Invisible
University -- 2011
aa1971@wayne.edu
aa1971@wayne.edu
Edward Hopper, Manhattan Bridge Loop, 1928
on the Giffords shooting
"The
so-called 'motive': another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of
consciousness, an accompaniment to an act, which conceals rather than
exposes the antecedentia of the act." {re Imus and that which is called
racism}
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (Penguin, 1968), p. 49
At the level
of real analysis the merely epiphenomenal and second-order event--the
actual assassination--must be grasped as the rare real-world enactment
of what in essence is a politics of redemptive
violence directed at a demonized internal enemy played
out in the theater of
ressentiment. The
actions of the shooter were not caused by any particular statement or
event, such as the infamous crosshairs map of Sarah Palin.
But
his rage, and his fantasies of redemptive violence, were of a piece
with those of vast swaths of
the Right and more broadly of popular culture (e.g., Charles Bronson, Death Wish series). That rage was
given a theatrical framework within which orchestrated campaigns of
demonization unfolded and continue to unfold.
This was no random shooting. It was an enactment of redemptive violence within the moral universe provided the Right as cognitive regime. Sarah Palin is a major player in the construction and further development of this universe (eg.: Fox news: institutions, semiotics, demographics; input-output matrices--see Imus page), but nothing more.
On the other hand, within this universe of demonization these twenty House Democrats were in fact assigned a place reserved for the forces of Evil. This moral universe is filled with rage directed at a variety of targets--gays, Muslims, Blacks, Jews, climate scientists, liberal professors. As can be seen from the materials in Column B, a profound inarticulateness, apparent when people are asked what they are doing and appear only capable of producing epithets and gestures, suggests that the "issues"--taxes, deficits, health care--are merely the rhetorical means provided by the right cognitive regime.
The essence of what is seen in Column B is rage, on the one hand, and a cognitive primitivism and pathology on the other. Both psychoanalysis and developmental psychology must be deployed to decode both the rage and the cognitive primitivism.
the process is stochastic, not deterministic: as a high school teacher once told me (in the context of the wave of school shootings in the '90s), for every kid that commits an overt act of violence there are a hundred right at the edge who are just as likely to jump from fantasy to action. Although as far as we know he acted alone, Loughner was only one of a vastly larger subset of enraged primitives who inhabit the same moral universe and are beset by the same internal demons. Most importantly, they are supplied with a steady stream of the rhetoric of demonization, complete with hit list. This is why I refer to the the actual assault as merely epiphenomenal.
This gesture of revenge, of demonization and rage, is the underlying bio-emotional praxis of the Right. That it has come to nearly dominate contemporary politics MARX WAS WRONG
This was no random shooting. It was an enactment of redemptive violence within the moral universe provided the Right as cognitive regime. Sarah Palin is a major player in the construction and further development of this universe (eg.: Fox news: institutions, semiotics, demographics; input-output matrices--see Imus page), but nothing more.
On the other hand, within this universe of demonization these twenty House Democrats were in fact assigned a place reserved for the forces of Evil. This moral universe is filled with rage directed at a variety of targets--gays, Muslims, Blacks, Jews, climate scientists, liberal professors. As can be seen from the materials in Column B, a profound inarticulateness, apparent when people are asked what they are doing and appear only capable of producing epithets and gestures, suggests that the "issues"--taxes, deficits, health care--are merely the rhetorical means provided by the right cognitive regime.
The essence of what is seen in Column B is rage, on the one hand, and a cognitive primitivism and pathology on the other. Both psychoanalysis and developmental psychology must be deployed to decode both the rage and the cognitive primitivism.
the process is stochastic, not deterministic: as a high school teacher once told me (in the context of the wave of school shootings in the '90s), for every kid that commits an overt act of violence there are a hundred right at the edge who are just as likely to jump from fantasy to action. Although as far as we know he acted alone, Loughner was only one of a vastly larger subset of enraged primitives who inhabit the same moral universe and are beset by the same internal demons. Most importantly, they are supplied with a steady stream of the rhetoric of demonization, complete with hit list. This is why I refer to the the actual assault as merely epiphenomenal.
This gesture of revenge, of demonization and rage, is the underlying bio-emotional praxis of the Right. That it has come to nearly dominate contemporary politics MARX WAS WRONG
TPM LiveWire
Palin Uses Crosshairs To Identify Dems Who Voted For Health Care Reform
Jillian Rayfield | March 24, 2010, 5:47PM
Glorification and fetishization of weapons,
implications of violence,
the exuberant and visceral embrace of torture and the delight in
defending it--as well as the demonization
of the Other, provide the basis for categorizing and hence
analyzing signs and images and discourse (the semiotic matter) available over the internet.
