No matter what one thinks about what is not permission to make stuff up. Congressman Jerrold Nadler did not, in fact, make any threat to cut funding to Brooklyn College nor did he make any demand about shutting to down the event. So I’m not sure I see the threat to academic freedom posed by the critics to the event, as claimed here at +972. You can read Congressman Nadler’s letter here. Please, people, can we at least try to get things right?
A double surprise, the appearance of God in Katherine Hayle’s How We Became Posthuman as well as the appearance of same in Philp K. Dick, of cyber-punk sci-fi fame. The place of God in Dick’s imaginative universe makes perfect sense. Its place in Hayle’s work is a little less obvious, and for all that, perhaps even more obscure.
Hayles’ cites this testimony by Dick, who seems to have come into direct (?!) communication with the Deity in 1980 (earlier visions in 1974 were attributed to the VALIS or Vast Active Living Intelligent System). Hayles wants to explain away these visions as the effect of mini-strokes related to extreme hypertension. No matter, since, as she herself will explain, the boundary between a hallucination and reality was not one that bothered Dick overmuch.
I might try to plow through Dick’s theological magnum opus, the 900+ page Exegesis; but then again, I might spare myself the aggravation. Here’s, though, the bit that caught my attention. God is the speaker speaking to the author.
“Construct lines of reasoning by which to understand your experience in 1974. I will enter the field against their shifting nature. You think they are logical, but they are not; they are infinitely creative…I thought a thought and then an infinite regress of theses and countertheses came into being. God said “Here I am; here is infinity.’ I thought another explanation; again an infinite series of thoughts split off in dialectical antithetical interaction. God said, “here is infinity; here I am.” (Hayles p.190)
And here’s Hayles’ very comment: “For Dick, the construction of the observer cannot fully be separated from the construction of reality. Both end at the same point, in infinite regresses that, for mystical reasons, he chose to call God rather than a Maturanian reality that stands outside the compass of human knowing. In this way, Dick constructs and outside, authorized the name of god and made invulnerable by continuing to infinity, an outside that is safe from being co-opted and forced to become an ‘inside.’ The irony of course, is that this very construction may itself have been precipitated by a physical event in his head” (ibid.).
After this nice bit of exegesis, Hayles seeks to change the subject. She prefers instead the non-theistic, more ethically humane vision at the end of Do Andfroids Dream, involving a more “modest accommodation” that includes artificial flies and an electric toad (p.190-1). But the metaphysical horse has been let out the door. What I like about this little bit of theology is the notion of deity as interactive intelligence, as counterpoint, tensions between inside and outside and lines of passage between, and that little bit of biblical cadence (“here I am” or hinneni). Hayle’s brief mention of God suggests that the endless, regressive hall of mirror-imaging that constitutes our information age at some point lets out onto the idea of deity as a point of egress.
An interesting place for a philosopher to start talking about God. Simon Critchley wrote a 3 part series at the NYT Opinionator about Dick, philosophy, and religious vision:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-1/
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/philip-k-dick/
Critchley plays it cool here. He keeps his hand to himself, never explaining what might be full blown naturalism and full blown occultism.
(Kazmir Malevitch, White on White, 1918)
After 24 years:
MK: So, let me ask you something…
ME: …Yeah
MK: Do you believe in God?
ME: …Yeah
MK: Yeah? So, then why are you shaking your head no?
ME: Ha
MK: Yeah, that’s how I feel
—
how (not) to talk about God:
verbal assertion + gestural negation
The less said, the better
without punctuation
So they played “New York, New York” at Ed Koch’s funeral at Temple Emmanuel today. God, I love this town!
[OMA-Convention Center, Ras Al Khaimah]
According to Tom Segev, as quoted by Roger Cohen in the New York Times, voters who chose Yair Lapid in the recent Israeli elections “decided to vote for nothing, a TV image, a kind of anti-Orthodox Likud lite.” You hear this kind of condescending sentiment a lot on the left-left, which I’m not buying, just like I didn’t believe that Americans were so stupid that they were going to listen to Sheldon Adelson and vote for Mitt Romney, because, well, Americans are stupid and don’t understand anything except what rightwing corporate controlled media tells them. About Israeli politics, I’m not going to pretend to “know” anything “definite.” I won’t even claim to “like” Yair Lapid and what he imagines he represents, and I would doubt very much that there is a long-term future to his party. But I’m puzzled by the claim made by intellectuals to whom I am otherwise close and whose judgment I genuinely respect about “the center,” and about the claim that a large group of people decided to vote for “nothing” but an “image.” Both sets of claims, about the center and about an image, reflect what I take to be fundamental misunderstandings about aesthetics and new media politics.
