Murder, She Said
Here is one of Tim Shorrock's latest articles. He'll be coming to speak at GMU next thursday, April 1.
Friday, March 26, 2004
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism
This is a difficult book to summarize and I am far from being qualified to critique it. The amount of historical research involved in the book is phenomenal (at least from my perspective) and he has done much to periodize these gigantic historical formations. The most important attribute, I suppose, is the method of study itself. He doesn't really have any grand conclusions--in fact he basically ends the book by saying that it is just a prologue to the Lineages book. There is a sort of assertion about the slave mode of production that he makes early on, but it is really just a hypothetical observation that he makes. He basically claims that the slave mode of production--as it existed in Classical Greek civilization and was perfected during Roman Antiquity--has a significant cultural effect. Because work is denigrated (as being something only the lower classes do) and the intensification of labor is usually accomplished by making slaves work harder or getting more of them, the impetus to create labor saving technology is never developed in these time periods. Though he doesn't really spend a lot of energy proving this (although it is always difficult to prove a negative) the assertion is a thumbnail of what the book (and likely the sequal) seems to argue: that there are discernible social and historical forces that cause events to unfold in a particular way. I don't know exactly how to critique this from a historiographic perspective, but the titles of the two books (Lineages and Passages) indicate the most likely critique I can think of: it is a linear narrative of history that proports to explain things in terms of sequential causality. However, as problematic as this might be for some pomo chaos-theory inspired historians, I think it is still an important thing to do. For one thing, most of the time, it seems to work. Certainly there were probably a number of countervailing forces that he doesn't take into account in his sweeping version of history, but he at least draws a broad portrait--both temporally and spatially--of how these societies unfolded.
And he is certainly more rigorous in his descriptions of causality than Marshall McLuhan--who, though I was reading him for the other field, ended up being an interesting foil for the discussion Anderson is having. Unlike McLuhan who basically has two different categories (literate and non-literate) that explain virtually every difference in any society, Anderson is much more careful in considering the determining forces of history, often showing the contradictions that emerge the larger you extend your observation. He is also extremely concerned with particularities and explaining the divergences between different historical developments--calling northern and south eastern europe "control" cases in the study of these historical development. He then goes on to carefully consider why the "far North" (i.e. Scandinavia, esp. Sweden) developed into feudalism despite being left out of the Roman empire and why the area "south of the Danube" (i.e. the balkens, etc.) didn't ever fully develop into feudal economies despite the fact that they were central to late Roman expansion. A good summary of most of the book is available at various places in the last chapters--though he never engages in a total summary--but he is roughly arguing that, in just about every case, there are historical limits to any cobination of social and economic forces (or in the more Marxian terminology, to any mode of production). It would seem that the rather trite cliche "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger" is often reversed for the development of these societies, the new saying being, "what makes you stronger will eventually kill you." This seems to be what he inevitably argues about any conjuncture:
Greek civilization develops into the first radical democracy, where virtually everyone has equal voice--except that the only way this somewhat classless society is able to exist is that it is based on slave labor. In other words, there is actually a large, disenfranchised majority that serves as the sort of class boundary that allows for Greek democracy to flourish. However, the radically democratic structures don't travel well so as Greece tries to expand, there is no way to keep the geographically defined democracy and the empire all at once. Hence there are internal limits to the development of this mode of production. These are overcome by the Roman Empire, but only for a while: and so on and so forth. In the east, there is the same story: the area "south of the danube" is able to survive the fall of Roman Empire, and repelling most of the invaders that helped precipitate its fall. But by doing so, it actually ends up hindering its own development because it is never forced to give up its antiquated (and liminal) mode of production. Hence all it really does is stave off the collapse for a millinea or so--and to create a situation where the collapse is far more total and debilitating than the seemingly creative destruction of the Roman synthesis with its Germanic invaders.
This points to another key theme in the book. Rooted in what seems to be a sort of enlightenment conception of the progress of civilization (despite its starts and stops, failures and success), Anderson seems to argue that there are a set of necessary stages in the course of development and that the test case of proper development is still Western Europe. Furthermore, he seems to believe--probably very much like Marx--that there is a necessary destruction of antiquated modes of production in order to move forward. I don't think he isn't on solid ground here--and couldn't critique him for it historically either way--but I do note that this is a fairly popular interpretation of the course of historical development. It is also the sort of rallying cry of the neoliberals who have little concern for forms of life or cultural heritage (except when they are "ours") and believe strongly that the rest of the world should simply strive to imitate us or quit complaining. This is probably not entirely borne out by Anderson's analysis--and to be sure he is much more interested in the particularities and combinations of social forces that lead to various historical developments than the sort of "democracy and capitalism for everyone" that has been promoted for the past century or so. He just seems to set the stage for that type of reading by assuming a sort of propriety to feudal development. Perhaps some of this will be nuanced in the next book, but for now, I am just noting this similarity.
Another note: along with the stuff on McLuhan I also read some James Carey articles about Harold Innis. I don't know enough about Innis to properly give a set of thoughts on him, but I have read enough to know that I am interested in including some more sustained readings of his work in the larger version of the field statements. He was McLuhan's mentor, but had a much broader understnding of the role of communication in society. He seems to precede people like Mattelart in looking past the medium and considering communication in general and, more importantly, the way that institutions and power relations constrain the development of those media. He is still similar to McLuhan, however, in his discussion of the bias of communication. The distinction between spatially binding and temporally binding media is most commonly referred to. Basically, the temporally binding media tends to not travel as well--either because it is on a bulky substance or it is part of an oral culture that can't guarantee unaltered transmission--so the focus is on the lineage of the history of the society. Thus the binding tends to be a sort of deep cultural heritage, concerned with its continuity through history. The opposite, it would seem, is true of the spatially binding media, which travel better and tend to encourage and enable geographical expansion at the expense of historical perspective. I think these are helpful distinctions if they aren't understood essentially and would like to look into them for the fields.
