very interesting, and I think he has uncovered one of the major social dynamics,<br><br>an urelated remark, in my current blog series on social media and social revolutions, I repeatedly come across the net delusion arguments<br>
<br>one of morozov's key arguments is that social media can and will be used for social media and repression, so activists should be wary of social media<br><br>this is undoubtedly true, but there is a important counter-argument, hinted here below as well: no social change can happen without the overcoming of fear,<br>
<br>the courage of the first facebook appealers in tunisia and egypt is akin to the one of the greensboro 4 who started the civil rights movement<br><br>if that is true, then this substantially weakens morozov's argument<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 8:22 AM, Kevin Flanagan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kev.flanagan@gmail.com">kev.flanagan@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere - Paul Mason<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2011/02/twenty_reasons_why_its_kicking.html" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2011/02/twenty_reasons_why_its_kicking.html</a><br>
<br>
We've had revolution in Tunisia, Egypt's Mubarak is teetering; in<br>
Yemen, Jordan and Syria suddenly protests have appeared. In Ireland<br>
young techno-savvy professionals are agitating for a "Second<br>
Republic"; in France the youth from banlieues battled police on the<br>
streets to defend the retirement rights of 60-year olds; in Greece<br>
striking and rioting have become a national pastime. And in Britain<br>
we've had riots and student occupations that changed the political<br>
mood.<br>
<br>
What's going on? What's the wider social dynamic?<br>
<br>
My editors yesterday asked me put some bullet points down for a<br>
discussion on the programme that then didn't happen but I am throwing<br>
them into the mix here, on the basis of various conversations with<br>
academics who study this and also the participants themselves.<br>
<br>
At the heart of it all are young people, obviously; students;<br>
westernised; secularised. They use social media - as the mainstream<br>
media has now woken up to - but this obsession with reporting "they<br>
use twitter" is missing the point of what they use it for.<br>
<br>
In so far as there are common threads to be found in these different<br>
situation, here's 20 things I have spotted:<br>
<br>
1. At the heart if it all is a new sociological type: the graduate<br>
with no future<br>
<br>
2. ...with access to social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and eg<br>
Yfrog so they can express themselves in a variety of situations<br>
ranging from parliamentary democracy to tyrrany.<br>
<br>
3. Therefore truth moves faster than lies, and propaganda becomes flammable.<br>
<br>
4. They are not prone to traditional and endemic ideologies:<br>
Labourism, Islamism, Fianna Fail Catholicism etc... in fact hermetic<br>
ideologies of all forms are rejected.<br>
<br>
5. Women very numerous as the backbone of movements. After twenty<br>
years of modernised labour markets and higher-education access the<br>
"archetypal" protest leader, organizer, facilitator, spokesperson now<br>
is an educated young woman.<br>
<br>
6. Horizontalism has become endemic because technology makes it easy:<br>
it kills vertical hierarchies spontaneously, whereas before - and the<br>
quintessential experience of the 20th century - was the killing of<br>
dissent within movements, the channeling of movements and their<br>
bureaucratisaton.<br>
<br>
7. Memes: "A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas symbols<br>
or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another<br>
through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable<br>
phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural<br>
analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to<br>
selective pressures." (Wikipedia) - so what happens is that ideas<br>
arise, are very quickly "market tested" and either take off, bubble<br>
under, insinuate themselves or if they are deemed no good they<br>
disappear. Ideas self-replicate like genes. Prior to the internet this<br>
theory (see Richard Dawkins, 1976) seemed an over-statement but you<br>
can now clearly trace the evolution of memes.<br>
<br>
8. They all seem to know each other: not only is the network more<br>
powerful than the hierarchy - but the ad-hoc network has become easier<br>
to form. So if you "follow" somebody from the UCL occupation on<br>
Twitter, as I have done, you can easily run into a radical blogger<br>
from Egypt, or a lecturer in peaceful resistance in California who<br>
mainly does work on Burma so then there are the Burmese tweets to<br>
follow. During the early 20th century people would ride hanging on the<br>
