10 PRELIMINARY

THESES ON
R E S I S TA N C E
Ian Alan Paul
Ian Alan Paul, January 2017
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1 R E S I S TA N C E AG A I N S T T R U M P W I L L F I R S T
B E CO M E M A N I F E S T I N R A D I C A L AC T S
O F N E G AT I O N .
Sabotage this. Slow down that. Undermine a process. Raise questions.
Draw lines. Flood systems. Destroy records. Overwhelm institutions.
Withdraw your consent. Waste their time. Blockade everything. As
Trump tears down the world around him in order to build his own
from the wreckage, resistance will necessarily take shape first in spon-
taneous and audacious refusals. That which cannot be stomached,
that which weighs too heavily, that which becomes in too many ways
too much will be the gasoline for the fires to come. Pure negativity
will be the initial attractor that draws us onto the streets, urgent-
ly gathering together beneath banners emblazoned simply with the
word “NO.”

2 I N CO L L E C T I V E AC T S O F R E F U S A L ,
O P P O R T U N I T I E S W I L L A R I S E TO F I N D
I N O N E A N OT H E R S O M E T H I N G W H I C H
I S N OT Y E T P R E S E N T B U T C O U L D B E .

Behind burning barricades, in occupied lecture halls, on blocked

highways, at shut-down airport terminals, in riotous street parties,
at lock-downed bank entrances, in striking ports, online and on the
streets and, for some, in jail cells, people will one by one accumulate
and aggregate into something else, something otherwise. Even the
best of friends will be met again as if for the first time, encountered
anew within the tumult and turbulence of a multiplicity of struggles.
Acts of negation will establish the conditions of possibility for new
forms of affirmation, and every opportunity to refuse Trump will also
be an opportunity to discover in each other the possibility of becom-
ing a force together.

3 O U R R E S I S TA N C E W I L L R E Q U I R E
T H E P L AY F U L I N V E N T I O N O F N E W
R E P E R TO I R E S , A LWAYS D I F F E R E N T I A L LY
I M P R OV I S E D I N C O N C E R T W I T H OT H E R S .

Every practice enacted in the present will require wildly speculative

adaptation, elaboration, and experimentation. A march, an occupa-
 tion, a blockade, and an infinite number of other techniques known
and unknown, will all necessitate continuous reinvention as power
responds, refashions, and reorganizes itself. The opportunity to put
something new into practice must be cultivated, prepared for, and
proliferated across complex, diverse, and inconsistent coalitions,
alliances, conspiracies, and crowds. Resisting Trump will require new
forms of choreography that set into motion destituent and constit-
uent forces, maneuvering, defending, and attacking, tearing apart as
they assemble. The only question that should preoccupy us in this
moment is not the singular “What is to be done?” but rather the
always multiple and shifting “What works?”

4 S U CC E S S W I L L D E P E N D O N A N A B I L I T Y
TO TA K E C U E S F R O M T H O S E W H O A R E
A L R E A DY M O S T A F F E C T E D BY P OW E R .
Power is most intimately known by those who have lived their lives
beneath it, and this intimacy will be what will orient, navigate, and
guide us through the coming struggles. A constellation composed
of the memories of Ferguson and Stonewall, of Standing Rock and
Zuccotti Park, of Oscar Grant and Tamir Rice, among a great many
others, can also be a map that reveals potential routes through the
present catastrophe. Those who have historically been most affected
by power will be most familiar with the character, complexities, and
challenges of the fights to come.

5 D I F F E R E N T I AT I N G B E T W E E N CO M PA N I O N S
A N D CO L L A B O R ATO R S W I L L S I M P LY B E
A M AT T E R O F O B S E R V I N G W H O R E F U S E S
A LO N G S I D E YO U .
The present makes accomplices of us all. The only remaining thing
to be settled is who you will choose to be an accomplice to. As lines
of riot police and make-shift barricades cut the world into a billion
different sides, which one will you stand on? Failing to chose is to
have the choice made for you by whatever power presently governs,
and complicity threatens to follow from anything but a total rejection
of the powerful. Ultimately, a line will be drawn between those who
currently (or seek to) govern, and those who desire to be and insist
upon being ungovernable.
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6 R E S I S TA N C E , L I K E L I F E , W I L L B E D E F I N E D
BY M O M E N T S O F I N D E S C R I B A B L E J OY
A N D T R E M E N D O U S D E S PA I R .
In the fray of the coming confrontations, inspiration will flow from
the courage of those close to us and exhilaration will accompany any
victories that follow. However, these will emerge alongside the loud
knock at the front door late at night, the swing of the police club, the
spinning tear gas canister, the burst of pepper spray, the gliding bullet,
the cold jail cell, and the felt absence of lost friends. Neither joy nor
despair will wholly define resistance, but rather resistance will depend
upon the capacity to experience these things together, to be moved
collectively by both joy and despair.

