Re: <nettime> Fragmented Places and Open Societies

[onto <onto@riseup.net>]

Great essay, thanks.
Some thoughts . . .

(neo)Liberal Democracies are not the end-all criteria for discerning
democraticizing practices. Many spaces function democratically within
fascist/liberal democracies. Southeastern Mexico, suffocated by the
military of mexico's (neo)Liberal democracy, has many projects that are
benefitting incredibly by the new formation of space. This essay, both
wonderful and disconcerting to me, has an almost tacit nostalgia for the
State, for the practices that states employ to define peoples, regulate
them, and make them 'free.' The elimination of the possibility of
liberal democracy could rather be, as vaguely implied at the end, the
birth of a form of democracy that discards the neceseity of the state
apparatus for its approval. Within Chiapas, complex forms of
self-government are emerging  that are both pre-modern and hypermodern,
including both 500 year old cultural practices and 6 month old
communication technology, including an understanding of space, place,
and time that is both nonlinear and ancient. Within such a development
in the construction of space, 'open societies' are not only possible but
are being created, daily. In fact, one could even argue that the
struggle to create new spaces of autonomy (in real space, in cyber
space, in future space) apart from the state is just as important (or
more so) to the metamorphosis of space as is Technology and finance
Captial. If the fragmentation of space means the fragmentation of the
state, the fragmentation of (neo)Liberal Democracies, then perhaps only
through those cracks can a truly 'open' society emerge.

Perhaps, in the absence of the sovereign state and the presence of a new
space, we can (and should?) say , "Good riddance!"

caminar preguntando,
onto

http://radioactiveradio.org


Felix Stalder wrote:
> [...reformatted for readility...]
> 
> Fragmented Places and Open Societies
> 
> [This essay was writtenm for the catalogue of the exhibition "Open
> Nature", ICC Tokio, April 29 - July 3, 2005=20
> http://www.ntticc.or.jp/Schedule/2005/Opennature]
> 
> 
> Human life unfolds simultaneously in three environments, biological,
 <...>


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