Michael Harris - Welcome to the Rebellion: A New Hope in Radical Politics

CULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS

Contemporary culture has eliminated the concept and public figure of the intellectual. A cretinous anti-intellectualism presides, cheer-led by hacks in the pay of multinational corporations who reassure their bored readers that there is no need to rouse themselves from their stupor. Zer0 Books knows that another kind of discourse intellectual without being academic, popular without being populist is not only possible: it is already flourishing. Zer0 is convinced that in the unthinking, blandly consensual culture in which we live, critical and engaged theoretical reflection is more important than ever before.

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A rebellion is underway against elites and their greedy global order. It is amassing support from ordinary people, who feel marginalized and unheard. In a way they havent felt for a long time, people feel an increasing sense of power and belonging. They are back at the center of the story, and elites fear them.

The problem is of course that they are part of a regressive revolt, a revolution led by the right: by Donald Trump in the United States, the hard Brexiteers in the UK, the hard right across Europe and autocrats across the world.

People are being conned. The programs and policies being driven through by the right will benefit only the already rich and powerful. Nonetheless, the story people have been told of their subjugation and defeat, and their revolt and rise to victory speaks to them. Our economic system increasingly says to people, you are nobody. These stories tell people that they matter.

But how is it that such a story, which should naturally be owned by the left, has been seized by the right, and what do we need to do to reclaim the rebellion story?

Some might say that this demonstrates the inherent deceptiveness of stories, and peoples credulity. We need to counter stories with facts, re-assert notions of truth and disregard those who are prepared to believe what their own eyes should tell them isnt so. On its own, this would be a mistake; indeed, it is one the left has been making for some time. It has led to many defeats and much suffering. It is a mistake we have made because we dont believe in stories.

Star Wars is about many of the things that well discuss in this book: freedom, democracy, oppression, exploitation, hope and rebellion. But the first thing Star Wars is about is stories and their power to shape politics.

The story that Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke about his father in A New Hope (a brave warrior betrayed by Darth Vader) is designed to set him on a path to joining the struggle against the Empire. Its a different story from the one Luke was told by his uncle to keep him toiling away on their homestead. In The Empire Strikes Back, Vader counters with yet another version of the story, actually the most accurate one, in an attempt to corrupt his increasingly powerful son. In Return of the Jedi, C-3PO uses his god-like status among the Ewoks to recount the story of the Rebellion and to recruit them in a military attack on an Imperial target. The whole of the prequel trilogy is really about the power of stories to manufacture chaos and confusion so that people accept authoritarianism. In Revenge of the Sith, Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious tells Anakin Skywalker the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise in order to manipulate him to the dark side. And Star Wars was originally conceived as a story within a story, an historical narrative taken from the Journal of the Whills, hence the famous A long time ago... opening text.

None of these stories are the whole truth, but neither are they completely untrue. They all have truths in them, even when they are selective and told for a specific purpose. Similarly, the rebellion versus elites story that people have been told in our world may be fundamentally manipulative, but that doesnt mean it doesnt draw on what they have seen and experienced.

Its the stories that engage and move people most that win, especially when we feel anxious and afraid. As well see in later episodes, Star Wars is rather good at depicting how authoritarians use stories to serve their own ends. But these stories need time to take root, and they cant be created out of nothing.