Description
The crisis-ridden early 21st Century arguably represents a critical historical juncture, relatively susceptible to active interrogation of dominant ideas and institutions, as well as the social movements forming its vehicle and catalyst. Their long-term prospects for mobilising social resistance hinge on their capacity for critical reflection that at least appears to offer a deeper truth and fuller ground to human aspiration. A case-study of the residual social network generated by Occupy London explores the conditions of – and obstacles to – such capacity. A deep-rooted radical-egalitarian, anarchist-influenced sensibility energises and democratises its ‘co-creative learning’ project. At the same time, an increasingly digitalised, networked and algorithmically tailored ‘knowledge environment’ is especially conducive to eclectic modes of interpretation, and susceptible to the intellectually satisfying reconstruction of imperfectly hidden elite conspiracies. Such a conspiracist tendency is a product of (i) the available materials and tools of oppositional speech-acts, and the forms of cognitive processing they favour, (ii) the regressive amplification of algorithmic filtering, (iii) a penchant for the eclectic per se borne of anarchist sensibilities, and (iv) the unconscious reproduction of hegemonic codes of interpretation presupposing extraordinary individual autonomy and instrumental rationality.
