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

Renee Turner <geuzen@xs4all.nl> · Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:51:48 +0100

Hello all,
I realize the time difference might throw this mail into the next  
month so my apologies if this happens.
As the discussion wraps-up, or threads-out, depending on how you look  
at it, I want to say thanks to all the list members who contributed  
to the discussion (and listeners too).  Also, thanks to Tracey and  
the other moderators who invited us.  Although this month has at  
times been intense and difficult, I’ve gained a great deal from  
participating in the discussion.  De Geuzen has been talking a lot  
together about the many issues raised, and that spillage into offline  
conversations is exactly what makes a space like Empyre vital.
Also, Ryan, I have appreciated your focus and critical  
inquisitiveness in steering the discussion.   When I look back  
through your posts, there are many points you (as well as others)  
raised that didn’t get the time or depth they fully deserved.   But  
as I said in my previous post, there are many trails to follow now.   
And to come back to the issue of what the stakes are, like you,  I/we  
haven’t fully mapped that out, but are using our practice and this  
kind of exchange to do so.
Parallel to this discussion, I’ve been reading Blanchot’s, The Space  
of Literature, and last night I came across a paragraph which might  
talk about at least *one* of the significant stakes raised through  
this months exchange.  He writes:
“A sound response puts down roots in the question.  The question is  
its sustenance.  Common sense believes that it does away with the  
question.  Indeed, in the so-called happy eras, only the answers seem  
alive.  But this affirmative contentment soon dies off.  The  
authentic answer is always the question’s vitality.  It can close in  
around the question, but it does so in order to preserve the question  
by keeping it open. (P.211)”
Although the language is slightly antiquated, and I’m uneasy with  
words like “authentic” , for me, Blanchot points to something  
crucial, especially in a time when fundamentalisms of every kind seek  
to close-off , polarize and render silent.  What’s at stake might be  
the preservation of the question or questions.  Keeping them open, is  
not about escape, but through their existence or persistence, they  
may catalyze ongoing critical reflection and debate, and generate  
useable, but not instrumentalized, theories and practices.
These are just a few of the things this October's soft_skinned_ space  
has given.  Thanks again to everyone on Empyre and all the very best,
Renee  (who is a "we" with Femke and Riek  ;-)
www.geuzen.org

On 30 Oct 2006, at 23:24, Ryan Griffis wrote:
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

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