there's our catastrophe

I guess what I’m trying to say is that my stringently anti-cupcake position is totally...

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:14:00 +1000

I guess what I’m trying to say is that my stringently anti-cupcake position is totally defensible

Jeff Sparrow: Andrew Bolt an imbecile? It might console those on the Left to think so but the notion’s entirely ludicrous.

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:03:00 +1000

Jeff Sparrow: Andrew Bolt an imbecile? It might console those on the Left to think so but the notion’s entirely ludicrous.:

In reality, Bolt’s a talented prose writer, adept in the tabloid genre. He’s a powerful speaker (as anyone who has seen him ruthlessly destroy academic critics in public debates would know) and an extraordinarily effective populariser of ideas. Andrew Bolt is conservative and many of his ideas are repellent. But it’s ridiculous to call him stupid on the basis of how many university degrees he does or doesn’t possess.

Now compare Simmonds’ description of Australian academics.

“Academics may also not want to enter public debate. And I can understand why. Firstly, they receive no rewards in terms of career advancement for writing for the public. And secondly, many may not want to engage with a knife-drawn public prone to Goldstein-style Two-Minute Twitter Hate Rituals. Academics are often timorous folk who specialise in showing the complexity of issues, not offering tweet-sized solutions. Social media doesn’t democratise debate. It limits it to the resilient. Snark triumphs over insight, and commentary is reserved for those with voluminous folds of scar-tissue. Sensitive thinkers rarely fit this bill.”

Academics don’t want to engage with public debate because it won’t advance their careers – and also because people might say mean things about them. They’re sensitive, don’t you know!

Does this not perfectly exemplify the problem with the liberal Left? Rather than fighting the Right, liberal academics want to be treated like philosopher kings: protected from snark and richly rewarded any time they deign to comment on public events.

Instead of dismissing polemicists like Bolt, the Left might do better to ask why we lack anyone of a similar calibre. Simmonds praises Slavoj Zizek. But, in the public sphere, what distinguishes Zizek is not his scholarship about Hegel and Badiou but his persona as a provocateur and his willingness to fight for his beliefs – in, dare we say it, a very Bolt-like fashion.

It’s a tradition that the Australian Left seems to have entirely lost. Think back to Hazlitt and his condemnation of “sensitive thinkers” who refuse to battle for ideas that matter. “They betray the cause by not defending it as it is attacked,” he says, “tooth and nail, might and main, without exception and without remorse.”

Zizek gets that. How many Australian academics do?

I HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YONKS that Žižek is the Bolt of the left and I mostly mean that as a slam but ngl, I appreciate his commitment to taking clear positions and going h.a.m., it’s actually the best thing about him and even though I hate a lot of what he says, I hate it more when his fans are like “what he really meant was [less provocative statement]”, like, no, commit or get the fuck out

it’s similar with Socialist Alternative: their positions are terrible, their tactic of intentional polarisation is often pursued in a reprehensible and opportunistic fashion, they are critically lacking in nuance, but they accept that if their ideas are challenging anyone in any way they’ve gotta come out swinging, they see conflict as a necessary thing, they train their new recruits in public speaking and how to emotionally deal with being yelled at by irate ideological opponents

I mean I don’t take back anything I’ve ever said about the importance of being good and kind and approachable to people as much as you can, this “don’t be a philosopher king” thing is really really different from hanging out with your friends and snarking on everyone else’s bad politics, it’s really different to a position of total rejection of the impure, these are also ultimately positions of nonengagement

it’s about how honestly engaging with people will sometimes entail honest disagreement, which can feel really scary, but there’s not really any way out of that

orbsteeb: HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA ARE MELTING RIGHT THRU THE EARTHS CRUST AND FUSING WITH THE...

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:28:53 +1000

orbsteeb:

HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA ARE MELTING RIGHT THRU THE EARTHS CRUST AND FUSING WITH THE MOLTEN CORE OF OUR CORRUPT PLANET!! TO HEAR THEIR MAGNETIC DIRGE IS TO YEARN TO JOIN THEM

Photo

Sun, 19 May 2013 04:40:14 +1000

“ICEMAN cold hard steel” scissors are very manly,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:08:00 +1000

“ICEMAN cold hard steel” scissors are very manly, they will take me in hand and solve my problems

I had to delete Capital off my kindle because it was crashing the system coincidence?

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:10:19 +1000

I had to delete Capital off my kindle because it was crashing the system

coincidence?

get it together soundcloud

Fri, 17 May 2013 04:40:20 +1000

get it together soundcloud

can u not: a memoir

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:46:07 +1000

hnnhlcy: this is a diagram about how people will eat in the...

Thu, 16 May 2013 08:20:22 +1000

hnnhlcy:

this is a diagram about how people will eat in the future. it’s called plugging food in, ever heard of it

working on some fresh material here at our catastrophe dot...

