The Invisible Committee


The Invisible Committee is the Pen name of an anonymous author or authors who have written French works of literature based on far-left politics, and anarchism. The identity of the Invisible Committee has been associated with the Tarnac Nine, a group of people including Julien Coupat who were arrested "on the grounds that they were to have participated in the sabotage of overhead electrical lines on France's national railways." Common topics addressed in works by the Invisible Committee include anarchism, anti-capitalism, anti-statism, communism, French culture, global protest movements, and 21st-century civilization.

Publications

The Invisible Committee have published three books: The Coming Insurrection, To Our Friends, and Now. The original French versions of all three were published by Editions La Fabrique, and English translations of all three were published by Semiotext. The latter two books were translated into English by Robert Hurley.

Themes

Works written by the Committee consistently describe a general disgust with the dominant politics, economies, and societies of early 21st century civilization, which they present as motivating several recent protest movements throughout the world, such as the 2005 French riots and the Arab Spring. In particular, the Committee are harshly critical of capitalism, states, the police, and the world economy, which they generally define as their enemies, and which they argue are the root causes of much of the suffering in the world. In response, they specifically advocate insurrectionary anarchism, or insurrections, possibly involving violence, as the best available means to bring about the sort of world in which they would prefer to live: a world populated by communes, based in immediate social ties, and friendship - simpler, more concrete human interactions, as opposed to the more abstract political concepts of citizenship, or a sovereign state.
In the service of this political project, the Committee's books are intended both as theoretical speculation, and also as commentaries on recent events from which the author might develop strategies in order to better effect the project sketched by the Committee. In the course of this, the Committee promote and report on leftist protest movements throughout the world, while also criticizing their strategic shortcomings. On the other hand, the author theorize fragmentation and destitution as anarchistic strategies for achieving their goals. By refusing to organize as well-defined groups, and by refusing as far as is possible to engage with existing opponents on their own terms the author hope both to deny their stated enemies a hard target, and also to deny those stated enemies their own dependence upon them. Books by the Committee are also critical of the philosophical view of the self as a singular, distinct category, and also of the concept of human nature.

Synopsis of Works

''The Coming Insurrection''

The Coming Insurrection is the Invisible Committee's first book. In its original French edition, the book consisted of twelve chapters and a brief afterword. Because the English edition was published after the Tarnac Nine arrests, the English edition included a small foreword and an introduction which both touch on the subject of the arrests, for a total of fifteen parts.
The body of the book is divided into two halves. The first half of the book describes and diagnoses a series of dysfunctions in modern capitalist society, in terms of social alienation. Using the nine circles of hell of Dante's Inferno as a metaphor for the various types of social ills which exist in the world, the author describe seven circles of areas of society which this alienation negatively affects, including the self, work life, and the natural environment. The author ascribe these alienations and social ills not to specific individuals, or criminals, etc, but to capitalism and states themselves.
In response to this state of affairs, the book's second half sketches a plan for revolution, which is based on the formation of communes which will undermine the world's existing governmental, capitalist and police forces by promoting insurrections. With increasingly militant language, the book's second half suggests possibilities for disrupting infrastructure with a view towards disrupting the economy, and also advises armament and the possible necessity for the use of violence by communes and their members, as a means of last resort.
For a more detailed synopsis of The Coming Insurrection, see the book's main article.

''To Our Friends''

To Our Friends is the Invisible Committee's second book. It consists of eight chapters, together with a chapter-length introduction, and a brief afterword. It is dedicated "To Billy, Guccio, Alexis, and Jeremy Hammond then,", and is prefaced with a quotation: "There is no other world. There's just another way to live.—Jacques Mesrine". Hammond is a computer hacker who was convicted and sentenced for his role in the 2011 Stratfor hacking incident. According to the Committee, LulzSec were responsible for replacing the front page of private intelligence firm Stratfor's website with "scrolling text of The Coming Insurrection in English." Meanwhile, Mesrine is a famous French criminal who had also been mentioned in passing in The Coming Insurrection. A synopsis of the book is given below.

