toward an eco society
by murray bookchin (1980).. 170- page pdf.. dedicated to debbie.. reading after post scarcity anarchism and ecology of freedom.. thanks to anarchist library
notes/quotes:
5
intro (1979)
the era of the ‘managerial radical’ (to use andrew kopkind’s damning phrase) has pushed racialism itself into the shadows of history.. the managerial radical is the practitioner of organizational technique, of efficient manip, of mass mobilization as goals in themselves.. technique has become the sub for social idealism..
7
but there can be a decidedly classless, even a non exploitative society in the econ sense that still preserves hierarchical rule and domination in the social sense.. whether they take the form of.. the patriarchal fam, domination by age and ethnic groups, B institutions, ideological manip, or a pyramidal divisions of labour.. all of these may preserve hierarchy even after classes have been abolished.. classless or not.. society would be riddled by domination and a general condition of command/obedience.. of unfreedom and humiliation and perhaps most decisively, an abortion of each individual’s potentiality for consciousness, reason, selfhood , creativity and the right to assert full control over her/his daily life
hence.. if we are to complete the logic of the ecology, feminist, and community movements, we must extend our very notion of freedom beyond any concept we have held of this notion in the past
huge.. we have no idea what ldgit free people are like.. black science of people/whales law et al
8
2 major obstacles: 1\ attempt by socialist to reduce concepts of freedom to econ categories 2\ attempt by managerial radicals to compromise them.. socialist tends to be most deceptive.. slogans like: pollution is profitable, wages for housewives, fight the slumlords.. involve a subtle denaturing of the more sweeping revolutionary means for an eco society.. the abolition of domination.. and the restoration of community control..
a special onus must be borne by ideologists who perpetuate the infestation and even conceal it w theoretical cosmetics.. one thinks here of the andre gorzs and herbert marcuses who not only worship at the mausoleum of socialism but promote it as a viable habitat for the living..
more than any single journalist work, this book (gorz’ strategy for labour) brought marxism into the student for a democratic society, producing the ideological chaos that eventually destroyed it
9
we must either choose between ecology w its naturalism its anarchistic logic oof decentralization its emphasis on humanly scaled alt techs and its non hierarchical institutions .. or socialism.. w its typically marxian anti naturalism, its political logic of centralization, its emphasis on high tech, and it s B institutions.. gorz gives us neither alt in the name of both and perpetuates a confusion that has already produced an internal crisis in every american and european ecology movement
i have singled out gorz primarily because of his recent interest in eco issues.. what i have said about his hybridization of ideas could apply equally to juliet mitchell’s treatment of fem issues or david harvey’s treatment of urban community issues.. fem reduced to a matter of class oppression, community issues to a matter of econ oppression.. broader problems of freedom, hierarchy, domination, citizenship and self activity seem misty.. at times in comprehensible.. beside the nuts and bolts issues of political econ..
what makes it possible for this new class of managers to appear radical?.. partly it is the result of a lack of theoretical insight by their own followers.. the managerial radical capitalizes on a chronic american syndrome: the pragmatic hypostatization of action.. of quick results and immediate success.. fast food/politics/racialism..
10
what counts is the extent to which appearance can so easily replace reality in the american mind
magis esse quam videri et al
‘common sense’ is merely ‘sense’ that is common.. that is .. untutored, uniformed, and riddled by acquired biases.. replaces presupposition of self conscious wisdom by presupp’s of unconscious prejudice..
the managerial radical capitalizes on myth of fast success.. immediacy of reward.. foster the infantile demand for immediate gratification.. radicalism becomes fastest route to most immediate goals.. the notion that basic social change may require the labours and dedication of a lifetime.. a notion so basic to revolutionary idealism.. has no place in this technocratic constellation.. radicalism thus becomes methodology rather than morality.. fast success rather than patient struggle.. a series of manic responses rather than lasting commitment..
takes a lot of work as red flag.. lots of red ness on both sides
humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync.. for (blank)’s sake
13
(o/o sahlins’ savage non scarcity to needs focus as hierarchy).. hence even were a ‘non scarcity’ society to exist.. humanity would still suffer same privation of form and devel that exist in a ‘scarcity’ society.. ‘post scarcity’ does not denote an affluence that would stifle the fulfillment of the human condition; indeed, an abundance of needs that can be fulfilled is more likely to perpetuate unfreedom that the ‘non scarcity’ conditions of a hunting band.. ‘post scarcity’ denotes a fee society than can rejecr als dehumanizing needs precisely because it can be substantially free of need itself.. it can decide to adopt a simpler way of material life because there is enough available for everyone to accept/reject.. that it can even make such a decision reflects a high degree of social freedom in itself.. the need to diminish need would materially provide the basis .. if not the cause.. of hierarchy and domination based on privilege..
not high enough degree.. what we need is a means to undo our hierarchical listening so that we can grok and org around legit needs.. otherwise.. spinning our wheels in same song ness of spinach or rock decision making
the ‘realm of necessity’ is a distinctly historical phenom..in my view it emerge when primitive communities ceased to view nature as a co existent phenom .. had to ‘wrestle w nature’.. i share the hegelian view that humanity had to be expelled fro the garden of eden to attain the fullness of hits humanness.. but i emphatically deny that this exile necessarily taints utopia w the blood and toil of history; that the ‘realm of necessity’ must always be the ‘basis’ or precondition for the ‘realm of freedom’.. it remains fourier’s lasting contribution that the ‘realm of necessity’ can be colonized by the ‘real of freedom’.. the realm of toil by the realm of work.. the realm of technics by the realm of play.. in any case the ‘realm of necessity’ can never be viewed as a passive basis.. it must alway infiltrate and malform the ‘realm of freedom’.. marx’s tragic fate can be resolved into the fact that, integral to his entire theoretical edifice, he colonizes the ‘realm of freedom’ by the ‘realm of necessity as its basis’.. the full weight of this theoretical approach.. w its consequent reduction of social relations to econ relations.. of freedom to the ‘shortening of the working day’.. has yet to be grasped in all its regressive content..
need: org/grok around legit needs
15
this book is guided by its emphasis on hierarchy and domination as the authentic ‘social question’ of human development.. this as distinguished form the economists question of class and the exploitation of labour.. ultimately.. irreducible problem areas of society stem from a hierarchical sensibility of command/obedience that begins w the family and merely reaches its most visible social form in the factory, B and military..t marx was fall victim to giving problems econ form.. by ignoring subsurface modes of obedience/command that lie in fam, school, B and age structure by id-ing the social problem w the class relations at expense of a searching investigation in to hierarchical relations that produced class forms in first place.. indeed marxism may well be the ideology of capitalist par excellence precisely because the essential of its critique have focused on capitalist production w/o challenging the underlying cultural sensibilities that sustain it.. revolutionary project remains incomplete if it fails to see bus of eco sensibility for a hierarchical one
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to reverse this denomination of politics by a leprous series of trade offs, to provide an ethical holism rooted in the objective values that emerge from ecology and anarchism, is fundamental to this book.. for this objective to be lost to the reader is to ignore the very meaning of the essays in this compilation..
18
power to create/destroy (nov 1979)
humanity depends critically upon the complexity and variety of life, that human well being and survival rest upon a long evolution of organisms into increasingly complex and interdependent forms..t the develop of life into a complex web, the elab of primal animals and plants into highly varied forms has been the precondition of the evolution and survival of humanity and nature
thurman interconnectedness law: when you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying – Robert Thurman
graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al.. organism as fractal.. et al
19
do the roots of the ecological crisis lie in the development of technology? tech has become a convenient target for bypassing the deep seated social conditions that make machines and technical processes harmful ..t
what humanity needs is not a wholesale discarding advanced techs but a sifting indeed a further development of tech along ecological principles that will contribute to a new harmonization of society and the natural word.. t
huge
ie: tech as it could be.. to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature
true, if present econ, political and social conditions prevail.. humanity will in time overpopulate the planet and by sheer weight of numbers turn into a pest in its own global habitat.. there is something obscene however about the fact that an effect ‘population growth’ is being given primacy in the eco crisis by a nation which has little more than 7% of the world’s pop.. wastefully devours more than 50% of world’s resources and is currently engaged in the depopulation of an oriental people that has lived for centuries in sensitive balance w its environ..
