is about, madness, graphomania, 'civilization of the book', techne, ear, Aye me!

This thread could use a soundtrack.   Now it has one.   Question:  would counting the logical fallacies, the superficial, or choreographed leaps in the following amount in the end to much the same?   Or would it amount to something less?  How might the concept of 'auto-critique' ap-ply.

...that's what my work is about, the collapse of everything, of meaning, of language, of values, of art, disorder and dislocation wherever you look, entropy drowning everything in sight, entertainment and technology and every four year old with a computer, everybody his own artist where the whole thing came from, the binary system and the computer where technology came from in the first place, you see?  I can't even go into it, you see that's what I have to go into before all my work is misunderstood and distorted and, and turned into a cartoon because it is a cartoon, whole stupified mob out there waiting to be entertained, turning the creative artist into a performer, into a celebrity like Byron, the man in the place of his work when probability cam in and threw that whole safe predictable Newtonian world into chaos, into disorder wherever you turn, discontinuity, disparity, difference, discord, contradiction, what they're calling aporia they took from the Greeks, the academics took the word from the Greeks for this swamp of ambiguity, paradox, perversity, opacity, obscurity, anarchy the clock without the clockmaker and the desperate comedy of Kierkegaard's insane Knight of Belief and even Pascal's famous wager in a world where everyone is "so necessarily mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness" where the artist is today, the artist and real artist, Plato warned us about, the threat to society and the, read Huizinga on Plato and music and the artist as dangerous and art as dangerous and music in this mode and that mode, the Phrygian mode to quiet you down and the tenor and bass Lydian to make you sad and the soft and drinking harmonies, the Lydian and the Ionian where the art the, the artist having trouble breathing here I, coming out of the anaesthesia down in the recovery room tried to raise my leg and it suddenly jumped up by itself like a, like the pain avoiding pain that's what all this is about isn't it?  Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, beyond the pleasure principle?  My golden Sigi his mother always called him, if Emerson was right and we are what our mothers made us?  "Pleasure and pain I maintain to be the first perceptions of children," the first forms virtue and vice take for them, not my golden Sigi no, he lifted if from Plato's Laws Book II, talking about his own high ethical standards....The quantity of pleasure not the quality the whole point of it and these digital machines come in, the all-or-none machine Norbert Wiener called it, machine that counts brings in the binary system and the computer with it, so Wiener tells us about a brilliant American engineer who's gone out and bought an expensive player piano.  Pushpin or Pushkin, does care a damn for the music but he's fascinated by the complicated mechanism that produces it that's what America was all about, what mechanization was all about, what democracy was all about and the deification of democracy a hundred years ago all this technology at the service of entertaining Sigi's stupefied pleasure seeking trash out there playing the piano with its feet where it all come from isn't it?

[...]

