the tender dew of love -- at home.
We hippies, for all our faults, stood, like the Evolver community, against the corporate culture’s ethic of materialism, conformity and spiritual deadness, and we had a fucking blast doing it!
The chemical tools we employed, like LSD, unleashed the most subversive weapon one could wield against the establishment: laughter. We’d trip and watch LBJ or Richard Nixon, and contemplate consensus reality, and realize they were all utterly ridiculous!
And oh yes, we hippies were nuts in our own way. And we alienated as many people as we attracted to our side. I’m not saying we need to return to the tactics of the sixties. What I’m saying is the way to rip the mask off the culture of individualistic greed is with joy and celebration. They are the antidotes to solitary confinement, and they’re the best weapons we’ve got.
Certainly if nothing else, we don’t want to end up like those Dylan referred to when he wrote: “In all their talk of paradise/ You will not hear a laugh”. (Gates of Eden).
So do we need the hard work of building a social movement? Of course. But where the hell are we gonna get the energy it takes to stick to it for the long haul if we’re not having a blast doing it? Yes we need to construct a “scaffolding” (to use Daniel’s word). But maybe we could use some spontaneous combustion as well. Something to rev up the evolution. Maybe unleash the new geo technology like Gowalla (www.gowalla.com) to gather for a giggle-in somewhere. Maybe show up one day in your town and dance naked for 3 minutes and then disperse. I don’t know. You could probably come up with better ideas than these. But we need events that are joyful and startling and that speak to the heart and the funny bone as well as the head.
So yes, people want community, and a social movement to belong in, and something they can stand for and identify with. But if the party ain’t fun, no one’s gonna stay.
Today’s Joygasm:
“Life is too important to be taken seriously!” – Oscar Wilde.
Comments
Yeah, the movement needs a lot more joy in it.
— Mar 19, 2010
But....
I kid. It just does. No exceptions. There's way too much grim and not enough revolutionary joy.
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer
FUN
— Mar 19, 2010
Since it's my job to be a downer, let me also remind you that Ram Dass once said, in contrast to his fun-loving buddy Timothy Leary, that he got to a point on his spiritual path where he realized, "If I had any more fun I was going to throw up."
I believe he was implying that fun is a quick, temporary fix, but that the more "serious" work of spiritual practice could get at the root of the matter such that each moment of ordinary life might not be fun exactly, but would be whole and complete and sufficient. Or more accurately, all there is.
P.S. Mr. Wininger, I believe you owe me about 10 comments on some of my blogs now.
after the fun, the throw up
— Mar 19, 2010
Hi Eliezer,
Good one!
That kind of sums up my current feelings about Burning Man, alas.
I love laughter and fun and agree the "movement" needs all of it that we can get, and it is possible we haven't focused on that as much as we should.
However I personally also find it a great relief to be allowed to be serious, as I feel that the overwhelming tendency of our culture is to suppress deep feeling, complexity, seriousness, gravity, severity, and so on.
I think that indigenous cultures or traditional cultures like the Tibetan Buddhists express a more proper balance of humor and gaiety to the more focused and yes serious states of mind required for ceremony, for initiatory practices and inner development.
Having said that, I love to giggle and dance around the living room with my daughter, having a deeply felt form of fun.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
@Eliezer Sobel ********** I
— Mar 19, 2010
@Eliezer Sobel
**********
I believe he was implying that fun is a quick, temporary fix, but that the more "serious" work of spiritual practice could get at the root of the matter such that each moment of ordinary life might not be fun exactly, but would be whole and complete and sufficient. Or more accurately, all there is.
**********
That is technically true. However, I think that that doesn't invalidate the fact that about 90% of what is going on in the left/liberal/spiritual is about as fun as watching CSPAN. Go visit Democratic Underground, Common Ground, or even a lot of the posts here on Evolver. There might be nuggets of something fun or pleasant there, but most of it is extreme sadness or at least Not Fun At All.
I think that Ram Dass' statement isn't really that useful when we are suffering from a massive influx of despair and the fun loving affairs of Timothy Leary and the Yippies are little more than a fading memory.
Another thing that Ram Dass said in "Be Here Now" is that "a flower can only bloom as fast as it can bloom"(paraphrasing). What you are talking about is part of a pretty advanced spiritual practice that is usually reserved for really, really dedicated people. Where Ram Dass was when he said that and where most people who are around now are(including, to be honest, myself) are two very, VERY different places.
I would suggest that maybe saying that we don't need fun because people really should be doing serious spiritual work is like saying that obese people should just jump right up and run a 10 minute mile.
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer
Just dance. There's nothing
— Mar 19, 2010
Just dance. There's nothing there and this is all a dance.
DANCING TONIGHT!
— Mar 19, 2010
"There's nothing there and this is all a dance."
Thanks! I think I'll use that as the theme for this weekend's classes. I'm leading a Gabrielle Roth 5 Rhythms dance-as-healing class tonight in Bethesda and tomorrow night in DC!
