#philosophical infrastructure

[iguanalysis]

"S", Truth, Event, and Domain

Being and Event Notes: Taken From “Translator’s Preface” by Oliver Feltham: “Mathematics is ontology”

Alain Badiou’s main idea for introducing mathematics into ontology is influenced by developments in set theory that occurred in the 20th century. A schism between philosophy-proper and what are named “truth procedures” forms whenever the development of philosophical knowledge must reconcile itself with the actuality of an event, and the variables involved in its conditioning. Truth procedures may occur after the appearing of an event-site (?), and these procedures maintain the “name” of that event as their fundamental reference, or object [of understanding (?)]

Truth procedures such as these, which are heterogenous to philosophy, are also called “conditioning”, and they occur in the domains of art, politics, science, and love.

Orientations of thought which may characterize truth procedures in these domains as they attempt to approach their respective philosophical representations are as follows: transcendental, constructivist, generic, and praxiological. 

The convergence of these orientations of thought as they may direct the truth procedures which occur in reference to the name of an event becomes consistent with itself only in the field of philosophy; thus, the task of philosophy is to effectively communicate this “compossibility” of convergences and “accommodate the diversity of the various truth procedures without being rendered inconsistent“.

“The New Happens in Being under the Name of the Event”

First, read this post on my blog: https://at.tumblr.com/iguanalysis/what-is-the-structure-of-discourse-and-where/riwtcpm28bpz

How does all this about Being and Event correspond to the four discourses in Lacanian psychoanalysis?

What I have done is decided that a truth procedure is triggered by the name of the event, and that the domains of art, politics, science, and love are the goal-sites of the trajectory from the Other (“A”) towards “S”. Thus, the name of the event is the command to “initiate launch sequence”, as it is said, and the object of truth contained in “A” is thus catapulted toward the “S” of the targeted domain name (“art”, “politics”, “science”, “love”). However, there would be no idea of such a command without the reality of the unconscious always in play, whose function is also to limit the capacities of ordered outcomes within a given series of events. Therefore, it is not the outcome of events that is predetermined, rather, the limitations of said outcomes are predetermined.

Orientations of thought for truth procedures are thus decided upon by the desires which occur that initially prompted them, and which also happen in relation to the four discourses. But the decisions reached about the conscious selection of these orientations (transcendental, constructivist, generic, and/or praxiological) are, for thought, decidedly philosophical (or perhaps for a computer program, prescriptive) and not enticed in consciousness by the beckonings of mutually-effected logical necessities which may be observed in reality. What anticipates this impasse (in thought, or even in computation) as well are both the activities of consideration and deliberation.

Consideration tends to occur prior to the necessity to decide to act, or “initiate launch sequence”; deliberation, on the other hand, tends to occur in the face of the necessity to decide to act. Their occurrence interacts in the process of mediation between truth and the Other: the payload of the Other must acquire an algebraic representation in order to fulfill its discursive function, in other words.

If truth is the desire for a subject, then the name of the event corresponds to the structure of the discourse of the master. 

If truth is the desire for a signifier, then the name of the event corresponds to the structure of the discourse of the university. 

If truth is the desire for a knowledge, then the name of the event corresponds to the structure of the discourse of the analyst. 

If truth is the desire for surplus-jouissance, then the name of the event corresponds to the structure of the discourse of hysteria.

Consideration is more philosophically-oriented than deliberation, since it is both synthetic and analytical in its combined method of thought. An orientation of thought, via consideration, may become pre-selected, or better understood, upon later reflection on the results of the truth procedure, and whether or not the same desire which occurred to prompt the orientation of thought for the truth procedure found a proper relationship to satisfaction based on the decision to act that followed.

Deliberation is more domain-oriented than consideration, however, since it is pressed to act by necessity and must therefore come to a decision. These decisions also seem to occur outside of philosophy, therefore, even though truth as either the desire for a knowledge or as the desire for surplus-jouissance, which will crop up later in conscious desire, are basically physically (pre)determined by the (identity of the) decision to act itself, or the variable. Once some people believe they understand this, for example, they may begin to behave irrationally. (I am no exception).

The Name of the Event, or the Domain Name?

What is a name? A name is a signifier for all the other signifiers. Sometimes it is a literal word: “English”, “language”, “Father”, “1”, “0”, etc. Other times it is an abstract logical or rational particle which occurs in or through syllogisms.

What is an event? An event is an identity or variable which retains the capacity to be linked to a signifier prior to becoming signified. It is already capable of being understood; it does compute.

The unconscious interactions which happen between names and events are the determining factors of a society’s “philosophical infrastructure”.

The name of the event triggers the truth procedure; the domain name is like the target or aim of the catapult trajectory, as it is decided by the structure of discourse.

How is the domain name decided by the structure of discourse? The three indications of the rotational mechanism (as I have described them), namely, the id, egoity, and reflection, come into contact with desire at the subconscious level, and form the identity of “S” on schema L: either signifier, word, or subject. Truth here becomes aligned with the Aristotelian “Chief Good” by the functioning of thought. Jacques Lacan may have called this idea (or something similar) “das Ding”, or in English, “the Thing”, in his seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Since desire always wants to achieve the Good by means of some truth that it knows in reality, the identity of “S” becomes its driving or motivating object, and this identity short-circuits by the logical necessity of its very possibility into the form of a name in conscious thought.

The selection of a domain name, then, is closely related to how an orientation of thought is also necessarily selected by the identity of an object. The difference is that a domain (name) is what truth is unwittingly thrown into by desire, and an orientation of thought is an expression of desire for the truth. However, the expression of desire for the truth must also be of desire for the truth about something. This about (something) is the centerpiece of the philosophical problem of events: how is it that all of these interactions concerning [1] the four discourses, [2] schema L, [3] desire, and [4] truth procedures seem to correspond to human cognitive psychology (as well as computation and engineering), yet the domains of art, politics, science, and love, which are the very sky of truth’s trajectory, are predetermined by an existent structure of society which is prior to the event anyone’s biological birth?

This is the collateral side of the Other, one that belongs to a child’s parents, which evades any form of thought or selection. The incessant activity of the production of truth and knowledge are what I have called, inspired by Alenka Zupancic’s book Why Psychoanalysis?, the “Laplanchian Engine”. Read my blog post about it here: https://at.tumblr.com/iguanalysis/a-laplanchian-engine/jq0lalin4lrl

– (10/17/2022)

[bowyooo]

there was info about rcm living off donations, so streaming!au was created for fun

as kindly proposed by my bestie, Kim plays Cities:Skylines, dryly explaining the importance of proper urban infrastructure planning, talks about local problems, sounds like ASMR. paradoxically gains a ton of views

