Meta tags:
description=Undressing the world, one garment at a time;

Headings (most frequently used words):

politics, the, and, on, american, stranger, new, blog, of, audience, only, angels, have, wings, self, criticism, built, environment, political, culture, polygraph, issue, 22, ecology, ideology, musil, beck, pseudo, read, this, instead, brief, note, consensus, authors, cryptomnesis, recent, posts, calendar, search, archives, categories, all, about, me, ästhetik, kritik, media, ontology, xxxapocalypse, pornxxx,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (363), and (127), that (95), for (59), are (59), with (40), this (38), but (38), they (38), not (33), their (29), can (29), have (28), more (28), from (26), only (26), all (25), its (25), one (25), what (24), you (22), his (22), #politics (20), political (19), who (19), culture (19), 2010 (17), any (17), which (17), even (17), than (17), like (14), about (14), film (14), people (14), other (14), world (13), self (13), was (13), these (13), them (13), blog (12), most (12), some (12), mass (12), how (12), theory (11), 2008 (11), 2009 (11), has (11), traxus4420 (11), consensus (11), between (11), cultural (10), september (10), will (10), there (10), posted (10), thing (10), where (10), into (10), when (10), individual (10), comments (9), media (9), work (9), form (9), itself (9), just (9), being (9), another (9), power (9), may (8), common (8), sense (8), would (8), influence (8), while (8), take (8), out (8), don (8), every (8), community (8), true (8), well (8), interests (8), ideal (8), through (8), life (8), think (8), free (7), real (7), right (7), without (7), audience (7), her (7), time (7), own (7), freedom (7), kind (7), idea (7), point (7), anything (7), etc (7), were (7), made (7), make (7), should (7), tea (7), democratic (7), war (7), does (7), same (7), first (7), interest (7), our (7), here (7), too (7), bonnie (7), get (6), american (6), fact (6), future (6), criticism (6), new (6), because (6), seems (6), decision (6), those (6), might (6), non (6), responsibility (6), want (6), say (6), instead (6), had (6), been (6), after (6), tags (6), read (6), though (6), both (6), party (6), left (6), place (6), musil (6), beyond (6), must (6), commodity (6), little (6), very (6), society (6), stranger (5), already (5), thought (5), august (5), 2007 (5), october (5), february (5), whole (5), making (5), together (5), bank (5), experience (5), group (5), others (5), anyone (5), once (5), liberals (5), easy (5), intellectual (5), contradictory (5), liberal (5), good (5), necessary (5), beck (5), collective (5), social (5), today (5), ideology (5), nothing (5), against (5), each (5), really (5), consumer (5), ethical (5), less (5), despite (5), never (5), two (5), landscape (5), pilots (5), carter (5), site (4), wordpress (4), com (4), comment (4), history (4), june (4), environment (4), angels (4), wings (4), posts (4), set (4), still (4), coercive (4), bad (4), hard (4), sort (4), course (4), notion (4), democracy (4), popular (4), function (4), force (4), individuals (4), themselves (4), advocates (4), tend (4), organization (4), doing (4), again (4), anti (4), possible (4), material (4), impossible (4), special (4), rhetoric (4), state (4), such (4), class (4), large (4), economic (4), reality (4), public (4), need (4), matter (4), moral (4), false (4), least (4), aka (4), spectacle (4), many (4), off (4), did (4), see (4), come (4), fantasy (4), means (4), universal (4), rally (4), institutions (4), soane (4), england (4), men (4), masculine (4), she (4), design (3), website (3), view (3), content (3), sign (3), now (3), complete (3), gerry (3), product (3), down (3), limited (3), glenn (3), john (3), utopia (3), current (3), december (3), january (3), march (3), photo (3), possibility (3), art (3), someone (3), effective (3), definition (3), assumptions (3), members (3), far (3), activists (3), degree (3), human (3), order (3), labor (3), certain (3), majority (3), elites (3), things (3), opposite (3), seriously (3), way (3), speak (3), problem (3), responsible (3), before (3), voting (3), process (3), leave (3), better (3), over (3), excesses (3), values (3), difference (3), response (3), die (3), ideological (3), compromise (3), bourgeois (3), measure (3), start (3), basis (3), according (3), forms (3), version (3), analysis (3), natural (3), then (3), pseudo (3), english (3), let (3), contradiction (3), implies (3), feeling (3), robert (3), support (3), nation (3), necessarily (3), germans (3), exist (3), truth (3), fight (3), via (3), long (3), link (3), part (3), subjective (3), conditions (3), ever (3), agency (3), single (3), usually (3), climate (3), change (3), whatever (3), production (3), needs (3), capital (3), regime (3), century (3), national (3), status (3), modern (3), familiar (3), points (3), institutional (3), why (3), property (3), use (3), around (3), structure (3), thus (3), best (3), object (3), useful (3), development (3), completely (3), direction (3), subject (3), last (3), wylde (3), professional (3), impulses (3), implications (3), racism (3), forget (3), obvious (3), rules (3), seemed (3), masculinity (3), learning (3), stewart (3), restore (3), sanity (3), required (2), log (2), subscribed (2), subscribe (2), create (2), hear (2), ontology (2), news (2), web (2), canavan (2), lot (2), episodes (2), bubble (2), realism (2), christian (2), thorne (2), commonplace (2), book (2), late (2), next (2), reverse (2), shot (2), cryptomnesis (2), french (2), environmentalism (2), events (2), apocalypse (2), porn (2), activism (2), november (2), april (2), 2011 (2), archives (2), search (2), built (2), absolute (2), total (2), consists (2), anyway (2), head (2), became (2), clear (2), faith (2), features (2), deliberation (2), assumed (2), critique (2), talking (2), pure (2), autonomous (2), readers (2), sometimes (2), violence (2), face (2), idealist (2), individualistic (2), position (2), entire (2), pointless (2), organizing (2), technologies (2), modest (2), plants (2), elite (2), ruin (2), involved (2), coercion (2), leaders (2), legitimacy (2), note (2), marxist (2), participant (2), makes (2), latter (2), everyone (2), equally (2), know (2), formal (2), agree (2), mechanics (2), larger (2), groups (2), widely (2), argue (2), principle (2), else (2), rely (2), anarchism (2), blogging (2), baggers (2), academic (2), find (2), much (2), libertarianism (2), few (2), fantasies (2), sides (2), goes (2), along (2), progressive (2), enlightened (2), revolution (2), dinner (2), nor (2), imaginary (2), practical (2), informing (2), doesn (2), within (2), knowledge (2), opposition (2), key (2), whether (2), attack (2), battle (2), try (2), difficult (2), incapable (2), actually (2), probably (2), petty (2), concerned (2), give (2), nationalism (2), sympathetic (2), interesting (2), dangerous (2), middle (2), leap (2), adventure (2), promise (2), scale (2), unnatural (2), midst (2), given (2), proper (2), could (2), neglected (2), tensions (2), system (2), based (2), ones (2), become (2), writer (2), professors (2), lack (2), communicate (2), steadily (2), unprecedented (2), access (2), always (2), call (2), observation (2), synthesis (2), enough (2), attractive (2), him (2), ends (2), expression (2), transforming (2), realized (2), relationship (2), aside (2), held (2), says (2), understood (2), himself (2), found (2), rather (2), fiction (2), commonality (2), among (2), german (2), peasant (2), city (2), understand (2), brought (2), under (2), shared (2), mystical (2), assume (2), editor (2), allowed (2), pick (2), lee (2), homepage (2), worry (2), normally (2), polygraph (2), ecology (2), issue (2), ourselves (2), consequences (2), actions (2), consequence (2), humanity (2), politically (2), jargon (2), control (2), spheres (2), kinds (2), vague (2), style (2), shoppers (2), convince (2), claim (2), organized (2), action (2), elected (2), processes (2), protests (2), boycotts (2), policy (2), stave (2), trying (2), obama (2), pressured (2), baudrillard (2), simulacrum (2), imagine (2), relies (2), discourse (2), terms (2), mourn (2), argued (2), ideologically (2), identity (2), sexual (2), finally (2), used (2), something (2), urgent (2), authority (2), possession (2), accepted (2), conservative (2), quixotic (2), express (2), behavior (2), therefore (2), message (2), movement (2), above (2), americans (2), eventual (2), cheaply (2), mainstream (2), cost (2), independent (2), equal (2), apparatus (2), corporations (2), popularly (2), management (2), cue (2), local (2), agreement (2), negative (2), didn (2), actors (2), works (2), becomes (2), toward (2), 20th (2), suffering (2), upon (2), post (2), architect (2), examples (2), enlightenment (2), classical (2), core (2), laws (2), romantic (2), joseph (2), michael (2), gandy (2), eye (2), ruins (2), manchester (2), trauma (2), images (2), garden (2), refined (2), moor (2), also (2), came (2), william (2), claude (2), lorrain (2), following (2), situation (2), interested (2), help (2), accept (2), lucky (2), white (2), lazy (2), generalization (2), facts (2), mostly (2), effect (2), pressures (2), arguments (2), populist (2), basically (2), type (2), irrational (2), second (2), impulse (2), theories (2), tell (2), full (2), poorly (2), reach (2), enemy (2), friend (2), wrong (2), team (2), supposed (2), missions (2), viewing (2), refusal (2), death (2), commentary (2), professionalism (2), having (2), submit (2), code (2), barranca (2), emphasis (2), libidinal (2), howard (2), hawks (2), cary (2), grant (2), takes (2), performer (2), male (2), obey (2), ask (2), club (2), circle (2), machete (2), joe (2), constitute (2), perspective (2), crowd (2), jon (2), undressing (2), garment (2), started, name, email, write, loading, collapse, bar, manage, subscriptions, reader, report, privacy, account, totse, heart, organ, pump, blood, dullest, spengler, shouting, echoes, lumpen, orientalism, ballardian, xxxapocalypse, pornxxx, accursed, share, poetix, planomenology, naught, larval, subjects, fractal, shadow, government, statistics, check, wood, whatinthehell, rabbit, eater, philosopher, stone, luxemburgist, kugelmass, fortunes, dialectic, slawkenbergius, sit, man, bloody, tragedy, scandalum, magnatum, rough, qlipoth, pinnochio, paperback, museum, orbis, mediologicus, zona, metastable, equilibrium, inc, lenin, tomb, colonel, chabert, ktismatics, punk, jane, dark, sugarhigh, cite, greenwald, generation, fragments, elusive, lucidity, duncan, law, doug, henwood, dennis, perrin, culturemonkey, contingencies, communist, bitter, laughter, alexander, greenberg, ads, products, kritik, working, notes, waggish, house, door, slept, popmatters, mode, utopie, memories, harrison, chained, cinematheque, blissblog, barbelith, 35n78e, ästhetik, twitter, internet, structuralism, philosophy, categories, july, select, month, feb, 2026, calendar, recent, blacktoppp, lonnie, holley, copying, rock, 1995, copier, devil, border, witch, playground, patternandshape, marianne, faithfull, kenneth, anger, magictransistor, alchemist, achieved, illumination, romanticism, dan, hays, overgrown, path, 2000, zamaaanawal, fortune, teller, jemaa, fna, marrakesh, authors, older, entries, spends, inside, quickly, fit, membership, accusation, hypocritical, utopian, boring, tedious, uncomfortable, introverts, ability, empowers, sensitivity, affected, decisions, tends, disillusioned, skeptical, allows, count, discounts, bit, assuming, lazier, derrida, bourdieu, vigorous, disagreement, comparable, punching, blowing, banal, truism, unless, rethought, necessitate, rethinking, apart, grounded, justifications, everyday, representative, pretty, unimaginative, insult, commitment, endeavor, deeply, pessimistic, appropriate, structures, resistant, abuse, ambitious, insensitive, imbecilic, presupposes, competent, oversight, resistance, corruption, decency, monarchy, nuclear, oil, rigs, oligarchy, justifies, inevitably, everything, taking, directly, citizenry, respond, simply, legitimates, institutionalizing, representatives, subgroups, final, factions, continue, hiding, behind, screen, exact, anarchist, libertarian, undisciplined, facilitators, constantly, usefulness, heads, forcing, rider, reduced, disclaiming, quasi, approaches, number, designed, facilitate, standard, anarchists, adopted, organizers, differ, fully, guide, vanguardism, technocratic, bureaucracy, threat, brief, checks, acquaintance, ago, except, admitting, grievances, honorable, gesture, attempt, establish, solidarity, terrifying, finds, exhilarating, ideas, warmed, spiced, paranoid, tolerance, bigotry, pontificate, manner, posed, belligerent, pitying, enthusiastic, shameless, performance, antithesis, dubious, perk, identification, worst, reason, protestant, ethic, revolutionary, lecture, hall, designing, entrance, exams, utopias, phenomenon, partisan, hysteria, highlights, america, vestigial, realizing, koch, brothers, rupert, murdoch, vacuum, democrats, prohibited, acting, gleaned, examining, closely, strategic, controversy, ignore, moment, progressives, establishment, concentrates, hijack, ideologues, financial, backers, base, undoubtedly, require, unlike, leftists, structurally, accomplishing, task, underfunded, workers, selling, tool, estimate, denies, awkwardly, import, atomizing, effects, solely, creating, feelings, loneliness, alienation, simulating, assumes, traditional, tie, simultaneous, awareness, socialism, creates, ambiguities, characterizes, escapism, heroic, ideologies, reject, inauthentic, perplexing, suggestion, conflict, motivate, project, called, experienced, default, conflicts, materialist, predicted, indistinguishable, field, propaganda, perhaps, writers, fond, saying, suggesting, david, horowitz, writing, potentially, significant, successful, propagandist, apparent, visibility, importance, suppressed, pointing, important, ours, tries, engagement, spectators, dispossessed, active, role, epitomizes, strengths, weaknesses, marxists, almost, hypocritically, consciousness, brilliant, conceivable, disrespectful, distinction, attributed, humanities, sciences, arrogant, committed, highest, torn, shreds, volume, remained, horizon, holding, relentless, negativity, unwillingness, propagandize, contributing, stance, intolerable, intends, passion, serve, worldly, mann, ohne, eigenschaften, 