This is a difficult book to summarize and I am far from being qualified to critique it. The amount of historical research involved in the book is phenomenal (at least from my perspective) and he has done much to periodize these gigantic historical formations. The most important attribute, I suppose, is the method of study itself. He doesn't really have any grand conclusions--in fact he basically ends the book by saying that it is just a prologue to the Lineages book. There is a sort of assertion about the slave mode of production that he makes early on, but it is really just a hypothetical observation that he makes. He basically claims that the slave mode of production--as it existed in Classical Greek civilization and was perfected during Roman Antiquity--has a significant cultural effect. Because work is denigrated (as being something only the lower classes do) and the intensification of labor is usually accomplished by making slaves work harder or getting more of them, the impetus to create labor saving technology is never developed in these time periods. Though he doesn't really spend a lot of energy proving this (although it is always difficult to prove a negative) the assertion is a thumbnail of what the book (and likely the sequal) seems to argue: that there are discernible social and historical forces that cause events to unfold in a particular way. I don't know exactly how to critique this from a historiographic perspective, but the titles of the two books (Lineages and Passages) indicate the most likely critique I can think of: it is a linear narrative of history that proports to explain things in terms of sequential causality. However, as problematic as this might be for some pomo chaos-theory inspired historians, I think it is still an important thing to do. For one thing, most of the time, it seems to work. Certainly there were probably a number of countervailing forces that he doesn't take into account in his sweeping version of history, but he at least draws a broad portrait--both temporally and spatially--of how these societies unfolded.
And he is certainly more rigorous in his descriptions of causality than Marshall McLuhan--who, though I was reading him for the other field, ended up being an interesting foil for the discussion Anderson is having. Unlike McLuhan who basically has two different categories (literate and non-literate) that explain virtually every difference in any society, Anderson is much more careful in considering the determining forces of history, often showing the contradictions that emerge the larger you extend your observation. He is also extremely concerned with particularities and explaining the divergences between different historical developments--calling northern and south eastern europe "control" cases in the study of these historical development. He then goes on to carefully consider why the "far North" (i.e. Scandinavia, esp. Sweden) developed into feudalism despite being left out of the Roman empire and why the area "south of the Danube" (i.e. the balkens, etc.) didn't ever fully develop into feudal economies despite the fact that they were central to late Roman expansion. A good summary of most of the book is available at various places in the last chapters--though he never engages in a total summary--but he is roughly arguing that, in just about every case, there are historical limits to any cobination of social and economic forces (or in the more Marxian terminology, to any mode of production). It would seem that the rather trite cliche "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger" is often reversed for the development of these societies, the new saying being, "what makes you stronger will eventually kill you." This seems to be what he inevitably argues about any conjuncture:
Greek civilization develops into the first radical democracy, where virtually everyone has equal voice--except that the only way this somewhat classless society is able to exist is that it is based on slave labor. In other words, there is actually a large, disenfranchised majority that serves as the sort of class boundary that allows for Greek democracy to flourish. However, the radically democratic structures don't travel well so as Greece tries to expand, there is no way to keep the geographically defined democracy and the empire all at once. Hence there are internal limits to the development of this mode of production. These are overcome by the Roman Empire, but only for a while: and so on and so forth. In the east, there is the same story: the area "south of the danube" is able to survive the fall of Roman Empire, and repelling most of the invaders that helped precipitate its fall. But by doing so, it actually ends up hindering its own development because it is never forced to give up its antiquated (and liminal) mode of production. Hence all it really does is stave off the collapse for a millinea or so--and to create a situation where the collapse is far more total and debilitating than the seemingly creative destruction of the Roman synthesis with its Germanic invaders.
This points to another key theme in the book. Rooted in what seems to be a sort of enlightenment conception of the progress of civilization (despite its starts and stops, failures and success), Anderson seems to argue that there are a set of necessary stages in the course of development and that the test case of proper development is still Western Europe. Furthermore, he seems to believe--probably very much like Marx--that there is a necessary destruction of antiquated modes of production in order to move forward. I don't think he isn't on solid ground here--and couldn't critique him for it historically either way--but I do note that this is a fairly popular interpretation of the course of historical development. It is also the sort of rallying cry of the neoliberals who have little concern for forms of life or cultural heritage (except when they are "ours") and believe strongly that the rest of the world should simply strive to imitate us or quit complaining. This is probably not entirely borne out by Anderson's analysis--and to be sure he is much more interested in the particularities and combinations of social forces that lead to various historical developments than the sort of "democracy and capitalism for everyone" that has been promoted for the past century or so. He just seems to set the stage for that type of reading by assuming a sort of propriety to feudal development. Perhaps some of this will be nuanced in the next book, but for now, I am just noting this similarity.
Another note: along with the stuff on McLuhan I also read some James Carey articles about Harold Innis. I don't know enough about Innis to properly give a set of thoughts on him, but I have read enough to know that I am interested in including some more sustained readings of his work in the larger version of the field statements. He was McLuhan's mentor, but had a much broader understnding of the role of communication in society. He seems to precede people like Mattelart in looking past the medium and considering communication in general and, more importantly, the way that institutions and power relations constrain the development of those media. He is still similar to McLuhan, however, in his discussion of the bias of communication. The distinction between spatially binding and temporally binding media is most commonly referred to. Basically, the temporally binding media tends to not travel as well--either because it is on a bulky substance or it is part of an oral culture that can't guarantee unaltered transmission--so the focus is on the lineage of the history of the society. Thus the binding tends to be a sort of deep cultural heritage, concerned with its continuity through history. The opposite, it would seem, is true of the spatially binding media, which travel better and tend to encourage and enable geographical expansion at the expense of historical perspective. I think these are helpful distinctions if they aren't understood essentially and would like to look into them for the fields.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Reading McLuhan, Understanding Media...
