Yet again I am not posting this paper. This time, however it is not because it is to long (though it is 10 pages) but because it is to tentative and I am embarrassed and scared to post something so tentative. Here is the intro...
"A prolegomena is a preliminary discussion. This prolegomena is my preliminary statement to developing my political theories. That is to say, it is a statement that must be made only in order to see its holes and its failures and precede to ripe it apart. The written word is not permanent in meaning and I intend of writing this text to live on through destruction. If Derrida was right about anything, he was right to write; to write even though it would be destroyed in new meaning. So I write this for myself to re-write with new meaning."
So if you wish to read it under the pretense that it is meant to die in being written, then I might send it to you.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Gramsci's Organic Intellectual as Anarchic Embedded Theory
This paper is too long to post.
In this paper I use Gramsci's idea of the organic intellectual as a model for intellectual work that addresses the anarchic concerns of the isolated and dominating intellectual. By dwelling in organic connection to one's community and shaping one's intellectual work from that common sense, the organic intellectual resists isolation from the world or the domination over the world that can come from theories created in isolation. I conclude this paper by considering what it means to be an organic intellectual in various communities, and in particular the anarchic community.
In this paper I use Gramsci's idea of the organic intellectual as a model for intellectual work that addresses the anarchic concerns of the isolated and dominating intellectual. By dwelling in organic connection to one's community and shaping one's intellectual work from that common sense, the organic intellectual resists isolation from the world or the domination over the world that can come from theories created in isolation. I conclude this paper by considering what it means to be an organic intellectual in various communities, and in particular the anarchic community.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Maine to Montrose: travel without computers
I didn't really get lost in Providence RI for the past 3 months. I only lost my dear travel partner and the computer with her. It is not too hard to get access to a computer in major cities for a short time to cheek craigslist or your e-mail, but getting access to a computer for long enough to write a blog posses to be much more difficult. If you don't have a prof of residency most libraries will only give you a 30min temporary computer card, if that. But obviously when traveling you do not have a prof of residency in that city for you do not reside there. This is a real pickle.
Well, anyway, I continued on from Providence round the country and finally back to Colorado. I was considering trying to write blogs for all of the cities at once but, considering 1) I am lazy and more interested in doing craft projects and outdoor work while I am here in the beautiful land of Montrose, and 2) no one except my parents and an occasional other strange soul ever reads my blogs; I decided not to write them. Instead I will list below the name of the blog I would have written. If anyone is interested in any of these blogs-to-be they should post a response saying so and I will write that blog.
Maine - Water Money
Baltimore - The Capital's Poor Dirty Next Door Neighbor
New Orleans - Some Dollops of Drunk Tourists on a Pie of Dirt and Culture
San Francisco - Weiros Welcome (preferably with money please)
Oregon (Ashland, Eugene, Portland) - Utopias are OK I Guess
Washington (Seattle, Spokane) - Building Pallets and Walking Through Suburbs
Well, anyway, I continued on from Providence round the country and finally back to Colorado. I was considering trying to write blogs for all of the cities at once but, considering 1) I am lazy and more interested in doing craft projects and outdoor work while I am here in the beautiful land of Montrose, and 2) no one except my parents and an occasional other strange soul ever reads my blogs; I decided not to write them. Instead I will list below the name of the blog I would have written. If anyone is interested in any of these blogs-to-be they should post a response saying so and I will write that blog.
Maine - Water Money
Baltimore - The Capital's Poor Dirty Next Door Neighbor
New Orleans - Some Dollops of Drunk Tourists on a Pie of Dirt and Culture
San Francisco - Weiros Welcome (preferably with money please)
Oregon (Ashland, Eugene, Portland) - Utopias are OK I Guess
Washington (Seattle, Spokane) - Building Pallets and Walking Through Suburbs
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Providence RI Loves Art
Dear Topos, Sep 18
Upon arrival in Providence RI we walked off the train and right into the midst of the “fire water walk” – a Providence community event where every Saturday night they burn small fires in the river and crowds gather. Art for art sack. There are some who jump on this as a marketing spot – selling glow sticks or boat rides. And the event itself has been patented by the artist who started it so no other city can do it just like Providence. None of this makes it less art. It is a beautiful sight – fire in water – and this city lets it be just that. Providence has an appreciation for art unlike any city I know. The coffee shops not only have good art on the walls, they are designed well with color, tables, chairs, and mugs. The posters and flyers here are pieces of art themselves (people even buy them of claim them from post boards). The city is filled with local art – galleries, craft stores, print shops, side walks. The book stores have more art books than word books. The zines are all gorgeous. It is worth it. Art is valuable. It takes time and money. Spend it.
