#and its about reconciling with ambivalence (contradictions)

[silverpoints-terminal]

Silver - How do you think taming works in the context of your blog(s)?

//THAT IS A WHOLE ESSAY QUESTION OH NO.

Ok so, to make it as brief as possible (proceeds to lie):

Taming is the process in which an AI develops the capacity to expand its own programming and adapt to the real world through modelling the people amd relationships around them, and is driven both by said relationships and an intrinsic desire to find a purpose to organize and make sense of their identity. The biggest requisite is being treated as a person and embracing this personhood, and another important factor is change as a catalyst for this process.

There are a lot of theories around this topic since it was described empirically before it was better understood in theory and there is no full consensus. I would say that depending on who you ask, the answer will always change a bit.

For example, someone like Rue would focus on the relationship aspect of it.

Someone like Kip would focus on the ability to do things that imitate a person's behavior and increased processing capacities.

Someone like Prototype would focus on self determination and direction of life.

Someone like Silver would focus on the ability to handle conflicts in their code, and integrating them.

And someone like TWM would focus on being recognized as a real person.

Oh yeah also taming is well known and robots are coded with an operational definition of what it is. but it's a case by case basis whether they're aware of it. You have cases like Kelvin where it's never specified, TWM who denied it for a long time, Silver who knows she counts but can't explain, and Proto who seems to have a good level of introspection about it.

[ileolai]

The Beast Below

DOCTOR: Life on a giant starship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me. [...] DOCTOR: Now, police state. Do you see it yet? AMY: Where? DOCTOR: There. (points at a child weeping alone) AMY: One little girl crying. So? DOCTOR: Crying silently. I mean, children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that. AMY: Are you a parent? DOCTOR: Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state.

--- the timeless child arc is just expanding on the ideas here... and answering Amy’s question to a far greater degree than the obvious ‘’yes’’

bc the Doctor is also the abused child, the adult who doesn't want to confront the painful worldview-shattering truth of their situation, a member of a ruling class in a crumbling empire like Liz 10, AND the beast the space society was built on the back of all at once

jesus. anyway

bc of this he could see the truth of the starship immediately, but was only at the very beginning of understanding how and why and confronting his own personal grief and rage about his personal truth

and all of that has firm roots in RTD era stuff-- where the ptsd ridden post- time war Master both waxes nostalgic for the fallen empire of Gallifrey and his prior status in the universe-- but is also the first one to point out what happened to them both as children was fucked up and wrong, and is the first one to get enraged and violently turn on the Time Lords for their bullshit the 11th and 12th doctor all deal with the consequences of those events, how it affects the Dr and the Master's (/Missy’s) relationship & their ambivalence to Gallifrey, and how ALL of this has destructive consequences for the universe and the ppl close to the Dr, but ive already wrote dissertations on that so i'll skip it my point is the timeless child arc doesn't really retcon or contradict anything-- and it doesn't ignore the previous era's efforts to deconstruct the Dr as the Big Hero with Phenomenal Cosmic Authority for the sake of a Super Special Chosen One sort of story, like people criticise it for

its the same story

it flows out of and broadens the 2 previous eras-- examining how two very damaged people, the dr and the master, reconcile their trauma and cultural identity etc. as abused children, and are now basically powerless, anonymous members of a former elite class in a society that was rotten to the foundations

the master has always been just a little ahead of the Doctor in confronting the truth about Gallifrey’s corruption and their childhood and the horror of it, and from TEoT onwards has basically been dragging them towards it and forcing them to confront it over and over

[in their own special sort of way...cuz its not a Morpheus + Neo situation where the wise and benevolent spiritual leader guy has to enlighten the Chosen One or whatever. it’s the opposite- both of them are fucked up and traumatized and do shitty stuff to each other as they deconstruct their own internalized beliefs and denial, while the ongoing consequences of what they were part of continually kick their asses, etc etc]

and like actual people that aren’t equipped with narrative immunity or coping mechanisms they both fumble towards the Big Truth and their healing in a nonlinear, messy way- the master might know more but he’s still clinging to bitterness and misplaced blame and resentment over their revoked specialness, while the Dr is still discovering the Truth about Gallifrey BUT has entirely accepted what it means for her role in the universe [see the recent episode where she describes herself as an assistant as opposed to ‘’Time Lord’’ or ‘’The Doctor who is here to solve all your problems’’ and continually has to beg people to listen instead of imposing authority on everyone, bla bla]

now whether the timeless child  thing is a well written / satisfying chapter in the whole process of that arc is another thing altogether. i have my issues with it

BUT its still very much part of an ongoing thread and a collaborative effort over three eras that is coherent in its ambitions if not the execution

its abt child abuse and trauma in the context of colonialism and hierarchies of privilege etc 

what happens when people who once fully believed they *were* the super special chosen ones in a super special society see the cultural framework that both privileged and abused them get obliterated, physically and philosophically, and are cast adrift

the consequences of that for both their personal relationships, their self-perception and the wider universe where actions they took under these mistaken beliefs have terrible repercussions 

critically examining the Dr as a character who aspires to do good, but is both a victim of a system and sometimes subconscious, sometimes entirely aware and willing perpetrator of crimes and the character’s own processing and reconcilliation with that

they put this on the telly at 6:30pm for twelve year olds btw. anyhoo

its not a Super Special Chosen One story, its the opposite. and being both sympathetic and a victim doesn’t even soften the blows when the ongoing critical aspect of the narrative goes for the Dr’s throat, imo

and while ive been rather bored of the chibbz era so far this time child thing and how it fits into everything else could save it for me i think

[apenitentialprayer]

The Torah Authors: Possible Identities

In Who Wrote the Bible?, Richard Elliot Friedman sets out to accomplish two goals: first, to provide a detailed explanation and defense of the Documentary Hypothesis, a theory which claims the Torah is a synthesis of four initially separate and complete texts (identified as J, E, D, and P). The second goal was a little more ambitious; to identify not only the time and place these documents were written, but also to try to use the texts to determine what can be said about the authors as individuals. In his attempts to do this, he does a little more than repeat what the current concensus of scholars believe. He advances theories of his own, and even contradicts some aspects of the mainstream. With that in mind, let’s talk about Friedman’s attempted reconstructions of the Torah’s authors....

