<nettime> So what's the use of art, theory, activism? OR the public sphere?

[allan siegel via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Hello all,

*Louis* mentions, "I'd suggest that how we are assembling our worlds 
around "art" and "activism" and especially "theory" are probably not 
serving us the way they use to. For whom? To whom?" and *Brian*, "I am 
now an elder, who must turn experience - even the experience of failures 
- into something valuable for present and coming generations. Resistance 
happens in the streets, but not only." *Felix*, says, "The political 
center abandoned the notion of the public sphere in the 1990s." 
*Andreas*, provides another vantage point, "I believe that there is a 
connection between the political organization of postwar democracies and 
the way in which their public spheres were structured (for instance 
through large-scale public and private media monopolies)."and back to 
*Stella's* item that, "Strong local units are able to materially and 
discursively resist the imposition of authority from outside."

 Working backwards from Stella’s point: It seems to me that THE LOCAL 
is an intrinsic starting point for political activism because the local 
is a critical discursive zone where people, a public, are able to 
discuss and act, most directly, on the issues and conditions that impact 
their lives. The local in this sense is a nascent form of the public sphere.

 In the classical realm, which Hannah Arendt discussed, the local realm 
is the agora, a model of the public sphere. A multi-functional social 
space that was ‘the space of appearances’ where people came together to 
discuss and also if necessary to act. For Arendt political discourse and 
action seem to be inseparable. If we look globally, and closely, at 
postwar social movements (a long list) this connection between discourse 
and action enabled often inextricable and profound social and political 
changes
 With examples that begin to appear from 1945 forward (and we could 
easily look at previous centuries) the public sphere is not only one 
specific social space as in Habermas’ study but rather a variety of 
social spaces according to Nancy Fraser’s important critique of 
Habermas. Accordingly, there are a multiplicity of discursive zones from 
which ideas become transformed in to political acts and social movements.

The connections between the so-called 'political center' and the 
'political organization of postwar democracies' brings us into the 
present neoliberal miasma within which the dimensions of the public 
sphere range from the Occupy, MeToo, and BLM movements to Facebook and 
TikTok. Simply put, the public sphere is not static or necessarily one 
dimensional and is capable of enabling a broad range of political and 
economic programs within which 'art' can appear as an essential and 
integral element.
Louis' questions, "For whom? To whom?" can be approached first by 
looking at From Whom? Meaning, from which positions and/or places, does 
‘art, theory and activism’  originate? What do our local individual 
‘units/collectives’  look like and what are their connections (if any) 
to some variation of a "public sphere"? Meaning, am I part of some 
discursive zone? And, BTW, does Nettime count as a public sphere? Does 
Stella’s definition of a local unit include virtual communities like 
Nettime? And, how do forms of 'resistance' that ferment within virtual 
communities translate into activism…? This becomes a critical question 
if we are not to be swallowed within the Neoliberal Miasma or fenced 
within Trumpist ghettos.
Best

Allan
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