RE: [xmca] debt crisis, cultural memory, and narrativity

[Bruce Robinson <bruce@brucerob.eu>]

To reply briefly from my phone .. I think the failure of OWS (which I support) to raise any specific demands is a weakness rather than a strength, which means the movement will ultimately dissipate. The history of the 1999-2002ish 'anti-globalisation movement showed that street protest can only go so far before a  movement declines.

I've written something on this in relation to the recent UK student movement entitled 'The Party's not over' which I'll post when technology permits. One of the reasons I'm critical of network forms of organisation is precisely that it is not a good repository for cultural memory.

Sent from my HTC

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 19:42
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: RE: [xmca] debt crisis, cultural memory, and narrativity

Hi Larry,
 
I was just talking about this with some colleagues.  I think it is interesting that most people don't consider a common thread to #OWS to be a single thing (one of the reasons that the movement is refusing to put forth a reified set of demands)  but is actually a process - the use of the Internet as a communicative device in order to build a movement.  There is a narrative, but I think you would have a hard time thinking of this narrative as being linear in any way.  Instead it is a pinging back and forth of ideas, actions, relationships, moving from level to level with extraordinary speed and facility in ways that we have never seen before.  The entire system of channels and gatekeepers of information that has been developed over the last century has more or less collapsed.  Videos go viral, human productive actions move from one arena to another, individuals come together and then disperse, and what holds it together I think is multi-lateral communications through the Internet using a series of slowly developing hubs (e.g. DailyKos).
 
What is most amazing I think about what is happening, and suggests that it is something new, is that traditional gatekeepers simply don't know what to make of it or how to respond.  It has become impossible to ignore, but some ridicule, some become angry, some are confused, some try to co-opt.  What is also interesting is that way in which direct activity has taken on the form of the Internet.  One of the less remarked phenomena of #OWS (and there are many) is the organic development of General Assemblies.  These are completely open in which any person can make an argument or suggestion, or point.  The meetings are non-linear (although I continue to think we need another term), but they work in ways people would have not thought possible.
 
Anyway need a dissertation topic?  
 
Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss
Sent: Mon 10/17/2011 2:19 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [xmca] debt crisis, cultural memory, and narrativity



The occupy wall street movement and the Arab Spring. Do they have a common
source?? Is that source our relation to DEBT as a moral stance embedded
within capitalistic activities which get represented within narrative form?

I'm attaching an article on narrativity in text construction and its
relation to various notions of self construction.  I think it is an
interesting summary of the question, Is narrativity a primary or a secondary
phenomena? The article may be interesting for locating various notions or
assumptions of "the self" and the sense of "situated agency or
intentionality" assumed.

 If the occupy wall street movement is a "space" to create an alternative
narrative that challenges exchange value social relations, then how we view
narrativity, speech acts, and activity are central concerns.   I found the
discussion of "soft notions" of "self" or "identity" interesting.

Larry



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