[iDC] Reposting - Re: A Reflection on the Activist Strategies in the Web 2.0 Era

Wed Jan 28 12:57:30 UTC 2009

Hi Lucia,

This is of course true, but both the 'establishment' and minoritarian's do have agency, and can react creatively to challenges. So the whole point is not to say that it is 'easy' or that any result is guaranteed, but that there is always potential and possibility,

The status quo is not really static either, and continuously incorporates cultural and political innovation.

Let's assume I'm in favor of wholistic medicine. Would I just say: well the medical establishment is all powerful and in any case there is nothing we can do. Or would be be active in various ways, creating counter or alternative networks of medical practitioners and 'patients'? That in the end the reality is a mix between the desired change and the level of acceptance that has been shown by the existing system, that is a given, but my bet would be a new range of medical freedom will have been created.

Meta-transitions are exceedingly rare, and I frankly don't think they are a result of human volition, though the latter plays a role. I think that the model of political and social revolutions that inspired the left were the result of a long series of prior changes in the economic and social landscape, the result of the actions of many. Similarly, we can through our multitude of actions and changes create a reality on the ground, that may or may not result in a meta-transition, but whose effect in changing lives and balances of power may nevertheless be substantial.

I guess this discussion is not resolvable, and that temperament has a lot to do with it, and perhaps academia self-selects for the critical part of the equation?

Michel

________________________________
From: Lucia Sommer <sommerlucia at gmail.com>
To: Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003 at yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 12:20:31 AM
Subject: Re: [iDC] Reposting - Re: A Reflection on the Activist Strategies in  the Web 2.0 Era

Hi Michael,

Any action within the cultural landscape performed from a minoritarian political position -- whether reactive or positive, new or old -- will be perceived by authority as a "contestational" act. And often as not, any or all of a variety of disciplinary agents will be sent to re-stabilize the discourses of the status-quo. 

cheers,

Lucia

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 4:45 AM, Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Lucia,

you write: 

Meanwhile, all we have is permanent resistance, by definition tactical.

But why is resistance, by definition a reactive and negative endeavour,  the only alternative to  the strategy of taking power??

Why not construct and interconnect the new, using all the interstices and new possibilities of interconnection at your disposal?

Why not turn it around, the construction of alternatives first, resistance second.

Michel

________________________________

From: Lucia Sommer <sommerlucia at gmail.com>
To: idc at mailman.thing.net
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 1:29:21 PM
Subject: [iDC] Reposting - Re: A Reflection on the Activist Strategies in the Web 2.0 Era

Sorry, I meant to post the below reply to the whole list. Curt, perhaps you want to re-post your last reply as well? Good discussion. -- Best, Lucia

For de Certeau, individuals and resistant constellations can't produce strategy, and I think he's pretty convincing on that point. It's not an ethical distinction I'm making (and I don't think it was for de Certeau either, rather his was among other things a challenge to certainties of the orthodox left that had led to impasse and to totalizing notions concerning the location of resistance). I certainly WISH  we, the "multitudes", had strategic power. Indeed, the utopian left has long proposed that we do, and even some recent attempts to re-think Marxism, like Hardt and Negri's, argue that a "movement of movements" could have strategic power. I myself am sceptical and tend toward the pessimistic on this point, or at least "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will". While I would in principle support a genuinely left revolution (strategic action), I don't see it happening any time soon. Meanwhile, all we have is permanent resistance, by definition
 tactical.

But to return to the kind of discussion that I think you're proposing with its emphasis on the questions of efficacy of practices -- which is  also what interests me: I really appreciate your attempt to problematize the binary use/production and to open up discussion about the kinds of negotiations that cultural producers make vis a vis institutions. I agree we need a better language to describe and think about these negotiations.

In this sense de Certeau's strategy/tactics distinction can be an ally to problematizing unproductive binaries like the "pure" activists vs. "bad" institution. I think we need to acknowledge the degree to which our work has the potential to be used by institutional power in ways that can compromise the public good, for instance by creating a signifier that houses a false set of associations that in turn mask the narrow interests and desire for profit of a few. But that realization can also lead to a paralysis, where one is afraid to do anything at all. One tactic suggested by Certeau's work on monumentality and used by many cultural producers in the process of institutional negotiations is that of ephemerality (as counter to strategic monumentality): the tactician gets in and out fast, deterritorializing, so as to avoid leaving material monuments or ideological imperatives.

That's only one example, but perhaps a fruitful area of discussion would be that of failure. CAE sometimes does a talk called "Crash and Burn," where it discusses times that projects have failed dramatically and even helped reinforce authoritarian power.  There's also the related question of how art fails every day, if we measure cultural activism (or any other resistant action) by the individual achievement of a single action. But fortunately collective power, the aggregate of cultural activism, can create the possibility to shift the status quo.

Thanks again, and best,

Lucia

-- 
Lucia Sommer
60 College Street
Buffalo, NY 14201
(716) 359-3061

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