Interpreting a Changing World: Labor Power in Virno and Macherey

 At first glance, the only thing that Pierre Macherey and Paolo Virno have in common is that they are, in my opinion, underrated as philosophers. They are both the less well known member of a school, or orientation that is primarily identified with other figures more often discussed; Macherey is often seen as one of the names associated with Althusser, but not referenced as much as Etienne Balibar or even Jacques Rancière and Virno with autonomia or post-operaism, but less famous than Antonio Negri and less infamous than Mario Tronti. Macherey is barely translated into English, but thanks to Seagull books, most of Virno's work is available. The other, more interesting thing that they have in common, is that they have both turned to the concept of labor power as a philosophical concept. 

Profane Existence: Capital Goes from Woke to MAGA

 In the US every presidential election is treated as a transformation of the nation, of the zeitgeist, like Brecht's line about the government electing itself a new people made true. This is especially true of the chattering pundit class who have greeted every election from Obama to Trump as a transformation not just of government but the nation. There is no small irony in this given low voter turnout, small margins, and anti-democratic institutions like the electoral college. What is often a small shift in numbers is treated as a major shift in values and ideals.

Capitalist Dogs II: Or, What Habit Makes in Smith and Marx

 I remember a friend in graduate school saying that our task, at least when it came to writing dissertations, was to write something that a database could not produce. He was a bit ahead of the curve, this was sometime around the late nineties early two thousands. Databases could not write books then, but they are getting closer to it. Or, more to the point, a particular kind of academic monographic, the sort the traces the development of a concept in a single author oeuvre or a comparison of two thinkers, seems to be increasingly the kind of thing that a machine could write. That is the bad news. The good news, is that such monographs seemed useful to write, but never that fun to read in the first place. What if we could leave such books to the machines that generate them and consume them. What kind of writing should we do in the age of (seemingly) intelligent machines?

Fighting for Infection as if it were Wellness: On the Anti-Vax Moment

There was a moment in the beginning of the COVID pandemic when I thought to myself that surely this would be the end of the anti-vaccination movement. It is one thing to be against vaccines when diseases are rare, and pandemics a distant memory, but another to be against them in the midst of a pandemic in which tens of thousands were dying each week in the US alone. The anti-vax position always seemed like a luxury position, a position of privilege, an individual refusing vaccines is taking advantage of the fact that others are vaccinated around them and cases are rare. Like many things in US politics and culture, individual autonomy is made possible by the existence and occlusion of collective action. It is for that reason that I thought such a position would collapse in the face of an actual pandemic.

Everything is a Weapon if You Hold it Right: On Weapons

 

The titles of Zach Cregger's films are more riddles and interpretations than descriptions. One could conclude that the "barbarian" of the first film's title refers to the character of the mother, after all she is the one that smashes heads, but, as I said earlier, I think that misses the point that the film is a far deeper reflection on barbarians and civilization. In a similar way, we could conclude that the word "weapons" in the title of the recent film refers to the weaponization of the hypnotized individuals, as is stated in the dialogue.  (Oh, yeah, spoiler alert)

Just a Dog: Immediacy and Mediation at the Movies

Watching Superman at the drive-in with Bento (below)

I took my dog to the drive-in, something he loves, and this got me thinking about the status of dogs in contemporary films. James Gunn's Superman is, among many things, the first live action film to depict Superman's dog Krypto. The dog features prominently in the film, in its advertisements, and in its afterlife in memes and. jokes online. 

Lordon (and Lucbert) Vs. Deleuze (and Guattari): On Pulsion

I am going with images of conflict for this one 

As I have remarked here earlier, and in a published piece, one of the things that it is surprising about Frédéric Lordon's work on the organization of desire in capitalism is that he does not mention Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus. The omission is striking because of their shared problem, the organization of desire under capitalism, and even their shared reference, Spinoza. As I wrote in the piece in the Affect Theory Reader 2:

Our Brand is in Crisis: The Summer of the Requel

 

This summer, well at least July, is the summer of the requel, to use the term coined by the Scream films. Jurassic World: Rebirth, Superman, and Fantastic Four: First Steps are all in different ways attempts to do the work of both a sequel and a reboot. They are entries in a series that also attempts to reset it and restore it.There is a phoenix like quality to the modern intellectual property franchise; when an individual film crashes and burns, like Jurassic World: Dominion, Justice League, and F4ntastic Four (or whatever it was called), it only adds fuel to the fire, to a desire to get the film right next time. Of the three only Jurassic World is a straight up sequel, the two others, Superman and Fantastic Four are less sequels to the existing films of that series, but the stakes are even higher, they are an attempt to restore not just one entire series, but an entire cinematic universe, which is to say an entire brand.

Being Illegal: Ideology and the Law

For the past fifteen years I have been teaching a class on work. This class has undergone many changes throughout the years. Readings have circulated in and out. I always try to add something new, whether this be Elizabeth Anderson, Sarah Jaffe, or Jason Smith and Aaron Benanav.  Somethings remain a constant, like John Locke, Adam Smith, Marx, and Kathi Weeks.  The things that change the most are the movies that I pair with the class. I have taught Office Space, Clockwatchers, Sleep Dealer, Sorry to Bother You, and The Assistant to name a few. 

A History of Violence: Or A Guy Walks into A Bar...

   

In the past few weeks I have rewatched two of my favorite movies on the Criterion Channel, Odds Against Tomorrow and Bad Day at Black Rock. What struck me in watching them in close succession was the one thing they had in common, besides Robert Ryan excelling at being a racist bastard, is they both introduce elements of martial arts as something new, as something that changes what it means to fight and who could win.