no logo

not directly, no

oh man we are all prostitutes

I'm just sayin lots of grown ups have phones for entirely functional reasons and the idea that we're all slaves to the omniscient and totally effective machine is a bit bollocksy really

― O™ (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, December 23, 2009 2:49 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

kind of an something

No Logo is a good logo. think bill hicks had a good spiel about the anti-marketing dollar being good dollar.

― stop grieving, it's only a chicken (darraghmac), Tuesday, 22 December 2009 14:16 (Yesterday)

Yeah I think No Logo has a chapter or two on this. My immediate reaction to the marketing-of-resistance cycle is that it's creepy and we're doomed, but when I think about it I guess that's where the potential for small, slow, imperfect niches of improvement in business practice comes from (you see it a little bit with food options some places). Market feedback is part of the capitalist system, yeah...so?

another way of putting it: why are you buying a mobile if it's not to make yourself into a certain kind of person?

The way you put this literally makes it impossible to disagree with. Making the choice of NOT getting a mobile would also be trying to "make yourself into a certain kind of person" by that argument. Not to say there's not a point there, but it's a bit circular.

which is not to say that I'm anti-mobile-phone or something, but it's absurd to think that there are somehow ways to partake of the fruits of international business without some piper somewhere getting paid by somebody

??? it's fun to be obvious but the point is to change it

move to a forest and think about being for the rest of your life

― max, Wednesday, December 23, 2009 9:53 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

noodle it sounds like you have a rewarding job which makes a positive contribution to society. that being said, I hope that when the time comes you don't hesitate to abandon it and join the mobs of impoverished south asian teenagers rioting in the streets.

not sure of the eco impact of flying down to south asia but I'm there, basically

xpost - is the real reason for getting a mobile phone, stripped of false ideology, because of "the capitalist imperative to sell your labor power" or "to make yourself into a certain kind of person" then? even if you say the consumerist version of the second comes from the first, they're still very different things, to the point that i'm not really sure where you're going with this.

oh ok if it is just to join the anti capitalist revolution i suppose it doesn't matter

xpost: oh I meant south asians at home in dear ol' Blighty -- but this is based on my cartoonishly simplistic idea of your country's demographic trends and shit so I could be way off on my endgame scenario

I don't have a mobile. People can email me or leave a message on my landline, which I can pick up remotely if needs be. Maybe a couple of times a year an occasion crops up where life would have been easier if I'd had a mobile to hand. And that's not enough for me to actually get one.

The problem here afaic is that critiques of Capitalism that still rely on bigging up its totalising force and spinning a version of "false consciousness" feel pretty ridiculiculiculous in the 09 and I don't really wanna get down with an ideology that starts from the premise that 99 percent of everybody is an idiot, tbh.

xpost to Maria: I haven't really thought about the issue of mobile phones that much, so I'm kinda making this up as I go along (shocker!). the notion of "real reasons, stripped of false ideology" is one I'm kind of skeptical of (I think Zizek is right to follow Althusser in making ideology a question of what people do, rather than what they think), so I suppose the position I'm taking is some variant of:

- this is a historically contingent development which has both positive and negative aspects
- there are a lot of useful/productive things that you, the individual consumer, can do with a mobile phone (make money, talk to your friends, etc.)
- ... but adopting a perspective (a la "I don't care what my mobile phone 'says about me', I just want to be able to keep in touch with my parents/friends/drug dealer/boss!") from which your choices appear to be purely personal matters of consumer preference or providing for your family or whatever -- when the reality is that they tend to be conditioned by, be noticed by, and contribute to the reproduction of, global capitalist power relations -- is willfully ignorant, especially when it serves to absolve you of any guilt by naturalizing these power relations and treating their harmful consequences as unavoidably built into the social fabric, while simultaneously letting you enjoy some (if not all) of the benefits that come from living in one of the wealthiest nations on earth.

can you imagine if the first major appearance of the mobile phone in society had been as a government-subsidized way to integrate the homeless into global networks of telecommunications, help them find work and get access to medical care, etc.?

