Comments for Untimely Mediations http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:24:55 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 Comment on Super Response for Super Tuesday by cydnee http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/super-response-for-super-tuesday/#comment-123 cydnee Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:24:55 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/super-response-for-super-tuesday/#comment-123 who do you think is write about the whole case, the sophists, or Socrates? I believe Socrates is not guilty because all he did is ask a couple of questions...there's nothing wrong with that ...is there? who do you think is write about the whole case, the sophists, or Socrates? I believe Socrates is not guilty because all he did is ask a couple of questions…there’s nothing wrong with that …is there?

]]> Comment on “Gallons of Tears” Galloway vs. “Keep em’ Kneelin” Nealon by Pruchnic http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/gallons-of-tears-galloway-vs-keep-em-kneelin-nealon/#comment-99 Pruchnic Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:16:46 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/?p=62#comment-99 Yes, certainly, as we've discussed several times this past semester, the category of "resistance" itself (hence the scare quotes) is one we'll have to rename, perhaps, to rethink (if the text functions in WP allowed it, I'd drop a slash all Martin H.-style through it, to code the difference). And yes, the attribution of agency to only those subjects that show some vector that is "against" the dominant (and this has been the party line in ethical theorizing by Derrida, Badiou, Zizek, etc. in recent discourse) is both problematic and impractical. On the one hand, this situation might be remedied by abandoning the "marginal" or "resistant" status of leftist action - just focus on the concrete goals that are desired by whatever actors in specific situations and don't worry about how this is "liberatory" or "resistant." But I take it the larger questions, and this is something we can talk about in our next meeting, are the following: 1. Can we give up on fetishizing what Galloway codes as "people's real desires" as the vector that "should" be driving technology, social policy, etc. (176)? Aside from the chicken-egg conundrum here (did I want facebook before it was invented?), there's an unresolved question about how we could go about claiming access to "real" desires. OK, maybe Netflix's Cinematch and Amazon's data-pool driven recommendation software are what Galloway calls "collaborative filtering," perhaps there is something, as he says, "hegemonic" about their interpolative powers, and, perhaps, as Nealon alludes, they are in some ways the [comic] equivalent of Foucault's conceptual confessional, but one cannot just critique the service as dangerous for crowding out a user's "real desires?" What are these "real desires?" One must be careful here to not assume that one's "real desires" are the ones that are (however one might determine this) what's "best" for the subject. Maybe I do just want amateur pornography and a good deal on the 3rd season of *Veronica Mars*. And you know I'm keeping it real. In other words, though I buy the idea that "tactical media" (as Galloway frames it) *does* change technology to be responsive to the "desires" of its users, this is true (or at least only ostensibly true) for the individuals making the change themselves. I.e., I'm doing tactical media when I change my defaults on MS Word - it's closer to acting the way I want. However, when one claims that more public versions of tactical media get closer to the "real desires" of users as a generic group (or that this has ethico-political implications), I'm not convinced. To gloss Galloway's question on the final pages of *Protocol*, people DO want the "system" to function like a market economy. 2. The second question, and this is one we talked a bit about next week, is perhaps a broader inquiry into "agency" and "subjectivity" as categories typically cathected to particular strategies or actions that result from changes (in agency or subjectivity). Can we give up on the idea that a "subjective change" leads to more progressive/ethical action? The easier "side" of this equation is largely the focus of Sloterdijk's *Critique of Cynical Reason*: people *do* know what they're are doing/what's being done to them ("Look Mom, I'm Being Exploited by Capitalism!"), it's just that they continue to act as they have previously (thus we may have to give up on "duping," "ideological mystification," and "critical consciousness" as concepts in their traditional senses). The harder part, and this is what I referred to as the Machiavellian question, is whether we can make piece with the use of rhetorical strategies that are manipulative and exploitive in order to further out "progressive" goals - or, at the very least, can we give up on the categories of "exploitive," "resistant," or "complicit," etc., in regards to rhetorical strategies? (side note: this is my feel about Michael Hardt's comment during his recent visit to WSU that his work is not necessarily meant to impact the "material" realm - what I wish he would have done was embrace his role as a produce of propaganda - just said, "look, maybe I point a rosy picture about the inevitability of overthrowing the system, but I do this because if I can convince enough people it's about to happen, it will happen.") To swerve through comp pedagogy, perhaps the real "critical consciousness" we should be fostering in students is not a hermeneutics of suspicion - a maintenance of the distinction between what is "real" and what has been "forced" on the subject (or the "real desires" vs. those that have been installed through interpolation), but between the goals they want to achieve and the rhetorical strategies they might have to use (specifically, if the right has stolen the discourses of marginalization and resistance, the left may have to steal some strategies from the right). One might also think about this in reference to Galloway's rhetorical (x2) question about why computer viruses have a "bad name" whereas viral marketing, etc., have more positive connotations. The answer (AIDs narrative notwithstanding), I take it, is that we recognize viral media as a robust strategy for achieving particular goals ("buy this!"), but see computer viruses as overwhelmingly negative because they take disruption or reduction in efficiency as their primary goal: they are only to be valued if we value disruption as some kind of lockstep (positive) form or resistance or difference, and the clock has been ticking on that strategy for quite some time. Yes, certainly, as we’ve discussed several times this past semester, the category of “resistance” itself (hence the scare quotes) is one we’ll have to rename, perhaps, to rethink (if the text functions in WP allowed it, I’d drop a slash all Martin H.