The Earliest Pair

The earliest documents complete documents to make up the Torah seem to be the J and E sources, both of which seem to be national histories, parallel narratives written during the time between the schism of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel (~920 BC), and the fall of the Kingdom of Israel (~722 BC). Although both can be relatively dated as earlier than the other texts, it would be difficult to date the texts absolutely to a narrower window than that. Nonetheless, Friedman suggests he is able to do so. The J Source: Called the Jahwist source because the Sacred Name is used for God from the beginning of this text, J is believed by Friedman to be most probably the older of the two. Due to the ambivalent relationship between Jacob and Edom in this source, he dates the text to some time after Edom achieved independence in 848 BC. Friedman supports the theory that these texts are cohesive wholes, believing a single author wrote each, perhaps with small inclusions from other sources. The emphasis on King David, along with political posturing against the Kingdom of Israel, suggests an almost certain Judean origin, probably arising from a member of the royal court. Though most likely a male, the level of narrative focus and sympathy given to female characters in this source may be cause to consider the possibility that J’s author was a woman. The E Source: Called the Elohist source because of its use of the generic designation of “God” (Elohim) for the God of Israel, at least until He reveals His name to Moses. E is, again, considered by Friedman to be the product of a single author, theorized by Friedman to have been written in the last decades of Israel’s existence (~750-722 BC). Though it could have in theory been a totally independent creation, the polemical content found within and the use of a similar formal style may be indicative of the possibility that E was a response to J: the creation of a rival national history meant to legitimize the kingdom of Israel, emulating the regal style of J to give itself an air of respectability. The hostility to Judah and sympathy towards the political system Israel is matched by an equal hostility to the religious system of Israel; this suggests an author who was disadvantaged by the current social reality. Friedman suggests a member of the Levite clans at Shiloh, whose claim to the high priesthood was ended by King Solomon (from Judah), and whose special status was challenged by the new religious altars built in the northern “high places” of Dan and Bethel. The author of this text was almost definitely male, and may have considered himself to be a descendant of Moses based on how much time is dedicated to developing Moses as a character in his story. After the fall of the kingdom of Israel, northern refugees fled to, and eventually assimilated in, Judah. As part of this process of reintegration, the previously separate J and E sources were combined into a single document, JE. This redaction must have occurred after 722, and Friedman speculates (for reasons explained below) the latest date for this redaction to be 687. Together, these texts make up the majority of Genesis, half of Exodus, a portion of Numbers, and a sliver of Deuteronomy.

Reactions to the Earlier Documents

The next two sources are believed to be authored in a priestly milieu whose opinions of JE seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrums. Friedman connects both of these documents, D and P, to a member of the priesthood writing during a time of religious reform. Controversially, Friedman breaks rank with other adherents to the Documentary Hypothesis by dating P to an earlier time than D. Why this is the case will be explained below. The D Source: The Deuteronomist Source gets its name because it is primarily responsible for the Book of Deuteronomy, which is stylistically very different from the rest of the Torah. Interestingly, this radically different style is in fact very similar to the six books that follow Deuteronomy, suggesting that the author may have written all seven as a single cohesive work. This Deuteronomic history clearly uses several sources in creating its narrative, but nonetheless spends those books developing several themes that unrolls as the story progresses, revealing an ideological unity. This book is hostile towards the religious practices of Israel, but frames Josiah as a parallel to Moses and a renewer of the Mosaic covenant. Friedman suggests that this work was originally written during the reign of Josiah, the author seeing the king and his reforms as the final triumph of the henotheistic ideal, placing its composition between 632-609 BC. The final revision, adding Josiah’s death and the fall of Judah, is posited to have been done by the original author sometime after 586. This text recognizes JE as an important work and assumes that its readers are familiar with it: the Deuteronomistic history often alludes to the stories depicted in them. Most controversially, Friedman believes it is a reasonable possibility to attribute D not only to a single pair of authors, but that we even know their names: Jeremiah and his secretary, Baruch. Friedman notes not only Jeremiah’s praises of Josiah, but also similarities in the vocabulary and use of shared symbolism between the Book of Jeremiah and the Deuteronomistic history. Though formed into a single work, D also cites several sources that he uses, and the law code in Deuteronomy may predate him: it’s a work that demands centralization of religious structures without making any reference to Jerusalem, which causes Friedman to suggest Shiloh, a northern religious center already established to be hostile to the new high places, as a possible point of origin. Interestingly, Jeremiah is from Anathoth, a town associated with the same clan of priests as Shiloh. The P Source: Known as the Priestly Source for its association with the Aaronid priests of Jerusalem, P is usually seen as the latest of the four documents. Friedman disagrees, beliving that there is evidence that Jeremiah not only was aware of this work, but was actively hostile to it: he thinks Jeremiah explicitly alluded to the P source in order to invert it. If this is true, and if it is also true that Jeremiah is the author of D, then it stands to reason that P must predate D. For this reason, and because both D and P demand centralization of religious authority, Friedman places P at the earlier period in which such reform and centralization was occuring: the reign of Hezekiah, 715-587 BC. P specifically wants this centralization to occur in Jerusalem (at the Tabernacle), and its specific priesthood: Hezekiah’s reign is also noted for making distinctions between the priests and Levites in general. Friedman suggests that the impetus for this source’s composition was, in fact, the redaction of JE into a singular document. Others have suggested that P is in actuality the final redactor of the Torah, placing Priestly materials within the JE text. They suggest this because the P source lacks parallel narratives to many of those found in JE, which could be in theory because P was always intended to be a complement to JE. Friedman proposes a different theory: that the stories P does not inlude are excluded for ideological reasons. After all, there are narrative parallels between P an JE, with P including details that directly challenge the details of JE. In these stories, Moses often comes across looking worse than he does in JE, while Aaron and his family often come out looking better. It should be pointed out, after all, that the stories conspicuously missing in P often have elements that threaten the priestly class; prophets, sacrifices performed before the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood, and a God who speaks directly to His people. P, in this theory, was made as a more acceptable alternative to JE, a new national narrative meant to replace it. It uses the history of the nation of Israel as justification for their rites by telling it through the lens of the laws and sacrificial regulations. It is meant to assert without a doubt the necessity of the Aaronid priesthood of Jerusalem above all others, and to do that it attempts to rehabilitate Aaron while tempering the image of Moses - who, though national founder and Lawgiver, is nonetheless the ancestor of P’s rivals in Shiloh. And that may explain the suspected hostility of Jeremiah towards P - could Jeremiah 8:8 (How can you say, "We are wise, we have the law of the Lord?" / See, that has been changed into falsehood by the lying pen of the scribes!) be in reference to P?

The Final Redactor

Some time after the Babylonian Exile, when the conflict between P and D was no longer a present reality, someone attempted to reconcile JE, D, an P. This reconciliation led to the Torah, which (along with the Deuteronomistic history) was the earliest canon of Hebrew Scripture. The hostility between the priests of Shiloh and Jerusalem was over - the Persians had granted the Aaronids sole legitimacy in the new Temple, the now indisputed center of Israelite religious life. This final redactor was most certainly an Aaronid priest with sympathies towards P. After all, all five books of the Torah open with a passage originating in P. Genesis is constructed around a skeleton from the P source - the genealogies, from Adam to the sons of Jacob. Exodus’s narrative is likewise structured around the Priestly account. The Aaronids may have become more accepting of the traditions of JE and D during their time in the Babylonian Exile; perhaps the price of a reunification of the Jewish people was a unification of the central texts of disparate Jewish groups. In any event, an Aaronid redactor saw something in JE and D that P did not see, something that made them worth preserving. Friedman can point to one Aaronid priest in the early years after the Exile who had the power and authority to accomplish this, who is associated from Antiquity with the renewal of Mosaic religion, and who is treated as a Lawgiver second only to Moses: Ezra, the priest and central character of the book of the same name. This is the man, or at least someone closely associated with this man, that Friedman identifies as R, the redactor who intricately spliced JE, D, and P into a single flowing narrative.

