Re: AUT: they remember nothing and understand nothing

[Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stevphen,

>I think their
> distinction between "the commons" (which they call pre-capitalist and
> something they don't want their work to be confused with) and "the common"
> (which is produced through news forms of immaterial labor and networking)
> to be somewhat of a silly distinction - because it makes their idea of
> common ahistorical and floating out of nowhere, which ironically perhaps
> might make it more politically useful.

But if the common is produced and is continually developed through its
production by the multitude, then it is not and can't be considered
ahistorical (because its history is what we've done with it). And it
is not floating out of "nowhere" because again, if it is produced, it
is produced by real people and real interactions such as one finds on
a listserv like this, or in a discussion at a cafe or whatever. The
distinction they have made is one in which one simply inherits or is
simply excluded from the preexistence of a "commons" and one in which
'what is common' is produced as the product (potentially) of everyone.
I think it is a useful concept... as long as one recognizes it as such
(or rather as long as one recognizes what a concept is and how they
function in life).

Lowe


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