20
sexuality became a refuge from a life of toil on same order as consumption of cheap gin.. the new proletariat reproduce children many of whom were never destined to survive into adulthood, as mindlessly as it drifted into alcoholism..
sexuality along w alcoholism.. all the addictions.. as cope\ing ness in sea world
population control will either be by ‘social/authoritarian/genocide’ controls.. or by libertarian, eco/rev-for-life.. either we will go directly to the social roots of the eco crisis or we will be deceived into an era of totalitarianism..
problem deep enough ness
do the roots of eco crisis lie in the mindless consumption of goods? here a half truth is used to create a whole lie.. a notion of ‘original ‘sin ‘ is created that deflects the causes of the eco problems to the bedroom, where people reproduce, or to the dinner table, where they eat, or to he vehicles, home furnishings and clothing that in large part have become indispensable to ordinary living.. mere survival of avg person in context of present society.. can we blame working people for using cars.. middle class people for purchasing suburban homes..
if even 1/2 a truth
hari rat park law et al.. huge
21
if we are to find the roots of the present eco crisis.. we must turn not to technics, demographics, growth, and a diseased affluence alone; we must turn to the underlying institutional, moral and spiritual changes in human society that produce hierarchy and domination.. not only in bourgeois, feudal and ancient society, nor in class society generally.. but at the very dawn of civilization
as in.. we’ve always been in sea world.. need means to get out.. hari rat park law
problem deep enough ness
this worldview permeated not only the official culture of hierarchical society; it became the way in which slaves, serfs, industrial workers and women of all social classes began to view themselves.. as embodied in the work ethic, in a morality based on denial and renunciation, in a mode of behavior based on the sublimination of erotic desires, and other worldly outlooks.. the slaves, serfs, workers, and female half of humanity were taught to police themselves, to fashion their own chains to close the doors on their own prison cells..
so too the inspectors of inspectors.. none of us are free
22
the greatest impediment that obstructs a resolution of this tension is the extent to which hierarchical society still fashions our outlook and actions.. it is easier to take refuge in critiques of tech and pop growth; to deal w an archaic destructive social system o nits own terms ad w/in its own framework.. almost from birth, we have been socialized by the fam, religious institutions, schools, and by the work process itself into accepting hierarchy, renunciation, and state systems as the premises on which all thinking must rest.. w/o shedding these premises, all discussions of eco balance must remain palliative and self defeating..t
huge huge huge
not almost from brith.. from birth.. maté parenting law.. graeber parent/care law.. et al
bs jobs from birth.. supposed to’s of school/work.. et al
the natural environ is turned into a gigantic factory, the city int o an immense market place.. everything from a redwood forest to a woman’s body has ‘a price’.. everything is reduced to dollars and cents.. tech cases to be an extension of humanity; humanity becomes an extension of tech.. the machine does not expand the power of the worker’ the worker expands the power of the machine.. indeed.. she/he becomes a mere part of the machine
myth of machine et al.. deem me mad.. et al
out techs must be readapted and advance into ecotechs, exquisitely and artfully adapted to make use of the local energy sources/materials.. w min or no pollution of the environ.. we must recover a new sense of our needs..t.. needs that foster a healthful life and express our individual proclivities not ‘needs’ dictate by the mass media..
begs tech as it could be first.. huge.. and we’re missing it
23
if eco movement stops at mere reforms in pollution and conservation control.. at mere environmentalism.. w/o dealing radically w the need for an expanded concept of revolution.. it will merely serve as a safety valve for the existing system of natural/human exploitation
huge.. the same same song of part\ial ness
this social order plays games w us.. it grants long delayed piecemeal and woefully inadequate reforms to deflect our energies and attention form the larger acts of destruction.. viewed in a larger perspective, this attempt to reduce eco to a barter relationship does not rescue anything; .. it is a sick strategy of benefits vs risks.. of trade offs.. that has reduced ethics to the pursuit of lesser evils rather than greater goods
fdistraction ness of part\ial ness.. killing us softy w its song
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its inherent aims are production for sake of production, the preservation of hierarchy and toil on a world scale, mass manip and control by centralized, state institutions.. if the eco movement does not direct its main efforts toward a rev in all areas of life.. social as well as natural.. et al. .then the movement will gradually become safety valve for the established order
the situation has now begun to change.. the eco crisis of our time has increasingly reversed this traditional maxim (of to live we had to survive).. today .. if we are to survive.. we must begin to live.. our solution must be commensurable w the scope of the problem
25
today.. all eco movements stand at a crossroad.. whether to work w/in existing institutions or to use direct action.. whether to form centralistic /b, and conventional forms of org or affinity groups..
oi.. any form of democratic admin.. still same song.. still killing us.. so crossroad is just ie of spinach or rock ness
it is to dissolve back into the hopeless morass of mass orgs that seek respectability rather than change
oi
a truly free society does not deny selfhood but rather supports/libs/actualizes it in the belief that *everyone is competent to **manage society, not merely an elect of experts and self styled men of genius.. direct action is merely the free town meeting writ large. it is the means whereby each individual awakens to the hidden powers w/in.. to a new sense of self confidence and self competence.. it is the means whereby individuals take control of society directly w/o reps who tend to ***usurp not only the power but the very personality of a passive, spectatorial electorate
yeah *that.. sans **that.. otherwise still ***that
maté trump law et al
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it (affin group) always remains part of its local community, sensitive to its needs and unique requirements.. yet it can coord locally/regionally into clusters and coord committees whose delegates (as distinguished from reps) can always be recalled, rotated, and strictly mandated to reflect the views of the various groups in every detail..
oi.. public consensus always oppresses someone(s) et al
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to speak bluntly, it cultivates our worst vices (doing this part\ial ness and saying it’s legit total/deep ness).. it appeals to our desire for effectiveness and our hope of archived mass support w/o revealing the immoral, in fact demoralizing implications of the methods it employs.. it conceals the fact that its methods are borrowed from the very social structure indeed the very ad agencies.. that reduce people to masses
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on plugging direct action and affin groups over ie: mult million dollar think tank for big business advanced voluntary simplicity as a new growth industry for future capital investment
but affin and da are same song .. any form of m\a\p
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toward eco society (1974)
have we somehow missed the essential fact that environmental degradation stems from much deeper sources than the blunders or ill intentions of industry and govt? that to sermonize endlessly about the possibility of environ apocalypse.. whether as result of pollution, industrial expansion or pop; growth.. inadvertently drops a veil over a more fundamental crisis in the human condition.. one that is not exclusively tech or ethical but profoundly social?..
distraction et al
31
the term environmentalism fails us.. nature viewed as passive.. deals w natural/urban/human resources.. peace as know how for plundering natural world w min disruption of habitat.. very notion of domination not brought into question (simply assumed/accepted)
finally (on ecology).. ecology recognizes no hierarchy on the level of the ecosystem.. all plays equal role in maintain in the balance and integrity of the whole.. these concepts (on eco).. in totality (summary) could be expressed as unity in diversity, spontaneity and complementarity (ue ness) .
‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows ness
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the hierarchical mentality that arranges experience itself.. is a mode of perception into which we have been socialized by hierarchical society.. this mentality tends to be tenuous or completely absent in non hierarchical communities.. in the absence of ineq.. these truly organic communities do not even have a word for equality
yeah.. that.. if only we had ie’s of that.. need to get out of sea world first..
dorothy lee observes.. ‘equality exists in the very nature of things.. as a byproduct of the democratic structure of the culture itself, not as a principle to be applied.. no attempt to achieve goal of equality.. in fact no concept of equality.. often.. no linguistic mech whatever for comparisons..
democratic admin keeping us part\ial.. keeping us in sea world..
