A day’s exploration event to explore the art of resistance — both a honed craft and a creative output. This event is made up of two parts. We will begin with an afternoon panel discussion (noon–1 pm) exploring the history and enduring relevance of ‘protest songs.’ In the evening (4–5 pm), we will be treated to an excerpt of an award-winning performance centering on the work and legacy of Nina Simone. While we encourage you to attend both the panel discussion and the performance, you are welcome to join either part individually. Find out more at www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/events/songs-of-resistance-panel-discussion-and-performance
As normal in #Oxford, this is a VERY #mainstreaming path to talk about protest music and songs. Kinda interesting, but completely missing the grassroots and the creative mess that comes with “native” paths of protest music and songs.
They don’t talk about the grassroots: Greenham, “you can’t kill the spirit”, would hold the police at bay as long as the women would sing. At rainbows gathering, word of mouth intentional gatherings that have been happening in hundreds of countries for the last 50 years. When the police arrive to evict the thousands of hippies squatting on the land they surround them to hold hands and singing at them, this is often affective at confusing, stopping and mediating the police violence.
The tactical and the strategic, they only talk about the strategic.
They do talk about the shaping of funding of art and how it is a force for #blocking
This is my reaction from the talk, have not read the book.
In The Forever Crisis, the author presents complex systems thinking as a framework for addressing the world’s intractable challenges, particularly at the level of global governance. The book critiques the traditional top-down approaches that are pushed by powerful institutions like the #UN, highlighting how these solutions are a mismatched for complex, interwoven issues like #climatechange, security, finance, and digital governance.
One of the core issues raised is that global governance structures are failing to keep pace with the crises they are supposed to address. Traditional approaches “silo” issues, handling them in isolation, which makes it hard for messy interconnected challenges to be addressed in a holistic way. For example, while climate change is universally recognized as a priority, the complex “network of governance” is fragmented, leaving institutions like the UN and #IPCC struggling to effectively drive change. These traditional, siloed paths reflect a short-term vision, prioritizing superficial “silver bullet” solutions over systemic, transformative approaches.
A complex systems approach, likening effective governance to networks such as the “mushrooms under the forest floor”—resilient, interconnected, and adaptable. Rather than rigid, top-down mandates, this metaphor supports creating flexible, networked governance structures that can adapt to shifting crises. The notion of cascading solutions is key here: solutions should ripple across systems in a way that amplifies positive outcomes, rather than relying solely on isolated, large-scale interventions.
The talk highlights how unready we are for institutional preparedness and adaptive governance, with the importance of adaptability in governance, particularly in preparing for shocks, both anticipated and unanticipated. Using COVID-19 as an example, he critiques the over-reliance on “luck” rather than robust structures, suggesting that governance systems must be nimble and interconnected enough to absorb shocks without collapsing. Currently, we have a fasard, the UN and other agencies are trying to act as “confidence boosters,” convincing themselves of their own effectiveness.
Challenges to implementing complexity in governance, despite the potential of complexity theory, the talk raises significant questions about implementation. Power structures are deeply entrenched in traditional governance systems, making it difficult to shift away from rigid, reactive models. Further, financial systems tend to funnel resources into quick-fix solutions rather than funding long-term, adaptive responses.
My though, about the talk on mainstream solutions, touches on an essential question: can the existing structures within the “#deathcult” of neoliberalism actually provide the transformation we need? This perspective aligns with the book’s critique, questioning whether today’s dominant structures can truly embrace a complexity-oriented approach to governance. To solve this I focus on #Indymediaback, #OMN, and #OGB as grassroots projects which underlines an alternative that prioritizes local, networked, and community-driven solutions—a departure from the centralized and out-of-touch responses typical of global governance.
The book’s focus on complexity theory as a tool to facilitate self-organizing, resilient systems could be a powerful argument for the decentralized path I advocate. This framework validates the idea that change might be more effectively driven from the grassroots, where diverse actors work in networked patterns that reflect the natural resilience seen in ecosystems.
