If you’re starting up a political movement and want to get the asses into the seats — and then out into the streets — it’s helpful to have a stirring manifesto.
Here’s the opening of the Communist Manifesto.
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
That’s pretty good, you gotta admit. Like the start of an action movie.
And then there’s the classic opening of our own Declaration of Independence. Not quite as dramatic, but pretty damn stately. It starts off with all that “[w]hen in the Course of human events” stuff, and then, BAM:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That is, like, really quotable and shit.
Well, our old friend Fidelbogen has been doing some manifesto writing of his own. Let’s see how his new manifesto stands up against these classics.
The Manifesto of Coalition JS38
JS38 – Operational Overview
JS38 is a coalition of politically conscious non-feminist groups and individuals. The name itself is a random character string which serves only as an identification tag. As a project, JS38 is designed to overcome the problems which labels often generate – such problems as branding, false grouping, conflation, stereotypification, message degradation and the like.
What What WHAT?! You’ve named your movement after A RANDOM CHARACTER STRING?
Fidelbogen apparently thinks he’s writing a manifesto for robots.
Let’s see if he can pick up the pace a bit in the second paragraph:
We recognize that we are in a contest to sway hearts and minds.
Yeah, nothing wins hearts and minds faster than random character strings.
We recognize that this contest is played out on the field of public rhetoric – by which we mean things popularly said and heard. We strive, accordingly, to craft a message as well as we are able.
Dude, I hate to break it to you, but you are about as talented at crafting messages as I am at ballet dancing. The difference between the two of us is that I don’t post videos of myself trying to ballet dance on the internet, while you have a blog entirely — if inadvertently — devoted to documenting your failures to “craft messages” with any kind of skill. (And of course there’s your amazing Twitter account.)
The operation of JS38 will boost and clarify the signal of our selected message and cut through the background noise. In this way, the message will gain a more individuated presence within the public discourse.
Uh, see what I mean? Then Fidey, having set forth no reasons whatsoever for anyone to get involved in his little project, gets into the nitty-gritty of how it will work:
Members of JS38 (called “signatories”) are aligned with each other under the terms of a Prime Constitution – a list of points that encompass a mission, a code of principles, and a practical worldview.
He continues on in this fashion for approximately one million words (rough estimate). Here are some more snippets, to give you a flavor:
JS38 is neither a moral collective nor an organization in any sense, but only a joint intellectual effort to distill a message signal, and to differentiate this from what other feminist-averse groups and individuals are transmitting. …
If we establish that an octagon is an eight-sided geometrical figure, the truth of that message remains uncompromised by the messenger. Even if Stalin or Caligula declared that an octagon was an eight-sided geometrical figure, it would not become a nine-sided or seven-sided figure. …
The points in the Prime Constitution are not listed in order of priority, and there is no linear progression of ideas from one item to the next. However, the items do form a loose holographic unity. …
Ideally, every sub-constitution would list its entire chain of linkages, leading eventually back to the Prime Constitution, which is deemed canonical. In the end, this would generate a pyramidal structure of variations which cascade from the Prime Constitution. …
We value self-containment and aplomb in our spoken and written communications. Furthermore, we believe it is good practice to “think like a lawyer.” …
We define our method as query-based rather than theory-based – although it is true that we theorize. But feminism owes us answers, and not the reverse. Thus, if we declare that “feminism is x”, we are expecting proof that feminism is NOT x, and shall expect our concerns to be sensitively and respectfully addressed. …
If a particular idea is not expressly stated in this document, it cannot be attributed to the document. Equally, however, it cannot be said that the document excludes it. …
We seek to bring about a decolonization of the non-feminist mind. To that end, we claim an epistemic standpoint independent of feminist discourse, and from said standpoint we develop a counter-discourse. …
We assert the prerogative to define feminism in absolute terms in the light of our own study, regardless of feminist objection to such a proceeding. Simply put, feminism categorically IS what WE say it is. …
We assert that feminism is like a product that must be sold, and that nobody is obligated to buy. …
I’m thinking that Fidelbogen’s He Man Antifeminism Club 4NtevaSh — sorry, “Coalition JS38“ — isn’t going to be making a lot of sales itself.
CassandraSays – Hm. Good question.
Is it possible to leave notes if you see a sentence that could be improved?
Kitteh — that’s up to you guys, I write code, not blogs!
Shadow — oh that was you? Thanks!
