Philosophy & Revolution

I left this comment to a thread on Larval Subjects.

This thread began with an image from the Occupy Wall Street Protests… yet, curiously, not one of the other comments so far have made reference to this… like the “Main Stream Media”… as though it didn’t exist… was not worth notice or comment.

Yet here is an action in progress, itself an emerging ‘assemblage” on the edge of our massive, massively repressive self-referential system—alive with individuals in process of defining their goals, defining what they are collectively—so far, mostly outside the mad scientist’s dissected frog’s eye—trying to SEE what they are—which makes them all the MORE interesting, especially given the example of the Wisconsin protests… which BEG for study and analysis on the power of media feedback to define and limit the goals of nascent revolutionary movements.

What can philosophical thought contribute to present, immediate-right-now events? I’m sure I could add—as an unapologetic non-philosopher—plenty of reservations to Zizek, but gods bless him, he risks projecting his thought into the chaos of our shared historical reality… no less aware than anyone else of the cautionary tale offered by Heidegger.

There are things happening here that deserve attention and thought—how when the cops confiscated sound amplification, they devised a method, on the spot—of shout and response, where one person shouted a phrase, the near crowd would repeat it, broadcasting the words to the more distant crowd. This kind of creative response … I can’t put into words how important I think this is.. and why I think the relative confusion of this prolonged form of demonstration matters so much… that in ACTION, people on the ground, not from directives above, find ways to solve problems—and in process, REdifine the goals and the very idea of WHAT is possible.

I’d like to turn this to a question of how—if there is no way to change a closed system from the outside—how ELSE such a system CAN be changed? But to confront that system from the outside in such a way that it is forced to respond—and seek within itself a means of responding that was perhaps only latent before?