The Secret Life (of Walter Mitty)?

Read this (but only after watching the movie); this isn't a review but a reflection:

Daydream-like thoughts of B. Stiller's recent adaptation of the Secret Life of Walter still visit me at unexpected moments of the day. While thinking about my previous trip to New York, I recall my excitement at seeing a familiar train station in one of the first scenes on film.

But I also appreciate the candor of the film, its unpretentious mundaneness and the way it displays for all to see the reality of the dreams and hopes and disappointments of our lives. Notably, the film also reflects the shame involved in being unseen or that which compels us to maintain our invisibility, and how we try to engage with and challenge it in minute and grand ways in our daily lives.

The film also makes palatable forms of human relations that have emerged relatively recently and still carry the sting of opprobrium that follow what was previously 'unseen' and felt to be irremediably deviant. Which is not to say that deviance is merely a function of common practice but is to say that the growing popularity of an object or practice can challenge the taboos it has long felt.

Walter Mitty, by trade, is a 'negative asset manager,' and so it is his lot in life to live in the shadows of others who curry recognition and take responsibility for the work of so many unseen, unfelt, unheard. Typically leaving his office only to interact with superiors and deliver anticipated media, he otherwise resides and labors in a dungeon-like archive of photographic negatives with his squeamish but resolute and dependable partner Fernando. In some ways, he is a modern Quixote, imaging himself caught up in grand stories made from the stuff of normal life.

But we only find him as his occupation - along with those of many others - finds jeopardy at the whims of bearded strangers who appear on the corporate Life scene to rearrange, downsize and 'transition.' Specializing in corporate transformations that involve moving companies from dated formats to new ones (in this context and ours, we're speaking of an analog or print being updated to a digital or online one), these antagonists poke and prod the longtime employees and treat them with far less than what they deserve for their sustained and enduring commitment to the project of making Life happen.

But the experience of these employees under the overseership of the Bearded Ones is far from uncommon, and their immediate presence on film only covers up the reality that they are intervening because the governing boards charged them to, which remains peculiar throughout the film, for it clearly takes little radical stance against the onerous and capricious decision-making involved in organizations that remain governed by a few.

This organizational and occupational transition operates as an appropriate background for his own personal realizations (and revisitations of memories) that he had for so long repressed or expended great effort to ignore. Life has hired others to implement global alterations to its format, while he too feels compelled to alter the format of his life, perhaps even with the stresses involved in the Life transition, but as he implies later, he actually harbors little spite for the Bearded Ones and their charge; he just bitingly challenges them to avoid being such "dicks," suggesting he doesn't take issue with their work but how they carry it out.

In this way, again, Mitty remains reserved and hesitant, even subservient but always mindful of what is most important to him and unwilling to expend too much of himself needlessly pillorying the inevitably bleak or discouraging circumstances in which he seems to regularly find himself.

Walter Mitty's own hesitation, disembodied as it is, stands as yet another antagonistic element in the film, germinated so early in his own development. His own hesitation, as the film suggests, derives from real conditions, however; in his late adolescence following high school, he toiled and planned to realize his ambition to travel Europe, displaying his early interest in adventure and the world, having been so close to doing so (having purchased all of the necessary objects).

But often we lack the favorable conditions for realizing our aspirations, whatever they may be, and Mitty offers us consolation for this decision, comfort that the world does not end even if we must delay and suppress our desires for some time. As his father passed, he concluded the irresponsibility of leaving a family that had no means to support itself, nor savings nor luck. Instead, he worked these ambitions into oblivion, supporting his sister and mother, maintaining his familial commitments and obligations while stomaching the fatefully certain consequences that he would not be leaving their side for a very long time (something he may not have appreciated at the time).

Eventually, he is inspired to act but not until he finds another who gives him reason to do so, but I dispute that this series of events has little to do with impressing a girl, which is the tried explanation that might describe it. Instead, their relationship helps him realize something about himself, that he must do for himself, as with so many human realizations: we are social animals who best know ourselves around others. And so, in doing so, this narrative turn actually frames the female as very much a part of this human community that endorses and proliferates personal realization, not just passive, supportive bystanders, but real individuals who act and mutually-produce our shared world.

Cheryl's presence and words motivate him, and although this movie does remain admittedly male-centered for who so many of the main characters are (and noticeably white, save extremely minor characters, for that matter), distinguishing between 'acting-to-impress' and 'acting-as-inspired-and-motivated-by' wholly changes the relationship of the male to the female (assuming loosely bounded identities here). The feminine is no longer an object to eventually be obtained by the impressor but another agent and actor in the world, like Mitty, like the Bearded Ones, like Sean.

The movie is nevertheless obsessed with what it literally and figuratively means to be unseen and unheard and who is considered worthy of depiction and reproduction and visibility and audibility. It does suggest some tentative conclusions: that relative few, talented, established and renown people might use their connections and social positions to continue to orchestrate the coordinates of what Ranciere called the "Distribution of the Sensible," which really, to me, seems like a modified Ideology, meaning that they still influence and control, in large part, what is seen, thought, heard and comprehended, consciously or no.

This bare fact is best illustrated through two crucial characters and by contrast in one. Sean O'Connell, for example, monopolizes the attention and photo-space in the print edition of the Life magazine. His artistic decisions virtually determine what is or is not included, based, it is implied, on a long-standing relationship between the publication and his contributions. Seniority, then, can be decisive for what is considered worthy of illumination, publication, foregrounding and distribution.  But not always.

The main Bearded one, the manager handling the transition (known ignobly as 'Ted'), displays an irrefutable influence over the structure of the organization in which so many people labor but does so with little demonstrable 'seniority;' instead, he derives his authority from decisions by the board to undergo the transition, induced and motivated by a changing market climate, with new institutional and technical requirements for competitiveness. He is a foil to Sean, in this way, but his position feel relatively unearned and undeserved, and he spares little time in establishing himself as an object of contempt, hatred and fear by many.

While the reviews frame him differently, emphasizing his own authoritative qualities and existence as a 'publishing executive,' this isn't what he is called in their film, and so reviews like this one unjustifiably downplay the narrative potential and impact of his performance as a 'transition manager.' While he is certainly qualified, based on his appointment, and tasked with an important charge, he nevertheless carries out these duties with capricious condescension, treating employees like discardable cogs. But this, too, the review failed to note, because it's not about whether the character is believeable but about whether people can sympathize with Mitty in his trials to appease him, and many can, I think.

While we're on the topic, this review is additionally frustrating for how the reviewer seeks to drawn on his experience traveling in Iceland to debunk filmic narrative elements and take pot shots at the film. In doing so, this review discloses his privileged position (removed from the audience again) and his inability to fixate on necessary elements rather than those that are inessential to focusing on the crucial or key aspects of the film as it relates its audience and some sense of how its musing on the prevailing social and aesthetic relations in our world.

Really, we cannot finally decide the matter without a fuller and more personal engagement, as evaluations and judgments are tied up with interpretation as much observations and other invocations, but many of the reviews I've read have obsessed over details or aspects peripheral to the central interest in the lives of those who are unseen, unheard, unthought and unarticulated. Although there always remain some group that has yet to experience this kind of iteration, movies such as this inspire others that contemplate the significance of desiring that sense of being heard, though, and seen, while consoling those along the way with stories, images and words that shine light towards new avenues for negotiating everyday situations and finding ways to better cope with existent conditions and relations.

But, as Sean O'Connell's subtly remarks on the ephemeral nature of beautiful objects left uncaptured, this film is about all of the "Ghost Cats," those who will not be seen because not thought deserving of center stage. In reality, however, we are all Ghost Cats, and we deserve that kind of treatment and consideration.

