Path: news.cac.psu.edu!news.math.psu.edu!hudson.lm.com!newsfeed.pitt.edu!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!haneef
From: [email protected] (Omar Haneef '96)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Dystopia, at last...
Date: 11 Sep 1995 17:55:03 GMT
Organization: Swarthmore College Engineering, Swarthmore PA
Lines: 78
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.engin.swarthmore.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]

Sourcerer ([email protected]) wrote:
> On 11 Sep 1995, Omar Haneef '96 wrote:

> > Sourcerer ([email protected]) wrote:
> > > In article <[email protected]>,
> > > [email protected] (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
> >


> > Is there another definition of activism you speak of?

> I used the term as it has been described in these articles. I made a
> distinction based upon who or what one is in dialogue with. If it
> satisfies you then consider one kind of activist to be in dialogue with
> the social power and another kind of activist to be in dialogue with the
> lumpen.

So the activist in communication with the lumpen IS capable of "real" change
that the lumpen would want? There is grass roots activism, there are
organized workers (and in fact the AFL.CIO is actively recruiting fresh
college grads at the organizing instiute to unionize factories by planting
them in there and talking to the workers. There is a great demand for these
kids and they seem to be doing some genuinely constructive work) and of
course there are people who are arming for rebellion. These are all
categories of, and varieties of vaguely left wing groups. None of these are
politicians or priests - would you say they are all useless for "liberating"
(I can't think of a better term) the lumpen.

> > This is true and your methodology is now making itself evident to me.
> > Instead of, say, criticizing the activists for being pretentious you want to
> > do away with the whole thing altogather (not criticism, just reflection -
> > interesting how you have the same response to capitalism. I suppose we both
> > agree that charity merely abates the conscience and quells revolution for a
> > little bit longer...)

> I am suggesting that all of the above means squat to the
> lumpen. I am suggesting that -- and you ought to be able to grasp this,
> at least, since you referenced Foucault on the redundancy of labor in
> another article -- the lumpen have their own agenda, or a growing
> awareness of having one, as their numbers and diversity of attainments
> increases.

You sound increasingly like a Marxist. This is exactly the
traditional marxist line (even though I don't know why, I suspect this will
make you angry). Can someone who is not one of the lumpen, is not a
politician and is not religious make any difference to the miserable state
of the lumpen in your opinion? (I suppose miserable state is provacative but
you have already agreed, in a previous post, that they - you? - are unhappy.)


> Why on earth would I want to associate with a bunch of whiners? I do not
> want dialogue with the social power. As I wrote in the follow-up to your
> Foucault comment, the masses, redundant for production (i.e., "lumpen")
> are to be saved by being made into consumers. That, AFAIK, is the goal of
> "activism" (of the left-political sort.

AFAIK? As Far As Is Known?

> The goal of right-politicals such
> as religious fundamentalists and environmentalists is different and
> certainly less doable).


I didn't want to take sides but since you (kindly) responded to my insertion
into your debate I ended up picking up the convo with you.
Technical Boy's stance may be pretentious but it is historically grounded.
Up until the Frankfurt School came on the scene, Marxists believed that what
the people wanted was what was best. The Frankfurt School thought this was
problematic since it was exactly the proletariat (lumpen?) who empowered
Hitler in Nazi Germany.
Consider, Sourcerer, that pre-Nazi Germany - the Weimar Republic - was
exactly a system in decay. The rules had gone to hell; people would sit in
cafes, momentarily the peace would be disturbed by firing and bodies fell,
then the panic subsided and people went back to chatting and eating. And
what happened in this vaguely cyberpunkish - I guess I would call it a
dystopic - situation? The masses empowered the Nazi party.

-Omar Haneef

[Next appendix] | [Return to index for Appendix A4] | [Return to index for Appendix A]