One way, harassing, persecuting, levelling law and order, keeping to a power regime, with the ultimate expression of dictatorship. Other way, demonstrating for their rights. Way one, well known. Way two, less well known, but seen now also in Egypt.
The problem with police work is that it is entangled in keeping power in the most strategical sense, and yet, has the greatest need for not being kept hostage, to keep a professional distance on its own. I am a policeman, a dictator orders me to torture once in a while, I wont give up my work, I see no possibility to protest, yet who do I select as victims. As science fiction author Gene Wolfe has examined, in one way or the other, we are all part of the torturer’s game.
Isn’t it plain that the practical sense of revolutionaries is basically different from that of the empirical politicians who represent other social formations?
– Victor Serge, 1936, in Susan Weissman: The Course is set on hope, 2001, p 106
Amazing news, after having seemingly lost the momentum, the opposition in Egypt gathered again, and has won, the dictator has resigned. A great message of hope for everyone. Egypt with democratic fire in her eyes has come through. Whatever happens next, the democratic greatness of this moment of history will always be remembered. People rose against dictatorship and filled the streets even if some were shot and tortured, they did not give in.
This is like a cure for cancer, for human society. It tells of medicine for the future. Egyptians followed Tunisians, but in a sense, also following the Americans two hundred years before, creating a revolution from the English, and more recently, trying to create a new change policy.
Basically Egypt has lived up to the lessons of World War II, the need for democracy to avoid slaughter and holocaust. Democracy is risky, everyone knows that, but I am ashamed of some “western” messages to Egypt over the last weeks, as if democracy counted for little, expedience for all. Turn your love lights on, recognize that even for “Western” interest, democracy is what works best, in the longer run, recognizing some typical short term costs. If a regime allows or creates violence, target this as criminal activity across honour and politics divides, don’t give in to stereotypes like “wars” or the abhorrent “zero tolerance” sloganeering, instead, be constructive and realistic. Forget tabloid macho language, focus on real solutions. Learn from the pioneers in Egypt 2011.
My heart is with Egypt today, the way is opened towards democracy and prosperity.
What about class analysis for the web? Click class: researchers could measure social class or ranking by the number of clicks or input needed to get the result that the user wants on the internet. Hypothesis, low class – many clicks, middle – some clicks, high – few clicks. The greater the wallet or the contact capital relative to IT, the fewer the clicks. Similar methods, minutes to wait for customer support, and the chance that it will actually be supportive, could be employed also, like programs functioning, partly functioning or vaporware. What is the total chance of lowering “information society annoyances factors”?
This could be a social class related measure (index) in its own right. The empirical core would tell of “activation” of information society power (via the internet and the pc), which is not necessarily bound to existing “pre-pc” class, status or rank, but can be. Perhaps lower clicks rates are associated with considerable individual capacity factors and even “nerdism” and “in-group” empathy factors. Perhaps your time in the queue is lessened if you manage to give a signal “Hello I have a problem representing a big techno mystery” beyond the usual “Hello it broke down once more”? Our click class analysis might be able to tell.
Does it rise with the “day memory” needing to be refined, before given over to dream work, like Freud thought? Is it caused not just by ordinary learning and generalisation processes, but by more specific impulses too? Could being in the other person’s position, be an important factor?
In this blog, I write about my sociological sense whatever the cause, with the aim to widen and deepen the field of inquiry, and improve the methods to get there. My blog posts are explorative mainly, but with an authoritative element also, trying to sum up existing research, and how to go on from there. Learning and democratization are two main themes.
The world’s first artificially created life form has accused God of ‘playing science’ and ‘meddling with things He cannot possibly understand.’
– Richard Dawkins
But still, it moves.
-Kim Stanley Robinson: Galileo’s Dream.
Re Fujiya and Miyagi: Ventriloquizzing LP
Sound is good, a bit bass heavy, bringing forth the electro momentum of the group. The vinyl does not disappoint.
The music? Sometimes very good, but also kept in a kind of boy-room atmosphere, with repetetive themes and lyrics. The best parts of the LP are certainly a step up from the last album (Lightbulb) but keeps some of the same mixed quality. I am left thinking how come no-one have told them to move on and deconstruct their message? It seems a bit hermetic, isolated, and the tendency to schematic lyrics doesn’t help. At their best, though, the band brings the legacy of krautrock and the group Can further, stepping forward in this tradition, which is a considerable accomplishment by itself.
A new report by Gary Barker and co-researchers, Evolving Men – Initial Results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), published by The International Center for Research on Women, Washington, shows changing standards regarding men and masculinity. Men increasingly embrace gender equal ideals and translate this into practices, but are held back by traditional roles and structures. Men’s own choices play a large role, but at the same time, structures and constraints are a key to understand these choices.
The IMAGES survey was to a large degree based on Norwegian research (p 64-5). This is a case of rich world research used to wider benefit, and an example of how Norwegian research can become internationalized.
I am reading Susan Weissman’s Victor Serge – The course is set on hope (Verso, London 2001), a remarkable book on many accounts, not least showing more of the Stalinist purge in Russia and abroad. Serge was a Russian Bolshevik who was also a relative free-thinker, barely escaping Stalin’s purges, publishing a lot of comments and experiences. Serge documented what was possibly the first holocaust, or the overlooked twin of the holocaust of the Jews later – the systematic large scale death campaign against “rival” revolutionary factions, especially Trotskyists, but in fact everyone daring to gainsay Stalin.
Serge was sympathetic to Trotsky, but developed doubts, and characterizes the authoritarian tendencies of Stalin’s opponents also. A main matter is the documentation regarding the purge of the revolutionaries in Russia. Serge wrote that there was scarcely an “old” comrade left – they had all been imprisoned or killed by Stalin. Serge did not use the word holocaust, but he did argue that Stalinism created perhaps the bloodiest counter-revolution in history, killing off all the opponents.
This book is mainly about Serge’s biography, with limited citations from his writings, but very valuable nevertheless. Especially interesting is Serge’s portrait of the way that the Stalinist pressure increased authoritarian tendencies even within the opposition.
Highly recommended.