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
Friday, September 27, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
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.
...
(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.
...
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
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.
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.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
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
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.
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.'
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.
But you know, I'm probably just jealous.
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