
Another reprint from the booklet "Radio Sermonettes" (new essays
by Hakim Bey).  Please reproduce and disseminate freely.

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The Tong

"The mandarins draw their power from the law; the people, from the 
secret societies."  (Chinese saying)

Last winter I read a book on the Chinese Tongs (*Primitive Revolutionaries 
of China: A Study of Secret Societies in the Late Nineteenth Century*, Fei-
Ling Davis; Honolulu, 1971-77):--maybe the first ever written by someone 
who *wasn't* a British Secret Service agent!--(in fact, she was a Chinese 
socialist who died young--this was her only book)--& for the first time I 
realized *why* I've always been attracted to the Tong: not just for the 
romanticism, the elegant decadent chinoiserie decor, as it were--but also 
for the form, the structure, the very essence of the thing.

Some time later in an excellent interview with William Burroughs in 
*Homocore* magazine I discovered that he too has become fascinated with 
Tongs & suggests the form as a perfect mode of organization for queers, 
particularly in this present era of shitheel moralism & hysteria.  I'd agree, 
& extend the recommendation to *all* marginal groups, especially ones 
whose jouissance involves illegalism (potheads, sex heretics, 
insurrectionists) or extreme eccentricity (nudists, pagans, post-avant-garde 
artists, etc., etc.).

A Tong can perhaps be defined as a mutual benefit society for people with 
a common interest which is illegal or dangerously marginal--hence, the 
necessary *secrecy*.  Many Chinese Tongs revolved around smuggling & 
tax- evasion, or clandestine self- control of certain trades (in opposition to 
State control), or insurrectionary political or religious aims (overthrow of 
the Manchus for example--several tongs collaborated with the Anarchists 
in the 1911 Revolution).

A common purpose of the tongs was to collect & invest membership dues 
& initiation fees in insurance funds for the indigent, unemployed, widows 
& orphans of deceased members, funeral expenses, etc.  In an era like 
ours when the poor are caught between the cancerous Scylla of the 
Insurance Industry & the fast-evaporating Charybdis of welfare & public 
health services, this purpose of the Secret Society might well regain its 
appeal.  (Masonic lodges were organized on this basis, as were the early & 
illegal trade unions & "chivalric orders" for laborers & artisans.)  Another 
universal purpose for such societies was of course conviviality, especially 
banqueting--but even this apparently innocuous pastime can acquire 
insurrectionary implications.  In the various French revolutions, for 
example, dining clubs frequently took on the role of radical organizations 
when all other forms of public meeting were banned.

Recently I talked about tongs with "P.M.," author of *bolo'bolo* 
(Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series).  I argued that secret societies are 
once again a valid possibility for groups seeking autonomy & individual 
realization.  He disagreed, but not (as I expected) because of the "elitist" 
connotations of secrecy.  He felt that such organizational forms work best 
for already-close-knit groups with strong economic, ethnic/regional, or 
religious ties-- conditions which do not exist (or exist only embryonically) 
in today's marginal scene.  He proposed instead the establishment of 
multi-purpose neighborhood centers, with expenses to be shared by 
various special- interest groups & small-entrepreneurial concerns 
(craftspeople, coffeehouses, performance spaces, etc.).  Such large centers 
would require official status (State recognition), but would obviously 
become foci for all sorts of non- official activity-- black markets, 
temporary organization for "protest" or insurrectionary action, 
uncontrolled "leisure" & unmonitored conviviality, etc.

In response to "P.M."'s critique I have not abandoned but rather modified 
my concept of what a modern Tong might be.  The intensely hierarchical 
structure of the traditional tong would obviously not work, although some 
of the forms could be saved & used in the same way titles & honors are 
used in our "free religions" (or "weird" religions, "joke" religions, anarcho-
neo-pagan cults, etc.).  Non-hierarchic organization appeals to us, but so 
too does ritual, incense, the delightful bombast of occult orders-- "Tong 
Aesthetics" you might call it--so why shouldn't we have our cake & eat it 
too?-- (especially if it's Moroccan *majoun* or *baba au absinthe*-- 
something a bit *forbidden*!).  Among other things, the Tong should be a 
work of art.

The strict traditional rule of secrecy also needs modification.  Nowadays 
anything which evades the idiot gaze of publicity is already *virtually* 
secret.  Most modern people seem unable to believe in the reality of 
something they never see on television--therefore to escape being 
televisualized is already to be quasi-invisible.  Moreover, that which is 
*seen* through the mediation of the media becomes somehow unreal, & 
loses its power (I won't bother to defend this thesis but simply refer the 
reader to a train of thought which leads from Nietzsche to Benjamin to 
Bataille to Barthes to Foucault to Baudrillard).  By contrast, perhaps that 
which is *unseen* retains its reality, its rootedness in everyday life & 
therefore in the possibility of the marvelous.

