Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

In order to see the non-elite interests you have to disillusion yourself of your earlier claim: that is, that participating in discourse is somehow rendered impotent by corporate jingoism. Yes, I know what jingoism is; but you overestimate the extent to which critical debate has been appropriated by it, especially "corporate" jingoism. I don't see any evidence for this, which is why I said your claim is unqualified. Critics deploy terms in order to situate themselves in a discourse, but there are both debilitating and enhancing aspects of doing so.

Ultimately, all institutions, discursive or otherwise, must operate within a fixed circuit of corporate (what used to be industrial) capitalism; but this doesn't mean they only serve elite interests. The non-elites who have benefited are obvious! There was a time when blacks were considered, under the discursive tradition, to be property and less than human; but the discourse evolved, and black subjectivity changed. The same goes for women. The same goes for gays. The concepts and definitions of, for instance, identity and subjectivity are always changing, and these are discursive practices. Certainly, they may yield some unsavory results, but this doesn't negate their positive contributions to the public sphere.

 

[Dak]

There is another argument that says the legal/corporate mechanisms that supposedly elevated blacks from a position as property merely changed the type and method of ownership/owners of blacks. Instead of being owned by individuals in (mostly) southern states, blacks became the property of the political elite. Additionally, the former owners of blacks also became property of this same elite. Of course, the political elite is in place beholding to non-govco corporate elite.

In short: "Emancipation" was not emancipation at all but instead broader enslavement under new management (masters). If you wish that I grant that this "slavery lite" is improvement in a material sense I could agree to a point.

 

[Einherjar86]

First, a serious clarification is needed here: blacks are not the property of the political elite in any economic sense. That's a rhetorical twist of language that you are using to achieve an effect, and the effect is of the following nature: "Leftist progressives cater to black interests, and thus have them by the balls." This is not ownership in any actual sense, merely in a figurative and manipulative sense, which you use to critique leftist agendas.

I'm not taking sides here; I'm merely calling you out on your rhetoric.

The discursive treatment of black subjects - or women, or gays, etc. - takes place on a level beyond what liberal politicians say on television. It takes place over decades, from the narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass to the novels of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison; and there are quantifiable changes to how blacks have been viewed and treated on a cultural level. Subjectivity is constituted discursively, and it's a power that exceeds the control of the State.

 

[Dak]

First, a serious clarification is needed here: blacks are not the property of the political elite in any economic sense. That's a rhetorical twist of language that you are using to achieve an effect, and the effect is of the following nature: "Leftist progressives cater to black interests, and thus have them by the balls." This is not ownership in any actual sense, merely in a figurative and manipulative sense, which you use to critique leftist agendas.

I'm not taking sides here; I'm merely calling you out on your rhetoric.

That is one way of interpreting that, but it is limited by it's rhetorical nature as you say. I mean specifically, literally, that citizens of the United States are the property of the United States.

there are quantifiable changes to how blacks have been viewed and treated on a cultural level. Subjectivity is constituted discursively, and it's a power that exceeds the control of the State.

I disagree. The quantifiable changes are precisely changes in how blacks are treated by the State.

 

[Einherjar86]

That is one way of interpreting that, but it is limited by it's rhetorical nature as you say. I mean specifically, literally, that citizens of the United States are the property of the United States.

I disagree. The quantifiable changes are precisely changes in how blacks are treated by the State.

It is the State that enables us to be constituted as subjects in the first place. Subjects never emerged until organized society emerged. The very foundations of subjecthood lie in the institutionalization of the subject as a social being. Our capacity for discursively rewriting subjectivity derive from our constitution by the State.

In this sense we may be thought of as the State's property, but simultaneously as that which empowers the State. Discourse is an endless treatment of this co-constitution.

 

[Dak]

It is the State that enables us to be constituted as subjects in the first place. Subjects never emerged until organized society emerged. The very foundations of subjecthood lie in the institutionalization of the subject as a social being. Our capacity for discursively rewriting subjectivity derive from our constitution by the State.

In this sense we may be thought of as the State's property, but simultaneously as that which empowers the State. Discourse is an endless treatment of this co-constitution.

State =/= society/civilization, organized or otherwise. That is the very point of pretty much the entirety of libertarian/anarchist philosophy. That property empowers the owner is somewhat trivial.

 

[Einherjar86]

And I pretty much think that the libertarian/anarchist philosophy makes an arbitrary distinction on this point. As Deleuze and Guattari say, the State has always existed.

 

[Dak]

And I pretty much think that the libertarian/anarchist philosophy makes an arbitrary distinction on this point. As Deleuze and Guattari say, the State has always existed.

Well I don't disagree that the State has always existed, if we describe a State as possessing certain fundamental characteristics, and subsequently labeling states. If we tie civilization to something as simple as a written language, it's pretty obvious the state pre-dates civilization, although maybe not society.

However, if we also define civilization and society based on certain attributes, attributes which do not beg the question by including "having a State" or "being within a State", it is possible to separate them both theoretically and practically.

The problem for anarchist philosophers has not been to theoretically/practically separate Society from State, but the practical ability to maintain the absence of a State.

Furthermore, that sort of critque of states also opens up economic history to being described as "always capitalistic".