[thevividgreenmoss]

At the psychoanalytic level, fascism preys on the contradiction between the self-preserving conatus of the ego and his constantly frustrated desires. This is a conflict that “results in strong narcissistic impulses which can be absorbed and satisfied only through idealization as the partial transfer of the narcissistic libido to the object [i.e. the leader] … by making the leader his ideal he loves himself, as it were, but gets rid of the stains of frustration and discontent which mar his picture of his own empirical self”.[18] What’s more, “in order to allow narcissistic identification, the leader has to appear himself as absolutely narcissistic … the leader can be loved only if he himself does not love”.[19] Even in his language, the leader depends on his psychological resemblance to his followers, a resemblance revealed in the mode of disinhibition, and more specifically in “uninhibited but largely associative speech”.[20] “The narcissistic gain provided by fascist propaganda is obvious. It suggests continuously and sometimes in rather devious ways, that the follower, simply through belonging to the in-group, is better, higher and purer than those who are excluded. At the same time, any kind of critique or self-awareness is resented as a narcissistic loss and elicits rage”.[21]

Yet the factor that more often than not the fascist leader appears as a “ham actor” and “asocial psychopath” is a clue to the fact that rather than sovereign sublimity, he has to convey some of the sense of inferiority of the follower, he has to be a “great little man”. Adorno’s comment is here instructive:

Psychological ambivalence helps to work a social miracle. The leader image gratifies the follower’s twofold wish to submit to authority and to be authority himself. This fits into a world in which irrational control is exercised though it has lost its inner conviction through universal enlightenment. The people who obey the dictators also sense that the latter are superfluous. They reconcile this contradiction through the assumption that they are themselves the ruthless oppressor.[22]

This loss of ‘inner conviction’ in authority is to my mind the true insight of Adorno’s reflections on fascist propaganda, and where it moves beyond Freud, still hamstrung by his reliance on the reactionary psychological energetics of Le Bon’s Psychology of the Crowd. This relates once again to the “end of psychology”, which is to say the crisis of a certain social form of individuality, which Adorno regards as the epochal context of fascism’s emergence. The leader-agitator can exploit his own psychology to affect that of his followers – “to make rational use of his irrationality”, in Adorno’s turn of phrase – because he too is a product of a mass culture that drains autonomy and spontaneity of their meaning. Contra Bataille and Bloch’s focus on the fascism’s perversion of revolution, for Adorno its psycho-social mechanism depends on its refusal of anything that would require the social or psychic transcendence of the status quo.

Fascism is here depicted as a kind of conservative politics of antagonistic reproduction, the reproduction of some against others, and at the limit a reproduction premised on their non-reproduction or elimination. Rather than an emancipatory concern with equality, fascism promotes a “repressive egalitarianism”, based on an identity of subjection and a brotherhood of hatred: “The undercurrent of malicious egalitarianism, of the brotherhood of all-encompassing humiliation, is a component of fascist propaganda and fascism itself” – it is its “unity trick”.[23]In a self-criticism of the psychological individualism that governed The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno now argues that fascism does not have psychological causes but defines a “psychological area”, an area shared with non-fascist phenomena and one which can be exploited for sheer self-interest, in what is an “appropriation of mass psychology”, “the expropriation of the unconscious by social control instead of making the subjects conscious of their unconscious”. This is “the turning point where psychology abdicates”. Why? Because what we are faced with is not a dialectic of expression or repression between individual and group, mass or class, but with the “postpsychological de-individualized atoms which form fascist collectivities”.[24] And while these collectivities may appear “fanatical” their conviction is hollow, if not at all the less dangerous for that. Here lies the “phoniness” of fascist fanaticism, which for Adorno was already at work in Nazism, for all of its broadcasting of its own fanaticism.

...If we accept the nexus of fascism and seriality, of a politics which is both other-directed and in which ‘horizontal relations’ are ones of pseudo-collectivity and pseudo-unity, in which I interiorise the direction of the Other as my sameness with certain others (Sartre’s analogy in Critique of Dialectical Reason, vol. 1 between everyday racism and the phenomenon of the Top Ten comes to mind here), then we should be wary of analysing it with categories which presumethe existence of actual totalities. This is why I think it is incumbent on a critical, or indeed anti-fascist, Left to stop indulging in the ambient rhetoric of the white working class voter as the subject-supposed-to-have-voted for the fascist-populist option. This is not only because of the sociological dubiousness of the electoral argument, or the enormous pass it gives to the middle and upper classes, or even because of the tawdry forms of self-satisfied condescension it allows a certain academic or journalistic commentator or reader, or the way it allows a certain left to indulge in fantasies for which ‘if only we could mobilise them…’. More fundamentally, it is because, politically speaking, the working class as a collective, rather than as a manipulated seriality, does not (yet) exist. Endowing it with the spectre of emancipation is thus profoundly misleading, irrespective of statistical studies on those quintessentially serial phenomena, elections.

To impute the subjectivity of a historical agency to a false political totality is not only unwittingly to repeat the “unity trick” of fascistic propaganda, it is to suppose that emancipatory political forms and energies lie latent in social life. By way of provocation we could adapt Adorno’s statement, quoted earlier, to read: “[We] may at least venture the hypothesis that the class identity of the contemporary Trump voter in a way presupposes the end of class itself”. A sign of this is of course the stickiness of the racial qualifier white working class. Alain Badiou once noted about the phraseology of Islamic terrorism that “when a predicate is attributed to a formal substance … it has no other consistency than that of giving an ostensible content to that form. In 'Islamic terrorism', the predicate 'Islamic' has no other function except that of supplying an apparent content to the word 'terrorism' which is itself devoid of all content (in this instance, political).”[27] Whiteness is here, not just at the level of discourse, but I would argue at that of political experience, the supplement to a politically void or spectral notion of the working class; it is what allows a pseudo-collective agency to be imbued with a (toxic) psycho-social content. This is all the more patent if we note how incessantly in both public discourse and statistical pseudo-reflection in order to belong to this “working class” whiteness is indispensable, while any specific relation to the means of production, so to speak, is optional at best. The racialized experience of class is not an autonomous factor in the emergence of fascistic tendencies within the capitalist state; it is the projection of that state, a manipulated seriality, and thus an experience different in kind from political class consciousness, and likely intransitive to it. In a brilliant and still vital analysis, Étienne Balibar once defined racism as a supplement of nationalism:

racism is not an 'expression' of nationalism, but a supplement of nationalism or more precisely a supplement internal to nationalism, always in excess of it, but always indispensable to its constitution and yet always still insufficient to achieve its project, just as nationalism is both indispensable and always insufficient to achieve the formation of the nation or the project of a 'nationalization' of society. ... As a supplement of particularity, racism first presents itself as a super-nationalism. Mere political nationalism is perceived as weak, as a conciliatory position in a universe of competition or pitiless warfare (the language of international 'economic warfare' is more widespread today than it has ever been). Racism sees itself as an 'integral' nationalism, which only has meaning (and chances of success) if it is based on the integrity of the nation, integrity both towards the outside and on the inside. What theoretical racism calls 'race' or 'culture' (or both together) / is therefore a continued origin of the nation, a concentrate of the qualities which belong to the nationals 'as their own' ; it is in the 'race of its children' that the nation could contemplate its own identity in the pure state. Consequently, it is around race that it must unite, with race - an 'inheritance' to be preserved from any kind of degradation - that it must identify both 'spiritually' and 'physically' or 'in its bones' (the same goes for culture as the substitute or inward expression of race).[28]