The first half is very literary and historical and sociological. Though the focus is ultimately on technology, he is much more concerned with the way that it functions socially. Communication technology he figures as just another advancement--and, like Mattleart later on, he is also widening the definition of communication so that the wheel is also a communication technology. Unlike other times where a broad definition seems to make the concept itself seem meaningless (simply because it is unclear that the concept, or the word for it, means anything at all once you make it that broad, cf: culture) the inclusion of somewhat unorthodox examples of communication actually make it clearer what he means. I have some reservations about the extended metaphor of "the extension of man" and this desire to have our central nervous system extend outward (presaging Haraway's cyborgs I suppose) is part of the problem to which the electronic media are the solution (along with many other comm technologies before then.) But it does seem that he has accounted for what Polanyi might call a double movement in that, as these new forms of communcation/media/culture are introduced, there is a way that society tries to protect itself--only instead of a counteraction to the social change, he describes a numbness that develops either at the site of the change or generally throughout the social body, which helps dull the convulsive shifts.
The shifts he's decribing aren't just--or even really at all--a reorganization of the social field or the modes of production, consumption, etc. but rather it is a redistribution of the sensory emphases of the subjects of the culture. He compares this to an anaesthetic that would be required for the social surgery of the implementation of a new technology which will drastically reorder the sense rations of the culture. For this discussion, he does some very interesting things, among them, his (I suppose) famous discussion of hot and cold mediums. What I find interesting in this discussion is that, while he says there is a distinction between the two, he also tries to talk about the way they are functioning in society.
"Nevertheless, it makes all the difference whether a hot medium is used in a hot or cool culture. The hot radio medium used in cool or nonliterate cultures has a violent effect, quite unlike its effect, say in England or America, where radio is felt as entertainment. A cool or low literacy culture cannot accept hot media like movies or radio as entertainment. They are, at least, as radically upsetting for them as the cool TV medium has proved to be for our high literacy world."(31)
The distinction he makes here between hot and cool cultures seems arbitrary (of course all these distinctions are). He basically means that a cool culture is more of an oral culture. But the cool media are things like books (usually) which leave something to interpretation (a description that Adorno would probably like). So these could be cool cultures because oral words leave something to the imagination but he counterposes it with the supposedly hot culture of the West which he calls "literate" meaning, it would seem, that it is centered around literature which would make it "cool" as well. To complicate this, he has a bit of a strange discussion about jazz (p.27) where he initially calls it a hot form of music but then says "Cool jazz came in quite naturally after the first impact of radio and movie had been absorbed." In other words, while the medium or form itself might have certain tendencies which might be described as "hot" or "cool" these are only relevant in reference to the context in which they are functioning--both socially and in the "media ecology."
This also means that the distinction he draws between hot and cool cultures is also somewhat nullified. A more significant observation that he makes is that
"Any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios and equilibriums among other organs and extensions of the body. There is, for example, no way of refusing to comply with the new sense ratios or sense 'closure' evoked by the TV image. But the effect of the entry of the TV image wil vary from culture to culture in accordance to the existing sense ratios in each culture." (45)
This is a better, more general way of describing this process. Instead of trying to measure the hotness or coolness of the medium or culture it is better to consider the dialectical relationship between them at any given time--realizing that there will be some sort of social effect when a new technology is introduced. However, the rest of the book seems devoted to describing the different mediums--their essences--which would seem to preclude there being a great deal of interaction with the culture or the other media in it. Though I plan to read the last sections closely, I will note that I think the useful aspect of the first part (which would seem to undermine any discussion of the essences of mediums) is his discussion of the way artists are able to use new media to create hybrid forms, changing the earlier media as well as integating the new. Moreover, he seems committed to this line of reasoning saying
"media as extensions of our senses institute new ratios, not only among our private senses, but among themselves, when they interactamong themselves. Radio changed the form of the news story as much as it altered the film image in the talkies. TV caused drastic changes in radio programming, and in the form of the thing or documentary novel."(53)
Aside from his unfortunate use of the term "talkies," I think most of this makes sense and is a good conceptualization for the way societies take on these forms. He also gives a central role to artists as the people who "show us how to 'ride with the punch,' instead of 'taking it in the chin.' It can only be repeated that human history is a record of 'taking it in the chin.'"(66) All of this is curiously similar to some of the things that Adorno says about culture as well. Here, like Polanyi, he isn't necessarily cautioning the distructive potential of these cultural and technological changes. He simply thinks that being aware of how they will destroy and reorder lives and consciousnesses will help us to better prepare for them.
I recall one of my professors (Dr. Babbili) attending a conference in Canada a few years ago that was discussing what the social impact of the internet would be and how best to channel it. Instead of having this kind of conversation, Americans seem fine with sticking to message: anything is possible, keep the options open, let the corporations--oops I mean "free market" decide what is best. The only reason to intervene is if someone puts free music or naked pictures up: then we can just sue them and everyone will be happy.
It should be said, perhaps, that McLuhan was Canadian.
The first half is very literary and historical and sociological. Though the focus is ultimately on technology, he is much more concerned with the way that it functions socially. Communication technology he figures as just another advancement--and, like Mattleart later on, he is also widening the definition of communication so that the wheel is also a communication technology. Unlike other times where a broad definition seems to make the concept itself seem meaningless (simply because it is unclear that the concept, or the word for it, means anything at all once you make it that broad, cf: culture) the inclusion of somewhat unorthodox examples of communication actually make it clearer what he means. I have some reservations about the extended metaphor of "the extension of man" and this desire to have our central nervous system extend outward (presaging Haraway's cyborgs I suppose) is part of the problem to which the electronic media are the solution (along with many other comm technologies before then.) But it does seem that he has accounted for what Polanyi might call a double movement in that, as these new forms of communcation/media/culture are introduced, there is a way that society tries to protect itself--only instead of a counteraction to the social change, he describes a numbness that develops either at the site of the change or generally throughout the social body, which helps dull the convulsive shifts.