Coming events cast their shadows and all the rest of it for Sigi's stupified trash out there gaping at television dollar sign's all they see where we are today aren't we?  Waiting to be entertained because that's where it started and that's where it ends up, avoiding pain and seekind pleasure play the piano with your feet, play cards, play pool play pushpin here it is, here's Huizinga talking about music and play he quotes Plato yes, here.  "That which has neither utility nor truth nor likeness nor yet, in its effects, is harmful, can best be judged by the criterion of the charm that is in it, and by the pleasure it affords.  Such pleasure, entailing as it does no appreciable good or ill, is play," goes on about little children and animals can't keep still, always moving making noise playing skipping leaping making a racket ends up where it started with toys, toys, toys, every four year old with a computer.  Press buttons it lights up different colours he's supposed to be learning what, how to spell?  No, it corrects his spelling doesn't need to know how to spell, how to multiply, divide get the square root of God knows what don't have to read music know a cleft from a G string just keep pumping because that's where it came from like Wiener's engineer, not the music but how it's made, tubes bellows hammers the whole digital machine, whole binary system that all-or-none paper roll with holes in it running over the tracker bar that's where all of it came from, toys and entertainment where technology comes from going back, back, back to Vaucanson's duck that ruffled its feathers and quacked waddled and shat, back a thousand, two thousand years with the penny-in-the-slot machines and water organs Hero of Alexandria made to entertain the locals and the living statues on the island of Rhodes Pindar talks about, the artifical trees and singing birds made for the Emperor of Byzantium a thousand years ago nothing but toys and games wherever you went, Charles V's armed puppets playing trumpets and drums and a lifesize singin canary made for Marie Antoineete made it pretty clear who this frivolous entertainment was for, articial birds singing real birdsongs to teach birds how to sing?  Mozart writing music for fluteplaying clocks and Beethoven's Wellington's Victory written for Maelzel's panharmonicon while those rococo Swiss watchmakers were still busy making princely gifts of musical snuff boxes and pastorals featuring tiny figures doing farm chores and the French libeled as usual for smutty versions available across the way where Vaucanson's foul duck and his shepherd boy played twenty songs on a pipe with one hand and beat a drum with the other and his flutist, good God Vaucanson's flutish! actually played the flute?  Because that's where it came from, where the technology came from right down to that paper roll with the holes in it where the computer came from, you see?  Just take a minute to explain all this computer madness besotted by science besotted by technology by this explosion of progress and the information revolution what we're really besotted by is people making millions, making billions from computer chips computer circuitry computer programs one man making thirty billion dollars in a year because that's what we've always been besotted by, Philo T Farnsworth had it right seventy years ago, didn't he?  What America's all about, what it's always been about that thirty billion dollars?  What the computer's all about what all of it's all about, try to pin it on some humble genius so Pascal shows up age nineteen with his digital adding machine, Leibniz with one that multiplies and divides and finally Babbage and his Difference Engine, Babbage adn his Analytical Engine with its punched cards Babbage the grandfather of the modern computer so it's Babbage Babbage Babbage but he got his idea from Jacquard's loom so that's all you ever hear, Jacquard's loom Jacquard's loom Jacquard's loom hits you square in the belly no where did I, can't believe it I jast saw it here Flaubert, Flaubert must have been alphabetic with Farnsworth everything organized here it is yes here it is, letter from Flaubert 1868 asks about the silk weavers in Lyons, work in low-ceilinged rooms?  in their homes?  children work too?  "The weaver working at a Jacquard loom" he says he's heard "is continually struck in the tomach by the shaft of the roller on which the cloth is being wound, it is the roller itself that strikes him?"  There, you see?...no, no it's the principle of the thing, eighty years before Babbage, it's the same principle Vaucanson used for his flutist, this drum pierced with holes and levers controlling its fingers and lip and tongue movements the air supply driven through the lips against the edge of the holes in the flute it was actually playing the notes selected by the holes in the drum, the notes selected by the holes in that roll of paper becasue the piano was epidemic, it was the plague spreading across America a hundred years ago with its punched paper roll at the heart of the whole thing, of the frenzy of invention and mechanizationand democracy and how to have art without the artist and automation, cybernetics you can see where the, damn!  Where the tissues, just get cold water on it stop the bleeding, you see?  Scrape my wrist against this drawer corner tears the skin open blood all over the place it doesn't hurt no, skin's like parchment that's the prednisone, turns the skin into dry old parchment tear it open with a feather that's the prednisone, reach for a book reach for anything tear myself to pieces reaching for this book listen, you'll see what I mean, opening page you'll see what I mean, "From March to December" he says, "while I was having to take large quantities of prednisolone," same thing as prednisone, "I assembled every possible book and article written by," you see what I mean? "and visited every possible and impossible library" this whole pile of books and papers here?  "preparing myself with the most passionate seriousness for the task, which I had been dreading throughout the preceding winter, of writing" where am I here, yes, "a major work of impeccable scholarship.  It had been my intention to devote the most careful study to all these books and articles and only then, having studied them with all the thoroughness the subject deserved, to begin writing my work, which I believed would leave far behind it and far beneath it everything else, both published and unpublished" you see what this is all about?  "I had been planning it for ten years and had repeatedly failed to bring it to fruition," but of course you don't no, no that's the whole point of it!  It's my opening page, he's plagairized my work right here in front of me before I've even written it!  That's not the only one.  That's not the only one either, he's done it before, or after, word for word right in this heap somewhere you could call plagiary a kind of entropy in there corrupting the creation it's right in here somewhere I can never find anything in this mess never get it sorted out, never get it in any kind of order but that's what it's all about in the first place isn't it?  Get things in order that's half the battle in fact it is the battle, organize what's essential and throw out the rest of it that's the, Phidias?  For me an image slumbers in the stone, who's that, Nietzsche?  Probability, chance, disorder and breakdown here's that punched paper roll holding the the, damn!  Getting blood all over these pages of ads for what I just said didn't I?  Whole thing turns into a cartoon?  an animated cartoon?  Chance and disorder sweeping in and this binary system digital machine with its all-or-none paper roll holding the fort yes it was the fort, whole point of it to order and organize to eliminate chance, to eliminate failure because we've always hated failure in America like some great character flaw what technology's all about, music entertainment counting, counting, seventy years ago one great pianist cutting a roll coordinating his hands and pedaling within a fiftieth of a second 1926 one company cut and sold ten million rolls whole thing turns into a cartoon, mob out there crash bang storming the gates seeking pleasure democracy scaling the walls terrifying the elite who've had a corner on high class entertainment back to Marie Antoinette storming the Bastille with here yes, here's one yes, here's a German ad 1926 holding the line for the class act against here they come, here they come, "a still larger class of people whoe cannot successfully operate the usual type of player, because they lack a true sense of musical values.  They have no 'ear for music,' and for that reason they play atrociously upon pianos equipped even with high grade player actions" talking about the class act?  about defending these elitist music lovers?  Not here no, talking about what we're always talking about.  Sales!