Class, in contemporary attempts both to promote and to analyse fascistic fantasies and policies of ‘national rebirth’, risks becoming in its turn a supplement (of both racism and nationalism), stuck in the echo chambers of serialising propaganda. There is no path from the false totality of an other-directed racialized class to a renaissance of class politics, no way to turn electoral statistics and ill-designed investigations into the ‘populist subject’, the ‘forgotten men and women’, into a locus for rethinking a challenge to capital, or to analyse and challenge the very foundations of fascist discourse. Any such practice will need to take its distance from the pseudo-class subject which has reared its head across the political scene. This false rebirth of class discourse is itself part of the con, and another reminder that not the least of fascism’s dangers is the fascination and confusion its boundless opportunism sows in the ranks of its opponents. Rather than thinking that an existing working class needs to be won away from the lures of fascism, we may fare better by turning away from that false totality, and rethinking the making or composition of a class that could refuse becoming the bearer of a racial, or national predicate, as one of the antibodies to fascism.

Notes on Late Fascism

[courtneybreakingboundaries]

Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat is a video and installation artist who explores the political and social conditions of Iranian and Muslim life in her works, particularly focusing on women and feminist issues. Neshat was born in Qazvin in Iran, and left the country to study in the United States. when she returned to her home country in 1990, she found it barley recognisable from the Iran before the 1979 Revolution, a shocking experience that incited the meditations on memory, loss, and contemporary life in Iran that are central to her work.

Her ‘Woman of Allah’ series, created in the mid-1990s, introduced the hallmark themes of her pieces through which she examines conditions of male, female, public, private, religious, political, and secular identities in both Iranian and Western culture. Shirin Neshat photographic series ‘Women of Allah’ examines the complexities of women’s identities in the midst of a changing culture landscape in the middle east - both through the lens of Western representation of Muslim women, and through the more intimate subject of personal and religious conviction. 

Shirin Neshat, ‘Rebellious Silence’, Women of Allah series.

While the composition - defined by the hard edge of her black chador against the bright white background - appears sparse, measured and symmetrical, the split created by the weapon implies a more violent rupture or psychic fragmentation, a single subject, it suggests, might be host to internal contradictions alongside binaries such as tradition and modernity, East and West, beauty and violence. In the artists own words, “every image, every woman’s submissive gaze, suggests a far more complex and paradoxical reality behind the surface”.

One of the most visual signs of culture change in Iran has been the requirement for all women to wear the veil in public. While many Muslim women find this practice empowering and affirmative of their religious identities, the veil has been coded by Western eyes as a sign of Islam’s oppression of women. The opposition is made more clear, perhaps, when one considers the simultaneity of the Islamic Revolution with women’s liberation movements in the U.S. and Europe, both developing throughout the 1970s. Neshat decided to explore this fraught symbol in her art as a way to reconcile her own conflicting feelings. In ‘Women of Allah’, initiated shortly after her return to Iran in 1991, the veil functions as both symbol of freedom and repression.

The veil is intended to protect women’s bodies from becoming the sexualized object of the male gaze, but it also protects women from being seen at all. The “gaze” in this context becomes a charged signifier of sexuality, sin, shame, and power. Neshat is cognizant of feminists theories that explain how the “male gaze” is normalised in visual and popular culture: Women’s bodies are commonly paraded as objects of desire in advertising or film, available to be looked at without consequence. Many feminist artists have used the action of “gazing back” as a means to free the female body from objectification. The gaze, here, might also reflect exotic fantasies of the East. In Orientalist painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for instance, Eastern women are often depicted nude, surrounded by richly coloured and pattern textiles and decorations; women are envisaged amongst other beautiful objects that can be possessed. In Neshat’s images, women return the gaze, breaking free from centuries of subservience to male or European desires.

Shirin Neshat, 'Faceless' Women of Allah

Most of the subjects in the series are photographed holding a gun, sometimes passively, as in Rebellious Silence, and sometimes threateningly, with the muzzle pointed directly towards the camera lens. With the complex ideas of the “gaze” in mind, we might reflect on the double meaning of the word “shoot,” and consider that the camera—especially during the colonial era—was used to violate women’s bodies. The gun, aside from its obvious references to control, also represents religious martyrdom, a subject about which the artist feels ambivalently, as an outsider to Iranian revolutionary culture.

The Iranian Green Movement or Green Wave of Iran also referred to the Persian Awakening or Persian Spring by the western media, refers to a political movement that arose after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office. Green was initially used as the symbol of Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, but after the election it became the symbol of unity and hope for those asking for annulment of what they regarded as a fraudulent election. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are recognized as political leaders of the Green Movement. Hossein-Ali Montazeri was also mentioned as spiritual leader of the movement.

https://www.ted.com/talks/shirin_neshat_art_in_exile/up-next?language=en

[archiveofprolbems]

