Re: <nettime> Mechanical Turkish

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

On 2018-02-17 14:44, Blake Stimson wrote:
> In our waning liberal modernity, good art, like good politics, is that
> realism which enhances our capacity to think our own individual being
> institutionally or, in other words, to see like a
> (democratic-cum-socialist) state.


"To think our own individual being institutionally." I think this is one
of the core points. To develop an understanding of how our individuality
is wrapped in to long-term social, political, economic and ecological
trajectories. How do we understand this, without subjecting one to the
other. This was one of the main themes of 20th century sociology. But
times have changed, while the question remains valid, we cannot derive
our current approach from the past ones.

At the moment, what is at offer is a) a renewal of authoritarian
nationalism, that tries homogeneity on increasingly diverse societies;
b) libertarianism which feeds on the disappointment with the state to
propose individual freedom as the only category (as realized through
voluntary contractual relationships); and c) some reheated form of
Keynsianism.

There is a clear lack in the imagination, a popular vocabulary and
political organization embodying this, that can actually confront the
powers that be.

On which level you choose to work, is, in my view, largely a question of
personal taste and ability. But it is important to think of points of
connection, ways of translating, from one level/language/context to the
other. This needs to be part of the language itself.

Because contrary to what the far-right is doing, imposing homgeneity as
identity, it is precisely the chance of the historical moment, with it's
particular configuration of the "mode of production" (aka networked
digital technologies) that sustain a new relationship between
individuality and collectivity.

Felix







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