A constituent process is a means of creating representative systems of decision-making (i.e. government) [Monserud].
“The radical change demanded today is not only about content (from the private and the public to the common) but also about form. How can people associate closely together in the common and participate directly in democratic decision making? How can the multitude become prince of the institutions of the common in a way that reinvents and realizes democracy? This is the task of a constituent process” (44).
The creation of a new mode of democratic leadership is the ultimate result of Hardt and Negri’s proposed changes, with a constitution providing this new order with material backing. Despite the pseudo-anarchic, anti-constitutional tendencies of several of the movements they lionize, Hardt and Negri see constitutional reform as the end goal, and the various movements of the disenfranchised as part of a constituent process.
Debt (Blake Ladenburg):
The product of engaging in consumption necessary for life, and the mechanism that subjugates debtors to creditors in the developing system of debtfare.
"Being in debt is becoming today the general condition of social life. It is impossible to live without incurring debts--a student loan for school, a mortgage for the house, a loan for the car, another for doctor bills, and so on" (10).
Understanding Hardt and Negri's conception and utilization of debt is important because they utilize the concept as the mechanism that purports the subjugation of the indebted. Understanding debt in this sense allows you to understand the power and pervasiveness that debt holds on individual actors and society as a whole.
Debtfare (Emma Dulaney)
(1) A financial state in which one is subjective to the power structure they owe money too, and an emotional state that is as self-depreciating and stigmatizing as welfare.
(2) "The social safety net has passed from a system of welfare to one of debtfare." (10)
(3) Debt represents a new form of profit and exploitation for the elite (12). Through debt, society is exposed as a hierarchy of masters and slaves (14).
Debtfare (Blake Ladenburg):
A form of financial support in which one relies on debt in order to provide for ones basic societal and material needs.
"The social safety net has passed from a system of welfare to one of debtfare" (10).
Debtfare is replacing welfare as the principal supplier of basic necessity. The state is no longer providing the basic necessities needed to exist within todays society, and so those who do not already have the means to purchase these necessities do so by incurring debt.
While Emma articulated the individual repercussions of debtfare, this definition defines debtfare as the system that is replacing welfare as the provider of basic necessities. In doing so, this definition is more parallel in meaning to that of welfare.
DECLARATION(Nate) (1) A description of a current movement of change, including its goals, principles, and the forces that created and are fueling it [Nate] (2) “the multitudes, through their logics and practices, their slogans and desires, have declared a new set of principles and truths” (1) (3) Different from a manifesto in that a manifesto announces the start of a movement while a declaration simply describes a movement already in existence. Serves to lend a rationality to a movement that may seem disorganized or chaotic.
The Indebted (Andrew Durand)
The general condition of social life characterized by an assumption of financial burden
“The increasing generality of indebtedness today marks a return to relations of servitude reminiscent of another time. And yet, much has changed.” (12)
This term is significant because it outlines a form of relations prominently found in 21st society. The term also provides insight into the economic nature of relationships between individuals.
The Indebted (Nick Hochfeld) (1) The indebted are the class bound by the chains of neoliberal debt that are increasingly impossible to remove.
(2) “Now, instead, productivity is ever more hidden as the divisions between work time and the time of life become increasingly blurred. In order to survive the indebted must sell his or her entire time of life.”
(3) The concept of the indebted is very important because it emphasizes the biopolitical hegemony that controls the populace through legal means, such as debt. Furthermore, in relation to the Hegelian master-slave dialectic, which gives power to the slaves when they revolt against the master, the debt cannot be rebelled against; there is not valorization for those that fight back against these debts.
Indignados (Logan Miller)
Spanish word referring to those taking part in an anti-austerity movement in Spain; literally means the indignant.
"The indignados did not participate in the 2011 elections, then, in part because they refused to reward a socialist party that had continued neoliberal policies and betrayed them during its years in office, but also and more importantly because they now have larger battles to fight" (46)
The indignadosis a good example of a type of revolutionary activity that has taken place because of the mechanisms that Hardt and Negri have described. They are claimed by Hardt and Negri to be able to transform the Spanish left movement by not participating in elections.
IMPOVERISHED (Nate)
(1) Those individuals who have been reduced to precarity by low wages, tenuous work, and crushing debt [Nate]
(2) “numerous struggles of the poor and impoverished have been waged against the individual and collective yoke of debt” (35)
(3) Describes a class of people separated from the old proletariat of Marx by the debt they have, putting the impoverished in an even worse position than the proletariat. Serves to describe a class and their attributes and motivations in a single word.
KAIROS(Andy Monserud) (1) Kairos is Greek for incidental time-- the instant in which actions take place. In modern rhetorical studies it is defined as a perfect moment for action or speech. (2) "All four of the dominated figures of contemporary society have the capacity to rebel and also to invert themselves and become figures of power. This inversion is the result not of a dialectical process but of an event, a subjective kairos that breaks the relations of domination and overthrows the processes that reproduce the figures of subjugation" (31). Kairos continues to appear throughout page 32. (3) The proposed Kairos is a central assumption of Declaration: that at some point in the near future there will be a moment in which those subjected by the prison state and by capitalist machinations will reclaim their subjectivity, and that many are already seizing these kairos. This would manifest both in a strengthened resistance as well as increased communalism among the resisters.