5Rhythms® Monthly Practice Sessions in Maryland and DC
Maryland - 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM on Friday, March 19th
Carderock Springs Swim and Tennis Club 8200 Hamilton Spring Court, Bethesda, MD 20817
DC - 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM on Saturday, March.20th
Studio Serenity, 2469 18th St. NW, Washington DC, 20009
Contact info: Jim Guzel
Office Phone: (202) 362-2008 Cell: (202) 627-9903
Email: Jim@AphroditePhoto.com
What needs to be done is for
— Mar 19, 2010
What needs to be done is for progressive minded folk from all walks of life to drop their petty differences, come together, and MAKE joy. There used to be a loose-knit organization called "Reclaim the Streets" where a bunch of radicals would overtake a city intersection and temporarily reclaim it as their own "festival of resistance" to the corporate establishment. Of course the pigs were always there to break it up. The thing that these (r)evolutionary groups always fail at is getting sufficient numbers to these events. A sad reality is that many in western culture are just simply too brainwashed to think for themselves. We need a cultural renaissance like never before.
crowd sourced pillow fights
— Mar 19, 2010
In NYC we have pillow fights and light saber battles that bring together hundreds if not thousands of people and are organized brilliantly using social media like Twitter and cell phone txt msg forwarding. This could be a great avenue for Evolver to explore in the future - perhaps we could do a globally orchestrated pillow fight or come up with our own Evolverish version of this idea.
In fact if anyone has a great idea for this they should send me a message or email (daniel@evolver.net).
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Now you're talking ideas into practice!
— Mar 20, 2010
And not just ideas by themselves. That's the fun of it, from my perspective. There is this one little bit of coherence forming around the resonance of a group of thoughts that aren't quite crystallized yet, then suddenly, someone in the group does something absolutely unexpected that somehow makes perfect sense of it! And only in a detailed post-mortem analysis do you realize that you and several other people were all acting simultaneously upon a non-rational impulse. Gosh, I love that sensation!
Awesomely relevant post!
And right in accord with the left-brain enthusiasm I'm sharing in discovering my next door neighbors.
clandestine shoppers?
— Mar 20, 2010
I really enjoyed "Hey Mackie", sneaking a band into a Whole Foods and doing a song and dance protest and leafletting.
Reverend Billy
— Mar 20, 2010
Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping is the master of public performance art for good causes--his gospel choir has spontaneously staged events in Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Disney stores...they've been to Burning Man...I think a coming together is in order here.
Also see their movie, What Would Jesus Buy?
billionz and billionz
— Mar 20, 2010
Interesting story about the dollar bill dumping episode at the N.Y. Stock Exchange. Funny for me is that was the year i moved to NYC and "dropped out". It does and it always seemed brilliant to illustrate madness, if one sees the parallels. If one sees similarities. Yes, make it fun. Materialism should be interesting, if it were not so dang complex.Today, i just looked up (googled) --
unaccounted + "7 billion" + iraq (Results vary using "$7 billion")
The billionz happened a few years ago, but does more of the same continue? Here seems to be an incredulous squander of government funds. Too absurd for the average American to comprehend, or is it so? Think of the big news scoop- story and media outrage generated by NASA's 6 "million dollar hammer", (so called, in the 80's). Or the story of famous bank robberies, (like in the old movies of Bonnie & Clyde, etc...) Huh? Why a media silence about billions and billionz?
Today and in recent years, billionz disappear. Not a blip on the media radar, no more watch dogs. Foxes in the hen houses everywhere. Only the web reports it, but you have to scan harder than CB or amateur-radio enthusiasts. Isn't this a perfect cause for humor? Ha Ha Ha- finally after several years passing in between, apparently even The New York Times felt compelled to twit a micro dose of the mind-boggling story--
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/world/middleeast/14reconstruct.html?sc...
So... Print a bunch of funny money billion dollar bills. Set up 'happenings' to give them away for free on the streets. Get some fun artists to draw these up. Make them really appealing though. Raise consciousness about the fraud and corruption. Make sure they are not thrown away as litter. Make sure to observe decency laws. So make them worth keeping by takers-- Print some useful, tactful info on them. (Don't get dragged off to a FEMA camp just yet). Print some worth-while google phrase. Or some worth while web-searching info. Avoid those materialist trap of favoritism. Make them widely redeemable for hugs or entertainment. Keep it clean and orderly at the same time it is outrageous. That should master the challenge called fun.
If we could laugh at shear complexity and mismanaged chaos. If we could stare it in the face and see through to the other side. Good luck!
We devoted part of the 60s to consciousness raising, (at least working towards raising our own). How did we do? I think many "dropped-out" of that. Impeded by the material questions? Material issues burying their lives? Easing up on hard issues? Simplifying life with material comforts? Material in, drop out.....
Fun pranks could raise a little bit of awareness here and there. Especially if there was an impact-full message behind it.
The Interdimensional funnybone
— Mar 20, 2010
One can't help not to laugh at the absurdities of government policies and their think tanks. Who are these sad clowns running dc and their ever lying pinnochio puppet masters behind the iron curtain of deceptions. The more I contemplate and try to understand the NWO agenda the harder I have to laugh at their continued betrayal of humanity, until the laughter dies down and the serious work begins. This is a good post and I agree in order to overcome tyranny and the oppression of the human spirit it is important to bring the energy of himour into the mix!
