Thursday, November 26, 2009

K-Punk beyond the Kettle.

3 comments:

John Powers said...

Kettle there's an "a" instead of a "1" which breaks the link. You might fix it, in any case hoping this generates comment. I love your interlocutors here!

Composing said...

Thanks John. Link now fixed.

John Powers said...

This post provoked two strands of thought. The first was to remember Zizek's Resistance is Surrender:

"The lesson here is that the truly subversive thing is not to insist on "infinite" demands we know those in power cannot fulfill. Since they know that we know it, such an "infinitely demanding" attitude presents no problem for those in power: So wonderful that, with your critical demands, you remind us what kind of world we would all like to live in. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where we have to make do with what is possible. The thing to do is, on the contrary, bombard those in power with strategically well selected, precise, finite demands, which can't be met with the same excuse."

The second strand is a continued spinning of the religious/disaster complex. What's striking to me is how The Family is viewed as small albeit powerful. But the connections with other organizations like Young Life which identifies and cultivates high schoolers and then Campus Crusade for Christ which does the same in college make the Family's reach quite extensive.

Repeating such structures from a non-totalitarian but rather pro-democratic stance seems somewhat a paradox. It's as if I imagine democracy as somehow self-organizing.

At minimum I agree that a focus on demands which could make a real difference in real life seems superior to demands which are abstractions.