Mediated (Valentina L-C) (1) To be subjected through vessels of communication that encourage voluntary communication and in turn dilute the quality of values presented through such media. (Valentina) (2)“control over information and communication networks has created the Mediated” (14) (3)As one of the central forms of subjectivity the control of media addresses access through the means for which individual values can be expressed. An interesting argument that Hardt & Negri make is the importance of strategic silence, rather than voluntary communication through which repressive forces are contributed to (18). This word is significant in its attention to media as both a repressive and liberating power depending on the value of information.
The Mediatized (Sam Jacobson)
(1)Individuals whose political action has been stifled by the “surplus in information, communication, and expression,” produced by the media and technology.
(2)“Or, better, the mediatized is full of dead information, suffocating our powers to created living information (Declaration, 17).
(3)The mediatized represents a larger culture of hyper-stimulation where the quality of information and communication is inundated by the sheer quantity that is expressed. It is a recursive process of repression through which the quantity of information and communication forces people to express themselves, and to continue expressing themselves, to the point of insignificance.
The Mediatized (Ione Fullerton)
Those individuals that are continuously bombarded by and saturated with dead information that upholds the nature of their subordination.
“[…] the mediatized is full of dead information, suffocating our powers to create living information” (17) Living information, when exchanged among workers, “can be mobilized in collective action” (17).
The simultaneous attentive, inactive, impassive state of the mediatized hinders revolt and rebellion that “refuses repressive regimes,” “inverts subjectivies into power,” and creates a constituent process that becomes lasting common sense (7). In contrast, Hardt and Negri argue the occupations of 2011 are conducive to political action because their physical proximity allows for the construction of political affects (18).
My definition highlights the impossibility of political action by the mediatized subject. This begs questions of how subject can produce living information and act politically, which is at the center of the authors’ project.
The Mediatized (Nick Hochfeld) (1) The mediatized are the people whose lives are commodified and embedded within social media, while also being bombarded by constant dead information, which they must absorb.
(2) “When we refuse to be mediatized, we have not only to stop allowing ourselves to be fooled, believing everything we read in the papers, and simply digesting the truths we are fed, but also we need to break our attention away from the media.”
(3) This is significant because it complicates the idea that social media has lead to more political freedom: such as the Arab Spring, or various other Twitter campaigns. Slacktivism and other social media movements fail to achieve anything and pale in comparison to actual physical protests.
Modalities of Flight (Sarah Edwards)
(1) One of the ways individuals can resist the security state by first recognizing their power, and then utilizing that power as a means to flee and become invisible.
(2) “Of all the ways that people refuse the security regime today, the most significant are modalities of flight” (40).
(3) Modalities of flight occur when a state of fearlessness is achieved by the subject, and as a result they are able to diminish the power exercised by the security state. By choosing to flee or become invisible the subject redefines their relationship to the state and condemns institutions such as prisons that construct societal relations.
Power (Emma Dulaney)
(1)One's agency in relation to others
(2)"Power is not a thing but a relation. No matter how mighty and arrogant seems that power standing above you, know that it depends on you, feeds on your fear, and survives only because of your willingness to participate in the relationship." (41)
(3) Hardt & Negri echo Foucault and Machiavelli by identifying power as a socially constructed relation.This dependent relationship gives the precariat the agency to end the cycle of exploitation. The authors call on the precariat to abolish the prisons and military, as they are the are the most perverse power structures present. (42)
The Represented (Sam Jacobson)
Individuals who have become conscious of the fact that representation no longer serves democracy’s best interest, but who are unable to envision an alternative.
“The figure of the represented gathers together the figures of the indebted, the mediatized, and the securitized, and at the same time, epitomizes the end result of their subordination and corruption” (25).
In understanding the represented, one begins to comprehend the collapse and degeneration of the political system as a whole. It becomes clear that the very process designed to help citizens take part in government, now only serves to prevent their ability to do so.
The Represented (Ione Fullerton)
The indebted, the mediatized, and the securitized all exist as the represented subject, who is made powerless by the ‘representation’ that separates them from (their realization of) democracy.
“The represented […] is the project of mystification” that has “no access to effective political action” (29).
Hardt and Negri mobilize this subject to demonstrate that the idea of representation as a mechanism for democracy is illusory. They argue, then, that the movements of 2011 effectively commit political action by critiquing political structures and forms of representation (29), opening the possibility for the realizing, grasping, and enacting of democracy.
My definition addresses one of the authors’ central arguments: only after that idea of representation is deconstructed and its inherent separation from power made visible, can people do effective political work that fosters democratic realization and action.
