Light Cue 23

Last week I opened up the possibility that true social revolution in our contemporary age might not take the form of open revolt against state power and economic infrastructure. Rather, true revolt occurs within the realm of the interpersonal. It is exactly the place outside state control wherein we are free to exercise our existence however we see fit.

In these days of advertising everywhere we go and near absolute control of our cultural choices by economic and market forces that would have us do their bidding rather than follow our own will it is difficult indeed to see a place for human Being outside the market place. To see the self as more than consumer is increasingly difficult every day. Thus I suggested that “[i]n a world increasingly mediated by technologies that give the appearance of connection, while fostering distance and misunderstanding, perhaps the most radical act we can take is to carve time out of our schedules to meet another being face to face and find out who they truly are.” Radical action then is a reclaiming, a taking back, of our authentic and unmediated reality.

While this can happen to powerful effect in interpersonal relations we need not limit ourselves to this domain. Certainly interpersonal authenticity is a foundation. But while we work on our foundations we must have a vision of where we are going from here. Just like a return to direct and authentic interactions allow us to revision the entire social sphere away from the prescribed modes of being thrust upon us by corporate interests so too can we revision economic life as well.

For this revisioning to be successful we must move beyond the commodity fetishism of contemporary life. The bling bling culture we have been sold, and sadly bought into all too willingly, can be circumnavigated. For our survival as beings who are more than their bank card numbers we must. Slavoj Zizek indicates a turn in this direction when he states that:

[T]he Left should adopt a different, apparently more modest, but in fact much more radical strategy: to withdraw from state power and focus on directly transforming the very texture of social life, everyday practices which sustain the entire social structure . . . Any radical social change must be anti-fetishistic in its approach . . . our passive endurement of power constitutes it, we do not obey and fear because it is in itself so powerful; on the contrary, power appears powerful because we treat it as such. This fact opens up the space for a magical passive revolution which, instead of directly confronting power, gradually undermines it through the subterranean digging of the mole, through abstaining from participation in the everyday rituals and practices that sustain it.

One level of this revisioning of social life lies in the economic realm and specifically the exchange of goods and services between individuals. While one could make a case for the democratizing effects of ebay or craigslist a more radical manifestation of this potential lies in Freecycle.

Freecycle provides an alternative to our disposable culture that could have potentially systemic repercussions. It not only removes any mediation between agents (people interact directly with one another) but the very notion of, and potential for, capitalization has been removed. The core essence is the free exchange of goods. Because the system has no monetary incentive there is a tendency to heighten the authenticity with which these interactions occur. My girlfriend, for example, gives items away to the person with the best story or most compelling need (rather than first responder, which would favor those with high tech gadgets, and the commensurate disposable income that goes with them).

In a similar vein to Freecycle are community gardens. Here the basic unit of production, the growing of food, is brought back into a communal mode of being. People come together to share in an activity which provides direct benefit to them and their fellow human. At the same time these action occur outside the realm of traditional economic forces. Similar too is the rise of urban farming as well as formal and informal trading between these urban farmers.

The above, as well as clothing swaps, book swaps, and other such activities, not only keep otherwise disposable items out of landfills, but bring people together to share time and space as human beings. Because the old “commons” have all been appropriated by private interests it has been necessary to open new terrain to common use.

Of similar import to these local manifestations of open commons is the rise of the open source movement and specifically creative commons. Here is a direct opening of a commons area out of a closed environment. Copyright is a closed system by design. The intent was to keep intellectual property held by its creator. Over time that has expanded ad infinitum until now genetic material which has existed inside organisms for millions of years can be “owned” by a corporation. Copyleft is open by design. With creative commons a public space has been opened up and created within the otherwise closed system. While software is the most well known aspect of creative commons, music is increasingly released under CC licenses as is a lot of writing, including this blog.

Each idea listed here provides a possible escape vector out of the misery of the disposable culture we have been sold. While it is possible that these may simply be recouperated into the economic engines of post-industrial capitalism, they none the less provide a rupture point which might be exploited to bring about a fundamental shift in society’s ethical orientation towards itself. Escaping the reality proposed by the corporate interests is necessary before we, the human subjects in this experiment, are deemed disposable too.