7 OUR ENDURANCE AS A FORCE WILL

R E LY O N R E F I G U R I N G T H E L I M I T S O F
OUR RESPONSIBILITY AND ABILITY
TO R E S P O N D TO O N E A N OT H E R .
Capitalism, as a system, ceaselessly encroaches upon every atom of
the world to ensure that survival is only possible on its own terms
to the point where the possibility of life itself is called into question.
Interrupting this process won’t depend on any brilliant maneuver or
tactical success as much as it will on our ability to redefine the limits
of care and compassion, to reimagine the form and distribution of
our interdependencies so we can move towards a world in which it
may be possible to endure differently. In the coming years, our soli-
darity must become a weapon so sharp that it will cut straight through
cages, borders, and walls, seeing in variably distant and different
others the possibility of survival.

8 A S E V E R Y T H I N G I S I N C R E A S I N G LY
O CC U P I E D, R E F U S E D, A N D B LO C K A D E D,
T H E T I M E W I L L Q U I C K LY A R R I V E TO
PRODUCE THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR
T H E OT H E R W I S E .

Whenever and wherever power crumbles, there will always be forces

anxious to replace what has been demolished. Power can never finally
be destroyed, but can only be indefinitely warded off by insistent
and persistent refusal. Resistance, undertaken as a practice, under-
stands that power must be defeated continuously if anything different
has a chance of emerging. The infrastructure of the otherwise, that
which could lead us towards a time and place unlike the present, is
 not something we build but is something we enact in consistent and
patient repetition.

9 T H E C R I S I S H A S A L R E A DY A R R I V E D,
A N D W H O E V E R I S B E S T A B L E TO S H A P E
T H E C H AO S T H AT E N S U E S W I L L P R O D U C E
W H AT H A S Y E T TO A R R I V E .

There is no going back, no way to retreat onto solid ground, no pos-

sibility of rolling back time, except perhaps while dreaming. The sheer
entropy of the present means that there is little to hold on to, but it
also means that it has become possible to speculate more radically
than ever before. Watching the world around us rise and fall at an
accelerating rate, those who prevail will be those who grasp the risks
worth taking, those who are able to clearly and vividly see the world
as it exists and as it can exist. What will come is in no way deter-
mined, but will depend on a series of leaps that produce their own
ground to land upon.

10 T H E G R E AT E S T V I R T U E O F O U R
R E S I S TA N C E I S T H AT I T I S E N T I R E LY
ABSENT OF ANY PROMISES
AND GUARANTEES.

Never trust anyone who tells you about “the future” in the singular.
The most powerful in the world expend all of their energy to main-
tain even the faintest appearance of order, and even the most ex-
tremely regulated and controlled corners of the world are constantly
threatened by the arrival of any number of unknown, improbable but
possible futures. Hope in the present arises from the insight that the
unknowability of futurity is perpetual and ineradicable. To not know
precisely where we are headed is to remain open to the possibility of
arriving where we couldn’t possibly have planned to, and in refusing
the present we also invite what cannot presently exist within it.
Postscript: This piece follows from a previous text:
10 Preliminary Theses on Trump, which can be found on the website.
alineisaterritory.wordpress.com
”
Never trust anyone
about “ the future” in the singular. The
who tells you

most powerful in the world expend

all of their energy to maintain even
the faintest appearance of order, and
even the most extremely regulated
and controlled corners of the world
are constantly threatened by the
arrival of any number of unknown,
improbable but possible futures.

more at:
A L I N E I S AT E R R I TO RY.WO R D P R E S S .C O M