Thoughts - 26/09/2012

• Marx speaks of alienation as spiritual poverty: lethargy, practical activity as an external rather than external/internal synthesis, frustration and impotence, inability to act without outside pressure, the treat to subjectivity inherent in an entirely "objective" labour process.
• The transmission of information, rather than it's emergence from and relevance to experience, always ends up placing the subject externally to other subjects. Hence, it breaks the 'social flow of doing' (Holloway) which is material-practical-discursive activity. If others do not respond to the analytical framework, the set of categories, it does not mean they do not (or could not) understand the issue. If there is no gestural accompaniment, with its sympathetic and sensori-motor feedback between speaker and audience, communication will be entirely one-sided and didactic. In a crisis situation, it may seem more important for those who understand the systemic foundations of the crisis to urgently impart this knowledge on those suffering from the crisis, but part of the alienation from creative activity and conceptualization. We shouldn't speak as priests, or therapists, warning of the impending apocalypse and/or irreversible symptoms. That never solves systemic problems, which have their roots in a relational crisis - with other people, with nature (mere resources), and with the world (things or data). Even the best-intentioned fall into the trap of thinking that total knowledge will rescue them from the problems of living - which, while greatly exacerbated by oppression, are not automatically solved by removing it from the top-down. This doesn't preclude drawing on past experience and connections, but it involves opening them to new possibilities and encounters not originally conceived.
• Knowledge is embodied, it is intuitive and dispositional - it's our sense of how things fit together and ability to navigate and form relations. There is a strong imaginary and affective component, which is not about individual conscious emotion, but is more like a collective unconscious.
• Regardless of what people are thinking, just the fact that they are present and responsive/sympathetic to each other stimulates recognition in public spaces, not the other way around. Our bodies immediately betray the shape - the form + content - of our seemingly personal thoughts, or our state of mind. The way you move through physical space says more about the mental space you inhabit than what you say or consciously project.

Thoughts 23/09/2012

• Does standing up for the rights of a group of people equal being in solidarity with them? I'm still trying to work out the meaning of allyship vis-a-vis solidarity. The notion of an ally implies a degree of separation, i.e., strategic action as well as sympathy. Solidarity starts more at the level of a general commitment, and some of the sympathy might spill over to empathy. Why am I bothering to discuss this distinction? Well, because I wonder at what point I'm accepted as an ally, and to what degree this acceptance limits or shapes the kind of result that I see.
• As much as it sucks not being intimate or having sex, or being unable to express yourself in that way, there are far worse indignities that people experience in their everyday lives. Someone suffering from those, silently or openly, does not necessarily have the affective presence to relate because their libidinal energy is slowed down or repressed. Some would say 'man up', others would say not to take it personally, or not to interpret everything as an explicit judgement of value. Viewing yourself based on the number of sexual 'conquests' you achieve is part of the same logic of competition that does so much damage already. Affective expression - which is its own form of energy and creativity - is what it seems people are really aiming at. Community/communication are part of a healthy sexuality, rather than any compulsion.
• This was the subject of Herbert Marcuse's book Eros and Civilization, in which he associates love and affect with creativity and "world-forming." People have allowed their lifeworld - the basic forms of experience (being, doing, feeling) - to be colonized, and hence people feel ontologically insecure. Perhaps a "free sexuality" could exist if we stopped treating each other as solely as things/objects. The free presencing of others in their singularity has a fetishized appearance in fixed objectivity. The way we dwell in the world can never be broken down into the sum of its parts, but its substance is infitely relational., giving it the appearance of permanence to the reified gaze.
• Why should you expect something from someone whose full personhood you deny? You shouldn't, obviously. But that also limits the forms of sexual expression you have with that other person. It's more engaging to have a full human being present with you than to have an image out of your fantasy.
• Feminism is not against men per se, but against oppressive male behaviour and structures of power. Feminism's militancy in that direction - mainly among radical and/or socialist feminists - should not be seen as reversing the binary, i.e., it isn't about saying that women are better than men. The anger and pain of some women, as well as the strategic value this kind of statement might have, can lead to this but I don't think it has to.
• The women's movement, and women in general, have become closer to the LGBTQ community than men have. Personally, I've known a couple transsexual people, and for a guy, even talking to them is somewhat deviant. It's not something I would tell anyone, except for women. When I talk to women, it's accepted by other men because i'm supposedly doing "what guys do:" but I'm more interested in closeness and companionship than "getting laid." If other guys knew that, I'm sure it would be less accepted, because men aren't supposed to feel the weakness that the need for care and love implies. But on the other side, I don't want to associate women too much with care and love because it really should be mutual.