The Securitized (Sarah Edwards)
(1) Individuals who are both the object and subject of the security state, and voluntarily live off the suspension of conventional rules of law.
(2) “The security regime and the generalized state of exception have constructed a figure prey to fear and yearning for protection – the securitized” (9) Discussion of the securitized continues on page 19.
(3) The securitized reveals the vulnerable state of individuals within a surveillance society. The state employs means such as incarceration and militarization to condition and control aspects of society, therefore increasing dependence and destabilizing the individual.
The Securitized (Nathan Gruenberg) 1. Securitized: Individuals who are simultaneously the object and subject of security, driven by fear to uphold the surveillance system. (Nathan Gruenberg) 2. “The securitized is a creature that lives and thrives in the state of exception, where the normal functioning of the rule of law and the conventional habits and bonds of association have been suspended by an overarching power" (20). 3. The securitized is significant because it marks a system that silences the ability for individuals refute the overarching power through instilling fear. It is an empty signifier that can produce more fear than there actually is.
Self-production (Andrew Durand)
A process of creating and assembling ontology and epistemology
“Second, media become tools for our collective self-production. We are able to create new truths only when we cease to be individual and constitute ourselves in our relationships to others, opening ourselves to a common language.” (27)
This term is significant because it provides insight into the creation of subjectivity. Another valuable component of the term is its implicit backing in Marxist thought, namely, the human lacking any inherent qualities.
Singularity (Nathan Gruenberg)
Singularity: Making an individual through connection within a larger group; fosters a common language, which allows new truths to be created.
“Singularities are defined by being multiple internally and finding themselves externally only in relation to others. The communications and expression of singularities in networks then, is not individual but choral […] always operative, linked to a doing, making ourselves while being together" (38).
This term is significant because it stresses the importance of being together to create new truths to destabilize the overarching systems. It fosters an environment that emphasizes self-learning and how to spread that knowledge.
Subjectivity (Valentina L-C) (1)Commanding forms and forces of suppression by which society is indebted, mediated, securitized, & misrepresented.(Valentina) (2) “Our point of attack here is the dominant forms of subjectivity produced in the context of the current social and political crisis. We engage four primary subjective figures—the indebted, the mediatized, the securitized, and the represented—all of which are impoverished and their powers for social action are masked or mystified.” (14) (3) Subjectivity is central to the current political and social crisis that Hardt & Negri focus on in “Declaration.” They argue that the four central forces of suppression need to be inverted and challenged through protest in Chapter 2 as they explain how to combat these core forms of subjectivity through the power of singularity.
Second Class on Declaration (November 5th):
Autonomous Time (Andrew Durand)
1. a temporality constructed without external pressures that is free to create its own rhythms and calendar
2. “Autonomous time. When we insist on the long and expansive temporality of the Arab spring it might seem that we are introducing surreptitiously a conception of time different from the insurrectional acceleration of events that seemed to define the beginnings of those struggles.” (53).
3. Autonomous time is important because it attends to the nuanced ways that political revolt takes place chronologically. The term is also important because it implies that time is a regulated resource.
Autonomous Time (Ione Fullerton)
1. The temporality that describes movements that are politically autonomous because they are managed and develop their own rhythms.
2. “The constituent decisions of the encampments are formed through a complex construction and negotiation of knowledges and will, which takes time” (55).
3. The active practice of autonomous time by encampments, by collective members of movements, is a method by which they practice autonomous politics. These politics allow for the ‘spread and expression’ of knowledge that allow for encampments to make constitutive decisions (55), the explanation of which is the central project of Hardt and Negri.
4. My definition highlights the that movements retrieve political autonomy because they practice at their own temporality.
Banks (Nick Hochfeld)
Banks are an agent of social planning, which, in a neoliberal system perpetuate the capitalist ideals of private circulation, property, and the accumulation of wealth, independent from the democratic control of the people.
“The rejection of the bank as an instrument of either private accumulation or public planning opens up avenues for conceiving new models oriented toward the accumulation of and planning for the common.”
This definition of banks is significant to the reading because it frames the banking system as a perpetuator of a social system, rather than merely a money managing entity. The text claims that in order to transcend neoliberalism, society must rethink the position of banks in relation to the common people.
THE COMMON (Nate Olson)
(1) A space or resource democratically governed by all people in the community utilizing the space or resource. [Nate]
(2) “The question, in essence, is whether institutions, goods, and resources can be managed effectively in common through democratic participation” (69)
(3) Provides an alternative form of management from public or private management. Ensures that the populace will come to a democratic compromise on how to use resources that pleases the majority.
COMMONER (Nate Olson)
(1) An individual who, through revolting against the current systems of society such as debt and securitization, create the common. [Nate]
(2) “The commoner is thus an ordinary person who accomplishes an extraordinary task” (105)
(3) They create alternatives to the current form of social governance. They will be the individuals who slowly develop the next society.