Introduction: ''The Insurrections Have Come, Finally''

Claiming vindication since the publication of The Coming Insurrection, the author declare that insurrections and political instability have reached all parts of the world in the intervening years, particularly in the case of the Arab Spring. Despite this, the author lament that the many and isolated insurrections have not led to comprehensive, international revolution, which they attribute to faults in leftist strategy, and to the high degree of organization of their declared enemies: "What characterizes the 1% is that they are organized. They even organize in order to organize the lives of others." As a remedy, the author propose an international conversation, in which the book will be one part: "For a discussion to take place, statements need to be offered, this being one."

''Merry Crisis and Happy New Fear''

1. The opening chapter explores the theme of crises in a general way, particularly financial crises such as the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and the Greek government-debt crisis. The author present a skepticism about the reality of such "actual" crises, seeing them instead as being intentionally manufactured by elites, as means of social control: "The discourse of crisis intervenes as a political method for managing populations." This treatment of crises is distinct from, but related to, classical economic Marxist crises. 2. In addition to financial crises, there are also environmental ones, such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, and fictional ones, like a zombie apocalypse. Here, the author observe fictional crises as elements of the popular imagination, like the above "real" crises, again as means of control: "Maintaining an endless fear to forestall a frightful end." 3. In response to these fearful images of crisis, the author give an optimistic appraisal of the capacity of human beings for spontaneous self-organization, and so call for the rejection of "crisis" as a thing to fear: "Rethinking an idea of revolution capable of interrupting the disastrous course of things is to purge it of every apocalyptic element it has contained up to now."

''They Want to Oblige Us to Govern. We Won't Yield to That Pressure.''

1. The chapter begins with a general illustration of early 21st century global protest movements, or insurrections, which were partially precipitated by the deaths of young people. Alexandros Grigoropoulos' death led to the 2008 Greek riots, Mark Duggan's death led to the 2011 England riots, and Mohamed Bouazizi's death led to the Tunisian revolution. Although specific, secondary grievances in these cases included police brutality and austerity, what is common to such insurrections is a general disgust with the present state of affairs, as typified in one example given by the author: "The true content of Occupy Wall Street was not the demand, tacked onto the movement a posteriori like a post-it stuck on a hippopotamus, for better wages, decent housing, or a more generous social security, but disgust with the life we're forced to live. Disgust with a life in which we're all alone, alone facing the necessity for each one to make a living, house oneself, feed oneself, realize one's potential, and attend to one's health, by oneself. 2. Building on the above, the author cite other such contemporary insurrections, and begin referring to them generally as movements of the squares, a phrase which they attribute to other Greek protests in Syntagma Square. The author criticize the tendency in these protests towards "general assemblies" and "democratic actions", by specifically opposing their preferred method of insurrection to democracy throughout the remainder of the chapter. "Above all, if there is one thing that has nothing to do with any arithmetical principle of majority, it is insurrections, the victory of which depends on qualitative criteria—having to do with determination, courage, self-confidence, strategic sense, collective energy. If for two whole centuries elections have been the most widely used instrument after the army for suppressing insurrections, it's clearly because the insurgents are never a majority." This same criticism of paralyzing, democratic "procedure" in protest movements is revisited in the Committee's later book, Now. 3. Democracy and government are held to be merely specific forms of power, and not the inevitable or only ends which power must serve. "A king reigns. A general commands. A judge judges. Governing is something different." The author liken these various forms of power to pastoral power, that of a shepherd over his flock, a metaphor which is repeated in Now. 4. In closing, the author sketch the theory of destitution, which entails rejection of the various categories of life which are held in contempt by the author, through refusal of engagement in those categories' terms.

''Power Is Logistic. Block Everything!''

