Strategies for Unbridled Data Dissemination: An Emergency Operations Manual

ion here being understood as that which escapes or abstracts from normative structural enclosure, as juxtaposed with the submissiveness or enclosure imposed by those in positions of authority who sought to impose mere learning, as opposed to the cultivation of creativity; the former being equated by Stirner to subservience, the latter to freedom of the ego. For Stirner, the intrinsic characteristic of personalism is thus that knowledge is not an isolated (temporally or otherwise) possession, but rather an on-going process of fostering creativity, or ego formation. The fundamental tenet of personalism is encapsulated in Stirner’s pronouncement that “knowledge must die and rise again as will and create itself anew each day as a free person”. The Stirnerian emphasis on continual creativity, of ongoing self-(re)creation, bears a striking resemblance to one of Braidotti’s criteria for a posthuman critical theory; namely, that of the figuration, “the expression of alternative representations of the subject as a dynamic non-unitary entity [...] conceptual personae or figuration as the active pursuit of affirmative alternatives to the dominant vision of the subject”. The Stirnerian project of continuous self-creation can thus be seen as a form of subject figuration which escapes the temporal binary of humanist and realist pedagogy. It then comes as no surprise that Braidotti, precisely like Stirner, states that “creativity and critique proceed together in the quest for affirmative alternatives which rest on a non-liner vision of memory as imagination, creation as becoming”. For Stirner, of course, what follows self-actualization is the political project involving the creation of unions of egoists— autonomous, self (in the sense of self-actualization)-interested collectives of individuals or 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Richard Stallman. 2002. “On Hacking”. https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html. 71 Stirner, op. cit. 72 Ibid. 73 Braidotti, op. cit., p. 164. 74 Ibid., p. 165. 42 nomads, to use contemporary vernacular, like say any of the various recent Anonymous amalgamations, who conglomerate together to achieve joint goals, which exist in place of the territorializing State. The key point here being that while a personalist education espouses individuation in the sense of self-discovery and experience custom-tailored to individual modes of interest and creativity, personalism by no means precludes the possibility of cooperation between the self-actualized individuals in the realm of immediatist tongs or hacker groups. Though of course it must be noted that whilst Stirner does repeatedly emphasize the on-going process of becoming-ego, of a constant and perpetual personalism which seeks to feed individual creativity, he is nonetheless ultimately focused on discrete, isolatable entities—clearly delineated egos, which while at times conglomerating and always engaged in personal processes of self-development, nonetheless maintain self-identities. This is of course in contrast to Braidotti’s posthumanism which stresses the figurative in-between connectivity, the transitory subject formation which takes place in exchange and interactivity; the union itself being the focus here as opposed to Stirner’s preoccupation with the egoists themselves, despite his acknowledging of the importance of an enduring self (re)construction. 1.2.2 Gramsci: Traditional and Organic Intellectuals Gramsci postulated the existence of a dichotomous intelligentsia, populated by the juxtaposition of traditional with organic intellectuals. Traditional intellectuals, being so enwrapped in intellectualism itself, “thus put themselves forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group”. The traditional intellectual, for Gramsci, is thus marked by a total failure to recognize their positions and outlooks as deriving “ultimately from past and present class formations”. In other words the traditionalists exhibit a certain sectarian segregation which attempts to cleave the intellectual apart from the existent surroundings. The organic intellectual, on the other hand, is marked by an actualization of class consciousness, being fully aware of their being embedded in a particular class, within a wider class-based social structure. Thus while both the traditionalists and organics are borne of and steeped in surrounding class percolations, the distinction is that while the former perceive of themselves as independently endowed, the latter are fully aware of their situated class positioning, and speak as part of their class. The pivotal outcome of this awareness is that there thus arises a certain specificity of practice, “‘specialisations’ of particular Gramsci, “The Intellectuals”, op. cit., p. 7. 76 Ibid., p. 3. 