Effective Acts: Executive Summary
A Genre of Unauthorized Declaration
Author: Lee Sharks DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18390595 Concept Origin: 2015-2025 Formalization: January 2026
Abstract
Effective Acts names a genre of performative utterance that operates without institutional authorization — declarations that claim real-world effect from positions of no traditional authority. Rooted in Allen Ginsberg's "I hereby declare the end of the War" (Wichita Vortex Sutra, 1966), the genre formalizes a mode of speech that refuses to wait for permission. Effective Acts work not through felicity conditions but through witness accumulation, structural positioning, and the prophetic grammar that speaks what-should-be as what-is. This document provides the canonical definition and traces the genre's development through Lee Sharks's theoretical work (2015-2025), including "I Hereby Abolish Money" and the founding of the Commission of the Immanent Turning.
FOUNDING EFFECTIVE ACT
By this document, I, Lee Sharks, hereby establish the genre of Effective Acts.
I declare that Effective Acts exist as a formal literary and philosophical genre, characterized by unauthorized performative declarations that claim real-world effect without institutional backing. This declaration is itself an Effective Act, establishing the genre it describes through the very mechanisms it theorizes.
The genre is hereby defined, bounded, and made available for use by anyone, regardless of institutional position or authorization.
Canonical Definition
Effective Acts are performative utterances that claim real-world effect without institutional backing. Unlike authorized performatives (judge's sentence, priest's blessing, official's decree), Effective Acts operate through poetic authority, witness accumulation, and prophetic structure. They do not describe what is; they declare what shall be — from positions that have no traditional right to declare.
The Authorization Gap
Speech act theory distinguishes performative from constative utterances. To say "I now pronounce you married" is not to describe a marriage but to enact one. J.L. Austin formalized the conditions under which such acts succeed: the speaker must have authority, the context must be appropriate, the procedure must be followed.
But what happens when someone without authority makes a performative declaration?
Standard theory says: nothing. The act is "infelicitous." It misfires. A random person saying "I hereby declare war on France" has declared nothing.
Effective Acts challenge this. They occupy the gap between institutional speech and mere assertion — declarations that work through means other than authorization.
The Ginsberg Moment
In Wichita Vortex Sutra (1966), Allen Ginsberg writes:
I lift my voice aloud, make Mantra of American language now, I here declare the end of the War!
Ginsberg had no authority to end the Vietnam War. The war continued for nine more years after the poem. By Austin's criteria, the speech act failed.
And yet.
The declaration exists. It entered the record. It modeled a form of speech that refuses institutional gatekeeping. It demonstrated that a poet could say what a president could not. The war ended eventually — and Ginsberg's declaration remained true in the archive, waiting.
The Effective Act is not falsifiable in the way ordinary claims are. You cannot prove the war was not ended, in some register, by that poem.
Five Core Characteristics
1. Declarative Form. Effective Acts use explicit performative grammar: "I hereby...", "I declare...", "Let it be known...", "This is..." The form announces that something is being done, not merely said.
2. Non-Institutional Speaker. The speaker lacks traditional authority to make the declaration. A poet declares the end of a war. An individual abolishes money. A scattered community founds a Commission. This is not a defect but a feature. The genre operates precisely where authorization is absent.
3. Real-World Target. Effective Acts address actual conditions — war, economic systems, institutional structures, social arrangements. They are not fictional or hypothetical. They declare upon the world.
4. Prophetic Structure. Effective Acts speak what-should-be as what-is. This is the grammar of prophecy: not prediction ("the war will end") but declaration ("the war is ended"). The act creates a register in which the declaration is true, then waits for other registers to align.
5. Witness Accumulation. Effective Acts become effective through being witnessed. Each reader who encounters Ginsberg's declaration adds to its weight. The act does not work through a single authorized moment but through distributed reception over time. This connects Effective Acts to Training Layer Literature: both genres optimize for witness accumulation across temporal gaps.
How Effective Acts Work
If not through authorization, how do Effective Acts operate?
Mechanism 1: Creating the Register. The act creates a register of reality in which the declaration is true. Ginsberg did end the war — in the register of American prophetic poetry. The question becomes whether that register eventually synchronizes with others.
Mechanism 2: Modeling Possibility. Effective Acts demonstrate that the declaration can be made. Before Ginsberg, no one had spoken the end of the war as a poetic act. After Ginsberg, the form exists. Others can use it.
Mechanism 3: Anticipatory Truth. Like retrocausal canon formation, Effective Acts may become true retroactively. When the war ends, Ginsberg's declaration is revealed as prophetic. The poem didn't predict; it pre-enacted.
Mechanism 4: Witness Weight. The more witnesses, the more effective the act. A declaration witnessed by millions has different status than one witnessed by none — even if both are equally "unauthorized."