-Willaim Gaddis, Agape Agape, 4-14

Further reading.

Comments

[Nate]

Jodi,
Thanks for your comments on teaching. I appreciate them, especially your candor (refreshing, actually). I'd love to hear others who work in the industry chime in on this. I wasn't looking for anything particularly, not ethics or inspiration actually. I'm in the industry for the reasons you cite, and am looking to avoid the downsides I can. 'Teacher as missionary' is a good way to describe one of the stories people tell, it's not one I want to buy into. I had that sensibility in NGOs for a while and got burnt on it.
Best wishes,
Nate

[chabert]

I'm going to repeat this question:

"Simple question, CR or anyone: tell me what I can do to help you put a stop to this [hideous condition everyone is living in]."

I ask this question of people very frequently. Most people I speak to have a reply. No reply here. Why is this? Matt? IT? CR? Anybody?

[Christoph]

"Aye me", too! I mean: lighten up people, you have not "been had" (though: so bleeding what if that were the case?)

Any communication communicates with it its form. This can be observed, in fact, only when it is observed is it communicated (because then some"one" has distinguished between utterance and meaning). For the observer, the medium may not be the message, but be part of it. And be communicated. But this is not the case for the blind spot of that observer, namely, their distinction, which in turn can be observed by another observer. And so on. And: The communication of this can be communicated. As this text is doing, right now. But It rarely is. And this can also be communicated, heck, even using the form of the communication (blog comments), irrespective of their content, which may not be about that (communicating that).

Underestimating what I call mediality is a cardinal sin of much theory, and most other genres, so I have made a post about that, using the form of the communication as a game, a "ludic exploration" rather than a dense, dour essay. After all, this is just a blog. I suggest you get over it, contribute to it, or make a better suggestion.

Jon, consider the difference between a blog entry (say, about blogging) and the self-referentiality of blog communication, which is what I wrote about. In fact, pointing out the difference is one of the things my post was about, though apparently not for you. Tough luck, mate.

CR, I always thought "flypapering" is when you ask seemingly innocuous questions, only to then engage the morality of the poster's intention or strategy, instead of their argument. (A popular "game" during the Cultural Revolution.) Anyway, what is your point, apart from the implied moral judgement? That you, (unlike other teachers?), are in danger of mistaking LS for a classroom environment? Mind you, the suggestion of LS as a university (or a seminar?) would have been an interesting idea, for instance. Pity you didn't make it.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Because no one believes you have the power to do anything besides give them money and you've already taken that off the table. If they believed you had any power to do anything, they would have asked. It's really not that difficult to figure this out... geez. It's not currency speculation or anything.

