507 lines
28 KiB
Plaintext
507 lines
28 KiB
Plaintext
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THE ELECTRONIC DISTURBANCE
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Critical Art Ensemble
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Part 1 of 7
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Published by Autonomedia
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ISBN 1-57027-006-6
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Critical Art Ensemble would like to thank
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Jim Fleming and all the members
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of the Autonomedia Collective who helped
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bring this project to fruition. We would
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especially like to thank Steven Englander,
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who editorial assistance was invaluable.
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Anti-copyright @ 1994 Autonomedia & Critical Art Ensemble
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This book may be freely pirated and quoted.
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However, please inform the authors and publisher
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at the address below.
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Autonomedia
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POB 568 Williamsburgh Station
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Brooklyn, NY 11211-0568 USA
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718-387-6471
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Printed in the United States of America
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Chapter 1 ]]> Introduction ]]> The Virtual Condition
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The rules of cultural and political resistance have dramatically
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changed. The revolution in technology brought about by the
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rapid development of the computer and video has created a
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new geography of power relations in the first world that
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could only be imagined as little as twenty years ago:
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people are reduced to data, surveillance occurs on a global
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scale, minds are melded to screenal reality, and an
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authoritarian power emerges that thrives on absence. The
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new geography is a virtual geography, and the core of
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political and cultural resistance must assert itself in this
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electronic space.
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The West has been preparing for this moment for 2,500 years.
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There has always been an idea of the virtual, whether it was
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grounded in mysticism, abstract analytical thinking, or
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romantic fantasy. All of these approaches have shaped and
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manipulated invisible worlds accessible only through the
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imagination, and in some cases these models have been given
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ontological privilege. What has made contemporary concepts
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and ideologies of the virtual possible is that these
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preexisting systems of thought have expanded out of the
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imagination, and manifested themselves in the development
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and understanding of technology. The following work, as
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condensed as it may be, extracts traces of the virtual from
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past historical and philosophical narratives. These traces
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show intertextual relationships between seemingly disparate
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systems of thought that have now been recombined into a
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working body of "knowledge" under the sign of technology.
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Chapter 2 ]]> Nomadic Power and Cultural Resistance
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The term that best describes the present social condition is
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liquescence. The once unquestioned markers of stability,
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such as God or Nature, have dropped into the black hole of
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skepticism, dissolving positioned identification of subject
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or object. Meaning simultaneously flows through a process
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of proliferation and condensation, at once drifting,
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slipping, speeding into the antinomies of apocalypse and
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utopia. The location of power--and the site of
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resistance--rest in an ambiguous zone without borders. How
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could it be otherwise, when the traces of power flow in
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transition between nomadic dynamics and sedentary
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structures--between hyperspeed and hyperinertia? It is
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perhaps utopian to begin with the claim that resistance
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begins (and ends?) with a Nietzschean casting-off of the
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yoke of catatonia inspired by the postmodern condition, and
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yet the disruptive nature of consciousness leaves little
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choice.
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Treading water in the pool of liquid power need not be an
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image of acquiescence and complicity. In spite of their
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awkward situation, the political activist and the cultural
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activist (anachronistically known as the artist) can still
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produce disturbances. Although such action may more closely
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resemble the gestures of a drowning person, and it is
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uncertain just what is being disturbed, in this situation
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the postmodern roll of the dice favors the act of
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disturbance. After all, what other chance is there? It is
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for this reason that former strategies of "subversion" (a
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word which in critical discourse has about as much meaning
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as the word "community"), or camouflaged attack, have come
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under a cloud of suspicion. Knowing what to subvert assumes
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that forces of oppression are stable and can be identified
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and separated--an assumption that is just too fantastic in
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an age of dialectics in ruins. Knowing how to subvert
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presupposes an understanding of the opposition that rests in
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the realm of certitude, or (at least) high probability. The
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rate at which strategies of subversion are co-opted
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indicates that the adaptability of power is too often
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underestimated; however, credit should be given to the
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resisters, to the extent that the subversive act or product
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is not co-optively reinvented as quickly as the bourgeois
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aesthetic of efficiency might dictate.
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The peculiar entwinement of the cynical and the utopian in the
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concept of disturbance as a necessary gamble is a heresy to
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those who still adhere to 19th-century narratives in which
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the mechanisms and class(es) of oppression, as well as the
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tactics needed to overcome them, are clearly identified.
