> After the OWS has more or less died away, then it will be time to analyze
> what happened in various Occupations, identifying what its dynamic was, how
> different Occupations resembled and differed from each other, what were the
> political tendencies implicit or explicit in it; what is worth other actions
> imitating; what should be avoided. I see it as a sign of either arrogance or
> deliberate political fatuity to attempt such judgments on the fly now.
But by your logic, at the point in the future when we can draw on the lessons of the Occupations, won't the politics of the day be just as radically unknowable as OWS etc is to you now? Surely we are always engaging in politics based on our analysis of past experiences, and always forced to make judgments on the fly. It seems that you are the one wanting an Olympian perspective outside of history, while others are throwing themselves into the political debates of the day.
You are always stressing the cunning of reason, best laid schemes etc. etc. And it's perfectly true that social forces work themselves out in the contest in ways no-one can predict or direct. But it's a fallacy that we should therefore give up trying. Imagine a general who, well-versed in military history, concluded that battles never go according to strategy, so told his troops to just get out to the front and do some fighting. Leaving it to History to do the analytic work is just another mysticism. The Star of Bethlehem rises above Zuccotti Park and the only thing for a wise man like yourself to do is bring along the gold, frankincense or myrrh.
On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote, in response to SA:
> Are you talking about what _you_ should do next? What organizations you
> should join? How you, perhaps, with some friends will start anew local
> organization to work on what YOU think is important. And you can spend a few
> hours a week brainstorming on how to attract more people to your project? If
> so, I agree with you. But if you are talking about OWS, you are talking to
> yourself in a corner. Nothing you have to say; nothing I have to say; is
> going to affect OWS. Seriously, it is a popular uprising. It's just a fact.
> Now we have to deal with a world characterized by that fact.
This whole thing started with a debate SA played no small role in organising, sponsored by a magazine of which he is an editor. How is that not organising, or trying to attract more people to a project? Again, the panel was very much a part of what OWS started, not a criticism from above. Here is how n+1's 'Occupy!' - 'an OWS-inspired gazette' - reported the panel, as part of Sarah Leonard's (not to be confused with Natasha Lennard!) occupation diary (http://www.nplusonemag.com/OCCUPY_OWSgazette.pdf):
"Friday night was all about the packed discussion at Bluestockings, hosted by the young magazine Jacobin, unofficially a contentious faceoff between anarchists and socialists and the direction of the emerging movement. The moderator, Jacobin editor-at-large Seth Ackerman valiantly held a sort of peace between panelists who rapidly shifted in demeanor from comrades to antagonists. The anarchists, New York Times freelance reporter Natasha Lennard and writer/editor Malcolm Harris of The New Inquiry and Jacobin, talked about the liberated subjectivities emerging in the chaotic now. The other side of the table—economics journalist Doug Henwood, editor of Democratic-Socialist paper The Activist Chris Maisano, and political theorist Jodi Dean—argued variations on the need for greater organization, for achievable political goals based in communalism, and for some sort of engagement with the state.
"The debate was lively, rife with condescension in both directions, and did feel, comfortingly, like a throwback to a time when politics mattered. When Lennard argued that the power with which the protesters should concern themselves was not that of the state or of finance, but the Foucauldian power that “coded” us all and inscribed neoliberalism into our very being, Henwood retorted that he suspected people wanted jobs, “not to re-code their heads.” When Maisano suggested recruiting students to the cause at local colleges, Lennard leaned forward eagerly. “Recruitment? Don’t you think that’s a bit fascistic?” A little part of me died right there, and I thought Henwood was going to choke.
"Regardless, the anarchists perhaps find greatest joy in the movement, and people who actually know how to organize will be critical to its future. An essay by Michael Walzer came to mind, where he argues that our utopia on the Left resides in the movement itself. Something about the debate’s focus on different sets of ideals, and real inability to talk about concrete next steps, felt like it was forgetting that joy and construction are often two sides of the same coin. As Walzer says about the eternal fight for social democracy, “the goodness is in the work as much as in the benefits—so it doesn’t matter if the work goes on and on, as it does. It is important and worthwhile work because of its mutuality, because of the talents and capacities it calls forth, and because of the moral value it embodies. That work is socialism-in-the-making, and that is the only socialism we will ever know.”"
Mike