Tong
From Infoshop OpenWiki
A tong in general use is a Chinese American secret society. The first tongs were created in the latter half of the 19th century by the earliest of Chinese immigrants to come to the United States. Tongs were primarily formed by outcasts and others excluded from more legitimate associations for the purposes of mutual protection and later for criminal benefit with some political goals.
Hakim Bey, in "Immediatism" delves into this general definition, describing it 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)." The tong's secrecy and mutual aid mimicked many of the same practices other secret groups started, such as Freemasonry and the early illegal trade union movement. Sometimes this would mean the creation of dues and creating some sort of insurance for its excluded membership, covering health and funeral costs. Other times it was done for conviviality, people simply gather and share food or other social activity.
An anarchist criticism of tongs in the general sense would touch on their sometimes hierarchic structure. Hakim Bey agrees, saying the "intensely hierarchical structure of the traditional tong would obviously not work" and asserts a desire for tong's to be "non-hierarchic" in structure.
Bey uses the tong as a model for accomplishing the highest of immediatist organization. Hakim Bey describes the immediatist tong as a clandestine group that aims to have fun in the creation of beauty that destroys ugliness. Sometimes these groups may experience something akin to a peak experience, a feeling of intense happiness, harmony and connectedness with existence. The purpose of immediatist groups is to "is to optimize conditions for the emergence of the TAZ (or even the Insurrection)".
Immediatism is a game of subversion that can be practiced by artists, revolutionaries and nonrevolutionaries with various qualifiers for success. Bey describes two qualifiers in "Tong Aesthetics" that may enhance the beauty of the tong. Both are described as using mythic systems. By "Myth" Bey means "a story which is not only about "real life" but also wants to manifest as real life." and both must "point beyond (or even away from) ideology and abstraction". The first is the cause, which is ultimately tied to insurrection, but because it is so "remote", it serves the immediatist tong little. Instead, Hakim Bey suggests that the cause is to maximize the potential for the creation of TAZs or Temporary Autonomous Zones. The second is the legend or "the story the secret society tells itself about the cause". Legends are expressed in a passionate way to evoke a perpetual desire for the cause. Legends develop and deepen the connectedness of the tong. Legends are not programs that can be read or shared in a linear manner. Rather, legends "light fire in the minds of certain hearers, precisely those for whom the legend crystallized out of the noosphere in the first place." The legend inspires the intentions of the tong and without intentions the tong can not act.
As with all immediatist groups, forms of mediation are to be avoided. In the case of the tong, simply avoiding activities that would gain the focus of the media creates a quasi-secrecy and maintains the power of tong activities which could ultimately become disempowered through media exposure. Because relatively secrecy can be found by avoiding mediation, Bey suggests that tongs place a higher priority on having fun and connecting with others, that is a success in itself given the disconnectedness and isolation of today's society.
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This term is part of the Infoshop Glossary
