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well, it's pretty clear at the semantic level that the term "responsible" compresses the structure of a tautology into a little form when it's used to gloss the inside/outside the "system"---but let's assume that the united states does, despite all evidence, resemble a democratic regime in some way--where does "the system" start and stop in a context of popular sovereignty?
it also seems pretty clear--to me anyway--that in the larger scheme of things, we collectively are heading into one of those ideological problematiques in the course of which the underlying statements that shape other statements start to wobble--so if in the us we operate in a neoliberal context--which still has no name--and if one way of thinking about the present situation is as a crisis of neoliberalism itself--and if neoliberal assumptions function (because of repetition, say, unmarked repetition, say) are the kinds of statements that enable other statements (about tactics, say) to be enunciated---and if neoliberal assumptions are themselves increasingly THE problem (to the extent that most of the institutional and economic "issues" we collective are or are not facing)---it would follow (wouldn't it?) that we are surfing a kind of cognitive problem in addition to an ideological problem (there's really no difference between the two, cognitive and ideological)
let's say that the dominant discourse of american political life is itself entirely neoliberal--when you get down to it, most statements about, say, economic activity are passed through the metaphyics of markets and their glorious self- correcting capacities, their ultimate rationality the greatest good for the greatest number yes yes depending of course on who is doing the counting on what counts and what does not yes yes---let's say that it is that discourse itself which is in trouble. let's say that as the americans have functioned beneath the warm and fuzzy blanket of market ideology for the last 28 years or so, that among the outcomes of the institutional correlates of this ideology has been the development of patterns of capital flows that cannot be coherently regulated at the nation-state level.
let's say that we, collectively, are beginning to see the consequences of this.
let's say that we, collectively, have no way of talking about either cause or effect or remedy--not really.
let's say that the dominant political discourse in the united states is shaped almost entirely by neoliberal premises and that these premises are going to begin shaking. they already shake in other places, some of which are characterized by a plurality of dominant discourses. this would enable the naming of neoliberalism.
i am not sure that american political life at this particular juncture would allow for a coherent approach to these basic problems. if you behave "responsibly" at the talk talk talk level, you exclude yourself from being able to raise, much less address, fundamental problems. if you do not behave "responsibly" at the talk talk talk level, you erase yourself as a speaker.
what to do?
what to do?
crash and burn maybe?
it's a curious situation.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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