ANARCHISM AND PEACE

Paper on Anarchsim - Abstract...

Anarchism has a long history in which it has morphed and varied.  In this essay some of the major themes and ideas of anarchism are discussed in the hope to shed light on the current understandings and potentialities of anarchism.  The argument this essay attempts is to show how anarchism, as developed and understood by social anarchism, is necessary for the possibility and development of positive peace.

Biography of Ayn Rand

    Ayn Rand (birth name: Alisa Rosenbaum) born in Saint Petersburg in 1905, grew up comfortably with her well-to-do family. Her father, a self-sufficient chemist and owner of a successful pharmacy, could comfortably provide for his family until the Russian Revolution began in 1917. Soon after the Bolshevik takeover, his assets were proclaimed part of the Soviet state, which can be argued as the root to Rand's bitterness toward collectivism. In spite of hardship, Rand graduated from the University of Petrograd after studying history and philosophy, and quickly emigrated in 1925 to the United States under the guise of visiting relatives.
    Ayn Rand for Beginners by Andrew Bernstein, romantically depicts Rand as a brilliant young, struggling novelist and screenplay writer whose raw talent was dutifully noted by a book publisher, thus setting her free from the shackles which bound her from spreading the word of her personal philosophy.  This notion somewhat ignores the fact that Rand moved to Hollywood because of her obsession with becoming famous.  Rand showed great interest in film and movie stars from a young age, however her predominant interest pertained to writing screenplays and novels.
    Although her early writings were not necessarily bereft of her predominant ideology of man's ability to achieve greatness, her first novel We the Living was the first to genuinely highlight her anti-collectivist ideology, or more specifically her distaste for "Soviet tyranny."  Rand is often pegged as a capitalist paragon whose opinion of communism and its implementation is legitimized by her status as a primary source for information on early Soviet rule, however it is often disregarded that Rand was a child during the revolution.  It is also often ignored that Rand only experienced Soviet rule during arguably its most tumultuous time, which is to say that no country is spared in facing severe and sometimes catastrophic growing pains in the immediate years after their revolution. Rand only experienced this difficult time for Soviet Russia during her teenage years, which not only exemplifies her bias (which by definition is directly contradictory to "objectivity"), but raises important questions about her as an historical primary source.  If one is looking for an historical reference to the life of a bourgeois Russian teen after the Russian Revolution, Rand certainly fits the bill, however her consideration as a sociopolitical and philosophical savant due to her brief life during Soviet rule is a blatant farce.

                                    - Stephanie Centeno

The Benefits of Vegetarianism
    It is nearly inescapable, in our present society, to turn on the television and successfully watch half an hour without hearing of a new and amazing diet. Witness the latest fad that will magically give you the body of your dreams along with astounding health benefits! It is clear that people are concerned about their health, yet with so many different influences and money making companies trying to press their latest “diets” it seems people have lost touch with what exactly the human body needs to be healthy. Being healthy doesn’t mean losing 25 pounds in a week. It means discovering and returning to the diet that the human body has naturally developed to consume.
    Studies increasingly show that, despite our culture’s immense consumption of meat products, the human body is not naturally built to digest large quantities of meat. In fact, although humans are omnivorous and have the ability to consume both meat and plants, the body is much better suited to accommodate a vegetarian diet rather than the largely carnivorous diet that our society generally accepts. Although sometimes considered a “new age” or even unusual practice, vegetarianism is continually growing and evidence shows that the health benefits, although far from astounding, do have a solid impact on both way of life and physical fitness.
    When a careful look is taken at the differences between carnivores and humans, our unnecessarily large consumption of meat becomes obvious. Every year in the United States alone, over 15 percent of the world’s animal population, about 10 billion animals, are processed (grown and killed) for the sole purpose of providing meat to Americans. The human body is not naturally built to process such large amounts of meat. For example, the human digestive tract is approximately 12 times the height of the individual, whereas the digestive tract in a carnivore is only three times its height. A shorter digestive tract allows rapidly decaying meat to pass quickly out of the body. Because we have a longer digestive tract, the average American man has about 5 pounds of undigested red meat in his bowls by the time he is 40 years old.
    Vegetarianism is not only healthier for the individual in providing key vitamins and nutrients that are not found in the average diet, as well as reducing heart diseases and certain types of cancer,  but it is also economically and socially more responsible. There are many reasons why a person may choose to become a vegetarian, including religious or social reasons, personal reasons, or health precautions.  Recent surveys suggest that the number of people who choose to become vegetarian or vegan is on the rise, due to an increased awareness about the health benefits and general acceptance that such copious amounts of meat consumption is ethically unjust.
    Whether a personal choice, or as a health precaution, vegetarianism is on the rise.  The push for more people to become vegetarian and take a careful look at what the human body actually needs is a healthier and more conscious effort to change our diets and way of life.