-style through it, to code the difference). And yes, the attribution of agency to only those subjects that show some vector that is “against” the dominant (and this has been the party line in ethical theorizing by Derrida, Badiou, Zizek, etc. in recent discourse) is both problematic and impractical. On the one hand, this situation might be remedied by abandoning the “marginal” or “resistant” status of leftist action – just focus on the concrete goals that are desired by whatever actors in specific situations and don’t worry about how this is “liberatory” or “resistant.” But I take it the larger questions, and this is something we can talk about in our next meeting, are the following:
1. Can we give up on fetishizing what Galloway codes as “people’s real desires” as the vector that “should” be driving technology, social policy, etc. (176)? Aside from the chicken-egg conundrum here (did I want facebook before it was invented?), there’s an unresolved question about how we could go about claiming access to “real” desires. OK, maybe Netflix’s Cinematch and Amazon’s data-pool driven recommendation software are what Galloway calls “collaborative filtering,” perhaps there is something, as he says, “hegemonic” about their interpolative powers, and, perhaps, as Nealon alludes, they are in some ways the [comic] equivalent of Foucault’s conceptual confessional, but one cannot just critique the service as dangerous for crowding out a user’s “real desires?” What are these “real desires?” One must be careful here to not assume that one’s “real desires” are the ones that are (however one might determine this) what’s “best” for the subject. Maybe I do just want amateur pornography and a good deal on the 3rd season of *Veronica Mars*. And you know I’m keeping it real. In other words, though I buy the idea that “tactical media” (as Galloway frames it) *does* change technology to be responsive to the “desires” of its users, this is true (or at least only ostensibly true) for the individuals making the change themselves. I.e., I’m doing tactical media when I change my defaults on MS Word – it’s closer to acting the way I want. However, when one claims that more public versions of tactical media get closer to the “real desires” of users as a generic group (or that this has ethico-political implications), I’m not convinced. To gloss Galloway’s question on the final pages of *Protocol*, people DO want the “system” to function like a market economy.
2. The second question, and this is one we talked a bit about next week, is perhaps a broader inquiry into “agency” and “subjectivity” as categories typically cathected to particular strategies or actions that result from changes (in agency or subjectivity). Can we give up on the idea that a “subjective change” leads to more progressive/ethical action? The easier “side” of this equation is largely the focus of Sloterdijk’s *Critique of Cynical Reason*: people *do* know what they’re are doing/what’s being done to them (“Look Mom, I’m Being Exploited by Capitalism!”), it’s just that they continue to act as they have previously (thus we may have to give up on “duping,” “ideological mystification,” and “critical consciousness” as concepts in their traditional senses). The harder part, and this is what I referred to as the Machiavellian question, is whether we can make piece with the use of rhetorical strategies that are manipulative and exploitive in order to further out “progressive” goals – or, at the very least, can we give up on the categories of “exploitive,” “resistant,” or “complicit,” etc., in regards to rhetorical strategies? (side note: this is my feel about Michael Hardt’s comment during his recent visit to WSU that his work is not necessarily meant to impact the “material” realm – what I wish he would have done was embrace his role as a produce of propaganda – just said, “look, maybe I point a rosy picture about the inevitability of overthrowing the system, but I do this because if I can convince enough people it’s about to happen, it will happen.”) To swerve through comp pedagogy, perhaps the real “critical consciousness” we should be fostering in students is not a hermeneutics of suspicion – a maintenance of the distinction between what is “real” and what has been “forced” on the subject (or the “real desires” vs. those that have been installed through interpolation), but between the goals they want to achieve and the rhetorical strategies they might have to use (specifically, if the right has stolen the discourses of marginalization and resistance, the left may have to steal some strategies from the right). One might also think about this in reference to Galloway’s rhetorical (x2) question about why computer viruses have a “bad name” whereas viral marketing, etc., have more positive connotations. The answer (AIDs narrative notwithstanding), I take it, is that we recognize viral media as a robust strategy for achieving particular goals (“buy this!”), but see computer viruses as overwhelmingly negative because they take disruption or reduction in efficiency as their primary goal: they are only to be valued if we value disruption as some kind of lockstep (positive) form or resistance or difference, and the clock has been ticking on that strategy for quite some time.

