peter and salvoj

“sovereignty can indeed be defined as nothing other than being able to distance yourself from epidemics of opinion; that is, to refuse to be employed in the service of excitation. We live constantly in collective fields of excitation; this cannot be changed so long as we are social beings….they come from the newspaper and wind up returning to the newspaper. My sovereignty, if it exists, can only appear by letting the integrated impulsion die in me or, should this fail, by my re-transmitting it in a totally metamorphosed, verified, filtered, or re-coded form...I am free only to the extent that I interrupt escalation and that I am able to immunize myself against infections of opinion...I have neither the right nor desire to be either a conductor in a stress-semantic chain or the automaton of an ethical imperative.” Peter Sloterdijk “Neither Death Nor Sun”

...sloterdijk wrote this in the german version in 2001 and so far the english version ( 2011 ) is a book length polemic about an academic kerfluffle peate is having with jurgen habermas which isn't what i am actually looking at....this... “the endless emphasis on the necessity to act, to do something, often betrays the subjective stance of of not doing anything. The more we talk about the impending ecological catastrophe, the less we are ready to do. against such and inter-passive mode, in which we are active all the time to ensure that nothing will really change, the first truly critical step in opposing it is to withdraw into passivity and refuse to participate. This first step clears the ground for a true activity, for an act that will entirely change the co-ordinates of the constellation.” slavoj zizek. “Welcome to the Civilization of the Liar’s Paradox.”

is from the current issue of "philosophy now" and i am left wondering if slavoj has been reading peter's stuff of, possibly, these two are independently ( although somewhat delayed ) coming to the same conclusions...either way virtually all academics are derivative and philosophy explains virtually nothing since it is an escape hatch from "average everydayness" ( see william james )...reading zizek is usually a slog...he is slovenian and so may be writing in his native language with pathetic translations or, perhaps, he is writing in english as a second language and his english skills are not up to snuff with is erudition and sloterdijk ( so far ) is so intent on defending himself form habermas and the german media that his writing seems shrill if nothing else...so here we have the philosophical equivalent of masanobu fukuoka's

"do nothing" agriculture ( except fukuoka's is feasible ) which, like endless talk, would seem to "ensure that nothing will really change"...should i repost conspiracy theory bullshit on social media...why no...in that, at least, sloterdijk is valid...the rest of it seems to border on advice for quietism...you still need totalk about it ( whatever "it" is ) you should make every effort to remain factive in a seemingly fact-free society...which means you'll have to do some digging.

rote response

with a waffling ( we will pause immigration raids on businesses owned by a constituency we do not want to alienate...tariffs? 145%...or 30%...third term? well maybe not...vlad the impaler is a horrible person but a stand up kind of guy...iran? we'll see in a couple of weeks ) septuagenerian of decreasing acuity in charge it is difficult to come up with an explanation for policy based on critical thought so of course we are going to jump into ad hominem discourse with both jackboots...an authoritarian extra-due process assault on a given community of people based on ethnicity that allows the questionng of the status of even those who are citizens won't stand up to an intellectually rigorous ( or constitutional for that matter ) analysis based on the much cited rule of law that has eamnated from the constipated thought proces of the conserative faction in american politics probably since, at least, 1789...so the junior varsity has traveled to the scene of resistance to attack civil servants ( another specialty of the twisted ideology they represent ) and politicans of differing viewpoint...rendered stupid by dogma what else would ( or could ) he say?

closed

as a retirement job ( and as a hedge against the greedy bastards in whoretown whom no one with any rational sense would trust not to take everything they can ) i am working for a "retail giant" that refers to itself as the "omnichannel retailer" in a decaying and slowly dying suburban mall...which just died a little deader on the last day of march when...

the local forever 21 closed its doors for the last time...

it looks rather empty in there as a bastion of "fast fashion" seems to have found the limit to the genre...should i be saddened by the death of a retailer...hardly...there are others...i work at one...and then there is the wealth of on-line shopping to take into consideration...and that is the crux of the issue...i have to consume to survive...and even if i refuse to make purchases from one particular vendor or another...either out of preference or some political or social issue ( dei for instance ) i am still making them somewhere else and so still supporting a corporate entity and as a function of that, capitalism which seems to be a source of many issues...embedded in the system and aggrandizing it though need and, on occasion, desire...framed as much by its needs ( we're here to help you help us ) as much as by any of my own even by working supporting it...work is as much about consumption as it is earning ( what am i "earning" for ? )...work demands food, fuel, transport, clothing, time and effort to sustain...how much of my consumption is geared towards "work"? do i work to sustain myself or do i sustain myself to work? and while we are talking costs let's look at some stemming from "fast fashion"...trendy cheap-assed clothes that are discared readily...where does all that end up?

well...ghana imports a lot of used cothing from the west...and, from what i have been reading, about 40% of it ends up in landfills and along the shoreline as unsaleable...so the environmental costs ( who knows what went on during the production of said clothing? i do not allthough i do hear of workers in california earning well below minimum wage affixing labels to garments...one presumes [however cannot prove ] sweat-shops all alnong the processes ) extend to various parts of the world, developed and un...who could rationally call any of this elements of a sustainable system?