  -McKenzie Linden

Democracy: An Epistemological Trap
    Our episteme, the knowledge that serves as the foundation for all of our knowledge, ultimately extends from the larger, socially constructed basis.  Prejudice, religion, values and even science: all ultimately extend from perceived truths that have become part of the larger concept of “truth”.  I state this point to lead to the question I want to ask today: does the democratic political process serve to limit our own knowledge?  The answer, simply, is yes.
    A Democratic process of any sort relies on the foundation of simple sets of decisions.  These decisions serve to categorize and ultimately reflect the established episteme and are constructed to produce specific outcomes and likelyhoods.  By making these specific decisions (deciding on a ballot measure or choosing a candidate) we are expecting a specific outcome (like lowering taxes or continuing social security).  These outcomes, though, are merely an epistemological trap.  The electorate (the democratic decision makers in any society), ultimately make specific decisions for specific results.  By choosing candidate (a) an electorate expects an outcome different from choosing candidate (b).  What voting individuals ultimately fail to grasp is that neither candidate has sure outcomes and an ability to verify the truth behind “rhetoric”.
    This notion of “rhetoric” is where the trap truly occurs. Ultimately, any policy (or set of policies, i.e. a candidate) is founded on the “rhetoric” that must be produced to insure the expected decision must be made.  The words and images that are associated with policies and candidates are ultimately developed to produce an ideal decision for those voting.  Someone in the electorate makes decision a.) to hopefully receive outcome b.). Because the “rhetoric” much match and conform established episteme, policy is limited to the words used to gain the necessary decision from the electorate.  The words limit the understanding of an actual outcome. By doing this, the ability to make decisions outside of established episteme is impossible.  With this said the participants in a Democracy find themselves in an epistemological trap, since they have to rely on established epistemes to make and form any decision.

 -Mark Brinton

The Ideology of Google’s Art Project-

Image: Daniel Johnston’s mural in Austin, TX.  Courtesy of Google Maps Street View.
 