The talk:
Join Thomas Hale, Professor in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, and Adam Day, Head of UN University Centre for Policy Research in Geneva, as they discuss Day’s newest book The Forever Crisis.
The Forever Crisis is an introduction to complex systems thinking at the global governance level. It offers concepts, tools, and ways of thinking about how systems change that can be applied to the most wicked problems facing the world today. More than an abstract argument for complexity theory, the book offers a targeted critique of today’s highest-profile proposals for improving the governance of our environment, security, finance, health, and digital space. It suggests that we should spend less effort and resources on upgrading existing institutions, and more on understanding how they (and we) relate to each other.
My thinking and notes.
Its the #NGO crew talking about my subject, this is a professor and the #UN secretary generals adviser. Start with basic complexity, telling a normal story.
Globalisation drives complexity, the nudge theory, the network of governance which we have to manage. Use the IPCC as a tool, but this is a mess. The argument for big solutions, top down is a bad fit for complexity thinking. The solution is tendicalse? Or the mushrooms under the forest floor, network metaphor.
Shifting tipping point, to shift change
Long problems demand complexity, current risk is undervalued
Transformative global governance, or our current global governance could go extinct.
We have a anufe data, for AI to be used as early warning “advising” governance.
So this is main-streaming looking at change and mediating the challenge. Whether it works at all is an open question, looking unlikely looking around the room.
He says we can’t co-operate, and in his terms this is correct. The solution is to try and “trick” the current systems to work together, don’t think he gets beyond this.
UN women calls the current path a failer, and that this is ongoing, but MUCH more urgent now.
In the report, the silos were knitted together, but nobody understood this, so then it was unpacked into sloes so that people could accept it.
The conference that did this report, was in a large part a confidence booster that the current systems could actually work. This is a very small step. No war was won.
The is a consensus that the current process is failing, and needs to change to challenge the current structures. The problem of re-siloing, the crumbling of bridges as they are being built, the outcome the establishment is still blocking the needed bridging.
For him, the ideas don’t create transformation. They spent a year going over old agreements, the new issues were not focused on. This was a problem of trust and transparency. So the whole process was knocked back a year.
Is this change easer or harder during crises? We tend to think that crises creates flexibility, but he argues they hold together stronger when change might be happening? She points to the defence crotch, that change is being blocked by the crises, it’s complex.
Are any of the current institutions fit to governing #AI
Finance funds silver bulite solutions rather than long term solutions. Quick fix, fixes nothing, its funding pored down the drain. His solution is a real cost on carbon if we can get the spyware command and control right to make this work.
On chip verification, hardcoded spy and control in our chips… now this is a very #geekproblem idea.
Can the states raise to work, she says we hope so 🙂 as the is no alternative 🙁 we won’t states to work, in partnership with the private secturer… we need the UN to preform its function, that partners with other actors, private structure, civil society etc.
Capacity building is 10% of the climate budget, this is about writing PDF’s, the people doing the change are simply not there.
Q. on the time to act, with the example of Gorbertrov and the claps of the Soviet Union.
Resilience is not a good thing, if the thing that is resilients are paths are not working.
Can we bake in a long term path into current decisions?
How can we change the existing system so that it balances?
The word leadership, that individuals playing a role, to be the change, is a subject that excites them.
My question would have been, the #deathcult – is the any actors or forces outside this cult – that you see could be the change we need?
He, Cascading solutions across the system fast enough to be the change we need?
She, better preparedness for the shocks, so we can pull together. To deal with issues we have not anticipated. We are not there yet.
Speaker: Peter Feaver (Duke University) As the United States heads into a high-stakes presidential election, this seminar series explores the structural problems and political challenges behind the headlines. We examine why American politics is so polarised and ask: what is at stake in the 2024 elections?
The seminars will open with a short presentation by an expert, followed by questions and discussion. Everyone with an interest in US politics is welcome. Lunch will be available
Week 1 Foreign Policy, with Peter Feaver (Duke University). How has foreign policy shaped this election, and how will the outcome affect America’s role in the world?