Thu, 16 May 2013 04:40:23 +1000

working on some fresh material here at our catastrophe dot tumblr dot com

sodawound: Have I ever discussed the salt crystal formations in...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:27:11 +1000

sodawound:

Have I ever discussed the salt crystal formations in my copy of A THOUSAND PLATEAUS? This happened a year ago, soon after I ’finally’ (uh, ‘finally’ because this book is a part of a new canon of contemporary socio-philos-rhetorically minded poetic and radical people that i have shared thoughts with in the last 10 years many of whom are senior to me in their academic study and recommended this and the preceding book highly based on my own ramblings of ideas and life, but y’know, not ‘finally’ because i think that there is a necessity to have any particular book ever, read what you want man) purchased my own copy and had only read a few parts of it before this happened. Anyway I think its very funny and I keep it on my shelf as an example of keeping my salt lamp in a safe spot as well as uh, look at the rhizomic bends to the way the salt had formed between pages… nice little deleuzian sculpture. uh anyway I feel d&g may have approved.

lena is the only theory blogger I care about

PSA

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:18:00 +1000

don’t ask me to pick sides in a fight between you and Lorena because I guarantee you won’t like the outcome of that

anarcheluxemburg: If you’re a real Marxist, you wouldn’t use money. Only linen. Exchange everything...

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:14:40 +1000

anarcheluxemburg:

If you’re a real Marxist, you wouldn’t use money. Only linen. Exchange everything with linen. Like, I’ll trade you 20 linen, for what? 2 coats?

Photo

Wed, 15 May 2013 04:40:05 +1000

dingraha: “believing that love without reward is valuable.”

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:20:03 +1000

dingraha:

“believing that love without reward is valuable.”

I’ve thought about getting a pet as a crash course in responsibility but the only pet...

Tue, 14 May 2013 04:40:14 +1000

I’ve thought about getting a pet as a crash course in responsibility but the only pet I’d really want is a cat and too many of the people important to me (esp. lorena) are crazy allergic, it would mean we couldn’t live together or they couldn’t come to my house for possibly 20+ years

I guess I am still a Cat Person

I don’t know, I guess I just used to have a lot of social anxiety, like, literally paralysing...

Mon, 13 May 2013 14:30:00 +1000

I don’t know, I guess I just used to have a lot of social anxiety, like, literally paralysing social anxiety, and with time I’ve come to see that my anxiety twisted my view of the world such that I used to think people were being way more contemptuous than they were, but also that I probably deserved it for being a loser. actually they didn’t devote much thought to me because they had a lot more going on than I ever realised. actually I was just a scared sad kid who was a bit arrogant and narcissistic sometimes but was trying really hard. now that my brain isn’t trying to kill me I can have a lot more compassion for everyone in that situation.

friendliness is a huge thing for me when I’m deciding whether I hold someone in high regard or...

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:59:00 +1000

friendliness is a huge thing for me when I’m deciding whether I hold someone in high regard or not. it’s not about being “but that person has always been nice to me!” whenever shit comes up. friendliness is crucial to an inclusivity and an openness to change that is real and put into practice, rather than simply about holding the right opinions and reblogging the right posts on tumblr dot com.

it’s about actions rather than words

it is work and I respect it

but precisely because it’s work you can’t assume that you’re owed friendliness, you can’t assume that somebody being — in your perception — rude is based on a reasonable expectation of their behaviour. you also can’t assume it’s about who they are as a person rather than their energy levels or you making them feel weird or them prioritising someone else who needs them more right now or a hundred other things

basically just stop assuming everything is about you thx, practice empathy, assume the best where reasonable

a lot of people are really shy and down on themselves and if you think that being warm and friendly...

Mon, 13 May 2013 04:40:00 +1000

a lot of people are really shy and down on themselves and if you think that being warm and friendly has nothing to do with justice or liberation then you’re wrong

my mum is really interested in genealogy, which is like a typical old white person interest or...

Sun, 12 May 2013 22:45:00 +1000

my mum is really interested in genealogy, which is like a typical old white person interest or whatever, but also it’s incredible. it’s absolutely a privilege to have access to genealogical information but I think it’s a privilege you should take advantage of, if at all possible.

one time I went to an environmental conference and two of the Aboriginal elders of that region spoke, talking about the land and their relationship to it through their heritage. an elder who has since died said that it was important not only to listen to her, but to find out about the Indigenous groups on the land you yourself lived on, and what they were doing right now, and their elders. she also said it was important not only to demand that information from others, but to know about your own history, your own people, your own relationship to land. why and how are you standing where you stand?

learning about my family history helps me understand Australian history and my place in it and my responsibilities. through my mum’s incredible research I know that most of my ancestors were desperately poor and oppressed in Europe. they were pushed off any land they had. some of them worked in industries that I recognise from my reading as being very harshly affected by the industrial revolution, like English textile workers. some of them were orphans of parents who died in insane asylums. some of them were famine orphans. some of them fled pogroms. some fled family violence and murder. when they came here they started doing a lot better. I benefit from their improved circumstances. but they came here as shock troops for a genocidal colonial project. knowing this makes a lot of stuff I’ve read and heard about real for me — how colonialism is not a separate issue from the oppression of the working classes in Europe, how imperialism is linked intimately with capitalism, with gender also, how incredibly violent the assimilation into a dominant culture is, yet how complete it can be, how utterly I am not purified by the suffering of my ancestors, how capitalism and imperialism and scarcity turn oppressed people against one another.