Jean plays Animal Crossing, and people stop by to see the impressive muscles and how the life-beaten cop does cozy gaming, blinking every two hours

it's a philosophical piece about depressed people playing fun games

[transmutationisms]

serious question but do you personally believe there is a way to approach psychiatry in a way that uplifts and upholds patient autonomy and wellness or is the entire trade essentially fucked haha. Btw this is an ask coming from a 3rd year med student—with a background of severe mental illness—who is considering a residency in psychiatry after receiving life-saving care in high school pertaining to said conditions. (I have peers who have been involuntarily hospitalized and treated horribly in psych wards, with approaches i patently disagree with, but was lucky not to experience. I don’t like modern american medicine’s approach to mental illness; “throw pills” at it to “make it go away” ie. a problem of overprescribing, inadequate and non-holistic approach to mental health, and i feel a lot of that can be attributed to the capitalistic framework. I also def agree with you that so much of what can be considered normal human responses to traumatic events/normal human suffering can be unnecessarily pathologized—a great example being the whole “chemical imbalances in the brain is the ONLY reason why im like this” argument that ive unfortunately fallen hard for when i was younger and am still currently dismantling within myself…and like dont even get me started on this field’s history of demonizing POC, women, LGBT, etc). Like i deeply love my psych rotations so far, and i utterly feel in my gut that this is the manner in which i would like to help people—a lot of whom are just like me—but im wondering if there is a way to reconcile these aspects in a way that one can feel morally okay participating within such an imperfect system, in ur opinion… ngghhhhhh i just want to be a good doctor to my patients…

(ps i love all ur writing and analysis on succession!! big fan mwah <333)

i don't mean to sound unduly pissy at you, specifically, but i do have to say: every single time i've talked about antipsych or broader criticism of medicine on this website, i immediately get a wave of responses like this, from doctors/nurses/psychs/students of the above, asking me to, like, reassure them that they're not doing something immoral or un-communist or whatever by having or pursuing these jobs. and it's honestly frustrating. why is it that these conversations get re-framed around this particular line of inquiry and medical ego-soothing? why is it that when i say "the medical encounter is not structured to protect patient autonomy or well-being," so many people hear something more along the lines of "doctors are mean and i wish they were nicer"? why is it that it's impossible to discuss the philosophical and structural violence of academic and clinical medicine without it becoming a referendum on the individual morality of doctors?

i'm choosing to read you in good faith because i think it's possible to re-re-frame this line of questioning to demonstrate to you the sorts of critiques and inquiries i find more interesting and more conducive to patient autonomy and liberation. so, let me pick apart a few lines of this ask.

"is the entire trade essentially fucked?"

if you're thinking of trying to 'reform' the project of medical psychology within existing infrastructures and institutions, then yeah, it's fucked. if you're still assuming that affective distress can only be 'treated' within this medical apparatus (despite, again, no psychiatric dx satisfying any pathologist's understanding of a 'disease' ie an aberration from 'normal' physiological functioning) then you're not challenging the things that actually make psychiatry violent. you're simply fantasising about making the violence nicer.

"I don’t like modern american medicine’s approach to mental illness; “throw pills” at it to “make it go away” ie. a problem of overprescribing, inadequate and non-holistic approach to mental health, and i feel a lot of that can be attributed to the capitalistic framework."

i hate when i talk about psychotropic drugs being marketed to patients using lies like the chemical imbalance myth, and then pushed on patients—including through outright force—by psychiatrists, and the discussion gets re-framed as one about 'overprescribing'. my problem is not with people taking drugs. i am, in fact, so pro-drugs that i think even the ones administered in a clinical setting sometimes have value. my issue is with, again, the provision of misleading or outright false information, the use of force and coercion to put patients on such drugs in order to force social conformity and employability, and the general model of medicine and medical psychology that assumes patients ought to be passive recipients of medical enlightenment rather than active participants in their own treatment who are given the agency to decide when and how to engage with any form of curative or meliorative intervention.

'holistic' medicine and psychiatry do not solve this problem! they are not a paradigm shift because they continue to locate expertise and epistemological authority with the credentialed physician, and to position patients as too sick, stupid, or helpless to do anything but receive and comply with the medical interventions. there are certainly psychotropic drugs that are demonstrably more harmful than others (antipsychotics, for example), and some that are demonstrably prescribed to patients who do not benefit from them and are even harmed by them. conversely, there are certainly forms of intervention besides pharmaceuticals that people may find helpful. but my general critique here is aimed less at haggling over specific methods of intervention, and more at the ideological and philosophical tenets of medicine that cause any interventions to be imposed by force or coercion on patients, then framed as being 'for their own good'. were suffering people given the information and autonomy to actually choose whether and how to engage in any kind of intervention, some might still choose drugs! my position here is not one of moralising drugs, but making the act of taking them one that is freely chosen and available as an option without relying on physician determination of a patient's interests over their own assessment of their needs and wants.

"so much of what can be considered normal human responses to traumatic events/normal human suffering can be unnecessarily pathologized"

true, but don't misunderstand me as saying that drugs or any other form of intervention should be forcibly withheld from those who do want them and are made fully aware of what risks and harms seeking them could entail. again, this would still be an authoritarian model; my critique is aimed at increasing patient autonomy, not at creating equally authoritarian and empowered doctors who just have slightly different treatment philosophies.

"dont even get me started on this field’s history of demonizing POC, women, LGBT, etc"

ok, framing this as "demonisation" tells me that you're not understanding that, again, this is a systemic and structural critique. it is certainly true that a great many doctors currently are, and have historically have been, outright racist, trans/misogynist, ableist, and so on. framing this as a problem of a well-intentioned discipline being corrupted by some assholes is getting it backwards. medicine attracts prejudiced people, not to mention strengthens and promotes these prejudices in its entire training and practice infrastructures, because of its underlying philosophical orientation toward enforcing 'normality' as defined by 18th-century statistics and 19th-century human sciences that explicitly place white, cis, able-bodied european men as the normal ideal that everyone else is inferior to or failing to live up to. doctors who really nicely tell you that you're too fat are still using bmi charts that come from the statistical anthropometry of adolphe quételet and the flawed actuarial calculations of metlife insurance. doctors who really nicely deny you access to transition surgery are still operating under a paradigm that gives the practitioner authority over expressions and embodiments of gender. the issue isn't 'demonisation', it's that medicine and psychiatry explicitly attempt to render judgments about who and what is 'normal' and therefore socially 'healthy', and enforce those standards on patients. this is not a promotion of patient well-being, but of social conformity.

"i deeply love my psych rotations so far, and i utterly feel in my gut that this is the manner in which i would like to help people"

let me ask you a few questions. you say that you like your psych rotations... but how do your patients feel about them? is their autonomy protected? are they in treatment by free choice, and free to leave any time they wish? are they treated as human beings with full self-determination? if you witnessed a situation in which a patient was coerced or forced into a certain treatment, or in which you were not sure whether they were consenting with full knowledge or freedom, would you feel empowered to intervene? or would doing so threaten your career by exposing you to anger and retaliation from your higher-ups? what higher-ups will you be exposed to as a resident, and then as a practicing physician? could you practice in a way that committed fully, 100%, to patient autonomy if you were working at someone else's practice, or in a hospital or clinic? could you, according to current medical guidelines, even if you had your own practice?

when you say "this is the manner in which i would like to help people", what do you mean by "this"? can you define your philosophy of treatment, and the relationship and power dynamic you want to have with any future patients? is it one in which you hold authority over them and see yourself as determining what's in their 'best interests', even over their own expressed wishes? have you connected with patient advocates, psych survivors (other than your friends), and radical psychiatrists and anti-psychiatrists who may espouse heterodox treatment philosophies that you could consider? do you think such philosophies are sufficient for protecting patient autonomy and well-being, or are they still models that position the physician's judgment and authority over that of the patient?

