SETTLERS 1NC 2.0
ON CASE – the aff is bad, several reasons
1.
a. SCT is Eurocentric and discounts Indigenous worldviews
outside the university which culminates in commodification
Beauline-Sterling 12
(Rebecc a, M A s tudent at Yor k Uni versity, A revi ew of R ed Pedag ogy: N ati ve Americ an Social and Politic al Thought by Sandy Gr an de, N eoAmericanist Vol . 6, N o. 1, Spring/Summer, http://www.neoamericanist.org/revi ew/red- pedag og y)KM
theory is articulated through a Western epistemic frame. The language and
content is accessible only to an academic audience and as such, seems to be
written “for” critical theorists rather than Indigenous people or communities.
theory itself is definitively Eurocentric
academia, I have c ome to unders tand what Gr ande c alls the “Nati ve theor y of antitheor y” wher ein “ eng agement in abstr act theor y s eems indulgent – a luxur y and pri vileg e of the ac ademic elite. F urther,
¶ As an Indigenous woman neg otiating my way through
– inherentl y c ontr adictor y to the aims of [I]ndigenous educ ation” (p. 2). While this “theor y of antitheor y” persists i n our c om muniti es – and with good reason – Indigenous ways of knowi ng and bei ng still for m the basis for resis tanc e and emanci pator y pr ojec ts across T urtle Isl and. Our worl d- views ar e rich and c ompl ex, full of theories that are merel y
viewed as
ignored and deval ued i n the ac ademy, the spac e for them “c ons cripted by academic c olonialis m” (p. 103) . Yet these theories have made their way into uni versities , albeit ever slowl y and not without struggle. Our voic es grow stronger beyond the boundaries prescribed for us .¶ Grande c al ls for an expansion of “the intell ectual borders of [I]ndigenous i ntellectualis m” (p. 3). I hope that thi s does not mean that Indigenous intellectuals – our El ders , knowl edge keepers and emerging leaders existi ng pri maril y outsi de of the uni versity – are ins ufficient i n their “intellectualism” and mus t eng age with critical theory as Gr ande has done in this text. C ertai nl y it is i mport ant that Indigenous people create and find s pac es within the ac ademy to for mul ate and s hare knowledge grounded i n their own world- views. M ost of us will have no c hoic e but to engage with whi tes tream theories, thoug h s ome of us will fi nd ways to wor k thr oug h or ar ound them. U ni versiti es are i mportant and diffic ult places for that reas on. In the s ame way, Grande’s text is an i ncre dibl e
We must be careful in how we relate to our own people,
How we write reflects how we relate, just as who we write for reflects who we
consider as part of that relation.
contribution. But ac ademi a, critic al theor y and the uni versity are not the onl y means by whic h we c an remember, revitalize an d s har e our knowledges for the purpos es of dec olonization, a pr omis e of “the g ood life” for generati ons to c ome. ¶
how i n our own theorizing we os tensibl y pl ac e value ( or not) on the rich knowl edg e s ometimes
hidden i n our famili es and c ommuniti es.
b. immigration representations do not require indigenous
dispossession or elimination – their reductivism ensures
the ALT fails AND produces anti-migrant violence
Sharma 15
Within such a worldview, that which moves is consequently denounced as
inherently polluting, and, in an idiom that is gaining in popularity, movement and
migration are posited as inherently colonizing . An understanding of mobility as
always colonizing is evident in the expansion of the term “settler colonist” to
include all those deemed nonnative in any given space.
slaves who
survived the Middle Passage
and present- day migrants
are agents
of colonialism.
(Nandita Sharma, As soci ate Profess or, D epartment of Sociol og y, U ni versity of H awai’i at Mānoa, Ph.D. Sociol ogy, U ni versity of T oronto, “7. Str ategic Anti- Essenti alis m: D ec olonizing D ec oloniz ation,” i n Sylvi a Wynter : On Bei ng H uman as Praxis , ed. Katherine Mc Kittric k, Duke U ni versity Pres s, 2015, ISBN 978-0- 8223-5820- 6, p.168-177)KMM
Recentl y, within both indigenous studi es and social movements for indigenous rights, the historical disti nctions between the voyages of C olumbus (and other c oloniz ers) and those of
, indentured wor kers recr uited i n the wake of sl aver y’s abolition,
It s eems , then, that as there has been an expansi on in the subj ecti ve understanding of people as indigenous, ther e has been a subs equent expansion i n their oth er. Put differentl y, within some i ndigenous s ys tems of bel onging,
captur ed in a vari ety of state categori es ranging from illeg al to i mmigrant, have been coll aps ed. All, it is cl ai med,
all p ast an d pr esent p eop le con stituted as migr ants are situated as co loniz er s
. In our pres ent “great age” of migration, how did “c olonizer” become a meaningful way to describe people who move acros s s pac e?25 Indeed, how did “c ol oniz er” c ome to be an incr easingl y domi nant mode of r epr esenti ng indigenous people’ s others, others who wer e once understood as cocol oniz ed peopl e or, at least, not as an oppositi onal other ? Is ther e a r elati onshi p bet ween these partic ularistic modes of r epr esentati on and the false s eparation and hier archic al r anki ng of different but r elated experi enc es of c olonization, suc h as the proces ses
of expropriati on and people’s dis plac ement across spac e? T he ans wers to these questi ons lie wi thi n the logics of autoc hthonou s s ys tems of representati on and the ways i n whic h clai ms to indigeneity bri ng to lif e discours es of aliennes s or foreignnes s. J ean Comaroff and John C omar off argue, by “el evating to a first- pri ncipl e the i neffabl e inter ests and c onnecti ons , at once material and mor al, that flow from ‘nati ve’ rootedness, and s pecial rights, i n a plac e of birth,” autochthonous disc ours es place thos e c onstituted as nati ves at the top of a hier archy of the expl oited, oppr ess ed, an d col oniz ed and i nsist on the c entrality of the clai ms of nati ves for the realizati on of either decol oni zati on or jus tice.26
figure of the migrant. This is becaus e the hegemonic unders tanding of what it means to be a migrant in today’s world is one where migrati on is s een as movement away from one’s nati ve land. T hus , migrants come to s tand as the ulti mate nonnati ve. Such a move wor ks to shi ft the focus fr om a di alectics of col onialis m— wher e the key historical dynamic is one of expr opriation and exploi tati on, and the key rel ations hip is one between the c olonizers and the c olonized— to one wher e the
dichotom y b et ween n ative and nonnat ive b ecom es centr al to b oth an alysis and politics
. Patric k
W olfe
Within the negati ve duality of nati ves and nonnati ves that such disc ourses put into pl ay, origins ( and, in s ome c ontexts, clai ms of original, vers us l ater, human discover y or i nhabitation) bec ome the key deter mi nant of who belongs in any gi ven spac e today— and who does not. T he qui ntess ential alien or foreigner within autoc hthonous dis courses is the
.