1. Although a popular technique of protest is to occupy government centers, real day-to-day power is no longer situated in such places, but instead throughout the mass of a country's infrastructure. 2. Thus, for a revolutionary who seeks to disrupt the present order of things, a clear target is infrastructure, such as bridges, or high-traffic public squares such as Tahrir Square. 3. As illustrations of infrastructure, modern refineries are held to be places where "factories" ceased to be singular production facilities, and the management of refineries led to a culture of sites where each site is merely a node in a larger infrastructural process. The suggestion, then, is to block infrastructure in order to effect change. 4. For the author, it is essential for revolutionaries, who propose to block or destroy infrastructure, to simultaneously learn that same infrastructure's functions for themselves, so as not to be helplessly dependent on the system which they propose to overthrow.

''Fuck Off, Google''

1. As the chapter's title makes obvious, a criticism of Google runs throughout, and is attended by parallel criticisms of other major internet-based businesses, like Amazon, Facebook and Apple Inc.. However, the author' main purpose is to explain current technology in a general way, as it relates to their proposed program of revolution. As one example, Twitter's roots are described in old cellphone apps which protestors used to coordinate during the 2004 Republican National Convention. It is observed that the internet and its various companies and services are supplanting traditional governments in various ways. 2. Technology companies and the big data that they use to monitor behavior are characterized as upsetting "the old dualistic Western paradigm where there is the subject and the world, the individual and society", and replacing that model with beings who define themselves in terms of their networks and their data. 3. The author assess the modern implications for computer technology in daily life, as it relates to the revolution which they propose. Having painted a grim picture of the ubiquity of large-scale, internet-based companies like Google and Facebook, the author predict that a long-term resentment against "screens" of all kinds will ultimately result in a rejection of such companies, and their products. 4. Technology in general is reconsidered in terms of the word "technique", and tracing the roots of related words: humans at all periods of history have had techniques for manipulating the world in the course of all human endeavors: construction, medicine, war, love, and so forth. The real concern of the author is to use a general understanding of technology, and all of its related aspects, for their proposed ends of revolution. Thus the engineer is identified with capitalism, while the hacker, with the attendant subversive hacker ethic, is identified as a possible ally of the author' political program.
The book's halfway point gives an account of an episode which moved the author, and had great personal significance for them: "A case that strongly affected us. After so many attacks that so many of us applauded, Anonymous/LulzSec hackers found themselves, like Jeremy Hammond, nearly alone facing repression upon getting arrested. On Christmas day, 2011, LulzSec defaced the site of Strafor, a "private intelligence" multinational. By way of a homepage, there was now the scrolling text of The Coming Insurrection in English, and $700,000 was transferred from the accounts of Stratfor customers to a set of charitable associations—a Christmas present. And we weren't able to do anything, either before or after their arrest."

''Let's Disappear''

1. The author use the example of recent Greek protests to observe that counter-insurgent efforts, backed by states, companies and so on, have historically been successful in quelling the insurrections which the author promote. The chapter has a martial theme, juxtaposing the author' insurgents against counter-insurgencies. 2. A sharp criticism of pacifism is presented, transitioning from the above modern Greek protests, by pointing out that in ancient Greece, democratic government existed side-by-side with the constant readiness of the citizens to make war. 3. War transcends all categories of life, and has a central psychological component. The author minimize traditional categories of warfare in favor of a hearts and minds understanding of warfare: if the enemy can be convinced, then conventional tactics of warfare become unnecessary. The author relate this concept to their own concern, by giving various examples of counter-insurgent theories which are meant to undermine their own political project, and which are being encouraged by states as correctives to the actions with which the author are sympathetic. 4. The author caution against aping their own chosen enemies, and so becoming symmetrical with them. As counter-examples against symmetry, the author cite the IRA and various Palestinian organizations, the latter being praised exactly for their fragmentation, a theme expanded in the Committee's next book, Now.

