[-empyre-] Free Cooperation

[Trebor Scholz <treborscholz@earthlink.net>]

Hi Tobias,

Self-sacrifice is all too often associated with collaboration.
Meetings without coordinator often drag on forever. For these situation it
really needs a chair person. Surely there is no perfect
collaboration but we should withdraw from abusive, exploitative, or forced
relationships of any kind. This touches on the utopian aspects of the idea
of free cooperation. How can self-sacrifice be avoided, you ask. I don't
have an one-fits-all answer to the question of withdrawal vis-à-vis
the compromise with the larger goal in mind. But not shying away from
conflict and finding save arenas in which to stage that negotiation is a
possible beginning.

The German media critic Christoph Spehr describes free cooperation as a way
of working together in which you remain independent and can walk out with
your contribution to the joint action under your arm. I don't know what that
would look like. 

Best,
Trebor