Post Secret Simulations

To be honest, the website postsecret.blogspot.com unnerves me somewhat. The voyeuristic display of personal problems, not to be shared with people but with a fictional universal audience of the internet (strangely not unlike this blog) displays an odd spin on responsibility to yourself or the people you live with

Of course, the charm of the site comes from the fact that everything gets displayed on a postcard. This Medium changes the way the messages work. The snapshots of reality demonstrate their un-reality because they come on nothing more than postcards. Each one emerges from reality but becomes something of its own, representing a hint of situated reality, but decontextualized and dramatized into whatever the viewer perceives as true within them. It allows for decipherment and intelligibility to an otherwise unimaginable situation. By giving them a sense of coherence, it gives events an abstracted detachment, making them viewable and pleasurable. So, the joy and power of PostSecret comes not from the reality or humanity of it all, but rather the fiction of it all- the disconnect between the narrative flow of human experience to a freezeframed moment on card.

I don’t object to the pornography of the images, but rather the image-ness of the images: the way they become something different from that which they supposedly represent

Capital Identity

Christian Science Monitor article on 'Tweens'

I find Marx’s explanation of capital compelling partially because it describes the motivations for the construction of identity. A classic problem in philosophy relates to the “original mover” that initiated the explosion, movement, energy in the universe. For me, capitalism and Marx serves this purpose: someone or something has to set in motion political change, and the pursuit or optimization of capital gets stuff going. The exigencies and challenges of identity arise from the accumulation of wealth as capital.

This article describes the definition and subsequent expansion of a market for ‘tweens,’ “defined as 8-to-12-year-olds but today often pushed down to 6 or younger.” The term defines a particular market with particular needs in ways that requires investment in new clothes, bands, toys, etc. Capital requires the creation of the term to explain or justify investment opportunities.

Out of nothing emerges identity and market space. The idea of ‘tweens’ has post-structural echoes:
“Addie Schwartz believes in speaking to tweens "in a language they will respond to and embrace as their own," and she sees her own work as a pushback against what she calls "oversexualized" media. A parent, Ms. Schwartz runs Beacon Street Girls, a series of books that help tween girls sort out social issues. She also sells branded backpacks and sleepover sets.
"You have experts in their ivory towers saying all consumerism is bad," she says. "The truth is [in] the intent."”

The binaries of child/adult gradually erode under the assault of marketing strategies. The concept of ‘tween’ fits between teenager and child, and teenager originally was created to undermine the dichotomy between child and adult. Post structural language aligns with broader social forces, united against leaving out anyone, from either spending or participating at their fullest.

This is devolving.

Duncan

Birthday

This post in no way diminishes or denies an exceptional day.

Birthdays work backwards. Instead of being showered with gifts praise and exceptional affection, the birthday person should give back to the world. The people around you, your friends and parents sustained you through another year of your life as much as you individually have. A life requires people to live it with and for, and a celebration of a year or a person should celebrate those people as well. It relates to the way the subject/individual forms: in relation to others, bound up in them.

I would rather give a thank you to the world on my birthday.

Deja Vu

Havn't we been here before?

LA Times Article on 'Net Neutrality'

This article discusses current legislation being proposed to allow telecom companies to charge larger fees to certain internet companies/entities for usage of what is now public or open access. As it stands, the fee structure for the internet works like this: you pay money to an ISP, which manages a network of regional servers and communication links, which is then linked to a wider (geographically) network with 'bigger' pipes, which then links to a global network with the biggest pipes and the widest reach. Your money pays for access to the small network, who then pays for whatever access to the larger one, etc. Larger companies can buy into higher levels of this system to ensure wider bandwidth, if need be. What this bill does is allow the companies that control the biggest networks that serve as the 'backbone' to the internet to asses fees to users on the lower end.

Basicly, the people with their hands on the biggest and most important switch get a bigger say in what and how much goes over the internet.

I say we've been here before because we have. Back in the day, (the 1920s, 'gilded age') there was vertical integration of the means of transportation over railroads. A few companies had the ultimate control over what went over the rails, and were able to charge higher amounts to farmers for the basic transportation they needed to survive as farmers. In a world where information is the new 'grain' and material for the economy, this bill creates a similar situation for digital farmers. It sets a higher (more expensive) threshold for use of the internet, and allows for the assessment of variable fees for use. The new funding structure can just as easily bankrupt new and small business (or any group trying to distribute 'subversive' content) as railroad companies were able to milk and destroy farmers leading up to the Great Depression.

