Strange Loops

I just finished reading The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman (published 1980). This activist, revolutionary, brilliant guy embodied the heart of the 60s, and indeed embodies the heart of all activists fighting against a corrupt, messed-up system.

Abbie Hoffman was a smart kid born in 1936 to an Ashkenazi Jewish family that was assimilating into a somewhat anti-semitic America right before World War II broke out. Kicked out of high-school, he was a trouble-maker and a hustler early on. His parents managed to get him into a fancy academy to finish high school, which brought him to college at Brandeis.

There he ran into some big name teachers, like Abraham Maslow for psychology, Herbert Marcuse for political philosophy, Leonard Bernstein for music, Eleanor Roosevelt for foreign affairs. He ended up getting his masters in psychology, coming out of Berkeley right at the birth of the 60’s. He saw Castro speak. The CIA had just been born and was already pulling dirty tricks abroad. Students were demonstrating. Allen Ginsberg was composing poems right across the bay (they later would become friends).
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Praxis, n.
1. The process by which a theory or lesson is put into action.
2. The synthesis of action and theory; a dynamic process recognizing a reciprocal relationship between theory and practice.
3. Free, self-conscious, authentic activity practiced by free persons, as opposed to alienated labor.

The term comes from Ancient Greek, where Aristotle defined it as direct action, distinct from theoretical knowledge (theoria) and production (poiesis). Specifically, praxis for Aristotle was an activity that was good as an end in itself (for its own sake), whereas poiesis was an action that was good as a means to another end (e.g. economic activity). Praxis is informed by theoria, putting theory into action.

That is, praxis is an informed, deliberate action, not just habitual custom. It directly contributes to a flourishing life, rather than being an indirect means to a later end.

Sartre distinguished praxis (action) from the practico-inert (the structure or context in which that action happens, which builds out of and informs praxis). “Speech acts are praxis, whereas language is practico-inert; social institutions are practico-inert but the actions they foster and limit are praxes” [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]. In other words, our institutions, ideas and social structures are powerless and meaningless without considering the praxis that instantiates and informs them. This leads to a feedback loop where our actions create their own contexts — we create the structures of our world, and that in turn shapes our actions. We reshape our world by interrupting this loop, inserting new actions deliberatively.

Finally, I’ll take this opportunity to plug sf0, a collaborative game that takes place in the real world, the virtual world, and its players’ minds. Players complete tasks — ranging from the simple to the absurd to the illegal to the transcendent — in order to level up and gain access to more tasks. It’s action for the development of character, community, chaos. Check out the praxis to look at some recently completed tasks.

Someone in Maryland has been secretly replacing ipods inside their boxes with culture-jamming ransom-style notes.

Quote: “Reclaim your mind from the media’s shackles. Read a book and resurect[sic] yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage go to your nearest Apple store.”

Personally, I think this little act of poetic terrorism is well-intentioned and pretty harmless, so I say more power to whoever is doing it, and may you continue your spree without getting caught. Yeah, it may have been an annoyance to the end consumers, but maybe it caught their (or someone else’s) attention. Getting someone to stop and think (or giggle) for a moment is worth slowing them down a day or two on their latest quest for expensive consumer goods.

[story via BoingBoing]