[Xmca-l] Re: epidemic or endemic? white suprem-racists international science?

[David Kellogg]

Like Wolff-Michael (and unlike Andy), I have always found the distinction
between social and societal a useful one. Yes, I see that the similarity
between the words makes them very confusible: I myself use "interpersonal"
vs. "social" when I teach, but this actually makes them too distinct. I
think that "social" and "societal"--even MORE than their German
equivalents--emphasize how linked they are, and also how tied they are to
language. At some point--and it is a point that is just as traumatic as the
first year of life, when the child must pass from primary to secondary
intersubjectivity--the interpersonal begins to confront us as something
more, something alien, something quite beyond our direct control. Instead
of speaking language, language begins to articulate us.

I think, in some ways, Wolff-Michael's example of crime is a poor one,
because I don't think that "crime" actually exists at the social level:
"crime" is simply what the ruling class chooses to call certain forms of
exploitation, aggression, and violence from which it doesn't directly
profit.  But Wolff-Michael is right to argue for the link--both social
relations and societal phenomena are the result of the ensemble of human
relations, although which social relation is foregrounded and which
backgrounded must necessarily change as we move from the social to the
societal. The feminist slogan "the personal is political" is not a
redundancy, but it is usually understood backwards, to mean that everything
social is societal, when in fact it should be understood to mean that
everything societal is in the final analysis social.

But sometimes the news cycle will bat a poor example away and provide a
better one. Take, for example, the presidential proposal that US
immigration policy distinguish between "shithole countries" and Norway.
Now, for many years, racists have been whining that people are
being "politically correct" and taking all the fun out of being publically
offensive and rude by insisting on some link between social interactions
and societal issues. The idea is that if you interact with Omarosa, Kanye
West, Ben Carson, and Condoleeza Rice socially you can say what you like
about the societies they came from. When liberals insist that someone born
in America is one hundred percent American, no matter where their ancestors
were born, they also subscribe to this kind of magical disjunction.

Trevor Noah is right to say that the truly shocking thing in what the
president said wasn't "shithole". It was Norway. This isn't simply ignorant
and unrealistic (what Norwegian would give up the generous trust of oil
revenues and emigrate to a country like the USA which totally lacks a
decent health service or retirement plan?). As in Finland, the Centre-Right
government in Norway is in a coalition with a far-right, anti-immigrant
party, dedicated to keeping the country Nordically pure. THAT is not
just an attack on civility, like using the word "shithole".  It's an attack
on civil rights. As soon as the US government takes this
minority government as a model,  it is no longer a social,
personal, offense; it's societal now.

David Kellogg

Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4) 'Metaphoric,
Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on “Neoformation: A
Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'

Free e-print available (for a short time only) at

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full


On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 4:29 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
wrote:

> Absolutely difficult to satirise, Rob. As if reason was literally being
> stretched to push what could be considered to be reasonable, so that at
> every stretch what few years ago would be absolutely unthinkable becomes
> not only thinkable but normal. Like Spanish police beating people for going
> to vote to an (illegal, yet peaceful) referendum in Catalonia and
> politicians being held for months in prison only for "prevention," while a
> horde of citizens in other parts of the country encouraging the police like
> they encourage football teams, "A por ellos!!"
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of robsub@ariadne.org.uk <robsub@ariadne.org.uk>
> Sent: 12 January 2018 20:18
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: epidemic or endemic? white suprem-racists
> international science?
>
> I was going to joke that I bet Toby Young was on the guest list, but I
> see he was. Truth is becoming really hard to satirise.
>
> Rob
>
> On 12/01/2018 19:06, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
> > I believe that this is London's way of making London a more appealing
> place for Trump to visit. Recently they have said some not-nice things
> about him, and that makes him turn from orange to red-orange. On the color
> scale, that's an escalation of tensions. I see this conference as a
> validation of his world-view, making the UK less of a shithole of a country
> to him and his followers.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Peg Griffin
> > Sent: Friday, January 12, 2018 11:25 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] epidemic or endemic? white suprem-racists
> international science?
> >
> > https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/
> 51323/title/Secret-Eu
> > genics-Conference-Uncovered-at-University-College-London/
> > <https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/
> 51323/title/Secret-E
> > ugenics-Conference-Uncovered-at-University-College-London/&
> utm_campaign=TS_D
> > AILY%20NEWSLETTER_2018&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=
> email&utm_content=5994
> > 4918&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--0-XeLCUUnDDfuDnseG5HUEF4e07f2Kt6
> FETdaZKU-LuNy2l-YYp5OtU
> > MYu_TX7t6Cty6Zf5sNwbX7zL0wBteZ0FmKQ29FAn7V0wUCfIAPc_PrMXk&_hsmi=
> 59944918>
> > &utm_campaign=TS_DAILY%20NEWSLETTER_2018&utm_source=
> hs_email&utm_medium=emai
> > l&utm_content=59944918&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--0-XeLCUUnDDfuDnseG5HUEF4e07f2Kt6
> FETda
> > ZKU-LuNy2l-YYp5OtUMYu_TX7t6Cty6Zf5sNwbX7zL0wBteZ0FmK
> Q29FAn7V0wUCfIAPc_PrMXk&
> > _hsmi=59944918
> >
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> > Peg Griffin, Ph. D.
> >
> > Washington, DC 20003
> >
> >
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