Reflections on Occupy London archive
I was thinking about to share some thoughts with you guys about the perception of Occupy London movement as a knowledge production space. I read several passages from Hannah Arendt “Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy” where she made a few interesting points that can be applied to our attempt to define the nature of OL in more or less critical way. She began with creating quite unpleasant image of Socrates by saying that his pedagogical method was worthless: “he never knew the answer to the questions he asked. He did the examining for the examining’s sake, not for the sake of knowledge. Had he know what courage, justice, piety, etc., were, he would no longer have had to examine them, i.e., to think about them. Socrates’ uniqueness lies in this concentration on thinking itself, regardless of result”. This actually is so familiar with the Occupy talks scenario – not providing any solutions, but rather focusing on discussion of current issues. In this sense, talks, working groups and any other initiatives, become an educational platform. Then Arendt mentions about how Socrates performed at the marketplace in order to “make public, in discourse, the thinking process”. Occupying public space allows members of the movement to do quite the same: creating the public. Furthermore, she says that “he [Socrates] became the figure of the philosopher because he took an all comers in the marketplace – was entirely unprotected, open to all questioners, to all demands to give an account of the and to live up to what he said. The schools and sects are unenlightened (in Kantian parlance) because they depend on the doctrines of their founders”.
Following that thought, I asked myself, if educational activities of OL produce an excess to theoretical discourse, how it then does transform theory into practice? To be honest, I don’t have any direct answer for that.
While I was trying to understand the origins of the movement, I also came across with the idea of authority as a way of articulating leading position. As you know, there are no leaders, no authoritative opinions in OL which forms its flexible model. Also using the Internet as a platform for discussions dissolves the leading figure in the multitude of participants. In this case, constant mode of participation became a goal of the movement and helps to discover it identity. Participation for participation’s sake. In other words, you have to be part of the movement in order to continue OL’s existence. The importance of that shows you how OM has changed the structure of social communication by creating such horizontal, rhizomatic model of being...
But how does all this relate to the idea of archive? Hypothetically, institutional form of archive has a reputation of source that provides physical prove of relevant and valuable knowledge. We can assume that it “depends on the doctrines of their founders”. As far as I can understand, there is no centralized archive of OL that was made by its members. All information has been uploaded on the Internet, using different kind of social networks. The history of the movement is branching out within cyber space. This goes back to the idea of archive as a guarantee of knowledge reliability. Spreading information all over the Internet allows you to trace almost every step of the movement which gives you feeling of transparency. But what is a validity of such transparency? From historical point of view, that may cause some problems with future representation of the movement, because it creates a gap of speculation which is generated by the agents of cultural establishment. Probably, they will produce the historical embodiment of the social movement. But maybe it is not the problem at all. The problem is a lack of ability among members of OL to write their own history, because the nature of the movement doesn't allow to do it...or does?
However, I do not want to make any conclusions, but I rather continue discuss this matter..
I was thinking about to share some thoughts with you guys about the perception of Occupy London movement as a knowledge production space. I read several passages from Hannah Arendt “Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy” where she made a few interesting points that can be applied to our attempt to define the nature of OL in more or less critical way. She began with creating quite unpleasant image of Socrates by saying that his pedagogical method was worthless: “he never knew the answer to the questions he asked. He did the examining for the examining’s sake, not for the sake of knowledge. Had he know what courage, justice, piety, etc., were, he would no longer have had to examine them, i.e., to think about them. Socrates’ uniqueness lies in this concentration on thinking itself, regardless of result”. This actually is so familiar with the Occupy talks scenario – not providing any solutions, but rather focusing on discussion of current issues. In this sense, talks, working groups and any other initiatives, become an educational platform. Then Arendt mentions about how Socrates performed at the marketplace in order to “make public, in discourse, the thinking process”. Occupying public space allows members of the movement to do quite the same: creating the public. Furthermore, she says that “he [Socrates] became the figure of the philosopher because he took an all comers in the marketplace – was entirely unprotected, open to all questioners, to all demands to give an account of the and to live up to what he said. The schools and sects are unenlightened (in Kantian parlance) because they depend on the doctrines of their founders”.
Following that thought, I asked myself, if educational activities of OL produce an excess to theoretical discourse, how it then does transform theory into practice? To be honest, I don’t have any direct answer for that.
While I was trying to understand the origins of the movement, I also came across with the idea of authority as a way of articulating leading position. As you know, there are no leaders, no authoritative opinions in OL which forms its flexible model. Also using the Internet as a platform for discussions dissolves the leading figure in the multitude of participants. In this case, constant mode of participation became a goal of the movement and helps to discover it identity. Participation for participation’s sake. In other words, you have to be part of the movement in order to continue OL’s existence. The importance of that shows you how OM has changed the structure of social communication by creating such horizontal, rhizomatic model of being...
But how does all this relate to the idea of archive? Hypothetically, institutional form of archive has a reputation of source that provides physical prove of relevant and valuable knowledge. We can assume that it “depends on the doctrines of their founders”. As far as I can understand, there is no centralized archive of OL that was made by its members. All information has been uploaded on the Internet, using different kind of social networks. The history of the movement is branching out within cyber space. This goes back to the idea of archive as a guarantee of knowledge reliability. Spreading information all over the Internet allows you to trace almost every step of the movement which gives you feeling of transparency. But what is a validity of such transparency? From historical point of view, that may cause some problems with future representation of the movement, because it creates a gap of speculation which is generated by the agents of cultural establishment. Probably, they will produce the historical embodiment of the social movement. But maybe it is not the problem at all. The problem is a lack of ability among members of OL to write their own history, because the nature of the movement doesn't allow to do it...or does?
However, I do not want to make any conclusions, but I rather continue discuss this matter..