[P2P-F] [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers and P2P Urbanism

Tue Jul 12 07:15:38 CEST 2011

Dear All,

I agree with the critique of what we in America call "poststructuralism"
(the term varies elsewhere) but I am glad to note that it has declined in
favor of something closer to "scientific structuralism" among many. (Or what
I have referred to as symmetric structuralism.)  Not the avant-garde
designers, perhaps -- but then, of course that means they are not really
avant-garde!  Indeed they are merely peddling yesterday's futurism.

But I do think it's worth separating wheat from chaff here at a finer grain.

The danger as I have noted is in the inability to develop any coherent
epistemological model of the world, stemming from a positivist desperation
to create certainty within language.  (That is, to have a theory of "truth"
as such.)  But language is by definition NOT certain, and this is precisely
what makes it useful, and partially "true" in a useful sense (see e.g. Godel
or Whitehead on this point).  That is, language  is not a separate, absolute
description of reality in some Platonic sense -- nor is it some frustrated
inverse of that, a mere construction of narrative-making beings.  Instead it
is a structure in the real world like any other, with partial symmetries, or
partial isomorphisms, that we might find useful (and do, as humans).  This
observation clarifies things enormously, and gets us out of the Kantian
muddle, slipping into nihilist relativism, that Derrida and others have
found themselves in.  (See e.g. his debates with Habermas, or with Thom.)

Cheers, m

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Julio Cesar Perez
<jcesar at cubarte.cult.cu>wrote:

> I join Nikos! Both writers have nothing to do with our ideas and
> conceptions
> and they frankly influenced negatively a lot of youngsters with their
> confusing and almost inextricable texts...
>
> Best regards:
>
> Professor Julio César Pérez Hernández
> Harvard University Loeb Fellow'02
> President Cuban Chapter C.E.U (Council for European Urbanism)
> President Cuban Chapter I.N.T.B.A.U (International Network for Traditional
> Building, Architecture and Urbanism)
> Architect and Urban Planner/Designer
> www.cigarclub.lu/perez
> e-mail: jcaesar_2002 at yahoo.co.uk
> Phone: 047 382727
> Cell phone: 52373606
>
> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com
> [mailto:p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com] En nombre de Nikos
> Salingaros
> Enviado el: Monday, July 11, 2011 5:21 PM
> Para: p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com
> CC: p2p-foundation; Ken Wark
> Asunto: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers
> and P2P Urbanism
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm entering this debate late, and on an immediately personal note. As
> one of the workers in p2p urbanism, I do have a clear vision of what
> we are trying to do. Please note that I have criticized both Derrida
> and Deleuze in the harshest possible terms -- calling them
> intellectual impostors in several articles and books. So I'm not going
> to consider any positive influence of their thought on p2p urbanism.
> Of course this is my opinion.
>
> Best wishes,
> Nikos
>
> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 5:17 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Ken has a new book on the situationists, which you may want to check out,
> >
> > will be book of the week soon on the p2p blog,
> >
> > Michel
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:17 AM, Geo Scripcariu <geo.scripcariu at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Thanks a lot Michel and Audun. Great suggestions to research further,
> >> excellent links! I read partly, some time ago, "The Society of the
> >> Spectacle" and I felt (avant la lettre, before embarking in this PhD,
> that)
> >> Debord is the kind of thinker that has a lot to do with my own
> >> interpretation of Open Source / P2P Urbanism.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Geo
> >>
> >> 2011/7/3 Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> >>>
> >>> Dear Ken,
> >>>
> >>> is your new book on the situationists dealing with this topic?
> >>>
> >>> Michel
> >>>
> >>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >>> From: Audun Engh <audun.engh at gmail.com>
> >>> Date: Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:17 PM
> >>> Subject: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist
> >>> philosophers and P2P Urbanism
> >>> To: p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I suggest the french writer  Guy Debord - 1931 - 1994
> >>>
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord ,
> >>>
> >>> and the Situationist International movement that he was part of. SI
> had
> >>> an important role in initiating the May 68 rebellion in Paris.
> >>>
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International
> >>>
> >>> Guy Debord and other Siuatinists were among the first to criticise le
> >>> Corbusier and modernist planning, and hail the uncontrolable diversity
> of
> >>> historic  cities, from a radical, anti-authoritaran perspective.
> >>>
> >>> See for example "Nine Situationist  theses on traffic", from 1959,
> >>>
> >>> FULL TEXT BELOW
> >>>
> >>> -----
> >>>
> >>> Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the
> >>> precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment,
> >>> consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of
> individuals.
> >>>
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography
> >>>
> >>> ------
> >>>
> >>> The Situationist City, book published 1999
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
>
> http://books.google.com/books/about/The_situationist_city.html?id=lR_MiZPhT6
> 4C
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>> Early Situationist critique of le Corbusier:
> >>> See page 157 of this book:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
>
> http://books.google.no/books?id=bREQibN9i-sC&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=guy+debor
>
> d+corbusier&source=bl&ots=OpizpIvHm8&sig=Raiw0fhYgciq6B-xdBwl2GZ24lA&hl=no&e
>
> i=qVgQTrHtGoWcOsCawaML&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE8Q6AEwB
> g#v=onepage&q=guy%20debord%20corbusier&f=false
> >>>
> >>> ----
> >>>
> >>> Video:
> >>>
> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vftL-hHPttQ
> >>>
> >>> Society of the Spectacle, part 1
> >>>
> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6k_SKkHKQ&feature=related
> >>>
> >>> Parts 2 - 8, and other Situationist films,  - see the menu
> >>>
> >>> ----------
> >>>
> >>> Guy Debord
> >>>
> >>> Situationist Theses on Traffic (1959)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
>
> http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Guy_Debord__Situationist_Theses_on_Traff
> ic.html
> >>>
> >>> 1
> >>>
> >>> A mistake made by all the city planners is to consider the private
> >>> automobile (and its by-products, such as the motorcycle) as essentially
> a
> >>> means of transportation. In reality, it is the most notable material
> symbol
> >>> of the notion of happiness that developed capitalism tends to spread
> >>> throughout the society. The automobile is at the center of this general
> >>> propaganda, both as supreme good of an alienated life and as essential
> >>> product of the capitalist market: It is generally being said this year
> that
> >>> American economic prosperity is soon going to depend on the success of
> the
> >>> slogan “Two cars per family.”
> >>>
> >>> 2
> >>>
> >>> Commuting time, as Le Corbusier rightly noted, is a surplus labor which
> >>> correspondingly reduces the amount of “free” time.
> >>>
> >>> 3
> >>>
> >>> We must replace travel as an adjunct to work with travel as a pleasure.
> >>>
> >>> 4
> >>>
> >>> To want to redesign architecture to accord with the needs of the
> present
> >>> massive and parasitical existence of private automobiles reflects the
> most
> >>> unrealistic misapprehension of where the real problems lie. Instead,
> >>> architecture must be transformed to accord with the whole development
> of
> the
> >>> society, criticizing all the transitory values linked to obsolete forms
> of
> >>> social relationships (in the first rank of which is the family).
> >>>
> >>> 5
> >>>
> >>> Even if, during a transitional period, we temporarily accept a rigid
> >>> division between work zones and residence zones, we must at least
> envisage a
> >>> third sphere: that of life itself (the sphere of freedom and leisure —
> the
> >>> essence of life). Unitary urbanism acknowledges no boundaries; it aims
> to
> >>> form an integrated human milieu in which separations such as
> work/leisure or
> >>> public/private will finally be dissolved. But before this is possible,
> the
> >>> minimum action of unitary urbanism is to extend the terrain of play to
> all
> >>> desirable constructions. This terrain will be at the level of
> complexity
> of
> >>> an old city.
> >>>
> >>> 6
> >>>
> >>> It is not a matter of opposing the automobile as an evil in itself. It
> is
> >>> its extreme concentration in the cities that has led to the negation of
> its
> >>> function. Urbanism should certainly not ignore the automobile, but even
> less
> >>> should it accept it as its central theme. It should reckon on gradually
> >>> phasing it out. In any case, we can envision the banning of auto
> traffic
> >>> from the central areas of certain new complexes, as well as from a few
> old
> >>> cities.
> >>>
> >>> 7
> >>>
