I took out a subscription to an academic journal...

Because I was vaguely entertaining notions of going back to graduate school. I paid the money for The Hedgehog Review, which is one of those academic journals that isn't as heavy as say, Political Theory, and that can probably be vaguely categorized in the area of "public intellectual" writing.

But then, THEN, I read sentences like, "We could use another value-soaked word to understand what Burckhardt was getting at: society becomes more primitive, the more people see themselves categorically, in terms of fixed identities (Sennett, 28)." The point being that technology segments us, and as a result, we become more primitive and just resemble the bunch of talking heads on faux news.

This is all in the spirit of defending humanism, the project of which Sennett describes thusly, "Humanism's emphasis on life-narratives, on the enriching experience of difference, and on evaluating tools in terms of human rather than mechanical complexity are all living values -- and more, I would say, these are critical measures for judging the state of modern society (30)."

This is all because Sennett had the misfortune to experience Google Wave. It apparently did not allow him to collaborate in the way he would like. And honestly, I'm just annoyed at this. Google Wave was a product NO ONE liked. Google discontinued it because it sucked, not because it wasn't "humanist" enough.

It irritates me when academics are so afraid of us on the internet talking about intellectual things. I spend a lot of time on tumblr (my tumblr name is one I will take to my grave, but if you are an old reader of lady blog you may guess it based on an inside joke about a certain legume, and if you can guess it, you're in the club, baby). Tumblr, is for me, one of the most intellectually stimulating places to be. I have met plenty of IRL friends there and have had so many stimulating and inspiring intellectual conversations, I couldn't count all of them on my two hands and feet. What Sennett doesn't understand is that technology is never measured by mechanical complexity - it is measured by our ability to connect.

But then, I understand how media works. In my day job, I am a marketer. I spend time in the social channels talking about things I really have little interest in, but I get how this shit works. I'm tired of these academics who haven't really made an attempt at social media and the wonders it provides.

I'm reminded here of William Connolly, who remarks regarding Sheldon Wolin, who thinks democracy needs slow, non-technological time to succeeds, "...I also think it is wise today for democrats to be wary of nostalgia for a world of long, slow time and a circumscribed politics of place. The politics of local place (valorized by Wolin) and the state (valorized by others) are both pertinent to democratic action in the contemporary period. But they are insufficient to it (142)."

Duh. Time moves quickly in the social media world (though as FB daily reminds us, we are not allowed to forget). It is undemocratic to assume that slower time is better because most of us? We move at that pace and these slow, plodding writers ought to think of the rest of us, speeding ahead.

But that's not all. I've said before in my post on No B.S. Discourse - this shit? It really is pretentious. It assumes that a certain group of brainy people are better than another group of brainy people. Really, come to tumblr. We'll school you.

Things I read while writing this:
Neuropolitics by William E. Connolly
"Humanism" by Richard Sennett in The Hedgehog Review. Summer, 2011.

Detroit, I loved you once

My last post about Detroit was sentimental  and maybe a little maudlin. It was a call to action. Even the most "I will never be prescriptive!" political theorist wants people to just get off their asses and do something. Of course, me being the one to ask questions, I find this interesting. Why am I so fucking sentimental about this city?

Maybe it's because I've imagined something great and (hello repetition) imaginary. William Connolly has described this type of imagination in his description of the nation as envisioned by other sources ( this is not Connolly's vision of the nation - this is his baseline):

Above all, then, nationhood is founded on shared memories of sacrifice and a common will in the present. It is refined by its memory of the enemies it faced in the past. Its victories fill it with glory. Its defeats fill it with the determination to reverse that result in the future. What's more, a nation is formed out of "a long past spent in toil, sacrifice and devotion." (75)

Detroit, much like this baseline idea of the nation, bears the shared memory of sacrifice. Weren't all of us working on the line, putting together cars? Didn't we all take the streetcar downtown to shop at Hudson's? Wasn't a house in Boston Edison or Indian Village just the height of "You've made it!"?

I should say some things about my life in Detroit. I'm a transplant, but my mom grew up in the area. She has a story of going downtown during the riots because she didn't recognize what was going on. She didn't understand the dire consequences of a history of segregation. She just wanted  to go to work. The guy on the trolly kept asking her, "Are you sure you want to go downtown?" So my love of the city is tainted by the ideal, by going downtown without realizing what on earth is happening, of hoping for that ideal.

