Occupy the Mind, the rest will follow
Project: Polytopia

What is so peculiar, even curious in a strange sense, concerning the current events of global unrest is not the actuality of the events themselves but the fact that these events do not coalesce (as of yet that is) around a particular and immediately recognizable leader or agenda.
In fact to a very large extent it could be called a non-prophet organization, there is no prophet and there is no prophecy, there is also no specific nation to which this is true, the unrest is quite global in its reach and impact.
I submit to you that the stirring we are witnessing all over the world, is the awakening of a new kind of mind.

Where is our future?

Whilst it is true that the levels of inequalities in the modern world have reached new peaks of ridiculousness (see: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...) it is also true, at least according to S.Pinker in the economist that the level of violence is the lowest ever( see: Human violence
Punchline: People are less violent than ever, two authors argue. They just can’t agree why. )

Over at project syndicate Nouriel Roubini states that :

“This year has witnessed a global wave of social and political turmoil and instability, with masses of people pouring into the real and virtual streets: the Arab Spring; riots in London; Israel’s middle-class protests against high housing prices and an inflationary squeeze on living standards; protesting Chilean students; the destruction in Germany of the expensive cars of “fat cats”; India’s movement against corruption; mounting unhappiness with corruption and inequality in China; and now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York and across the United States.”

And finally that :

” Of course, the malaise that so many people feel cannot be reduced to one factor.”

(see: The Instability of Inequality - Nouriel Roubini)

Over at the Washington post an interview with Kalle Lasn, the man behind it all :

“There’s suddenly a strange, magical occupation in Zuccotti Park, and it inspires occupations around the world, and it’s inspired by people who look into the future and think it doesn’t compute.”

(Occupy Wall Street: An interview with Kalle Lasn, the man behind it all )

And :”

“Occupy Wall Street is essentially leaderless, fueled by social media and collective collaboration, operating on the consensus forged during twice-a-day meetings known as the General Assembly, where all are encouraged to participate.”

(Time, Global Spin: Occupy Wall Street: A New Era of Dissent in America?)

Finally maybe the most important bit by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt :

“No Martin Luther King, Jr. will emerge from the occupations of Wall Street and beyond. For better or worse — and we are certainly among those who find this a promising development — this emerging cycle of movements will express itself through horizontal participatory structures, without representatives. Such small-scale experiments in democratic organizing would have to be developed much further, of course, before they could articulate effective models for a social alternative, but they are already powerfully expressing the aspiration for a real democracy.”

Occupy Wall Street as a fight for "real democracy"
By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

A world in transit

The way I see it, is that the current events are an eruption of a general malaise of a world in transit, a humanity caught between its past and its future in a limbo like situation in which it feels but cannot articulate, there is a state of mind here indeed, a state of mind shared by millions around the planet.

Yes, the state of affairs of the world is one of disarray, but that is not the reason behind the stirrings we are witnessing, it is not a movement born of a demand for better democracy or better government, though all these are implied and asked for.

Yes there is a humanistic aspect to the stirring, there is a demand for dignity and health care, for jobs and better employment (though these terms are highly contested), there are also demands for culprits to be punished, the so-called 1% and so on.

In one of the better readings of the current events professor Bernard E. Harcourt over at the NewYork Times says:

“Occupy Wall Street is best understood, I would suggest, as a new form of what could be called “political disobedience,” as opposed to civil disobedience, that fundamentally rejects the political and ideological landscape that we inherited from the Cold War.”

And further down in the same post:

“Ultimately, what matters to the politically disobedient is the kind of society we live in, not a handful of policy demands.”

Occupy Wall Street’s ‘Political Disobedience’By BERNARD E. HARCOURT

A hyperconnected world, a hyperconnected mind

There is a general dissatisfaction here, a grand sensation of frustration and discontent, a deep and highly resonating awareness that feels ‘real’ and actual, immediate and momentous.

But what is the stirring all about? In spite of all the very real grievances and very real changes needed to, well, to everything more or less, I submit to you that the stirring we are witnessing all over the world, is the awakening of a new kind of mind.
And this stirring has no reason, no specific reason that is, or at the very least no reason that can be articulated presently.
Before you jump consider the idea that in our hyperconnected world the ease with which we get access to information and notification is unlike anything we have ever experienced,In an hyperconnected world the mind changes, it becomes a hyperconnected mind, this changes everything.

"The critical mass of wiki and mapping tools, video and social networking sites, the communal news wire of Twitter and the ease of donations afforded by sites like PayPal makes coalitions of like-minded individuals instantly viable.

“You’re looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds who are used to self-organizing,” said Yochai Benkler, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. “They believe life can be more participatory, more decentralized, less dependent on the traditional models of organization, either in the state or the big company. Those were the dominant ways of doing things in the industrial economy, and they aren’t anymore.”

(As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe- NYTimes)

Non-Conceptual Content and hyperconnectivity

There is a real reason why it is so difficult to pinpoint the exact meaning of the global stirring, the precise activity needed and demanded, I believe the reason is one of vision.
There is a very deep similarity between that which is happening and the theory of non-conceptual content.

“The central idea behind the theory of non-conceptual mental content is that some mental states can represent the world even though the bearer of those mental states need not possess the concepts required to specify their content.”

(Nonconceptual Mental Content at the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

—
There is such a thing as a global state of mind, the state of the noosphere if you prefer, it was always there to different extents, hyperconnectivity however has made it manifest, the infoverse has given it flesh and action and visibility.
This global state of mind is presently a non conceptualized content state and thus cannot be articulated precisely, for it is large, all encompassing, interdependent, and intersubjective.
It is complex and ambiguous, made of all the nodes, that we are, that we have created and that we use, those nodes implicit and explicit, some made of neurons, some made of silicon, exchange information at rates no single one of us can compute privately, but whether we accept it or not, it is humanity accessing a new state of affairs it has created.

The era of separatedeness is ending, no longer can one event be alienated from another, not in space, not in time, and not in meaning, and unlike Kevin Kelly, I do not think it is a new form of socialism, it is not anarchism, (beside the fact that I have a deep dislike to any form of ‘ism’), it is a new kind of mind, implied by the rise of a cyber unified civilization.

The stirring we are witnessing though being non conceptualized at present, is one of health, and birth, like all births it is wild eyed and in a sense confused, ambiguous, unclear and at times will unfortunately lash at the world, unwilling to be defined by its past.
The crisis engendered by this inner stir is here to stay for a long while; it is a period of necessary instability to which we need to learn to adapt and create new language and new tools, made for a new kind of mind by a new kind of mind.

Patience.
It is beautiful
Occupy the Mind, the rest will follow.

"Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible."

Isaiah Berlin


will be continued..

Mon, Oct 17, 2011  Permanent link
Categories: culture, collective intelligence, collective intelligence,Rhizomatics, Hyperconnectivity
Sent to project: Polytopia

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