things that stick

BC: I’m interested in history, so I wanted to ask you about your immediate history with the publication of Change the World Without Taking Power (2002) but also before that your involvement in the journal Common Sense (1987-2003) in Edinburgh in the 90s.

In an editorial in #10 the editors write:

“The producers of Common Sense remain committed to the journal’s original brief – to offer a venue for open discussion and to juxtapose written work without regard to style and without deferring to the restrictions of university based journals, and they hope to be able to articulate something of the common sense of the new age before us. Common Sense does not have any political programme nor does it wish to define what is political in advance. Nevertheless, we are keen to examine what is this thing called “common sense”, and we hope that you who read the journal will also make contributions whenever you feel the inclination. We feel that there is a certain imperative to think through the changes before us and to articulate new strategies before the issues that arise are hijacked by the Universities to be theories into obscurity, or by Party machines to be practised to death.”

I wonder if you could say something about this struggle to work within and outwith the academic world? How does that work for you?

JOHN HOLLOWAY: The other side of universities being converted more and more into edufactories for the rapid production of skilled but uncritical labour power is that critical thought and interesting discussion are migrating. The important events and debates are increasingly taking place outwith the walls of the universities – in the Big Tent, of course, but also in countless other political-theoretical events and meetings. Certainly there are still some critical spaces within the universities, and for those of us who work or study in the universities, it’s really important to turn every space into a critical, anti-capitalist space. The best way of doing that is probably to think of ourselves as working in-against-and-beyond the universities. I think this was the idea behind Common Sense, and we take it up in the journal I’m involved in now in Puebla, Bajo el Volcán. The whole discussion catalysed by Change the World has illustrated this for me: I’ve discussed the book in lots of university settings, but probably even more in meetings with groups of activists. More and more, universities are turning into obstacles to serious thought and discussion, but it is still possible to break through these obstacles.