''Our Only Homeland: Childhood''

1. In general, the chapter discusses human migration as it relates to states, capitalism, the rural/urban divide, and gentrification. The first section introduces these concepts, and advances the idea that states and capitalists have given up on the romantic notion of "uniting" humanity in a grand, totalizing society, and instead have resigned themselves to the idea that society must be bifurcated into productive, value-adding sectors, and "the rest". 2. The next section illustrates the negative effects of gentrification, especially as driven by the internet and modern technology, and intimates preferential treatment for the value-adding desirables. Seattle's local economy is cited as one example: "Now that Seattle has been emptied of its poor people in favor of the futuristic employees of Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing, the time has come to establish free public transportation there. Surely the city won't go on charging those whose whole life is nothing but value production. That would show a lack of gratitude." 3. With reference to the Susa Valley protests and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation as examples of regional insurrections, the author warn against accepting the frame of a "global/local" divide, given the above. For the author, there are instead simply "worlds", social ties, friendships, enemies, and so forth, an immediate rhetoric which is expanded in Now.

''Omnia Sunt Communia''

1. Building on the examples of Tahrir Square and the Paris Commune, communes are asserted to be thriving in the world, and a desirable mode of social organization. Supporting the line of argument given in the next section, communes are illustrated as oaths among people: "What constitutes the commune is the mutual oath sworn by the inhabitants of a city, a town, or a rural area to stand together as a body." 2. The nature of communes is elaborated a bit further, again with reference to global examples. Communes have first of all a social characteristic, immediately informed by their participants, and secondly a physical characteristic, given by the actual spaces which the communes inhabit. 3. Today, "official" governments and economies theorize general, abstract "commons" which must be managed: the air, the sea, mental health, etc. These entities also endeavor to manage consumers' co-operatives, communes, and other "alternative" forms within their own administrations. The author reject such management efforts, as being counter-revolutionary. 4. The experience of being in a commune is pleasurable, and gives meaning to life. Next to this, contemporary life is "intolerable".

''Today Libya, Tomorrow Wall Street''

1. Following a brief description of the Susa Valley protests in Italy, the author sketch a history of anti-globalization. Although the latter is presented as "the last worldwide offensive organized against capital", the author judge it to have been ineffectual thus far. Still, they are confident that like-minded people can be found everywhere in the world, with whom to find common cause. 2. Instead of repairing to "naming the enemy" as a source of unity, the author propose that such like-minded people should find each other, and thus achieve solidarity through social interaction and the forming of ties. The fragmentation of such informal social ties is framed as a positive strength, a theme which is central to the Committee's next book, Now. 3. As a ready response for concerns about the fragmentation just described, the chapter illustrates the capacity of revolutionaries to spontaneously self-organize, as in the case of Tahrir Square. 4. In closing, the chapter adominishes revolutionaries to take care of their own power and pay attention to it, such as it is.

Afterword

In a brief afterword, the author regret that they felt it necessary to make the book as long as they did, and promise to remain active. "''We wished it would be enough to write 'revolution' on a wall for the street to catch fire. But it was necessary to untangle the skein of the present, and in places to settle accounts with ancient falsehoods. In the coming years, we'll be wherever the fires are lit."

''Now''

The Invisible Committee's third book, Now, consists of seven chapters. A synopsis of the book is given below.

''Tomorrow Is Cancelled''

The opening chapter describes a general disgust with social and political life in the mid-2010s, particularly the 2017 French Presidential Election and the 2016 United States Presidential Election. As one positive alternative to the malaise being sketched, the chapter considers that rioting has a positive possibility for the rioters in that the shared experience can create meaningful bonds: "Those who dwell on images of violence miss everything that's involved in the fact of taking the risk together of breaking, of tagging, of confronting the cops. One never comes out of one's first riot unchanged. It's this positivity of the riot that the spectators prefer not to see and that frightens them more deeply than the damage, the charges and counter-charges. In the riot there is a production and affirmation of friendships, a focused configuration of the world, clear possibilities of action, means close at hand."
Warning against "hope" as a coping mechanism for delay, the chapter closes with a presentism which explains the book's title: "The current disaster is like a monstrous accumulation of all the deferrals of the past, to which are added those of each day and each moment, in a continuous time slide. But life is always decided now, and now, and now.

