Entries with tag "texts"

A Brief History of Aid

[...] The 1980s also saw the rise of the neo-liberal thinking which argued that governments should liberalize their economies in favor of the laissez-faire paradigm, which encompassed [...] the private market. The experience of the newly industrializing economies of Asia gave these market-based ideas a popularity boost in policy circles in the United States and Europe. The Asian tigers seemed to have achieved high growth rates and unprecedented poverty reduction with free-market policies and an outward orientation. As free-market proponents, Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics had great influence on the policies and thinking of the US President, Ronald Reagan, and the UK's Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. [...]

In Africa, as with other parts of the developing world, this economic overhaul necessitated two new aid-based programmes: first, stabilization, and then structural adjustment. Stabilization meant reducing a country's imbalances to reasonable levels [...]. Meanwhile structural adjustment was aimed at encouraging greater trade liberalization and reducing price and structural rigidities by such means as removing subsidies.

Both the World Bank and the IMF launched aggressive aid programmes to institute these two initiatives; the IMF's Structural Adjustment and Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facilities are examples of these. Poor governments received cash in the form of budgetary support, and in return agreed to embrace the free-market solutions to development. This would entail minimizing the role of the state, privatizing previously nationalized industries, liberalizing trade and dramatically reducing the civil service. [...]

By the end of the 1980s, emerging-market countries' debt was at least US$1 trillion, and the cost of servicing these obligations colossal. Indeed, the cost became so substantial that it eventually dwarfted foreign aid going into poor countries -- leading to a net reverse flow from poor countries to rich to the tune of US$15 billion every year between 1987 and 1989.

[...] The aid campaigners capitalized on the success of raising cash for emergency aid, and extended it to a platform to raise development aid; something entirely different.

In some recent times, the Irish musician Bono has made his case directly to the US President, George Bush, in a White House visit in October 2005, and Bob Geldof was a guest at the 2005 G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, and advised the UK's Commission to Africa. It would appear, despondent with their record of failure, that Western donors are increasingly looking to anyone for guidance on how best to tackle Africa's predicament.

Scarcely does one see Africa's (elected) officials or those African policy makers charged with the development portfolio offer an opinion on what should be done, or what might actually work to save the continent from its regression. This very important responsibility has, for all intents and purposes, and to the bewilderment and chagrin of many an African, been left to musicians who reside outside Africa. One disastrous consequence of this has been that honest, critical and serious dialogue and debate on the merits and demerits of aid have atrophied. As one critic of the aid model remarked, 'my voice can't compete with an electric guitar'.

Posted on:

2010.06.07 -0500

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texts

The two faces of Quintana Roo

[...] One key issue in the state is the inequality that comes with a high concentration of wealth. The resorts function on what they call an “all inclusive policy,” where food, drinks, entertainment and lodging are all included for an affordable price to foreign tourists – especially those who come from countries deeply affected by the crisis. In 2008, 67 percent of tourists who came to Quintana Roo stayed in five-star hotels, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Another 14 percent go to four-star facilities. A one-night stay at a luxury hotel in Playa del Carmen costs about $480 at this time of year, and that includes access to chain restaurants, high-end stores, and massages along the coast.

A world away from white sand beaches of Playa del Carmen is the workplace of Ruben Cahan, a Mayan who works as a vendor in a small shop that sells ponchos, sombreros and other tourist souvenirs, just a few blocks away from the tourist epicenter on the coast. Cahan says that business is difficult in this area. “They tell us that the locals’ shops are too far away,” he says, noting that the hotels give away hats and shirts to tourists anyway.

Astrid Cavazos, one of the managers at the Porto Royal hotel in Playa del Carmen, admits that local business that can’t afford to be near the coast line can’t compete with the resorts, “because the prices of everything we sell inside the hotel are so cheap.” She explains that “other hotels in Cancun and Playa del Carmen are like mini-cities that trap the tourists within the confines of the hotel.”

Walking along the coastal strip filled with shops in Playa del Carmen, Canadian tourists Alana Smith and Donny Smith announce that they have not had to use a word of Spanish since they arrived, because at the resort they are staying at the “staff makes an effort to speak English.”

