[Xmca-l] Re: FW: Unbelievable: number 19th strain according to Fox News?
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Thu Apr 16 21:44:22 PDT 2020
I think the mid-20th century Freudians amply demonstrated
that the concepts of personal development can shed light on
societal phenomena. Only a pity that they had such a limited
theory of personality.
Ordinary, uneducated people are sometimes derided for voting
on personality, but given that the information and ability
to make rational judgments on matters of national policy is
given to very few, it is absolutely rational for people to
pick their leaders and representatives on the basis of how
they perceive the personality of the candidates. The result
is of course that national leaders often turn out as kind of
caricatures of national personalities. Trump and Boris
Johnson are examples. It is a matter of deep concern of
course that tens of millions of Americans looked at Trump
and thought, "Now, he's my kinda guy," and likewise tens of
millions of English looked at Boris Johnson thought "Now
there's a fellow who I can trust!" And it brings me no joy
to recall that millions of Australians looked at Scott
Morrison, the "daggy Dad" of politics, and thought: "I think
he's the safest bet in these times." We need to bring
decision making closer to home. Otherwise people think in
what Vygotsky called "diverse concepts."
And Greg, we /are/ all experiencing the same pandemic, even
though we're experiencing it differently, and it will be
those differences which will be important engines of change
in the years ahead.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!UtFOcSllO7dGRfYbHuNeMxVljnXYVCEfGK5hqkSrLS5MwG8eX5dTTnbMKcjuMl3Iusedqw$ >
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On 17/04/2020 1:47 pm, Greg Thompson wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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!UtFOcSllO7dGRfYbHuNeMxVljnXYVCEfGK5hqkSrLS5MwG8eX5dTTnbMKcjuMl0uomuLDA$
> <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!UtFOcSllO7dGRfYbHuNeMxVljnXYVCEfGK5hqkSrLS5MwG8eX5dTTnbMKcjuMl3r0ivsYQ$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://darrouzet-nardi.net/bonnie__;!!Mih3wA!X6Z1zy1ywvBUsh4PLzAdjWe7J-gfCIiKCjavnOndv0aE8iksRfWM1OkKDsjdIrbdA0uVBQ$>
> NEW BOOK: Heteromation and Other Stories of Computing
> and Capitalism (with Hamid Ekbia, MIT Press, 2017)
>
>> On Apr 16, 2020, at 11:14 AM, Julian Williams
>> <julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk
>> <mailto:julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>
>> Mike, hi
>> Surely not funny, of course. And we should have an
>> even greater concern about India, where 1.4billion
>> people are supposedly ‘shut down’ ( actually, many
>> millions are walking hundreds of miles ‘home’ from
>> the cities to their villages, wearing masks, but ..
>> ), and nationalist, anti-Muslim extremism - rampant
>> before the crisis – is growing:
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/arundhati_roy_coronavirus_india?utm_source=Democracy*Now*21&utm_campaign=5b85440b98-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-5b85440b98-192514813__;KyU!!Mih3wA!UtFOcSllO7dGRfYbHuNeMxVljnXYVCEfGK5hqkSrLS5MwG8eX5dTTnbMKcjuMl06sz7tkg$
>> <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$>
>> We can anticipate at least 40 million deaths in India
>> if this gets going - and the fascists are planning
>> to emerge dominant from this – all encouraged by your
>> big man in the WH.
>> These deaths will perhaps make the holocaust seem
>> like small fry – will we ever see trials for crimes
>> against humanity? Perhaps not, because it will be
>> difficult to pin these deaths on to intentional
>> action, but maybe there should be a crime for
>> intentional inaction? The abject state of public
>> health systems (long term) and the incompetence and
>> political management (short term) being the main charges.
>> Then in the US we can see some analyses of the way
>> the deaths are hugely discriminatory against
>> black/ethnic minorities and the poor: “More than 70
>> per cent of COVID-19 deaths in the state of Louisiana
>> were African-Americans, despite accounting for just a
>> third of the general population. In New York City
>> it's 17 per cent of deaths, for a 9 per cent share of
>> residents.”https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/drum-covid-african-american-affected/12153268__;!!Mih3wA!UtFOcSllO7dGRfYbHuNeMxVljnXYVCEfGK5hqkSrLS5MwG8eX5dTTnbMKcjuMl35glZKuw$
>> <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
>> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf
>> of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>>
>> *Reply-To:*"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
>> *Date:*Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 18:36
>> *To:*"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto: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
>> <mailto: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 <http://lchc.ucsd.edu/>. For archival
>> materials and a narrative history of the research of
>> LCHC, visitlchcautobio.ucsd.edu
>> <http://lchcautobio.ucsd.edu/>.
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> WEBSITE: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://anthropology.byu.edu/greg-thompson__;!!Mih3wA!UtFOcSllO7dGRfYbHuNeMxVljnXYVCEfGK5hqkSrLS5MwG8eX5dTTnbMKcjuMl1VqHjCHQ$
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>
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