Josh Haas's Web Log

From Robespierre the Incorruptible, Robespierre the Daemonic:

But The Gleaming Vision and False Consciousness are two of the most crucial tools in the Revolutionary’s toolbox. I think that the tepid nature of much current Leftist writing (when it isn’t just disappearing entirely into theory) owes to the lack of a forceful (coercively so) positive future vision, and the complementary near-myopic focus on critique. …

Without a Gleaming Vision, and the accusations of False Consciousness to level at those who reject the Gleaming Vision, critique only serves the purpose of establishing internal purity tests, one-upping dialogic opponents, and getting tenure or magazine posts. Allusions to Gleaming Visions remain steadfastly vague, whether you are reading Slavoj Zizek, Naomi Klein, Silvia Federici, or Antonio Negri. While they are hectoring in their criticism of capitalism’s blatant faults, they are fuzzy on the details of its successor–and thus the need for revolution rather than reform is not clear. Thomas Piketty’s surprisingly modest solutions in Capital in the 21st Century–a global wealth tax, but that’s about it–drastically separate him from the radical crowd. In The Nation, Timothy Shenk half-heartedly carps about Piketty’s incrementalism while making only the fuzziest motions at “a much richer set of possibilities” and “a more promising alternative” for the future. He doesn’t bother to say what they might be. That won’t cut it.

Yeah.

This is the Occupy Wall Street circumstance: something is wrong, we don’t know how to fix it.

So young intellectuals are reading Marx again. See for example Jacobin magazine, a modern, web-savvy publication on the rise. Wherein you can find articles that use phrases like “class struggle” and “bourgeoisie” with a straight face.

I’m a technologist, so I don’t believe “history repeats itself” and “there are no new things under the sun”. When I see people grappling to deal with the unprecedented challenges of a globalizing, environmentally-on-the-brink, internet-connected, corporatized, consumerism-run-amok world via reference to concepts whose originators are all dead, I feel like I’m watching NASA engineers try to build a rocket out of steam engines.

Yes: the problems are systemic. Yes: the dominant norms reinforce the status quo and perpetuate injustice. No: we can’t understand or solve these problems with tools that come from an era where “labor” meant “factory worker”.

Knowing one’s history is important (as the post whose quote I opened with demonstrates). But so is knowing when not to fight the last war. To be specific, here are some frameworks for seeing history that I would like to see retired:

-Left vs Right
-Reform vs Revolution
-Libertarian vs Socialist
-Capital vs Labor
-Proletariat vs Bourgeoisie
-Solidarity vs Individualism

In each case, the categories no longer map to real cleavages in the world. They’re world maps with the borders drawn in the wrong places. They’re the wrong dimensions along which to choose sides and take stands, regardless of which side you’re predisposed to.

I don’t know what the right lines to draw are. We probably won’t really know until we’re completely able to un-see the old ones. But, for the sake of getting started, here’s a few ideas:

-Creator vs Consumer
-Creator vs Capturer
-Mobile vs Immobile
-Giver vs Taker
-Scalable vs Unscalable
-Sustainable vs Unsustainable
-Connected vs Disconnected
-Violence vs Relationships

You can’t fight for labor, because labor doesn’t exist. But you can fight to help the disconnected and disenfranchised, the consumers, the immobile stuck in decaying, unsustainable systems.

You can’t have a revolution because there’s nothing to overthrow; you can’t reform because we don’t yet know what the form is. But you can be vulnerable and build relationships, so that the ongoing change isn’t violent.

There’s a lot of work to do, we just need to give it the right name first.

Edit: I wrote a follow-up post here.