his "media criticism" reduces to fidgety anxiety about what the popular kids are doing; this li'l episode isn't much different
― goole, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 19:54 (eight years ago) link
otm
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 19:55 (eight years ago) link
lagoon r u making the popcorn or will i
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 19:57 (eight years ago) link
coat the world in popcorn
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 19:59 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK3ZP6frAMc
― Treeship, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:03 (eight years ago) link
goole otm
― supreme problematics (D-40), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:07 (eight years ago) link
i just winced all the way into my chair
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:09 (eight years ago) link
nice
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:11 (eight years ago) link
@useful_noisedude's following his m.o.: warn about dangers of a strawman "consensus," then claim any argument against him proves his point
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:12 (eight years ago) link
this seems like a suicide mission
― Treeship, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:13 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/BxZHXgZ.png
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:18 (eight years ago) link
Jesus even his posts about his sick dog are pedantic and fucking endless
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:35 (eight years ago) link
irl grimacingwatching horrible slow-motion intentional car crash
― drash, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:43 (eight years ago) link
literally no idea who freddie deboer is but i went to his website and it has a link to an amazon wish list full of vinyl and video games and stuff that has been constantly updated for the last five years?? is this a normal thing for professional ppl to do??
― i'm not a dogg (sleepingbag), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 20:57 (eight years ago) link
camgirls sure
― j., Wednesday, 15 July 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link
Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using R: A Step-by-Step Approach (Springer Texts in Statistics)
lol
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 21:21 (eight years ago) link
when i was a teenager i tirelessly edited my livejournal profile’s interests to appear smart and cool
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 21:22 (eight years ago) link
DeBoer is one of those writers who is even more annoying for potentially discrediting his better positions I would also espouse by being such a dope in general. Thanks a lot.
― Vic Perry, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 21:39 (eight years ago) link
campgirls don't deserve this treatment.
― e-bouquet (mattresslessness), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 21:40 (eight years ago) link
His post a few days ago complaining about liberal gays who believe they're Born This Way was so tendentious that I suspect he's a frustrated pop critic who wants to write about Lady Gaga
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 21:48 (eight years ago) link
omg love this wasteman
had never heard of him before but from the moment I first laid eyes on his loving description of how judiciously he would read this book uncritically praised by all other people I knew that this was a useless drooping prick that wasn't done applying its clown makeup
― Trap Queenius (wins), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 22:19 (eight years ago) link
He'll read you the right way
― Most Scientifically Beautiful Face (President Keyes), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 22:22 (eight years ago) link
I doubt it, nobody else seems capable
― Trap Queenius (wins), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 22:25 (eight years ago) link
(non sequitur post, please ignore)
My approximation of how black studies would respond to this is that the slave class--which is contiguous with the system now referred to as blackness--is denied a subjectivity; the Cartesian subject is a white subject. The structures of race are themselves ontological
largely agree with treeship’s response (though don't think caputo’s position is what treeship ascribes to him)
skimmed metamute piece, wd have to read more patiently, find myself objecting to a lot of it (but maybe my objections just/mostly philosophical/academic)
my problem maybe (in response to this piece, tnc re ‘bodies’, & yr post, deej) is absoluteness of linguistic/conceptual formulations, unbridgeable dichotomies, what seem like false either/ors (in their own way falling prey to form of conceptual 'purification')
v necessary to critique— historicize, genealogize, deconstruct— philosophical constructs like pure reason, cartesian ego, kantian transcendental subject
part of that is seeing how constructs involve (invisibly) operations of exclusion, difference from/ negation of other(s) (nonrational, nonmale, nonwhite etc)— ‘absences’ which, when made visible, typically, not coincidentally, are/ appear as bodies
critique all the more important bc such constructs likely involved (invisibly) in present structures of injustice
but it’s one thing to say “the Cartesian subject is a white subject,” or that blackness was “denied a subjectivity”& another to reject e.g. notion of ‘subjectivity’ entirely
don’t like when language is reified, overregulated, for (even well-intentioned) political reasonsthink there’s more power in having plurality, diversity of language-games (language-games which can be (re)appropriated, reinterpreted, reinvented) through which to articulate experience
nb none of this is criticism of tnc; his choice of language is deliberate directed effectivejust questioning pervasive adoption of ‘black bodies’ formulation
