[Xmca-l] Re: Working for the Few | Oxfam International

Tue Jan 21 06:08:02 PST 2014

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <pmocombe@mocombeian.com>
wrote:

> Andy and david,
>
> It would appear that any counter - narrative would have to be
> anti-dialectical and counter-hegemonic, I.e., anti-individual,
> anti-capitalist, anti-humanity...  Can such a counter - narrative come from
> a humanity, including us academics, subjectified to reproduce individual
> wealth, upward mobility, and status at the expense of the masses of poor
> around the world, paradoxically, seeking our bourgeois lifestyle?
>
> I ask because,  it would appear that the earth,in marxian terms, as a
> class for itself, has been begging for humanity to change the way it
> recursively reorganize and reproduce it's being-in-it over the last 100
> years, but we consistently refuse.  Instead, turning to dialectical
> measures, fracking, carbon credits, neoliberalism, etc., to attempt to
> resolve our problems and maintain the protestant ethic and the spirit of
> capitalism as an "enframing" (heidegger's term) ontology.
>
> I am not a pessimistic person, but it appears that in this case we are all
> dead we just do not know it yet.
>
>
> Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
> President
> The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
> www.mocombeian.com
> www.readingroomcurriculum.com
>
> <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: David H Kirshner <
> dkirsh@lsu.edu <javascript:;>> </div><div>Date:01/21/2014  2:50 AM
>  (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: ablunden@mira.net <javascript:;>,"eXtended
> Mind, Culture,   Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <javascript:;>>
> </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Working for the Few | Oxfam International
> </div><div>
> </div>Andy,
> I suppose social psychology's unitary and a-historical ascription of the
> human sense of material well-being as relative to other people (rather than
> as relative to one's own past) gets it wrong from the start. Still, I think
> it provides a way to understand the individual pursuit of wealth, carried
> to its limits, as anti-social and destructive; an effective
> counter-narrative to the libertarian ideal of the individual unfettered by
> societal constraints. We badly need a counter-narrative to regain some kind
> of political leverage for ordinary citizens.
> If anyone would like to help pull that together in the form of a paper,
> please reply, on-line or off-.
> Thanks.
> David
> dkirsh@lsu.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 12:13 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Working for the Few | Oxfam International
>
> I certainly hope so, David, or at least, I hope to read and participate in
> acting out the opening chapter of that narrative.
>
> I do think that the "99%/1%" narrative was a project doomed to failure
> however, as it conceived of itself as a linear expansion which would
> somehow bypass social and ideological differences. It did not conceive of
> itselfr as a project at all. Just a mesage about the one true world which
> everyone had to come to. Truly magical realism. The plot lies implicit in
> the opening chapter, but it is always far from easy to see how the plot
> will unfold itself though the multiple story-lines entailed in this
> conundrum, Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>
>
> David H Kirshner wrote:
> > The operative narrative, at least in the U.S. context, dictated by Ayn
> Rand, is that the ultra-wealthy are the engines of advancement and
> prosperity and the saviors of society. What is in their best interest is in
> all of our best interests. We very badly need a counter-narrative.
> > Andy, is this practical project something that can be undertaken and
> completed in real-time as a theoretical project?
> > David
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> > Sent: Monday, January 20, 2014 11:06 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Working for the Few | Oxfam International
> >
> > David I have plenty of experience with desparate measures over teh
> > past
> > 50 years, and I have come very late to "the broader theoretical
> project." It is absolutely essential that the practical project and the
> theoretical project are one and the same.
> >
> > Andy
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >
> >
> > David H Kirshner wrote:
> >
> >> Andy,
> >> Sometimes, in order to create a counter-narrative that can be effective
> in the here and now, one has to step outside of the broader theoretical
> project. I guess, for some, this would constitute a distraction from the
> real work, perhaps a violation of the true mission of that scholarly
> endeavor. For others, it might be a legitimate (even if imperfect) effort
> to apply what one has come to understand from the larger project. For
> others, still, perhaps simply a political activity undertaken with
> theoretical tools, but with little actual relation to the theoretical
> project.
> >> Perhaps these are desperate measures that these desperate times call
> for.
> >> David
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> >> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2014 10:29 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Working for the Few | Oxfam Inter

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