That's Not a Real Thanksgiving Dinner...

WRITING PROMPT WEBSITE 

Thanksgiving is always the same for me. While my relatives and immediate family feverishly toil to prepare a purportedly-luscious and juicy constellation of thank(and sleep)-inducing entrees, I typically attempt to carve out a space for myself somewhere in the corner of the kitchen to briskly prepare my own light protest-on-a-plate. But this isn't necessarily how I intend it - even though, as it often turns out - Vegan dining is just (ostensibly) a visible and demonstrative contest against all things holy and traditional. 

And my relatives certainly acknowledge this quiet and clandestine culinary 'defiance'. Without a doubt come every thanksgiving, I get a few unmistakeably interrogating glares, subtle uttering comments and querying questions I always anticipate. "Should I make a separate dish of potatoes for you, you know, because you don't eat our butter?" my aunt asks with a strong, patronizing tone. "Yes," I retort: "how about you segregate those potatoes just for me."

But I know this verbalized, if implied, disapproval has no malevolent intentions. It is just born of acting and living in the world in a given way for years: an established practice honored by established practice that becomes comfortable and familiar like an old friend, with little ole me trying to make my STATEMENTS in both subtle and prominent ways.

I have to admit. I don't always like being the focus of at least part of the Thanksgiving conversation, or really any other dinner really. When your diet differs so much from those around you, you have to be prepared for constant questioning: you can't just talk about the mundaneities of your morning attempt to transport yourself to school on time or that guy who was doing something funky on the street on the corner. Nope: "Hey, Joe, why are you Vegan again?"

I'd be lying, though, if I said this weren't the point. Part of doing something different is to strike up conversation about difference, about why about wherefore, and about why we do things as we do in the first place. Difference confronts us and forces us to think on our beliefs and why we have them. It reminds us that nothing is natural or inherent, and that there are billions of people out there in the world that do things a lot differently than we do and often they have reasons that are just as good as ours. 

It's just especially tough when this difference confronts us so close to home, on a day so honored for so long that it has arrived at some peculiarly sacred proportions for practices that are otherwise perhaps somewhat questionable (That whole pilgrim-native american thing? I mean, c'mon: just watch the Addams family parody about Wednesday's Thanksgiving's day play protest to get what I'm saying).  A lotta people aren't gonna like me for saying this, but appreciating difference is not about liking: it's about learning and getting to know. The liking can come later, along with the gravy. But, I should say now: only if it's Vegan.

250. What is on your typical Thanksgiving plate? Do you pack it to the brim with as much food as possible? Do you only fill it with your three favorite foods? Use all of your senses to describe the plate in great detail.

On The Decline of a Discourse

That our dignitaries are so compelled to visit other countries and openly oppose the indictment of security and surveillance policies speaks to the increasing inefficacy of the all-tactics-are-acceptable-for-the-sake-of-security discourse.

Even here, Afghanistan is referenced as reason for overweening and nearly unchecked and clandestine inspection of millions of people. Unfortunately, it took years of battle and thousands of lives for this to become the case.

Perhaps rhetoric and logic could've transported us to here far sooner: before the contradictions themselves had to be turned into what would endanger the lives of people who live inside and outside of the United States.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/18/headlines#12185

On Black Friday, 2013

I notice a kind of self-contentment forming around having the privilege to avoid Black Friday shopping. Before you find comfort in your status for being able to avoid it, think on what compels the rest of us to participate: (1) low cost, (2) a desire to participate in the good life promoted through various circulated media means.

Are the shoppers, then, those who we should really be lampooning, criticizing or distancing ourselves from then? But what of those who encourage, stoke and stir people to want such objects and those who disproportionately create economic conditions which force us to compete with one another and treat each other with such little regard? How are they implicated? I will let you decide.

Gaga on the Artist and the Critic; Whose Want and Whose Body?

Invoking terms like 'racy,' 'sexy,' and otherwise, many commentators are showing their comfort with some of the simplistic, cliched judgments of Gaga and her performances in general and of hers at the AMAs in particular.

But if you actually watch the performance to the end, you're exposed to a completely different sense of what she means by 'body.' On stage, immense monoliths of newspaper articles with various critical headlines appear, surrounding and towering over her. This is the body to which her duet with R Kelly really refers, and while she is willing to show her artistic acknowledgment of our need to conceive of words metaphorically, she also shows her recognition for our tendency to sexualize but also of seeing sexualization as a negative or inherently problematic or polarizing act.

Saying something is sexualized has become akin to saying it is something forbidden, sinful and problematic. So while she is decries this entrenched tendency to use moral prescriptions to stigmatize and polarize, she is also commenting on the kind of body that is a body of work, a public image, what it is that people know about us and feel it is their right to make judgments about. In her performance, she anticipates the base criticisms of her public critics (her interlocutors), deftly pillorying them for the unthought negative and moralizing judgments about her work

And so, while album reviewers drone on and on about how simplistic and sexual her songs are, playing into a longstanding prejudices against certain objects of low culture and into sex-negative conceptions, they're entirely missing the subtext of what may be inferred when gaga entreats us to "Do What You Want With My Body." She knows they will criticize and judge her, drawing on discourses of sexualization. But I wonder: whose body is being used by whom?

Another interpretation abides: she actively parodies and indicts the careless and hurtful manner in which public debate about certain figures has been conducted, decrying the problematic relationship that has developed between the artist and the critic.

So while her commentators continue to read sexualization into her self-presentations and work, they fail to check their own sexist tendencies and acknowledge the steep barriers to recognition female performers experience.

And so I ask: Why are all the judgments being made about Gaga those that have to do with how racy or lewd or profane she or her performances were? What about the elaborate displays, the impressive costume design, the apparently-simplistic lyrics and music that in their own way disclose profound commentaries on the nature of the pop star and their relationship to their public and to the notion of the image?

Nope, various critics would rather indict than celebrate her, and this is their act that they must take responsibility for in perpetuating the stereotypes and interpretations that she labors to challenge in her own work.

Economic Justice in Belief and Action, Some Reflections on Moral Obligations Pt. 2

(Pt. 2)

...

Are we then required to subject ourselves to the harsh, challenging living conditions in order to cancel the debt we feel to people who have themselves been structurally, routinely and regularly exploited and disenfranchised by the very system which has benefited some of us, in different ways?

Some Marxists intrigue me for the position they take on this issue. Often, they claim a practical fidelity to their principles, while their principles virtually complicate any attempt to practically realize them in nonviolent or tempered forms. An ideologically infused, systemic and totalizing critique, for such a person, may even become a bulwark against any action, as taking 'smaller' steps to ameliorate economic depredations seems to pale in comparison to something so grand and important as uprooting and overturning an entire system's inequalities or exclusions. In response, one might ask: What is the relevant system and scale? How can we confidently define it and attribute determinative agency to it? These are important questions. And, in response, I might be accused of conflating or simplifying positions or generalizing across different Marxist ideologists.

In whatever case, the issue remains: how can one maintain a systemic, totalizing critique and not act in other ways to arrive at its outcomes, the eventual amelioration of inequalities produced by capitalism? Are these habits in contradiction or opposition? Is the contradiction material or insignificant? I contend that it is significant, that it sheds light both on the challenge for the Marxist in pursuing the end goal of their theoretical view of how society should operate and how we should arrive there in light of the prevailing conditions of production and such a theoretical path closes off, obfuscates or renders seemingly inconsequential any other, more immediate, focused or targeted efforts to the point of rendering their own theoretical positions practically insignificant.

