Keep it Real Spooky

Beyond Folk Marxism: Mind, Metaphysics, and Spooky Materialism | Salva☭e

China Miéville’s prose is a specific kind of joy: dense, academic, fascinating, and incredibly enriching. But if you're not in the mood for it and -- like me -- need to be willing to do some look-ups while reading, I can see it being off-putting. No shame ... I found myself looking up tout court, au fond, au fait as I was reading -- not to mention the actual philosophical terms. (Could he have just used the word "simply" instead of tout court? Maybe. Probably? But some measure of richness and nuance would've been lost.)

So, if you aren't eager to read Miéville's prose to begin with, why read his essay and the responses to it at all? What are the stakes here? I'm not convinced they're as high as all involved seem to think, but I was intrigued enough to do the reading anyways.

The concluding paragraphs read:

[O]ne thing is undeniable. Once you’ve argued your way out of an ontologically materialist universe, of the many varieties of metaphysical idealism on offer, theism is probably not the most unlikely.

Of course, it also raises its own manifold problems, not least that of theodicy – evil. But of all Richard’s ‘alarming things’ perhaps the most so is that theism also, in fact, solves an awful lot of problems ...

are you going to figure if that's where all this is going, why bother? Because theism is a dead-end and no amount of poking at materialist, dualist, and idealist answers to questions about what consciousness even is are going lead us to appeal to the divine. Asserted undeniability of theism's greater than least unlikeliness notwithstanding.

My hot take: Miéville isn't trying to sneak spirituality or a "ghost in the machine" back into left-wing thought -- but I do think he's being a bit of a provocateur and deliberately inviting speculation that this feint towards theism is a precursor to a reactionary turn. What I haven't got a bead on is how that move advances his diagnosing of a profound theoretical failure that directly leads to deep political frustrations. 

I was looking for Miéville while dismantling the watery weak emergence metaphor as sufficient basis for understanding consciousness to theorize some kind Weird Emergence strong enough give Marxists an actionable understanding of consciousness. Not a project I'm capable of taking on. Just a blogger here who took some 100s and 200s level philosophy classes decades ago. Fluss and Frim have an informed, thoughtful response that advances the discussion in ways I'm not equipped to, so I recommend taking in both sides of the exchange of ideas as well as Breht and Alyson's discussion on Rev Left / Red Menace. (Finding the youtube link for this post and letting it start playing, I realize what I called "my hot take," may actually have been implanted by Alyson in her prefatory remarks when I first listened and decided to check out the essay. Ah well, everything's a remix anyways.) 

Doctorow's Nuremberg Caucus Makes Sense to Me

 Pluralistic: The Nuremberg Caucus

The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE's $75b budget to pursue Trump's crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism. Who knows, perhaps some shareholders will demand that management hold off on mergers in anticipation of this lookback scrutiny, and if not, perhaps they will sue executives after the FTC and DoJ go to work.

While they're at it, the Nuremberg Caucus could publish a plan to hire thousands of IRS agents (paid for by taxing billionaires and zeroing out ICE's budget) who will focus exclusively on the ultra-wealthy and especially any supernormal wealth gains coinciding with the second Trump presidency.

Money talks. ICE agents are signing up with the promise of $50k hiring bonuses and $60k in student debt cancellation. That's peanuts. The Nuremberg Caucus could announce a Crimestoppers-style program with $1m bounties for any ICE officer who a) is themselves innocent of any human rights violations, and; b) provides evidence leading to the conviction of another ICE officer for committing human rights violations. 

Who will be the first elected Democrat to even acknowledge Mr. Doctorow's proposal? 

Back to the Wilderness

About five years ago, I expressed my reservations about RTD returning to run DW. 

There were moments I really enjoyed in RTD's second run, and every so often I saw reason to hope the show might find its footing, but those moments were far too few. The moments where I cringed and groaned far outnumbered them. So much wasted talent and potential there. 

When it comes back -- and I trust it will someday -- I hope the trans-inclusion, and all the wokeness the reactionary faction of fandom railed against comes back with it. There was a wholesomeness to the series that I truly loved. And yet, if you ever say to me, "there's a twist at the end" of something I may faint dead away. I blame RTD for the structural mess, the misuse of old baddies, the dead-ends and thudding disappointments, and I think my instinct that this would not end well was well-founded. 

And five years later, I see that JMS is still lobbying for a crack at it. I feel like I did five years ago about that, only more so. I want to see someone new take the show in a new direction. Could JMS do that? Maybe? It would definitely mollify some faction of fandom, and I think at least in terms of crafting a story JMS could not make as much of a hash of it as RTD did, but I don't know that I could muster up any excitement to see what he brings to the Whoniverse. As much as I loved the Moffat era, I don't want more of that either. I've seen JMS make great TV and write brilliantly. But -- I've already seen it. Paradoxically, I don't want something I've already seen, though I'm about to argue I actually do; I want to see the show go somewhere new that reminds me why I loved the classic series, and why I loved the new series, too, without getting bogged down in the past.

TV has changed so much, I'm just not sure what I want is something there's any real market for. I miss the old pre-return format. Give me twenty episodes in a season, low-budget scrappiness, and a Doctor who walks in eternity -- while Sarah Jane clowns him. (But, don't make the old mistakes either, keep the recent eras' big-hearted inclusiveness and don't make me twist myself into terrible contortions to try to find a way to make "Talons" acceptable.)  

