Stultus est sicut stultus facit American Decaffeinated Politics - All of the Arguments without Any Lasting Beneficial ResultsThe ultimate model of a commodity today would be to get the experience, without paying the price for it. You will get the taste of the real thing, without the thing itself. This is why when people asked me: what is for you the ultimate commodity today, I wouldn't say: a car or Coca Cola. I would say something like: diet Coke, beer without alcohol, where you have this virtual logic. It tastes like alcohol, it tastes like beer, but it is not beer. Or diet fat-free chocolate. You get the real thing, without paying the price for it. And I claim that this logic, which then is expanding... We've got fat-free meat, we are getting of course alcohol free, the big problem is that they can not do smoking. They put a lot of money, I read somewhere, into cigarettes, but they can not replace nicotine, you know. I think that the same even holds for our inter-subjective experiences. I remember how Collin Powel, when he was still more influential in American politics, proposed this theory, his new idea of war, which should be a totally technological war, practically without victims on our side. It is again war, where you don't pay the price. Like decaffeinated war. Decaffeinated coffee would have been a model for me. Again, it is the same. And what I claim is that when we are 'multiculturalists', we are a little bit hypocritical at this level. We want the other, Pakistani, Indonesians, Indians, whatever, Muslims, to be decaffeinated: a nice folkloric other, without their dirty side. This, I think, is again our everyday ideology, which is why I would say it is not true when people claim we live in a consumerist society. True consumerism would have been for me that you go to the end and you don't care about the consequences. Those who have free sex, without caring for aids. No, the formula there is decaffeinated sex. Sex with condoms and so on. Safe sex. Or drugs. It is typical how we pretend to be a consumerist society, but drugs are such an object of horror. I am always shocked, and I think there is an ideology in it... I don't smoke, to avoid misunderstanding, and I believe smoking is dangerous, but nonetheless, this obsession with the danger of smoking, it is another obsession of being afraid of the other. Ultimately, the dangerous guy is the other person: the neighbour himself. This is why the central notion of today's ideology, I claim, is harassment. What is harassment? Harassment can be, if you are in a politically correctly developed country like the United States, almost everything. You can imagine, with my primitive Balkan-European attitudes I am often accused of harassing people. Because when you use dirty words, they claim it is verbal rape. When you look at a woman directly, it is visual rape. What makes me very sad is the vision of inter-subjective relations, which is implied here: when you come too close to me with your fantasy's desires, you intrude my space. So, this is our everyday ideology: I love you, but don't come too close me.
Farmer:
ReplyDeleteI call a straw man: who is claiming racism will disappear when that flag is removed from state grounds?
Going back a bit: show me a modern case of 'affirmative action' (white-on-black). You know, the kind that inspires racist airheads like Dylann to go on a killing spree, write a "manifesto" about it and forget to mention that particular grievance?
It is a strawman. Satire to represent the current liberal political argument.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't "forget it." Show me an article in a major publication that argues for its' "repeal". If you could, you'd discover that the author was likely run out of town on a rail.
Take these quotes as "hints" of Roof's resentment
"Speaking of South Africa, if anyone thinks that think will eventually just change for the better, consider how in South Africa they have affirmative action for the black population that makes up 80 percent of the population."
or
"If a scientist publishes a paper on the differences between the races in Western Europe or Americans, he can expect to lose his job."
or
"In a modern history class it is always emphasized that, when talking about “bad” things Whites have done in history, they were White. ...Yet when we learn about anything important done by a black person in history, it is always pointed out repeatedly that they were black."
or
"To take a saying from a film, “I see all this stuff going on, and I dont see anyone doing anything about it. And it pisses me off.”. To take a saying from my favorite film, “Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt, I want to use it for the good of society.”."
You don't think that affirmative action and subsequent political correctness aren't an issue because he doesn't directly denounce them? When an "hysteric" is unable to use language to express his feelings, he attempts to "resolve" his confusion with a "passage a l'acte"... a "symptom"... in this case... VIOLENCE.
Affirmative action is not nearly the equivalent of "slavery" or "Jim Crow". But it is still the "State" picking racial winners and losers. And when a Society prides itself on NOT treating social groups differently and then DOES, it reveals an hypocrisy inherent in the very concept of "Social Justice".
ReplyDeleteps - What do you think of the Asian group currently suing Harvard over its' admissions policies. It's a bit misdirected, IMO. The affirmative action admission disparities are much more readily apparent at lower tier Institutions.
ReplyDeleteWell, good luck with their lawsuit ‘cos that’s gonna be hard to prove in a Court of Law. ‘Race’ is a subject in the US that’s really gone bonkers. Quite sad to see it that way, frankly…
ReplyDeleteDylann’s ‘arguments’ don’t make any sense at all. It’s a hallmark of White supremacist theory that ‘Whitey’ is always under attack and endangered. It’s BS. Remember that (UK) nut called ‘Sentinel’? (Used to hang out at Renegade Eye?) He was always crapping on about ‘Caucasophobia’ and ‘genocide against the White Race’. It’s BALONEY, pure and simple.
