Autonomy
I have another post about the experience watching movies again. They all raised questions about autonomy- how to achieve it and why, primarily. I think there are a few unexamined issues with the idea of ‘autonomy.’
The term ‘autonomy’ implies a certain scale of action. Analytically, we are all ‘autonomous’ as a planet, or sometimes as nations, but ‘autonomy’ as a political project seems to require a change in scale to smaller groups. Dominant political organizations have tendend towards the management of large populations, as organized through nation states or ever expanding capital flows. These systems often allow for manipulation or abuse through centralization of power, backed by expansive populations/capital accumulated in these wide ranging power systems.
The other question I had was: autonomous from who? Populations form different bonds with different people. In the example of the Zapatistas, they have received media or political support from a variety of elite activist types in America and Europe. They also received ‘security’ from Ya Basta!, an Italian anarchist group (black-bloc style) in one of Marcos’ marches to Mexico City. This question should be considered because of the reversibility of the idea of ‘autonomy.’ ‘Energy independence’ is one example that comes to mind as a potentially dangerous offshoot of this idea of ‘autonomy.’ Also, there seems to be a Regan-ish analogy of individualism/self-sufficiency as a potential corollary to this idea. So, it is important to further develop what types of relationships should be severed as part of the project of ‘autonomy.’
In my mind, autonomy reduces to democracy and direct control over the material conditions of a person’s existence. This answers the question of scale- only an arrangement that allows for direct democratic control over food, water and infrastructure resources should be considered autonomous. Direct democracy linked with the exigencies of food and survival produces its own limits on scale; and control over material conditions of survival allows for a limited but powerful redefinition of relationships of power.
Duncan
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The term ‘autonomy’ implies a certain scale of action. Analytically, we are all ‘autonomous’ as a planet, or sometimes as nations, but ‘autonomy’ as a political project seems to require a change in scale to smaller groups. Dominant political organizations have tendend towards the management of large populations, as organized through nation states or ever expanding capital flows. These systems often allow for manipulation or abuse through centralization of power, backed by expansive populations/capital accumulated in these wide ranging power systems.
The other question I had was: autonomous from who? Populations form different bonds with different people. In the example of the Zapatistas, they have received media or political support from a variety of elite activist types in America and Europe. They also received ‘security’ from Ya Basta!, an Italian anarchist group (black-bloc style) in one of Marcos’ marches to Mexico City. This question should be considered because of the reversibility of the idea of ‘autonomy.’ ‘Energy independence’ is one example that comes to mind as a potentially dangerous offshoot of this idea of ‘autonomy.’ Also, there seems to be a Regan-ish analogy of individualism/self-sufficiency as a potential corollary to this idea. So, it is important to further develop what types of relationships should be severed as part of the project of ‘autonomy.’
In my mind, autonomy reduces to democracy and direct control over the material conditions of a person’s existence. This answers the question of scale- only an arrangement that allows for direct democratic control over food, water and infrastructure resources should be considered autonomous. Direct democracy linked with the exigencies of food and survival produces its own limits on scale; and control over material conditions of survival allows for a limited but powerful redefinition of relationships of power.
Duncan
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posted by Duncan at 11:22 PM
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