This past week has been a rather painful week in national politics, dominated by the incredibly tedious and remarkably overplayed testimony betwteen the judiciary committee and Sonia Sotomayor. The comedians have gotten it right, basically showing that it has been a love fest between the Democrats and Ms. Sotomayor and a long stream of accusations of racism from some on the right side of the bench. It actually looks as if she will be confirmed with flying colors, only a few Republican senators actually voting against. And why not, she has an almost flawless record, and the accusations of racism are mostly because the GOP has nothing else. She is also moderate to the extreme, and it makes me wonder if Republicans aren't merely using this as a political platform to attempt to tread water in a tide of Obama.
The opinion makers have had a field day, from accusations of racism on the right, to accusations of being washed up white men on the left - none of which have much intellectual merit and amount to a national game of name-calling. But, what is interesting is that this is identity politics from the right, and the left is getting a dose of its own medicine with this, and they don't like it. Probably, the easiest accusation to level is the accusation of racism because all of us have inherent biases the play out in our personal and professional lives; the left has made a living accusing political enemies of racism, and it doesn't feel that good when the table is turned. This is not to deny the fact of dangerous, extreme racism, and more mundane, but still detrimental institutional racism, but the tit-for-tat that we have seen from the Sotomayor hearings is about what identity politics boils down to and public discourse of this flavor does very little for the real problem of racism, which is found more in the way institutions are run than in the way an obscure speech is given or even in a bad joke delivered. The latter are merely errors in judgment; the former are long term patterns of exclusion.
I would implore those who care about race to look at problems of exclusion more deeply than to jump at the opportunity to "expose a racist" with a tired and scripted narrative of public humiliation. Exposing racists does little more than ruining someone for a mistake and does nothing at all about systematic exclusion all too prevalent in our society, and the right's use of identity politics can give anti-racist activists a window into what their tactics actually look like.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Popcorn vs. The Future
Popcorn Sutton made moonshine in the 21st century, and the federal government did not like it. Backed by the support of a national, online, grassroots campaign, Sutton appealed his arrest, claiming shining as a traditional livelihood and his existential craft. Sutton was sentenced and subsequently committed suicide by ingesting the affluent of his hideously painted 79 Ford Fairlane.
Zoom out from the mountain melodrama to the broad reach of Western North Carolina – Cherokee, the reservation, the Asheville Metropolitan Area, and the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, and the inscriptions of violence and displacements, but also hope, music, and mountain culture appear vividly. Cherokee, the impoverished remants of the once great Indian nation appears to the North. Displaced from their land beginning with European invasion and culminating with the Trail of Tears, casinos and sideshows define that life now. The displacers brought a new nature, turning the virgin forests of the Southern Appalachians into a mix of yeoman farms reminiscent of their Scots-Irish heritage and plantation agriculture prevalent throughout the American South. However, their run was short lived as the displacers were displaced by the American Government, or more accurately, John Rockefeller and his new found affinity for conservation. The Great Smokey Mountain National Park displaced thousands of mountains and ushered in urbanization, industry, and commercialization, bringing timber, coal, and tourism to fuel the metabolism of the Land-of-Sky.
Farming remained largely immune to processes of urbanization. Farmers continued to grow commercially outside the park, and the New Deal brought new forms of farming, mostly subsidized tobacco, which sustained this economy and identity until the turn of the 21st century, when the federal government divested in tobacco. Resulting social movements have reoriented farming to a more local and organically oriented system, marketing produce, meats, cheeses, arts and crafts in the numerous markets burgeoning in the Asheville region. In other words, farming is being urbanized.
Popcorn Sutton couldn't survive a world were the practice of his culture was criminalized, wiped off the map, but the persistence of the mountain farming culture depends on adopting to a sort of criminalization. No longer is tobacco supported by government, precipitated by intense push to criminalize tobacco use throughout the country. Instead, (agri)culture must learn to negotiate rurality while adapting to urbanity.
Zoom out from the mountain melodrama to the broad reach of Western North Carolina – Cherokee, the reservation, the Asheville Metropolitan Area, and the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, and the inscriptions of violence and displacements, but also hope, music, and mountain culture appear vividly. Cherokee, the impoverished remants of the once great Indian nation appears to the North. Displaced from their land beginning with European invasion and culminating with the Trail of Tears, casinos and sideshows define that life now. The displacers brought a new nature, turning the virgin forests of the Southern Appalachians into a mix of yeoman farms reminiscent of their Scots-Irish heritage and plantation agriculture prevalent throughout the American South. However, their run was short lived as the displacers were displaced by the American Government, or more accurately, John Rockefeller and his new found affinity for conservation. The Great Smokey Mountain National Park displaced thousands of mountains and ushered in urbanization, industry, and commercialization, bringing timber, coal, and tourism to fuel the metabolism of the Land-of-Sky.
Farming remained largely immune to processes of urbanization. Farmers continued to grow commercially outside the park, and the New Deal brought new forms of farming, mostly subsidized tobacco, which sustained this economy and identity until the turn of the 21st century, when the federal government divested in tobacco. Resulting social movements have reoriented farming to a more local and organically oriented system, marketing produce, meats, cheeses, arts and crafts in the numerous markets burgeoning in the Asheville region. In other words, farming is being urbanized.
Popcorn Sutton couldn't survive a world were the practice of his culture was criminalized, wiped off the map, but the persistence of the mountain farming culture depends on adopting to a sort of criminalization. No longer is tobacco supported by government, precipitated by intense push to criminalize tobacco use throughout the country. Instead, (agri)culture must learn to negotiate rurality while adapting to urbanity.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The bullet grazed the right side of his head, two inches above his ear, and lodged in the concrete behind the place where he was speaking to a crowd of thousands. He carried the small, but noticeable scar for the rest of his days, and many speculated as to the perpetrator of the act and the ramifications had the murderer been successful. Johnson's and later, Nixon's silence on the matter seemed to point toward government conspiracies, but that silence was eventually overwhelmed to irrelevancy by the American People's Revolution, as it had come to be known.