Let it be known: I am schooled enough in the imagination of our ideals to question everything. This blog, so you know, is founded in irony. Rorty describes an ironist as someone who always harbors doubt. She does not think of her reality as closer to the "real" reality - someone else's reality has possibility, too. It interests me that Rorty introduces this definition in the chapter titled "Private Irony and Liberal Hope." (all of this is on page 73 of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity). I think that Rorty is both suspicious and admiring of hope. He notes of the liberal metaphysician, "He prays, with Socrates, that the inner and outer man will be as one - that irony will be no longer necessary (92)."

Don't we all pray this way? Irony is exhausting. It is so much more energizing to think of the unified one. To think of a city that was perfect and beautiful and full of hope. I've talked before about the Yves Marchand  & Romain Meffre project about the ruins of Detroit - I've spoken romantically of these photos, because that is what they are. Aren't ruins inherently romantic? We visit Rome not to see destruction, but to marvel at past greatness.

But the romance is too hopeful. It is not critical enough of a city that is representative of all that can go wrong with the American ideal. It is especially lacking in critique of the racial tensions still present in the city.

But the romance is so moving. It makes you want to achieve some ideal. I think all I ask of myself and of anyone is that they temper that with irony. Detroit is inherently romantic and hopeful. The motto of the city, of course is, "Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes.")

Perhaps because the hope is for something better, the romance in the city is full of irony: we know things have been for shit, and we'd like to make it better, but to do so, we must critique.

Things I read while writing this:
Why I am Not a Secularist by William Connolly
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty

Something Fun:
New Feist!

The Fear in Liberalism

I've been reading Shklar recently, notably, her essay "The Liberalism of Fear." My copy of Ordinary Vices is on order, so I'm going to limit myself to that essay plus a few other sources, which I'll cite at the end. I drafted this a couple of nights ago and I'm not quite happy with it, but this is a blog, not graduate school, and I've had a bad day and want to get this off my plate so I can feed my soul with Buffy.

I made the offhand comment in another post that liberalism might be more conservative than we like to think. Thinking about this a bit more, I wonder if what I'm really suggesting is that American liberalism isn't really all that liberal. Shklar makes the observation that liberalism is not necessarily wed to modernity. What's more, many "liberal" governments have not been liberal at all. Perhaps our liberalism needs to expand a little. The liberalism of fear, Shklar hopes, points us in the direction of truer liberalism, a liberalism that actually lives up to the promise of allowing people to pursue personal freedom.

Fear is a useful term. One of my favorite critics of American politics, William Connolly, doesn't talk about fear, but he does talk about the visceral, a recognition of which can lead to more democratic methods of being. While he doesn't say this, if we turn back to Shklar, recognizing the baser instincts (like fear) could lead to more liberal sensibilities - a greater freedom for each individual.

Connolly writes, "Micropolitics and relational self-artistry shuffle back and forth among intensities, feelings, images, smells, and concepts, modifying some of them and the relays connecting them, opening up, thereby, the possibility of new thinking and alterations of sensibilities (Connolly 176)." What one of my theoretical crushes is saying here is that the political is related to the physical. These small little connections that we make in our brains every day influence how we behave. I am adding to this idea that fear specifically plays a strong role in shaping these behaviors of expansion.

 I'd like to talk hear about the fear I've seen in the past weeks: fear of losing collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, fear of losing access to Planned Parenthood,  and a fear of losing a just definition of rape, among many others. In these united states, we fear losing freedom over our very bodies (the bodies, remember, that on a micro-level help us define our politics.) And this fear is leading to suspicion of government and fear of the cruelty that it might cause - something that Shklar and every other liberal before her supports.

Shklar writes, "We fear a society of fearful people." Shklar asks not that we always be afraid. At some point she wants us to escape fear in order to ask deeper questions. But if we are to get there, we must embrace our fears to feel the push against cruelty. This message is more important than ever, especially if you are a woman these days because your body and your life and your freedom is under direct attack.


Things I read while writing this:
"The Liberalism of Fear" by Judith Shklar
Why I am Not a Secularist by William E. Connolly
"Judith Shklar or Fear of Liberalism" by Thomas L. Dumm (in his book united states)

Something that is not pretentious to clear your palate:

Because a bad day deserves Maru.