"im wondering if there is a way to reconcile these aspects in a way that one can feel morally okay participating within such an imperfect system"

and here is the crux of the problem with this entire ask. you are wondering how to sleep at night, if you are participating in a career you find morally distasteful. where, though, do your patients enter into that equation? do you worry about how they sleep at night, after having interacted with a system of social violence that may very well have traumatised them under the guise of providing help? why does your own guilty conscience worry you more than violations of your patients' bodies, minds, and basic self-determination?

i can't tell you whether your career path is morally acceptable to you. i don't think this type of guilt or self-flagellation is fruitful and i don't think it helps protect patients. i don't, frankly, have a handy roadmap sitting around for creating a new system of medicine and health care that rests on patient autonomy. affective distress is real, and is not something we should have to bear alone or with the risk of having violence inflicted upon us. what you need to ask yourself is: how does the medical model and establishment serve people experiencing such distress? how does it perpetuate violence against them? and how do you see yourself countering, or perpetuating, such violence as someone operating within this discipline? what would it mean to be a 'good' actor within a violent system, if you do indeed believe that such a thing is ontologically possible?

[graceofagodswrath]

Ok ok ok your "Humans of Transformers franchise are space orcs" rant is out of this world.

I detest with passion when humans are reduced to pets and plot devices when instead the story could be about two alien species finding one another equally amazing/terrifying for their own respective reasons.

Here is my question: do humans and Cybertronians see how eerily similar they are? They have love of music, familial relationships, similar urban infrastructure, societal structure, financial systems, competitive entertainment, organized societies and war, colonialism, recreational intercourse, marriage...

Not to mention, why was it never addressed how similar both species look: bipedal, waists, noses, cheekbones, 5 fingers, chins, facial expressions and sense of aesthetics and beauty? Sure, humans have hair but in rather strategic places.

Veins and wires, blood and energon, metal and flesh, nanobytes and blood cells, Sparks and brain impulses, sexual organs...

Imagine Autobots arrive on Earth for the first time expecting some primitive cave-dwellers, only to encounter a less advanced mini-version of Cybertronian cities (New York, Singapore, London, Rome, Tokyo, Rio, Dubai...) and societies running on scientific, artistic and philosophical development which has no right existing on the ruthless, all-organic planet such as Earth is. Societes run by creatures who 4.000.000 (the duration of their war) years ago were hanging from the trees btw.

Autobots would be terrified.

Lemme make sure this response saves this time, cause it took me a minute to answer cause my first deleted and I had so much written I got unbelievably angry and refused to even look at the tumblr app.

But here we are.

So, this is EXACTLY what I have been thinking about for who k owe how long. It’s also the intro to this wack as fuck universe idea I’ve had in my head a while, and have kinda hinted at in my other works, but I’ve never gone into detail about.

And I still won’t.

Anyways, yes. It’s crazy that we backlit humans so much when any other sentient species is about. Transformers, TMNT, etc (I’m on a one track mind, feel free to jot down any other fandoms I can’t think of). The main theme of these stories? HUMANS SUCK. And that is severely unfair. People want to cry about how much our generation doesn’t give a shit anymore. Have you SEEN the media we feed kids???

That’s why I live Humans are Space Orcs so much. It really puts into perspective how unique and batshit our species is.

So, onto the Transformers vs humans concepts. The ONLY reason (forgoing technoism and general hate towards organics) cybertronians don’t see humanity as an imminent threat, or one in general, is because of size. WE BE SMALL AF. Can’t blame them, I get it. We do the same. Insects? Fuck them mfs.

But have you seen a botfly or tick burrow into your skin? The infection that comes form that? Have you seen ants jump a small animal as a colony and absolutely shred it? Or a spider only biting you, and the horror the venom causes (recluses and huntsman’s specifically). We have a good fucking reason for disliking these mfs.

But transformers? These are organic experiences. Worst they go through are rust infections, spark death, the works. They are not at risk the same way we are. That is why they view organics as small and inconsequential. They have no idea how hard we fight to simply stay alive.

And now the similarities. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t immediately recognize the physical, cultural, and psychological similarities between our species. Transformers are an incredibly diverse race, like any other. But specifically in physical form. Your average cybertronian holds a similar appearance to your average human. We tend to have the same features, just with different names. Eyes, noses, faceplates, ears, two arms, two legs. Sure that’s average for them too. But they are unique because of the fact that they have two forms. Vehicle mode. Their mode decides what they’re second mode looks like, which can create extreme diversity is appearance. Small, large, many limbed or not.

So the immediate similarities probably wouldn’t jump out to them in an odd way. There’s also the idea that because they’re so spread out in the universe, they’ve seen other organic races that are also similar. Pairs of every body part could be the common denominator among species.

That goes culturally too. War, love, music, government, politics, it’s all a natural form of sentient evolution. Another common denominator. It’s how it’s done that makes it unique. And the similarities between human and cybertronian culture is uncomfortably familiar.

I think that’s why cybertronians are seen being closest with humans rather than other species in the shows and comics (obviously because the audience is human and they need relation to characters but shhhh forget that for a sec). This is where the theories start.

Let’s say cybertronians begin to recognize the weird similarities between our species. The really, really weird stuff. The itty bitty details. Like:

- how we also mainstream kissing on the lips as the top tier romantic gesture.

- use verbal tone and cues for our language.

- have intensely complicated interpersonal relationships in the exact same manner.

- suffer from extreme mental health issues like depression, anxiety, PTSD (I totally headcannon that forms of adhd, autism, and ocd exist in cybertronian society, have y’all not seen my boy rodimus prime??)

- will also destroy each other in the name of our gods, until we have a common enemy.

That’s just the basics I could come up with. The only time I actually saw a moment where a transformer genuinely take a moment to realize that humans can be a threat, was in transformers prime. Episode 6 of beast wars (I think, correct me if wrong), where Miko beats the ever loving fuck out of an insecticon (I think) and upon Megatron hearing this, just goes blank Kubrick stare for a hot second. Man had an ugly realization that did not fit in with anything he had experienced his whole life.

AND THEY NEVER FUCKING ADDRESSED IT EVER AGAIN. Sick of this shit. Could’ve had the most badass character development, where the humans actually proved useful and did something (it would have fit Milo’s character so perfectly too) and scared the utter shit out of the transformers. BUT NO. They continue to be annoying as fuck.

One thing I loved about TF Prime was that it canonically turned Unicron into Earth. And humans came from the earth. Which relates humans beings and cybertronians so hard. Cousins Fr. We are the cybertronian equivalent of organics, and transformers the inorganic equivalent of humans. The individuality, the chaos, the culture, it clicks. There is so much material to really go into it.

But they never do. Don’t get me wrong, I love Transformers lord and just discovering more without humans being involved. We’re just annoying af at this point. But there is so much u tapped potential in transformers actually taking the chance to LEARN about us. But we’re just friends (pets) to these mfs.

That’s why I love TF Earthspark so far. Transformers ingrained into human culture because they’re not from Cybertron, and cybertronians having to adapt to human culture because they have no where else to go. Granted, it’s a kids show. There’s only so much they can do. But I’m excited for where it’ll lead. It really shows how much of threat and ally humans are, and how we are just as diverse as cybertronians.