If anything, the assassination attempt galvanized the budding movement, which to that point had merely been a thing of ridicule by many of the talking heads and politicians - opinion makers. Who was this black man who would advocate for poor whites? Did he speak for Appalachian coal miners? Wasn't class outside the realm of civil rights. After the attempt, the talking heads were silent, similarly to those they spoke for, but with the turnout in Knoxville aided by unions and later Omaha, Denver, and Phoenix people began to see that, while Montgomery had been the beginning of Civil Rights, Memphis began the revolution. After 25 million showed in the last Washington march in 1971, the writing was on the wall. The Nixon administration resigned, and, in fear of a nation-wide general strike, Congress and the Supreme Court allowed Fred Shuttlesworth to be installed as president of the interim government, King preferring to maintain the nonviolent ground operation. The Vietnam War was immediately ended, though far later than anyone wanted. In 1975, and new constitution was adopted, very similar to that of the previous one, but centered around the poor people's bill of rights that guaranteed worker ownership, living wages, education, housing, and healthcare creating what Johnson could not, a great society centered on the values of equity and justice.
The revolution was profound. Throughout the world nonviolent action toppled almost every government on the planet and installed forms people centered states. It ushered in a new era of international co-operation and virtually ended expeditionary wars by Western powers. Peace, justice, and prosperity ruled the day, and it seems as if utopia has arrived.
Imagine if that bullet had been true to its target.
If anything, the assassination attempt galvanized the budding movement, which to that point had merely been a thing of ridicule by many of the talking heads and politicians - opinion makers. Who was this black man who would advocate for poor whites? Did he speak for Appalachian coal miners? Wasn't class outside the realm of civil rights. After the attempt, the talking heads were silent, similarly to those they spoke for, but with the turnout in Knoxville aided by unions and later Omaha, Denver, and Phoenix people began to see that, while Montgomery had been the beginning of Civil Rights, Memphis began the revolution. After 25 million showed in the last Washington march in 1971, the writing was on the wall. The Nixon administration resigned, and, in fear of a nation-wide general strike, Congress and the Supreme Court allowed Fred Shuttlesworth to be installed as president of the interim government, King preferring to maintain the nonviolent ground operation. The Vietnam War was immediately ended, though far later than anyone wanted. In 1975, and new constitution was adopted, very similar to that of the previous one, but centered around the poor people's bill of rights that guaranteed worker ownership, living wages, education, housing, and healthcare creating what Johnson could not, a great society centered on the values of equity and justice.
The revolution was profound. Throughout the world nonviolent action toppled almost every government on the planet and installed forms people centered states. It ushered in a new era of international co-operation and virtually ended expeditionary wars by Western powers. Peace, justice, and prosperity ruled the day, and it seems as if utopia has arrived.
Imagine if that bullet had been true to its target.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Real Obama
- No significant change in Iraq; intensification of war in Afganistan.
- Gitmo's name changed to indefinite detention - same violation of habeas corpus
- War on terror's name changed to Overseas Contingency Operation - is still a never ending police action designed to ensure obedience to a global, western juridico-political order.
- failure to act dramatically in the face of national economic crisis - a hedged bet that nationalization, though politically difficult, was not required. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman argues that Obama's plans will draw out the downturn for years to come.
- Allies like us even though none of our policies have changed fundamentally.
Barack Obama is Tony Blair.
- Gitmo's name changed to indefinite detention - same violation of habeas corpus
- War on terror's name changed to Overseas Contingency Operation - is still a never ending police action designed to ensure obedience to a global, western juridico-political order.
- failure to act dramatically in the face of national economic crisis - a hedged bet that nationalization, though politically difficult, was not required. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman argues that Obama's plans will draw out the downturn for years to come.
- Allies like us even though none of our policies have changed fundamentally.
Barack Obama is Tony Blair.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Economics in the 21st Century
Money. It's a wildly theorized phenomena. It makes trade across commodities and spaces possible. For some theorists, it is merely the grease in the economic wheels. For others, it is a strange phenomena that is both tradeable and facilitates trade. Historically, it arose organically out of pure necessity, but allows those with the power and means to accumulate large quantities. For centuries it was or represented precious metals, but during the late 20th century it became a commodity that arose spontaneously in response to demand. The shift from fixed currencies (like gold) to floating currencies exchanged internationally created a commodity (money) that embodied no labor, basically the trade of a commodity strictly based on the collective belief that it was valuable. While this may not seem important on an everyday level, money still buys groceries and gas, on larger scales the effect is signficant and under theorized.
Let's back up to the idea of embodied labor. As labor produces it produces value in the commodity being produced. That commodity is said to contain dead labor - it embodies the work done by laborers. With fixed currency like gold, the gold embodies that dead labor as it is mined, shipped, and shaped. In contrast, floating currencies embody no labor and only gain their value through the market, in which they are compared to other currencies. The value of our money is only valuable in comparison with the value of other currencies. So, how is this value established?
The value of currency is established based on the perceived productivity or consumptive ability of the nation which that currency represents. Or, more accurately, currency is valued based on the belief in the future productivity or consumptive ability of the respective nation. In other words, the value of a currency is related to that of the credit rating of the country that currency represents. Now, how is money produced spontaneously?
On the nation-state level, money is produced when treasury departments or central banks seek to spur economic growth through stimulus, or printing money. Central banks or treasury use national credit ratings to sell national debt to other nation-states and investors and use those sells to print more money. Basically, they borrow money from one nation to print money in their nation. Money is also printed through consumer and business loans. When an individual or group applies for a loan, they apply against their credit rating and receive an amount deemed appropriate to that credit rating. The money is then created and given to the borrower. Of central importance, is the function of the credit rating in the post-modern economy.
As shown previously, fixed moneys embody dead labor, while floating moneys do not. Floating moneys embody the value of future labor or unborn labor, the ability to produce commodities in the future and thereby repay the created money. Instead of in late capitalism, where money greased the wheels of production, post-modern capitalism prints money as a strategy to open possibilities for the future expansion of capitalist production. The function of opening these possibilities was primarily accomplished by primitive accumulation, or accumulation by force (de-unionization; creation of private property through enclosure of lands, etc). The act of creating money now serves as the primary form of primitive accumulation in post-modern capitalism and labor no longer sells its labor, it borrows its future through its credit rating.
Debt-money ensures that capital has no limit to its expansion and ensures the indentured servitude of the multitude of the world's workers.
Let's back up to the idea of embodied labor. As labor produces it produces value in the commodity being produced. That commodity is said to contain dead labor - it embodies the work done by laborers. With fixed currency like gold, the gold embodies that dead labor as it is mined, shipped, and shaped. In contrast, floating currencies embody no labor and only gain their value through the market, in which they are compared to other currencies. The value of our money is only valuable in comparison with the value of other currencies. So, how is this value established?