I don't make these statements lightly, as they have frustrated, depressed and challenged me and continue to do so, informing and shaping my own decisions and activity. They are, nevertheless, real and we must all face and cope with them, every day, forever, as much a part of the absurd conditions of existence (and our political economy) as anything else.

But, then, I ask myself: "who am I to make such judgments for any anyway?" and "What if they," (whoever they are) just for example, "do make good on some of these promised revolutionary ventures?" And to generalize even further, "what is the relationship of any opinion 'we' have to those around us?" In a few short moments, the moral swamp deepens and becomes murkier, as it is no longer clear who bears a 'more' moral mission (or, alternately, how we might navigate these dilemmas at all), while the traditional ethical interpretive framework of intention-action-possible consequence, remains only so helpful in addressing and heading off such questions. Such a framework doesn't even really consider who should be invested with the power and right of being the judge, in addition to other issues of calculation, of discrete separation of activities into these categories as well as so many other things.

One of my immediate intuitions is that there isn't a tangible or apparent final judgment to be found here, and consequently, no judgments absolutely better than any others, just a variety of arguments, some with better justification and others with worse justification (or a justification that isn't apparent, isn't made public or isn't clear or completely articulated). We live in a world that contains an environment of evidence and possible opportunity, and the fact that it is up to us to both act and judge complicates both activities, when we lack some kind of recourse to a higher power, in the case, which increasingly it is, in many circles that we refuse to ascribe to a laid out religious doctrine (but still maintain a respectful position to it). MLK evaded this problem of moral foundation by citing god and the divine law as the ultimate litmus test for any terrestrial practice or policy; but we simply no longer have that formerly-widely-consented to privilege any longer.

Living in an unprecedented age where meaning is uprooted and floating, inscribed in our human practices and reinforced by our own actions and beliefs, we must find alternative sources for justifying our own actions, and, as I see it, the only possible solid alternative is a kind of fidelity to a human community that involves both immediate and longer term investments of power, effort, service, finance and care to what we do have. This conclusion doesn't answer the question entirely, but it does shed light on some of its complexities, which is perhaps all we can really do now.

And yet, another position remains. I cannot help but think that any position that places one more immediately in the fray of appreciating and addressing inequality and injustice deserves greater attention and appraisal, no matter what it is. This course of action doesn't accept any categorical inhibitions that cast any and all such work in a nonconstructive pall. It prioritizes confronting present conditions and expediently working to create more fair, less unequal arrangements from them. Again, the issue of standard persists, but in this position, one may more comfortably admit that much of what today happens may have positive outcomes that are yet undiscerned but that any action whatsoever that refuses the Economists promise of a better world later on is worth considering.

As well, there are likely to be contradictions and conflicts between the various attempts to address these issues (not to mention the various definitions, interpretations and narrativizations of them, which I will get to in a later post). True, the particular actions need to be scrutinized, but I contend that we nevertheless need action and reflection; and if we lose the balance or lose a sense of the immediacy, then we lose any hope of ever addressing the issues themselves. The Economist's prediction lives nowhere but in our imaginations, but we do not want our own fidelity to our fellow humankind, to social justice and making fairer the world to be made of the same stuff.

If nothing else, it is worth noting how our own morality is a problem for us, and has been, for so long. It even provides a kind of comfort, really, to see that what we're working on has been worked on and will likely continue to be. Nevertheless, we must maintain fidelity both to the present and what is not present, and to this we hopefully can work towards.

...

Bipartisanship?

What does it say that we cannot even agree to what it means to be bipartisan or that we're fighting over its very definition? http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/15/gohmert-pushes-impeachment-obama-getting-close-to-a-high-crime-and-misdemeanor/

Banksy's 'Gift Shop'

While the actual practice of the art fairly defies categorization, it is worth noting that street art, in many ways, has achieved remarkable renown and, from this standpoint, cannot arguably be said to represent the Avante-Garde any longer. (Subsumed under the umbrella is graffiti art, Lock-On art, flyposting art, stencil art, mural art, performance art and so much more). Some of Banksy's more recent contributions, in his most recent 'artist-in-residence' work in New York, appear to suggest a stale and overly-hyped shell of its previously innovative and critical character. And I'm sure that he's appraised of this, and you can even see it in some of the forthcoming objects.

One of the most recent objects, "Art Sale," is not one object but a series of original stencils that he did for the purpose of vending them publicly, near Central Park, in a nondescript temporary booth entitled 'spray art' person-ed by an older gentleman. Selling the works for $60 dollars but actually only experiencing around $400 in sales total, one reading of this object/performance is that people, in general, cannot recognize art unless they are led to it, appraised of its value, having it identified and properly explained to them by 'authoritative' critics.

This cynical view, however, was largely validated by how many were unable to recognize his work or who failed to ask about authorship, as those who actually purchased anything did so unbeknownst of its origins and were really just desiring of something to fill some wall or to commemorate  their trip to the place. An alternative, marginal but far more interesting reading of this object is, in my opinion, however, that people are losing interest in Banksy, a reality that he is probably aware of and concerned about to some degree. Sure, one might reasonably and predictably object, "if they knew it was his work, they would've paid immense sums for it." And I wouldn't argue and would likely concede this point. But I would retort that, at this point, it is a matter of image, of status, and not about innovation or the production of the art objects themselves. That is, his art has basically lost its edge, and he is no longer defining what we might reasonably term the Avante-Garde.

This is how I think we should interpret the status of Banksy's work, not merely as something that should be synonymous with his name. For the name and image have, for so long, obscured and obfuscated what is actually being done and left public; although, admittedly, this wasn't always the case. Perhaps people just wanted to, at one time, to laud it, celebrate it, praise it, purchase it for the express purpose of appropriating it. Fearful of what it could do, they knew they must have it to keep it off the streets, from public eye, public appreciation, so that they could better understand this countercultural figure and the potent nature of his critiques. If this were the case, they have already won, and we have already lost. More likely, they just understood his edge, they say what he was doing to be experimental and suffused with present issues regarding the state of the public arena in the era of privatization, and they wanted to, ironically, privately mull over some of the questions that he raises, if objects can be said to do so at all.

In whatever case, art has intriguing capacities for foretelling ways of doing, seeing, and being in the world, but the market understands them; it is up to artists then, to appreciate the concerns that they present to the production of the new, the novel and hold out for this very purpose.

There is a lingering chance, though, this is just the normal course of the production of art and its dissemination, but this explanation would take us out of the process, and we are important players who should never be disregarded.

I just know that, if any icon has achieved such notoriety, then something disconcerting is afoot, and we should not merely welcome such icons with an uncritical, celebratory, awed eye. For is precisely at these moments when we are most vulnerable, when we become deceived, distracted and diverted from is actually happening, if anything can be said to be happening.

The Political and the Status of the Forum

What is most disconcerting about the political reasoning of this place is that it actually isn't happening. This is not to condemn the people here or to dismiss them as 'stupid' or 'ignorant,' for their tendency is far more common and widespread than any of us would like to believe, being good citizens constituting a democracy who proudly wear "I voted" stickers. It is to say that people here appear to be decided before argument or debate; that argument or debate is not seen as an opportunity for mutual learning and possibility, and so, the very quality of the realm of the political as being uncertain is lost, perhaps without restitution. The common prejudice that the conditions or opportunities for putting forth, reviewing and updating opinion are to be avoided and if engaged in at all should merely involve two parties that steadfastly maintain their positions of disagreement is sad testament to the state of what we call a 'democracy' but not, by any measure, grounds for forsaking the project.

