Brian, I also think that both direct and indirect actions are important.
When you are angry at a thing which you are part of that has no currently visible alternative, and you let that anger show by directly accusing the your fellow prisoners as perpetrators and guardians of the system, it will usually only serve to alienate yourself further and not add a bit of understanding of civ to your mindset.
I like the quote by Edward Abbey that says: “Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.” I think anger can serve constructive or destructive ends, depending on how one acts on it. Above you were referring to anger directed horizontally, towards other “inmates” of the system - and I also find that destructive. But without applying anger vertically - towards those in power - I don’t think people will ever succeed in changing society.
One thing I have difficulty understanding about the Jensenian view of change is how or why,at this point in time, we should/could be putting our efforts into physically assaulting civilization. The size and hierarchical structure of civilization makes it way too powerful at this point in time (in my mind) to attack physically.
I would agree, with regard to an organized, frontal assault trying to take civ out in one fell swoop. But DJ specifically argues against this, at least at this point in time. But small-scale, individual or small group attacks on civ, with much more modest goals of doing specific, localized damage to the system, can add up to a lot of damage over time, bleeding civ dry by a thousand paper cuts. And focusing one’s efforts on civ’s choke-points and fulcrums could amplify the effect greatly. The Star Wars analogy doesn’t seem appropriate to our current situation.
We know that either way,civ will wither on its own,so let's build and "advertise" the alternative...then at some point we can adopt the Jensenian "strategies" to stop a resurgence of Civ.
I also think that we should build and advertise alternatives to civ as much as possible. I just hope you don’t mean that we should sit back and let civ collapse on it’s own, without doing anything to help bring it down, because the process of civ’s collapse could take decades - and every year it continues diminishes the human race’s (and many many other species’) chances for future survival. I believe that if it lasts a few more decades, we have no future. We NEED to take direct action against civ, NOW. (Along with indirect actions, of course).
About the question of tactics v. strategies - I think it totally depends on what one means by the terms. I definitely have not intended strategy to mean globally, applied for all times and places, in my usage of the word. I think it varies person by person, situation by situation, just like tactics do. I think of strategy as the long-term plan, and tactics as the short-term steps to achieve the strategy.
Jessica