The value of currency is established based on the perceived productivity or consumptive ability of the nation which that currency represents. Or, more accurately, currency is valued based on the belief in the future productivity or consumptive ability of the respective nation. In other words, the value of a currency is related to that of the credit rating of the country that currency represents. Now, how is money produced spontaneously?
On the nation-state level, money is produced when treasury departments or central banks seek to spur economic growth through stimulus, or printing money. Central banks or treasury use national credit ratings to sell national debt to other nation-states and investors and use those sells to print more money. Basically, they borrow money from one nation to print money in their nation. Money is also printed through consumer and business loans. When an individual or group applies for a loan, they apply against their credit rating and receive an amount deemed appropriate to that credit rating. The money is then created and given to the borrower. Of central importance, is the function of the credit rating in the post-modern economy.
As shown previously, fixed moneys embody dead labor, while floating moneys do not. Floating moneys embody the value of future labor or unborn labor, the ability to produce commodities in the future and thereby repay the created money. Instead of in late capitalism, where money greased the wheels of production, post-modern capitalism prints money as a strategy to open possibilities for the future expansion of capitalist production. The function of opening these possibilities was primarily accomplished by primitive accumulation, or accumulation by force (de-unionization; creation of private property through enclosure of lands, etc). The act of creating money now serves as the primary form of primitive accumulation in post-modern capitalism and labor no longer sells its labor, it borrows its future through its credit rating.
Debt-money ensures that capital has no limit to its expansion and ensures the indentured servitude of the multitude of the world's workers.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Racial Protocol Redux
A post racial world is more dangerous than previously thought. The necessities of equality, though possibly more faux than fact, produce the subjectivities which such an equality sought to undermine. Or, the discipline of formal white supremacy morphed into the rigidities of racial protocol upiquitous in the cultural milieu. White, black, and brown are the subjectivities produced by globality's protocols broached by divided humanisms which celebrates not the individual, but the (stratified) individuals, the three stooges of essentialisms.
To live post-racially, would be to violate all the protocols at the same time. To be Eminem, not live black, not live white, live fight, to butcher Mr. Mathers' melodic meter. To split the difference, the space between, an intersubjectivity producing racially unfiltered information, to break from globalities underlying logic of control, and to, finally, question race's usefulness as a principle.
To be post racial is to question affirmative action, minority-specific research programs and projects, and runs straight through the notion that color-blindness is an illusion. To study those intersubjective moments of non-race, would produce unfamiliar subject positions, unraced, and would guide policy away from the racial tools which have gotten us to the point that being post racial is possible.
Post racial may be positively irresponsible. Blacks trail whites in almost every major social and economic category, and the fervor for the new black face on the white throne is fascinating but not fundamentally fecund for the fostering of favorable racial relations. If post racial is coming, it need bring more than better unstructured social interaction; in need bring equality. Until more changes than my neighbors manerisms or mine toward him/her, post racial can be found alongside Oz, Neverland, or other places of positive fantasy.
To live post-racially, would be to violate all the protocols at the same time. To be Eminem, not live black, not live white, live fight, to butcher Mr. Mathers' melodic meter. To split the difference, the space between, an intersubjectivity producing racially unfiltered information, to break from globalities underlying logic of control, and to, finally, question race's usefulness as a principle.
To be post racial is to question affirmative action, minority-specific research programs and projects, and runs straight through the notion that color-blindness is an illusion. To study those intersubjective moments of non-race, would produce unfamiliar subject positions, unraced, and would guide policy away from the racial tools which have gotten us to the point that being post racial is possible.
Post racial may be positively irresponsible. Blacks trail whites in almost every major social and economic category, and the fervor for the new black face on the white throne is fascinating but not fundamentally fecund for the fostering of favorable racial relations. If post racial is coming, it need bring more than better unstructured social interaction; in need bring equality. Until more changes than my neighbors manerisms or mine toward him/her, post racial can be found alongside Oz, Neverland, or other places of positive fantasy.
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Obama Effect
On the 100th day of the Obama presidency, CBS News release a poll sampling how people felt about race relations in the Obama era, which can be found here. Across the board, race relations have improved, and, though, people of color are still behind whites in almost every major statistical category from homeownership to graduation rates, everyone generally thinks the situation has improved. For me, this provokes profound questions.
Understandably, Obama's election was historic, but couldn't race relations have been improved without the election of a president? The material conditions are the same, but the social walls seem to be crumbling. Why is it, that after electing a black president, that both whites and blacks suddenly feel able to communicate with each other?
In American culture, the President is us, he (as they have always been) is the king, the representative, the symbol. Collectively, we live vicariously through the head of state, and when we feel like he is not us, we scream, yell, bitch, and moan that he is evil, fascist, communist, Hitler and Stalin. We do this because the king's body is literally a microcosm of the collective body, and we spend our time screaming about the king, when in fact, our loyalty to said king matters little, much like the loyalty of peasants to their kings and queens. We live in a democratically elected monarchy in which the worship of the king dictates much, too much, of our everyday lived experience.
I'm thrilled at recent developments, but they never required Presidential Approval, they only required abandoning the fear of the other and being-in-common with neighbors, friends, and co-workers. We live through electronic media, we live through what we see on TV and the New York Times, but we don't live in community, even now, and there can be no president elected who will teach us this - in fact, it is antithesis. The racial walls are crumbling, socially, now we must build the community bonds to keep them from being re-erected.
Understandably, Obama's election was historic, but couldn't race relations have been improved without the election of a president? The material conditions are the same, but the social walls seem to be crumbling. Why is it, that after electing a black president, that both whites and blacks suddenly feel able to communicate with each other?
In American culture, the President is us, he (as they have always been) is the king, the representative, the symbol. Collectively, we live vicariously through the head of state, and when we feel like he is not us, we scream, yell, bitch, and moan that he is evil, fascist, communist, Hitler and Stalin. We do this because the king's body is literally a microcosm of the collective body, and we spend our time screaming about the king, when in fact, our loyalty to said king matters little, much like the loyalty of peasants to their kings and queens. We live in a democratically elected monarchy in which the worship of the king dictates much, too much, of our everyday lived experience.
