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The Last Tourist, Revisited

Or, one great replacement deserves another.

We must begin with the misrepresentation and transform it into what is true. That is, we must uncover the source of the misrepresentation, otherwise hearing what is true won’t help us. The truth cannot penetrate when something is taking its place. – Ludwig Wittgenstein, quoted in Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Children of the Sun

In the wake of the 2005 bombings in Bali, tourism plummeted. Two years later I braved the residual threat, to scout remote sands on the north coast, only to be besieged by (mosquitoes and) a covey of touts laden with merchandise to sell, and no buyers (except me, finally bargaining for one shirt, suitable for samba). The experience inspired the title of my travel book, The Last Tourist, as it seemed I was the last of a breed of international travelers seeking exotic lands, at the end of an era of carefree globetrotting and jetsetting.

As fate would have it, I found myself in Bali again in 2020, lucky to board one of the last flights out before the Great Scamdemic shut down borders worldwide. Was this really it, then, the last fling of tourism for real?

Not so fast. It took a couple of years of pushback and greater awakening, but at last international travel resumed, even mask-free, and despite renewed warnings of this or that new improved plague, financial crash, war and rumor of war, here I am on Mexico’s Nayarit coast, soaking up sun and watching the Super Bowl like all the other snowbirds from Canada and the US, speaking English everywhere and paying North American prices for food and accommodations.

Yes, maybe tourism is finished, as tourism. Instead the consumer culture itself has migrated south, replacing the culture that was here like a great wave or relentless series of incoming waves, even as the waves of global migrants pour the other direction like an unstoppable undertow of commensurate replacement—south-to-north to equalize the flow north-to-south.

You might say it’s a kind of tourist karma. Tossed in a word salad composed of Spanish and English, we are drenched in a dressing for World Salad, mixed like oil and vinegar, now stirred, now shaken.

The once-peaceful, hippie-chic village of San Pancho, which I first visited ten years ago, now is thumping and bumping with nightly street bands, churning out an eclectic mix of Steppenwolf, Billy Joel, Santana, Cuban rumba. A block from the bucolic lagoon, the din of construction and deconstruction drills, sledgehammers, and saws prevents any afternoon napping; while the nights are still interrupted by roosters crowing at any hour, and mornings full of salsa chatter from the hotel staff in the courtyard.

We trade the cold rains of the Northwest coast for humid warmth, mosquitoes, a hard and lumpy bed. It’s a vacation! Elbow to elbow on narrow sidewalks and crowded restaurants, with others of our kind, sunglassed, sandaled, looking for a working ATM. The Tuesday market is basically Boomerville. The surf is rough but no worries, if you’re super careful you can get out as far as knee deep before getting pummeled with a violent slurry of sea and sand. But sunsets! When it’s not too cloudy.

Sittin’ on the beach of the bay, watching the waves roll in: a perfect abstraction of constancy and variation. An unceasing demonstration of nature’s omnipotence, and grand indifference…

Mind on idle, or gathering mold, is this the last time I will be a tourist? In the two-hour lineup at the aeropuerto on arrival here, the bison-farming couple from Whitehorse moaned, “Never again.” But as perceptions and demographics shift, soon we may feel like tourists in our own land.

Our land? Who am I kidding? We’re all tourists there, and here, and everywhere now.

Can’t you hear it in the crow of the rooster, the buzz of the mosquito, the roar of the chainsaw, the groaning traffic, the constant human chatter, the barking dog, the chest-throbbing bass? Can’t you see it in the NY baseball cap, the gangsta shorts, the flowered shirt, the menu in two languages, the wine list, the license plate, the hotel lobby, the hospital ATM on the blink blaring a shrill alarm?

Who’s complaining? Not me. I get to write about it, snap some pretty pictures, and fly home to my snug and quiet northern nest.

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Anarchism and the Sovereign Individual

‘All is to be doubted.’ —Descartes

There’s an inherent challenge in organizing anarchists and even in defining a single philosophy of anarchism, when the concept itself holds the kernel of an extreme, radical individualism.

The American Heritage Dictionary leaves no wiggle room for this far-right state-denier, citing first the “theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished”; next, referring broadly to “active resistance and terrorism against the state, as used by some anarchists”; and finally—like the terrible twos forever—“rejection of all coercive control and authority.” The cautious dictionary browser is advised to move along, go back to your home.

Still, the principles expressed are a useful starting point, if one cares to linger awhile. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That said, let’s come to the heart of the matter: the Sovereign Individual, who may volunteer whatever cooperation or association the anarchist society needs to function.

