Activism, commodified
3 stars
While reading the book I kept asking myself: I agree with every single component of O'Brien's thinking – then why does it “feel” so wrong?
Here's my tentative answer:
Using ideas and concepts taken from Barad, Wendt etc. out of their original context creates the risk of misinterpretation. E.g. “quantum” and “entanglements” are not understood as phenomena at the scale of people, communities etc., but as the “original” microscopic quantum phenomena somehow influencing macroscopic reality. This creates a false sense of tangibility when we are really talking about quite abstract ideas.
Even more importantly, there is no sense of how to apply her ideas. There is just no explanation or evidence for actual “fractal patterns that both resonate and replicate at all scales”, just the de facto metaphor of the fractal pattern repeated again and again – which means at the very heart of the book, there is a giant …
While reading the book I kept asking myself: I agree with every single component of O'Brien's thinking – then why does it “feel” so wrong?
Here's my tentative answer:
Using ideas and concepts taken from Barad, Wendt etc. out of their original context creates the risk of misinterpretation. E.g. “quantum” and “entanglements” are not understood as phenomena at the scale of people, communities etc., but as the “original” microscopic quantum phenomena somehow influencing macroscopic reality. This creates a false sense of tangibility when we are really talking about quite abstract ideas.
Even more importantly, there is no sense of how to apply her ideas. There is just no explanation or evidence for actual “fractal patterns that both resonate and replicate at all scales”, just the de facto metaphor of the fractal pattern repeated again and again – which means at the very heart of the book, there is a giant gap.
The book is also very noticeably written from a privileged perspective, from which non-linear change seems to “just happen”, without regard for the often brutal processes involved in making it happen.
This makes her ideas even less relevant for real political struggles. In the last chapter, O'Brien poses the question: “Your argument about changing thinking and changing practice is rather ahistorical and ageographical, and so what about the real, variable constraints many people face in thinking and acting anew in places such as Russia, Brazil or Myanmar?” She really has no answer to that beyond “yes, it’s hard”.
In short, O'Brien's perspective and proposals are superficial and deeply apolitical – it's activism, commodified.