 

[Dak]

Can't remember if this got posted before, apologies as it is only indirectly related to feminism and the state:

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Scientists find ‘hidden brain signatures’ of consciousness in vegetative state patients Scientists in Cambridge have found hidden signatures in the brains of people in a vegetative state, which point to networks that could support consciousness even when a patient appears to be unconscious and unresponsive. The study could help doctors identify patients who are aware despite being unable to communicate.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/...of-consciousness-in-vegetative-state-patients

Research Article
Spectral Signatures of Reorganised Brain Networks in Disorders of Consciousness
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003887

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I like this guys channel

Video starts off fairly simple and finishes with a few really great thought provoking ideas

 

[Einherjar86]

Much (not all obviously) of what is against the law is so because it is a crime, it isn't a crime because it's against the law.

This sounds very backwards to me. Do you see how this implies that crime can be metaphysically identified and absolute? And is that what you're implying?

 

[Dak]

This sounds very backwards to me. Do you see how this implies that crime can be metaphysically identified and absolute? And is that what you're implying?

No it doesn't. It is still anthropocentric and subjective. I'm just rejecting legal codification as a requirement. Ossified institutions and tablets of stone/papyrus/paper aren't a necessity.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm disputing your claim that the argument for organized crime (as I paraphrased it in the other thread) is the same as that for law enforcement. Bear in mind, I know you were joking around, but I also know you were being serious.

I'm going to quote this again...

Much (not all obviously) of what is against the law is so because it is a crime, it isn't a crime because it's against the law.

...and break it down:

Much (not all obviously) of what is against the law is so because it is a crime

If this is true, then it suggests that crime is crime in and of itself; crime is against the law because it is a crime. If you're considering crime in some specific way here that's going unspoken, then you need to be explicit about it.

it isn't a crime because it's against the law.

As soon as you brought in the topic of police enforcement, you made crime about the law. The functions of crime syndicates and organized law enforcement differ dramatically when viewed historically.

Crime did not preexist law; other institutions may have: sin, moral indecency, vague forms of injustice - but not criminal infraction, which is the major difference between an illegal gang and law enforcement (in a definitional, indexical sense; obviously it is true that law enforcement officials can commit crimes). Crime is specifically a legal institution (or a direct result of legal institutions).

This is where I'm drawing this from:

The accumulation of wealth and armed power and the concentration of judicial power in the hands of a few were one and the same process operating in the early Middle Ages, reaching its maturity at the time of the formation of the first great medieval monarchy, in the middle and at the end of the twelfth century. At that time, things appeared that were completely new relative to feudal society, the Carolingian Empire, and the old rules of Roman Law.

First: A mode of proceeding that is no longer a contestation between individuals and a voluntary acceptance by those individuals of a certain number of rules of settlement but, rather, one imposed from above on individuals, adversaries, and parties.

"Organized crime" mediates disputes between individuals, and operates more along the lines of this pre-feudal mode.

Second: There appeared a totally new figure, without precedent in Roman law - the prosecutor [...] the representative of the sovereign, king, or the master.

Third: An absolutely new concept appeared - the infraction. So long as the judicial drama unfolded between two individuals, the victim and the accused, it was only a matter of the wrong that one individual had done to another. [...] From the moment that the sovereign, or his representative, the prosecutor, said, "I too was injured by the offense," the wrong was not just an offense of one individual against another, but also an individual's offense against the state itself. Thus, in the concept of crime the old concept of wrong was to be replaced by that of infraction.

The justification/argument for law enforcement derives from an entirely different set of legal precedents than that of organized crime.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

 

[Dak]

If this is true, then it suggests that crime is crime in and of itself; crime is against the law because it is a crime. If you're considering crime in some specific way here that's going unspoken, then you need to be explicit about it.

I really hate to sound Humean here, but I will for the sake of brevity: The negative act to the person or property of another(s), however conceived even culturally, is generally unwelcome, even if accepted as a part of life. (IE, those who live in extremely "corrupt" cultures don't like it, but have just accepted it in the same way we accept income taxes). This does not make it any less criminal, even though it is not actively resisted, and maybe even legal.

The justification/argument for law enforcement derives from an entirely different set of legal precedents than that of organized crime.

I didn't really mean to tie the two together at all, that is, law enforcement and crime. The notion of crime as it pertains to breaking the law does not overlap perfectly with all those things which are "real crimes". For instance, the idea of a victimless crime (a victim other than the state) should be a contradiction, and instead is really a synonym for a particular variety of Foucault's "infractions".

While the very specific and particular justification behind one sort of strongman or another is different, in general both behavior and justification overlaps very closely.

Edit: @Jimmy I watched the web video, not sure what part you were referring to at the end.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

The part about the internet before books. I thought it was an interesting idea.

 

[Dak]

If we always only create our own stories, we are going to become fucking shallow people.

 

[Einherjar86]

Reading is a submissive process, but that doesn't mean it can't also be participatory. I'm not sure why those two notions are mutually exclusive for Johnson.

If we always only create our own stories, we are going to become fucking shallow people.

I don't think this is what Johnson means by creating our own narratives. He's referencing online discourse, which isn't reducible to a single person's narrative. He's talking about the combinatory narratives that emerge from millions of people engaging in discussion in an online space. Other critics refer to this as hypertext, and it's a growing field of study in the humanities.

 

[Dak]

So this is a narrative?