Hi Denis,<br><br>anything new on the psy-commons which I could publish in the 2nd week of June?<br><br>Michel<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 5:02 AM, Denis Postle <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:d.postle@btinternet.com">d.postle@btinternet.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;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<br>
<br>
On 30/05/2011 09:36, Michel Bauwens wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">very useful Andy!<br>
</blockquote>
Yes indeed, it was a strangely wonky film, no mention of capitalism
as an influence on anything, and no mention of cybernetics
originating, as I seem to recall, in second world war gun design, or
biologists' intense interest, as far back as the 70's in
morphogenetic discontinuities.<br>
Disappointing.<br>
<br>
Greetings<br>
<br>
Denis<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Andy
Robinson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ldxar1@gmail.com" target="_blank">ldxar1@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;">
Hiya,<br>
<br>
Oh, wonderful... �another Hobbesian critique of autonomy...
�just what<br>
the world needs :-(<br>
<br>
The theoretical error here is confusing the idea of
self-organising<br>
networks with the much more widespread, older, and more
insidious idea<br>
of a natural order. �The ideas are similar in that they both
posit a<br>
certain form of organisation which, if realised and then left
to its<br>
own devices, will be stable. �Where they differ, is that the
old idea<br>
of natural order implies some kind of equilibrium model. �In
fact if<br>
we want to trace this idea we have to go at least as far back
as<br>
Aristotle, who also believed that everything in the world has
a<br>
'natural' function and if everything fulfilled its function,
the world<br>
would be a harmonious order.<br>
<br>
Of course this view is very helpful for the process known as<br>
'naturalisation' in discourse analysis: taking a contingent
social<br>
fact and insulating it from critique by declaring it to be
'natural'<br>
(gender relations, heteronormativity, racial hierarchies,
poverty,<br>
class differences and so on). �The trick is that the 'natural'<br>
situation still has to be actively socially constructed, and
relies on<br>
hierarchy and violence to keep it in place. �This is what's
going on<br>
in the South African case discussed.<br>
<br>
Hence the criticism is conflating self-organising networks
with the<br>
equilibrium model of natural order, and the use of
naturalisation in<br>
discourse. �A self-organising network is neither of these
things for<br>
two reasons: 1) by definition it does not require a hierarchy
to keep<br>
it in place, 2) it is a complex system and not a fixed order,
ranking<br>
or equilibrium. �(That's not to say that complexity theory
doesn't<br>
have its own skeletons in the closet - TBH I was expecting at
least<br>
some reference to the sins of cybernetics here - Curtis isn't
doing<br>
his research as well as he might).<br>
<br>
The 'Green movement = Romanticism' or 'Green movement =
conservative<br>
views of natural order' trick has been pulled many times
before.<br>
There was a certain love of the countryside and concern for<br>
conservation in pro-peasant Romanticism and rural aristocratic<br>
conservatism, but it's not much like Green thought, because
the vision<br>
of nature is radically different, so too is the politics, and
anyway,<br>
the main concern is with the virtues of peasants or
aristocrats -<br>
conservation is almost an afterthought, keeping the rural folk
in<br>
their 'natural environment'. �It's possible to write a history
of<br>
ecological concern in that direction, but it's also possible
to write<br>
one which goes through Morris, Kropotkin and other figures of
the left<br>
(even Marx talks about alienation from nature).<br>
<br>
Note also that if we're playing reductio ad hitlerum (South
Africa<br>
count as Nazi?), this author's stance can just as easily be
debunked<br>
the same way, i.e. people who believe nature is a Hobbesian
chaos<br>
quite often end up as control-freak eugenicists and ecocidal
maniacs<br>
(Herbert Spencer comes to mind); people who believe social
movements<br>
need strong organisation and leadership are repeating what the<br>
Stalinists did in Russia, and are going to shoot us like
partridges or<br>
betray us like in Spain; the view of power as definitive in
social<br>
life is shared with Carl Schmitt, who of course is a Nazi, etc
etc.<br>
Seriously, an authoritarian Hobbesian does not want to start
that<br>
particular game, particularly when arguing with anarchists
(who are<br>
measurably the furthest possible one can be from Nazis on
political<br>
compass - guaranteeing that whoever is using the argument is
closer).<br>
<br>
The part of the article on Biosphere is a grotesque
misreading... �all<br>
that it shows is that scientists don't (yet) know enough about
how the<br>
elements in an ecosystem interrelate to be able to build an
ecosystem<br>
at this level of complexity. �Maybe this is a case for further<br>
scientific research, maybe it's a case for trusting local
knowledge<br>
over modern science when dealing with complex local systems.
