Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

did) create. The world that does not yet exist displays itself as
a world that exists not-yet.6
Carnival, at least in the medieval world, can be seen as
such a temporal crack in the patterns of domination, a time in
which the normal relations of hierarchy a re not just reversed
but abolished. This is not just a letting-off of steam that is
functional for the reproduction of dominati.on, but something
much deeper. Tischler, quoting Bakhtin, says th carnival 'was
the triumph of a sort of transitional liberation' whi h supposed
'the provisional abolition of hierarchical relations, privileges,
rules, taboos. It was opposed to all perpetuation, all p rfection
and regulation, pointed to a future still incompl t ' (Tis hler
2008a: 22). A crack, then: a moment in which I' lations of
domination were broken and other relations creat d. This is a
time too in which laughter breaks through the ser io usn ss of the
business of domination and submission, not individual lflughter
but a collective laughter that opens towards anoth r world: 'the
laughter of carnival is the vehicle of a concrete hUl11anisation,
in the real and simultaneously utopian time of th 'a rnival;
it is the language of life that does not allow the s pa ra cion
of subject and object, and throws off abstraction as a cool of
power and submission' (ibid.: 24),7 This idea of 'Iaught 'I' as a
revolutionary principle' (ibid.: 17) is taken up by many I' ' nt
struggles, such as the ']-18 Carnival against Capital' in London
and the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army whi 'h has
played an important part in recent protests in Europ .H :a fassi
speaks of the uprising in Argentina as an explosion of 'joyous
rage' (2002: 79). Rebellion has never been far from carnival, but
this has become more explicit in recent years: 'Sinc th ' 1 960s,
uprisings have become more explicitly carnivaJesqu , p rhaps
in part because revolt now is not just against tb 11 losure of
the economic and physical commons, but the cultural and social
commons' (Solnit 2005: 17).
Disasters, strangely perhaps, provide another exam ple of
cracks. Disasters (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis,
wars and so on) can bring not just human suffering but also
a breakdown of social relations and the sudden emergence of
quite different relations between people, relations of support
and solidarity. Rebecca Solnit quotes one of the people who
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