Segev’s quote appears in a recent NYT piece by Roger Cohen. Unlike others, though, Cohen actually interviews two struggling middle class voters, a married couple named Yoraan and Anda, struggling to make it into the middle class, who actually voted for Lapid. “The reason we chose him is we don’t like extremists,” Yoraan told me. “People here think all extremists are in the Arab world, but there are plenty in every religion, including here.” Anda said that two hours before voting she was undecided, but concluded that Lapid might do something because he understood “how much better off we might be” if entitlements for the ultra-Orthodox and investment in West Bank settlements were not “draining the country.”
I like this kind of old media, journalistic snapshot for what it tells the reader about what might have motivated a group of voters. The self-critical thoughts articulated by these two voters seem to me to reflect at the very, very least a little more and maybe even a lot more than “nothing.” For some reason I don’t believe that populations are fundamentally rational or irrational, and that people, on the whole as an aggregate, are more or less reasonable, except when they are not, and usually then, there’s a reason for that too. “Because if people are really that stupid…” In the end, no matter where one stands on the political spectrum, to think otherwise and to give up on the idea of “the center” is mandarin and anti-democratic.
Intellectuals often do not know what to do with “floating signifiers” or with images, especially visual ones, in which they see only nothing. We want to be able to presume to know something definite, and to be ahead of the curve. For my part, I think there is a power to images, and what struck me first about the election in Israel was the simple fact that centrists did as well as they did, and did so without any real leadership or ideas, and without any real external momentum to motivate a base, and that, in fact, they seemed to do so on the basis of an image. I have no idea what will become of Yair Lapid, his party, and the people whom he represents. No empty cipher is just an empty cipher. All I can say for now is that I think I know enough about images and vagueness to know that an image about nothing always signifies something, either a lot or a little, either something or next-to-nothing, which in itself being next to nothing can’t be identical to nothing.
Among my academic friends, I see behind this kind of argument about “the center” the explicit or implicit presence of a lot of anti-democratic, anti-liberal political theory that gets bandied about today. That would be Badiou, Schmitt, Zizek and other tyrants of “the real.” I think it’s anti-democratic, this disrespect for an electorate, this idea that the center cannot hold, and has to give way, is going to give way, or has already given way, necessarily, to some kind of a decision towards one extreme or another in the “state of emergency.” That is why the focus on “normal” in Cohen’s opinion piece makes sense to me. To me, it doesn’t matter that this “normal” is simulacral, because I’m not sure what isn’t simulacral, and because there’s nothing more powerful than a good simulation, that this has always been so and is now especially more so in the age of new media.
A friend once asked on FB why people take photos at museums. Is it just cultural fetish objectification? I suppose so, maybe. Myself, though, I find that taking photos of art can slow down the experience of moving though the galleries, lending the picture a longer look, enhancing the exhibition value of the art, while adding a more personal aspect to the object, in this case to these early Picasso’s at the Museum of Modern Art.
For those of you too young to know, the recently deceased Ed Koch was one time mayor and New York City legend. About the particulars concerning what Ed Koch did right and wrong, I’ll leave it for others to hash out, for instance here. The ledger would include the failure to respond to the AIDS crisis, the closing of a hospital in Harlem, inflamed racial tensions, the revitalization of the NYC finances, parks, and housing, a racially integrated administration, corruption scandals, the endorsements of George W. Bush and Obama, the intemperate mouth.
I like this photograph of Koch. It’s a picture of democratic politics in the hyper-capitalist super-metropolis, of the political animal who cares about only about himself and the constituents he has to hustle.
There’s nothing stand-offish here, no state of exception, no violent decision, none of the Schmitt fascism that that gets taken up in recent critical theory. Democratic politics has less to do with friends and enemies and more to do with the art of the possible, with getting things right and screwing things up, with the people with whom, ad hoc, you can work and the ones with whom you can’t at any given moment.
This is more a more dirty, rough and tumble picture of politics, less given to perfectionism or to the impossible, not a “democracy to come” but rather the democracy-that-is. With no private life to speak of, Koch was a picture of the polis, pure and simple, warts and all; and of course, the picture of a public Jew who loved not God, but himself and his people and his city first and foremost.
Fascinating article by Professor Amal Al-Hazzani in the English online version of Asharq Al-Awsat about Israeli politics and culture and the recent elections. The author, an Assistant Professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, is perhaps too optimistic about the public mindedness of the Israeli political class. I guess, as my father used to say, “compared to what?” Everything is relative. I’m posting the entire article below my remarks. Beyond the author’s own opinion, I have no idea whose interests and positioning this article reflects. Asharq Al-Awsat is very liberal around mosque-state issues, anti-Iran-Hezbollah-Assad-Hamas. It’s London based with ties, I believe to the Saudi regime.
