<nettime> lose weight reading empire digest [lovink / v / flagan]

["nettime's_diet" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> Empire for Beginners - by Rob los Ricos
     "geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>
     tobias v <tobias@techno.ca>
     Are Flagan <areflagan@mac.com>

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From: "geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Empire for Beginners - by Rob los Ricos
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 19:41:55 +1000

From: "N Jett" <njett@hotmail.com>

> Identity leads to Hierarchy leads to Capitalism leads to Empire. So to get
> rid of Capitalism/Empire you must get rid of idenity? Is that where this
> is going?

Why not? I learned that it is only police who asks for identity. To get rid
of identity politics would certainly be a big step forwards. One way is
to refuse to give your identity all together. Another strategy could be to
make it more complex, day by day. Politically correct forces and other
authorities usually do not like messed up personal stories.

As the .sig file of Jo van der Spek says:

better a complex identity than an identity complex

Ciao, Geert

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Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:28:05 -0400
Subject: Re: <nettime> Empire for Beginners - by Rob los Ricos
From: tobias v <tobias@techno.ca>

dear n Jett, list ;

Again, I cannot claim to speak for Negri and Hardt and the most advice I can
give is to sit down with Empire, which is a good read.

>From what I understand, the linearity you propose must also take into
account historical dynamics. Hardt and Negri assert at every turn that
capital is static and only ever responds to the revolutionary demands of the
working classes / oppressed (and their identification of these classes is
much broader than what Marx stressed -- which is why I believe they also
stress difference over identity). It seems fair to say that identity as a
strategy and as a metaphysics leads to a master/slave dialectic, a
hierarchy, a privileging; this forms the basis for capital. However, when
saying this, we must take into account that the transition from Imperial to
Empire, again according to Negri and Hardt, is based not only upon the
"spreading thin" of Imperialism through technology and distance, but also is
a reaction to the localised (and increasingly networked) struggles of the
oppressed. In this way, Hardt and Negri place responsibility and agency of a
universal history squarely in the hands of those who struggle.

Identity is not the origin of evil, so to speak. However, as a philosophical
construct that asserts a political agenda--which is the way Ricos uses it to
justify his classical anarchist position (individuality; identity;
outside)--it leads to a problematic assertion of hierarchy, and therefore,
quantitative exchange-value; it is, for me at least, the same thinking that
guides Capital.

As others on this list have mentioned, an alternative is to assert and play
difference: Derrida and Foucault being the principle thinkers in this realm.
(Of note, it is surprising for me that Hardt and Negri do not give Derrida
more credit, as they do Foucault, despite praising the work of Spivak and
Butler). 

I would not assert that "eliminating identity" is a worthwhile, nor
possible, goal, for it falls back to the source, to the origin, of identity;
it requires identity to rid identity; it quite literally throws us back to
where we came from all over again. Practically, things aren't so simple.
Spivak spends quite some time playing difference/identity in several of her
major papers from the early '90s, and ends up holding at points a position
that asserts the necessity of constructing identity in certain cases and in
playing a "politics" of difference in others. Indeed, it is this
strategy--both at the same time and at once, fighting the local and the
global, fighting Empire at every step while also pushing it to its farthest
boundaries in an attempt to tear the fabric--that I see forming the basis
for Negri and Hardt's theses.

I am quite at my limits here in thinking these problematics before work and
with half a cup of coffee, so I will let these words and rest and again urge
anyone interested to read the text.

best,

tobias

> "According to Deleuze in
> "Repetition and Difference," it is the problematic category of identity
> that leads to the quantitative exchange-value of capitalism; ie identity
 <...>


tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
------------- tobias@techno.ca

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Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 17:16:03 -0400
Subject: FW: <nettime> Empire for Beginners - by Rob los Ricos [3x]
From: Are Flagan <areflagan@mac.com>

Goes to prove that out to lunch is a meal in itself these days.

-af


------ Forwarded Message
From: Mediawatch <PGalaxy@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:57:10 -0400
To: "areflagan@mac.com" <areflagan@mac.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Empire for Beginners - by Rob los Ricos [3x]

Message text written by "nettime's umpire"
>areflagan@mac.com<


ARE CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THE SENTENCE BELOW
I AM SEARCHING A STORY ABOUT NYT REPORTER WHO DIED AND I AM
LOOKING FOR CLUES
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW AND HOW
THANKS

PAOLA DI MAIO
CONTENT-WIRE.COM

. There is
also an unconfirmed rumor that Bush has bought the entire fleet of Enron
jets with taxpayer money to settle all outstanding debts for Ken Lay et
al. The plan is to use Texas death row inmates to pilot them in
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live on network television and boost approval ratings for the 2004
(s)elections. What I am saying is that there must surely be growing room
for another collectivity, call it globalization, here...

------ End of Forwarded Message

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