Brian Holmes via nettime-l on Thu, 10 Apr 2025 19:10:52 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> What do you read?


That's a really useful idea, Geert. Let the reading lists bloom.

Obviously nettime is mostly concerned with Silicon Valley, technocracy,
etc. But as the discussion of Christian Nationalism shows, what's happening
in the US involves a convergence of wildly different conservative forces,
libertarian, industrialist, religious, and populist. It's a mashup and a
breakdown simultaneously. To understand how the right thought it could sail
this leaky galleon, I am currently reading political philosopher Wendy
Brown's 2019 book "In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of
Anti-Democratic Politics in the West." It's damn good, and as the title
suggests, not limited to the US case. She examines the main variants of
neoliberal political philosophy as it has developed over the last half
century, reveals how they promise to integrate the different conservative
currents, and also shows their failures, which we can all see on display. A
quote in that direction:

"Democracy has been throttled and demeaned, yes. However, the effect has
been the opposite of neoliberal aims. Instead of
being insulated from and thus capable of steering the economy, the state is
increasingly instrumentalized by big capital—all the
big industries, from agriculture and oil to pharmaceuticals and finance,
have their hands on the legislative wheels. Instead of
being politically pacified, citizenries have become vulnerable to demagogic
nationalistic mobilization decrying limited state sovereignty and
supranational facilitation of global competition and capital accumulation.
And instead of spontaneously ordering and disciplining populations,
traditional morality has become a battle screech, often emptied of
substance as it is instrumentalized for other ends. As antidemocratic
political powers and energies in constitutional democracies have swollen in
magnitude and intensity, they have yielded a monstrous form of political
life— one yanked by powerful economic interests and popular zeal, one
without democratic or even constitutional coordinates, spirit, or
accountability, and hence, perversely, one without the limits or
limitability sought by the neoliberals. Thus do parties of “limited
government” morph into parties of exorbitant state power and spending."

There's a November 2024 podcast with Brown and Quinn Slobodian that can
give you a flavor of this book:
https://thedigradio.com/podcast/maga-w-quinn-slobodian-wendy-brown

I have also started reading Brian Massumi's very recent book, "The
Personality of Power: A Theory of Fascism for Anti-Fascist Life." This is
media theory, and it's also an answer to the kind of mini-debate we had
here a while ago about whether personality matters in contemporary
politics. Where traditional theories of fascism postulate a fusional
identification of the masses with the figure of a charismatic leader,
Massumi goes to something more sophisticated and more realistic. He
describes a rhythmic oscillation between fascination with the superhuman
agency or "full body" of Trump the strongman, and then a fractalization of
this agency provoked by moments of apparent intimacy or fragility (a
fragmented body). This second moment of fractalization produces a chaotic
distribution of power among the highly individualized populations of our
mediated (post-)democracies. We were actually going to host a live
discussion at Watershed Art & Ecology between Massumi and the Chicago-based
performance artist Matthew Goulish, but whaddayaknow, Masssumi now judges
that he's too likely to get stopped at the border coming over from
Montreal, so he'll beam in and maybe we can offer some kind of livestream,
not sure about that yet.

best to all in these dark enlightenment times, Brian

On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM Petter Ericson via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> On 10 April, 2025 - David Garcia via nettime-l wrote:
>
> > Geert asked
> > I am curious what you read and find interesting, enlightening,
> disturbing,
> > beyond the ordinary news flow.
>
> I'm currently reading a classic in Science and Technology Studies: Langdon
> Winner's 'The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High
> Technology', and while I'm aware that some of the examples are overblown,
> and
> there are occasional passages where you can really tell that it was
> written in
> the mid-80s, much of it is incredibly relevant still. I'm sure many on this
> list has already read it at some point, but for those who haven't I can
> highly
> recommend it.
>
> Semi-relevant to David's choice is this passage, for example:
> > Taken as a whole, beliefs of this kind constitute what I would call
> > mythinformation: the almost religious conviction that a widespread
> adoption
> > of computers and communications systems along with easy access to
> electronic
> > information will automatically produce a better world for human living.
> It is
> > a peculiar form of enthusiasm that characterizes social fashions of the
> > latter decades of the twentieth century. Many people who have grown
> cynical
> > or discouraged about other aspects of social life are completely
> enthralled
> > by the supposed redemptive qualities of computers and telecommunications.
>
> Best,
>
> /P
>
> > -------------
> > I am reading Phil Tinline's book on an influential hoax "Ghosts of Iron
> > Mountain: The Hoax that Duped America and its Sinister Legacy". Its
> about a
> > fake (1962) 'think tanky style report with lots of foot notes 'so it
> must be
> > true' The Report from Iron Mountain claimed that winding down America's
> vast
> > war-making machinery would wreck the economy and tear society apart,
> > necessitating draconian controls over the population.
> >
> > It was published as non-fiction - and was frighteningly convincing.
> > Journalists tried to find out who had written it. Worried memos reached
> > right up to the president. It became a bestselling cause celebre.
> >
> > Even though the hoax was revealed long ago many still refuse to believe
> it
> > isn't real. And it has been seized on by eager figures on the political
> > extremes but most energetically by the far right and militia movement,
> who
> > insist that it revealed terrifying government conspiracies to  enslave
> > Americans and even instigate eugenics. It's been regularly referenced by
> Q
> > etc and the legacy lives on and on.
> >
> > Many have defended taking it seriously on the grounds that it "feels
> true".
> > Following the journey of this conspiracy and its many lives gave me a
> useful
> > account on the shifting nature overview of what constitutes 'proof' then
> and
> > now.
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> > # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
>
> --
> Petter Ericson (pettter@accum.se)
> --
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
>
-- 
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org