    A lot of attention has been given to the Google Art Project since its launch this February, with the majority of responses in the positive.  Most supporters are dazzled by the amount of art the project presents, claiming it “makes visual knowledge more accessible, which benefits us all,”(1)  while the focus of critics is “can a digitized masterpiece possibly match being face to face with the original?”(2)  To the former it should be pointed out that with the entire history of art in all the world (most of which is already at our disposal online), the amount of art showcased by the GAP is actually extremely small, and the decision of what this privileged selection should consist of is very significant. To the latter it should be pointed out that this question stems from an understanding of art that is only epitomized by the digitization of the museum, and this understanding is what we should really be concerned with.
    The first feature of the project is the ability to walk through 17 of the world’s top museums via Google’s Street View technology.  The process is tedious, the movements disorienting, and most of the images low quality.  On top of this, one of the most laughable drawbacks of the project is the blurring out of certain paintings due to copyright issues.  Fortunately for us, every one of these paintings – along with many, many others – can be found elsewhere on the web, for instance through a simple image search.  So why put so much effort into reproducing the hindrance of walking, the nuisance of clicking and loading each step, when the images are already instantly available?
    My guess is that it is an attempt to recapture the mysticism associated with the museum experience and make it accessible to the web.  The irony here is that for all the hype over modern technology (which Google did not invent), the project espouses a very antiquated conception of art.  This is done not only through the choice of setting and the choice of works, but also through the limitations of the technology it employs. 
    The first thing that’s noticeably missing from the virtual museum is time, which consequently excludes any artwork where time or movement is a factor.  Of course most kinetic sculptures, process pieces, and performances could be accommodated with videos or webcams, but none of the works on display require this.  Instead we have a static archive of paintings forever as they are and as they will be:  to be seen once by the camera is enough, to capture one instant is to capture the work in its entirety.  This is perfectly contrived to reinforce the notion of art as something eternal, ahistorical, and immune to the forces of time, whether they be physical or social. 
   Next we have the restrictions imposed through using a camera as a surrogate for a body.  Anything involving physical interaction – whether it be the “theatricality” of minimalist sculptures,(3) or happenings predicated upon audience participation – is out of the picture.  Art is constrained to the purely visual, and the only possible mode of interaction is observation by a passive spectator.(4)  Furthermore, this disembodiment prevents interventions not sanctioned by the artist: you can’t steal, vandalize, or destroy the works (some talented hackers may prove me wrong here), and you can’t steal from the gift shop (a feature I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Google added).  The interface of the project thereby enforces a criteria of acceptable behavior, a code of conduct that tells us what we can do in a museum and what we can do with art.
    Another distinguishable characteristic of the museums is that they’re all eerily devoid of  visitors.  Most reviewers have expressed a little excitement at being able to walk through the galleries and see the paintings unobstructed by crowds of other viewers.  However, this small pleasure comes at the price of omitting the lifeblood of art altogether: dialogue.  Again, this could have easily been allowed with the addition of chat rooms, message boards, virtual curators, etc.  But as it stands, we the visitors are left in isolation and in silence.
    The second feature of the GAP is the extremely high-resolution images of a select few paintings.  You can magnify every millimeter of the canvas, zooming into its materiality to view details imperceptible to the unaided eye, “at a level at which not even the artist himself could have experienced his own work.”(5) Yet this shouldn’t strike us as particularly shocking or distressing.  Think of how playing Beethoven on the stereo can be simultaneously louder than the composition intended, louder than would be possible in acoustic performance, and experienced differently from the composer himself, assuming the listener doesn’t share his hearing loss.  In fact, the factors that influence the experience of a work are so numerous it is difficult to even speak of “the real thing.”
   The problem is not that the works are being viewed in ways that the artist never intended, nor that the digital representations are surpassing their tangible counterparts and obviating the need for firsthand encounters.  The real issue here is our absurd, obscene, almost pathological desire to be closer to the objects we seek to understand or adore, which lies behind both the firsthand experience and the digital replication.  The appeal of Google’s hyper-zoom comes solely from pandering to this lust, and in doing so brings us within such proximity that it obliterates the cultural significance of the works.  If only we could realize: ‘the best way to see a picture is to shut your eyes!’ 
   Given that the GAP is only in its nascent stages, most of these issues may be resolved through expansion and design changes.  Nonetheless, the initial choices say everything about the intentions of the project and the assumptions about art that it supports.  For all the rhetoric about increased accessibility and the democratization of art, the project is really sending a contradictory message:  What counts as art?  That which can be found in famed museums, timeless works from the traditional canon of Western high culture (almost entirely composed of white males); not the opposite.  Where does art belong?  Neatly gathered inside the palace of the white cube, in the ownership of royalty and wealthy intellectuals; not left exposed in the city streets, in the supermarket among commodities, dispersed throughout countless websites, in the hands of the public.  What is the function of a museum?(6)  To house works of art in isolation from the rest of the world, to provide a ritualistic space where context does not interfere with perception; not to foster and serve communities through collaborative projects, to provide a space of playful creativity for both adults and children.  What is art for?  Mystical communion, passive contemplation of aesthetics by a silent, disembodied viewer; not for questioning and broadening our cultural expectations, offering a catalyst for change, an opportunity for social and political debate, for touching, changing, helping create and complete.
    Ultimately the endeavor is less about the artworks it showcases and more about Google showing off its own capabilities: the multi-billion-pixel camera is the real artwork, the painting just something that happens to be standing in front of its lens.  This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it wasn’t for the pretensions of the traditional art world that it enforces, and all the possibilities it forbids, discredits, and excludes.  The virtual domain should not be used to concentrate and replicated the constraints of our world, but to offer an open space for the free exploration of alternatives, and there are other projects that have made admirable attempts at this.(7)  As for the GAP, it is one small step forward for technology, one giant leap back for art.
 

-Ryan Shullaw



1http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/arts/design/07google.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper
2http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/06/google-art-project-virtual-masterpieces 
3 Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood.”  Fried argues that with minimalism there is a shift from being absorbed by the autonomous, self-contained meaning of an artwork, to the meaning being produced through the presence and interaction of the viewer with the work.  One paradox of the GAP, particularly the zoomable images, which I will say more about later, is that in the attempt to dive deeper into the works, they unwittingly becomes props at the whimsy of the viewer.  Contrary to Fried, I don’t believe this is anything to be feared.
4 Interestingly, even the experience of observation can be disrupted by the camera-surrogate, for instance, considering how eloquently a mirror refuses translation. 
5http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/36950/hype-and-hyperreality-zooming-in-on-google-art-project/?page=1
6 Cf. Brian O’Doherty, “Inside the White Cube.”
7 For example, Second Life contains replicas of famous museums (the most famous one being “Second Louvre”) as well as many original, user-created galleries.  Users can take part in creating the virtual world, inhabit it using an avatar, socialize with other residents, etc.

