Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

Idk man because sometimes the conceptual focus in critical theory changes over time?

the ghosts demand new words to feast on

I believe it's a deleuze/guattari deal

lagOOOoooOOOoon

― Trap Queenius (wins), Wednesday, July 15, 2015 1:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_macgdfyqFW1rwmb58.gif

https://sequelsprequels.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/tumblr_inline_n4pmyequek1svujri.gif

http://i.imgur.com/cPkwGfA.png

freddie backlash in full swing

I also misspelled "assemblage"--sorry working from my phone

ah ok

is it supposed to be in french pronunciation like "differance"

xps treeship otm upthread re tnc's anti-cartesian materialist ontology
i understand tnc's reasons for using this language, identifying person/self = body
but ultimately that reductive equation is no less metaphorical in its way, no less a philosophical fiction, than cartesian metaphors
yes it may be philosophically (or politically) clarifying in certain context, & powerful, used for deliberate reasons as tnc does,
but as pervasive locution--
imo maybe confused/confusing, maybe ultimately counterproductive

xps i don't think stoic philosophy has historically been used to justify slavery...?

Yeah, I plucked this passage out of a Bernard Williams essay without knowing its proper context. Looking it up, it's not exactly a justification. Seneca's arguing that slave and slaveowner are, in their essence, equivalent beings and that there are limits to what a slaveowner can "own" in a slave. The slaveowner can't compel crimes or treason since the slave is his/her own moral being. So you could say he's cordoning off what can justifiably be done to slaves from what can't, not justifying the practice as such. I'm not sure if he thinks it needs justification as such.

Roman slavery was p different from colonial-era slavery in some obvious ways

Is drash just ignoring my post or

(that's the same kind of reasoning clarence thomas employed in his recent opinion, i think. historically disagreements with stoic-style thought about things like slavery have stemmed more from their being insufficiently disposed to effect social change, possibly in light of being inappropriately satisfied with ethical ideals indifferent to the status quo.)

not ignoring, just crossposted
(have to think about it)

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/looking-white-in-the-face/

Postmodern theory tries to interrupt that expression at every stop, to put every word in scare quotes, to put our own presuppositions into question, to make us worry about the murderousness of “we,” and so to get in the habit of asking, “we, who?” I think that what modern philosophers call “pure” reason — the Cartesian ego cogito and Kant’s transcendental consciousness — is a white male Euro-Christian construction.

White is not “neutral.” “Pure” reason is lily white, as if white is not a color or is closest to the purity of the sun, and everything else is “colored.” Purification is a name for terror and deportation, and “white” is a thick, dense, potent cultural signifier that is closely linked to rationalism and colonialism. What is not white is not rational. So white is philosophically relevant and needs to be philosophically critiqued — it affects what we mean by “reason” — and “we” white philosophers cannot ignore it.

^all this, but also, it's a stylistic affectation

think this is otm. all my right-on activist buds are v. into using "bodies" as a way of describing the victims/targets of institutionalized racism/misogyny but the impression I get is there's a few rhetorical things in motion there beyond direct reference to the discourse in which the usage originated

kinda interesting, a little distracting to me but then again there's a lot of interesting thought/reaction to be had from moments of distraction

Xp deej, I read that caputo piece a while ago and have to say I don't really understand where you are supposed to go from the position he staked out. I agree with the idea that philosophical approaches that seek to define the self in a "vaccuum" - with little awareness of the various ways selfhood has been defined at different historical moments/in different cultures - deserve critique. But nonwhite cultures have rarely traditionally understood selfhood in the pure materialist sense. That is just as much of a western construct as the cogito. TNC even says there is a rich tradition of black americans using this idea of self-possession as a coping mechanism for living in a society in which they were not politically free. Is this just a mark of a complacent, or colonized subjectivity? I think that seems like an erasure of black history - to say that the western concepts they have always borrowed from and adapted are not truly theirs, and that their lives are best understood by suspending all of our ordinary categories in favor of a view that posits race, as you said, as an ontological category. I don't know what kind of progress lies at the end of that road. At this moment it seems like the struggle should be against the dehumanizing nature of structural forces like white supremacy and misogyny. Turning around and saying that maybe the concept of "human" needs to be overcome, or is complicit due to historical baggage, just seems really academic. Interesting analyses will come of this but I am skeptical that they will point us toward a more progressive ontology idk. I might lack imagination, or maybe I am just not radical enough

Like, if the point is just "we are not purely rational agents. We need to interrogate our positionality and how it informs how we think/interface with society" then i agree and am on board. But caputo seems to be saying more than that.

in that piece imo caputo isnt saying enough, in parts.

fwiw i think there's a longer tradition of this type of thinking, its not just starting from zero. frantz fanon & post colonial studies generally for ex

but then i find this stuff to be p convincing, to a point, if a bit deterministic
http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/wanderings-slave-black-life-and-social-death

they consider the slave to be in a state of 'ontological death,' actually, and posit that race is not a conflict but an antagonism; that western society is built upon the existence of a slave class

think about how insufficient ending the war on drugs would be at reversing the current paradigm ... think about michelle alexander saying the same % of ppl who were enslaved in 1860 are currently in prison or under court surveillance ... etc

http://i.imgur.com/Rwpe669.png

roasted

http://i.imgur.com/4sDAaJO.png

freddie gotgored

not a response to TNC:

Freddie ‏@freddiedeboer May 13
I think it was Mao who said "Political power grows out of the barrel of a sick burn."

fuck!

r they gonna fight

http://i.imgur.com/b7Euy0y.png

freddie's twitter pic looks like he's about to cry

This is a bad look for our friend freddie

today is kick freddie day

on one hand i'm sure he knew/knows the amount of blowback he's going to get from attacking tnc, esp this week of all weeks, which makes it some kind of pyrrhic opportunism - i almost respect how quickly + willingly he is to take whatever damage this crusade might do to his reputation / online persona / whatever. all publicity is good publicity. otoh what a fucking moron.

i cld possible kinda admire him for it if his whole schtick wasnt so entry level and self righteous

no magazine covers no aspen friends just you and me mano y mano, broooooo

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJ-q7stUcAA-v7h.png

vulnerable? what exactly r u talking abtttttttttttt

You + me + my tenure application, hosa

surprised Freddie didn't just call him "uppity"

give him time

In the old days they would've exchanged nasty articulate letters in The New York Review of Books

srsly just caught myself fantasizing abt rubbernecking an epic online meltdown lol

more like freddie da boor

his "media criticism" reduces to fidgety anxiety about what the popular kids are doing; this li'l episode isn't much different

otm

lagoon r u making the popcorn or will i

coat the world in popcorn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK3ZP6frAMc

goole otm

i just winced all the way into my chair

nice

@useful_noise
dude's following his m.o.: warn about dangers of a strawman "consensus," then claim any argument against him proves his point

this seems like a suicide mission

http://i.imgur.com/BxZHXgZ.png