Some capitalist in the sky must jump up and down everytime that i have to write a paper because i spend more money when writing papers than i do at any other point in time. Of course, all of my money goes to exactly one place. Conversely, all of my friends must hate me when i write because year after year, they get suckered into the painful process of moving my consumerist acquisitions.
Today: 1 Lacan, 1 Foucault, 2 Kafka, 3 Calvino, 1 Goffman, 1 Aronson, 1 Jung… yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a theoretical day.
I Marcovaldo the irrepressible dreamer, Marcovaldo the inveterate schemer. I will comment on your book selection. Because it is late and I like what you write, D. Boyd, I will comment on what you read.
I live in an invisible city (the one built by plummers). And in this city, would I try to present myself as an acceptable person… Well… according to Goffman, an offer to interact always leaves one open to rebuff. The mundane interaction with this screen has no process but has meaning. “Onomatopoeic beings we are.”.
Some of the more cynical critics have claimed, however, that the discussion of ‘power’ in foucauldian terms allows intellectuals to appear politically radical without actually having to get their hands dirty. Well in this invisible city, built out of drain pipes, in the middle of a desert I Marcovaldo, Calvino’s creature, sadly agree. Furthermore I also employ Foucault’s ideas to argue that aid donors to the third world in fact exert a form of ‘pastoral power’. There are no cynical critics in this invisible city. Foucault’s intent, always remained highly critical and never cynical. Even when describing the perfection and efficiency of certain administrative mechanisms of surveillance and discipline. Just like you D. Boyd.
… I see a connection between Aronson’s findings when these challenged reinforcement theory and Lacans post-freudian observations. We do not behave motivated by reward and punishment. Aronson came up with self-justification. Lacan called it the miror phase, when visual images (also words) form self image, but not self “me” not “me” the imaginary Marcovaldo. (What if the ultimate signifier S1 were desire?) Just like Aronson my comment ends with “I’m enjoying the luxury of trying to synthesize a wide variety of disparate research into a coherent picture.”
From the textual quotations of your physical objectivity, I begin to harbor a doubt: that I am not reading you, single and whole as you are.
Funny that the first “good” mirrors were built in the desert, out of sand turned glass. I Marcovaldo will now drain the pipes of my city now and make mirrors.
K