True Responsibility through negation-

    There is a notion that exists of negative responsibility, where I am responsible for actions I could have logically prevented, but is this a real concept? I do not think that someone can have negative responsibility because they have a relationship to both action and intent. If my intent is not a part of my actions then it only exists as something abstract, something that exists only in my mind. Intent therefore, is non-existent beyond the will and mind of the actor. We can observe this by the relationship the intent of our actions plays within the roles that we do. Our intent, therefore, lies as something that we merely think about, not something that is shown in our actions. It is passive not active and, in the process, becomes abstract.  This plays a large role in what I am trying to establish here: that our actions may be responsible for what does not happen to us.
    So, we exist as actors in a larger world. We go about performing our role within society, but does this impact our actions? If my typical behavior keeps me from doing something that could have led to something else, am I to blame? If my adherence to interaction with strangers cost me a job opportunity, am I to blame for that?  A feeling of absence emerges, one is absent from being an actor in the world and is therefore free of the negative and positive side effects of it. This feeling of absence causes the relationship that the individual has to the society around them and to themselves to become problematic, because, they exist as a causal actor as opposed to a truly autonomous being. This feeling of absence in action may cause the individual to regard themselves as existing outside of autonomy because they are only a part of a relationship to their own normalized actions. Meaning the individual is only responsible for the things they do not do or become an actor in as opposed to the things they do and become an actor in. Continuing on with this we can examine the role of responsibility in performance and action.
    I am responsible for the actions I do not make in society. As an actor my responsibility lies with how my actions affect me and me alone. So to say that an individual is responsible for being an alcoholic is not the case, because the individual is affected by the outside actions of others as well as the socialized factors that they must deal with. But the person, who does not become an alcoholic, has been able to construct behavior in such a way as to avoid this terrible problem. With my feeling of absence in action I develop a new concept of being responsible, I stop dealing with consequence from my behavior and live with consequences that do not occur. Consequences such as these are developed further when discussing my personal relationship to this concept.
    Before I go into my personal relationship to this issue that inspired this article, I would like to make a brief aside on personal relationships when discussing philosophical issues. Personal relationships can enhance philosophy and even make it a better enterprise, but there is a negative corollary to this. For, individuals have many times replaced philosophical thought, reasoning and argument, with personal experience that only serves to make the argument. The best example of this is an individual who has not read a piece but yet seeks to make an argument after a brief discussion of the piece (such as in a classroom or a conference of some sort). Understanding of the piece is substituted by personal experience, which lacks the necessary ability to make a whole argument; it only has enough to situate the argument at that moment and even then can lack the pedigree to situate that. With this relationship I have to this concept I want to use it as an example and a telling example of what real responsibility is, I think it allows me to develop the argument best and create an appropriate explanation regarding this philosophical concept
    My actions created this new found examination of personal responsibility. They helped to shape it and make me wonder about the consequences that occurred from it. My experience is as follows: Two weeks ago I left a friend’s apartment and walked by my apartment. I did not socialize too much with my roommates, so I decided against going in as I had other priorities elsewhere. Fifteen minutes after leaving my apartment, three gunmen entered and preceded to hold everyone there hostage and rob the place (one of my roommates was a drug dealer and they preceded to take his supply). This leads to my examination of this concept: Am I responsible for not being involved in this incident? The answer is yes, my own behavior is what created the circumstance that led to my avoiding this unfortunate incident. I do not socialize with my roommates and put my studies first, this personality and personal actions are what led me not going into my apartment and avoiding the incident. I create the responsibility for the things I do not do as opposed to the things I do, which depend on other factors. If I was more accepting to the activities of my roommates, I would have been directly involved. Because my behavior is such that did not socialize with them, I am responsible for avoiding this incident.
    Could I be responsible for things that do not occur to me? The answer is yes, my actions and what I choose not to do affect me differently then what I choose to do. I do not even realize this all of the time. There has to be an almost infinite number of extensions that exist from this. What my personal behavior produces allows me to operate in such a way as to avoid almost everything. I become responsible for things I do not even realize occur, these are the things I am responsible for the most. Responsible in such a way that all things that do not occur to me are a part of who I am. My behavior and personality that creates the series of actions that bring about specific actualities are not our reality. What is not done from this behavior and personality exists as who we truly are: a being that exists through what is not done. What we choose not to do is who we truly are. From this we can explore the logical extension our negative actions produce.
    Any action has a logical limit to what the actor can do, the actors limitation of options as well as the limitation of what actually can occur. So within my concept the logic of what can occur is extended. The actor becomes responsible for what does not happen and therefore extends the logical options for them in the future. I would have been limited in what could occur for me in the incident mentioned above, but because of my actions the logical limit to this is extended. Because I exist without limits on my responsibility as a being the logic behind it is limitless. This and the other sections do raise one important question.
    Can I ever be entirely responsible? With a question such as this we come back to examine what occurs from our decisions. Because I am responsible for the things that do not occur to me, then I can have difficulty figuring out what exact responsibility I have. I do not know (as mentioned above) everything that I avoid doing and the reciprocity that occurs from this, so it is hard to measure responsibility. But what can be measured is the extent of the level of avoidance and therefore, what actions have not been taken. So while it may be hard to determine full responsibility, the level of avoidance can be determined and measured as a form of responsibility.
    I would like to conclude with my call for a re-examination of responsibility. We must strive to accept new truths that occur from our actions. That is why I argue, we are only responsible for the actions we do not have. Everything else is something that occurs to us not from us. It is more appropriate to examine our lives as enclosed in a prism, this prism is broken every time we choose to do something and remains closed we do not. What remains on the other side of this prism is not our doing, but the reflections of others and our environment. But our decisions exist as ours and ours alone.

