“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

I spent the weekend at the Left Forum. It was my first time, and it turned out to be a most curious developmental experience. After an exhausting Saturday, I felt lost and out of place. I’d been to panels on dialectical thinking (with Bertell Ollman, who was delightful), prison reform (with Robert Hillary King, one of the Angola 3), the Right to the City (with my folks), and left psychology (where Robert Lichtman made a favorable impression). I was feeling ambivalent about my belonging. Each group was interesting, but they seemed so much more focused (narrow and deep) than I, so I felt out of place. The feeling continued through Sunday, where I attended panels on ecosocialism, marxism v. anarchism, and Herbert Marcuse and liberation philosophy. Every group clearly had their tight circle, and I wasn’t a part of it. But at the same time, I understood basically what they were about and found the discussions engaging, even if I was not prepared to contribute this time. Fortunately, I sought out the opportunity to share lunch with Peter in City Hall Park, where we wound up chatting with Simone Buechler and Erik Swyngedouw. This grounded me a bit, especially when Erik was advocating for being an intellectual as opposed to an activist at this time, since I felt his generally dismissive attitude toward political action was not entirely to my taste. At the same time, I fully embraced his suggestion that the left needed positive content rather than simply critique.

When I returned home, things finally seemed to settle down. I realized that though I wasn’t at home in any particular panel, I had certainly been among an incredibly large number of people with the same general goals. I had, in effect, participated in a political movement (of some sort), and my disorientation was a product of taking in the larger left landscape. So, I’ve come to the (perhaps momentary) conclusion that I simply have to embrace my heart’s desire and move forward as, in Lionel McIntyre’s words, an activist intellectual.

It also became evident to me that the discursive move for me as an activist intellectual is to develop the Liberating City. It would mean reclaiming “liberty” (and opposing Marx’s critique of bourgeois values), but I think it would have discursive and philosophical advantages. Discursively, it is language I heard repeatedly during the conference. Cindy Milstein was arguing that she prefers the term “liberation socialism” to “anarchism”. Arnold Farr was exploring the relation between Herbert Marcuse’s concept of liberation with liberation theology. And the city has always been a place of liberation. Capitalism got its real start through the liberty the bourgeoisie found in the cities to follow their hearts’ desires. In the modern city, our anonymity grants us renewed freedoms. Cities have often been the site of battles for liberty, e.g., the French Revolution and Iraq (though not the American Revolution or the Vietnam War). Plus, “liberating” carries with it the sense of a fresh breeze and a weight a weight lifted, something everyone seeks. Theoretically, it moves beyond the Just City and the Right to the City. The latter is framed essentially as an entitlement program, which is an absolutely correct political framing for disadvantaged groups, but it ignores the other side of rights: obligations and duties. The Just City is also fine in so far as it strives to define a city in which equality holds sway. However, while many people can relate to it, the concept of justice entails an orientation toward conflict rather than resolution. And more importantly to me, it seeks merely a material, productivist equivalence and ignores (or at least postpones) the deeper development of the individual and her society. It ignores liberation.

So my next project is clear. I will trace conceptions of liberty in historical utopias with special attention to the role of technology in facilitating its realization. And hopefully I’ll be able to develop some “positive content” for the future.