‘The East’ (2013) and the Aesthetics of Radicalism
I’m certainly not the only one who’s tired of looking at feeble, pathetic activist displays of discontent such as those of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. The irrepairable damage the globe-spanning technological apparatus has caused to the environment, our freedom and our dignity merits a stronger response. Pouring ravioli on paintings and doing bizarre street theatre performances ain’t gonna cut it. Far from it, in fact, it makes the cause itself look laughable in the eyes of the ambivalent.
While it goes without saying that far more drastic action is necessary to bring about desired changes, many newly radicalized environmentalists fall into a common trap of confusing extremist aesthetics (visual, rhetorical, performative, etc.) for revolutionary efficiency and authenticity. Thus they fail to transition from reformers to true revolutionaries and instead engage only in slightly more aggressive posturing which ultimately fails to attain their goals. The aforementioned failure then often results in eventual neutralization of the would-be radical.
The enthusiastic appraisal The East, a fictional anarchist environmentalist group from a 2013 film of the same name, has been receiving, best exemplifies the trappings of aestheticism. The East shares similarities with real-life groups like Earth Liberation Front, but instead of targeting property they chose to go after powerful individuals. Throughout the film we can observe them vandalise an oil executive’s home, poison the higher-ups of a pharmaceutical corporation with their own dangerous antibiotic, and force a petrochemical CEO to bathe in his refinery’s toxic waste. Ripping some asshole who profits by destroying our habitat from the safety of his decadent den and giving him his comeuppance; I’m sure most of us find the idea at least a bit appealing.
There’s nothing wrong with vengeance as such. It can feel incredibly liberating and empowering, especially since it is presently one of our most repressed natural drives. (Although discouragement of vengeance — or rather its appropriation by the state — goes as far back as the days of Hammurabi, its stigmatisation has been continually reaching new heights since the dawn of industrialism.) Lust for vengeance will always be more admirable than spineless submission and apathy, no matter how extreme. However, I think it wise for radicals to always consider whether their vengeful acts will only result in temporary release of pent up rage, or will they also bring us closer to achieving meaningful change. After all, we should aim for more than just temporary highs. Our frustrations stem from the bleakness and humiliation of day-to-day life within civilization, and will only be fully resolved with its destruction.
The East never explicitly define their goal in sufficiently clear terms, though it’s safe to assume they’re at least primitivist-aligned based on what we’re shown in the movie. (Their action is mostly focused on defending wilderness, they chose to live in the woods, have mastered many primitive skills, etc.) There’s little doubt that they are attempting to change the world for the better by combating environmental destruction, particularly pollution. If that is indeed the case they’ve failed. Let’s take a look at their actions and see how.
I will begin with their second “jam” — as they called their operations — because the first one is only briefly alluded to in the opening sequence and is extremely similar to the third. The group used one of their members, a medical doctor with ties to elites, to infiltrate a party for senior executives of a pharmaceutical company. The company in question has been producing and distributing unsafe (to put it mildly) antibiotics to Third World countries and planned to expand to Western markets. At the party The East added the antibiotic to execs’ champagne which they announced to the public afterwards over YouTube. Some time later the ruinous side-effects of the drug begun to show and the company lost the public’s trust. The target selection wasn’t random; Doc, the aforementioned medical doctor had been suffering from the antibiotic’s side effects for years. It was no doubt personal, and therefore understandable. It was even poetic. But that doesn’t make it efficient revolutionary action. It’s actually very reformist.
While the method was quite controversial, the end goal itself was very uncontroversial. Holding companies accountable for bad behaviour, especially in matters as serious as health is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. But it will not result in any meaningful long-term change. The corporation might just switch around their board of directors or another one will take its place as long as there’s a demand for antibiotics. Infectious diseases have only presented a serious issue for our species since the emergence of civilization, as anthropologist Mark Nathan Cohen observes in his book Health and the Rise of Civilization, and will continue to do so. In fact, many bacteria are now becoming antibiotic-resistant — researchers have been warning us about it over and over for years now. Hence, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place; we either face a re-emergence of horrid diseases “unarmed” or subject ourselves to increasingly aggressive and likely dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. One would best contribute to human health and well-being by attacking the technological structure of civilization. Why? Because this system has been responsible for bringing about unsanitary conditions, for weakening our bodies, for producing dangerous pollutants.
Speaking of pollutants, the first and third “jam” both focused on giving CEOs of two fossil fuel companies a taste of their own medicine, this time only figuratively. I hope that no reader is under an illusion that the state of affairs can be changed by simply showing those in charge that what they’re doing is bad and harmful. Trust me, they know it. Even had a few of the big businessmen been moved by activism, they could not hope to change things by using their positions of power, because they only have power through the fulfilment of the system’s technical necessities. Necessities that are in direct conflict with the well-being of ecosystems. The East’s actions, as spicy as they were, were hardly better than what Just Stop Oil and the whole useless bunch do. They were mere publicity stunts. That’s their only practical use. Publicity stunts have their place, and they can absolutely yield results. Ted Kaczynski’s 1978–95 bombing campaign, for example, gave him sufficient leverage to pressure New York Times and Washington Post to publish his work, thereby delivering anti-tech thought to the doorsteps of millions across the States. However, the group never used the public’s attention to communicate anything ideologically substantial, revealing their activities to be nothing but sloppy eco-vigilantism.
“So what,” you may say, “why shouldn’t they act this way?” For one, when real groups act like this and suffer the consequences of opposing the system while doing so unsuccessfully, we’re losing good people for nothing — exactly what happens in the movie. On top of that, I’m quite firm in my belief that The East’s members did truly want to change the world, they were just clueless as to how to do it properly due to a poor or nonexistent analysis behind their actions. Instead of attacking the core elements of civilization they struck out at the most repugnant of its many outgrowths. While many environmental groups are explicitly reformist and desire noting more than to adapt the status quo to ecological constraints, true radicals too frequently think, too, that pressure should be put on those in power to give concessions — i.e. to get them to negotiate — but our goals are nonnegotiable, and significant ground will never be ceded to us. The inherent traits of civilization will not allow for it, not in the long term, and we don’t have forever. Conservationists and the like have been and will continue to play a defensive role, but acting strictly defensively is a sure way to lose.
One more thing. Had The East’s members read this article and still insisted on targeting individuals (strictly within the bounds of fiction, naturally), they’d have been wise to at least shift their focus from managers to technicians and various experts. Not because the CEOs don’t deserve reprisals, but because despite the liberal mythology surrounding entrepreneurs, they’re actually very replaceable. People with unique skills, talents, experience, and knowledge who use these to prop-up the system’s most important parts would’ve made far better hypothetical targets.
To conclude, it is crucial for primitivist revolutionaries to reflect on actions of those who we idolise or at least attempt to emulate, whether fictional or not, and always steer away the thin aesthetic veil.