“At the restaurants waiters are not allowed to speak Spanish even amongst themselves,” says Alejandro Eguia Lis Luis, a community organizer and coordinator of the Tzol K’in Center for Culture and Environment, a group that aims to promote a sense of community amongst the poor people in Cancun.

Arturo Ek Rodriguez, a bellboy of Mayan descendant who works at one of the hotels, says he had to apply to many different resorts before finding a job. “I was told I’d have to have a certain height to get the job, and that I did not have the profile to work there,” he says. “You’ve got to be fair-skinned and tall, more like an European type.” Along the coast line, the only testament to the Mayan culture of Quintana Roo can be seen with plaster decorations depicting Mayan statues and artwork.

[...]

“This is little Miami,” says Alejandro Luis, as he drives through the 17-kilometer stretch that is the hotel zone in Cancun, where the cost of a room for one night can be anywhere between $300 to $5000. Driving through the region, there is not a stone out of place or the slightest sign of any blemish on the roads or on the sidewalks. All of the lawns are trimmed to perfection and even the bus stops are lit up, which is an uncommon site in other parts of the city. Starbucks, Hard Rock Café and an assorted delight of various chain stores appear along the stretch, and the only thing out of place in the hotel zone are the municipal police, who drive around wearing bullet-proof vests. “We live too far from God and too close to the USA”, Alejandro Luis adds. [...]

Posted on:

2010.03.15 -0500

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texts

Norton's dream

[...] De pronto Norton se dio cuenta de que la mujer reflejada en el espejo no era ella. Sintió miedo y curiosidad y permaneció quieta. Obviamente, se dijo, es igual a mí y no tengo ninguna razón para pensar lo contrario. Soy yo. Pero luego se fijó en su cuelloÑ una vena hinchada, como si estuviera a punto de reventar, lo recorría desde la oreja hasta perderse en el omóplato. [...] Al mirarla en los espejos notó un cambio. El cuello de la mujer se movía de forma casi imperceptible. Yo tambiénestoy siendo reflejada en los espejos, se dijo Norton. Y si ella sigue moviéndose finalmente ambas nos miraremos. Veremos nuestras caras. Norton apretó los puños y esperó. [...] Agachó la cabeza y cerró los ojos. Cuando volvió a mirar los espejos, la vena hinchada de la mujer había crecido de volumen y su perfil comenzaba a insinuarse. Tengo que huir, pensó. [...] Cuando abrió los ojos la mirada de la mujer del espejo y la de ella se intersectaron en algún punto indeterminado de la habitación. Los ojos de ella eran iguales a los suyos. Los pómulos, los labios, la frente, la nariz. Norton se puso a llorar o creyó que lloraba de pena o de miedo. Es igual a mí, se dijo, pero ella está muerta. La mujer ensayó una sonrisa y luego, casi sin transición, una mueca de miedo le desfiguró el rostro. Sobresaltada, Norton miró hacia atrás, pero atrás no había nadie, sólo la pared de la habitación. La mujer volvió a sonreírle. Esta vez la sonrisa no fue precedida por una mueca sino por un gesto de profundo abatimiento. Y luego la mujer volvió a sonreírle y su rostro se hizo ansioso y luego inexpresivo y luego nervioso y luego resignado y luego pasó por todas las expresiones de la locura y siempre volvía a asonreírle [...] [p.154]

Posted on:

2010.01.23 -0600

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texts

Law vs. Right

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. [...] Law never made a whit more just, and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made the agents on injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, power-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills; ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all, or small movable forts and magazines at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts--a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment [...].

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. [...] In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment of of the moral sense, but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones, and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.

Posted on:

2009.12.20 -0600

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GM maize in Mexico

President of Mexico, Mr. Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa:

This year you stand in a historical position to prevent irreversible damage to one of the World’s most precious resources: Mexico’s maize diversity. We observe that your Administration may be rushing to introduce genetically modified (GM) maize into the Mexican environment and we are convinced, from our understanding of the scientific evidence, that this move represents a disproportionate risk which should be avoided for the benefit of Mexico and the World. Joined together in our well-informed concern, we urge you to move aggressively to ensure that no GM maize is planted in Mexico, the Center of Origin and Diversification of this important crop. [...]

