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I use the concept of agonistic pluralism to present a new way to think about democracy which is different from the traditional liberal conception of democracy as a negotiation among interests and is also different to the model which is currently being developed by people like Jurgen Habermas and John Rawls. While they have many differences, Rawls and Habermas have in common the idea that the aim of the democratic society is the creation of a consensus, and that consensus is possible if people are only able to leave aside their particular interests and think as rational beings. However, while we desire an end to conflict, if we want people to be free we must always allow for the possibility that conflict may appear and to provide an arena where differences can be confronted. The democratic process should supply that arena.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article563.html

D
Chantal Mouffe:
How do you define democracy if not as consensus?
I use the concept of agonistic pluralism to present a new way to think
about democracy which is different from the traditional liberal conception
of democracy as a negotiation among interests and is also different to the
model which is currently being developed by people like Jurgen Habermas
and John Rawls. While they have many differences, Rawls and Habermas have
in common the idea that the aim of the democratic society is the creation
of a consensus, and that consensus is possible if people are only able to
leave aside their particular interests and think as rational beings.
However, while we desire an end to conflict, if we want people to be free
we must always allow for the possibility that conflict may appear and to
provide an arena where differences can be confronted. The democratic
process should supply that arena.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article563.html

G
> thanks _ yes yes I now know who she is and I guess in a glorious past
> must have read the book she wrote with laclau, and for a while was
> very much interested in the ideas of gramsci about hegemony etc on
> which they also base their writing/thinking (but that is all so far
> for me – it seems really a revival to go pre-postmodernist-thinking,
> guess it is safer to dig those up again hihi)

D
>> hmm, but that idea doesn’t sound that old fashioned and irrelevant:
>> to understand radical democracy not as a dialogue and
>> negotiation (or even consensus) as an end in itself,
>> but as the provider of the environment that always allows
>> the possibility of disagreement..

• G
  > she did not understand her readings, because she is not researching
  > enough:
  >
  > 1. marx-engels are talking about the freedom of the worker, it is all
  > about how the difference in time as seen in post industrial capitalism
  > compared to early industrial capitalism and an utopian communism at
  > that time (forget the 20th century for a moment) – so “everyone is an
  > artist” is not a statement about art at that time but trying to
  > protect the freedom of the worker: work time (for the factory or for a
  > boss), reproductional time (to eat decently, to keep hygiene and wash
  > yourself, to have healthcare, to be able to for instance look after
  > your vegetables growing etc…)recreational/free time (relaxing and
  > resting, reflected in the regulation of working hours at stand still
  > since 60’s to 35-40 hours and also as the right for retirement later,
  > but mainly realizing the idea of freedom: it is up to the individual
  > and no boss can ask someone to give it up)… so art is seen as the
  > basic creativity everyone his in him/herself and a corner stone for
  > happiness in society, an element to realize yourself or a group and
  > situated within the free will, the fundamental idea of autonomy of
  > subjectivity (of individual or collective unit)… guess today the
  > situation is quite different though reading marx-engels on that point
  > I must admit changed the way I was looking at creating and that is
  > also the reason why in karass suite amateurs and professionals are
  > mixed and there is no discussion about it needed, it is a given fact
  > (guess she does not understand this if you only look at highly payed
  > curatored exhibitions)
• D
  one thing that is clear is that she’s biased – celebrating
  the walls of the white cube beginning in london and ending in nyc.
  • G
    the more problematic thing is that she not only a payed chique art
    chick, but that she never discloses an aesthetical point of view, on
    the contrary she shrouds it in vagueness, remember in our historic
    heroic car discussion the issue was for me how to change evaluation of
    art itself through a redefinition based on a different practice, which
    means not the speculative rhetoric she is throwing around but some
    very concrete issues and somehow up to the mark presence of current
    ‘creative’ (yes in marx-engels sense if you want) practices

  but there is a common ground.

  • G
    no because here is exactly when she is jumping out: she looks at art
    as a very disciplinary and reductionalist thing (isolating even visual
    arts) in the end, and her ‘subjectivity’ is still the 20th century
    postmodern commodity object

  she mentioned marx+engels’ critique of alienation, which when
  abandoned/overcame, gives way to a fully realised subjectivity
  accessible to all.

  i did not read marx’s takes on art, but this is what krylov
  has to say about it:
  “Labour freed from exploitation becomes, under socialism, the
  source of all spiritual (and aesthetic) creativity. Marx and
  Engels point out that only given true economic, political,
  and spiritual freedom can man’s creative powers develop to
  the full and that only proletarian revolution offers unbounded
  opportunities of endless progress in the development of literature.”
  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/preface.htm

  so then art is seen as the basic creativity everyone has access
  to if freed from exploitation. (maybe you mean with ‘autonomy
  of subjectivity’ the similar thing)

  • G
    think so (but it will always be a point of discussion what t really
    is, luckily)

  still, it’s too rough to link art and creativity in such
  a narrow way.