1921, ages, insufficient, congruence, unarticulated, energies, external, ready, gains, thousandfold, significance, passive, persistence, alliance, using, hypnosis, times, wars, break, ordered, exploding, inadvertently, explosive, stimulus, liberated, flying, air, renunciation, disorder, old, names, flight, peace, investiture, feels, correspond, manual, laborers, gangsters, idealists, poets, directors, capitalists, proletarians, intellectuals, catholics, caught, stands, closer, dweller, comes, moves, souls, alone, betray, sure, hat, plan, squash, enraptured, resides, rarely, crises, inestimable, advantage, recognize, connections, clearly, construct, fatherland, conceit, goethe, schiller, voltaire, napoleon, article, summaries, update, favorites, pieces, disagree, violently, able, guess, put, cover, introduction, editors, critical, review, braver, graham, harman, latour, pdf, collegiality, strictly, maintained, throughout, sounds, buy, wouldn, recommend, otherwise, money, amazon, past, look, publication, graduate, students, impotence, obligated, either, citizen, crazy, tightening, double, bind, accompanies, disempowerment, increasing, empowerment, hint, antagonism, censored, improvement, hinges, polar, liberating, empowering, entirely, dispensed, tied, subjection, individualism, disempowering, masses, poststructuralist, conduits, different, currently, becoming, interoperable, mobilized, objectified, former, appearance, networked, mastered, move, various, cultures, defining, addressing, question, presumed, obnoxious, smart, however, realistic, stop, semi, certainly, activist, organizations, join, coal, encourage, green, ceos, profitable, bunch, passing, adequate, armageddon, doomed, bush, afghanistan, prematurely, officials, act, constituency, favor, allow, retain, privileges, biological, rapidly, catastrophically, diverging, environments, lest, float, 90s, hyperreality, remember, describe, split, simulation, erase, wasn, mind, body, pantheon, mythical, divisions, chief, commodities, persuades, merely, solution, disciplining, forces, accumulation, immaterial, consistency, inevitability, empty, figments, postmodernity, taught, raymond, williams, began, overdetermined, reaction, 19th, industrialization, refer, creed, ethnicity, orientation, preference, contentless, authenticity, indicating, factual, existence, closed, theoretical, questioning, ownership, business, geek, intolerance, success, poverty, enter, postmodernism, superficially, bolster, floating, detached, determine, assets, broadly, legitimate, defenders, quo, unhappy, lacks, privileged, sphere, activity, freely, virtual, participants, compete, restricted, secret, truths, divined, practice, route, results, politicians, celebrities, entertainment, branded, industry, demonstration, primitive, mobilization, serves, reinforce, limits, outlined, often, yet, remains, reliable, subverts, routines, spontaneous, frees, population, bureaucratic, context, allowing, appears, particularized, african, direct, wing, repressed, mocked, corporate, tactic, coming, demos, legitimized, dispersed, damage, dilemma, reform, voice, independence, indeed, naturalness, affective, immediacy, assistance, unwieldy, technical, counterintuitive, applying, populations, classes, demographics, victimized, minorities, states, tanks, sociological, studies, map, detail, conceived, mis, reward, sentimental, imminent, punishment, unpredictable, threatening, mob, debates, waged, defender, prophet, broadest, differences, liberalism, theme, autonomy, oligarchical, runaway, corporation, collectives, imagined, hoc, grassroots, lingo, formed, defense, civil, rights, duration, inversely, proportional, size, changes, breaks, range, opinion, regulating, somehow, guaranteeing, corrupt, institution, radicals, artificial, paradise, hand, insists, contradicts, discrete, entities, directed, individually, stability, relationships, similar, parts, formally, outcome, painstakingly, arrived, marx, brave, capitalist, individualist, provided, eroding, foundation, determination, mutual, noise, networking, basic, remain, obsolesced, heuristic, bodies, minds, information, deeper, intimate, everywhere, continuing, controllable, sensory, promised, innovations, stops, sloppy, metaphor, empirical, technocultural, virtually, equivalent, dream, anywhere, beside, general, investment, assimilating, attempts, destruction, lines, subordinate, improbable, priori, architectural, neuroscientific, biotech, digital, grand, hypothesis, methods, hardly, added, international, adorno, dialectics, binds, resisting, follows, condition, objectivity, impinging, experiences, mediated, objects, epigraph, getting, lured, away, topicality, early, eccentric, display, cutaway, destroyed, modernized, imperial, herbert, baker, pugin, polemical, gothic, renaissance, taken, dictates, aesthetics, master, unearthing, adapting, timeless, knew, persist, imbued, antique, birds, 1830, behold, cottonopolis, known, export, seen, encounter, disruption, bears, subtle, resemblance, stock, science, whereas, opened, sensation, figures, painting, locates, viewer, preserved, historical, park, heavily, associated, rome, surrounded, comfortably, distanced, present, redefinition, integrated, visible, striking, sublime, contrast, london, locus, brand, excess, kersal, 1852, blueprint, meandering, routes, plotted, nature, interspersed, freestanding, occasions, scene, extracted, epic, livable, incorporation, genre, effectively, decades, later, gentlemen, inhabit, capacity, born, voyage, mémoire, aeneas, delos, 1672, gardens, architecture, tourism, objective, ignorance, distorted, superficial, misleading, uses, example, denounced, sneak, low, instrumentalized, distract, worse, eathere, fog, play, passed, intense, disciplined, effort, refute, hypocrisy, hypocrite, minor, cheapest, soapboxes, uncanny, compelled, elitist, pro, critiques, dominant, increasingly, invested, enact, reforms, debunking, skepticism, continually, rewarded, thinking, dinosaurs, sophisticated, instrumental, collect, accurate, market, data, neurological, responses, visual, stimuli, vaguely, freudian, thumb, likes, regulation, gain, strengthening, conventions, room, serious, treat, big, borg, inchoate, alternate, universe, opportunities, great, powers, concentrate, hurt, misinformation, resisted, appropriation, insert, hacking, karl, rove, knee, jerk, loathing, feel, superior, bashing, relying, condescending, reserved, speaker, since, immemorial, institutionally, approved, brainwashed, tools, hatreds, prejudices, greedy, vermin, insults, considering, target, vitriol, exactly, excommunicated, further, reflection, argument, flawed, flaws, reactionary, chain, reasoning, analyzing, reaching, generalizations, words, went, commenters, said, elaborated, suggest, professionals, trope, cinema, living, confines, essentially, half, assed, womanly, paradoxes, extreme, loyalty, demands, dead, minimize, dangerously, distracting, emotional, unconditional, respect, extended, viz, kidd, painful, loss, eyesight, live, luck, unchallenged, penchant, sending, suicide, mentioned, blamed, shareholder, attracts, perfection, intensity, beautiful, irrationality, religious, cults, radical, extravagance, appeal, reported, crisis, insofar, distinct, alibis, privilege, arch, laughing, madly, bro, piloting, rickety, ironic, fragility, partner, commented, hawk, lauded, shipments, fail, destinations, airline, fails, win, commission, justify, mention, owner, company, hostage, ceo, isn, wall, street, traders, steered, global, economy, dumps, addicted, thrill, lose, peoples, fascinating, outlaws, opposed, push, normative, entertaining, distortion, provides, isolated, nonwhite, space, privately, enjoyed, awkward, reconciling, teamwork, badassery, relation, sovereignty, series

Text of the page (random words):
grassroots to use the current lingo formed around a single issue such as the management of a co op or a defense of civil rights their duration inversely proportional to size large scale changes to political structure is where agreement breaks down but the range of opinion seems to be between a regulating institutional excesses the liberals and b somehow guaranteeing negative freedom as in life would be better if we didn t have x corrupt institution and we could do y ourselves the radicals indeed the very notion of collective like community implies a sense of naturalness of intellectual and affective immediacy a group of more or less equal individuals who can communicate with each other without the assistance of an unwieldy technical or institutional apparatus there s even something counterintuitive about applying it to national populations social classes consumer demographics and victimized minorities which despite the fact that states think tanks sociological studies and web 2 0 corporations can map their individual