Land Grabs 2: words from a corner of the Liminal Web
In my first Medium piece “Land Grabs: words from a corner of the Liminal Web” (https://medium.com/@ben.hennessygarside/land-grabs-words-from-a-corner-of-the-liminal-web-bf15df1d52f4) I wrote some stuff and shared it about a bit. Thankfully, people read it and responded. Here are some of those responses:
“i think your perspective is interesting on the one hand. on the other hand, bitches gotta eat.
what do?”
(Scout Reina Wiley, 2022: Check out here: https://medium.com/@thewunderseinproject)
And…
“I agree that LW is wont to have a different relationship to value than modernist or even postmodern movements, but where I’m lost is what that looks like sans a complete dismissal of the concepts of commodity, capital, hierarchies of value, etc. Without a way to engage in the existing system, there’s no chance of survival. I think there are certainly ways to do this ethically.
Should we be ensuring that all LW “products” are doing well? If some “products” are doing better than others, what’s a good way to engage in an analysis of this that carries the least possible amount of bias? What is LW’s relationship to the larger economic system/the “out-groups” with which it is engaging? These are just some questions that come up for me.”
(Scout Reina Wiley, 2022: Check out here: https://medium.com/@thewunderseinproject)
And…
“Identity: staking out one’s position and territory as a means of locating oneself within a given milieu. This location becomes an identity that must be maintained and defended, otherwise … who am I for the other? Great anxiety would ensue.
Ownership: We think that our thoughts, ideas, and imaginations, because we must labor to grasp and bring them into awareness and manifestation, belong to us. We think that they are ours, and in a Game A environment of competition we think we must defend what is ours or else lose agency, reputation, identity, money, etc…
Unless one is in a state of non-attachment to the above mentioned things (identity, property perceived as a necessary means for survival in the current system), the ego is doing its job.”
(Joseph Camosy, 2022)
And…
“Time not utilized properly and efficiently on freely available platforms like Facebook is one of the most extreme examples and subsequently one of the most looked over as a massive blind spot even in some of the most intelligent nuanced and creative people. It’s because historically the entire trauma system relies on a distorted view of time that is sympathetic to not having enough time, and being desperate to buy it or earn it from someone who has the same amount of time as us. Conscious karma/ Dharma from the experienced Western lens, in real time, to maybe not compete, but to match properly and synergistically with powerful technology that is in a way unbiased, and also even if minuscule, in favor of more damage and destruction as it was unconsciously developed and programed that way (significant to our internal and externalized unconscious, darkness and stagnancy) as we are now, as we try to sustain development being advanced civilizations.”
(Luke Pagano, 2022)
And (redacted to protect anonimity: XXX’s are names of third parties)…
“I have a few things to say, given what I witnessed at Emerge. Some will be comforting, others not so much. I hope that it’s helpful.
1) Like you I’m very much in agreement with socialist tendencies… I share your wariness about the Liminal space turning simply into a profiteering zone. Thankfully I’ve noticed a decent resistance to this-both in its leadership and its membership.
For proof, I can think to my treatment at Emerge. I wasn’t agreed with blindly, but I was supported there, both financially and socially, and I was not in any meaningful sense pressured to “earn” my spot. I’m in the process of writing a couple of accounts regarding this, but I think that this is one sign that the liminal web, even if it does need to throw up a paywall or two, is keeping itself diaphonous enough that regular people can still learn something from us. Given that regular people learning from us is kind of our mission statement, this seems pretty good.
2) Further proof in the resistance in its leadership and membership is probably most evident in how XXX1 ended up dropping out after considerable censure. This was mainly because he had a tendency to push particular dogmas and basically insult anyone who had come to different conclusions-mainly because he was trying to market himself and his ideas and he could not afford to show weakness, probably.
The fact that the liminal web ultimately refused this dogma means that either 1) the liminal web is inherently dogma resistant, or 2) the liminal web is presently already captured by another dogma.
