Underthrow: Preface to the New Book

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Image by Engin Akyurt

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
– H. L. Mencken

Imagine a gorge cut ages ago by the river Time. Two tribes live on either side of the gorge: the Reds and the Blues. A thick rope connects the two tribes as each pulls in a seemingly endless game of tug-o-war. The walls of the gorge are steep. When one side starts to gain an advantage, tuggers from the other side fall into the river below. Those who remain tug harder, so they start to gain an advantage.

This game has been going on for so long that few question it.

Behind each tribe, ghouls yell “pull!” from comfortable perches. The ghouls promise goodies to the tuggers should their side win. Some tuggers fall with a splat onto the muddy banks that flank the river. A few land in the water and get carried away by the current. Dirty and disheveled, fallen tuggers from team Red or Blue make their way back to shore, then climb up the winding trails to the back of the tug-o-war line. There they find a length of rope waiting. Despite being scratched, bruised, and muddy, they again hear the ghouls yell, “Pull!” 

So they pull.

A few just watch the whole thing with disgust. Occasionally, an onlooker joins in the tug-o-war. Otherwise, they shake their heads. Some tuggers have been dragged into the mud enough that they refuse to participate. All this pulling for Red or Blue seems pointless, especially for those with Purple or Green sensibilities.

“If you don’t pull the rope, you have no right to complain,” say the Blues.

“Pulling for Purples or Greens is wasted effort and ensures Blue wins,” say the Reds.

The Blues’ general hypothesis is that one day, their team will muster the strength to pull all those horrible Reds into the gorge once and for all. The Reds’ general hypothesis is that one day, their team will muster the strength to pull all those horrible Blues into the gorge once and for all. Both sides agree they have to recruit bystanders to win, even though the game offers little to the bystanders. It’s winner-takes-all for Red or Blue, so pick a team. Or so the theory goes.

Enter the Blackshirts. 

The thing about Blackshirts is they never pull the rope. Blackshirts earn their color because they question the whole goddamn thing. So, of course, the Reds and Blues reject them utterly. But the Blackshirts are clever. They know that tug-o-war is wasteful. Indeed, the rope stays taut because both sides pull so hard. How might that fact be exploited?

What if, one day, the Blackshirts decided to shimmy out onto the rope, each with a dagger in clenched teeth? The Reds and Blues would want to stop them, but they couldn’t. If either side let go of the rope to go after the Blackshirts, the other side would gain the advantage. So they would keep pulling while yelling curses at the Blackshirts, who would ignore the obscenities. Some Red or Blue ghouls would no doubt hurl stones at the Blackshirts. But maybe there will be enough Blackshirts for one of us to make it. If one succeeded in cutting the rope, the Reds and Blues would fall. The tug-o-war would be over.

The point of this colorful allegory is simple: This book is for Blackshirts. It’s not just a call for readers to don subversive colors. As H. L. Mencken wryly put it above, we yearn to fly the black flag. (Better, of course, to cut ropes than slit throats.) Blackshirts earn their colors because, like Mencken, we remain skeptical of the whole bloody enterprise. We must therefore muster the courage to climb out over the gorge. And cut.

For too long, we’ve been fattened on a steady diet of civic lore about democracy, but that system only helps lock partisans in perpetual warfare. The war is meant to settle two questions: Who gets the resources? And who gets control? Each team holds out hope that one day, they’ll get to shove the One True Way down everyone’s throats. They just have to pull harder.

Blackshirts see things differently.

I wrote this book because I am a pamphleteer by nature. When I look at the absurdity of the world around us, I imagine how Thomas Jefferson and old Tom Paine must have felt. I have an obligation to expose the absurdities, articulate the alternatives, and call others to action.

Where there had once been civic consciousness among the people, there is now little but partisan animus. Despite widespread attachment to voting and elections, innovators are figuring out better ways to organize themselves outside tug-o-war politics.

The only way to win is to play a different game.