members to an unprecedented degree of detail can only be popularly conceived in terms of the consequences of their mis management by elites the mass as future reward cue sentimental fantasy of universal community vs the mass as imminent punishment cue the unpredictable threatening mob the mass demonstration is a primitive form of political mobilization that serves to reinforce the limits outlined above more often than it points beyond them yet it remains the most reliable means of popular political change because it subverts institutional decision making routines with spontaneous collective agency it frees a population from its bureaucratic context allowing a group that normally appears as a particularized identity african americans anti war activists community members etc to make a direct universal claim this is why left wing protests are not only repressed and mocked in the corporate media but the very future of the tactic is coming under attack one can imagine an eventual compromise in which mass demos are legitimized in the same way that voting is once they can be cheaply dispersed without damage to life or property once again we would have the familiar dilemma of liberal reform many more people would be allowed a voice in mainstream political discourse but at the cost of their political independence and the future of an independent left enter cultural politics to pick out one consequence of postmodernism that superficially seems to bolster democratic ideology a free floating notion of influence detached from the authority to determine policy the possession of economic assets or common interest is broadly accepted as the true basis of legitimate power even liberal and conservative defenders of the status quo are unhappy when people say it lacks popular support so ideologically culture has a privileged position if a quixotic one the sphere of human activity where individual freedom can express itself freely a kind of virtual democratic utopia where participants compete for the right to influence behavior in the other more restricted and therefore less ideal spheres of modern society where their secret truths can be read where the future of the whole can be divined in practice every message has to route through the culture industry which means every message must become a commodity the results are familiar politicians are celebrities politics is entertainment every movement must be branded etc but lest we float off into 90s style hyperreality we should remember that baudrillard did nothing more than describe the subjective experience of the first world petty bourgeois consumer there never was an absolute split between culture and reality for a regime of simulation to erase just like there wasn t one between mind and body that pantheon of mythical divisions is commodity culture s chief ideological product like other media commodities baudrillard s theory of the simulacrum persuades us to imagine the problem for which it is the merely intellectual solution what we see instead is the disciplining of culture into one of the most progressive forces of production and accumulation one that relies on fantasies like the simulacrum or immaterial labor in another discourse to give it a false sense of consistency and inevitability the difficult thing to come to terms with and what makes certain empty figments of postmodernity so attractive is that the idea of culture we re taught to mourn is already a fantasy what raymond williams argued began as an ideologically overdetermined reaction to 19th century industrialization today does not necessarily refer to a shared history creed ethnicity national identity sexual orientation commodity preference or any difference at all it can finally be used as a sign of contentless authenticity indicating not the right to exist but the factual existence of something closed to theoretical questioning though no less urgent for that the culture of poverty the culture of ownership business culture geek culture cultural influence the culture of success the culture of intolerance these various cultures are more like environments bubble like spheres of influence instead of defining the conditions for kinds of agency they assume only a single kind addressing the individual as a consumer not necessarily of the culture commodity in question but of culture at large presumed to have some vague degree of influence over cultural style the most obnoxious version of this is the idea that we as smart shoppers or ethical shoppers most advocates try to convince you that they re the same thing have the power to reverse climate change however it s no less realistic than