My thoughts:
Food is good, naked concrete building. The people are young with a smattering of middle-aged and less than a handful of old.
The provocations are mainstream threads. Totally conservative liberal balance, nothing outside this, its a insider career building seminar.
I did not intervene, as I don’t see the kindling as dry enough to start a warming fire. To nurture our souls and spark our minds into any action., maybe next time.
First impression is that everyone is very shiny and affluent, young academics and future bureaucrats.
Looking at how location affects revolution challenge and state repression.
Safe but infective in rural areas, close to power in urban areas revaluations have more impact but are much more dangerous for the revolutionaries.
State capacity is a key.
It’s very academic about classification, and adding numbers and maths to this. Interesting but like most Oxford events there is little connection to the subject talked about.
There is value here but l am struggling to find it.
I ask about Putin Russia and the possibility that he feels the will be a weakening of the state when Putin dies, but feels it will be an elite fight, which might open a space for external forces.
I would look at it as the suckups and the grassroots rather than urban and rural? But this would not be academic based on data’ish
The common issue with these Oxford seminars, is outlined in my notes, this is the disconnect between academic discourse and the real-world challenges faced by activists and movements. Here’s a breakdown of the key problems I have highlighted:
Co-optation of activism: Both right-wing groups and NGOs have co-opted the concept of activism without understanding or utilizing its purpose and path. This leads to a distortion of its original intent.
Assumption of liberal path continuation: Much academic work assumes that the liberal trajectory will persist, despite mounting evidence from climate science indicating otherwise. There’s a failure to acknowledge the urgent need for alternative paths in the face of #climatechaos and its social and economic ramifications.
Lack of focus on future paths: We need studies examining potential future trajectories led by both the hard right-wing and progressive left. This is particularly relevant given the likelihood of a post-apocalyptic scenario for many equatorial countries due to #climatechaos.
Disconnect from real-world activism: The events are to, often status games rather than meaningful discussions about addressing the pressing issues. There’s a failure to engage with the messy realities faced by activists and movements on the ground.
Academic feedback loop: The feedback loop between academics and activists is flawed, with academics relying on poor sources and engaging with #fashionistas rather than those actively “working” in grassroots activism. This results in a caricatured understanding of activism and its challenges.
Irrelevance of academic thinking: Academic thinking needs to be criticized for being detached from the practical realities faced by activists. That it’s focused on building consensus and engaging in definition games rather than addressing the substantive issues.
In summary, the common issue is the disconnect between academic discourse and the lived experiences of activists and movements, leading to a lack of relevant insights and solutions to pressing real-world challenges.
Join Worcester College Provost, David Isaac CBE, as he interviews leading role models about their lives and careers.
Bridget Kendall MBE has spent over 40 years as a BBC journalist, joining as a graduate trainee in 1983. She was BBC Moscow correspondent from 1989 to 1994, covering the final years of the Soviet Union and the first years of post-Soviet Russia. She was BBC Washington correspondent from 1994 to 1998 during the Clinton Presidency. From 1998 to 2016 she held the senior role of BBC Diplomatic correspondent, reporting on major global trends and crises, and analysing their impact on Britain and the world.
Kendall was the first woman elected Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge in 2016. She was appointed a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 2020, the same year in which she was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. She is also an Honorary Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford and Lady Margaret Hall. Her awards include the James Cameron Award for distinguished journalism, a Bronze Sony Reporter of the Year award, a special award for International Reporting from the Political Studies Association and an MBE in the 1994 New Year’s Honours list.
A Cambridge child studies #Oxford to study Russian, she goes onto the BBC
This is the #mainstreaming view of history. How much should we move away from the current mess? What other history’s can we tell, what is a useful and safeish path next, as this current path is ending.
How would you change if the message from the top changes.