I'm thrilled at recent developments, but they never required Presidential Approval, they only required abandoning the fear of the other and being-in-common with neighbors, friends, and co-workers. We live through electronic media, we live through what we see on TV and the New York Times, but we don't live in community, even now, and there can be no president elected who will teach us this - in fact, it is antithesis. The racial walls are crumbling, socially, now we must build the community bonds to keep them from being re-erected.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Master Narrative
Academia often goes in cycles, empiricism and reductionism, semiotics vs. structuralism, idealist vs. materialist, etc. In the late 1960s, authors such as Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and others began critiquing the structuralist foundations of philosophy. From Marxism to bougeouis economics to positivist sociology, these theorists argued that instead of modeling reality, these deterministic strains of thought structured reality, thereby limiting the strains of possibility and creating normative visions of human life. Ultimately, their critique was on any form of so called master narratives as normative and oppressive (though it must be noted that to say there is no master narrative is also a master narrative or sorts).
However, recently, spurned by the recent dire events precipitated by the Bush administration and its overt desire for Empire, the master narrative has returned in the form of a sort of less structural neo-Marxism which basically added post modern theory to a broad Marxist structure. The results have been fruitfull, particularly authors David Harvey and Massimo DeAngelis. However, I find the structure to still be somewhat limited as it privileges economic life over other realms, and continues to draw the ire of feminist and cultural theorist, correctly in my view.
Feminist and cultural theorists often construct straw men to deconstruct - such as the proverbial "white" and "man," and others deconstruct the notion of modernity, white supremacy, and patriarchy - the latter three being more intellectually and philosophically sound since their focus is more systematic and less polemic. Of note are Donna Haraway and Arturo Escobar in their thought concerning the latter. Academia remains divided between the two camps with little hope of reconciliation except through the return of the master narrative.
It has recently occured to me that capital as an economic system, white supremacy, modernity, and patriarchy stem from one philosophical axiom - humanism. Humanism is the philosophical development which elevates the individual to the organizing structure of society, and subsequently defines what the individual contains. The individual is the construct of human as containing specific exclusionary rights which stem from an inherent rationality independent of ruling organizations, not a small development in the face of the King and Church, dominant institutions of power of the day. However, as the individual went from a revolutionary rallying cry to institutional ideology, the idea of rationality had to be defined in ways that would reproduce and solidify the power of the new ruling elite. Using natural science, itself a development of humanism depending on rational observation of the individual by those on the "outside," the ruling elited defined rationality in such a way as white, male, and capitalist became the avatar for rationality. Indeed, liberal democracy emerged as a foil for divine right, but voting was reserved for landed, white men, those who were rational by scientific "right."
The answer for a grand narrative that could both unify radical thinkers and actually strike at the heart of oppressive conditions is a narrative that broadly critiques humanistic thinking and the individual. As the post-humanist authors that I am reading suggest, the foil to a philosophical construct of the individual is the construct of an individual.
However, recently, spurned by the recent dire events precipitated by the Bush administration and its overt desire for Empire, the master narrative has returned in the form of a sort of less structural neo-Marxism which basically added post modern theory to a broad Marxist structure. The results have been fruitfull, particularly authors David Harvey and Massimo DeAngelis. However, I find the structure to still be somewhat limited as it privileges economic life over other realms, and continues to draw the ire of feminist and cultural theorist, correctly in my view.
Feminist and cultural theorists often construct straw men to deconstruct - such as the proverbial "white" and "man," and others deconstruct the notion of modernity, white supremacy, and patriarchy - the latter three being more intellectually and philosophically sound since their focus is more systematic and less polemic. Of note are Donna Haraway and Arturo Escobar in their thought concerning the latter. Academia remains divided between the two camps with little hope of reconciliation except through the return of the master narrative.
It has recently occured to me that capital as an economic system, white supremacy, modernity, and patriarchy stem from one philosophical axiom - humanism. Humanism is the philosophical development which elevates the individual to the organizing structure of society, and subsequently defines what the individual contains. The individual is the construct of human as containing specific exclusionary rights which stem from an inherent rationality independent of ruling organizations, not a small development in the face of the King and Church, dominant institutions of power of the day. However, as the individual went from a revolutionary rallying cry to institutional ideology, the idea of rationality had to be defined in ways that would reproduce and solidify the power of the new ruling elite. Using natural science, itself a development of humanism depending on rational observation of the individual by those on the "outside," the ruling elited defined rationality in such a way as white, male, and capitalist became the avatar for rationality. Indeed, liberal democracy emerged as a foil for divine right, but voting was reserved for landed, white men, those who were rational by scientific "right."
The answer for a grand narrative that could both unify radical thinkers and actually strike at the heart of oppressive conditions is a narrative that broadly critiques humanistic thinking and the individual. As the post-humanist authors that I am reading suggest, the foil to a philosophical construct of the individual is the construct of an individual.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Your McRib Supports Bioterrorism
Smithfield Linked to Swine Flu
I will write more on this later, but I may actually change my research to study this. I'd have to learn Spanish and epidemiology.
I will write more on this later, but I may actually change my research to study this. I'd have to learn Spanish and epidemiology.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Socialist Day
I recently attended the Southeast Socialist Day School in Atlanta which consisted of a sort of church service worshiping the likes of Lenin. I mainly attended to see how the arguments about class were made, but much of the conference revolved around giving testimonials as to how bad the capitalist system was and how it exploited everyone. I had expected a tutorial on organizing, politics, and public engagement to which I left highly disappointed. As most socialist argue, theory and practice are intertwined creating a socialist praxis, which hinged on the idea of a large undifferentiated working class. I raised the question as to whether a chemical engineer or other professional position was the working class, and received that answer "of course," followed by a long testimonial in front of the congregation about the exploitation felt by such people.
Similarly, a discussion arose about farmers and the local food movement which of course peaked my interests. The ministers felt that the peasantry was too internally differentiated to be counted as part of the revolutionary proletariat, which contrasts starkly to the position on industrial and service workers (read urban). Of course, successful movements in recent years have focused on land reform and the end to the privatization - movements driven by peasant interests, notably the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. These still focus on ownership, but instead of seeing a form of collective ownership governed by worker's councils, they reorganize property rights in more complex and particularistic ways.
The problem with the approach is a failure to recognize an internally differentiated working class with wide ranging experiences. The experiences of a college educated chemical engineer contrast sharply with those of the janitor who works in that engineer's building, and, in practice, not appreciating that difference which organizing politically can be detrimental. To say that racism and sexism only serve the rulers is quite different from understanding racism and sexism as social forces that shape experience, and the latter is necessary for any organizing that builds solidarity and destabilizes social wall to be possible. Ultimately, socialist politics in the U.S. are caught in the adherence to 100 year old political views and strategies; strategies which have been refined and updated, but receive the pejorative of not being truly "socialist." The urban bias is also deeply problematic.
