Re: <nettime> "the sounds of silence"

[Ted Byfield via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

On 19 Dec 2023, at 7:11, Allan Siegel wrote:

> My reading of the Podinskii email (and Brian’s earlier posting) was that it intended to bring into focus an awareness of the alarming nature of this historical moment; and further, how cultural organisations and groups of people were responding to the crisis in Gaza and Israel. As well as the political and social ramifications of multiple crises: the war in Ukraine, COP etc. The consequences cannot and should not be underestimated. It is far better for people to voice their various responses to these cataclysms then to be silent; NETTIME exists as an important discursive space within which the diversity of our collective voices can heard.

This seems less like a response to what I said than a repetition of what I was questioning — which is fine, that's your choice, but it's worth pointing out. I expected this sort of mis/reading, which is why I was 💯 clear at the end:

>> I'm not saying people shouldn't talk, debate, whatever. I *am* saying that, when they don't, it can mean many things — and learning to listen for those subtleties and ambiguities can itself be a positive contribution — if not for now then maybe for the day after.

After all, discursive spaces aren't just about speaking, they're also about listening, no?

The crises you mention are very real, of course, *and it's also true that* crisis rhetoric has become a standard feature of our times — something constantly employed to invite and berate people to click on this, sign that, donate to this, vote for that, and so on. When Hillary Clinton said, nearly a decade ago, that "I’m the Last Thing Standing Between You and the Apocalypse," what she said was closer to true than false (we could even call her, with some irony, a "premature antifascist" in that respect). But it was *also* a repetition of the centrist strategy of browbeating people into voting them back into power. Nearly a decade later, Biden is doing it again — and it's both more true and also more exhausting this time around. That approach is unsustainable, the larval stage of which is ineffective; and the widely noted "fatigue" it contributes to is, similarly, the larval stage of defeat.

> Also,  I don’t understand the usefulness of referring to “The Left” (as in the example below) as if it was some homogeneous entity; there is a wide variety of political groups and collectivities that are responding to the crisis in Palestine and Israel; the diversity should be valued and not reduced to some imaginary entity.
> 'For a consistently democratic and internationalist left' https://leftrenewal.net/. ; “We have written this text as a critique of a common sense that has come to predominate across much of the left.”

Sometimes "I don’t understand" means someone wants to understand, sometimes it means they don't. That said, I don't understand how it is that when I refer to the left it's an imaginary entity, but when the Left Renewal people do it, that's not a problem? I explicitly noted how the left has evolved in several ways — from a class to cultural orientation, the rising tide of liberationist movement, gender / identity discourses, etc. That hardly suggests that I see the left as monolithic, does it? So, again, it seems like your reply is less a response than a repetition.

There are countless formations around the world whose *specific* contexts, focuses, and aims have little to do with each other, while their *general* interests potentially have much in common. Finding ways to balance that tension — to advance their specificity *and* their generality — is, we could say, the art of the left. That art requires both speaking and listening, which are not (or shouldn't be seen as) opposed or exclusive. My point, as I said, wasn't that people should not speak, it was that we all — across the left — would benefit from rethinking how we listen and what we listen for.

If, as you say (and I agree), the alarming nature of this historical moment is exceptional, then that seems like a good time for those who identify with the left to rethink some basic habits about he we address each other. As most people who've taught know, asking a roomful of students a doubly vague question like "does anyone have anything to contribute?" or castigating them en masse for not saying enough doesn't elicit responses — and, over time, will discourage participation. The world isn't a classroom, and nor is nettime, and nor is "the left" *as a discursive structure*, but the dynamic isn't so different: opening with a rhetorical gambit that laments a "silence on" this or that is ineffective in the short term and counterproductive in the long term.

More than that: arguments to the contrary don't represent some real, true, or authentic spirit of leftism. If anything, they represent an older, maybe even nostalgic model of a leftism that's organized mainly around "universal" issues like class and reliant on a vanguard to direct and exhort the masses. In contrast, respecting silence and learning to listen for its many valences seems very attuned with newer kinds of leftisms that mobilize differences and diversities. Fortunately, there isn't just room for both models, there's a *need* for them, because they're all an important part of left's diversity.

Cheers,
Ted
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