Although cattle and sheep were central to the everyday lives and wellbeing of Bronze Age communities in northwest Europe, they are strangely lacking from our narratives of the period. After the Neolithic, it seems, archaeologists rarely consider domestic animals to be interesting. However, Bronze Age people clearly thought otherwise, as the careful deposition of complete and partial animal bodies in graves, pits and ditches suggests. The traces of cattle and sheep are present in other ways too, in hoofprints around waterholes and in landscape features like droveways that appear at this time, but we too rarely consider what such evidence can tell us beyond the economic significance of animals and their products. Integrating multispecies and posthumanist perspectives that highlight how living with animals involves intimate interaction and interdependency, we ask how it might be possible to explore the role of cattle and sheep as active participants in Bronze Age social worlds. By reconstructing the intertwining of people and animals in life and death, we can consider how together they generated Bronze Age worlds of work, sociality and meaning.
The impact of #colonialism, this narrative, has shaped our history. We need to decolonise this excerpted story.
#Animals as economic and status significance, rather than looking at animals in their own sense. Living with connection to them, Proximity to Humans, animals sharing houses.
Science and isotopes
Wild animals. In twining human and animals lives in the Bronze Age.
Arcology of ideology, shifting our view away from the current mess. Searching for care and community in human history, agenst the modernist view of individualism and hierarchy. Can bone, stone and layers of soil tell this story.
Can we learn about human relations from animal study’s.
“Irregular” #migrants moving along the Western #Balkan Migration Route aspire to competing visions of Europe, and Europeanness, and along their journeys they encounter multiple competing, overlapping, or intersecting political projects. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in #Slovenia since 2021, this presentation will explore how various imaginaries of Europe are instantiated in the wake of Yugoslav socialism, EU integration, and an ongoing “migration crisis.”
Fun workshop on the European activist times, interesting, but not sure if much use on the subject of immigration.
#Academics, playing the determination game, is long and dull and more about statues games. As with most of these events the subject is scanned over and all the knowledge is in these statues, definition games rather than the subject itself, it’s a meta conversation.
Friendly parasite’s, sometimes it’s useful for activism to have same #mainstreaming to point at when talking to authorities. But the issue is the normal, academics talk to #fashionistas not the people who get stuff done, so it’s a caricature you end up pointing to, but one the “authorities” can relate to, a useful mess. That becomes a real problem when this becomes the history of the movement. A bad feedback loop that we keep repeating, and we are in now
The right-wing and the #NGO crew have both coopted the idea of activism with some of its traditions and without any use of its purpose and path.
This academic aproch looks at gender and the shift to liberal norms and what effect this will have on the current patriarchal governments in the Middle East
Good points from a economist about the coal transition as a starting point for studies like this. The is unseen prier art.
This studie has the normal issue of the sustainabity of the unexamined political middle, this assumption is unlikely to hold in the next 20-30 years. As we see today a hard shift to the right, which at best will open space for a shift to the left.
So much of this thinking and academic work assumes that the liberal path will continue, with no understanding that this is an unreasonable path if you look at the scientific data of climate change and its social and economic outcomes
What we do need is study’s of the next hard right-wing and progress left paths. With the issue in mind that the more likely path is post apocalyptic “Mad Max” world for meany of the equator countries. This applies to the Middle East, the subject of this studie.
With growing #climatechaos even this above “normal” politics is likely only possible for the non equator countries, for large parts of the planet the norm will this
Q.can the Middle East manage this shift in any real way?
My view: Seeing these people, in the room, as self blinded evil would likely be an understatement. They are fixated on status in the current world, the shift we should be talking about does not exist for them yet. The politeness, in #Oxford, is unkind at best in this growing mess.
14:00-15:00: Nick Stevenson (Nottingham): Democratic Socialism, Degrowth and the Commons: Raymond Williams, Marxism, and the Anthropocene
15:00-16:00: Martin Crook (UWE Bristol): Marx and the Ecocide – Genocide Nexus
16:00-16:30: coffee break
16:30-17:30: Esther Leslie (Birkbeck):
Marx between Fire Theft and Theft for Fire: On Land
(and Everything Else) as Social Product
17:30-18:00: Conclusions by the organisers Laura Langone (Oxford/Verona) and Bernhard Malkmus (Oxford)
This event is organised by Dr Laura Langone, Visiting Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford’s Sub-Faculty of German and funded through Dr Langone’s MSCA FUNDS
NOTES from – Marx and nature
Surface time of capitalism, discipline and exchange, exploitation. This is always a revolutionary time.