The shifts he's decribing aren't just--or even really at all--a reorganization of the social field or the modes of production, consumption, etc. but rather it is a redistribution of the sensory emphases of the subjects of the culture. He compares this to an anaesthetic that would be required for the social surgery of the implementation of a new technology which will drastically reorder the sense rations of the culture. For this discussion, he does some very interesting things, among them, his (I suppose) famous discussion of hot and cold mediums. What I find interesting in this discussion is that, while he says there is a distinction between the two, he also tries to talk about the way they are functioning in society.
"Nevertheless, it makes all the difference whether a hot medium is used in a hot or cool culture. The hot radio medium used in cool or nonliterate cultures has a violent effect, quite unlike its effect, say in England or America, where radio is felt as entertainment. A cool or low literacy culture cannot accept hot media like movies or radio as entertainment. They are, at least, as radically upsetting for them as the cool TV medium has proved to be for our high literacy world."(31)
The distinction he makes here between hot and cool cultures seems arbitrary (of course all these distinctions are). He basically means that a cool culture is more of an oral culture. But the cool media are things like books (usually) which leave something to interpretation (a description that Adorno would probably like). So these could be cool cultures because oral words leave something to the imagination but he counterposes it with the supposedly hot culture of the West which he calls "literate" meaning, it would seem, that it is centered around literature which would make it "cool" as well. To complicate this, he has a bit of a strange discussion about jazz (p.27) where he initially calls it a hot form of music but then says "Cool jazz came in quite naturally after the first impact of radio and movie had been absorbed." In other words, while the medium or form itself might have certain tendencies which might be described as "hot" or "cool" these are only relevant in reference to the context in which they are functioning--both socially and in the "media ecology."
This also means that the distinction he draws between hot and cool cultures is also somewhat nullified. A more significant observation that he makes is that
"Any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios and equilibriums among other organs and extensions of the body. There is, for example, no way of refusing to comply with the new sense ratios or sense 'closure' evoked by the TV image. But the effect of the entry of the TV image wil vary from culture to culture in accordance to the existing sense ratios in each culture." (45)
This is a better, more general way of describing this process. Instead of trying to measure the hotness or coolness of the medium or culture it is better to consider the dialectical relationship between them at any given time--realizing that there will be some sort of social effect when a new technology is introduced. However, the rest of the book seems devoted to describing the different mediums--their essences--which would seem to preclude there being a great deal of interaction with the culture or the other media in it. Though I plan to read the last sections closely, I will note that I think the useful aspect of the first part (which would seem to undermine any discussion of the essences of mediums) is his discussion of the way artists are able to use new media to create hybrid forms, changing the earlier media as well as integating the new. Moreover, he seems committed to this line of reasoning saying
"media as extensions of our senses institute new ratios, not only among our private senses, but among themselves, when they interactamong themselves. Radio changed the form of the news story as much as it altered the film image in the talkies. TV caused drastic changes in radio programming, and in the form of the thing or documentary novel."(53)
Aside from his unfortunate use of the term "talkies," I think most of this makes sense and is a good conceptualization for the way societies take on these forms. He also gives a central role to artists as the people who "show us how to 'ride with the punch,' instead of 'taking it in the chin.' It can only be repeated that human history is a record of 'taking it in the chin.'"(66) All of this is curiously similar to some of the things that Adorno says about culture as well. Here, like Polanyi, he isn't necessarily cautioning the distructive potential of these cultural and technological changes. He simply thinks that being aware of how they will destroy and reorder lives and consciousnesses will help us to better prepare for them.
I recall one of my professors (Dr. Babbili) attending a conference in Canada a few years ago that was discussing what the social impact of the internet would be and how best to channel it. Instead of having this kind of conversation, Americans seem fine with sticking to message: anything is possible, keep the options open, let the corporations--oops I mean "free market" decide what is best. The only reason to intervene is if someone puts free music or naked pictures up: then we can just sue them and everyone will be happy.
It should be said, perhaps, that McLuhan was Canadian.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
MSNBC - Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
BANG! Here's one for the books--White House kept the "war on terrorism" from catching a terrorist ("Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq") who's now killing our troops in Iraq because they wanted to send our troops to Iraq (and get killed by terrorists) and they thought killing this guy would weaken the case for war. So instead of carrying out any of the plans the Pentagon made (from June 2002 on) to go after this guy in his weapons lab operating in N. Iraq, the White House sat on it and made Saddam into the bad guy. Now we've got Saddam but we're getting killed. I think maybe we went after the wrong guy. Too bad this won't make the headlines.
BANG! Here's one for the books--White House kept the "war on terrorism" from catching a terrorist ("Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq") who's now killing our troops in Iraq because they wanted to send our troops to Iraq (and get killed by terrorists) and they thought killing this guy would weaken the case for war. So instead of carrying out any of the plans the Pentagon made (from June 2002 on) to go after this guy in his weapons lab operating in N. Iraq, the White House sat on it and made Saddam into the bad guy. Now we've got Saddam but we're getting killed. I think maybe we went after the wrong guy. Too bad this won't make the headlines.
Saturday, February 28, 2004
The Miami Herald | 02/28/2004 | Our teachers are warriors, not terrorists
and a good editorial with a nice finish:
Educators, however, are increasingly critical that such reform places too much emphasis on the wrong things. They have loudly complained that the administration has not put its money where its mouth is. And so, the teachers' union, which has sought changes to the law, plans to sue over funding and how the law is enforced.
"Maybe in Paige's book, this kind of dissent makes people terrorists. Teachers, though, would probably say that what the 2002 law does is send warriors off to battle without the proper planning or the necessary backup.
Then again, aren't we already doing that halfway around the world?"
and a good editorial with a nice finish:
Educators, however, are increasingly critical that such reform places too much emphasis on the wrong things. They have loudly complained that the administration has not put its money where its mouth is. And so, the teachers' union, which has sought changes to the law, plans to sue over funding and how the law is enforced.
