5. When our dependence on the collective is not brought to our attention, it moves out of view. The idea of independence derives from the invisibility of our dependence.
6. We are able to see our dependence on the collective when the source of our sustenance is withdrawn--power goes out, food doesn't appear on shelves.
7. We organize collectively because of common concerns. (Concern: To have to do with or relate to; To be of interest or importance to; To engage the attention of, involve; To cause anxiety or uneasiness in; To be of importance. From Latin concernere, to mingle together, from com + cerenere, Latin to pass through a sieve, or to determine.) Without concerns, we do not organize.
8. We have to be bugged by something to organize collectively. What bugs us may be the spectre of starvation or the desire for dignity and justice, or a lack of venue in which to share an enthusiasm for model trains, or a fear that property value will fall. If we were truly individual-cum-independent, there would be no need for organizing.
9. My concerns, the things which bug me, are singular but stem from what is shared. What part of "me" does not derive from "my" body, my world? The perceived independence of the individual serves to cover up the origin of concerns in the commons.
10. I might have had the impression that I was alone in my opinions or my concerns, but when faced with others who are concerned about the same things, the experience demands that I acknowledge those things as shared. In an explicit effort to organize around collective concerns, those concerns reveal their origin outside of the individual. Whether the demand is met or not, collective organizing demands a reorientation of the self. No longer the origin of concerns, the self--if one hears the demand, and to the extent that one does--is a singular point that draws meaning from a shared context.
11. Shared concerns don't originate in the "individual", they culminate in singularity. Concerns filter up from a primordial collectivity that is prior to its appearance as an "individual opinion". Its status as an individual opinion is derivative from and contingent upon its origin in the shared world.
12. Collectives draw their legitimacy from their ability to address common concerns. For conscious collective action, common concerns must be visible and acknowledged.
13. The hegemony--such as it is or is not--of collective projects stems from this economy of legitimacy. What has not been collectively acknowledged is--de facto--excluded.
14. The concerns that drive collective organizing change constantly. To the extent that these changes can be followed and acknowledged collectively, the collective remains in tact.
15. Having lost any source of legitimacy, collectives dissolve. There are many such sources, however. A political party founded on mass concerns for dignity and sustenance might shift to be driven by the concern of a smaller collective to keep careers afloat or a group of people in positions of power.
16. The dissolution of collectives is actualized by the withdrawal of participation. This isn't always easy: quitting a knitting group is, one assumes, simpler than refusing to pay taxes. Resigning a membership in a party or club is easier, in most cases, than severing ties with one's community.
17. Democracy depends significantly on the ability to participate in collectives, transform them, and, in the extreme case, leave them. The potential for withdrawal can lead to a capacity for transformation.
18. To leave a collective, one must understand that one is in the collective. How many people in Canada consider themselves members of the International Monetary Fund? To leave a collective for a reason, one must be aware of the reason. The structure that informs or controls the circulation of such information determines, or at least constrains, the possibility of participation or withdrawal thereof.
20. The means of production, as it were, of the collective are the means of communication and the means of acknowledging common interests. This means media--broadcast, print, verbal, nonverbal. Deciding to join, and then joining, a collective takes time, so the number of collectives one can join is limited. Control over what collectives one joins automatically (government, a union, the IMF) determine where time or resources must be committed to acknowledge (or disavow) collective interests.
21. The substance of collective participation is defined by the concerns that drive it.
22. Collective activity stems primarily from practice and context rather than a rational articulation and systematic implementation of a ethos or account of human existence.
23. Sometimes the substance of a collective is different or even opposed to the declared purpose. The actual concerns addressed by a collective may not be apparent to its participants.
24. Transparency and consciousness name the counterparts to obfuscation or lack of awareness of purpose. Without these, collectives may continue for other reasons: habit, violence, misinformation, disinformation.
25. The ethics of collective organizing rest on a basic assessment of the status of the collective, which refers to its substance. What concerns are acknowledged? Do the acknowledged concerns account for the activity of the collective? What concerns are in play, but remain hidden? Which--and whose--concerns conflict with those of the collective? Is the collective able to acknowledge which concerns are excluded from its purview?
26. How can the collective's existence be justified? By taking up space with a specific configuration of practices and effects in a finite community, planet and universe, collectives exclude other possibilities. To question the collective's value is not to provoke an existential crisis per se, but to maintain an attentiveness to suggestions that valuable potentials or possibilities are precluded by the collective's work.