My (and Guattari's) impression of the "Occupy Movement"

Yes. When you have small bands of people interdependent upon each other for livelihood and yet independent of other bands of people.
Isolated monastic monks are an easy example.

there is a town here in the US that requires every household to have a gun. Very little crime there.
Each state has its own constitution. Who here thinks that there are 50 states? well you would be wrong by definition. California, Alaska and Texas are republics they belong by treaty.
Etc etc, there are many things that are not taught anymore but you have access to information there at your finger tips, you can change things right now by using what is at your fingertips. we are the Government we can change things.

I don’t think she means take government out of politics, i.e. anarchist communes or isolated monastic monks. I think she means take politics out of government, i.e. take the ideology out of the administration of a territorry.

Interesting idea liz; would you expand for us (that is, if I am right)?

Ive already stated in this thread that I think this is the most important movement in US history since the Revolutionary War and that it will inevitably lead to large-scale social reform and the next stage in human evolution. People are ultimately limited by their environment in what they can accomplish at any given time. No individual is an island in society. So I don’t get where you think Im passing the buck.

And I don’t really do the same things others do at all otherwise we wouldn’t need this philosophy site. We are all outcasts to an extent. Im more likely to be found in some suburban hellhole bar drowning my sorrows in endless bottles of vodka and dry gin as day fades into endless night than I am to be at work.

I don’t trust the average chimp anymore than I need him to further my own ends. But I do need government to be destabilized more than it currently is and large groups of people desperate enough to be of use to me.

It’s a personally intuitive call but some trigger cues would include protests of a significant scale (preferably including episodes of violent coercion) or large scale voter removal of government officials (unlikely to happen imo).

5,000 to 10,000 people in port of Oakland.
Somewhere between 10,000 to 30,000 people in New York.
That’s just two places quickly off the top of my head.
Portland Oregon is going to be kicking up a march similar to these on the 12th soon as well.

I haven’t researched too much into LA, or other areas which are active.

Estimates are anywhere around ~3,000 to 5,000 arrests total combined…so far.

To me…I watched the live footage on November 17th, not on news (they were covering Michael Jackson and Penn State issues) but on livestream.com which had a constant stream of any live camera rolling they could get feed of.
That mass at the march and at Foley square, not counting Union square - as there were no camera shots coming from there to see - was…insanity.

It was so dense; I’m quite sure the reported estimates of near 20 to 30,000 weren’t too far off.
I even flipped on my computer capture camstudio to snag a clip of just how massive it was because I honestly could not believe that I was seeing anything that large of a protest in my life.
I really had thought the spirit of America had died long ago with the last thing people gave that much of a shit about being racial inequality, which the movement ended 11 years prior to my birth, so I’ve never seen America try to move and push for anything socially to change.

I’ve seen protests, plenty, and they usually are a couple thousand at best and fizzle out within a week or so and are on issues I can’t even comprehend people bitching about; like animal rights or the like.

So I’m not really sure how many people is really the count here for what you might consider enough.
I wonder if the current age of insta-news removes the impact of numbers…for instance…aside from the never-before-or-again-accomplished Civil Rights movement March on Washington which had between 2 and 300 thousand people; the average marches and actions were between 1,000 and 20,000 people depending.

The famous Selma to Montgomery marches were only around 600 some-odd people.

Going back farther, the union movements of the 30’s - the now infamous “Ford Hunger March” in Detroit was somewhere in between 3 and 5,000 people.

There are 70 major cities and over 600 communities across the nation actively involved in these protests; that’s not counting small groups that get ignored [reasonably] (like, for instance, the poor bastards standing up here in Alaska in the middle of winter - all 12 to 20 of them; what the hell, I still can’t figure that one out…I’m sorry, but it’s too damn cold up here to be standing outside protesting like that! Wait for spring!).

I know you said intuition, but why hasn’t your intuition found these volumes impressive already?
Considering, as I’ve pointed out, it’s at least as large as previous social revolution movements on the average in regards to marches and protest actions…there could quite easily be 100,000 or so people that would show up if there was a Woodstock of the Occupy movement held, or if there could be a charismatic leader like Martin Luther King Jr. were to appear somewhere. Both of which may still happen.
Then again, the latter may not - the Occupy movement is kind of about, “We the people…”, concepts and not one man speaking…but we’ll see.

Being integral part of the system is not necessarily a bad thing of course, it depends on how one defines “the system”. If the system is “the world”, then being part of it is better than not to be.