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in contrast to strictly magical procedures.. hopi ceremonies assign a participatory rather than a manipulatory function fo humans.. all have a coop share in the maintenance of the universal order lee observes.. every aspect of a person counts goes into this huge whole.. the entire being of the hopi individual affects the balance of nature.. as each individual develops his inner potential so he enhances his participation so does the entire universe become invigorated
mix.. idea spot on.. but too many red flags
34
the notion of justice as distinguished from the ideal of freedom.. collects all of these values into a rule of equiv .. in organic society.. all have a right to means of life irrespective of what they contribute to the social fund of labour.. paul radin calls this the rul of the ‘irreductible minimum’.. true freedom in effect is an equality of unequals..
too many red flags.. any form of m\a\p
just emerges from the corpse of freedom to guard the exchange relationships.. as the exact principe of equality in all things.. equivalence itself has become a fetish
yeah.. that.. graeber exchange law et al..
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equivalence asserts itself as exchange value; thru the mediation of money, every artistic work..degraded to an exchangeable quantum..
huge – any form of m\a\p
to quibble w this kind fo system about its values.. to try to frighten it w visions about the consequences of growth is to quarrel w its very metabolism.. there is no one to talk to.. accumulation is determined not by the good/bad intentions of the individual bourgeois.. but by the commodity relationships itself.. he can only deny his econ interests by denying his own social reality.. by denying that very authority which victimizes his humanity.. it requires a grotesque self deception or worse, and act of ideological social deception to foster the belief that this society can undo its very law of life in response to the ethical argument or intellectual persuasion.. yet the even harsher fact must be faced that this system has to be undone and replaced by a society that will restore the balance between human society and nature..
resignations w costello screen\service law and how hard it is to try to get out of sea world as some rather than all
37
let me emphasize.. i am not advocating we abandon tech and return to paleolithic foodgathering.. to contrary.. i insist that our *existing tech is not sophisticated enough by comparison w the smaller scaled more versatile ecotech.. that could be developed .. t.. and to a large extend is already available in pilot form or on drawing boards..
*yeah that.. huge.. need tech as it could be to get to the ginorm/small ness of legit freedom.. to the itch-in-the-soul ginorm small..
mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity– Luma Mufleh et al
but then he goes to.. just dealing small scale for the physical things.. wind/solar et al.. ie:
such ecotech would use sun, wind, tides, waterways.. t.. as inexhaustible/recyclable fuels/energy..
yeah.. not deep enough energy source.. what we need first is a means to undo our hierarchical listening.. ie: tech as it could be
what the world needs most is the energy of 8b alive (legit free) people
i would hope that eco communities and eco techs .. scaled to human dimensions would open a new era in face to face relationships and direct democracy, providing the free time that would make it possible to manage affairs of society w/o the mediation of Bs and professional political functionaries.. out of this transcendence would emerge a new relationship between humanity and the natural work in which society itself would be conceived as an ecosystem based on unity in diversity, spontaneity, and non hierarchical relationships.
yeah.. again.. i think we have this all backwards.. we can’t let go of trying to engineer.. when that’s red flag we’re doing it/life wrong
right ideas.. too much engineering.. need to set free (has to be all in sync or dance won’t dance.. and instead will perpetuate myth of tragedy and lord et al) and trust
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open letter to eco movement
ecology in my view has always means social ecology: the conviction that the very concept of dominating nature stems from the domination of human by human, women b mean, young by elders, one ethnic group by another, society by state, individual by B, one econ class by another or a colonized people by by colonial power..
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to my thinking social eco has to begin its quest fro freedom not only in factory but also in fam.. not only in econ but also in psyche.. not only in material conditions but also in spiritual.. as long as hierarchy persists.. as long as domination orgs humanity.. the project of dominating nature will continue to exit and inevitable lead our planet to eco extinction.. t
environmentalism.. seeks to to facil domination by developing techniques for diminishing the hazards caused by dominations.. if anything their ‘eco’ pretensions are all the more dangerous because they are more deceptive and disorienting to the general public.. the hoopla about a new ‘earth day’.. et al
41
wind, solar, organic agri, holistic health and voluntary simplicity will alter very little in our grotesque imbalance w nature if they leave the patriarchal fam, the multination a corp, the B and centralized political structure, the property system and the prevailing technocratic rationality untouched.. the designer, the B the corp exec and the political careerist do not into anything new or eco in society .. the merely cushion or conceal the dangers to the biosphere and to human life by placing eco techs in a straitjacket of hierarchical values rather than by challenging the values and the institutions they rep..
like alt tech, decentralization is reduced to a mere technical stratagem for concealing hierarchy and domination..
yeah.. any form of democratic admin.. any form of m\a\p does that.. perpetuates myth of tragedy and lord
for a time.. it seemed that eco movement might begin to focus efforts on changing basic structure of our anti eco society.. not merely on providing more palatable techniques for *perpetuating it or institutional cosmetics for concealing its irremediable diseases.. the rise of the anti nuke alliances based on a decent network of **affinity groups, on a directly democratic decision making process, and on direct action seemed to support this hope.. the problem that faced the movement seemed primarily one of self ed and public ed.. the need to fully understand the meaning of the affinity groups structure as a lasting, family type form.. the full implications of direct democracy, the concept of direction action as more than a strategy but as deeply rooted sensibility, an outlook that expresses the fact that everyone had the ***right to take direct control of society and of her/his everyday life
oh my.. *that’s what **any form of democratic admin is doing.. any form of ed.. aka: people telling other people what to do.. any form of m\a\p.. oi.. ***control/rights.. huge red flags – cancerous
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energy, ‘ecotechnocracy’ and ecology
both (east and west) are ‘world views’ in search of mathematical equations.. both tend toward a shallow scientism that regards mere motion as development, changes as growth, and feedback as dialectics..
literacy and numeracy both elements of colonialism/control/enclosure.. we need to calculate differently and stop measuring things
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a mechanical spiritualism that subtly betrays them w a diff rhetoric to the very world view they have rejected
human beings, plants, animals, soil.. of an ecosystem form a community not merely because they share or manifest a oneness in cosmic energy.. but because they are qualitatively diff and thereby complement each other in the wealth of their diversity.. t
discrimination as equity.. brown belonging law.. undisturbed ecosystem.. et al
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not only is small beautiful.. schumacher.. but so is diversity..
this is small is {ginormous} beautiful ness.. ginorm as diversity to infinity et al
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the concept of ecotechnologies and ecocommunities
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endnotes: rousseau: ‘the moment a people allows itself to be rep’d.. it is no longer free; it no longer exists’
public consensus (aka: rep ness) always oppresses someone(s)
rep (death) by label(s).. by naming the colour.. et al
55
revival of kropotkin’s work as eco anarchism.. could serve as valuable point of departure for formulating an ethical dimension to the word ‘human’.. must be rooted in objective criteria about humanity itself.. what clearly unites artistotle aw kropotkin despite more than 2 millennia.. is their emphasis on self consciousness as most distinctive of human attributes.. capacity to engage in self reflection, rational actions and foresee consequences of their activities.. judging a habitat by this criterion.. obliged to look beyond mere presence of human artifacts and inquire into whether or not the habitat promotes distinctively human traits and potentialities.. *clearly a habitat that is largely incomprehensible to the humans who inhabit it would be regarded as inhuman.. t.. **whether by reason of its size, centralization or exclusivity of its decision making process.. it would deny the individual the opp to understand key social factors that affect his personal destiny.. such a habitat .. by ***closing to the individual a strategic area for the formation of consciousness.. would challenge the integrity of consciousness itself.. that this trend is.. so apparent in yrs following ww2, can evoke popular resistance is suggested by the often violent social unrest, particularly among american youth of the 60s.. ****the ego, increasingly desiccated by the aridity of the social sphere, becomes fit material for mass culture, stereotyped responses, and a preoccupation w trivia.. t
huge ie of *sea world ness.. but from the get go.. all history ness to date.. **all irrelevant s outside of sea world
hari rat park law et al.. huge
ie: ***no more oikos ness.. creating ****proper/manufactured whale being ness
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the extent to which a designer accepts this multidimensional notion of human scale generally tells us whether his work can be regarded as qualitatively ‘new’ or merely an extension of the conventional tech wisdom into new fields of research
need: tech as it could be
none of these proposals (one is from fuller) involves any appreciable structure a modifications of exiting habitat; none of them is likely to arrest the trend toward urban gigantism, political and econ centralization, B manip, and the ethic of brute self interest..
all part\ial ness to date..
