Adorno, Non-Identity, Sexuality (Stoetzler, 2009)

by Marcel Stoetzler, published in Negativity and Revolution: Adorno and Political Activism (ed. Holloway, Matamoros, Tischler, 2009)

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This chapter explores some of Adorno’s scattered remarks on love, on the gender relation between men and women, as well as on homosexuality, and how these relate to modern individuality, subjectivity and the capitalist mode of production. Its focus is on the modernity of the idea that there are exactly two sexes, understood as two distinct species or essences, and some of the implications and reverberations of this idea. It proceeds by way of arranging (juxtaposing perhaps) a number of related arguments taken from a body of Marxist writing mostly from the 1970s and 1980s that seems, if not influenced by, then at least compatible with, Adorno’s theorising. The guiding idea is that strict sexual dimorphism is an aspect, or expression, of the increasingly genital organisation of sexuality on the one hand, and on the other, the sublimation of Eros in the service of capitalist real subsumption. Both have been, and still are, part of the same historical process.

Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Curtis, 2021)

Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World is a six-part series that explores how modern society has arrived to the strange place it is today. The series traverses themes of love, power, money, corruption, the ghosts of empire, the history of China, opium and opioids, the strange roots of modern conspiracy theories, and the history of Artificial Intelligence and surveillance. The series deals with the rise of individualism and populism throughout history, and the failures of a wide range of resistance movements throughout time and various countries, pointing to how revolution has been subsumed in various ways by spectacle and culture, because of the way power has been forgotten or given away. Adam Curtis, 2021

Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany (Slobodian 2012)

It is often asserted that West German New Leftists “discovered the Third World” in the pivotal decade of the 1960s. Quinn Slobodian upsets that storyline by beginning with individuals from the Third World themselves: students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America who arrived on West German campuses in large numbers in the early 1960s. They were the first to mobilize German youth in protest against acts of state violence and injustice perpetrated beyond Europe and North America. The activism of the foreign students served as a model for West German students, catalyzing social movements and influencing modes of opposition to the Vietnam War. In turn, the West Germans offered the international students solidarity and safe spaces for their dissident engagements. This collaboration helped the West German students to develop a more nuanced, empathetic understanding of the Third World, not just as a site of suffering, poverty, and violence, but also as the home of politicized individuals with the capacity and will to speak in their own names. READ PDF

David Graeber (1961-2020)

David Graeber’s Collected Writings Linked Below

Hope in Common, 2009:

We seem to have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. Organized resistance appears scattered and incoherent; the global justice movement a shadow of its former self. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Faced with the prospect, the knee-jerk reaction — even of “progressives” — is, often, fear, to cling to capitalism because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse.

Brutalization of the social conflict: struggles for recognition in the early 21st century

by Axel Honneth (2012)

In several of his analyses, Talcott Parsons describes the establishment of modern societies as a differentiation process across spheres of mutual recognition. In this paper, I use Parsons’ social theory of recognition to examine features of recent social conflicts. I begin with Parsons’ description of the struggles for recognition that took place during his lifetime in the highly industrialized societies of the West (I). I then use Parsons’ view of normatively ordered recognition conflicts to point out societal trends that led, in the final third of the twentieth century, to a gradual undermining of the pacification structures postulated by Parsons (II). An initial outcome of this apparent disintegration I describe as a ‘brutalization’ of social conflict. By this I mean a state of society where struggles for social recognition escalate and become anomic because resolution can no longer be found in the existing systemic spheres of negotiation (III). This paper shows the importance of the term recognition to social theory by following Parsons’ theory in analyzing structural transformations that are currently emerging in response to social conflicts. [READ PDF]

22nd Century

There is no oxygen in the air
Men and women have lost their hair
Ashen faces legs that stand
Ghosts and goblins walk in this land
When tomorrow becomes yesterday
And tomorrow becomes eternity
When the soul with the soul goes away beyond
When life is taken and there are no more babies born
And there is no one and there is everyone
When there is no one and there is everyone

Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
It will be, it will be, it will be ahh

21st century was here and gone
And the 20th century was the dawn
The begining of the end was the 21st
When the 20th century was at an end