"Maybe in Paige's book, this kind of dissent makes people terrorists. Teachers, though, would probably say that what the 2002 law does is send warriors off to battle without the proper planning or the necessary backup.
Then again, aren't we already doing that halfway around the world?"
The Black Commentator - Bush Assaults Teacher Standards - Issue 79
Another interesting analysis of Paige's comments--but with a lot more context
Another interesting analysis of Paige's comments--but with a lot more context
BET.com - Head of the Nation's Largest Teacher Union Calls for Education Secretary to Resign
It is amazing to compare the BET version of this story about Rod Paige calling the NEA "Terrorists" with the CNN Version. While BET gives some credence to his remarks, they give the NEA the space to defend themselves against these charges. On the other hand, CNN frames it basically as a slip of words he shouldn't have said but ends with a series of quotes--not from the NEA themselves, explaining what it is they are upset about at the current moment, but from some stats such as "The NEA is headquartered in Washington where every year the organization spends about $1 million lobbying, according to The Associated Press" which seems to underhandedly support the secretary's frustration as legitimate. This is nothing compared to their lead in to the story:
"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization" Monday as he argued that the country's largest teachers union often acts at odds with the wishes of rank-and-file teachers regarding school standards and accountability."
CNN leaves this sentiment out there and lets it be the unspoken truth. It goes on to basically continue with this framing of the NEA as some sort of democratic lobby group, only briefly quoting the NEA director, but instead quoting only Democratic party officials who had criticism for the Secretary. More importantly, CNN makes absolutely no mention of the No Child Left Behind Act which is the center of the debate, instead framing it as only a political issue between intractable polemical positions. Nevertheless, since the Secretary and the Bush administration are given most of the space at the beginning of the story, the frame is set up so that there is obviously a more correct political position to be had--and what a familiar position it is: you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.
It is amazing to compare the BET version of this story about Rod Paige calling the NEA "Terrorists" with the CNN Version. While BET gives some credence to his remarks, they give the NEA the space to defend themselves against these charges. On the other hand, CNN frames it basically as a slip of words he shouldn't have said but ends with a series of quotes--not from the NEA themselves, explaining what it is they are upset about at the current moment, but from some stats such as "The NEA is headquartered in Washington where every year the organization spends about $1 million lobbying, according to The Associated Press" which seems to underhandedly support the secretary's frustration as legitimate. This is nothing compared to their lead in to the story:
"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization" Monday as he argued that the country's largest teachers union often acts at odds with the wishes of rank-and-file teachers regarding school standards and accountability."
CNN leaves this sentiment out there and lets it be the unspoken truth. It goes on to basically continue with this framing of the NEA as some sort of democratic lobby group, only briefly quoting the NEA director, but instead quoting only Democratic party officials who had criticism for the Secretary. More importantly, CNN makes absolutely no mention of the No Child Left Behind Act which is the center of the debate, instead framing it as only a political issue between intractable polemical positions. Nevertheless, since the Secretary and the Bush administration are given most of the space at the beginning of the story, the frame is set up so that there is obviously a more correct political position to be had--and what a familiar position it is: you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.
Friday, February 27, 2004
The Process of Elimination
In my north Texas high school, one of the strategies we were taught for taking the ever present standardized test was the process of elimination: since there were a limited number of options on each question, if you didn’t know the right answer, you could start by trying to rule out all the answers that were obviously not right. After crossing off a number of the options, it would, theoretically clarify the decision making process and, perhaps, give you a greater chance of guessing correctly. Of course, for this strategy to work, there have to be a very limited number of options and you have to be able to eliminate some of those options right off the bat. Nevertheless, since it is presented as a viable option during those days before the test prep, it keeps you from having to learn too much ahead of time: you can just forge ahead with what you already know to be true, eliminating obviously false answers to a question.
Earlier this week, we witnessed Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan using his own process of elimination for how to handle the astounding deficit our charming president and his skilled plutocrats have produced for the coming year. Since we now live in a world where the logic of neo-liberal monetarism prevails, there were a number of options that were eliminated right off the bat. For instance, repealing the tax cuts given to the upper class was seen as an obviously wrong answer: we can eliminate that one without thinking because it is obviously the wrong thing to do.
Why is it the wrong thing to do? Well according to this line of thinking, tax cuts are designed to pump up the economy because, if rich people have more money, they will do something productive with it and we will all get a slice. Of course all of this is assuming that they use the money (not just putting it in savings or in a tax shelter offshore [it’s not a coincidence and Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are just behind the USA in per capita GDP— http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html]) and they use it here (not setting up production in another country with a lower “competitive advantage” on labor.) But that is not for us to say: once the government gives them back “their” money, there isn’t much we can say about it. Nevertheless, the repeal of these cuts is eliminated as an option.
Likewise, cutting expenditures on the military is also off the table. The $430 billion combined expenditures of Homeland Security and the Defense Department which represent increases of 9.7% and 7.1% over last year, are not considered excessive (though $3 billion in veterans’ benefits did make it on the cutting room floor). No, despite the fact that defense is our largest discretionary expenditure, Reaganomics dictates that one must build that military ever larger, year by year (though now this military Keynsianism is again crippled since defense contractors can outsource their work to other countries with cheaper labor so even the argument that it creates jobs isn’t available: it’s just another hole in the sieve.) The current culture of fear seems to legitimize this expenditure—though it would seem much more likely to the average American that they will lose their home to a foreclosure due to job loss than in some weird scenario where someone brings a nuke into the country through an insecure port.
