lol
― lag∞n, Sunday, 15 February 2015 16:30 (nine years ago) link
you will then need a lens through which you can view the unpacked statement
― It's strange to me too. But we're talking about praxis, man. (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, 15 February 2015 17:01 (nine years ago) link
then maybe you can view that statement again, but through a different lens
― It's strange to me too. But we're talking about praxis, man. (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, 15 February 2015 17:02 (nine years ago) link
srsly we need to tease lagoon out from his cave more often for these longer thoughts imo
― local eire man (darraghmac), Sunday, 15 February 2015 17:38 (nine years ago) link
Pretty sure he lives in an actual lagoon not a cave
― 龜, Sunday, 15 February 2015 17:58 (nine years ago) link
i only surface for one sentence at a time
― lag∞n, Sunday, 15 February 2015 19:46 (nine years ago) link
lag∞n uncoils himself in the I Love Hoops forum, where he displays his passion and erudition at greater length than one sentence at a time.
― Aimless, Sunday, 15 February 2015 19:58 (nine years ago) link
some things are important enough to demand my full effort
― lag∞n, Sunday, 15 February 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B96RtQPCMAARMPo.png
― lag∞n, Sunday, 15 February 2015 20:04 (nine years ago) link
theres a web comic for everything now
― ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ (am0n), Thursday, 19 February 2015 17:31 (nine years ago) link
http://www.ssobrasil.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/suicide.gif
comics r bad ppl shd grow the heck up
― lag∞n, Friday, 20 February 2015 01:36 (nine years ago) link
joeks on u thats a webcomic, from the web
― local eire man (darraghmac), Friday, 20 February 2015 02:23 (nine years ago) link
http://shermanslagoon.com
― gr8080, Sunday, 22 February 2015 18:50 (nine years ago) link
shermans march to the lagoon
― lag∞n, Sunday, 22 February 2015 20:45 (nine years ago) link
this approach of all out internet warfare is a recipe for burnout that is destined to rob the movement of valuable people and any sort of wisdom earned through experience, just feeding more young virtual cannon fodder through the humanities to battlefield pipeline
tbf this same cycle exists in "irl" or "afk" w/e activism too--people who've read lots of critical theory going all to the wall and maybe winning a few, maybe losing a few, then realizing society still sucks and all their righteous energy is burnt up for a while. the unique danger of this stuff on the web i think is that the cycles are faster and the echo chambers longer and more hardened from the outside world: you're supported by your community and shielded from damaging things unless the damaging things are explicitly a target for you to direct antagonistic energy at, so you come out the echo chamber a spent husk disillusioned with everything in the world as much as the internecine warfare within your echo chamber.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:04 (nine years ago) link
the web is a realm of pure ideology for ideologies sake, an ideologysphere, its insane and terrifying
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:08 (nine years ago) link
i think if you read "critical theory" and come away thinking you can change the world through angry tweeting you've probably read the wrong theory or read it very, very poorly.
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:11 (nine years ago) link
idk there is a certain underlying logic there, like the critical theory might not be saying that u can change the world through tweeting but then again it itself is in the form of just a very long tweet
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:13 (nine years ago) link
i used to have a friend who went to seminary who liked to say all the problems with christianity would be solved if people just "read the bible." same thing applies to theory some respects.
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:17 (nine years ago) link
read yr blogs ppl, read yr blogs
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:18 (nine years ago) link
maybe it's like okay Adorno makes it seem pretty hopeless but if he had been alive for Twitter he would've understood its revolutionary potential
― Mordy, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:38 (nine years ago) link
Adorno turned his back on actual political activity, arguing that the relentless negativity of dialectical criticism was the only thing that could stay true to the progressive spirit of the Enlightenment that history had failed to actualize. This is not a far cry from the "sense of total war" lagoon describes, although it's true adorno's writings are more careful and nuanced than most tumblrs. The turn from activism to criticism ppl are describing seems to exist in the earliest texts considered part of the critical theory canon.*
*Not disparaging anyone here, least of all not Adorno
― Treeship, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:38 (nine years ago) link
'the only philosophy which can be responsibly practiced in face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption'
― no (Lamp), Friday, 27 February 2015 18:43 (nine years ago) link
it always bums me out that there are ppl out there depressed because they read some bs critical theory about the ennui of late capitalism
― flopson, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:48 (nine years ago) link
id actually be curious to know *which* theorists--if any--really inspire the "internet social justice" culture. i dont follow it very much so i dont know.