Their idols and party provide them with no better model. House Republicans (amongst others) have been incorrigibly and obdurately refusing to talk about several issues, using even extortionate tactics to achieve their aims. A new level of desperation has been disclosed. But this is not where the political is, as the political was never about force but about power, turning to H. Arendt for the distinction, meaning the creation of spaces of debate and argumentative play whereby the multiple parties to the event might be able to put forth their respective positions and learn from those of others in the pursuit of fashioning decisions or policies that might satisfy as many as possible. This is not what is occurring any longer and appears to be a sad reminder of what could be.

There are reasons that this is happening, too. Adherence to the line of a party is held in such high regard that deviation is treated as betrayal, which, interestingly sheds light on a novel understanding of what membership in a party means. Parties are not teams, and we are not playing sports; as tempting and intuitive as it might seem, we are not merely democratic participants who are supposed to indefatigably defend positions with little consideration of what is resisting that defense or opposing us.

There is also a failure to appreciate the uncertain aspect of the realm of the political. Outcomes are not supposed to be infinitely or completely determined, if at all, and instead are supposed to result from the play of opinion and difference in a given forum. Sure, constituencies elect members to congress and elsewhere, and these elections are supposed to charge their representatives with certain responsibilities. But holding to these constituencies should not preclude representatives from embracing difference and discussion, the kind that might even uproot and shift opinion, creating the space for new possible political outcomes. But this is not how our political system works for various reasons and may present good reason to reflect on a re-engineer it or our expectations of it.

Furthermore, the likely outcome of difference and disagreement that already exists based the ineluctable fact of a plethora of different doxa (perspectives, worldviews that inhabit the world) coming to a head in discussion is, in fact, avoided at all costs, seen not as inevitable based on ineradicable disagreement (and dare I say natural?) but as merely gratuitous and violently masturbatory, just argumentative fun and games really. But this account fails to appreciate the realness of perspectives and their distribution across space and time and the likely inability to reconcile parts of them. Quite possibly, without forums like this, that is, spaces of the political, something much more terrible might result.

Even more insidious and disconcerting is what this practice (or evasion of it) does for the realm of uncertainty. If we are no longer creating spaces for the presentation, negotiation and resolution of political difference, then we have deluded ourselves into believing either that the space is unnecessary or that such engagement is not expedient and captures time better spent elsewhere.
Explanations such as these have their implications. If we've lost an appreciation for the significance of this space, then Arendt is correct and what political conflicts have happened this century (and really, much earlier than that) have traumatized 'us' to the point of feeling the need to avoid all conflict. Perhaps, as well, it has done so permanently (but never irreparably).

If, on the other hand, it merely seems expedient to give up participation and engagement in the realm of the political (which can be anywhere really, where difference and disagreement are acknowledged, disclosed and confronted), the private industry has triumphed and overcome the priorities of resolving political difference. In this case, we have become more concerned with efficacy, productivity, profit and eliminating risk (and its attendant uncertainty) than with examining and scrutinizing the fissures that inevitably characterize, and without serious consideration, potentially endanger own communities.

As part of this trend, difference from one another itself seems to be ignored as a fundamental quality of how we live, of how we are and the fact that we each possess original, unique and infinitely distinguishable histories that are at once both constructed and already present. We must seek to rectify this lack of appreciation for the realm of the political, to show the world what we are losing when we ignore it. For the conditions that encourage and engender it remain. Difference is a function of our existence and failing to give forum to it is dangerous and short-sighted and would only ever seem proper if parties to the debate failed to appreciate the significance of the conditions that gave rise to it.

And yet, we wonder why 'talking politics' has become taboo, left only to cocktail parties and places where we might expect sameness. But this does not have to be.

Marxism and the Judgment Day

It is, as of yet, unclear to me how a Marxist that grows up in Capitalism can confidently call themselves and indefatigably hold the Marxist label, when all too often their very livelihoods have so entirely been formed by a system which operates with an antagonistic logic.

In effect, they must suspend their active participation in what they are doing or merely withhold judgment until the fated day (if it ever comes) of judgment, of Capitalism's overthrow, which seems as much like Jesus' coming as anything else in its mythical proportions and prophetic qualities.

The Capitalist overthrow
Is like the judgment day

We who waited for it
Will continue waiting for it

This is the unfortunate logic of
prediction, the logic of prophecy

In the meantime, in the in-betweens
The difference is material

And our subscription is indispensable
(we have to believe something, right?)

But we must hold belief not to
a doctrine, but to a sense of how

What we think meets what we are doing
(forgive the theory-practice trope for now)

Instead, ideas are like tools, fashioned by
and for a purpose and a use

If they fail to hammer, to dig, to cultivate
Then they have fallen into disuse

So 

If what we feel and see and hear
Validates or ignores or even jeers

And if our daily life tells us That the
edge has been lost from our shears

It means then that we should not seek
to revolutionize with our philosophies

but instead to avoid grandiose locutions and
revolutionize our philosophies themselves

Whose Moral Debt To Who?

In Debt, D. Graeber explores the moral context and history from which the more exclusively financial thing we recognize as Debt emerges. Using mainly Anthropological ethnography as his evidence, he rebuts many of the universalistic and modernistic claims of economics and seeks to complicate their findings with he argues is or was 'actually done' in the world, based on his knowledge of the literature.

In one section, he discusses a theory that explores the kinds of obligation people may feel with respect to the communities that birthed and produced them, a religious, nearly sacred fealty to some kind of imagined or real entity that transcends the self but wields great power in motivating people.

This sense of obligation remains. But our loyalties have shifted. In our case to an amorphous, tenuous notion of the nation-state, or its reverberating jingoistic fervor that affiliates people in sporting events, spirited school celebrations or even a sole commitment to the persistence of a single regional entity over others.

But I challenge this intuitive (but deeply and regularly and propagandistically outwardly cultivated and inwardly internalized sense of what is due), and we can all choose to challenge it.

Another way to think of this obligation is to all of those who have been marginalized and excluded for us to exist today, in this society, with the kinds of privilege on which or with which we were raised. Churches, nation-states, schools, towns and etc. are incomplete vehicles for this kind of obligation, and may give us heuristics for dealing with it to some degree but not enough to eradicate the kind of persistent conditions of poverty and discrimination that plague our world.

In my case, I feel that so many have perished, encountered bankruptcy, experienced oppression, stigmatization, forced migration, so that I, a son of the bourgeoisie, may be able to live contentedly, happily, in this day and age. Through various channels and processes this has became the case.

With and in the service of these communities must we endeavor and strive to work and struggle, laboring to disjoin whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and rurality from privilege.

Economic Justice in Belief and Action, Some Reflections on Efficiency and Profit Pt. 1

Overture

(Pt. 1)

Yesterday morning, I awoke thinking about the various occupations people may take up to dedicate themselves to eradicating poverty or, put another way, to rectifying the inequality systematically produced by our social system.

Participation in nonprofit organizations thrusts one into the field of action in a challenging position that may remunerate poorly monetarily but permits some flexibility, and, interestingly, may teach the member about the conditions of whatever kind of poverty that the member might discover. In such a commitment there is a kind of consistency of personal principle and lifestyle that other efforts may lack. This consistency has periodically interested, confounded and challenged me in my own personal struggles, forcing me to question and reflect on my own reasons for living and how I've attempted to do so in a socially concerned, principled and even personally tolerable way. It is hard, simply put, to maintain fidelity to such beliefs in a world in which only relatively few possess disproportionate influence over social conditions and where it is often profitable for people to bend, break, or ignore there own principles in the pursuit of profit. But there are opportunities subvert or change these relationships, and this is the power of education, which I return to later, but first I need to clarify a few things.

