[Reader-list] on identification and social control

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

"How do people on the list imagine 'freedom'?"
Responding to Rana's question (provocation!) is fairly difficult. Why?

At one level if we start with the tension between `freedom of one` 
and `freedom of all`, one finds oneself in a thought quagmire where 
constant evidence is mobilised to heighten this unresolvable 
contradiction.  This mode of thinking makes for a feeling that we are 
chasing an impossible whenever we are refering to `freedom`.  And 
there is that `grand uncle` called state who seems to be there to 
look on and regulate this tension. In this mode, the word tends to 
get mired in a `negative` connotation and in effect legitimises a 
centralised focus of social and economic regulation.

With the unfolding of the 20th century, the word `freedom` did 
acquire many different meanings and events forced even newer 
meanings. Discourses of `national self determination`, `national 
liberation', `independence` did use this word, but dropped it soon 
enough. And the rhetoric of the cold war effectively managed to 
institutionalise and deeply ideologise the word, rendering it almost 
un-available for alternate imagining. Words like `social justice`, 
`civil liberties`, `democratic rights`, `human rights` provided for 
more firm grounds to think and critique institutional and social 
practices and protocols. And on the other side the marketing managers 
found a new mantra called `choice` to electrify the masses. (at least 
they think have won all minds and hearts with it).

In a world which is getting increasingly knitted within a plethora of 
very restrictive and abrasive `state-corp` rules, regulations and 
enforcements one will need to search for words, cluster of words that 
effectively allows for a conversation between diverse and different 
`producing-suffering-resisting-desiring` subjects within an 
increasingly networked social dynamic.

However, the present juncture provides for an interesting bend. 
Within this specific moment the trajectory offered by the practice of 
making code freely available, modifiable and distributable should be 
considered seriously. What is very significant is that it is able to 
workout a notion and practice of `freedom`. But, the biggest danger 
here will be that this practice of `freedom` - to be creative, to 
share, to be inventive, to be curious, to be exploratory - tends to 
gets obfuscated by categories of ideological `negatives` of "do not 
do this", "do not do that" - whether it is about using browsers or 
using a GUI interface! This culture of `negative` reprimands eats 
away at the creative core and makes for disagreements based on hard 
beliefs and not based on actual exploration and creativity.

Cheers
Jeebesh
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