But, just as with RTD himself, I fear there's no going back, only finding a new way forward. I want stories about a character who seeks to remedy injustices, to help the oppressed, and -- with the help of companions who are learning as they go -- works with the people who were already trying to do the right thing find the levers to pull that will win over those who seek to dominate. I want a Doctor who can help find those levers based on a long history of helping others, understanding that Marx was as important to understanding the world and our place in it as Darwin, careful study and observation, and the strength of right convictions which gives them distinctive insight. 

Charlie Jane Anders has written thoughtfully about what the show should look like when it comes back and I reckon she's pretty much nailed it.

I'd say I'm sorry to see Doctor Who end again, but I don't know that I was very sorry to see it end the first time around either. Then, as now, it had become almost unwatchable, incompetently produced television that needed a shut down and restart to clear the cache. 

Doomscrolling

 Alito's majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade leaks

As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion - they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights.

Manchin is blocking Congress codifying Roe. House has seemingly forgotten about Clarence Thomas. These 2 points must change https://t.co/5Isec0osV0

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 3, 2022

The scenario that opens Ministry for the Future inches closer to reality

Watching vote suppression intersect with the inception of a proto-Gestapo

All the ways the media salts the earth to facilitate the roll out of even more repressive state apparatus

For people casually consuming "the news," here is a thread asking some basic questions about how reporters, editors, and news outlets determine which stories to tell and which stories to ignore. Those decisions shape what society treats as urgent. https://t.co/5VGRHIje82

— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) April 28, 2022

Rest in Power Mark

Mark Desrosiers Obituary | Star Tribune

He was "very kind, compassionate, and he cared deeply for equality for all," said one U of M Libraries co-worker. Others described him as a "great advocate for students," and someone who "knew how to use his voice for things that mattered." Said another: "I will miss his sense of humor and the care and concern he had for everyone. He was a huge advocate and not afraid to fight the good fight, even if it caused a bit of conflict."

" ... [E]ven if it caused a bit of conflict." I chuckled through tears at that bit. Mark could get under your skin, for sure. My experience though was that when he caused conflict, when he made us gnash our teeth and take umbrage, if we sat with it for minute, it was because he was right and the brutal self-examination required to see that he was right hurt. And, if we blamed him for that hurt, he was big-hearted enough to take the blame and love us anyways. (Look, I'm not saying it was necessarily always that way, but even once was enough to make it so that when a position he took on something came with arguments like cutting barbs, even if it wasn't readily apparent, one grudgingly gave him the benefit of the doubt expecting he might be right in a way we just weren't ready to see yet.)

Mark was hard to keep up with. Not the least when trying to go shot-for-shot with him. Know some history? I don't know if there was a single topic I wouldn't have had to read, and re-read, volumes on to be prepared to argue with him about. He wasn't merely one of these trivia memorizers with a trove of names, dates, and data points filed away to no purpose other than the ability to put someone else in their place, though he certainly had that sort of knowledge, but it was all in service of a defiant worldview encompassing a fierce insistence on justice for the downtrodden. 

Know your music and pop culture pretty well? There's a better than fair chance Mark knew more by and about your favorite band than you ever did and could place their music in a context that, by introducing you to the work of other artists that presaged it, or contemporaneously exceeded it, blow your mind open. For me, it's The Fall -- the manifestation of Mark E. Smith's demons -- that he taught me to appreciate; breaking through the relatively narrow band of musical styles I could take in and groove on before my head was expanded.

Think you know about the Supreme Court? Well, let me tell you Mark could school you about the biographies of the justices and critique their jurisprudence as well as -- or even more effectively than -- a professor of the philosophy of law could, in my experience. 

There's a litany of topics I could plug into the, "You think you know about x? Well, let me tell you Mark would ..." format and we'd still not have talked about how his dancing would make you laugh and also want to dance shamelessly yourself. That may not be the most important thing ... but it was a thing ... and perhaps weirdly it mattered a lot to me. 

We grew up in different neighborhoods, didn't meet until high school, didn't become close friends until college, but there the fact we were both bookish, nerdy, obsessives cynical about the world in general in a way probably common to kids raised, if not poor, then close to it, in a certain type of family common to unspectacular suburbs of lesser cities in the hardscrabble 1970s probably made our friendship all but inevitable, despite some incompatibilities and points of contention. We were shaped in different ways by our parents' experience of the 1960s culture wars and our own coming of age during the Reagan years, the way everyone's experience is different and plays out on different bundle of neuroses and insecurities, I reckon. For both better and worse those experiences helped us bond once on campus, then off-campus, and for many years of being housemates after college. 

Frankly, I doubt I helped sharpen Mark's analytical framework the way he helped me dodge any number ideological holes I might have fallen down, nor that I was able to help him find those almost spiritual experiences of art he helped me discover. (I think he respected my appreciation of Yo La Tengo more than he shared it, and was happy to let me go on about Kim Stanley Robinson novels and stories so he didn't have to pay them as much mind.) But we went to a bunch of great shows, did a lot of drinking and talking and talking and drinking, and while we went down some negative spirals together I'm sure I'm better for all of it in the end. 

It breaks my heart that I let so much time pass since the last time time we talked. I can't believe he's gone so soon and that we'll never have another drink together, work on a mixtape, discuss what we're reading, or just reminisce. But we were Hornets, Highflowns, and Cryptonauts once upon a time and that'll have to be enough.