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Re: Pre-history of the jingle

joneilortiz — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:50:57 -0000

On a side note: In a post on Graham Robb’s The Discovery of France, "a fantastic study brimming with fascinating portraits, meticulously reconstructed scenes and bizarre facts about a country before it was centralised, homogenised and tamed by its rationalist hub, Paris," Strange Maps notes in passing that the cris was designed not only to solicit the passerby but also, perhaps, to ease memorization in a somewhat-foreign language.

Up until the early 20th century, Robb suggests, it still seemed the other way around. It was Paris that was being colonised, by its provinces: “By the mid-nineteenth century, half the inhabitants of Paris came from the provinces and most of them did not consider themselves Parisian. Migrants spent as little money as possible while away from home. Mentally, they never left their pays (…) In certain Paris streets, the sounds and smells of villages and provincial towns drowned out the sounds and smells of the capital. For many, their street cry was the only French they spoke.”

Re: Greek, Roman, American Affectation in Woody Allen’s Interiors (1978)

joneilortiz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:12:13 -0000

"Is Pearl, in fact, the Ugly American who saves the grand European soul, embodied in Eve but now transferred to Joey? Maybe there is a kind of continuation between the two (or three rather) forces in the movie, the American, Apollonian, and Dionysian?"

I like this reading a lot. The plot may revolve around a divorce, but in the end, paradoxically, continuity between traditions is affirmed.

But I wonder if the moment when the 'soul' is transferred from the European to the American begins a little before the drowning scene (which seals it). After Joey delivers that final harsh condemnation of her mother (which sets Eve running for the sea), but before she realizes her mother has left (and before we as an audience are sure that the mother is actually in the house and not simply imagined), Pearl steps out of the darkness into Eve's place, at which point Joey says, "Mother?", and Pearl, thinking that Joey is finally recognizing her, responds "Yes", which sends Joey running ... Usually these kinds of 'misrecognitions' come off trite or heavy-handed, but here I think it works perfectly, and plausibly.

Joey's re-birth also seems to unblock the dam, and in the final moments we see her writing what can only be the screenplay of the film we just watched. Somehow this kind of meta-self-reflexivity seems very American (and very Modernist).

Re: Bruno Latour on the Expanding Meaning of the Word “Design”

joneilortiz — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:33:43 -0000

Sounds like the Scholastics debating Aristotelian physics (via the medieval pseudo-Aristotelian work 'Liber sex principiorum') - e.g. the doctrine that the place a body is in is the inner surface of the container of that body (--their favorite example being a vessel filled with water, where the 'place' of the water is the inner surface of the vessel, which 'circumscribes' the water). (Aristotle, Physics, Bk. 4, ch. 4, 210b35-211a2) ...

Re: The Anti-Homosexual Counterpetition to the American Philosophical Association

joneilortiz — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:20:34 -0000

I'm aware of the ordinary language philosophers' claim to a sufficient analysis of 'the social' -- hence the joke in the last line ("And then [...] oh so ordinary") -- but I just don't consider this vein of philosophy all that social or cultural in purview. It's still very philosophical and linguistic at heart, without touching on much history, sociology, etc.

Anyway, it's simply a fact that analytic philosophy in general (and ordinary language philosophy as well) are comparatively less invested in cultural and social levels of meaning. (Austin is more 'linguistic' and less 'historical' in focus than is, say, Foucault.) Open any continental-leaning publication and it will be more interested in ideology, history, the social milieu surrounding a given text, the production of authority in a given field, how a discourse 'creates' objects (such as 'the homosexual'), and most importantly the 'truth effects' (rather than 'validity') of a given statement. This whole methodology, which would be needed to unpack the APA policy, has no real counterpart in analytic philosophy. Even analytic philosophers I think would agree with this statement.

I do find it amusing though that after decades of lambasting continental folks for being so social and cultural (which were such dirty words), now they're mad that they're not being considered social enough!

Maybe I shouldn't have said "complete disregard" -- I was being a little dramatic. But still, I do think that the language of the counterpetition is symptomatic of a certain analytic inattention to, or under-prioritization of, discourse, ideology, institutions. The language of the counterpetition is, you have to admit, distinctly analytic (whereas the language of the petition, also written by analytic philsophers, is not).

Re: The Anti-Homosexual Counterpetition to the American Philosophical Association

joneilortiz — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:30:02 -0000

Sure, one's work can span analytic and continental traditions, and the polemic may be a dead end for conversation, but that doesn't mean the two can be neatly reconciled, which your language suggests. (I take strong issue with your closing paragraph that sums up the two traditions' place in the world as a sort of perfectly inversive but complementary puzzle where everything fits together in the end. If that's true, then why all the passionate, career-killing controversy?) There is plenty of analytic philosophy I like and agree with, and we could both list off exceptions to the rule, but it would be absurd to then say that the opposition is merely illusory or a matter of perspective. The analytic-continental divide may be fraying in parts but it's still very real.

Re: Macroeconomics and the Street, on The Wire

joneilortiz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:17:34 -0000

Great, thought-provoking response. --I agree there's an identity problem, but I don't think Stringer was ever really "too thug" -- if anything, he was *trying* to be, but has always lacked the proper instinct for knowing when and how to pull the trigger. --I agree that it's not money he's really after, but I think that holds just as well for Avon and perhaps for any tycoon, legitimate or illegitimate. It's about power, obviously -- and the forms that takes in the show are as diverse as they are plenty (--money, sex, influence, thrills, whatever).