Thoughts - 22/09/2012

• Quebec students' tuition fees will necessarily increase if the federal government transfers less money to Quebec's education budget.
• Unfortunately, while some in the rest of Canada may want Quebec to give up its federal transfers as well as its inordinate share of seats in parliament, if it decides to leave the Canadian nation, the original reason for those transfers was that Canada needed Quebec's economic partnership. Quebec has shown signs of being willing to trade with other countries and of participating in the world market; as well, it already supplies electricity to some states in the northeast USA. This is why the Parti Quebecois can run on a sovereignty-in-association platform and not be too heavily criticized by the federal government.

Thoughts - 06/09/2012

• Pure immediacy is impossible - human life is mediated - but not to the exclusion of affect and the unconscious. It's possible that both affect and the unconscious is highly intelligent, but in an "inductive" (experiential) way rather than a "deductive" (abstract) way. The tendency toward abstraction doesn't exhaust the struggle to fulfill our concrete needs.

• Regardless of the parental functions of authority, and the respect they expect from their children, it is an empirical fact that as society changes and generations succeed each other, certain forms of common sense, knowledge, and habit become irrelevant or anachronistic. Particularly now, as the labour market demands more refined communication skills, emotional competence, and mental and physical health, children increasingly have to deviate from their parents just to survive. It is increasingly impossible to be an introverted or solitary person, since social and cultural capital are key parts of the social structure we live in. This may be one of the factors contributing to the breakdown of the traditional form of the family and the rise of the new extended family (divorce, foster parenthood, etc.). The disconnect is only partially psychological, since if we see the family as an institution, then it will change in relation to other institutions and relationships. This is why more non-traditional forms of the family have appeared in recent decades.
• Parents can try very hard and project love on to their children - for example, by complimenting minor achievements - but their strain within the parenting role (for example, lacking cultural and emotional capital) is clear when passive-aggressive tendencies show themselves. For example, teaching children by either completely taking over the cognitive and affective processes (to the exclusion of the child's own psychic development) associated with a behaviour or leaving the child completely on their own to learn with no support are both extreme parenting styles. Hiding your difficulties in relating to other human beings behind "tough love" and self-discovery can understandably lead to resentment. When the expectations placed on children to succeed are greater than the child's self-development allows, the parent who feels justified in their own anger or disapproval is basically just confirming their own ego. What children need is a basic level of support in developing their selves, some guidance and leadership rather than discipline per se. The ability to lead by example, but not to project one's self to strongly onto others, is much more admirable: one needs to be able to respond to other people in order to relate to a child during development, rather than only being able to respond to one's self.
• Important to make a separation of inside and outside in order to develop a sense of self and of identity. Without this, stress is guaranteed, as one's behaviour is so immediate and easy-to-interpret that others can predict and control what you are doing. As well, projecting your own thoughts into the world and into conversation-spaces makes it difficult to listen or respond without feeling totally overwhelmed by the experience. If all one's internal processes are externalized, bodily integrity starts to decline, chronic stress mounts, and it gets more out of control as the capacity to experience declines. Humans don't need absolute certainty, but they do need to be able to process their experiences as at least somewhat distinct from their selves.
• Dignity and immanence are compatible, but immanence is more than presence (Hegel's interpretation). Being-there includes both presence and absence, a sense of relating to others and to the whole that goes against the Aristotelian notion that things can be broken down into the sum of their component parts. Every moment is infinite, incalculable, yet has its own distinct shape and "logos" or habitus (as opposed to a logic). Dignity is not according to some human essence we can be certain of beforehand: it is the ability to embody numerous potentials as they arise, to not be treated as a thing, but instead as a decentered, relational person.
• This phenomenological perspective can be applied to the labour process to describe it as indignified, rather than alienating of the human essence. The most we can say is that certain needs are not fulfilled, but we can't infer from that we know the totality of the person from the observation of a lack. Yet, the sense of dignity that people have - that their world still turns, so to speak, without having to constantly check or scrutinize it - depends on the degrading characteristics of the capitalist labour process.
• One day every week I need to dedicate to mental and physical health and well-being above other things. It seems like Sunday is that day.