, a his torian of Austr alia, c aptur es this perspecti ve well in his clai m that “the fundamental soci al di vide is not the col or line. It is not ethnicity, minority s tatus , or even cl ass . T he pri mar y line is the one disti nguis hing N ati ves from s ettlers— that is, fr om ever yone els e
Onl y the Nati ve is not a s ettl er. Onl y the N ati ve is trul y loc al. Onl y the N ati ve will free the N ati ve. One is either nati ve or not.” 27 From suc h an autoc hthonous pers pecti ve, bei ng nati ve
is both s patiall y and temporall y dependent. T empor all y, migrants may be i dentifi ed as nati ves at s ome point in ti me and in s o me given s pac e, but onc e havi ng moved away fr om the s pac es where suc h r epr es entations may be clai med, they become nonnati ves. Spati all y, migra nts remai n nati ve but onl y to the pl aces they no longer li ve in. T hus, s ome arg ue that migrants c an c onti nue to clai m nati ve rights to plac es they have moved from if they ar e abl e to show g eneal ogical desc endanc e from thos e with nati ve status i n that s pace.28 C andac e F uji kane, i n dis missing Asian cl ai ms to belong in the United States, puts it this way: “Indigenous people ar e diff erenti ated from settlers by their g enealogical , familial rel ati onshi p with s pecific l and bases that are anc estors to them. One is ei ther indigenous to a partic ular l and base or one is not. Asian Americans are undeniabl y s ettl ers i n the U nited States becaus e we c annot clai m any geneal ogy to the land we occ upy, no matter how many lifeti mes Asi an s ettl ers wor k on the l and, or how many A sian i mmigrants
indigeneity is racialized / ethnicized , and in the process, land —or
more accurately, territory—is as well . Natives, it is assumed, belong in “their”
native land and only there.
have been kill ed through r acist persec uti on and hate crimes, or how brutal the politic al or c olonial r egimes that oc casi oned Asians’ exodus from their homelands.” 29 In this l ogic,
Further,
for the rights and enti tlements of members hip) have
not al ways wor ked for thos e s ubor dinated through other axes of oppres sion
and exploitati on. T hus,
many women have found that their clai ms to nati ve s tatus ar e often the first to be disc ounted
.30 In this, there is an
ironic historical conti nui ty
who c an be rec ogniz ed as nati ve is dependent upon ancestr y
of autochthonous i deas and pr actic es of bel onging and the
underl ying l ogics of the c olonial
, thereby
addi ng bl ood to the dis course of s oil
( and, in some places , pos tc olonial)
s tate
. D esc ent bec omes of further i mportanc e i n this disti ncti on, for many indigenous peopl e ar e, of c ours e, als o Asian ( and Eur opean and African and so on) as well as vic e versa. It is one’s ability to clai m s ome indigenous anc estor that c an all ow one to be s een as indigenous today. W hile suc h clai ms c an be social and not biol ogical, many i ndigenous groups, followi ng fr om c ertain governments’ own categ orical r ecog nition of indigeneity, rel y on s ome for m of
blood quantum
rul e that r equires a mi ni mal indigenous li neage. Not s urprisingl y, s uch
criteri a for bel ongi ng
(and
. Indeed, the meaning of nati ve was one that was us ed to disti nguis h the c olonized from the c ol oniz er s o that the nati ves c oul d be r epr esented as l ess human and, ther efore, as legiti matel y c olonized. Being nati ve, then, was a signifi er of being c oloniz ed and the ulti mate signi fier of abjec tness . N ati veness as a mode of representati on, then, was designed to i nstituti onaliz e the new r acist or ders impl emented by different c ol onial empires. Importantl y, all c oloniz ed peopl e were variousl y identified as “the” nati ves in order to signal their lac k of member s hip in the propter nos of the c olonizers .31 In the
pos t–World War II era of postcol oni alis m, when, through muc h s truggle, col oni al empires were r emoved fr om the list of legiti mate forms of politic al r ule, the right to clai m rights within and to any given s pace came, incr easi ngl y, to be s een as belonging to “the” nati ves. After all, we were told, the antic oloni al pr ojec t was ofte n posi ted as fighti ng for the r ule of the nati ves for the nati ves. Not s urprisingl y, then, the battl e over res ourc es and over plac e has, thus , increasingl y become one about the meani ng of nati veness. In this way, autoc hthonous modes of belonging are signi fic ant in advancing partic ul ar nati onalized r egimes of rights, for the nati onal s ubjec t is often defined through an exclusi ve r acializ ed / ethnicized criteria through whic h politic al rights and rights to property, es peci all y s oci al pr operty rights i n l and and natural r esourc es, are to be apporti oned within any clai med national s pace. Contempor ar y, postc olonial for ms of racism ar e ofte n bas ed on ideas of autochthony. All thos e who are sai d to have migrated to the pl aces wher e they li ve (or who
cannot prove their prior i nhabi tanc e) ar e i ncreasingl y vi ewed as ag ents of (i nstead of co- victi ms of) col oni al projects. The r uling i deolog y of nati onalis m has provi ded an expl anati on for bel onging and has c ome to be a key way to disti nguis h between who is properl y nati ve to any given place and who is not. T oday, the rhetoric of autoc hthony is evident thr oughout the world, incl uding di vers e si tes i n Europe, s outhern Africa, Centr al Africa, Lati n Americ a, N orth Americ a, and the Pacific. Signific antl y, such a disc ourse spa ns the politic al s pectrum from the Right to the Left. Her e, I foc us on the emergence of autoc hthonous discours es i n indigenous nati onalist politics ( engag ed in by both nati ves and nonnati ves) i n the territori es cl ai med by C anada and the U nited States, with a partic ular foc us on the H awaii an arc hipelag o, where this discours e is well rehears ed. T he positi on that all migrants are settler col onis ts has been advanced i n a number of rec ent s cholarl y wor ks in C anada and the U nited States. In the c ontext of H awai’i, it has been arg ued that
“Asians” in Hawai’i ( mos t of whom ar e the descendants of c ontrac tuall y i ndentur ed pl antation l aborers who beg an arri ving i n t he mid- 1800s) are “settler col onis ts,” acti ve i n the c oloniz ati on of nati ve H awaiians due to their nonnati ve status.32 The main dis tinc tion between the two groups , they argue, is that nati ve H awaii an clai ms ar e based on rights of nati onal s overeignty over “their land, water, and other economi c and l egal rights ,” whil e Asians, bec ause they ar e not nati ve, ha ve no right to make s uc h cl ai ms.33 In a Canadi an c ontext, Bonita Lawrence’s and Enakshi Dua’s article “Dec olonizi ng Antiracis m” ( 2005) in Soci al J ustic e makes s ome of the same arguments made by the c ontributors to the s pecial issue of Amerasi a J ournal on “ Asian Settl er Col oni alis m i n H awai’i.”34 Li ke them, Lawr ence and Dua als o foc us on those nonnati ves who are nonwhite. They contend that the antiracist praxis of nonwhites has “contribute[d] to the acti ve c olonization of Aboriginal peopl es.” 35 Indeed, they c ontend that “antir acis m is premis ed on an ong oing c oloni al
By insisting that
any critique of nationalism is tantamount to a colonial practice, the nationalist
assumptions and politics of native nationalisms are taken out of the realm of that
which can be contested . Consequently, native nationalisms are posited as the
only strategy for decolonization
proj ect” and on “a col onizing s ocial formati on.”36 Pos tc olonial critiq ues of national li ber ati on strategi es, s oci al c onstruc ti vist critiques of the natur alness of rac es or nations, and arguments agai nst ethnic absol utis m, such as thos e made by Stuart H all, become, for them, examples of how antiracis m is a c olonial practic e.37 Lawrenc e and D ua mai ntain that thes e ki nds of anal yses col onize indigenous people by “contribut[ing] to the ongoi ng delegiti miz ation of Indigenous nati onhood.” 38 In these es says, then, critiques of nati onalis ms or of the natur alization of s oci al c ategories ar e tantamount to attac ks against i ndigenous peopl e. It is in such ass erti ons that we c an fi nd the i deol ogical c haracter of autochthonous disc ours es . In arguing for the theor etic al and politic al c entrality of nati veness, ther e is an effort to depoliticiz e nati ve nati onalis ms .
. It is pr ecis el y the nati onalis m i nherent withi n autochthonous disc ours es that helps to
exp lain not only wh y all nonn atives ar e con ceptualiz ed as co loniz er s but also wh y
the ( vari ed) critics of nationalism (or thos e who argue for the s oci al basis for ideas of r ace and ethnic purity, or
tho se who uncover a p olitics of solid ar it y acro ss su ch lin es) ar e also colon iz ers
heg emonic doctrines of self- determi nanc y, Asians , for example, i n Hawai’i, or elsewhere i n the U nited States and Canada, are repres ented as not- col oniz ed and, therefor e, i n the dualistic mode of autoc hthonous representati ons , as c oloniz ers. Within autoc hthonous dis courses one c an onl y be c oloniz ed if they “ bel ong” or ar e i ndigeneous to that s pace itsel f. In this view, the c oloniz ation that peopl e experienc e s uppos edl y ends onc e one moves away fr om the c olo ny ( or, now, the pos tc olony). Ins tead, thes e migrants c ome to be repres ented as col onizer s. Bec ause a key aspect of the s ubj ecti ve understanding of indigenous is being a c ol oniz ed pers on, onl y other c olonized persons c an be seen to be c o- s peci fics.