Common Decisions (Emma Dulaney)
The process through which all citizens have equal agency in determining the utilization of the common good.
"Common decisions are made through democratic participation not by elected representatives and experts" (71).
Equal democratic participation is Hardt & Negri's mechanism for constituting the commons. Managing the commons through direct participation of citizens transforms the public into the common.
Constituent (Sam Jacobson)
The collective recognition and operation of a group to generate political change.
“We consider to be constituent the struggles that are posed on the terrain of the common and that not only express the urgent need but also chart the path for a new constitutional process” (51).
The constituent stems from the ability to imagine new forms of political and social relations and the desire to see those new forms manifest. Without a constituent process, meaningful, intentional, and beneficial change on behalf of the common will not occur.
Constituent (Nathan Gruenberg)
Common realization of struggles that express the need for action through an exhaustion of previous constitutions (Nathan Gruenberg).
“This constituent power is deeply embedded in the struggles, and these declarations of inalienable rights reveal the course of a historical movement that is reaching its maturity” (52).
This term is significant because it is the logical grounding as to how to undo the hegemonic cultural and political ideologies in society. Furthermore, it does this by working with the system but through a new group of people (the common).
My definition varies slightly since I incorporate the necessity of working within existing social frameworks to undo the system.
Common (Nick Hochfeld)
Assigning decisions relating to an area of debate (such as water or other resources) to democratic participation, rather than private or state organizations
“Common decisions are made through democratic participation not by elected representatives and experts.”
This term is significant because it creates an alternative to the system of democracy through representation. Rather than work through elected officials and the state apparatus, the people are able to directly craft their decisions through democratic participation.
My definition is different because I emphasize the difference between working democratically through the state system and through common decisions. A system approaches common terms through moving away from the state apparatus and representative democracy.
Counterpowers (Andrew Durand)
Events that require immediate attention due to both their initial severity as well as their ability to undermine more long term goals.
“The constituent process must be accompanied by a series of counterpowers that take immediate action in areas of social and environmental need and danger.”
This term is important because it adds urgency to the constituent work that Hardt and Negri discuss earlier. Similarly, counterpowers offer explanations for why short term responses may not be totally coherent with long term plans.
Counterpowers (Blake Ladenburg):
Actions taken by accompanying processes that ensure that the constituent process has the ability to enact a perfect democracy.
“The constituent process must be accompanied by a series of counterpowers that take immediate action in areas of social and environmental need and danger.” (56)
Counterpowers ensure that the constituent processes has the time to create a perfect democracy, and that this democracy has the ability to oversee a functional earth. This term helps us understand how nonaffiliated movements can assist the constituent process, and ensure its success.
While Andrew identified what counterpowers work to overcome; my definition solely focuses on counterpowers as actors responding to events. Counterpowers are not events that require immediate attention, rather, they are the actors who address these events while not being affiliated directly with the constituent process.
Decision (Sam Jacobson)
Choices made by an independent active political subject or subjects on behalf of both the individual and the common.
“One condition for this process is not only a “being with” but “doing with others which spreads and teaches people how to make decisions” 68).
Decisions are vital to the effectiveness of political movements and the formation “of a common terrain” from which activists can direct their actions (67). The power of social movements is effective only so long as the decision making comes through common terrain
Decision (Ione Fullerton)
1. A process by which members of a movement “do” with one another collectively to be a participating political subject 2. “The power of decision created by movements must reside with those who are acting together politically and cannot be transferred beyond that common terrain” (68).
3. Decisions demonstrate the active work that members “being” with one another can do for a collective purpose to propel their movement in a directed manner, or, as the authors note, to initiate the movement altogether through resistance and rebellion. The authors demonstrate that parties so often destroy movements by removing the power from the collective group, perhaps as a warning to readers that the power of decisions cannot reside anywhere but in the collective.
4. This definition highlights that becoming a participating political subject is contingent upon the decision making, the “doing.”
Decision (Valentina Lopez-Cortes) (1) An action against forms of subjectivity taken by the individual that influences the collective. (2) Resistance and rebellion are, in fact, some of the initial decisions taken by the movements. Central here are the decisions that anticipate and promote the construction of a common terrain for the activists—the work of agitation, the demonstration, the encampment, and so forth—that is at the base of every collective imagination that supports a movement. (60) (3) Protests and acts of resistance are centered around ‘doing’ on behalf of society but this definition focuses on the importance of the individual political body inciting change.
Difference Principle (Sarah Edwards)
An unequal distribution of goods should only be allowed if it aids the disadvantaged and gradually leads towards an equal distribution in society.
“We see two paths for encouraging and cultivating the passage from public property to the common and from state control to democratic self-management. The first is modeled on the “difference principle” that John Rawls proposes in his theory of justice” (79)
The difference principle is essential for the state to relinquish control of regulations into the hands of the commons. While it doesn’t exactly provide a concrete avenue for transformation, it signifies a crucial ideological shift that is necessary for the gradual strengthening of the commoner.
