How about a fist in the face! A friend recently relayed the story of a family member who works in retail. The point of his tale was the cascade of anti-social, loutish behavior suffered by a seasoned retail employee dedicated to helping customers, that was told to him. The disconcerting behavior took place during…
I wanted to take a break, if possible, from writing about the virus, and about the current edition of social disenfranchisement/murder of Black citizens, which is mirrored in the response by the President and Attorney General to the demonstrations rising from the murder of George Floyd. This song by Guns N’ Roses seduced me…
Socialization is measured by the exposure to media messages. Whoever is underexposed to media is de-socialized or virtually asocial. Everywhere information is thought to produce an accelerated circulation of meaning, a plus value of meaning corresponding to the economic one that results from the accelerated rotation of capital. Information is thought to create…
Thursday afternoon was hot, summer-like. For a change of scene I took a short drive to Geneva to find a quiet spot outside to continue my reading in Simulacra and Simulation. Walking along State Street I felt depression, saddened by the view of boarded up store fronts. The property owners, no doubt called in…
I wrestle with words to characterize the condition of our society, as I perceive it. The “Ship-Of-State” is the metaphor that comes to mind. The image comes from Plato’s Republic book VI. Plato likens the governance of the city-state to the commanding of a naval vessel. I like the image, of a large ship. …
Today June 4th is the anniversary of the uprising of students in Tiananmen Square, China. The resistance to authoritarian incompetency, suppression of freedom took place April 15 – June 4th, 1989. Everyone remembers the image of the solitary individual standing, one man obstructing a column of tanks. Did the uprising matter? Did it make…
The weeks have been long. There is a exhaustion felt due to quarantine, mandated isolation from communal activities, and then the spate of murders of innocent black men, in Georgia and then in Minnesota. The riots over the past few nights in our cities are a natural release of rage, of exasperation over the…
There are appeals for peaceful demonstration, the peaceful exercise of free speech. These appeals predictably come from elected officials, those placed in charge. They are in charge of a formal system, — as well as approaches, attitudes, and comments informally expressed by thousands, perhaps millions of members. Hypothetically consider an HR administrator, or maybe…
The rioting continues, despite the efforts of governors to use police and national guard to protect property, and to minimize the use of force against those who are protesting systemic racism, and particularly the disproportionate killing of black people by police. At the national level, the President rages like a mad emperor. Subsequent to…
Choosing to refrain from news media consumption over the weekend, I dedicated time and emotional energy to personal projects and to others in my family. Can I afford this type of choice because I am white, male, a member of the dominant class in this society? Are some Sunday afternoon hours reading Nietzsche by…
