Sunday, July 28, 2013





Not Exactly Shakespeare's Ages of Man Revisited

 

Life presents us with obstacles,

matched to our age and situation.

---No!

Better said:

Being alive is nothing but a Pain-In-The-Ass!

--A NON-STOP pain-in-the-ass!



My mother cares for my father.

A so-called “care provider“ (nice lady)

cares for my mother,

and helps my father,

approximately five times a week.

 

Not that it's enough,

but it is something good,

five times a week.


And it is expensive!

And the care provider is,

despite that fact,

under-paid.......


Life is a non-stop obstacle:

In the plane to and from my parents' home,

I faced a problem suited to my age:

conversation with a similarly aged stranger!


Conversation with a stranger:

That's something like sitting in a taxi,

and being jostled about,

wondering if we'll make it around the corner,

or if we'll run the light,

or crash,

and, all the while listening to the driver complain,

about the Laziness of Europeans.


Because that's what both of my American fellow passengers

told me at the outset,

--straight out.


The French especially commit the sin

of wanting their weekends free.

Unlike the Good Germans,

who,

like us,

check their email on the weekends.

 

I was too startled and naive to protest at the time,

But later I post-hearsed the proper response:

“You fool! The weekend is or should be Sacred!

People died so that you could have a weekend.


But I am always slow,

and especially so,

when sitting uncomfortably,

in a Lufthansa jet,

where I feel guilty about not having good German.



 

 
 

 


 






Saturday, July 27, 2013

spymail

An email provider just asked me to verify my identity with a phone number....

Errr, how does that work?!

I've never given them my phone number!

Thank god for Richard D. Wolff!

Now,here's something amazing.
This guy from RT either hasn't got the brains or hasn't got the guts to argue with RD Wolff, and he keeps saying "I agree with Wolff...."
But if you listen to his words, he keeps trying to frame the picture in a conventional way that won't allow the truth to be said or appreciated.....

Judge for yourself............


http://rdwolff.com/content/breaking-set-bailing-out-detroit

Just imagine what it would be like to hear only pure bullshit----if RD Wolff weren't there.......

back in Europe

I am now back at my post in E/C Europe.(see footnote)

In contrast to El Paso, Texas, I was not awoken at eight am or nine am or any time at all by computer mediated telephone solicitation.

That obnoxious feature of life in the USA is, curiously enough, absent here.

note:
I am extremely cognizant of the claim that Vienna is east of Prague---and I must be humbled by the creative literature coming out of the region, including especially authors who are not widely known---Nevertheless operating with my naive American categories, I continue to find the concept "Eastern Europe" useful whenever I am faced with certain material inadequacies--e.g., the absence of exhaust fans in kitchens or bathrooms, windows without screens, or the scarcity of books.......(I have been told that during "communism" books were cheaper....)  ---And I am simultaneously amazed by the over-abundance of sunglasses and fancy roller skates (costing approximately 200 US dollars a pair...) the moment it stops raining..................(I concede that in El Paso, Texas, sunglasses have a purpose, but the sun is never so bright as that in the flood plains of |Central Europe.........)

"under funded"

I was just listening to Richard D Wolff comment upon the abandonment of Detroit, the so-called bankruptcy.

One phrase lept out at me, a phrase which I've heard many times, and which is not an exact quote of Wolff, but here it is:  The pension fund is "under funded".

I recently was battered with that phrase during a long conversation with someone who operates uncritically with standard categories--what Trots would call a "bourgeoise liberal".

It seems to me that when people say that pensions are "under funded", they are engaged in a bit of sophistry or lying rhetoric.  They present (even unwittingly) a matter of ethics or morality or politics as if it were merely a matter of accounting or "cold hard facts". 

In other words, when a CEO or politician says that a pension fund is "under funded", they are really saying that they will not keep the promises which were made to retired workers during their working lives.  In other words, to paraphrase Amy Goodman, when they say the pension is "under funded", they are telling the workers to "drop dead". ---And, without pensions and healthcare, they will.

In other words, it's a question of murder-----even if, (here I borrow from Ted Honderich) the deaths take time to occur....

Reference/Recommended Viewing:
RD Wolff on "Democracy Now"

http://rdwolff.com/content/democracy-now-detroit-spectacular-failure

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Choice

I have learned many things in El Paso, Texas.

Such as:  You have to choose,
You can either have:
the knife jab of cold air cutting your skin,
or
you can have
a flame burning your skin.

