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. 

Woke Capital and Twilight of the Bourgeoisie (How is that for a title?).

 

For anyone who has any historical memory whatsoever the controversies around woke seem like just a remake, or possible a reboot, of the panic around political correctness a generation before. It is a matter of the same fears, the same threats, and the same bad guys and good guys. College campuses and postmodernism are once again to blame, and the same hallowed traditions are threatened. On one reading, and it is a fairly plausible one, is that this is just a repetition. The only reason that the names have been changed, the only reason terms like "woke" have replaced "political correctness" is that repeating the old name would be admitting that this new threat is quite old. Political correctness came and went, but the skies did not darken and the rivers did not run red with blood. New logo, same package. There are, however, some differences and these differences have something to say about the changing nature of culture and power.

Reduction to Ignorance: Spinoza in the Age of Conspiracy Theories

I was obsessed with conspiracy theories at some point in my adolescence. I listened to late night radio shows dedicated to alien abductions, satan messages on records, and a more local phenomena known as the mellonheads. These were jokes to me, or at least half jokes, I never took any of them seriously. However, they did contribute to growing sense that there was more to the world than what I was told. Adolescence and conspiracy theories go well together. In recent years, however, it increasingly seems like conspiracy theories have moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and from entertainment to politics. It is hard to avoid the fact that we are living through a profound transformation of knowledge, authority, and politics, and a revival of mystical and mythic forms of knowledge that go beyond any dialectic of enlightenment. It may then turn out that the old arguments regarding superstition have taken on a new relevance. As is often the case on this blog, I am starting here with Spinoza, I have a plan to continue this with a post on Hegel and then Marx, (we will see how it goes).

Neo-Feudalism with Capitalist Characteristics: A Response to Jodi Dean

I had the chance to respond to Jodi Dean's Communism or Neo-Feudalism at Red May. The following are are a revised version of my response.