I have critiqued the failings of post-modernism, which I see as narrow and short-sighted, but the socialist line is broad and simplistic; both have much to add to the conversation but theorists and practioners of both sides of the debate could benefit greatly from a conversation between the two camps. Some of the theory is developing, hopefully to more productive effects.
P.S. According to socialist ministers there has probably been about two years of socialist revolution, the Soviets before bureaucracy.
Similarly, a discussion arose about farmers and the local food movement which of course peaked my interests. The ministers felt that the peasantry was too internally differentiated to be counted as part of the revolutionary proletariat, which contrasts starkly to the position on industrial and service workers (read urban). Of course, successful movements in recent years have focused on land reform and the end to the privatization - movements driven by peasant interests, notably the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. These still focus on ownership, but instead of seeing a form of collective ownership governed by worker's councils, they reorganize property rights in more complex and particularistic ways.
The problem with the approach is a failure to recognize an internally differentiated working class with wide ranging experiences. The experiences of a college educated chemical engineer contrast sharply with those of the janitor who works in that engineer's building, and, in practice, not appreciating that difference which organizing politically can be detrimental. To say that racism and sexism only serve the rulers is quite different from understanding racism and sexism as social forces that shape experience, and the latter is necessary for any organizing that builds solidarity and destabilizes social wall to be possible. Ultimately, socialist politics in the U.S. are caught in the adherence to 100 year old political views and strategies; strategies which have been refined and updated, but receive the pejorative of not being truly "socialist." The urban bias is also deeply problematic.
I have critiqued the failings of post-modernism, which I see as narrow and short-sighted, but the socialist line is broad and simplistic; both have much to add to the conversation but theorists and practioners of both sides of the debate could benefit greatly from a conversation between the two camps. Some of the theory is developing, hopefully to more productive effects.
P.S. According to socialist ministers there has probably been about two years of socialist revolution, the Soviets before bureaucracy.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The New Right
I've been trying to make sense of all the insanity coming from the right and it dawned on me that the connections made to "American principles" based in the American revolution comes from the playbook of the Austrian school of economics. I'm intimately familiar with the Austrians - their institute is in Auburn, Alabama and is called the Mises Institute after economist Ludwig von Mises. The strategy of the Republican party seems to be borrowed directly from the Ron Paul playbook in an attempt to build a political narrative based on the reationary illusion of returning to a pristine 1776, you know, when women, blacks, and landless men weren't allowed to vote in most elections but were counted in census roles to determine House seats.
Of course, this is somewhat immaterial, the narrative only plays to those who already vote Republican, but it sets the table for Austrian ideas to enter into the general election debate. In other words, as the Glenn Becks of the media world continue to spout this rhetoric, it opens space for ideas such as critiques of debt and the federal reserve board to seem less, well, wacky. It would seem that Saul Alinsky has, more or less, created the playbook for the political strategies of both parties, though the right would cringe if they actually knew who is the father of their politics.
Anyway, the critique of debt and the reserve is powerful. Our money, more or less, is created from thin air, and more specifically is created when someone applies for a loan and meets the credit rating criteria or as economic stimulus by printing money and selling treasury securities to investors and foriegn countries. The critique is that for an economy to actually be "free" whatever that means, money must represent something of "real" value like precious metals. In a sound economy, money shouldn't be allowed to "float;" it should be "fixed." All of this is arcane and is infinitely more complicated, but, basically, the critique from the right is going to be that the U.S. is in debt and this debt cannot be alleviated without a fundamental change in the monetary system itself. Also, floating money necessarily creates an interdependent globalized capitalism.
The left is not ready for this critique. I do not think Obama is in any danger, but House and possibly Senate races could hinge on these issues. The left should seize the debt narrative early and argue it from a Marxist perspective, without being noticeably Marxist, I might add. Little has been written on the credit system and money in the Marxist literature, and Marx himself saw no possibly way for the money system and the credit system to be collapsed. However, this is where we are at; money and credit are one in the same. Money, like all other commodities, can be bought and sold, but unlike other commodities, money greases the wheels of the circulation of commodities - it represents value in a particular way easing the exchange between unlike commodities. The left can argue that the collapsing of money into the credit system is certainly problematic, if and only if, the production of money gets no guaranteed value in return, such as by funding wars or subsidizing large corporations. The collapse of the credit system into the money system is proof that free market capitalism has grown beyond its natural limits - that there aren't enough natural resources on Earth to grease the wheels of commodity production. Capital is basically selling nothing (see credit default swap).
A left response would be to promote a system that could only produce money to build the infrastructure of the U.S. - healthcare, education, job training - social goods, and this is something which the Obama administration is already doing. Instead of the deregulation plus sound money which the right will propose, the left should propose reworked regulation plus social money. While it isn't a stretch, deficits and debt should be the central theme of the 2012 election. The left needs to be prepared; I would advise reading some Austrians economists.
P.S. The Green Party's Power to the People Campaign has nationalization of the Federal Reserve on the Agenda. Probably not a possibility as a general election talking point, but it shows the left (not the socialists, btw) are already hip to the issue.
Of course, this is somewhat immaterial, the narrative only plays to those who already vote Republican, but it sets the table for Austrian ideas to enter into the general election debate. In other words, as the Glenn Becks of the media world continue to spout this rhetoric, it opens space for ideas such as critiques of debt and the federal reserve board to seem less, well, wacky. It would seem that Saul Alinsky has, more or less, created the playbook for the political strategies of both parties, though the right would cringe if they actually knew who is the father of their politics.
Anyway, the critique of debt and the reserve is powerful. Our money, more or less, is created from thin air, and more specifically is created when someone applies for a loan and meets the credit rating criteria or as economic stimulus by printing money and selling treasury securities to investors and foriegn countries. The critique is that for an economy to actually be "free" whatever that means, money must represent something of "real" value like precious metals. In a sound economy, money shouldn't be allowed to "float;" it should be "fixed." All of this is arcane and is infinitely more complicated, but, basically, the critique from the right is going to be that the U.S. is in debt and this debt cannot be alleviated without a fundamental change in the monetary system itself. Also, floating money necessarily creates an interdependent globalized capitalism.