So, by process of elimination, Greenspan looked to one of the largest non-discretionary spending programs (i.e the mandatory program of Social Security) and recommended cutting those expenditures. One can look at this highly unpopular recommendation in several ways. One is that Greenspan is simply avoiding any critique of tax cuts or military expenditures because he is cowed by his term nearing an end. To continue as his role as the most powerful man in the world, he needs to be reappointed by Bush when his term ends on June 20. Thus he is trying not to say anything too overly critical lest he be deposed. This is a fairly cynical proposition, but not one I am prepared to fully dismiss. He may be an Objectivist, but the kind of power he has is rare and the prospect of having it revoked must be a heavy burden upon his shoulders: in this case, he shrugged. Its not that surprising since, even if he doesn’t get reappointed, he probably won’t be trying to make it until his next SS check comes.
On the other hand, one could read Greenspan’s message against the grain: in saying that we should keep the tax cuts, he doesn’t give Bush or his economic advisors any overt static and he stays the neo-liberal course. On the other hand, he gives them a very unpleasant option as a fixer. If we have to eliminate the elimination of the tax cuts, he seems to be saying, that’s fine: but in order to do that, we’ll just have to cut out the benefits that we’ve all been paying through our payroll taxes for years. By making what should have been an absolutely wrong solution (it’s a mandatory program) the only possibly answer, Greenspan could be indicating that, perhaps, he eliminated one answer prematurely. And, of course, whether he meant to say this or not, that is the message we should be reading from his proposal.
Of course the ultimate problem is that, as any educator worth their salt will tell you, all standardized tests are in some way biased. This one gives us a very limited number of options for fixing a slow economy so that the real process of elimination comes in the options that are not presented at all. The post-war economic models of using deficits to increase domestic production and purchasing power are off the table completely. Why not increase the minimum wage so that more people are included in the national economy and then there is a higher percentage of money flowing into the social security system? In the current free market system, this risks sending those corporations packing, off to other, more exploitable sources of labor (we should, of course, accept this movement of corporations as natural, inevitable, and unquestionable and any attempt to question it is a form of nationalist protectionism which we should now outgrow as it is outmoded and unscientific.) It helps this argument that people are already witnessing this happening even without raising minimum wage. Finally, right now, everyone who makes over $87,500 pays the same amount into Social Security: why not make people who earn more pay a higher percentage into Social Security? Well that’s a silly proposition: if we were going to do that, we might as well repeal that tax cut we gave a few of those people earlier this year.
No it would seem that, in the current era of standardized thinking, process of elimination tells us that this government can do little to help the current workforce: when the only recommendation to the current deficits is that we take money away from people who’ve already worked, process of elimination tells us that this government will probably do very little to help people who want to work now. Process of elimination should tell all of us that the first thing we should eliminate is a government such as this.
In my north Texas high school, one of the strategies we were taught for taking the ever present standardized test was the process of elimination: since there were a limited number of options on each question, if you didn’t know the right answer, you could start by trying to rule out all the answers that were obviously not right. After crossing off a number of the options, it would, theoretically clarify the decision making process and, perhaps, give you a greater chance of guessing correctly. Of course, for this strategy to work, there have to be a very limited number of options and you have to be able to eliminate some of those options right off the bat. Nevertheless, since it is presented as a viable option during those days before the test prep, it keeps you from having to learn too much ahead of time: you can just forge ahead with what you already know to be true, eliminating obviously false answers to a question.
Earlier this week, we witnessed Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan using his own process of elimination for how to handle the astounding deficit our charming president and his skilled plutocrats have produced for the coming year. Since we now live in a world where the logic of neo-liberal monetarism prevails, there were a number of options that were eliminated right off the bat. For instance, repealing the tax cuts given to the upper class was seen as an obviously wrong answer: we can eliminate that one without thinking because it is obviously the wrong thing to do.
Why is it the wrong thing to do? Well according to this line of thinking, tax cuts are designed to pump up the economy because, if rich people have more money, they will do something productive with it and we will all get a slice. Of course all of this is assuming that they use the money (not just putting it in savings or in a tax shelter offshore [it’s not a coincidence and Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are just behind the USA in per capita GDP— http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html]) and they use it here (not setting up production in another country with a lower “competitive advantage” on labor.) But that is not for us to say: once the government gives them back “their” money, there isn’t much we can say about it. Nevertheless, the repeal of these cuts is eliminated as an option.
Likewise, cutting expenditures on the military is also off the table. The $430 billion combined expenditures of Homeland Security and the Defense Department which represent increases of 9.7% and 7.1% over last year, are not considered excessive (though $3 billion in veterans’ benefits did make it on the cutting room floor). No, despite the fact that defense is our largest discretionary expenditure, Reaganomics dictates that one must build that military ever larger, year by year (though now this military Keynsianism is again crippled since defense contractors can outsource their work to other countries with cheaper labor so even the argument that it creates jobs isn’t available: it’s just another hole in the sieve.) The current culture of fear seems to legitimize this expenditure—though it would seem much more likely to the average American that they will lose their home to a foreclosure due to job loss than in some weird scenario where someone brings a nuke into the country through an insecure port.
So, by process of elimination, Greenspan looked to one of the largest non-discretionary spending programs (i.e the mandatory program of Social Security) and recommended cutting those expenditures. One can look at this highly unpopular recommendation in several ways. One is that Greenspan is simply avoiding any critique of tax cuts or military expenditures because he is cowed by his term nearing an end. To continue as his role as the most powerful man in the world, he needs to be reappointed by Bush when his term ends on June 20. Thus he is trying not to say anything too overly critical lest he be deposed. This is a fairly cynical proposition, but not one I am prepared to fully dismiss. He may be an Objectivist, but the kind of power he has is rare and the prospect of having it revoked must be a heavy burden upon his shoulders: in this case, he shrugged. Its not that surprising since, even if he doesn’t get reappointed, he probably won’t be trying to make it until his next SS check comes.