undersides of train carriages across borders just to make links like<br>
these.<br>
<br>
9. The specifics of economic failure: the rise of mass access to<br>
university-level education is a given. Maybe soon even 50% in higher<br>
education will be not enough. In most of the world this is being<br>
funded by personal indebtedess - so people are making a rational<br>
judgement to go into debt so they will be better paid later. However<br>
the prospect of ten years of fiscal retrenchment in some countries<br>
means they now know they will be poorer than their parents. And the<br>
effect has been like throwing a light switch; the prosperity story is<br>
replaced with the doom story, even if for individuals reality will be<br>
more complex, and not as bad as they expect.<br>
<br>
10.This evaporation of a promise is compounded in the more repressive<br>
societies and emerging markets because - even where you get rapid<br>
economic growth - it cannot absorb the demographic bulge of young<br>
people fast enough to deliver rising living standards for enough of<br>
them.<br>
<br>
11.To amplify: I can't find the quote but one of the historians of the<br>
French Revolution of 1789 wrote that it was not the product of poor<br>
people but of poor lawyers. You can have political/economic setups<br>
that disappoint the poor for generations - but if lawyers, teachers<br>
and doctors are sitting in their garrets freezing and starving you get<br>
revolution. Now, in their garrets, they have a laptop and broadband<br>
connection.<br>
<br>
12.The weakness of organised labour means there's a changed<br>
relationship between the radicalized middle class, the poor and the<br>
organised workforce. The world looks more like 19th century Paris -<br>
heavy predomination of the "progressive" intelligentsia, intermixing<br>
with the slum-dwellers at numerous social interfaces (cabarets in the<br>
19C, raves now); huge social fear of the excluded poor but also many<br>
rags to riches stories celebrated in the media (Fifty Cent etc);<br>
meanwhile the solidaristic culture and respectability of organized<br>
labour is still there but, as in Egypt, they find themselves a "stage<br>
army" to be marched on and off the scene of history.<br>
<br>
13.This leads to a loss of fear among the young radicals of any<br>
movement: they can pick and choose; there is no confrontation they<br>
can't retreat from. They can "have a day off" from protesting,<br>
occupying: whereas twith he old working-class based movements, their<br>
place in the ranks of battle was determined and they couldn't retreat<br>
once things started. You couldn't "have a day off" from the miners'<br>
strike if you lived in a pit village.<br>
<br>
14.In addition to a day off, you can "mix and match": I have met<br>
people who do community organizing one day, and the next are on a<br>
flotilla to Gaza; then they pop up working for a think tank on<br>
sustainable energy; then they're writing a book about something<br>
completely different. I was astonished to find people I had<br>
interviewed inside the UCL occupation blogging from Tahrir Square this<br>
week.<br>
<br>
15. People just know more than they used to. Dictatorships rely not<br>
just on the suppression of news but on the suppression of narratives<br>
and truth. More or less everything you need to know to make sense of<br>
the world is available as freely downloadable content on the internet:<br>
and it's not pre-digested for you by your teachers, parents, priests,<br>
imams. For example there are huge numbers of facts available to me now<br>
about the subjects I studied at university that were not known when I<br>
was there in the 1980s. Then whole academic terms would be spent<br>
disputing basic facts, or trying to research them. Now that is still<br>
true but the plane of reasoning can be more complex because people<br>
have an instant reference source for the undisputed premises of<br>
arguments. It's as if physics has been replaced by quantum physics,<br>
but in every discipline.<br>
<br>
16.There is no Cold War, and the War on Terror is not as effective as<br>
the Cold War was in solidifying elites against change. Egypt is<br>
proving to be a worked example of this: though it is highly likely<br>
things will spiral out of control, post Mubarak - as in all the colour<br>
revolutons - the dire warnings of the US right that this will lead to<br>
Islamism are a "meme" that has not taken off. In fact you could make<br>
an interesting study of how the meme starts, blossoms and fades away<br>
over the space of 12 days. To be clear: I am not saying they are wrong<br>
- only that the fear of an Islamist takeover in Egypt has not been<br>
strong enough to swing the US presidency or the media behind Mubarak.<br>
<br>
17. It is - with international pressure and some powerful NGOs -<br>
