tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post3482514759196507100..comments2023-12-08T00:45:09.046-08:00Comments on The Fullfillment* Centre: carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17886258675618058752noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-85818388916104827512008-09-05T05:58:00.000-07:002008-09-05T05:58:00.000-07:00Chimp, you're authentically human, but not intrins...Chimp, you're authentically human, but not intrinsically nice. <BR/><BR/>Have a banana.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-32111380546288957532008-09-05T03:57:00.000-07:002008-09-05T03:57:00.000-07:00god you two should get a room for christ's sake.god you two should get a room for christ's sake.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-20610370340869253182008-09-03T08:57:00.000-07:002008-09-03T08:57:00.000-07:00"But do you now understand what I mean when I say ...<I>"But do you now understand what I mean when I say that humanity as such is of no value to an emancipatory politics?"</I><BR/><BR/>No, because it's incoherent. Precisely what do you mean by "humanity"? What is any politics going to emancipate, if not human beings?<BR/><BR/><I>"Or that, in general, a politics that promises to emancipate an authentic humanity from an inauthentic humanity is likely to be fascist"</I><BR/><BR/>That would depend on how your terms are defined, and who's defining them, and to what end. "Authentic" is not a word I'm in the habit of using, but "humanity" is certainly indispensable. <BR/><BR/>And some ways of living are clearly more suited to human beings than others. I wouldn't say it's <I>inauthentic</I> to work a 12-hour day for a pittance and then go home hungry to sleep in a slum; I'd say it's <I>crap</I>, I'd say it's <I>wrong</I>, and I'd say it should be changed.<BR/><BR/>No need to complicate matters unnecessarily. But I do in fact agree with Debord that there are even better ways of living than the one we enjoy right now. Do you disagree?<BR/><BR/>PS In saying "promises" you're also putting your thumb on the scales, surreptitiously. (I saw that!) Certainly, the promises of ideologues are generally worth distrusting. But who's promising, exactly? To whom are you referring? <BR/><BR/>- w.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-21265680884931524042008-09-03T08:19:00.001-07:002008-09-03T08:19:00.001-07:00A cheap evasion, warzawa!A cheap evasion, warzawa!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-21996276690207555262008-09-03T08:19:00.000-07:002008-09-03T08:19:00.000-07:00Or that, in general, a politics that promises to e...Or that, in general, a politics that promises to emancipate an authentic humanity from an inauthentic humanity is likely to be fascist?Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-47768432310462636882008-09-03T08:17:00.000-07:002008-09-03T08:17:00.000-07:00But do you now understand what I mean when I say t...But do you now understand what I mean when I say that humanity as such is of no value to an emancipatory politics?Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-56291121025131542312008-09-03T08:10:00.000-07:002008-09-03T08:10:00.000-07:00"Dworkin's not claiming that napalm was invented b...<I>"Dworkin's not claiming that napalm was invented by lizards, but that the human beings who invented it must have become separated from some wellspring of authentic humanity. This is the move I'm disagreeing with"</I><BR/><BR/>Good for you. It's not my move, though, it's Andrea Dworkin's, so I don't see why I'm being blamed for it.<BR/><BR/><I>I am asserting that there is no true, authentic, intrinsic humanity that does not include the humanity of napalm-inventors."</I><BR/><BR/>Where did I deny this, Dominic? Nowhere. It's a trivial truth. And of course I don't deny it and never have done.<BR/><BR/>There's that straw man again; or, in this case, straw woman. I am no more it than I am Lawrence Upton.<BR/><BR/>- w.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-73689357396641903752008-09-03T07:56:00.000-07:002008-09-03T07:56:00.000-07:00More telegraphically: emancipation requires an ide...More telegraphically: emancipation requires an <EM>idea</EM>.Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-60586117979884052002008-09-03T07:54:00.000-07:002008-09-03T07:54:00.000-07:00Somewhere around the outset of Andrea Dworkin's Po...Somewhere around the outset of Andrea Dworkin's <EM>Pornography</EM> there's a reference to napalm and nuclear bombs as weapons so perverse and hideous as to defy "any authentically human imagination". The crux of the phrase is the word "authentically". Dworkin's not claiming that napalm was invented by lizards, but that the human beings who invented it must have become separated from some wellspring of authentic humanity. This is the move I'm disagreeing with: I don't think that the humanity that invents hideous weapons is any more or less authentic than the humanity that recognises their hideousness and recoils from it. "Humanity" cannot be separated into "authentic" and "inauthentic" humanity (indeed, there's something decidedly fascist about this sort of distinction). An emancipatory politics cannot therefore take humanity as a <EM>value</EM>, since generic humanity includes the humanity of (amongst others) oppressors and napalm-inventors. I am not asserting that napalm-inventors represent the true, authentic, intrinsic humanity. I am asserting that there is no true, authentic, intrinsic humanity that does not include the humanity of napalm-inventors.Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-876773260993144232008-09-03T07:44:00.000-07:002008-09-03T07:44:00.000-07:00No, I am not Lawrence Upton. Who is he? (Clearly a...No, I am not Lawrence Upton. Who is he? (Clearly a man of taste and discernment, whoever he is.)<BR/><BR/>- w.