''50 Shades of Breakage''

The general theme of fragmentation is explored. As one example, the loi Travail, or El Khomri law, a French employment law which makes it easier for businesses and employers to lay off workers and reduce overtime payments, was protested not by one bloc, but by "two minorities, a governmental minority and a minority of demonstrators". The topics of fragmentation, the loi Travail, and the protests in response to the latter law are central to the rest of the book.
Mesopotamia, birthplace of civilization, is fragmented as a consequence of the Syrian Civil War and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Greece, birthplace of democracy, is held to be undemocratic in the sense that it is obliged to institute austerity at the behest of the European Union: "The Greek state is no longer anything more than a conveyor of instructions it has no say in." Even western liberal states are fragmenting, and not even the threat of global warming can produce unity among the human species. French law is also fragmented in the sense that criminal law is divided into "a law for 'citizens' and a 'penal law of the enemy'." Despite these negative aspects of fragmentation, the chapter also considers its positive effects. In moving away from unity, each fragmented piece regains a certain autonomy and dignity which is not sacrificed to the need to conform: "Here is the paradox, then: being constrained to unity undoes us, the lie of social life makes us psychotic, and embracing fragmentation is what allows us to regain a serene presence to the world. There is a certain mental position where this fact ceases to be perceived in a contradictory way. That is where we place ourselves."
Beginning in this chapter, the book bears certain similarities to a work by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of Political Reason is the name for a pair of lectures which were given by Foucault at Stanford in October 1979, and which were subsequently transcribed and published in book form. In the lectures, Foucault presented a historical notion of pastoral power in which a leader and his followers are compared with a shepherd and his flock.; the criteria for a good leader, then, are much the same as those for a good shepherd: the good shepherd protects his flock, leads it to better pastures when he deems it appropriate, and so on. Likewise, 50 Nuances of Breakage cites "pastoral power" while discussing the fragmentation of Iraq and Syria, and the historical importance of the region to civilization itself: "Writing, accounting, history, royal justice, parliament, integrated farming, science, measurement, political religion, palace intrigues and pastoral power - this whole way of claiming to govern 'for the good of the subjects,' for the sake of the flock and its well-being - everything that can be lumped into what we still call 'civilization' was already, three thousand years before Jesus Christ, the distinguishing mark of the kingdoms of Akkad and Sumer."
The title of the chapter, like the book's other chapters, is taken from anti-capitalist graffiti, in this case reading '50 Nuances de Bris,' a pun on the French title of the best-selling romance novel 'Fifty Shades of Grey'.

''Death to Politics''

Following a general criticism of the "court culture" and proceduralism of French political life, the chapter describes the Nuit debout, a protest movement organized in opposition to the loi Travail. The Nuit debout protests are criticized as having degenerated into empty soapboxing and impotent committees: "a bureaucracy of the microphone" - very much like the proceduralism just described. The author specify that they had previously anticipated this sort of ineffective protest bureaucracy: "This might seem dreadful, but Nuit debout, nearly everywhere in France, illustrated line by line what was said about the "movement of the squares" in To Our Friends, and was judged to be so scandalous by many militants at the moment of its publication."
On the other hand, politics is not a separate category of life, but a process which emerges through exchange and especially conflict - exactly through the fragmentation that was developed in the previous chapter. The chapter closes with an optimistic suggestion that a certain fragmentation of politics - into individual lived experiences and conflicts - would be preferable to the paralyzed politics sketched in the chapter's first part.