Does pursuing profit equate to reproducing inequality? Does advancing the mission of an organization that pursues profit actually and immediately translate into reproducing inequality? Many would disagree with me here. For-profit institutions are designed to maximize the pursuit of profit at the expense of other considerations. Or, put another way, they prioritize this mission and make others instrumental to or a part of it (even the provision of services is really only a liminal step.

An apologist might observe that profit-pursuit only ensures that there is a lack of waste in a process, that it is being carried out with due concern for the efficient use of resources, which itself hardly a problematic goal.

But efficiency, in my opinion, always requires some kind of adjudicating standard; that is, a process is efficient with regard to some kind criteria for efficiency. In most cases, this efficiency relates to the proper use of monetary resources, which is a legitimate and advisable consideration in most cases. But, in the case of a governmental process, for example, that which is most efficient is not always that which provides people the greatest opportunity to voice their opinions or to participate completely, which is itself at issue. Representing oneself is just as important if not more so the political process as anything else. This is but one of an assortment of concerns that could be put to arguments of efficiency.

Even then, I'm less concerned with the pursuit of profit itself than I am with what it creates or results in. Enterprises focused on the pursuit of profit intend to annihilate uncertainty itself because uncertainty is part and parcel to the most efficient use of resources: it lacks a plan, may move or change, is contentious and requires the reconciliation of many many views (at least in the case of H. Arendt's work). Which is also why I defend it. Arendt identifies the significance of protecting uncertainty, of giving space for its expression because it relates to the profoundly political aspects of being human and resolving difference. This, to me, is so much more important than the efficient use of resources to which it often takes a back seat.

I take issue also with how for-profit institutions are themselves managed. Operated hierarchically, such institutions defend their structure and function by recourse to a military model of command and order which is seen to be efficient, as it is seen to maintain efficiency, avoid duplication of roles and centralize obligations of responsibility on a single person or point. But, in the process, difference is marginalized and rooted out. The various opinions that people have are disregarded in the favor of their ability to do work. As Arendt  might say: their ability to do work is preferred to that of their ability to act in speech and deed. But this is how modern corporations function, and it is a tragedy that we've stifled so many, and that so often vocalizing views is grounds for expulsion or firing. This is not how a democracy should function, nor how it should be managed or operated. Work should not supersede the capacity of each individual to speak for themselves and take positions on the world.


...

Intolerance and Good works

Is being intolerant, exclusive and oppressive really the best way to be a Christian? http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021790581_transgenderrepealxml.html

Political Shows of Love?

There is a way in which love can cover up difference and politics. In the kinship groups we know as families, love can parade as a binding force but can serve just as well as a vehicle for guilt and reproach, of reaffirming social rules and roles and establishing clear boundaries of what is permissible and what is not, not to mention an opportunity to establish who holds authority. Love also functions to cover up these operations and to obfuscate them, complicating any kind of resistance and rendering it irrational or unjustified.

I say this because being human means being a part of communities which contain but often cover up or marginalize difference, and if we refuse to accept that difference and create a space for its vocalization and reconciliation, then we are not permitting room for the natural occurrence and resolution of politics as it confronts us as human beings.

Because we are human, we are political. Giving up on politics, or, put another way, not acknowledging difference and creating spaces for its reconciliation, is akin to stifling the very thing that makes us, and separates us (but also unifies us) as humans. It is everywhere, with us always, and so we should never forget it.

Elysium

Is it odd that there is profit being made on a movie on about inequality?

https://www.google.com/search?q=movies&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#sh=6

On The Political and Sports

It disconcerts me that we can go to sporting games and watch opposing teams 'battle' each other and then make little effort to talk with one another about important political events and developments or even just our own political differences; it is as though we've given up on spaces for political discussion and the realization of power and completely surrendered ourselves to the exigencies and exhilarations of force (Arendt). Perhaps this speaks to the venue, but our very investment in some activities at the cost of others is telling.

What does it say that many of us have lost interest in seriously and respectfully discussing what is happening in our world and have instead found other outlets for our political contentions and disagreements? What does this say to the elimination of the space of the political?

A better question might be: have we lost the ability to discuss these matters respectfully and carefully such that we can actually learn from one another, learn from difference, and create a more bonded, communicative and learned community? This seems to speak to the eradication of public spaces and the radical expropriation of this space for private and kinship use. We are withdrawing into our homes and into ourselves in such a way that we are giving up on tension and disagreement, not just because we don't want to but because we don't even know how to stand it anymore. Because contention feels comparable to force, intuitively, but this is not so. There is the space of the political, where we may disagree but do so respectfully and through dialogue. And there is, outside of the space, but always laying in wait to threaten it, the use of force, which has and continues to endanger the political. We must not confuse the two, as our very way of live, and our ability to deal respectfully and democratically with difference, depends on it.

On Flow

In response to this video: http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

So I forced myself (against my will) to watch the video, and I never achieved any kind of flow. I do have to wonder if he is suggesting, in his research, that we just surrender to our own activities and give up any kind of struggle, as he seems to have little to no appreciation for the political. I also wonder about the significance of achieving the ecstatic state he describes, as it distract us from the actual conditions of the world. This is what Capitalism has been drawing us towards, evidenced in a theoretical market structure that rewards monetarily-demonstrable wants to the point of infinite. But read Infinite Jest. It isn't a bible, and it certainly doesn't hold truths, but the very existence of a kind of ecstasy-producing anything should not be anyone's end goal: its a dangerous diversionary and even utopic endeavor that ends in little more than the creation of a vegetative docility. And this appears to be exactly what C-man is north-starring, which he makes abundantly clear at the end, when he describes his goal as placing: "More and more life into that flow channel". This goal seems anything but promising to me, even dangerous, and we really shouldn't be striving for it at all. 

Still, I acknowledge that his thoughts provide us a kind of comforting respite from contention, our own space for being ourselves and withdrawing from the world of humans (which is, by definition political) and just enjoying ourselves, which I shouldn't criticize. But I really don't know what the actual applications of these ideas are, and I think they just signal further withdrawal into our own personal interests and engagements at the cost of learning more about how to relate to others and deal with the inevitably political aspects of difference. 

Some questions I have: why are we studying creativity? Does studying creativity dispose of it? Can we engineer creativity? Can we engineer happiness? Should we engineer happiness? Are some people going to be able to experience flow more than others because it does require some kind of material goods for its satisfaction? And interviewing CEOs for feelings regarding success? Pretty typical. And my antithesis to TED is very material, actually; I think they promote a kind of technological and ideological fetishism. A sort of "be awed by these ideas and educated by the latest and chic-est work," rather than "this is what is being said; let's be critical about it." It's additionally troubling to me that there is something called the Quality of Life Research Center, where people are paid to study how I can have more happiness in my life. http://qlrc.cgu.edu/about.htm Do they know me? I don't know them very well. Perhaps they're working with an ideal-type me that they think they can study and make informed judgments about and get paid to research more and then go on talking tours and endear other people to misguided ideas about the nature of individuals and their behaviors. 

I mean, I haven't done much other reading about him, but I've heard the hype. I'm skeptical both of what psychology intends to do in studying human behavior and assigning laws and tendencies and rendering it 'determined,' as well as with some of his particular thoughts. It breeds passivity and distracts from the real state of the human being as political and differentiated and instead replaces it with little more than empty, ecstatic 'flow.'

