If we consider the threads that connect such diverse people as James Joyce,T. S. Elliot, Corbusier, Chagal, Moore and Bartok, we may find the basis for recognising 'modernism' within the art of politics. Modernism struggles with silence. Like the great Eastern mystics, it is what cannot be said, represented, played or built that is most important. In literature, Modernism pushes language to its asymptote, attempting to express the unsayable. Musical pieces have been written using a single note, or a set length of silence.
Group psychotherapy makes much of silence, and our fear of it.
Amongst anarchists, there is always a tension between those who do, and keep very quiet about it, and those who communi- cate, but rarely about what they do. In the pages of Freedom, I always look for what is not being written about. Anarchist papers rarely imitate the style of the Mirror or even the Guardian, for most of the writers are consciously seeking to find their own style. Finding one's own voice necessitates throwing aside the deadweight of history and cuIture . It is as if civilisation lost its nerve, and took a step back from the abyss.