So the modern Tong cannot be elitist--but there's no reason it can't be 
*choosy*.  Many non-authoritarian organizations have foundered on the 
dubious principle of open membership, which frequently leads to a 
preponderance of assholes, yahoos, spoilers, whining neurotics, & police 
agents.  If a Tong is organized around a special interest (especially an 
illegal or risky or marginal interest) it certainly has the right to compose 
itself according to the "affinity group" principle.  If secrecy means (a) 
avoiding publicity & (b) vetting possible members, the "secret society" can 
scarcely be accused of violating anarchist principles.  In fact, such societies 
have a long & honorable history in the anti-authoritarian movement, from 
Proudhon's dream of re-animating the Holy Vehm as a kind of "People's 
Justice," to Bakunin's various schemes, to Durutti's "Wanderers."  We ought 
not to allow marxist historians to convince us that such expedients are 
"primitive" & have therefore been left behind by "History."  The 
absoluteness of "History" is at best a dubious proposition.  We are not 
interested in a return to the primitive, but in a return OF the primitive, 
inasmuch as the primitive is the "repressed."

In the old days secret societies would appear in times & spaces forbidden 
by the State, i.e. where & when people are *kept apart* by law.  In our 
times people are usually not kept apart by law but by mediation & 
alienation (see Part 1, "Immediatism").  Secrecy therefore becomes an 
avoidance of mediation, while conviviality changes from a secondary to a 
primary purpose of the "secret society."  Simply to meet together face- to-
face is already an action against the forces which oppress us by isolation, 
by loneliness, by the trance of media.

In a society which enforces a schizoid split between Work & Leisure, we 
have all experienced the trivialization of our "free time," time which is 
organized neither as work nor as leisure.  ("Vacation" once meant "empty" 
time--now it signifies time which is organized & filled by the industry of 
leisure.)  The "secret" purpose of conviviality in the secret society then 
becomes the self-structuring & auto-valorization of free time.  Most 
parties are devoted only to loud music & too much booze, not because we 
enjoy them but because the Empire of Work has imbued us with the 
feeling that empty time is wasted time.  The idea of throwing a party to, 
say, make a quilt or sing madrigals together, seems hopelessly outdated.  
But the modern Tong will find it both necessary & enjoyable to seize back 
free time from the commodity world & devote it to shared creation, to 
*play*.

I know of several societies organized along these lines already, but I'm 
certainly not going to blow their secrecy by discussing them in print.  
There are *some* people who do not need fifteen seconds on the Evening 
News to validate their existence.  Of course, the marginal press and radio 
(the only media in which this sermonette will appear) are practically 
invisible anyway--certainly still quite opaque to the gaze of Control.  
Nevertheless, there's the principle of the thing: secrets should be 
respected.  Not everyone needs to know everything! What the 20th 
century lacks most--& needs most--is *tact*.  We wish to replace 
democratic epistemology with "dada epistemology" (Feyerabend).  Either 
you're on the bus or you're not on the bus.

Some will call this an elitist attitude, but it is not--at least not in the C. 
Wright Mills sense of the word: that is, a small group which exercises 
power over non-insiders for its own aggrandizement.  Immediatism does 
not concern itself with power-relations;-- it desires neither to be ruled nor 
to rule.  The contemporary Tong therefore finds no pleasure in the 
degeneration of institutions into conspiracies.  It wants power for its own 
purposes of mutuality.  It is a free association of individuals who have 
chosen each other as the subjects of the group's generosity, its 
"expansiveness" (to use a sufi term).  If this amounts to some kind of 
"elitism," then so be it.

If Immediatism begins with groups of friends trying not just to overcome 
isolation but also to enhance each other's lives, soon it will want to take a 
more complex shape:-- nuclei of mutually-self-chosen allies, working 
(playing) to occupy more & more time & space outside all mediated 
structure & control.  Then it will want to become a horizontal network of 
such autonomous groups--then, a "tendency"--then, a "movement"--& 
then, a kinetic web of "temporary autonomous zones."  At last it will strive 
to become the kernel of a new society, giving birth to itself within the 
corrupt shell of the old.  For all these purposes the secret society promises 
to provide a useful framework of protective clandestinity--a cloak of 
invisibility that will have to be dropped only in the event of some final 
showdown with the Babylon of Mediation...

Prepare for the Tong Wars! 

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