― drash, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 23:00 (eight years ago) link
quite like the sound of that book on r but I've not time right now to give it the full attn
― irl lol (darraghmac), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 23:02 (eight years ago) link
Isn't this where someone points out that blackness is an absolute? In its social function? Like, Rachel dolezal is white and that's an absolute
Anyway, I don't think the idea is to reject that subjectivity exists in the individual but in the individuals systemic identity, a slave to a skin tone
Idk I'm not the ideal person to argue this, I've only read a few chapters of wilderson and never went to grad school but
Metamute piece isn't what you're disagreeing with, it's a dispassionate qualitative description of a movement w/in black studies that has garnered a lot of traction win the last decade
― supreme problematics (D-40), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 23:46 (eight years ago) link
Re afro-pessimism, I don't get why rationality/subjectivity is posited as *necessarily* defined against blackness, to a degree that can't be overcome except through a total revolution or what Wilderson calls the "end of the world." Passages like this seem to draw the worst conclusions from the observations of clearly accurate observations about the colonialist and racist subtext of Western notions of "pure" rationalism:
In relation to riots in particular, calls for ‘social justice’, ‘rights’, ‘police accountability and transparency’ obscure the essence of these movements, whose meaning resides entirely on the surface. They are fundamentally demandless and intentionally destructive. There is no ‘point’ except for utter dissolution of the current state of affairs. As viewed by the Afro-pessimists, the demandlessness of these struggles cannot be reduced to any single empirical aspect – freedom here and now must be absolute not relative. An irreconcilable antagonism produces black existence positioning it against humanity. This antagonism can only be resolved by the cathartic purge of violence. It is the use of violence that must first be expropriated, both materially and symbolically.
I think it misunderstands the recent riots to see them as a cathartic purge of violence against ontological imprisonment. They are a display of righteous anger against literal imprisonment - the imprisonment of bodies. African Americans are political agents, if oppressed and marginalized ones. These struggles are about claiming agency; they're not fundamentally antisocial.*
*maybe i misunderstand what's being said, always a risk with critical theory whether you've been to grad school or not
― Treeship, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 23:58 (eight years ago) link
Me too.
I'd note first off that this is a classic move by privileged intellectuals: The People (We Love Them But They) don't understand what they want; they need us to explain it. "They are fundamentally demandless" it says - UM, REALLY? Like, wanting to actually hold cops to what is supposed to be the law is no demand of rioters responding to police violence? They're just throwing up their hands in the air like they don't care?
Interesting how this "liberating" view doesn't differ in many ways from appalling racist views of rioters as thugs. "An irreconcilable antagonism produces black existence positioning it against humanity." Charles Krauthammer might phrase it a little differently, but hey.
It's not like there aren't any conventionally rational & reasonable arguments against racism or police violence. Actually, I don't know of any conventionally rational & reasonable arguments FOR them.
Ergo, rationality and reasonableness wouldn't seem to be the prime oppressor here. What exactly is proposed as a replacement anyway, besides more grad school?
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 00:40 (eight years ago) link
freddie died for our sins http://fredrikdeboer.com/2015/07/15/i-still-like-em/
― lag∞n, Thursday, 16 July 2015 00:48 (eight years ago) link
rationality/subjectivity is posited as *necessarily* defined against blackness
i think a significant part of this is that 'race' as a category at all doesn't really exist in its current form until the 18th century, and then it's right there in the foundations of the rational enlightenment individual as a category of separation and exploitation. under these terms race is nothing but exploitation. but i dunno
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 16 July 2015 00:53 (eight years ago) link
in spite of it all... i still kinda like freddie tho
― flopson, Thursday, 16 July 2015 00:57 (eight years ago) link
Rational/logical thinking invented well before 18th C. More to the point, the critique of rational/logical thinking is generally presented as a form of....rational/logical thinking.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:02 (eight years ago) link
I get that Merdeyeux but why is blackness destined to *always remain* the other of rationality? And if this thinking is still latent in how we think (which it is, and often not too latent either) why is the solution not just deconstruction and critique? Why would this specter if the denial of black humanity mean there can be no black politics today? (This I think is implied in the afro-pessimist account, which seems to deny the substantive content of the recent movement against police brutality.) The whole thing seems, like drash said, way too eager to make final declarations about the meanings of things, and also does so in a way that forecloses on real political possibilities. I criticized caputo too along a similar line -- assigning out view of the subject wholly to a colonialist perspective/context -- but to his credit he doesn't draw these conclusions.
