Animal open to the would

I have read the first 32 pages of  Paolo Virno's Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation.  I will  do the obligatory sum up posts to try to capture central ideas that lead to instructions for the project after I've read more of the text.

Now, I want to let a give a few of the ideas stirred up by reading the text a place to stretch their legs. These musings are not directly part of the project, but they part of the zig zag path that leads me there.

I can only read theory a chunk at a time. I read a bit; then I have to set it down for a while. I have to give my brain space to deal with all the thoughts directly related to the text and the (often multiple) relay races down associative thought trails started by reading that chunk of text. If I don't, I won't be able to concentrate on the next chunk of text. My brain will be too distracted. The trick for me has been to learn how to productively use my inability to focus on just one idea. I still am finessing this system, but it seems to work best when I give myself some space for all the generative, associative thoughts and then spin them into a funnel, a spiral, through which I can look. All the spinning ideas create a focus point at their center.

So here are a couple of ideas spinning in the spiral of my thought tornado:

1. Having been involved in what many would call the radical (anarchist/socialist) left, I have often been frustrated with the assumption that humans are basically good. This leads to inefficient systems for decision making, bad decisions and a tendency to demonize people within the community who commit an act seen as bad/evil/wrong (sexual assault is a persist problem). If we are basically good, then we have to choose to do evil, which makes our sins more heinous. Even though many ascribe to the notion that it is the systems (of oppression, etc) that shape our behavior, somehow when it gets down to the individual level, people do not want to think that the potential for violence resides within them. The perpetrator is classed as other, as "not man."

2. I don't think we are basically good or basically bad. What I have thought for a long time is that every human (and human institution) has the possibility of acting in a many, very different ways (constructive, destructive) for all sorts of reasons (many of them not logical). A radical potentiality. I appreciate the way that Virno plots this out even if he equates it with the "innate destructiveness of our species" (24). I am overall sympathetic with the case he lays out, but I'm not sure if aggressiveness automatically equates with violence. It is outside the scope of this project, but I want to note that looking at how aggressiveness might be distinguished from violence could be interesting. Also, that not all violence is "bad." I appreciate the fact that Virno calls it "so called evil." I think that qualification is important.

3. This musing is completely tangential; just a thought about wit and public policy. Really this thought falls more within the realm of the Marchand reading, but it was more directly caused by reading the Virno. Right now in Gainesville, there is a campaign to get the city council to lift the absurd daily limit placed (and other such restrictions) on the number of meals that various homeless shelters can provide. It seems that what needs to happen is for all the restaurants and grocery stores to set a limit on the number of meals that can be provided to elected officials in any given day (let's say one). Obviously, would be impossible to carry out as an actual campaign move, most importantly because I'm sure many businesses downtown approve of the limit. But it could be filmed as a short comedy sketch. And posted online and spread through social networks.