[-empyre-] not-so-final thoughts...

[Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis@gmail.com>]

As Tracey just reminded me, it is the end of the month, so this will  
most likely be the last post from me. But i'd like to thank Tracey  
and deGeuzen for the invitation to participate as well as everyone  
who sent in their thoughts, which have generated a queue of things  
for me to consider.
i recently attended a talk at a conference that was quite engaging  
and has offered me some new details for my consideration of "facts"  
and "concerns."
One of the speakers, Laura Liu presented her research with some  
Chinatown activists from NY (Chinese Staff Workers, i think). She  
started out by describing an interaction with an organizer, where she  
asked the organizer how they organized, what tools and tactics they  
used. The organizer responded by saying that Laura was asking these  
questions in the wrong order - to understand HOW they organized, one  
must try to understand WHY they organize and FOR WHOM. This seemed  
very relevant to discussions i'd been involved in, like the ones  
here, because of the ease with which we talk about tactics (in both  
the militaristic and deCerteuian sense, which aren't mutually  
exclusive anyway) and gloss over strategies and goals. Putting  
"facts" in front of "concerns."
So what was the concern of the panelists? Chair and presenter of the  
panel, Ruth Gilmore explained fairly well that the question with  
which they were struggling was no less than premature (preventable)  
death resulting from what they called "organized abandonment" - the  
condition in the US exemplified by the growing prison industry,  
infrastructural racism and the machinations of the warfare state.
* an interview with Prof Gilmore that is quite good
http://www.yourblackeye.org/YBE_Interview_Gilmore_1Q05.html

Danny B's quotation from Judith Butler, i think gets at one way of  
understanding why i think deGeuzen's work is interesting to look at  
as "concerned":
> "In this sense, we must be undone in order to do ourselves: we must  
> be part of a larger social fabric of existence in order to create  
> who we are. This is surely the paradox of autonomy [...] Until  
> those social conditions are radically changed, freedom will require  
> unfreedom, and autonomy is implicated in subjection. If the social  
> world... must change in order for autonomy to become possible, then  
> individual choice will prove to be dependent from the start on  
> conditions that none of us author at will, and no individual will  
> be able to choose outside the context of a radically altered social  
> world. That alteration comes from an increment of acts, collective  
> and diffuse, belonging to no single subject, and yet one effect of  
> these alterations is to make acting like a subject possible."

following that, Femke replied to my comment about their work  
performing an "opening up of space to allow politics to slip into our  
experience, and vice versa":

> ...this kind of slippage never happens automatically, however  
> 'natural' it sounds. You need to set yourself up for it, and I  
> think much of our work is an attempt to make that happen.

Maybe it's about practicing what "usable theory" (thanks Brian!) we  
have access to.
i certainly haven't been able to clarify any "stakes" despite my own  
questions. i know for myself that those described by Gilmore and  
Butler above are certainly ones to embrace, and provide somewhat of a  
guide to asking WHY and FOR WHOM to better frame the questions of HOW.
best,
ryan