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After all, the wager is deeply connected to conservative
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apologies for Christianity, and the attempt to appropriate
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rationalist rhetoric and models to persuade the fallen to
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return to traditional eschatology. A renounced Cartesian
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like Pascal, or a renounced revolutionary like Dostoyevsky,
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typify its use. Yet it must be realized that the promise of
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a better future, whether secular or spiritual, has always
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presupposed the economy of the wager. The connection
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between history and necessity is cynically humorous when one
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looks back over the trail of political and cultural debris
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of revolution and near-revolution in ruins. The French
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revolutions from 1789 to 1968 never stemmed the obscene tide
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of the commodity (they seem to have helped pave the way),
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while the Russian and Cuban revolutions merely replaced the
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commodity with the totalizing anachronism of the
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bureaucracy. At best, all that is derived from these
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disruptions is a structure for a nostalgic review of
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reconstituted moments of temporary autonomy.
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The cultural producer has not fared any better. Mallarme'
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brought forth the concept of the wager in _A Roll of the
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Dice_, and perhaps unwittingly liberated invention from the
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bunker of transcendentalism that he hoped to defend, as well
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as releasing the artist from the myth of the poetic subject.
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(It is reasonable to suggest that de Sade had already
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accomplished these tasks at a much earlier date). Duchamp
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(the attack on essentialism), Cabaret Voltaire (the
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methodology of random production), and Berlin dada (the
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disappearance of art into political action) all disturbed
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the cultural waters, and yet opened one of the cultural
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passages for the resurgence of transcendentalism in late
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Surrealism. By way of reaction to the above three, a
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channel was also opened for formalist domination (still to
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this day the demon of the culture-text) that locked the
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culture-object into the luxury market of late capital.
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However, the gamble of these fore-runners of disturbance
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reinjected the dream of autonomy with the amphetamine of
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hope that gives contemporary cultural producers and
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activists the energy to step up to the electronic gaming
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table to roll the dice again.
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In _The Persian Wars_, Herodotus describes a feared people known
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as the Scythians, who maintained a horticultural-nomadic
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society unlike the sedentary empires in the "cradle of
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civilization." The homeland of the Scythians on the
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Northern Black Sea was inhospitable both climatically and
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geographically, but resisted colonization less for these
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natural reasons than because there was no economic or
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military means by which to colonize or subjugate it. With
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no fixed cities or territories, this "wandering horde" could
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never really be located. Consequently, they could never be
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put on the defensive and conquered. They maintained their
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autonomy through movement, making it seem to outsiders that
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they were always present and poised for attack even when
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absent. The fear inspired by the Scythians was quite
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justified, since they were often on the military offensive,
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although no one knew where until the time of their instant
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appearance, or until traces of their power were discovered.
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A floating border was maintained in their homeland, but
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power was not a matter of spatial occupation for the
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Scythians. They wandered, taking territory and tribute as
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needed, in whatever area they found themselves. In so
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doing, they constructed an invisible empire that dominated
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"Asia" for twenty-seven years, and extended as far south as
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Egypt. The empire itself was not sustainable, since their
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nomadic nature denied the need or value of holding
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territories. (Garrisons were not left in defeated
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territories). They were free to wander, since it was
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quickly realized by their adversaries that even when victory
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seemed probable, for practicality's sake it was better not
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to engage them, and to instead concentrate military and
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economic effort on other sedentary societies--that is, on
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societies in which an infrastructure could be located and
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destroyed. This policy was generally reinforced, because an
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engagement with the Scythians required the attackers to
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allow themselves to be found by the Scythians. It was
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extraordinarily rare for the Scythians to be caught in a
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defensive posture. Should the Scythians not like the term
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of engagement, they always had the option of remaining
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invisible, and thereby preventing the enemy from
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constructing a theater of operations.
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This archaic model of power distribution and predatory
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strategy has been reinvented by the power elite of late
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capital for much the same ends. Its reinvention is
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predicated upon the technological opening of cyberspace,
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where speed/absence and inertia/presence collide in
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hyperreality. The archaic model of nomadic power, once a
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means to an unstable empire, has evolved into a sustainable
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means of domination. In a state of double signification,
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the contemporary society of nomads becomes both a diffuse
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power field without location, and a fixed sight machine
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appearing as spectacle. The former privilege allows for the
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appearance of global economy, while the latter acts as a
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garrison in various territories, maintaining the order of
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the commodity with an ideology specific to the given area.