You have to choose between them;
But you cannot choose to be comfortable.

Friday, July 19, 2013

message for all tele-abusers: Please find honest work!

How can you live with yourself when you intrude upon other people's privacy so casually?  Can't you find honest work?  Do you have no respect for old age?

"...what appears in the miser as the mania of an individual is in the capitalist the effect of a social mechanism in which he is merely a cog."--Marx, Capital One, p. 739 (Penguin edition)

This morning at 9am the phone rang.  A woman did not identify herself, but directly asked to speak to my mother.  That is, at the first step, rude and intrusive---rude because she did not identify herself, and intrusive because her phone call was both uninvited and unwelcome.

Call that (yet another example of) the presumptive vulgarity and disrespect at the foundation of Capitalism.

Reflecting upon the way that I spoke to her, I reach the following conclusion: I was poorly prepared for such blythe rudeness.  I have been poorly brought up.  I was (so it seems) taught to begin a conversation with a certain minimum of politeness and respect.

(Indeed, after I had graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (with a Ph.D. in Philosophy) I was briefly employed by a branch of that university which engaged in fund raising.   It was a disgusting job, on all levels.  We were actually encouraged like a bunch of idiots to have cheer-leading sessions prior to manning our phones.  I could not believe the bizarre enthusism of the assembled workers as they cheered and grinned like fools drunk on conformity to the boss's orders.  And, then I committed the great crime of allowing a conversation to end.--And my boss was, of course, spying on me.----An elderly lady politely explained to me that they were having dinner, and this was an incovenient time.  She was polite, did not accuse me of anything and simply said now was not a good time.  However, the boss who was listening to me did not like that.  I was supposed to ignore the woman's words.  And that is, at the very first step, RUDE, impolite, disrespectful.  Most offensive of all was my boss's use of the word "morals" as if it were a sort of individual choice of apparel or spice......"We wouldn't want you to do anything which went against your morals."  What an obnoxious twisting around of reality!  As if I had some bizarre preference for respecting people!
On the contrary, here was a supposedly respectable institution engaged in the most basic disrespect.)


Those who make these intrusive phone calls follow no such elementary rules, and have no respect for anyone who picks up the phone.  Theyare pushy, pushy, pushy---and, essentially, do not actually listen to what you tell them, except insofar as it will allow them to push themselves further into your the space of your home.

A further thought occurs to me:  It is computers anD the internet which have made possible the aggressive and obnoxious behavior which I experienced this morning.  These rude individuals only exist because the information---in violation of our basic right to privacy and free association,---which the internet and computers have made possible allow them to "target" us.

Twelve years ago I remarked that the internet could be a site of class warfare--it was not inevitable that it should benefit us.  (  http://www.mundanebehavior.org/issues/v2n3/lovas.htm  )  I was correct but unimaginative. Today I would like to say: The internet is becoming, more and more every day, in every way, an enemy of the people.---But that would not be accurate.  More accurate would be the Socratic view, that the Internet in and of itself is neither good nor bad, but its goodness or badness depends upon the goodness or badness of its users.......and insofar as the Internet (and everything else) is in the hands of the .01 percent, who are greedy and ruthless....... (even if "trapped" within the walls by the laws of motion of the capitalist system, and seeking profits as if their lives depended upon it.....).... well, what do you expect?  What else could happen?

Monday, July 15, 2013

misunderstanding taxes

Today when I purchased a phone card, I complained that there seemed to be a tax on it.  (Thanks to the wise legislators of the state of Texas who in their wisdom also encourage education by taxing any books I buy electronically.....)

Someone asked, "Why?  What are the taxes where you are from?"

They miss the point.  A tax on a phone card is a regressive tax--affecting those with less money more than those who have more money.

People with lots of money are able to have a monthly account.  People with less money prefer pay-as-you-go; or, in fact can't afford anything else.

So by taxing people like me who use phone cards, the wise Texas legislator targets those with less money.  (Don't those with a monthly account pay taxes too? I don't know.  But it appeared to me as I was paying my bill, that I was paying a special tax placed upon those who buy phone cards---i.e., people with less available cash, who need to restrict themselves by such means.)

Since telephones (even mobile ones) are no luxury, this is an especially obnoxious tax.

Needless to say, it is even more obscene when we consider the parasitical non-producers who play games on Wall Street pay little or no taxes on what they win through gambling.  And, then again, those who are rich manage to pay a lower rate of tax than working people....Some large corporations pay little or no tax, even managing to receive refunds...............

