[Xmca-l] Re: FW: Unbelievable: number 19th strain according to Fox News?

[Greg Thompson]

Bonnie,

I like your suggestions very much (I finally got to read them just now
since they didn't come through to my email at first).

I find your suggestion about CHAT approaches to personality to be
particularly interesting (as long as we place it in a Marxian lineage
rather than a lineage of Western personality psychology - I assume that the
former is at least close to what you meant?). How personalities (perhaps
"personas"?) can emerge in different times and given different relations to
production (and in different regimes of production). To your description of
neoliberal entrepreneurs, I would add the anxiety that has become oh so
commonplace - anxious, always anxious - about everything from grades to
test scores to post-collegiate jobs (think about facing that right now).
Psycho-precarity is a constant state of existence for these budding
neoliberal "entrepreneurs". So yes, by all means, surfer personalities
would be a nice corrective. And skateboarder personalities. And punks. And
knitters (that's so punk!). and bakers, and carpenters, and so on.

[Let me know if I'm off here but it sounded like you were flagging a
classically (sorry I'm not using this as a term of art - I'm not that
sophisticated!) Marxist concern with consciousness and the ways that
consciousness is mediated by our relation to the means of production. And
then also a more specific concern with the idea of false consciousness that
develops from that.]

Also, I wonder if you would agree with me (and, by my reading, Marx) that
neoliberalism (capitalism) is also what brings us together? The global
flows that have been enabled by neoliberalism are yes quite bad in the
sense that they made the spread of this virus possible. But these flows
also mean that we are coming close to what Andy has called a
world-perezhivanie - an experience the world over of something close to the
"same" thing (even if there are massive inequalities in terms of death and
infection that will follow the massive inequalities set up by
neoliberalism). Perhaps this is a morbid thought, but might this be an
opportunity for beginning to realize a kind of global community that Marx
imagined? And yes, I agree, I find it hard to be hopeful about this
possibility (my mind goes straight to imagining us Americans gawking at the
death tolls in other countries - partly elated that we didn't post the
worst numbers of infections and deaths (as we are right now) and partly
glad that it isn't happening here and partly ignorant/uncaring about the
suffering of others when life remains good here).

-greg


On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 6:46 PM Bonnie Nardi <nardi@ics.uci.edu> wrote:

> Watching the debacle of Trump reveals, to me at least, how important class
> analysis is. Trump is deranged, and his everyday actions fall completely
> outside all social norms of decency, yet he is *consistently supported*
> by (1) his Republican cohorts, (2) big business (Bill Gates: “I don’t rule
> out voting for Trump if I have to pay too much in taxes”…) and (3) the
> alienated/uneducated class who’d rather at least have the fun of throwing a
> brick through the window than put up with any more PC bs (or abortion
> rights or separation of church and state). A potent and scary mix. The
> "complicity" Greg mentioned has several sources, all class-based in my
> view, but oddly variable.
>
> Trump is a symptom of a society running off the rails. He could not have
> come to power had not the underlying conditions been ripe for it. He wasn’t
> the lesser of two evils for many voters — he was finally someone who they
> thought spoke for them whether they occupied corporate boardrooms or NASCAR
> bleachers or evangelical pews. Europe is also producing fascist-leaning
> leaders and other places have them firmly ensconced.
>
> It’s damn weird to me that we’ve gone, in my lifetime, from U.S.
> leadership in gay rights, civil rights, disability rights, and
> environmentalism,  to the current horrendous situation. (Europe has
> implemented better environmental policies but the groundwork was laid in
> the U.S.) I love the U.S. the way a parent still loves a teenager gone bad,
> but that’s beside the point, this is now global, as Julian points out.  We
> are all in this together. Neoliberalism deftly divides us (I see it, e.g.,
> in the virus discussions about how old people, are, let’s face it,
> expendable, and we worry too much about them -- the young need to get back
> to work, etc. There’s as much of this on reddit as there is from
> Republicans.)
>
> What to do? The first thing is to rethink what a society can and should
> be. As part of this exercise I recommend Andre Gorz's *Paths to Paradise*.
> It's short, sweet, and prescient. Gorz recognized that environmental
> problems come from too much frenetic economic activity and that we are
> spending too much of our lives in alienating workplaces. He recommended a
> lot more automation and a lot more sharing of wealth. He has been a
> touchstone for me and others in the Computing within LIMITS community (see
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://computingwithinlimits.org/2020/__;!!Mih3wA!QZZXBnDKax_dkndwehylKjl3qKqTZhUyif-IC9m-Wt1ApkgicnfR0CawVvb3YX0_gw037Q$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://computingwithinlimits.org/2020/__;!!Mih3wA!X6Z1zy1ywvBUsh4PLzAdjWe7J-gfCIiKCjavnOndv0aE8iksRfWM1OkKDsjdIra1sk7s_Q$>
> for all the papers going back to 2015).
>
> I think we absolutely have to address the big picture and smaller efforts
> (like growing meat in labs and so on) are not going to do much.
>
> The pandemic has shown Gorz to be right about the environment -- I have
> been astonished at how quickly air and water are clearing, how animals are
> benefiting, etc. I didn't expect all that to happen so fast. In the San
> Francisco Bay Area where I live, air pollution is down 40%. There's lots of
> good media reporting on these kinds of changes which are global.
>
> I think we must look to what CHAT has written about personality. I have
> never really understood that work but I sense that it's important. The
> culture now produces neoliberal "entrepreneurs" with their self-branding
> and paddle-your-own-canoe philosophies, but other eras produced other
> types. I live in a coastal town, and while the beach parking lots are
> closed, the surfers, walkers, and cyclists are out when they aren't
> normally out. They are probably getting their work done virtually in less
> time than normal (without a commute and the distractions of the office),
> and doing what they love doing!  Maybe we need a world of walkers and
> surfers -- that personality type. I'd be happy if people were more focused
> on knitting, and baking, and carpentry -- all those homely ways of
> producing rather than working, often for very little money, so they can buy
> everything at the store. Most of it ends up in landfills, by design, or, if
> it's food, it is so awful it contributes to the chronic diseases. Or
> working hard at high end jobs and ending up feeling one is entitled to what
> one has (the Bay Area has been badly affected by this) and that if you are
> poor it's kind of your own fault.
>
> Yes, I recognize that staying home more has costs and that we can't
> produce everything ourselves, but the solution to the big picture is not to
> send everyone off to the workplace for most of their lives but to address
> issues of violence, production, quality of life, and so on in direct ways.
> We can't rely on by-products of our current work habits to stem violence,
> for example. That is just not right.
>
> The post-growth movement in Europe is doing thoughtful work, and I
> recommend what they write. They cite Gorz (as well as Gandhi, Donella
> Meadows, and so on), and I think they are on the right track.
>
> Best,
>
> -
>
> Bonnie
>
>
>
>
> Bonnie Nardi
> Professor (Emer.)
> Department of Informatics
> School of Information and Computer Sciences
> 5088 Bren Hall
> UC Irvine 92697-3440
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://darrouzet-nardi.net/bonnie__;!!Mih3wA!QZZXBnDKax_dkndwehylKjl3qKqTZhUyif-IC9m-Wt1ApkgicnfR0CawVvb3YX2pRBsFxA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://darrouzet-nardi.net/bonnie__;!!Mih3wA!X6Z1zy1ywvBUsh4PLzAdjWe7J-gfCIiKCjavnOndv0aE8iksRfWM1OkKDsjdIrbdA0uVBQ$>