Posted on:

2009.11.11 -0600

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food , texts

The contemporary structure of dispossession

El FMI [Fondo Monetario Internacional] proporciona préstamos o da la imprescindible luz verde para que otros los proporcionen. Nacido en Estados Unidos, con sede en Estados Unidos y al servicio de Estados Unidos, el Fondo opera, en efecto, como un inspector internacional, sin cuyo visto bueno la banca norteamericana no afloja los cordones de la bolsa; el Banco Mundial, la Agencia para el Desarrollo Internacional y otros organismos filantrópicos de alcance universal también condicionan sus créditos a la firma y el cumplimiento de las *Cartas de intenciones* de los gobiernos ante el omnipotente organismo. Todos los países latinoamericanos reunidos no alcanzan a sumar la mitad de los votos de que disponen los Estados Unidos para orientar la política de este supremo hacedor del equilibrio monetario en el mundo; el FMI fue creado para institucionalizar el predominio financiero de Wall Street sobre el planeta entero, cuando a fines de la segunda guerra el dólar inauguró su hegemonía como moneda internacional.

[...] Al chantaje financiero y tecnológico se suma la competencia desleal y libre del fuerte frente al débil. Como las filiales de las grandes corporaciones multinacionales integran una estructura mundial, pueden darse el lujo de perder dinero durante un año, o dos, o el tiempo que fuere necesario. Bajan, pues, los precios, y se sientan a esperar la rendición del acosado. Los bancos colaboran con el sitio: la empresa nacional no es tan solvente como parecía: se le niegan víveres. Acorralada, la empresa no tarda en levantar la bandera blanca. El capitalista local se convierte en socio menor o en funcionario de sus vencedores. [p.288]

[...] La canalización de los recursos nacionales en dirección a las filiales imperialistas se explica en gran medida por la proliferación de las sucursales bancarias norteamericanas que han brotado, como los hongos después de la lluvia, durante estos últimos años, a lo largo y a lo ancho de América Latina. [...]. Toda esta invasión bancaria sirve para desviar el ahorro latinoamericano hacia las empresas norteamericanas que operan en la región, mientras las empresas nacionales caen estranguladas por la falta de crédito. Los departamentos de relaciones públicas de varios bancos norteamericanos que operan en el exterior pregonan, sin rubores, que su propósito más importante consiste en canalizar el ahorro interno de los países donde operan, para el uso de las corporaciones multinacionales que son clientes de sus casas matrices. Echemos al vuelo la imaginación: ¿podría un banco latinoamericano instalarse en Nueva York para captar el ahorro nacional de los Estados Unidos? La burbuja estalla en el aire: esta insólita aventura está expresamente prohibida. [p. 290]

Las venas abiertas de América Latina (1970)
Eduardo Galeano

Posted on:

2009.09.02 -0500

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homo homini lupus , texts

Region of open veins

Es América Latina, la región de las venas abiertas. Desde el descubrimiento hasta nuestros días, todo se ha transmutado siempre en capital europeo o, más tarde, norteamericano, y como tal se ha acumulado y se acumula en los lejanos centros de poder. Todo: la tierra, capacidad de trabajo y de consumo, los recursos naturales y los recursos humanos. El modo de producción y la estructura de clases de cada lugar ha sido sucesivamente determinados, desde fuera, por su incorporación al engranaje universal del capitalismo. A cada cual se le ha asignado una función, siempre en beneficio del desarrollo de la metrópoli extranjera de turno, y se ha hecho infinita la cadena de las dependencias sucesivas, que tiene mucho más de dos eslabones [...].

Para quienes conciben la historia como una competencia, el atraso y la miseria de América Latina no son otra cosa que el resultado de su fracaso. Perdimos; otros ganaron. Pero ocurre que quienes ganaron, ganaron gracias a que nosotros perdimos: la historia del subdesarrollo de América Latina integra, como se ha dicho, la historia del desarrollo del capitalismo mundial. Nuestra derrota estuvo siempre implícita en la victoria ajena; nuestra riqueza ha generado siempre nuestra pobreza para alimentar la prosperidad de otros: los imperios y sus caporales nativos. En la alquimia colonial y neocolonial, el oro se transfigura en chatarra, y los alimentos se convierten en veneno. [p.16]

Posted on:

2009.08.20 -0500

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Pentagon takes 56 cents of every dollar

The way to begin to see the real fiscal impact of the war machine is to begin with the memorandum line on p. 526 of the main budget volume where "receipts by source" are shown. This discloses that of $198 billion in receipts, $51 billion is in trust funds. This leaves available for the general purposes of the government $147 billion. If you next turn to the table on "budget outlay by function," you will find $81.5 billion for national defense. So national defense takes 55 percent of this $147 billion. Then if you look more closely you will see near the foot of the expenditure table $2.8 billion for civilian and military pay increases. The Pentagon's share of that, for its employees in and out of uniform (the Pentagon employs nearly one-half of all the civilian employees in the government) is $2.5 billion. When that additional pay item is added, the total for national defense is $83 billion, or better than 56 cents of every dollar available.

Posted on:

2009.06.16 -0500

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The conception of Blood Moon (Popol Vuh)

[...] And then they [One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu] where sacrificed and buried. They were buried at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice, as it is called. The head of One Hunahpu was cut off; only his body was buried with his younger brother. "Put his head in the fork of the tree that stands by the road," said One and Seven Death. And when his head was put in the fork of the tree, the tree bore fruit. It would not have had any fruit, had not the head of One Hunahpu been put in the fork of the tree. This is the calabash, as we call it today, or "the skull of One Hunahpu," as it is said. And then One and Seven Death were amazed at the fruit of the tree. The fruit grows out everywhere, and it isn't clear where the head of One Hunahpu is; now it looks just the way the calabashes look. All the Xibalbans see this, when they come to look. The state of the tree loomed larte in their thoughts, because it came about at the same time the head of One Hunahpu was put in the fork. The Xibalbans said among themselves: "No one is to pick the fruit, nor is anyone to go beneath the tree," they said. They restricted themselves; all of Xibalba held back. [...] A maiden heard about it, and here we shall tell of here arrival.

And here is the account of a maiden, the daughter of a lord named Blood Gatherer. And this is when a maiden heard of it, the daughter of a lord. Blood Gatherer is the name of her father, and Blood Moon is the name of the maiden. And when he heard the account of the fruit of the tree, her father retold it. And she was amazed at the account:
"I'm not acquainted with that tree they talk about. '"It's fruit is truly sweet" they say,' I hear," she said.
Next, she went all alone and arrived where the tree stood. It stood at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice:
"What? Well! What's the fruit of this tree? Shouldn't this tree bear something sweet? They shouldn't die, they shouldn't be wasted. Should I pick one?" said the maiden.
And then the bone spoke; it was here in the fork of the tree: "Why do you want a mere bone, a round thing in the branches of a tree?" said the head of One Hunahpu when it spike to the maiden. "You don't want it," she was told.
"I do want it," said the maiden.
"Very well. Stretch out your right hand here, so I can see it," said the bone.
"Yes," said the maiden. She stretched out her right hand, up there in front of the bone.
And then the bone spit out its saliva, which landed squarely in the hand of the maiden.
And then she looked in her hand, she inspected right away, but the bone's saliva wasn't in her hand.
"It is just a sign I have given you, my saliva, my spittle. This, my head, has nothing on it--just bone, nothing of meat. It's just the same with the head of a great lord: it's just the flesh that makes his face look good. And when he dies, people get frightened by his bones. After that, his son is like his saliva, his spittle, in his being, whether it be the son of a lord or the son of a craftsman, an orator. The father does not disappear, but goes on being fulfilled. Neither dimmed nor destroyed is the face of a lord, a warrior, craftsman, orator. Rather, he will leave his daughters and sons. So it is that I have done likewise through you. Now go up there on the face of the earth; you will not die. Keep the word. So be it," said the head of One and Seven Hunahpu-- they were one mind when they did it.
[...] Right away something was generated in her belly, from the saliva alone, and this was the generation of Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

Posted on:

2009.05.04 -0500

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Jesús León Santos: Goldman environmental price

Jesús León Santos receives the Goldman environmental price for his titanic work in Oaxaca. What did he do?

There's a region in Oaxaca, of more than 50,000 hectares, that has lost about five meters in height since the XVI century. The intensive breeding of goats, shepherding, the industry of lime production established during colonial times, and the intensive tree felling for the construction of Dominican temples all contributed to the sterilization of the region.

