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

[Michael Bauwens]

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
 
 
 
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




________________________________

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


      
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