Coming back is always a pensive affair. I feel a sense of loss.

Life is fast. We are so comfortable with the blur of speed that when we stop for a moment clear vision seems to us distorted: surprise trips to the emergency room, little betrayals we failed to anticipate, moving on after a struggle, holding a newborn baby, stories that move us to tears, annual events and landmarks that remind us that we are slowly dying. It is in these moments that we feel the force of life’s tow and we want to change ourselves with equal haste: to be a better friend, to find more love, to defeat a bad habit, to do something that people will remember, to be a good person, to really appreciate life.

We’re getting older now. We’re caught in the tide.

When you have nothing you can feel the excitement of possibility. When you have something you clutch and feel the anxiety that precedes loss.

We want so much but are allowed only a sliver.

This is the reformist motto: “Yes, things are bad, but it’s not too late!”

Hope can be transformative, but can also trap us in dialectical struggle. 

Something will always be bad, and whatever it is at a given moment is what will receive the attention of the elite. And what is the steady reply? We’ve got to work harder, ride the storm, persevere. But wait, good things are paraded by the elite as well, right? And this inspires complacency. We look at things as better and worse and believe we must strive toward the better. In a local context–where better and worse are value judgments rooted in community dialog–this is true. In a broader context–where better and worse become abstractions–this kind of thinking is paralyzing.

Blind faith in the possibility of perfection keeps us stuck in mediocrity. We need to keep ultimate goals in mind while working on our immediate situations. Abandonism offers this solution: utilize local resources to effect change on a level proportional to our constituency. By circumventing institutional channels we sacrifice the phantom of widespread change for feasible local improvements. This does not mean we ignore the institutions; we still put pressure in the right places to keep the tyrants at bay, but our chief concern is how we can make local improvements.

The importance and feasibility of change are inversely proportional to degrees of separation from the self. The most important and most likely locus of change is yourself. Then your family, your block, neighborhood, city, and region. We suffer the same misperceptions at each degree: make a good thing better, or overhaul it completely. Reformers of self advocate topical change without confronting life issues, and self revolutionaries offer pipedream self help advice.

We must abandon dichotomy. In the filth of crisis lie the minerals needed for growth. Basic Abandonism says this: we do what we can with what we have. No matter the locus of change, we start by asking what do we have?

As soon as we take for granted that there are better and worse ways of doing things, we create a hierarchy that implies perfection at the top. I’ve written that “modern society has a predilection for centralization;” modernity obsesses over perfection by collecting what are perceived as the best ways to do things into what is perceived as the best structure. The result is a “crippling singularity [that] does not reflect the complexity of the human experience.”

This is monolith culture–contrived singularity legitimized by the assumption that the best will rise to the top. This assumption is dangerous because it is self-legitimating and therefore disconnected from experience. If the idea that the best rise to the top is at the top then it is taken for granted as the best idea about how things work. But widespread belief is no indication of validity. Further, we have plenty of evidence in the wrongs of society that the best do not rise to the top. So the main function of this idea is not to actually describe reality, but to legitimize authority. 

Those who happen to be in power become those who should be in power.

This is monolith culture. Let’s use celebrity as a concrete example: a relatively small number of entertainment professionals are idolized by a relatively large portion of society. Their positions of power are taken for granted as evidence of their virtue. But, again, this is self-legitimating and therefore disconnected from experience. Popularity is no indication of talent. Celebrities are not the most attractive people, the most talented people or even the most entertaining people. But this idea of the best rising to the top has given birth to the phenomenon of superstardom.

Those who happen to capture our attention becomes those who should capture our attention.

This is monolith culture, and it exists at the cost of the vernacular. We have a corrupt republic instead of community forums. We have Coca-Cola instead of local flavors. We have struggling state schools instead of community education. We have Safeway instead of farmer’s markets. We have police instead of tight-knit neighborhoods.

We have Brad Pitt instead of a local hero.

Last night I dreamed I was back in Chicago. It was dusk and I was walking in the loop. I was supposed to meet up with a group, but I knew they would take a while, so I just started walking. Three blocks passed without notice. I found myself on East Wacker overlooking the purple reflection of the setting sun in the Chicago River. I walked west along the water, and I could feel the city. The towers gave me calm, the rush hour excitement made me still, and that strange purple light put me in awe. I felt solid.