]]> Comment on “Gallons of Tears” Galloway vs. “Keep em’ Kneelin” Nealon by untimelymediations http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/gallons-of-tears-galloway-vs-keep-em-kneelin-nealon/#comment-96 untimelymediations Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:32:34 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/?p=62#comment-96 Is there a category we can think of other than "resistance?" Isn't part of what we learned last week from Foucault and Nealon (reading Foucault) that power only exists in response to resistance? That is, if we only recognize power for the way it is challenged, or the way it is confronted (ala the Kafka story "Before the Law"), is "resistance" an empty category, or at least one that has been misnamed? That is, if our normal state, per Nealon, is resistance, it hardly seems appropriate to insist on "resistance" as signifying the sort of political action against power that we might otherwise associate it with. If power=resistance to power (and the reverse is true), then power is not so much oppression or repression as an equilibrium, a homeostasis, what (drawing on Marx's nature imagery) we might describe as the metabolic maintenance of social order. Perhaps the error comes in associating a romanticized idea of resistance with the attributes of agency or effectivity, in that we assume agency is only a given when contesting power? If Foucault and Nealon are correct in saying that power is productive of subjects, rather than repressive or destructive, what might be gained by asking where power provides for those subjectivities that challenge existing social orders? MLM Is there a category we can think of other than “resistance?” Isn’t part of what we learned last week from Foucault and Nealon (reading Foucault) that power only exists in response to resistance? That is, if we only recognize power for the way it is challenged, or the way it is confronted (ala the Kafka story “Before the Law”), is “resistance” an empty category, or at least one that has been misnamed? That is, if our normal state, per Nealon, is resistance, it hardly seems appropriate to insist on “resistance” as signifying the sort of political action against power that we might otherwise associate it with. If power=resistance to power (and the reverse is true), then power is not so much oppression or repression as an equilibrium, a homeostasis, what (drawing on Marx’s nature imagery) we might describe as the metabolic maintenance of social order. Perhaps the error comes in associating a romanticized idea of resistance with the attributes of agency or effectivity, in that we assume agency is only a given when contesting power? If Foucault and Nealon are correct in saying that power is productive of subjects, rather than repressive or destructive, what might be gained by asking where power provides for those subjectivities that challenge existing social orders?

MLM

]]> Comment on “Gallons of Tears” Galloway vs. “Keep em’ Kneelin” Nealon by Pruchnic http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/gallons-of-tears-galloway-vs-keep-em-kneelin-nealon/#comment-95 Pruchnic Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:31:34 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/?p=62#comment-95 Subjectivity: Can't Live With It, Can't Live Without It Derek keys in here on a point that, I take it, will be central to our discussion tomorrow: if the "logic" of control is more of a "techne" or "techno-logic" than a bio-logic (Aristotle and now Agamben), economic logic (Marx), or cultural logic (Mandel and Jameson), then how can we figure subjectivity, and, more immediately, "action" or "resistance" in relation to this force field? As Derek points out, it might seem here that Galloway is hip to a new reading of "control" but has not gone as far in rethinking *subjectivity* (in general) and *agency* in particular. Resistance, in *Protocol,* despite Galloway's attention to the fact that "it is *through* protocol that one must guide one's efforts, not against it" (17), and the concomitant post-*Empire* revelation that strategies of difference and deconstruction are not viable weapons against "the new enemy," "resistance" in this text still looks very much like our old-school notions of subjective and/or collective contrarianism: cyberfeminists and computer hackers "disrupting" the system (much like Virno's reliance, in last week's text, on exit value and civil disobedience: old tools that may have a new purpose?). In regards to Deleuze, we can phrase the same question a different way: if the "target" of control (or social power however we may take it) is now "life itself," then through what are the new strategic forms "life" might take? Galloway shows fidelity to Deleuze's brief work on control societies (including D's interest in "hacking" and the disruption of communication as productive "resistant" strategies), but is perhaps not as attentive to the focus on "life itself" in D's other late-works and the appendix to the *Foucault* book ("After the Death of Man and Superman*) which suggests a certain kind of "post-political" and transhuman response to the ethical and pragmatic questions of control society. All of which is not to say that one must follow Deleuze that far if they follow him as far as control society, but I take it that pursuing this line would give us something rather different than an examination of how protocol functions "for certain groups" (the "ruling class," as Galloway names it) and against others, and perhaps might not rely as much on "the active" (vs. passive) user and the "real desires" of individuals enmeshed in these systems (which might lead to some troubling questions as to what "real desires" might be). Subjectivity: Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It

