allan siegel on Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:44:39 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Crisis 2.0 - the political turn (some comments) P.S. |
Hello Brian, Just a few comments: By postmodern delirium I was referring to that moment when people seemed to abandon history and succumbed to ???capitalism's ability to deliver the goods??? and Reagan and Thatcher were the shining stars starring down the Soviet bear and celebrating neoliberalism???s ascendent status - a wave of privatisation - and the dismemberment of the welfare state (with the various means appropriate to either the UK or the US). To paraphrase Lyotard: the grand narratives of modernism and the Enlightenment were losing traction. The welfare state became a corporate hobby horse with defense and finance leading the pack. Of course the tech companies were in the mix also but that???s another story. So, the crisis you so aptly brought up is actually a series of crises; repetitive global traumas relating to war, climate change, finance etc??? And, contrary to D. Garcia???s trashing of Mr. Zizek, also a crisis in relation to the Liberal (as in the Enlightenment sense) values so highly cherished by Western democracies (whose democratic values are constantly Blowing in the Wind). By an easy reckoning, America???s Liberal values are in a bit of disarray with the police running amok and the country in constant war and anything resembling social democratic values under attack by institutions as vile as any of Europe???s neo-fascist parties. Meanwhile, the financial brains of The City and Wall Street are having a great time pilfering and thieving. And, Cameron is begging Obama for the green light on the totalisation of the surveillance state. Whoppee for Liberalism and plurality??? Plurality only exists for the 1% (when you measure the results) the rest feed on the crumbs that ???ruling classes??? call freedom of speech. I???m not knocking democracy at all but we need to look at things a lot more realistically instead of paying homage to illusions. By that I mean, as you highlighted, places like Spain or Greece, where people are dealing with issues relating to political power and the insidiousness of the neoliberal state. best, always allan (BTW Bordoni and Bauman???s State of Crisis is worth alike) # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org