.
proc ess es of col oni alis m opened up. M ore specific all y, i t fails to s ee migrati on as a part of the col oni al experienc e. The world as seen through an autoc hthonous l ens is one of discr ete, disc onnected s pac es, eac h bel onging to its nati ve people. This is the autoc hthonous vi ew of the worl d pri or to c oloniz ation and of the ideal dec oloniz ed spac e
borders
and territories thr oug h partic ularis tic str ategies of identific ation
. The new
It thus appears that
mode of r epr es entati on of i ndigeneity, whic h, os tensi bl y, appears to be an expansion i n s ubjec ti ve understanding, creates a M anic haean dualis m of nati ve and nonnati ve
as bor ders and rel ations hips begin to realign to allow for new for ms of s ubj ecti ve understanding and cons pecificity, s ome scholars and
. Suc h a logics of representati on
ass umes that all pas t and present proces ses of exc hange are inherentl y destructi ve
. N egati vel y r acializ ed pers ons , i n this l ogic of nationalized s elf- deter mi nac y, are r eleg ated to bei ng mer e minorities of various nations and their existi ng or hoped- for nati onal s overeign states. Thus, bec ause t hey ar e not a peopl e / nati on as defined by
N eith er tho se constitut ed as migrant s no r their strugg les can b e p erceiv ed as part of antico lonial strugg les. As su ch, th ey cannot be in clud ed as co mm en sur ate hu man b eing s within an y colon ial or post colon ial space
. T his vi ew i magines the s pac e of col onialis m as finite. It fails to s ee the br oader fiel d of power that
activists are actively working to re-fix
By casting all human
. C olonialis m, fr om s uch a view, was ( and r emai ns) about people movi ng about and that it was / is in this proc ess of movi ng a way from where they ar e nati ve to plac es where they are not that has caus ed the enormous destruc tion of life.
mobility as colonial acts, modes of representation, ironically, empty out from
the meaning of colonialism the enormous violence that has been done by
colonizers. It also minimalizes—or even denies—the violence done to people
who moved and who move today .
autochthonous
Bor ders , including the bor ders between nati ves and nonnati ves, although seemi ngly about the physic al s eparation of thos e i n the national nos from i ts foreign others, then, are pri marily conc erned with
2.
m aking differ en ces within the sam e space th at the nos and its others both live in
. Bec aus e we—and, wi th Syl vi a Wynter, I use “ we” in all the full nes s of the ter m “humans”—have long li ved in a world that is connected acr oss nowdemarc ated s paces , making cl ai ms to l and, to li velihoods, and to bel ongi ng on the basis of partic ul aristic cl aims, s uc h as
FRAMEWORK – TVA
a. Violation – The affirmative presents an interrogation of
power relations without tying that interrogation to a
specific mechanism outside of the debate community. They
become armchair philosophers.
b. Vote Neg – the judge should only vote for political options
that can truly activate debaters agency
c. Reasons to prefer –Ground – We're here to engage on how
power relations interact with different political
methodologies. In the abstract any analysis of power can
be good. This is a call for the affirmative to interact with
material oppression – violent revolution, the
Undercommons, are examples of how the Aff could have
chosen a political strategy outside of a topical plan,
proving we provide a freedom within limits that solves their
framework offense.
d. Minority Participation – Adopting a view of power based on
philosophical abstraction turns their attempts to engage
politics because minorities need to have political analysis
that relates to the material conditions they face. They make
debate less relevant for people of color
e. The United States federal government should implement: 1)
a single permanent, non-expiring document denoting free
passage for all members of Native tribal nations whose
traditional territories are bisected by borders between the
U.S., Canada and Mexico. This document should not confer
eligibility based on any blood quantum mandated by U.S.
law; and 2) a single web site specifying the procedures for
obtaining the new document.
f. Restrictions on Native People’s immigration in North
America constitute an imminent threat to their cultural
survival.
Caron, ’17
[Fred, Mi nister of Indigenous and N orther n Affairs’ Special R epres entati ve on Border Cros sing Is sues; “Report on Firs t N ation border cr ossi ng issues;” August 31, 2017; https://www.aadnc-aandc .gc.c a/eng/1506622719017/1506622893512]
rights with respect to circulation
, derive from their inherent rights as
nations which existed prior to the arrival of Europeans and the imposition of
The fund am ental b elief of F ir st Natio ns is that th eir
withi n the territor y of North America, referred to by many as T urtl e Is land
today's international borders. This,
. First Nations
therefore view the imposition of the Canada-US border, which literally divided
their existing nations in two, as an unjustified and unlawful abridgement of their
inherent rights which have a direct relation to their cultural survival.
in their vi ew, i ncluded rights to circul ate for a variety of pur poses incl udi ng tr ade, cultur al and s ubsistenc e directl y related to the types of acti viti es c onduc ted for c enturies prior to the ass erti on of s over eignty by non-Indigenous governments. It is this histor y that disti nguishes their rights res pecti ng border cr ossing from thos e of non-Indigenous C anadians
in some cases
.
3.
Clownism K
a. Politics are boring as fuck—the separation of politics and
theory from everyday life makes it the realm of intellectuals
and turns politics into a new form of work.
Crimethinc no date
—anarc hist ex- wor ker’s coll ecti ve (“Your Politics Are Boring As Fuc k”, http://www.crimethinc .c om/texts /s elected/asfuc k.php, dml)
Face it, your politics are boring as fuck.
Why has the oppressed
not come to its senses and joined you ?
your politics are
a predictable part of the status quo.
your jargon is a language of
systems of control.
You do us all a real disservice with your tiresome,
tedious politics. there is nothing more important than politics.
.
When you make
politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, it becomes just another weight
upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people.
You know i t's true. Other wise, why does ever yone cringe when you say the wor d? Why has attendanc e at your anarcho-communist theor y dis cus sion group meeti ngs fallen to an all-ti me low?
in your fight for world li ber ation
necessar y for a genu ine und er standing of th e complexities of Marxist econom ic theor y? The tr uth is,
post-M ar xist
proletariat
Per haps, after years of str uggling to educ ate them about their victi mhood, you have come to bl ame them for their c onditi on. T hey mus t want to be ground under the heel of c api talist i mperialis m; other wise, why do they sho w no inter est in your politic al c auses ? Why haven't they j oined you yet in chaini ng yours elf to mahogany furnitur e, c hanting sl ogans at c arefull y pl anned and orc hestr ated protests, and fr equenting anarchis t books hops ? W h y h aven't th ey sat do wn and learn ed all the ter mino log y
boring to them bec aus e they r eall y ar e irrel evant . T hey know that your antiquated styl es of protest— your m ar ches, hand held sign s, and gath erings—ar e now powerless to effect r eal change becaus e they have bec ome suc h
is off-putti ng bec ause it r eally
They know that
mer e academic dis pute, not a weapon c apabl e of under mini ng
They know that your infighti ng, your splinter group s and endl ess q uarrel s over ephemer al theories can never effec t any real c hange in the world they experience from day to day. Th ey kno w th at no matter who is i n offic e, what l aws ar e on the books, what "is m"s the i ntellec tuals march under, the content of their li ves will remain the
same. Th ey— we— kno w that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real tr ans for mati on of life. Fo r our lives ar e bo ring enoug h alr ead y! And yo u kno w it too. For how many of you is politics a res ponsi bility? Somethi ng you engage in bec aus e you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there ar e a million things you would r at her be doi ng? Your volunteer wor k— is it your most favorit e p astime, or do you d o it out of a sen se of obligatio n? W h y do you think it is so har d to m otivate ot her s to volunteer as you do? Could it b e that it is, abov e all, a feeling of gu ilt th at driv es you to fulfill your "d ut y" to b e politically act ive? Perhap s you sp ice up yo ur " work" b y tr ying ( consciously or not) to g et in troub le with th e author ities, to get ar rested: not because it will pr actically serv e your cause, but to make thing s m ore exciting , to r ecaptur e a little of the ro man ce of turbu lent t im es no w long p ast. H ave you ever felt that you wer e partici pating i n a ritual, a long-established traditi on of fring e
protest, that r eall y ser ves onl y to s trengthen the positi on of the mains tream? Have yo u ever secretl y longed to esc ape from the stag nation and boredom of your political "r es ponsi bilities" ? It' s no wond er th at no one has join ed you in your political end eavor s. Perh aps yo u tell your self that it's tough , th ankless wo rk, but som ebod y's got to do it. The an swer is, well, NO.