This is the reason we have a Sherman Anti-Trust act, this is the reason AT&T was broken up years ago. Anyone able to assess fees in this way makes the economy more fragile and more expensive to consumers.

Think of it as a flat-tax on the internet.

Back back again

Computer makes its triumphant return to working.

Two thoughts on rhetoric.

First- the focus on agency in arguments. I have two examples. First, there was a person in my dorm who usually takes about 10 minutes to brush his damn teeth with the water running the whole time (I believe it's a question of narcissism, he seems distracted by the mirror). So, I told him he wastes a lot of water and he should stop. The response came as: "What are you going to do about it?" Which, seems like a very good question because of the way it works rhetorically. It acts like a shove in a physical fight would: it shifts the aggression back to you and you start backpedaling. This comes from the way agency changes: after raising a question of personal actions of someone else, suddenly you go up for questioning. The response has to be a 'shove' back. Again, you flip the agent back and re-establish the original question.

The second example. I got in a silly argument with someone online about Walmart. I don't think it's a particularly good idea to shop there and I made that clear. One response began with: "you shouldn’t let someone's socialist rant change your shopping habits..." I think this concerns the way that the term 'liberal' gets attached to speakers. By creating an issue out of the messenger or the agent involved in the argument, the use of this label creates a prior question to evaluating the arguments at hand by questioning whether the discussion should even begin in the first place, in terms of the speaker’s motivation. It again shifts the discussion in such a way to create a different calculus for evaluating the speech act/argument. It links the argument to broader social trends or ideologies that listeners may oppose, and also causes questioning of whether the listener should be personally aligned with the speaker.

OK, my second point. I think classes in rhetorical/communication theory should be a pre-requisite for writing in other disciplines particularly philosophy. Images and ideas should not be evaluated simply on face value, but also in the way they get communicated to other people. For instance: pornography. I read an article that argued pornography was wrong because the images showed people in abusive or violent situations that created male-centered pleasure in the scenes themselves. It avoided any question of how pornography was a media that ultimately focuses on the pleasure of the viewer rather than the people being filmed.

Duncan

Cannon Fodder?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/arts/television/10wing.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Embodying rights

The idea of rights and my conception of non violence are linked.

At an animal rights presentation I attended last Thursday, I realized the ultimately illusory content of a ‘right.’ The best and only understanding of rights comes from their function, the enactment of the idea of a ‘right’ in practice. Rights act juridically as a form of fiat or empowerment. Rights establish priorities between individuals in various kinds of relationships by reference to some ineffable or inaccessible sphere of dignity/personhood of a rights-bearer. What a right contains, the real reason these things become enacted is harder to access. All humans have a certain corporality. Bodies and the relationships of bodies gives the best access point for developing an idea of rights. The body explains the material conditions of human-ness, of inclusion in life and inclusion in relationships. Respect for the body gives a material foundation for respect for others, and understanding the suffering of the body founds an ethical stance towards another. If you see, hear, experience a suffering body, you know why ethical action is necessary and what demands are placed upon you. Also, I think this relationship (ineffable rights, irreducible bodies) explains the erosion of rights in wartime. The threat that comes to the body and that feeling of life that comes with it, is ultimately more material and salient as a political issue than the inaccessible and vague notion of rights. The body and threats upon it can be known and visualized in such a way that demands relating to the body trump other types of demands.

This also explains why I largely support non-violence. The body demonstrates a threshold of politics that I don’t feel confident crossing. Actions that impact the body and suffering of the body cannot be taken back or rectified in the same manner other actions can. It requires a level of confidence and even arrogance that I don’t want to find in myself. In every possible instance, I would like to avoid proactive violence to achieve an end. I do believe in a need for defensive violence in the face of someone else who feels the confidence or arrogance necessary to act in these terms. Ultimately, if the threshold constructed by the body gets crossed, defense is required.

This gets much more complex.

What about situations where someone becomes motivated to do violence by past abuse or mental conditioning in a situation of political repression? What relationship of the defenders to this person?

What does this imaginary threshold mean for other systems (sexuality in particular)?

How can you determine the point at which defensive violence must be initiated? Can/does this include ‘pre-emption’ in situations of possibly great violence?