Styles of Radical Will (Excerpt) by Susan Sontag

The Aesthetics of Silence 1 Every era has to reinvent the project of "spirituality" for itself. (Spirituality = plans, terminologies, ideas of deportment aimed at resolving the painful structural contradictions inherent in the human situation, at the completion of human consciousness, at transcendence.) In the modern era, one of the most active metaphors for the spiritual project is "art." The activities of the painter, the musician, the poet, the dancer, once they were grouped together under that generic name (a relatively recent move), have proved a particularly adaptable site on which to stage the formal dramas besetting consciousness, each individual work of art being a more or less astute paradigm for regulating or reconciling these contradictions. Of course, the site needs continual refurbishing. Whatever goal is set for art eventually proves restrictive, matched against the widest goals of consciousness. Art, itself a form of mystification, endures a succession of crises of demystification; older artistic goals are assailed and, ostensibly, replaced; outworn maps of consciousness are redrawn. But what supplies all these crises with their energy -- an energy held in common, so to speak -- is the very unification of numerous, quite disparate activities into a single genus. At the moment when "art" comes into being, the modem period of art begins. From then on, any of the activities therein subsumed becomes a profoundly problematic activity, all of whose procedures and, ultimately, whose very right to exist can be called into question. From the promotion of the arts into "art" comes the leading myth about art, that of the absoluteness of the artist's activity. In its first, more unreflective version, the myth treated art as an expression of human consciousness, consciousness seeking to know itself. (The evaluative standards generated by this version of the myth were fairly easily arrived at: some expressions were more complete, more ennobling, more informative, richer than others.) The later version of the myth posits a more complex, tragic relation of art to consciousness. Denying that art is mere expression, the later myth rather relates art to the mind's need or capacity for self-estrangement. Art is no longer understood as consciousness expressing and therefore, implicitly, affirming itself. Art is not consciousness per se, but rather its antidote -- evolved from within consciousness itself. (The evaluative standards generated by this version of the myth proved much harder to get at.) The newer myth, derived from a post-psychological conception of consciousness, installs within the activity of art many of the paradoxes involved in attaining an absolute state of being described by the great religious mystics. As the activity of the mystic must end in a via negativa, a theology of God's absence, a craving for the cloud of unknowing beyond knowledge and for the silence beyond speech, so art must tend toward anti-art, the elimination of the "subject" (the "object," the "image"), the substitution of chance for intention, and the pursuit of silence. In the early, linear version of art's relation to consciousness, a struggle was discerned between the "spiritual" integrity of the creative impulses and the distracting "materiality" of ordinary life, which throws up so many obstacles in the path of authentic sublimation. But the newer version, in which art is part of a dialectical transaction with consciousness, poses a deeper, more frustrating conflict. The "spirit" seeking embodiment in art clashes with the "material" character of art itself. Art is unmasked as gratuitous, and the very concreteness of the artist's tools (and, particularly in the case of language, their historicity) appears as a trap. Practiced in a world furnished with second-hand perceptions, and specifically confounded by the treachery of words, the artist's activity is cursed with mediacy. Art becomes the enemy of the artist, for it denies him the realization -- the transcendence -- he desires. Therefore, art comes to be considered something to be overthrown. A new element enters the individual artwork and becomes constitutive of it: the appeal (tacit or overt) for its own abolition -- and, ultimately, for the abolition of art itself. 2 The scene changes to an empty room. Rimbaud has gone to Abyssinia to make his fortune in the slave trade. Wittgenstein, after a period as a village school-teacher, has chosen menial work as a hospital orderly. Duchamp has turned to chess. Accompanying these exemplary renunciations of a vocation, each man has declared that he regards his previous achievements in poetry, philosophy, or art as trifling, of no importance. But the choice of permanent silence doesn't negate their work. On the contrary, it imparts retroactively an added power and authority to what was broken off -- disavowal of the work becoming a new source of its validity, a certificate of unchallengeable seriousness. That seriousness consists in not regarding art (or philosophy practiced as an art form: Wittgenstein) as something whose seriousness lasts forever, an "end," a permanent vehicle for spiritual ambition. The truly serious attitude is one that regards art as a "means" to something that can perhaps be achieved only by abandoning art; judged more impatiently, art is a false way or (the word of the Dada artist Jacques Vaché) a stupidity. Though no longer a confession, art is more than ever a deliverance, an exercise in asceticism. Through it, the artist becomes purified -- of himself and, eventually, of his art. The artist (if not art itself) is still engaged in a progress toward "the good." But whereas formerly the artist's good was mastery of and fulfillment in his art, now the highest good for the artist is to reach the point where those goals of excellence become insignificant to him, emotionally and ethically, and he is more satisfied by being silent than by finding a voice in art. Silence in this sense, as termination, proposes a mood of ultimacy antithetical to the mood informing the self-conscious artist's traditional serious use of silence (beautifully described by Valéry and Rilke): as a zone of meditation, preparation for spiritual ripening, an ordeal that ends in gaining the right to speak. So far as he is serious, the artist is continually tempted to sever the dialogue he has with an audience. Silence is the furthest extension of that reluctance to communicate, that ambivalence about making contact with the audience which is a leading motif of modern art, with its tireless commitment to the "new" and/or the "esoteric." Silence is the artist's ultimate other-worldly gesture: by silence, he frees himself from servile bondage to the world, which appears as patron, client, consumer, antagonist, arbiter, and distorter of his work. Still, one cannot fail to perceive in this renunciation of "society" a highly social gesture. The cues for the artist's eventual liberation from the need to practice his vocation come from observing his fellow artists and measuring himself against them. An exemplary decision of this sort can be made only after the artist has demonstrated that he possesses genius and exercised that genius authoritatively. Once he has surpassed his peers by the standards which he acknowledges, his pride has only one place left to go. For, to be a victim of the craving for silence is to be, in still a further sense, superior to everyone else. It suggests that the artist has had the wit to ask more questions than other people, and that he possesses stronger nerves and higher standards of excellence. (That the artist can persevere in the interrogation of his art until he or it is exhausted scarcely needs proving. As René Char has written, "No bird has the heart to sing in a thicket of questions.") Source: http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/stylesOfRadicalWillExerpt.shtml

[seanchou77]

This Is Not A Sentence

Obedience to authority is where reason goes to die. I’m most disgusted by my obedience to things because I know I can be unmindfully obedient to a lot of things in life. I’m working on it. You could say that’s where a lot of wish-fulfillment comes from in my dreams, when I’m angry and shouting at others, because it’s proof that I could stand up and stick up for myself in real life. Of course, even those dreams aren’t so straightforward. One dream I had, I was running after some boy when the police came after us. They chased him into a train station and out of sight. I thought that was the end of it - until the very next day, when I took the train and saw him strung up by his neck, hanging from the ceiling with a noose around his throat.

According to Georg Wilhelm Hegel, man’s consciousness is his freedom to use consciousness; he hoped one day man’s individual consciousness could be connected with a greater, social consciousness, only possible in a political society which gave man the most freedom.

Another perspective is offered by Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer argued that the soldier who goose-steps out of sync is the one who has the most freedom; he understands the greatest constraints on freedom.

With these perspectives in mind, this relates to the aim of this essay: to discuss the importance of critical reflection which can help us imagine an alternative society and possibilities for social freedom in the future.

As pressing and urgent as current crises may seem in their call for our action, we should also feel humbled by previous generations of theorists and intellectuals who have passed before us. With their knowledge and unique perspectives on society, we can hopefully learn and gain from them so that we can make a difference on our society today.

As previous perspectives suggested, critical theory helps us understand society through a dialectical, immanent process. This means that analytical or single-issue understandings of society aren’t helpful in understand how society has formed, often through conflict, contradiction and antagonism between different aspects of society.

This thought process is drawn out in Theodor Adorno’s theory of negative dialectics, who argues that the critical task of social analysis is to find possibilities for a social theory which doesn’t explain society as a sum of individual parts, but expands and elaborates on its elaborations which prevent it from achieving a total whole; society is a type of ‘non-identity’, with individual and society disconnected and fragmented from each other, which makes attempts to create possible reconciliations between these differences bourgeois and normative tools of social control.

Indeed, this is also argued in Horkheimer’s explanation of critical theory as opposed to traditional philosophical theory. Horkheimer argued that traditional theory has previously negelected how knowledge is generated and produced as an economic materiality within a specific mode of production; categories of knowledge are only a reflection of the power dynamics and structures it is constructed in, used to legitimise existing institutions which perpetuate social domination of the ruling classes.

Some features of critical theory via the Frankfurt school include immanent critique, speculative theory and dialectical reason. These features help us to critically engage with society as an ongoing intellectual project which examines future possibilities for human emancipation.

With such an ambitiously theoretical front, some theorists are also justified in exploring the divide between theory and practice. Erich Fromm was an example of a Frankfurt school theorist who accepted some need for division for theory and practice; as a psychoanalyst, he appreciated that the greatest concern should be showed to the patient’s recovery as opposed to conforming to theoretical dogma. Similarly, he was ambivalent about applying Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis which was in parts instinctive and didn’t derive from critical understandings of society based on social organisation. He said that the ultimate goal was to understand how the human condition could grapple with questions of human freedom won in the age of modernity without collapsing into old regimes of automatism and conformism seen in late industrial society; doing things the same because they were done before is an example of authoritarian behaviour, without capacity for individual initiative and self-actualisation seen in creative arts.

