This pamphlet seems way over my head. Let's see if I can summarize this correctly:
I have no choice but to be a cubicle-bound wage slave, and no choice but to only love others as part of a couple, and no choice but to go to a supermarket instead of growing my own food, and no choice but to elect one of two bad politicians... what's "putting life in common?" There seem to be a lot of phrases and code words here that I'm not parsing fully. I guess what I've always been looking for from the Occupy movement is the idea of what they want the world to look like, and I've been having trouble imagining it. This article helps a little, but I'm still not seeing it.
There do seem to be a lot of code words in this essay. I don't think anyone knows. There seems to be agreement that not is all right with things, but there is little agreement about how much things need to be changed, and what those changes should look like. Rather than be a nebulous discontent, I'd rather see a movement that pushes one cause after another in succession. Maybe start as the Get Money out of Government movement, with some specific goals to accomplish, and go from there.I guess what I've always been looking for from the Occupy movement is the idea of what they want the world to look like, and I've been having trouble imagining it.
Well, originally, the goal was to abolish capitalism. But if you're 400 people sitting around in a park there's only so much you can do, and getting the attention of the world is a significant thing. But to expect "Occupy" to do something is a little disingenuous. Occupy is anyone who supports the movement. There is the problem of nebulous discontent. The problem is everything is fucked up, and no single solution is big enough. But the idea the anarchists behind the original OWS had was to overthrow capitalism and replace it with various flavors of anarchism (being anarchists and all). As for what does an anarchist society look like, and how do we get there from here? I'm not entirely sure, I mean if I were, I would first have to be prescient, and I would be telling everyone who would listen about the magic formula. You could probably get a list of demands together. But they would be all over the place, and none of them would really be enough to confront the real problems presented by the 21st century state-capitalist machinations, peak oil and climate change..
I suppose that's the crux of the matter. It leaves OWS as little more than a conscious-raising exercise. Unfortunately, by not affecting any change, a narrative that OWS was defeated or failed, can run.You could probably get a list of demands together. But they would be all over the place, and none of them would really be enough to confront the real problems presented by the 21st century state-capitalist machinations, peak oil and climate change..
In a lot of ways, this essay feels like the Occupy movement. It is loose, full of conviction and doubt. As much as we might be cogs in an emergent machine, there is in fact a tremendous amount of freedom to explore and experience that hasn't been available to most in times past. We share a sense that boundaries are closing in, but it's the extrapolation that bothers us; we can't reach out and grab the bars. It's also not easy to separate what is novel here, and what is another take on a rhyming history. The same goes for the solutions. The recent interest in times past has a lot to do with a desire for a cultural context that better defines our limits and possibilities. IMO OWS is not only against the structures it is against, but it is also against the feelings that brought it to be.