Notes on the Function of the Outlaw as Anti-Role
By Thomas Tripp, revolutionary anarchist prisoner
The days pass and we watch them go by in our cages and cubicle-cages. From behind a short-order grill we sense the trickling away of a lifetime. Here in prison the lucky or soulless are afforded certain privileges the ability to wear pants, for example, or a pass to to roam the yard, itself only a larger cage, with freedom tantalizingly close, yet out of reach. The unlucky and alive wonder if the sun still rises and are blinded by the glare of banal walls. We exist.
Yet even here, in the only dungeons the state has to offer, we are assailed by the fallacy of our culture. We are hounded by rules and variations on rules and sub grounds and genres. Be me! They scream. Buy into me! Buy me and become me! Why? Why, when everything else has been taken, are prisoners still allowed to receive magazines? Today, magazines are less about acting as sources of information than as catalogs of roles, as are mainstream radio, television and movies. Today media functions as a sort of compartmentalized entertainment, in which both media and assimilator of the media are expected to conform to one or more of a set of standardized roles [that is doctor, wife, student, rebel, jock, patriot, etc] and to carry out scripted behaviors.
The media, for the most part, is an enormous conditioning apparatus which permeates almost every corner of the American existence. As with schooling, the media is used to crush into our heads which roles are acceptable, which are not; which forms of resistance are acceptableetc. Because we are creatures of imitation and learn how to act by watching how others act, everything in America is scripted. From the beginning we are inundated with images of how to be, and every variance is accounted for: rebellion is fine as long as we eventually see the light and conform, or as long as our rebellion takes place within the confines of the script labeled non-conformist.
The outlaw occasionally slips through as a hero-figure apart from the capitalist roles, but usually even the outlaw is eventually co-opted or at the very least is apologetic for the lawlessness (I am speaking here of media representations of the outlaw). Everyone knows that the outlaw is the bad guy. And that the bad guy loses in the end. The bad guy ends up in prison, and there the roles that he has integrated begin to surface as certain assumptions made by the state.
The prison system is built using certain assumptions as its foundation stones. For example, it is assumed that prisoners will not only not resist being held captive, but that we will actually keep the system which holds us captive running. By working in the kitchen, or as the plumber or electrician, by mopping the corridors and cleaning the guards toilets, by running the visiting room and working on outdoor work crews, by doing these and a million other things we are acting as cogs in the machine which the state uses to oppress us. We act as both captives and captors.
It is further assumed that we prisoners will be so fighting and squabbling amongst ourselves that we will not have the time to even conceive of resistance. This assumption, for the most part, is a correct one. I myself have fallen victim to the assumption that prisoners should fight prisoners, not the pigs. How else can two guards control a unit of 200 prisoners than by helping to divide them into factions, starting drama and watching the fun begin. And we all do it. We are so concerned with whos a rapist, who is a rat, who called who punk and what he did about it, that we totally forget about the gang that exploits us daily. A very close friend of mine called this behavior engaging in petty yard tyrannies, and he is one-hundred percent correct. Mostly our outing of a rapist or harassment of a rat isnt based on any deep-seated anger it is simply a way of reproducing the dominant power structure in our own lives. It is a bit of power which we can use to tyrannize those with less power than us, or with no power at all.
By the assumptions of the state, we are reduced to actors playing a series of roles which have been chosen for us: crip, blood, butt rocker, punk rocker, faux intellectual, etc. I fear that often, prison anarchists take on the label of anarchist as a sort of fashion statement, a way to augment the role they play. A punk rock or alternative style person listens to the Dead Kennedys, reads the beat poets, and holds anarchistic beliefs. A crip listens to Tupac, reads Malcolm X, and holds the system to be an inevitable reality. These roles need to be transcended. We need crips who listen to the Dead Kennedys and hold anarchistic beliefs, and punk rockers bumping Tupac. We need to believe that our tastes are not who we are, and that our tastes are not necessarily those weve been conditioned to believe they are. We need to step outside the bounds of the cultural conditioning apparatus, inside of which weve lived our entire lives, and begin to live the practice of daily personal revolution. And then we need to begin to practice resistance in our world, and in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
I propose the outlaw as the anti-type, the anti-role. The outlaw conforms to no standard. She sifts through the ruins of our culture, weeding out the GMOs, grasping the real and leaving the rest behind her in flames. The outlaw is completely outside the system; practicing the art of refusal, finding the ways to shake the system to its core.
