13. On Shock and Organisation: Riots, Resistance and the Need for Consistency The Free Association
La hora sonó, la hora sonó. NO permitiremos mas, mas tu doctrina del shock. [The hour has struck, the hour has struck. We will allow NO MORE, no more your doctrine of shock.] Lyrics to ‘Shock’ by Ana Tijoux - the anthem of the 2011 Chilean student movement. Shock can have debilitating effects on social movements. It can disorient us, it can be exploited as part of a concerted effort to discipline our thought and action, and it can prompt us to fall back on reactionary tropes. But, rather than seeking to avoid shock, The Free Association suggest that we need more resilient forms of political organisation that help mitigate these paralysing effects.
“Criminality, Pure and Simple”, or The Death of a Princess In September 1997 England was overtaken by mass hysteria. Following the death of the Princess of Wales (‘Princess Di’) on August 31 there was a ‘massive public outpouring of grief’ that would not have seemed amiss in North Korea. More than a million people lined the route of Diana’s funeral cortege in London while the BBC reported that an estimated 2.5 billion people watched the funeral - an incredible number, implying that