Accidental Associationalism

From Plastic Tub

(from Reticent 27, 1969 version: "Why my Accidentalist detractors are wrong; right")

"....the real point of departure [from earlier modernist currents] arises from the scientific revolution, and the AA's realisation that the mythological foundation of mankind is in need of drastic alteration....whether this be by the murder of millions or by the enlightened rule of democratically elected officials is of no matter, so long as the profound redistribution of psychic energies is prolonged and endured majestically. There can be no meaning in something as large as the largest piebald envelope of squat. Which is to affirm the ultimate subjectivity and hence the whimsicality inherent in all AA activity. How noble to kill one day for socialism in the streets of Chicago, then the next to fight socialists in Vietnam? What difference? The point being that motion, that action, that decision makes meaning and purpose, not adherence, and that, furthermore, why kill at all? For instance, there is the sleeping man, whose ear is convoluted by the sounds of an alarm clock radio stuck between stations....there is the terrific fuzz....and his sleeping mind organizes elaborate orations, or perhaps, impossible harmonious musical compositions. It is just that function of mind, its ability to organize information from madness, from a shotgun rush of numbers, and then be able to discern your birthdate amongst the ruins....it is this function of mind, that optimistic cripple, that the AA raised to philosophical prominence. So, as you can see, there could arise some difficulty in ascribing to them any solid commingling of alliances.... AA thought by nature must fun itself to remain vital; it has no sacred cows. Adid and I knew that, and it is why we parted ways--not because of the claptrap which has arisen in recent months about the primacy of the Accident or the Association--but because we saw which way the group was headed; and the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. It was time to fun it up, even to the point of vituperating against one another....the long end of whimsy ending up drunk, the two of us exchanging harsh fisticuffs while inwardly laughing with each other over some increasing empathic railroad. We never thought it would erupt as it has into legitimate hostility towards one another by the followers of our respective "camps." This result has occurred despite our opposite intentions, and, whilst it wallows in its own kind of humour, it is, at least to me, a sad indication of our exuberant young cohorts' failure to understand our most elementary philosophical dynamics...."

See also Accidentalism, Associationalism, AA.