The Liberal State?
I think I mentioned that I'm reading Democracy's Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics. (Thanks for the recommendation Beakerkin!) The author, John McGowan, disagrees with Foucault's belief in the States power of subject-formation, saying "The liberal state...does not explicitly aim for a unified whole of which it is the consumate expression..." But what if you start from the point of view that we live in a Market society and the State is far from neutral, is in fact, a capitalist state? He then asks of these "culturalists" why their disdain of consumerism runs so deep; if this is not just another example of elite fear of the demos? "What evidence do we have that the masses are not prepared for citizenship;that the masses lead thin, attenuated lives, that alienation, narcissism, or schizophrenia characterize the modern individual?"
Has he met Beakerkin? Should he have joined the latest White March on Washington? Should he come to Hamilton Montana? I agree with many of the authors arguments and also share his faith in pluralism but it cannot coexist with Spectacular Society where such rampant cognitive dissonance exists. ( The damaged, "schizophrenic" self that holds opposing values without experiencing any tension) Mc Gowan wants to believe the contest over culture ,and thus the formation of identity and even agency, takes place on an even playing field and that it is the heavy handed State we have to look out for, but I still think you have to scratch a little deeper. The commodification of culture and the capitalization of State and society must first be removed, then we can talk pluralism, politics , democracy and a "liberal education".
McGowan also wants to contest the very notion of "culture" as well as "modernism" but I will not try to explain his argument there. I think at the very least we can still imagine these as battlefields where meaning is disputed by various forces and where the age old question, Which Side Are You On? ,still exists. The concept of labor used to be fairly well delineated, (and not that long ago), but even it is dissolving into that homogeneous, gelatinous, mush of modern corporatism, with everyone on the "team" working towards a "common goal" of profitability. I saw Bill Fletcher interviewed by Bill Moyers and he has not wavered. If everyone the right-wing calls a Red, from Greenpeace to Jubilee to Human Rights Watch to David Korten would just stand up and say "Damn Straight, what about it?" we could start making some progress.
posted by troutsky @ 9:39 AM
25 comments
25 Comments:
Lets start this slowly as Communists are IQ impaired.
Few Commies other than Renegade Kidney come out and say "I am a death cultist". They usually try to obscure their real roots and call themselves Greens ala Kovel and Finkelstein.
Commies are death cultists who have zero loyalty to the State. You are on a par with Jihadists and are modern day plantation owners.
No doubt the apologist for Chavez,
Renegade Spleen, will make some excuses for military expenditures as Supermarkets have bare shelves
and crime is rampant. The spleen has called Venezuelan exiles liars who fabricate stories of kidnapings
and yes anti semitic attacks by Chavez goons. Of course when the absence of similar stories from the more numerous Colombians is discussed he goes into denial.
Commies in all their forms are the enemies of mankind. They are power mad death cultists who will justify and evil to further their goals.
In a sane country, people who have visited Caracas on subsidized Theresenstadt tours and are involved with groups like Hands Off Venezuela are under 24/7 security scrutiny. No doubt the people who visited Theresenstadt repeated many of the cliches of Ren and yourself.
As Latin America creates a series of new Cuban communities fleeing Communist theft your lives will become more uncomfortable. Of course the death cultist will pretend that the witnesses are liars ala Chomsky's claims about witnesses to the Killing Fields.
Commies are pariahs and should be denatralized and deported when they violate our laws.
People who advocate communism for others and refuse to subject themselves to it are frauds.Kim Jon Mentally Ill needs an understudy and this is a job for Che Sponge Bob leader of the asses er masses. Cumwads of the world unite you have nothing to lose except your lives and sanity. We shall liberate the masses by starving them to death. Death is alternative liberation. Who needs God when you have Che Sponge Bob.
Viva stupidity.
As Latin America creates a series of new Cuban communities fleeing Communist theft your lives will become more uncomfortable.
------------------------------
How's that going Beak? As far as I can tell the left is still very much alive in Latin America.
Thanks Beak, oh Bodhisattva of the Struggle,
Any one else get the feeling that Beak's shirt wardrobe runs heavily to brown?
