McKenzie Wark, author of the new book on the Situationists titled The Beach Beneath the Street, said of Occupy Wall Street:
How can you occupy an abstraction? Perhaps only with another abstraction. Occupy Wall Street took over a more or less public park nestled in the downtown landscape of tower blocks, not too far from the old World Trade Center site, and set up camp. It is an occupation which, almost uniquely, does not have demands. It has at its core a suggestion: what if people came together and found a way to structure a conversation which might come up with a better way to run the world? Could they do any worse than the way it is run by the combined efforts of Wall Street as rentier class and Wall Street as computerized vectors trading intangible assets?
These are important questions. Certainly the people are capable of self-governance, particularly as they gain more practice and experience at it. I think the success will be largely determined first by the degree of success the movement achieves in keeping the politics diverse, disallowing figureheads from shaping the politics through charismatic and institutionalized authority, and avoiding explicitly reformist tendencies. As soon as the economic and political institutions are broadly affirmed, the movement will begin to close its most liberatory options. The goals for the short run should be diversity of politics, diversity of tactics, and maintaining the revolutionary impulse.
Second, are long range issues that will bear on this movement’s success. Further down the road – probably much further – is that the movement should be prepared to fracture globally, nationally and locally. The movement itself is mirroring the economy in its global scale. It currently depends on international notoriety, communication, and technologies that are deeply embedded in global systems. This is just as unsustainable as a global capitalist system. At some point, local self-sufficiency will need to be a top priority. Additionally, the politics have been at the abstract, global level. Global or internationalist politics will always be abstract. In the short-run, this may prove successful. But at some point, the tangible, every-day, uniquely local politics and the localize political actors will need to come to the fore. In this moment, certain contradictions will become insurmountable, and some will not be overcome through consensus. The movement should continue to hold to consensus and fracture over intractable differences, rather than abandon consensus to maintain unity. Consensus should always be top priority. Cultural differences and ideological matters should be worked through where necessary, but some may be insurmountable. That need not be seen as a weakness in the longer term.
This addresses my main concern, and I am highly skeptical of the possibility of a willing and voluntary fracturing of unity. The human tendencies to belong, be led, to lead, to join together, to corrupt, to convince others of one’s beliefs, to need support, etc., may far eclipse the desire and counter-intuitive wishes to be selfless and objective. The root motivation that has brought many people into this movement was an entirely personal experience or subjective observation, very few are there simply because of their love for their fellow humans or to simply “do the right thing”.
I absolutely agree. The participatory and equal process is at the heart of this, it is the meeting of our demand. That said, I would encourage people to be patient with the consensus process. It is not always quick and it is guaranteed to be frustrating at times.
I think the possibility of future fracturing should be the furthest thing from our mind at this point. Yes, we do not want a monolithic, centralized movement that stifles creativity and regional spontaneity. But right now we are stifled by global structures, and our response to them is, appropriately global in scale. I embrace that. And I embrace the day when we have the autonomy to focus our sights and efforts primarily on regional issues.
Ed, maybe few are there out of a pure motivation, but the subjective experiences of what you call their root motivation, may with further experience and deep interaction with diverse persons, be found to have deeper, shared roots.