Attention is the alignment that makes both individual and collective action possible

Evidence

IF WE THINK about what it means to “concentrate” or “pay attention” at an individual level, it implies alignment: different parts of the mind and even the body acting in concert and oriented toward the same thing. To pay attention to one thing is to resist paying attention to other things; it means constantly denying and thwarting provocations outside the sphere of one’s attention. We contrast this with distraction, in which the mind is disassembled, pointing in many different directions at once and preventing meaningful action. It seems the same is true on a collective level. Just as it takes alignment for someone to concentrate and act with intention, it requires alignment for a “movement” to move. Importantly, this is not a top-down formation, but rather a mutual agreement among individuals who pay intense attention to the same things and to each other. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 296

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines attention as alignment of mind and body, and collective attention as the precondition for a movement — central to Odell’s argument that attention is world-constituting.
• XREF: connects to: Shared attentional practices are the movement’s only real resource; Joint attention practices open up shared political power alongside beauty and grace. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 37