3) XXX2 has unfortunately suffered a side effect of this resistance-the liminal web has a tendency to shut down dogma pushing but this has been fired up to the point that it’s also been shutting down difficult conversations, in particular conversations that aren’t felt to be adequately diplomatic-in particular PEOPLE who aren’t deemed to be adequately diplomatic.
This is a good method to resist capture by a simple dogma but unfortunately I think it might also be catching well-meaning people in the crossfire.
4) If scenario 2 I laid out in point 2 is true, then probably the dogma that people are captured by is the use of a particularly diplomatic method that does not allow for a pre-existing content.
If that’s the case, this isn’t great news for those of us who would like to achieve something!
5) Copyrighting can be good as long as we set up a good scholarly standard by which we can cite each other’s work, thus building on each other’s knowledge rather than simply sequestering it. I think it’ll take quite a bit more coordinating and some awkward syntheses before we can come to an agreed method for that for sure but European academia probably has good knowledge sharing methods that we can nick, plus we have the internet. :-D In any case-folks gotta eat but maintaining a semi-permeable membrane is nevertheless important for keeping the community lively.”
(Moses Cirulus, 2022: Check out here: https://medium.com/@thewunderseinproject)
I really want to honour these responses. Thankyou so much Liminal Web and the people in it (not least those quoted above). What a privilige to be able to read, wrestle with and riff on each of these perspectives (more depth on this will follow in further articles soon enough).
… and that’s the rub. A range of perspectives, across a range of complexities, across a range of frames (“the system”, finance, solidarity, I / ego, time, the LW as directly experienced, historic anti-capitalist ideas), from a range of LW personalities. Each response evoking a different response in me and other. None of the responses “wrong”. How do I decide which of these relates to my project? Which contain signal and which contain noise? When and under what conditions do I say “this”, but NOT “that”? Which part of reality am I selling?
More and more I’m noticing the packaging of the “that” INSIDE of the “this”:
God brings Satan with Him. If we build a car park on our land, we miss the trees. As the activist demands power from some “them” or other, they take power for themselves. The tyrant brings the revolution upon themselves, an enslavement in the act of enslaving. Whatever thing we want to bring into the world, requires an equivalent not bringing into the world of all the other things. There might just be power in yielding. Can we yield ourselves forward?
“Can we yield ourselves forward?”: what bollocks! I now read like the shit (not) philosopher I am, numbingly throwing language at something…
That said, there’s a sensibility which might come along with reading my drivel to yourself five times a day. Perhaps:
- When you decide on your project and start work on it you might look for the shadow (C G Jung, 100 years ago ish, give or take 20 years) it’s going to create? In solving some problem or other, you could have been producing another three, each two times as damaging as the first; now though, perhaps you can head them off at the pass?
- You might look to the adjacent, finding parallel projects to support and strengthen yours and / or combine powers to build a Liminal Web Megazord (Power Rangers, the 90's)?
- A reverance for the emergent could grow in you? You might begin to build opportunities for seemingly random moments of input from people outside of the project into your plans? Chance chatter (perhaps even contradictory to the aims of your project) could add spice and nuance you would never have had access to had you doggedly refused to allow anyone else in due to “!!!Follow the plan!!!”?
A deeper dive in response to each of the quotes outlined above to follow!
Links to the follow ups:
Land Grabs 3: https://medium.com/@ben.hennessygarside/land-grabs-3-words-from-a-corner-of-the-liminal-web-bitches-gotta-eat-17ad4460399f
Land Grabs 4: https://medium.com/@ben.hennessygarside/land-grabs-4-words-from-a-corner-of-the-liminal-web-who-owns-what-600a932c1ba6
Land Grabs 5: https://medium.com/@ben.hennessygarside/land-grabs-5-a-bowl-of-emergent-soup-please-ba9e46f8767d
Land Grabs 6: https://medium.com/@ben.hennessygarside/land-grabs-6-some-stuff-with-achievement-at-the-end-486b01124178