The gut-level orientations of the Right are rage and ressentiment. This rage and ressentient may become associated with this or that vehicle for its expression, but it is ontolgically prior to the issues with which is it associated.
The images to the right are a sample of the more restrained invocations of violence that one finds.
But a second semiotic field emerges in relation to the Set of Column A. That is the field constituted by commentaries in various media--CNN, Fox at one end, the blogosphere on the other.
The gut-level orientations of the Right are rage and ressentiment. This rage and ressentient may become associated with this or that vehicle for its expression, but it is ontolgically prior to the issues with which is it associated.
The images to the right are a sample of the more restrained invocations of violence that one finds.
But a second semiotic field emerges in relation to the Set of Column A. That is the field constituted by commentaries in various media--CNN, Fox at one end, the blogosphere on the other.
a politics of redemptive
violence directed at a demonized internal enemy played
out in the theater of
ressentiment.
Kathleen Jamieson stumbles into the Heart of Darkness
Kathleen Jamieson stumbles into the Heart of Darkness
The paragraph to the right, from a study of Rush
Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment,
inadvertenly provides a glimpse into the heart of darkness.
What Jamieson and Cappella don't understand, and can't face, even as they stumble into it, is the heart of darkness, the black hole, of civilization. Why the vulgarity in this message does not alienate the churchgoing conservatives in his audiences a question for which we have no ready answer. But wait. Isn't the interest in Limbaugh predicated on his relationship to his mass audience? And thus, shouldn't the purpose of the study be to illuminate this relationship? Isn't it possible that the vulgarity and sadism of Limbaugh's rhetoric is the main event in this theater of ressentiment, while the "issues" are merely the occasion for the expression of emotionally appealing sexual inuendo and sadism? This is the stuff of Nietzsche's ressentiment.
What Jamieson and Cappella don't understand, and can't face, even as they stumble into it, is the heart of darkness, the black hole, of civilization. Why the vulgarity in this message does not alienate the churchgoing conservatives in his audiences a question for which we have no ready answer. But wait. Isn't the interest in Limbaugh predicated on his relationship to his mass audience? And thus, shouldn't the purpose of the study be to illuminate this relationship? Isn't it possible that the vulgarity and sadism of Limbaugh's rhetoric is the main event in this theater of ressentiment, while the "issues" are merely the occasion for the expression of emotionally appealing sexual inuendo and sadism? This is the stuff of Nietzsche's ressentiment.
from Kathleen
Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella, Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and
the Conservative Media Estabisment (Oxford Univeristy
Press, 2008), p.p. 188-89. (Emphasis added.)
Limbaugh's attempts at gender-based "humor" are of the locker
room variety. As the California gubernatorial recall was
heating
up, Limbaugh informed his folowers that Leutenant Governor Cruz
Bustamante--"whose name loosely translates into Spanish for 'large
breasts'--leads the Terminator by a few pionts" (August 18, 2003).
A photomontage on the Limbaugh website shows a photograph of
Schwartzenegger's head and shoulders from his Pumping Iron days as a
body builder. A naked woman has been transposed onto his
shoulders. Over her breasts is a sign reading BUSTAMONTE.
When Madonna endorsed General Wesley Clark, Limbaugh reported
that she had "opened herself" to him. Why
the vulgarity in this message does not alienate the churchgoing
conservatives in his audiences a question for which we have no ready
answer.
from Media Matters: Changing The Tone, Or Changing Our Understanding?
January 14, 2011 5:21 pm ET
And let's not fool ourselves with
the forced symmetry of "both sides do it," which is all too often
employed in the media's overriding quest for "balance" at the expense
of accuracy. On Monday, the New Yorker's George Packer observed:
In fact, there is no balance --
none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt
against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots
movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the
Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly
conflating rights with threats. Only one side's activists bring guns to
democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national
TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction
that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country.
Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods.
Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots
following, who can't stop using violent imagery and dividing her
countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows
which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
This is a
frequent form of expression--the racist carricature--but the overt
racism should not obscure the underlying dynamic process of projection of the
repressed and displacement
of rage, on the one hand, and the creation of a suitable object as the
target of sadistic aggression on the other.