Professor Al-Hazzani makes note of that portion of the Israeli Jewish public which is liberal and rejects the Occupation and its racism. But I think the concluding take-away is what really matters in this article. “Therefore, it is no wonder that we hear youths in Tel Aviv listening to Umm Kulthum songs, eating hummus and considering the television series ‘Rafat El-Haggan’ to be a comedy. The Israelis are not only occupying our soil, but they also highly active in our culture, which is the real cause for their power.”
What I find interesting about this assertion is the recognition that “Israel – the invasive, oppressive, occupying state – lives amongst us but we still do not know it.” Ironically, it may be that this is the Israel that many Jews also do not know.
What makes Israel an interesting and powerful place to this writer is its identity as a Middle Eastern country. The sentiment and insight reminds of the Levantine Jewish Israeli writers like Ammiel Alacaly and others about whom I have posted earlier (almost a year ago?). Like those Levantine musings, the thoughts reflected in this piece may be as much prescriptive and utopian as it is descriptive and actual.
The Israel We Do Not Know
31/01/2013
By Amal Al-Hazzani
| Dr. Amal Al- Hazzani |
| Dr. Amal Al- Hazzaniis is an Assistant Professor in King Saud University in Riyadh. |
Being something of an exception in the Middle East, the Israeli elections are often great fun and full of surprises. This time we saw the emergence of politician Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party that has won the admiration even of its political rivals after gaining 19 seats in the Israeli Knesset. Lapid is a TV presenter and a news anchor who decided only a few months ago to enter politics, competing with and even embarrassing senior politicians such as Tzipi Livni and Avigdor Lieberman, and forcing Benjamin Netanyahu to ride on the back of coalitions in order to remain as prime minister. Lapid, a moderate political leader who we will hear more of in the future, is primarily concerned with developing education and achieving social equality. His liberal concepts are completely alien to the Jewish clergy and a source of ridicule among the far right.
Another interesting observation from these elections is that the majority of rival parties’ platforms emphasized improving the internal situation, including living standards, health and education, as well as achieving greater social justice. Political parties were largely indifferent towards foreign policies such as the Iranian nuclear issue and the two-state solution with Palestine; they were more inclined towards internal affairs. We saw this previously with the recent US elections when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tried to portray the US as a small family home where the owner only wished to support its inhabitants and ensure that they were warm and well fed. It seems Hamas was right when it said that the results of the Israeli elections were a reflection of the recent battle in Gaza. This is true because the existing truce there has achieved a degree of safety that has enabled Israeli political parties to focus on their country’s internal situation.
It is sad to say that Israel – the invasive, oppressive, occupying state – lives amongst us but we still do not know it.
It seems that the Arab street’s awareness of Israel came to a virtual standstill in October 1973. The Arabs may only remember the Camp David agreement because it surfaced recently in Egypt after the ruling regime changed there. What I mean by the Arab street is the youth category—which makes up the backbone of any country—rather than the intellectual or political elite that is engrossed in reading books, issuing condemning statements, and making notes of Israeli aggression over the past sixty years. Young Arab generations lack awareness about Israel; a country that is now totally different to how it was in 1948, 1956, 1967 or 1973. This is not because it has transformed into a friendly state, for it is still considered our bitter enemy that continues to occupy Palestinian soil. What has changed in Israel, like any other state, is that now there is an emerging generation that harbors dreams and expectations different to those cherished by a leader like Netanyahu. Young Israelis have their own vision that is detached from military life and is inclined towards civil interests, a love for life, and decent living standards.
What Arab youths do not know is that in Israel there is a strong sector that opposes the state’s supremacist policies towards the Palestinian people in particular, and the Arabs in general. These youths are not only leftists; there are also centrist civil servants and university graduates who strongly believe that Israel’s stability is conditional upon its coexistence with the Arabs.
However, it is ridiculous to read political analysis comparing these Israeli youths with the Arab youths that revolted in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, in the sense that those Israelis took to streets against Netanyahu last year to demand social justice in the same manner that the Arab Spring revolutionaries also took to streets to demonstrate. This is untrue because the youths in the Arab Spring states were rising up against ruling regimes that were light years away from their citizens. The rulers of these states stayed in their palaces and were unable to hear their people or sense their needs. Here, people became outraged because of their needs and their leader’s negligence or arrogance, and whenever they sought to make their voice heard in the elections, these same leaders would return the next day and declare their victory with an overwhelming majority. In Israel, this situation does not exist; the regime in Tel Aviv is truly democratic and the rungs on the power ladder are fixed. What the demonstrators in Israel are demanding is an improvement in living standards; they are not starting from scratch as in the Arab Spring states. In these states there was no democratic political climate prior to the revolutions, and in fact we are still waiting for such a climate to emerge amidst the security, economic, and political failures that we see every day.
