From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: _TAZ_ Excerpt
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:33:19 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

A quote from 

        _T._A._Z.
        _THE_TEMPORARY_AUTONOMOUS_ZONE_,
        _ONTOLOGICAL_ANARCHY_,
        _POETIC_TERRORISM_

pages 98-99;

by Hakim Bey, Autonomedia, P.O.Box 568, Williamsburg
Station, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11211-0568  

But first, the blurbs on the cover: "A Blake angel on Bad
Acid" -- Robert Anton Wilson / "Fascinating..." -- William
Burroughs / "No Respect for Nothing." -- Factsheet Five /
"Scares the shit out of us." -- Church of the SubGenius / "A
literary masterpiece...." -- Freedom (London) / "Hard-line
data/surrealism" -- Rudy Rucker / "A linguistic romp..." --
Colin Wilson / "Extraordinary... superb..." -- Harold Norse
/ "Exquisite..." -- Allen Ginsberg / "Like sending away for
[sic] Kix boxtops and getting back _real_ bazookas." -- NY
Native / "Dear to our hearts..." -- Exquisite Corpse / "A
splendid hoax..." -- Moorish Science Monitor / "Tell it to
the judge." -- Bob Black.

----------------------------------------------------------

"... this time however I come as the victorious Dionysus who 
will turn the world into a holiday...  Not that I have much
time...."  -- F. Nietzsche (from his last "insane" letter to
                            Cosima Wagner)

Pirate Utopias

The sea-rovers and corsairs of the 18th century created an
"information network" that spanned the globe: primitive and
devoted primarily to grim business, the net nevertheless
functioned admirably.  Scattered throughout the net were 
islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and
provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities.
Some of these islands supported "intentional communities,"
whole mini-socieities living consciously outisde the law and
determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry
life.

Some years ago I looked through a lot of secondary material
on piracy hoping to find a study of these enclaves -- but
it appeared as if no historian has yet found them worthy of
analysis.  (William Burroughs has mentioned the subject, as
did the late British anarchist Larry Law -- but no systematic
research has been carried out.)  I retreated to primary
sources and constructed my own theory, some aspects of which
will be discussed in this essay.  I called the settlements
"Pirate Utopias."

Recently Bruce Sterling, one of the leading exponents of
Cyberpunk science fiction, published a near-future romance
based on the assumption that the decay of political systems
will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in
living: giant worker-owned corporations, independent
enclaves devoted to "data piracy," Green-Social-Democrat
enclaves, Zerowork enclaves, anarchist liberated zones, etc.
The information economy which supports this diversity is
called the Net, the enclaves (and the book's title) are
_Islands_in_the_Net_.

The medieval Assassins founded a "State" which consisted of
a network of remote mountain valleys and castles, separated
by thousands of miles, strategically invulnerable to
invasion, connected by the information flow of secret
agents, at war with all governments, and devoted only to
knowledge.  Modern technology, culminating in the spy
satellite, makes this kind of _autonomy_ a romantic dream.
No more pirate islands!  In the future the same technology
-- freed from all political control -- could make possible
an entire world of _autonomous_zones_.  But for now the
concept remains precisely science fiction -- pure
speculation.

Are we who live in the present doomed never to experience
autonomy, never to stand for one moment on a bit of land
ruled only by freedom?  Are we reduced either to nostalgia
for the past or nostalgia for the future?  Must we wait
until the entire world is freed of political control before
even one of us can claim to know freedom?  Logic and emotion
unite to condemn such a supposition.  Reason demands that
one cannot struggle for what one does not know; and the
heart revolts at a universe so cruel as to visit such
injustices on _our_ generation alone of humankind.

To say that "I will not be free till all humans (or all
sentient creatures) are free" is simply to cave in to a kind
of nirvana-stupor, to abdicate our humanity, to define
ourselves as losers.

I believe that by extrapolating from past and future stories
about "islands in the Net" we may collect evidence to
suggest that a certain kind of "free enclave" is not only
possible in our time but also existent.  All my research and
speculation has crystallized around the concept of the
TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE (hereafter abbreviated TAZ).
Despite its synthesizing force for my own thinking, however,
I don't intend the TAZ to be taken as more than an _essay_
("attempt"), a suggestion, almost a poetic fnacy.  Despite
the occasional Ranterish enthusiasm of my language I am not
trying to construct political dogma.  In fact I have
deliberately refrained from defining the TAZ -- I circle
around the subject, firing off exploratory beams.  In the
end the TAZ is almost self-explanatory.  If the phrase
became current it would be udnerstood without difficulty ...
understood in action. ...
(end of excerpt)
-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
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