                -Mark Brinton

Critique of Dumpster Diving-

    Lately our local media (the Charlotte Observer and The University Times on two occasions) have printed articles on the phenomenon of dumpster diving.  Let me preface this critique with a note; the following arguments are not against the people who practice dumpster diving, but against the act and its supposed and actual consequences.  I will also say there are some benefits of dumpster diving, but I think they are very limited and not as radical as some may think.
    In the articles, some people are interviewed as to why they practice diving into dumpsters, primarily for food.  I think the main reason given, points to how diving can be a form of recycling.  Or at least it saves food, and other items such as clothes, from going to the dump where it will be forever wasted.  Initially this seems like a good point, and I think it is, but overall, it may be detrimental.
    The ridiculous ills of consumer society left aside, we do have power as consumers.  Corporations pay attention to what consumers are buying.  For example, if more people buy organic food, the corporation will sell more organic food and less of the other stuff (we see this even in Wal-mart), until, theoretically, all the food is organic.  When one dumpster dives, they essentially drop out of the system, they say no to power.(1) 
    From what I gleaned from the articles, the people interviewed would take any food that is still edible from the dumpster.  It can be factory farmed beef or processed cake.  By giving up consumer power you give up the power to tell the corporation what you want.(2)  So the corporation keeps buying disgusting meat and never realizes the customer may not want it.  What I am getting at is we should not give up power.  If one wants to improve the environment, it has been shown that veganism reduces one’s carbon footprint dramatically.  The point is factory farming and non-organic farming practices are much more damaging than the amount of food we throw away.  When one dumpster dives, it is pointless to be vegan (besides health reasons) because you are not using your consumer power.
    If one wants to drop out of the system, rather than eating the waste of capitalism, it would be much more productive to shop at farmer’s markets or to grow as much food as you can on your own.
    One last point I’ll offer is how dumpster diving could not exist without capitalist waste.  It is hardly a critique of capitalism for it could not exist without capitalism.  By dumpster diving one effectively becomes a victim of capitalism.  Victimization is not critique nor is it positive. 
    It is clear proponents of dumpster diving want to critique capitalism and its wasteful over-production and unjust distribution.  But these things are inherent in capitalism.  So, benefitting from these things, (dumpster diving is basically benefitting from the waste of capitalism), is not the best way to critique capitalism. Instead, we need to develop ways to live which are sustainable and ecologically safe, and could exist when capitalism eventually evolves into something else. For what we are seeing, and I think people are intuitively feeling, is the logical end of capitalism and corporations.  They can offer us no more.

1 It is impossible to say no to power, in other words, it is actually impossible to escape power.

2 These remarks are based on the current system of corporate capitalism.  I realize this system is fucked up.

             Eric Virzi