On the other hand, one could read Greenspan’s message against the grain: in saying that we should keep the tax cuts, he doesn’t give Bush or his economic advisors any overt static and he stays the neo-liberal course. On the other hand, he gives them a very unpleasant option as a fixer. If we have to eliminate the elimination of the tax cuts, he seems to be saying, that’s fine: but in order to do that, we’ll just have to cut out the benefits that we’ve all been paying through our payroll taxes for years. By making what should have been an absolutely wrong solution (it’s a mandatory program) the only possibly answer, Greenspan could be indicating that, perhaps, he eliminated one answer prematurely. And, of course, whether he meant to say this or not, that is the message we should be reading from his proposal.
Of course the ultimate problem is that, as any educator worth their salt will tell you, all standardized tests are in some way biased. This one gives us a very limited number of options for fixing a slow economy so that the real process of elimination comes in the options that are not presented at all. The post-war economic models of using deficits to increase domestic production and purchasing power are off the table completely. Why not increase the minimum wage so that more people are included in the national economy and then there is a higher percentage of money flowing into the social security system? In the current free market system, this risks sending those corporations packing, off to other, more exploitable sources of labor (we should, of course, accept this movement of corporations as natural, inevitable, and unquestionable and any attempt to question it is a form of nationalist protectionism which we should now outgrow as it is outmoded and unscientific.) It helps this argument that people are already witnessing this happening even without raising minimum wage. Finally, right now, everyone who makes over $87,500 pays the same amount into Social Security: why not make people who earn more pay a higher percentage into Social Security? Well that’s a silly proposition: if we were going to do that, we might as well repeal that tax cut we gave a few of those people earlier this year.
No it would seem that, in the current era of standardized thinking, process of elimination tells us that this government can do little to help the current workforce: when the only recommendation to the current deficits is that we take money away from people who’ve already worked, process of elimination tells us that this government will probably do very little to help people who want to work now. Process of elimination should tell all of us that the first thing we should eliminate is a government such as this.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
As a side note, last day of the unit was today...and it should be quite a relief. However, what I realize is that I was working as hard and as long as I need to be working on a regular basis. I need to adjust my repair time or figure out a way to balance things so that I can get as much work done as I have in the past ew weeks--only this time more for myself. In retrospect, I can't remember anything I was working on or reading--or at least have lost the rhythm--before all of this started. I need to get back in that mindset and save all my wasting time for when Jill is around or there are things I have to do for me. Right now all of my pressure valve activities are wasteful uses of time. And time is short. Every day I get older and it is one more day I am not working towards my goals. Oh, and I need to establish some goals!
Field proposal for communication, culture, social formation: April 1--with bibliography and web-page set up
Field proposal for global political economy: June 1--bib and web page.
Feeling a bit pressed right now because there is simply so much to do and so little time to do it. Suddenly this course is over and it is time to start planning for the next two (or three if I count the intersession class.) This summer may be a bust of sorts unless I get a rhythm going on these fields. But I suppose it will be good if I am getting paid to teach two courses and getting the experience as well.
I am also feeling a bit pressed because I have so many projects I am working on (or need to be working on) and all of them are feeling a bit trite in the grand scheme of things. Ants marching, building little castles of information and knowledge for the next generation (or someone tomorrow) to knock over (or, I suppose, build upon.) I have less and less faith, however, in the forward progress of humanity: technology may improve, but people keep doing the same stupid s**t over and over. (Not saying s**t here because suddenly remembered I'm posting this to GMU's site and they probably have spiders all over it to catch anything indecent.)
In other news, Catherine, my cousin, has once again landed a great job. She must be amazing and she is obviously the jewel in the crown of her family--and for good reason: it was certainly a group effort in many ways to get her where she is. Of course most of this is the result of her hard work and talent. I hope that this job (working on General Hospital w/ a four year contract) does great things for her and her career. Or, more correctly, I am interested to see what someone as amazing as her will do with a part on daily TV. As talented as she is, she has a passionate flair for melodrama which even the soap opera world may be too small to contain. Either way, I am sure she'll have fun.
(I wish I could be more happy for her--and only just happy for her--but there is this part of me that, again, as always, feels completely inadequate, like I'm not pushing hard enough, which, of course, is true. But then again, catherine is supercharged, magnetized with some rare spiritual force that draws you into her orbit. I don't exude that charisma right now. I need to be screaming more, finding that fire in my gut, being henry not hugo. Henry not hugo. Or at least finding the henry to my hugo and letting him out more.)
Field proposal for communication, culture, social formation: April 1--with bibliography and web-page set up
Field proposal for global political economy: June 1--bib and web page.
Feeling a bit pressed right now because there is simply so much to do and so little time to do it. Suddenly this course is over and it is time to start planning for the next two (or three if I count the intersession class.) This summer may be a bust of sorts unless I get a rhythm going on these fields. But I suppose it will be good if I am getting paid to teach two courses and getting the experience as well.
I am also feeling a bit pressed because I have so many projects I am working on (or need to be working on) and all of them are feeling a bit trite in the grand scheme of things. Ants marching, building little castles of information and knowledge for the next generation (or someone tomorrow) to knock over (or, I suppose, build upon.) I have less and less faith, however, in the forward progress of humanity: technology may improve, but people keep doing the same stupid s**t over and over. (Not saying s**t here because suddenly remembered I'm posting this to GMU's site and they probably have spiders all over it to catch anything indecent.)
In other news, Catherine, my cousin, has once again landed a great job. She must be amazing and she is obviously the jewel in the crown of her family--and for good reason: it was certainly a group effort in many ways to get her where she is. Of course most of this is the result of her hard work and talent. I hope that this job (working on General Hospital w/ a four year contract) does great things for her and her career. Or, more correctly, I am interested to see what someone as amazing as her will do with a part on daily TV. As talented as she is, she has a passionate flair for melodrama which even the soap opera world may be too small to contain. Either way, I am sure she'll have fun.
(I wish I could be more happy for her--and only just happy for her--but there is this part of me that, again, as always, feels completely inadequate, like I'm not pushing hard enough, which, of course, is true. But then again, catherine is supercharged, magnetized with some rare spiritual force that draws you into her orbit. I don't exude that charisma right now. I need to be screaming more, finding that fire in my gut, being henry not hugo. Henry not hugo. Or at least finding the henry to my hugo and letting him out more.)
