On the Need for Global Deterritorialized Counter-Struggles

* Article: Reactivating the Social Body in Insurrectionary Times: A Dialogue with Franco 'Bifo' Berardi. By Hugill, David and Thorburn, Elise. Berkeley Planning Journal, 25(1), 2012

URL = http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7z74819g

"interview with Franco "Bifo" Berardi that covers a broad swathe of topics, including issues of education, debt, crisis, and mediation in the contemporary historical conjuncture."

Abstract

"while Berardi is generally optimistic about the revolts and the “reactivation of the social body” that they seem to imply, he reminds us that protest alone will not be enough to win the genuine kinds of autonomy that he suggests are necessary. He argues that dogmas of growth, competition and rent have so colonized every sphere of “human knowledge” that they have begun to threaten the very survival of what he calls “social civilization.” The hegemonic grip of this “epistemological dictatorship” has altered our capacity to feel empathy towards one another, severing fundamental bonds of inter-personal connection."

Excerpt

excerpt, page 3 ( 212 ) ...

"Bifo points to the limits of too enthusiastic an embrace of space-based urban struggle. His point is not to deny the importance of marches and occupations but to suggest that a more formidable foe resides in the deterritorialized orbit of software and algorithms, financial flows and behavioral automatisms. Indeed, he argues that the hegemonic grip of this “epistemological dictatorship” has altered our capacity to feel empathy towards one another, severing fundamental bonds of inter-personal connection." (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7z74819g)