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Although both the diffuse power field and the sight machine
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are integrated through technology, and are necessary parts
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for global empire, it is the former that has fully realized
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the Scythian myth. The shift from archaic space to an
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electronic network offers the full complement of nomadic
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power advantages: The militarized nomads are always on the
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offensive. The obscenity of spectacle and the terror of
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speed are their constant companions. In most cases
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sedentary populations submit to the obscenity of spectacle,
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and contentedly pay the tribute demanded, in the form of
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labor, material, and profit. First world, third world,
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nation or tribe, all must give tribute. The differentiated
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and hierarchical nations, classes, races, and genders of
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sedentary modern society all blend under nomadic domination
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into the role of its service workers--into caretakers of the
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cyberelite. This separation, mediated by spectacle, offers
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tactics that are beyond the archaic nomadic model. Rather
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than a hostile plundering of an adversary, there is a
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friendly pillage, seductively and ecstatically conducted
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against the passive. Hostility from the oppressed is
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rechanneled into the bureaucracy, which misdirects
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antagonism away from the nomadic power field. The retreat
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into the invisibility of nonlocation prevents those caught
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in the panoptic spatial lock-down from defining a site of
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resistance (a theater of operations), and they are instead
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caught in a historical tape loop of resisting the monuments
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of dead capital. (Abortion rights? Demonstrate on the
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steps of the Supreme Court. For the release of drugs which
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slow the development of HIV, storm the NIH). No longer
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needing to take a defensive posture is the nomads' greatest
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strength.
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As the electronic information-cores overflow with files of
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electronic people (those transformed into credit histories,
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consumer types, patterns and tendencies, etc.), electronic
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research, electronic money, and other forms of information
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power, the nomad is free to wander the electronic net, able
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to cross national boundaries with minimal resistance from
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national bureaucracies. The privileged realm of electronic
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space controls the physical logistics of manufacture, since
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the release of raw materials and manufactured goods requires
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electronic consent and direction. Such power must be
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relinquished to the cyber realm, or the efficiency (and
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thereby the profitability) of complex manufacture,
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distribution, and consumption would collapse into a
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communication gap. Much the same is true of the military;
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there is cyberelite control of information resources and
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dispersal. Without command and control, the military
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becomes immobile, or at best limited to chaotic dispersal in
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localized space. In this manner all sedentary structures
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become servants of the nomads.
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The nomadic elite itself is frustratingly difficult to grasp.
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Even in 1956, when C. Wright Mills wrote _The Power Elite_,
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it was clear that the sedentary elite already understood the
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importance of invisibility. (This was quite a shift from
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the looming spatial markers of power used by the feudal
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aristocracy). Mills found it impossible to get any direct
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information on the elite, and was left with speculations
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drawn from questionable empirical categories (for example,
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the social register). As the contemporary elite moves from
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centralized urban areas to decentralized and
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deterritorialized cyberspace, Mills' dilemma becomes
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increasingly aggravated. How can a subject be critically
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assessed that cannot be located, examined, or even seen?
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Class analysis reaches a point of exhaustion. Subjectively
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there is a feeling of oppression, and yet it is difficult to
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locate, let alone assume, an oppressor. In all likelihood,
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this group is not a class at all--that is, an aggregate of
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people with common political and economic interests--but a
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downloaded elite military consciousness. The cyberelite is
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now a transcendent entity that can only be imagined.
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Whether they have integrated programmed motives is unknown.
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Perhaps so, or perhaps their predatory actions fragment
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their solidarity, leaving shared electronic pathways and
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stores of information as the only basis of unity. The
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paranoia of imagination is the foundation for a thousand
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conspiracy theories--all of which are true. Roll the dice.
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The development of an absent and potentially unassailable nomadic
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power, coupled with the rear vision of revolution in ruins,
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has nearly muted the contestational voice. Traditionally,
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during times of disillusionment, strategies of retreatism
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begin to dominate. For the cultural producer, numerous
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examples of cynical participation populate the landscape of
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resistance. The experience of Baudelaire comes to mind. In
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1848 Paris he fought on the barricades, guided by the notion
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that "property is theft," only to turn to cynical nihilism
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after the revolution's failure. (Baudeliare was never able
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to completely surrender. His use of plagiarism as an
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inverted colonial strategy forcefully recalls the notion
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that property is theft). Andre Breton's early surrealist
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project--synthesizing the liberation of desire with the
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liberation of the worker--unraveled when faced with the rise
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of fascism. (Breton's personal arguments with Louis Aragon
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over the function of the artist as revolution agent should
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also be noted. Breton never could abandon the idea of
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poetic self as a privileged narrative.) Breton increasingly
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embraced mysticism in the 30s, and ended by totally
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retreating into transcendentalism. The tendency of the
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disillusioned cultural worker to retreat toward
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introspection to sidestep the Enlightenment question of
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"what is to be done with the social situation in light of
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sadistic power?" is the representation of life through
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denial. It is not that interior liberation is undesirable
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and unnecessary, only that it cannot become singular or
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privileged. To turn away from the revolution of everyday
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life, and place cultural resistance under the authority of
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the poetic self, has always led to cultural production that
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is the easiest to commodify and bureaucratize.