what has this accomplished II

an "unconditional discharge"...and do you suppose this makes a difference in any way...at no time did i expect donny to serve jail time...he is of the elite and they will protect their own...they are, after all, extrotionists to an individual and if one goes down there could be a cascade of criminal comeuppance...there is a long hisory of elites bending morality to suit their purposes...hypocrisy is a common weapon of power...aaron burr was indicted for murder in new jersey for killing hamilton...that was quashed as he was a sitting vice-president...donny is an incoming president and he ostensibly skated because of that...nah...just another self-promoting entitled rich ( allegedly ) guy whose base, for whatever twisted reason, thinks he is an answer to their problems rather than part of the cause...do they have a right to be angry? i'd say yes they do...it is simply anger that is misdirected, or, rather, not fully directed...missing the point somewhat in thinking that any part of the elite could possibly have anything beyond their own interests in mind when grabbing for political power...they will be disillusioned soon enough and then the need for a police force to ensure loyalty to the maga dogma will become a necessity...interesting times ahead.

another post that would have offended the facebook arbiters of the acceptable

today's mail was fairly nondescript in anyone's assessment ( and, particularly, mine )...it did, however, contain one piece of junk mail that held some interest on a number of levels...

first of all it is a brazen invitation to usurp the letter of the law of this godforsaken state ruled from downstate by a legislature with a supermajority of trumpist, bible thumping, covertly racisit, and homophobic atavistic relics from the ninteenth century ( at the very latest ) who would never undermine the whiskey lobby in the state capital by legalizing marijuana sale...and, even more to the point, indivdual recreational use...sloppy drunk was good enough for garandpa and by god it's good enough for them as well...right and true recreation for all decent citizens...marijuana is simply a tool of subversive elements used to corrupt youth and, much like socrates, needs to be suppressed...secondly, any attempt on my part to post any of this on my facebook page would result in a stern warning from what are doubtlessly robotic sensors about its unacceptability on the grounds that i would be promoting something illegal ( in this behavioral sump of a state anyway...clearly a different philosophical and legal out look across the state line )...so i came to this bastion of free speaach just to say "fuck these people"...which group ( or groups ) of "people" i have in mind is up to you to divine.

taxes, whore politicians, and contingency

my not going to the court house in the county seat ( "what will happen if this does not happen"...begins to sound like a descartes square ) today would have been contingent on several events occurring which did not...first i would not have gone if i could have paid my property tax on line...unfortunately when i filled out the "payment" page with all the rquisite details such as routing number, account number, address, email, phone number and clicked on continue to go to the confirmation page nothing happened...same with a debit/credit card...technological failure...second...i could have mailed it ( i have eighteen days left to pay in ) if i trusted the post office...however since just yesterday i received mail addressed to someone in a different city i had no faith in their abilities...third...there was a list of banks that would accept my payment on the bill...i did not want to hassle with finding directions to branches of unfamiliar banks and trust issues cropped up here yet again...so i got in my vehicle and drove to the county seat...the treasurer's office is in "building A" in the complex which is fine except there were large signs on the windows stating "entrance sr-1 is closed ( this being the door to "building A" ) the public should use entrance sr-2 " ( why the "sr" designation eludes me ) which was a nuisance but what to do...unfortunately "entrance sr-2" is the entrance to the building with the courtrooms so i had to empty my pockets in a plastic tray and walk through a metal detector which my metal belt buckle and the rivets in my jeans set off so i had to be frisked and scanned again with a hand-held scanner ( " boy you sure got a lot of metal buttons in here"...no they're rivets but that is beside the point )...after that adventure i had to walk down the hallway connecting the buildings...which was festooned with signs saying "detour for entance sr-1" and walk up the stairs ( the deputy at the door said i should "take the elevator" so i defied authority ) to the treasurer's office which was surprisingly empty so that transaction was quick if not painless...coincidentally enough early voting was set up just outside the treasurer's...

so i voted against that orange haired bozo...which won't actually matter in this yahoo state however i voted my opinion of that clown officially...whore politicans ( from the county level grifters on up ) are all whores...some are simply less vile than others

antness

so i am one of doubtlessly a significant number of people to receive this...

email informing me that there are changes coming to the way i log into my social security account and i had best get on with conforming my account with said changes or i won't have access and then there will be extensive paperwork just to prove i am me so we can fix this...they seem unable to leave things be...why did a user name and password on one page need to be shifted to another? one possibility is that one subset of bloated bureaucrats had to find a way to justify their existence and making changes to "streamline the process" into a more "efficient interface" was just the ticket...or...they could simply be intensifying what the dutch writer geert mak calls "antness"...the feeling of being small in the face of institutional archetecture...both physical and in the processes involved in maintaining your identity "inside"...change keeps people off balance and provides them with something to occupy their attention and thoughts...an effort to prevent them from thinking about why we should need to pander to a bureaucracy and their top down imperatives to change the way things are done for instance...either way, my thoughts are this is not likely to improve until the entire edifice collapses from its own weight