Jesús is transforming this heavily eroded and almost deserted region into the fertile land it once was. How has he done this? With the tequio (from nahuatl téquitl, work or tribute), a form of organized work for the benefit of the community as a whole:

1. He founded the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca (CEDICAM).
2. He and his community have built more than 2,000 km of ditches to retain rain water.
3. The community has planted more than 2,000,000 trees.
4. The community is rejecting the use of genetically modified corn because these present a threat to the corn diversity of the region.
5. They are using local organic fertilizers that don't damage the soil.

Since 1994, the NAFTA has flooded the Mexican market with US corn. As a result, the Mexican corn has plummeted. Corn represents a fundamental role in the Mixteca culture, not only for being one of the basic foods for us, but also because it represents our identity as a people. There are many reasons that native seeds are sown. One of them is that these corn varieties can resist certain types of environmental conditions, like drought, cold, or poor soil.

CEDICAM always tries to value the culture of the Mixteca people, where natural resources still belong to everyone. I think this is a very good concept for humanity today [...] where there is community wealth and we value everything that exists among all of us.

Posted on:

2009.03.30 -0500

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food , people , texts

The end of laissez-faire

[...] The parallelism between economic laissez-fare and Darwinianism, already briefly noted, is now seen, as Herbert Spencer was foremost to recognize, to be very close indeed. Just as Darwin invoked sexual love, acting through sexual selection, as an adjutant to Natural Selection by competition, to direct evolution along lines which should be desirable as well as effective, so the individualist invokes the love of money, acting through the pursuit of profit, as an adjutant to Natural Selection, to bring about the production on the greatest possible scale of what is most strongly desired as measured by exchange value. The beauty and the simplicity of such a theory are so great that it is easy to forget that it follows not from the actual facts, but from an incomplete hypothesis introduced for the sake of simplicity. Apart from other objections to be mentioned later, the conclusion that individuals acting independently for their own advantage will produce the greatest aggregate of wealth, depends on a variety of unreal assumptions to the effect that the processes of production and consumption are in no way organic, that there exists a sufficient foreknowledge of conditions and requirements, and that there are adequate opportunities of obtaining this foreknowledge. For economists generally reserve for the later stage of their argument [...] their analysis of the actual facts.

[...]

But the principles of laissez-faire have had other allies besides economic text-books. It must be admitted that they have been confirmed in the minds of sound thinkers and the reasonable public by the poor quality of the opponent proposals--Protectionism on one hand, and Marxian Socialism on the other. Yet these doctrines are both characterized, not only or chiefly by their infringing the general presumption in favour of laissez-faire, but by mere logical fallacy. Both are examples of poor thinking, of inability to analyse a process and follow it out to its conclusion. The argument against them, though reinforced by the principle of laissez-faire, do not strictly require it. Of the two, Protectionism is at least plausible, and the forces making for its popularity are nothing to wonder at. But Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion--how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history. At any rate, the obvious scientific deficiencies of these two schools greatly contributed to the prestige and authority of nineteenth-century laissez-faire. [p. 32]

Posted on:

2009.01.25 -0600

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texts

Artist as illusionist

If we, as mischievous scientists, happen to separate out the cues associated with legitimate clustering and to manipulate them independently, then it should come as no surprise that we can "fool" the ear into perceiving "illusions." [p.13]

Posted on:

2009.01.05 -0600

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art , music , texts

The empire at work

For the European of the late nineteenth century, an interesting range of opinions are offered, all premised upon the subordination and victimization of the native. One is a self-forgetting delight in the use of power--the power to observe, rule, hold, and profit from distant territories and people. [...] Another is an ideological rationale for reducing, then reconstituting the native as someone to be ruled and managed. [...] Third is the idea of Western salvation and redemption through its "civilizing mission." Supported jointly by the experts in ideas (missionaries, teachers, advisers, scholars) and in modern industry and communication, the imperial idea of westernizing the backward achieved permanent status world0wide, but, as Michael Adas and others have shown, it was always accompanied by domination. Fourth is the security of a situation that permits the conqueror not to look into the truth of the violence he does. The idea of culture itself, as Arnold refined it, is designed to elevate practice to the level of theory, to liberate ideological coercion against rebellious elements--at home and abroad-- from the mundane and historical to the abstract and general. [...] Fifth is the process by which, after the natives have been displaced from their historical location on their land, their history is rewritten as a function of the imperial one. This process uses narrative to dispel contradictory memories and occlude violence--the exotic replaces the impress of power with the blandishments of curiosity--with the imperial presence so dominating as to make impossible any effort to separate it from historical necessity. All these together create an amalgam of the arts of narrative and observation about the accumulated, dominated, and ruled territories whose inhabitants seem destined never to escape, to remain creatures of European will. [p.131]

