m of care – nov 13
13 -11-2021 a reading group #MuseumofCare Dawn of everything, 5th chapter
notes/quotes from 52 min video:
3 min – steve: are there relations of care that are outside of hierarchy.. if going to resist hierarchy have to look at where domination takes its most intimate form.. in the home and how it and slavery.. start as a domestic relation.. t..
so if every form of hierarchy known starts from a domestic relation then how do we think outside that domestic relation.. t
we org around legit needs.. rather than needs in sea world..
i would be curious what sorts of alts david would id as ways of disrupting this intimacy of domination.. t
huge
even the most intimate/loving domestic relations is embedded in sea world econ ness (any form of m\a\p)
ie: graeber parent/care law; maté parenting law; ..
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
5 min – nika: i was thinking about defn of slavery as a result of war.. and war as a result of end of dialogue.. so when people can’t speak any more.. you don’t want to know the feeling of another person.. you just use a stick to exercise your will.. that’s where the violence starts..t.. looks like that’s the answer
huge.. why we need a means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature.. because we’re already (even if we think we’re dialoguing) unable to speak/hear legit feeling..
6 min – nika: but it’s also interesting that this refusal of the other in defining yourself as a human being.. as somebody else.. is a necessary function.. *it’s not a bad thing.. it’s just something that you always do.. it cannot be eliminated.. it’s very necessary
brown belonging law.. marsh label law.. et al.. *i think it is a bad thing.. part of the root of the problem.. missing piece #1 .. et al..
nika: so this combo of both power (or did she say borrowing?) and refusal is .. kind of always going together..
yeah.. i think they go together.. but they can’t be part of and undisturbed ecosystem; legit common\ing ie: a nother way for 8b people to live..
our findings:
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to ground the chaos of 8b legit free people
7 min – nika: (on ie culture david gave).. so.. this refusal was something that was added to that theory.. so not necessarily.. the refusal is also a dialogue.. a very active dialogue.. so that’s interesting.. probably war, slavery, all the bad things.. is only coming from stop talking.. this is a major thing.. *this is something you have to refuse.. this stopping the dialogue
yeah.. i don’t know.. i think that refusal dialogue is whalespeak.. meaning.. i don’t legit free people would even think to dialogue/convo about that.. or they’d realize we already stopped legit dialogue from the get go..
*totally agree.. but stopping the dialogue of legit free (again brown belonging law et al) people.. not the dialogue of whales.. which is.. to me.. all that’s going on right now.. (because we have no idea what legit free people think/feel.. just what whales in sea world would)
8 min – steve: yeah.. i’m thinking in a way war is creative refusal.. you’re refusing that dialogue.. refusing the borrowing.. yet at same time it requires active agency to militate a war
9 min – steve: another pt that really stands out in the ch is how modes of production has been misused as a category as anal.. hasn’t looked fully enough at how people are produced.. ultimately been a history of the state.. so those outside state forms have been reduced to a tributary mode of production.. less advanced forms
10 min – steve: the pt they’re able to draw from using schizogenesis is showing how these refusals are political acts and mode of production is a theory.. pretty much all of soc sci comes under attack here.. rests on flawed assumptions.. because it doesn’t take the active refusal and when people have defined themselves against others.. it’s usually been the west defining themselves against the other or the way west is defining other.. and w&g offer a much richer approach that really spells out how every kind of history or soc sci is a political act.. and there’s no escapign that because we are subjects/objects in the act of schizmogenesis.. no outside of that.. so where that logic leads to is to *roy bhaskar.. his thoughts on to be human is to continue the dialogue of discovery of knowledge.. so this ch gives a really wonderful ie of how work that captures various moments in time in cultures.. the breadth of their command of the lit that allows them to reach these conclusions.. it’s a kind of scholarship that isn’t being done.. if anyone’s been following the attention the books been getting.. **it’s challenging people to rethink what stories even look like.. if everything is ultimately a myth.. how are we contributing to particular myths.. and once we see those myths for what they are .. how do we go about telling diff kinds of stories that rest on diff premises.. it’s sad that david’s not here to train future gens of scholars to continue doing that work
*yeah.. i don’t know.. i feel like legit free people would dialogue about diff things than knowledge.. stories even.. i think we’d explore and experiment and have fun.. but just like pure art.. not for any reason/use/knowingness.. just because it’s part of the dance