Derek keys in here on a point that, I take it, will be central to our discussion tomorrow: if the “logic” of control is more of a “techne” or “techno-logic” than a bio-logic (Aristotle and now Agamben), economic logic (Marx), or cultural logic (Mandel and Jameson), then how can we figure subjectivity, and, more immediately, “action” or “resistance” in relation to this force field?

As Derek points out, it might seem here that Galloway is hip to a new reading of “control” but has not gone as far in rethinking *subjectivity* (in general) and *agency* in particular. Resistance, in *Protocol,* despite Galloway’s attention to the fact that “it is *through* protocol that one must guide one’s efforts, not against it” (17), and the concomitant post-*Empire* revelation that strategies of difference and deconstruction are not viable weapons against “the new enemy,” “resistance” in this text still looks very much like our old-school notions of subjective and/or collective contrarianism: cyberfeminists and computer hackers “disrupting” the system (much like Virno’s reliance, in last week’s text, on exit value and civil disobedience: old tools that may have a new purpose?).

In regards to Deleuze, we can phrase the same question a different way: if the “target” of control (or social power however we may take it) is now “life itself,” then through what are the new strategic forms “life” might take? Galloway shows fidelity to Deleuze’s brief work on control societies (including D’s interest in “hacking” and the disruption of communication as productive “resistant” strategies), but is perhaps not as attentive to the focus on “life itself” in D’s other late-works and the appendix to the *Foucault* book (“After the Death of Man and Superman*) which suggests a certain kind of “post-political” and transhuman response to the ethical and pragmatic questions of control society. All of which is not to say that one must follow Deleuze that far if they follow him as far as control society, but I take it that pursuing this line would give us something rather different than an examination of how protocol functions “for certain groups” (the “ruling class,” as Galloway names it) and against others, and perhaps might not rely as much on “the active” (vs. passive) user and the “real desires” of individuals enmeshed in these systems (which might lead to some troubling questions as to what “real desires” might be).

]]> Comment on “Gallons of Tears” Galloway vs. “Keep em’ Kneelin” Nealon by New discussion blog « Foucault blog http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/gallons-of-tears-galloway-vs-keep-em-kneelin-nealon/#comment-88 New discussion blog « Foucault blog Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:14:53 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/?p=62#comment-88 [...] discussions have addressed Nealon’s Foucault Beyond Foucault and [...] [...] discussions have addressed Nealon’s Foucault Beyond Foucault and [...]

]]> Comment on Nealon at the Alter of the Foucaultian Legacy by What I don’t know about good beer « The jargoncomputer http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/nealon-at-the-alter-of-the-foucaultian-legacy/#comment-87 What I don’t know about good beer « The jargoncomputer Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:11:40 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/nealon-at-the-alter-of-the-foucaultian-legacy/#comment-87 [...] brings me to my next point in relationship to Nealon’s text.  Although I posted on this previously, by means of the directed study site, it seems that Nealon’s text makes another important [...] [...] brings me to my next point in relationship to Nealon’s text.  Although I posted on this previously, by means of the directed study site, it seems that Nealon’s text makes another important [...]

