Igor Markovic on Fri, 14 Mar 97 23:40 MET |
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nettime: Nettimism? No thank you! |
No more ideologies - keep cyberspace clean! With the growth of importance and influence of the nettime (list, circle of people and concepts etc.) people who lived at least a part of their lives in socialism - but not only them - can recognise emerging of some nteresting processes. I have in mind selfunderstaindable leadership of dominant idea, ideology, viewpoint. Since the time of the First International and famous Haag congress discussion about leadership and/or problems of representation of other voices is present, particularly in the "left" whatever one could consider into that term. And nettime is "left". There is no doubt about it. Some recent highlights, at the first look not connected with the topic, warn that there is place for being worried. Set is prepared and only from the actors itself (there is no director in this play!) depend the end. At the final discussion on Next5Minutes Conference it was kind a lot of discussion about "being neo-marxist" and how to fight "bad" ideologies on the Net, and some reflection were available in several following discussions, including some postings to this list. Recent private discussion I had with Geert Lovink about meanings of the term "net criticism", and how it should be recognised and used along with Toshiya Ueno's visit to Zagreb start alarm in my head. It happened before. It also start innocent, it was in good purpose, but it finished into Holocaust. I will dare to try to compare period just before the Soviet revolution and present position of nettime. It's very important to stress that ideologically those two things have very little in common. Only important similarity is at the field of organisation. At the Congress Bolsheviks have very few representative, but they have some of the most eminent individuals of the time, and they somehow manage to turn some sindycalists, anarchists, and Tkachevist on their side, get majority, proclaim marxism-lenism as a favourite ideology and the rest is history. (Lately, during the Spanish civil war it was shown that people do not need some specific leaders who will explain them meanings of life.) What, in my humble opinion happens at the field of net criticism, and around nettime (it work for some other emerging groups, circles or lists) is something with similar characteristics. First, there is some kind of felling of being something special - it is more then obvious in the discussions, at the conferences and in different articles and papers around. Non-academism could also be a form of elitism. It's nothing bad in being aware of personal values, but it easily could be turned into pejorative elitism. Usually there is no discussion (on-line) with the people from "outside", who do not share enthusiasm for the nettime idea, which is mainly their fault, but it is not good for the idea, which can grow and develop only in constant discussion, re-thinking, and if it is necessary flaming. It happened to the Marxism in Eastern Europe: no real enemies, no controversies, just Marx-Engels: Werke. Excellent point in resistance to possible autoghetoisation were stopping the moderation of the list, unfortunately discussion is still focus only to some specific "inside" points, without broader audience. But possibility exist! It's on the people to use it. The bigger problem, however, could be (and it already is) insisting on common platform (particularly neo-marxist!) and sharing ideologies of resistance/ progress or whatever. It was strange before, and it is even stranger today to insist on wide spread organisations against the Others - no matter how "bad" they are. Why is it necessary to insist on some new -ism, on one and ultimate theoretical explanation which will take care and explain to the "common" people how and way they should resist to MegaGodzila, Californian ideology, or McDonalds? History show that it is irrelevant was it done on purpose or not - people in and around nettime have no such ambitions, but danger remains! After all, who saw the Stalin shadow behind Marx in 19th century? Insisting on common aims, or thousands of other phrases like that will produce the Thinkers, the Philosophers, the Politicians who will have prepared answers to problems, and who will then became the Leaders - it doesn't matter do they want to be Leaders or not! They will be installed - from the "common people!" as Leaders, and sooner or later they will have to accept such label, or leave the real life and live quiet life in country house with a gazebo. Danger is double. First there is no person who can guarantee for itself that such privilege position wouldn't change it at least a bit. Power change people, and in this case ultimate power to be interpreter of what is going on, and how to deal with it, it may finished in the catastrophe. On Stalin's dead Ionescu wrote - very correctly - that it's not the Stalin who was real monster - but all those small Stalins in kolhozes, factories, schools... Secondly, nettime put together some of the biggest minds at the field of the social implications of the new media, lot of people would like to be part of it, and in minds of people with modest capacity (myself for example) it look like club in the Ivy League. Those people produce a lot of new ideas, which knowledge hungry "ordinary people" just grab and try to digest. Look just what happened with post-modern and Baudrillard! It is necessary for thinkers and theoreticians to permanent fight against such tendencies, and on the other hand they can not do that all the time, they are just human beings. I have no right answer how to fight those processes - if I describe them correctly in the first place, and it would be very dangerous if anyone will came with the final solution, but recognition of the problem and discussion about it sounds like a good starting point. Cause, if I have to choose - and it might happen - between Negropontean or Californian or whatever global state and nettimean or rhizomean or netizenshipean or whatever avanguarde of the working class, I have to choose the first one. Not because I like it, but for the simple fact that Soviet revolution failed with the Kronstadt, not with the Berlin wall. Igor Markovic Intelectual cooperative Bastard -- * distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission * <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, * collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets * more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body * URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de