edphil on Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:56:02 +0200 (MET DST)


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

<nettime> I see something emerging


I'm for tentative pattern recognition myself.

Yes, I've read Drucker's social engineering boilerplate. And, yes
the shift is towards new forms of planning. It would be completely
naive to think or assume for a minute that our "actually existing free
markets" are free and "out of control."

Social engineering and planning, however, don't ever quite achieve what
their architects hope for. There is always a drift. 

Locating the fulcrum by which the tacit orders of social engineering are
passed down in "cowardice" and pointing to a post-industrial refusenik
hobo as an example of someone who has the guts to declare it a sham and
a "compromise" does not address the level of social policy.
Or political economics. I'm quite aware of that.

It was one personal moment in time for one nettimer. I wasn't flying
around in meatspace in order to meet with a Guru of social engineering;
I was walking the urban streets talking with my neighbors. I met a man
who was living well in this moment, a bit freer and more human than most
of the well-programmed, rushing, want to be a part of it, solid citizens
in cars.

We are not offering any of these writings as solutions, only as
tentative forms of pattern recognition.

A problem in El Iblis's and others refusals and hidings is that all
their actions fall into the category of what Isaah Berlin called
"negative liberty."  Where is the positive gesture? Where is the desire
to take on the yoke of action in the real world?

Our charming El Iblis is a trickster. It is far more difficult, we all
know, to effect some kind of positive "-----."
---
#  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@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@icf.de