So, as my exam date rapidly approaches at the end of next month I am seized by both a sense of total unpreparedness and resulting anxiety, coupled with a lackadaisical devil-may-care confidence that I think is circumventing my ability to stay focused. As a result of this internal conflict my subconscious keeps trying to throttle me back into the appropriate attitude by filling my nights with anxiety dreams about some unforeseen confrontation between me and my advisor.
In the dreams I always enter an incredibly dark office lunchroom, that has the blinds and curtains drawn, and everything has a kind of blue cast. I am usually on my way somewhere as I pass through and I notice the silohuette of my advisor and another important person (usually a graduate student who I consider intelligent). They immediately stand up surprised and confront me about my progress claiming, "Are you ready to take responsibility for yourself?" or, more frightening, "We need to talk about scheduling a specific date." Throughout this brief but startling conversation, the shadows on my advisor's face are so dark that all I can see are the jaundiced whites of his eyes, in startling and cartoon-like relief. I think to some degree these dreams were also spurred by my getting a week off course by trying to tackle most of William Gaddis' JR, a 700+ page novel that is almost entirely dialogue.
Reading Slavoj Žižek's "How did Marx Invent the Symptom?," and came upon the following passage useful for those who want to debunk the sometimes liberatory appeals of postmodernism as a cultural phenomenon, turn in intellectual thought, or symptom of Western provincialism. He writes:
"Cynical reason is no longer naive, but is a paradox of enlightened false consciousness: one knows the falsehood very well, one is well aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still one does not renounce it."
The notion of cynical reason for Žižek supplements his attempts to renew questions of ideology (the notion of false-consciousness, the primary medium by which we are convinced to pursue interests not our own, i.e. that we believe working 40 hours a week says something about our character rather than reducing our life spans and quality of life by way of stress, etc.) suited to more contemporary circumstances.
For me there is something very useful in thinking about cynicism as the logic of a neoliberal era where capitalism continues to demonstrate its tendency to generate crisis, disaster, and senselessly eat up our lives but we continue to tacitly assent not only to its order, but also to the recommended ways of thinking, e.g. "the pursuit of self-interest by everyone produces the best social outcomes," and refuse to imagine beyond it. This social shift seems by no means total and to some degree isolated, but this notion is a usefully descriptive concept because actually international monetary policy pushed "cost-benefit analysis" in the poor in places like Bolivia (in this case contributing to unintended consequences).
I've been meaning to comment on this for some time but I've been preoccupied with other things, neglecting the blog (some of this I've posted before). The Passage of Arizona's Anti-Immigration Bill SB 1070 seems to be some sort of regressive attack on Latinos that follows from the regressive and nationalist tendencies of the American populace. Here again we have an example where American politics are posited in moralistic terms rather than seeing them in the wider historical sphere: insofar as this turn toward this kind of policy originates in an aggregate of malignant racism at the core of each Arizonan's being and the bill is merely the result of the final mobilization of these abominable sentiments. Although persistent racism against Chicanos and Latinos in the region is definitely involved in the rise of such policy, but I the picture is much more complicated than the typical liberal line attempts to paint it.
There is an important correlation that many scholars have noted, Mario Barrerra among them, that US border enforcement policy has almost always mirrored the needs of US capital (particularly agricultural capital, that established its girth largely on Bracero and illegal labor). One example of this might be noted in the fact that the border and border migration enforcement did not really become a national political issue until the 1960s. Here is a newsreel where the Councile of California Growers justifies to the American population it's use of Braceros (workers with their arms, "brazos").
(notice the appeal to "quality" as a carrot held before newly aware middle-class consumers).
However, during similar periods of economic crisis such as the Great Depression similarly fascistic moves were pursued on a federal level, including the Repatriation Movement (1929-39) which demanded the repatriation of obviously mestizo and Chicano folk living in recognizable barrios throughout the Southwest and California (60% of those "repatriated" were actually US citizens). Similarly, Operation Wetback (1954) engaged in similar bullying and illegitimate repatriation of Mexicans living in the US and Chicanos.
The end effect of these policies historically not only assuages racist and nationalist sentiments at home, but more importantly produces a much more disciplined, precarious, and therefore grateful-to-work population of undocumented and documented Latino workers to be exploited by agricultural, and now border-industrial interests. And, moreover, it disperses communities and exports labor activists in a sense demobilizing any political or politico-economic will emerging in these communities. What you get from this is a population so battered from their dangerous journey to the US and so persecuted by the constant threat of deportation that they are too terrified to organize and seek political recognition and protection. Racialized subjects therefore become reserve armies of labor, permanently mobilized by globalization to endure hardship, obstacle, and loss of life for the pursuit of a rapidly receding American dream.
This is a pretty standard reading of the scenario, but I suppose the only thing I would add is the ways in which the mobile populations of Latinos (not just Chicanos anymore, but increasingly Central American) do bring with them new political forms and possibilities. The Immigrant Rights demonstrations of 2006 were some of the largest seen in LA, Chicago, etc. If they are to be considered labor demonstrations they would be the largest in US history (clearly they are not merely organized around labor but certainly to a great degree). Demonstrations of this size are generally not recognized or even read as significant in US politics but in Latin America these are vibrant and largely significant political manifestations. To me this presents us with some new possibilities for thinking about labor mobilization in this country increasingly dependent on "flexible" working populations and reminds us that No Borders movements do have some progressive trajectories despite their seeming to play into the hands of capitalism (families, peoples, cities, etc. are already divided by the border).
It has been ages since I posted anything here, and for that I am sorry. To occupy your time please peruse this very surprising website that is a vehicle for the social networking of gay cowboys in Mexico.