1990 was the year when the plagues struck the earth
1988 was the year when men and women
Struck out for freedom
And bloodletting was the thing that was

People said there was no god
And there was no reason
And there was no cause

1972 was right all the way
Drums and bugles blasting all though the day
Right wing left wing middle of the road
Side winder backswinger backlash whiplash
Race stockings red stockings
Liberation of women liberation of men
Everybody carrying a heavy load

Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
It will be, it will be, it will be
It will be ahh

Liberation of animals
Prevention of cruelty to animals men and beast
Flying and on flying flying things
Revolution of music poetry love and life
Sex change change change
Man is woman woman is man
Even your brain is not your brain
Your heart is a plastic thing which can be bought
There are no more diseases which can be caught

Man became the thing that he worships
Man today became his god
That was the day that man and woman truly became bored
Man became his good
Man became his evil
Man became his god
And man became his devil

Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
It will be, it will be, it will be ahh

Young women without money caught
Big dogs living in marble lofts
Young men die in spring
Boys of 7 falling in love
Give that lady fair a diamond ring
Wedding wedding wedding wedding
No a wedding ain’t the thing
Don’t want no preacher
Don’t want no preacher man preachin
Give me your hand and take my hand
This is better than anybody’s preacher man
Truth
Truth is now unfold
It says 7 years
7 years so I am told
Don’t sway me over
Don’t try to sway me over to your day
On your day
Your day will go away

Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
Tomorrow will be the 22nd century
It will be, it will be, it will be ahh

Oh tomorrow will be the 22nd century
It will be, it will be, it will be
It will be, it will be, it will be, it will be, it will be

Nina Simone

Capitalist Realism

Mark Fisher, 1968-2017

It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism

In one of the key scenes in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 film Children of Men, Clive Owen’s character, Theo, visits a friend at Battersea Power Station, which is now some combination of government building and private collection. Cultural treasures – Michelangelo’s David, Picasso’s Guernica, Pink Floyd’s inflatable pig – are preserved in a building that is itself a refurbished heritage artifact. This is our only glimpse into the lives of the elite, holed up against the effects of a catastrophe which has caused mass sterility: no children have been born for a generation.

Theo asks the question, ‘how all this can matter if there will be no-one to see it?’ The alibi can no longer be future generations, since there will be none. The response is nihilistic hedonism:

‘I try not to think about it’.

Rebel

CARRIE FISHER 1956-2016

Instant gratification takes too long.
 
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
 
I was street smart, but unfortunately the street was Rodeo Drive.
 
You can’t find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well.
 
As you get older, the pickings get slimmer, but the people don’t.
 
I really love the internet. They say chat-rooms are the trailer park of the internet but I find it amazing.
 
I don’t want my life to imitate art, I want my life to be art.
 
I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.

I feel I’m very sane about how crazy I am.

You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.

If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.

Fictional Communists

Who’s your favorite fictional communist? 

KGB agent Leo Demidov, the hero in Tom Rob Smith’s trilogy of Soviet thriller novels, isn’t a terribly rich character in his own right. But the intrepid, thoughtful Demidov acts as a convincing stand-in for a generation of operatives who watched from the inside as the Soviet machine transformed itself and ultimately sputtered to a halt. His struggle to reconcile reality with party orthodoxy begins in the first (and best) book of the series, Child 44, which has Demidov investigating a serial murder case while he tries to maintain the official pretense that the USSR is a crime-free society. Nikita Khrushchev’s shocking repudiation of the Joseph Stalin personality cult gives its name to the second book, The Secret Speech, and Demidov’s disillusionment deepens accordingly. By the last half of the final book (Agent 6), Demidov hopes to escape his homeland once and for all, so he fights to outrun the ever-encroaching tendrils of the massive Soviet intelligence apparatus. Demidov isn’t just the central figure in a series of vibrant thrillers—he’s also a glimpse into what it might have been like to live through the USSR’s major political upheavals, which those of us in the Western world could only watch from afar. – John Teti

