My aim was not to create a sense hopelesness, but rather an invitation to
consider the gap that exists between myopia to impending changes on the
other hand, and the hidden processes in which we ourselves, nonetheless,
create these changes (as actors, not puppets; and with this "we" no
dichotomy is implied), on the other. Mike saw people moving slowly in subway
in Moscow at these times (this is because they wear very heavy coats,
remember the climate in Moscow?), but it is these people who created and
enacted the changes that resulted in spectacular, and peaceful, turn of
events and an end of an empire, the most important outcome perhaps being a
de facto stop to aggressive military policies and withdrawl of troops from
various parts of the world (ALL parts of the world where they had been
stationed, for that matter). Then there must have been something in the
system, with all its obvious flaws, that allowed people to become actors in
the creation of this change for this change to take place, or? Or do the
dynamical non-linear systems really flip the states without enactment of
certain practices that people create together?
Forsight is porbably impossible, but a desire for changes certainly is. Mine
was just an invitation to consider the types of processes and practices that
people enact without even being necessarily aware of their ramifications. Oh
well, I don't know, perhaps, just the old controversy of how is it that
people ARE able to create their own history.
Anna Stetsenko
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 11:24 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: myopia
I, too, get a fair sampling of perspectives from other parts of the world
(echoing Diane). The view from Eastern Madagascar vis a vis globalization
and domination is pretty grim, as is the social dissolution that it
affords, for one example. At least Colin Powell can say that the best way
to fight terrorism to to fight poverty, but look who he is working for=-=
and mind you, he would be kicked out of his job with strong public support
if he suggested that American reduce their engergy consumption by 50%
or that we institute trade policies that favored, for example, Malaysia
or Argentina, not to mention Nigeria or Ceylon. A peek 20 miles south of
where I am writing from would tell the same sorry story.
Bur re myopia. vis a vis the USSR what was clear to some of us was that
the USSR was hopelessly entangled in its own top down, command and control,
secrecy and fear inducing policies. It was close to an act of treason to
make a xerox copy of anything, so clandestince critiques were made in
multiple copies by hand or typewriter. The craziness that resulted when
we started introducting open access internet practices was another symptom.
The annomi was thick enough to be sliced with a bread knife. People in the
subways moved as if in slow motion. The old icons no longer energized, and
no new icons/practices/policies were in place.
Still, when dynamical non-linear systems, which seem to be so stable, flip
states, it happens very rapidly. Forsight is not a human capacity of any
great power, resting as it does on projecting and the assumption of
continuity.
mike
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