xpost NV I'm not really sure what you mean by "totalising force" but part of the Zizek quote that I omitted actually talks about how one defining feature of neoliberal capitalist ideology is that it really doesn't partake of 'totalising narratives' or grand illusory truths or whatever; the truth of capitalism is the mechanism of the marketplace, which is a truth without meaning, and for precisely that reason can be incorporated into basically any society or culture. not sure if I totally buy this argument (which is why I left it out of the quote above), but just throwin' it out there.

xp i understand that argument but ultimately it doesn't impact my decision to get a phone or not which i find is kind of the problem with this

why is it a problem that it doesn't impact your decision? what would it have to do to impact your decision?
(genuinely curious)

there's just a big macro/micro disconnect for me with this stuff. like i can make the choice to buy anything fully acknowledging that my choice is conditioned by global capitalist power relations--i would never deny that that is true. but at the end of the day, i, as one guy just trying to make my daily life work, can choose to either a) buy a mobile, b) buy a landline, or c) not have a phone.

so i'm not trying to absolve myself of guilt but really my options are limited.

i don't spend any longer on my phone than i need to (so, on average about once a day for >2 minutes) but obviously yes i am participating in a corporate discourse. thing is, by not taking videos, using mobile internet, sending pictures, using free minutes, doing any of the crap that actually SELLS phones these days, i strongly believe i dodge the overwhelming groundswell of falsely collectivist telecommunication labelling that you so powerfully outline

what's the difference between using mobile internet and using internet in your home?

the way it is marketed! the way you pay for it! the way it 'defines' you socially! hey dudes, lemme just pop home so i can check my email vs i am connected person on the go thumbing thru my gmail woooooo

well I mean, that's fine, just so long as you realize that this pseudo-pragmatic worldview rests on a whole host of ideological assumptions -- Zizek makes a good point in his most recent book, apropos of the financial crisis, about the structure of capitalist ideology:

ahahaha, i'll get to this later. just so long as you know (what a pleasing construction) that zizek is a fucking toolbag/stalinist apologist/antisemite (i say this most days but rly dude).

xp eh that's kind of fooling yrself imo--i pay one giant telecomm company for internet at home; i pay another one for my phone/data plan. if feeling like you didn't get marketed to is a good feeling to you then carry on, i guess.

well dude put it this way my parents bought me a phone when i was 12 and didn't know shit about anything. i still have the same SIM card. i haven't been marketed to at all; i've received and topped up. as for the internet...well as i still live w/ my folks, i get their internet. but the internet is kinda universal and it really doesn't matter who you got it from. i just want cheap, cheerful internet.

i mean ok the fact remains i don't think you can successfully participate "halfway" in these structures

the truth of capitalism is the mechanism of the marketplace, which is a truth without meaning, and for precisely that reason can be incorporated into basically any society or culture.

slow_burner.gif

zizek is a fucking toolbag/stalinist apologist/antisemite (i say this most days but rly dude).

― Dean Gaffney's December (history mayne), Wednesday, December 23, 2009 4:24 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

lookin' forward to yr reply though

there's just a big macro/micro disconnect for me with this stuff. like i can make the choice to buy anything fully acknowledging that my choice is conditioned by global capitalist power relations--i would never deny that that is true. but at the end of the day, i, as one guy just trying to make my daily life work, can choose to either a) buy a mobile, b) buy a landline, or c) not have a phone.

so i'm not trying to absolve myself of guilt but really my options are limited.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, December 23, 2009 4:16 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't think it's a case of fractions. i participate, but i participate on a basic plan. most young people i know participate on a slightly more advanced, slightly more materialistic plan. their choice and hey they're probably sending each other groovy videos and getting networked while i rot. perhaps my kneejerk reaction against what i term 'the flashmob mentality' is pure untrammeled grouchfulness. but especially in a society where fairness and economic prudence are paramount, these things are essentially frippery. they can be useful on a personal level but to implement them in any sort of self-definition is sad. i don't mind people who use the technology discreetly. but those who celebrate an empty, technological 'togetherness' are complacent and usually oppressive towards the poor, homeless and afflicted.

