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hydrarchist writes "This article was published in the Make World Magazine.
The resurgent question of the intellectuals hides the contemporary
problem of "what is to be done?", the problem of the auto-organisation
of cognitive labour. Space has re-emerged for the question
of the intellectuals, in the discussion of the Italian left. But the
question is badly posed, and the word itself (intellectual) elaborates
extremely badly the contemporary socio-mental geography.
Social entropy and
recombination
Franco Bifo Berardi
Lenin related to the figure of the intellectual
the problem of what to do, in the political
direction of the collective action. The intellectuals
are not a social class, they do not have
specific social interests to sustain. They are generally
the expression of parasitical income, they
can make "purely intellectual" choices, making
themselves out to be the means of revolutionary
consciousness. In this sense they are what is
most similar to the pure becoming of the spirit, in
the Hegelian development of self-consciousness.
On the other hand, the workers whilst being the
bearers of a homogenous social interest, can not
pass from the purely economic state (the Hegelian
in itself) to the politically conscious state
(the for itself of self consciousness) only through
the political form of the party which embodies
and hands down the philosophical heritage (the
proletariat as heirs of classical German philosophy)
"Remaking Social Practices" (1)
by Felix Guattari
The routines of daily life, and the banality of the world represented to
us by the media, surround us with a reassuring atmosphere in which nothing
is any longer of real consequence. We cover our eyes; we forbid ourselves
to think about the turbulent passage of our times, which swiftly thrusts
far behind us our familiar past, which effaces ways of being and living
that are still fresh in our minds, and which slaps our future onto an
opaque horizon, heavy with thick clouds and miasmas. We depend all the
more on the reassurance that nothing is assured.
hydrarchist writes "This essay was recently republished in Make World 2, Magazine.
Nothing appears so enigmatic today as the question of what it
means to act. This issue seems both enigmatic and out of reach--
up in the heavens, one might say. If nobody asks me what political
action is, I seem to know; but if I have to explain it to somebody
who asks, this presumed knowledge evaporates into incoherence.
And yet what notion is more familiar in people's everyday speech
than action? Why has the obvious become clothed in mystery?
Why is it so puzzling?
Virtuosity and
Revolution,
The Political
Theory of Exodus
Paolo Virno
According to a long tradition
of thought, the realm of political action can
be defined fairly precisely by two boundaries. The
first relates to labor, to its taciturn and instru-mental
character, to that automatism that makes
of it a repetitive and predictable process. The
second relates to pure thought, to the solitary
and non-appearing quality of its activity. Political
action is unlike labor in that its sphere of inter-vention
is social relations, not natural materials.
It modifies the context within which it is inscribed,
rather than creates new objects to fill it.
Unlike intellectual reflection, action is public,
geared to exteriorization, to contingency, to the
hustle and bustle of the multitude.
SCP-New York writes:
"Why We Refuse to 'Play Detective' "
Surveillance Camera Players -- NY
In the early days of the process of identification [...], the identity of a person was established through his signature. The invention of photography was a turning point in the history of this process. It is no less significant for criminology than the invention of the printing press is for literature. Photography made it possible for the first time to preserve permanent and unmistakable traces of a human being. The detective story came into being when this most decisive conquest of a person's incognito had been accomplished. Since then, the end of efforts to capture a man in his speech and actions has not been in sight. -- Walter Benjamin, The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, 1938
Detective stories are very, very popular these days, not only in bookstores, but also at the movies and on television, where they are sometimes called "police dramas." What accounts for the enduring popularity of the detective story? A big factor is obviously the salacious subject matter, the crimes, the most common of which is murder. To guard against the accusation that the writers and readers of such gruesome fictions are puerile or perverted, the center of attention of these "guilty pleasures" is shifted from the crime and the criminal who committed it to the detective who investigates the case. No doubt this is shift is made with great reluctance, because it is commonly believed that criminals are "more interesting people" than police officers. In any event, the need to compromise suggests that it isn't so much the gruesome crimes, but the narrative's displaced relationship to them, that makes the detective story so popular as a genre. People may love to read about criminals, but, deep down, they identify with detectives.
"Approximations:
Towards an Ontological Definition of the Multitude"
by Antonio Negri
(Translated by Arianna Bove)
1) The multitude is the name of an immanence. The multitude is a whole of singularities. On these premises we can immediately begin to trace an ontological definition of what is left of reality once the concept of the people is freed from transcendence.
Daybreak! writes:
"The Death of Independent Family Farms"
by Peligro
The family farm has been a sustaining myth in America. It's been seen as proof that if someone was willing to work then they’d be able to have a little land to live on, at least enough to take care of themselves and their family. As if we needed more proof that the American Dream has become little more than a twisted corpse, a story politicians tell us to put our dreams to sleep, we need look no further then the situation of the family farm in the Midwest today.
Katherine Van Wormer writes:
"Addiction, Brain Damage and the President:
'Dry Drunk' Syndrome and George W. Bush"
by Katherine van Wormer October 11, 2002
[Katherine van Wormer is a Friend (Quaker), Professor of Social Work at the
University of Northern Iowa, and co-author of the recent Addiction
Treatment: A Strengths Perspective (2002).]
Ordinarily I would not use this term. But when I came across the article
'"Dry Drunk" -- Is Bush Making a Cry for Help?' in 'American Politics
Journal' by Alan Bisbort, I was ready to concede ... in the case of George
W. Bush, the phrase may be quite apt.
The Death Of The Internet
How Industry Intends To Kill The 'Net As We Know It
By Jeff Chester
(Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy)
The Internet's promise as a new medium -- where text,
audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under
attack by the corporations that control the public's access
to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and
charge for the content people seek and send. The
industry's vision is the online equivalent of seizing the
taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and television
conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century.
(This is a longer post, posted in multiple parts.)
Banking Bunkum
Part 1: Monetary theology
By Henry C K Liu, Asia Times: November 6 2002
Central bankers are like librarians who consider a well-run library to be
one in which all the books are safely stacked on the shelves and properly
catalogued. To reduce incidents of late returns or loss, they would proposed
more strict lending rules, ignoring that the measure of a good library lies
in full circulation. Librarians take pride in the size of their collections
rather than the velocity of their circulation.
Central bankers take the same attitude toward money. Central bankers view
their job as preserving the value of money through the restriction of its
circulation, rather than maximizing the beneficial effect of money on the
economy through its circulation. Many central bankers boast about the size
of their foreign reserves the way librarians boast about the size of their
collections, while their governments pile up budget deficits. Paul Volcker,
the US central banker widely credited with ending inflation in the early
1980s by administering wholesale financial blood letting on the US economy,
quipped lightheartedly at a Washington party that "central bankers are
brought up pulling legs off of ants".
nolympics writes:
"The Real Axis of Evil*
by George Katsiaficas
Long before North Korea announced in October 2002 that it possesses nuclear weapons, Bush’s infamous “axis of evil” speech was a clear sign that his administration had made North Korea a target. In early 2002, the US not only labeled North Korea part of an “axis of evil,” it also threatened to use nuclear weapons against it. In the first year and a half of the Bush presidency, there were not any serious talks between the US and North Korea. Moreover, under pressure from right-wing congressmen, the Bush administration reevaluated the 1994 U.S. agreement with North Korea, known as “The Agreed Framework.” Although most Americans remain completely unaware of it, in 1994 the US came very close to bombing North Korea unilaterally. “The Agreed Framework” narrowly averted a new Korean War that in the estimation of the US military commander in Korea would have killed more than the 3 million people who lost their lives from 1950-1953.
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