I need to write another fic about cybertronians meeting humans their size from our world tho. Need to continue my old piece. Would give me so much life. Y’all help motivate me, college draining my ass.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

hi! hope you're doing okay—I've got a holocaust-history-in-media question for you. I was talking to my brother the other day, and he mentioned how his 10-year-old son tried out "Anne Frank mode" on the meta VR headset. I was kind of horrified, because that sounds deeply exploitative and disrespectful—but he went on to say it's just a VR version of the Anne Frank house, and that it let my nephew explore history in a new way. He was able to touch things and move them around in a way he wouldn't be able to IRL, not to mention the accessibility of not having to travel.

My nephew's kind of an unusual kid, and he chose this "game" while at a friend's house. All the other kids got bored and left pretty much immediately, but he stayed to learn, and my brother says that at the end his takeaway was, "It's so sad. It's so sad and awful what human beings do to each other."

Part of me is just like "No, absolutely not, that is not for VR companies to profit off of in any way, this feels inherently exploitative." But idk. If it increases accessibility and education in a meaningful way, then perhaps that disquiet is simply reactionary.

Then I remembered I have access to an actual Holocaust historian, someone who even specializes in women's narratives and the media portrayals of same.

So, no worries if you're busy/don't have time to respond to this, but I thought it might be an interesting question for you. Do you think the VR Anne Frank house is a good thing?

Ooooooh this is an interesting one. It's also a question that I think I would have answered differently a few years ago. I mean, I've posted here about my issues with central role Anne Frank has been accorded within Holocaust memory, I've posted about the politics of people playing Pokemon Go at sites of atrocities and disasters...

But. Technology changes SO quickly. I read this fantastic article probably 10+ years ago now about how the millennial generation began to express collective nostalgia SO quickly and so young, because technology and the norms it introduces change so quickly. I'm 34 and while that's hardly ancient, the technological world inhabited by children and adolescents is effectively alien to me because of this massive, rapid, ongoing change.

Moreover, I think the pandemic gave us all an...unwanted but helpful bootcamp in what works wrt education over the phone/computer, and what doesn't. In my personal and professional life, I've met and spoken with STEM companies/individuals who specialize in working with museums, historical societies, etc. And they're not just in it to make a buck--they're there to work with museums etc in increasing access and keeping up with educational trends because they know it's important and smart people value STEAM education.

So, despite my acknowledged concerns issued in the first paragraph, and the kneejerk negative reaction I think you and I share, I think my conclusion is that this is a good thing. Like, as a Holocaust historian, pubic historian, educator, and now a Hebrew School teacher of 7-11 year olds, I think whatever gets kids interested and engaged is Good; whatever draws them and gets them thinking about it is Good; even if the tech and infrastructure involved is something that I previously took (philosophical) issue with.

This doesn't mean I don't still have concerns about the centrality of Anne Frank, but let's be real: I lost that battle a long time ago. I've said my piece, and if Anne Frank is going to be kids' gateway into learning about the Holocaust, I'm glad to see that it's being done responsibly, well, and in keeping with how kids engage with education and tech in 2024.

There are, obviously, many theoretical conversations to be had about the implications of this kind of thing, and I hope a grad student applies like, Walter Benjamin to it for a first year paper, but this is my answer purely in terms of access and education.

[germanpostwarmodern]

On the left bank of the Sava River and opposite the old town lies Novi Beograd, New Belgrade, the Serbian capital’s fastest growing municipality. It is a planned city and today’s inhabitants and businesses benefit from its rather modern infrastructure, a distinctive advantage over the old town. Novi Beograd’s construction began in 1948 but especially during 1960s and 1970s the municipality grew and numerous housing blocks and public buildings were erected. Because of these Novi Beograd in recent years has become something of a brutalist icon that is roaming social media platforms but is simultaneously subject to great change due to permanent new construction.

But while most photographers focus on the undeniable appeal of the architecture, Norwegian Marius Svaleng Andresen takes a closer look at the intersection of architecture and everyday life and the architecture in relation to the individual. In his book „Life in the New“, published last years by Kerber Verlag, Andresen explores the actual life going on inside, outside and in between the architecture: in view of the little stories of life the monumental architecture recedes into the background and becomes the stage of day-to-day life. People peeking out from behind the curtain, old men playing cards, a woman cleaning her windows and children running around, all of them populate Andresen’s photographs and bring up the question of what it is actually like to live in Novi Beograd. Apparently the photographer, who is also a journalist, asked himself this question too and met with 12 individuals who tell their own story of living in New Belgrade: there is Mirjana, the widow of a former military airport commander, who has been living in Novi Beograd for more than 50 years and at first didn’t really like it. And there is also Filip, the dog loving graphic designer and rapper, who philosophizes about the stepped volumes of the blocks and how they symbolize his daily struggle to reach the top.

In tandem with his sensible photographs Andersen provides an unusual, more humane portrait of Novi Beograd that is both visually stunning and emotionally touching. A warmly recommended read!

[theoreticallysensible]

The Power and Purpose of Strikes

Simone Weil, the philosopher/anarchist/mystic, describing an ideal political future for France after WW2, lamented that trade unions have become primarily concerned with wages. This might seem strange to us now, when even this activity is so contested by conservatives, but Weil saw it as playing too much into the capitalist spirit.

She saw this as just one of trade unions’, and the worst of the lot, because it encourages workers to think about personal monetary gain rather than justice, solidarity, and even their own needs beyond the material. It also risks the union becoming institutionalised through frequent direct interactions with established economic forces. Again, this will sound weird today, given how unions fighting for wages represent one of the few remaining avenues for working class justice, and yeah Weil was a Catholic with strong convictions about the importance of moralism, but I think fundamentally she had higher hopes than we can easily imagine today.

I think a lot of people sense the truth of what she says today - though unfortunately it’s usually conservatives, who would turn back on it immediately if they recognised what it was they were saying. You see it when they say “Why are train drivers striking? Why are writers striking? Why do they think they deserve more than nurses, or posties, or actors?” And of course, the answer is: “They should strike too!” (As some of them now are 🎉). But it’s true that the narrow focus on wages does foster a sort of competitive individualism which can undermine solidarity with other industries. This means that a more revolutionary conception of unions is needed, which is not what these critics have in mind, but it is what Simone Weil has in mind.

What Weil sees in trade unions is the potential for fostering community, freedom of intellectual and spiritual thought, and a degree of independence from capitalism, all of which amount to a greater degree of what she calls ‘rootedness’ - something involving confidence in truth, having material needs met, security in community, and relative freedom (among other things). She saw them as being able to foster solidarity to meet workers’ need for community, free them from the corrupting influence of monetary concerns, and fight for justice as a group. She also hoped that they could provide a space for freedom of thought, to avoid the fetishisation of community she saw in both the French and Russian revolutions.

Trade unions then should not merely concern themselves with accumulating resources, but also with accumulating time and freedom - with the expansion of what Henri Lefebvre called everyday life, the time in which we are free to do what we want and create new types of experiences. When we have enough of it, we can build our own institutions free from capitalist influence which can form the infrastructure for disruptive situations. This can be mutual aid groups, creative projects, intellectual and spiritual communities, and reimaginings of what it means to work, through permablitzing, learning crafts, and starting co-operatives.

The ideal version of this is the general strike. Walter Benjamin described the general strike as a form of divine violence, violence which acts instantaneously, bloodlessly, without coercion. Rather than sort of blackmailing capitalists, as most strikes do, the general strike is (ideally) a complete disengagement with the entire capitalist system. It asks nothing of it, and simply makes it irrelevant by building entirely new social relations in its place. This is not at all feasible with where we are at the moment, but I like to think that it can be used as an inspiration for incorporating more utopian ideas into our more limited actions, all of which are still so radical in this current climate.

[kid-az]

All Tomorrows: Vanga-Vangog Stickmen Hc’s

Say hello to Vanga’s Stickmen, the descendants of the infamously tall and frail Strider’s. Unlike in canon where they would all be devoured mercilessly by giant chickens, the Stickmen’s ancestors managed to survive by climbing and living on the giant, skyscraper-like trees of their world.

Although a little less tall than the Stickmen, they are much sturdier due to needing to jumping across different trees and survive falls. They communicated visually via the rapid changing of colors and shapes of their leaf-like growths and sign language, and their culture emphasized coexistence, patience, and pacifism.

As philosophical as the Pterosapien’s yet opposite in their overall message, the Stickmen are one of the most interesting fanmade species I’ve seen yet, and I wish to post my headcanons about them like I did for the others.

-Because of their very low metabolism’s and the wonders of medicine, Stickmen were among the longest-lived posthumans in the second empire, capable of living hundreds if not over a thousand years! Friendships with other, shorter-lived species would last long after death, with the Stickmen befriending their friends children and grandchildren, giving them sagely advice and wisdom or just cheerfully, casually talking to them.

-Because of their arboreal lifestyle and pacifism, the Stickmen did not have the same domestication process as other posthumans. They did not domesticate a wolf equivalent nor any grazing animals, instead domesticating giant, eagle-sized colonial bees for honey and other byproducts, giant pigeon descendants for the harvesting of feathers, infertile eggs, and as message carriers, and even a species of giant, flying pig descendants larger than the Quetzalcoatlus, who were often used to protect these pigeons and bees from any predators. Also domesticated colonial spiders for their webs, which they used to make ropes and clothing.

-Their domesticated plants were also different. They would carefully tend their trees for the harvesting of boulder-sized fruits and tree nuts, grow mushrooms via large, house-sized stacks of logs from trees which naturally passed away, and also grow algae in vast pools of shallow water. Outside of the algae, their foodstuff was bigger due to it having naturally evolved that way.

-Due to their need of visual communication, their clothing was usually light, never covering their heads, shoulders, or forearms. Their clothes would be made from mycelium threads, feathers from their domestic pigeons, and webs from their domesticated spiders. Yes, their shirts were always off-shoulder tops, teachers hate them!

-A running theme for these Hc’s is that they never developed capitalism, and the Stickmen were no different! In fact, most of their goods were handmade, carefully and delicately made over weeks or months to be as high of quality as possible, and gifted to close friends and family. Only absolute necessities such as medication, infrastructure, and purified water would not be homemade, and it would still be a careful process that emphasized the lack of harm to anyone, both their own and other species.

-This included movies and videogames, with practically zero in the way of crunch or abuse. The former of which would last hours if not days, and the latter would often resemble that of animal crossing, a tactical rpg ala Fire Emblem, or literally just Minecraft! No joke, they remade Minecraft on complete accident!

-Their art was primarily that of tattoos and body modifications to distinctive themselves, large-scale land art made from specially grown plants, fungi, stones, or non-toxic paint, meant to be appreciated fully from the top of treetops or skyscrapers, and gardens that allow for peaceful meditation. They had little music however, as sound travelled poorly in their world.

-They are one of the four founding species of the Second empire, along with the Satyriacs, Killer Folk, and Rot Eaters. They were stereotyped as spaced-out, yet extremely wise and peaceful, thought of as the mediators of the other 3 species. This, of course, was a stereotype, one that many Stickmen found a little insulting.

-Because of a culture emphasizing patience and the fact high gravity worlds would kill them, they decided on the extinct Lopsider’s idea of creating an artificial race to colonize the stars. Unlike with the Asymmetric’s however, it wasn’t a rash, cold-hearted process meant to create slaves to do dangerous, dirty work for them, but instead a slow, caring process that would go into the centuries, meant to be sure the Stickmen’s descendant species would have lives much better than their own, not struggle in the colonization of new planets, and modified to be superior in every way outside of height. (A given due to square-cube law) These people would be allowed to live free, independent lives from their parent species, and would pick a name for themselves. This name? The Sproutlings.

[dreamypisces888]

Many people see 6th house synastry overlays as unromantic, but I believe they're actually a good sign for marriage! What is marriage about if not sharing daily life, right?

The 6th house rules health, service and routines - . Having your sun or partner's sun , or moon or even mercury in each other's 6th house means the essence of your bond lies in the nitty gritty of life!

6th house aspects may lack that "butterflies in stomach" vibe, but they show mutual understanding and support in the everyday tasks that make a marriage work. That pragmatic foundation can go a long way over the long haul.

Now, 6th house synastry alone won't sustain a relationship - you still need those other vital connections that bring passion and intimacy. But combined with emotional and philosophical compatibility from other aspects, the 6th house "life partnership" vibe can form the sturdy infrastructure for a blissfully boring marriage:)

So the next time if you find out that there is  6th house overlays in synastry, crack open the champagne! It might signal people perfectly paired for taking out the garbage, making doctors appointments and gasp doing the dishes together. And truly, isn't that the recipe for romantic ever after?

I cannot wait for your comments on this !

#relationalastrology #madeinthestars #karmicpartner #balancedpartners #complementarycouple #astrologylovers #astrology #relationshipastrology#synastry #astro

[beardedmrbean]

The gruesome details and brutal savagery of the October 7 attack launched by Hamas operatives on innocent civilians was shocking to even the most battled-hardened soldiers and war correspondents. Evidence of beheadings, babies shot in their cribs, parents shot in front of their children, entire families massacred, the torture and execution of the elderly, people burned alive, and hundreds of young people gunned down while attending a musical festival for peace, were widely reported and verified by video, audio, and forensic evidence.

Most people would be horrified. Yet in an interview on Lebanese television, Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad hailed the brutal October 7 attack and pledged to repeat the October 7 attack again and again until Israel is "removed," claiming Hamas "was the victim," therefore "everything they do is justified."

That interview was the inspiration for a recent cartoon I drew for the Washington Post depicting Gazi Hamad and his human shields.

But my cartoon was pulled off the Washington Post editorial website amid an internal outcry. Critics claimed the cartoon was "racist" for stereotyping and demonizing Palestinians. They said the cartoon ignored the death of thousands and the suffering of millions of Palestinians as a result of the Israeli military response.

Any decent human being would agree that this war is catastrophic. I mourn the loss of innocent life—on both sides. I am shocked by the destruction that has shattered their lives and grieve for those families. I wish for the safe return of the more than 240 hostages that Hamas has taken. But those are separate issues.

This cartoon was designed with specificity. Its focus is on a specific individual and the statements he made on behalf of a specific organization he represents—their claims of victimhood, and the plight of innocent Palestinians used as pawns in their political and military strategy.

That person is Ghazi Hamad. The caricature of the central figure looks like Ghazi Hamad.

The organization is Hamas. The main figure in the cartoon is labeled Hamas.

Hamad's words and the innocents bound to him as human shields and their forced martyrdom reflect the official position of Hamas.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that blames Israel for the attack on civilians, but ignores its own complicity in their suffering. It was Hamas that first launched the attack on Israel, continues to use civilian infrastructure as cover, and restricts the evacuation of Gaza civilians from areas which Israel has given advanced warning of strikes.

Gaza civilians are victims. Hamas is not.

It's ironic that those who criticize the cartoon for overgeneralizing and stereotyping cannot seem to distinguish between a known terrorist group and Palestinians. And it's a tragedy that their only way of coping with the truth depicted in my cartoon is to erase it from view.

In my speeches, I say, "An editorial cartoon is not humorous for the sake of humor. It is not controversial for the sake of controversy. Whether you agree with it philosophically or not, a good editorial cartoon engages the reader in debate. It informs and challenges. It draws the reader into the democratic process."

Liberty, the free exchange of ideas, is the foundation of our democracy. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "Our Liberty depends on the freedom of press, and that cannot be limited without it being lost." The reason our Founding Fathers included the right to a free press in our Constitution was because they knew the communication of ideas and information, the right to inform and be informed, the dissemination of ideas and the expression of opinion, are all necessary components in a political system based on self-governance and individual liberty. Limiting the exchange of ideas even in our common culture limits our freedom.

The purpose of an editorial cartoon, and a good editorial page is to be the catalyst for thought. By promoting the thoughtful exchange of ideas, we forge a consensus through the fiery heat of debate.

Today, political correctness and the woke movement have defined words and images as weapons that should be banned for offending political categories and self-defined oppressed groups. It is tolerance of all ideas—except those they disagree with, and it follows the adage that if you can't win the argument, you change the rules. It treats people as children who must be shielded from conversation, unable to manage a verbal exchange without supervision, and it is a direct threat to freedom of speech and liberty—as well as the truth.

Critics of my cartoon are using an accusation of racism as a device to "cancel" the truth—the overwhelming empirical evidence that Hamas uses civilians, both Palestinians and Israelis, as human shields. Their bases of operations exist within or under civilian infrastructure. They fire rockets from densely populated areas and hospital roofs, by design, to sacrifice the lives of innocents to exact a political toll from any military strikes.

I do not mind being attacked for my cartoons. People should be emotionally invested in their politics. While the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech, it does not insulate you from the consequences of your speech. I accept that. It is part of the job.

I stand by the cartoon—and I stand by my critics' right to condemn it.

It remains on the website of my home paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who stands firmly behind me.

Yet I have to point out the irony here: The slogan of the Washington Post is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." When the protest and rancor of a distressed newsroom, offended by a cartoon exposing the truth, causes adults to retreat to their safe spaces, clutching their participation trophies and "canceling" freedom of speech, these are truly dark days.

They should imagine what it was like for Israelis hiding in a safe room, clutching their children and praying for the safety of their families.

Sometimes, the truth hurts. Journalists have an obligation to keep the lights on and not kowtow to the voices of dissent who want to extinguish the free exchange of ideas, and hide in the darkness.

From my perspective, I think it hurt the Washington Post far more than me.

[workersolidarity]

Socialist Democracy vs Bourgeois Democracy

"A Socialist Democracy would empower Workers through more meaningful forms of Democracy. It should not be permitted to bribe politicians and political leaders in any way, and every citizen, no matter how poor or marginalized, should have the same access to elections and other democratic structures as everyone else."

-

"Today, just as in Lenin's time, there are many misperceptions about 'democracy,' just as there are misperceptions about Socialism. A lot of people fall for Capitalist lies. They believe that Bourgeois Democracy is good for the people and they fall for the scam of Capitalist elections, thinking that their votes actually matter in a Bourgeois Democracy when, in reality, Capitalists actually control the agenda of society behind the scenes."

-

"Freedom of discussion, unity of action- this is what we must strive to achieve... Beyond the bounds of unity of action, there must be the broadest and freest discussion and condemnation of all steps, decisions, and tendencies that we regard as harmful"

"Only through such discussions, resolutions and protests can the real public opinion of our Party be formed. Only on this condition shall we be a real Party, always able to express its opinion, and finding the right way to convert a definitely formed opinion into the discussions of its next Congress."

-Vladimir Lenin

-

"And so far, no country on Earth, not the Soviet Union, not Vietnam, not Cuba, not any other country, has yet achieved full Socialism."

On this I just have one thought, I've come to believe it is impossible to achieve full Socialism without first uprooting Capitalist Imperialism globally. As long as any one Capitalist Nation State can still overpower and interfere with the basic function of a Socialist government in its own domestic arena, true Socialism will never be achieved.

We must first work towards the disempowerment of Neocolonial structures in International trade and the global economy.

In other words, we must first build a Multipolar global economic structure independent of the structures built for Capitalist Imperialism like the IMF and World Bank before we can truly build Socialism anywhere.

Every attempt at building Socialism under the current Neoliberal global economic model only results in a certain level of achievement before Capitalist Imperialist forces begin interfering with the proper functioning of the Socialist Nation State. They do this through either sanction and economic blockade, or denial of use of global infrastructure banks without dismantling Socialist policies, or outright Political and Military interference by Western Imperialist Powers and even outright economic sabotage as well as the funding, arming and training of separatist groups domestically.

By creating the Multipolar structures for a more democratic global economy, Nation States will finally be free to develop and modernize without the risk of attack, sabotage, blockade and sanctions, giving them the breathing room they need to find their own route for development, and giving Socialists the space they need to flourish and to advance the Socialist system beyond the limited achievements of the Soviet Union and other Socialist governments.

-

For anyone interested, Luna Oi! sells a great little translation of The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism, as well as some really cool Soviet and Communist pins, shirts, flags and posters. You check it out Here

[yngsuk]

‘The modern world owes its very existence to slavery’. What could this impossible debt possibly entail? Not only the infrastructure of its global economy but also the architecture of its theological and philosophical discourses, its legal and political institutions, its scientific and technological practices, indeed, the whole of its semantic field. A politics of abolition could never finally be a politics of resurgence, recovery, or recuperation. It could only ever begin with degeneration, decline, or dissolution. Abolition is the interminable radicalization of every radical movement, but a radicalization through the perverse affirmation of deracination, an uprooting of the natal, the nation, and the notion, preventing any order of determination from taking root, a politics without claim, without demand even, or a politics whose demand is ‘too radical to be formulated in advance of its deeds’.

Jared Sexton, The Vel of Slavery: Tracking the Figure of the Unsovereign

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[searchingforserendipity25]

If you're still doing the character ask, please: Fingolfin

Character Ask Game 💚🤍🖤

I am always up for asks! Thank you @melestasflight, Fingolfin was very fun to tackle!

Give me a character and I will give you my thoughts on

Fingolfin

one aspect about them i love 

Leading several thousand people across a desolate wasteland after cutting ties with their deities is THE most insane thing anyone does in the Silmarillion. This is true, and every time I remember Araman is right there as an option it makes me insane. 

 He is the single most interesting leader in this whole book for that. I don’t think it can be overestimate what a feat of every kind of resources it is. The commitment it takes, the huge amount of - even social control you need to have, to keep so many people united to the same goal, when the goal means fighting another worse deity, and vengeance, and sublimating the grief of the many partings and direct religious trauma while surviving the Arctic and facing constant privation?

In a way it’s a good thing everyone is busy creating steel-strong community concepts while on the Ice, because otherwise it would be a gigantic nightmare to deal with that fallout. The fact that he maintains the Flight of the Noldor as a Chase of Morgoth, creating unity and a shared ideal to maintain - the fact that his host only splinters under Turgon’s direction? Insane. 

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

It is not even so much about Finwë, although of course it is also about Finwë. 

Being ambitious is not a crime! It is however a strong character trait, and a way to define one’s life when it’s very existence is a cause of philosophical debate. 

But politics, governing, those are Fingolfin’s true crafts, and Fëanor insisting on being always a step up on the dias and above him is maddening, and to a point feels like he is outright trying to stifle his calling on purpose.

Which he is, although perhaps not in a would-steal-your-forge-along- with-father’s-favoritism way. Not sure Fëanor cares to conceptualize leadership in such a crafting-equivalent way. 

This may be more suited to headcanons, but I do think the idea that a social role can have such a strong impetus, even spiritual value to someone is mostly Vanyar, and having no material evidence of work, doesn’t fit so well in the Noldor’s material culture point of view about singular purpose. 

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

Big tea drinker. Not much of a musician. Loves cool tones (Indis sorrows for the adorable emerald green and amethyst-bright onesies he refused to wear). Also a smith, as all Noldor princes are, but his interests are tied to infrastructures - steam-energy mostly, awfully boring stuff for most. Runs life according to a constantly updated list of priorities in his mind, that include meal times, coups, trips with each of their kids, divorce settlement negotiations with Anairë, etc. 

This made him the logistics genius the host in the Ice needed, and was in fact the kind of basilar confidence that led him to it - among other things, I'm sure he studied the journey to Valinor extensively. He knew it would be incredibly difficult in their circumstances, that many would not survive, that the loss would change them utterly; but he also knew it was not impossible, and therefore it ought to be made possible.

His confidence in himself in never entirely wrong, but sometimes misjudged; he knew exactly he would be able to land up to five wounds on Morgoth. The last two were a freestyle bonus :/

as well as

one character i love seeing them interact with

Fingon! Father and son, king and heir, bright flare of despair and the inheritor of hope - they are foils, they are parallels, and they are painfully, painfully aware of it. Would love to read a JSTOR article comparing their rules, up to the yearly tax reports. 

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

Lalwen (not a surprise!). The sort of loyalty involved is so interesting to me, but also the true that has to be based off true understanding and belief. They’re each other’s ride or die, and the idea of generally very magnificent and polis-minded Fingolfin being bffs with his irreverent younger sister is very amusing and fascinating.

(Also Turgon! Turgon and his disappearing act - well. He kind of commited treason, in a way? Treason-ish. It’s certainly a very pointed denial of Fingolfin’s direct authority, that’s for sure. Like. I crack up every time I think about this. Turgon must have been a nightmarish teenager, he’s very much like his father.)

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

Had a hard time connecting with Finarfin. They enjoyed each other’s company, mostly! Had a very clear understanding of who the other one is, which was even about 60% correct. 

But the spark just isn’t there, and later on that’s something he grieves as much as Fëanor’s whole business. In part because idealized memories of Finarfin’s restful diplomacy are a succor in Beleriand, and in part because he has moments of clarity with some foresight, and sees Finarfin in a position of commander against Morgoth against his own. 

That’s part of his despair - he thinks the war against Morgoth will go so badly it will be taken up against the elves of Amanyar in their own terrain, that all the efforts of guarding and defending in defiance will be for nothing, and even fair Valinor will perish with only Indis’ son to defend the Noldor.

 This - is not correct. Finarfin fully takes the hosts of Valinor to Beleriand; but part of Morgoth’s power in battle is to take one’s worst fears and inflate them with the force of his own undeniable might. It gets him one dead Noldorin king, but also several painful scars, so really it’s a toss up on how well that works for him. 

[transmutationisms]

could you please elaborate that post about spiritual ennui not being the cause of many social phenomena? theres a whole book I started reading recently (work pray code) which is predicated on the idea that in the US work has come to replace religion as the centerpiece of peoples lives (simultaneously bc of a withdrawal from religion as a country and bc of capitalism demanding that life revolve around work) and I wasnt completely convinced by the authors evidence toward that hypothesis. or was the social phenomena in question more like online culture stuff?

i don't know that particular book or author, so i don't have a sustained critique of them. but in general, yes, i'm frustrated by hypotheses that basically boil down to the idea that a decline in religiosity and religious infrastructure is causing some kind of spiritual poverty that is in turn responsible for various social ills. commonly i see this argument used to 'explain' phenomena including: the persistence of astrology and occult sciences; gun violence; political 'polarisation'; drug use; perceived cultural decline; 'mental health crises'; &c. broadly these analyses tend to draw elements from max weber's idea of disenchantment,¹ a large-scale diagnosis of modernity's devaluation of religion, and from the related notion of desacralisation, the process of divesting individual objects or institutions of their divine properties or provenance.

i think these analyses are really fucking bad and here are some major reasons why:

they're not materialist. by this i mean that, instead of looking for material factors and conditions that might explain social and cultural phenomena, they turn to metaphysical, philosophical, and intellectual explanations. let's think about the persistence of astrology as an example here. on a disenchantment analysis, people are getting back into astrology because, having lost (organised) religiosity in their lives, they feel a spiritual void and seek to create new cosmological meaning through engagement with an anachronistic science-turned-spiritual practice. this explanation sucks. in addition to the fact that astrology and occult sciences never really 'went away' in the first place (& neither did religion lol), this explanation treats spiritual practice and belief as mostly an individual/psychological phenomenon, neglecting rigorous sociological attention to how these ideas spread and how group and community dynamics nurture them and form around them. it also ignores things like the profit motive for astrological practitioners, and related points about how heterodox sciences in general thrive in contexts where professional and class interests create a massive gap between laypeople and experts, barring the general population from accessing and engaging with scientific discourses and critique. 'disenchantment' also grafts onto a general idea about 'alienation', positing that the decline in religiosity creates a sense of loss and disconnect and that this psychological experience drives interest in practices like astrology. but when we talk about 'alienation' in a marxist sense,² we mean material conditions of production: the literal, physical alienation of a labourer from their products, and of a capitalist from the world (because they produce only proximately, via the labourer). the psychological experience of alienation is a result of this real material process of estrangement and expropriation; a weberian analysis that tries to put alienation down to cultural or intellectual factors is not useful for understanding material changes and the 'base' economic relations.

these types of 'disenchantment' analyses tend to claim or imply that they're making universal sociological arguments: religiosity decreases, x takes its place. but in fact these are highly culturally and historically specific arguments. weber's formulation was explicitly premised on a highly eurocentric and teleological conception of 'modernity' and modernisation, wherein the west led the world in a process of 'rationalisation' that involved jettisoning spirituality. that he was ambivalent about the consequences of this process does not make the argument any less flawed. for example, even defining religiosity is not so easy (do we measure by church attendance? private internal belief? community values?) and although the catholic church has become less powerful in certain ways since the reformation, a) it's hardly gone away and b) it doesn't follow that spirituality or religiosity writ large have declined. sticking with the astrology example, if the weberian explanation holds, we should be able to come up with some set of criteria for identifying societies with high or low degrees of religiosity, and then associate that with prevalence of astrological practice. but uh, both of these things vary widely between countries, regions, social groups, &c, almost as though there are other factors at play here, and 'religion' and 'astrology' themselves also have varying meanings, uses, and practical manifestations in varying social and historical contexts.

