Anti-Mass Society

In this series I’m going to overview some of the key concepts that will feature in my dissertation here and then start to explain how they are intertwined.

Anti-Mass Society

Anti-Mass Society is a concept derived from anarchist theory, the basic premise is that the best way to create sustainable opposition to the dominant structures of mass-society - such as huge hierarchical corporations, class divisions and the state - is to work on the micro level and form small self-controlled collectives and encourage and over time build up network of these collectives that we gradually create a more egalitarian society and eventually overturn the dominants structures of mass society.

Mass society is seen to be inhibit social change by atomising individuals which prevents them from exchanging ideas and from momentum building up behind any revolutionary ideologies. This effect is seen to be a result of the way in which mass society operates on a one-to-many dynamic where all information is filtered through the mass media and individuals interact through mass society; at work, at the cinema, at bars. This subtly distances communication from locality as far as practically possible, therefore inhibits communities from taking any mass action by separating community from locality and therefore creating greater physical obstacles to communication.

I think that there’s a lot of truth in the basic premise of anti-mass theory - that the only sustainable way to have impact on mass-society is to consistently engage in collective discussion and maintain deliberation - but many of the means they seek to create this kind of society seem overly optimistic and too rigid to ever take hold. For example they say that collectives should be limited to small groups of about 10 people in general, this is because of the more people there are in a group the harder it is to co-ordinate a group decision without inhibiting discussion, however if new members want to take part in this movement then they will likely be forced to start up their own collective which is a much greater task than joining a preformed one, therefore staggering the momentum that collectives form.

The principle that collectives should form locally so as to counter the atomisation of society requires that there are people in your locality who want to form a collective and whose views are similar enough to form a consensus decision, which is unlikely because of the current atomised state of society.

For a collective to form in a society that isn’t based on collective decision making there must be some specific cause, mission or responsibility that catalyses a group of people together. To assume that people will just spontaneously group because of a general dissatisfaction with mass-society is a highly flawed and unrealistic expectation; people don’t group around a vacuum.

However my current research is not interested in utopian dreams of an egalitarian network of collectives populated by 360 degree smiles and hugs++. What I am interested in is the concept that for meaningful and sustained discussion to occur it must happen on the micro level among small groups with high levels of interaction. I’m particularly interested in how the dynamics of the web can help facilitate this kind of interaction and how to create a workable version of an anti-mass community which deconstructs the nature and role of the collective and reconstruct them to harness the benefits of an online environment.