[lbo-talk] Jacobin debate up

[James Leveque]

I just finished watching the debate, which was great, and I wanted to add
what I think is a practical question about this repeated idea of Space. I
used to know a bunch of Christian lefties (I'll forego explaining in what
context because it's a long story) and By God if the phrase Space/Sacred
Space/Political Space/Safe Space didn't pop up every fifteen seconds in
conversation. It was really about structuring the ground you happen to stand
on at that moment to mirror your own selves. Consequently, the phrase gets a
lot of eye rolling from me. I got a bit of that from Lennard and Harris,
talking about occupying spaces, and activists spending a lot of time running
the space and being willing to get arrested defending that space. Bless 'em,
but when I heard that I wondered if there wasn't a little fetishism
happening? Zuccotti Park as a Symbol (maybe even a code, despite Lennard's
comments) of communal society, resistance, etc. If this is the case - and
maybe it's not, because I don't live in NY and haven't been there - then I
see a couple of issues. One is that it seems to be based on much more
militant politics, but sacrifices the militantly. Occupying a park is not
the same as occupying a factory floor or government building, and I think
that fact at least partially accounts for Bloomberg's indulgence. The
concept of space in this case has been abstracted to mean Physical Space as
an end in itself; victory is moment by moment, i.e., now I have succeeded
because I occupy this Space, now I haven't because I don't occupy this
Space. If that's the case, then Zuccotti Park itself begins to take on a
really idealized character, becoming the measure of success and vindication.
And I think Doug alluded to this in his comments about Spain - if you're not
holding the space, then the movement fizzles. Given that the big question
right now is whether or not the winter or the cops will finally clear out
the park, I wonder if OWS needs to engage a little bit in a killing of its
idols in order to survive. Not voluntarily leave, but openly recognize that
this isn't about occupying space for the sake of occupying space. Harris
mentioned a couple times about Occupy Everywhere, which could be a start,
but it's so unspecific that it leaves open the possibility of devolving into
Occupy Facebook and Occupy Your Kitchen (actually I just checked, there is
an Occupy Facebook group)?

James

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 1:46 AM, <dndlllio at aol.com> wrote:


> Zuccotti Park. It’s a public space; we were the public; the public
> shouldn’t have to ask permission to engage in peaceful political assembly in
> its own park; so we didn’t. By doing so we not only acted in the way we felt
> was right, we aimed to set an example to others: to begin to reclaim
> communal resources that have been appropriated for purposes of private
> profit to once again serve for communal use—as in a truly free society, they
> would be—and to set an example of what genuine communal use might actually
> be like. For those who desire to create a society based on the principle of
> human freedom, direct action is simply the defiant insistence on acting as
> if one is already free