Time to Experiment

In his essay The War and the Spectacle, writer Ken Knabb articulates that if Americans want to contest the hierarchical system that taxes their income only to produce endless wars and little else, then they must reject hierarchy in their own methods of resistance and relations with their fellow citizens. "Ultimately," says Knabb, "[this] means challenging the social organization that turns people into spectators of prefabricated adventures because they are prevented from creating their own."

In a related article on self-government, Indian Country Today's Duane Champagne observes that, "Most people in the general American public don't understand the principles of self-government."

While his comment was made within the context of American Indian nations' relationships with the United States, Champagne also remarks that, "[while] most Indian communities derive their social and political institutions from creation teachings...so that the people can live and maintain relations with the plants, animals and cosmic powers in the universe...sovereignty is not a term that is easily translated to Indian communities from its European origins of centralized political organization based around the divine right and powers of European kings."

And here, I would note, lies the fundamental distinction between the two systems of governance: one society where everyone participates in creating law and order in their daily lives; another in which these responsibilities have been delegated to the successors of kings. As Champagne puts it, "Indian communities maintain commitments to kinship and culture that do not reflect the way of government of the United States, but often are guided by the values and visions of tribal ancestors and teachings. Self-government and the roots of American Indian national autonomy originate and remain grounded within the values and cultures of Indian communities."

This contrast between choosing to be ruled and electing to be free, perhaps, contributes to the maddening dissatisfaction of Americans--seemingly helpless against hierarchical brutality--that too often finds expression in violent collective outbursts toward peoples who reject domination. As Knabb remarks, "If they want to break through the spectacle-induced stupor, they must use their own imaginations. If they want to incite others, they themselves must experiment."