ac tuall y
For in fact,
and writi ng rhetoricall y about an unr eac habl e utopi a" anarc hist. Not the politics of any leader or ideolog y that demands that you make sacrifices for "the caus e." But the politic s of our ever yday li ves
NOT the politics of American " democr ac y" and law, of who is elec ted s tate l egislator to sign the s ame bills and perpetuate the same s ystem. N ot the politics of the " I got invol ved with the radic al left becaus e I enjoy qui bbli ng over tri vi al details
W hen you sep arat e po litics from th e imm ediat e, ever yd ay exp erien ces of individu al m en and wom en, it b eco mes co mpletely irr elevant. Indeed, it bec omes the private domai n of wealthy, c omfortabl e i ntell ectuals, who c an trouble thems el ves with s uc h dreary, theor etic al thing s. When you invol ve yours elf i n politic s out of a s ense of obligati on, and make politic al acti on into a dull res ponsi bility r ather than an exciting game that i s wor thwhile for its own s ake, you sc are away people whos e li ves are already far too dull for any more tedium.
a dreadful r es ponsibility,
And thus you rui n the idea of politic s for the peopl e to whom it s houl d be mos t i mportant. For ever yone has a stake in consi deri ng their li ves, i n as ki ng thems el ves what they want out of life and how they c an get it. But you make politics look to them li ke a mis erable, s elf-referenti al,
poi ntl ess mi ddl e cl ass/bohemian g ame, a game with no rel evanc e to the r eal li ves they ar e li ving out. What s houl d be politic al? Whether we enj oy what we do to get food and s helter. Whether we feel li ke our dail y interactions with our fri ends, neighbors , and c owor kers are fulfillin g. Whether we have the opportunity to li ve eac h day the way we desire to. And "politics" should consist not of mer el y disc ussing thes e questi ons, but of ac ting direc tl y to i mprove our li ves i n the i mmedi ate pres ent. Acti ng in a way that is itself entertaini ng, exciting, joyous— because politic al acti on that is tedious , tiresome, and oppressi ve c an onl y perpetuate tedi um, fatigue, and oppr ession i n our lives . N o mor e ti me s houl d be was ted debati ng over iss ues that will be irrelevant when we mus t go to wor k ag ain the next day. No m ore pr edic tabl e ritual protes ts that the authorities know all too well how to deal with; no mor e boring ritual pr otests whic h will not s ound li ke a thrilling way to s pend a Satur day afternoon to potential vol unteers—cl earl y, those won't get us anywhere. N ever
again s hall we "s acrific e ours el ves for the c aus e." For we oursel ves, happi ness i n our own li ves and the li ves of our fellows, mus t be our c ause! After we make politics r elevant and exci ting, the r est will foll ow. But fr om a drear y, merel y theoretical and/or ritualized politics , nothi ng valuable can follow. T his is not to say that we s houl d s how no i nteres t in the welfar e of humans, animals, or ec os ys tems that do not contact us dir ectl y i n our day to day exis tenc e. But the foundation of our politics mus t be concr ete: it mus t be immediate, it must be obvi ous to everyone why it is worth the effort, it must be fun
i n its elf. How c an we do posi ti ve things for others if we ours el ves do not enjoy our own li ves ? T o make this concrete for a moment: an afternoon of collect ing food fr om bu sin esses that wou ld h ave thro wn it away and ser ving it to hung r y peop le an d p eople who ar e tir ed of wor king to p ay for food—th at is goo d political action , but on ly if you enjo y it. If you do it with your friend s, if you m eet new friend s while you'r e do ing it, if you
fall in lov e or trad e funn y stories or just feel proud to hav e h elp ed a wom an b y easin g h er fin an cial n eeds, that' s goo d political action . On the other han d, if you sp end the after noon t yping an ang r y lett er to an obscur e leftist tab loid o bjecting to a column ist' s u se of the ter m " anarcho- syn dicalist ," that' s not go ing to acco mplish sh it, and you kno w it. Perhaps it is ti me for a new wor d for "politics ," si nce you have made s uc h a s wear word out of the ol d one. F or no one should be put off when we tal k about acti ng together to i mpr ove our li ves. And s o we pr es ent to you our demands, whic h are non- negotiable, and must be met as soon as pos sibl e—b ecau se we'r e not go ing to live forev er, ar e we? 1. M ake politics relevant to our ever yday experi enc e of life agai n. The farther away the objec t of our political concer n, the l ess i t will mean to us, the less real and pres sing it will seem to us, and the mor e wearis ome politics will be. 2. All poli tical acti vi ty must be j oyous and exciting i n its elf. Yo u cannot escap e fro m dr earin ess with
more dr earin ess. 3. To acco mplish tho se fir st t wo st eps, entirel y new politic al approac hes and methods must be cr eated. The ol d ones are outdated, outmoded. Perhaps they wer e N EVER any good, and that's why our worl d is the way i t is now. 4. Enjoy yours el ves!
There is never any excuse for being boring!
bored . . . or
J oin us in maki ng the "revolution" a game; a game pl ayed for the highest stakes of all, but a j oyous , c arefr ee game nonethel ess!
b. This turns the case by submitting to the need to conform to
established ways of knowing they lose the opportunity to
be as sassy and sensual as the neg
Halberstam 11.
J . J. J udith H alberstam, pr ofessor of English at the Uni versity of Southern C aliforni a, T he Queer Art of Fail ure, pg. 5
Being taken seriously means missing out on the
chance to be frivolous, promiscuous, and irrelevant. The desire to be taken
seriously is precisely what compels people to follow the tried and true paths of
knowledge production
terms like serious and rigorous tend to be code
words,
they signal a form of training and learning that confirms what is
already known according to approved methods of knowing,
Illegibilit y, then, h as been and remains, a r eliab le sou rce for polit ical autono m y. —J ames C. Sc ott, Seei ng Li ke a State Any book that begi ns with a quote from SpongeBob SquarePants and is motored by wis dom gle aned fr om F antas tic Mr. F ox, Chic ken R un, and Fi nding Nemo, among other ani mated guides to life, runs the ris k of not bei ng taken s eriousl y. Yet this is my goal.