The time of labour
Deep time, geographic, sea trade roots have lasted thousands of years, with a few new ones the big canals and coming up through the melting ice.
Eastry’s, brackish water, delves into queer humanitarians.
Environmental time meeting the human time of #climatechaos industrialisation, the ghrate accelerations, profits and tax. We do not yet live on the high sea.
Ships are never far from land when at sea, a confined and highracical workspace. Your life world is the same as your work world. Seafarer are pricernares of logistics on boats.
Next speaker
The inventured of economic growth in socialist thinking, Stalin pushed this, catchup and overtake the west. An organisation that become economised, over politics, state capitalism. Technocratic.
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I come from an academic background, but I would call my self now a more Organic intellectual
This often invokes fear in academics. Our fear of this kind of knowledge is very modern, we live in fear filled times.
* live on a boat in the “commons” of the waterways, one of the last parts of Europe that have this pre-modern vagrant life.
* But work in technology, where techno fetishism is endemic amongst what I call the #geekproblem
– In the nortical terms the captain and crew, as was sead earlier a master and slave relationship is core to this thinking with the coder as master and the computer as slave – us the users, digital surfs – our role is to fill the information flows with “content” to facilitate harvests data and attention for control of the (#geekproblem) masters and profit of the capitalists.
These people, who increasingly run and control large parts of our lives, are very hard to talk to, it’s my job to do this, and I find it increasingly difficult to cross this tech/social divide.
In technology this is taking us back to pre-modern social relationship of feudalism.
How would Max think of these issues?
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Boat life – I moor to university land on water controlled by a government agency EU that used to be enforced by the local counceal – they are in dispute on who has responsibility to nobody is taking control, so I live outside the laws in tempery “commons” this a lot of this on the waterways.
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Growth ideology was invented in the 17th century
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Willions an English eco-socialist, radicalising the UK labour movement, self-management tradition
post-modernism raises its head as in everything is socially constructed in modern sociology. Inherent materialism rejects this path.
Rejecting the Green New Deal as a pro capitalist path.
The politics of place, European Union and Brexit rejecting globalisation
Worry about the legacy of Marxism
In the margarines the is a real issue of scale and for social change we need to scale up.
A British socialist vs a communist approach.
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The #OGB is a balance approach, so no dogmatic group will except it. If a small group of people implemented the #OGB the majority of groups would expect it as it bridges the groups. We have to get this past this initial blocking of the dogmatists.
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neo-liberalism of climate change
Lemkin the annihilation of a group – genocide – the end of a social group.
Imperialism is a form of genocide, the imperative to expand.
Eco- criminogenic of capitalism
The human race is the indigigumes people and neoliberal capitalism is pushing genocide over them in the next 100 years. Capitalism might continue without the bulk of current humanity.
In Australia only modes of production that are useful to the capitalist state are keeps all the rest are exterminated, by bureaucracy or more forceful means. Exclusion from the means of production.
Extreme energy – is going to push the mess into every corner – driving #climatechaos
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The event was interesting, but had its moments of sectarianism and had thinking about the issues based on Marx, but no path to take or much of a sniff of a path out of the current mess.
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The small genocide of the boater community is a small example
The neoliberal pushing of #climatechaos will genocide large parts of humanity over the next 50 years in the service of an idealogical that might survive this mess, but our cultures and meany of our peoples will not.
Sheep devouring men – the clearances. Indiganalerty.
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Marx and nature,
Plant has a natural and an industrial meaning.
Unattractive work, the factory syteam of labour separating human labour from their selves, alienated labour.
The Irish famine, sol exhaustion, British imperialism in Ireland.
Professor Erica Chenoweth will explore the puzzling decline in the success of civil resistance movements in the past decade, even as unarmed movements have become more popular worldwide. The findings have implications for the future of nonviolent alternatives to armed struggle, as well as to the ability of pro-democratic movements to defeat authoritarian challenges.
