You Would Make a Great Cop: On Lezra's Defective Institutions

I had the opportunity to respond to Jacques Lezra's book Defective Institutions: A Protocol for the Republic at SPEP's virtual conference this year.  There is much to talk about in the book, but I decided to focus on his discussion of the police, partly because it allowed me to stitch together some thoughts about the police in the current political moment. My remarks are below.

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. 

Everybody Gets to be a Fascist: Or, What Taylor Swift Taught Me About Fascism

 

The Best Joke in Barbie 

Years ago I remember encountering Félix Guattari's little essay, "Everybody Wants to be a Fascist." At the time its title seemed more clever than prescient. (Although it is worth remembering how much fascism, and the encounter with fascism was integral to Deleuze and Guattari's theorizing, well beyond the reference to Reich). Now that we are living in a different relation to fascism the problem posed by Guattari (and Deleuze) of desire seems all the more pertinent and pressing. 

Nostalgic for Nothing: Industry and Affect

 

this is not a picture of me

The dominance of intellectual property in film is driven by one central affect, or affective composition, nostalgia, the sense that something about the past was once better. It is unclear, however, if this mood is oriented towards the actual films of the recent past, or childhood itself. What is it we are nostalgic for? 

How Can It Not Know What It Is? On Blade Runner 2049

I think that I may have grown up watching Blade Runner. I do not mean that I watched the film several times growing up, although that is probably the case, but something happened when I first watched it that was integral to growing up. All of this is because I grew up, in the first sense, watching Harrison Ford play a hero; Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were a big part of my childhood imagination. I had the toys and I am sure I went as Indiana Jones one Halloween. So when I saw Blade Runner for the first time, I think on VHS, I expected the same comic book morality of good versus evil and the same wisecracking character (Let's just be honest and admit that Han Solo and Indiana Jones are basically the same character). The movie both thwarted and ultimately exceeded my expectations: in its failure to live up to my action packed expectations it redefined what made a good film. I do not think that I could watch films again in the same way; incidentally, I am fairly sure that it was my attempt to see the film on the big screen a few years later that drew me to my local art house theater, the Cleveland Cinematheque. It is not just that Blade Runner has a formal connection to film noir and larger film world, for me it had an anecdotal one as well. 

Said and Unsaid: From the Critique of Hypocrisy to Symptomatic Reading

The critique of hypocrisy did not begin with Trump, but it has been fueled by his campaign and presidency. It is hard not to see signs of hypocrisy everywhere, in the leaders of the evangelical community who have rallied behind a philanderer who has admitted sexual abuse; in generals who have stood behind the tough guy rhetoric of a draft dodger whose idea of discipline is getting seconds on dessert; and even in so-called business leaders who kowtow to a man who has gone bankrupt six times running a casino (you know, where the house always wins). As much as Trump represents the culmination of hypocrisy critique he also represents its limit. None of these critiques have stuck.