What makes a target suitable is that it must be annointed by higher authorities--portions of the Catholic clergy during the middle ages, organizations like Fox News-Freedom Works today--signals are given, and a carnival of rage follows.
This can be seen in the etiology and phenomenology of the anti-Muslim hysteria whipped up by Fox News (below)
What makes a target suitable is that it must be annointed by higher authorities--portions of the Catholic clergy during the middle ages, organizations like Fox News-Freedom Works today--signals are given, and a carnival of rage follows.
This can be seen in the etiology and phenomenology of the anti-Muslim hysteria whipped up by Fox News (below)
Anti-Obama Billboard: President? or Jihad
(Video and transcript)
November 23, 2009 MSNBC The ED Show
This sign was mass
produced. The Right's most beloved forms of expression
involve intimations of violence and death.
McCain-Palin
Rallies, 2008
from
Robert
O. Paxton, The
Anatomy of Fascism (Alfred
A. Knopf, 2004):
"The
legitimation of violence against a
demonized
internal enemy brings us close
to the heart of fascism."
p. 84
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." p. 218
"Today a "politics of resentment" rooted in authentic American piety and nativism sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same "internal enemies" once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights.
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." p. 218
"Today a "politics of resentment" rooted in authentic American piety and nativism sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same "internal enemies" once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights.
"The
languge and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of
course, have little to do with the original European models.
They
would have to be as familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the
language and symbols of the original fascisms were familiar and
reassuring to many Italians and Germans, as Orwell suggested. . . .
No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes
(or
Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but
mass recitations of the pledge of alegiance (one minute and 45 seconds
into the video above). These symbols contain no whiff of
fascism
in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them
into obligatory litmus
tests for detecting the internal enemy." p.
202 (Emphasis
added)
The point of quoting Paxton's work on European fascism is to draw attention to the fundamental concepts of redemptive violence and resentment, which "fit" so strikingly the materials of Column B. Rather than suggesting that the contemporary right wing insurgency is fascist in nature, I argue that the concept of fascism is too narrow, too tailored to some of the specifics of the era of Hitler and Musolini, to grasp the psycho-social forces whose trace is left in the panels and links of Column B.
The terms nazi and fascist are used by all sides in the public area as epithets not concepts. My guess is few, not only in the tea party but also in the media, actually function at the level of cognitive development where concepts such as fascism and socialism and liberalism are discused and developed.
The Daily Show Ridicules Megyn Kelly's Claim That Fox News Figures Don't Make Nazi References
"I want my country back!"
("The languge and symbols of an authentic American fascism . . . ")
("The languge and symbols of an authentic American fascism . . . ")
RINO
[Republicans In Name Only] American Traitor Rep. Mike Castle
Tap-Dances Around Obama Birth Certificate (July 20, 2009)
Tap-Dances Around Obama Birth Certificate (July 20, 2009)
from Puritanism as a Revolutionary Ideology, Michael Walzer, History and Theory, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1963), pp. 59-90
About
the Puritan saints Walzer writes of " . . . their almost Manichean
warfare against Satan and his worldly
allies, their nervous lust for systematic repression and control." p.
63
"They felt themselves to be living in an age of chaos and crime and sought to train conscience to be permanently on guard against sin. The extent to which they would have carried the moral discipline can be seen in the following list of offenses which merited excommunication in one seventeenth-century congregation:
"They felt themselves to be living in an age of chaos and crime and sought to train conscience to be permanently on guard against sin. The extent to which they would have carried the moral discipline can be seen in the following list of offenses which merited excommunication in one seventeenth-century congregation:
-for
unfathfulness in his masters service
-for admitting cardplaying in his house . . .
-for sloth in business.
-for being overtaken in beer.
-for borrowing a pillion and not returning it.
-for jumping for wagers . . .
-for dancing and other vanities.
-for admitting cardplaying in his house . . .
-for sloth in business.
-for being overtaken in beer.
-for borrowing a pillion and not returning it.
-for jumping for wagers . . .
-for dancing and other vanities.
