Suprapolitical Protocol and Political Ecology for The Age of Big Data
originally written for ARCH+ magazine
The notion that the Political is fundamentally different from the Politics was introduced by the German political theorist Carl Schmitt.
The Political is a domination as a result of an agonistic struggle. It is an instalment of the subjective set of the norms that statically define the matrix of acceptable socio-political reality and claims the monopoly on the political imaginary. This matrix is a conscious imaginary which provides axiomatic set of values, the fundament of the reality. A set of values can be, in the contemporary context, the nuclear family, a national state/culture or the concept of geopolitics. The market of the Political as a professional discipline is based on defeating adversaries and winning the ultimate prize of power.
Politics, on the other hand, is an everyday human activity, that is rooted in the dialogue for synergic co-living. Politics is healthy when exercised, cared for and thought about by all the citizens regardless of profession, just like brushing teeth. If Politics is not done in this manner, it will be replaced, quite like in the contemporary moment, by the theatre of the Political domination. The checks and balances in any political system are meant to serve the primary goal of controlling the extent of the accumulation of domination by professional actors in Politics. The confusion of Politics and the Political leads to driving the perception of imaginary into the unconscious and gives the green light to populism and extremist forms of exercising power.
The current socio-political imaginary matrix of a nation state is in decline. The resurgent nationalism, imperialism and racism are reactions to the fear of the annihilation of the nation state. The drive for accumulation of political power in order to control the perception of reality has to be classified as the core enemy of future politics.
The land-bound geopolitics as a fundamental design principle of political relations is limiting the potential exploration of other aethers [Ancient Greek αἰθήρ, “upper air”]. Aethers are substances of specific physical properties, which can be used for platforming the systems of relations between political agents. To allow alternative political imaginaries to thrive, we suggest the introduction of Suprapolitics [Latin supra, “above”, and Greek πολιτικά, “affairs of the cities”], a future protocol of universal equality of all viable platforms for the political relations.
All aethers share the potentiality of shaping the common imaginary because any socio-political is imaginary and unnatural. Introducing these alternatives into the academic, professional and public discussion is essential for unlocking the imaginary from the fixation on the present form as the only possible politics.
Aeropolitics is the political design principle charting the political relations among citizens using the subjectivity of the aether of air. Aquapolitics can structure political relations among citizens using the subjectivity of the aether of water. Kenopolitics principle of political design based on the subjectivity of the aether of vacuum. Cyberpolitics principle of political design charting political relations among citizens, including post-human and non-human intelligences, using the subjectivity of the aether of artificial neural networks.
The availability of big data for the citizens creates a unique opportunity for self-organisation of the political space beyond the assumption of the natural character and the exclusiveness of the current order. Our societies need a framework of the political ecology as a set of fundamental principles that protect social relations from corruption by the accumulation of political power. It is currently achievable, much akin to the ecology of nature, only in micro-communities, where an overarching trust can be established. An example of a micro-community is the Platonic polis of 5040 citizens on the land, or a Facebook account of around 5000 friends in the cyberspace. Larger groupings lead to the inevitable conversion of the direct democratic principles into corrupted representational systems. This in turn results in a further usurpation and accumulation of political power - turning the democratic into ochlocratic, war into peace and slavery into freedom.
Politics is an area that would benefit from protocolled, data-driven, decentralised innovations to create a system that allows for the coordination of the citizens’ acts of negotiation about the subjectivity of the experience of the real. It might eventually allow us to leave the vicious circle of violent events of the introduction of new norms and the win-or-lose struggles for overall domination by yet another group of the power-hungry agents. Politics, as seen through the prism of ecology and protocolled equality of imaginaries, is a space for impactful common actions, synergised through the decentralised cooperation between citizens.