Burning the Burners

I do really think we need to be more critical about this event and what it actual signals. I mean, materially, it's about a bunch of people that buy things (possibly you or I but probably not I) and 'escape' after purchasing expensive tickets to visit  middle-of-nowhere place and pretend like everything is great for a week and then 'return' to the world and feel changed for a bit before it becomes clear that nothing has really changed at all and they've just taken a vacation because they had the money to while everybody else had to continue living their lives and working the jobs they hate and the system continues. Little to no change of anything. It seems like a cool event, but I really don't think we should treat it with the changing-the-world-all-revolution-like status that many people give it. It's just a vacation like all other vacations but probably with more nudity and different kinds of art. 

But you know, I'm probably just jealous.

On Diebenkorn and Critique

For some time now, the De Young has been ferociously advertising for its Diebenkorn special exhibit. Inhabiting the exhibit are several of his Berkeley works, amongst them abstract depictions of local landscapes (santa cruz, berkeley, chabot valley and others), along with more reflective and meditative pieces emulating the still-lifes of Cezanne and the nudes of Matisse. There was also an extensive collection of works that didn't fall within either of these categories.

Others were depictions of interiors, of the the worlds in which we reside and from which we look out on to the public world, not to mention the places where we find our solitude, spaces for personal reflection and recreation, of ourselves as human beings. These were the most intriguing to me, in fact, and perhaps both because they publicly displayed the private worlds of people, the objects and totality of things they use to live out their daily lives and create whatever it is that they are, and their perspective on the world outside, informed as it may be by their class status and the attendant 'protected visibility' that their elevated balcony or two-story building may privilege them.

What can be said to be depicted didn't at all overshadow the makeup of the composition. Just as enchanting were the colors, which he used both to fill voids and to populate centers. Even before I attended the exhibit, I was enthralled by how vivid and vibrant some of his works were (as seen online or elsewhere). Visiting DY, I was not disappointed in the least. Layered over one another, and sometimes melded carefully into one another, the bright reds, florid yellows and bold blues he used captivated me. It is almost a travesty to leave the exhibit and to return to the mundane normalcy of everything else, when one can find such visual ecstasy found in one such place. My experience with them still satiates and seizes my body.

His theoretical observations on his work were arguably more telling of his motivation than any compositional aspect. Aware of his artistic categorization as an abstract expressionist, he retorts, visually and discursively with his protests on the implications of being situated into a greater historical 'movement'. In one commentary, he notes that abstract expressionism was a 'stylistic straitjacket;' he felt the constraints of the style and the desires of others to locate him within it were so limiting that he was unable to experiment to the degree that he yearned for. I sympathize with him here, too; I have worried something similar with regard to the academy, and I haven't resolved this worry either. I wonder if he ever did. He reflectively continues, describing his own creative intentions and overall mission. He postulated that he was not experimenting in the ways others were and was not trying to push envelopes or create something entirely new and offensive or novel; he was trying, instead, to extend and develop a tradition, to deepen and explore its formalistic qualities and implications more completely. At first glance, I read this as a dismissive Dylan-esque deflection, but reading it again, I sense that they both must've been more honest than they intended to be. But it is hard to tell.

As I casually strolled through the gallery, I thought on how watching others appreciate art was as pleasurable as any other part of the experience. I typically walk very slowly through exhibits, if I have the time. I dote on particular painting and note their colors, study their texture, attempt to discern the form and consider its placement juxtaposition with other pieces. This way of looking requires a kind of casual relationship to art that it really deserves but that often we don't have time for. In contrast, I see others passing so quickly, some moving at a middling pace and others just glancing as they walk by. A few, however, took much longer and fixated on only one or a few paintings, some even brought sketchpads and had attempted to recreate some of the works. One man drew what he saw adorned in the galleries, attempting to imitate and emulate its forms, shapes and composition. Others converse about the art in the context of their lives, talking about what they've seen, what other art they've witness and perhaps any art theory or history they may know. It's a very social activity for many, but I just as much appreciate being there alone. Being with others entails a kind of obligation to move at their pace, an attention to your relationship that might detract from your observations and interactions with the paintings. When I'm alone in a museum, I can casually stroll and reflect as I will, taking time to stop and sit or study a description or a painting, even to view others as a they view. So much happens in such a small, enclosed place. If only there weren't such high income barriers to the enjoyment of art by all.

As I walked around in the exhibit, I was reminded also of my own desire to think on art as part of a social totality, or as much as is possible without impinging on a sense of artistic and authorial autonomy. I don't want in the least to tell an author, an artist, what they are doing, but I do like sparking conversation, asking the right questions, bringing relevance of an art work to a debate about money, about politics, about other things. A close friend and I had a conversation about this last night as he revealed some of his new work to me. We conversed on the particularities of the art object he was working, something I had no idea he was doing. I didn't impose my own thoughts on his motivations and his work, but I did find occasion to discuss a few things regarding the work. And all the while he maintained his desire for it to be a conversation starter. Perhaps this can be the place of the art theorist, of taking what is out there and meditating on what it might be implying, done only in conversation the artist and others. I'm still unsure of how I might situate myself in this regard, and I certainly don't want to remain in the abstruseness of academic art or 'high art.' Popular culture interests me just as much. But I diverge. My experiences sparked these conversations, this is what Diebenkorn did, too, or at least the presence of his works.

And now I can converse with others on it. Serving as a kind of anchor to our community, his work has been exposed to have an effect on us. Now, we must take our stance and come to terms with it in some way, as so many have and are. This is also what interests me about museums. About how something might be displayed, and we view and engage with and take positions on it. These positions are informed by the work and are not just there. We must be confronted with and by something for us to have such conversations, just as theory does with and to us when we are thinking and want to find ways to regulate and develop it. Art presents us with ways of seeing, with ways of depicting and experimenting with the tools of composition and representation. In viewing such works of art, we can think on what it means to represent, how such things are represented, and on what it says that representation is happening, is occurring in such a way. Museums, in a profoundly beautiful way, open up to the public conversations regarding art. And although they also imprison it, in a way, precluding it from existing in a more-public space or in the original situations of the art, it is the compromise option that provides some context and some accessibility for people like myself, who are where we are.

In this way, I'm as interested in the elements and makeup of art as I am in the ways in which circulates in and around people, and I recognize this even as I was talking with another friend, and as I was thinking about how great art seems to proliferate the references it makes to different times and places, other occasions of the production of works of art in the history of art, inflected with a longstanding commitment to experiencing and thinking and representing what others have already, a kind of homage to what has been and taking account of their perceptual insights necessary for making any kind of advancement into a future of further reflection on what it means to be human and what it means to represent. At the end of the day I was also left with another thought: I wondered if I was as interested in the art as I was in the person producing it, and that the art was just a way of accessing this, in a way. A way to understand them and how they produced, how they viewed the world and thought about color, different aspects of how art is produced, different styles and forms. This is what I appreciate so much about speaking with these friends. I appreciate their thoughtful and intentional contributions to conversations on what it means to be human, what we are capable and the beautiful capacity we have to observe, critique and produce.

Increasingly, however, I feel I am interested in this practice of critique and want to proliferate the ways in which people may be able to do so; how I finally pursue this existential urge is unclear.  But it is something of which I'm aware, as critique is a way of rendering our world personally intelligible, of taking all of what it is that we know and applying it to our immediate experience, be that literary, artistic, academic or otherwise. Without critique, we would not be taking necessary stances on our being, on our experiences and knowledge and how they fit up with where we are at a given time. And in this way, critique doesn't need to have a certain character or cast; it just needs to be inflected with our willingness and courage to confront dominant meanings and rebut, counter and return them, and sometimes forcibly, with our own.