So when a person with a low income like me has to pay taxes on a mere necessity like a telephone, that's a reason to complain.  And it's totally irrelevant whether I also pay a tax for my mobile phone elsewhere.  I am paying a tax on my life, a tax merely on being alive--and income from taxes is being used to finance all kind of evils --- wars, spying on ordinary citizens, militarizing the police, and the luxurious lifestyle of the idle rich.

Recommended Reading:
for a more thorough treatment of the politics of taxes, see Erik Olin Wright's book "American Society; How it Works"  at his home page, or Richard D. Wolff's frequent comments about the unjust nature of the tax system in the USA..... at his homepage.



like a grinning fool; disgusting capitalism again...

Capitalism is disgusting.  A manager in the local grocery store just pretended to be friendly, engaged in idle chatter with me---insultingly so...in that naive way asking a personal question---naively and without intending to offend, he pissed me off.....and I suppressed my anger and embarrassment.
He had no business asking such a personal question....... And I joked about it, as if it were acceptable to me, rather than what it was:  irritatingly intrusive.....
He behaving for all the world as if he and I were somehow friends, old friends, speaking causally without invitation.....all for the sake of what?  To promote himself?  To gain profits for his employer?  To preserve his job, his image as "customer friendly"?

I want to throw up.
I want to take a hot shower with powerful soap.
I want never to see that man again, never to speak to him, never again feel the need to smile back and play this insincere disgusting capitalist game.....

And, as I feel revulsion bordering on actual illness, I think of my Central European friends who are embarrassed because their shopkeepers and sales clerks don't play those insincere games...

And I think of the arrogant English-speakers who complain about the bad manners of so-called communist shopkeepers in Central Europe.

I prefer a sincere frown to that loathsome smiling and false friendliness.  Just thinking of it again now makes my skin crawl. 

Sunday, July 14, 2013

re-play

I want to back up, and return to the beginnings of a recent post ("Strange Happenings")--or, rather, the reason why the post came to be.

As I understood him, Robert Paul Wolff had said that there are these complicated social explanations of racism, but he felt them somehow unsatisfying.  He felt an urge to say "they" are just "bigots".

Reading that, I was reminded of a feeling of dissatisfaction I had when I had heard it said that capitalists or bankers or whoever take advantage of people, cheat, lie, etc. because  we live within
a capitalist economic system.
I don't deny that our system is capitalism, nor do I deny that it is unjust--and essentially so.

However, I do feel that there is room for more psychology here--not moral accusation or condemnation.

I never said I want to punish capitalists, but I did say that I find their attempts at self-justifcation insincere and self-serving.  However, as Socrates said, if a man acts ignorantly, then he need education not punishment.

Robert Paul Wolff was having none of that and went off explaining the fundamentals of capitalism and claiming that capitalism is not essentially racist.

I think Robert Paul Wolff was misled.  I think (guess, speculate) that he understood my remark
along the following lines:  since the social scientific or social explanation is unsatisfactory, we need to rely upon folk categories ---such as "bigot" or "greedy".

However, that would be a misreading of what I have said.  First of all, I am not advocating a folk psychological explanation; on the contrary, I am suggesting there is room for a more serious sort of pyschological explanation.

I believe Robert Paul Wolff won't like that either; but I also think it's a significant distinction that he didn't make.

Secondly, even using the word "bigot" doesn't amount to an explanation.  And there are explanations of racism.  As I recall the anthropologist Lawrence Hirschfeld has suggested that young children are very sensitive to racial categories, more sensitive than biology would warrant; however, this is due (if my memory  serves me well) to their sensitivity to power relations in the society.

And I believe that a related remark was made by Jared Diamond in his book on why societies disappear.  Roughly, he claimed there was a correlation between basic resource scarcity and ethnic conflict.

The general direction would be to suggest that insofar as capitalism is unjust, it will exacerbate any tendencies toward racism or ethnic tensions. It may not be, in and of itself, essentially racist; but when you combine the fact that it leads to injustice with the facts about our psychology, you do get the result that it will tend to encourage racism.

Anyway, I do think that Robert Paul Wolff probably misunderstood me, on several levels.

I wonder whether actually existing capitalism (today, not in the past) always occurs in societies with racial or ethnic tensions.  If so, how important is the claim that some pure capitalism would be free of racism?  Would that pure capitalism be a resident of a wholly different possible world? Or would it be an impossible world?--Or, at least  a possible world where the residents had wholly different minds than we do?  If the last, then I would say the distinction between pure capitalism and actually existing capitalism is useless, irrelevant, a piece of philosophical confusion.