the claim it s usually set against that we have the political power to stop climate change despite being non or semi organized certainly we in the form of the many activist labor community and consumer organizations we are free to join can take effective action against coal power plants get people we agree with elected and encourage whatever green production processes ceos think will still be profitable but the idea of a bunch of protests and boycotts passing a climate policy adequate enough to stave off armageddon is as doomed as trying to convince bush or obama to leave afghanistan prematurely not only is it true that elected officials will only act in their constituency s favor if pressured to do so they can only be pressured to do what will allow them as a class to retain their privileges and today the needs of biological life and the needs of capital are rapidly catastrophically diverging all impotence aside as long as we re obligated to think of ourselves as autonomous individuals responsibility for the collective consequences of our individual actions is a necessary consequence this is impossible as either a citizen or a consumer so we go crazy tightening the double bind the rhetoric that accompanies political and economic disempowerment is one of increasing empowerment though with any hint of antagonism censored that society s improvement hinges on all of humanity transforming themselves into responsible individuals is the polar opposite of liberating now i don t think this politically empowering rhetoric of ethical responsibility can be entirely dispensed with even if it is tied to our subjection by a false individualism but i don t think it s any more or less a part of the spectacle than the politically disempowering rhetoric of the masses they are in the poststructuralist jargon just conduits for different technologies of control that are currently in the process of becoming interoperable the people of the world are mobilized according to the latter objectified form as well as the former subjective one and the conditions of appearance of the mass not just the networked individual have to be mastered if they who are we are ever to move beyond it 14 comments polygraph issue 22 ecology and ideology posted in apocalypse porn cultural theory environmentalism with tags ecology polygraph 22 self interest on september 13 2010 by traxus4420 aka what i ve been doing for the past er i d rather not say how long look it s an academic publication by graduate students even read more on the homepage if any of this sounds interesting you can buy it on amazon which i normally wouldn t recommend but it s sort of hard to find otherwise don t worry i m not making any money not on the cover a long introduction by the editors and a critical review of lee braver s a thing of this world and graham harman s book on latour by me both can be found in pdf form via the link to the homepage don t worry collegiality is strictly maintained throughout as co editor i m not allowed to pick favorites but even the pieces i disagree with some more violently than others readers of this blog will probably be able to guess which ones are at least well put update individual article summaries here via co editor gerry canavan 10 comments musil and beck on pseudo politics posted in cultural theory u s politics with tags glenn beck robert musil tea party on september 6 2010 by traxus4420 every investiture of the ideal feels itself as a false we it is a we that does not correspond to reality we germans is the fiction of a commonality among manual laborers and professors gangsters and idealists poets and film directors a commonality that does not exist the true we is we are nothing to each other we are capitalists proletarians intellectuals catholics and in truth far more and beyond all measure caught up in our own special interests than we are concerned with each other the german peasant stands closer to the french peasant than to the german city dweller when it comes down to what really moves their souls we each nation for itself alone understand one another very little and fight or betray one another when we can we can to be sure all be brought together under one hat when we plan to squash it on the head of another nation then we are enraptured and have a shared mystical experience but one may assume that the mystical in this experience resides in its being so rarely a reality for us once again this is just as true for the others as it is for us germans but in our crises we germans have the inestimable advantage that we can recognize the real connections more clearly than they and we should construct