City by instalments III

As a convicted maniac, I am forced to double-check every time I have a “great idea”. That is why I am perfectly aware from the beginning that the idea of founding a city might be the origin of a sect or a fraternity –why not of a mafia? Cannot we describe the sect, the fraternity or the mafia as a “city in search of a territory”? Or it might be just the opposite: that in the origin of every city there is an exodus. These images of permanent search of a territory can be explained as a rebellion against the nation-state or, more generally, as a rebellion against any form of discipline from above. Probably it is true: the sect, the fraternity, the mafia and the city can be understood as alternative strategies to resist and overcome the discipline imposed by the state government. 

A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse | David Graeber | The Baffler

A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse | David Graeber | The Baffler

Politics, the World and New Beginnings

1. The World is the result of the objects produced and the words pronounced throughout human history. It can be conceived as an artifice or as an excrescence which mediates between us and the biosphere of which we are, in any case, an integral part. Without work and action, the human species would not be biologically viable, which entails that these human faculties cannot be envisaged as gifts or a plus in relation to other species. Therefore, the use of our productive and political capabilities must be aimed at the construction and maintenance of a common world and assessed in terms of such a goal.

2. The common sense assertion that we live in a common world cannot be dissociated from three basic assumptions:

a) The World originally began when the first object was produced and the first word was uttered;

b) The World is like an organism that grows and changes every time a word is pronounced or an object is produced; and

c) No human or association of humans could ever master the World’s process of constant and accelerated growth.

Under these assumptions, the pretense that “another World is possible” is just nonsense since it implies whether the existence of an agent capable of controlling the World from within in its process of change or the possibility of a new beginning, which would require by definition the previous destruction of the existent World. Paradoxically, the destruction of the World is an event that we made technologically possible even though its occurrence will not probably be the consequence of a purposeful action. Regarding the possibility of controlling an eventual process of teleological change of the World, if we discard God, the only agent that could possibly master the World as a whole is a science-fiction entity: a hyper-integrated Humankind where individual human beings have become the constitutive parts of a superior organism with one mind and one will. I have to say does this scenario appears from our historical perspective the most plausible alternative to the prospect of mass destruction, which poses a tragic dilemma.

3. From a political perspective, these gloomy considerations are perfectly negligible precisely because the destiny of the World and Humankind exceeds the limited scope of politics. Politics is not about the World nor about Humankind but about a common world amongst many other possible and feasible common worlds. Politics is about possible new beginnings, about the possibility to start a new common world from scratch by pronouncing a word and producing an object as though for the first time. A new beginning is by definition small and localized and involves a limited number of human beings.

City by instalments (II)

I would like to say something about the long genealogy of my idea of founding a city. At some point of my life, I realised that I was trapped in the illusion of personal freedom and happiness. This illusion is socially constructed as an adaptive response that provides certain stability to the social system and allows us to behave as masters while we are just simple servants. In other words, I realised that I was a slave. The unexpected discovery that I was a slave, took me through a series of considerations that the only way out from my condition was to found a city.

Now, as I write, I realise that this weird idea is, somehow, the consequence of a previous conviction: the impossibility of revolution. The foundation of a city is the response to the impossibility of radical change from within or, at least, a new understanding of its political conditions. My disbelief in revolution can be synthesised by reference to three events. The first one is biographical: my experience in Bolivia during the revolutionary-constitutional process that took place between 2004-2007. The second one is intellectual: the reading of Hannah Arendt’s works on the nature politics and revolution. The third one is rather biological: the birth of Mauro, my first son, in 2008. The first two are clearly interconnected and related to political action, while fatherhood is actually the most relevant since it made me understand “tradition” under a new light: as the possibility of engaging in a political initiative that will require the participation of the coming generations.

The rejection of tradition, both in the sense of what we inherit from our predecessors and in the sense of what we will convey to our posterities, is significantly related to individualism: both shape the relationships that make our common world. Tradition connects the past with the future while the present is made of the political bonds that link us together. Our exacerbated individualism locks us within ourselves by cutting us from the past and from the future, and prevents us from keeping a meaningful present. The result is the disappearance of our common world. It does not matter how much information we have from outside, how much we travel or how much interconnected we are: our horizon is extremely short because we are alone with ourselves. Our limited capacity to understand the world is rooted, therefore, in our political loneliness, in our lack of memory and our incapability to see forwards. It is this incapability to perceive a common world what actually destroys it. From this perspective, individualism is the scape of the lonely slave and the illusion of personal freedom and happiness is her contentment. The foundation of a city is the reconstruction of a common world.