Great talk. I am in full agreement. What I think complicates this situation a bit is that it's not just a matter of controlling of people but also of controlling (more often of failing to control) corporations, billionaires and the destructive inhuman flows of capital. This has to do with the degradation of the environment, climate change, pollution, deforestation etc. but also with the destitution of a perpetually increasing economically superfluous mass of human beings. The rewilding of professionals, as I see it, would mean freeing them from their domestication by capital (as Camatte says) and truly seeking to serve humanity and the earth rather than "gain stickers".
As Foucault shows, the states safetyism, psychological and physical healthism, education etc. often has its roots in this domestication, ensuring the fitness of citizens to assist in the accumulation of capital. But I think a dedomesticated professional class can nevertheless have a significant role in at least mitigating the destruction and suffering brought about by the impersonal economic machinery for which our civilization, including such a class itself, depends on its existence.
I would also say, however, that a true rewilding of professionals, their descent from their towers to live with the hoi polloi would mean the communising of our global civilization into communities heterogeneous to that civilization. It would mean them, for example, growing food with other uneducated people. I think at the present time both approaches are needed: professional mitigation of the destruction ensuing from capitalism eating and consuming the last profitable oil reserves, and the communising of societies to open up paths towards a new earth.
I think we're pretty directionally aligned here -- I didn't address the problem of Capital in this talk because it was for an exoteric audience. But I'm focused in my work on the problem of how governance serves Capital and Capital creates problems which serve as pretexts for expanded governance. This cycle continues to metastasize, in part, because professionals do not understand their role in all of this. They misrecognize themselves and their work.
However, I want to think about what a rewilded professional could look like who isn't simply doing a bad job and merely throwing sand in the gears. While I think that's important work, I also still see value in the social capacity which good organization can create. The problem is when these organizing techniques get hijacked by Moloch's drive for efficiency and optimality. How can we re-appropriate the tools of administration to serve self-government, communal autonomy, and creative production? Can they be subordinated to a new set of drives, and deployed in a new context?
Great talk. I am in full agreement. What I think complicates this situation a bit is that it's not just a matter of controlling of people but also of controlling (more often of failing to control) corporations, billionaires and the destructive inhuman flows of capital. This has to do with the degradation of the environment, climate change, pollution, deforestation etc. but also with the destitution of a perpetually increasing economically superfluous mass of human beings. The rewilding of professionals, as I see it, would mean freeing them from their domestication by capital (as Camatte says) and truly seeking to serve humanity and the earth rather than "gain stickers".
As Foucault shows, the states safetyism, psychological and physical healthism, education etc. often has its roots in this domestication, ensuring the fitness of citizens to assist in the accumulation of capital. But I think a dedomesticated professional class can nevertheless have a significant role in at least mitigating the destruction and suffering brought about by the impersonal economic machinery for which our civilization, including such a class itself, depends on its existence.
I would also say, however, that a true rewilding of professionals, their descent from their towers to live with the hoi polloi would mean the communising of our global civilization into communities heterogeneous to that civilization. It would mean them, for example, growing food with other uneducated people. I think at the present time both approaches are needed: professional mitigation of the destruction ensuing from capitalism eating and consuming the last profitable oil reserves, and the communising of societies to open up paths towards a new earth.
I think we're pretty directionally aligned here -- I didn't address the problem of Capital in this talk because it was for an exoteric audience. But I'm focused in my work on the problem of how governance serves Capital and Capital creates problems which serve as pretexts for expanded governance. This cycle continues to metastasize, in part, because professionals do not understand their role in all of this. They misrecognize themselves and their work.
However, I want to think about what a rewilded professional could look like who isn't simply doing a bad job and merely throwing sand in the gears. While I think that's important work, I also still see value in the social capacity which good organization can create. The problem is when these organizing techniques get hijacked by Moloch's drive for efficiency and optimality. How can we re-appropriate the tools of administration to serve self-government, communal autonomy, and creative production? Can they be subordinated to a new set of drives, and deployed in a new context?