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From the American postmodern viewpoint, the 19th-century
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category of the poetic self (as delineated by the Decadents,
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the Symbolists, the Nabis School, etc.) has come to
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represent complicity and acquiescence when presented as
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pure. The culture of appropriation has eliminated this
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option in and of itself. (It still has some value as a
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point of intersection. For example, bell hooks uses it well
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as an entrance point to other discourses). Though in need
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of revision, Asger Jorn's modernist motto "The avant-garde
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never gives up!" still has some relevance. Revolution in
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ruins and the labyrinth of appropriation have emptied the
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comforting certitude of the dialectic. The marxist
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watershed, during which the means of oppression had a clear
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identity, and the route of resistance was unilinear, has
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disappeared into the void of skepticism. However, this is
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no excuse for surrender. The ostracized surrealist, Georges
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Bataille, presents an option still not fully explored: In
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everyday life, rather than confronting the aesthetic of
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utility, attack from the rear through the nonrational
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economy of the perverse and sacrificial. Such a strategy
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offers the possibility for intersecting exterior and
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interior disturbance.
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The significance of the movement of disillusionment from
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Baudelaire to Artaud is that its practitioners imagined
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sacrificial economy. However, their conception of it was
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too often limited to an elite theater of tragedy, thus
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reducing it to a resource for "artistic" exploitation. To
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complicate matters further, the artistic presentation of the
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perverse was always so serious that sites of application
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were often consequently overlooked. Artaud's stunning
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realization that the body without organs had appeared,
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although he seemed uncertain as to what it might be, was
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limited to tragedy and apocalypse. Signs and traces of the
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body without organs appear throughout mundane experience.
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The body without organs is Ronald McDonald, not an esoteric
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aesthetic; after all, there is a critical place for comedy
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and humor as a means of resistance. Perhaps this is the
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Situationist International's greatest contribution to the
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postmodern aesthetic. The dancing Nietzsche lives.
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In addition to aestheticized retreatism, a more sociological
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variety appeals to romantic resisters--a primitive version
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of nomadic disappearance. This is the disillusioned retreat
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to fixed areas that elude surveillance. Typically, the
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retreat is to the most culturally negating rural areas, or
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to deterritorialized urban neighborhoods. The basic
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principle is to achieve autonomy by hiding from social
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authority. As in band societies whose culture cannot be
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touched because it cannot be found, freedom is enhanced for
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those participating in the project. However, unlike band
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societies, which emerged within a given territory, these
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transplanted communities are always susceptible to
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infections from spectacle, language, and even nostalgia for
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former environments, rituals, and habits. These communities
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are inherently unstable (which is not necessarily negative).
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Whether these communities can be transformed from
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campgrounds for the disillusioned and defeated (as in late
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60s-early 70s America) to effective bases for resistance
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remains to be seen. One has to question, however, whether
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an effective sedentary base of resistance will not be
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quickly exposed and undermined, so that it will not last
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long enough to have an effect.
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Another 19th-century narrative that persists beyond its natural
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life is the labor movement--i.e., the belief that the key to
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resistance is to have an organized body of workers stop
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production. Like revolution, the idea of the union has been
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shattered, and perhaps never existed in everyday life. The
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ubiquity of broken strikes, give-backs, and lay-offs attests
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that what is called a union is no more than a labor
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bureaucracy. The fragmentation of the world--intonations,
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regions, first and third worlds, etc., as a means of
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discipline by nomadic power--has anachronized national labor
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movements. Production sites are too mobile and management
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techniques too flexible for labor action to be effective.
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If labor in one area resists corporate demands, an
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alternative labor pool is quickly found. The movement of
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Dupont's and General Motors' production plants into Mexico,
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for example, demonstrates this nomadic ability. Mexico as
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labor colony also allows reduction of unit cost, by
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eliminating first world "wage standards" and employee
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benefits. The speed of the corporate world is paid for by
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the intensification of exploitation; sustained fragmentation
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of time and of space makes it possible. The size and
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desperation of the third world labor pool, in conjunction
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with complicit political systems, provide organized labor no
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base from which to bargain.