[CR]

If mistaking LS for a classroom enviroment means not showing up the participants, well, then, yes indeed, Christoph. That's exactly what I mean. I don't experiment on my students, I don't use them as "examples." That, to me, would be condescending...

[CR]

Colonel C,

It's a good question, better than it looks at first glance. No, I don't have an answer for you. I am still trying to figure out what I can do to help myself to put a stop to X. No easy answers. And, yes, there's a career to foster, bills to pay, irrelevant papers to place with decent journals, after much revision. I'd never suggest that my work is actually getting anywhere with X. But I try, as do you....

But you're a good blogger, though, and you've said things on CC and AvW that have been extremely helpful to me.

[Christoph]

Wow. That really was an out-of-character retort I just dished out. Sorry Jon & CR - someone was incredibly rude to me in the corridor just then, just as I was sitting down to read your comments. No bad blood intended.=

[josef k.]

Nate - Hmmm...

Actually, I think what Marx meant is definitely the most important thing, but you are right - swapping quotes back and forward probably isn't the way to grasp it.

I'll get back to you in a week.

[josef k.]

But for what its worth - regarding the importance of the distinction money/capital - my major point here is against Charbet's fantasy that because she is a currency trader, she exploits IT, a teacher. Rather, I would suggest, that both Charbet as well as IT are in fact exploited by Capital, the key distinction between them being merely that Charbet, qua currency trader, qua sadistic intrument of the Law of the Markets, is further deluded into the belief that she in fact has some kind of agency with respect to this, and somehow controls it. Such a delusion - analyzed by Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus - is the instrinsic fantasy belonging to the circuit M-C-M; and it is ultimately a delusion that leads people to desire their own repression.

[chabert]

Okay, aps, don't say I didn't ask. And now it would be civilized for you to stop kvetching and spluttering.

And I don't know what you're talking about - taking that off the table. Of course it's on the table.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Well if it's not off the table then give let's arrange for a wire transfer, check, or whatever, of, say, a thousand dollars or so (nothing to big for a rich person I suspect, but huge for me) so that I can open up more of my time to activism.

[Nate]

hi Josef,

Please do get back to me when you can. This is likely something that would warrant - or be more likely to have satisfactory outcomes via - blog posts rather than blog comments. If you'd be interested in that, let me know. If so, my initial questions for you (ones I'd be happy to try and address for myself too) would be about the'what matters' re: marx issue - what marx meant or making use of marx - and the 'social relation or not a social relation' question that sparked this. In both instances I'm most interested in the stakes of the argument.

Also, I'm ambivalent about the formulation you use of 'exploited by Capital' (this might suggest a second set of questions to reflect and try to write and discuss upon), precisely because it seems to me connected with talk of delusions (which I assume is a variant of ideology) and lack of agency. You make those links. I suppose that this formulation doesn't have to have those associations, but I don't see how that could work. Generally, I find that whole line of thought leaves me cold. I find the Tronti point of view much more appealing, in which the starting point is not criticism of capital accumulation but attempts to end surplus value extraction. This is in part because I'm not convinced that delusion plays much of a role in capitalism. I think it's a non sequitur, and that the heart of the matter lies in other, bloodier, less interesting, and less intellectually complicated areas. I'm becoming more orthodox as I get older, which makes me think I'm probably making some mistake I'm not noticing, I'm happy to have my mind changed. Anyway, I look forward to talking further about this.
Best,
Nate

[chabert]

"she exploits IT, a teacher. Rather, I would suggest, that both Charbet as well as IT are in fact exploited by Capital, the key distinction between them being merely that Charbet, qua currency trader, qua sadistic intrument of the Law of the Markets, is further deluded into the belief that she in fact has some kind of agency with respect to this, and somehow controls it"

No, this is - I don't know what. As a trader I don't control anything. As a rentier I do exploit IT, and so does CR and so does anyone who owns a significant asset, like real estate or money, you too probably from the sound of it. How is it that I could fall into a coma and still have an income? What is interest?

