From #OccupyWallStreet to #BlackLivesMatter to #MeToo, Twitter is now recognized as an important medium of progressive activism. But while hashtags may be the quickest way for anyone to tap into the turbulent and frenetic world of online social justice discourse, their record for building the sort of institutions that can build popular power is an unbroken pattern of defeat.
The source and the critique don't really seem to take Habermas completely when it comes to the "bourgeoisie public sphere". Fraser narrows it down to the public sphere not being inclusive enough, while Amber doesn't seem to understand where the bourgeoisie nature of the public square's origin makes it terminate. Habermas's whole point was that commodification of society would naturally lead to the collapse of the public sphere. The same forces that originate the sphere, the bourgeoisie, eg the free press and printworks leading to higher literacy rates would come under the eye of production panopticons when the capitalist drive looked for the next marginal utility.
The larger point, and I think someone like Deleuze is relevant here, is if the proletariat will be class conscious in the way Marx thanks it will be, if capitalism is the lived reality informing the subject (also the object of Mark Fisher's pessimism RIP). Amber mentions that Ida B Wells understood power, which lead to the formation of the NAACP, but of course the NAACP has been well co-opted by the market. Being offline certainly doesn't guarantee any panacea either, if understood in this fashion.
The source and the critique don't really seem to take Habermas completely when it comes to the "bourgeoisie public sphere". Fraser narrows it down to the public sphere not being inclusive enough, while Amber doesn't seem to understand where the bourgeoisie nature of the public square's origin makes it terminate. Habermas's whole point was that commodification of society would naturally lead to the collapse of the public sphere. The same forces that originate the sphere, the bourgeoisie, eg the free press and printworks leading to higher literacy rates would come under the eye of production panopticons when the capitalist drive looked for the next marginal utility.
The larger point, and I think someone like Deleuze is relevant here, is if the proletariat will be class conscious in the way Marx thanks it will be, if capitalism is the lived reality informing the subject (also the object of Mark Fisher's pessimism RIP). Amber mentions that Ida B Wells understood power, which lead to the formation of the NAACP, but of course the NAACP has been well co-opted by the market. Being offline certainly doesn't guarantee any panacea either, if understood in this fashion.
I'm not sure what the answers are.