Re: <nettime> Stormy weather?

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

On 15.02.23 11:34, mp wrote:
> The overarching context - as context seems to be such a hot term -
> is trade war and the electrification of consumer civilization.
>
> Making this about "Putin", i.e. a single person and his "unlawful" 
> acts, is beyond intellectually lazy reductionism. It is ridiculous, 
> even, unless, perhaps, performed as a deliberate act of distraction 
> from the bigger picture.

Well, in autocracies, autocrats matters. But of course, not even an
autocrat acts in a vacuum of his own volition but within structural
constraints.

They are, as you say, the end of the neoliberal global order manifested
by the breaking apart of Chimerica, and the accelerating decarbonization
of the energy supply (which is happening, even if too late to avoid
massive damage).

These realities exist for everyone. That is the easy part of the
analysis. What characterizes a deep crisis, in my view, is that large
number of actors have a high degree of freedom how to react to it,
pursuing their own agenda, because there is no overarching system (be it
economic or military) that holds them in place.

Did fossil-dependent Russia have to invade Ukraine because of that? I
don't think so. It could have pursued the smarter strategy of Middle
Eastern fossil-states and capture the COP process to delay the
inevitable, or done something else. But it didn't. Someone, probably
Putin and other members of the elite, interpreted these constraints in a
way that made the invasion seem a smart move. Was he walking into a trap
that NATO created and he was too stupid to see? I doubt.

Why? Because, in my understanding, power doesn't operate by making these
long-term plans that then, miraculously, come to fruition. Power
operates much more often by being able to impose its reading on
unforeseen (or at least unplanned for) circumstances. In the reading of
the US (and Europe), the conflicts of 2008 (Donbas) and 2014 (Crimea)
were regional conflicts, while the 2022 invasion had a clear
geopolitical dimension, with power in Europe and control over the global
food supply at stake. I guess the Ukrainians understood quickly that
aligning themselves with this reading and portraying themselves as
defenders of freedom is their only chance for survival.


On 15.02.23 13:44, d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk wrote:

> It may not offer us much, but it just seemed that Clark’s approach 
> might help us guard against us so over-regarding the explanatory 
> power of large-scale historical forces that we underestimate the 
> importance of amplifying our own collective and individual agency in 
> confronting the power wielded by key (or elite) political actors. It 
> might mitigate against the overwhelming feeling of impotence that 
> sometimes seems to turn the least and the best us all into 
> sleepwalkers.
















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