[lbo-talk] the democracy of structure

Sean Andrews cultstud76 at gmail.com
Sat Oct 8 07:22:22 PDT 2011


shag,

I missed the post for the graeber reference. is this just in reference to his work in general, the ezra klien piece, or something else. I understand he's down here at the occupy austin event, but haven't made it down yet. was going to take the toddler to his first protest this morning, but he has a fever.

thanks, sean

On 10/08/2011, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
>
> I saw that robert mentioned Jo Freeman's, The Tyranny of
> Structurelessness, at his blog. I didn't revisit that article, but I
> used to use it at the old blog as a way of talking about some of the
> problems with radical feminism. I'm not sure why robert thought it
> would be an appropriate read at OccupyLA, but after reading this field
> report from OccupyBoston, I don't see the problems Freeman talked
> about going on at all.
>
> Freeman's concern was with the way radical egalitarianism was
> implemented among radical feminists in the mid- to late-60s. There was
> a hostility toward specialization and talent. If someone was a good
> speaker, they would be brought down so that no one let "power" get to
> their head and start dominating all tasks that required being good as
> speaking. The same with writing or having in-depth knowledge of the
> history of social movements.
>
> In this field report and elsewhere, Graeber's commentary, Binh's, I
> don't get the sense that this is an issue. In fact, in the field
> report the author openly discusses the idea that participants have a
> complicated relationship to power - they can be afraid of power, but
> they can also be afraid of their own power (paraphrase). My reading of
> this is something very different from what I've encountered from old
> school radical feminists who were opposed to all kinds of power.
>
> Reading Taryn, the author of this blog (not the author of the field
> report from Boston) she is also a proponent of Graeber's argument that
> movements need intellectuals - people to do the deep thinking, etc.
> So, that tells me that there isn't a concern with a power as it
> manifests itself in a profession, specialization, or occupation.
>
> The author of the field report is also implementing practices that are
> clearly rooted in scholarly theories and research in organizational
> psychology. Here, she talks about how, in order to build consensus,
> there needs to be trust built among participants, that rules about not
> yelling and the like are rules designed to make people feel safe - and
> trusting. I'm sure 95% of the people here will roll their eyes, but
> that's unfortunate I think. There are a lot of people here who've
> written me offlist in these past 10 years who often confess that they
> lurk because they are terrified that they will be attacked, are
> fearful of the power games played out among us, the old timers who
> don't notice them, etc.
>
> If that happens on an email list, it surely happens in meatspace. Any
> of us who've ever taught - and I surely also see it in corporate life
> - know that people are often terrified to speak in general, and even
> more terrified when overt displays of aggression manifest themselves.
>
> Anyway, this discussion of the why behind the process is pretty
> helpful and I can see why Graeber says so much of it is derived from
> feminist thought and practice these past nearly 50 years.
>
> She is also keenly aware of the complaints made here, because they are
> made within the organization itself, but argues that to do things the
> consensus way takes time because a lot of people have to unlearn the
> idea that democracy is voting.
>
> Finally, this is a really concrete example of how resource
> mobilization works. They have various skills they've brought with them
> from other forms of organizing and they are deploying those skills.
>
> Finally2, there is no insistence on the substitution of process for
> goals, an acceptance or insistence on having no goals at all, as Dean
> seemed to argue.
>
> Dean's was a silly argument anyway. If you've ever been involved in
> any kind of consensus building organization you *know* that no one is
> ever enamored of process 24/7. Her fear, I think, is misplaced
> probably because she is more familiar with the kind of organizing that
> happens in academia where the model isn't consensus building....?
>
> Clearly, the deploy this process toward achieving goals. The
> difference is that these folks are happy that it takes time. And,
> perhaps this also comes from experience. Anyone's who's ever built an
> organization the old, voting way, also knows what happens when the
> vote is 60 - 54. There are 54 people pissed off that they lost, enough
> so that they can cause serious problems with actually implementing
> anything and you never get anything done.
>
> I suppose the reason why you go with consensus building, in the end,
> is that one thing everyone knows who tries to do anything: the numbers
> are small, the people who have time to do much are few, resources
> limited, burn out is easy. It means you have to be nice to each other.
> It means that you want to make sure people build consensus because,
> while it may appear to take longer, you do have a lot more, excuse the
> phrase, buy in and, thus, people willing to do what needs to be done.
> When you do things the old way, you get a lot of people who are
> suddenly unable to do things, missing phone calls, not seeing
> emails....
>
> http://www.plutocracyfiles.com/2011/10/other-day-i-wrote-about-my-early.html
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
>
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>

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