our feeling for the fatherland on this truth and not on the conceit that we are the people of goethe and schiller or of voltaire and napoleon there is always and in all ages a feeling of insufficient congruence between public life and real life but can anything at all in public events be the true expression of real life am i then as an individual that which i do or am i a compromise between unarticulated energies in me and transforming external forms ready to be realized in relationship to the whole this little difference gains a thousandfold in significance aside from passive persistence an unnatural alliance of interests can be held together only through a common interest in using force against others it does not necessarily need to be the force of war but if one says that mass hypnosis is at work in times when wars break out this is only to be understood as an ordered system exploding because of its inadvertently neglected tensions this explosive stimulus with which the human being liberated himself and flying through the air found himself together with his own kind was the renunciation of middle class life the will for disorder rather than the old order the leap into adventure no matter what moral names it might be given war is the flight from peace robert musil nation as ideal and as reality 1921 if anyone epitomizes the strengths and weaknesses of what marxists almost always hypocritically call bourgeois consciousness it s robert musil brilliant in every conceivable sense disrespectful of any special distinction or lack attributed to the humanities or the sciences arrogant and committed to nothing but observation his class s highest ideal the intellectual synthesis of social contradiction is well enough torn to shreds in the first volume of mann ohne eigenschaften but it remained the horizon of his thought and this impossible holding out is what is so attractive about him for me anyway his relentless negativity his unwillingness to propagandize for anything or anyone even when contributing some measure of practical support a sympathetic stance but an intolerable one for any writer who intends for their passion to serve worldly ends a political writer does battle on the field of propaganda perhaps all writers are political english professors today are fond of saying that all culture is political suggesting as no one else but david horowitz does that even their own writing is potentially significant so what is a successful propagandist today let s take glenn beck the apparent contradiction between his visibility and lack of political importance is suppressed by pointing to his cultural influence which democratic ideology implies is more important than political or economic power beck s we is the same as ours it tries to communicate the feeling of political engagement to a mass of spectators who have been steadily dispossessed of any active role in the democratic process but who have unprecedented access to culture now musil seems to argue that while the special interests we are concerned with are beyond all measure if one must give an estimate material interests are where one should start and this is the basis for community that nationalism denies to awkwardly import a critique of commodity culture its atomizing effects take place not solely through creating feelings of loneliness and alienation but through simulating community according to musil this is the necessary function of all political rhetoric he assumes the traditional liberal tie between politics and the state but his simultaneous and sympathetic awareness of socialism creates some interesting ambiguities that he characterizes nationalism and war as dangerous forms of escapism is not new nor the idea that heroic ideologies such as these reject as inauthentic some version of middle class life more perplexing is his suggestion that the leap into adventure and the promise of conflict is necessary to motivate any large scale collective project are all so called common interests experienced by default as unnatural even in the midst of conflicts that given proper materialist analysis could have been predicted as the natural product of neglected tensions in a social system if this is true then organization based on imaginary interests is indistinguishable from organization based on material ones all politics become pseudo politics the phenomenon of the tea party like other episodes of partisan hysteria highlights a possible practical difference between america s liberals and its vestigial left realizing that beck is a tool of the koch brothers and rupert murdoch is necessary for any effective response but info...