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The Situationists attempted to contend with this problem by
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rejecting the value of both labor and capital. All should
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quit work--proles, bureaucrats, service workers, everyone.
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Although it is easy to sympathize with the concept, it
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presupposes an impractical unity. The notion of a general
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strike was much too limited; it got bogged down in national
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struggles, never moving beyond Paris, and in the end it did
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little damage to the global machine. The hope of a more
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elite strike manifesting itself in the occupation movement
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was a strategy that was also dead on arrival, for much the
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same reason.
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The Situationist delight in occupation is interesting to the
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extent that it was an inversion of the aristocratic right to
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property, although this very fact makes it suspect from its
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inception, since even modern strategies should not merely
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seek to invert feudal institutions. The relationship
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between occupation and ownership, as presented in the
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conservative social thought, was appropriated by
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revolutionaries in the first French revolution. The
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liberation and occupation of the Bastille was significant
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less for the few prisoners released, than to signal that
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obtaining property through occupation is a double-edged
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sword. This inversion made the notion of property into a
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conservatively viable justification for genocide. In the
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Irish genocide of the 1840s, English landowners realized
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that it would be more profitable to use their estates for
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raising grazing animals than to leave the tenant farmers
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there who traditionally occupied the land. When the potato
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blight struck, destroying the tenant farmers' crops and
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leaving them unable to pay rent, an opening was perceived
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for mass eviction. English landlords requested and received
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military assistance from London to remove the farmers and to
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ensure they did not reoccupy the land. Of course the
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farmers believed they had the right to be on the land due to
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their long-standing occupation of it, regardless of their
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|
failure to pay rent. Unfortunately, the farmers were
|
|
transformed into a pure excess population since their right
|
|
to property by occupation was not recognized. Laws were
|
|
passed denying them the right to immigrate to England,
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|
leaving thousands to die without food or shelter in the
|
|
Irish winter. Some were able to immigrate to the US, and
|
|
remained alive, but only as abject refugees. Meanwhile, in
|
|
the US itself, the genocide of Native Americans was well
|
|
underway, justified in part by the belief that since the
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|
native tribes did not own land, all territories were open,
|
|
and once occupied (invested with sedentary value), they
|
|
could be "defended." Occupation theory has been more bitter
|
|
than heroic.
|
|
|
|
In the postmodern period of nomadic power, labor and occupation
|
|
movements have not been relegated to the historical scrap
|
|
heap, but neither have they continued to exercise the
|
|
potency that they once did. Elite power, having rid itself
|
|
of its national and urban bases to wander in absence on the
|
|
electronic pathways, can no longer be disrupted by
|
|
strategies predicated upon the contestation of sedentary
|
|
forces. The architectural monuments of power are hollow and
|
|
empty, and function now only as bunkers for the complicit
|
|
and those who acquiesce. They are secure places revealing
|
|
mere traces of power. As with all monumental architecture,
|
|
they silence resistance and resentment by the signs of
|
|
resolution, continuity, commodification, and nostalgia.
|
|
These places can be occupied, but to do so will not disrupt
|
|
the nomadic flow. At best such an occupation is a
|
|
disturbance that can be made invisible through media
|
|
manipulation; a particularly valued bunker (such as a
|
|
bureaucracy) can be easily reoccupied by the postmodern war
|
|
machine. The electronic valuables inside the bunker, of
|
|
course, cannot be taken by physical measures.
|
|
|
|
The web connecting the bunkers--the street--is of such
|
|
little value to the nomadic power that it has been left to
|
|
the underclass. (One exception is the greatest monument to
|
|
the war machine every constructed: The Interstate Highway
|
|
System. Still valued and well defended, that location shows
|
|
almost no signs of disturbance.) Giving the street to the
|
|
most alienated of classes ensures that only profound
|
|
alienation can occur there. Not just the police, but
|
|
criminals, addicts, and even the homeless are being used as
|
|
disrupters of public space. The underclass' actual
|
|
appearance, in conjunction with media spectacle, has allowed
|
|
the forces of order to construct the hysterical perception
|
|
that the streets are unsafe, unwholesome, and useless. The
|
|
promise of safety and familiarity lures hordes of
|
|
unsuspecting into privatized public spaces such as malls.
|
|
The price of this protectionism is the relinquishment of
|
|
individual sovereignty. No one but the commodity has rights
|
|
in the mall. The streets in particular and public spaces in
|
|
general are in ruins. Nomadic power speaks to its followers
|
|
through the autoexperience of electronic media. The smaller
|
|
the public, the greater the order.
|
|
|