I have a fascination for these bourgeois ladies I don’t actually want one – I’m just fascinated by them – they and their big SUVs and their big houses and the latest fashion and all of their cosmetics and all the care and fuss they go through to before they venture out. But when they start talking (and they always do) I quickly get bored. I take off my reading glasses and stare out the window as one walks away and gets into her red vehicle – she’s not particularly young, her nose is too big, and I don’t think that that is her real hair – but for the moment I’m watching her and then she is gone and I go back to more important thinks like reading. Until another one comes along. I like to watch them come and I like to watch them go.
It’s easy to be level-handed and balanced when surrounded by intelligence and comfort; such are the honnied fruits of civility – Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett – Death Rites, 2008 p60
There are no time clocks
In these fields of toil
Yet jobs still seem to come in
Discrete packages
You don’t get the power
Just for doing it (Nike excluded)
But only when and where
You’re told to
Money’s an unbroken
Chain of custody back to Lucy
Evidence of your worldly worth
I got my government check
Why should I care
“Exploitation under the hegemony of
Immaterial labor
Is no longer primary
To the exploitation
Of value as
Measured by labor time”
This may define a new topology
Of activity someday, but not yet
Most everybody gets up
And still goes in to work
They do in this neighborhood
Anyway
Easier said than done, the thinking for oneself – Lewis Lapham –Harpers, Nov 2010 p8
The popular conception of an interregnum is that one thing disappears and another assumes the vacant hegemony – but it is not true, having lost hegemony it does not disappear and what assume its place was already there – our lack of perception is to blame or more accurately our dedication to our cause. That one thing succeeds another is not chaos. That nothing won hegemony that would be chaos.
The organs of the political body are really primarily economic divisions, and thus a critique of political economy is necessary to understand the body’s ‘anatomy.’ – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p162
The bourgeoisie family was constituted by controlling the then internal enemy (the servant); while the working-class family sought vigilance against the temptations from the outside (the cabaret and the street). The working-class was re-constituted by disposing it of everything that situated it “in the fold of exterior forces.” The mission of the woman was “to see to the social retraction of her husband and children.”
War… was expelled from the internal social field and reserved only for external conflicts between States. War was thus to be the exception and peace the norm. Conflicts within the nation were to be resolved peacefully through political interaction – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004
40% of retired Americans are accumulating credit card debt without any intention of paying it off during their lifetime –“I can’t win so to hell with playing fair.” Also expect the usage of Marijuana to rise among senior citizens.
Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world’s Pallas and all the world’s Madonna. They could teach all men, and they could comfort all men. But look strictly in the nature of the power of your Goddess of “Getting On”, and you will find she is the Goddess – not of everybody’s getting on – but only of somebody’s getting on – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 – p290
The nurse informs me that I was supposed to have met with the surgeon five minutes ago and that I have another appointment with the cardiologist in five minutes. I can hardly make both appointments I tell her. Where is the surgeon, I ask her? She shows me his office door. I go in. Inside his office eight or nine doctors are gathered. They are all seated around the room and are chatting among themselves. They begin firing questions at me, not about my health or about the proscribed regime but sort of chit chat enquiries. They remind me of my buddies at the tavern. I tell them this. As I am aware that they all have very busy schedules, I ask them “what is all of this about?”
Meaning, in essence, means nothing; it only possesses potentiality – the possibility of having a meaning within a concrete theme – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language v p101
When economic motives can no longer be overlooked, a Culture has descended into a Civilization
It is a mark of genus when an accomplished man can go on continually developing – William Carlos Williams
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