Blog Post #4: Whose Network? Whose Outrage? Whose Hope? Whose Democracy?

So, I must be honest before I launch into this blog post. I'm not sure there's another text this semester that I've had more difficulty reading than Manuel Castells' Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. My difficulties with the text (I believe) did not emerge so much from issues of comprehension or affinity with content and ideas as from questions about style, audience, and intention.

In short, Networks of Outrage and Hope attempts to articulate and theorize the terms through which protest, advocacy, and revolution materialize in the "real world" in the 21st century, and how such activities are spurred by Internet enclaves of dissent and collective action. Castells is particularly interested in the ways in which movements of this kind are, on the one hand, addled by the crippling weight of economic insolvency, and, on the other hand, mobilized by an overwhelming and united sense of outrage and scandalization at related misuses of state power that perpetuate social, cultural, and political inequalities. This outrage, in Castells' estimation, serves as the catalyst for rather profound and potent sentiments of hope, sentiments that ultimately espouse the efficacy of the Internet as a host for legitimate social activism and a space in which likeminded individuals might work together and make wholesale, systematic changes in the "real world."

That being said, I did find many of the premises of Castells' arguments a bit dubious, particularly in light of the texts we have read up to this point in the semester. Indeed, while the case studies that Castells analyzes in the text (Tunisia, Iceland, Egypt, etc.) perhaps in some way attest to the veracity and potency of the paradigm he constructs in Networks of Outrage and Hope, I did not always feel as if he attended to enough of the complexities of articulating a "one-size-fits-all" paradigm. To be clear, though, I give Castells more credit than that, as I do trust that he might also be flexible as he continues his research. I just find it a bit problematic when he states things like, "By sharing sorrow and hope in the free public space of the Internet, by connecting to each other, and by envisioning projects from multiple sources of being, individuals formed networks, regardless of their personal views or organizational attachments" (2).

On the one hand, I understand the rhetorical purpose of using terms like "outrage" and "hope" to apply to radically different and disparate individuals and communities, whom form these sorts of digital collectivities "regardless of their personal views or organizational attachments." I mean, commonalities and overlapping interests across difference(s) can certainly help expand what constitutes "collective action" and extend membership to such a collectivity to a wider and wider population, right?

On the other hand, by perpetually gesturing to these shared interests, Castells might overlook the virtues and ethics of preserving and keeping in mind that which distinguishes one manner of "outrage" and "hope" from another. In an effort to stoke the fires of collective action, I fear that Castells tacitly stabilizes human experience and activity in ways that could "ghettoize" expressions of "outrage" and "hope" that do not conform to his own designations. And while the case studies perhaps seek to make such distinctions clearer, they still serve as instruments and/or premises for his larger argument in Networks of Outrage and Hope, and his efforts to construct a paradigm around these case studies. Not to mention, his reference to "the free public space of the Internet" presupposes levels of accessibility to not only the content available on the Internet, but also the Internet and digital technologies themselves. Castells attempts to address this at particular points throughout the book, but not, in my mind, in a sustained enough manner that would truly allow readers to imagine as global a reach for his paradigm as he suggests.

These omissions and/or underdeveloped components of Castells' argument are made all the more apparent in his casual investment in the prospects for "democracy" within and outside of the networks he represents in his book. On one of the final pages of Networks of Outrage and Hope, he writes, "The legacy of networked social movements will have been to raise the possibility of re-learning how to live together. In real democracy" (246). It is important to note that the legacy of Castells' project rests on a deficit model that suggests that the social, cultural, and political relationships and power structures that comprise communal life in the 21st century are broken and/or untenable in terms of enacting systematic changes. While I generally agree with Castells on this point and don't necessarily find this terribly provocative, I find myself terrified by the way in which he suggests that a "real democracy" might somehow spur authentic and valuable revolutionary activity and change. By harking to "democracy" in this way, he may perhaps be seeking to re-claim or re-purpose the "colonizer's language," so to speak, but this intent raises important questions about the relative "capital" of a term that has been bandied about in the Western world within neo-colonial and peace-making endeavors. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if Castells' general conceit in Networks of Outrage and Hope is not only to unpack various case studies but also construct a more universal paradigm around the fruitful relationship between the Internet and the "real world" in terms of enacting change and advocating for social justice, it might behoove him and us if he used a more inclusive (and less Western?) term to denote all of this.

I don't mean to give Castells such a hard time, really, but I can't help but be at least a little prickly when I engage with writing that conveys liberatory ideas in such a prescriptive, totalizing manner. What I found as I was reading Networks of Outrage and Hope, is that Castells (like myself in this blog post) generally articulates many of these ideas in the passive voice. Which is to say that while he takes pains to deduce and arrive at his claims, these claims tend to take on a rather direct, colloquial, and implicit form that undermined the part of his project that sought to construct that universal paradigm. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

The networked social movements of our time are largely based on the Internet, a necessary though not sufficient component of their collective action. The digital social networks based on the Internet and on wireless platforms are decisive tools for mobilizing, for organizing, for deliberating, for coordinating and for deciding. Yet, the role of the Internet goes beyond instrumentality: it creates the conditions for a form of shared practice that allows a leaderless movement to survive, deliberate, coordinate and expand. It protects the movement against the repression of their liberated physical spaces by maintaining communication among the people within the movement and with society at large in the long march of social change that is required to overcome institutionalized domination (Juris 2008). (229)

Perhaps I might be in the minority of readers who are less inclined and comfortable embracing the liberatory potential of theory when it appears to become more and more invested in certainties and definition, but I hope (there's that word again) that my views and critiques are taken with a grain of salt. My goal in this blog post was not to tear Castells down and/or undermine his overall project in the book. Rather, I have merely sought to avoid taking theory as axiomatic or inherently true, to push back against those components that seem to depart from the author's lofty project, and to meditate upon the sorts of terms that might be used to promote more inclusion and differentiated representation within and outside of universal applications.

Rage Against the Machine - "Testify"