]]> Comment on An Early Post: Questions, Considerations, Etc. by Pruchnic http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/an-early-post-questions-considerations-etc/#comment-59 Pruchnic Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:50:54 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/?p=52#comment-59 More on time ("to-come") on Tuesday; but for now it might be best to think through Stiegler's interest in the this valence of control in reference to Deleuze's use of the same term (and, importantly, of "cybernetics" and "communication") to make a distinction with Foucauldian "discipline" in the *Negotiations* essays published shortly before his death. The kind of "control" Stiegler talks about here is not the lockstep influence over the kinds of practices (and categories of individuals and systems) that might be made "possible" or "impossible" within a societal structure (as in discipline). Rather, "control" here names a purely instrumental or "conceptual" (rather than particular or practical) force that forms the conditions of possibility for systematic integration of moments of spontaneity or difference; i.e., the "control" of "technosociety" is not a series of structures that rigidly dictate what may take place, but rather a force field that actively and flexibly responds to these outbreaks in a way that continues the maintenance (and evolution) of the present system. Thus, in a sense then, the system "itself" is premised on spontaneity and invention as its driving force, rather than being "vulnerable" to such instances as acts or forces of resistance. More on time (“to-come”) on Tuesday; but for now it might be best to think through Stiegler’s interest in the this valence of control in reference to Deleuze’s use of the same term (and, importantly, of “cybernetics” and “communication”) to make a distinction with Foucauldian “discipline” in the *Negotiations* essays published shortly before his death. The kind of “control” Stiegler talks about here is not the lockstep influence over the kinds of practices (and categories of individuals and systems) that might be made “possible” or “impossible” within a societal structure (as in discipline). Rather, “control” here names a purely instrumental or “conceptual” (rather than particular or practical) force that forms the conditions of possibility for systematic integration of moments of spontaneity or difference; i.e., the “control” of “technosociety” is not a series of structures that rigidly dictate what may take place, but rather a force field that actively and flexibly responds to these outbreaks in a way that continues the maintenance (and evolution) of the present system. Thus, in a sense then, the system “itself” is premised on spontaneity and invention as its driving force, rather than being “vulnerable” to such instances as acts or forces of resistance.

]]> Comment on Untitled (or a refusal to participate in this title competition) by Dayvan cowboy http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/untitled-or-a-refusal-to-participate-in-this-title-competition/#comment-52 Dayvan cowboy Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:02:36 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/untitled-or-a-refusal-to-participate-in-this-title-competition/#comment-52 Aren't you adhering to a much too fixed structure of revolution to file this under "Deleuze"? Maybe Jay-Z's glam is permanent, rhizomatic revolution permeating through the semiotics of blackness, previously relegated to the status of primitive tribal culture. Don't microtase me, bro. Aren’t you adhering to a much too fixed structure of revolution to file this under “Deleuze”? Maybe Jay-Z’s glam is permanent, rhizomatic revolution permeating through the semiotics of blackness, previously relegated to the status of primitive tribal culture.

Don’t microtase me, bro.

]]> Comment on Stop Making Sense by Joseph Weissman http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/stop-making-sense/#comment-51 Joseph Weissman Wed, 05 Mar 2008 06:45:37 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/stop-making-sense/#comment-51 This sounds like a great paper in the works. I'm wondering -- how do you think sexuality fits into this question? I wonder about the notion of "vanishing" positionality or temporality -- maybe we should continue the dissolution, escaping the "absence" produced by technological "mediation" or prosthesis -- like chat rooms, dissolving your identity almost as effective as psychoanalysis...! On this I'm really thinking of the last third of the Logic of Sense (though Anti-Oedipus also seems to have similar concerns.) Thanks for this! Joe This sounds like a great paper in the works. I’m wondering — how do you think sexuality fits into this question? I wonder about the notion of “vanishing” positionality or temporality — maybe we should continue the dissolution, escaping the “absence” produced by technological “mediation” or prosthesis — like chat rooms, dissolving your identity almost as effective as psychoanalysis…! On this I’m really thinking of the last third of the Logic of Sense (though Anti-Oedipus also seems to have similar concerns.)

Thanks for this!

Joe

]]> Comment on Parrhesia, Foucault, and Divergent Social/Political Contexts by mike http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/parrhesia-foucault-and-divergent-socialpolitical-contexts/#comment-46 mike Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:25:38 +0000 http://untimelymediations.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/parrhesia-foucault-and-divergent-socialpolitical-contexts/#comment-46 Who <i>are</i> you people?!?!? Who are you people?!?!?

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