the internet is by far the most interesting cipher in the capitalism versus socialism debate, and whom it serves best/COULD serve best is something that can be argued until the end of time

(I find the "No Logo" stuff a bit condescending at this point in my life. The mere idea that the stuff we possess has some semiotic importance is much older than capitalism and can't really be avoided, and the fact that capitalism hyper-emphasizes the semiotic value of brand-name stuff can be mitigated by just not hyper-emphasizing it yourself, which most people I know don't. Admittedly, some people DO do this, and the fact that I don't is probably influenced by my having read no-logo-type stuff when I was younger. At this point I just don't think about it. I got a Blackberry recently because I needed to be able to get school/work e-mail very quickly, and I don't care that much about what it says about me (if anything I'm a bit embarrassed when I pull it out on the Subway).

xpost: the problem with the internet is that you can walk from one end of it to the other without ever bumping into a single opposing viewpoint; it reminds me of Foucault in The Order of Things describing the man of the Renaissance, condemned to wander the earth seeing nothing but "resemblances" between all the terms in the Great Chain of Being.

bernard that's a good question--i think the presentation of viable, non-exploitative alternatives can influence decision-making. to a certain extent this can happen with things like clothing and food, unfortunately it can't really happen right now with things like buying a mobile plan.

so i guess my problem w/the argument is that it doesn't really present a "well here's what you SHOULD do" that looks meaningful ir helpful at all, at least not from what i remember of no logo and other stuff i read on the topic.

and lj we're just gonna have to agree to disagree--you are either in or you are out imo. and this but those who celebrate an empty, technological 'togetherness' are complacent and usually oppressive towards the poor, homeless and afflicted. is a pretty monster generalization.

haha most important postwar philosophical thought is based on monster generalisations, right? not that mine is important but sometimes you've gotta say something violently loaded in order to project one's point sufficiently. i mean to say that the mentality presented in the likes of a flashmob for T-Mobile is the sort of mentality which privileges 'those who can' above the unabled. it's quite hard to put my finger exactly on what i mean but placing a sort of religious faith in technology to validate oneself (as happens) means that certain folk are kinda going to hell

imo it is imperative that there are universal channels of discourse open to all people, and it seems that some people are either being excluded or are excluding themselves. which is why ilx is so great! well, provided that everyone has internet access, which they don't. hmm. they will, eventually. these are prototypes.

right ok but i can use my mobile internet to post to ilx and check basketball scores while on the bus and i have never participated in a flashmob iirc. there are plenty of degrees in between embracing the evangelizing effect of such technology (which i like you totally reject) and being like "hey, this is pretty damn useful--not necessary, but useful"

yeah well while i was rambling earlier i produced the following sentence which sums it up pretty well

they can be useful on a personal level but to implement them in any sort of self-definition is sad.

hence we can agree to disagree, and also agree 0_o

maybe, depends who you ask / uh not really? / categorically untrue

lookin' forward to yr reply though

― I got gin but I'm not a ginger (bernard snowy), Wednesday, December 23, 2009 4:35 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

not really sure what your specific problem with capitalism is, yet!

once you've articulated i might get round 2 engaging. but n.e. way i linked to a categorical demonstration of sz's antisemitism yesterday: can't really be bothered to do it again.

his characterization of "capitalism" is basically supernatural; his attempt to counterpose "ideology" and, uh, whatever it is he trades in, was misbegotten enough when althusser tried it;* and there isn't time to engage with him. he doesn't merit it.

but i suppose it really depends on what you want to see there. what kind of society *is* zizek advocating? what is his (or your) dream of perfection? im not saying there's anything wrong with having such dreams or that *all* such are doomed to russian-style failure/tyranny. im just asking which dream it is that he/his fans would make reality. what is the other game in town?

(of course, language itself is so soaked in ideology that... this can't be articulated! amirite? genius.)