He then asks of these "culturalists" why their disdain of consumerism runs so deep...
Good question to ask. Not that they should like it, but such hysteria about it...
It reminds me of the late 50s, early 60s debate over the role of suburbia in dragging our country down to a new low point in culture. All sorts of claims were made about the inner mental state of homo-suburbus, not unlike your claims about homo-consumerus. Herbert Gans, however, went and lived with the beasts for six months in Levittown, then the designated omphalos of infernal suburbia, and found that they weren't noticeably different from urban neighborhood dwellers of similar means. That didn't stop the apocalyptic pronouncements.
Really -The damaged, "schizophrenic" self that holds opposing values without experiencing any tension... Are you a psychiatrist? Do you treat these people? Or is the fact that they don't seek treatment from medical professionals or political radicals a sure indicator of their disease? Do you see what a hole you dig for yourself here?
Surely you must have migrant laborers up there in MT. People who come to our big-bellied consumer hell-paradise for a little work and cash. Talk to them about what they want in life.
When Foucalt and that group, use the word schizophrenia, they use it to describe as a three month old baby, who looks in a mirror, and doesn't recognize, that it's the baby's own image. At six months the baby identifies himself as what's in the mirror. Capitalism makes us lose our identity (schizophrenia) then get it back, by buying comsumer items. That explains using celebrities, as our own identity. That's what postmoderns believe.
@Renegade:
Thanks for the clarification of the post-modern view of "identity." Of course, this assumes that they, the PM critics, know what identity is. Why do they have the key to this mystery? Who gets to say what's authentic self, and what's false? Is it written somewhere?
Why are people feeding beakerkin? He has no argument, aside from cheap Glenn Beck hand-me-downs and locker-room jargon ("cumwads"? Puh-leeze).
I have more than my share of problems with Chavez's 'revolution' from above, but I wouldn't bother discussing them with this fascist hack.
Iamyou: Identity is fluid, taken away and given back. If you are kept without identity, you wouldn't be consuming.
Well ren, I think in the consumerist hell what you get is a new identity ... as a consumer.
Everything's for sale.
@Ducky:
Yes, "consumer" is an identity, albeit a shallow one. Nevertheless, the "hell" of consumerism seems pretty cushy to me compared to some of the alternatives I've seen and read about...
Let's not get carried away.
@lichanos
Yeah, we're comfortable so we think we're free.
Bad deal, and we might not be comfortable for too much longer. Face it, we're trashing the place and it ain't a good bargain.
Duckkky
For someone as warped as Ren being an actual fascist in the mode of Il Duce would be a form of self improvement. Unlike his war criminal messiah Il Duce was not an incompetant and could string a few coherent ideas together.
Then again when one views a drug addict with brains as anything other than a clowwn the light bulb is clearly off.
When and where is Ren surrendering his citizenship and leaving. Those who agitate for Hugo need to experience this insanity first hand. Theresenstadt tours do not count.
Oh stop, Beak and get in on the discussion.
If they hadn't made the terrible misstep of casting the wooden Rowdy Roddie Piper in the lead, do you think "They Live" would have become a neomodern criticism of consumerism?
Bearded Man: They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.
Nada: I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Nada: You? You look like your face fell in the cheese dip back in 1957.
Not a bad script,really. It isn't Godard or Antonioni but give it a try.
Ducky: Maybe it was a critique of Reaganism.
Ducky, don't be rediculous; we are already slaves, and have been since the founding!!
Ren: It was released at the right time. Quite possible.
Kultur: Well, that may be true, but there is no harm trying to make someone like Beak aware of the conditions. If you can crack a hard case like that then real change may be possible.
Kultur
Funny, I do not see slaves fleeing the workers paradise. I see Professionals and just decent people from all walks of life.
What do you have to say to these people who voted with their feet while Comwad Nero er Renegade Testicle ignores reality. Will you deny reality as well?
My question to you is what is Renegade Testicle and Che Sponge Bob doing here if it is so great in Caracas. Do they lack the convictions to vote with their feet as well? Are the merely Chicken Communists.
Poultry
Communist apologists like Renegade Spleen and the off the wall Troutsky are Death cultist. Maybe Kim Jong Mentally Ill or Mugabe need apologists as well.