Here’s how good Dr. Strangelove is: It features my favorite Hollywood commie, and he never even shows up in the flesh. Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissov exists only as the other side of an exasperating phone conversation with U.S. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers at his deadpan best), but he’s such a thoroughly sketched character that it’s hard not to fall in love. Found at an unlisted number (because, as the Russian ambassador sheepishly notes, this man of the people is “also a man, if you catch my meaning”), Kissov is drunk, partying, and delightfully petulant. (When Muffley explains he’s not calling just to say hello, the smashed statesman demands to know why he wouldn’t do just that.) Dr. Strangelove is an entire movie about how our poor, doomed world is light on actual villains but heavy on supposedly well-meaning idiots (and that the latter are just as dangerous as the former, when nuclear bombs are in the mix), and portraying Kissov as a childish buffoon, instead of a sneering supervillain, only heightens the human tragedy of the apocalypse to come. It doesn’t hurt that he gets (indirectly) one of the movie’s best punchlines: When nuclear expert Strangelove (also Sellers, also brilliant) demands to know why the Russians haven’t told anybody about their perfect, world-ending deterrent, the ambassador explains that it was going to be announced the following Monday. “As you know,” he says, with just a hint of a sigh, “The premier loves surprises.” – William Hughes

My love for Zangief knows no bounds. Though he’s now billed as hailing from the Russian Federation, Street Fighter’s premiere wrestler has deep Soviet roots. With the USSR’s full support, he traveled the world pile-driving rivals into oblivion for the glory of Mother Russia and nothing more. His hyperbolic patriotism led to some of the series’ funniest moments—like the time he celebrated his Street Fighter II victory with an ersatz Mikhail Gorbachev “in the appropriate Russian fashion” (doing a Hopak dance with the Soviet president, of course). But thanks to an endearing personality that’s as massive as his physique, Zangief’s appeal transcends geopolitics. There’s an earnest goofiness beneath all those bear-wrestling scars, which the artists at Capcom have continued to amplify throughout The Red Cyclone’s 25-year street-fighting career. In Street Fighter V, it’s gotten to the point where, whenever you choose to play as him, he responds by flexing every muscle and screaming “CYCLONE” at the top of his lungs while his eyes bulge and his entire body convulses. How can you not love this guy? – Matt Gerardi

i love myself

They wanna say it’s a war outside, bomb in the street
Gun in the hood, mob of police
Rock on the corner with a line for the fiend
And a bottle full of lean and a model on the scheme uh
These days of frustration keep y’all on tuck and rotation (Come to the front)
I duck these cold faces, post up fi-fie-fo-fum basis
Dreams of reality’s peace
Blow steam in the face of the beast
Sky could fall down, wind could cry now
Look at me motherfucker I smile

Winter Anti-Reviews 2015-2016, pt 2

(antifilm)

Deadpool: Boy Meets Girl. Girl Fucks Boy. Boy Gets Cancer. Boy Gets Superpowers. Boy Turns Ugly. Girl Misses Boy. Boy Wants Girl Back. Boy is Ugly. Boy turns Crazy. Boy Kills Everyone. Comedy Ha Ha Revenge Love Parody Cliche Wink Wink Give me your money.

Hail, Caesar! Communists, Jews, and Queers all play a role in the movie of capital. The division of labor that characterizes modern societies of production is reflected in the division of the Godhead, the division of the movie business, the division of man. Absolute Spirit in the form of Religion (Christianity), Art (Film), and Philosophy (Communism) are the three ideological systems that struggle for supremacy, with art and religion uniting under the sign of economy (not money!) to overcome the threat of communism as the sexually deviant force which could disrupt the Production of Capitol (pictures). The genres of film types (Western, Musical, Melodrama, Epic)  mimics the jobs of life, in which each actor is but a proletarian sacrificing themselves to the God who cannot be seen–the christ, the boss, the economy. The meta-genre of Hollywood is noir, which uses and abuses workers, women, and the law to reproduce the illusion of stability, family, and morality in a world of bombs, homosexuality, and class struggle. Superseding theology and dialectics, the true unity of man lies in accepting his own internal divisions, in which faith is faithless, and the essence of the good is nothing other than the light of the image itself. 

Youth: Old men, young women. Disgusting.

