Session 1 Reading
Ahoy!
I’d like to kick off with some pretty light reading that’ll kick that sludgey summer brain into action. We might be able to discuss at our first get-together sometime in the week of Feb 18th (will post a Facebook event). Without further ado:
Light reading
- ‘Why oh why, Gen Y, are you so nauseatingly conservative?’ – opinion piece lamenting the apathy and conservatism of our generation. What about contemporary society makes us this lazy – are we too comfortable and affluent, too many other distractions, or are more insidious forces at work?
Approx reading time: <10 mins
- ‘If Star Wars was written by environmentalists…‘ – an entertaining 5 minute YouTube short pointing out how tactics used by the environmental movement is becoming ineffectual. Worth reading are the two responses to the video. How can we develop relevant, new forms of political expression and resistance to engage contemporary society?
Approx reading + watching time: <10 mins
For the Daring
- Robert W. Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’ in Millennium Issue 10, vol 2, 1981 [recommended by Amelia; searchable through the library website] – very lengthy, fairly rambling piece on how different theories in international relations approach analysing systems. What might be of interest is the section from p.131 (about halfway: “the generalised form of the framework for action postulated…”) to p.135 (until the section “Frameworks for Action”), particularly the bit about critical theory. Might be relevant in thinking about how we might like to locate our forms of political expression, dissent etc. within a wider political/cultural/socioeconomic context. E.g., can we ever truly subvert capitalist discourses? etc.
Approx reading time: >30 mins
Happy reading!
- G.
Simmonds’ article is quite amusing, and certainly an opinion I’ve heard expressed again and again by both X-gens and older as well as many within the Y-gen age bracket. I’ve also heard a few people though (especially on the Australian Student Environment Network road trip around New South Wales) who have praised our generation as the light at the end of a dark conservative tunnel of (funnily enough the X generation). This seems to reflect to me, the as ever, dangers of generalising a whole generation according to information and interactions filtered through an increasingly conservative media. Are we just believing about our selves and our communities that which we are told, and leaving out investigation any deeper than second hand, surface level, information?
In saying that – I’m interested in discussing the strengths and plausibly falsely hallowed successes of previous civil disobedience, the problems with radical activism when mechanisms have even developed to counter its effectiveness (police/ state violence, media silence etc) and the simultaneous dangers of being absorbed in the ‘soft pillow’ of the hegemon, if demands aren’t aided by some kind of activism based around group disobedience for agency.