Had
the saints been successful in establishing
their Holy
Commonwealth, the enforcement of this discipline would have consituted
the Puritan terror." p. 64
"The persecution of witches, of course, was not a vital aspect of Puritan endeavor, but the active, fearful struggle against wickedness was. And the saints imagined wickedness as a creative and omnipresent demonic force, that is, as a continual threat." p. 79
"The persecution of witches, of course, was not a vital aspect of Puritan endeavor, but the active, fearful struggle against wickedness was. And the saints imagined wickedness as a creative and omnipresent demonic force, that is, as a continual threat." p. 79
the Plen-T-Plaint, from Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas
"As culture war,
backlash was born to lose. Its goal is not to win
cultural battles but to take offense, conspicuously, vocally, even
flamboyantly. Indignation is the great aesthetic principle of
backlash culture; voicing the fury of the imposed-upon is to the
backlash what the guitar solo is to heavy metal. Indignation
is
the privilege emotion, the magic moment that brings a consciuosness of
rightness and a determination to persist. . . . Everything
seems
to piss conservatives off, and they react by documenting and
cataloguing
their disgust. The result is what we call the plen-T-plaint,
a
curious amassing of petty, unrelated beefs with the world.
Its
purpose is not really to evaluate the hated liberal culture that
surrounds us; the
plen-T-plaint is a horizontal rather than vertical mode of criticism,
aiming instead to infuriate us with dozens, hundreds, thousands of
stories of the many tiny ways the world around us assaults
family values, uses obscenities, disrespects parents, foments
revolution, and so on." 121-3
Postings to Conn
Post re. alleged child molestation
Rabid (n=3/10)
1. Put me down for 100.00$ for this guys defence. He was kind. In Texas
they would have never found the body. I tored of all the nambepambe
judges letting these monster room free. .
. .
2. This father is hero. Hopefully, those of us who feel the same will continue to lobby the law makers to pass laws making any indecent contact with a child AND dealing in any way with kiddie-porn, a felony, carrying HEAVY jail sentences. The fact that this dad is an attorney and knows the watered-down, perp-favored laws, says volumes. He meted out justice, swiftly and fairly. God bless you, Mr. Edington!
3. About time someone takes the law in their own hands
2. This father is hero. Hopefully, those of us who feel the same will continue to lobby the law makers to pass laws making any indecent contact with a child AND dealing in any way with kiddie-porn, a felony, carrying HEAVY jail sentences. The fact that this dad is an attorney and knows the watered-down, perp-favored laws, says volumes. He meted out justice, swiftly and fairly. God bless you, Mr. Edington!
3. About time someone takes the law in their own hands
Thoughtful (n=3/8)
1. I heard the child was 2. Most 2 yearolds barely talk and most not
capable of making up a story. How did the child tell the mother about
this incident?
2. So many are making comments without knowing the facts. What really did happen?? Think about both families and how they are both feeling. In the USA we are supposed be to innocent until proven guilty. And does being convicted of driving under the influence make this an automatic assumption of guilt. Learn the facts before you judge............
3. I find it extremely disturbing that a man can be tried, convicted and executed without one shred of evidence, in the court of public madness and extremism. Has our paranoia become so intesified that we are reasy to commit cold blooded murder merely on speculation and rumor? The article stated: MacNamara said James did not have a criminal record and was not under "any investigation alleging inappropriate activity regarding children." On May 1, 2001, James pleaded guilty in Superior Court to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and was sentenced to six months, suspended after two days, followed by 18 months probation. He was also fined $500. If people think the above charges warrant the death penalty by stabbing, then the real danger to society are the majority of the posters here.
2. So many are making comments without knowing the facts. What really did happen?? Think about both families and how they are both feeling. In the USA we are supposed be to innocent until proven guilty. And does being convicted of driving under the influence make this an automatic assumption of guilt. Learn the facts before you judge............
3. I find it extremely disturbing that a man can be tried, convicted and executed without one shred of evidence, in the court of public madness and extremism. Has our paranoia become so intesified that we are reasy to commit cold blooded murder merely on speculation and rumor? The article stated: MacNamara said James did not have a criminal record and was not under "any investigation alleging inappropriate activity regarding children." On May 1, 2001, James pleaded guilty in Superior Court to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and was sentenced to six months, suspended after two days, followed by 18 months probation. He was also fined $500. If people think the above charges warrant the death penalty by stabbing, then the real danger to society are the majority of the posters here.
from opposing demonstations'
signs at anti- and pro- war rally
from CNN, 4:00 to 6:00 PM, 9-15-07: pro- and anti-war demonstrators' signs
pro-war
demo signs:
"Traitors Go to Hell!"
"Deport
Anti-war Protesters!""Treason!"
anti-war
demo signs: "End the War Now!"
"U.S. Out of Iraq!""Support the Troops! End the War!"
