Aesthetic Materialism

  Debord was the most rigorous, consistent Marxist theorist of the 20th century.  Every word in "Society of the Spectacle" is placed with the utmost care and precision.  I would compare "Society of the Spectacle" to the engine of a racecar, in which every component has been delicately placed in position to maximize efficiency and power.  It is nothing like the sloppy meandering prose of a Benjamin or a Gramsci or even of Debord's brilliant and admirable teacher, Lefebvre - and it is directly opposed to Debord's moronic adversary, Althusser. Debord was working through two difficult questions.  Was Hegel an idealist?  Of course, in a way, we can answer that question briefly and somewhat dismissively, by saying that categories are stipulative - that "words are our servants, not our masters" as Humpty Dumpty says.  That is, we can simply give the glib answer that "It depends on what your definition of idealism is."  We can use the word "

There's no word in English that makes me as angry as "qualia".  It's a bad term, worse than useless - actually deceptive - espescially when people ask how "qualia" are "added" to perceptions.  No, that's not what happens, that's not how it works, and when anyone who even entertains this thought, I have to question whether or not they are a human being who has ever experienced anything.  What I hate most about the word "qualia" is its plurality.  People act as if there were certain "characteristics" of a thing that can only be experienced by a conscious being - as opposed to other "characteristics," which can be recorded by a videocamera, say.  But that's missing the point completely, and getting us way off track.  We have a great mystery to solve, and these idiotic dabblers are getting us bogged down in pointless distractions. There are no qualia.  There is only consciousness, singular.

  I'm not a Husserlian phenomenologist.  I'm not even sure what a Husserlian phenomenologist is.  But fundamentally, what I take to be the great lesson, the great hope of phenomenology is the human capacity to be always astonished.  In other words, it is not up to the world to astonish us; we are not mere passive spectators waiting for this to happen.  It is up to us.  Anything and everything can astonish us, if we look at it carefully enough.  I would even dare to say this is the spiritual hope of phenomenology.  This is no moral doctrine - it is not commanding that we "should" be astonished - or that we should pretend to be astonished, for some imagined overseer.  Nor is it saying that that which astonishes us is necessarily "good". Anyone can walk around with an attitude that says, "I've seen it all.  I was here first.  I'm not impressed.  Nothing surprises me."  Such people may feel that they are part of an elect - the experts, the so

  Not only is private language possible, not only is private language actual, not only is Wittgenstein's own writing an example of private language, but anyone who studies Wittgenstein deeply enough will inevitably begin communicating in private language.  Not only will the general public not know what they are talking about, but even other Wittgenstein scholars will cease to understand them.  I'm tempted to say that they will no longer be capable of understanding themselves. ...And yet, as you fall into Wittgensteinism, the transition to private language will be so slow and so subtle, that you will not have any awareness that you are slipping into private language.  Thus it is true that, from the perspective of Wittgensteinism , there is no such thing as private language.  It is like falling into a supermassive black hole: in the reference frame of the person falling in, there is no event horizon - everything occurs normally as they pass through.  It is only from our perspecti

  A certain tendency (Marxists, largely, and some anarchists, but also many conservatives - what's the diff, amirite?) moralistically berates us and tells us we should avoid "identity politics".  If they weren't such preachy jerks about it, it would actually be kinda sweet.  And of course, they're right - in a perfect world, that would be the morally right thing to do - to totally abolish all identity politics, whatever that means.  A world without identity politics is unimaginable - literally.  But it's sad that identity politics exist.  It's a shame.  It's a nightmare.  I will even go all the way and say that it's a tragedy.  And yet it is a reality.  Identity politics are a kind of vicious cycle, which just gets deeper and deeper, and seems impossible to escape.  There's no way to avoid it.  We can be in denial of identity politics, we can be angry about identity politics, we can be depressed about identity politics, we can try to bargain wi

  I suspect that the reason that the neologism "tailism" has not caught on is, in part, because it is such a useless term which only causes confusion and lack of theoretical rigor whenever it is thrown around.  This movement is accused of "tailing" such-and-such political party.  That party is accused of "tailing" some other tendency.  For instance, in America, one supposedly Marxist group may accuse another Marxist group of "tailing" the Democrats.  But what is "tailing"?  What does it mean, to tail?  Upon close examination, the verb "to tail" does not have any material meaning.   To adopt Marx's schema, the apparent phenomenon of "tailing" appears strictly on the level of the superstructure, and never at the material base of society.  The superstructure includes the political and legal levels, as well as specific forms of consciousness appropriate to these interests.  The unhappy consciousness sees evil all aro