*I think Zizek is right to follow Althusser in making ideology a question of what people do, rather than what they think

that would be to follow... the tenets of materialism. and not just even marx. to credit this to althusser (an arch-idealist) is just idiotic.

(I find the "No Logo" stuff a bit condescending at this point in my life. The mere idea that the stuff we possess has some semiotic importance is much older than capitalism and can't really be avoided, and the fact that capitalism hyper-emphasizes the semiotic value of brand-name stuff can be mitigated by just not hyper-emphasizing it yourself, which most people I know don't. Admittedly, some people DO do this, and the fact that I don't is probably influenced by my having read no-logo-type stuff when I was younger. At this point I just don't think about it. I got a Blackberry recently because I needed to be able to get school/work e-mail very quickly, and I don't care that much about what it says about me (if anything I'm a bit embarrassed when I pull it out on the Subway).

― Bay-L.A. Bar Talk (Hurting 2), Wednesday, December 23, 2009 4:51 PM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark

needless to say, the RIM corporation is not greatly bothered by this state of events.

must have really tired you out to have linked to that categorical demonstration of sz's antisemitism nrq

i don't want to bang on the same drum is all, but it's on the most recently bumped bob dylan thread.

though reading his stuff should sort of alert you to him being a creep.

i don't want to bang on the same drum is all, but it's on the most recently bumped bob dylan thread.

also just oxygen of publicity stuff. he's a highly effective operator partly by trolling. getting into it only helps him, if only in a tiny way. he hardly exists outside global capitalism himself, so i don't get how any of this rigorous purism of bernard's stands up, or what end it's aimed at.

hahaha oh man it's the exact awful TNR article that I expected this is great

good reasoning. the article has direct quotes from zizek that i don't think can be justified. what say you?

I say that I don't know how a literate person could arrive at the ridiculously distorted out-of-context readings that Adam Kirsch provides; therefore he is either illiterate or did not really read the books in question

i have a fairly decent track record on literacy; i've read as much zizek as i'd like to; and i haven't seen anyone explain how a quotation can be "distorted". "out of context" of course i understand, but it needs to be demonstrated.

basically Zizek's own response (to Kirsch's *first* article calling him anti-semitic based on a bunch of out-of-context quotes) says it better than I ever could: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/disputations-who-are-you-calling-anti-semitic

Back to Mr. Kirsch, often it is enough to continue my quote and the meaning (opposite to the one imputed to me) becomes clear. Mr. Kirsch quotes my passage “crazy, tasteless even, as it may sound, the problem with Hitler was that he was not violent enough, that his violence was not 'essential' enough”--but is this really a call for even more killing than Hitler afforded? Here is how my text goes on: “Nazism was not radical enough, it did not dare to disturb the basic structure of the modern capitalist social space (which is why it had to invent and focus on destroying an external enemy, Jews). This is why one should oppose the fascination with Hitler according to which Hitler was, of course, a bad guy, responsible for the death of millions--but he definitely had balls, he pursued with iron will what he wanted. … This point is not only ethically repulsive, but simply wrong: no, Hitler did not ‘have the balls’ to really change things; he did not really act, all his actions were fundamentally reactions, i.e., he acted so that nothing would really change, he stages a big spectacle of Revolution so that the capitalist order could survive.”

In this precise sense of violence, Gandhi was more violent than Hitler: Gandhi’s movement effectively endeavored to interrupt the basic functioning of the British colonial state.

I've learned to stop worrying and love my mobile phone.

"distortion" in this case would consist of taking an isolated passage from a book entitled Violence, which is almost entirely dedicated to exploring and developing a theoretical concept of violence, and presenting it to the reader without giving them any inkling of A.) its place in the broader argument being advanced, or B.) the specific meanings or senses of words that are being used.

i don't mind people who use the technology discreetly. but those who celebrate an empty, technological 'togetherness' are complacent and usually oppressive towards the poor, homeless and afflicted.

The word that pops (sorry) out at me in this sentence is "discreetly." It sounds like what bothers you is conspicuous consumption, which has connotations of self-indulgence and self-centeredness, rather than anything to do with the technology itself.