Prison is a microcosm of the larger world around us, and accordingly, most of the insanity of American society is reproduced behind these walls, with more intensity. Prison is America boiled down to its base elements. Materialism, consumerism, patriarchy, complacency, racism: all of this is going on today in your cellblock. In prison, as in America, resistance is mostly just a word. A prisoner is in resistance or in revolt but what does that mean? Does it mean writing an occasional rant for an anarchist publication and otherwise carrying on exactly as you did when you were not in resistance? Does being in resistance mean that you go to work everyday and rob for the pigs, or clean their toilets when theyre done shitting? How is doing every single thing youre told, exactly when you are told to do it, being in resistance?
I do not believe in the theory of resistance. I believe in the practice of revolution. Anything else is a mouthful of empty words. As stated in Against Sleep & Nightmare, the system is open to our refusal.our refusal can make their system ungovernable. Every time the prisoners cooperate with the pigs by going to work, by fighting amongst ourselves, by sitting numb and mindless in the TV room, by fulfilling our roles, we strengthen and perpetuate their system the system which holds us down. When we begin to refuse when we dont go to work that is when their system begins to collapse. The hole isnt so bad. Trust me. Ive done 34 straight months in control units. We, each of us, are the revolution, and must live the revolution everyday. Refuse to cooperate. Refuse your role instead, begin to live.
Thomas Tripp #12032560, TRCI, 82911 Beach Access Rd., Umatilla, OR 97882
Outside support group:
Break the Chains PO Box 12122 Eugene, OR 97440
www.breakthechains.net breakthechains02@yahoo.com
P.S. For more along these lines read, "The Revolution of Everyday Life" by Raoul Vaneigem.
By Thomas Tripp, revolutionary anarchist prisoner
The days pass and we watch them go by in our cages and cubicle-cages. From behind a short-order grill we sense the trickling away of a lifetime. Here in prison the lucky or soulless are afforded certain privileges the ability to wear pants, for example, or a pass to to roam the yard, itself only a larger cage, with freedom tantalizingly close, yet out of reach. The unlucky and alive wonder if the sun still rises and are blinded by the glare of banal walls. We exist.
Yet even here, in the only dungeons the state has to offer, we are assailed by the fallacy of our culture. We are hounded by rules and variations on rules and sub grounds and genres. Be me! They scream. Buy into me! Buy me and become me! Why? Why, when everything else has been taken, are prisoners still allowed to receive magazines? Today, magazines are less about acting as sources of information than as catalogs of roles, as are mainstream radio, television and movies. Today media functions as a sort of compartmentalized entertainment, in which both media and assimilator of the media are expected to conform to one or more of a set of standardized roles [that is doctor, wife, student, rebel, jock, patriot, etc] and to carry out scripted behaviors.
The media, for the most part, is an enormous conditioning apparatus which permeates almost every corner of the American existence. As with schooling, the media is used to crush into our heads which roles are acceptable, which are not; which forms of resistance are acceptableetc. Because we are creatures of imitation and learn how to act by watching how others act, everything in America is scripted. From the beginning we are inundated with images of how to be, and every variance is accounted for: rebellion is fine as long as we eventually see the light and conform, or as long as our rebellion takes place within the confines of the script labeled non-conformist.
The outlaw occasionally slips through as a hero-figure apart from the capitalist roles, but usually even the outlaw is eventually co-opted or at the very least is apologetic for the lawlessness (I am speaking here of media representations of the outlaw). Everyone knows that the outlaw is the bad guy. And that the bad guy loses in the end. The bad guy ends up in prison, and there the roles that he has integrated begin to surface as certain assumptions made by the state.
The prison system is built using certain assumptions as its foundation stones. For example, it is assumed that prisoners will not only not resist being held captive, but that we will actually keep the system which holds us captive running. By working in the kitchen, or as the plumber or electrician, by mopping the corridors and cleaning the guards toilets, by running the visiting room and working on outdoor work crews, by doing these and a million other things we are acting as cogs in the machine which the state uses to oppress us. We act as both captives and captors.
It is further assumed that we prisoners will be so fighting and squabbling amongst ourselves that we will not have the time to even conceive of resistance. This assumption, for the most part, is a correct one. I myself have fallen victim to the assumption that prisoners should fight prisoners, not the pigs. How else can two guards control a unit of 200 prisoners than by helping to divide them into factions, starting drama and watching the fun begin. And we all do it. We are so concerned with whos a rapist, who is a rat, who called who punk and what he did about it, that we totally forget about the gang that exploits us daily. A very close friend of mine called this behavior engaging in petty yard tyrannies, and he is one-hundred percent correct. Mostly our outing of a rapist or harassment of a rat isnt based on any deep-seated anger it is simply a way of reproducing the dominant power structure in our own lives. It is a bit of power which we can use to tyrannize those with less power than us, or with no power at all.