If you can tell me how I am being exploited - who is collecting the surplus value I create - I would be interested to know. Is there a threshold of capital beyond which the rentier is not exploited?

When you say I am exploited by Capital, what do you mean? Capital in the abstract? My own capital? Whose Capital? Is the Capital which exploits me exploited by my Capital? What do you mean by 'exploit'?

[Jodi]

Josef K--thanks for the gesture to Anti-O. That is helpful and interesting. I'm in a reading group on the book right now, we are about finished with the second chapter, and so far our discussions get bogged down in partisan approaches to Lacan. Is what you are referring to later in the book?

[Squibb]

Christoph - I feel you. I hear what you were trying to do with the mediality post, engaging the impossibility of an electronic self-portrait, a snapshot of a new medium asked to run up against its itself... I thought it was really interesting. I really enjoyed the variety of responses to the provocation, even if the accent routine grew extremely tiresome. Similarly, I also agree with you ending the comments when you did, the imposition of an uncomfortable unasked-for unity is one of the bread and butter moments of post-industrial life, no?
No one's schedule is their own; I've often noticed how in the world of sitcoms,for example, between 23 and 26, and 51 and 54 minutes past the hour we are asked to stop laughing and take something seriously, so as to make sure we tune in next week. I guess I felt your ending rehearsed this time chart of planned emotional intervention. (I hope, someday, to actually run out of syllables, but until then every extended patience is appreciated.)

What I can't figure out, and what I would be interested in getting people's opinions on, is why, in response to a post about LS mediality, we all started posturing like we were on Jerry Springer circa 1997? I mean, my god, what nastiness! what performativity! Was there really a moment there when we fooled ourselves into thinking somebody gave a shit?

Jodi- I totally forgot about the essential IT people for such an operation, and also, isn't it a bizarre question? somehow both ironic and vital, kind of creeps me out.

and thank you Charles, for the disclaimer, I don't know to what extent it was needed, but I know I thought about making it myself. That it came from somebody else made the whole interaction much more satisfactory.

[chabert]

"Well if it's not off the table then give let's arrange for a wire transfer, check, or whatever, of, say, a thousand dollars or so (nothing to big for a rich person I suspect, but huge for me) so that I can open up more of my time to activism."

Antony, email me the pitch. You must be kind of new to this if varfing in a comments box and boasting of what a selfpitying little schmuck you are strikes you as an effective fundraising strategy. I'm guessing what you're doing would not strike me as a priority use of limited resources or anything I'd want to support, but I'm willing to be corrected.

[perezoso]

college boy marxism is not so much revolutionary but vindictive, driven generally more by resentment and bitterness if not penis envy of some sort, and teh endless conceptualizing is part of, yes, an essentially bourgeois-bureaucratic deceit: doubtful most of the leftist hepcats in NY , SF, Bawston or London would care to be in the refineries of Venezuela or in the fields of Bolivia. There's plenty of cafe-marxists: would they be willing to go to Nicaragua and help with the coffee bean harvest (as some peeps did back in the 80s)? No creo que.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

You're toying with me now. Is a $1000 too low? $3000 would be a huge help.

[Christoph]

CR, thanks. Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I understand, you admit that you are stuck in your habitus, but think that it's not a problem. Outside the classroom, which we *are*, the claim about "showing up" therefore says more about you than the post. Don't get me wrong, it does so in a positive way: Your comment (can only be usefully read as)/is a smart self-description, essentially along the lines of "I don't know what you think you are doing here, but I am a good teacher, I don't fool my students". This in itself is of socio-scientific and hermeneutic interest (the mediality of homo academicus). And is a *very* clever way of being self-referential. But frankly, I'd rather read your thoughts on the mediality of the academic field, say, "LS as a university".