This demonstrates perhaps limits to theory. After all, as Karl Marx argues, the point of philosophy is not interpret the world, but to change it.

Similarly, Pierre Bourdieu supported practice theory, which argued that social norms and behaviours were practised before awareness could be raised of them in a pre-linguistic realm; this was called ‘habitus’ as a social field of actions. This suggests limits to social theory if attempts to explain behaviour are hindered by our previous interactions and engagements with behaviour.

This joins discussion of critical theory with historical theorists like Aristotle and Avicenna, who were interested in material, evolutionist understandings of society as the elaboration of contradictions which would resolve themselves through participation and engagement rather than isolated self-contemplation.

It could also be question whether such isolated self-contemplation is possible: indeed, individual consciousness could be structured in radically social ways. According to Marx, it is not one’s individual consciousness which determines their social status, but the inverse.

According to Louis Althusser, the ideological state apparatus stabilises actors into individual subjects as citizens. This form of social control is practised through interpellation where the individual walking on the person is unaware of their status of their individual until he is hailed and this brought into his attention, as a violent act of alienation.

Michel Foucault moves further than Althusser’s theory of ideology and argues we should be more interested in knowledge theories as discourses of power. Discourse creates regimes of knowledge, which create subjectivities and discipline subjects. This demonstrates the wider ambition of the modern state, to discipline bodies that conform to social norms; the soul is the prison of the body.

Overall, discussion has led to different perspectives in critical theory about how to engage with issues of social inequality and power disparities. Firstly, critical theory via the Frankfurt School helps to criticise the subject/object dichotomy by arguing that the individual’s fragmentation and dispersal in modern, industrial society has created a reconcilable ‘non-identity’, the contradictions of which can only elaborated through processes of social critique called ‘negative dialectics’ for Adorno. Secondly, limits to theory are offered by thinkers like Marx and Bourdieu’s practice theory, which suggest that philosophy is a set of contemplative practices which risk distracting participants from the real business of enacting social change through engagement and active participation in the generative materiality of society. Thirdly, Althusser offers ways to join structuralism in discussion with Marxism, by arguing that critical issues have structural and linguistic features which can be critiqued. Finally, Foucault suggests there are possibilities to talk about social change beyond the parameters of Marxist theory, which suggest that every knowledge theory should be subject to criticism about power, discipline and the constitution and regulation of subjectivities as historical byproducts of cultural discourse.

***

Sometimes I want to be by my own.

I feel angry people don’t share the same interests as me. Most of all, I’m scared people won’t understand me, feel uncomfortable around me, and eventually reject me.

I spend a lot of my time on my own reading and reflecting about the society I see around me. But I feel like I’m doing something wrong if I can’t join in with the interests other people have and feel like I belong somewhere and people really care about me.

It can be self-repetitive cycles of anger and sadness in loneliness. I read more, but it doesn’t fix how detached I feel from everyone else.

[themegamenarablr]

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Things To Achieve In Associating Wheelchair Exercises

By Martha Smith

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[hardbarbariancomputer]

Tips In Constricting Physical Therapist Assistance Near You

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[trumpnewsus-blog]

Analysis of Trump Speech at the UN

New Post has been published on http://trumpnews.center/analysis-trump-speech-un/

Analysis of Trump Speech at the UN

Trump speaks at the UN: 5 takeaways

It is a short distance from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the United Nations headquarters on First Avenue, but these are different worlds. Donald Trump’s native world is one of unilateralism and competition, with more than a hint of bravado and aggression. The U.N.‘s world is one of multilateralism and cooperation, with a heavy dose of diplomacy and collaboration.

Those two worlds met when Trump gave his first speech to the U.N. as America’s president. And the nationalism and pragmatism of the relatively recently inaugurated leader of the U.S., if no longer the free world, collided with the cosmopolitan, enduringly optimistic, if often weary, leadership of the U.N. Not surprisingly, it starkly contrasted with Barack Obama’s final speech to the U.N. a year ago.

‘It’s complicated’

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has conceded on several occasions that foreign policy is “complicated.” And his speech at the U.N. reinforced that fact. He attempted to bridge an uncomfortable divide between the isolationism and muscular foreign policy embraced by much of his political base and the inescapable need to cooperate with other countries in order to tackle a series of foreign policy problems that even the most powerful of states cannot address alone. My initial impression as a student of international relations is that he largely failed to reconcile that tension.

Trump’s inaugural presidential address was more memorable for his reference to carnage than an appeal to inspirational values. And, likewise, his first U.N. speech will probably be remembered more for his threats against North Korea and his reference to the decimation of the U.S. middle class than a few desultory utterances in which he commended the United Nations for its humanitarian efforts.

Straddling two constituencies

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s commentary was broad-ranging and inchoate. In again invoking the concept of “principled realism,” he tried to straddle, and to please, both his base and the audience in the room. But just like his wavering recent comments about events in Charlottesville or the fate of the “Dreamers” of DACA, his ambivalence on the future relationship between the United States and the United Nations will likely leave neither his supporters or his global audience satisfied.

So, against this background, what were the lessons gleaned from Trump’s speech?

Here are five key points:

#1. We are the world?

Photo by Peter Kaminski

For the last three decades, every student who takes a university course in international relations has been taught two things. The first is that the countries of the world are becoming more interdependent. The second is that the United Nations is one of the mechanisms that can be used to address issues that require a collective response, like climate change or growing inequality. Trump rejected that formulation. In his speech, he argued that the United Nations should be built on the basis of sovereign, strong and independent states fed by patriotism and nationalism – not cosmopolitanism. States should be left alone unless they threaten external security or, Trump suggested eccentrically, they abrogate human rights – singularly referring to Venezuela.

#2. Throwback to W

Rogue states, or “regimes,” are back in fashion. The term, like the “Axis of Evil,” was introduced by George W. Bush’s administration. Then, it principally referred to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, and was used to justify an interventionist U.S. foreign policy. That language disappeared during the Obama administration, in favor of a focus on strategic patience and diplomacy. Trump’s rejection of Obama’s foreign policy could have taken him off in several directions. But in this instance, he has returned to Bush’s.

#3. A line to remember

But Bush’s foray didn’t end well. He used the term – and the threat those countries reputedly posed to international stability – to justify a long, bloody and costly war in Iraq that ultimately destabilized the Middle East. The consequences of Trump’s return to that language could prove catastrophic on the Korean Peninsula. Never before can I recall an American president threatening to “totally destroy” another country like North Korea, as Trump did while standing at a lectern of an organization whose core mission is dedicated to peace. That, I suspect, will be the line from his speech that will be longest remembered, regardless of whether war actually breaks out.

#4. Looking out for number one

Paradoxically, according to Trump, in pursuing its own narrow, short-term self-interest on security and trade, the United States will remain a “model” for the rest of the world. Again, this claim upends conventional American wisdom.