Upon arrival in Providence RI we walked off the train and right into the midst of the “fire water walk” – a Providence community event where every Saturday night they burn small fires in the river and crowds gather. Art for art sack. There are some who jump on this as a marketing spot – selling glow sticks or boat rides. And the event itself has been patented by the artist who started it so no other city can do it just like Providence. None of this makes it less art. It is a beautiful sight – fire in water – and this city lets it be just that. Providence has an appreciation for art unlike any city I know. The coffee shops not only have good art on the walls, they are designed well with color, tables, chairs, and mugs. The posters and flyers here are pieces of art themselves (people even buy them of claim them from post boards). The city is filled with local art – galleries, craft stores, print shops, side walks. The book stores have more art books than word books. The zines are all gorgeous. It is worth it. Art is valuable. It takes time and money. Spend it.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Public, Diversity, Crash
Dear Topos, Sep 9
New York City does two things well: the public sphere and diversity. It also does two things badly: traffic and cops.
Hannah Arendt, 19th cen German philosopher, talks about the public sphere as the place where people act together. The public sphere is conducive of actions and interactions of people’s uniqueness. It is the space where people appear to others not just as productive agents or enemies (the “other” in the traditional meaning of boxed out category of unlike me), but as unique people capable of disrupting our assumptions. NYC has numerous spheres where this takes place (at lest more so than most cities I have been to). In Union Square, for example, people gather just to be around other people. On any given day hundreds of people will be sitting around the park and the square alone with friends or meeting new people. A group of people is usually gathered round a mega phone in the evening where someone is giving a spontaneous speech dreading the government or calling for people power. Break dancers and fighters take the ground. Ballroom dancing is accompanied by a boom box. Drugs are dealt and stoners chill out. It is a place where people come to be unique, to perform, and to interact with others. I found myself absorbing a whole day talking with strangers in this place. It is an example of city property going public. This sort of public interaction is not uncommon in NYC.
Until coming to NYC I had never seen a city where it is so expectable for people to transplant their own culture and not be absorbed by US culture. It is perfectly expectable in NYC for people to speak their own languages, and furthermore, to run their businesses using their own language as the primary language. On one block there may be a Lebinez, Arabian, Korean, and French shop all with signs in their own language and all selling their own authentic foods or supplies. The West Indies parade celebrated all these countries as their own distinct countries, flags and all, without filling the need to blanket them all in an American flag. Blackness itself is so diverse here that one must distinguish what origins the person comes from. Whiteness also is blurred by the countless shades of white and white people speaking so many different languages and so many different places. Diversity becomes real.
When 8 million people are crammed together, and a couple million of them transport themselves in metal fire machines 8 times the size of themselves going 20 times as fast as they can walk, catastrophe is in store. Just upon entering this mammoth speed world the NYC police took us right out of it – not by ticketing us or taking us under arrest. No, they took no need for those old fashioned delays. A van full of cops going (probably) 70 miles an hour just ran right into the front of our car. The white air bags and smoke seemed much too much like heaven, and the shattered glass to much like a wrecked car. But where was the blood? The lost limb or broken arm? Both Krystan and I walked out of the totaled car untouched except for a scrap on my ankle and a wound on Krystan’s arm that left an imprint saying “air bag” backwards.
The car is now sitting at a scrapers with swarms of New Yorkers bartering off any lat piece of value.
New York City does two things well: the public sphere and diversity. It also does two things badly: traffic and cops.
Hannah Arendt, 19th cen German philosopher, talks about the public sphere as the place where people act together. The public sphere is conducive of actions and interactions of people’s uniqueness. It is the space where people appear to others not just as productive agents or enemies (the “other” in the traditional meaning of boxed out category of unlike me), but as unique people capable of disrupting our assumptions. NYC has numerous spheres where this takes place (at lest more so than most cities I have been to). In Union Square, for example, people gather just to be around other people. On any given day hundreds of people will be sitting around the park and the square alone with friends or meeting new people. A group of people is usually gathered round a mega phone in the evening where someone is giving a spontaneous speech dreading the government or calling for people power. Break dancers and fighters take the ground. Ballroom dancing is accompanied by a boom box. Drugs are dealt and stoners chill out. It is a place where people come to be unique, to perform, and to interact with others. I found myself absorbing a whole day talking with strangers in this place. It is an example of city property going public. This sort of public interaction is not uncommon in NYC.