Namaste!
visit: Visionary Psychedelic Surrealism by Myztico www.myztico.mosaicglobe.com
The Love Police
— Mar 20, 2010
I posted a video of The love police on here recently, who I believe are doing a grand job of awakening people up in a highly entertaining way giving smiles to many while spreading important information to people who need to hear it .
Armed only with a loud speaker some irony and a few placards, these band of merry pranksters take to the streets spreading the message everything is ok .Their mission is to wake up the brain-dead, consumer-driven sheeple and learn to THINK for youselves.
They encourage you all to distrust what your government tells you and to learn to love your fellow human beings a little more.
This video is a medley of there footage giving you a better idea of what they do..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDh0Cvsw9Jk
And this is one of my favourites but if you have the time please explore there other work.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9bfmW3iMqk
I think humour is so important in getting a message across with out peoples defences kicking in and blinding them from truth.
I love the idea of the pillow fight Daniel,I've been thinking about what I can do in the town I live in England,I thought of maybe dressing up in a fancy dress animal suit and hugging people maybe giving them a small note on why, its not the greatest of ideas so if anyone can think of anything else I would be eternally grateful.
http://www.youtube.com/user/cveitch
Namaste
(R)evolutionary Joy
— Mar 20, 2010
Well I've been reading all these comments on my post, and I'm happy that my thoughts and feelings have been taken seriously by this community.
The fact is, no one out there expects political work to be fun, and we know how to have fun better than anyone! When we show people how -- actually remind them how to have fun, because we all used to know how when we were kids-- just their surprise and their gratitude will open their minds up.
"Revolutionary joy" as Cassius, above, says.
Eliezer, you want to know "where's the party?".
Guess what? We are the party! Indeed, I've never known a culture (or sub-culture) that knows how to party better than ours! We're the Party Party, for chrissakes! We can take a piece of that cake and feed the media-deadened masses with the joy of being reminded they're alive; that this moment, right now, is IT! That the time to celebrate is NOW. And that means the time to stop business as usual is NOW. The time to let all the love we have for each other that we've been holding back for too damn long is NOW. And this is cause for celebration, (r)evolution, and massive immediate change.
A global pillow fight? You bet! And after groups of 5 or 50 or 500 of us let off all that steam one spring day in parks around the world, then we all fall down laughing and eat a picnic lunch and start talking in groups about what action(s) we need to take to keep the party going by pulling the rug out from under the old paradigm.
When others not normally interested in serious political work see that we're having a fucking blast, they'll want to join us if for no other reason than they won't want to be left out!
Like River says, above, -- "you realize that you and several other people were all acting simultaneously upon a non-rational impulse. Gosh, I love that sensation!"
Me too!
Like Daniel said, above, this is about balance.
And about dance -- and spontaneous eruptions of non-violent mayhem -- and Twitter-lit fires of unreasonable happiness on the streets of your town.
Like Sandmolder says, above, "...Print a bunch of funny money billion dollar bills. Set up 'happenings' to give them away for free on the streets. Get some fun artists to draw these up...Raise consciousness about the fraud and corruption...make them worth keeping by takers-- Print some useful, tactful info on them...Print some worth-while google phrase. Or some worth while web-searching info... Make them widely redeemable for hugs or entertainment. Keep it clean and orderly at the same time it is outrageous. That should master the challenge called fun."
Also -- see again Cymatix's response right above this one.
Lacking for ideas we're not.
We got what it takes and then some to get the party started right now.
fun fun fun, til...
— Mar 21, 2010
yeah, it's time to have some fun, i'm all for it. in fact i've managed to have fun even in the worst of times, having come of age during the hippie years and participated fully. however not to throw a damp towel on our beautiful spring awakening, i also believe that we have have been having too much fun (is that possible?) as a culture, with our toys and distractions and movies and things.
In the special selection in Michael Moore's movie Capitalism, Chris Hedges eloquently articulates the state we are in: "we are now in the throes of giddy intoxication with illusion. . .dreams were something you attained or strove towards, illusions you live within. a society that lost its capacity to dream lives in vast illusion."
"If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." - D. Ogilvy
— Mar 21, 2010
That's all I have to say on this.
Great post. And true.
---
Christopher Lowman
www.movingtowardspeace.com
Laughing the whole way through
— Mar 21, 2010
Oh Synchronicity, you silly little monkey. 10 minutes ago, said Joy - and the accompanying burning desire to share it with everyone - inspired ... no, possessed ... the blog I just posted re: Philadelphia's March Spore. ( http://www.evolver.net/user/ninsopolis/blog/phillys_march_spore_double_d... )
Charley, I'm so looking forward to meeting you again. I have such a fond memory of (ever so briefly - but what can I say, you leave an impression) meeting you at Alex Grey's New Years bash ... what was that, two years ago now? Wow. Good times for good things, and plenty more where that came from.
-Mike