Squibb, interesting remarks, and thanks for the encouragement. I certainly would agree that reading the normative battles of the thread and its rhetorical performativity so far is perhaps the most useful/interesting aspect of this whole literary experiment.

Considering the whole discussion (and its rawness, etc), I wonder if one should focus more on the homo academicus (americanus/britannicus/australianus?). That seems to me the key to reading a lot of the stuff that goes on in these pages, including the "T"heory bits. Could *all* be cathartic stuff in fact, and an aesthetically pleasing performance of "LS as a a self-description-apparatus."

Good thing s0metim3's in fact gone and done just that.

[CR]

How is it that I could fall into a coma and still have an income?

The opening premise, actually, of H.G. Wells's 1899 When the Sleeper Wakes. Due to the "miracle of compound interest," guy hits his head and wakes up the owner of half the world.

And no, he's not being exploited as he sleeps. Rather, of course, he's "unconsciously" exploiting....

It's sort of the reverse image of fabian socialism, isn't it? Dormancy, delay, and glacially paced "improvement."

I think josef k.'s comment about Chabert is symptomatic of a false belief in the impersonality of capital today. That, in fact, we're all in this together, all exploited, from the CEO of Wal-mart to the workfare worker. This is what I was saying about teaching Howards End on the other thread - the students don't believe that there's such a thing as "independent wealth" nowadays, only back in Britain.

(Have you seen the cell phone commercial where the CEO is talking to his underling about his new cell plan, and says "this is my way of sticking it to the man," and then underling says, "But sir, you are the man." And CEO, blankly says, "Yeah....")

It's, I think, much more comfortable to think of a world in which we're all oppressed by structural factors than by anything as unsettlingly obsolete as a class.

[Jon]

Christoph, apology accepted. One does find oneself adopting strange postures on the interweb.

[new york pervert]

¿Anthony -- apenas con quién el infierno usted le pensó repartía -- algún JAPess? Ella es una película de mierda, signifiqué, productor de la bajo-clase TEEVEE, usted tengo por lo menos tener un tratamiento listo incluso si usted no tiene su director y no echó más que apenas compuesto. Usted tiene tener algún presupuesto detallado que le tome mucho tiempo para juntar y usted tiene que saber qué directores auxiliares hacen, y cuando usted puede conseguir los estudios para comprarlo, si no, usted tiene explicar excesivo y debajo-$$$-LI'NEA costos -- y si usted ha firmado un enlace de la terminación, usted mejoraría para no pasarlo en los hurones... malditos, que todavía estaba sobre las películas. TeeVee es justo para hacer el dinero y después conseguir bebido tan por algunos días que usted no pueda fijar en Haití más. De todas formas, espere que el mattie ponga esto en francés, ruso, griego, babytalk, el trashtalk blanco, o el niggertalk, puesto que señora Chabert posee la red, como sabemos ahora. Consecuentemente, los postes de los perezoso están viniendo con regado todo abajo y sin la lámina aguda de más.

[new york pervert]

Anthony -- ik kleefde de post en zal dit over bij de draad van de Haat Weblog zetten, aangezien Mattie het niet hier zal opzetten. Hij is volgt me altijd rond aan alle blogs.

[josef k.]

"That, in fact, we're all in this together, all exploited, from the CEO of Wal-mart to the workfare worker."

Yes, yes, we're all exploited! It is necessary to believe this. Otherwise, one tends towards a theory whereby one believes that if only we could somehow "get rid" of the capitalists, then we would end capitalism. But this is not so - instead, capital would merely shed its skin, and change form, and then find for itself a brand new host. Is this not the historical lesson of Marxism-Leninism?

By the way - none of this is to say that I don't believe in the class struggle. Nor is it to say that I think capital exploits everyone in the same way. But I think it is important how one thinks about exploitation and class struggle. One thing to be avoided at all costs, I think, is the urge to reduce Marxism to either a moralism (the capitalists are evil) or an adolescence (Fight the Man). As Althusser pointed out with regards to humanism, these tendencies can be the object of a recognition or of a misunderstanding.

---
TBC

[josef k.]

(I have more, but I need to go to work)