  • G
    ou mean from her side? yes… (she needs it)
    and from our side: we don’t give a shit! (we don’t need that bullshit)

> 2. cultural industry, and the way it was introduced within the dutch
> governmental program way back in 2002-04 has nothing to do with it,
> because it only talks about the support to the organizations that sit
> between private companies, cultural organizations and (she is
> conveniently not mentioning this) educational institutions… the
> history of mediamatic may be emblematic for this, and also waag
> society evolution can be seen as part of this (and the major reason
> why I left de waag and holland altogether), though it cannot be seen
> separate from the status of the artist in netherlands, which is one
> that is very much supported and at the same time a sort of futuristic
> realization of the artist as entrepeneur (the dutch state is paying
> for that idea), and so it is very neoliberal and scary if you think eu
> will spread this in other countries over the coming years… the case
> of city marketing was very vaguely mentioned but tuning into the same
> setting, but it is so diverse in outcome in the different cities…
> compare ars electronica linz and amsterdam and then the annual eu-
> cultural capitals shifting and you see the complexity and repeated
> current failures of matching art with that…

• D
  i guess it’s not that unrelated. just look at richard florida
  >> G
  >> ys and do you believe/trust a guy looking like this?
  >> http://media.thedaily.com.au/img/photos/2007/11/21/florida-large_t350.jpg
  and his infamous book “rise of creative class” – he markets
  >> G
  >> 2002

  the idea of progressive urban development being directly dependent
  on the presence of what he calls the creative class (gays,
  immigrants, people of color, cultural workers), when not necessarily
  artists, but “skilled people are key to urban success”.
  he literally sells this to city governments around the world
  and they do buy it. so in my view the cultural industries
  and (however liberating and homeopatic) imperative for creativity
  (eg. “everybody’s artist”) are intrinsically linked.
  so still, my question here is: isn’t this also a too narrow
  reasoning?
  >> G
  >> but in the 3 points that she made she did not go deep enough, I don’t
  >> accuse her of anything else but superficiallity (and acting like a
  >> postmodern rhetoric to hit the spotlights) she is not doing the home
  >> work right that is all – ukol domaci?

  so these people came with a different receipt than marx+engels.
  >> G
  >> 200 years ago, the times ar a changing dear so it is not a different
  >> receipt it is a different marxism even
  they say there is a liberating potential in being creative
  and more and more people (not all the people, because that
  would mean giving up the neoliberal ideals) should access
  their creativity. although they don’t mention working conditions
  and what marx+engels called alienation and exploitation at all.
  they assume self-employment and entrepreneurship, in other words,
  they integrate creativity into good old market conditions.
  >> G
  >> yes and that is my point that in netherlands self-employment by
  >> artists is valued by government within neoliberal progress not
  >> individual or collective subjectivity and autonomy

  then i guess, if we say that the socially engaged and
  participative art is actually affirmative to the cultural industry
  and its assumptions and implications, then it makes pretty
  much sense not only to critique the neoliberal hegemony by working
  >> G
  >> hegemony/ read gramsci! (think you are using the wrong word here)
  and creating in bottom-up participative environments, but also
  to address, critique and experiment with the participation
  (and its open, consensual and dialogical nature) itself.
  >> G
  >> hey _ she exactly goes like what you say london-kassel-ny but a
  >> different kind of people are doing different things, and i am not
  >> putting myself in the picture here but just saying that okno in its
  >> new skin is inviting different people doing different things than
  >> (also tranzit, which sets the environment haha) she can ever think of

> 3. there is no political take over, there is no impact of avant garde
> and experimental artists on the political program, compared to the –
> she should look into the quantitative importance this plays in economy
> and politics, and then you see that in most of eu-country official
> cultural communiques art is simply left out if it is not done
> according to quantitative measures… it is not that difficult to see
> that the current swing to right in eu has to do with the regulation of
> family and their free time, not with anything marx-engels were hinting
> at: commodity and profit and turn over for the (super)state economy:
> the current crisis can be seen as the family and their possessions,
> not the saveguarding of their autonomy since it are the banks that are
> related to it, ai ai ai while she keeps trying to hit a nail and
> perseveres hitting next to it (for what reason I keep asking myself)

• D
  but there is an impact of neoliberal culture consultants on the
  political program as mentioned above, what concerns the experimental
  artists too (if they care for the social in their work)
  >> G
  >> what artist in reality ever did?

  mouffe says actually pretty interesting thing about ‘swing
  to right’ here:
  >> G
  >> guattari in ‘3 ecologies’ calls it a “heterogeneous” culture, it is
  >> the same but let’s talk about this because it has further repercussions
  >>
  >> and this is not wha tI think, just wanted to point out where in her
  >> presentation she missed 3x the boat and performs the role of the
  >> interested intellectual when she is writing down critique that
  >> audience is giving and not responding to it, you saw her doing it!
  >> so, …

  “In the West today, if there are no democratic channels through which a
  confrontation of values and interests can take place, it is going to lead
  either to apathy so people won’t be involved in politics any more, or even
  worse, there are going to be mobilisations of those struggles which are
  not compatible with democracy such as apartheid, religious fundamentalism
  and fascism. Take France and the growth of the extreme right under Le Pen:
  it is precisely at the moment when the socialists have moved toward the
  centre and acquiesced to the arguments of the democratic right that the
  extreme right began to grow, because they were the only ones who were
  offering an alternative through which antagonism could be focused. Le Pen
  has been able to give a voice to the people who could not find a place
  within the democratic space to express their different positions.”

>> D
>> + i’m still puzzled by what argument can be used against smashing
>> down “everybody is artist” motto too easily only by its political
>> implications (appropriation by cultural industries)
>
> G
> it makes no sense, actually creativity is not about playing amateur
> theatre and going fishing, or playing cards in clubs, and marx-engels
> are not saying this, soldat-facteur and others show something
> different but our dear claire is maybe a little too pop star and
> biased and has no time to take this into account… she likes to read
> books that are too difficult for her or either she sticks to the lost
> myth of the french philosopher (read postmodernist philosopher as
> tourist)