Posted on:

2008.10.27 -0500

Tags:

homo homini lupus , texts

Imperialisit rhetoric

Much of the rhetoric of the "New World Order" promulgated by the American government since the end of the Cold War--with its redolent self-congratulation, its unconcealed triumphalism, its grave proclamantions of responsibility--might have been scripted by Conrad's Holroyd: we are number one, we are bound to lead, we stand for freedom and order, and so on. No American has been immune from this structure of feeling, and yet the implicit warning contained in Conrad's portraits of Holroyd and Gould is rarely reflected on since the rhetoric of power all too easily produces an illusion of benevolence when deployed in an imperial setting. Yet it is a rhetoric whose most damning characteristic is that it has been used before, not just once (by Spain and Portugal) but with deafeningly repetitive frequency in the modern period, by the British, the French, the Belgians, the Japanese, the Russians, and now the Americans.

[...]

First is a depressing sense that one has seen and read about current American policy formulations before. Each great metropolitan center that aspires to global dominance has said, and alas done, many of the same things. There is always the appeal to power and national interest in running the affairs of lesser peoples; there is the same destructive zeal when the going gets a little rough, or when natives rise up and reject a compliant and unpopular ruler who was ensnared and kept in place by the imperial power; there is the horrifically predictable disclaimer that "we" are exceptional, not imperial, not about to repeat the mistake of earlier powers, a dispcaimer that has been routinely followed by making the mistake, as witness the Vietnam and Gulf wars. Worse yet has been the amazing, if often passive, collaboration with these practices on the part of intellectuals, artists, journalists whose positions at home are progressive and full of admirable sentiments, but the opposite when it comes to what is done abroad in their name.

Posted on:

2008.09.29 -0500

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homo homini lupus , texts

Regression effect

[...] A much more subtle flaw is technically termed a regression effect. That is, processes appear to "regress" from less likely states to more likely ones simply because the more likely ones are likely to occur at later points in time. For example, people are not often extremely happy (or extremely unhappy). It follows that when they are, they are less likely to be as extremely unhappy (or happy) later--no matter what happens in the meantime. Because most people enter therapy when they are extremely unhappy, they are less likely to be as unhappy later, independent of the effects of therapy itself. Hence, this "regression effect" can create the illusion that the therapy has helped to alleviate their unhappiness, whether it has or not. [p.44]

[...]

The direct relevance of regression effects to evaluating psychotherapy is that people often enter therapy at times when they are particularly unhappy and distressed. But if their problem is one that varies over time rather than having a consistently downward course, regression effects alone could result in "improvement"--and an illusion that the improvement is due to psychotherapy: "If treated, a cold will go away in seven days, whereas if left alone, it will last a week." [p.45]

Posted on:

2008.09.13 -0500

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texts

Slaves weigh 3/5

The Constitution, as accepted in the fall of 1787, protected slavery and empowered slaveholders in important ways. In the three-fifths clause, it allowed states to count three-fifths of their slave population in calculating the population number to be considered for apportioning representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Under this measure a single slaveholder with 100 slaves counted as the equivalent of sixty-one free people, giving the slave states increased numbers of representatives and greatly expanding their power in the U.S. Congress. This was a compromise between delegates from non-slave states who argued that slaves should not be counted at all in determining population size for the purpose of congressional representation and slave state delegates who demanded that the entire slave population be added to state population figures. Thus, the three-fifths compromise increased southern political power, allowing for greater protection of the institution of slavery.

[...]