Federalism (Logan Miller)
An open, extensive relationship among diverse political forces that is not dictated by a central authority.
"The shape of federalist organization as we intend it, in other words, is not pyramidal but horizontal and extensive. Such a federalism fosters the plural and process-oriented dimensions of politics." (89)
This system of political operation allows for a constituent power to both reflect and embody multiple political entities and allow for all to be represented. Right now the hegemonic structure of our government dows not allow for this to happen.
Federalism (Andy Monserud)
Federalism is a political configuration that takes into account and mediates a variety of political entities and forces. [Monserud]
“Federalism is thus a fundamental principle of a constituent legislative power. By federal here we do not mean a central authority ruling over smaller political units such as states or provinces. Instead we understand federal in a more basic sense as an open, extensive relation among diverse political forces spread across the social terrain and not subsumed under an abstract, centralized unity. The shape of federalist organization as we intend it, in other words, is not pyramidal but horizontal and extensive. Such a federalism fosters the plural and process-oriented dimensions of politics” (89).
Hardt and Negri seek to reconceive federalism as compatible with rule by the multitude. Rather than the creation of a system of government which reigns supreme over a host of smaller systems, like that of the United States, they propose a more fluid, post-state federalism based on the interaction of various democratic assemblies.
While Logan provided the basic definitions, I believe that I have contributed by expounding on Hardt and Negri’s vision of a post-state federalism.
General Will (Andy Monserud)
The “general will,” as conceived by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is the will of the majority-- and, as he says, “always the most just and… in effect, the voice of God” (Rousseau 127). [Monserud]
“Minorities are protected, therefore, not by being separated but by being empowered to participate in the process. Such a configuration allows us to leave behind notions of the general will, which rely on the wisdom of representatives, and instead to fashion politics democratically, according to the will of all” (64). “Rousseau the revolutionary, who even denounced private property as a crime, managed to establish the general will as a concept of authority only by imagining that, in order to be of everyone, it has to stand above them all and belong to no one. This is why Rousseau’s notion of the general will is susceptible to statist and even authoritarian interpretations” (71-72).
Negri and Hardt negotiate the idea of the general will cautiously. While their declaration centers around increasing the power of the multitude, they also seek to acknowledge and accommodate for difference and minority opinions. They seek to resolve this with a pluralist or “flat” federalism-- a somewhat uncertain solution.
Judicial/Judiciary (Jenny Gruenberg)
One of the three branches of the U.S. government that interprets the constitution and serves as a way to check and balance the other two branches of government.
“We should recognize, first of all, that judiciaries, despite claims of independence, are always political powers” (97).
Rather than having a small group of experts as the sole interpreters of the constitution, constitutional interpretation “will have to be socialized” (98). Because the constitution was “constructed through the movements and dynamics of society itself,” (98) it is not a sacred, static document. The multitude needs to be educated about this document so that everyone can both interpret it and make decisions regarding that interpretation.
The Majority (Blake Ladenburg):
The position and view of a democratic body comprised from the inclusion of differing minority views, which develops a will of all instead of a general will.
"The majority, then, becomes not a homogeneous unit or body of agreement but a concatenation of differences." (64)
The majority, in this sense, is not an assemblage of those who agree, but rather the assemblage of differing views and desires. This encourages and protects the minority's participation in the democratic process, and ensures that no view becomes subordinated unless they fail to engage in the process.
Minority (Nathan Gruenberg)
Non-majority groups that are given/not given protection through an ethical and political choice decided by the majority. (Nathan).
Not all minorities in all instances deserve to be shielded from the majority’s decisions. Indeed, most minorities in most cases should be outvoted. Otherwise, majority tule would be meaningless” (62).
This term is significant because it allows for a discussion of both minorities and majorities and calls for a collaborative relationship. Through this discussion we are able to redefine and re-conceptualize a more inclusive and progressive form of tolerance.
Money (Nick Hochfeld)
Money is the instrument that allows circulation of commodities and in the neoliberal system is an instrument of accumulation.
“Money that creates money is the ancient definition of usury, and today such speculative financial practices should be equally reviled.”
This term is significant in relation to the text because it forces the reader to think of money as a tool that perpetuates the neoliberal state structure. Using money to generate more money is the epitome of neoliberalism, as it increases the divide between classes.
Tolerance (Sarah Edwards)
The majority should seek to empower minorities to participate and work with others because of their differences, not in spite of them.
“The functioning of such dynamic and internally multiple majorities also transforms the conventional conception of tolerance” (64)
Traditional notions of tolerance usually necessitate a physical or social separation of minorities from the majority society. However, by redefining tolerance as an inclusive term, it reflects a multiplicity of voices that work collaboratively.
Keywords (leave these instructions at the bottom of the page): Please complete this task for 2-3 words in the following steps: (To begin) Identify an important word. By important, I mean something that has relevance to the book as a whole. (1) Define the word in a sentence (leave your name after it in brackets). (2) Write out the excerpt where it appeared. (3) Give a 2 sentence explanation of the significance of the word.
