From: J. Todd Dean
It is striking to me how this discussion goes on and on. It is the “going on and on” that I find most remarkable:
“Rather than enduring a surfeit of expertise, we are awash in multiple, conflicting, irreconcilable opinions. Unable ever fully to determine which is right, we have to decide for ourselves. Algorithms and data render social science obsolete. Power is backed by neither authority nor knowledge, appearing and manifesting instead as violence. Therapy offers neither justice nor cure. Militarized policing… takes the place of the former; a wide array of pharmaceuticals takes the place of the latter, and when these fail there is depression, incapacity, addiction, and suicide…. Aggressive impulses need not be repressed under a veneer of cheerfulness. In the extreme inequality of communicative capitalism, multiple channels encourage their expression: hate and outrage circulate easily in affective networks.” (Jodi Dean, Crowds and Party, Verso, 2017 – completed before the election, BTW)
Like Todd Essig, I am much more concerned about what is going on at a congressional level than about what is happening with Trump: repeal of Dodd-Frank, the new health care law. I expect the opening of (privately run) debtors’ prisons sometime in the next few weeks.
I include two links, one to an article from Literary Hub on what is going on in the world OTHER THAN what is happening with Trump, the other an interview with Naomi Klein about her new book, from The Guardian. I’m hoping for a resurgence of Kleinianism.
Click Here to Read: Five Must-Reads On The Decline Of Western Democracy: Ed Luce Looks For Bigger Picture Reasons For How We Got Here By Ed Luce on the Literary Hub Website on June 13, 2017.
Click Here to Read: Naomi Klein: ‘Trump is an idiot, but don’t underestimate how good he is at that’: The US has a president who embodies many of the things Naomi Klein has been warning about for years. She says her new book had to be written before things got worse by Tim Adams on the Gaurdian website on June 11, 2017.
Finally, in response to Henry Friedman’s post, I have a rather different experience. Especially among the people I see who are more financially challenged or have reasons to be concerned about immigration law, their experience is not much different from what it was before: they don’t talk about who the president is at all. For the rest, I think it is a real question, what the angst Henry describes might mean.
Todd Dean