Campaign 2008: McCain-Palin
Ralies
Accusations Fly Between Parties Over Threats and Vandalism
By MICHAEL COOPER
Published: March 25, 2010 NYT
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause, By Kevin Merida
Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 13, 2008
•In Ex-Steel City, Voters Deny Race Plays a Role By Paul Vitellon
New York Times, April 4, 2008 (The rhetorical maneuvers of Pa. blue
collar whites)
Racist McCain Supporters in Pottsville, Pennsylvania
*The Sidewalk to Nowhere, McCain Supporters in Bethlehem, PA,
Sarah Palin Rally Causes Confrontation with Obama Supporters Sarah Palin Supporters confront Obama Supporters after a Palin rally on October 21st, 2008. One supporter of Palin suggests that Obama could be the antichrist. Then some guy picks up horse feces, calls it Obama, and throws it at Barrett.
•McCain Tries to Tame Flames He Earlier Fanned (Scared . . . Arab; how large is the subset of right wing activists at rallies and demonstations of which she is an element?
Hatred, Ignorance and Racism on Display Outside a Palin Rally in Ohio Oct. 19, 2008 (read article as well)
*Redneck lady disses Obama Sept 30
Morning Joe's "troubling" report about liberal elitists from the Upper West Side by Rumproast Daily Kos, Oct 31, 2008 This is a bold attempt to smear liberals by likening their semiotic behavior (semiotic behavior: symbolic content plus body language plus vocalizations) to that of the tea party demonstrators.
Ground
Zero Mosque Rallies Sept. 11 CNN (at 1 minute in)
---->
L.
We believe in the same document. You just said you
believe in the Constitution.
R. I do believe in the Constitution
L. But you just said you don't.
R. I do believe in the Constitution
L. But you just said you don't.
<this is where the
psychic rupture/quantum moment/event occurs>
R.
People were jumping out of the buildings; people were
disintegrating, all over the city
L. By terrorists. you can't blame Muslims for the work of the terrorists.
R. I'm not blaming Muslims. But if they had the respect that they claim they have . . .
L. Why should they have to appologize for the actions of radicals?
R. I would rather see no church than a mosque right where people are going to to . . .
L. By terrorists. you can't blame Muslims for the work of the terrorists.
R. I'm not blaming Muslims. But if they had the respect that they claim they have . . .
L. Why should they have to appologize for the actions of radicals?
R. I would rather see no church than a mosque right where people are going to to . . .
the anti-Muslim crusade around
"Ground Zero" Mosque
"Uninformed"
misses entirely the signifcance of the materials on the right subsumed
under empiricities.
What is required to decode these performances? What conceptual repertoire and theoretical resources are required, useful, interesting . . .
semiotics and psychoanalysis: eternal return, ressentiment and the mechanisms of defense.
transcendental empiricism; the theatrical deployment of the mechanisms of defense in the arena of politics; the semiosphere
What we see here is the primacy of rage, and the merely secondary significance of those rhetorical gestures and maneuvers that are confused with issues. As can be seen, that is a cognitive impossibility. Something else must therefore be at work--the lady doth protest too much. (Levien on blood and guts nationalism)
•the actions of hegemonic agents in the constitution of the moment (from Urban II to Dick Army)
What is required to decode these performances? What conceptual repertoire and theoretical resources are required, useful, interesting . . .
semiotics and psychoanalysis: eternal return, ressentiment and the mechanisms of defense.
transcendental empiricism; the theatrical deployment of the mechanisms of defense in the arena of politics; the semiosphere
What we see here is the primacy of rage, and the merely secondary significance of those rhetorical gestures and maneuvers that are confused with issues. As can be seen, that is a cognitive impossibility. Something else must therefore be at work--the lady doth protest too much. (Levien on blood and guts nationalism)
•the actions of hegemonic agents in the constitution of the moment (from Urban II to Dick Army)
The (lynch) mob as emergent phenomenon
the mechanisms of defense in the constitution of the moment
the semiosphere in the constitution of the moment
the actions of hegemonic agents in the constitution of the moment (from Urban II to Dick Army)
Mr. Wolf's inability to respond conceptually to the question "what does jihad mean to you" reveals the chief cognitive charateristic of the Right.
Anti-Obama Billboard: President? or Jihad?
November 23, 2009 MSNBC The ED Show ((Video and transcript))
SCHULTZ: OK. What evidence do you have that he's not an American
citizen?