Note: If you would like to do the activity for a word that someone else has already completed, you can. But in doing so, you should improve on their definition. And in step (4), explain why you think your definition is an improvement.
Etiquette 1) Append your name to an edit. 2) Keep keywords in alphabetic order. 3) Reorganize material in a logical way that makes it easier for everyone to read. 4) Digressions and asides are best left as comments.
Example Keyword: ASSEMBLAGE (Gilles): (1) An assemblage is any number of "things" or pieces of "things" gathered into a single context. (2) In a book, as in all things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territories; but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and destratification. ... All this, lines and measurable speeds constitutes anassemblage. (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 3)
(3) Assemblage is an alternative to totality, ensemble, or group. In being more capacious, it suggests that things of different types and scale interact to make a complex whole.
[Example of a bad post. --->]
Assemblage: [No name, no capital, no bold] (1) The book, as described below, is a jumbling together of discrete parts or pieces that is capable of producing any number effects that is not ideological. [Wordy, run-of, unclear] (2) A book is an assemblage of this kind, and as such is unattributable. It is a multiplicity—but we don't know yet what the multiple entails when it is no longer attributed, that is, after it has been elevated to the status of the substantive. On side of a machinic assemblage faces the strata, which doubtless make it a kind of organism, or signifying totality, or determination attributable to a subject; it also has a side facing a body without organs, which is continually dismantling the organism, causing asignifying particles or pure intensities or circulate, and attributing to itself subjects what it leaves with nothing more than a name as the trace of an intensity... Literature is an assemblage. It has nothing to do with ideology. There is no ideology and never has been.(Deleuze and Guattari,A Thousand Plateaus,3-4) [Too long of a quote, no highlight of the key word]
(3) Assemblage is a multiplicity. It has non-ideological effects, which is important to get outside prior notions of the subject. The dismantling is also interesting. [Re-states the definition/terms in the excerpt, uses expert terms out of context, a bit long, conversational, imprecise.]
CONSTITUENT PROCESS (Andy Monserud)
Debt (Blake Ladenburg):
Debtfare (Emma Dulaney)
(1) A financial state in which one is subjective to the power structure they owe money too, and an emotional state that is as self-depreciating and stigmatizing as welfare.
(2) "The social safety net has passed from a system of welfare to one of debtfare." (10)
(3) Debt represents a new form of profit and exploitation for the elite (12). Through debt, society is exposed as a hierarchy of masters and slaves (14).
Debtfare (Blake Ladenburg):
DECLARATION (Nate)
(1) A description of a current movement of change, including its goals, principles, and the forces that created and are fueling it [Nate]
(2) “the multitudes, through their logics and practices, their slogans and desires, have declared a new set of principles and truths” (1)
(3) Different from a manifesto in that a manifesto announces the start of a movement while a declaration simply describes a movement already in existence. Serves to lend a rationality to a movement that may seem disorganized or chaotic.
The Indebted (Andrew Durand)
The Indebted (Nick Hochfeld)
(1) The indebted are the class bound by the chains of neoliberal debt that are increasingly impossible to remove.
(2) “Now, instead, productivity is ever more hidden as the divisions between work time and the time of life become increasingly blurred. In order to survive the indebted must sell his or her entire time of life.”
(3) The concept of the indebted is very important because it emphasizes the biopolitical hegemony that controls the populace through legal means, such as debt. Furthermore, in relation to the Hegelian master-slave dialectic, which gives power to the slaves when they revolt against the master, the debt cannot be rebelled against; there is not valorization for those that fight back against these debts.
Indignados (Logan Miller)
IMPOVERISHED (Nate)
(1) Those individuals who have been reduced to precarity by low wages, tenuous work, and crushing debt [Nate]
(2) “numerous struggles of the poor and impoverished have been waged against the individual and collective yoke of debt” (35)
(3) Describes a class of people separated from the old proletariat of Marx by the debt they have, putting the impoverished in an even worse position than the proletariat. Serves to describe a class and their attributes and motivations in a single word.
KAIROS (Andy Monserud)
(1) Kairos is Greek for incidental time-- the instant in which actions take place. In modern rhetorical studies it is defined as a perfect moment for action or speech.
(2) "All four of the dominated figures of contemporary society have the capacity to rebel and also to invert themselves and become figures of power. This inversion is the result not of a dialectical process but of an event, a subjective kairos that breaks the relations of domination and overthrows the processes that reproduce the figures of subjugation" (31). Kairos continues to appear throughout page 32.
(3) The proposed Kairos is a central assumption of Declaration: that at some point in the near future there will be a moment in which those subjected by the prison state and by capitalist machinations will reclaim their subjectivity, and that many are already seizing these kairos. This would manifest both in a strengthened resistance as well as increased communalism among the resisters.