Let’s not forget that the sole reason for slave holding was economic and that resistance to abolition was of course too. The period between abolition and full civil rights was ‘designed’ (very clumsily put but I’m not feeling great ATM) to prevent Blacks attaining political power. Politics of FEAR.
No, your theory doesn’t hold water, less so than this one here, which isn’t so great either (difficult to prove, to say the least) but has a marginally greater plausibility factor.
Thersites, why is the American Right so hell-bent on denying that racism still exists in the US? Allowing even for Right-baiting, the use of the R-word as a political weapon and PC by the American Left, why be so defensive about it? See Fox News’ ridiculous series of gaffes re. l’affaire Dylann Roof (who the hell names his male kid ‘DylaNN’, for the love of G-d??? ;-) )
Who's denying it? The Right is simply sick of OBSESSING over it.
ReplyDeleteSlavery was the result of an "economic" situation. Racism "developed" out of an "economic" situation. So should ANYONE be surprised that all racial politics accomplishes if to OBFUSCATE an underlying ECONOMIC problem. One of a shrinking middle class, and fewer available jobs that pay a "surplus wage".
Let's focus on resolving these underlying social issues. Because taking down a "flag" at an historical monument does NOTHING to address reality. "Form"-al freedom may indeed be a necessary component of "Actual"-ized freedom, but these steps will do nothing to improve "Form"-al freedom, and merely lend themselves to further misperceptions and misconceptions about it.
Look, money serves to hide overt "forms" of domination. It also allows people who have it to create/ establish a certain "social distance" from "the other" (be the "other" a racial, geographic, or social trait). Those that don't "have it" get pushed-up against one another in many and varied annoying and stressful ways. And to then force them even closer together, just p*sses everyone off.
In America we value "freedom of association". So when government bullies drag your kids off to lower-performing public schools across town, people (of means) vote with their feet or, the more entrepreneurial among them, establish private schools for their kids. Overt Government "domination" through forced busing is un-helpful. It POLARIZES social communities and groups.
It's time for a new politics in America. One that addresses economic opportunity and prosperity for ALL of her citizens (and not metics or foreign investors).
PS - I'm ALL for making "form"-ally clear the lines of our society's domination and authority. My "boss" is not my "buddy", so when he "orders" me to do something, I don't get "upset" with him. We're not "friends" and his "orders" aren't suggestions that equals/ friends are free to regard or disregard. If I disregard them, I jeopardize our social relationship employer-employee. THAT should be perfectly clear.
ReplyDeleteNow, I DO also have social relationships that aren't "employer-employee". In some, like with my kids, I am "dominating". In others, like with my wife or with friends, I am an equal/ peer. And in still others, like with my father or mother-in-law, I am a subordinate.
But I don't wish to have a dominate-subordinate social relationship with my government. My government is supposed to "represent" me, one sovereign citizen amongst many like citizens. It shouldn't be playing me against my neighbor for the benefit of some third party. And when it does, it's my duty to either change or eliminate it, because at that point, it's no longer representing me OR my neighbor.
PPS - And I have always paid my taxes to keep my "social distance" from the government in force.
ReplyDeleteLet's focus on resolving these underlying social issues. Because taking down a "flag" at an historical monument does NOTHING to address reality. "Form"-al freedom may indeed be a necessary component of "Actual"-ized freedom, but these steps will do nothing to improve "Form"-al freedom, and merely lend themselves to further misperceptions and misconceptions about it.
ReplyDeleteWe agree. Even 'gay marriage' is a distraction from more pressing problems (neoliberalism, essentially).
But things are likely to have to get worse before current political awareness reaches any semblance of critical mass and a concrete political movement crystallises.
Left too late, things will get very, very ugly, I feel sure.
On that, we are most certainly in agreement.
ReplyDeleteHere’s a movie I’d like to watch.
ReplyDeleteConsider the machines somewhat metaphorical and substitute for neoliberal ‘outsourcing’.
Something completely different: the ACA opponents need to explain to me how in a system of privatised healthcare and ditto health insurance, there isn't a conflict of interest between the insurer and the insured (see e.g. ‘pre-existing conditions’)
Actually, the conflict of interest lies in the "pool". The insurer's just collect all the money.
ReplyDelete'Splain?
ReplyDeleteCar insurers (legitimately) punish bad drivers with higher fees. Some car insurers only take on women because statistically they're safer drivers. Life insurers do very similar things.
Don't health insurers do the same to safeguard/maximise profits?
Cars aren't people and life insurance is optional though.
Car insurers (legitimately) punish bad drivers with higher fees.
ReplyDeleteCar insurers (illegitimately) punish good drivers with higher rates. I've paid tens of thousands in premiums, and only collected thousands in recoverable losses. My rates subsidize the bad drivers.