The left is not ready for this critique. I do not think Obama is in any danger, but House and possibly Senate races could hinge on these issues. The left should seize the debt narrative early and argue it from a Marxist perspective, without being noticeably Marxist, I might add. Little has been written on the credit system and money in the Marxist literature, and Marx himself saw no possibly way for the money system and the credit system to be collapsed. However, this is where we are at; money and credit are one in the same. Money, like all other commodities, can be bought and sold, but unlike other commodities, money greases the wheels of the circulation of commodities - it represents value in a particular way easing the exchange between unlike commodities. The left can argue that the collapsing of money into the credit system is certainly problematic, if and only if, the production of money gets no guaranteed value in return, such as by funding wars or subsidizing large corporations. The collapse of the credit system into the money system is proof that free market capitalism has grown beyond its natural limits - that there aren't enough natural resources on Earth to grease the wheels of commodity production. Capital is basically selling nothing (see credit default swap).
A left response would be to promote a system that could only produce money to build the infrastructure of the U.S. - healthcare, education, job training - social goods, and this is something which the Obama administration is already doing. Instead of the deregulation plus sound money which the right will propose, the left should propose reworked regulation plus social money. While it isn't a stretch, deficits and debt should be the central theme of the 2012 election. The left needs to be prepared; I would advise reading some Austrians economists.
P.S. The Green Party's Power to the People Campaign has nationalization of the Federal Reserve on the Agenda. Probably not a possibility as a general election talking point, but it shows the left (not the socialists, btw) are already hip to the issue.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Whiteness, Maleness, and Privilege in Community Activism
The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek - it must be rejected, altered and exposed. - Toni Morrison, Nobel Speech 1994
My recent dive in community activism in our neighborhood has yielded some profound observations. Born in boredom and my desire to put my training to use, we organized the neighborhood to oppose a rezoning. During our meeting grievances were aired, and we generally felt that our developer had abdicated his duty. But first a little theory.
Neoliberal capitalism has a founding principle of decentralization and privatization. Our neighborhood is unquestionably a result of this broad strategy. Being a planned development, the county decentralizes its responsibility to the homeowners' association, a misnomer because there aren't actually any homeowners' in the homeowners' association. What HA's really are is a de-facto governmental body for neighborhoods controlled by the developer, collecting dues (taxes), and supposedly provide services for the neighborhood. But, like privatization strategies everywhere, once the business functioning as the government loses the profit motive, that business has no incentive to continue to provide services, and sense HA's are undemocratic they cannot be removed from "office." I call it a mini-dictatorship of the rich, the fiefdom of McCalla.
Anyway, more to my point. There is general solidarity in the group, they are concerned about the neighborhood and want to oppose the developer. However, the language we are choosing to use, a technical calcified language, the language of government, fundamentally excludes certain interests as being "too emotional." For instance, numerous claims of sexism on the part of the developer have no bearing on the planning hearing as they have no bearing on the technical, "provable," grievances such as disrepair and neglect. The structure of the government, the language in which in proceeds, and the logics through which these operate create a network of power exclusionary to grievances voiced by women.
Furthermore, many of the residents are concerned that a public fight will make the community "look bad," thereby diminishing the community, nevermind the degradation caused by the developer. This casts light on capital's sensibility and its magnetic attraction to whiteness and maleness; indeed, the de facto positive for this sort of cultural sensibility, pervasive in our region, is that business and white men are de facto blameless, while those challenging them are trouble makers. And while the idea that a public contestation may indeed make the community "look bad," this is a problem of a perception rooted deeply in both the fear of public activism, possibly emerging from the Civil Rights movement, and the cultural privilege afforded the rich, white, and male. So goes the world of power, in spite of a nominal democracy, the violence of language, its logics, and the cultures built upon it continues to exclude all but those who know the rules, unwritten and hidden. In order to contest, we must become, at least in some way, those whom we are contesting.
My recent dive in community activism in our neighborhood has yielded some profound observations. Born in boredom and my desire to put my training to use, we organized the neighborhood to oppose a rezoning. During our meeting grievances were aired, and we generally felt that our developer had abdicated his duty. But first a little theory.
Neoliberal capitalism has a founding principle of decentralization and privatization. Our neighborhood is unquestionably a result of this broad strategy. Being a planned development, the county decentralizes its responsibility to the homeowners' association, a misnomer because there aren't actually any homeowners' in the homeowners' association. What HA's really are is a de-facto governmental body for neighborhoods controlled by the developer, collecting dues (taxes), and supposedly provide services for the neighborhood. But, like privatization strategies everywhere, once the business functioning as the government loses the profit motive, that business has no incentive to continue to provide services, and sense HA's are undemocratic they cannot be removed from "office." I call it a mini-dictatorship of the rich, the fiefdom of McCalla.
Anyway, more to my point. There is general solidarity in the group, they are concerned about the neighborhood and want to oppose the developer. However, the language we are choosing to use, a technical calcified language, the language of government, fundamentally excludes certain interests as being "too emotional." For instance, numerous claims of sexism on the part of the developer have no bearing on the planning hearing as they have no bearing on the technical, "provable," grievances such as disrepair and neglect. The structure of the government, the language in which in proceeds, and the logics through which these operate create a network of power exclusionary to grievances voiced by women.
Furthermore, many of the residents are concerned that a public fight will make the community "look bad," thereby diminishing the community, nevermind the degradation caused by the developer. This casts light on capital's sensibility and its magnetic attraction to whiteness and maleness; indeed, the de facto positive for this sort of cultural sensibility, pervasive in our region, is that business and white men are de facto blameless, while those challenging them are trouble makers. And while the idea that a public contestation may indeed make the community "look bad," this is a problem of a perception rooted deeply in both the fear of public activism, possibly emerging from the Civil Rights movement, and the cultural privilege afforded the rich, white, and male. So goes the world of power, in spite of a nominal democracy, the violence of language, its logics, and the cultures built upon it continues to exclude all but those who know the rules, unwritten and hidden. In order to contest, we must become, at least in some way, those whom we are contesting.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Love is the Movement
I spend my days reading dense academic literature that analyzes the world problems, dissecting every known region of human endeavor, criticizing greed and racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and a million other of the bad things that humans do. Yet, in 200 years of academic social science, we know, to the most minute level, about the problems, yet, we have shown little progress in developing any ideas that actually work to solve them. Many still claim that socialism is the answer, the "system" that will work, but I find this somewhat absurd. It is a great theory, but the practice has had very mixed results.
But, what is most disturbing about social science, in general, is its lack of attention to the human endeavor called love. Love in the English language tends to have some problematic connotations, that is, everyone equates love with sexuality, so when I speak of love, I mean agape love - the desire to create a beautiful world with one's human brother or sister. And yet, this is a concrete social relation, not unlike capital, race, patriarchy, etc., etc., etc. It would seem that human freedom, if that is actually the goal for which we are working, must be predicated on the value of love.