Put differently:  capitalism in itself doesn't care who it exploits. It is an equal opportunity exploiter.  But, in a world where racism and inequality exists, what effect will it have upon those existing phenomena?  Those are two different questions.  RPW focuses upon the first, and ignores the second.  (And, if I have misunderstood him, then I shall have to stand corrected.)

After-thought:  Of course, the Marxist point of view is trying to ignore individual psychology on the grounds that it is irrelevant.  But, then I've never said that if an individual capitalist becomes convinced that capitalism is unjust, he by himself could change the system.  I have, however, expressed puzzlement at the thought that he might learn the truth but continue to behave in the same way as prior to his enlightenment.  (And I don't think Robert Paul Wolff anywhere paid serious attention to that claim, but rather was inclined to regard it as trivial or irrelevant--whereas I think it is neither.)






Friday, July 12, 2013

disgusting capitalism

I realize that there are so-called intellectuals who wield words like "aesthetic" or "merely aesthetic", but, at bottom, their views are incoherent.  (So, too, the confused economists who imagine they've a criticism that is not "merely moral".....)

At any rate, I am equally disgusted---please allow me to say that again---disgusted--by both Gmail and Hotmail.

They are competing for stupidity and offensiveness---Google-turds have now "organized" my mailbox for me.  No thank you,  it's not progress.

And then they both think they've found some secret of my personality so they can "target" special advertising for me.  Oh, sigh.  What utterly idiotic nonsense.

A more perfect proof that capitalism encourages stupidity and ugliness could not be imagined.

Here's a quote from Baran in the article linked below

We have to understand the ideologically overpowering impact of bourgeois, fetishistic consciousness on the broad masses of the working population. The heart-breaking emptiness and cynicism of the commercial, competitive, capitalist culture. The systematic cultivation of devastatingly neurotic reactions to most social phenomena (through the movies, the “funnies,” etc.). The effective destruction in schools, churches, press, everywhere, of everything that smacks of solidarity in the consciousness of the man in the street. And finally, the utterly paralyzing feeling of solitude which must overcome any one who does not want to conform, the feeling that there is no movement, no camp, no group to which one can turn


Excerpted (cut and pasted) from this month's "Monthly Review"
http://monthlyreview.org/2013/07/01/the-cultural-apparatus-of-monopoly-capital

The stupidity of television and mass culture has now been transported into the stupidity of the Internet, Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, and the entire idiotic interface.

Recommended Link:
http://www.consumertrap.com/

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

unfair parody of the marxist

Draft; a revised version is coming.

PARODY/UNFAIR, UNACADEMIC, UNSCHOLARLY

The Capitalist, says the Marxists, is just as much a victim as you and me.
A victim of a cruel and unjust system.
You see:  If you cut the capitalist,he bleeds.
Is he not a man like you and me?

Yes, I know, when his parents become elderly, they have expensive care,
individual attention from trained professionals 24-hours around the clock.
Unlike your elderly parents...

And yes, their children attend expensive, well-resourced schools,

And all of that....

And, just like us, they have spent billions of dollars putting in place
a system which allows them to spy, to read every email, and listen
to every phone conversation.

That's what we do, too!---Right?

Sunday, July 7, 2013

strange happenings

Robert Paul Wolff is a retired philosopher who has written a couple of books about Marx. At his blog he proclaims himself a Marxist (in economics) and an atheist (in religion). He has also written a book about Kant, among other things. (Indeed, he's written a good number of things including a well-known book about anarchism; and I encourage anyone who is interested to take a look at his blog.)

Recently I made a few remarks at his blog, and I rather suspect he didn't find my comments useful. Therefore, I stopped.

However, I do have a few things to add. I believe the problem here is that I'm assuming (and not defending or fully articulating) what I think I learned about early Plato (Socrates) from Terry Penner.

To mention one very controversial thesis that I am presupposing: acting well is a matter of knowledge, and achieving a good end.  --Not "morally good" as philosphers say, but good, as in producing more good things in the lives of people---not products or commodities, but the really good things which lead to happiness. And what are those? Well, I suppose justice is a good thing, and justice means having decent relations with other people. And if modern technologies allow us to influence more people than ever before, then justice means international justice.

But the big thought here is that you can't get happy at the price of someone else's misery.
Now, Socrates believed that, and I'm not sure he really gave an adequate defense of it.
However, it is certainly the key thing for this discussion.