The protesters are subservient to the specific practices they are protesting against, until they formulate a usable new set of laws, rules, and manage to create a space in the media for them. They need to become a philosophical movement.

This is what they are waiting for, ideas, thought, philosophy. Of course I would refer to value ontology, if I had the intention of hijacking this thread. We must perhaps in time ‘hijack’ (give direction to) the entire movement. It would be a waste to have it go down as yet another slave-revolt, there can more to it than that.

No need to hijack in order to introduce value ontology here. In fact, this is a good test of it’s elasticity! How can you value something that is part of a pre-existing system?

Btw, I don’t mean “the world” when I say “the system”. I mean “integrated world capitalism”, to use Guattari’s words.

First of all the Occupy movement would have to establish its self-valu(e)(ing).

In it in fact a classical case of “slave-morality” versus “master-morality”, as I’ve explained… elsewhere.
Holding a slave-morality means to not have ones natural self-valuing produce a conscious notion of self-value self-value. It means to adopt a conscious self-value by the negative valuation of the/an Other.

The Occupy movement has a lot of vitality and good will, but is not able to formulate its values beyond “away with the evil X”. It is not able to posit a value in its stead. It does not have its own value, for its value it is entirely dependent on the thing it is protesting against. As long as this is the case, it will have no effect, it could not possibly have an effect.

There is of course a lot of self-valuing going on within the movement, i.e. people, organisms. But all these are subjecting themselves to what is, thusfar, a slave-revolt. Nothing wrong with a slave revolt, but it will not see any of its demands realized if these demands are not formulated as positives, meaning formula’s capable of replacing the “evil” ones.

This is the finest tip of the iceberg of what can be said of Occupy in terms of value-ontology. The bulk of it would come down to actually formulate a (possible) philosophy for it, to forge it into a “Master Signifier” - an authentic, original voice. Of course value-ontology pertains quite acutely to the financial world and what is wrong with it. To begin with, all of the disasters and exorbitant payments to the masters of these disasters, are based on disregarding, or rather violating, the concept of value. In short: speculative value has replaced functional value. That which is of value to value-determining institutions (Moody’s, etc) does not have anything whatsoever to do to what is of value to a human.

Value needs to be restored in its definition. The speculative market will have to be dramatically curbed and reformed, rationalized. Without joking, we now have the tools to do this. A thorough understanding of the concept value was lacking. This is how it could be diffused through focusing on very conditional/context bound derivatives as if they are the actual concept, thereby gradually disconnecting the notion value from its conceptual root, which is actual, real-world value, i.e. that which is valuable to (a) (human) life.

This is how the Occupy movement may look for its signifier (instead of bloody-faced idiotic grins); to collect/assemble around it those things which are of real value to the participating people. To create/build a “mountain of wealth” in human terms – that is to say not hummers, prostitutes and dollar bills, but the diversity of real-world value coming together wherever many people are assembled for a long time, which translates into ‘culture’.

This last thing would serve only to gain them some real credibility. The question most people are immediately asking themselves subconsciously is “would I rather be ruled by the Wall Street bankers or by the Occupy protesters?” Even if the bankers have done a bad job, there is no saying what kind of mess the protesters may make.

It would not yet produce that which is to be believed (in order for which they should be credible) which is their philosophy. It is my very simple proposition that this philosophy should, or at least very well might be, value-ontology, as this addresses the practices Occupy is protesting against, and gives a logically tenable explanation of why such practices should be outlawed.

Im sure the news plays some part in it

You have to take population in context also
1930
123,202,624
1970
203,211,926
2010
308,745,538

America was 1/3 todays size in the 30s and 2/3 in the 70s

I think my main problem right now with Occupy is too many of them seem to be trying to turn this into a family gathering as opposed to a We-are-tired-of-this-horeshit type of protest.

If all they wanna do is prop up some signs in a police-sanctioned area and cross their fingers that the government will magically take them into account, then thats cool. I am not interested in participating in a dickwaving exhibition.

If/ when I see more civil disobedience and shit that is actually impacful, I think it would raise my spirits.

Regarding Population…
So you want to see 0.009% of the population (the comparative levels of the previous movements to their respective total national populations) reacting visibly rather than the current 0.006%?

So, essentially, you would like 30,000 people instead of 20,000 people in one spot - effectively.
That’s how small of a difference you are talking about btw…the difference between a 20k and 30k crowd respectively to population total.