Hey Beak, get your head out of your ass!!
You have been so conditioned by the curriculum of the West that you do not even know you are a slave. Actually, I like your energy here, and I do not agree with Trout and Che, etc on the Commie agenda. But really, you need to reflect a bit more critically on your own presuppositions. Forexample, if you are like most Americans, you are a slave to time... you live by the clock, work byt it, punch the time clock, etc. You also may therefore live for the future... not my idea of freedom friend. You are a slave of the consumerism that continually has you wanting more, buying more, and working and borrowing more to get it. At least that is the common plight here. I could go on, but why?
Please think before you respond too emotionally.
with love and rage
kultur
Kultur
Unlike the Death Cultists I am not beholden to a pseudo religious death cult. There is a conga line of people fleeing Hugo's Commie Crack Den.
The death cultist are neo slavers who set themselves up as the defacto royalty by virtue of their insane belief n the death cult. The people that vote with their feet want to enjoy the fruits of their labor and the freedom to live and think without some bug eyed low IQ commissar running their lives.
I have the choice to change my career and spend as I deem fit. I do not need or want some bug eyed comwad deciding how I shall live or traeing the unwashed masses like domestic animals.
It is you who are so obtuse as to the inherent evil perpetrated by the death cultists again and again.
How many times does Renegade testicle get to rebrand a malady that kills and ruins lives in every application.
Would you be as charitable with a lunatic that tried to create a Roehm based version of Nazism without the Holocaust?
In your desire to be above it all you lack the critical ability to discern pure evil. Renegade Testicle and the death cult apologists are pure evil.
Trotsky gets a pass as he seems to be a rather mindless follower.
What are the apologist for Chavez doing here? Do they lack the conviction to live in the prisons they advocate for others.
Let Ren go to Caracas and renounce his US Citizenship or he is a fraud.
Little off topic on the labor front.
You may have read about the Boston Hyatt hotels firing the housekeeping staff and replacing them with "contract workers" at half the wages and absolutely no benefits.
The previous workers didn't have it great but with $15 an hour, basic medical, vacation and sick leave it wasn't terrible.
There was universal outrage. Businessmen canceled their bookings, the governor called for a boycott by state workers, cabbies threatened to refuse fares to Hyatt hotels and the workers are being offered equivalent jobs as a result.
We'll see how this progresses but Hyatt will stay under the microscope. Small victory for solidarity.
Beak, Bodhisattva of Political Enlightenment, can you offer a critique on Bunuel's great film, "The Exterminating Angel"?
As you may be aware, it concerns an upper class party where the guests find themselves unable to leave the home after the servants are gone. They can't feed themselves or even perform more basic functions. Now, I see it as Bunuel's critique on the bourgeois more than an economic critique but I'd like your opinion. Or feel free to comment on Bunuel in general.
Ducky , did you see Lichanos' review of the Brunel film in his post of Sept.13?
He is a real film afficianado, and I keep a list of interesting ones he has mentioned but getting around to them...
As to schizophrenia, I am not an expert of any kind but I have a daughter who was diagnosed bi-polar. Only to say,their exists an aspect of mind which cannot examine itself, is not aware of itself, and can be manipulated. It poses real problems when it comes to theory which is what I was exploring and will continue to do in the next post. It seems important to my project?,,,
kultur, it is an interesting form of slavery where the slaves voluntarily lock themselves in each night after working their fingers to the bone. is it a rational accounting? Is it irrational? How can our response be tested?
trout
it is all part of the 'Spectacle'---they tell us we are free, they distract us with toys, when we are slaves and we believe it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
No trout, I wasn't aware of his blog. Can't have enough Bunuel fans.
I think you'd enjoy "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" or "Viridiana".
"Viridiana" has an interesting history. Franco invited Bunuel to return to Spain and gave him artistic control of the film. After filming it was immediately banned by Franco and the Catholic Church and all the copies burned. The only reason it survived was that it had been selected to screen at Cannes and a copy had been shipped out of Spain in time.
He went back to Mexico and made "Exterminating Angel".
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