As a more positive definition, the “libertarian” label comes to hand: “1) One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state; 2) One who believes in free will.”

With that last zinger the needle has zoomed right past moderate to extra diverse and all-inclusive: capitalists and communists, artists and dictators, lovers and killers, Christians and Satanists. So let’s retreat to the more meaningful focus: the contest between the King and I.

What does it mean to be “sovereign”?

The dictionary fairly includes here the democratic attributes (self-governing, and independent) as well as the usual, state-based brand. Important to both is the central, almost sacred role bestowed upon one (state or individual) who is sovereign: “paramount, supreme.” The term also implies “permanent”—like the claims of the eternal Church, the undying Reich, the UN Security Council, the Neoliberal “end of history.” And like, on the anti-state side, the perennial pushback from the Ron Pauls, the Alex Joneses, the Julian Assanges; the Dutch farmers and Canadian Truckers and New Zealand Maori.

In a notable essay Jeffrey Tucker makes the case for a sensible bifurcation of the loose tribe of rugged individualists into two camps of different characters, with opposing visions and styles in their defiance of socially sanctioned authority: “Against Libertarian Brutalism: Will libertarianism be brutalist or humanitarian? Everyone needs to decide.” Yes, even the capitalist and communist builders of concrete monstrosities (the brutalists) claim the right to exercise their free will; along with the more pastoral and peaceful wing, the humanists. So moral judgement, an assumption of humane majority norms, is brought to bear. Tucker rests on a premise of benevolence in “civil standards of values and etiquette,” instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater under the stripped-down banner of boorish, intolerant and abusive “liberty.”

Tucker’s article betrays in its subtitle a contradiction even in this most basic classification of libertarians (and here we will especially want to include anarchists): “Everyone needs to decide.”

Is that imperative any different (except in moral judgement) from Georgie Bush’s infamous, “Yer either with us or yer with the terr’ists”? It reminds me of the radical student manifestos of the 1960s, the lists of demands: “We must… The US must… The university must…” After such demands are met with silence, inaction, and downright repression, they tend to carry less weight as a tactical strategy. Maybe it’s because they are self-contradictory at the outset: challenging authority with the pretense of reverse authority.

Opting out of the political arena altogether (as far as one cares to take that road) is what I call the metapolitical alternative. The artist or mystic cannot far engage with doctrinal refinements, calls to group action, mission statements, or campaign strategies. Truer to principles of individual sovereignty, this breed of anarchist sniffs the odor of creeping systemization; of grassroots institutions growing authoritarian legs of their own; of growing legions of followers conjuring their own expectations of reputation, allegiance, compromise, monetization.

Movements imply leaders as well as followers. What leaders can be entrusted to represent everyone present—even if they were capable of sufficient transparency to recuse themselves from a deciding vote? And what is a leader without authority to lead?

Then there is the problem of doctrine, policy, and the inherent limitations of group identity. Even naysayers develop a code through which to communicate the world to each other: an in-group jargon for their ears while shunning the mainstream narrative.

The dilemma resembles the benign but unavoidable paradox of the Quakers (a “Society of Friends,” after all). Even in their practice of honoring “that of God in everyone,” they develop an inbred persona as a society (peace-loving, principled, pious). Historically they expressed their tribal character with quaint dress, and by using the democratic personal pronoun “thee.” In written doctrine or priestly title, they take pride in having none; though the elders in every meeting carry “weight” and speak in aphorisms baked into Quaker lore.

With the self-limitations of any “-ism” to avoid, maybe anarchism belongs more to metaphysics than to politics. Where even the religious affiliation among a society of friends, or a weekly gathering of subversive types at the coffee shop or pub, is a step too far into the fatally co-opted material matrix.

Is the sovereign individual then reduced to a lonely existence in blissful communion with Nature, or Spirit, removed from the strife and verbal wrangles of their primate band?

Maybe, in theory… but what is theory without practice, or Spirit without Nature? The last human standing in this debate is the first human.. And that implies clan and tribe, at least (not a lone wolf, likewise mythic). The forms of voluntary association dance through the ages, all the way to today’s primitive skills workshop, chic eco-retreat, or direct action affinity group. The defining characteristic of “sovereign” is its limitation in the context of one’s social milieu. How far does one’s will to power extend? The globe, the empire, the nation, the family, the self?

We come to the essence of individual sovereignty, the third-chakra domain, what Nietszche called “the Will to Power.” What do we want to achieve with our influence, or protect with our care?