You're completely right that he's after legitimacy (--that's a much better way of putting it) -- but to the point of delusion, I think. The macroeconomics theme introduces the element of ideology, from 'outside' the ghetto; it's an improper factor that Stringer is trying to incorporate. Which is why Avon has to remind him that legitimacy and all that is just not possible. But whether that pursuit of legitimacy is a pursuit of "Whiteness" ... I'm not sure the one quite maps onto the other. Do his mannerisms, personality, delusions otherwise invoke a form of Whiteness? I guess it could be argued that his professorial demeanor connotes a certain kind of grandfatherly whiteness -- but not necessarily or at least not predominantly. There's also a kind of violence risked in equating a thug's delusions of social legitimacy with specifically racial delusions.

But your main objection seems to be over whether or not Stringer can be said to have "applied the wrong model (too abstract) to a real economic situation". Perhaps I have overstressed the abstract vs. real dynamic, assuming this binary isn't a false one (--I think it generally is); but either way I do think the show organizes itself in these terms, however problematically. The key part of the exchange here is when Stringer attributes the operation's problems to a business cycle, as if it's just a dip in the graph that will eventually correct itself. This is of course straight macroeconomic, free market theory. But what I think the show is saying here, on a less economic level, is that events 'on the ground' have changed in such a way that the ideas 'in the air' can no longer be used to describe them, whether or not those ideas were accurate before. It's more like the parameters of the situation have changed so much that it can no longer accommodate the same myth. (If this is what you mean when you say that the things themselves are in conflict, I agree.)

Maybe, then, it would be better to frame this dissonance not as one between abstract and real but as one between ideology and events. Stringer is clearly overlooking -- or not seeing, mistaking, etc. -- something. I'm open to ideas for how to express this misrecognition, but I don't think identity exhausts the question. As for Marlo, say no more! I'm about to start the third season!

Re: Macroeconomics and the Street, on The Wire

joneilortiz — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:01:47 -0000

I agree that ethos and morality can and should be distinguished -- but that's why I find the use of the word "ethical" for ethos-ical confusing, or unfortunate. In fact, using the former to mean the latter can, paradoxically, undermine your point, if in a subtle way. (I've always been a little bothered by the ambiguity, in many ways an accident of English, of extending "ethos" into the adjective "ethical", because it can't be distinguished from the layman "ethical" -- "pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct" -- which is precisely what your use of ethical doesn't want to connote.) That's all I was say'n.

Re: Macroeconomics and the Street, on The Wire

joneilortiz — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:05:40 -0000

I see your point about the ethical aspect to the conversation, but if it leans more toward the Aristotelian sense of ethos/character than toward questions of right and wrong, I question how helpful that term is, in light of its moral associations. (I don't see them as hashing out a moral dilemma, in any sense of the term, though I understand that's not what you're saying.) I do, however, completely agree it's about conflicting values and worldviews, that there's a structural problem -- which was previously self-corrected by their collaboration, but which has now spun out of control, it seems, without Avon 'reminding him where he comes from'.

I think you're right to see this in terms of recognition, that Avon can't understand Stringer's position, that he thinks he's disillusioned, confused, and, most importantly, weak -- which will endanger Avon. You can see them part ways here. They even hold the phone differently, with more or less exact associations (--good luck, future film historians, in discerning between them). The delayed fist bump is great writing. What does it mean, "exactly"? Misrecognition, yes, but I think it also means that Avon suspects that Stringer put the hit out on Mouzon. It's as if he's suddenly picking-up on dissension and now sees a conflict developing with the one guy he thought he could count on ...

As for that other thing -- Tony as defense contractor -- oh my, you're totally right. I think I thought it was an arms convention because when he tries to get in, but doesn't have proper ID, there's this military guy lingering at the table, right? Anyway, it turns out it's a precision optics convention, and there are probably just military attendees. That he's a solar heating salesman, as you pointed out (in an email), makes sense, what with the whole Buddhist monk storyline. Forgot about that. Maybe I should just remove the Sopranos paragraphs -- they don't add all that much to the post -- though I think the greater point -- about Tony's dreams of legitimacy (and Meadow's cunning legalese defense) -- still stands. But I guess I should leave it in, as record of an interesting mistake on my part. That his dream is actually of a super-legitimate, maybe even progressive, lifestyle changes things considerably.

Re: Bruno Latour on the Expanding Meaning of the Word “Design”

joneilortiz — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:18:54 -0000

It's one thing to 'trace a network' to expose a strategically hidden economic process, and something else entirely to represent the world itself as a network.

I agree with the liberating, intrinsically political power of 'bringing to light' something that was hidden, and I agree that there is a valuable psychological dimension to the demystification of capitalist processes, but at the same time a more robust network theory would have to move past the exposition, and mapping, of interdependent phenomena. --And your paper, which I very much enjoyed, is clearly attempting just that!

Re: Will Wilkinson on the naivety of Libertarianism

joneilortiz — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:51:25 -0000

Not sure what you mean when you say libertarianism "doesn't believe in the State at all". Do you mean that it shouldn't exist, or that it doesn't? If you mean the former, then Wilkinson's and Howley's criticisms would seem to be even more applicable.

Re: Test

joneilortiz — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:21:59 -0000

sample comment