57
indeed, it is doubtful if words such as nature and harmony have any meaning for the environmentalist.. nature would be regarded as an inventory of natural resources and harmony as a poetic metaphor for adaptation.. environmentalism advances the goal of using these resources efficiently and prudently.. w min harm to public health and w due regard to the conservation of raw materials for future gens
ie’s of good: baer meyer safdie.. holistic attitude toward nature.. in their quest for techs and communities that will serve to harmonize man w man and human society w nature.. they might well be called social ecologists .. new alchemy institute and director john todd.. scores major advance over many new techs.. their windmills, solar collectors, extensive gardens.. all taken together.. could be descries as a highly unique ecosystem.. todd acknowledges influence of kropofkin
so combining part ials.. oi.. still part\ial ness
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(on new alch inst initiatives).. integration of small scale ecotechs acquires a distinct communitarian thrust.. achieving a new kind of urban community based on popular control of the resources and institutions .. they stress full public participation in local govt/fin.. et al.. participation.. in life
red flags.. oi
endnote: todd’s book.. what do we use for lifeboats.. 1976 harper & row
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self management and the new tech
the highly economistic meaning we so often impart of the term self management is itself damning evidence of the extent to which industrial societal industrializes the meaning to terms.. the words self management become intellectually dissociated into their components an ideologically opposed to each other.. management tends to pre empt self; admin tends to assume sovereignty over individual autonomy
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self management is increasingly promoted for functional rather than liberatory reasons.. we are urged to that that small is beautiful because it yields the conservation of energy rather than a human scale that renders society comprehensible and controllable by all .. self activity and self management are seen as aspects of industrial logistics that resolve econ/tech problems rather than moral/social ones..
not rather than.. same song if control ness.. if any form of m\a\p.. oi
do factories, mines and large scale agri enterprises become domains of freedom because their operations are now managed by workers’ collective.. by eliminating econ exploitation have we actually eliminated social domination.. by removing class rule have we removed hierarchical rule..t.. to state this issue bluntly: can present day technics remain substantially the way it is while the men/women who operate it are expected to undergo significant transformation as human beings?
huge to why ie: cooperatives and platform coop ness et al.. not enough.. still sea world.. any form of m\a\p keeps us chained there.. perpetuating tragedy of the non common
what i propose to emphasize here (after paragraph on anti nuke ness addressing good/evil of tech) is the need for proponents of self management to deal w technics in the same ethical context that anti nuclear groups deal w energy resources..
oh my
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workers’ control may even become fashionable management strategy as long as workers consent to remain merely workers.. their ‘decisions’ may be viewed as desirable.. indeed productive.. if they contribute to the tech rationalization of industrial operations, however radical the rhetoric and colourful the institutions w/in which they manage industry
oi.. seat at the table ness.. puffs us up enough to accept compromises that unsettle our souls
selfhood, i would claim, was associated w individual claims to power w/in society rather than the management of material life.. presupposed the leisure and material freedom afforded by a well managed household.. but once this oikos was granted .. selfhood presupposed considerably more .. and these presuppositions are tremendously significant for our own age.. when the self has become grossly powerless .. and individuality little more than a euphemism of egotism
when no more oikos.. all became whales
to begin with self hood implied recognition of individual *competence.. the polis in short, rested on the premise that its citizens could be entrusted w power because they possessed the personal capacity to use power in a trustworthy fashion.. **the ed of citizens into rule was therefore an ed into personal competence, intell, moral probity, and social commitment..
oi.. *competence via **ed.. via supposed to’s of school/work.. so rather.. manufacturing consent.. voluntary compliance.. obedience.. and let’s call it informed populace/citizenry et al.. to fit within the walls of any form of m\a\p.. which includes any form of democratic admin
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anarchist org and its policy of direct action is, by defn, the ed instrument for achieving these time honoured goals.. the affinity group form is based on mutual recognition of competence in all its member or at least the need to attain competence.. where such groups case to educate toward this goal.. they become mere euphemisms.. worse.. they produce militants rather than anarchists
oi.. let go of goals/ed.. any form of m\a\p.. any form of democratic admin.. otherwise.. khan filling the gaps law..
goes on w pointing finger at holes (falling back to hierarchy/subord while saying free).. while doing same w diff words.. oi
64
hellenic selfhood found its fullest expression in the polis rathe than the oikos.. the hellenic polis and the christian congregation added the rich tints of individuality.. to this tapestry until self management acquired the resplendent colours of a highly individuated world.. we must pause to weigh meaning of these remarks.. artisanship relies on skill .. the real premise.. training and long experience in a rich variety of expressive, often artistic tasks.. highly purposeful, often intellectual activity.. its background is the work song..
oh my.. not
norton productivity law.. supposed to’s of school/work.. takes a lot of work.. et al.. oi
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latent possibilities for acquiring a pleasing and useful form
oi.. won’t get legit free (free, loving, et al) w that defn of art
norton productivity law et al
*rationalization of labour dulls his/her senses and exhausts he/her body.. first fact is dehumanization of worker into amass being; 2nd is worker’s reduction into a hierarchical being
yeah.. *rationalization of labour is same song as above.. ‘pleasing/useful/skills/goals’ et al.. leads to dehuman/hierarch
both ideologies share the notion that the factory is the ‘school’ of revolution.. rather than its undoing..
any schooling.. any form of m\a\p is our undoing
66
obviously the factory conceived as a ‘realm of necessity’ requires no need for self management.. indeed, it is the very antithesis (opp) of a school for self formation like the agora and the hellenic notion of ed.. authority, conceived as the ‘imposition of the will of another upon ours’.. as subord.. is unavoidable in any industrial society, including communism.. coordination of industrial operations presupposes subord to command.. and the necessity of authority.. to managerial command..
oi.. not opp.. same song.. any form of m\a\p is authority/imposition/compromise.. et al
67
coordination is dutifully confused w command.. organization w hierarchy, agreement w domination..
not confused.. one in the same.. oi
factory is in fact a realm of necessity not a realm of freedom.. it is a school for hierarchy, for obedience and command.. not for a liberatory revolution.. can never recover the social commitment and competence presupposed by a sweeping social rev and a truly free society
yeah.. school/schooling.. commitment and presupposed competence.. any form of people telling other people what to do.. (any form of m\a\p) is not legit freedom.. we’ll never see the dance dance
what techs can supplant the hierarchical mobilization of labour into factories?..
need: tech as it could be.. to undo our hierarchical listening
68
factory is a realm of necessity only insofar as a need remains for its existence.. the factory is the realm of hierarchy and domination.. once its functions as an instrument of human domination are questioned.. we can ask how valid is the need for its perpetuation.. by same token.. money, weapons .. are instruments of a society gone mad.. once the insanity of society is lifted.. we can also ask how valid is the need for their perpetuation.. t
yeah that.. need: means to undo our hierarchical listening as detox..
the alts that may turn arduous work into festive play: a harvest that is marked by dancing.. et al
rather.. free to dance 1st.. then legit needs actualized/met.. otherwise fake (takes a lot of work/cope\ing/motivation) dancing on top of manufactured necessities.. compensatory consumerism et al..