^”Publish” is my opinion, not an order. 😀 I can see how we need to work out some procedures about proofreading and editing.
serrana – Cool, thanks. 🙂
I don’t mind if other people want to read it too. I’ll go edit in the content note first though.
If you put your notes in <!– notes go here –> they should print out as a hidden comment.
I think that’s a great idea. We can just highlight our comments in red and then the author can remove them prior to publishing.
Does everyone have Word? There’s a feature in there where you can make changes as you pass a document around between people that could be useful if anyone is feeling nervous about a particular article and wants extra help. In general though I feel like a. this is a literate enough group that only minor editing should be needed and b. if we introduce more content-based editing then we’re going to get into arguments about whether person y is censoring person z and changing what they’re trying to say. Plus that kind of editing is a much more significant time commitment (which is why I was avoiding Argenti’s question about whether or not I was volunteering for it before).
Scratch that – Argenti’s suggestion is much better.
CassandraSays – Track Changes, right?
My problem with that is that it requires sending each other Word files. There’s metadata in that (e.g. you can see the user account name, and I use my actual legal name as most other people), and if your computer has viruses, you can get infected by accident.
I don’t have Word, but I have a software that came with my installation of Ubuntu that is very similar. Unfortunately, it probably doesn’t have that feature. Maybe Google Docs instead? IDK
Argenti – Ah yeah, the hidden comment option for HTML! 😀
I’d totally sneak in song lyrics when I write things. 😛
I like Argenti’s comments idea – . That way, if someone accidentally leaves one in, it doesn’t show in the published view. We could highlight them, too, just to make sure they’re easy for the author to see.
@ Alice
Yeah, that’s kind of getting into the level of editing that I’m not sure we want to be doing, although I wouldn’t object to doing it for some people (Argenti already has my email, for example). If at any point we’re recruiting contributors outside the core group who all know each other then I’d definitely raise some red flags about security in terms of passing documents around.
This is in WordPress, right? There should be a way to do editing on the back end there by giving people administrative rights, it’s just not going to be as clean as Track Changes would be.
Haha, I copypasta’s Argenti’s html and of course it executed and is thus invisible. Take 2:
I think this is a good idea – <!– notes go here –>
Google Docs could work, but I think Argenti’s suggestion with the hidden comments would work better. I think it’ll work better if we don’t have to be flipping around between sites; that could get really confusing and we’d have to work out even more protocols surrounding the issue.
(Oh also hi 😀 I am doing this thing too now, super excited!)
There should be a way to do some of this in GoogleDocs too iirc, although again most people have their real name exposed there.
CassandraSays – Exactly. It’s a bit more … let’s say intimate … than doing it all on WordPress. I trust you guys, but still, not about to put my legal name here yet.
I definitely do endorse the idea though. That way our comments won’t accidentally show up when it gets published (although it’ll definitely show up if someone were to view the page source).
* the hidden comments idea. DAMN YOU HTML.
I’d rather keep things to one platform (WordPress) if at all possible. I use 2 gmail addresses for one thing, one for my blog that doesn’t have my last name in it, and one for everything else, and it gets awkward to log in and out of them for things like this.
Yeah, I remember when Argenti posted zir spreadsheet of statistical data for the MB survey, and I saw zir email address and name together because it showed the creator of the spreadsheet. So Google Docs is a no-no unless we can make it as private as possible.
Cassandra — do you want me to add you? I mean, I can always do it later if you want, but yeah, I’m not terribly keen on massive edits outside someone specifically asking someone else for it.
serrana — you need $amp;lt; for it to convert to < — you missed the semicolon
damnit! And I go and type php code!
I meant — <
Ah, thanks Argenti. You told me that a while back and I couldn’t find where I had saved it.
CassandraSays – I know with Google docs you can totally have multiple people editing at once, but of course, privacy issues and the “I need to jump pages now?” problem.
I have three different Gmail addresses: the one I use here (which uses my pseudonym on WordPress) and two private ones. Too easy to get confused.
@ Argenti
Can you add me without exposing my name and so on? I’m not super familiar with WordPress so I can’t remember how that kind of info would display there.
(Was using a different platform last time I was involved in a start-up mag)
Also, we need a protocol for who gets to make what changes to avoid personality clashes and upset feelings. Is everyone OK with having whoever notices a spelling or grammar error fix it? Because I’ve had experiences in the past where I fixed someone’s (really super obvious) grammar errors and they felt like that was “censorship”.