Re: <nettime> The imaginary institution of society

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Allan, yeah right, I understand the disenfranchisement. And I also
understand the game plan of the 2025 folks - it is serious, they want a
coup.

But what exactly do you propose?

I take the elections seriously until it is proven they do nothing. And this
round will likely give definitive proof, one way or another. Honestly I
think the elections sort of worked the last time around. A slim majority
voted for Trump because they could see how classist and corrupt the
Democrats are. They were taken for a ride, and many of them, foolish as
they may have been, can see that now. I hope that these elections will
clean out some of the zombie Democrats and push the party toward a
transformative approach. I also recognize that the latter half of that hope
is even slimmer than the first. Plus they would first have to win *and*
overcome whatever coup attempt is fielded. To me the elections remain
serious because at this level, nothing is theoretical. Only the reality
shared and evaluated by hundreds of millions of people matters (although of
course, hundreds of millions can also be deceived). After the elections,
and after the likely coup attempt (intimidation at the polls, falsification
of results, bureaucratic maneuvers during the count, outright
militarization, whatever it is) then we can talk about the new state of
reality.

If these elections obviously fail, then millions of people will have a
serious discussion about alternatives. It's even worth starting now. That's
why I ask what you propose we should do. Nothing ironic or aggressive
intended.

best, Brian

On Fri, Oct 23, 2026 at 12:00 PM allan siegel <allansiegel@internet-mail.org>
wrote:

> Hello to all,
> Brian, Louis, Patrice...
>
> Brian,
> It's difficult to take electoral politics seriously with the levels of
> corruption running rampant in the U.S. The integrity of the electoral
> infrastructure has always been historically compromised and only partially
> rectified for African Americans in the latter part of the last century.
> Thanks to Trump and his minions these fragile guardrails have now been
> coming down - for other people as well. Then you have a whole class of
> oligarchs and special interests who basically assume elections can be
> bought or manipulated.
>
> Certainly many people see this trend and are fighting the illegal
> practices, gerrymandering and corruption. But the game plan of the Project
> 2025 folks etc. is to sidestep the inconveniences of 'electoral' democracy
> and do away with elections and find a way to institute a fungible AI
> designed substitute perhaps. I'm not joking
>
> Then what? Street politics pulls back the curtains shielding injustices
> from public view - only then to be neutralised by a political class that
> brandishes fake promises of  reform and change. The anger and frustration
> that motivates street politics needs to evolve beyond the stranglehold of a
> two-party political arrangement unable to seriously address today's
> critical environmental and social issues.
>
> best
> allan
>
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2026, at 04:32, Brian Holmes via nettime-l wrote:
>
> Patrice asks: "Can France be reformed?"
>
> I really don't know. It's amazing how degraded social relations have
> become. The job and cost-of-living issues are just grotesque, also in
> Albania where people are out on the streets in force. The violence of the
> cops gets ever more sadistic. It looks as though this will become a big
> European youth movement, I sure hope so. But the rich could care less, and
> the leaders serve the rich, who pay for the cops. See a bigshot economist,
> Daron Acemoglu:
>
>
> https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2026-06/Automation%20and%20Repression.pdf
>
> Frederic says:
>
> "All these people are diverse and what is wonderful is how a young
> generation found a way to come together and socialize, and become
> political. This is neither nihilism, not a will to reinvent Tarnac model
> everywhere."
>
> You're right and there's absolutely a continuity of dis-identification with
> the corporate state that links me to all these folks, including the one who
> burn down the town halls. But the trap that turns spontaneous rage into the
> spark of planned repression is real. I think that if people would've shot
> the cops in Minneapolis, we'd have soldiers on the streets already. That's
> why something is more important to my eyes:
>
> "Yes, we need a new imaginary but also symbolic and real institution of
> society. Even if the Dems will win (not sure at all actually), there is
> something broken that can be fixed only only with a kind of new Social
> Contract or something, no?"
>
> That's what Castoriadis was aiming at, me too, not only a revolt but a
> revolution. I grabbed his title, Imaginary institution of society, because
> it gestures to my sector, cultural production. We've got different groups
> coming into Watershed Art & Ecology all the time and I'm totally immersed
> in this subversive moment when people are ready to think new thoughts and
> express new images and gestures. To me, the institution part implies the
> symbolic and the real, but that's exactly what we're not producing. We have
> revolts not revolutions. It's the same as ever on the American left, people
> want to be anarchists and communists like it was the nineteenth century, or
> maybe the thirties - and they're the best, because the rest are just
> complacent or scared. Yeah, for sure we need a new Social Contract, how to
> imagine that? The alternative does look like a civil war. Widespread
> dis-identification with the dominant form of society is a moment of
> possibility, but it's fucking dangerous. I think one has to respect the
> danger in order to seize the possibility.
>
> Allan says:
>
> "In following the unfolding unrest, what startles me, is that  similar
> manifestations have not appeared in the U.S. where the wholesale
> dismemberment of the supposedly 'democratic' infrastructure has been taking
> place under the current Trump regime. It's not that there hasn't been
> outrage and actions but there is also a sense of false hope that the
> electoral process will solve the mess Trump and his proxies have created."
>
> I actually take electoral politics seriously. Because I just don't see
> other places where anything real is being elaborated. The last two cycles
> of street politics - Occupy followed by Black Lives Matter - really did a
> lot to pull the wool from people's eyes, and open up their hearts. But
> that's a kind of perceptual and affective contract, it's not worked out in
> the symbolic and effective dimensions, so it can't be instituted. A new
> contract needs a whole-of-society effort, across race, class and caste, and
> I continue to think that the people who are failing are the so-called
> professional-managerial class, the "virtue hoarders" as Catherine Liu says.
> That's my class, even if I betrayed it by never taking a job. It's no time
> to hoard. You have to go for broke, former professionals on the way to AI
> trash! This looks more and more like the definitive battle, and yet guns
> and civil war means we lose. I think people have to produce the new
> contract, as a whole (that's almost done) and in detail (that's barely
> started).
>
> Are the US, France, Albania and wherever else reformable? Looks like we're
> gonna find out.
>
> Take care everyone,
>
> Brian
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