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:55 (nine years ago) link
in my case i was depressed before and found that sort of thing sustaining and inspiring on the whole even if there is a lot of misleading crap in there. xp bet he's thinking of jameson
― hammer smashed nagls (mattresslessness), Friday, 27 February 2015 18:55 (nine years ago) link
bell hooks seems real popular xp
― Mordy, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:56 (nine years ago) link
hooks, lorde, foucault, a scoop of adorno in there, and then all of it on puree until you have a nice flavorless slurry
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 18:59 (nine years ago) link
dudebros love zizek
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:00 (nine years ago) link
like its less critical theory i think than like second-gen popularizations of ideas that originally were proposed by critical theory?
xps
jameson, especially later jameson, is pretty damn nuanced and not very easily appropriated to this or that activist agenda. despite some marxist protestations otherwise he's always seemed more interested in the status and possibility of *theory* as a discipline. im working my way through all of his stuff lately so i could be wrong.
i was thinking maybe foucault--especially "history of sexuality" foucault?
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:01 (nine years ago) link
yeah the only people i know who talk jameson regularly are not enmeshed in this culture really
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:02 (nine years ago) link
much prefer the bell hooks personal experience vein of theory influenced twitter to the adorno actually socialism ppl myself
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:03 (nine years ago) link
yeah this is what i mean. i dont think a careful reading of foucault or whoever is really gonna jive with what some of these types seem to think they are doing. that's what good about theory--it's in tension with activism. this doesn't mean dont be an activist but it does allow you to critique it, and it leaves you open to critique yourself.
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:03 (nine years ago) link
ftr the most textbook tumblry social justice person i know is writing their grad thesis on *capitalism & schizophrenia*
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link
my method for judging philosophers: how awful are their admirers on twitter
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link
i judge by their quote bots
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:06 (nine years ago) link
can I be an ally if I don't have a twitter?
― future glown (crüt), Friday, 27 February 2015 19:08 (nine years ago) link
― ryan, Friday, February 27, 2015 2:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
a good praxis too tbf
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:08 (nine years ago) link
I get the maybe ungenerous impression that most internet activists only have cursory familiarity w theory, maybe through reading a handout excerpt in college from discipline and punish or just knowing the names and some of the words through cultural osmosis
― Mordy, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:12 (nine years ago) link
esp when ppl are brandishing chic neologisms like shibboleths
― Mordy, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:13 (nine years ago) link
xps also maybe people being glib about appropriating it for their social / consumer personae, which is basically what the internet is. idk i find the good stuff p deep but i'm extremely basic when it comes to living it. hooks on patriarchy in particular since i come from a very patriarchal culture. it's tough to expand instead of be reactionary, falling into that pre-destined role/slot that rhetorically or dialectically or whatever just reinforces the prevailing pov. i think some of that "this is how it really is" from hooks is absolutely necessary (and to be fair to her as a theorist, she does create positions that are productive past that), unfortunately so many people stop there. how do you reform or reenact yourself and your relationships without contracting? that's where it gets tough imo.
― hammer smashed nagls (mattresslessness), Friday, 27 February 2015 19:14 (nine years ago) link
I get the maybe ungenerous impression that most internet activists only have cursory familiarity w theory, maybe through reading a handout excerpt in college from discipline and punish or just knowing the names and some of the words through cultural osmosis― Mordy, Friday, February 27, 2015 12:12 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Mordy, Friday, February 27, 2015 12:12 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
finishing like three books and half-finishing ten ime
― hammer smashed nagls (mattresslessness), Friday, 27 February 2015 19:15 (nine years ago) link
I think that's otm there's also this dogmatism that argues that "this is truth/reality" as opposed to it being a paradigm or construct which is what you get more on an intellectual history level- that specifically these constructs are useful for ppl in some places and times in history but that critical theory is not about describing the truth of reality xp
― Mordy, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:17 (nine years ago) link
doesn't deleuze say somewhere that there's no authentic leftism since it's always being outflanked. i wonder he'd make of twitter!
the slogan "the personal is political" is one of the more abused imo. not so much against the intent of phrase as used originally (so far as i know) but more how it now seems to license a kind of distressing "total war" of feelings vs feelings--with nary an attempt to broker anything actually "political" (in the sense of making and being bound by collective decisions with lots of different voices) in sight.
― ryan, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:19 (nine years ago) link
i know i'm kind of a broken record on this but i really think all of this at its worst amounts to the valorization of vocabulary over actual political practice, the elevation of battles of small ultimate political consequence--the AngrySquad got reebok to drop rick ross for having lyrics that mentioned abusing women, great, what about the working women actually being abused while making reebok shoes? i know this isn't zero sum, but the popular approach these days counts the former as a victory and lets the latter go largely unspoken, and that's the kind of misplaced priority that really worries me.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:21 (nine years ago) link
ha xp
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
how the obscure difficult dense theory trickles into popular culture is prob the most interesting thing about it, i dont think it necessarily betrays ppls lack of rigor in understand the source material so much as a lot of it is pretty unless and nonsensical for anything else than like talking about in college, also to the extent that there is any point to theory it is that the ideas will mutate into everyday familiarity
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
the other day i saw Lorde's "self preservation is an act of political warfare" quoted to justify eating ice cream in bed instead of going to an organizing meeting
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 27 February 2015 19:23 (nine years ago) link