[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> In Defence of Agreement!

[McKenzie Wark <mw35@nyu.edu>]

Finally some sense from the Debordians! Now here is a statement to which
I would happily subscribe.

David Cox writes of
"...the importance of friendship, adventure and the romance of social
change.
The idea is to promote the fact that people can change society, and
routinely do change society. Debord was able to always demonstrate that
ideas can become actions, and that it is possible to work from the margins
to effect action alongside a poetry of proposals which everyone can
identify with."

Mind you it is usually what Keith thinks of as 'medicocrity'  that are the
kinds of proposals that matter to 'everyone'.

Since Doug Henwood has turned down his Trotskyist abuse filter a notch,
i'll respond to him for a change. Ok, so we've given up pining for
revolution, and pretend Marx has no responsibility for Stalinism, so
what have you got left to write home about? All of the actual successes
in the 20th century history of the labour movement come from the
non-Marxist camp. That capitalism has some civilised edges is not
to be credited to its generosity but to the struggle to make it so, by
organised labour, its political expression as social democracy, and
the social movements. I'm not disputing the anaytic use of Marxist
thought, but its viability as a political program. As a program, it is
a history of failure. If it is indeed to be thought a 'theory of praxis',
then from the failure of the practice ought to come some scepticism
about the comprehensiveness of the theory.

k



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