Anomalisa: The emotional sublime penetrates the ice of bourgeois social relations in the form of a human connection. 

Everybody Wants Some: Still dazed, more confused. 

Carol: Without men, love can be beautiful.

13 hours: Mercenary imperialist private contractors as American superheroes, Hilary Clinton as supervillain, Libyans as whatever. 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:  The old regime and peasant class survive the transition to capitalism in the English countryside as the Undead, returning in the form of the repressed side of primitive accumulation. Patriarchy eats brains as feminism emerges within the shell of the old world.

How to be single: Modern Dating Movie. 

Zoolander 2: Metrosexual Identity Crisis of the middle-aged man. 

Race: Black Proletarian vs. Aryan Slave-Masters can only end in AMERICA. 

Gods of Egypt: White people play Egyptians in this non-allegory of the Arab Spring. 

The Witch: See under, “Caliban, and” 

Winter Anti-Reviews 2015-2016, pt 1

(antifilm)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens –  Oedipal drama returns for millennials caught in the same cycle of struggles as their parents because they were unable to defeat capitalism in its previous incarnation due to incomplete development of the Force, i.e, class struggle. Syrian civil war reflected in the New Republic, First Order, Resistance triangle, such that militants, foreign agents, traitors, generals, pirates, and lovers have no clue what’s going on except they’ve seen it all before and it’s spectacular

Chi-Raq – Civil war as gun violence as male gang violence in black Chicago can only be stopped by female proletariat in their own self-abolition 

The Danish Girl – Mythical origin of trans identity as romantic tragedy for europeans losing their innocence in a world transitioning to capitalism

The Big Short – Marxist crisis theory as male hobby to make money 

Joy –  White female housewife crushed under the weight of patriarchy finally breaks on through to the freedom of entrepreneurial capitalism 

In the Heart of the Sea – Moby Dick without Loren Goldner is counter-revolutionary

Sisters –  Sex, drugs and party is not only for male dickwads but female cougars who feign transgression only to reassure traditional morality

Concussion – American football as capitalist sacrifice of flesh to the gods of war is confronted by medical ethics

The Hateful Eight – Politics as the necessary conversation between fractions of the proletariat with opposed interests can only end  in communism or violence 

The Revenant – America as the self-abolition of Man and Nature without the positive supersession into the Gemeinwesen

Point Break – Classic surf-noir film recycled for the eco-conscious cross-fit generation who dreams of having their cake and eating it too

Fall Anti-Reviews 2015

(antifilm)

Sicario: a reverse western. normally for a western, the vacuum of government requires individual heroic violence to establish law, order and markets. but here governments and markets lead to so much chaos that the law needs to bring back individual violence to reestablish a market order outside the law.

The Martian: the Lockean illusion of robinsoe crusoe as the original capitalist becomes reality in this allegory of a scientific super-hero who uses technology, humor and interstellar communication to fight non-natural nature on mars while humans on earth develop a new universal social contract.

Spectre: Conspiracy theory as rational choice for modern Englishman’s lack of importance in global capitalism.

Creed: Rocky retold as a black lives matter biopic.

Black Mass: How the Irish became white.

Steve Jobs: A paean to our last god, a frail mortal who touched the heavens by conquering the social form of mediation.

Suffragete: Class war as gender war as moral war as political war.

99 Homes: Foreclosure crisis as proletarian horror story; abstract law of value takes human form. Property owns people, work is suicide.

Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2: Revolution against capital, against patriarchy, against the state, against itself reveals the negativity of communisation in our present moment.

The Walk: Metaphor of individual bravery, daring, and ingenuity hidden within another metaphor for French stupidity and American spectacle.

Trumbo: Communism as retro chic.

Bridge of Spies: Berlin as morally ambiguous city between decaying empires. Still true today.

The Intern: Feminism leans against a glass wall which only a male baby boomer can break.

Visitor, Visitor, Prisoner, Land

Love is Looking Over Various Errors
And Hate is Habitually Accelerating Terror
Everywhere but the mural
I just wanna be collected when I call god damn
I don’t wanna be accepted; not as all as I am
Visitor, visitor, prisoner, prisoner, land