69
a new tech is emerging.. highly decentralized .. can acquire its *energy from sun, wind.. their concreteness makes them thoroughly utopian.. as *ed devices for community, they tend to create a politics of personality that compares only w the anarchist ‘affinity group’ as an ed arena
need: means to *energy 8b legit alive/free people 1st.. otherwise perpetuate **cancerous thinking that won’t let go of any form of m\a\p
71
myth of city planning
72
the word planning merely compounds this grotesque act of violation.. to the modern mind planning implies rationality .. a conceptual purposiveness that brings order to disorder.. that reorganizes chance and contingency into humanly meaningful design.. under capitalism.. planning is basically the conscious org of scarcity amidst abundance.. the attempt to impose a social nexus of want, denial and toil on a tech system that.. could remove all of these dehumanizing conditions from social life.. thus planning emerges not only as the validation of the give.. as opposed to revolution.. but as the rationalization of the irrational.. city planning in effect.. tries to solve problems not remove them.. it thereby retains the status quo in its solutions..t even when it seems most occupied in altering the urban structure..
aziz let go law.. and carhart-harris entropy law.. et al.. same w archi planning/design (80)
73
a model city that might have exited prior to the modern city is a fiction..
74
not until we arrive at the hellenic polis do we find a mode of civic life .. that acknowledge individuality of all its citizens..i do not want to romanticize the polis.. was reared in no small measure on the harsh *confinement of women to domestic sphere.. the leisure that made it possible for the citizen to fully participate in civic affairs depended partly on *slave labour.. yet after these qualifications are noted.. and they are characteristic of ancient world as a whole.. **we cannot help but admire .. hellenic civic rationality.. from these conditions of life.. emerges the hellenic notion of autarchia.. which .. implies for the greek a ***balance between mind and body, needs and resource, individual and society..
oh my.. *huge red flags of sea world.. and **ugh.. none of us are free.. ***no way a balance.. oi
oi..
75
on polis.. civic structure both affirms/contains individuality.. by the unimpaired expression which this structure gives to the citizens.. life lived in agora not in home.. where matters of state become subjects of personal talk.. ironically.. the fact that politics becomes gossip does not degrade politics but personalizes it and gives it a vitally existential dimension.. agora prepares way for the ecclesia.. the assembly of all citizens.. the practice of formulating policy in the open reveals the essential commitment of the polis to public purview and face to face relationships.. the hellenic mind turned.. adding a vividly humanistic dimension .. athens, like the free people who nurtured it.. was a spontaneous civic creation.. dwellings because where people lived not because of planning.. location is a function of life and sociability.. of community and intercourse freely and spontaneously expressed.. hellenic sense of space is completely humanistic and communitarian..
oh my.. so touting.. polis as good (even though sea world because ie: women, slaves).. but ‘good’ signifiers are include assembly (which is cancer) and free sociability and spontaneity et al (which is not true if ie: women, slaves).. oi
76
thus as zimmern observes.. wherever the ancient greeks came together there was a polis, that is, a free community
oi.. black science of people/whales law et al
a polis so large that it transcended a scale comprehensible to the citizen meant it .. vitiated (spoiled) its goal as a community.. so.. towns surrounded by walls.. et al
so limiting size (dunbar\ish) .. to borders (violence)
eventually fell victim to growing commerce.. that undermined its most precious civic values
precious? but.. ie: women, slaves.. oi
77
trade is the reduction and quantification of the world to commodity equivalence..t.. the leveler of quality, skill, and concrete labour to numerical units that can be measured by time and money, by clocks and gold.. what sets the is abstract quantified world in motion is competition.. the struggle for self preservation on the market place.. capitalism, the domain of competition par excellence.. has its fair share of violence, plunder, piracy and enslavement; but in the normal course of events its mode of self reservation is a quiet process of economic cannibalization.. the devouring of one capitalist by another and the ever greater centralization of capital in fewer hands..
marsh exchange law .. graeber exchange law.. et al
78
spontaneity of intercourse had been replaced by a prudent courtesy.. individual ceases to be gay.. but fearful.. the egoistic, calculating mentality.. verges on mutual terror.. t
smiles ness and evans polite\ness law and socrates supposed to law et al.. via of math and men ness.. lit & num as colonialism et al
graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al
79
to the degree that dread replaces spontaneous intercourse and its degradation into courtesy.. panic unites normally alienated people of same area and status of fears against those who are sequentially more different and more removed from the familiar conditions of their lives.. ie: ghetto ness and strangers.. the city, once the refuge of the stranger from archaic parochialism.. is now the primary source of estrangement.. ghetto boundaries comprise the unseen internal walls w/in the city
like m of care – mar 3.. asking when we lost the freedom to leave.. because no more hosting.. this is all counter from what i get from dawn of everything (book).. ie: no origins.. so ie of stranger origin here.. not original.. when ie: women/slaves were strangers/estranged.. et al
80
in city planning the counterpart of this abstract we is the abstract design: the architectural sketch that will resolve the gravest urban problems w the most sophisticated knowhow..
oi.. design/archi.. as know how.. (thinking of tapping into rowley way archi’s as form of m\a\p vs iwan baan ness).. et al
84
fuller – tries to appeal for individual spontaneity w suprahuman tetrahedronal structure that will house million people.. perhaps more absurdly he tries to combine an eco perspective w an air conditioned domes over manhattan island.. fuller.. in fact is an artist in advancing an outlook so cosmic in its insensibility to qualitative distinction that individuality and community dissolve into mere digits in a computerized world game.. his inflated, oversized vision lacks not only human scale but even natural scale..
hmm.. wonder if this oversized ness is any relation to 100% of humanity ness..? fuller too much law et al
gillis on small scale et al
86
the young people who began to formulate these new values and forms of sociation (60s).. counterculture.. comprised a privileged social stratum.. key question.. ‘why did privilege lead to a rejection of he social/material values that had spawned these very privileges in the first place? why didn’t these young people like so many before them take up the basic values of their parents and expand the arena of privilege they had inherited.. large numbers of this dropout youth, exultant in their newly discovered sense of lib.. lacked an awareness of the harsh fact that complete freedom is impossible in a prevailing system of unfreedom..t inso far as they hoped rapidly to replace the dominant culture by their own merely on the strength of ie and moral suasion.. they failed.. but insofar as they began to see selves as the most advanced sector of a larger movement to revolutionize society as a whole
hari rat park law.. so.. we have no idea what legit free people are like
87
much has been written about the retreat of dropout youth to rural communes.. far less about the extent to which eco minded young people began to subject city planning to a devastating critique.. alts radically diff from conventional city planners.. not expedites traffic, communication, econ.. but .. relationship, non hierarchical modes of org.. communistic living arrangements.. independence from market.. free human relations replacing status quo.. an expression that was very much in the air: the attempt was made to replace hierarchical space by liberated space.. ie: squatting berkeley park
88
goal of design is ‘communal ways of org ing our lives to help cut down on consumption, to provide for basic human needs more efficiently, to resist the system, to support ourselves an overcome the misery of atomized living’.. design gives expression to a new life style that stands opposed to the repressive org of society
if don’t org around legit needs ie: around/for missing pieces.. can’t get any of rest of page.. designed space ie: gardens et al.. are bandaids
91
this eco community would be more than what we have always meant by a city; it would be a social work of art, a community fashioned by human creativity, reason, and eco insight
again.. if not org’d around legit needs.. bandaid/cosmetic
93
toward vision of urban future
94
the city has become a problem not in social theory, community or psychology, but in bookkeeping.. t
rather.. has always been.. of math and men et al.. graeber violence/quantification law et al..