> >>> Those who believe that the automobile is eternal are not thinking, even
> >>> from a strictly technological standpoint, of other future forms of
> >>> transportation. For example, certain models of one-man helicopters
> currently
> >>> being tested by the US Army will probably have spread to the general
> public
> >>> within twenty years.
> >>>
> >>> 8
> >>>
> >>> The breaking up of the dialectic of the human milieu in favor of
> >>> automobiles (the projected freeways in Paris will entail the demolition
> of
> >>> thousands of houses and apartments although the housing crisis is
> >>> continually worsening) masks its irrationality under pseudopractical
> >>> justifications. But it is practically necessary only in the context of
> a
> >>> specific social set-up. Those who believe that the particulars of the
> >>> problem are permanent want in fact to believe in the permanence of the
> >>> present society.
> >>>
> >>> 9
> >>>
> >>> Revolutionary urbanists will not limit their concern to the circulation
> >>> of things, or to the circulation of human beings trapped in a world of
> >>> things. They will try to break these topological chains, paving the way
> with
> >>> their experiments for a human journey through authentic life.
> >>>
> >>> ----------------
> >>>
> >>> Audun Engh
> >>> INTBAU Scandinavia
> >>> www..intbau.org
> >>>
> >>> ---
> >>>
> >>> 2011/7/3 Geo Scripcariu <geo.scripcariu at gmail.com>
> >>>>
> >>>> Many thanks to Stefano and Michael for the very interesting comments
> >>>> along my question.
> >>>>
> >>>> Best,
> >>>>
> >>>> Geo
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> 2011/7/3 Michael Mehaffy <michael.mehaffy at gmail.com>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Dear Geo et al.
> >>>>> I would point to Virilio as much more related to P2P urbanism, in
> >>>>> several respects. He points out the failures of technology and the
> role of
> >>>>> competition and conflict between people as a key dimension of
> urbanism
> --
> >>>>> and the converse of that is their cooperation, and the strategies
> they
> adopt
> >>>>> to mitigate conflicts.  (In his criticism of technology's unintended
> >>>>> consequences he is a bit more related to Ellul too if you know his
> work.)
> >>>>> Broadly speaking, and at the extreme risk of over-simplifying, I
> think
> >>>>> the structuralist project is finally recovering from a period that
> can
> best
> >>>>> be characterized as epistemological muddle, that rose up around the
> central
> >>>>> problem of meaning, and the false positivist expectations that
> language
> >>>>> could somehow arrive at a clear position outside of external meaning.
>  As is
> >>>>> implied by Godel and others, this was a misunderstanding of what
> language is
> >>>>> or how it really works. In this I think Whitehead especially (and
> Alexander,
> >>>>> who is essentially a Whiteheadean) point the way out of this Kantian
> muddle.
> >>>>>  (I won't name names, but would include some of the folks you
> mentioned!)
> >>>>> I am very interested in this topic and have been nibbling away at it
> >>>>> since grad school days.  Here is a paper I gave recently on it, if
> you're
> >>>>> interested.  At a conference with Nikos, as a matter of fact.  (I
> don't
> >>>>> dwell on the latter structuralists (or "post-structuralists" as they
> are
> >>>>> known more commonly in the States) but I think you will see the
> >>>>> implications....
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
>
> http://athensdialogues.chs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/athensdialogues.wo
> a/wa/dist?dis=47
> >>>>> Cheers, m
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Stefano Serafini
> >>>>> <stefanonikolaevic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Dear Geo,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> it's hard to give an answer to such a question, yet I cannot see any
> >>>>>> relation between p2p urbanism and Derrida and Deleuze. All the other
> Authors
> >>>>>> you quoted can be in some way related. First of all, Foucault, then
> >>>>>> Baudrilard, and in a traditionally meant "political sense", Zizek. I
> don't
> >>>>>> know enough the thought of Leach. Would add Henri Lefebvre.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Nevertheles, at the first place I would put Christopher Alexander.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Best,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Stefano
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 2011/7/2 Geo Scripcariu <geo.scripcariu at gmail.com>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Hi All,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Which of the following philosophers have anything to do -- in your
> >>>>>>> opinion -- (and what) with P2P Urbanism?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 1. Baudrillard
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 2. Michel Foucault
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 3. Jacques Derrida
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 5. Gilles Deleuze
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 6. Slavoj Zizek
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 7. Neil Leach
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Best regards,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Geo Scripcariu
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> Geo Scripcariu
> >>>>>>> PhD Student / Open Source Urbanism
> >>>>>>> UAUIM Bucharest
> >>>>>>> Mobil: +40745-09.61.91
> >>>>>>> Direct: +4031-401.29.42
> >>>>>>> Tel/Fax: +4021-410.54.15
> >>>>>>> E-mail: geo.scripcariu at gmail.com
> >>>>>>> Str.Sabinelor 123 Bl. 119 Suite 16
> >>>>>>> Bucuresti-5 050854 Romania
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> >>>>>>> "P2P-Urbanism World Atlas" group.
> >>>>>>> to register to the group
> >>>>>>> http://cityleft.blogspot.com/
> >>>>>>> To post to this group, send email to
> >>>>>>> p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com
> >>>>>>> For more options, visit this group at
> >>>>>>> http://groups.google.com/group/p2p-urbanism-world-atlas?hl=en
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
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> >>>>>> to register to the group
> >>>>>> http://cityleft.blogspot.com/
> >>>>>> To post to this group, send email to
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> >>>>>> http://groups.google.com/group/p2p-urbanism-world-atlas?hl=en
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Michael Mehaffy
> >>>>> Visiting Faculty, ASU
> >>>>> NEW ADDRESS to July 1, '11:
> >>>>> 4630 S. Lakeshore Dr., #267
> >>>>> Tempe, AZ 85282
> >>>>> Permanent Address:
> >>>>> 333 S. State Street, Suite V-440
> >>>>> Lake Oswego, OR 97034
> >>>>> www.tectics.com
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> >>>>> "P2P-Urbanism World Atlas" group.
> >>>>> to register to the group
> >>>>> http://cityleft.blogspot.com/
> >>>>> To post to this group, send email to
> >>>>> p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com
> >>>>> For more options, visit this group at
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> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Geo Scripcariu
> >>>> PhD Student / Open Source Urbanism
> >>>> UAUIM Bucharest
> >>>> Mobil: +40745-09.61.91
> >>>> Direct: +4031-401.29.42
> >>>> Tel/Fax: +4021-410.54.15
> >>>> E-mail: geo.scripcariu at gmail.com
> >>>> Str.Sabinelor 123 Bl. 119 Suite 16
> >>>> Bucuresti-5 050854 Romania
> >>>>
> >>>> --
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> >>>
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-- 
Michael Mehaffy
Visiting Faculty, ASU
1255 E University Drive #264
Tempe, AZ 85281

Permanent Address:
333 S. State Street, Suite V-440
Lake Oswego, OR 97034
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