{"id":8968,"date":"2012-05-03T13:14:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=8968"},"modified":"2012-05-03T14:04:41","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T19:04:41","slug":"richard-wolff-on-radio-and-unemployed-negativity-on-affect-and-spinoza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2012\/05\/03\/richard-wolff-on-radio-and-unemployed-negativity-on-affect-and-spinoza\/","title":{"rendered":"richard wolff on radio and unemployed negativity on affect and spinoza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a piece put out on one of my favourite blogs<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course any answer of contemporary political affects would have to look at the various institutions, specifically the media, which work to focus and channel the affects, providing its images and organizations. The right is particularly good at this; in fact, we could argue that the right prefers to keep all political discussion on the level of pure affects, as in the case of those who \u201chate America,\u201d making it possible to lump together Muslims, communists, and NPR in conspiracy of hate and fear. The usual response to this on the part of progressives or the left is to insist on how ridiculous this is, to use the common notions of history, economics, and politics to argue that such strange bedfellows are simply not made.<\/p>\n

The affects, however, have a different logic, one that relates less to the actual relations between things than to the relation of their images. After all, anything can become the cause of hatred or love, all it needs to do is to is become attached to a cause of sadness or joy, hope or fear.<\/p>\n

The question remains, however, as to why it is difficult to make capital itself an object of indignation. The immediate answer has to do with its impersonality, its inability to appear less as an object, than as the milieu in which we thrive. As Spinoza argues, hatred towards a thing will be greater if we imagine the thing to be free than necessary. Combine this point with Marx\u2019s argument about commodity fetishism, about the reification of the economy into its law-like and necessary character, and it is easy to understand how difficult it is to generate indignation at capitalism itself. It is like being angry at the weather<\/strong>. The recent bouts of left-ish indignation at Scott Walker in Wisconsin and even Paul LePage in Maine has stemmed from the fact that they have emerged as a face of the present political conjuncture\u2019s absolute indifference towards the life of the working class, their decisions appear to be arbitrary and personal (all too personal).<\/p>\n

Richard Wolff on radio<\/a><\/p>\n

Richard Wolff Video Clip at the Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

Countries doing well: Germany, Scadanavian countries, the countries that provide the greatest safety net, over the last 4 years unemployment in Germany has actually shrunk<\/p>\n

Countries without safetynets, their economies are sucking: American Unemployment: 5%, mid 2007 before crisis, 8.3 – 8.5 %\u00a0 now.<\/p>\n

Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy: They have a less generous safety net than the countries doing well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a piece put out on one of my favourite blogs Of course any answer of contemporary political affects would have to look at the various institutions, specifically the media, which work to focus and channel the affects, providing its images and organizations. The right is particularly good at this; in fact, we could … Continue reading “richard wolff on radio and unemployed negativity on affect and spinoza”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agency","category-class"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8968"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8970,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968\/revisions\/8970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}