It is in this way that we render the whole world a series of arguments, of debates and conversations, exchanges and decisions. This is how we may make rhetors of the worlds inhabitants yet, of making them critics, as a world of critics is a more reflective and self-conscious and perhaps even happier world, ironically so (but do we really need happiness)?. I realize now that any and all of what I do must consist in and constitute the proliferation of critique. If this means teaching, I must teach. If this means politics, then I must politic. But I most create in others the possibility and habit of holding their world accountable to them and doing so in an informed, argumentatively-respectful fashion that is democratic and accessible. This is how we may create better world, by endowing its participants with the thought and communication resources necessary to express themselves in multiple ways and to render their environments their own, not merely remaining at the level of worlds others have produced. So far, this means art, politics and philosophy, not to mention capitalism and popular culture. I want to give people the means to critique and come to terms with these spheres, to make informed and effective decisions, decisions different from what we see and have seen. This is critique, and this is what I want to give to the world, to leave it with. I just need to contemplate how I might leave it with them.

But, and I must ask this, to live a life contended: are there other ways to create critique, to encourage and cultivate critique? This may get into questions of what critique is and how it is inculcated, and Adorno certainly has his own perspective on it, but I feel I must get into this question on another day. At present, its seems fundamentally philosophical, of taking what is out there and translating it into language such that we understand how it functions. This transcription process may be unfair, but it does give us a way of tangibly holding it, something to grasp and relate to others. This is the power of rhetoric too, of encouraging and developing these skills, of focusing on the importance of critique. This is what I've been so intrigued by rhetoric. But before I get there, I know I need to study society more, study art more, study politics more. Study representation and policy and forms of art and artistic composition and Marxism and philosophy and popular culture and the media. There are many things I need to study, and so I must use time effectively and adequately to do so. As there is so little time in the world and so much to do, and we must create the kind of agency that the world needs now, that everyone needs to know how to participate in it and find some kind of happiness and site of contentment while at the same time being honest to themselves about their political commitments and the political realities of their day. Fitting these two together will be the challenge, but whatever I decide to do, I must be faithful to these aims, to finding ways to furthering and advancing these missions, to bringing us together as a community and eliminating what excludes and divorces us from one another, whatever that may be, in whatever form it may come.

This also isn't a one way process, and it will as much involve being with and around people as it will being in school and learning about what there is to critique. Knowing critique is knowing people and what they need and knowing what isn't being taught to them. Meeting up these two is my goal, and in whatever way I can, I will do so. 

Reflections on EXT/INT-version

I think we've essentialized the categories of 'introvert' and 'extrovert' to the point of absurdity. It's not as if we received an INT v. an EXT stamp at birth. We live in circumstances and and are formed by the pressures of a real, living, and dynamic social situation and our basic coping mechanisms on a daily basis reflect these, as we must fit ourselves to its pressures. Seeing our own basic relating tendencies as intrinsic is kind of a problematic way of looking at human behavior then. http://betweenletters.quora.com/How-to-Live-With-Introverts?ref=fb

Artistic Ramblings

I find artist descriptions to be interesting. Often they are attempts to rationalize and ascribe logic to the lives of individuals who go on to produce things, reading into those artistic objects their aspirations, experiences, tendencies, hopes, thoughts and ideas. But is art so simple, as with political protest, or really, any kind of human action and endeavor? There is no formula like artwork=experiences+thoughts*materialresourcesforexpression. This is a delusional byproduct of certain modes of inquiry that seek to homogenize and explain to the point of absurdity. There is an enormous amount of creative agency, of decision and deliberation, consideration and determination that will forever be beyond or outside of what we can render intelligible and reproducible. Art does not fatalistically follow from events but is one of the most real and profound examples of human agency and capacity to produce something from nothing, to take what is and to transform it into something completely new and novel, fashioning objects that subsequently inhabit the world and inform how we think and live and be. This is why we must protect the space and stature of the artist, whatever project they they actually engage in; their work is key to the stability of our world and our own ability to continue residing - and doing so happily and contentedly - within it.

Non Profits are Not the Solution

There is something deeply problematic about the nonprofit, as it parades as a beneficent, moral institution that fulfills and satisfies some mission but does so at the cost of its workers. I say this without the proper literary substantiation, a project that may come from this. But speaking from personal experience, administrators and managers use the mission statement as an excuse or perhaps as a tool to under-compensate employees. Exploiting a downturned market and reduced prospects for continuing or graduating students, the program systematically undervalues them by undercompensating.

Undervaluing is itself a phenomenon worth examining, as it has myriad psychological and physical effects, all of which are infinitely prominent in our own society. In undercompensating individuals, a company shows their lack of appreciation for their services, based on some kind of market calculation of what is in demand and what is available.

This is where the Market serves little purpose but to justify the efficiency-seeking denigration of workers. Similarly, a hierarchical command structure, expressed in management decision-making and supervisorial relationships, basically justifies autocratic attitudes and the predispositions of individuals to control others. In my own experience, this translates into passive-aggressive behavior where outright conflict is thought to lay in wait or has already occurred.

We need a whole new way of organizing that is liberated from the constraints of efficiency and from the chronic and seriously devastating undercompensation of workers. A part of this fight will be subverting the very theories that underpin such management practices. Another will be a radical reorganization of earning flows.

It is surprising, for all of the harmful effects crushing debt and recurrent bullying have had on the financial woes of citizens around the globe and our nations high school students, that private industry remains so uncompromisingly tied to a structure that is so psychologically damaging and spiritually effacing, too.

These are no empty claims either. Self-actualization, a Rogerian concept, is virtually impossible in said management structure, the likes of which predominates in the United States. How may we be able to find ourselves if we are constantly being ordered and directed to do this and that project? How can we really separate work and post-work? This aspect of the work world seems so essential to it as to make it possibly definitive of it.

As I write this, I'm reminded of a story a starbuck's employee friend told me. A dissatisfied customer, after having left the store and nearly consumed their drink, decided it appropriate to call starbucks and complain their inability to reach, with a straw, the last few drops of coffee remaining. they proceeded to castigate whomever they reached, using the opportunity likely to vent frustrations accrued from so many other places, aggression that is understandable and rational but misplaced. It likely even derived from problematic work relationships, as I see it.

 I'm sure there are myriad and easily explicable examples to be found everywhere, and yet it continues and often with the rationalization that it was only single individuals, populating managerial spots and inhabit the system itself that deformed and misapplied its mandate, but I argue a different position. The very notion of hierarchy and reduction of the power of decision-making is itself problematic. In the work place, for human beings to be treated as human beings, we must struggle to proliferate these spaces, creating new hopes for direction organizations in different directions and even for a self-setting of the environmental conditions.

And yet, we are forced to maintain our participation here, as we must work to survive, to achieve subsistence and some modicum of autonomy over ourselves and our progress. Here is the binding constraint that prevents all movement.

