Zac Henson's blog
The Cooperative New School and Popular Education
Submitted by Zac Henson on Wed, 05/15/2019 - 12:53As some of you know, I'm semi-retired from organizing. I love the people who I'm close to that I did work with, but I can no longer handle the pressure and the toxic personalities so prevalent with movement work. There are many that I miss, but there are also many that I don't miss at all.
Objectivity, Subjectivity, and Democracy
Submitted by Zac Henson on Tue, 04/10/2018 - 11:56Objectivity is the notion that unbiased fact can be established through a disciplined method of thinking. The concept was invented by Enligtenment thinkers who needed a way to subvert the notion of divine right of kings. It has been used for years as the basis of democracy Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's quote, "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." It must also be noted the one of Moynihan's facts is a report that ushered in the era of cultural racism in American policy.
Popular Education and Capitalism
Submitted by Zac Henson on Tue, 03/20/2018 - 13:15Popular Education is my approach to community organizing. It is both a method and a worldview based on radical democracy. It has a long history, but two of the most prominent practitioners and two of my heroes were Paulo Freire and founder of Highlander, Myles Horton.
The Theory Behind the Woodfin Plan
Submitted by Zac Henson on Sat, 09/09/2017 - 11:37The current status quo in urban development argues that we should invest at the top end of the labor pool and that the money those people bring will develop the city, and this is true, the city is developing, but the results are not as significant as they could be if another, more salient development paradigm was implemented. The other paradigm, the one we're pushing, argues for investing at the bottom of the labor pool because it creates higher demand.
Why Cooperatives?
Submitted by Zac Henson on Thu, 07/27/2017 - 12:35We must remember that in Marx's time, the proletariat was the most privileged fraction of the working class and, thus, thought to be indispensable to capitalism and the revolutionary agent. This is no longer true because of automation, off shoring, and globalization. The new revolutionary agent is what we call the cyletariat or knowledge and affective workers also called, erroneously, the feminization of labor. These workers often work in decentralized teams and rely on creativity for production.
Randall Woodfin for Mayor
Submitted by Zac Henson on Wed, 07/19/2017 - 10:02The Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice officially endorses Randall Woodfin for Mayor. We have made a $100 donation in support of his campaign.
Reflecting on Beginnings
Submitted by Zac Henson on Tue, 07/11/2017 - 12:19I've been in a reflective moment on the work after the training at the Woodlawn Foundation we've done together over the past year, and I truly believe that this is going to work. Whenever you start something new, there's always this nagging feeling that it ain't going to work.
The Oankali, Biopower, and The Cooperative New School
Submitted by Zac Henson on Thu, 06/01/2017 - 10:43Octavia Butler gives a face to biopower, makes it real in the hideous form of the Oankali. Biopower is a concept created by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It means the power to "make live" as opposed to the power to kill, which existed among the powerful in previous epochs. The Oankali have this power to make live - to use biological technologies intertwined with knowledge to make humans better, to improve our capacities and abilities. But, this exists within a society of control.