Re: [microsound] the system that works for the great deal of people

[Simon Hampson <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well we tend to adopt our political beliefs as part of our identity and also
adopt politics that suit our identity. They feed off each other and grow
together.

One thing I have been thinking a great deal about lately is how we commence
dialogue with people who have differing points of view. How do we seek to
seem less like we are on a warpath or trying to 'educate' them? My first
child is due in less than a month and I wonder how I will expose him or her
to ideas about culture & the world.

I think it is a great failing in our school system (certainly my experience
of the system in Australia and England) that there isn't more discussion
about political and cultural theory. I certainly wouldn't ask them to go out
and read Deleuze straight away. However, I think it is important that we
have a populous who understand different points of view and interpretive
frameworks.

It is clear to me, at this juncture, that one framework will not do - we
need to blend a number of them and throw in a good dose of 'life doesn't
always work according to a plan'. I mean, let's face it... That's the
problem with so many political theories - they forget the unpredictable
human element.

Simon. 



On 16/7/06 3:55 AM, "Stephen Hastings-King" <roachboy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> it is interesting to think of snippiness in symptomatic terms, yes?
> 
> what is it about the present ideological state of affairs that enables frame
> disputes (between frames of reference, say at the level of the assumptions
> that enable you to model capitalism one way or another, a step prior to any
> actual modelling) to degenerate so quickly and often into snippiness?
> 
> i wonder if this has something to do with identity branding in shaping
> political statements and relations to political statements.  political
> statements are consumer items and one routes elements of one's sense of
> social distinction through the set of statements that fits best, whose
> colors are most flattering, etc., and these political statements become
> integrated into a level of habitus (ugly word, isnt it?  got a better one?
> bourdieuspeak.  ugh.) which is reflected on choices of models and the
> statements about the world organized by the,.  and which reflects yourself
> back to yourself.
> 
> it is interesting that statements that would entail shifting your relation
> to capitalism as a category as a model seem not to generate discussion but
> are greeted more as a kind of irritating faux pas like talking with your
> mouth full of food on a first date but more irritating kind of.  it is as if
> they have been framed out of any relation to argument.
> the results read like:
> Q. "can you defend the premises of your relationship to capitalism?"
> A. "fuck you."
> snippiness instead.
> what exactly is being defended through it?
> 
> there seems to be something screwy has happened to political debate.
> 
> returning to the bench on the sidelines
> stephen


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