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roachboy · 01-11-2007, 01:17 PM

mm: hard questions, those are.

i react to things that i take to be ethically or politically objectionable in ways that i can: generally, because i can do it, i write stuff. but it is bothersome in that there is no way to know whether what appears in print reaches anyone or does anything, so it may be more about the discharge of affect than anything else, the writing. but it is a public act (after a fashion)....

i am politically active, and that does and does not help with the sense of "doing something"....

i think that many of the events that happen out there in the world that are truly horrific come about because folk are able to compartmentalize what they see and know in ways that often ends up legitmating means/ends disjunctures. to enable this, all you really have to do is control the political context. that way you set the terms of "legimate" debate and for the most part people will dutilfully derive conclusions based on premises that they are handed without necessarily recognizing that they were handed the premises.
so what i imagine writing and teaching and other such activities to be about is making this process more difficult for people. getting in the way, fucking up the process, posing problems for and about it. suggesting alternatives sometimes. but if there arent clear alternatives, you can nonetheless say that political conditions x cause administrative systems 1,2... to act in particular ways, and that these actions have awful consequences that are only possible because BOTH the folk who operate within that system and those who operate within the same political contexts as that system do not connect phenomena together in such a way as to make it clear that these outcomes and the actions of these systems are linked.

there is a certain degree of cruelty in these operations in that they are designed to complicate how folk see what they are doing and, by extension, how they see themselves. [[ideally anyway. whether they do it or not is another matter--one can always not communicate effectively what one sets out to communicate (sometimes my posts are little more than extended demonstrations of this problem).]]

so the motive is that a happyface life within a fucked up context is in itself not desirable: that it is better to look, better to know, better to be disturbed--because most of the problems i feel inclined to talk about unfold whether folk are paying attention or not, and the only way they can be stopped is by upsetting the basis for not paying attention. most of the stuff i do in 3-d is based on the idea that a readership or an audience has to be jolted out of where they are: assaulted almost, disturbed definitely. but you also want there to be some sources of pleasure, something beautiful in the experience: without it not only would everyone leave, but i would loose interest myself. so the trick is to balance these elements against each other, so that in taking something away you are trying to give something back. it is a kind of exchange program, i guess.

because i think that there is beauty out there.

but there is also an enormous amount of stuff that is the opposite, most of which has a definite origin based in discrete choices made by actual people (and so does not come about naturally) for particular reasons, all of which are shaped by particular notions of self-interest--and by the ideological context that enables these notions of self-interest to operate as if they were coherent.
so one can keep sane by balancing the two, and try to do stuff in such a way as it involves a mix of them.
that is the idea anyway.
dunno if it always works out optimally. it probably doesnt. but getting closer is one reason to keep going with all of it.

most activity--intellectual/practical--is at variant of conceptual art.
this includes claims to empiricism: but because these claims are about the world and not about the systems that stage that world (and relations to it), it tends to be very bad conceptual art.
nothing is more tedious than that.
and translated into political reality, nothing more dangerous.

as for putting stuff here, in tfp: it is a parlor game. an intellectual diversion that sometimes has significant rewards in that i learn alot from how folk react, what they argue for and against, how they do it. but it is a parlor game nonetheless: the real stuff, such as it is, happens in the larger aether.

01-11-2007, 01:17 PM	#38 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	mm: hard questions, those are. i react to things that i take to be ethically or politically objectionable in ways that i can: generally, because i can do it, i write stuff. but it is bothersome in that there is no way to know whether what appears in print reaches anyone or does anything, so it may be more about the discharge of affect than anything else, the writing. but it is a public act (after a fashion).... i am politically active, and that does and does not help with the sense of "doing something".... i think that many of the events that happen out there in the world that are truly horrific come about because folk are able to compartmentalize what they see and know in ways that often ends up legitmating means/ends disjunctures. to enable this, all you really have to do is control the political context. that way you set the terms of "legimate" debate and for the most part people will dutilfully derive conclusions based on premises that they are handed without necessarily recognizing that they were handed the premises. so what i imagine writing and teaching and other such activities to be about is making this process more difficult for people. getting in the way, fucking up the process, posing problems for and about it. suggesting alternatives sometimes. but if there arent clear alternatives, you can nonetheless say that political conditions x cause administrative systems 1,2... to act in particular ways, and that these actions have awful consequences that are only possible because BOTH the folk who operate within that system and those who operate within the same political contexts as that system do not connect phenomena together in such a way as to make it clear that these outcomes and the actions of these systems are linked. there is a certain degree of cruelty in these operations in that they are designed to complicate how folk see what they are doing and, by extension, how they see themselves. [[ideally anyway. whether they do it or not is another matter--one can always not communicate effectively what one sets out to communicate (sometimes my posts are little more than extended demonstrations of this problem).]] so the motive is that a happyface life within a fucked up context is in itself not desirable: that it is better to look, better to know, better to be disturbed--because most of the problems i feel inclined to talk about unfold whether folk are paying attention or not, and the only way they can be stopped is by upsetting the basis for not paying attention. most of the stuff i do in 3-d is based on the idea that a readership or an audience has to be jolted out of where they are: assaulted almost, disturbed definitely. but you also want there to be some sources of pleasure, something beautiful in the experience: without it not only would everyone leave, but i would loose interest myself. so the trick is to balance these elements against each other, so that in taking something away you are trying to give something back. it is a kind of exchange program, i guess. because i think that there is beauty out there. but there is also an enormous amount of stuff that is the opposite, most of which has a definite origin based in discrete choices made by actual people (and so does not come about naturally) for particular reasons, all of which are shaped by particular notions of self-interest--and by the ideological context that enables these notions of self-interest to operate as if they were coherent. so one can keep sane by balancing the two, and try to do stuff in such a way as it involves a mix of them. that is the idea anyway. dunno if it always works out optimally. it probably doesnt. but getting closer is one reason to keep going with all of it. most activity--intellectual/practical--is at variant of conceptual art. this includes claims to empiricism: but because these claims are about the world and not about the systems that stage that world (and relations to it), it tends to be very bad conceptual art. nothing is more tedious than that. and translated into political reality, nothing more dangerous. as for putting stuff here, in tfp: it is a parlor game. an intellectual diversion that sometimes has significant rewards in that i learn alot from how folk react, what they argue for and against, how they do it. but it is a parlor game nonetheless: the real stuff, such as it is, happens in the larger aether. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 01-11-2007 at 01:20 PM..