Human systems produces values which guide peoples desires. Capital embodies value in the dollar, race and patriarchy embody value as exclusion of other ways of being, other ways of seeing the world. Each of these, the sort of big three of social science, has come into being as a result of institutional bodies which set the context for their values to gain traction in shaping how humans act in the world. These values must operate in a context where they seem natural, as the correct mode of action. Yet, love actually is natural; it requires no institutional context, no government, nothing. Indeed, it would seem that love functions in spite of these things, as these things and the values they emit are anathema to love. Capital is based on greed which is based on fear, race and patriarchy are based on greed and fear. Love cannot be greedy or fearful; if it is, it is no longer love.
And maybe, I am Pollyana, and so be it; I choose to be. On some level, be it implicitly or explicity, people have chosen to value wealth over their sibling's stomach, skin color over their sibling's creativity, and reproductive apparatus over their sibling's gifts, and all that it would take is for people to choose otherwise, to choose love. It really is that simple.
But, what is most disturbing about social science, in general, is its lack of attention to the human endeavor called love. Love in the English language tends to have some problematic connotations, that is, everyone equates love with sexuality, so when I speak of love, I mean agape love - the desire to create a beautiful world with one's human brother or sister. And yet, this is a concrete social relation, not unlike capital, race, patriarchy, etc., etc., etc. It would seem that human freedom, if that is actually the goal for which we are working, must be predicated on the value of love.
Human systems produces values which guide peoples desires. Capital embodies value in the dollar, race and patriarchy embody value as exclusion of other ways of being, other ways of seeing the world. Each of these, the sort of big three of social science, has come into being as a result of institutional bodies which set the context for their values to gain traction in shaping how humans act in the world. These values must operate in a context where they seem natural, as the correct mode of action. Yet, love actually is natural; it requires no institutional context, no government, nothing. Indeed, it would seem that love functions in spite of these things, as these things and the values they emit are anathema to love. Capital is based on greed which is based on fear, race and patriarchy are based on greed and fear. Love cannot be greedy or fearful; if it is, it is no longer love.
And maybe, I am Pollyana, and so be it; I choose to be. On some level, be it implicitly or explicity, people have chosen to value wealth over their sibling's stomach, skin color over their sibling's creativity, and reproductive apparatus over their sibling's gifts, and all that it would take is for people to choose otherwise, to choose love. It really is that simple.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
In 1980, Lee Atwater said this as a description of the Southern Strategy of the Republican Party.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Some would read this as the Republican's attempt to couch their racism in an apolitical, economic language. However, I submit that the change in strategy outlined by Atwater was precipitated by the successes of the Civil Rigthts Movement. Indeed, the de-racialization of the Republican strategy reveals very specifically how capitalism actually works - it exploits for profit, and this structure underpinned racism from slavery and colonization to Jim Crow.
As American capitalism developed and private property became a dominant institution, the emergence of a particularly black slavery also became written into the law. In this way, American culture became divided with black skin serving as a signifier for the lower, working class, and white skin serving as a signifier for the American bougeoisie, and over the years as black skin has slowly been stripped of its negative meaning, though not completely, the economic central nervous system that produced and reproduced class-based subjectivities serving under the signifier of skin-color has slowly transformed through the demystification of race into an economic central nervous system more technicalized, or more along the lines of Atwater's political vision (It must me noted that this fits with the trend of late capitalism in which capital removes all social markers from racialization to subsidies for education and healthcare). And while capital increasingly functions in a global and post-racial way, the residuals of past-racialized paradigms still permeates the everyday reality of many, allowing capital to be nominally race neutral while benefiting from a working class divided by race and ethnicity. Indeed, Atwater's dream, particularly, but not exclusively, in the American South seems to have come true. Because of this, it is imperative for the construction of a sort of commons of subjectivity where those occupying and constructing forgotten places can develop post racial identities and solidarities which can be deployed to secure material commons - such as universal healthcare, affordable housing, public space, decent school systems, collective ownership of productive properties, and real political voice.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Some would read this as the Republican's attempt to couch their racism in an apolitical, economic language. However, I submit that the change in strategy outlined by Atwater was precipitated by the successes of the Civil Rigthts Movement. Indeed, the de-racialization of the Republican strategy reveals very specifically how capitalism actually works - it exploits for profit, and this structure underpinned racism from slavery and colonization to Jim Crow.
As American capitalism developed and private property became a dominant institution, the emergence of a particularly black slavery also became written into the law. In this way, American culture became divided with black skin serving as a signifier for the lower, working class, and white skin serving as a signifier for the American bougeoisie, and over the years as black skin has slowly been stripped of its negative meaning, though not completely, the economic central nervous system that produced and reproduced class-based subjectivities serving under the signifier of skin-color has slowly transformed through the demystification of race into an economic central nervous system more technicalized, or more along the lines of Atwater's political vision (It must me noted that this fits with the trend of late capitalism in which capital removes all social markers from racialization to subsidies for education and healthcare). And while capital increasingly functions in a global and post-racial way, the residuals of past-racialized paradigms still permeates the everyday reality of many, allowing capital to be nominally race neutral while benefiting from a working class divided by race and ethnicity. Indeed, Atwater's dream, particularly, but not exclusively, in the American South seems to have come true. Because of this, it is imperative for the construction of a sort of commons of subjectivity where those occupying and constructing forgotten places can develop post racial identities and solidarities which can be deployed to secure material commons - such as universal healthcare, affordable housing, public space, decent school systems, collective ownership of productive properties, and real political voice.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Article by Dylan Rodriguez
The Dreadful Genius of the Obama Moment
I'm not a fan of Rodriguez's tone or his rather erudite diction, but his point is poignant and supports my argument in previous posts.
I'm not a fan of Rodriguez's tone or his rather erudite diction, but his point is poignant and supports my argument in previous posts.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Capital is Post-Racial and Post-Gender
Massimo de Angelis's profound work, The Beginning of History highlights one of capital's successes, "Capital does not have a problem acknowledging diversity and difference, as long as it is diversity that finds its common centre of articulation within capitalist markets." What he means is that within the bounds of global territory or spaces, skin color, gender identity, or sexual orientation are readily acceptable so long as these diverse subjectivities are constructed on the basis of the value of capital, on the value of a competitive world - all versus all. This is a pluralistic homogenization creating a spectacle of multiculturalism subject to the discipline of global capitalist markets, a one-size fits all identity available to everyone.