Mediated (Valentina L-C)
(1) To be subjected through vessels of communication that encourage voluntary communication and in turn dilute the quality of values presented through such media. (Valentina)
(2)“control over information and communication networks has created the Mediated” (14)
(3)As one of the central forms of subjectivity the control of media addresses access through the means for which individual values can be expressed. An interesting argument that Hardt & Negri make is the importance of strategic silence, rather than voluntary communication through which repressive forces are contributed to (18). This word is significant in its attention to media as both a repressive and liberating power depending on the value of information.
The Mediatized (Sam Jacobson)
(1)Individuals whose political action has been stifled by the “surplus in information, communication, and expression,” produced by the media and technology.
(2)“Or, better, the mediatized is full of dead information, suffocating our powers to created living information (Declaration, 17).
(3)The mediatized represents a larger culture of hyper-stimulation where the quality of information and communication is inundated by the sheer quantity that is expressed. It is a recursive process of repression through which the quantity of information and communication forces people to express themselves, and to continue expressing themselves, to the point of insignificance.
The Mediatized (Ione Fullerton)
The Mediatized (Nick Hochfeld)
(1) The mediatized are the people whose lives are commodified and embedded within social media, while also being bombarded by constant dead information, which they must absorb.
(2) “When we refuse to be mediatized, we have not only to stop allowing ourselves to be fooled, believing everything we read in the papers, and simply digesting the truths we are fed, but also we need to break our attention away from the media.”
(3) This is significant because it complicates the idea that social media has lead to more political freedom: such as the Arab Spring, or various other Twitter campaigns. Slacktivism and other social media movements fail to achieve anything and pale in comparison to actual physical protests.
Modalities of Flight (Sarah Edwards)
(1) One of the ways individuals can resist the security state by first recognizing their power, and then utilizing that power as a means to flee and become invisible.
(2) “Of all the ways that people refuse the security regime today, the most significant are modalities of flight” (40).
(3) Modalities of flight occur when a state of fearlessness is achieved by the subject, and as a result they are able to diminish the power exercised by the security state. By choosing to flee or become invisible the subject redefines their relationship to the state and condemns institutions such as prisons that construct societal relations.
Power (Emma Dulaney)
(1)One's agency in relation to others
(2)"Power is not a thing but a relation. No matter how mighty and arrogant seems that power standing above you, know that it depends on you, feeds on your fear, and survives only because of your willingness to participate in the relationship." (41)
(3) Hardt & Negri echo Foucault and Machiavelli by identifying power as a socially constructed relation.This dependent relationship gives the precariat the agency to end the cycle of exploitation. The authors call on the precariat to abolish the prisons and military, as they are the are the most perverse power structures present. (42)
The Represented (Sam Jacobson)
The Represented (Ione Fullerton)
The Securitized (Sarah Edwards)
(1) Individuals who are both the object and subject of the security state, and voluntarily live off the suspension of conventional rules of law.
(2) “The security regime and the generalized state of exception have constructed a figure prey to fear and yearning for protection – the securitized” (9) Discussion of the securitized continues on page 19.
(3) The securitized reveals the vulnerable state of individuals within a surveillance society. The state employs means such as incarceration and militarization to condition and control aspects of society, therefore increasing dependence and destabilizing the individual.
The Securitized (Nathan Gruenberg)
1. Securitized: Individuals who are simultaneously the object and subject of security, driven by fear to uphold the surveillance system. (Nathan Gruenberg)
2. “The securitized is a creature that lives and thrives in the state of exception, where the normal functioning of the rule of law and the conventional habits and bonds of association have been suspended by an overarching power" (20).
3. The securitized is significant because it marks a system that silences the ability for individuals refute the overarching power through instilling fear. It is an empty signifier that can produce more fear than there actually is.
Self-production (Andrew Durand)
Singularity (Nathan Gruenberg)
Subjectivity (Valentina L-C)
(1)Commanding forms and forces of suppression by which society is indebted, mediated, securitized, & misrepresented.(Valentina)
(2) “Our point of attack here is the dominant forms of subjectivity produced in the context of the current social and political crisis. We engage four primary subjective figures—the indebted, the mediatized, the securitized, and the represented—all of which are impoverished and their powers for social action are masked or mystified.” (14)
(3) Subjectivity is central to the current political and social crisis that Hardt & Negri focus on in “Declaration.” They argue that the four central forces of suppression need to be inverted and challenged through protest in Chapter 2 as they explain how to combat these core forms of subjectivity through the power of singularity.
Second Class on Declaration (November 5th):
Autonomous Time (Andrew Durand)
Autonomous Time (Ione Fullerton)
1. The temporality that describes movements that are politically autonomous because they are managed and develop their own rhythms.
2. “The constituent decisions of the encampments are formed through a complex construction and negotiation of knowledges and will, which takes time” (55).
3. The active practice of autonomous time by encampments, by collective members of movements, is a method by which they practice autonomous politics. These politics allow for the ‘spread and expression’ of knowledge that allow for encampments to make constitutive decisions (55), the explanation of which is the central project of Hardt and Negri.