possible to bring down a repressive government without having to spend<br>
years in the jungle as a guerilla, or years in the urban underground:<br>
instead the oppositional youth - both in the west in repressive<br>
regimes like Tunisia/Egypt, and above all in China - live in a virtual<br>
undergrowth online and through digital comms networks. The internet is<br>
not key here - it is for example the things people swap by text<br>
message, the music they swap with each other etc: the hidden meanings<br>
in graffiti, street art etc which those in authority fail to spot.<br>
<br>
18. People have a better understanding of power. The activists have<br>
read their Chomsky and their Hardt-Negri, but the ideas therein have<br>
become mimetic: young people believe the issues are no longer class<br>
and economics but simply power: they are clever to the point of<br>
expertise in knowing how to mess up hierarchies and see the various<br>
"revolutions" in their own lives as part of an "exodus" from<br>
oppression, not - as previous generations did - as a "diversion into<br>
the personal". While Foucault could tell Gilles Deleuze: "We had to<br>
wait until the nineteenth century before we began to understand the<br>
nature of exploitation, and to this day, we have yet to fully<br>
comprehend the nature of power",- that's probably changed.<br>
<br>
19. As the algebraic sum of all these factors it feels like the<br>
protest "meme" that is sweeping the world - if that premise is indeed<br>
true - is profoundly less radical on economics than the one that swept<br>
the world in the 1910s and 1920s; they don't seek a total overturn:<br>
they seek a moderation of excesses. However on politics the common<br>
theme is the dissolution of centralized power and the demand for<br>
"autonomy" and personal freedom in addition to formal democracy and an<br>
end to corrupt, family based power-elites.<br>
<br>
20. Technology has - in many ways, from the contraceptive pill to the<br>
iPod, the blog and the CCTV camera - expanded the space and power of<br>
the individual.<br>
<br>
Some complications....<br>
<br>
a) all of the above are generalisations: and have to be read as such.<br>
<br>
b) are these methods replicable by their opponents? Clearly up to a<br>
point they are. So the assumption in the global progressive movement<br>
that their values are aligned with that of the networked world may be<br>
wrong. Also we have yet to see what happens to all this social<br>
networking if a state ever seriously pulls the plug on the technology:<br>
switches the mobile network off, censors the internet, cyber-attacks<br>
the protesters.<br>
<br>
c) China is the laboratory here, where the Internet Police are paid to<br>
go online and foment pro-government "memes" to counteract the<br>
oppositional ones. The Egyptian leftist blogger Arabawy.org says on<br>
his website that : "in a dictatorship, independent journalism by<br>
default becomes a form of activism, and the spread of information is<br>
essentially an act of agitation." But independent journalism is<br>
suppressed in many parts of the world.<br>
<br>
d) what happens to this new, fluffy global zeitgeist when it runs up<br>
against the old-style hierarchical dictatorship in a death match,<br>
where the latter has about 300 Abrams tanks? We may be about to find<br>
out.<br>
<br>
e) - and this one is troubling for mainstream politics: are we<br>
creating a complete disconnect between the values and language of the<br>
state and those of the educated young? Egypt is a classic example - if<br>
you hear the NDP officials there is a time-warped aspect to their<br>
language compared to that of young doctors and lawyers on the Square.<br>
But there are also examples in the UK: much of the political discourse<br>
- on both sides of the House of Commons - is treated by many young<br>
people as a barely intelligible "noise" - and this goes wider than<br>
just the protesters.<br>
<br>
(For example: I'm finding it common among non-politicos these days<br>
that whenever you mention the "Big Society" there's a shrug and a<br>
suppressed laugh - yet if you move into the warren of thinktanks<br>
around Westminster, it's treated deadly seriously. Dissing the Big<br>
Society has quickly become a "meme" that crosses political tribal<br>
boundaries under the Coalition, yet most professional politicians are<br>
deaf to "memes" as the youth are to the contents of Hansard.)<br>
<br>
That's it - as I say, these are just my thoughts on it all and not<br>
researched other than through experience: there are probably whole PhD<br>
theses about some of this so feel free to hit the comments.<br>
<br>
Likewise if you think it is all balderdash, and if you are over 40 you<br>
may, vent your analog-era spleen below.<br>
<br>
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