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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Trump, 2016, and the Neo-Negation of Government


...the First Negation
In "States of Injury", Wendy Brown refers to the same logic of the dialectical process when she emphasizes how the first reaction of the oppressed to their oppression is that they imagine a world simply deprived of the Other that exerts oppression on them - women imagine a world without men, African-Americans a world without whites, workers a world without capitalists... The mistake of such an attitude is not that it is 'too radical', that it wants to annihilate the Other instead of merely changing it; but, on the contrary, that it is not radical enough: it fails to examine the way the identity of its own position (that of a worker, a woman, an African-American...) is 'mediated' by the Other (there is no worker without a capitalist organizing th production process, etc.), so that if one is to get rid of the oppressive Other, one has substantially to transform the content of one's own position. That is the fatal flaw of precipitate historicization: those who want 'free sexuality delivered of the Oedipal burden of guilt and anxiety' proceed in the same way as the worker who wants to survive as a worker without a capitalist; they also fail to take into account the way their own position is 'mediated' by the Other. The well-known Mead-Malinowski myth of the free, non-inhibited sexuality reigning in the South Pacific provides an exemplary case of such an 'abstract negation': it merely projects into the spatio-historical Other of 'primitive societies' the fantasy of a 'free sexuality' rooted in its own historical context. In this way, it is not 'historical' enough: it remains caught in the coordinates of one's own historical horizon precisely in its attempts to imagine a 'radical' Otherness - in short, anti-Oedipus is the ultimate Oedipal myth...

This mistake tells us a lot about the Hegelian 'negation of the negation': its matrix is not that of loss and its recuperation, but simply that of a process of passage from state A to state B: the first, immediate 'negation' of A negates the position of A while remaining within its symbolic confines, so it must be followed by another negation, which then negates the very symbolic space common to A and its immediate negation (the reign of a religion is first subverted in the guise of a theological heresy; capitalism is first subverted in the name of a 'reign of Labour'). Here the gap that separates the negated system's 'real' death from its' 'symbolic' death is crucial; the system has to die twice.
- Slavoj Zizek, "The Ticklish Subject"

10 comments:

FreeThinke said...

A LIFE-LONG FRIEND of MINE SUBMITTED the FOLLOWING TONIGHT:


2016 will prove to be a challenging year. I have NEVER been a believer in conspiracy theories which have have abounded in great numbers since Pearl Harbor and on. Now I truly believe in one, and want your opinion on the matter.

The Donald is a very close personal friend of Bill and Hillary. The Clintons attended both Ivanka and Donald's Weddings and he in turn attended Chelsea's. Donald met earlier in the year with Bill and some of Hillary's key operatives and they strongly urged him to run for President.

The purpose is threefold:

1. If Donald wins the nomination, Hillary is a shoo-in,

2. If he doesn't win the nomination and runs as an independent candidate (which he "denies" he will do), Hillary is even more of a shoo-in

3. He makes these outlandish demagogic statements to make the Republican Party look bad. I'm sure Hillary secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, is cheering on the Donald's every move.

If for some inconceivable reason he is elected, he wins, and if he doesn't he still wins by being rewarded in some yet to be seen manner.

It has to be a win-win for him, or why would he spend so much time on this effort? What I find appalling is that this wouldn't be possible without his substantial right-wing fan base.

It's so so depressing in this great nation of 300,000,000-plus people we can't find and support better candidates than the 3 C's: a Commie, a Criminal and a Clown? The Commie and the Clown are self-evident. Very sadly I believe Hillary will become the next leader of the free world, instead of languishing in prison where she richly deserves to be.

Simply stated it is a felony to send classified information over a personal server, and what about the tends of millions of dollars of dollars donated to the Clinton Foundation through a Canadian Foundation which hides the source of their foreign national and government donors? Please refer to NY Times and NPR articles on these subjects.

Although Socialism has never worked anywhere at any time with Venezuela being its newest victim with collapsing oil prices no longer being able to subsidize Hugo Chavez's experiment, Sanders as a person is preferable to the other 2.

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Thersites said...

MY thoughts?

Your friend is crazy. Bernie is Hugo Chavez, a SOCIALIST died in the wool. If Bernie becomes president, it's time to emigrate to Switzerland while you can still convert dollars to Swiss Francs.

I personally see Donald Trump as a "negation" of government and Hillary as a "status quo" candidate. Rand Paul is the only "change" candidate in the race, and even he is "milquetoast." There is no candidate in the race who will "fix" government for the American middle class, only those who would exploit it.

WomanHonorThyself said...

I sure do hope that conspiracy is false because if it is not we are surely doomed! Have a beautiful Monday my friend! xoxox

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

You too, Angel!

The thing about a conspiracy "theory" is that it cannot be proven until long AFTER it occurs.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

@FT, Does your friend know the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist?

Gert said...

They're trying to ban Trump here in Old Blighty. But to deprive us of an opportunity to pelt him with rotten eggs and over-ripe tomatoes is beyond the pale!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

They're trying to ban Trump here in Old Blighty.

Mrs Grundy seems to have gotten her panties in a wad again. Perhaps one day, she'll remove the hair shirt as well, and go full commando!

Mrs. Grundy said...

You wish, Mr. John!

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Mark your calendars. Me and FT are in full agreement, except I think Trump will endorse Hillary in July.

Joe Cameltoe said...

A red letter day, indeed!