MSNBC - My Turn: What I Never Learned at 'Mommy and Me'
In this latest Newsweek, there is an article by a Kathy Stevenson...she writes in the "My Turn Section" that is reserved for individuals to write in on their lives or experiences. I don't know much about the selection process or how Stevenson was given the space to air her views, but her article is striking as a contemporary perspective of the American parent.
Her basic argument--or woe, as it is better described--is that, basically, she thought that she (and her generation) had made a better life for their children, one where they wouldn't have to be afraid of opening letters or flying on airplanes:
I feel guilty because my generation seems to have been looking the other way, and we let our children down. Or maybe we weren't looking at all. We got blind-sided, sucker-punched in the worst way. We really did think we had it all: healthy IRA accounts and prosperity always on the horizon, Volvos in the driveway, college funds for our children, vacations at dude ranches.
But, of course, September 11 changed all of that. Now she wants to tell her son how sorry she is "that he has to hear words as terrible as jihad and anthrax." Where she once saw the world in its Volvoesque
perfection and rationality (and, of course, safety), she now feels this strong sense of parental guilt--not only because life seems less safe, but because it cannot be explained:
There is no way to explain what can't be explained. I have yet to hear any rational person explain how a young mother could attach explosives to her body, kiss her children goodbye and hours later blow herself up along with innocent civilians.
Again, the event which has suddenly shattered her worldview is predictable: "true logic, as I knew it, flew out the window on September 11."
In this latest Newsweek, there is an article by a Kathy Stevenson...she writes in the "My Turn Section" that is reserved for individuals to write in on their lives or experiences. I don't know much about the selection process or how Stevenson was given the space to air her views, but her article is striking as a contemporary perspective of the American parent.
Her basic argument--or woe, as it is better described--is that, basically, she thought that she (and her generation) had made a better life for their children, one where they wouldn't have to be afraid of opening letters or flying on airplanes:
I feel guilty because my generation seems to have been looking the other way, and we let our children down. Or maybe we weren't looking at all. We got blind-sided, sucker-punched in the worst way. We really did think we had it all: healthy IRA accounts and prosperity always on the horizon, Volvos in the driveway, college funds for our children, vacations at dude ranches.
But, of course, September 11 changed all of that. Now she wants to tell her son how sorry she is "that he has to hear words as terrible as jihad and anthrax." Where she once saw the world in its Volvoesque
perfection and rationality (and, of course, safety), she now feels this strong sense of parental guilt--not only because life seems less safe, but because it cannot be explained:
There is no way to explain what can't be explained. I have yet to hear any rational person explain how a young mother could attach explosives to her body, kiss her children goodbye and hours later blow herself up along with innocent civilians.
Again, the event which has suddenly shattered her worldview is predictable: "true logic, as I knew it, flew out the window on September 11."
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Troubling...grading student essays...come across this statement on alternative histories:
"There are two ways to look at history. There is the dominant way and the alternative way. The dominant way would be looking at it through the most common perspective and the alternative way would be having a different voice or opinion about the subject. A good example of this is the incident of 9-11. Americans look at this as a day that we were betrayed and attacked without warning. On the other hand, the Iraqis look at this as a day that they died for what they believed in, as a day of victory. The dominant history would be the one of the Americans and of many other countries where we felt that we were attacked abruptly and very harshly with our own weapons. We felt that this was a very tragic day where a lot of good innocent people died. On the other hand, the alternate to this history is that the Iraqis led by Sadam Hussein felt that this day was very victorious and some even died for this cause. Alternative history is something that we have been discussing all week in class and have read about a lot. I am going to be using some of the readings to explain this topic and give examples."
This student refuses to read almost anything for the class so I can imagine how difficult it would be to sway her opinion with something like an alternative newspaper. This view was not created by any one source; it would seem to be the development of a defense mechanism of some kind, a willfull deception to prevent the cognitive dissonance that would come with admitting you are at war with another country for no reason at all. Further, the sort of radical relativism that she and other students adopt also seems to go hand in hand with this. Students (Americans? People?) who have only been schooled by unread textbooks and the evening news and can initially only absorb the perspectives of an alternative history if they can equally dismiss them as simply a counterbalance or as an "alternative" that one can simply choose not to consume completely--like alternative rock or an alternative lifestyle: it's fine for them, but it's not my cup of tea.
"There are two ways to look at history. There is the dominant way and the alternative way. The dominant way would be looking at it through the most common perspective and the alternative way would be having a different voice or opinion about the subject. A good example of this is the incident of 9-11. Americans look at this as a day that we were betrayed and attacked without warning. On the other hand, the Iraqis look at this as a day that they died for what they believed in, as a day of victory. The dominant history would be the one of the Americans and of many other countries where we felt that we were attacked abruptly and very harshly with our own weapons. We felt that this was a very tragic day where a lot of good innocent people died. On the other hand, the alternate to this history is that the Iraqis led by Sadam Hussein felt that this day was very victorious and some even died for this cause. Alternative history is something that we have been discussing all week in class and have read about a lot. I am going to be using some of the readings to explain this topic and give examples."
This student refuses to read almost anything for the class so I can imagine how difficult it would be to sway her opinion with something like an alternative newspaper. This view was not created by any one source; it would seem to be the development of a defense mechanism of some kind, a willfull deception to prevent the cognitive dissonance that would come with admitting you are at war with another country for no reason at all. Further, the sort of radical relativism that she and other students adopt also seems to go hand in hand with this. Students (Americans? People?) who have only been schooled by unread textbooks and the evening news and can initially only absorb the perspectives of an alternative history if they can equally dismiss them as simply a counterbalance or as an "alternative" that one can simply choose not to consume completely--like alternative rock or an alternative lifestyle: it's fine for them, but it's not my cup of tea.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
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