Archives for March 2023

"In capitalism, all media functions as economic media." Jonathan Beller (Video lecture, Economic Media; the Decolonization of Money. Goethe-Institut San Francisco) "Rampant narcissism surfaces as the final form of individualism; it at once negates the ego and perpetuates its mangled form." Russell Jacoby (Social Amnesia) "As an active partisan of many left-wing causes and movements, I was amazed (as the expansion of radical or revolutionary groupings gathered force in the late sixties and the seventies) to discover that on the left the most popular attitude towards the mental illnesses was to deny their very existence." Peter Sedgwick (Psychopolitics) "While negation, protest and … [Read more...]

"...what exactly does ‘consent’ mean? This question is worth asking, since by leaving the matter unresolved one risks seeing the facts of ‘consent’ (where they exist) destabilise the concepts of exploitation, alienation, and domination, concepts that Marxist critique in particular relies upon as the trusted foundations of its intellectual toolkit. Each of these concepts is perturbed by the new, ‘motivational’ managerial tendencies that promise ‘fulfilment at work’ and ‘self-realisation’, and that appear at times to be winning the support of employees.” Frederic Lordon (Willing Slaves of Capital) “...capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, or of the … [Read more...]