But, right now, I just want to add a point of clarification that follows on from my rather inadequate remarks at Robert Paul Wolff's blog.

Should a Marxist care about individual psychology?
That question is not identical with: should a Marxist care about the morality of individuals?
(I think that Robert Paul Wolff jumped from one to the other.)

And, even if a Marxist needn't care, is there a real question here?  Is there a question here worth asking?--Maybe there's a real question here even if Marxists can ignore it.

Imagine our capitalist, engaged in the pursuit of profit. How does he organize his mind? Well, if he's a capitalist, his goal is profit. (Otherwise he would cease to be a capitalist.)

And, to the extent that such an over-arching goal dominates his life, other sub-goals must become weaker.

So, for example, I would predict that certain emotional capacities would inevitably become weaker. More flamboyantly put, the fellow becomes weaker emotionally, cramped emotionally, and, one suspects, less capable of full friendships.

Objection: mightn't the capitalist manage to have rich and full emotions with a small group of friends? 
Answer: I doubt it. I suggest that the habit of emotional dumbing down becomes a habit, and thus it's not so easy to shut off.

However, what I really need is an argument to show the two at odds: What if the emotional needs of my friend conflict with my profit motive? What if my best friend comes to see that the source of my profits lies in the misery of other people? If the capitalist is to so much as continue, then he's got, somehow to reject and /or trivialize that claim.  Should he cease the friendship, or should he refuse to talk about it?  Or what?

If the friend comes to believe that, it's not a trivial thing, and cannot just be ignored by the friend.

Notice:  I assume that what Marxists say they believe (that capitalism is not just) is true, and I assume it is rather a robust fact.  I mean by 'robust' that once we know it, it impacts upon us fully, in all of our being, both thinking and feeling---something all good truths should do once they are understood.

(One part of me wants to say:  the issue is whether, as Socrates put it in the "Protagoras",  knowledge is something strong.)

So, suppose the best friend of the capitalist has discovered and been convinced by/learned from Marxism.  What does the capitalist do? Does he argue with the friend? Does the capitalist attempt to justify his life? Of course, he can try; perhaps he even invents neo-classical economics. (But I would say, if this is a real friendship, then he's got to justify his life to his friend.)

But, if the Marxist is correct, in any honest discussion the capitalist will lose.  If the capitalist is to continue, he's got to avoid reaching that conclusion.

And, at some point, his defense of profits may overhwhelm his act of acquiring them; so, he hires an economist to do his dirty work.  And, so he's back to the business of emotional stultification.

Notice, if it's true that capitalism is unjust, then the capitalist has to devote mental energy to ignoring the fact.  (Question:  What must I be assuming about our psychologies, about our emotional capacities?)

Unstated assumption: ignoring the truth has consequences for your psychology, your emotional life, the way your thoughts and feelings are organized.

So, again, emotional dumbing-down results.

Thus far we have: To be a capitalist means to sacrifice one's emotional life.

But maybe it's a price worth paying? Nothing here, please notice, about morality..............but lots about self-interest and quality of life.

Oh, you fool! (someone  might say) 
Of course those who profit from technology companies are happy!  That's why their lives are celebrated in countless books!

  I don't know; I've never met such a person.

QUESTION
In the above do I assume that justice is an objective and independent thing, present in our minds, and not something dependent upon human activities (language, culture, whatever)?

  It seems to me that what I have just written does make an assumption like that---  It assumes that justice is something we have present to our minds (unavoidably but not clearly) if we are human at all.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

recommended reading

http://www.consumertrap.com/ Most recently, Michael Dawson has posted a useful link which will allow you to opt out of the data collection done by AT&T......

Thursday, July 4, 2013

writing from the usa

In order to have a bread with a crust, I have purchased an obnoxiously, pretentiously packaged item which isn't even fresh. (An employee of the store once informed me that the food is baked in another state, frozen, transported, and then microwaved at the point of arrival prior to putting it on the shelf.) The bread is wrapped in two layers of packing, and the outer one is full of meaningless words, bullshit really, telling us all about how great the bread is, and conjuring up the image of a baker who is a so-called "artisan". (Whenever I see that word I want to throw up.) Heaven help us. The grocery store is really a sophistic, capitalistic slum. Fruits and vegetables get similar treatment---frozen prior to shipping, and then somehow thawed out. No wonder the food in this country is terrible. This is not civilization, and there is no polite word which can adequately describe it.