**i hope it is.. reading it too slow to tell.. but i’m guessing it’s not.. i mean.. why are we assuming legit free people would even care about telling diff stories? stories at all? to me.. that’s part of our distraction/cope\ing ness.. for being in sea world
hari rat park law et al
13 min – vassily pigounides: the text by mauss when he’s talking about boring things.. talking about cultures as civ.. everything is there already.. most of things we do because we refuse to do something we’re unable to do.. this is what mauss is saying.. so i don’t think this is graeber’s contribution here.. it’s more like a.. he’s just an excellent reader of mauss.. he knows him well.. so many people don’t know.. didn’t read his pamphlets.. ie: mauss was actually quite radical.. i think what the main contribution here.. saying to us there is nothing.. he has a tendency to naturalize things.. in this ch trying to link urban civ .. we were not capable to linking ancient civs.. to settlers.. people who arrived saw these people in the state of nature.. the thought.. living in such an egal/individualistic way and what we should aspire for.. what we missed.. is that maybe those people were rejecting the civ that existed 3 gens ago.. and we have this tendency to naturalize/essentialize nature.. goes back to center of book.. societies in nature and idea that the larger we get the more hierarchical and unequal our societies.. i really recommend the reading of this text by mauss.. called civ, elements and forms
18 min – nika: maybe we can schedule a reading group for this
simona: i think there’s a strong connection between this ch and david’s work on values.. very much related to mauss work.. the false coin of our own dreams
theory of value et al
19 min – simona: very interesting this thinking values of refusal.. self defamation.. same as max weber about judaism.. refusal of prohibition of eating milk/meat.. reminded me of an arab friend.. said we say ‘are you arab or farmer’.. we are nomads/arabs and not farmers.. what strikes me in this ch is our lack of systemic pov.. schizo was a concept form bateson.. interesting in bateson was reasoning about values/behaviors make a system w ecology/modes of production and the place of people in an environ.. i find it strange that ecological and economical determinism are put in opposition w self conscious refusal.. while they could be factors working together.. interacting in a system..
gregory bateson.. schismogenesis.. et al
nika: i didn’t understand
23 min – simona: at end of ch.. we don’t really know how much diff human agency really makes.. no way to know what determines is an econ fantasy of rational calc.. or how much the imaginative powers of humans are strong.. i think there is a dialectic/interaction between politics for self determination and the terminals(?).. and this interaction is what i missed in this ch.. it looks like either/or.. when i would like to see the main factors at play together..
25 min – steve: what i heard.. what the ch seems to lack is an anal of the way that schismo plays out that it seems more formulaic than you wanted because they don’t really id a mech thru which creative refusal as a value is transferred.. because that can take a wide range of forms.. did i come close
27 min – simona: not really.. my point is here they really want to stress the self conscious determination of values.. maybe they go too far in not looking at the interconnection of determinants and self consciousness.. it’s like they were just looking at one side of the thing.. like.. its either freedom or determinance (? – can’t tell which she is saying).. and it’s too strong a position.. i would like more systemic..
28 min – steve: if each creative refusal is a conscious political act.. so if think why someone refuses something it’s either 1\ thing they’re refusing would be worse alt (imagination).. or 2\ because know things of past they don’t want to refuse too (history).. what i like about this book is it’s an epistemology of imagination rather than of power.. so more helpful for soc sci.. but i know what you mean.. if it’s conscious refusal is a rejection of past they don’t want to see remade.. then each refusal is determined by past.. which are determined by acts before
we gotta get out of sea world.. gotta gotta gotta
30 min – so it really shows the impossibility of capturing so much but i wonder if in their defense.. could be because not all events happened at same time.. so they are selecting from all over time/place.. that make that systematic historical continuity difficult to scaffold..
zinaida vasilly eva: anthro so narrow today.. close to impossible to find specialists who are able to think across.. which makes it hard to relate to this work.. don’t have enough knowledge.. to criticize/accept .. so i have to believe everything that’s written.. which makes it uncomfortable.. because we are trained to think critically.. fascinating/amazing.. but asking completely diff questions..
oi.. this is whalespeak.. this is exactly our problem..
