The Nomadic Alternative – Page 225

In his attempts to revert to the ideal society the modern revolutionary no longer concentrates on the means of production, but the desirability of production. And the new generation of anarchists are discovering, gradually and often painfully, their status as men, not mindless automata. They have refused to be robbed of that most precious freedom, the liberty to be poor. They have realized the extent to which men can do without things, rather than feel deprived of them. And they have certainly identified the right Beast. For if Hell has Jaws, it is also a place of bars and bolts.

The Monster is mechanized. The symbolism of the motor-car alone - Cougar, Jaguar or Thunderbird, with its shark fins, malicious eyes and toothed radiator grills - exemplifies the destructive drives of the military-industrial complex. The snapping fangs of Pleistocene fauna have acquired metal replacements.

"Lift up ye Gates! And be ye lifted up ye Everlasting Doors. And the King of Glory shall come in." In the frescoed anastasis of the Byzantine Church of the Chora at Constantinople, the white-robed figure of Christ harrows Hell and rescues Adam and Eve from their brass-bound prison. "Lift up ye Gates!" The gates fall flat and the prisoners leap up, free. At the foot of the fresco the Infernal Mechanic, or Lord of the Underworld, now pinioned with his own chains, lies among the metallic wreckage of his Kingdom - a pile of hinges, locks, keys and spanners that resemble the remains of a gutted internal combustion engine.