At the primal core, we can beg off the false gods and idols of our society, and assert the purity of truth, of the absence of our desire for power in the world. Empty will yields empty power, however, without life force; and besides, it’s a contradiction when the zealous nihilist substitutes that passive goal for everything else. It’s still a goal, a desire, a fixation.

With a more positivist orientation, leaving behind the political sphere can allow the uncompromised life force to find expression instead in other areas of life. The doors are open to savoring the texture of our relationships; honing the harmonic craft of our everyday voice and creative expression; reflection and appreciation of life’s wonders and mysteries; expansion of identity to embrace all that is. Naturally, while still maintaining the integrity of that health and home.

After good health, and the comforts of home (chakras 1 and 2, most basic in the hierarchy of needs), the still unsatisfied ego asserts the will to power. Where will it turn its immense reach, its drive for significance? If the question is bypassed, it’s left blank for other aspirants of power, other players in the tournament of wills, to fill out as they choose. Through the breach of missing political will, alas, rush the demons of material lust: the taxman, the axman, the lawman, the outlaw…

Our most basic will for sovereignty compels us to react. We witness, we respond.

Perhaps anarchists’ lack of political punch (too wary of organization and leadership) is not only its weakness, but also its strength, resiliency, natural immunity to corruption, true principles held unconquered in the hearts of its practitioners.

We do not hasten to erect paper fences, toy cannon. We meet directed force with moving water.

We volunteer our service to the cause of human defense, loyal not to rebel princes but to principle.

We shake the world bear awake, and learn from how she remakes the world in her image.

This essay first appeared at Nowick Gray’s Substack, New World Dreaming.

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In Search of Kindness


By William T. Hathaway

Editorial disclaimer: William is a frequent contributor to this site, as I am sympathetic to his clear voice advocating for peace and spiritual wisdom. This piece is more pointedly political so I will insert a disclaimer with its publication. My brief critique is as follows:

While I agree with some of the underlying sentiments of the article, I take issue with the simplistic dichotomy of capitalism-bad / socialism-good, or the simplistic remedy (taking their wealth away and giving it to the workers), which sounds much like the Marxist-Leninist model Hathaway fairly criticizes. The “kinder and gentler” society he advocates is obviously laudable, but to equate that with the undefined and admittedly problematic rubric “socialism” is a stretch too far for my taste.

In the interest of free discussion of ideas, however, I’m posting the article as submitted, and invite further discussion from readers in the comments. –Nowick Gray

Now is the season when priests proclaim, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men” and mainstream media soothe us with stories and images of kindness.

But why do peace and goodwill remain just dreams? Why is kindness so rare in the world today? Why is it limited to the personal sphere? Why is the wider world so cruel?

The root cause of this is capitalism, an intrinsically violent and harsh social-economic system that shapes us. By forcing people to compete for the essentials of life, it generates selfish, aggressive personalities. Individual accumulation is the priority rather than cooperative sharing.

But capitalism is not as harsh as the feudalism it overthrew, and feudalism was not as harsh as the absolute monarchies it overthrew. Humanity is very gradually progressing through revolutions to a kinder society.

But that won’t be achieved by being kind to the capitalists. We will have to inflict the greatest unkindness on them they can imagine: take “their” wealth away from them and return it to the workers who created it. The rich will fight that with all their power. So the system must first collapse before that power can be conquered.

Then we will be able to build real socialism, which has never existed before. The Soviet Union was a travesty of true Marxism-Leninism imposed by Stalin. He and his successors financially controlled the revolutionary parties in China, Vietnam and Cuba and forced this dictatorship onto them. The results are nothing to emulate.

Conservatives claim that socialism is impossible because it goes against human nature, which they see as inherently violent, individualistic and competitive. But they are confusing capitalist nature with human nature. Most anthropologists agree there is no fixed human nature. Even within capitalism, humans differ widely from culture to culture. Individuals have many potentialities that become developed or repressed based on culture and heredity.

Liberals claim that overthrowing the dominant order is an impossible dream. Seeing themselves as pragmatic realists, they seek compromise with the capitalists.

But fundamental social change has never been achieved through gradual reforms. Those just prolong the old system by pacifying the masses. It requires a crisis and collapse, then a revolutionary upsurge that removes the old order and builds the new. Capitalism is now starting to fall apart, so this century should be exciting.

We live in a turbulent time of transition to a peaceful and kind society: socialism. The best program I’ve found for getting there is the Freedom Socialist Party’s.

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William T. Hathaway’s books won him a Rinehart Foundation Award and a Fulbright professorship. His novel Lila, the Revolutionary is a fable for adults about an eight-year-old girl who sparks a world revolution for social justice.