99
apart from episodic occupations of closed libraries, schools, and ‘people’s firehouse.. the most important of these occupations have been neglected or inhabitable buildings.. one such action.. ‘east 11th st movement’ achieved national reputation.. initially.. a puerto rican neighborhood org.. one of several in lower eastside of manhattan which formed an alliance w some young radical intellectuals to rehabilitate an abandoned tenement that had been gutted by fire.. the block itself one of worse in hispanic ghettos had become hangout for drug addicts, car strippers, muggers and arsonists.. unlike most buildings which are taken over by squatters.. 11th st was a city acquired ruin.. totally rebuilt by co opers.. by funds acquired from a city program that accepts labour as equity for loans.. ‘sweat equity program’..
iwan baan ness et al.. squatting ness..
101
that we live in a world of nation states and multinational corporations is no excuse to continue to do so..t
dawn of everything (book) stuck ness et al.. graeber make it diff law
102
but ultimately it is the very need for a reactivated citizenry that must be stressed over efficiency, eco awareness, and vocational roundedness.. t.. w/o that citizenry we now face the loss not only of our cities but of civilization itself
yeah to energy of 8bn alive/free people.. sans citizen/civ ness.. ie: david on war et al
103
any additions or details would be utopian in the worse sense of the world.. they would form a blueprint that seeks to design w/o discussion and impose w/o consent.. a lib vision should be a venture in *speculative participation.. **half finished ideas should be proferred deliberately not because finished ones are difficult to formulate but rather because completeness to the point of details would subvert dialogue.. and it is dialogue itself that is essential to civic relations.. just as it is logos that forms the basis of society..
utopian has blueprint?..
*ugh.. red flags.. **yeah that.. sans civic relations ness.. but more than subverts dialogue.. that is subverts curiosity/itch-in-the-soul.. ie: imagine if we
105
marxism as bourgeois sociology
106
essence of counter revolution.. that has more effectively used every liberatory vision against liberation..t
107
enlightenment thought retained the ethical vision of moral humanity that could be educated to live in a moral society.. this vision w its generous commitment to freedom, equality and rationality was to be the well spring of utopian socialism and anarchism in the century to follow
ugh… to intellect ness and science.. et al
108
science had not merely become a means for describing society but had become its fate.. t
naming the colour ness as the death of us ness.. graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al
domination literally ‘orders’ the project and gives it intelligibility.. far more important than marx’s concept of social development as ‘the history of class struggle’ is his drama of the extrication of humanity form animality into society, the ‘disembeddedness’ of humanity form the cyclic ‘eternality’ of nature into the linear temporality of history
this is our scrambling ness.. this is the david on war ness and the jensen civilization law ness.. and how we perpetuate it with history ness et al
110
when marx declares that /men may be distinguished form animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like (but they) begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence.. he essentially deals w humanity as a ‘force’ in the productive process that differs from other material ‘forces’ only to the degree that ‘man’ can conceptualize productive operations that animals perform instinctively..
intellect ness as cancer that scrambles us.. aka: takes us away from.. compromises our instincts/spontaneity/intrinsicness.. that makes the dance the dance..
in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
huge.. p1 of what kinship is.. reading for m of care – mar 10
domination too as we shall see w engels’ essay ‘on authority’ becomes a technical phenom that underpins the realm of freedom
society in turn becomes a mode of labour that is to be judged by its capacity to meet material needs.. class society remains unavoidable as long as the ‘mode of production’ fails to provide the free time and material abundance for human emancipation
all about whales needs.. or rather .. our assumed needs for compensatory consumerism et al
the freedom in this field cannot consist of anything else but of the fact that socialized man.. reg their interchange w nature rationally, bring it under the common control.. instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power.. always remains a realm of necessity.. the true realm of freedom can only flourish upon that realm of necessity as its basis.. the shortening of the working day is its fundamental premise’.. – (capital).. the savage who must wrestle w nature’..
‘needs’ as break from the dance.. huge
once w distrust us.. we have to manage us
111
the precondition for this transcendence is quantitatively measurable: the ‘shortening of the working day is its fundamental premise’.. until these preconditions are achieved ‘man’ remains under the tyranny of social law, the compulsion of need and survival.. the proletariat, no less than any other class in history, is captive to the impersonal processes of history..
the working class that has ‘bought into capitalism’ that seeks its share in the affluence provided by the system.. thus where reaction is the real basis of action and needs is the basis of motivation, the bourgeois spirit becomes the ‘world spirit’ of marxism
huge
thinking david on creative refusal as reaction et al.. and how we keeping org-ing around whale needs.. around compensatory consumerism et al
just as necessity becomes the basis of freedom, authority becomes the basis of rational coordination..t class society or classless.. the realm of necessity is also a realm of command and obedience.. of ruler/and ruled..
again.. once w distrust us (the dance).. we have to manage us (any form of m\a\p)
once we don’t grok enough ness.. once we think whale needs are our essential/legit needs.. we assume all/any form of m\a\p.. which perpetuates the insatiation ness of org ing around non legit needs.. et al
nika on war et al
112
marx: ‘the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on a dark background if ignorance’
not science/experimentation like a 5 yr old.. rather.. focus/light is intellect ness as enclosure et al
113
there can be no marxian theory of the fam, of feminism or of ecology because marx negates the issues they raise or worse, transmutes them into econ ones.. hence, attempts to formulate a marxian fem tend to degen into ‘wages for housewives’ a marxian psychology into a marusan reading of freud, and a marxian ecology into ‘pollution is profitable’..
our part\ial ness fixes.. rather .. our perpetuation of the cancer/war.. because we keep trying to fix by using cliches of freedom which negate/compromise/destroy freedom
115
on neo marxism, bureaucracy and the body politic
117
however problematical rousseau’s concept of ‘general will’ may be.. quite aside from his archaic concept of ‘law’.. the premises that underly it cannot be evaded: ‘.. the moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exits‘.. (links to endnote: rousseau’s influence on hannah arendt is almost as great as aristotle’s.. )
representation ness et al.. any form of democratic admin
119
keeps the socialist orbit on the defensive, all too costly not only in terms of military expenditures but also in the perpetuation of a repressive B
on the red flag ness of playing defense.. of responding .. of the need for curiosity over decision making et al
126
if the competitive nexus of market society based on the maxim ‘grow or die’ must literally simplify the organic world.. so to must the reduction of all social relations to exchange relations literally simplify the social world.. divested of any content but the brute relationship of buying/selling..
graeber exchange law.. marsh exchange law.. et al
127
if B reps the culmination of social order.. b as a system perfected to point of voiceless depersonalization.. now reps a mute society even more divested of self articulation than ‘mute nature’.. flow diagrams and systems theory become the language of corp entities .. contemp language unerringly calls this feedback, input, output.. not discourse, dialogue or judgement..
128
c may have fred humanity form the archaic ‘idolatry of nature’ but it did so only by committing humanity to the modern idolatry of quantity..
graeber violence/quantification law
let there be no mistake about the fact that we are never ‘disembedded’ from nature.. indeed, it has never been a question of whether we were ’embedded in nature or not, but rather the kind of nature we have always been ’embedded ‘ in.. organic or inorganic.. real or mythic, whole or one sided..
this is great ref/resonation w sea world ness and hari rat park law.. if only we could just see that.. and get out
129
today.. any meaningful project for the reconstruction of a revolutionary theory and practice must take its position of departure from 3 basic premises: 1\ reconstitution of cell tissue society 2\ abolition of domination in all forms 3\ abolition of hierarchy in all forms – precondition to 2
aka: any form of m\a\p
if it cannot assemble to debate, formulate and decide the policies that shape social life..underlying every enterprise of the dissolution of the body politic into the faceless sovereignty of delegate authority is the hidden belief in an ‘elect’ that is alone endowed w the capacity to rule and command
oi.. already negating your conditions of 129
indeed, revolution can be defined as the most advance form of self activity, as direct action raised to level where land, factories, streets, directly taken over by autonomous people.. in the absence of this level of activity, social consciousness remains mere mass consciousness that can easily be manip’d by hierarchies.. delegate authority vitiates the individuation of the ‘masses’ into self conscious beings who can take direct, unmediated control of society into their own hands..
