Bollier and the New World

Many of the familiar distinctions between “public” and “private,” and between “economic” and “social” just don’t make sense in this new world. The old categories imply a segmented, rational world driven by mechanical cause-and-effect relationships and a separation between humans and an objectified Nature (“the environment”). They imply that “the Economy” is something that exists apart from us, and that institutions and experts should govern our lives and confer social meanings. By contrast, commoners and Occupiers are an attempt to reclaim a bottom-up, decentralized autonomy and control. They realize that the world is an interconnected whole in which humans and nature are mysteriously interconnected in a world animated by complex forces that embody a different pattern – forces such as the unconscious, the spiritual and the ecological that will likely remain inscrutable to Enlightenment categories. - David Bollier

Like the Occupy protests last year, this gathering did not focus on what government might do for the American people. That is considered a lost cause for now, or at least, a secondary focal point. It is clear that the market/state duopoly is so entrenched and collusive that “working within the system” will yield only piecemeal, marginal gains. As the fights on climate change, finance reform, food, energy and countless other issues have shown, the only way to really meet people’s needs and save the planet is to strive for systemic change: New types of governance and production. New opportunities for distributed activism and innovation. A sweeping aside of self-serving and reactionary institutional monopolies. - David Bollier

Stained glass window by the art nouveau master Alfons Mucha in St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague.

-Wikimedia.