Re: <nettime> what if we were all right but all wrong?

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

I don't think much interesting can be found in the opposition between
critique & practice on the one hand, and between electronic & physical
one other.

Sure, there's a lot of theory-posturing that portrays itself as
critical but is primarily about self-promotion and there is lots of
activism that clings to modes of operation that have failed for a long
time. And it's probably possible to be guilty of both sins at the same
time!

I think at the moment, we need everything we can get that helps us
devising a future which is not dominated by the national conservatives
orchestrating an ugly fight over diminishing resources. Which appears
to be the most likely near-term future in Europe (and, perhaps, also
the US) [1].

We clearly need some radical thinking that breaks a lot of assumptions
that still underlay common sense. And we need infrastructures that
enable alternative practices to scale to level that is adequate to the
problems we are facing. And we need a lot more, of course.

The key, it seems, likes in translation, between languages, between
contexts, between people and between levels of abstraction. In the
end, it's a question of personal preference where one's work is
situated. There is no prime layer that is more relevant than others.
In the same way, I don't think anyone, or even any group, no matter
how large, can do all of this. We all live in very long chains, no
need to privileging one link over the other.

So the opposition that seems relevant to me would be between
things/approaches/ideas that impose their structure on others, and
those which are open to being translated into something else.


Felix





[1]
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/europe-far-right-state-capit
alism-by-nouriel-roubini-2015-10


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