around which I would li ke to map a few detours. Ind eed
in ac ademia as well as other c ontexts, for disci plinar y c orrec tness ;
but they do not allow for visionar y insights or flights of fanc y. Tr ain ing of an y kind, in f act , is a way of refu sing a kind of B enjam inian r elation to kno wing , a stroll do wn un chart ed str eet s in the “ wro ng” d irection (Benjamin 1996); it is precis el y about staying i n well- lit
territori es and about knowing exactl y whic h way to go befor e you s et out. Like m an y other s b efor e me, I pr opos e that i nstead the g oal is to lose one’s way, and i ndeed to be pr epared to los e more than one’s way. Losi ng, we may agree with Eliz abeth Bishop, is an art, and one “ that is not too hard to mas ter / T hough it may l ook li ke a dis aster” (2008: 166–167). In the sci enc es , partic ularl y physics and mathematics, ther e are many examples of r ogue intell ectuals , not all of whom are recl usi ve U nabomber types (al though more than a few are jus t that), who wander o ff i nto unc harted territories and refus e the academy becaus e the publish- or- peris h pr ess ure of academi c life keeps them tethered to conventional knowledge pr oducti on and its well- tr aveled byways. Popul ar mathematics books , for exampl e, r evel in stories about unc onventi onal loners who ar e s elfsc hool ed and who make their own way thr oug h the worl d of numbers. F or s ome kooky minds , di sciplines ac tuall y get i n the way of ans wers and theorems pr ecis el y bec aus e they offer maps of
thought wher e i ntuition and blind fumbling might yiel d better res ults . In 2008, for example, The N ew Yorker featured a s tor y about an oddball physicist who, like many ambiti ous physicists and mathematicians, was in hot pursui t of a grand theor y, a “ theor y of ever ythi ng.” T his thinker, Garr ett Lisi, had dr opped out of academic physic s bec ause stri ng theor y domi nated the fi eld at that time and he thoug ht the ans wers l ay els ewhere. As an outsi der to the dis cipline, writes Benjami n Wall ace- Wells, Lisi “ built his theor y as an outsider might, rel yi ng on a grab bag of c omponent parts: a hand- built mathematical str ucture, an unconventional way of des cribing gravi ty, and a mysterious mathematic al entity known as E8.” 1 In the end Lisi’s “theor y of ever ythi ng” fell short of expectati ons , but it nonethel ess yiel ded a whole terr ain of new questions and methods . Si mil arly the computer scientis ts who pi oneered new pr ograms to pr oduc e c omputer- gener ated i mager y (CGI), as many acc ounts of the ris e of Pi xar have c hronicled, wer e academic rej ects or dr opo uts who
created i ndependent i nstitutes in order to explor e their dr eams of ani mated worlds.2 T hes e alternati ve c ultural and ac ademic r ealms , the areas beside academia rather than within it, the i ntellec tual worlds conjur ed by losers, failures, dropouts, and refus eni ks, often s er ve as the l aunc hing pad for alternati ves precisel y when the uni versity c annot . T his is not a bad time to experiment with disci plinar y tr ans for mation on behalf of the proj ect of gener ati ng new for ms of knowing, since the fiel ds that were assembled over one hundred years ag o to r espond to new market economi es and the demand for narrow expertis e, as F oucault described them, are now l osing r elevance and failing to r es pond ei ther to r eal- world knowledge pr ojec ts or student i nteres ts. As t he big discipli nes begin to crumble like banks that have invested in bad s ec urities we mig ht as k more br oadl y, Do we reall y w ant to s hore up the ragged boundaries of our s hared inter ests and i ntell ectual c ommi tments , or might we r ather take this opportunit y to rethink the pr ojec t of l earning and thinki ng
altog ether ? J ust as the standardiz ed tests that the U.S. favors as a g uide to i ntellec tual advancement i n high s chools tend to identify people who are good at standardiz ed exams (as oppos ed to, say, intell ectual visionaries), so in uni versiti es grades, exams, and knowl edg e of c anons i denti fy sc holars wi th an aptitude for maintai ning and conformi ng to the dictates of the disci pline. T his book, a str oll out of the c onfines of conventional knowl edge and into the unreg ulated territori es of fail ure, loss , and unbec oming, must make a l ong detour around disci plines and or dinar y ways of t hinki ng. Let me expl ain how uni versiti es ( and by i mplication high sc hools) squash rather than promote quir ky and original thoug ht. Discipli narity, as defined by F ouc ault (1995), is a tec hniq ue of modern power: it depends upon and depl oys nor maliz ati on, r ou tines, convention, tradition, and reg ularity, and it pr oduc es experts and admi nistrati ve forms of gover nanc e. T he uni versity structure that houses the disci plines and jealousl y g uar ds their boundari es now stands at a
crossroads, not of disci plinarity and i nterdis ciplinarity, past and future, national and trans national; the cr ossroads at whic h the rapidl y disi ntegrati ng bandwagon of disci plines, s ubfi elds , and i nter disci plines has arri ved offer a choic e between the uni versity as c orpor ation and i nves tment op portunity and the uni versity as a new ki nd of public s phere with a di fferent i nvestment in knowl edg e, i n ideas, and in thought and politics . A radic al take on disci plinarity and the uni versity that pres umes both the breakdown of the disci plines and the closi ng of gaps between fiel ds conventionall y pr esumed to be s eparated c an be found in a manifesto published by Fred M oten and Stefano H arney i n 2004 in Soci al Text titled “T he Uni versity and the Undercommons: Seven T heses .” T heir ess ay is a searing critique direc ted at the i ntellec tual and the critical i ntellec tual, the professi onal scholar and the “critical ac ademic professional s.” F or Moten and H arney, the critic al academic is not the ans wer to encroac hing professi onaliz ation but an extensi on of it, using th e ver y s ame
tools and l egitimati ng str ategi es to become “ an all y of pr ofessi onal educ ation.” Moten and H arney prefer to pi tch their tent wi th the “s ubversi ve i ntellec tuals,” a maroon c ommunity of outc as t thinkers who refuse, resis t, and reneg e on the dema nds of “rigor,” “excell ence,” and “pr oducti vity.” T hey tell us to “steal from the uni versity,” to “ steal th e enlighten ment for others” (112) , and to act ag ain st “ what Foucault called th e Con quest, th e un spo ken war that found ed, and with the force of law r efound s, so ciet y” (113). And what does the undercommons of the uni versity want(s) to be ? It wants to con stitute an unprofessional force of fugiti ve knowers, with a s et of intell ectual pr actic es not bound by exami nation s ystems and tes t sc ores . T he goal for this unprofessionalizati on is not to abolis h; i n fac t Moten and Har ney s et the fugiti ve intell ectual ag ains t the eli minati on or abolition of this , the founding or refounding of that: “N ot s o muc h the abolition of pris ons but the abolition of a s oci ety that coul d have prisons, that c oul d have slaver y, that c oul d
have the wage, and therefore not abolition as the elimi nation of anything but aboliti on as the foundi ng of a new society” (113). Not the elimi nation of anything but the founding of a new s oci ety. And why not? Why not thi nk i n ter ms of a differ ent ki nd of s ociety than the one that firs t created and then abolis hed slaver y? T he soci al worlds we inhabit, after all, as s o many thinkers have r eminded us , are not i nevi table; they were not al ways bound to turn out thi s way, and what’s more, i n the pr oc ess of pr oducing this reality, many other realities , fi elds of knowl edge, and ways of being have been disc arded and, to cite F ouc ault again, “ disqualifi ed.” A few visi onar y books, produced alongside disci plinar y knowl edg e, s how us the paths not taken. For example, in a book that its elf began as a detour, Seei ng Li ke a State: H ow C ertain Sc hemes to Impr ove the Human Condition H ave F ailed ( 1999) , J ames C. Sc ott details the ways the modern state has run r oug hshod over l oc al, c us tomar y, and undis ciplined for ms of knowledge in order to r ati onalize and si mplif y
social , agricultur al, and political pr actic es that have profit as their pri mar y moti vati on. In the process , s ays Sc ott, certain ways of seeing th e world are estab lished as n orm al or natur al, as obviou s and n ecessar y, ev en though they ar e often entirely count erintu itive and socially engin eered . Seeing Li ke a State began as a s tudy of “why the state has al ways seemed to be the enemy of ‘peopl e who move around,’” b ut quickly becam e a stud y of the demand by the state for l egibility thr ough the i mpositi on of methods of standardiz ation and unifor mi ty (1) . Whil e D ean Spade (2008) and other queer s cholars us e Sc ott’s book to thi nk about how we c ame to insist upon the doc umentation of gender i dentity on all g overnmental documentation, I want to us e his monumental s tudy to pic k up some of the disc arded lo cal kno wledg es that are trampled un derfoot in th e ru sh to bureaucratiz e and rat ionaliz e an economic o rder th at privileg es profit over all kind s of oth er motivation s fo r b eing and doing . In plac e of the Germanic ordered forest
to “see like a state” means to accept the order of
things and to internalize them; it means that we begin to deploy and think with
the logic of the superiority of orderliness
