From: Dirk Schuck <dirkschuck@googlemail.com>
Subject: Note on 2 important questions raised in the discussion so far
Date: July 9th 2010

Hi Everyone,

on Thursday there were two interesting questions brought up at the end of our discussion, which I want to keep hold of, because I think they can somehow be enlightening and because the discussion today already moved on to other important, but different perspectives.

The first question I mean was:
What is a form-of-life regarding (its) reality? (I mean "form-of-life" in a descriptive everyday-sense, and not in the strong agamben sense)
 
- What I think can be helpful here is to ask, whether we should see the question of "forms-of-life" as a critical perspective on reality itself. Because what is kind of interesting is to realize the fact, that "form-of-life" is a totally marginalized term in the public and academic discussion on crisis diagnosis and solution right now. And in my opinion the reason for this is precisely, because asking the question of "what form of life do we live in today?" or "what form of life do we share?" can be a very enlightening question, that is somehow avoided by the main discourses of crisis diagnosis right now. Therefore to raise this question has an enormous critical impact. So my answer to this in short is: "form-of-life" is a (critical) perspective on reality.

The second question I mean referred to the life-in-limbo text, namely to the following passage:

These two perspectives on the same crisis obviously call forth two different ‘logical’ responses. While the reaction of zombie-liberalism makes sense according to its own (undead) logic, the logical response to the crisis of social reproduction is perhaps a strategy of commoning. This would be a defence, creation and expansion of resources held in common and accessible to all: expanding public transport, socialising health care, guaranteeing a basic income, and so on. This type of strategy would achieve two linked and essential goals. First, it would address our immediate fears of losing our livelihoods – because it would create spaces where social reproduction becomes possible outside the crisis-ridden circuits of capital. Second, it would counter the atomisation caused by three decades of neoliberal subjectivation in markets – just as engaging in market-based interactions tends to create market-subjects, engaging in commoning tends to create ‘commonistic’ subjectivities.

- I think what is very important in this passage, and what we haven't discussed so much by now, is the question of the "how" of a different and better, maybe more social kind of state or let's better say: governing. In my view this passage is clearly a call for a different, not-neoliberal and better kind of governmentality and this is a question that should be discussed very urgently for the state will change, and the question is how and how to influence this process of change.

I just wanted to make a note on this and share it with you, so that maybe we can discuss this stuff during the next week.

Best
Dirk



  
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Dirk Schuck
Kirchhofstr. 13
12051 Berlin
0049-(0)30/25589913