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>Fragments from NEW RULES, NEW ACTONOMY
By Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider. Reorganized by Cicero Egli
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Fragments from NEW RULES, NEW ACTONOMY
>Fragments from NEW RULES, NEW ACTONOMY
By Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider. Reorganized by Cicero Egli
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>Session 3, Cicero
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>Session 1, All Members
By Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider. Reorganized by Cicero EgliINTRODUCTION
That the world is changing wasn't really noticed for a while. But nowadays the signs have become more obvious that there are many political, cultural, economic and social conflicts simmering under the cover of digitalisation, infotisation and globalisation; the extent and breadth of these conflicts cannot yet be estimated.
Almost all habits of political thinking and action are more or less radically questioned. Necessary is a redefinition of the political practice and its theorising, not starting from point zero but from where we are now.
The great social movements of the past centuries from labour to environment seem to be exhausted. Simple recipes have lost all credibility.
The field of the political has collapsed into thousands of single fragments, but it is exactly in this chaos that a new activism with new ways of political articulation and action is breaking through.
All these new beginnings are extremely flexible and operate with tactical
and strategic plurality. They strive for up-to-date notions of solidarity and self-determination, and they try to link and to short-cut immediate and local conflicts with global ones.SABOTAGE IN THE 21th CENTURY
Sabotage derives from the French word sabot, which is a wooden shoe that is secretly introduced into a machine and blocks the production temporarily. This interruption aims to reduce the efficiency of the machine tosuch an extent that the emerging material damage underlines the concrete demands or ageneral disgust at the condition of exploitation.
What is nowadays called direct action re-presents sabotage. We suspect: current forms of activism attempt a redefinition of sabotage as social practice, but not in the usual destructive sense, rather in a constructive, innovative and creative practice.
In a variety of perspectives - self-determined cybernetic thinking that spurs on different approaches and connections, which refers to a social antagonism refers to the level of production, and that is constituting a collective process of appropriation of knowledge and power.
The future is constantly being redefined, and renegotiated. Global systems are in a state of permanent flux between revolution and reaction - and so is subversive politics. Society is changing much faster than any of its institutions can handle. In short: no one can keep up and here lies the competitive advantage of today's mobile actonomists.
THUS, THE NEW RULES OF ACTONOMY
understand the new dynamics - and use them
Accelerate your politics. Set a target you can reach within 3 years - and formulate the key ideas within 30 seconds. Then go out and doit. Do not despair. Get the bloody project up and then: hit hit hit.Be instantly seductive in your resistance. The moral firewalls of global capitalism are buggy as never before. Corporations are weakened because of their endemic dirty practices, mad for profits.
The faster things are changing, the more radical we can act. The faster things are changing, the more radical we have to act.
Focus on the weakest link defining the overall performance of the system: the point where the corporate image materialises in the real world and leaves its ubiquity and abstract omnipresence.
Short-cut the common deliberations about the dichotomy between real and virtual. Get into more sophisticated dialectics.
It is enough to understand the new dynamics - and use them. Create and disseminate your message with all available logics, tools and media.
Laws of semiotic guerilla
Hit and run, draw and withdraw, code and delete. Postulate precise and modest demands, which allows your foe a step back without losing its face.The goal is obviously not so much to gain institutional political power, rather to change the way in which things are moving - and why.
The principle aim is to make power ridiculous, unveil its corrupt nature in the most powerful, beautiful and aggressive symbolic languages, then step back in order to make space for changes to set in.
The principle aim is to make power ridiculous, unveil its corrupt nature in the most powerful, beautiful and aggressive symbolic languages, then step back in order to make space for changes to set in. Let others do that job, if they wish so. There is no need for a direct dialogue in this phase.
Indirect contact with the power does not affect your radical agenda as long as you maintain and upgrade your own dignity, both as an acting individual and as a group.
'small is beautiful' vs. 'subversive economies of scale'
Radical demands are not by default a sign of a dogmatic belief system (they can, of course). If formulated well they are strong signs, penetrating deeply into the confused postmodern subjectivity, so susceptive to catchy phrases, logos and brands.The duality betterave 'small is beautiful' and 'subversive economies of scale' is constantly shifting. Low-tech money-free projects are charming, but in most cases lack the precision and creative power to strike at society's weakest link. Be ready to work with money. You will need it for the temporary set-up.
Acting in the new actonomy means to cut the preliminaries and get to the point straight away.
Think in terms of efficiency. Use the staff and infrastructure on the site of your foe. A campaign does not rely on ones own forces, but on those of your allies and opponents as well.
Outsourcing is a weapon. It is a means of giving someone else the problèmes you cannot solve yourself. Remember that you won't get very far without a proper infrastructure such as offices, servers, legal frameworks to receive and pay money, etc.
Dramaturgy of rhizomatic micro-politics
Invent and connect as much intentions, motivations, causalities as possible.Nowadays activists use multi-layered and multiple voice languages that reach out far beyond the immediate purpose of a campaign or a concrete struggle, and in doing so they create a vision much larger than what is accessible right at the moment.
This mechanism needs a reassessment of rhizomatic micro-politics, which sprung up in a response to the centralised macro-politics of the decaying communist parties in the seventies.
Program and compile subject-oriented campaigns! Act in a definite space and with a definite force. Dramaturgy is all that matters.
Precision campaigns consist of distinct episodes with a beginning and an ending, an either smooth or harsh escalation and a final showdown.
Accept the laws of appearance and disappearance. Don't get stuck in structures, which are on the decline. Be ready to move on, taking with you the (access to) infrastructure of the previous round.
Be the « machine de guerre », a form of pure exteriority
The revolution will be open source or not! Self-determination is something you should really share. As soon as you feel certain strength on a certain field, you can make your power productive as positive, creative and innovative force. That power opens up new capacities, reducing again and again unexpected and incalculable effects.Refuse to be blackmailed. If attacked, make one step aside or ahead. Don't panic.
Take all the options into account. No one needs cyber heroes, you are not a lone hacker anymore. The attack maybe be done by a single person but remember we are many.
The corporate response may be harder than you expect. It may be better to evade a direct confrontation, but don't trust the media and the mediators.
If trouble hits the face, scale down, retreat, reorganise, get your network up, dig deep into the far corners of the Net - and then launch the counter campaign.
The urgent question of that movement is: what new types of subjectivity will rise out of the current struggles? Everybody knows what's to be done, but who knows what are we fighting for and why? Maybe it doesn't matter anymore: net activism is of a charming fragility. In the end it
means permanently revising and redefining all goals.Ignore history. Don't refer to any of your favourite predecessors.
Hide your admiration for authors, artists and familiar styles. You do not need to legitimise yourself by quoting the right theorist or rapper.
Be unscrupulously modern (meaning: ignore organised fashion, you are anyway busy with something else). Create and disseminate your message with all available logics, tools and media.
The new actonomy involves a rigorous application of networkingmethods. Its diversity challenges the development of non-hierarchical, décentralise and deterritorialised applets and applications.
Hide your admiration for everything new and cool. Just use it. Take the claim on the future away from corporations.
Read as much business literature as possible and don't be afraid it may affect you. It will. Having enough ethics in your guts you can deal with that bit of ideology.
Remember that activism and entrepreneurial spirit have a remarkably lot in common.
Benefit from your unlimited capacity of metamorphosis. With the right spirit you can survive any appropriation.
Free yourself from the idea that enemy concepts are compromising the struggle. You don't have to convince yourself, nor your foe. The challenge is to involve those who are not yet joining the struggle.
The challenge is to use resources, which may not belong to you, but which are virtually yours.