[csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent

Thu Oct 14 13:47:05 CST 2004

Thanks Di

yes  it¹s worth just pointing to as many of these examples as possible just
to bring them out into the open and the ABC seems a textbook case. Perhaps
the next step would be to think through the complex machines of cognition
and affect involved (thinking here of something like a machining of a
complex and general political unconscious  I think Massumi even called this
the manipulation of the ³pre-vital² or something like it recently). I know
some people are thinking in a Latourian manner about exactly such issues.

I mean, I love theories of affect, but I¹m also a great believer in thinking
through things technically  of course, these two things need not be
separated. So what are the specific technics of affect/fear in such
situations? How are they to be re-assembled. This is the big political
question for me  we¹re great at analysing but politics is more about
synthesis ... and its the questions of contemporary synthesis that need
answers. 

An example that is perhaps too cute  the linking of budgets to
international students in universities and the whole complex machinery
surrounding this, with all the affect/fear produced  including the idea
that this ³market² is now threatened for various reasons. Anything to
counter the threat to this market is deemed unquestionable?

best, Andrew

On 14/10/04 1:37 PM, "Diane Powell" <dipowell at optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> Hi Andrew, on spreading fear, Howard sure pushes the buttons of the 'E' team
> currently running the ABC. I read in the Oz this morning that at MD Russell
> Balding has been insisting that journalists and programmers declare their
> political allegiance and declare what political party they belong to, if any,
> in their annual performance reviews.
>  
> Di
> -----Original Message-----
> From: csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au
> [mailto:csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Andrew Murphie
> Sent: 14 October 2004 13:29
> To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I must admit I wonder if many of these ³reasons² aren¹t, despite their reality
> as phantoms, phantoms nevertheless.
> 
> Perhaps it is difficult to talk about the current economies of fear (all
> concerning ³security² - economic, territorial, the family  I would add
> ³cognitive security²) because this fear stalks the academic world as much as
> anywhere and we could no longer point fingers elsewhere in blame, but would
> have to challenge ourselves at this level. Fear  and a whole complex
> machinery surrounding its production and maintenance - seemed to me to be the
> clear election winner, the milieu of the election, and Howard¹s singular
> achievement in office. I mean he¹s made himself the button to push whenever he
> likes, and the content is just an afterthought. Fear provides the reasons most
> things were said or not said, done or not done  or maybe I¹m just a scared-y
> cat and everyone else is thinking clearly ...
> 
> If it¹s not just me, ...  the importance of new, alternative economies of
> affect that some in the list have mentioned  Bifo mentioned ³love² recently.
> I must say I was shocked.
> 
> A
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 14/10/04 12:41 PM, "Brett Neilson" <b.neilson at uws.edu.au> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> >Yes francis - I see no necessary direct link at  all - things are
>>> >Incidentally my comment re houses was about people in  general be they in
>>> >Liverpool,  Balmain,  Bankstown or  wherever - after all  people are just
>>> >trying to make lives for  themselves, and why shouldn't they? ( and I don't
>>> >believe they are all  'dupes' ( or dopes)).
>>> >Jeannie
>>> >BTW I have the latest Freedom  catalogue if anyone wants a quick rundown
>> 
>>> >---- Original Message  -----
>>> >From: "Francis Maravillas"  <Francis.Maravillas at uts.edu.au>
>>> >To: "CSAA discussion list"  <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
>>> >Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004  6:54 PM
>>> >Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be  effluent
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >I agree, Jeannie. There seems to be a  perception that people who have nice
>>> >a house can't be critical,  progressive or 'leftish'. Class/cultural
>>> >capital distinctions do not  necessarily correlate with political
>>> >positionalities (or voting  behavior) - and even Bourdieu acknowledges
>>> that.
>>> >
>>> >Francis
>> 
>> 
>> Hey Jeannie,
>> 
>> I agree with  Francis too and strongly so. But shouldn't this point be
>> pushed a little  more to say that class cannot be reduced to consumption,
>> taste, or  cultural capital. Not that anyone on the list has made that
>> conflation but  the discussion did drift immediately to consumption, an
>> important topic  but not the only one at stake.
>> 
>> If the category 'aspirational' has any  analytical grip in the wake of the
>> election (and I'm open to the  suggestion that we have to invent new
>> concepts) it is in the intersection  between complex processes of social
>> recomposition (based partly, as  Melissa notes, in the changing relations
>> between work and non-work) and an  ossified geography of political
>> representation. Where are the marginal  seats? That is a key question in
>> analysing the election. And, at that  point, there is a need to reintroduce
>> an argument about the spatial order  of the city (recognising the passage of
>> that order beyond simple  centre/periphery distinctions). Not to isolate the
>> processes of class  recomposition to certain areas but to understand how
>> they intersect the  zero-sum game of representative democracy.
>> 
>> I am impressed by what  Amanda says about the need for a politics of
>> empathy/affect within and  between changing class relations/conflicts. For
>> me the starting point for  this would have to be the distrust of politicians
>> and the disengagement  with representative democratic processes (watching
>> Idol instead of the  debate, etc.). Perhaps there is room for opening and
>> dialogue with those  of us trying to understand how democratic processes
>> might operate beyond  (or even underneath) representation. But this will
>> have to involve  multiple engagements, through ethnic communities perhaps or
>> everyday  practices on particular sites.
>> 
>> Often this may be prepolitical but it  can also involve a different kind of
>> politics, a politics of relation.  Either way it is important to understand
>> how the political emerges. And  how it functions in a complex media
>> environment with a multiplication of  channels and possibilities for
>> connection. But here I feel we are reaching  the limits of cultural
>> analysis.
>> 
>> Brett
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________
>> 
>> csaa-forum
>> discussion  list of the cultural studies association of  australasia
>> 
>> www.csaa.asn.au
> 

-- 
"I thought I had reached port; but I seemed to be cast
back again into the open sea" (Deleuze and Guattari, after Leibniz)

Dr Andrew Murphie - Senior Lecturer
School of Media and Communications, University of New South Wales, Sydney,
Australia, 2052
web:http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/homepage/Staff/Murphie/
fax:612 93856812 tlf:612 93855548 email: a.murphie at unsw.edu.au
room 311H, Webster Building

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