ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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As we
consider transcending the
State we may begin
to
draw
connections between the particular form of injustice in question and the lack of
direct democracy throughout society as a whole. It is vital to articulate specific
ways in which current state governments inhibit citizens from participating
directly in determining the policies that affect their lives. In turn, we must also
show how the lack of confederal forums deprives us of informing the
unfolding of events outside our own municipalities and throughout the world.
In thinking through the issue of life-patenting, we recognize that
disruptions caused by such practices are not exclusively local in nature. 'Within
the age of global capital, we see that there exist few uniquely local problems
as currents of capital and state power flow throughout towns, cities, states, and
countries the world over. Although corporate, governmental, and regulatory
institutions that control the collection and storage of genetic materials operate
within specific localities, these institutions function within an international
system
of trade,
production,
regulation,
and policy making
which is
tramiiMional in character.
In die reconstructive moment, we would begin to explore how to
transcend the State by creating a new politics in which citizens have direct
control over technological practices such as biotechnology. We may illustrate
how, by replacing the State with a confederation of directly democratic
municipalities, citizens would empower themselves to discuss and decide
scientific matters that affect not only organisms and people locally, but globally
as well. In the reconstructive moment, then, the criticism and analysis of a
particular form of hierarchy opens die way to elaborate the broadest
understanding of non-hierarchy possible.
III. Tl-IE IlluSTRATiVE MOMENT
The illustrative moment represents an opportunity to inspire others to demand
the sufficient social and political conditions for a free and ecological society. It
is the forum in which we inspire others to move beyond the scope of a
particular crisis,
to demand self-determination within a broader political
context. It is die moment to create oppositional forums in which we may ask:
What does life patenting have to do with democracy? Or, what does abolishing
patenting have to do with creating a utopian society?
Illustrative opposition should compel ecological activists to reach for new
connections between social and ecological issues and their authentically
political implications. Each moment of illustrative opposition to state practices
for instance, should point to the wider demand for authentic direct democracy.
Illustrative opposition allows us to highlight a particular moment in which we
have no direct political control, raising awareness of our lack of policy-making
control in general The illustrative moment explains by asking questions.