Attempts to enhance America’s global reputation for the last seven decades have been built on its efforts to cultivate at least an image of enlightened self-interest. This has entailed promoting global stability, trade and democracy. Taking this long-term view has been at a cost to American taxpayers, workers and even American lives in a series of wars. American presidents have routinely justified this sacrifice by calling the U.S. “a model” from which the world has ultimately benefited. Until now, none has justified selfishness as a virtue to the rest of the world. “As President of the United States, I will always put America first just like you, the leaders of your countries, will always, and should always, put your countries first,” proclaimed Trump. It was a line reminiscent of Gordon Gecko’s famous speech in the movie Wall Street, that “greed is good.”

‘Greed is good.’

#5. Ignoring the needs of others

Economic and national security may be in, but enhancing economic and social development, addressing global inequality and combating climate change are certainly out.

The irony is inescapable: Two more hurricanes were threatening America’s shores as Trump spoke. Seemingly oblivious to that fact, he completely ignored two of the greatest interrelated challenges facing humanity in a building whose central mission is to protect the species: how to feed the world’s population while ensuring all of our children actually remain alive so that they can enjoy that meal. America First, he clearly implied, entails the right of the American middle class to drive to the mall and have enough money to spend on U.S. manufactured products when it gets there. But, on this occasion, the possibility that they may have to drive through a hurricane, flood, forest fire or smog to get there was not recognized by Trump as a major problem. And on questions of economic, political or social development? The nearest he got was a reference to refugees: Wars should cease so that they can return to their homes. It’s cheaper that way. The president is probably unacquainted with the fact that a large proportion of the world’s potential environmental refugees live in the Caribbean, and when the sea rises I suspect they will be heading in boats towards Florida, if not Mar-a-Lago, with no home to return to.

So what’s the bottom line?

First, principled realism is a nice term if you are trying to appear coherent. But its principle components – of isolationism and engagement – are inherently contradictory. Cobbling them together should lead us to expect contradiction and equivocation rather than be surprised by it.

Second, we learned once again that Trump looks longingly backwards rather than forwards. His speech, when dispassionately analyzed, would have seemed more befitting if delivered in 1917 rather than 2017.

And finally, the lukewarm applause Trump received – both when criticizing Iran and at the conclusion of his speech – suggests that, with few exceptions, the world’s leaders share the sentiment held by a large portion of the American electorate: that the next three years and four months are going to feel like an eternity.

Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University Newark

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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[wionews]

Trump's first speech in the UN goes against the values of the organisation

It is a short distance from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the United Nations headquarters on First Avenue, but these are different worlds. Donald Trump’s native world is one of unilateralism and competition, with more than a hint of bravado and aggression. The U.N.‘s world is one of multilateralism and cooperation, with a heavy dose of diplomacy and collaboration.

Those two worlds met when Trump gave his first speech to the U.N. as America’s president. And the nationalism and pragmatism of the relatively recently inaugurated leader of the U.S., if no longer the free world, collided with the cosmopolitan, enduringly optimistic, if often weary, leadership of the U.N. Not surprisingly, it starkly contrasted with Barack Obama’s final speech to the U.N. a year ago.

'It’s complicated’

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has conceded on several occasions that foreign policy is “complicated.” And his speech at the U.N. reinforced that fact. He attempted to bridge an uncomfortable divide between the isolationism and muscular foreign policy embraced by much of his political base and the inescapable need to cooperate with other countries in order to tackle a series of foreign policy problems that even the most powerful of states cannot address alone. My initial impression as a student of international relations is that he largely failed to reconcile that tension.

Trump’s inaugural presidential address was more memorable for his reference to carnage than an appeal to inspirational values. And, likewise, his first U.N. speech will probably be remembered more for his threats against North Korea and his reference to the decimation of the U.S. middle class than a few desultory utterances in which he commended the United Nations for its humanitarian efforts.

Straddling two constituencies

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s commentary was broad-ranging and inchoate. In again invoking the concept of “principled realism,” he tried to straddle, and to please, both his base and the audience in the room. But just like his wavering recent comments about events in Charlottesville or the fate of the “Dreamers” of DACA, his ambivalence on the future relationship between the United States and the United Nations will likely leave neither his supporters or his global audience satisfied.

So, against this background, what were the lessons gleaned from Trump’s speech?

Here are five key points:

We are the world?

For the last three decades, every student who takes a university course in international relations has been taught two things. The first is that the countries of the world are becoming more interdependent. The second is that the United Nations is one of the mechanisms that can be used to address issues that require a collective response, like climate change or growing inequality. Trump rejected that formulation. In his speech, he argued that the United Nations should be built on the basis of sovereign, strong and independent states fed by patriotism and nationalism – not cosmopolitanism. States should be left alone unless they threaten external security or, Trump suggested eccentrically, they abrogate human rights – singularly referring to Venezuela.

Throwback to W

Rogue states, or “regimes,” are back in fashion. The term, like the “Axis of Evil,” was introduced by George W. Bush’s administration. Then, it principally referred to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, and was used to justify an interventionist U.S. foreign policy. That language disappeared during the Obama administration, in favor of a focus on strategic patience and diplomacy. Trump’s rejection of Obama’s foreign policy could have taken him off in several directions. But in this instance, he has returned to Bush’s.

A line to remember

But Bush’s foray didn’t end well. He used the term – and the threat those countries reputedly posed to international stability – to justify a long, bloody and costly war in Iraq that ultimately destabilized the Middle East. The consequences of Trump’s return to that language could prove catastrophic on the Korean Peninsula. Never before can I recall an American president threatening to “totally destroy” another country like North Korea, as Trump did while standing at a lectern of an organization whose core mission is dedicated to peace. That, I suspect, will be the line from his speech that will be longest remembered, regardless of whether war actually breaks out.

Looking out for number one

Paradoxically, according to Trump, in pursuing its own narrow, short-term self-interest on security and trade, the United States will remain a “model” for the rest of the world. Again, this claim upends conventional American wisdom.

Attempts to enhance America’s global reputation for the last seven decades have been built on its efforts to cultivate at least an image of enlightened self-interest. This has entailed promoting global stability, trade and democracy. Taking this long-term view has been at a cost to American taxpayers, workers and even American lives in a series of wars. American presidents have routinely justified this sacrifice by calling the U.S. “a model” from which the world has ultimately benefited. Until now, none has justified selfishness as a virtue to the rest of the world. “As President of the United States, I will always put America first just like you, the leaders of your countries, will always, and should always, put your countries first,” proclaimed Trump. It was a line reminiscent of Gordon Gecko’s famous speech in the movie Wall Street, that “greed is good.”

Ignoring the needs of others

Economic and national security may be in, but enhancing economic and social development, addressing global inequality and combating climate change are certainly out.

The irony is inescapable: Two more hurricanes were threatening America’s shores as Trump spoke. Seemingly oblivious to that fact, he completely ignored two of the greatest interrelated challenges facing humanity in a building whose central mission is to protect the species: how to feed the world’s population while ensuring all of our children actually remain alive so that they can enjoy that meal. America First, he clearly implied, entails the right of the American middle class to drive to the mall and have enough money to spend on U.S. manufactured products when it gets there. But, on this occasion, the possibility that they may have to drive through a hurricane, flood, forest fire or smog to get there was not recognized by Trump as a major problem. And on questions of economic, political or social development? The nearest he got was a reference to refugees: Wars should cease so that they can return to their homes. It’s cheaper that way. The president is probably unacquainted with the fact that a large proportion of the world’s potential environmental refugees live in the Caribbean, and when the sea rises I suspect they will be heading in boats towards Florida, if not Mar-a-Lago, with no home to return to.