The framers also wrote into the Constitution a provision that assisted slaveholders in the recovery of fugitive slaves, especially those who might seek sanctuary in non-slave states and territories. This section read, “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” This fugitive slave clause protected a slaveholder’s human property, making the act of assisting a fugitive a constitutional offense. The Constitution also protected slaveholders from their slaves, giving the federal government the power to put down domestic rebellions, including slave insurrections.

Posted on:

2008.08.23 -0500

Tags:

homo homini lupus , texts

Say again, Baudrillard

"[...] But it would be enthralling to consider this hypothesis [that "information dissolves meaning", that "it devours its own content"] even within the parameters of cybernetic information theory. There also, the fundamental thesis [which?] calls for this information to be synonymous to negentropy, with the resistance of entropy, with an excess of meaning and organization. But it would be useful to posit the opposite hypothesis: INFORMATION = ENTROPY." [p.86]

It is passages like these that make Baudrillard's writing very suspect. What is he trying to say? Maybe he is not really trying to say anything very specific, but rather, like a poet, is trying to place the reader in a space for a multiplicity of interpretations, a space of wonder, of bewilderment. Maybe Baudrillard's fascination with McLuhan's "the medium is the message" is more than a fetish, it is a goal. Maybe, like McLuhan's light bulb ("a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence." --Understanding Media [p.8]), Baudrillard's text also creates an "environment" by way of his very particular organization of lexical tokens.

Posted on:

2008.06.06 -0500

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Wittgenstein on the Tactus

...the point of the book is ethical. I once wanted to give a few words in the foreword which now actually are not in it, which, however, I’ll write to you now because they might be a key for you: I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the Ethical is delimited from within, as it were by my book; and I’m convinced that, strictly speaking, it can ONLY be delimited in this way. In brief, I think: All of that which many are babbling I have defined in my book by remaining silent about it.

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2008.04.19 -0500

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Why we must disestablish school

Rich and poor alike depend on schools and hospitals which guide their lives, from their world view, and define for them what is legitimate and what is not. Both view doctoring oneself as irresponsible, learning on one's own as unreliable, and community organization, when not paid for by those in authority, as a form of aggression or subversion. For both groups the reliance on institutional treatment renders independent accomplishments suspect.

[...] we need a law forbidding discrimination in hiring, voting, or admission to centers of learning based on previous attendance at some curriculum. This guarantee would not exclude performance tests of competence for a function or role, but would remove the present absurd discrimination in favor of the person who learns a given skill with the largest expenditure of public funds or what is equally likely has been able to obtain a diploma which has no relation to any useful skill or job. Only by protecting the citizen from being disqualified by anything in his career in school can a constitutional disestablishment of school become psychologically effective.

Neither learning nor justice is promoted by schooling because educators insist on packaging instruction with certification. Learning and the assignment of social roles are melted into schooling. Yet to learn means to acquire a new skill or insight, while promotion depends on an opinion which others have formed. Learning frequently is the result of instruction, but selection for a role or category in the job market increasingly depends on mere length of attendance.

Instruction is the choice of circumstances which facilitate learning. Roles are assigned by setting a curriculum of conditions which the candidate must meet if he is to make the grade. School links instruction but not learning to these roles. This is neither reasonable nor liberating. It is not reasonable because it does not link relevant qualities or competences to roles, but rather the process by which such qualities are supposed to be acquired. It is not liberating or educational because school reserves instruction to those whose every step in learning fits previously approved measures of social control.

Curriculum has always been used to assign social rank. At times it could be prenatal: karma ascribes you to a caste and lineage to the aristocracy. Curriculum could take the form of a ritual, of sequential sacred ordinations, or it could consist of a succession of feats in war or hunting, or further advancement could be made to depend on a series of previous princely favors. Universal schooling was meant to detach role assignment from personal life history: it was meant to give everybody an equal chance to any office. Even now many people wrongly believe that school ensures the dependence of public trust on relevant learning achievements. However, instead of equalizing chances, the school system has monopolized their distribution.

To detach competence from curriculum, inquiries into a man's learning history must be made taboo, like inquiries into his political affiliation, church attendance, lineage, sex habits, or racial background. Laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of prior schooling must be enacted. Laws, of course, cannot stop prejudice against the unschooled-nor are they meant to force anyone to intermarry with an autodidact but they can discourage unjustified discrimination.