43 aspects”, which potentially leads the organic intellectual into a deep dissection of a particular localized dilemma. Albeit for Gramsci, the localization apparently only extends to the arena of class, or at the least always operating within class, and thus the movement of the intellectual is seen as only being organic as long as it sticks with its own kind, as it were. We can thus see that while Gramsci dismisses the traditional intellectual as an aloof sectarian a priori, the organic intellectual may indeed be said to be quite sectarian as well, albeit alongside class bifurcations—a cleaving by class then, as opposed to a cleaving of its own accord as in the way of the traditionalists. When Gramsci thus writes that “[t]he mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life”, in Stirnerian parlance one could say that he is merely exchanging the ‘dry staff’ of the humanist for the ‘wooden club’ of the realist, albeit a realist on behalf of localized, at least down to the arena of class, mobilization. Though Gramsci at a latter point does engage in a discussion of the division of education into the classical and vocational, which one could superficially equate with Stirner’s humanism and realism, it is rather that Gramsci’s proposed intellectual activism, stemming as it does from collectivist class consciousness rather than individual ego-creativity development, would be a particular manifestation of realist engagement, as opposed to the outright burning of the aforementioned wooden strictures espoused by a more virulent personalism. For Stirner, any group-based activation and mobilization, can only occur after that of selfactualization, of the unbridled development of the ego as manifested through the fostering and nurturing of individual drive and creativity. To speak of organic intellectuals without the firsthand mention of personalism would thus merely create a new authoritarian mode of State (or Party) enforced training or education. There can be no union of egoists without self-, as opposed to class, aware actants. It could perhaps be argued that Gramsci approaches personalism by way of universalizing the potentiality of intellectualism. For Gramsci, in other words, “all men are intellectuals, but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals [...] this means that, although one can speak of intellectuals, one cannot speak of non-intellectuals, because nonintellectuals do not exist”. Thus the authoritarianism imposed by an intelligentsia vanguard 77 Ibid., p. 6. 78 Ibid., p. 10. 79 Ibid., p. 26. 80 Ibid., p. 9. 44 is ushered in under pretenses of functionalism. Certainly everyone presumably has the personalist capacity towards self-actualization, but there are specific intellectuals within the universal realm of intellectuals who function as intellectuals. Presumably, the non-functional intellectuals thus lie dormant, waiting to be actualized by whatever force. However, to state that all apparently have an inherent latent intellectualism, nonetheless doesn’t change the fact that for Gramsci there nonetheless seems to be a certain imposed artificial scarcity of functional—professional intellectuals—which thus does nothing to eradicate the inherent authoritarian inequality therein, despite any pretenses of a false universalism. To state that all are intellectuals (A), but then to proceed to say that only those functioning in the immediate capacity of intellectuals (AF) are to be called as such is thus to effectively shift the definition from the apparently encompassing general, to a very minute particular, thus becoming mired in individuation in lieu of the flow afforded by an emphasis on interconnectivity and evershifting subjectivity. Akin perhaps to stating that all are party members, but only those involved in party committees are functional party members, thus devaluing those who are not, and granting those who are an unequal stance of control over the others. Stirner of course avoids this problem of allocated organic intellectualism by postulating that actants come together in a mutual union, as opposed to a proscriptive party enlistment which in turn necessitates specific intellectual functionaries who are thus afforded the term (recall that for Gramsci, AF is A). And yet, even if Gramsci’s faux-universalism of intellectualism was not merely seen as a rhetorical maneuvering which, while allowing for all to be encompassed in set A, nonetheless shifts the balance of power, influence, and significance to those in AF, it could nonetheless be questioned by elucidating Gramsci’s own inconsistency which undermines the applicability of the universalism in the first place, rendering its shifting to a vanguard subset immaterial at any rate. Namely, whilst going on to proclaim that non-intellectuals do not exist, Gramsci nonetheless first states that “it is to be noted that the mass of the peasantry [...] does not elaborate its own ‘organic’ intellectuals, nor does it ‘assimilate’ any stratum of ‘traditional’ intellectuals”. Thus, while there are no non-intellectuals, there are apparently also no peasant organic intellectuals. A class-based exclusivity, which is of course not found in Stirner wherein anyone has the potential for becoming egoist, thus pervades which preempts, indeed denies, anyone termed a peasant from being an organic intellectual. The same exclusivity was of course also adopted earlier by Marx, who portrayed the peasant