4. My definition highlights the that movements retrieve political autonomy because they practice at their own temporality.
Banks (Nick Hochfeld)
THE COMMON (Nate Olson)
(1) A space or resource democratically governed by all people in the community utilizing the space or resource. [Nate]
(2) “The question, in essence, is whether institutions, goods, and resources can be managed effectively in common through democratic participation” (69)
(3) Provides an alternative form of management from public or private management. Ensures that the populace will come to a democratic compromise on how to use resources that pleases the majority.
COMMONER (Nate Olson)
(1) An individual who, through revolting against the current systems of society such as debt and securitization, create the common. [Nate]
(2) “The commoner is thus an ordinary person who accomplishes an extraordinary task” (105)
(3) They create alternatives to the current form of social governance. They will be the individuals who slowly develop the next society.
Common Decisions (Emma Dulaney)
Constituent (Sam Jacobson)
Constituent (Nathan Gruenberg)
Common (Nick Hochfeld)
Counterpowers (Andrew Durand)
Counterpowers (Blake Ladenburg):
Decision (Sam Jacobson)
Decision (Ione Fullerton)
1. A process by which members of a movement “do” with one another collectively to be a participating political subject
2. “The power of decision created by movements must reside with those who are acting together politically and cannot be transferred beyond that common terrain” (68).
3. Decisions demonstrate the active work that members “being” with one another can do for a collective purpose to propel their movement in a directed manner, or, as the authors note, to initiate the movement altogether through resistance and rebellion. The authors demonstrate that parties so often destroy movements by removing the power from the collective group, perhaps as a warning to readers that the power of decisions cannot reside anywhere but in the collective.
4. This definition highlights that becoming a participating political subject is contingent upon the decision making, the “doing.”
Decision (Valentina Lopez-Cortes)
(1) An action against forms of subjectivity taken by the individual that influences the collective.
(2) Resistance and rebellion are, in fact, some of the initial decisions taken by the movements. Central here are the decisions that anticipate and promote the construction of a common terrain for the activists—the work of agitation, the demonstration, the encampment, and so forth—that is at the base of every collective imagination that supports a movement. (60)
(3) Protests and acts of resistance are centered around ‘doing’ on behalf of society but this definition focuses on the importance of the individual political body inciting change.
Difference Principle (Sarah Edwards)
Federalism (Logan Miller)
Federalism (Andy Monserud)
General Will (Andy Monserud)
Judicial/Judiciary (Jenny Gruenberg)
The Majority (Blake Ladenburg):
Minority (Nathan Gruenberg)
Money (Nick Hochfeld)
Tolerance (Sarah Edwards)
Keywords (leave these instructions at the bottom of the page):
Please complete this task for 2-3 words in the following steps:
(To begin) Identify an important word. By important, I mean something that has relevance to the book as a whole.
(1) Define the word in a sentence (leave your name after it in brackets).
(2) Write out the excerpt where it appeared.
(3) Give a 2 sentence explanation of the significance of the word.
Note: If you would like to do the activity for a word that someone else has already completed, you can. But in doing so, you should improve on their definition. And in step (4), explain why you think your definition is an improvement.
Etiquette
1) Append your name to an edit.
2) Keep keywords in alphabetic order.
3) Reorganize material in a logical way that makes it easier for everyone to read.
4) Digressions and asides are best left as comments.
Example Keyword:
ASSEMBLAGE (Gilles):
(1) An assemblage is any number of "things" or pieces of "things" gathered into a single context.
(2) In a book, as in all things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territories; but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and destratification. ... All this, lines and measurable speeds constitutes an assemblage. (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 3)
(3) Assemblage is an alternative to totality, ensemble, or group. In being more capacious, it suggests that things of different types and scale interact to make a complex whole.
[Example of a bad post. --->]
Assemblage: [No name, no capital, no bold]
(1) The book, as described below, is a jumbling together of discrete parts or pieces that is capable of producing any number effects that is not ideological. [Wordy, run-of, unclear]
(2) A book is an assemblage of this kind, and as such is unattributable. It is a multiplicity—but we don't know yet what the multiple entails when it is no longer attributed, that is, after it has been elevated to the status of the substantive. On side of a machinic assemblage faces the strata, which doubtless make it a kind of organism, or signifying totality, or determination attributable to a subject; it also has a side facing a body without organs, which is continually dismantling the organism, causing asignifying particles or pure intensities or circulate, and attributing to itself subjects what it leaves with nothing more than a name as the trace of an intensity... Literature is an assemblage. It has nothing to do with ideology. There is no ideology and never has been. (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 3-4) [Too long of a quote, no highlight of the key word]
(3) Assemblage is a multiplicity. It has non-ideological effects, which is important to get outside prior notions of the subject. The dismantling is also interesting. [Re-states the definition/terms in the excerpt, uses expert terms out of context, a bit long, conversational, imprecise.]