I’m planning to continue this series and have some different thoughts about things that I want to look at, and so have taken a moment to reflect on where it’s gone so far. It feels like there’s something like a rationalist kernel with regard to some discussion of the refusal of work, as though Negri and others feel that this is a kind of truth, that there’s something ontological, or more accurately probably, anthropological, in the refusal of work. There’s a truth to it, they feel.
Whilst that is an attractive thought in many ways, it’s also both elusive and maybe unnecessary. It might cause more problems than it’s worth. I began to think about work because it was increasingly present in conversations, although this reflects little more than personal idiosyncrasies. Still, it’s a concept that is troubling as soon as one actually begins to think about it. It’s a very unnatural concept in some ways. It’s richer than I first thought, perhaps.
Anyway, still partly thinking in terms of a text about work, I did a rough review of the posts so far to see what they’d look like, in some shape, in hand, as it were.
To that end I made up a zine of selected posts, roughly grouped together and with my comrades in Plan C in mind to some extent. We have a gathering coming up, and I wanted to take something along, as well as continue a new interest in making print zines.
The result? A print zine due in the post and a PDF I can make available. The zine will go up on my Kofi shop alongside Razorsmile #4. The PDF is a going to be on my website, and I’ll link that soon.
(UPDATE: here’s the PDF of the zine)
In the meantime, I came across this interesting and useful introduction to Negri’s work, which I’m posting here as a kind of research material associated with this series. I might begin to do more such notes if I decide to gather a bibliography together for something.
Part 1 here:
Part 2 here: