Race Confrontation. Suffolk, VA.

There is a schizophrenia.

In that we oscillate between a subjective and objective gaze— ostensibly neutral, distant onlooking; then a certain oblivion-space between the two; then submersion as fractional individuals into immediate totality, into immediate identity. Academy, not only economic refuge for the counter-revolution’s children, but an emotional refuge. To empty out daily life to approach the scale of abstraction (society, history, ad nauseam)— yes— but also the scale of emotion. That daily life is immiserated— emptied of such passion. French (and always the French) bourgeois disillusionment after 1848 makes itself heard in Flaubert: ‘Passion in the form it is allowed to take these days, that is to say the inactive kind’. The scale, the scale of my apartment, our bed, our kitchen wares so animated by our past labors, congealed, into death— used, drained, and dead again. Into muted life. Into concrete rights. Demands we make on each other. Justice disgusting.

Between an immediate and a societal scale.

The immediate reality: visible, discernable, describable. Unsignified or signified with an apparent object.
And the scale of society, of history, the abstraction, the spatially and temporally distant, flows, boundaries, patterns or without pattern. The latent forces. Potentialities.

One cannot live solely in either. 'Meaning', the purview of art objects, is an attempt to penetrate the immediate reality with the scale of society. This, as we have heard, cannot rely solely on mimesis. It is the individual submerged into a totality. One’s project is to bring the scale of society to the immediate scale of life. Meaning making, art objects, documentation are so many fractions, (dirty, distorted) residue of another world.

Residue without a strategy of negation is witnessing, witnessing relies on a juridical mechanism, a force. Organized residue, organized witnessing (a la ‘Cop Watch’) then is a testament to our powerlessness vis a vis the immediate scale. The scale where the state appears as the police. The scale where the economy appears as personal debt, filial duty, the lovely date or sneakers we afford ourselves. The scale where the social appears as the friend who is less beautiful, less reliable, less shelter than the small home I’ve rented.

Catalog - A Collection of Corporate Language

In the selection from "Flammable" by Auyero and Swistun, there is an account of the Shell Company responding to the conditions around one of its refineries in Argentina. As a response to public outcry over the health conditions and high levels of lead in the water and soil in nearby "shantytowns" and among many of its inhabitants, it responds with "special programs" and pseudo-promotional catalogs. These catalogs list its response programs in the area, yet it turns most of the outrage into its "active policies". It is a public relations campaign instead of a humanitarian response.

By differing with moral outrage in favor of disavowing its legal responsibility with these conditions and future investment conditions in the region, it also exposes its inherently inhumane policies. If it is simply a matter of language, then it is easy to see why most accidents may be dismissed as "lessons learned". The systemization of corporate interests (economically and socially) reveals the limitations of the system itself when morality is involved. This corporation reveals the systemic violence upon which it depends.

As Auyero and Swistun state: " In hiding actual life conditions, the catalog reveals the way in which a corporation seeks to signal its legitimacy (euphemized as 'corporate social responsibility') in the face of massive suffering; a suffering that is factually denied at the same time it is invoked(80)".

Is this not systemic violence in practice?

Bradley Manning Tortured

Here in the United States, Bradley Manning's fate is in question right now. However, the military and other state power's that currently exist, such as the O'Bama administration, are on one side, and groups like, "Courage to Resist" are on the other. Please check out the courage to resist website, couragetoresist.org. Please watch and select some of these videos to get a look at how things are being framed and to see which side, you might be on. I believe that Bradley Manning is being singled out for violent treatment by the state, and a worthy whistleblower from the past is in agreement with me. His name is Daniel Ellsberg. He is a hero from the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era. Find out more about him as well. He is one of the great reasons that the United States finally ended it's role of bombing and fighting in Vietnam. He is also a Berkeley resident. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Bradley+manning%2C+torture%3F&aq=f

The Communist Hypothesis

Chara mentioned this in class today, a quick read: The Communist Hypothesis

More Brown for Your Buck

Feminism as Subversion

"The fact that neither state power nor male dominance is unitary or systemic means that a feminist theory of the state will be less a linear argument than a mapping of an intricate grid of overlapping and conflicting strategies, technologies, and discourses of power(Brown 177)."

This selection from Wendy Brown's paper equates a resistance to the hegemony of masculinity and state power to what is traditionally a natural resistance to power in general. This, I think, is where we find ourselves today. Gender inequality is not regulated to the peripheries of the system. To subvert this violently racist system, and to set an example of honest appraisal of the system for others to follow, begins with admitting these base indignities. This disciplined society comes out of a predisposition to power and control yet it is fueled by domination of gender and a variety of other controls that cannot be constrained to "linear" political logic. It must be understood socially to have any effect at all.

Brown's contention is based on the "gendering of the state(177)" and that state presuming the actions of its participants. Masculinity exposes itself in practice and defense of the state through violence. Not just any violence, but an American, white, racist and gendered violence. Such a reaction comes out of the function of the state itself. Subversion begins with those pushed toward the bottom of society. Those that are dominated must to, have to, find a way to subvert an inherently unequal system. To do less would be to accept an indignity. It would be to accept failure. Those of us looking to fill these positions of power after graduation must accept that they fill the roles of an unequal system. It is imperative that they look to subvert that system by shifting and subverting the roles laid out in front of them. This is a challenge of all generations from here on out. To do less would be to accept failure. It is much clearer, thankfully, than election politics. It occurs in everyday interaction. For Brown, it begins with subversion through feminism.

Finding the Transgender Woman in the State

"The prerogative of the state, whether expressed as the armed force of the police or as vacillating criteria for obtaining welfare benefits, is often all that stands between women and rape, women and starvation, women and dependence upon brutal mates—in short, women and unattenuated male prerogative” (Brown 1995:191).

On Third Worlds as Political Strategy

Preliminary Theses on (the Continuing Appeal of) Identity Politics

Marx in 1844 Asked 'Emancipation or Assimilation'?

1. That 'identity politics' a la Francis Fox Piven sought to forge a 'third way': an emancipation through (a degree of) assimilation. This strategy sought to create extra-class social identities (the legacy of the Third World formation: political alliances such 'people of color', 'women of color', 'queers', etc.) within moribund social movements (Jefferson Cowie, Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, 2009; Dan Georgkas, Detroit I do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution, 1999) as victimized identity categories recognized by the state-- interestingly, not as a strategy for assimilation but one which assumed that by the state politically 'including the excluded' necessary contradictions within capital would be brought to the fore. As a consequence, this strategy shaped social movements as movements primarily focused on state recognition, Keynesian state legislation, an expansion of 'cultural politics', and broad alliances with sympathetic members of the capitalist class (George Soros Foundation, Ford Foundation, etc).

2. That this 'identity politics' milieu and its rights based strategy instead found that capital could in fact 'include the excluded' without contradiction-- to use David Harvey's terminology, capital 'turned a limit into a barrier it could overcome'. Capital's process-- of producing identities/fragmentation/difference and of 'overcoming barriers'-- is also a process of value production.

3. That a victimized identity category recognized by the post-Keynesian (and perhaps 'neoliberal') state will tend not to by its own logic generate social welfare programs, etc. That instead this strategy failed (and continues to fail) to address the 'counter revolution' of the past 40 years (a counter revolution that appears in many forms but in terms of race, in the form of the 'War on Drugs,' the 'War on Gangs', and the 'War on Terror'); post Fordist US deindustrialization (rise of credit/debt economy, concealing work hours as leisure hours, home into office, rise of high/low end service industry); and neoliberal social policies (for instance the transformation of public housing into a booming prison industry).

Colonizer and Colonized

This video is violent. Real violence. It is not heroic or justified. It is systematic.

Perhaps this incident is an indication of the relatively mundane aspects of the machinery of military. Technology and politics fuse their ties in military conflict more than they do in scientific endeavors. As an academic, though hesitant in practice, I am convinced of the structure in which I participate. That is exists. This gun-camera obfuscates the relationship of colonizer and colonized, but in its abstraction to us, lays down a broader abstract scope. It might be characterized as a tragedy, but it is imperative to the relationship between these soldiers and the bodies of those on the ground. It reaffirms their practices and their boundaries.

This is my perspective as an American taking stock in the dichotomy of violence at home, or within the bordered regions of the mind, and the thirst for it abroad. The reality of living in disciplined surroundings, in a white American middle-class skin, straight identified in theory, affords me a place in the "colonizer's" system. My awareness of this space is dependent upon the systematically unbalanced body of the colonized. I need to maintain this identity by reaffirming my distance from these bodies. This desire is a theoretical fine line. It is the line crossed when learning about the human body as the site of authoritarian discipline and observation. It is the line observed in time and space as the body of the colonized, especially at home (for the colonized are next door too). Their struggle for recognition informs their collective identity as colonized. Family takes on a hazy balance as they attempt to gain some amount of dignity. Fear shakes the boundaries between group and theory, usually by reinforcing them afterward. I say to myself, at least it is not me. The colonized say, just wait.

Where can a dialogue exist? It must lay in a restructuring of borders in mind. It will take time, but more importantly it will take belief in the human-ness of the other. There must be something other than what there is now.

This incident is not that. It is evidence of distance. It is evidence of separation.

The Pentagon's New Imperial Cartography

I was very surprised of today topic. Because Barnett's book is interesting as an attempt to suggest a post cold war strategic mentality that has far reaching implications for both the American military and the global economy. Also, he clearly a man of the people engaged in nearly single handed attempt to remake the American military so that it can fulfill the American dream of an orderly and peaceful world in which all may pursue life, liberty, and happiness. This article that who control the global economy equal as the American military makes an excuse for they want to have the power and control the world. I read first time that got falling asleep and second time that I got through the text but did not understand. After a today class, I realized that was living inside a small box. Numbers want to have a power, and if they got the power then they want to continue to carry. They can be murder people who feel need to keep the power. It is very sad.

Limited Perspectives

Barnett's essay is focused on the interests of the Pentagon and the United States government. Though the globalization of democracy and capitalism is its preeminent desire, such a state is interested in using its military power to define how that will happen for the rest of the world. Barnett insists that that "the Gap" between states like the Iraq(Non-Integrating) and the United States(Core) is the "standard of living". What standard is this supposed to represent? Is it clean water and enough food? Does it include healthcare and education? Is this standard of living a right or an earned privilege?

Globalization is an interest of state entities like the Pentagon and the World Bank. Although I too rely on money to exchange for food and education, shelter, et al, Barnett wants me to believe that the violence committed by foreign entities are kept in the "non-integrating Gap" by the gallant efforts of the United States government in "exporting security". This means trading arms for cooperation/oil/democracy. Even Barnett knows that total peace is not possible under this globalization, but that national borders must give way to security. I must admit, my money is good only as long as the base of the American economy, this exporting of security, continues unabated. My interests in getting more money are ultimately founded on maintaining my own "standard of living". It is rooted in violence. Cooperation.

Oil will run out. American democracy is corrupt and not really democracy, it is representative. Cooperation is based upon the interests of a few decision making representatives. Those people who are suffering in Barnett's Gap are not offered any other assistance by the forces of the United States except when it reacts to "system perturbations". Politics does not function is these environments, especially when the policies of this globalizing force are antithetical to peace. "Fight fire with fire"? This is the true face of globalization.

Pentagon's New Map Version 1

Just click on the map

to magnify the image.

Pentagon's New Map Version 2

Just click on the map

to magnify the image.

Fragments on Surveillance and Biography.

Between 1975 and 1984, at a moment when political thought was going through a stagnant phase, the works of Michel Foucault came and got rid of the false concepts that were preventing it from moving forward. In a class from January 5th 1983, Foucault offers a summary of his strategy in two parts: Firstly, substitute a historical analysis of the techniques and procedures of governmentality for the history of dominations. Secondly, replace the theory of the subject and the history of subjectivity with the historical analysis of subjectivation and practices of the self. So, departing from a clear rejection of the empty universal formulas – law, sovereignty, general will, etc – that were monopolizing the theoretical attention given to politics going into a detailed analysis of governmental mechanisms and practices. Power not as a separate hypostasis but regarded as a set of relations. In the place of a transcendental subject, a punctual analysis of the processes of subjectivation.
Giorgio Agamben, ‘On Tiqqun.’


The thing about the intersection between Foucault and social movements is I guess the period that leads to the Italian 'Hot Autumn' of 1966 and the ‘Movement of 77’― 'Autonomia' breaks from the workerist-Marxists (or ‘Operaismo’) and organizes an antagonistic social force within the realm of 'leisure time'― a leisure time that is begun to be recognized as to be just as regulated as 'work time'. And so sociology's (Daniel Bell's) obsession-with / mourning-of the cultural 'schizophrenic' tension between the hedonism necessary for consumption and the asceticism necessary for work. But for all its advances, the autonome project was a failure (in the sense that it didn't accomplish its stated goals, in the sense that it didn't last forever). And in its failure it revealed (again) that the disciplined individual subject perceives herself as always observed, and this perception shapes the actual tactics of a social movement. For the activist, any daily moment could become a point of rupture: the activist/anarchist preoccupation with 'prefiguration', moral behavior, 'being the change you want to see', etc. The activist is the beautiful soul in her own biography (not the sovereign's biography, but the emergence of the 'mass biography')― a trail of documents (birth certificates, vaccinations, certifications, report cards, degrees, citizenship papers, work papers, utility bills) records one’s movements and choices and appears to confirm such biography― when in fact communism/anarchy/whatever are propositions to become 'terrible'. (‘Men will not turn into angels: why should they?’ G. Dauve) The point is that in fact no one is watching― or rather, no one is watching meaningfully― the meaning/enchantment of the sovereign’s (or god’s) vertical surveillance is destroyed for the barren horizontalism of democratic/self surveillance. No such meaning/god could be brought down to democratic surveillance. And so when the literature students read Foucault to become evermore textual, and the art students obsess about the 'process' of making art 'collectively', etc, they hide themselves within the lie of the mass biography. The biography remains still sovereign and divine― decidedly not the mass individual; the pervading ideology is that it is mass. Where is rupture/god?    

Foucault and Discipline

Foucault reminds us that modern society and the foundations upon which it bases its maintenance is observation. This is carried out by the use of "hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement and their combination in a procedure that is specific to it, the examination(170)." As a student, I cannot, of course, forget that my abilities as a citizen are impacted by my ability to determine my own place in this process. I am examined continually by myself and others. Especially those who are waiting for me to leave the institution or by those who will assume a measure of control after I move to another area of normality.

The efforts I establish on behalf of my ability to adapt to being an observer and a follower of the discipline founded on the values of the past are a part of my life at Cal. This academic life is subsumed by moments in time, those decisive moments which may change said life in respect to the requirements placed. My student life is narrowed into a corner which has been inhabited before by other people. This shows that such behavior, where being placed into a corner is supposed to lead to reward, is a created by a decision to enable . It is created by my own willingness to subject myself to its limitations and to the exercise of discipline. This "normality" of behavior is both rewarding and threatening, yet holds a lot of potential for intellectual illumination. I think it is essential to understand that the contact with other students is a lot more valuable outside of these limitations. The critical power of recognition and dialogue does not threaten but instead enhances the potential of such distinct, disciplined systems to create social, moral and intellectual realms. Such realms exist in the mind. This bodes well for anyone willing to break down such simple boundaries, to challenge their "normality".

“Violence as Dignity”

J.M. Bernstein, Philosophy, The New School

Wednesday, March 16, 2011
5 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall | UC Berkeley

In an incident in Auschwitz, Jean Amery describes how, at a particular moment, he was forced to give "concrete form to my dignity by punching a human face." Bernstein's paper will interrogate the thesis, common to Amery and Frantz Fanon, that, as a consequence of the particular character of human embodiment, violent reprisal belongs to the grammar of human dignity.

J.M. Bernstein teaches philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His most recent book is Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting. He is now completing a work provisionally entitled Torture and Dignity.

Part of the Why War? Seminar Series.

Prelude to a Foucaultian Black Swan

A Million Dollar Wacquant

"In a half-coma, I keep hitting and breathing in synch, throwing a punch with every gulp of air I expel. I have the sensation of being mounted on a machinery of which I'm both the engine and a piece" (66).

"Theoretical mastery is of little help so long as the move is not inscribed within one's bodily schema; and it is only after it has been assimilated by the body in and through endless physical drills repeated ad nauseam that it becomes in turn fully intelligible to the intellect. There is indeed a comprehension of the body that goes beyond—and comes prior to—full visual and mental cognizance. Only the permanent carnal experimentation that is training, as a coherent complexus of 'incorporating practices,' can enable one to acquire this practical mastery of the practical rules of pugilism, which precisely satisfies the condition of dispensing with the need to constitute them as such in consciousness" (69).

Erased Lynchings

Ken Gonzales-Day's Erased Lynchings in preparation for our visit to MOMA.

Violence and Sustenance

Violence on the human body is something that seems to be a common part of existence. The objective and subjective violence which Zizek introduced us to are incorporated into the life of any member of the human race. It is important, however, to remember the contexts in which the body finds itself. It is easy to react to common themes, crime and the chaotic nature of life, by inducing fear through reactive appraisals. Therefore, it is essential to an understanding of our state as perceptive students of violence to evaluate those areas where a certain measure of control exists. For those who sell their bodies for money, for those who place themselves into physically harmful situations, we may measure the limits of such interactions. I believe and have experienced a modicum of such bodily resolve. Boxers place themselves and their perception into the fray continually. In Wacquant’s piece, “The Street and the Ring”, one may consider such a life. Life outside of the ring is chaotic and uncertain, especially in the area where Wacquant did his research. Inside, it is tightly measured and considered. This dichotomy relies on a close and personal relationship between the boxer and the manager. It seems an essential component to personal development, especially when contending with the uncertainties of life, to embrace an honest approach to discipline, but more importantly, to these supportive relationships. Otherwise, one may simply be trying to beat down a brick wall of uncertainty their entire life, perpetuating and sustaining an unnecessarily “violent” inner life.