Until coming to NYC I had never seen a city where it is so expectable for people to transplant their own culture and not be absorbed by US culture. It is perfectly expectable in NYC for people to speak their own languages, and furthermore, to run their businesses using their own language as the primary language. On one block there may be a Lebinez, Arabian, Korean, and French shop all with signs in their own language and all selling their own authentic foods or supplies. The West Indies parade celebrated all these countries as their own distinct countries, flags and all, without filling the need to blanket them all in an American flag. Blackness itself is so diverse here that one must distinguish what origins the person comes from. Whiteness also is blurred by the countless shades of white and white people speaking so many different languages and so many different places. Diversity becomes real.
When 8 million people are crammed together, and a couple million of them transport themselves in metal fire machines 8 times the size of themselves going 20 times as fast as they can walk, catastrophe is in store. Just upon entering this mammoth speed world the NYC police took us right out of it – not by ticketing us or taking us under arrest. No, they took no need for those old fashioned delays. A van full of cops going (probably) 70 miles an hour just ran right into the front of our car. The white air bags and smoke seemed much too much like heaven, and the shattered glass to much like a wrecked car. But where was the blood? The lost limb or broken arm? Both Krystan and I walked out of the totaled car untouched except for a scrap on my ankle and a wound on Krystan’s arm that left an imprint saying “air bag” backwards.
The car is now sitting at a scrapers with swarms of New Yorkers bartering off any lat piece of value.
Friday, August 27, 2010
NYC: funeral, food, frivlery
Dear Topos,
While the people and landscape out the window of whatever coffee shop I type, has changed drastically from Asheville NC to New York City, the whether has not. A blanket of gray and rain has followed us from the day we left Asheville through our drive up through New Jersey and Pennsylvania and New York. The gray continuity between these places pulls jungle and city into one overgrown funeral gown. The earth is the burial ground for its people and the sky has come to the funeral a stride too early. The barrios piled with fruits and veggies, grown who knows where, and run by families from every part of the globe except the U.S., are the equivalent to the bountiful fruit trees and wild greens of Asheville. You only have to walk two or three blocks in either of these places to find fresh, or somewhat fresh, food. Only here you are supposed to trade money for the food. And there are about 200 more options to choose from.
The blanket of gray lifted and we somehow stumbled into Williamsburg, the throbbing heart of Hippsterism, located in north Brooklyn only blocks away from Hasidic Jew central. Every soul in Williamsburg is young and white and wearing the latest Buffalo Exchange outfit. In appearance I am sure I resemble these “progressive” bumbles more than the Hasidic Jews, yet somehow I feel more in common with the young Hasidic Jewish men in their long tailed black suit coats and two spiraled locks poking out from their black top hats then the Williamsburg hipsters. The Hasidic Jews intentional orientation to the world around them resonates with my efforts to exist intentionally in this world. If the hipsters posses intention in the world it is not a world I am interested in residing in the least. And I thought Atlanta’s Little 5 Points was a hipster bubble! Williamsburg out does it ten times. If this is utopia get me a ticket out.
While the people and landscape out the window of whatever coffee shop I type, has changed drastically from Asheville NC to New York City, the whether has not. A blanket of gray and rain has followed us from the day we left Asheville through our drive up through New Jersey and Pennsylvania and New York. The gray continuity between these places pulls jungle and city into one overgrown funeral gown. The earth is the burial ground for its people and the sky has come to the funeral a stride too early. The barrios piled with fruits and veggies, grown who knows where, and run by families from every part of the globe except the U.S., are the equivalent to the bountiful fruit trees and wild greens of Asheville. You only have to walk two or three blocks in either of these places to find fresh, or somewhat fresh, food. Only here you are supposed to trade money for the food. And there are about 200 more options to choose from.