these 'disenchantment' explanations pretty much all start from the same rhetorical operation, which goes something like: "[x problem] is bad and harmful, which is discordant with my imagination of what 'the west'/the usa is 'supposed' to be like. why does such a [developed/modern/wealthy] society have these problems?" from there, it's a move to a critique of modernity/rationality/the speaker's notion of 'progress', and specifically a critique that aims to identify and root out some kind of spiritual rot or void, without ever challenging or problematising the construction of such notions of 'progress' or the processes of imperialism and colonialism that make 'the west' and wealthy lifestyles possible. in other words, these are generally reactionary arguments that seek to preserve the status quo of the material processes of exploitation and production, but want more psychological fulfillment for a few people.

these explanations are just really fucking bad and over-simplified explanations of how religion functions and what effects it has in a society. again, part of the issue here is that 'religion' is not even really a cohesive category and certainly not a unified set of practices. it works sometimes through institutions, which have their own financial and class characters; it interacts with and sometimes seeks to control politics; it also functions to enforce group identity and community cohesion. these are not inherently good or spiritually fulfilling things, and these effects all vary in different religions, societies, and historical contexts, which makes statements about the consequences of 'declining religiosity' kind of nonsensical on their face. religion can be a vector of racism, of caste, of other inequities; given astrology's essentialist character and resemblence to similarly class- and race-enforcing and -creating psychological projects, i'm certainly willing to entertain arguments that modern astrology performs these religious functions. but again, this argument would require actual materialist analysis, not just the vague diagnosis that 'people want to create spiritual meaning' in a 'modern' world supposedly too 'rational' to fulfill that need.

¹ term borrowed from schiller, but schiller used it somewhat differently and in a different context

² marx's later texts largely subsume the idea of 'alienation' or 'estrangement' into a larger analysis of 'commodity fetishism', which has its own theoretical problems in the construction of the 'fetish' concept; see j lorand matory's "the fetish revisited: marx, freud, and the gods black people make".

[fatehbaz]

“The freedom to piss on the cement of Empire [...].”

---

The dry semi-desert that is South Africa’s Karoo began as an ice cap on the supercontinent Pangea [...]. The Karoo ice cap was kilometers deep and peaked between 359 and 299 million years ago. [...] Another hundred million years after Pangea split [...], the Karoo became home and then graveyard to dinosaurs of the Jurassic Era [...]. [V]olcanic extrusions and kimberlite pipes threw skywards the purest form of carbon: diamonds. [...] 

The discovery of diamond-bearing rock in the northern Karoo in 1869 propelled the [British] Empire into inventing new aspects of the technosphere, in which metal mining structures, wooden beams, steam engines, long guns, and the [...] [bodies] of migrant laborers were employed to reconnect the volcanic residues of the Late Cretaceous with the economic and political landscapes of South Africa and Britain. [...] Profits from the sale of Late Cretaceous diamonds from ninety-one million years ago fed the formation of cities, corporations, and institutions in England and her Cape. [...] [T]he entrepreneur Cecil John Rhodes amassed a personal fortune from the diamond rush, taking control by means fair and foul of claims around the Big Hole of Kimberley, where the largest kimberlite volcanic pipe extrudes. Appointed prime minister of the Cape Colony in 1890, Rhodes set about establishing a legal infrastructure that favored mining and a social infrastructure that established race-based disenfranchisement, creating a class of black laborers who would serve the emerging white-owned mining houses. [...] In the 1900s, the Carboniferous Era from around three hundred million years ago entered South African politics via South African’s coal-fired power stations. In the 1960s, the newly independent Republic of South Africa [...] sought energy autonomy in order to pursue formal policies of race-based segregation, and commissioned geological surveys for coal, oil, and uranium. [...]

---

“Colonization=‘thingification’” wrote the postcolonial philosopher Aime Cesaire.

For Cecil John Rhodes, nature was a spectacle that could be kept in a zoo; the university was a project to be “funded from the stomachs of k*firs”; migrant laborers in the diamond mines were required to wait two weeks before leaving, while the contents of their colons were collected and painstakingly searched for ingested gems. Under colonial regimes of extraction of labor and minerals, Africa became a laboratory for the necropolitical: relations of life for relationships of ownership and death. [...] 

His estate set up the University of Cape Town and his statue was erected in 1934: a two-ton bronze effigy of the man set on a concrete plinth in a pose that calls to mind Rodin’s The Thinker. In the view of the statue’s gaze there was Rhodes Highway, Rhodes Drive, Rhodes High School; to the statue's right was Rhodes Memorial, and to its left his zoo; on the far side of the old Cape Colony would be built Rhodes University.

Memorialized thus as the archetypal Reasonable Man, the aura of his realism must have been surreal to those who had suffered under his rule. [...]

---

[I]n 2015, academics, students [...] in and alongside the University of Cape Town found themselves confronting a performance of the execrable on March 9, 2015, when [a] student [...] threw excrement -- nightsoil from a shack settlement -- over Rhodes’s statue to call for the university’s decolonization. Rhodes’s statue was removed on a flat-bed truck exactly one month later [...]. His two tons of bronze dangled briefly from a crane, severed from its concrete plinth, then was carted off for safekeeping in an undisclosed location. [...]

Geologies of morals and morals of geology: the Karoo Ice Age, frozen and global, and Rhodes’s Karoo Age, an era of extractive economy that sacrificed life and created sacrifice zones. One lasted a hundred million years, the other a hundred and fifty. Both changed the relations between geology and life. [...]

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Amid the Rhodes statue’s formal removal on April 9, 2015, a construction worker -- a deconstruction worker, really -- took a moment to piss and loudly announce he was doing so on the stairs leading up to Rhodes. It was his own moment in a month-long protest beginning with the shit-throwing. A moment to seize the possibility of vulgarity that breaks the lines of authority, the fountain of piss flagrantly rejoins the flow of water through all bodies and all spheres.

The freedom to piss on the cement of Empire asserts that the body of the construction worker and the body of the shack-dweller inhabit the same earth as the Empire, and that cement, ultimately, is a political subject. As is diamond-bearing kimberlite, and gas-bearing shale. [...]

Colonization made predatory claims on the earth’s geological flows and processes without regard to the reciprocities through which they were formed in the earth’s spheres.

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Text by: Lesley Green. “The Changing of the Gods of Reason: Cecil John Rhodes, Karoo Fracking, and the Decolonizing of the Anthropocene.” e-flux Journal Issue #65. May 2015. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[arctic-hands]

On that note where are all my cyborgs at this wonderful Disabilty Pride Month? I'm talking about those of us with brain shunts, with insulin pumps, with prosthetics that need charging, bionic eyes, implants that control seizures, pace makers, anything that makes Luddite philosophers and eugenicists and those who scream about the natural order of things AFRAID when they realize these kinds of things aren't in some futuristic sci-fi transhumanist horror story that's a metaphor for "natural" human resilience but something that is happening RIGHT NOW to REAL LIVING PEOPLE and we are alive and THRIVING by this wonderful technology yet constantly afraid of this technology we're dependent on no longer being supported by the for-profit companies that make it or the technology being damaged or medical or tech infrastructure going down in the supposed revolution because not even the leftists think about us.

Anyway, here's on for us! 🤖

[Image Description: a close-up photo of a pale neck with a tiny, mostly healed pale pink neck incision scar. Being held up near the scar is a medical alert necklace pendant of a classic, boxy robot with a red star with the Rod of Asclepius on it. End I.D.]

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!