oi.. same song .. not new .. aka: domination, hierarchy, any form of m\a\p
130
i would join mi finley in seriously asking if we should not try to recover the more fascinating ie of the athenian polis which, *despite its many shortcomings, provides more expansive institutional ies for a liberated society that any we are familiar w today.. that athenian democracy was based on a ‘sovereign assembly.. open to every citizen’.. and convene 40 times a year.. anti B.. managed by rotating coucil of 500 whose chairmen selected by lot for single day.. constitute a controlled selfhood.. what we call self control.. that renders community life or koinonia possible.. ‘could prevent chaos on one hand or tyranny on other had there not been self control among enough of the citizen body to contain its behavior w/in bounds’.. observes finley.. this self control.. ‘anyone who does not share in life of citizen.. is useless.. when civil war in city .. anyone who does not take up arms on one side or tother shall be deprived of vcivli rights’..
oi.. puke page.. *like the death of us..
so.. domesticate/ed the wild.. otherwise can’t live together..
rather.. then we will never dance
131
hannah arendt was to formulate this educative process.. forming of the individual.. that renders authentic judgment possible
oi.. no prep, no train, all red flags that we have ie: domination/hierarchy
need to let go of any form of m\a\p
133
it is indeed doubtful if, in the even of truly revolutionary change, that workers will want to control production and bask in the glories of an econ based on ‘worker’s control’..
this is like paying housewives and coop ness.. we have no idea what legit free people are like.. am guessing all we see today as basis would become irrelevant s
137
on spontaneity and organisation
copied/added-to 137-150 here: murray on spontaneity
138
the enormous advance scored by the counter cultural movement over the socialist movement is attested precisely by a personalism that sees in impersonal goals.. even in the proprieties of language, gesture, behavior and dress, the perpetuation of domination in its most insidious unconscious s forms..
language as control/enclosure et al
139
we come here to one of the most vexing problems in the revolutionary process.. a problem that has never been adequately understood by the socialist movements.. where advanced.. essentially premature revolutions failed.. this was primarily because the revolutions had no *material basis for consolidating the general interest of society.. the tech premises did not exist for the consolidation of this general interest in the form of a harmonized society..
sounds like need for tech as it could be.. (*sans material ness).. to undo our non hierarchical listening so we can org around legit needs
all ‘proletarian revolutions’ have failed because the technological premises were inadequate for the *material consolidation of a ‘general will‘.. the only basis on which the dominated can finally eliminate domination.. t
org not around *material ness.. rather around grokking enough ness.. otherwise same song
140
it is not for want of org that the past revolutions of radical elements ultimately failed but rather because all prior societies were org’d systems of want.. in our own time.. the general interest of society can be tangibly and immediately consolidated by a post scarcity tech to material abundance for all..t.. even by the disappearance of toil as an underlying feature of human condition.. w the lever of an unprecedented material abundance the revolution can remove the most fundamental premises of counterrevolution.. the scarcity that nourishes privilege and the rational for domination..
not abundance as in a lot .. like we’re imagining.. rather.. enough ness.. like graeber stop at enough law et al..
need means to undo our hierarchical listening so we can get back/to enough
[quote tweeted this tweet to @debbiebookchin: to revolution murray was about.. just needed diff tech..
not about tech for garnering enough material ness.. but tech for grokking enough ness first]
endnote: the word (people) will reflect the general interest of a truly human movement, a general interest that expresses the *material possibilities for achieving a classless society.. t
sans *material.. rather energy/itch which makes us legit spontaneous..
still endnote: the utter stupidity of the american ‘left’ during the late 60s.. in projected a mindless ‘politics of polarization‘.. and thereby wantonly humiliating so many middle class.. and bourgeois.. elements who were prepared to listen and to learn, can hardly be criticized too strongly.. insensible to the unique constellation of possibilities that stared it in the face, the ‘left’ simply fed its guilt and insecurities about itself and followed a politics of systematic alienation .. dehumanizing verbiage (police as pigs opponents as fascists).. the student strike that followed the kent murders revealed to the ‘left’ and the students alike that they had succeeded only too well in polarizing american society..
like now..
has to be all of us for the dance to dance.. none of us are free et al
142
spontaneity is not mere impulse, certainly not in its *most advanced and truly human form.. and this is the only form that is **worth discussing..
oh my.. missing it here.. compromising spontaneous ness form the get go.. rather.. in *whale form.. so **whalespeak
spontaneity is behaviour, feeling and thought that is free of external constraint.. of imposed restriction.. t
full stop.. sans ‘advanced’ ‘impose’ ‘sound guidelines’.. has to be sans any form of m\a\p or not legit spontaneous ness..
brown belonging law.. undisturbed ecosystem .. et al
it is self controlled, internally controlled, behaviour, feeling and thought.. not an uncontrolled effluvium of passion and action.. from the libertarian communist viewpoint, spontaneity implies a capacity in the individual to *impose self discipline and to formulate sound guidelines for social action..
this is whalespeak.. ie: *this is really voluntary compliance
insofar as the individual removes the *fetters of domination that have stifled her/his self activity.. she/he is acting, feeling and thinking spontaneously.. if there is an imperative need for a communist consciousness in the revolutionary movement today.. we can never hope to attain it w/o spontaneity
but has to be legit spontaneity.. sans *any form of m\a\p
spontaneity does not preclude (prevent) org and structure.. to the contrary.. spontaneity ordinarily yields non hierarchical forms of org.. forms that are truly organic.. self created and based on *voluntarism.. the only serious question that is raised in connection w spontaneity is whether it is informed or not.. the spontaneity of a child in a liberatory society will not be same order as spont of a youth, or youth same order as that of an adult; each will be more informed/knowledgeable /experience that its junior.. revolutionaries may seek today to promote this informative process.. but if they try to contain or destroy it by forming **hierarchical movements they will vitiate the very process of self realization that will yield self activity and society based on self management..
oh my oh my.. killing spontaneous ness from the get go.. by *voluntary compliance ing it.. which circles back round to **hierarchy ness..
freeman structure law (?) et al..
graeber unpredictability/surprise law.. maté not yet scrambled law.. et al.. we have it backwards.. key element in cancer: intellect ness et al
endnotes: obviously i do not believe that adults today are ‘more informed/knowledgeable/experience’ than young people in any sense that imparts to the greater experience any revolutionary significance.. to the contrary.. *most adults in the existing society are mentally cluttered w preposterous falsehoods..t and if they are to achieve any real learning they will have to undergo a **considerable unlearning process
rather *all.. like whales in sea world.. we need not yet scrambled ness and hari rat park law
need: means to undo our non hierarchical listening as detox
143
revolutionaries have the responsibility of helping others become revolutionaries.. not of ‘making’ revolutions.. presupposes existential relations w others of a like kind who are loving and mutually supportive..
imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday.. and used that data to augment our interconnectedness
this conception of revolutionary org forms the basis of the anarchist affinity group.. members conceive of selves as brothers and sisters whose activities and structures are *’transparent to all‘.. such groups function as catalysts in social situations, not as elites.. they seek to advance the consciousness and struggles of the large communities in which they function.. not assume positions of command..
if thinking.. *transparent ness .. already a position of command.. any form of m\a\p compromises an undisturbed ecosystem.. brown belonging law et al
endnotes: it (revolution) will emerge only when it is left to do so on its own..t
huge to ue ness..
and why we haven’t yet gotten to global equity.. we can’t seem to let go enough to see what legit free people are like.. pearson unconditional law et al
‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
144
truth today can exist only as art and art only as truth..