that Sc ott us es as a potent metaphor for the start of the modern i mpositi on of bur eaucratic order upon popul ations , we might go with the thic ket of s ubj ugated knowl edge that s pr outs li ke weeds among the discipli nar y for ms of knowl edg e, thr eatening al ways to over whel m the c ultivation and pr uni ng of the intell ect wi th mad plant life. F or Sc ott,
and that we er as e and i ndeed sacrific e other, m ore lo cal pr actices of kno wled ge, pr act ices mor eover that may be l ess efficient, may yiel d l ess mar ketable res ults , but may also, in th e lo ng term, be mor e su staining. What i s at s take i n arguing for the tr ees and agai nst the for est? Scott id entifies “legib ilit y” as the favor ed t echn ique of hig h mod ern ism for sorti ng, organizing, and pr ofiti ng fro m land and peop le and for ab stracting syst em s of kno wledge from loc al knowledge practices. H e tal ks about the
garden and g ardeners as r epr es entati ve of a new spirit of inter vention and order favored within high modernis m, and he points to the mi nimalis m and simplicity of Le C orbusi er’s ur ban design as part of a new c ommitment to s ymmetr y and di visi on a nd pl anni ng that c ompl ements authoritarian preferenc es for hier archi es and des pises the c ompl ex and mess y forms of organic pr ofusion and improvi sed cr eati vity. “Leg ibilit y,” writes Sc ott, “is a c onditi on of mani pul ati on” (1999: 183). He favor s in st ead , borrowi ng fr om European anarc hist thought, mor e prac tical for ms of kno wledg e that he c alls metis and th at emph asiz e mutu alit y, co llectivit y, p lasticit y, div er sit y, and adaptabilit y. Ill egi bility may i n fact be one way of esc api ng the politic al manipul ation to whic h all univ ersity fiel ds and disci plines are subject. While Sc ott’s insight about illegibility has i mplicati ons for all kinds of s ubj ects who are manipulated precisel y when they bec ome legibl e and vi sibl e to the s tate (undoc umented wor kers, visibl e que ers, r acializ ed minorities), it also poi nts to an
argument for anti discipli narity in the sens e that kno wledge pr actices th at r efuse b oth the form and the cont ent of tr adition al canon s m ay lead to unb ounded form s of spec ulation, modes of thin king that ally not with rigor and ord er but with in spir ation an d unpr edictabilit y. We may in fact want to think about how to see unli ke a state; w e may w ant new rati onal es for k nowledge producti on, different aesthetic standards for ordering or dis ordering s pace, other modes of politic al engagement than thos e c onj ured by the li ber al i maginati on . We may, ul timatel y, want mor e undiscipli ned knowledge, mor e ques tions and fewer ans wers. Discipli nes qualify and disqualify, legiti mate and del egitimate, reward and punish; most i mportant, they static all y reproduce thems el ves and i nhibit diss ent. As Fouc aul t writes, “Disci plines will define not a c ode of law, but a code of nor malization” (2003: 38). In a seri es of l ectures on knowledge pr oduc tion gi ven at the C olleg e de France and then publis hed posthumousl y as a c ollection titled Society M ust Be Defended,
Foucault provi des a c ontext for his own anti disci plinar y thinki ng and declares the ag e of “ all- enc ompassi ng and global theories” to be over, givi ng way to the “local charac ter of critique” or “s omethi ng resembling a s ort of autonomous and non- c entralized theoretic al production, or in other words a theoretical pr oducti on that does not need a vis a fr om s ome c ommon r eg ime to establish i ts validity” (6). T hes e lectur es coi ncide with the writi ng of T he Histor y of Sexuality Vol ume 1, and we find the outline of his critique of repressi ve power i n these pages (Foucaul t, 1998). I will return to Fou cault’s in sig hts about th e r everse d iscour se in The His tor y of Sexuality later i n the book, especi ally to the plac es where he implicates sexu al mi-nor ities in the produ ction of syst em s of classification , but in Soci ety M ust Be D efended his target is ac ademic legibility and legiti mation, and he describes and anal yzes the func tion of the ac ademic i n the circ ulati on and r epr oducti on of heg emonic s tructur es. In pl ac e of the “all- encompassing and gl obal theori es” that the
uni versity enc our ages, Fouc aul t exhorts his students to think about and turn to “s ubj ugated knowl edg es,” namel y thos e for ms of knowledge pr oducti on that have been “ buri ed or mas ked in func tional coherenc es or formal s ystematizations” (2003: 7). T hes e for ms of knowl edg e have not si mpl y been l ost or forgotten; they have been disqualified, rendered nons ensical or nonc onceptual or “i ns uffici entl y elabor ated.” F ouc ault c alls them “naïve knowledges , hier archic all y i nferi or knowl edg es, knowledges that are below th e r equired l evel of erudition or sci entificity” ( 7)—this is what we mean by knowl edg e fr om bel ow. In relation to the i denti fication of “s ubjugated knowledges,” we mig ht as k, How do we participate i n the pr oduc tion and circ ulation of “s ubjugated knowledge” ? H ow do we keep dis ciplinar y for ms of knowl edg e at bay? How do we avoi d precis el y the “sci entific” for ms of knowing that releg ate other modes of knowi ng to the redundant or irrelevant? How do we engage i n and teac h antidisci plinar y knowledge? F ouc ault prop oses this ans wer: “Truth to
tell, if we ar e to struggle ag ain st dis ciplines , or rather ag ain st d iscip lin ar y po wer , in our s earch for a nondisci plinar y power, we should not b e turn ing to th e o ld r ight of sover eignt y; we s hould be l ooki ng to a new right that is both anti- discipli nar y and emancipated
from the principl e of sov er eignt y” (2003: 40). In some s ens e we have to untrai n oursel ves s o that we can r ead the s truggles and debates bac k i nto ques tions that seem s ettled and r esol ved. On behalf of s uc h a project, and in the spirit of the “Seven T heses” pr opos ed by Moten and Har ney, this book joi ns forc es with their “subversi ve intell ectual” and agrees to steal from the uni versity, to, as they s ay, “abus e i ts hos pitality” and to be “in but not of it” ( 101). M ot en and H arney’s thes es exhort the subversi ve intellec tual to, among other things, worr y about the uni versity, refus e profes sionaliz ati on, forge a c ollec tivity, and retreat to the ex ter nal world bey ond the ivi ed walls of the c ampus. I would add to their thes es the followi ng. First, R esist mas tery. Her e we might insis t upon a
critique of the “ all- enc ompassi ng and global theories” i dentifi ed by F ouc ault. In my book this resis tanc e takes the for m of investi ng in counterintuiti ve modes of knowing suc h as fail ure and stup idit y; we might read failure, for example, as a r efusal of master y, a critique of the i ntuitive c onnecti ons within capitalis m between s ucc ess and profit, and as a c ounterhegemonic dis course of losing. Stupidity coul d refer not si mpl y to a l ac k of knowl edg e but to the li mits of certai n for ms of knowing and certain ways of i nhabiting s truc tur es of knowing. Reall y i maginative ethnographi es, for example, depend upon an unknowi ng rel ation to the other. T o begi n an ethnographic project with a g oal, wit h an objec t of r esearc h and a s et of pres umptions, is already to stymi e the proc ess of dis cover y; it bloc ks one’s ability to l ear n s omethi ng that exc eeds the framewor ks with which one enters. F or example, in an ethnography to which I r eturn l ater in the bo ok, a s tudy of “the Islamic revi val and the femi nist s ubjec t” in contempor ar y Eg ypt, Saba Mahmood expl ains how she
had to gi ve up on master y i n order to eng age c ertain for ms of Isl amis m. She writes : “it is th rough this pr oces s of d wellin g in the mod es of r easoning endemic to a tradition that I once j udged abhorr ent, by i mmersing mys elf wi thi n the thic k textur e of i ts s ensibiliti es and attac hments, that I h ave been able to dislo cat e the certitud e of m y o wn projection s and even begin to comprehend why Islam . . . exerts suc h a forc e i n peopl e’s li ves” (2005: 199). She concl udes this thought a s follows : “This attempt at c omprehensi on offers the slim hope i n the embattled and imperious cli mate, one i n which feminist politics r uns the ris k of being r educ ed to a r hetorical dis play of the pl ac ard of Isl am’s abus es, that anal ysis as a mode of conversation, r ather than master y, can yi eld a vision of co- existence that does not r equire maki ng others lifeworlds exti nct or provisional” ( 199). C onversati on rather than mas ter y i nde ed s eems to offer one ver y c oncrete way of bei ng in r elation to another for m of bei ng and knowi ng without seeki ng to meas ure that life modality by
the standards that are exter nal to it. Second,
Privilege the naïve or nonsensical
(stupidity). Her e we might argue for the nons ensibl e or nonc onceptual over s ense- maki ng structures that ar e often embedded in a common noti on of ethics. Th e naïv e or the ignor ant may in fact lead to a d iffer ent set of kno wledge pr actices . It c ertai nl y r equires what some have call ed opposi tional pedagogi es. In pursui t of s uc h pedagogies we mus t realiz e that, as Eve
c. Our alternative is to become radical clowns, we’ll resist
every day with our, joy love, and silliness. Resistance starts
with the desperate need to live and enjoy life
Circa, no date
—jokers
(“About the Ar my”, http://www.clownarmy.org/about/about.html)
welcome to the
world of the Clown Army
Because with greasepaint we give resistance a funny face . We
are insurgent
Because
imagination is irresistible.
