| | I have been trying to identify and understand a kind of anxiety I have felt while reading materials for this class thus far.
The “problem” of the course has been identified, albeit with some hesitation (aka the “pawning of the license”). The Holmes and Cohen pieces were assigned to provide us with the tools to attack the problem (aka the function of the functionalist approach). Accordingly, the next step will probably be for us to learn how to use tools like functionalism to not pawn our licenses. | | | Staying away from religion, I do not believe there are any such pervasive algorithms today. (Regarding pragmatism, it is clear—to me at least—that the current state of affairs is in general hardly better if not worse than those of the past.) Accordingly, by using tools like functionalism the risk is much higher that we will not attain that which we desire (or worse, that we will end up with that which we never desired at all). | |
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< | Maybe the anxiety we are currently facing is ultimately us grappling with this increased risk?? | >
> | Maybe the anxiety we are currently facing is ultimately us grappling with what we take to be this increased risk?? | | | -- KalliopeKefallinos - 09 Feb 2010 | | | "Finally, the nature of the suffering that interests Le Guin is ordinary, chronic, acute, and cruddy rather than catastrophic, eventful, and sublime. Every so often the child in the basement is given a kick. But for the most part her misery is a quieter form of abjection, despair, and impoverishment. There is nothing spectacular to report. Nothing happens that rises to the level of an event. Life drifts into a form of death that can be certified as due to 'natural causes.' As a result any ethical impulse dependent on a certain kind of event and eventfulness flounders in these closets." | |
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< | Povinelli wants “to understand why present tense modes of live and dying are transformed into future anterior modes of the proper life,” and she argues that ultimately we might try to understand -- and to act accordingly -- that "life is defined not by some redemptive future but what the understanding that this is what is. No future will have made it anything else. No present can be divided in such a way that what I have—my body and its health, my things, my affects—is not cosubstantial with what you have and do not have. We hardly have to have the same things, the same desires, tastes, languages or aspirations. But the tighter the neoliberal market ties us all to one scale of value, the looser the post-Fordist state’s grip on any ethical obligation to the health and welfare of its citizens, and the more wakeful late liberal subjects are to what time it is, the more gripping Le Guin’s simple ethical paradox becomes. Everyone must decide if their happiness is worth the suffering of those within the fetid broom closet. And in this world where we live there is no exit. We can only change the distribution of life and death so that some have more and some to have less." | >
> | Povinelli wants “to understand why present tense modes of live and dying are transformed into future anterior modes of the proper life,” and she argues that ultimately we might try to understand -- and to act accordingly -- that "life is defined not by some redemptive future but by the understanding that this is what is. No future will have made it anything else. No present can be divided in such a way that what I have—my body and its health, my things, my affects—is not cosubstantial with what you have and do not have. We hardly have to have the same things, the same desires, tastes, languages or aspirations. But the tighter the neoliberal market ties us all to one scale of value, the looser the post-Fordist state’s grip on any ethical obligation to the health and welfare of its citizens, and the more wakeful late liberal subjects are to what time it is, the more gripping Le Guin’s simple ethical paradox becomes. Everyone must decide if their happiness is worth the suffering of those within the fetid broom closet. And in this world where we live there is no exit. We can only change the distribution of life and death so that some have more and some to have less." | | | So, if you’re still with me, I think partly the answer to your question about the anxiety we’re facing is to understand that we should be operating on a couple of levels of both inquiry and action. Assuming that we’re interested in working for a better world, we’ve got to learn strategy, and to do what we can to ensure a better situation in the future; but at the same time we shouldn’t allow our orientation towards the future in that respect to cloud our vision of the facts on the ground. Presently those facts aren’t so good -- not that they’ve ever been. But in the current moment, in the midst of a global economic crisis and multiple (and asymmetric) wars -- a crisis and wars that have in some ways been fostered and amplified by an explosion of information flows -- those facts are perhaps less avoidable than they might have been in the past. We are constantly faced with the fact that we are living in a world that we are seemingly unable to right. And so I think the anxiety that you’re talking about stems not so much from the increased risk that we won’t attain what we desire as it does from the tension between a future-oriented strategy and the radical present that we seem powerless to change, or at least in which our efforts might not be as immediately evident as were those of Weber’s hardworking Calvinists. | | | But I would argue that the problem today is that no one really knows how to get to a "better world" at all, either by sacrificing present concerns or by balancing future and present concerns. Various macro-level theories are advanced about how to proceed to a "better world." The problem is, there seems to be no agreed upon way to determine whether a particular macro-level theory works or not. Statistics are thrown around, groups rally mindlessly around their own particular theory-totem, and no one ever really knows whether a particular policy actually did anything productive or not.
-- ChristopherCrismanCox - 15 Feb 2010 | |
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> | Well, I shouldn’t have read the Omelas story before bedtime. That’s some imagery I’d soon rather forget.
Before I respond, let me first summarize what I take to be Glover’s position: The various current events of the present day gives us a feeling of hopelessness. Consequently, we find it increasingly difficult to find the motivation to work for a better future. Nonetheless, we have an “ethic” which impels us to keep following “those algorithms…while we yet remain conscious that things are not so rosy as we would like.”
I would like to know what you mean by “ethic” and “those algorithms.” Is the ethic the “conscience” you mention in the final sentence? What does the conscience say to impel someone to keep pushing themselves forward when they feel hopelessness?
To respond to Christopher, I agree with your point about questioning the validity of proposed macro-economic theories and other policies (right?), but I think I would add a power/ greed component. Even if some theory/ set of theories was highly likely to “work,” the only people with the power to implement the theories at the end of the day would rather keep the child in the broom closet than get the hell out of Omelas.
-- KalliopeKefallinos - 18 Feb 2010 |
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