''Let's Destitute the World''

Institutions in general, and particularly the French cultural trust in institutions, are sharply criticized: "Voilà, we are in France, the country where even the Revolution has become an institution." Institutions are explained as deriving from classical Western traditions, and the logic of the institution is sketched as giving rise, in large part, to all of the above circumstances which have been lamented by the author.
As an antidote, the author propose destitution, or destituent action, which is a logical conclusion of the emphasis on fragmentation: "The notion of destitution is necessary in order to free the revolutionary imaginary of all the old constituent fantasies that weigh it down, of the whole deceptive legacy of the French Revolution." Destitution implies both a resistance to institutions, and particularly the practice of techniques which render it unnecessary to engage with the institution at all: "To destitute is not primarily to attack the institution, but to attack the need we have of it." The May 1968 events in France are cited as one good example of destituent insurrection, and destitution as a strategy is accorded a deeply subversive character.

''End of Work, Magical Life''

Due to increased automation, it is theorized that a large portion of the economy will be replaced with basic income. But even if paid work is reduced, the author suggest it will remain necessary for the population to be controlled in new and other ways, apart from the historical need to work in order to earn a living. In particular, surveillance technology has rapidly improved, and a bleak future in which the individual will be obliged to be a "needy opportunist", always hustling for a little more money, is sketched. This same "needy opportunism" is also used to criticize the self-branding which individuals are already conditioned to perform, using social media. For the author, the official economy is the enemy which should be destituted per the above.

''Everyone Hates the Police''

When society must constantly be ordered, forcibly - as through daily police action - then society has lost its way. According to the author, the police, like the military, realize themselves to be a halfway-hated muscle which is the only thing keeping the state from being destroyed. Again, the chapter closes by presenting the positive possibilities of fragmentation: in opposition to the police, revolutionaries need not be unified or predictable, and thus are freer to execute whatever plans they wish.
Again, this chapter has a similarity to Foucault's Omnes et Singulatim. Later in Foucault's lectures, he examines the history of the police as it relates to politics and states. In the course of this, he cites a number of European thinkers who present various idealized conceptions of the areas of responsibility of the police in a society, including "Louis Turquet de Mayerne", "N. de Lamare", and "Huhenthal." Everyone Hates the Police also has occasion to sketch the history of the police, before the latter had completely transformed into the thing which the author hold in contempt. In so doing, all three of the individuals just mentioned in Foucault's lecture are cited, again: "During the 17th and 18th centuries, 'police' still had a very broad meaning: thus la police was 'everything that can give an adornment, a form, and a splendor to the city', 'all the means that are useful to the splendor of the whole State and to the happiness of all the citizens'. Its role was said to be that of 'leading man to the most perfect felicity he can enjoy in this life.'."

''For the Ones to Come''

The closing chapter describes a deep skepticism for easy solutions to the problems which have been identified by the author. Throughout the book, the word communism and its variants have been sparingly used, and are now returned to their simpler meanings, apart from the historical baggage of the political program bearing the name: community, interaction with others, and even love. The author indicate a false dichotomy between the self and society, which they assign as having informed classical Marxism and conventional "communism", alongside modern society in general, to tragic results. This "other", unofficial communism is what the author suggest as a better organization for society, notwithstanding the earlier skepticism about solutions. Pushing further, the self is not unitary, but a collection of fragments. Ties and connections between fragmented individuals are what are essential to society. For the author, their version of communism is what should be pursued: "Communism is not a 'superior economic organization of society' but the destitution of economy."
Finally, a passage gives a clue as to the number of persons who may be members of the Invisible Committee, and their specific involvement with the production of the texts: "There is never community as an entity, but always as an experience of continuity between beings and with the world. In love, in friendship, we have the experience of that continuity. In this print shop dominated by an antique Heidelberg 4 Color which a friend ministers to while I prepare the pages, another friend glues, and a third one trims, to put together this little samizdat that we've all conceived, in this fervor and enthusiasm, I experience that continuity."