Thoughts 14-09-2012

- Suburbanization has soul-atrophying effects: fatigure from long commutes, sterile relationships, large houses and too many opportunities to waste time, and lack of grassroots community.
- I see the waning of affect, and the inability to live with meaning and give form to lasting or new connections as endemic in this society.
- A constant feeling of insecurity and a `generalized loss of solidarity` grips me - prevents me from having the confidence to take a risk (F. Berardi).
-  A tragic perspective is definitely needed - remaining immanent, but not positivist: we cannot fully know the world, in a timeless formal way, or in an essential way. We cannot use this to predict the future: we can project what might occur, but without the certainty of knowing our struggle must result in an ideal world. Realizing that oppression cannot be finally eliminated, but not resigning ourselves to this fact nor justifying it in any way, gets us outside the optimism vs. pessimism way of thinking. Tragic perspectives are not nihilistic - as Professor Cornel West argues, they are profoundly hopeful, yet pragmatic and ethical in seeking freedom.
- I am committed to anti-oppression analysis more than some Marxists in the world, but I do not see all instances of skill, self-expression, and personal development as oppressive. I see oppression as systemic, but not as a closed system, or as a totality in which all instances of skill, self-expression, and personal development would necessarily reproduce domination. For example, while men may possess particular skills which reinforce their domination over women, it would be less accurate to say the totality of their experience is somehow so corrupt that the shape of those abilities, or the process of skill-formation, cannot be recaptured and put to more liberating uses. In the desire to remove `privilege` and to distrust any productive forms of power, I see aspects of the death drive - pure negation. I see an abstract or mystical idea of life projected which does not address the practicalities of getting things done, nor the benefits in terms of standards of living, quality of life, and the difficult development of experience and affect (community). Humans have needs, which are not simply socially constructed by oppressive power relations: they are in flux and changing (as open systems) but nevertheless they are real and need to be addressed as such, independent of critiques of human nature myths. Nurture doesn`t trump nature, it`s just that humans are not naturally oppressive toward one another. And the development of nature is far more extensive than pure immediacy or bare life - ironically what it seems pure social constructionists would like to turn to. Our affects carry experiences forming multi-layered worlds, assemblages of skill as well as guides for experimentation for new forms of culture and social relations. That doesn`t mean we can just polemically embody pure feeling in opposition to, rather than in harmony with, reason (of a more substantial variety).
- Foucaults point in comparing class war and race struggle discourses is not that class conflict does not exist, but that Marxism itself gave rise to the friend-enemy distinction underlying the identity politics paradigm that many Marxists (rightly, I think) reject.
-  I`m having trouble being an ally, questioning what that means. If I cannot not act oppressively, then I don`t see how can I be part of the solution, and I don`t see how it is possible without a larger social effort. I`m not on board with abolishing masculinity: that goes beyond `checking my privilege` and positions me as an impossible ally. It`s a very immature way of dealing with the power imbalances, with simple friend-enemy distinctions. We can transform aspects of masculinity, but I thought that patriarchy was the source of oppressive masculinity, as well as many of the aspects of femininity that some more radical (not socialist) feminists valorize. Here`s the thing: insofar as a man does not overtly act oppressively, within the system we live in, he will passively acquire advantages. By theorizing closed system, you see everything as contributing to reinforcing patriarchy - thus making it very discouraging for men who try to be allies to the feminist movement. This isn`t about assigning moral blame based on intentions: it`s about recognizing good and bad examples.
- Escaping from emotions and bodily feelings by chattering and externalizing is a neurotic way of living, something I don`t hope for, but not something I would criticize to the point to stigma or depression over - because that would only reinforce the neurotic condition itself.