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

[Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com>]

OWS has a clear initial orientation:
1) Wall Street is the target
2) We are the 99%

Some clever leadership in that initial framing

Commencing as a leaderless movement officially in name has some advantages.
 No one is initially excluded. The splinter groups that have dominated
street protests over the past few decades are not so readily in a position
to step forward as the natural "leaders".

In practice the peoples microphone concept is not always followed. However,
decision by consensus is more of a worry in terms of leadership evolving
from the movement itself. This either leads to endless discussion
(debilitating) or nothing of cutting edge importance ever being decided.

How ultra democracy (not effective in the longer term) in contrast to
efforts to provide leadership with a more limited set of focused demands
(eg. a wealth tax on the 1%)  plays out in the longer term remains to be
seen.

I have been participating in "Occupy Melbourne" over the past few days. The
above issues are being actively discussed in that movement.

cheers

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 8:42 AM, Bruce Robinson <bruce@brucerob.eu> wrote:

> 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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