,
We are rebels because we love life and happiness more than 'revolution'.
Because we don't want to change 'the' world, but 'our' world.
. We are clowns because what else can one be in such a stupid world.
Because inside everyone is a lawless clown trying to escape. Because nothing
undermines authority like holding it up to ridicule.
Because fools are
both fearsome and innocent, wise and stupid, entertainers and dissenters,
healers and laughing stocks, scapegoats and subversives.
Roll up, roll up - ladies and gentl emen, boys and girls, friends and foes -
unparall eled, the unexpected, the perfectl y paradoxic al, the grotesquel y beautiful, the new-fangled
Clandesti ne Ins urgent R ebel
(CIRC A).
We are clandesti ne bec ause we refus e the s pectacle of c elebrity and we are ever yone. Becaus e without real names, faces or nos es, we show that our wor ds, dr eams , and desires are mor e i mportant than our biographi es. Bec ause we r eject the s oci ety of sur veillanc e that watc hes, c ontrol s, s pies upon, recor ds
and c hec ks our ever y move. Bec aus e by hi ding our i denti ty we recover the power of our ac ts.
and bec ome visibl e once agai n
becaus e we have risen up from nowhere and are ever ywhere.
ideas c an be ignor ed but not suppress ed and an ins urrec tion of the
Becaus e whenever we fall over we ris e up agai n and agai n and agai n, knowing that nothing is lost for his tor y, that nothi ng is final. Becaus e histor y doesn't move i n s traight lines but s urges like water
someti mes swirling, someti mes dripping, flowi ng, fl ooding - al ways
unknowable, unexpected, unc ertain. Bec ause the key to insurgenc y is brilliant improvi sation, not perfec t bluepri nts.
Bec ause no r evoluti on is ever compl ete and rebellions c ontinues forever. Bec aus e we will dis mantl e the ghost- mac hine of abstraction wi th means that are i ndisting uishable from ends .
Because we will al ways desert and disobey those who abus e and acc umulate
power. Becaus e rebels tr ansform ever ything - the way they live, create, l ove, eat, laugh, pl ay, learn, trade, lis ten, thi nk and mos t of all the way they rebel
Becaus e si nc e the beginning of ti me tric ksters have embrac ed life's contr adi ctions, creati ng c oherenc e through confusi on.
4.
Ballot DA
a. Additionally, the plea for change through winning the ballot
not only fails to inculcate communal response but also reentrenches the very evil they criticize by reproducing
antagonism rather than coalitions
ATCHISON AND PANETTA 2009
(Jarrod Atc his on, Direc tor of Debate @ Trinity Uni versity, and Edward Panetta, Director of Debate @ the Uni versity of Georgia, Interc ollegiate D ebate and Speec h C ommunic ati on: Iss ues for the F uture, p. 317-34)
The larger problem with locating the “debate as activism” perspective within the
competitive framework is that it overlooks the communal nature of the
community problem.
the competitive focus encourages teams to concentrate on how to beat the
strategy with little regard for addressing the problem.
the discussion that
results from these hostile situations is not a productive one where participants
seek to work together for a common goal.
debate
competitions do not represent the best environment for community change
because it is a competition for a win and only one team can win any given debate,
addressing systemic century-long community problems requires a tremendous
effort by a great number of people.
If eac h indi vi dual debate is a decision about how the debate communi ty s houl d approac h a problem, then the l osing debaters bec ome c ollateral damag e i n the acti vist strateg y dedic ated toward cr eating c ommunity c hange. One fr ustr ating exampl e of this type of argument mig ht i nclude a judge voting for an acti vist team i n an effort to help them r each eli minati on rounds to gener ate a c ommunity disc ussi on about the pr obl em. Under this sc enario, the losi ng team s erves as a sacrificial l amb on the altar of c ommunity change. Downpl ayi ng the i mpor tant r ole of c ompetiti on and tr eating opponents as scapegoats for the fail ures of the community may i ncreas e the profil e of the wi nni ng team and the c ommunity probl em, but it does littl e to g enerate the critical coalitions necessar y to
addres s the c ommunity pr obl em, becaus e
community
problematic i nsti tuti on. T his s cenario is a bit more outl andis h but not unr eas onable if one ass umes that each debate should b e about what is best for pr omoti ng s oluti ons to di versity problems in the debate community. If the debate c ommunity is s erious about generati ng c ommunity change, then it is more li kel y to occ ur outside a traditional competiti ve debate.
There is no r ole for competition when a judge decides that i t is i mportant to ac centuate the publicity of a c ommunity problem. An extr eme example mig ht i nclude a team argui ng that their oppo nents’ ac ademic ins titution had a l egac y of ci vil rights abus es and that the j udge s houl d not vote for them bec ause that woul d be a communi ty endorsement of a
When a team l oses a debate bec aus e the j udg e deci des that it is better for the community for the other team to win, then th ey have s acrificed two potential advocates for change wi thi n the c ommunity. Cr eating c hange through wi ns generates bac kl ash through l oss es. Some pr oponents ar e c omfortabl e with generati ng bac kl as h and argue that the reac tion is evi denc e that the iss ue is bei ng discussed. From our pers pec ti ve,
Instead of givi ng up on hope for change and agitating for wi ns r egardl ess of who is left behi nd, it s eems more r easonabl e that the debate c ommunity should tr y the method of public argument that we teach in an effort to gener ate a di scus sion of necessar y community c hang es. Si mpl y put,
wher eas
5.
Anthro K
a. Obsession with language and story telling replicates
anthropocentric norms
Bell and Russel 2k
(Anne C. Bell, department of educ ati on, Yor k U ni versity, C anada, and Constance L. R uss el, Ass ociate Professor, Faculty of Educ ati on, Lakehead Uni versity, C o-Editor , C anadi an J our nal of Environmental Educ ati on, “Beyond H uman, Beyond Words: Anthr opoc entris m, Critic al Pedag ogy, and th e Poststr ucturalist T urn,” C AN ADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCAT ION 25, 3 ( 2000) :188–203, http://www.css e-sc ee.c a/CJ E/Ar ticles /FullT ext/C JE25- 3/CJ E25- 3-bell.pdf)
critical pedagogy, tends to reinforce humanist
assumptions about humans and nature
We ask what meanings and
voices have been pre-empted by the virtually exclusive focus on humans and
human language in a humancentred epistemological framework.
relationships between language, communication, and meaningful experience
are being conceptualized
we concentrate primarily on societal
narratives that shape understandings of human and nature, we also touch on
Although we ac knowl edge the i mportant c ontributi on of pos tstructuralis m to anal ys es of oppressi on, pri vilege, and power i n ed uc ation, we believe that educators mus t c ontinue to probe its li mitati ons and i mplic ati ons . Acc ordingl y, we consi der here how poststr ucturalis m, as it is taken up within
rather than s ubvert deeps eated
by taki ng for granted the “ bor ders” ( as i n Gir oux, 1991) that define natur e as the devalued Other.
