Why do we need more manifestos? Didn't the tribulations of the 20th century, with its many destructive -isms, clearly demonstrate the dangers of ideological partisanship? Surely, in our current moment of general political-social chaos, so obvious and absolute that in common speech we give it the name * gestures broadly *, what we need is less ideology, less concrete affirmation of political belief, and more empathy, more real-world conversation and human connection?
I will sidestep these objections for now, and ask a different question: what do you believe? Anyone reading this essay and comprehending my arguments is a political being, inoculated in the same conjectural milieu as your fellow civilians. You may think of yourself as a nonideological, nonpartisan moderate- many do!- but inevitably when scanning an article about gender therapy or tariff wars or whatnot, some instinctive reaction rises in your gut, and in one slow self-conscious moment you can translate that feeling into your ideological leaning. Like it or not, you cannot exist without ideology. The process you use to translate the abstractions you encounter (gender, economics, etc) into personal gut feelings into different abstractions will differ from the process of someone raised in a different family, state, region, or country- this accidental familial or geographical variation is also ideology! So, tell me, what do you believe?
I'm a leftist, I lean conservative, I don't really trust either party. Or: I was raised Catholic, I don't like billionaires, free market means free people, public education is a good thing! Or: libertarians are dumb, socialists are silly, American centrists are just bourgeois liberal-conservatives. Or: consumerism probably isn't all that great, fast food isn't good for you, I try to read books in my free time, diet culture is unhealthy and fat-phobic, not everyone can afford books or has a convenient public library, free market free market free market.
We're getting closer. Now, how do you obtain your beliefs, and how do you share them? This is more difficult, for very few people can pinpoint a Saint-Augustine-In-The-Garden ideological conversion experience. More likely, we inhale our ideas, prejudices, facts, opinions, and perceptions as naturally as our surrounding country air or urban smog; and only solidify them when asked directly, or confronted with opposing views. When we do express or defend our beliefs, we do so in Tiktok or Twitter form, in short pithy statements that won't convince anyone and allow for no nuance or refinement. Thus, when we say I'm a leftist!, we are making a social and aesthetic statement, more than an ideological one. Leftist is not a defined set of beliefs, but a product of how we assume others will perceive us when we claim that label. This idea, the environmental contingency of the everyman's (everyAmerican's) worldview, is commonly cited in discussions of political polarization. Tumblr users, often the most ideological of the chronically-online, are self aware enough to repeat like a mantra you are not immune to propaganda, paired with Garfield's smug face to drive the message home. But it bears repeating, for we are still not immune to propaganda, and we are always creatures of our environment, and ideological warfare is a perpetual motion machine.
My remedy is, first, to close my computer and escape to the woods. This isn't always possible or practical, so I propose a second kind of counter-attack: write our own propaganda. Not just any propaganda, but the purest kind, which is the manifesto.
This seems wrong. Historically speaking, before Twitter or TikTok, manifestos have been the root of the culture-war propaganda-machine bullshit I'm complaining about. Whether Mein Kampf or The Communist Manifesto or, hell, The Bible- how much untold suffering have these books caused? I slaughtered millions because Hitler/ Marx/ God Almighty told me to! And the reputation of this literary genre continues to devolve. When was the last time you read the word manifesto? Chances are, in a news article about a Ted Kaczynski wannabe/ bedroom-dwelling incel mass shooter who left behind a trail of dead bodies and his (always his) rambly, unreadable manifesto. Clearly, manifestos are for the ideologically and emotionally depraved. I get my opinions straight from the source (a summation of a headline of a news story that I saw on Facebook).
Is this progress? We could do the inverse and sink into nihilism.We sit back and watch society burn, and feel vindicated because we knew all along that society would burn. But this is no good either. Effective, but ultimately pathetic.
So let me restate my argument. The best way to escape this intellectual sinkhole is to write our own propaganda; and to do it in a long-form, clearly structured, point-by-point way. To take the gut feelings behind our beliefs and spin them, analyze them, critique them, and rearrange them in a form that others can follow. That way, our belief system isn't just our own inclination, but a logical and cohesive way to look understand the world. One that can be argued for and, importantly, challenged by other logical, cohesive, perfectly valid belief systems.
What I am describing is a manifesto. I seek to reclaim the art of the manifesto from the clammy, dirty hands of depraved dystopianists and mass shooters; to reintroduce it as a valid and necessary tool of learning and ideological growth. Manifestos in the classroom, manifestos in bookstores, manifestos handed around street corners and public spaces (zines, anyone?)
All master artists will say that to learn an art form is to both voraciously consume and prodigiously create. Thus, to become a musician, you must simultaneously listen to a boatload of music, and make a boatload of music. I say manifesto-writing is an art form, and I therefore implore aspiring manifesto-writers to read every manifesto there is, and write everything on their mind. The side effect? You'll learn something, and your belief system with productively evolve. Because all manifestos are transitory. Not absolute summations of eternal truths, but useful snapshots of a moment. We read Cicero to understand ourselves, and to understand the Roman Empire, and to understand Cicero. Why shouldn't modern manifestos be the same?
Thus, my unlikely conclusion. Fight ideological stagnation and intellectual decline. Write your manifestos.
