The "Yes, and..." Culture
July 6, 2010
In improvisational theater and comedy, one of the first rules of participation is allowing co-creation. Basically, instead of saying "No, wait!" you respond to your collaborators with "Yes, and..." to continue the conversation and start to create something great together.
That principle of collaborative and cumulative creation is a fundamental aspect of modern culture in general. Remixing, rebooting, remaking and re-imagining culture require a "Yes, and..." aesthetic. When a moment of online inspiration blossoms into a full-fledged meme, communities from 4Chan to YouTube are demonstrating their embrace of improvisational culture.
But this doesn't just apply to goofy web memes. This could be an interesting, even important aspect of how society and policy evolve as well.
Yes, and...
Take, for example, the recent Citizens United case at the Supreme Court. The ruling states, in effect, that companies can now spend an unlimited amount of their funds on political campaign ads for various candidates. People who prefer humans to corporations are, naturally, concerned about the pending completion of the corporate takeover of elections.
So, opponents of the decision are reacting as you'd expect, by trying to pass legislation to undo this damage to our democracy. But trying to roll back the clock on this sort of thing tends to get into the usual long, expensive, unproductive cultural-battle-masquerading-as-political-battle that makes so many of us get turned off by politics.
What could it look like in a "Yes, and...." culture, though? What if, while acknowledging that spending is not speech, we decide to forgo trying to roll back the law, and instead roll it forward? Yes, corporations can buy political advertisements, but what if any employee of the corporation could submit the content of the advertisement? The last video in before a TV station's programming deadline would be the one that went on the air, privileging those who are nimble with media, instead of just corporate officers.
Or if we struggle with Arizona's new law which allows police to detain suspected undocumented immigrants, instead of merely fighting to repeal the policy, we should extend it. Any legal resident or citizen of the United States who is wrongly detained by the police should get a free gun, perhaps one of those confiscated by the police. In that way, when we abridge the Fourth Amendment rights of someone, we make it up to them by supporting their Second Amendment rights. You want to protect the rights of Americans? Yes, and... we do too.
While the particular examples might be polarizing, the key principle is that you don't change culture by trying to stuff the cat back into the bag. I'm writing this up mostly as a reminder to myself, but hopefully some of you will find it useful, too.
Relatedly: What happens when vast numbers of social networking citizens find another law that they consider irrelevant? It's a million mixer march.
this is a really good idea. actually less an idea than a way of thinking.
the examples you bring up regarding 'any employee' and 'handing out guns' would never fly politically, but having "corporate personhood" require taking on certain burdens of "personal responsibility" just might.
yes, we can allow corporations similar rights to individuals, and we can also expect them to as civilly and criminally liable for their actions as individuals are.
You know, the main Democratic response to the DISCLOSE Act, at least from within Congress, has been very much a "Yes, and..." approach. It's not undoing it, as the Court would just strike that down again. It aims to leverage the Court's emphasis on disclosure as an antidote to corruptive influence. So, if we have to deal with corporations spending money on elections, at least we'll know who's doing it and when, as quickly as technology allows.
I'm not saying your point is invalid in all cases, but you could have picked a better example, as applied to CU, it's a straw man.
If your rights are violated you get a free gun? That's just moronic. Really.
Umm, are you confusing movement/counter-movement with forward/backward motion?
I think the real problem here is that he is equating laws with culture. The fact that 5 people agreed on corporate power, or 270 people (at a minimum) decided something for the United States doesn't make it a matter of culture. If this philosophy was widespread when the country was founded, we'd still be British citizens because the culture changed. If this philosophy was in vogue in the 1930s we'd all just not drink liquor or beer, because the culture changed. Or we'd be speaking German, because the culture changed. We'd still be fighting the North Vietnamese, because that was the culture. No, when bad laws are made or bad decisions are made, then you don't say, "Yes, and..." You say "Not on my watch!" and you do what you feel you must to fight against it. It makes me think of the movie "Network": "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
"I've just been robbed!" "Yes, and..." I'm sure a jury would acquit me in a minute for whatever would happen next.
Real basic question about you're post here. Arizona's new law is nothing more than reinforcing federal law that is already on the books, why is that such a big deal? If the Federal Government doesn't want to enforce the immigration law, the constitution, that you are quoting, does give the states the right to do so (that would be amendment X for those counting).
I wouldn't expect someone who brags about how many words they have posted since 1999 to know everything about the constitution. But if you are going to make some absurd argument about being arrested with a gun and giving it to someone to support the II Amendment, you might want to do a little more research than what is fed to you on CNN, MSNBC and Foxnews.
Just saying.