> NEW BOOK: Heteromation and Other Stories of Computing and
> Capitalism (with Hamid Ekbia, MIT Press, 2017)
>
> On Apr 16, 2020, at 11:14 AM, Julian Williams <
> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Mike, hi
>
> Surely not funny, of course. And we should have an even greater concern
> about India, where 1.4billion people are supposedly ‘shut down’ ( actually,
> many millions are walking hundreds of miles ‘home’ from the cities to their
> villages, wearing masks, but ..  ), and nationalist, anti-Muslim extremism
> - rampant before the crisis – is growing:
>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/arundhati_roy_coronavirus_india?utm_source=Democracy*Now*21&utm_campaign=5b85440b98-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-5b85440b98-192514813__;KyU!!Mih3wA!QZZXBnDKax_dkndwehylKjl3qKqTZhUyif-IC9m-Wt1ApkgicnfR0CawVvb3YX1lIOZ5HQ$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/arundhati_roy_coronavirus_india?utm_source=Democracy*Now*21&utm_campaign=5b85440b98-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-5b85440b98-192514813__;KyU!!Mih3wA!UAMlfob2n_Lh-WqpyVZk7kkIB6_iTHxnCHcoi9KlYa0gsgp20bbtBYAvZg22fqto0zXcVg$>
>
> We can anticipate at least 40 million deaths in India  if this gets going
> -  and the fascists are planning to emerge dominant from this – all
> encouraged by your big man in the WH.
>
> These deaths will perhaps make the holocaust seem like small fry – will we
> ever see trials for crimes against humanity? Perhaps not, because it will
> be difficult to pin these deaths on to intentional action, but maybe there
> should be a crime for intentional inaction? The abject state of public
> health systems (long term) and the incompetence and political management
> (short term) being the main charges.
>
> Then in the US we can see some analyses of the way the deaths are hugely
> discriminatory against black/ethnic minorities and the poor: “More than
> 70 per cent of COVID-19 deaths in the state of Louisiana were
> African-Americans, despite accounting for just a third of the general
> population. In New York City it's 17 per cent of deaths, for a 9 per cent
> share of residents.”
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/drum-covid-african-american-affected/12153268__;!!Mih3wA!QZZXBnDKax_dkndwehylKjl3qKqTZhUyif-IC9m-Wt1ApkgicnfR0CawVvb3YX2kh2G4Nw$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/drum-covid-african-american-affected/12153268__;!!Mih3wA!UAMlfob2n_Lh-WqpyVZk7kkIB6_iTHxnCHcoi9KlYa0gsgp20bbtBYAvZg22fqs1xrPL7g$>
>   Globally translated – this will become a terrible indictment of the
> world’s structure of poverty:
>
> I had to pause the other day – is this kind of admittedly political
> posting appropriate to xmca listserve’s concerns: I think that’s a question
> for xmca – “are we/is xmca relevant to the millions of deaths likely as the
> pandemic spreads to the poor nations?” The question is moot – only you
> people out there can say, or do by saying.
>
> Julian
>
> PS It’s good that in some parts of the world this information is still
> getting out. The middle east, and Africa, in many parts, maybe is more
> difficult.
>
> *From: *<xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole <
> mcole@ucsd.edu>
> *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Date: *Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 18:36
> *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: FW: Unbelievable: number 19th strain according to
> Fox News?
>
> There is absolutely nothing funny about the crypto fascists running this
> government, Julian.
> Trump is pushing towar monarchy in a fashion that might be funny if it
> were a Gilbert and Sullivan
> musical.
> mike
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 2:27 PM Julian Williams <
> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Kellyanne *Conwa*y … I think I heard her name a while back – what a Con,
> Ha ha?
>
> But perhaps not so very funny, right?
>
> God help us – it all fits – and now international pandemic and the next
> step is to defenestrate our only World Health Organisation…
>
> I can’t see anything short of a massive rebellion being an appropriate
> response… get those idiots out of the white house?
>
> Julian
>
>
> *Subject: *Fwd: Unbelievable
>
> White House counselor Kellyanne Conway falsely suggested Wednesday that
> there had been 18 previous strains of the novel coronavirus as she defended
> President Trump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health
> Organization.
>
> "This is covid-19, not covid-1, folks, and so you would think the people
> charged with the World Health Organization facts and figures would be on
> top of that,” Conway said during an interview on Fox News.
>
> In fact, the “19” at the end of the virus’s name denotes that it was
> discovered in 2019, not that it is the 19th strain of the virus. At its
> outset, it was referred to by health officials as the “2019 novel
> coronavirus.”
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> the creation of utopias – and their exhaustive criticism – is the proper
> and distinctive method of sociology.  H.G.Wells
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> For archival resources relevant to the research of myself and other
> members of LCHC, visit
> lchc.ucsd.edu.  For archival materials and a narrative history of the
> research of LCHC, visit lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
>
>
>

-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
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