�I'd add<br>
that scientists *have* created homeostatic ecosystems in jars<br>
involving only a handful of species (I've seen one on display
in a<br>
science centre). �Here we are:<br>
<a href="http://www.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us/science/BioJar.html" target="_blank">http://www.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us/science/BioJar.html</a>
�Hence very bad<br>
attempt to discredit a concept.<br>
<br>
Old leftists are very twitchy about the newest wave of social<br>
movements - if not downright hostile, and it's always attached
to this<br>
same kind of suspicion that 1) they don't realise the need for<br>
discipline/authority/strong organisations and 2) they're
really<br>
Thatcherites in disguise, too caught-up in self-expression to
do<br>
'serious' politics'. �It's really the same as the objections
of old<br>
rightists, which far more explicitly whine about lost
authority and<br>
the breakdown of values and how 'selfish' people are and 'in
my day<br>
they'd all have been hung from the railings by their gonads'.
�The<br>
leftist version is an echo of the same discourse, with the
same<br>
objections to contemporary society and its social movements.
�I think<br>
it's partly a psychological problem and partly a generational
problem.<br>
�In fact there was a characteristic of the old pre-60s
'consensus'<br>
which has broken down, a kind of unquestioning acceptance of
authority<br>
and discipline, and to someone who still believes in this lost
world<br>
of proto-fascism which was shattered by the 60s rebellions,
the New<br>
Left and New Right look strangely similar. �Hence the tropes
we see<br>
here: new social movements = irresponsible individualism and
refusal<br>
of normativity, autonomy = managerialism, social movements
need<br>
discipline to be effective (instrumentalism vs expressionism),
and a<br>
world without a strong boss to tell everyone what to do isn't
going to<br>
work because the world just doesn't work that way goddamnit
it'd be<br>
anarchy.<br>
<br>
It's a product of a desire for a strong 'trunk' and
arborescent<br>
structures which is either a psychological disposition (think
either<br>
'Authoritarian Personality' and 'Fear of Freedom', or else
maybe<br>
certain Myers-Briggs types), or a learnt cultural disposition
which<br>
these people are having trouble unlearning (this is what they
were<br>
socialised into, they were 'good subjects' then, and they hate
the<br>
fact that they're not 'good subjects' any more, even though
they've<br>
always just about played by the rules they were socialised
into, that<br>
for them are 'just the way it is'). �I've seen it a thousand
times, it<br>
comes up whenever networked protest groups or direct action or
the<br>
Black Bloc or subcultural deviance or any freedom vs
collectivism<br>
dispute comes up, and it's almost identical in structure every
single<br>
time. �It's not a good idea to take it too seriously, because
these<br>
types seem pre-programmed to be unreflexive about the origins
of their<br>
own assumptions, and therefore are unable to justify their
selection<br>
of this particular set of assumptions - it isn't a conscious
choice,<br>
it's a reflex.<br>
<br>
The real struggle now is not within the old industrial economy
(old<br>
right vs old left) but within the new<br>
creative/informational/precarious economy (new right / new
Third Way<br>
vs new left / newest social movements), and the way these
kinds who<br>
want to go back to the old industrial economy relate to this
struggle<br>
is invariably reactionary: their 'need' for greater order is
met by<br>
the right-wing side of the current struggle, and they're
therefore<br>
drawn into it on the 'wrong' side, even if precariously so.<br>
<br>
bw<br>
<font color="#888888">Andy<br>
</font>
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
<br>
On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 6:40 AM, Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
> Sam,<br>
><br>
> I hope you survived the tornado?<br>
><br>
> I hope some of our participants can react to this
very interesting challenge<br>
> from Adam Curtis in the Guardian,<br>
><br>
> Michel<br>
><br>
> On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Flanagan <<a href="mailto:kev.flanagan@gmail.com" target="_blank">kev.flanagan@gmail.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for
sinister means - Adam<br>
>> Curtis - Guardian<br>
>><br>
>> When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field
marshal dreamed up rival<br>
>> theories of nature and society, no one could have
guessed their ideas<br>
>> would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and
21st-century protest<br>
>> movements. But their faith in self-regulating
systems has a sinister<br>
>> history<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tansley-smuts" target="_blank">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tansley-smuts</a><br>
>><br>
>> Episode 1 of his current documentary is up on
youtube<br>
>><br>
>> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5jImWRREc</a><br>
>><br>
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