to legit art .. being legit free human et al.. (i think) truth ness (aka: intellect ness et al) is irrelevant
145
rev is a magic moment not only because it is unpredictable; it is a magic moment because it can also precipitate into consciousness w/in weeks, even days, a disloyalty that lies deeply hidden in the unconscious.. a majoritarian revolution does not mean that the great majority of the pop must necessarily go into revolutionary motion all at the same time..initially the people in motion may be a minority .. a substantial popular spontaneous minority to be sure.. not a small ‘well discipline’ centralized and mobilized elite.. the consent of the majority may reveal itself simply in the fact that it will no longer defend the established order.. a ‘wait and see’ attitude to determine if, by denying the ruling class its loyalty, the ruling class is rendered powerless.. only after testing the situation by its passivity may it pass into over activity.. and then w a rapidity and on a scale that removes in an incredibly brief period institutions, relations, attitudes, and values that have been centuries in the making..t
yeah that.. ie: short bp.. modeling a nother way so the world can leap.. everyone in sync law et al
147
this complementary relationship reaches is most harmonized form in true art just as will reaches its most harmonized form in authentic play.. endnote: music is the most striking ie where are can exist for itself and even combine w play for itself.. the competitive sports on the other hand are forms of play that are virtually degraded to marketplace relations notably in the frenzy for scoring over rivals and the egocentric antagonisms that the games so often engender..
the self in hierarchical society not only lives, acts, and communicates hierarchically; it thinks/feels hierarchically by organizing the vast diversity of sense data, memory, values, passions and thoughts along hierarchical lines.. differences between things, people and relations s do not exist as ends in themselves; they are org’d hierarchically in the mind itself and pitted against each other antagonistically in varying degrees of dominance and obedience even when they could be complementary to each other in the prevailing reality
148
both are separated by the enormous development of technology, a development that opens the possibility of a transcendence of the domain of necessity.. t
if only.. ie: tech as it could be.. a means to undo our hierarchical listening.. so we can org around legit needs
endnote: art in the sense that ecology demands continual improvisation.. t
let’s org for that
150
more than ever, we now know a fact from lived experience that no theoretical tomes could establish: consciousness can change rapidly indeed w a rapidity that is dazzling to the beholder.. in a revolutionary epoch, a year or even a few months can yield changes in popular consciousness and mood that would normally take decades to achieve
our leap ability.. for (blank)’s sake
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conclusion: utopianism and futurism
whatever claims these futurists (tofflers, ehrlichs, macluhans, kahns, weiners, fullers, hardins) may make for their visions or dreams.. their scenarios are notable for one compelling fact: they offer no challenge to the bases of the status quo.. what exists in nearly all futuristic scenarios and visions is the extension of the present.. the status quo in effect is enlarged rather than challenged, even by futurist who profess to favour miniaturization an decentralization.. it is presupposed that the existing political, econ, property, and value systems, often the exiting cities, media networks, B, corps, market structure, monetary relations and even military and police machinery.. all. will continue to exist in one form or another.. futurist rarely examine their highly conventional presuppositions.. these structures are extended to the future as such, hence the future merely becomes the present writ large (or small) w the verbal veneer of a utopian vocab.. t
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to ‘play the game’ w a cordial smile, to mingle the most odious contradiction w courtesy, to seek the lowest common denominator in ideas and constituencies w stylish ‘sensitivity’.. to ignore coherence and consistency by appealing to ‘consensus’ and ‘unity’.. all of this makes ‘coexistence’ the device par excellence for adaptation, survival and above all.. the domination and sovereignty of the status quo.. the essence of futurism and for that matter of environmentalism and marxism is that the society’s institutions, values and prejudices are not examine in a truly fundamental sense.. when fuller can now describe the earth as a ‘spaceship’.. his claims to an ecological sensibility become a travesty of ecology.. when macluhan can impart to media a capacity to produce a ‘global village’ the contradictory nature of the term itself renders his ‘utopianism’ into a mockery of utopia.. unless we study this society w a 3rd eye that is not born of institutions, relations, and values, we become ideologically and morally entrapped in presuppositions that have been built into our normal thinking as unconsciously as breathing..t
black science of people/whales law
utopia ness to date as whalespeak verbiage.. so same song
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in a sense, we must now be free of history.. not of its memory but its icy grasp on consciousness.. to create history rather than to be created by it
yeah.. history in sea world .. irrelevant s to legit free people.. but not even to create it.. to let go of it..
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futurism has abolished the future.. it has done so by assimilating the future to a present that thereby acquires a stagnant externality by virtue of the extent to which it permeates the eras that lie ahead..
utopia redeems the future.. we seek a new unity w nature, the abolition of hierarchy and domination.. the fullness of spontaneity and the wealth fo diversity
letting go of any form of m\a\p in order to get back/to spontaneity and discrimination as equity et al
we must replace the state institutions based on professional violence by social institutions based on mutual aid and human solidarity.. we must replace centralized social forms by decentralized popular assemblies; representatives and Bs by coordination bodies of spokespersons w mandated admin powers.. each subject to rotation, sortition and immediate recall..
oi.. after bashing utopia ness.. same song
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appendix: andre gorz rides again.. or politics as environmentalism
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to talk about ecology when one actually means environmentalism is no mere world play.. gorz’s economization of ecology is not a mere episode in his book.. it is really its underlying theoretical basis..
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if gorz’s evocation of a ‘society w/o B’ whose ‘major industries are centrally planned’ seems indigestible, his image of a ‘market that withers away’ produces outright heartburn.. withering away of market as preposterous as withering away of state.. one must ask.. a market econ or reciprocity ? state or society?
no better talk today.. still whalespeak.. ie: reciprocity as same song
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one can go on indefinitely comparing/contrasting gorz’s remarks in one part of the book w contrary ones in another part.. the fact is that gorz simply does not know how to deal w the meaning of the word ‘scarcity’..
much like all the books.. no? all the people’s knowing ness.. intellect ness
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french president giving french people heavy dos of gorzutopia which happily mixes the fancies of schumacher and illich together w gorz and marx.. the govt we are told had developed a program for alt pattern of growth based on alt econ/institutions.. frenchmen will work less.. et al..
e f schumacher.. ivan illich.. andré gorz.. karl marx.. all of us.. drowning in whalespeak
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despite its radical rhetoric, ecology as politics contains some of the worst, albeit fashionable prejudices of the environmentalist movement.. tastelessly decorated w marxian terminology
yeah.. that’s all of us.. all of history ness to date.. all whalespeak.. diff degrees and flavors of whalespeak
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the book itself is not simply a bizarre mix of utterly contradictory theories and facts; it is a compelling symptom of the crisis of modern socialism.. what appear as conflicting ideas in the book are not ideological contradictions; they are really cultural traits of an emerging era of intellectual confusion and incoherence as a normal condition of the international left..
yeah again.. not just ‘left’ ness.. all of us.. all of history ness to date.. still/always in sea world speaking, documenting, analyzing .. whalespeak
to be out of focus is note merely fashionable to day but absolutely necessary if one wishes to resonate w the prevailing culture.. gorz is merely one of the more vulnerable it’s of this ideological eclecticism.. perhaps more clearly that most his is the tombstone to an era when revolutionaries took their ideas seriously.. when they criticized their opponent w ruthless logic.. when they demanded clarity coherence and insight.. w gorz we enter an entirely diff era.. one where the state legislates anarchy into existence.. where not only the sate but the market withers away..
krishnamurti measure law.. crazywise (doc).. et al
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neither marx not bakunin, engels nor kropotkin, lenin nor malatesta are permitted to speak in their own voices.. gorz tunes them in, out, or upr as his journalists needs require, like a tv tech toying w his monitoring panel.. accordingly fashion becomes a sub for theory and the latest gimmick a sub of serous practice
again.. all of us.. and.. rather.. theory a sub for alive living/being
books like eco as politics are not merely a problem but a challenge.. will ideas becomes maters of serious concern or mere topics for radical chit chat.. in any case.. it (truth) will not be found in radical comic books that have been prepared by ideological cartoonists
oh my.. yeah.. again.. all of us .. cartoonists chit chatting (written, oral, et al) the day away..
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be you. 