The parallel world of revolutions
Envy, greed, the source of all sins. I'll be cooked up in my own juice for setting up this b-l-o-g. Musically, that will be ok. Ontologically, it might not make any sense. As long as we have epistemology to save us from big words, we'll be fine. Oh no, wait.
Anyway, I find myself stuck in an awkward position, between tons of fascinating books and theories and a total inability to conceive a topic for the 20 to 25 page paper due in 3 (three) days. I don't know if there is such a thing as student's block, an incapacity to come up with suitable research questions. During previous semesters, something always eventually popped up. A question I could carry with my naturally mild conviction, research without too many doubts and write about averagely. This time, I conceived a question, had a convincing and natural outline - and had it all rejected by my teacher. Ok, so it's all the teacher's fault. (I'm glad you see it that way too.)
I wanted to find and conceptualise the universal traits of autonomous resistance throughout the world, using in part German 68-and-beyond theories to recreate the German concept of Außerparlamentarische Opposition (extraparliamentary opposition), dislodge it from its historical context and present limited understanding within (German) academia (mass demonstrations in 1968) and give it its true beauty, as a concept describing autonomous, radical democratic movements attempting to create different political structures independently of the state, parallel to the state, and, to a varying extent, against the state. I wanted to retrieve the movements from their subculture status and analytically store them next to representative democracy, as an alternative. I would then have applied the concept to the Zapatistas, while considering such questions as the role of violence and responses of the state. Which is where it all goes wrong.
My teacher, in a ruthless battle against reductionism, rejected my idea. Applying Agnoli to the Mexican situation would prove inadequate, he said. Agnoli wrote a critique of democracy, and we don't have a real democracy to speak of in mexico, he said. And what about the indigenous component, he said. And the armed fraction, he said. Why do you absolutely want to stick to this concept, extraparliamentary opposition, he said. You should be more open to start with, and decide at the end of your paper how to classify the Zapatistas, he said.
Yes but yes but, I said, as my vocal cords knotted up and my eyes watered at the face of failure. yes. but.
In my utter depression (which has been elegantly labeled Frühjahrsmüdigkeit by my sweet colleague K.), I started to realise that I was applying the hopes of the industrialised new left movement(s) on the zapatistas and refusing to pay any attention to them, their identity, their roots. Bloody political scientists. Zum Glück I found an essay reviewing western intellectuals' limited attempts at explaining and analysing the movement, presenting marxists', an ethnologue's and a few other Latin America enthusiasts' view on the matter.
Three more days.
Anyway, I find myself stuck in an awkward position, between tons of fascinating books and theories and a total inability to conceive a topic for the 20 to 25 page paper due in 3 (three) days. I don't know if there is such a thing as student's block, an incapacity to come up with suitable research questions. During previous semesters, something always eventually popped up. A question I could carry with my naturally mild conviction, research without too many doubts and write about averagely. This time, I conceived a question, had a convincing and natural outline - and had it all rejected by my teacher. Ok, so it's all the teacher's fault. (I'm glad you see it that way too.)
I wanted to find and conceptualise the universal traits of autonomous resistance throughout the world, using in part German 68-and-beyond theories to recreate the German concept of Außerparlamentarische Opposition (extraparliamentary opposition), dislodge it from its historical context and present limited understanding within (German) academia (mass demonstrations in 1968) and give it its true beauty, as a concept describing autonomous, radical democratic movements attempting to create different political structures independently of the state, parallel to the state, and, to a varying extent, against the state. I wanted to retrieve the movements from their subculture status and analytically store them next to representative democracy, as an alternative. I would then have applied the concept to the Zapatistas, while considering such questions as the role of violence and responses of the state. Which is where it all goes wrong.
My teacher, in a ruthless battle against reductionism, rejected my idea. Applying Agnoli to the Mexican situation would prove inadequate, he said. Agnoli wrote a critique of democracy, and we don't have a real democracy to speak of in mexico, he said. And what about the indigenous component, he said. And the armed fraction, he said. Why do you absolutely want to stick to this concept, extraparliamentary opposition, he said. You should be more open to start with, and decide at the end of your paper how to classify the Zapatistas, he said.
Yes but yes but, I said, as my vocal cords knotted up and my eyes watered at the face of failure. yes. but.
In my utter depression (which has been elegantly labeled Frühjahrsmüdigkeit by my sweet colleague K.), I started to realise that I was applying the hopes of the industrialised new left movement(s) on the zapatistas and refusing to pay any attention to them, their identity, their roots. Bloody political scientists. Zum Glück I found an essay reviewing western intellectuals' limited attempts at explaining and analysing the movement, presenting marxists', an ethnologue's and a few other Latin America enthusiasts' view on the matter.
- It's all about the class struggle, man, struggle against the capital.Thank you, thank you. And now what do I do? Do I just rewrite the guy's essay or what? Do I have to take the same research question - what exactly is the zapatista movement? - and fool myself into feeling I'll be coming up with something new, from the comfort of my wifi office, far far away from the Selva Lacandona?
- No but look, it's more to do with these marginalised people from various ethnic communities migrating to the jungle and having to recreate community rules.
- Ah no, dear sweetest, if you look at it carefully, you will recognise the signs of a meso-american pan-Mayan movement for the assertion of Mayan identity!
- Bugger off! It's all about the class struggle. Neoliberalism, industrial agriculture, poverty. But in a neo-marxist way, y'know, post-cold war revolution.
- And what about this Subcommandante guy, hu? It's like, there's a marxist who comes to the jungle to start a good old fashioned revolution and shoopdeewoop, he finds out that instead of having to educate the indigenous, he can *learn* from them.
- Oh darling, that is just *sssso* postmodern.
Three more days.
blurbed by blinky at 10:34 pm
1 Comments
you'll have to teach me how to make an umlaut in the blogger's post section... the little boschesque statuette is extraordinarily ugly and disturbing. I'm surprised you didn't use more sound effects denoting various sorts of screams and sounds of pain when explaining that you have three days to write twenty to twenty-five pages on an as yet undetermined subject.
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