hydrarchist writes:

The Gamer-Refugee: searching 'Autonomy' in Gamespace(Revised)

[J.J.King / jamie@jamie.com]

In the 1944 text Homo Ludens, the Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga argued that Homo Sapiens was no longer an appropriate name for our species: now the playing, rather than thinking, man had become key to a proper understanding of civilisation. 'All play means something,' claimed Huizinga. He attempted to invigorate a philosophical interest not only in the games of children, but also in ‘adult’ games: chess, sport, theatrical plays, plays on words and so on. Games were an acknowledgement of the existence of ‘mind’ in the world, a force that intervened in (what would otherwise be) ‘the absolute determinism of the cosmos’ (1).

Huizinga would presumably be pleased that this interest in games is finally stirring in the world of the academy – and yet, since his text was produced, the idea he advances in his final chapter about the increasing ‘systematization and regimentation’ of play seems increasingly potent (2). How would Huizinga have seen the computer game, for example, one of the most popular forms of play today, and one produced by corporations for the enjoyment of consumers – one, in other words, in which play takes place as a commodity form? And is the philsopher right to suggest, as he does at the end of Homo Ludens, that this form – insofar as it is a ‘profane’ and ‘unholy’ form of play far removed from the original ludic impulse - ‘has no organic connection whatever with the structure of society’ whatsoerver? (3)

hydrarchist writes :

Spinoza's
Anti-Modernity

Antonio Negri

Translated by Charles
T. Wolfe. This article first appeared in Les Temps Modernes 46:539
(June 1991). It is printed in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal Volume
18, Number 2, 1995. Hacked from it is printed form and publicized by korotonomedya
in May 2002.

1. Spinoza, the Romantic

The paradox marking Spinoza's
reappearance in modernity is well known. If Mendelssohn wished to "give
him new credence by bringing him closer to the philosophical orthodoxy of
Leibniz and Wolff," and Jacobi, "by presenting him as a heterodox
figure in the literal sense of the term, wanted to do away with him definitively
for modern Christianity"—well, "both failed in their goal,
and it was the heterodox Spinoza who was rehabilitated."1 The Mendelssohn-Jacobi
debate can be grafted onto the crisis of a specific philosophical model. It
generates a figure of Spinoza capable of assuaging the exacerbated spiritual
ten­sion of that epoch, and of constituting the systematic preamble of
the relation between power and substance—between subject and nature.
Spinoza, the damned Spinoza, had a resurgence in modernity as a Romantic philosopher.
Lessing won out by recognizing in Spinoza an idea of nature which was capable
of balancing the relation between feeling and intellect, freedom and necessity,
and history and reason. Herder and Goethe, against the subjective and revolutionary
impa­tience of the Sturm und Drang, based themselves on this powerful
image of synthesis and recomposed objectivity: Spinoza is not only the figure
of Romanticism; he constitutes its grounding and its fulfillment.

hydrarchist writes:

This is an interview conducted by a participant in the Generation mailing list with Hobo, an Italian militant.

* Am I right in thinking that the panther movement (a wave of
university occupations in 1990, so named because it coincided with
the escape of a panther from Rome Zoo) caused an expansion and
de-ghettoisation of the social centres? Did students get involved
with the social centres at this time?

Yes, even if the the panther movement marked just a beginning of the
longer process of de-ghettoisation. Which can be considered
accomplished, years later, with a big opening up to "civil society"
and its heterogeneous component (grassroots associations, NGO's,
catholics, etc.). We can say that a big boost in this sense was given
by the Zapatistas after their first "encuentro internacional" where
they introduced the concept of "enlace civil". Going back to the
panther, yes they brought a real renewal in the social centres,
giving vital energy and wiping out that diffuse sense of defeat. Many
new social centres (actually, most of the existing social centres)
were occupied in those years by the panther students themselves.

Anonymous Comrade writes "

What's Gnu: RMS on UnitedLinux, Free Software

Richard M. Stallman is the founder of the Free Software movement that created the basis of the GNU/Linux operating system. Since founding the project back in 1984, Stallman, known by the community as RMS, has spent his time programming and promoting free software in the hopes of eliminating the need for non-free software completely. RMS graciously agreed to be interviewed by OfB's Timothy Butler. You can find the interview, in full, below. .

Open for Business: Would you give our readers a brief summary of what Free Software is and how it relates to Open Source Software?

Richard M. Stallman: Free software is the name of a category of software; it is also the name of a movement.

The "free" in "free software" refers to freedom, not price. A program is free software if users have certain basic freedoms in using it. You should have the freedom to run it as you wish, the freedom to study the source code and modify it to suit your needs, the freedom to redistribute copies to others, and the freedom to publish an improved version. The freedom to sell copies is also included. If the program allows users these freedoms, it is free software.