Authoritarian assholes:

So I missed the debate and the Pilsen Interactive Media Project wrap-up, because I went over to Oakland for the opening night of Critical Resistance 10. I’m excited about the next two days of the conference, and I’ll make a more substantive post about it later.

Back in the city of fog, I hopped on my computer to try to find YouTube coverage of the debate. If you’re in a similar situation, click here for the entire debate chopped into nine chunks.

While I was watching, I found something interesting in the related videos. Let’s take a moment to remember the good old days:

Sandy Witkow and John Greenberg are doing something incredible: they’re offering vernacular election coverage. I remember hearing them talk about their plans months ago when I was still living in Chicago and thinking too good to be true, not gonna happen. But they were serious, and they have worked hard to bring you the Pilsen Interactive Media Project. In their words, here is what they stand for:

Interactivity: If you have a webcam and an opinion, you can be a pundit for our coverage; our producers will maintain an open chat room and prep our viewer/participants for on-air commentary.

Open-Source: Our coverage will be built on the Web 2.0 foundation, and we’ll be checking in with commentary coming in from the blogosphere’s most influential voices, live-blogging Election Night.

Relaxed Atmosphere: While I may end up wearing a tie for the broadcast, the Pilsen Interactive Media Project will slash the pomposity and stiffness of regular network news, making our coverage of election a fun and laid-back free-for-all. Heck, we’ll be taking a shot every time we call a swing state for Obama!

Honesty (not necessarily objectivity): While mainstream media outfits make the 20th century claim of objectivity and “fair and balanced coverage”, we understand and are upfront about who we are and our perspective. We’re 20-somethings from Chicago, who do you think we’re voting for? With that said, we understand that nobody’s purpose is served by spin and lies, and since we’re only answerable to our viewer/participants, we’ll trust you to correct us if we express nonsensical views.

This is a fantastic example of the vernacular–using local resources to meet local needs. With little more than a computer, a projector, a hacked wiimote and a Ustream channel, these guys are circumventing network television. By reappropriating local resources, they are decentralizing power in order to create a viable local structure that provides a superior service with increased accountability. It’s free. It’s honest. You can participate. These are the benefits of vernacular structures.

So, when does it start? Tomorrow night after the presidential debate! Here is the info they have provided:

To participate in this rehearsal, visit our website  after the debate (approximately 9:30CDT/10:30EDT/7:30PDT).  We’ll be doing about an hour of live commentary, reviewing highlights, and bringing you live into our living room in Pilsen. You can contact us through Gmail or Aim: PIMPLiveLine or Skype: PIMPLiveLine for video-conferences and VOIP calls.

Here’s a problem: reformists end up playing by oppressor’s rules, forming factions, and marginalizing minorities; revolutionaries become zealots who need to convert an army before they get anything done.

Here’s the underlying problem: change is slow, because people change slowly. Reformists want change that requires the consent of the very people responsible for why things are the way they are now. This means they have to change minds, and that happens only little by little. So reform happens only little by little. Revolutionaries, on the other hand, work outside the system, which means they need to have a significant power base before they can challenge the system. This means they have to change minds, and that happens only little by little. So revolution is only possible in extreme situations where people are suddenly drawn en masse to radical means.

Here’s what we have in the United States: a situation too oppressive to abide, yet not so tyrannical that it incites riots. So the reformists try to mitigate the damage, and the revolutionaries waste their time protesting party conventions. It’s a stalemate.

Abandonism offers a solution. Reform and revolution both involve convincing other people that they should do what you want them to do. Abandonism involves finding people who already want what you want, and implementing it directly on a scale proportional to your constituency. The job of the abandonist is not to convince people that they have unforeseen needs, but to use local resources to meet preexistent local needs. Large institutions are bad at meeting local needs. Abandonists develop vernacular structures as alternatives to institutions. By turning the the vernacular, we can circumvent oppressive institutions, the result of which is a renegotiation of power gives us more control over our lives. And we can do it without being zealots, because results will speak louder than ideological appeal.