:astonished:
They have been…good lord.
So much so that, if you hang around the Occupy forums, there is now a pollution of arguments over conducting civil disobedience.
The whole 4 to 5thousand people arrested have been arrested for civil disobedience charges.

These people have been clubbed and maced constantly, even when not arrested, for charges and claims of civil disobedience.

This doesn’t count?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToRh-RtmDWY[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BtLxuh88ck[/youtube]

I think it sounds like what you want is a riot, as was held in England.

Yea I predicted that in a few months or so it would be at the stage where I wanted it. I put those stats up just for frame of reference, but I think the true tipping point hasnt begun yet.

Those videos are all passive resistence. Its basically conducting civil disobedience in order to get your ass beat/locked up by cops. What’s the point of that? Its like trying to boycott a supermarket by starving yourself.

defeats it’s own purpose

See this is exactly why the movement is not yet capable of representing an improvement. They are still inferior in standards to the people they are protesting against, because they have only “no” as a standard. They are not capable of a “yes”, because this takes creative minds, and disciplined thinking.

“Civic disobedience” as an ideal, as a measure of potency, this is still pure slave-revolt. Zizek calling out “we are not going away, look at us” is not going to change anything. Neo-Marxism is not going to do the job. We need a revaluation of values – of value, and it is the question if the occupy movement is a good enough vessel for a philosophical redesigning of western civilization.

I must conclude that the OP is right. But it doesn’t have to be like this, in fact I am sure that at one point, if this movement persists (and I am sure that it will), it may acquire political substance, which means a decently worked out value-system, enabling such things as rational representation. I urge anyone who is sympathetic toward this movement and its general sentiment of disapproving of speculative banking/investing, the practice that now passes for capitalism, to take a look at value-ontology (do a search on it) and take from it what suits you.

There are not many thoughts around that can make a true difference in the way economies in the west are being run. “The will to power”, for example, only supports the present way of dealing. With a philosophical centralization of the term “value”, the study of what value is, how we can recognize and establish it, the current dealings become instantly recognizable as stupid, anti-natural, and doomed to drag whatever gets mixed up in it into chaos, and it sets against it a principle that may very naturally lead to a gradual stabilization of the balance between production and profit, enabling a slow and stable economic growth.

edit - deleted comment with video of more hardcore police supression of a protest than in the Occupy protests in another country. there would be no point, why compare dick sizes?

Absolutely. I am disappointed in Zizek’s formulations thus far of the movement, his solidarity is admirable, but also of course predictable. His trying to instill some sort of feeling of unity and direction among the movement is weak since he gives no positive values to the movement, he only backs them up in their “no!”. We need “no!”, certainly! But we also need so much more than this. As you say, the movement will not become relevant (for the/a future) until it becomes philosophical, able to clearly posit itself as a valuing/s counter to the present system and its values. This is not easy work, of course. I must devote some time to thinking on how we may aid the movement toward this end, for certainly it is in need of such assistance.

One possible venue for influence would be the magazine Adbusters from which the movement originated. They take a lot of submissions from readers and unsolicited material. A well-timed and well-developed delineation of the movement and issues/stakes involved from the perspective of value ontology might prove massively effective in the long run. Certainly we do not need any more Zizek’s standing around trying to keep things from falling apart without ever seeing how the entire movement lacks a basis upon which it might continue and grow into something significant. Neo-marxism indeed is insufficient here, but we might borrow from it here or there, even re-use some of its notions in a newer and more useful light.

Of course another concern is that there ARE conter-values, more positive ones, out there, as you say within the more individual levels of the movement, and elsewhere. These positive valuations remain generally diffuse and isolate, mere particulars unable to gain control of a larger unit, unable to designate terms common to some milieu. Spreading these notions would be a first necessary step to establishing a fertile soil from which seeds might be sown later on.

Yes, and even where we define system as ‘integrated world capitalism’ or whatever it still becomes important for resistance movements to have originated from within this system. Even to the extent that we might say such movements are directly produced BY the system itself. This is indeed not necessarily a bad thing, for how else could such movements truly challenge the system internally, essentially, challenge its foundations and propose and insert counter terms? There must exist a sufficiency of mutually shared and sharable ground between system and resistance. This also serves to place limits around the allowable responses the system can use to address its resistances.