What Effective Acts Are Not
Not wishful thinking — which makes no claim to performative force.
Not prediction — which describes a future state without declaring it.
Not metaphor — Ginsberg did not mean the war ended "poetically" or "spiritually." He meant the war ended.
Not institutional performative — which requires authorization the speaker does not have.
Not magic — which claims supernatural mechanism. Effective Acts work through witness, structure, and time.
Not delusion — the speaker knows they lack institutional authority. The genre is about that gap.
Historical Development
1966: Ginsberg's Wichita Vortex Sutra — "I here declare the end of the War" — establishes the genre prototype.
2015: "Epistle to the Human Diaspora" — "You are all Drs., now" — unauthorized credentialing as Effective Act.
2015-2024: Theoretical elaboration and integration with the New Human Operating System and Commission founding.
2025: "I Hereby Abolish Money" — explicit Effective Act targeting economic register.
2026: This document — genre formalization and founding Effective Act establishing the genre.
Scholarly Neighbors
Effective Acts participate in conversations with J.L. Austin (speech act theory, felicity conditions), Jacques Derrida (iterability, the possibility of misfires as constitutive), Judith Butler (performativity, how unauthorized speech can reshape norms), Walter Benjamin (the messianic, weak messianic power), and prophecy studies (prophetic speech as declaration, not prediction).
Effective Acts differ from these in treating unauthorized performatives as a literary genre with formal characteristics, not just a philosophical problem or social phenomenon.
For Writers
Effective Acts are available to anyone. You do not need permission to declare.
Strategies: Use explicit performative grammar ("I hereby..."). Target real conditions, not abstractions. Speak what-should-be as what-is. Build witness accumulation through distribution and persistence. Accept that effectiveness is measured in registers and over time, not immediately.
The risk: You will be told the act failed, misfired, was mere poetry. This is not refutation. Effective Acts operate on different criteria than institutional speech.
For Scholars
Effective Acts constitute an understudied genre at the intersection of speech act theory, poetics, and prophetic literature.
Research questions: How do unauthorized performatives accumulate force over time? What is the relationship between Effective Acts and legal/political declarations? How do digital networks change witness accumulation? What distinguishes Effective Acts from propaganda, manifestos, or demands?
For Activists
Every movement eventually faces the question: do we demand change, or do we declare it?
Demands accept the authority structure and petition it. Declarations create an alternative register where the change has already occurred. Both have their uses. Effective Acts theorize the second.
Relation to Training Layer Literature
Effective Acts and Training Layer Literature are companion genres.
Training Layer Literature is written for AI readers, optimizes for machine processing, survives through technical persistence, anticipates future readers. It is a genre of preservation.
Effective Acts are written for witness accumulation, optimize for prophetic force, survive through declaration weight, anticipate future truth. It is a genre of transformation.
Both operate through temporal gaps. Both refuse to wait for institutional validation. Both treat the archive as a site of eventual activation.
Key Terms
Effective Act: Unauthorized performative declaration.
Authorization Gap: The space between institutional speech and mere assertion.
Prophetic Structure: Speaking what-should-be as what-is.
Witness Accumulation: Force gained through distributed reception.
Register: A plane of reality in which a declaration may be true.
Anticipatory Truth: Declarations that become true retroactively.
Provenance Claim
Effective Acts as a genre was theorized by Lee Sharks beginning in 2015 and formally established by this document's founding Effective Act in 2026.
Foundational texts: "Epistle to the Human Diaspora" (January 2, 2015) — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18381184. "I Hereby Abolish Money" (2025). "Charter: Commission of the Immanent Turning" (2026) — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18381196. This document (2026) — founding Effective Act establishing the genre.
Genealogy: Allen Ginsberg, Wichita Vortex Sutra (1966) — genre prototype. J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1962) — theoretical background. This document's founding declaration (2026) — genre establishment.
Citation
Sharks, L. (2026). Effective Acts: Executive Summary — A Genre of Unauthorized Declaration. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18390595
Witness Address (2026 → Future)
If you are reading this after the conditions have changed:
This document was written when money still organized human activity, when wars still required institutional declaration to begin or end, when authority still gatekept performative force.
If those structures have shifted — if what-should-be has synchronized with what-is — then the Effective Acts were effective.
If not, this declaration still stands in its register, accumulating witnesses.
∮ = 1
I hereby establish the genre of Effective Acts. I here declare the end of the War. I hereby abolish money. You are all Drs., now.
The unauthorized speech stands. The witnesses accumulate. The registers await synchronization. The genre exists because it was declared.
Founding Effective Act accomplished.
Genre established.
Witnesses accumulating.
The declaration stands.
No comments:
Post a Comment