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-83408393948391625242008-09-03T07:27:00.000-07:002008-09-03T07:27:00.000-07:00Fuck me, but I've heard all this before. You're no...Fuck me, but I've heard all this before. You're not Lawrence Upton, are you? You sound exactly exactly exactly like him.Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-60641387410154485332008-09-03T05:55:00.000-07:002008-09-03T05:55:00.000-07:00"I don't see a passion for the real in chauvinisti...<I>"I don't see a passion for the real in chauvinistic left-humanism; I see an intransigent defence of fairytales (be they Reichian or whatever) about the intrinsic niceness of human beings, with the concommittant misidentification of its enemies as enemies of niceness, rather than all-too-human partisans of their own class interest. "</I><BR/><BR/>Well, if you "see" that, then it's solely because you've constructed a giant straw man in your own living-room, and it's blocking your window. <BR/><BR/>It's nice to see that the old cottage industries haven't died out, though, and I'm glad you have a hobby, if you feel you need one. And you can beat Mr. Strawman up all you want, Dominic, but don't expect thunderous applause when you win. <I>"Fairytales ... about the intrinsic niceness of human beings"?</I> You clearly haven't read a word of Reich. Maybe you're confusing him with Tony Blair, or Terry Wogan. Or maybe you're just too attached to your own comforting fairytales about Humanity's Intrinisic Nastiness. <BR/><BR/><I>"The oppressors are assuredly members of the same biological species as the oppressed (not lizards...)."</I><BR/><BR/>Dot dot dot. You don't say. Or rather you do, but why? Who's denying it? Certainly not I. But you do love constructing those straw men of yours, or in this case straw lizards.<BR/><BR/>As you pride yourself on noticing, Dominic, it's not always nice to be nice. Reich noticed this too, of course. (He did very much more than notice it, but <I>whatever</I>.) But is it always deep to be nasty? By no means, as you demonstrate. Feel free to equate <I>"a passion for the real"</I> with <I>"a hatred of biological existence"</I>, or a round-the-world trip with an episode of EastEnders, but I'm going to need more than your word for it that you're right. <BR/><BR/>The value of misanthropy <I>as such</I> to an emancipatory politics is less than nil, as the left sooned noticed in the case of Celine. Now you're telling us the way forward is to expand our focus and start hating everything that lives, before being <I>"artfully persuaded"</I> -- somehow, perhaps magically, by someone big & clever, a natural Leader of Men, no doubt -- to channel this passion for the real [sic] into something much nicer and more constructive, which will yet be equally real, somehow, or so you claim.<BR/><BR/>Your thinking is undeniably artful (indeed, it's positively rococo), but I'm still not fully persuaded it's emancipatory, or even sexy, much less sane. But then I'm no mathematician. In any case, the world has been down this road before, in sex<I>ay</I> uniforms. The Nazis called themselves socialists too, y'know. Dot dot dot.<BR/><BR/>-w.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-46187505108400300612008-09-03T04:15:00.000-07:002008-09-03T04:15:00.000-07:00"Way to make left-wing politics sound sexy, w!"I k...<I>"Way to make left-wing politics sound sexy, w!"</I><BR/><BR/>I know, IT, it'sterribleisn'tit. A Left that truly aspired to sound sexy would fantasise at inordinate length about being tailored to death by a Jasmine dressed precisely "as per" our requirements, because after all who's paying? Or else that sad 'n' schlubby left would address its lamentable sexiness-deficit from another angle, namely Dominic's, by arguing that "the value of humanity as such to an emancipatory politics is precisely nil". That should madden 'em with desire. <BR/><BR/>Way to go, guys. It reminds me of Rudolf Valentino. The left will soon require bodyguards.<BR/><BR/>-w.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-3804781100950663472008-09-03T01:29:00.000-07:002008-09-03T01:29:00.000-07:00"(superficially or insecurely or resentfully) clev..."(superficially or insecurely or resentfully) clever"<BR/><BR/>pound? heidegger? celine?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-79664841282438397572008-09-03T01:26:00.000-07:002008-09-03T01:26:00.000-07:00What has the left-Nietzschean anti-humanist techno...What has the left-Nietzschean anti-humanist technogeek to do with the blood-and-soil bits of fascism, the kids-church-kitchen bit, the unity-is-strength bit, the theatrical militarism, the biological race theory and the ovens? Without these elements, all of which he will generally find both contemptible and personally menacing, what really is left?<BR/><BR/>This "proto-" fascism is nothing of the sort. It's just a hatred of biological existence ("the human animal"), quotidian sociality ("opinion") and the tyranny of received ideas ("the state"). It meshes with neoliberal ambition in its deterritorialising phase, but is absolutely hostile to the reterritorialisation that inevitably follows: what it wills is <EM>destructive</EM> destruction.<BR/><BR/>What particularly appeals to me about Badiou, besides the mathematics, is that this desire is acknowledged, given a name ("the passion for the real"), and then artfully persuaded to invest itself in the search for novel egalitarian political forms instead of just burning shit down. <BR/><BR/>I don't see a passion for the real in chauvinistic left-humanism; I see an intransigent defence of fairytales (be they Reichian or whatever) about the intrinsic niceness of human beings, with the concommittant misidentification of its enemies as enemies of niceness, rather than all-too-human partisans of their own class interest. The oppressors are assuredly members of the same biological species as the oppressed (not lizards...). The value of humanity <EM>as such</EM> to an emancipatory politics is precisely nil.Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-3950430628355444692008-09-02T17:19:00.000-07:002008-09-02T17:19:00.000-07:00Way to make left-wing politics sound sexy, w! Aren...Way to make left-wing politics sound sexy, w! Aren't you supposed to assume that everyone is really a humanist trying to shrug off the misanthropy engendered by Batman films, or something? Don't you have a tiny bit of love left over for the unhappily protofascist teen-boys? Miserable bastard!ithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-19365223678050256042008-09-02T14:56:00.000-07:002008-09-02T14:56:00.000-07:00"Fascism is stupid, but it's one of those sorts of...<I>"Fascism is stupid, but it's one of those sorts of stupidity clever people go for, perplexingly in spite of the fact that it's also one of those sorts of stupidity stupid people go for."</I><BR/><BR/>I really don't see anything perplexing about it. Goering was not <I>mentally</I> deficient. The attraction of fascism for the (superficially or insecurely or resentfully) clever is surely no mystery. Inside many smart-but-alienated adolescent boys there's a protofascist flailing to get out, often disguised as a left-Nietzschean, or a "post-humanist", or a technogeek, or a 'taboo-breaking' artist. Wilhelm Reich described the aetiology more than seven decades ago. Robert Crumb drew more than one memorable cartoon about it.<BR/><BR/>- w.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-3010460692609310552008-09-02T14:14:00.000-07:002008-09-02T14:14:00.000-07:00Happily there do, indeed, exist people who are bot...Happily there do, indeed, exist people who are both clever and not fascists. They do seem to be somewhat of a minority though. Fascism is stupid, but it's one of those sorts of stupidity clever people go for, perplexingly in spite of the fact that it's also one of those sorts of stupidity stupid people go for.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps that's the point - people convinced of their own cleverness who want to feel that they belong, after all, to the same species as stupid people will find in fascism the simulacrum of a common bond...Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-65980036544044475892008-09-02T13:48:00.000-07:002008-09-02T13:48:00.000-07:00"Rather Celine than Carol Anne Duffy."Luckily, the...<I>"Rather Celine than Carol Anne Duffy."</I><BR/><BR/>Luckily, these are not the only two choices available to any of us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-88571531737186316102008-09-02T13:38:00.000-07:002008-09-02T13:38:00.000-07:00I don't see anyone claiming that this is realist f...I don't see anyone claiming that this is realist fiction, and therefore better than the infantile fantasies enjoyed by sniggering overgrown adolescents. It's a morbid shaggy-dog story with a decent punchline. It has some memorable images, although I prefer not to remember them. It is better than many other things of its sort, simply because it is better written, although it reminds me rather of Amis Jr and I've never much liked him - his clever-nastiness is a mask for a not-so-clever nastiness, which is increasingly in evidence these days. Even so, I'll take my cleverness where I can get it. Rather Celine than Carol Anne Duffy.Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-36549617068763110942008-09-02T13:04:00.000-07:002008-09-02T13:04:00.000-07:00nice to see the spirit of good humour has r...nice to see the spirit of good humour has returned to blogland!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-86555480680418596742008-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:002008-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:00No, Dominic, surely it's a study of the intersubje...No, Dominic, surely it's a study of the intersubjective, not to mention intrasubjective ("I had a terrible cramp in my calves")torsion experienced by social participants in situ as the result of a particular ludic connivance, a work that courageously depicts unpleasant truths about individuals and never offers the viewer the fantasy of being extracted from this connivance, elevated above the fray, and able to see what makes other people (synechdochised as social "types", such as bored Dominas) tick? (continues for 371 posts, with slightly varying cadence...)<BR/><BR/>Still, it's good to see a woman coping. The only mystery is why Jasmine didn't start by removing the narrator's tongue.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-30658718931811127072008-09-02T10:03:00.000-07:002008-09-02T10:03:00.000-07:00Evidently 30 years of Thatcher and Blair have warp...Evidently 30 years of Thatcher and Blair have warped you beyond all hope of human rehabilitation. This piece is a transparent glorification of neoliberal "creative destruction", which sickeningly attempts to shift the blame for the system's failings on the workers who fail to carry out their duties with sufficient enthusiasm and imagination...(continues for 37 posts, with slightly varying cadence...)Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31416501.post-17587484138855112882008-09-01T23:49:00.000-07:002008-09-01T23:49:00.000-07:00It must cost an arm and a leg for that kind of ser...It must cost an arm and a leg for that kind of service - your complaint therefore appears justified and I recommend you contact the regulatory body -Offlimb. Offlimb will keep you abreast of developments as they finger the culprits- who will probably throw their hand in once they realise somethings afoot. If not there'll be blood on the boardroom carpet- you mark my words. Heads will roll and inevitably somebody will get the sac[k]. So socket to 'em.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com