Addressing this point specifically to Pezer, I believe it helps to look at it not atomistically, but organically. The system is an organism part of larger and smaller organic structures, and always changing and subject to change/s. Resistances born of these systems serve to help it test and solidify its own limits, as Deleuze and Guattari write, but this also serves the ends of eventual system-evolution and radical change, the birth of new forms. Only a milieu properly subtle, chaotic and generative of a great many points of contradiction and conflict – friction – could serve a sufficient ground for such birthings. A healthy system/organism is one in which many cross- and counter- flows weave in and out of the ordinary status quo structural functionings, allowing an evolutionary potential to be embedded directly within the system itself: alowing the system to BE such an evolutionary potentiality ITSELF.

Looking at the situation as “system here” and “resistance movement there” is too simplistic of course; and I propose that equally too simplistic is the improved understanding that such resistance movements are a part of these systems and are indeed directly produced by these systems themselves. This is an essential understanding, but only a small piece of the overall puzzle. We really need to examine the larger picture here, if we are to get a good look at what is really going on and not get mired in small details of microscopic over-simplification. It is all too easy to allow ourselves to become attracted within a particular situated viewpoint, ideological or otherwise, at the loss of a more comprehensive understanding and ambition.

I think you have lost yourself a little in the abstractions we have made here. How can a system such as integrated world capitalism beget its own end? It is too powerful, it has too many resources at its disposial still. Rather, it is the people within the system that could change it, but only by abandoning it. If you agree with that last sentence, than you will feel how desperate that situation is. I have often thought that the only possible way for enough people to break free at the same time in order to cause significant change like we have been talking about, they would have to be dosed en masse with LSD. Only the young and the willing will, however, even then, be able to make the conection between the possibilities of the mind and the extremely limiting nature of the systems imposed on societies. It is absurd to think that if we were all as unique as we feel, we would all act and look so much alike, and this is a general statement covering very detailed analysis that I am sure you have read; because the little I have read of Deleuze is of that kind, and really all sociological and sociological-ish analysis.

Hmm… Yes, you are right about the system being more biological than it is mechanical, or rather only biological and not mechanical. Like brains, misconcieved as computers or evolution misconcieved as having a goal. It is useful to see brains as computers sometimes and evolution as having a goal, but these are only useful lies, and can only be useful if it is remembered that they are lies.

You’re mostly correct, Pez. (Well, you may be ‘right,’ as well, but that’s beside the point.) I don’t think ‘ideology’ plays that much a part in politics any more; otherwise, there’d be more distinctions between the two major parties and a better chance for more parties to run for election into the Legislature. Quite frankly, the President has only one power over the Legislature–his veto. It’s really all about the Legislature, most of whom–but not all–are playing a ‘game’ called ‘politics.’ It’s this ‘game’ that frustrating to so many people.

Yet it’s a game that’s played in order to get re-elected. And who wouldn’t want a job that gives a living income (or better, if you count the perks, :wink: ) doesn’t require any real experience, has no time-card, gives you lots of time off, then debates and votes on such important matters as whether or not the motto of the US should be re-affirmed–even though no one has said it shouldn’t. None of any of that has anything to do with governance.

The game playing has, imm, led to the corporatism and individual greed that’s led to OWS and all the other Occupy groups. It isn’t just the need to be ‘grass roots’ in order to be heard; it’s, also, because the game playing starts at the local level. OWS wasn’t a movement started by a Canadian ad agency and it’s magazine. It’s a movement that started with the “Arab Spring” and is moving more and more into the EuroZone, to the detriment of the second largest economy in the Western World–and its stock markets.

If it’s nothing else, it’s a, sometimes, violent statement–“I put my trust in you; I elected you because of my trust. And look what you’ve done to my trust.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s our doing just as much as our electeds. We didn’t pay attention–why should we if we’ve given our trust to people who break that trust? And, if the mess is ever sorted out and basic changes in our country’s political/economic systems are made, we’ll go back to not paying attention.

Right now, it’s most difficult for people to accept that, perhaps, our economic system isn’t working for the majority of people–perhaps unrestricted capitalism and free market trade has never existed except in theory–on paper. Perhaps a global economy as we’ve striven for (in the persons of our ‘leaders’, elected or not) simply isn’t the correct way to go. Old habits die the hardest.

You know, back when I was a statist, I had the idea the the point of ideological warfare was to arrive at a conclusion some day, an agreement, after which governance would be just a boring old job with no games, or as you correctly identify, politics. Part of what made me turn away was realizing that the warfare is, today, an essencial part of the system. Being a government administrator is, as you say, simply easier if it depends on politiquing rather than administrating.

Then I turned a short-lived eye to forms of absolutism that would do away with the games. As I found that intollerable, I became an anarchist. Also other factors, but largely that.