In Israel, politicians are distinguished by their sincerity and devotion to the higher interests of the state, rather than their affiliation to a certain group, and this is something we have yet to see in the Arab Spring.
The Arab youths turned to poets with their cheap words, and to politicians who heap insults upon Israel from their luxurious hotel rooms. However, they are still unaware as to where, why and how these feelings of hatred towards Israel came about.
A simple means of demonstrating our ignorance of Israel can be found in the fact that its neighboring states are ignorant of the Hebrew language. In Lebanon and Syria, people prefer to study French rather than the language of a country that continues to jeopardize their own security every day. In Egypt and Jordan, people do not prioritize of publicize the study of the Hebrew language, while in Israeli educational institutions there is ample opportunity to study the Arabic language. It is for this reason that we find a considerable number of Israeli politicians and media representatives who speak Arabic fluently. I do not know many Arab foreign ministers in Israel’s neighboring states that can speak Hebrew. As for those who say that the Israelis speak Arabic because the language is more common than Hebrew, or because the Israelis have intruded on our region, this justification is irrelevant. The reason why Israel enjoys superiority over the Arabs is because it has sought to understand them through their language; it can gauge the thinking of the young and old. Israel is well aware of the Arabs’ strengths as well as their weaknesses, and it can understand them simply because it has immersed itself in their culture.
Therefore, it is no wonder that we hear youths in Tel Aviv listening to Umm Kulthum songs, eating hummus and considering the television series ‘Rafat El-Haggan’ to be a comedy. The Israelis are not only occupying our soil, but they also highly active in our culture, which is the real cause for their power.
There’s an excellent piece about President Mohammed Mursi of Egypt by Yasmine El Rashidi in the New York Review of Books. It reads very much like an insider’s view of recent events in Egypt going back to the elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power. The author explains why Egyptians like her were willing at first to give the Brotherhood a chance, and why they it seems to them that Mursi has now confirmed their worst initial fears about the movement’s anti-democratic intentions.
The more and more I think about politics and political order, the more and more it seems to me that it has as much to do with demographic mass as with concepts of sovereignty and constitutional process. Instead of little Israel and little Palestine, it’s now the turn of big Egypt to occupy attention about the Middle East for the next interim. The scales are incommensurable. Let’s not forget all the narrow minded fretting in the Jewish-Israeli world during and right after the Arab Spring to this day re: the rise of political Islam, and how bad it was going to be for Israel and for the Jews, and what offensive anti-Semitic dribble dribbled by Mursi two or three years ago. It may be the case that neither tiny Israel nor puny Palestine is that big on anyone’s agenda right now, not in Egypt and not in the Arab world.
Regarding Israel and Palestine, it’s an Egyptian national interest to make things work in Gaza, which means keeping out the Iranians and probably the Turks. And it’s a joint Egyptian-Israeli national interest to extend Egyptian sovereignty into the Sinai Peninsula to staunch the growing extremist presence there. All this is in the long or medium run.
In the short run, Mursi has bigger domestic political fish to fry as the massive street protests against the dictatorial, constitutional powers that the Brotherhood is trying to assume now unravel the country. In addition to El Rashidi’s profile on Mursi, it would be interesting to see a profile of the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Khairat al-Shater, as it seems that he is the power seeking to call the shots against the street and perhaps too against the army. In the end, what matters here is what 80 million Egyptians “decide” to do.
Was driving around campus tonight and tuned in to “As it Happens,” a Canadian news talk-show. There was some guy talking about Blackberry and some new launch and there was something about FB over at the Atlantic Monthly online the other day, and frankly I could care a less. It’s late January in Syracuse and it feels like a warm day in April with a light rain that should be snow. It’s a slurry, muddy mess out there and the planet is melting and I can’t help but think that smart phones and the internet are a part of it. There has to be some kind of art to shut off a machine and let things cool down. I’m sure that what was left of the snow on the drive up Tuesday to Syracuse along rt. 81 is all gone now. But I’m one to talk, right, driving a car up to Syracuse and back to New York, running this stupid blog and tracking, all the time, the news online –and now FB?! A muddy mess, indeed.