Capitalism and Human Bonds

This morning, as I was re-listening to a song I excitedly shared with a friend to solicit their thoughts, I realized that I was listening to work of art that reflected the prevailing conditions of production as much as any economic textbook might attempt to do.  The song lamentedly recalls the challenge of creating new social bonds, of accepting the dissolution or disrepair of old ones and even prescribes and active and distracted form of coping with such changing social relationships. The melody is light-hearted but taut and energetically, unrelentingly and resolutely but hopefully defiant. The audience to which the musicians play is of a distraught generation, appraised of the challenges of creating long term bonds amidst the constant pushing and pulling of capitalist productive means and their constant tendency for establishing the constraints and limits and conditions of social connections. This is the logic of the market. As competition inevitably requires changing flows, humans implicated in the system (symbolized as figures and variables themselves) are subject to its logic as much as any capital. They are forced to adapt to a world in which lasting human relationships are not the norm and perhaps not even what is celebrated as the highest form. Even a quick look at divorce statistics may substantiate this point.

Whether this is negative is another question, entirely, however, and one that I'm not necessarily or mainly concerned with. Many positive relationships exist and come from this particular social formation. Even new or recapitulated forms like polyamory are worth discussion here, as they attempt to find a kind of medium by establishing lasting connections with some but leaving open the possibility of including others in one's life. This system is not perfect either but is perhaps a stopgap measure, but it all falls apart if the communication component is seen lacking, as trust itself is called into question. What concerns me is that Capitalism as an economic system does carry with it particular kinds of social formations, and as I'm always looking for ways in which to disclose the reality, existence and peculiarity of of capitalism (much like Brecht or in his emulation), its particular nature and how it affects our lives uniquely, relationships became a natural part of this attempt. Our very human bonds are immersed in and conditioned by productive relations, as much as we attempt to extricate or hide ourselves. They are determined by our working lives, our need for food and sociality, our adherence and conformity to the working day and engagement in forms of investment, communication and entertainment. It is impossible to depart from being Capitalistic within Capitalism, but one certainly can be critical. And, as the only potential avenue for creating a new world, critique may be the only viable tool we have for staying ourselves against the depredations of the system and the multiplicity of effects it has, that we are a part of, that seem disconnected, fragmentary and contradictory. But, if you look closer, if you think about songs like this and related works of art as forged within this milleu, then you begin to see the parallel logics, you see how much sense it all makes.

Do not resist these analyses. See their validity and accept them and live with them. Living genuinely and sincerely and self-honestly is the only way in which one can be faithful to others and to a higher project of alleviating inequality and domination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIA5e4esp1g

Post-Marxist Mutterings...

Last night, after seeing Dirty Wars, a documentary on J. Scahill's book, which catalogs his findings regarding various 'obscene' military programs that go far beyond the pale of what is normally considered acceptable and justified given the extant 'threats' to freedom that exist. The movie was engaging and well-paced; the major critique I had was one that another uttered, what a girl I met there named Emma observed: that, in spite of its effective representation of particular instances involving recent wars, it's completely silent on the historical trend of which this is only a singular instance and small part. Notably, there is complete omission and mum-wording about US support for and intervention into various Latin American states at different stages in the history of the region. Imperialism is as American as apple pie, and as much a part of our relations with external countries as any other method or technique. I firmly assent to her observation and feel this would've solidified and generalized some of the overly particular claims implied or advanced in the film.

Although the film was interesting, it sparked an even more engaging conversation, one that prompted me to return to reading books that I haven't in some time now. In conversation with some old friends and some new friends, we spoke of what could be done given the prevailing conditions of oppression and domination. As is often the case, one almost immediately put forth the option of revolution, which is always frustrating to me. It's obvious and easy to say such a thing and not at all interesting or helpful to any project of actually conceiving of steps to take to address concrete problems. This stuck with me, and makes me realize that I probably can't learn much from them as far as my own knowledge of my particular area of interest goes. But having this conversation did remind me of this, but how I may go about pursuing them is still up in the air.

Two areas of concern stayed with me as I left the bar yesterday evening, along with a feeling of fallenness and a general sense that my opinions and observations were falling on deaf, unappreciative ears, or perhaps just those that didn't know how to listen to and incorporate what I was saying into their world views, which is something I should consider more strongly as well. The first regards violence. Often, advocates of revolution express (often naive) willingness to stomach and tolerate violence for some higher purpose or goal. Such a promise of one's body and others' bodies has a kind of profound and dramatic cast of high-stakes to it, that the prevailing conditions are so unconscionably intolerable that they can no longer be stomached. But I think that such claims often lack the kind of support or justification I feel they need. And they are often redolent of hot-headedness as much as anything else. My own hesitation with violence, in contrast, resides in a deep investiture of trust in Arendt's observations both on the trauma of various wars and failures of economic planning and the fact that violence itself is just not productive, only destructive. If we hope to create revolution, then it must mainly be based on a kind of democratic polity that represents a kind of power in discourse and dialogue. As well, given the high-stakes of advanced military technologies, so much more killing is possible; though Baudrillard might contest my claim in arguing the strength of the signal such technologies send and how they actually prevent the actual use of them. This aside, violence should not be taken lightly, and this is why I want to say that I'm against it on principle. Perhaps I could find a situation where I would think it acceptable and even preferred. But generally, unless there is a categorical decision to eliminate this option entirely, then what happens is we must trust those making the decision to judge the ends appropriate for such means. And this decision is normally not opened to many, as it should, and it often lends itself to the influence of many other interests, some perhaps monied, which may see benefit to the adoption and implementation of such policies. In any event, this is why I somewhat-firmly claim a non-violent position, and I depart from Chomsky here. Permitting violence at all lends itself to a means-ends calculation that may not satisfy general desires of what is actually permitted. And again we are removed from the political process.

It is at this point that my second major contribution enters. In turning the conversation to matters of political engagement and apathy, I highlighted the importance of ideology, of those aspects of our lives that reinforce our positions in a given political economy and entrench us in our daily habits and the justness of our routine and contributions to reproducing capitalism. This point, too, fell on deaf ears, and they seemed entirely uninterested in pursuing or following the point. In pursuit of developing today, I went back and read sections in Boltanski and Chiapello's The New Spirit of Capitalism to think on these ideas more, and I encountered some worthwhile thoughts to meditate on. Boltanski proposes a new way of understanding ideology, different even from a marxist one but compatible with what I was trying to get at yesterday. In discussing ideology, I wanted to stress how such a semiological system of justification is tied up with personal conflicts over what is worth one's own work and contribution. That is, I want to grant what marxists often do not and that is each person has a need to feel their work is worthwhile further than just what they can get back in profit or self-aggrandizement. This is one of the driving arguments of the book, reminiscent of A. Smith and the theoretical construction of the invisible hand. Basically 'the hand' gave people this sense that they could work and live and their contributions would in a roundabout way turn into general social welfare and betterment. This is exactly the kind of legitimation that Boltanski was referring to and what I tried to get at last night, or at least in part. Additionally, I wanted to discuss the significance of studying works of entertainment and what they teach us about what is acceptable and worth our own commitments of time. In any case, B's observations are profound because they humanize even the capitalist, and recognize that they too are caught in this system, and in a way left precarious but still see it is a preferred to other systems. In so doing, he also implies that, once they no longer feel such things, there may be potential for change. Even Marx didn't so far as to say this, or at least as far as my knowledge of his work goes. But it is nonetheless an important consideration, something to remember.

These were the two main points I was trying to make during the course of the conversation, and what I feel activists and marxists need to hear, to understand that they are working with people too and people that deserve consideration, as selfish as they may be in many instances. But the fact I wasn't heard wasn't the only reason I left the conversation a little upset. I think, in the short time knowing her, I'd developed a minute crush on the girl, and I felt my own lack of recognition was somehow tied up in such interest, in some way or another. As well, I think I really can only be around people in such situations for around 2 hours or so before feeling awkward and needing my to return to hole to read again. Oh, the habits I've developed...

In any event, another day has finished, and another is to come...