At the same time, we dis cuss how
outsi de the fiel d of critic al pedagog y (in some cas es from a posts truc tur alist pers pecti ve) to c all into question thes e ver y ass umptions. Althoug h
two r elated iss ues of
the misplaced presumption of human superiority based on linguistic
capabilities.
language: the “forgetti ng” of nonver bal , s omatic experienc e and
In so doing, our intenti on is to deal c onstr ucti vel y with s ome of the anthr opoc entric bli nd s pots within critical pedagog y g enerall y and within posts truc tur alist approac hes to critic al pedag og y i n partic ular . We hope to illuminate places where thes e streams of thought and prac tice move i n directi ons c ompati ble with our own as pirations as educ ators.
b. The Aff’s foregrounding of human suffering ignores the
tools that have been produced to suppress groups and
ignores the humanized context of the event.
Heydt 10,
BA Communic ati ons New Sc hool and Uni versitat van Amsterdam, (s amantha, American Abattoirs, http://s amheydt.wor dpr ess .com/2010/12/20/224/)//ED
Nazi Concentration camps, where sectors of humanity relegated into
the realm of ‘subhuman’ were slaughtered.
The justification for this brutality is hinged on the ‘biological inferiority’
Technologies such as branding irons, chains and cages that were developed
to dominate animals paved way for the domination over humans too.
tools developed for domestication were used by the Europeans during
colonization to shackle slaves. “
Linguistically these acts of violence and exploitation are tied
to animals- branded, skinned, slaughtered, sold. Be that as it may, “as long as
men massacre animals, they will kill each other”
The American abattoir paved the r oad to Ausc hwitz. T he industrializ ation of death developed at the turn of the centur y i n the U S stoc kyar ds was adopted by the
History r epeats i tsel f with the algorithms of domi nation s hifti ng not in constr uct but i n c ontext. The ass embl y-line technolog y and eugenic i deolog y that buttress es the mec haniz ed mass mur der of ani mals s har e the rationaliz ed cruelty tha t has his toric all y been us ed i n the Western c ontext agai nst humans in the ‘s tate of excepti on’ . Branded i nferior, cr ammed i nto railc ars, forc ed into labor and killed when no longer of use, the victi ms of the Hol oc aus t exp erienc ed the same fate as the chattel of
of the vic tims who ar e dehumanized and denigrated as animals. The “ anthr opologic al machi ne”
slaug hterhous es do today.
disting uishi ng humans fr om ani mals c ollapses when man is stri pped down to ‘ bare life’ ( Ag amb en). T hus, as long as the expl oitation and vi olent slaughter of ani mals oc curs unrefuted, the potenti al for genocide r emai ns. As hi stor y has shown us ti me and time agai n: the r eal m of nonhuman is not s ol el y occupi ed by ani mals . Historical Context: Patri archy, sl avery and the s ocial matri x of s peci esis m emerged in tandem to one another from the same r egion that father ed agricul tur e in the Middle East during the C halc olithi c Ag e. Sumer, now moder n Ir aq, was the first ci vilization to engage i n c ore agricul tur al pr actic es suc h as organiz ed irrigati on and s pecializ ed labor wi th slaves and ani mals . T hey r aised c attle, s heep and pigs, used ox for draught their beast of burden and equids for tr ans port (Sayc e 99). T he knowl edg e to s tor e food as standi ng res er ve meant migrati on was no l onger nec ess ar y to sur vi ve. The population density br ed social hier archi es supported at its bas e by sl aves (Kr amer 47). In Sumer, there were onl y two social s trata’s to belong
to: lu the free man and ar ad the slave ( Kramer 47).
The “human r ule over the l ower cr eatur es provi ded the mental analog ue i n whic h many politic al and s ocial arrangements are bas ed” ( Patterson 280). Caged and
castr ated, sl aves were treated no different from chattel. Thousands of years l ater, the
in the Middle East
When the European s ettl ers arrived in Tas mania i n 1772, the i ndig enous peopl e s eem not to have notic ed them…By 1830 their num bers had been r educ ed from ar ound fi ve hundred to seventy-two. In their i nter vening years they had been us ed for slave l abour and s exual pl eas ure, tortured and mutil ated. T hey had been hunted like ver min and their s kins had been s old for a g over nment bounty. When the males were kill ed, femal e s ur vi vors wer e turned loos e with the heads of their husbands tied around their nec ks. M al es who wer e not killed were us uall y c astr ated. Chil dren were clubbed to death.” (Gray 91). T his horrific account illustrates how the
indigenous peopl e of T as mani a were enslaved,s ki nned and slaughtered by the Europeans. M eanwhile acr oss the globe, the tr ans-Atl antic sl ave tr ade was at its peak in the 18th c entur y. Africans wer e taken from their nati ve land, branded, bred, and s old as pr operty.
(Pythagoras in Patters on 210) . Racis m, c olonialis m, anti- Semitis m and s exis m all stem fr om the s ame s ystems of dominati on that i nitiall y subjug at ed ani mals . U ntil we c eas e to expl oit li ving bei ngs as resources, the threat of man being s tripped of his humanity looms. Althoug h we cring e at the i nhumane acti ons of our ancestors, the sc al e and effici enc y of murder and oppr ession has
c. Reject the affirmative’s anthropocentrism and look up at
the stars. Recognize that we are meaningless and
meaningful, that every being living or not speaks in a
universal language. embrace a cosmocentric ethic which
values the universe as a priority.
Daly ’08
[Erin, grad student @ Arizona state in department of life scienc es, and Robert Fr odeman, c hair of department of phil os ophy @ U ni versity of N orth T exas, 2008, “ Separated at Birth, Signs of R approc hement Environmental Ethics and Spac e Explor ation”, Ethics & T he En vir onment Vol. 13 N o.1, Pr ojec t MUSE] CM
This anthropocentric and geocentric environmental perspective shows cracks
when we try to extend it to the cosmic environment.
a cosmocentric ethic, "one which (1) places the universe
at the center, or establishes the universe as the priority in a value system, (2)
appeals to something characteristic of the universe which might then (3) provide
a justification of value, presumably intrinsic value, and (4) allow for reasonably
objective measurement of value"
. A shift in
consciousness, regarding the Earth as
being the home of participants in a
cosmic story, is necessary
The few nati onal or inter national policies c urrentl y i n place that menti on the envir onment of outer s pace (e.g. NASA's pl anetar y protecti on polic y, U nited Nati ons C ommittee on the Peaceful U ses of Outer Space) consider the pres er vation of planetar y bodies for sci enc e, human expl orati on, and possi ble futur e habitati on, but there is not yet any polic y that consi ders whether thes e
anthr opoc entric prioriti es shoul d supersede the pr es ervati on of pos sibl e i ndigenous extr aterrestri al life, or the environment al or geological integrity of the extraterr estrial envir onment. Anticipati ng the need for polic y d ecisions reg arding s pac e expl orati on, Mar k Lupisell a and J ohn Logsdon sugges t the possi bility of
(physic al and/or metaphysic al)
(Lupisell a
from
&
Logsdon
1997,
1).
The
authors
discuss
the
need
to
es tablis h
the center
i n order to achi eve the proper environmental pers pecti ve as we ventur e beyond our home planet.
policies
of the
for
pr e-detecti on
uni vers e to one of it
and
post- detec tion
of
life
on
M ars,
and
s ugges t
that
a
cos moc entric
ethic
would
provi de
a
jus tification
for
a
c ons er vati ve
approach
to
spac e
expl oration
and
sci ence—cons er vati ve
in
the
s ens e
of
considering
possibl e
i mpacts
before
we
act
C oper nican