So what’s the bottom line?

First, principled realism is a nice term if you are trying to appear coherent. But its principle components – of isolationism and engagement – are inherently contradictory. Cobbling them together should lead us to expect contradiction and equivocation rather than be surprised by it.

Second, we learned once again that Trump looks longingly backwards rather than forwards. His speech, when dispassionately analyzed, would have seemed more befitting if delivered in 1917 rather than 2017.

And finally, the lukewarm applause Trump received – both when criticizing Iran and at the conclusion of his speech – suggests that, with few exceptions, the world’s leaders share the sentiment held by a large portion of the American electorate: that the next three years and four months are going to feel like an eternity.

  This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

]]>

[djgblogger-blog]

Trump speaks at the UN: 5 takeaways

http://bit.ly/2wwfAg6

Trump talks tough at the U.N. General Assembly. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

It is a short distance from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the United Nations headquarters on First Avenue, but these are different worlds. Donald Trump’s native world is one of unilateralism and competition, with more than a hint of bravado and aggression. The U.N.‘s world is one of multilateralism and cooperation, with a heavy dose of diplomacy and collaboration.

Those two worlds met when Trump gave his first speech to the U.N. as America’s president. And the nationalism and pragmatism of the relatively recently inaugurated leader of the U.S., if no longer the free world, collided with the cosmopolitan, enduringly optimistic, if often weary, leadership of the U.N. Not surprisingly, it starkly contrasted with Barack Obama’s final speech to the U.N. a year ago.

'It’s complicated’

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has conceded on several occasions that foreign policy is “complicated.” And his speech at the U.N. reinforced that fact. He attempted to bridge an uncomfortable divide between the isolationism and muscular foreign policy embraced by much of his political base and the inescapable need to cooperate with other countries in order to tackle a series of foreign policy problems that even the most powerful of states cannot address alone. My initial impression as a student of international relations is that he largely failed to reconcile that tension.

Trump’s inaugural presidential address was more memorable for his reference to carnage than an appeal to inspirational values. And, likewise, his first U.N. speech will probably be remembered more for his threats against North Korea and his reference to the decimation of the U.S. middle class than a few desultory utterances in which he commended the United Nations for its humanitarian efforts.

Straddling two constituencies

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s commentary was broad-ranging and inchoate. In again invoking the concept of “principled realism,” he tried to straddle, and to please, both his base and the audience in the room. But just like his wavering recent comments about events in Charlottesville or the fate of the “Dreamers” of DACA, his ambivalence on the future relationship between the United States and the United Nations will likely leave neither his supporters or his global audience satisfied.

So, against this background, what were the lessons gleaned from Trump’s speech?

Here are five key points:

#1. We are the world?

For the last three decades, every student who takes a university course in international relations has been taught two things. The first is that the countries of the world are becoming more interdependent. The second is that the United Nations is one of the mechanisms that can be used to address issues that require a collective response, like climate change or growing inequality. Trump rejected that formulation. In his speech, he argued that the United Nations should be built on the basis of sovereign, strong and independent states fed by patriotism and nationalism – not cosmopolitanism. States should be left alone unless they threaten external security or, Trump suggested eccentrically, they abrogate human rights – singularly referring to Venezuela.

#2. Throwback to W

Rogue states, or “regimes,” are back in fashion. The term, like the “Axis of Evil,” was introduced by George W. Bush’s administration. Then, it principally referred to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, and was used to justify an interventionist U.S. foreign policy. That language disappeared during the Obama administration, in favor of a focus on strategic patience and diplomacy. Trump’s rejection of Obama’s foreign policy could have taken him off in several directions. But in this instance, he has returned to Bush’s.

#3. A line to remember

But Bush’s foray didn’t end well. He used the term – and the threat those countries reputedly posed to international stability – to justify a long, bloody and costly war in Iraq that ultimately destabilized the Middle East. The consequences of Trump’s return to that language could prove catastrophic on the Korean Peninsula. Never before can I recall an American president threatening to “totally destroy” another country like North Korea, as Trump did while standing at a lectern of an organization whose core mission is dedicated to peace. That, I suspect, will be the line from his speech that will be longest remembered, regardless of whether war actually breaks out.

#4. Looking out for number one

Paradoxically, according to Trump, in pursuing its own narrow, short-term self-interest on security and trade, the United States will remain a “model” for the rest of the world. Again, this claim upends conventional American wisdom.

Attempts to enhance America’s global reputation for the last seven decades have been built on its efforts to cultivate at least an image of enlightened self-interest. This has entailed promoting global stability, trade and democracy. Taking this long-term view has been at a cost to American taxpayers, workers and even American lives in a series of wars. American presidents have routinely justified this sacrifice by calling the U.S. “a model” from which the world has ultimately benefited. Until now, none has justified selfishness as a virtue to the rest of the world. “As President of the United States, I will always put America first just like you, the leaders of your countries, will always, and should always, put your countries first,” proclaimed Trump. It was a line reminiscent of Gordon Gecko’s famous speech in the movie Wall Street, that “greed is good.”

‘Greed is good.’

#5. Ignoring the needs of others

Economic and national security may be in, but enhancing economic and social development, addressing global inequality and combating climate change are certainly out.

The irony is inescapable: Two more hurricanes were threatening America’s shores as Trump spoke. Seemingly oblivious to that fact, he completely ignored two of the greatest interrelated challenges facing humanity in a building whose central mission is to protect the species: how to feed the world’s population while ensuring all of our children actually remain alive so that they can enjoy that meal. America First, he clearly implied, entails the right of the American middle class to drive to the mall and have enough money to spend on U.S. manufactured products when it gets there. But, on this occasion, the possibility that they may have to drive through a hurricane, flood, forest fire or smog to get there was not recognized by Trump as a major problem. And on questions of economic, political or social development? The nearest he got was a reference to refugees: Wars should cease so that they can return to their homes. It’s cheaper that way. The president is probably unacquainted with the fact that a large proportion of the world’s potential environmental refugees live in the Caribbean, and when the sea rises I suspect they will be heading in boats towards Florida, if not Mar-a-Lago, with no home to return to.

So what’s the bottom line?

First, principled realism is a nice term if you are trying to appear coherent. But its principle components – of isolationism and engagement – are inherently contradictory. Cobbling them together should lead us to expect contradiction and equivocation rather than be surprised by it.

Second, we learned once again that Trump looks longingly backwards rather than forwards. His speech, when dispassionately analyzed, would have seemed more befitting if delivered in 1917 rather than 2017.

And finally, the lukewarm applause Trump received – both when criticizing Iran and at the conclusion of his speech – suggests that, with few exceptions, the world’s leaders share the sentiment held by a large portion of the American electorate: that the next three years and four months are going to feel like an eternity.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reacts to Trump’s U.N. speech. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Simon Reich receives funding from The Gerda Henkel Foundation in support of his research.