The blanket of gray lifted and we somehow stumbled into Williamsburg, the throbbing heart of Hippsterism, located in north Brooklyn only blocks away from Hasidic Jew central. Every soul in Williamsburg is young and white and wearing the latest Buffalo Exchange outfit. In appearance I am sure I resemble these “progressive” bumbles more than the Hasidic Jews, yet somehow I feel more in common with the young Hasidic Jewish men in their long tailed black suit coats and two spiraled locks poking out from their black top hats then the Williamsburg hipsters. The Hasidic Jews intentional orientation to the world around them resonates with my efforts to exist intentionally in this world. If the hipsters posses intention in the world it is not a world I am interested in residing in the least. And I thought Atlanta’s Little 5 Points was a hipster bubble! Williamsburg out does it ten times. If this is utopia get me a ticket out.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Atlanta - or the city of neighborhoods Aug 14
Dear Topos,
I had a brief bout in Atlanta GA this week. Krystan had plans to go up there for a night and day with a friend so I decided to tag along. Once in Atlanta I was on my own - sort of. I hoped on a bus, train (called the “marta” in Atlanta which is most like the bart in California), and foot, in search of “Little 5 points” where I was told would be the safest neighborhood to arrive in late at night. I found a coffee shop/bar and tried to meet one or two of these young, PBR drinking, fixy biking, music lovin’, Little 5 point dwellers in case I needed a place to crash the night. One such fellow I meet and asked about the city said he never really went anywhere in Atlanta except Little 5. I guess this neighborhood has everything one needs: coffee shops, bars, record stores, vintage thrift shops, snazzy pizza and sandwich shops, natural food markets – it is all there. In the morning waiting for the local food co-op to open I got to talking with a man. He was old, black and had lived in Atlanta most of his life. I asked him if he lived around this neighborhood. He told me he lives down town but there are no natural food stores out there so he has to come all the way out to Little 5 to get food, because he is trying to eat healthy. Latter talking to him at a bus stop he told me how this neighborhood used to be totally different. “Right there where that Starbucks is, it used to be houses, just a couple of years ago. Starbucks bought those houses for a big buck and blew ‘em down and put in that shop.” Where did those people all go? The man did not know. I don’t know. Are their homes really worth the cash to them – now that they are living somewhere far away and their old homes are dust and people drink Starbucks where they used to sleep and play? I spent the rest of my day in Atlanta walking from Little 5, to the wealthy neighborhoods, the gay neighborhood, the broken down neighborhoods, and into down town. Each neighborhood has its own population. Each place is home to a totally separate group of people. On the train into Atlanta I got directions to Little 5 from a young guy in bling who said he had never been to Little 5. He was about the same age as the guy at the coffee shop in Little 5 who had never been in Atlanta outside of Little 5. The neighborhood, not the city, appears to be the unit of home in Atlanta. Only some people cross borders to buy healthy food.
I had a brief bout in Atlanta GA this week. Krystan had plans to go up there for a night and day with a friend so I decided to tag along. Once in Atlanta I was on my own - sort of. I hoped on a bus, train (called the “marta” in Atlanta which is most like the bart in California), and foot, in search of “Little 5 points” where I was told would be the safest neighborhood to arrive in late at night. I found a coffee shop/bar and tried to meet one or two of these young, PBR drinking, fixy biking, music lovin’, Little 5 point dwellers in case I needed a place to crash the night. One such fellow I meet and asked about the city said he never really went anywhere in Atlanta except Little 5. I guess this neighborhood has everything one needs: coffee shops, bars, record stores, vintage thrift shops, snazzy pizza and sandwich shops, natural food markets – it is all there. In the morning waiting for the local food co-op to open I got to talking with a man. He was old, black and had lived in Atlanta most of his life. I asked him if he lived around this neighborhood. He told me he lives down town but there are no natural food stores out there so he has to come all the way out to Little 5 to get food, because he is trying to eat healthy. Latter talking to him at a bus stop he told me how this neighborhood used to be totally different. “Right there where that Starbucks is, it used to be houses, just a couple of years ago. Starbucks bought those houses for a big buck and blew ‘em down and put in that shop.” Where did those people all go? The man did not know. I don’t know. Are their homes really worth the cash to them – now that they are living somewhere far away and their old homes are dust and people drink Starbucks where they used to sleep and play? I spent the rest of my day in Atlanta walking from Little 5, to the wealthy neighborhoods, the gay neighborhood, the broken down neighborhoods, and into down town. Each neighborhood has its own population. Each place is home to a totally separate group of people. On the train into Atlanta I got directions to Little 5 from a young guy in bling who said he had never been to Little 5. He was about the same age as the guy at the coffee shop in Little 5 who had never been in Atlanta outside of Little 5. The neighborhood, not the city, appears to be the unit of home in Atlanta. Only some people cross borders to buy healthy food.
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