[demonrail666]

Yeah, the 'spectacle' is definitely a reference to Guy Debord. 'Empire' I take as just referring to western political and cultural imperialism. Bloom is a reference to the character in Ulysses but I've not read the 'Bloom' piece so don't know why or how.

I don't know what you'll make of Society of the Spectacle. It's not an easy read. More like a (long) manifesto made up of fragments. It lends itself to dipping into, rather than being read in the conventional cover-to-cover way. If you haven't already read Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, I'd say that'd provide a far more readable (and definitely more substantial, on an intellectual level) backdrop to a lot of the ideas underpinning Young-Girl.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Yeah, the 'spectacle' is definitely a reference to Guy Debord. 'Empire' I take as just referring to western political and cultural imperialism. Bloom is a reference to the character in Ulysses but I've not read the 'Bloom' piece so don't know why or how.

I don't know what you'll make of Society of the Spectacle. It's not an easy read. More like a (long) manifesto made up of fragments. It lends itself to dipping into, rather than being read in the conventional cover-to-cover way. If you haven't already read Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, I'd say that'd provide a far more readable (and definitely more substantial, on an intellectual level) backdrop to a lot of the ideas underpinning Young-Girl.

ha! i see the connections w/ marcuse now but first i thought this was more of a deleuzian tract less frankfurt school.

empire-- see, i don't see the "imperialism", as, there is no emperor, i see an emergent system, yes, but i see no top-down authority, rather, the system itself creates and selects its own bosses. an empire without agency. a fiction. anyway, etc.

bloom-- yes i got the reference (mrkgnao!) because there's a tiqqun text that talks about a "bloom object" and starts with that ulysses scene when poldy feeds the pussens, but i didn't make it past the first paragraph and i was hoping someone would offer a summary.

BUT HEY

brazil/uruguay today which means reading will suffer. ha! ha ha ha! imperialistic entertainments! spectacle! and why not?

alright thanks for the reply man. see you later i'm sure in the fútbol thread.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

empire-- see, i don't see the "imperialism", as, there is no emperor, i see an emergent system, yes, but i see no top-down authority, rather, the system itself creates and selects its own bosses. an empire without agency. a fiction. anyway, etc.

I think that's where the harking back to the 68 era becomes problematic. As you know, intellectual debates in that period were steeped in the language of imperialism, either in reference to the US in Vietnam, the French in Algiers, the Soviet Bloc, etc. But Empire, as a term, while not entirely inappropriate, just seems like an unnecessary distraction now. Cultural imperialism, too. While the role of images (the 'spectacle') is now arguably greater than it's ever been, it's also used in a far more complex way than anything Debord had to contend with more than half a century ago. A case of the problem moving on while the methods employed to tackle it stand still.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i see the connections w/ marcuse now but first i thought this was more of a deleuzian tract less frankfurt school.

Yeah. I suppose there is a sense of it being Frankfurt School ideas wrapped up in a vaguely Deleuzian language, which just seems like the worst of both worlds to me. I might be more into it if it was the other way around but even then, it'd still feels like a homage to someone else's youth. Radicalism as nostalgia. If Tiqqun were a band, they'd be Primal Scream.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Yeah. I suppose there is a sense of it being Frankfurt School ideas wrapped up in a vaguely Deleuzian language, which just seems like the worst of both worlds to me. I might be more into it if it was the other way around but even then, it'd still feels like a homage to someone else's youth. Radicalism as nostalgia. If Tiqqun were a band, they'd be Primal Scream.

ha ha ha. you meanie. and i was enjoying this!

anyway i'll continue after tomorrow or something. and will post some impressions.

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Yeah. I suppose there is a sense of it being Frankfurt School ideas wrapped up in a vaguely Deleuzian language, which just seems like the worst of both worlds to me. I might be more into it if it was the other way around but even then, it'd still feels like a homage to someone else's youth. Radicalism as nostalgia. If Tiqqun were a band, they'd be Primal Scream.

i can't really disagree with this. its either a sign of how absolutely desperate things are, or the last gasp of something finally now ending.

at the same time, at least tiqquns radicalism exists. look at america up until the 80's. the weather underground where prepared to KILL to stop the slaughter of innocents by their own nation. that all stopped, and didn't resurge during the war in iraq.

what the fuck do we have now? we're on a sonic youth message board, a band that paid raymond pettibon to make comics for them (he also did weather underground esque drawings in the same style as the goo cover). and we are either silent and censor this violence or half revel in it in a desperate attempt to shove it in the face of a culture that no longer wants to know.

[demonrail666]

It feels to me like the last gasp of a kind of postmodern intellectual brand of radicalism, with its roots in 68. America has its own radicalism and its own baby boomer spokesfigures regurgitating the ideals of their 60s youth (Amy Goodman, etc) but it also has the likes of the Tea Party and the whole survivalist thing, which in its way is just as counter-cultural, if a bit silly.

[Rob Instigator]

Too many people think buying things is "radical" these days.

[Genteel Death]

The working classes still remain the oppressed and at this point there's no way to add insightful intellectual flourishes to their story, no matter how hard you try. If you keep this in mind you can go through the toughest times even if you realise you won't come out of it alive because of the pressure you go through to remain strong and focused. Everything else is politics as theatre of cruelty, vanity or aimless pessimism. It adds up to nothing.

[Rob Instigator]

The most radical thing one can do in times like these is NOT CARE.

I am leading the pack on this one guys. Follow me.

[Genteel Death]

How's not caring radical? From someone who makes a big fuss about hipsters no less!

[Rob Instigator]

Because everyone throughout the main-stream of anything is goaded into caring about this, that or the other. Hipsters care very much what people think of them.

[dead_battery]

coming up with a model for the state which doesnt murder innocents and cant become hijacked by murderers (NOT THE STATE WE HAVE NOW) and can also defend itself if necessary is surely the one human goal that can never be abandoned.

[Rob Instigator]

There are tons of worthy goals. having people brainwashed into thinking only instant-gratification and self-satisfying goals matter is something to fight against.

also the eradication of superstition. (I define that as any belief that has no basis in empirical reality)

[Genteel Death]

Nick, ''innocents'' and ''murderers'' in the same sentence makes me think of biblical justice, which is only one tiny part of the problem we face as humanity. Religion has become the clothes that give you a smarter appearance in a bigger plan of mass slavery, but ultimately they are forgotten the minute you start doing the job properly. Very useful but no more essential in 2013.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

The working classes still remain the oppressed

I agree, but they've been largely abandoned politically, either by a socialist movement robbed of its union power or a 'new left' dominated by middle class activists distracted by self-serving theoretical in-fighting.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I agree, but they've been largely abandoned politically, either by a socialist movement robbed of its union power or a 'new left' dominated by middle class activists distracted by self-serving theoretical in-fighting.

Oh c'mon, what are you guys basing on your opinions on? Could you please give examples of organisations, political cells etc you've come into contact with that make you think like this? I'm just asking because statements like the above give me the impression we all really spend all our time on the internet talking shit we don't know or really care about just for the sake of it.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

Could you please give examples of organisations, political cells etc you've come into contact with that make you think like this?

The SWP

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

The SWP

It explains a lot. They're the sort of people mid-sermon would throw veganism into their speech.

[Rob Instigator]

I am down with the S1W's