I really hate the particular aspect of the 09-10 public education movement in California [what Doug mocked], which is not to deny that the early occupations didn't jump start a lot of stuff. I've noticed that despite their rejection of 'representation' the intellectuals around the 'occupy everything' movement have very little problem claiming to represent a movement that had a lot of tendencies within it. I think that this gets exacerbated as those claims are then used as a claim to the authority of experience, which Harris clearly was doing.
Although I want to go back to the conversation that went on between Dough and Harris at the beginning of the meeting around the term autonomy. Harris should no this as a reader of Negri and the Italian tradition that he is a part of, but autonomy in the Italian tradition, starting with Mario Tronti and moving into the various organized formations of Autonomy (a large diaspora of groups), there was a focus on a couple things. 1. thinking about the self-organization of the working class 2. the emphasis on working class formations active structures, rather than reactive. 3. capital feeds on the self-activity of working class collectivities to move forward. In effect, the bourgeoisie is always searching for synthesis in the dialectical engine, while militant formations with the proletariat are looking for ways to break out of the logic of the dialectics of capital.
I actually think that this tradition has some use for the movement now, because it's really directed towards a couple things. 1. what are the forms of proletarian resistance and culture within the current formation? (Tronti's Potere Operio started out as a sociological project, which basically stated that our understanding of working class life is dated.) and 2. how do we contribute towards contributing to those countersytemic aspects of that life and consolidating them to push towards a 'communist horizon', to use the phrase Dean has been recently pushing. That means becoming a part of those processes, etc. Another way to put it is that discussions around process and ethics seem to be a central form of 'counter-conduct' to use Foucault's phrase, rather than simply dismissing it, how could it be used and shifted to create a powerful movement?
robert wood
>>> On Oct 19, 2011, at 7:52 PM, Mike Beggs wrote:
>>>
>>>> Obscene gesture at 46:36!
>>>
>>> You mean my making the universal symbol of masturbation?
>>
>> Exactly, and richly deserved it was!
>
> My beloved thought that was rude of me. I couldn't help myself.
>
> Doug
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