― Treeship, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:08 (eight years ago) link
Sry for the typos
― Treeship, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:09 (eight years ago) link
Also merdyeux i understand u were just unpacking the point, sorry to have addressed my critique to you and not the article
― Treeship, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:10 (eight years ago) link
I want to read Incognegro though, because I suspect I don't have a grasp of the total argument; I'm only responding to the summaries and quotes being posted.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:12 (eight years ago) link
vic (and maybe treesh) it's not a critique of rationality or logical thinking as a whole, rather the kind of rational subjectivity that can give make notions like 'human rights' tenable in the first place. so roughly speaking post-locke (who incidentally made a tonne of money in the slave trade).
treesh for most of your stuff i still dunno but i think maybe afro-pessimism's political logic is essentially revolutionary (cf fanon), reformism just doesn't cut it when the system is oppressive all the way down
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:21 (eight years ago) link
mb http://www.yorku.ca/intent/issue5/articles/pdfs/jaredsextonarticle.pdf will be of interest
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:25 (eight years ago) link
A notion like human rights is an attempt at defeating the simple dictates of might-makes-right with an idea that people ought to be better to each other. Better ideas pursuing the same goal are welcome; potshots against the fallible character of John Locke are not.
Hey, we could endorse some kind of tear-down-the-system-violently thing - a total crapshoot by the way, with no guarantees of a good outcome but plenty of blood and chances for deep misery and even worse oppression - but if it "succeeds," then when it's over, and a bunch of people are dead...... well, what happens then? Why do they then have some kind of society free from oppression? What would be different? How does it stay non-oppressive?
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:35 (eight years ago) link
I get that Merdeyeux but why is blackness destined to *always remain* the other of rationality?
Occam's razor?
― supreme problematics (D-40), Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:41 (eight years ago) link
my potshot at locke was cheap but one can quite well map a racial logic intrinsic to his thought which carries through. i have no firm position on what that means re current issues of subjectivity and race besides 'it's messy and difficult'.
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:41 (eight years ago) link
Why has it lasted hundreds of years already?
Nb western civilization's origins and dependence on a slave class go back much further than the 18th cen
(This I think is implied in the afro-pessimist account, which seems to deny the substantive content of the recent movement against police brutality.)
Wait, did the brutality stop? Did I miss something ?
― supreme problematics (D-40), Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:43 (eight years ago) link
he means, what it meant, what it was about
― j., Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:46 (eight years ago) link
Isn't what it meant all about substantive results
― supreme problematics (D-40), Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:48 (eight years ago) link
I think of afropessimism as the Adorno to performance studies' benjamin
― supreme problematics (D-40), Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:50 (eight years ago) link
Adorno was an elitist dumbass.
Come on D-40, the presence of slavery is not relevant to the development of logical thought. It's not like if they didn't have slavery somehow logical thought would work differently. They had or sold slaves because they could, because people are often mean assholes if they can get away with it.
by the way, do you have some kind of issue with the way that Martin Luther King used logic in his writings and speeches? Should he have abandoned the cursed racist ways of logic? Let's hear the critique.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:52 (eight years ago) link
The passage denies that the riots are about brutality at all. It says that they are "demandless," purely destructive, anarchic violence directed at society as a whole. Maybe this is true of some rioters, but overall the unrest is due to people protesting police abuse.
― Treeship, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:52 (eight years ago) link
Right on Treeship, my point earlier.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:54 (eight years ago) link
By the way the Situationists did the same routine with the Watts riots, claiming the rioters as fellow French nihilists. First time as tragedy, 2nd time as farce...
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 16 July 2015 01:56 (eight years ago) link