By the assumptions of the state, we are reduced to actors playing a series of roles which have been chosen for us: crip, blood, butt rocker, punk rocker, faux intellectual, etc. I fear that often, prison anarchists take on the label of anarchist as a sort of fashion statement, a way to augment the role they play. A punk rock or alternative style person listens to the Dead Kennedys, reads the beat poets, and holds anarchistic beliefs. A crip listens to Tupac, reads Malcolm X, and holds the system to be an inevitable reality. These roles need to be transcended. We need crips who listen to the Dead Kennedys and hold anarchistic beliefs, and punk rockers bumping Tupac. We need to believe that our tastes are not who we are, and that our tastes are not necessarily those weve been conditioned to believe they are. We need to step outside the bounds of the cultural conditioning apparatus, inside of which weve lived our entire lives, and begin to live the practice of daily personal revolution. And then we need to begin to practice resistance in our world, and in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
I propose the outlaw as the anti-type, the anti-role. The outlaw conforms to no standard. She sifts through the ruins of our culture, weeding out the GMOs, grasping the real and leaving the rest behind her in flames. The outlaw is completely outside the system; practicing the art of refusal, finding the ways to shake the system to its core.
Prison is a microcosm of the larger world around us, and accordingly, most of the insanity of American society is reproduced behind these walls, with more intensity. Prison is America boiled down to its base elements. Materialism, consumerism, patriarchy, complacency, racism: all of this is going on today in your cellblock. In prison, as in America, resistance is mostly just a word. A prisoner is in resistance or in revolt but what does that mean? Does it mean writing an occasional rant for an anarchist publication and otherwise carrying on exactly as you did when you were not in resistance? Does being in resistance mean that you go to work everyday and rob for the pigs, or clean their toilets when theyre done shitting? How is doing every single thing youre told, exactly when you are told to do it, being in resistance?
I do not believe in the theory of resistance. I believe in the practice of revolution. Anything else is a mouthful of empty words. As stated in Against Sleep & Nightmare, the system is open to our refusal.our refusal can make their system ungovernable. Every time the prisoners cooperate with the pigs by going to work, by fighting amongst ourselves, by sitting numb and mindless in the TV room, by fulfilling our roles, we strengthen and perpetuate their system the system which holds us down. When we begin to refuse when we dont go to work that is when their system begins to collapse. The hole isnt so bad. Trust me. Ive done 34 straight months in control units. We, each of us, are the revolution, and must live the revolution everyday. Refuse to cooperate. Refuse your role instead, begin to live.
Thomas Tripp #12032560, TRCI, 82911 Beach Access Rd., Umatilla, OR 97882
Outside support group:
Break the Chains PO Box 12122 Eugene, OR 97440
www.breakthechains.net breakthechains02@yahoo.com
P.S. For more along these lines read, "The Revolution of Everyday Life" by Raoul Vaneigem.
VIEW 19 of 19 COMMENTS
O.k. that was bad. I learned it a British anarchist former political prisoner who I looked up to in HS. But damn, I realized he's a dork like the rest of us.
*Note to self, learn more anarchist jokes.*
I honestly don't know what to think about people discussing me. That's weird. I hope I misunderstood that post.
I almost never post about my position on subjects on the message board. I'll post my opinion, but that, oddly, will almost never reveal my position.I started a stealing thread once (Things I Stole Today), and was almost castrated for it. It taught me all I need to know about the SuicideGirls boards, ie, they don't want a revolution, and don't believe in alternate methods of obtaining property. I changed my original posts, because it didn't seem worth it to tell people my opinion on a website where none of it matters. So when a stealing thread popped up again, I decided to stay way the hell away from it. Despite my intentions, I found myself posting on it. I still avoided giving my position, opting instead for ambiguity and humour (again, it was probably only funny to me). I just don't care enough about the politics of most of these people; the people I do care about I care about because they share my particular written sense of humour, or at least get it. As soon as it became obvious that this wasn't going to be the source of the revolution, I took it for what it was: a porn site with funny message boards.
Look, if you would like me to remove you from my friends list, I could. It would be no problem, and no skin off my back. Maybe I'm too much "the man" for you; that's cool. Just let me know.