WOLF: Well, I think the evidence has to be shown that he would be. That would seem to be the simplest thing to do, just to show that you are.
SCHULTZ: We missed this in the vetting process, though, all of this As a country, we screwed up?
WOLF: Very possible.
SCHULTZ: Possible. Jihad; what does jihad mean to you, Mr. Wolf?
WOLF: I think to me it means it's an extreme element of a struggle to overcome somebody. It can be interpreted probably some different ways. but to me it's-it's certainly not one of us. It's something other than what an American is, that I've been taught.
SCHULTZ: Jihad is religious war, is it not? The definition is religious war. You must have put that word up there for something. Do you think Barack Obama wants a religious war?
WOLF: I think it's definitely anti-Christian. Yes, I do.
WOLF: Well, I think the evidence has to be shown that he would be. That would seem to be the simplest thing to do, just to show that you are.
SCHULTZ: We missed this in the vetting process, though, all of this As a country, we screwed up?
WOLF: Very possible.
SCHULTZ: Possible. Jihad; what does jihad mean to you, Mr. Wolf?
WOLF: I think to me it means it's an extreme element of a struggle to overcome somebody. It can be interpreted probably some different ways. but to me it's-it's certainly not one of us. It's something other than what an American is, that I've been taught.
SCHULTZ: Jihad is religious war, is it not? The definition is religious war. You must have put that word up there for something. Do you think Barack Obama wants a religious war?
WOLF: I think it's definitely anti-Christian. Yes, I do.
This cognitive primitivism is the chief intellectual characteristic of the Right as cognitive regime. Its chief psychological characteristics is rage, resentiment, and demoiztion. And the ideology of the free market hs an unavoidable ethno-racist thrust.
Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare! Huffington Post, June 27, 2010
psycho-cognitive modalities
psycho-cognitive regimes
psycho-cognitive topologies
The
mechanisms of defense in the construction
of a demonized internal enemy
of a demonized internal enemy
This graphic representation of a function of two variables is being transposed from its orginal context. Here the mesh represents the semiotic grid, the flags stand for rhetorical elements, and the surface peaks represent the emotional force seen in the videos.
The above videos contain a set of rhetorical elements and maneuvers ("prove he isn't a terrorist"). These can be placed in their appropriate topological neighborhoods (paranoid-schizoid or depressive)
the mechanisms of defense
Jasper Johns
After Hans Holbein. 1993
Encaustic on canvas
32 9/16 x 25 5/8" (82.7 x 65.1 cm)
Private collection
Cognitive Regimes
Red Fields--bourgeois (1):
CNN/MSNBC
bourgeois (2):
Universities/NPR Modern
(Modern
corporation*)
(human capital, cultural capital)
Concrete Operational Formal Operational
Concrete Operational Formal Operational
Preoperational
Blue Field--barbarian: Fox News (Rentier
sectors**; provincial capitals***;
r*c*st political ecologies)
each space is filled with a repertoire of actors, objects, and networks;
Above: another way of thinking about the culture wars
"Spirits and demons are only projections of man's own emotional impulses. He turns his emotional cathexes into persons, he peoples the world with them and meets his internal mental processes again outside himself . . ."
Sigmund
Freud, Totem
and Taboo
Incisions via Internet:
1. Google Images Tea Party Racism
2. Other LINKS re Tea Party
3. Categories and Typology
4. MCCain-Palin Campaign
5. Rabids vs. Thoughtfuls
6. pro- and ati-war signs
7. Walzer-Frank literary context
8. Birthers chart
9. I want my country back paired with Paxton excerpt
10. Levien literary context
Campaign of 2008
Tea Party and related reactions to Obama's election
depressive vs. paranoid-schizoid
diversity without racism or classism
founding father fought to end and did end slavery
here is TPM account, with video of the event.
here is chris matthews interview with a tea party leader (whose own history as revealed during the segment is itself of considerable interest in decoding the teaparty).
Such bizarre events require explanation. The first step is to carefully look at her actual performance and to ask if it belongs to a subgroup of other similar performances (Jan Brewer, Sarah Palin on fruit fly and ndwspapers
there we find a general ignorance and cognitive primitivism.
Since this is za political performance our next qustion must be what rational purpose might such permonances serve?
and Southern," by kos, Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 08:20:37 AM PDT
The Research 2000 findings were pulled together from a
survey of 2,400 adults
Poll question: Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the
United States of America or not?
Choices: Yes No Not sure
No + Not Sure = variable graphed