32 min – zinaida: the other thing.. i agree with david that the question of how diff is emerged is not articulated in the discipline.. but othering is essential.. so no one would question the other as crucial to understanding culture.. central to anthro.. so techs of othering.. racism et al.. constantly under inquiry.. but historical societies are more about looking for similarities/commonalities.. and the process of how diff’s emerge.. is not really the question.. i can’t remember when i’ve heard this reasoning of questioning
34 min – zinaida: and the last thing.. thinking of this tech of slavery as a tech of care.. that actually slavery happens by particular forms of care.. t.. you become socialized in a diff structure.. you need to submit to a diff system of value/relations in exchange to your refusal of previous way of life.. a kind of total subjection.. this kind of disciplining thru care.. kind of via tech of self caring we are submitted to a dominance to global capitalism
35 min – nika: yeah.. it’s actually amazing this tech of care slavery.. so we can see it now.. i was traveling.. and all these *forms for vaccination.. and the diff types of slavery.. how slavery could be diff
steiner care to oppression law et al.. gare enslavement law et al.. *utopia of rules backwards et al
nika: i was thinking about proletkurt and ed system in sov union and children lit.. could be described as cultural refusal toward the capitalistic ways of reproduction of culture.. that’s in every step of the way.. consciously chosen to be diff.. ie: horizontal rather than hierarch.. like 10 000 small points in which proletkurt defined itself
38 min – zinaida: on contemp art as a form of life.. in a way the whole artistic struggle is to create a new artistic language.. how you can refuse previous gen of thought..
i think we spend too much time looking at others.. than being our fittingness.. i think if we were legit free (ie: undisturbed ecosystem).. we’d just be dancing.. not analyzing/observing.. then determining what to do from that..
39 min – nika: but.. if compare to proletkurt.. contemp artists built on private enterprise.. all competition.. et al.. proletkurt is a totally diff concept.. it’s about art as being a collective wealth like communism compared to capitalism.. with brands et al..
40 min – zinaida: maybe we’re coming close to what simona expected it to be.. proletkurt wouldn’t be possible in c society so need historical circumstances that enable this form of production..
41 min – nika: not so much proletkurt connected to econ structures.. because people in these houses of culture were not paid.. not like a contemp artist who are much more tied to econ structure.. it’s about revolution.. overall social values that could be changed.. i don’t have an answer for that.. it’s an interesting question
43 min – steve: i wanted to comment on zina’s statement of slavery as a tech of care.. i think of it as a tech of death.. but you’re right.. it is that.. but also this other component about disciplining the body but in the name of the body that is to sustain human life.. the use of slavery .. what i like about this ch .. is that when you use ie’s that are synchronous and fundamentally diff.. ie: one that resists slavery.. that is a social extreme that allows w&g to sustain arguments that they do.. the specialists have done a good job.. but the synthetic reach of just this ch alone is remarkable.. people have been commenting in the reviews about this breadth.. ie: author ‘knew in presence of extraordinary genious).. upset me.. immerwar’s saying sometimes playing fast w ie.. but he misread the primary evidence.. but uses it as an ie to suggest that maybe some of their reasoning doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.. et al.. one of my fav takes… once you start thinking this way.. fundamental imagination.. can take you to diff places.. not started on the inevitability on teleology.. *some of this thinking has rested on basic but hidden assumptions about progress..
*rather all
48 min – zini: only idea we still fail to recognize as wrong is how we live economically.. that c is single way of living.. one of hardest fortresses to challenge.. the idea of progress and modern values.. in my own work.. on how we naturalize them.. my everyday conclusion is that we are fundamentally afraid of losing our comfort.. just as soon as you question c.. need to give up on many things.. this isn’t a new idea.. yet still some fundamental things we can’t question
sinclair perpetuation law et al
50 min – nika: it’s very interesting that we think if we leave c we have to live poorly.. that’s what david was thinking about.. when actually puritanic ideas.. we need to change narrative about climate change.. don’t need to change level.. just do it differently.. so very interesting how we describe this c.. i would be happy if we could to this essay in reading group about vapor’s puritan work ethic
thurs dec 2 we’ll do ch 6 (1pm mtn time)
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be you. 