Politics in the future tense

I think I came to a question that has been haunting a few decisions that I have to make soon.

I find a tendency in academic literature, or legal review literature to speak in terms of the future along a linear path. What will become when…XXX occurs. For instance, I read a paper today about the supplement of ecofeminism to traditional scientific research. Discussion of what WILL happen when this supplement comes about took up much of the space. Also, in legal practice, or debate, people speak or write in terms of the impact of legislation, or the ballot on the world. The discussion is politics, but only politics about more genuine political action. It gives a sense of deferral to actual reality, rather than embracing what gets enacted in speaking. I think this has three main impacts

First, concerning scale and space. This way of talking removes space for the individual to act in politics. By assuming a ‘more real’ time and space for politics, the academic gets sidelined in the rush to get to real change. Academia can’t avoid politics, but by transforming it into a tool, model or description of where real change happens, academia at least ignores its politics.

Also, style. The assumption of a neutral or universal space of action removed from the writer’s immediate vicinity changes their style of writing. They speak to the universal audience or potential legislators, and in doing this, mold their writing style to the dominant form, to facilitate acceptance by those people.

I thought there was a third, but I was wrong. I also understand I contradicted myself from posts before. If this makes any sense, read Normative and Nowhere to Go, by Schlag because it’s funny if nothing else.

Passive voice

A speaker’s voice reflects their collected experiences with writing and speaking, agglomerated into a particular style. I don’t believe in a prior or insulated voice that emerges through and despite interactions with other human beings. Everything about language suggests transaction and co-creation of meaning, and this also applies to voice. Style, hints of structure, more or less tone, a bit of word choice all accumulate from everywhere in the movement towards to present tense of expression. No one else can replicate my voice because it comes from my history of reading, knowing the world, people I’ve spoken to. Its authenticity comes from my difference from that which surrounds me, from the impossibility of replicating my experience in anyone else.

Recently, I through I lost this voice. Then, I realized that instead I gained something. I acquired a new voice that reflects the new experiences and people I now know. So, rather than losing my voice, I developed a second voice. I have a problem because this voice slowly elides me into the background of my experiences here. Sometimes I come back to the old voice, regain it when I realize what has happened through brief flashes of realization. I have two voices- one from here and one from there.

I think it speaks volumes that I can’t stand one of them.

Think for yourself

Apologies for leaving this space blank for roughly a week.

This evening I attended a lecture by an animal rights advocate. Largely, he preached to my inner choir on this issue, but he struck a tone on several issues that I found disconcerting. One of those was his demand to “think for yourself” over animal rights. This links to the similar demand to “think different,” which I will also discuss. I’m not really sure what either of these calls means in total, and so I thought about them for a while. Here’s what I thought about.

First, that any thinking that occurs under these terms, by definition, will not actually end up with any radical departure or insight. Essentially, this process cannot be independent because it’s held in relation to ‘traditional thought’ or whatever the thinker presumes to be ‘normal’ about the world. These demands impede thinking freely because of the requirement to separate from or transcend what came before. Also, the distinction of thinking differently means the ideas cannot escape their symbolic roles- you’re always just thinking differently rather than thinking in terms that have immediate political relevance.

Also, “thinking for yourself” atomizes the political significance of thinking in politics. You only think for yourself and your own purposes rather than thinking in terms of the world as other people present it through language and political traditions.

I’m also not sure if “thinking for yourself” is even possible. No thought originates in one persons mind, fully formed, removed from other influences. Every idea relies on what came before, at the very least in a physiological sense: the person who thinks develops over time and in a multiplicity of places, as does their brain. Thought, music, poetry, art, politics depend on history of ideas, and acknowledging your own history in ideas can be a valuable political asset for building links to other people and developing more effective political strategy. For instance: ending distribution of pornography is a goal of both feminist and conservative religious movements. As a feminist, allying yourself with a group that seeks to preserve the moral purity of the female body as sinful could be harmful, because the process of empowering the change you would like to see, also empowers the ideas and people that you would otherwise oppose. Method determines content of the change to a certain degree, but it also influences the world after the elimination of pornography occurs. In this instance, there would be a strengthened organizational structure and social network for the conservative religious groups. Trying to think without considering why and how you begin to do so is politically disadvantageous.

Duncan