February 7, 2010
what’s in a name?

@F414 There is no such thing as “capitalism” #

@sdv_duras @F414 [..] are you going to explain why we cannot describe the dominant socio-economic system in a term ? #

@F414 @sdv_duras “capitalism”is based ona simplistic,monolithic view of reality that is in turn based ona simplistic,deterministic view of history #

@sdv_duras @F414 of course I disagree but then you already knew that didn’t you, but then I tend to think that naming something helps us understand it #

@pareidoliac @sdv_duras @f414 naming may assist understanding and equally contribute to making hidden other things… #

@sdv_duras @pareidoliac sure i agree with that, but I would still maintain that a definition and name is a useful starting point… for example without # the name and concept of ‘feminism’ … well we know what that would mean in our society # […] I’m not speaking as a leftist here but as someone interested in why specific acts of naming are being refused # for example where ANT theorists refuse the notion of capitalism they end up with something un-understandable by non academics # for some reason that really bothers me… #

@pareidoliac @sdv_duras well i agree with @f414 that capitalism tends to be used in totalizing ways that are hardly productive of understanding # when used by non academics, ‘capitalism’ often tends to be entirely absurd! # when used by Marxist academics, ‘capitalism’ tends to play into a game of reification # perhaps if those who like the term were less ambitious with their goals… # i wonder if ‘capitalism’ is as misleading as ‘democracy’ or ‘terrorism’ for that matter? #

@sdv_duras @pareidoliac - that’s a different thing entirely, a matter of academicism, not being one its not my concern # a term like capital is a short hand which you can unpack and use, it’s a tool how you unpack it and use it is what amatters #

@pareidoliac @sdv_duras i agree with you re: ‘capital’ yet when we look at so many cases of how this is unpacked and used… that IS what matters! #

@sdv_duras @pareidoliac - if you reject all the huamn ‘isms’ including religion, science, democracy, liberal etc you reject all human knowledge #

3:00pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/376146673
FILED UNDER: language twitter capitalism resistance academia theory 
January 31, 2010
the only reason this #ipad thing even registered…

…is my love for theory war; to the death!

@psychemedia: Ipad isn’t for geeks’n’techies, “it just works”. Got that? “It just works”. It brings digital goods to folk who don’t use or want a computer # “A (personal) computer in every home”. Probably not. A TV in every home? Pretty much. An ipad in every home? Something like it… # aargghhh…most people are not geeks. Their phones, game consoles, cameras are not computers, they are phones, games consoles, cameras # my view is that what ipad range will come to represent is not primarily intended for anybody who is likely to read this… Maybe;-) #

@hauntagonist: Btw the iPad is a further evolution towards interpassivity-enabling technology. Touch only reinforces the paradox and myth of interactivity. # We do not lack communication. On the contrary we have too much of it. We lack *creation*. We lack resistance to the present -Deleuze #iPad #

@sdv_duras: @hauntagonist - does that not imply that all modern technologies are leading to increasing passivity ? #

hauntagonist: @sdv_duras I think I agree with that. #

@kpunk99: @hauntagonist Baudrillard For A Critique Of The Political Economy of The Sign is astonishingly prescient on these matters IMO #

via @josshands: @mckenziewark: Rather than phones becoming tiny computers, we’re going to get computers that are just big phones: closed, proprietary, unhackable. #

And then also this via @jayrosen_nyu & that by @sociologylens

fun!

4:38pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/363378034
FILED UNDER: theory technology conflict capitalism Consumption culture 
January 12, 2010
ei: Making a business out of Palestine's struggle

“More and more, it seems, people are attempting to monetize both the occupation of Palestine and the so-called peace process. But can the profit-logic of a business really play a positive role in the Palestinian struggle?”

8:11pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/330985691
FILED UNDER: palestine politics capitalism 
January 4, 2010
"Social participation is the oil of the digital economy. Life itself is put to work. The Social Web is free for us to use but the middleman is paid with our data. We are willing give up our anonymity for convenience and “free services.” We are then here to be traced and not to lost our names. Time spent on Facebook and Twitter stops us from pursuing the expropriation of the expropriators. It is a classic double bind. Many people depend on their web-presence and the wealth of their network when they enter the job market… The future may be user-led but each click for the benefit of the commons is also potential, profit in the pockets of the intermediaries."

— semioticmonkey on Dec 30th, 2009

9:17am  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/316079916
(No. OF NOTES: 2)
  
FILED UNDER: media internet facebook twitter capitalism politics economics resistance 
December 10, 2009

“We often hear folks argue that “Art is my life,” but that is hyperbole. It might makes sense in the context by which generally they mean that they’ve made a series of decisions to ensure their practice within the art world remains front and center to where and how they live, how they socialize, what they do with their free time, etc. Art isn’t actually anybody’s life, even if it dominates their lifestyle. Art, in the broadest sense (the making, selling, curating, collecting, contemplating, and writing about it), is and forever will be a luxury.”

via photographyprison + Edward Winkleman

9:02pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/277922597
FILED UNDER: art capitalism culture resistance economics 
November 23, 2009
Mozart Was a Red: A Morality Play in One Act

via @IlllllllllllllI

11:53pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/254878800
FILED UNDER: capitalism literature history ideology 
November 21, 2009
ephemera: theory & politics in organization

