Re: <nettime> Sex Work and Consent at @transmediale

[Margaret Morse <memorse@comcast.net>]

Dear John and Morlock,
You both jump immediately to the mind/body connection.  Does that mean that whether we think or do something, it is the same and has the same consequences on the body or the mind?  are there no distinctions or nuances at any level?  Fiction works, for instance, because there are also checks and limits to action in our brain.  Is a neural pathway forged through corporeal motion exactly the same as one forged through following intellectual pursuits?  Are you ready to equate the consequences of mental and physical labor when it comes to aging and the life course?  

As for writing inane papers, I think it is wholly up to the writer whether he chooses to write something meaningless to himself.  (Even when writers and academics have been persecuted and censored, they find ways to express themselves.)  If it is the context per se that is inane (and possibly hateful) as far as he is concerned, then he needs to change the context.  It is painful to lose integrity and/or dignity; it is possible to chose to be a prostitute and maintain both.  I think the situation of the academic as represented here is more compromised ethically.  Depression could also be a significant problem for such a person, caught in a situation where he must perform and apparently doesn't have the mental and physical capacity to reconfigure the task into something meaningful to him.  

Best wishes,
MM

On Feb 10, 2012, at 10:01 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote:

> Several replies indicate wide-spread religious attitude towards intellect, a brain-body separation reminiscent of the traditional theories of language before biolinguistics put them out of business.

<...>


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