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2008.04.15 -0500

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Descarte's third maxim (code of morals)

My third maxim was to endeavor always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than the order of the world, and in general, accustom myself to the persuasion that, except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power; so that when we have done our best in things external to us, all wherein we fail of success is to be held, as regards us, absolutely impossible: and this single principle seemed to me sufficient to prevent me from desiring for the future anything which I could not obtain, and thus render me contented; for since our will naturally seeks those objects alone which the understanding represents as in some way possible of attainment, it is plain, that if we consider all external goods as equally beyond our power, we shall no more regret the absence of such goods as seem due to our birth, when deprived of them without any fault of ours, than our not possessing the kingdoms of China or Mexico, and thus making, so to speak, a virtue of necessity, we shall no more desire health in disease, or freedom in imprisonment, than we now do bodies incorruptible as diamonds, or the wings of birds to fly with. But I confess there is need of prolonged discipline and frequently repeated meditation to accustom the mind to view all objects in this light; and I believe that in this chiefly consisted the secret of the power of such philosophers as in former times were enabled to rise superior to the influence of fortune, and, amid suffering and poverty, enjoy a happiness which their gods might have envied. For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization of all their desires.

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2008.04.10 -0500

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Form in architecture

...Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinder or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and tangible within us and without ambiguity. It is for this reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms...[p.29]

In Modern architecture we have operated too long under the restrictions of unbending rectangular forms supposed to have grown out of the technical requirements of the frame and the mass-produced curtain wall. In contrasting Mies' and Johnson's Seagram Building with Kahn's project for an office tower in Philadelphia it can be seen that Mies and Johnson reject all contradictions of diagonal wind-bracing in favor of an expression of a rectilinear frame. Kahn once said that the Seagram Building was like a beautiful lady with hidden corsets. Kahn, in contrast, expresses the wind-bracing---but at the expense of such vertical elements as the elevator and, indeed of the space for people.[p.50]

Posted on:

2008.02.23 -0600

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What is postmodernism?

Those who refuse to reexamine the rules of art pursue successful careers in mass conformism by communicating, by means of the "correct rules", the endemic desire for reality with objects and situations capable of gratifying it. Pornography is the use of photography and film to such an end. It is becoming a general model for the visual or narrative arts witch have not met the challenge of the mass media.

As for the artists and writters who question the rules of plastic and narrative arts and possibly share their suspicions by circulating their work, they are destined to have little credibility in the eyes of those concerned with "reality" and "identity"; they have no guarantee of an audience. Thus it is possible to ascribe the dialectics of the mass communication to painting and the narrative arts. Duchamp's "ready made" does nothing but actively and parodistically signify this constant process of dispossession of the craft of painting or even of being an artist. As Thierry de Duve penetratingly observes, the modern aesthetic question is not "What is beautiful?" but "What can be said to be art (and literature)?"

Realism, whose only definition is that it intends to avoid the question of reality implicated in that of art, always stands somewhere between academicism and kitsch.

[...]

What is clear, however, is that when it is launched by the political apparatus, the attack on artistic experimentation is specifically reactionary: aesthetic judgment would only be required to decide whether such or such work is in conformity with the established rules of the beautiful. Instead of the work of art having to investigate what makes it an art object and whether it will be able to find an audience, political academicism possesses and imposes a priori criteria of the beautiful, which designate some works and a public at a stroke and forever. The use of categories in aesthetic judgment would thus be of the same nature as in cognitive judgment.

[...]

When power is that of capital and not that of a party, the "transavantgardist" or "postmodern" (in Jencks's sense) solution proves to be better adapted than the antimodern solution. Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and "retro" clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works. By becoming kitsch, art panders to the confusion which reigns in the "taste" of the patrons. Artists, gallery owners, critics, and public wallow together in the "anything goes,", and the epoch is one of slackening. But this realism of the "anything goes" is in fact that of money; in the absence of aesthetic criteria, it remains possible and useful to assess the value of works of art according to the profits they yield. Such realism accommodates all tendencies, just as capital accommodates all "needs," providing that the tendencies and need have purchasing power. As for taste, there is no need to be delicate when one speculates or entertains oneself.

Posted on:

2008.02.01 -0600

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