I see folks celebrating the Mamdani victory and the optics are absolutely fantastic. But that said, you will not be voting away capitalism nor oligarchy. So how to process the truth without squelching the hope... tough to see so much irrational exuberance and overplaying the impact and meaning of what is happening. A placebo to make folks feel better about the world around us could just make us forget that you cannot vote away capitalism nor oligarchy. Happy for folks who worked hard for this. Happy for them to feel good. I am not going to cosplay with them pretending we can vote it all away though. It will just make the real wake up that much more difficult.
Derick, is it fair for me to assume that by “build power” you are expressing a preference for institutions that are composed of fungible, consistent “newtons” so that at a later date you may reconfigure, or unceremoniously abolish whichever organs, such as it’s clerisies, of it you wish?
What if instead of “power,” which always stands just outside the question of artfulness (and therefore within the taste of the Occidentalist suspicious of mimesis unburdened by duty,) something else called “ritual authority” is achieved, meaning the enthusiastic consent of the governed is secured not by austere rationing but by gregariousness? And secured not as a restless objectless romantic dynamism, (that dynamism which lives to send the infernal column into every sleepy cul de sac and stamp out every private crop of hedonic plant which hinders the advance of the species being,) but as a sentimental attachment to the novel object of their new found public amenities. Will you be willing to accept that this newly formed modest class of proprietors, a class born of object-affect rather than impartial objective position, may not be so easily convinced to debase each their own new gifted object to mere property to be risked incessantly to no fixed end?
If such a thing occurs, will the modern and monotheist reconsider Grandfather Terah and cease to slander his small shop? Will Adorno and Greenberg shrug and admit error, as they watch sociology and anthropology join together as brothers free of the burden of chauvinism, and then all of us together make peace with the evil of Kitsch?
I see folks celebrating the Mamdani victory and the optics are absolutely fantastic. But that said, you will not be voting away capitalism nor oligarchy. So how to process the truth without squelching the hope... tough to see so much irrational exuberance and overplaying the impact and meaning of what is happening. A placebo to make folks feel better about the world around us could just make us forget that you cannot vote away capitalism nor oligarchy. Happy for folks who worked hard for this. Happy for them to feel good. I am not going to cosplay with them pretending we can vote it all away though. It will just make the real wake up that much more difficult.
Congrats on the victory.
Derick, is it fair for me to assume that by “build power” you are expressing a preference for institutions that are composed of fungible, consistent “newtons” so that at a later date you may reconfigure, or unceremoniously abolish whichever organs, such as it’s clerisies, of it you wish?
What if instead of “power,” which always stands just outside the question of artfulness (and therefore within the taste of the Occidentalist suspicious of mimesis unburdened by duty,) something else called “ritual authority” is achieved, meaning the enthusiastic consent of the governed is secured not by austere rationing but by gregariousness? And secured not as a restless objectless romantic dynamism, (that dynamism which lives to send the infernal column into every sleepy cul de sac and stamp out every private crop of hedonic plant which hinders the advance of the species being,) but as a sentimental attachment to the novel object of their new found public amenities. Will you be willing to accept that this newly formed modest class of proprietors, a class born of object-affect rather than impartial objective position, may not be so easily convinced to debase each their own new gifted object to mere property to be risked incessantly to no fixed end?
If such a thing occurs, will the modern and monotheist reconsider Grandfather Terah and cease to slander his small shop? Will Adorno and Greenberg shrug and admit error, as they watch sociology and anthropology join together as brothers free of the burden of chauvinism, and then all of us together make peace with the evil of Kitsch?
https://substack.com/@sergemil/note/p-178138133?r=3znpi3&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action