Erica Chenoweth is the Academic Dean for Faculty Engagement and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, Faculty Dean at Pforzheimer House at Harvard College, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. They study political violence and its alternatives. At Harvard, Chenoweth directs the Nonviolent Action Lab, an innovation hub that provides empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation.
Creative messy thinking
Structured rigid thinking
Over the last 20 years we have moved from the first creative messy at Greenham Common Peace Camp and 1990’s road protests thought to the turn of the century anti globalisation movement.
Then this started to shift with the very affective protest movement Climate Camp, with pushing in process geeks ossifying the process and direction. To a hard shift of the occupy movement, process and organising on #dotcons social media.
As this lecture illustrates, the last ten years activism of all forms has been failing, likely due to in part to this shift.
Academic thinking is a part of this, giving rigid thinking strength to push on to messy activism.
Why is academic thinking so bad and irrelevant? “Getting it done people” have no time or interest to talk to academics, they are to focus on the hard mission of “getting things done”. Who the academics and journalist end up getting their data from is way to often wannabe #fashernistas do, in this academic knolage, and the journalism that feeds it, is “manurist” and not helping, and harming a lot of time.
Arriving early, the panel and audience are ugly broken people, priests and worshippers of the #deathcult
Near the start the young and energetic start to flood in, eager and chatty yet to be broken by service of the dark side of #mainstreaming
The ritual of making killing “humane” and “responsible”, ticking the boxes on this new use of technology in war, repression and death.
Touching on the “privatisation” that this technology pushes to shift traditional military command.
The exeptabl rate of collateral damage 15 to 1 in the case of the IDF Gaza conflict
Introducing human “friction” into the process, the means to the end, is the question. Public confidence and trust is key to this shift, policy is in part about this process.
The establishment policy response to AI in war, this is already live, so these people are catching up. They are at the stage of “definition” in this academic flow.
The issue agen is that none of this technology actually works, we wasted ten years on blockchain and cryptocurrency, this had little value and a lot of harm, we are now going to spend ten years on #AI and yes this will affect society, but is the anything positive in this? Or another wasted ten years of #fashernista thinking, in this case death.
Artificial intelligence (#AI) into warfare raises ethical, practical, and strategic considerations.
Technological Advancements and Warfare: The use of AI in war introduces new algorithms and technologies that potentially reshape military strategies and tactics. AI is used for tasks like autonomous targeting, decision-making, or logistics optimization.
Ethical Concerns: ethical dilemmas associated with AI-driven warfare. Making killing more “humane” and “responsible” through technological advancements, can lead to a perception of sanitizing violence.
Privatization of Military Command: The shift towards AI in warfare leads to a privatization of military functions, as technology companies play a role in developing and implementing AI systems.
Collateral Damage and Public Perception: Collateral damage ratios like 15 to 1 raises questions about the acceptability of casualties in conflicts where AI is employed. Public confidence and trust in AI-driven warfare become critical issues.
Policy and Governance: Establishing policies and regulations around AI in warfare is crucial. Defining the roles of humans in decision-making processes involving AI and ensuring accountability for actions taken by autonomous systems.
Challenges and Risks: The effectiveness of AI technology in warfare draws parallels with previous tech trends like blockchain and cryptocurrency. There’s concern that investing heavily in AI for military purposes will yield little value while causing harm.
Broader Societal Impact: Using AI in warfare will have broader societal implications beyond the battlefield. It will influence public attitudes towards technology, privacy concerns, and the militarization of AI in civilian contexts.
Balance of Innovation and Responsibility: Whether the pursuit of AI in warfare represents progress or merely another trend driven by superficial or misguided thinking #fashernista thinking with potentially dire consequences.
In summary, the integration of AI into warfare demands ethical, legal, and societal implications. The goal should be to leverage technological advancements responsibly, ensuring that human values and principles guide the development and deployment of AI systems in any contexts.