In contrast, history lives in forgotten places, and the spectre of old grudges, of past wrongs, and of cooperations and beauties worth celebrating live on in a myriad of available subjectivities - some oppressive, some liberatory. The failure of anti-capitalist politics is to construct spaces, to reclaim commons, in which this multitude of subjectivities can articulate, both healing past grudges, and forging a being-in-common that could challenge the being-in-competition of global spaces. The post-modern project, or the identity politics that it produced, has more or less developed the homogenized multiculturalism of global spaces, giving an implicit pass to the capitalist oppressors. By divorcing differing forms of oppression and setting them up as autonomous contests, and by relegating class, the standard issue of the left, post-modernism merely reshaped global capital in a multicultural way, something Rodriguez called "White Neoliberal Multiculturalism."
This is not to deny the very real effects of identity politics and the post-modern movement. Race and gender are in everyone's lexicon, but the project now is to facilitate a true political class formation while not forgetting the lessons of identity. The story of history, as always, is the story of class struggle, and the lack of a unified political class has allowed capital to stretch its reach and domination to levels never thought possible and never before seen. A new capitalism will emerge from this crisis, but activists must use this crisis as an opportunity to reclaim as much of the commons as possible, to renew forgotten places through the collectivization of their resources and the use of these resources by those in forgotten places. The goal is not to defeat capital all at once through a revolutionary movement, but to whittle away at capital's spaces by many, but unified, revolutionary movements.
In contrast, history lives in forgotten places, and the spectre of old grudges, of past wrongs, and of cooperations and beauties worth celebrating live on in a myriad of available subjectivities - some oppressive, some liberatory. The failure of anti-capitalist politics is to construct spaces, to reclaim commons, in which this multitude of subjectivities can articulate, both healing past grudges, and forging a being-in-common that could challenge the being-in-competition of global spaces. The post-modern project, or the identity politics that it produced, has more or less developed the homogenized multiculturalism of global spaces, giving an implicit pass to the capitalist oppressors. By divorcing differing forms of oppression and setting them up as autonomous contests, and by relegating class, the standard issue of the left, post-modernism merely reshaped global capital in a multicultural way, something Rodriguez called "White Neoliberal Multiculturalism."
This is not to deny the very real effects of identity politics and the post-modern movement. Race and gender are in everyone's lexicon, but the project now is to facilitate a true political class formation while not forgetting the lessons of identity. The story of history, as always, is the story of class struggle, and the lack of a unified political class has allowed capital to stretch its reach and domination to levels never thought possible and never before seen. A new capitalism will emerge from this crisis, but activists must use this crisis as an opportunity to reclaim as much of the commons as possible, to renew forgotten places through the collectivization of their resources and the use of these resources by those in forgotten places. The goal is not to defeat capital all at once through a revolutionary movement, but to whittle away at capital's spaces by many, but unified, revolutionary movements.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Global Spaces, Forgotten Places
In the months I spent in the Bay Area, I became intimately aware of its status as a Global Space. Activism focuses on issues a hemisphere away, the research at Berkeley is bent towards uniquely global problems, and economic production is geared towards producing and facilitating the production of global commodities. In the age of globalization, capitalism and modernity articulate as tightly as ever and work to produce the phenomena called globality. The markers of globality are the dominance of linear (as opposed to cyclical) time, identities produced and sustained through the values of capital, and the spatial resonance and destruction of distance between geographically distant global spaces, found mostly in the cities of the world. One can think of so-called global banks, the practices of Washington Mutual in Berkeley, CA are the same as the practices of Washington Mutual in Birmingham, AL in spite of the starkly different socionatural contexts. Both are global spaces, and fit together in the phenomena of globality, spaces sterilized from the particularities of place and conforming to a set of global practices which seemingly float, rootless in the global milieu.
In contrast to global spaces are forgotten places. Forgotten places, while still subjected to the linear time of capital, are primarily defined by cyclical time. The difference between cyclical time and linear time is that linear time seeks ever increasing production - to add to an ever increasing bottom line, while cyclical time merely seeks reproduction - to survive in a global world in which it is forgotten. Forgotten places still have culture, religion, and cultural/racial prejudice, in a phrase, forgotten places have true difference, sometimes manifest in a repressive way. However, these other than capital value practices are more pronounced if merely as a result of being forgotten. Quite simply, forgotten places, which are often poor, are rooted in the socionatural and sociohistorical context, but struggle to maintain or develop identities which can be recognized and validated by capital and its nation-state/global-facilitators. Forgotten places can be found in urban areas (sections of Oakland, CA) or rural areas (The Black Belt; Appalachia), and generally are spaces of marginalization, poverty, drug abuse, crime, and generally malaise.
In my next post, I will explore more deeply the types of subjectivities produced in global spaces and forgotten places and explore why certain identities are incompatible with the subjectivities produced by each.
In contrast to global spaces are forgotten places. Forgotten places, while still subjected to the linear time of capital, are primarily defined by cyclical time. The difference between cyclical time and linear time is that linear time seeks ever increasing production - to add to an ever increasing bottom line, while cyclical time merely seeks reproduction - to survive in a global world in which it is forgotten. Forgotten places still have culture, religion, and cultural/racial prejudice, in a phrase, forgotten places have true difference, sometimes manifest in a repressive way. However, these other than capital value practices are more pronounced if merely as a result of being forgotten. Quite simply, forgotten places, which are often poor, are rooted in the socionatural and sociohistorical context, but struggle to maintain or develop identities which can be recognized and validated by capital and its nation-state/global-facilitators. Forgotten places can be found in urban areas (sections of Oakland, CA) or rural areas (The Black Belt; Appalachia), and generally are spaces of marginalization, poverty, drug abuse, crime, and generally malaise.
In my next post, I will explore more deeply the types of subjectivities produced in global spaces and forgotten places and explore why certain identities are incompatible with the subjectivities produced by each.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Grey Rider
The revolution drove me mad, but to loose the madness is certainly a loss. Madness and genius are fine lines, and the madness devoured the genius and defecated a broken and lost human, a dead human. I no longer want to be a genius, or at least, I will try to tell myself that. As a part of my identity, it became, but it broke me, set my soul aflame with a consuming fire that began to infect the rest of my body. Where shall I go from here? Back to Alabama to work on the work of living, and to fill my own corner of the world with love and kindness; I go back to become a real person. The world is not perfect and never will be, but love makes the unperfect more bearable. For now, the Grey Rider of Shee has tamed the wild terror that drove the genius to madness.
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