first, some articles:
the first link is for an nytimes article about the current state of occupy and its history. the second link is for a sort of bio of david graeber, who the times article refers to. he's an anarchist and is credited with initiating the horizontal structure of the protesters. don't read all of the article on him unless you really want to. skim it for stuff about occupy, etc. all you really need to get from these is the way horizonticality and verticality are contrasted.
i think we're at a point in theory similar to the state of the protests. we've undergone a sort of massive deconstruction (of the vertical) to the point where the theories are entirely horizontal. that is, feminist theory has gone from anti-gender to anti-hierarchy in general.
it's a postmodern paradigm. we are everywhere, we are nowhere, we are the 99%. an unorganized mob without specific goals, all of that. my question is: is the occupy movement (charged with being ineffective due to it's horizontality) really ineffective? is it actually the sort of rhizomatic, horizontal movement in a perfect state: spreading without a heart or a head, without an axiom, i.e. a weak spot. is it actually subsuming the structures that it opposes?
I guess I am having the same problem responding to this question as I am facing the self-given task of engaging in the world of art/craft as a feminist (my final project for this class). That is, I understand the theory. I understand the problems, the contradictions, the place we have reached in which there is not ultimate, no “heart or head.” And I don’t know what to do. I was stopped at the corner of Broadway and Canyon today and had a few moments to observe the “Occupy Boulder” folk parading about. I was watching a particular guy who was absolutely giddy with the excitement of the people honking as they drove by, whistling out of their windows. The man was dancing. His sign said, “Capitalism doesn’t work.” Is the occupy movement ineffective? Winn describes it as “the sort of rhizomatic, horizontal movement in a perfect state.” I agree with this statement. Theoretically, it is effective, in that it confronts hierarchy with non-hierarchy, with an absolute lack of anything—goal, solution, person, idea—as presiding over another. It is the perfect postmodern civil disobedience party—a critique of breaking the structure only to introduce a new structure. It is destructuralization. The problem for me is that I have absolutely no idea what to do. What is theoretically successful, to me seems practically impossible, or at least very difficult. This is exactly how I feel with feminism. I can stand on the street corner with a sign that says, “Gender hierarchy doesn’t work.” I can understand the problems and the competing theories within the feminist movement. But to actually do something as a feminist means that I either have to assert myself as a woman, or as one acting to break gender types and engaging as individual. If I do either, I am both feminist and a non-feminist. As it plays out in my exploration and engagement with DIY art: if I knit something and put it out in the world, am I asserting woman’s tradition as art or playing into that which arguably has constructed femininity? If I know the downfall of either approach, what else can I do but stand on a corner and lament this end with a sign. Is this effective? On some level. I just wonder at what point it all stops. What do I do when it snows and I decide to go home. Ultimately, I too am baffled by this postmodern paradigm.
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