hydrarchist writes "This essay was recently republished in Make World 2, Magazine.
Nothing appears so enigmatic today as the question of what it
means to act. This issue seems both enigmatic and out of reach--
up in the heavens, one might say. If nobody asks me what political
action is, I seem to know; but if I have to explain it to somebody
who asks, this presumed knowledge evaporates into incoherence.
And yet what notion is more familiar in people's everyday speech
than action? Why has the obvious become clothed in mystery?
Why is it so puzzling?
Virtuosity and
Revolution,
The Political
Theory of Exodus
Paolo Virno
According to a long tradition
of thought, the realm of political action can
be defined fairly precisely by two boundaries. The
first relates to labor, to its taciturn and instru-mental
character, to that automatism that makes
of it a repetitive and predictable process. The
second relates to pure thought, to the solitary
and non-appearing quality of its activity. Political
action is unlike labor in that its sphere of inter-vention
is social relations, not natural materials.
It modifies the context within which it is inscribed,
rather than creates new objects to fill it.
Unlike intellectual reflection, action is public,
geared to exteriorization, to contingency, to the
hustle and bustle of the multitude.