“ephemera encourages the amplification of the political problematics of organization within academic debate…” - radical business schooling?

via federicoariasr

3:22pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/251942569
(No. OF NOTES: 1)
  
FILED UNDER: capitalism politics theory 
November 21, 2009
After 1968

On the notion of the political in postmarxist theory.

via federicoariasr

3:15pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/251937452
(No. OF NOTES: 1)
  
FILED UNDER: politics marxism theory history europe capitalism 
November 20, 2009
“Oh, and the picture above? That’s a shot from a lab Disney is operating very quietly down in Austin. Using behavioral science and human subjects, they are tracking heart-rate, skin temperature, facial muscles and eye movements to cognitively engineer irresistible web pages and on-line advertisements.” via photographyprison + The Relevance of BAGnews

“Oh, and the picture above? That’s a shot from a lab Disney is operating very quietly down in Austin. Using behavioral science and human subjects, they are tracking heart-rate, skin temperature, facial muscles and eye movements to cognitively engineer irresistible web pages and on-line advertisements.”

via photographyprison + The Relevance of BAGnews

9:02pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/251117077
FILED UNDER: photography capitalism media consumption 
November 19, 2009
Im Dschungelkampf vertraute Che auf eine Kapitaliste-Ikone, eine echte Rolex Submariner. via easternblocparty + leasiscof + nevver

Im Dschungelkampf vertraute Che auf eine Kapitaliste-Ikone, eine echte Rolex Submariner.

via easternblocparty + leasiscof + nevver

9:01pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/249971384
(No. OF NOTES: 51)
  
FILED UNDER: consumption capitalism communism photography cuba history 
November 12, 2009
Certificate of Entitlement by @lessig

Certificate of Entitlement by @lessig

12:47pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/241435607
FILED UNDER: resistance capitalism education academia graphics 
November 12, 2009
Tool Tip: “Hey, what are the odds - five Ayn Rand fans on the same train!  Must be going to a convention.” :)

Tool Tip: “Hey, what are the odds - five Ayn Rand fans on the same train!  Must be going to a convention.” :)

1:20am  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/240896487
FILED UNDER: comics graphics philosophy capitalism 
November 8, 2009
The Hydrostatics of the Dollar via @brainpicker

The Hydrostatics of the Dollar via @brainpicker

9:42am  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/236858798
FILED UNDER: art capitalism graphics visualization 
November 6, 2009
Learning Truth Telling Beyond Neoliberal Education > Radical Notes

[..] It not uncommon to hear in academic seminars, policy meetings and debates that the theoretical is anti-practical and theoretical discussions slow down the completion of projects. There is a tacit agreement that when a discussion gets into a deadlock on account of theory a decision can be taken on the basis of the practical. Often at meetings one hears “too much of democracy is not going to lead anywhere”. In other words, there is no time for discussion. Time constraints are imposed by financial considerations – ‘the work needs to be one within the time-frame for which the money has been sanctioned’.

There is a conflict between financial time and discussion time. In this conflict the discussion time shrinks and this obviously implies a shrinking of theoretical space.

Such conflict and shrinking has filtered down to other fields of social and political life. Debates on policy are short and snappy, what with political activists being averse to theory. They want action and have no time for reflection. In universities there are fewer students who opt for the social sciences for they do not get one a job. Such pressure has compelled the re-invention of more market-friendly syllabi in the social sciences.

The meaning of theory itself has changed. A good example is ‘theory for computer programs’ taught in schools and institutes. It refers to a list of terms and procedures to run the program and there is no space for asking the why how and what. Here theory itself has become the instrument.

In social sciences, theory is more often than not envisaged as the lens or the frame (legal, conceptual, experiential, religious…) through and within which we see the world. In the first instance, the world appears either smaller (as if viewed through a convex lens) or larger (seen through the concave) than what it is. In the case of theory being the frame, the world is viewed with the terms of reference specified by the task to be accomplished. In both instances, theory is the ally of fragmentation and encourages the exclusion of critical voices of people from diverse experiences and plural cultures.

The neoliberal economy has converted theory into an instrumentality for manufacturing consent. [..] ###

via @mosabou

9:22pm  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/235275673
FILED UNDER: education academia knowledge capitalism time theory ideology 
November 5, 2009
Labor and Monopoly Capital. The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, by Harry Braverman

“The novelty of this development during the past century lies not in the separate existence of hand and brain, conception and execution, but the rigor with which they are divided from one another, and then increasingly subdivided, so that conception is concentrated, insofar as possible, in ever more limited groups within management or closely associated with it. Thus, in the setting of antagonistic social relations, of alienated labour, hand and brain become not just separated, but divided and hostile, and the human unity of hand and brain turns into its opposite, something less than human.

The paper replica of production, the shadow form which corresponds to the physical, calls into existence a variety of new occupations, the hallmark of which is that they are found not in the flow of things but in the flow of paper” (pp. 125-6)

via the next layer + @submedina

12:44am  |   URL: http://micro.maximalis.me/post/233365345
FILED UNDER: capitalism politics literature history knowledge