as if already free ness
in short: as-if-already-free ness is spot on.. as long as we have a means/mech for it to be all of us.. legit free.. in sync (otherwise the dance won’t dance).. knowing/ignoring that some/any aren’t free chains the rest of us..
adding page while re re re reading david graeber‘s utopia of rules:
99
for much of the last century, the great revolutionary question has thus been: how does on affect fundament change in society w/o setting in train a process that will end w the creation of some new violent B? is utopianism the problem – the very idea of imagining a better world and then trying to bringing it into being? or is it something in the very nature of social theory? should w e thus abandon social theory? or is the notion of revolution itself fundamentally flawed?
not if legit revolution.. which we’ve not yet tried (ie: has to be everyone for the dance to dance)
since 60s one common solution has been to start by lowering one’s sights.. leading up to may 68 the situationists argues that it was possible to do this thru creative acts of subversion that undermined the logic of what they called ‘the spectacle’ which rendered us passive consumers.. thru these acts, we could at least momentarily recapture our imaginative powers. at the same time, they also felt that all such acts were small scale dress rehearsals for the great insurrectionary moment .. this is what’s largely gone today.. if the events of may 68 showed anything, it was that if one does not aim to seize state power.. there can be no fundamental onetime break.. as a result , among most contemp revolutionaries, that millenarian element has almost completely fallen away.. no one thinks the skies are about to open ant time soon.. there is a consolation though: that as a result, insofar as one actually can come to experienced genuine revolutionary freedom, one can begin to experience it immediately
but has to be all of us or it’s not legit free
added this comment to da/chained pages after m of care – nov 27 reading:
on saying you’re free/fine (or even saying direct action as living as if already free): 1\ you don’t see/acknowledge chained ones – so blind/pretending and not fine/free 2\ you do see chained ones – so pain or addictive coping going on
huge
has to be everyone.. everyone in sync .. or it/life/us won’t work/dance
begs a means to leap – which we have today
Putting yourself in new situations constantly is the only way to ensure that you make your decisions unencumbered by the inertia of habit, custom, law, or prejudice—and it is up to you to create these situations.
whimsy. everyday. embrace uncertainty. vulnerability in context.
ie: cure ios city
change, revolutionary change, is going on constantly and everywhere – and everyone plays a part in it, consciously or not
well.. revolutionary .. as in getting at healing (roots of) isn’t happening.. we are all changing and working on things.. but to date.. all bandaid/surface/irrelevant s.. because not deep enough focus and so.. out of sync
what is this but an elegant statement of the logic of direct action:
.. the defiant insistence on acting *as if one is already free? The obvious question is how this **approach can contribute to an overall strategy—one that should lead, perhaps not to a single moment of revolutionary redemption, but to a cumulative movement towards a world without states and capitalism. on this point no one is completely sure.. most assume the process could only be one of ***endless improvisation
*as if already free ness.. direct action to date has been reaction (not action) and it has never been all of us.. words are good.. just need to change who (has to be all) and how (so how has to accessible to everyone) ..
so.. **how to use this approach (rather phrase) as strategy? ie: 2 convers as infra
yeah ***that ie: cure ios city – in the city.. as the day.. everyday anew
from 76 footnote (which links to above quote on as if already free ness) in utopia of rules (p 253 and 99):
see my book the democracy project (2012) my own chosen title for it was, ironically, ‘as if we were already free’ but in the end, i wasn’t free to dictate my own title
crazy.. and is lse’s next book read .. after david dying .. (found out at m of care – nov 27) et al.. the democracy project
exactly point of why as if already free ness can’t work until we let go enough
.. how to ensure that those who go through this experience are not immediately reorganized under some new rubric—..that then gives way to the construction of a new set of rules, regulations, and bureaucratic institutions around it, which will inevitably come to be enforced by new categories of police.
by making sure everyone.. has something else to do.. rather than inspecting, regulating, et al..
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and (adding page) while sitting in on m of care – nov 27 reading group meeting:
fahrettin: i just want to say this principle – living if already free – whole point of david’s work is to imply that we are living in particular way of life.. implies we may live in another way of life.. but this whole thing about living as if already free.. may cause us to think.. we don’t have to do further.. we are already free.. but not if our focus is all of us.. we are not winning (free).. this principle may create for block of creating real work
none of us if one of us ness:
on saying you’re already free (direct action): 1\ you don’t see/acknowledge chained ones – so blind/pretending and not fine/free 2\ you do see chained ones – so pain or addictive coping going on
has to be everyone.. everyone in sync .. or it won’t work/dance
let’s do this first: free art-ists.
there is a nother way
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graeber and wengrow freedom law
et al
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be you. 