News
I’m out of town next week, so there will be a reduced blogging schedule. We’ll finish up with the remainder of the best comics poll lists, and Robert Stanley Martin will have some final thoughts on the poll results. We’ll be back in force Monday, August 22.
On HU
Our best comics poll index has all the essays and participant lists that have appeared through the week.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At Splice Today I talked about Eugene Thacker’s book about philosophy and horror and also cockroaches.
Also at Splice I review Kelly Rowland’s new album.
At the Chicago Reader I’ve got a brief review of Matt Irie’s Chicago opening at Ebersmoore.
Other Links
James Romberger interviews Anders Nilsen.
Slavoj Zizek on the Norway attacks and antisemitism.
Alyssa Rosenberg on Frank Miller and Alan Moore.
Alyssa again on horror television shows, or the lack thereof.
Supernatural is a non-episodic horror TV show.
You should tell Alyssa!
I don’t watch enough television to really know one way or the other how right she was…just seemed interesting to think about though….
I clicked on the link above and read this:
“For reasons which remain largely a mystery to me, I’ve been obsessively watching episodes of the godawful Heroes television series.”
Yes, a truly shameful episode in your cultural life it has to be said. The only reason to watch Heroes is to hate it with greater feeling. But perhaps that’s what you’ve done already…Why don’t you waste your time on the Danish version of The Killing instead? You’ll have a field day with the gender politics in that one.
Well, I can’t stop now. I’m halfway through the fourth season; just a few more and I’ll be done.
The last couple seasons are actually the best ones, I think. I like Sylar and I like Claire and I kind of like Bennett. Some of the writing is kind of funny. But yes, overall it’s utter crap. The clumsy reworking of Watchmen in the first season is an abomination; the racial politics are fairly dreadful; the plotting is deeply stupid.
But what can you do; it’s like eating jellybeans till you feel sick….
Not that I want to discuss Heroes in any shape or form but it should be noted that the creator(s) of said show proudly proclaimed that they had not read any superhero stories before writing the scripts for the first season. All in the hope of making something sui generis. Presumably their poo also smells of roses.
Please watch better TV! Let me recommend something near your place of residence: The Good Wife which is set in Cook County & Chicago apparently.
Maybe I will!
Dunno how well it works as Horror but the worldview of Supernatural is definitely dark enough to qualify. The characters live in a malevolent universe where every person they meet could be (and if female often is) an enemy. Even safe familiar characters can be possessed by demons and suddenly turn evil: very unsettling.
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What Fortuyn embodied was thus the intersection between rightist populism and liberal political correctness. Indeed, he was the living proof that the opposition between rightist populism and liberal tolerance is a false one, that we are dealing with two sides of the same coin: ie we can have a racism which rejects the other with the argument that it is racist.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/08/anders-behring-breivik-pim-fortuyn
Heh! Or a sexism (but it’s males that are demonized, therefore it’s not really “sexism”) which rejects any criticism whatsoever of some arguments made by some fringe versions of feminism (which, like religious fundamentalism, act as if they’re the one and only, TRUE feminism) as “sexist”; as indicating a rejection of all of feminism and all its goals.
Especially if it’s males doing the criticizing. Which, therefore, means that only Islamist fundamentalists can criticize Sharia law; only Africans could be qualified to rail against Idi Amin; only heterosexuals can criticize homophobia; only the Catholic Church can find fault with the Catholic Church… (Why, the more cynical-minded would think it’s a way to render yourself immune from criticism.)
It’s like the Russian “show trials” — only without the firing-squads, at least — where it didn’t matter that you were a committed Communist, had fought in the Revolution; if you were anti-Stalinism, therefore you were a pro-Capitalism, reactionary enemy of Communism.
(Reading some more of the article)
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…Zionism itself has paradoxically come to adopt some antisemitic logic in its hatred of Jews who do not fully identify with the politics of the state of Israel. Their target, the figure of the Jew who doubts the Zionist project, is constructed in the same way as the European antisemites constructed the figures of the Jew – he is dangerous because he lives among us, but is not really one of us.
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Yeah; am also reminded how, during the Spanish Civil War, the Communists would give the Fascists info on where the Liberal troops — the Reds’ supposed allies — were, since the Communists saw liberalism as the greater threat, for its very reasonableness…
At http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/the-world-with-roaches , Noah writes:
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…the fact is that the roach will not survive long after we’re gone. On the contrary, the truth is that the cockroach will flip over on its back, put its legs in the air and expire a week or two after we turn off the central heat. Roaches are human parasites; they thrive in such numbers because we kill their predators and provide them with food and climate control. They’re not even resistant to radiation; we’d survive a nuclear holocaust far better than they would. It’s true they’re a triumph of evolution, but that triumph isn’t durability.
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On a late 2009 TCJ message board thread, you repeated the same argument, quoting from the same book, which I thoroughly shot down, with well-documented info such as…
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“…Cockroaches do indeed have a much higher radiation resistance than vertebrates, with the lethal dose perhaps 6 to 15 times that for humans…”
“…There are about 4,000 species of cockroach, of which [only] 30 species are associated with human habitations…Cockroaches live in a wide range of environments around the world…”
Noah Berlatsky: “Without humans to provide heated indoor spaces for them, they’d die out very quickly.”
Wiki: “The first fossils of modern cockroaches with internal ovipositors appear in the early Cretaceous.” (The Cretaceous – and modern roaches – dating from “circa 145.5 ± 4 to 65.5 ± 0.3 million years ago.”
Gee, I didn’t know there were “humans to provide heated indoor spaces for them” all those millions of years ago…
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Much more at http://archives.tcj.com/messboard/viewtopic.php?p=107466&sid=1280fa5175c711f3cf6d8533efa4d299 …
…And here you are years later, repeating the exact same exploded arguments. Nice to know some things never change. “Stay the course! Stay the course!”
Nicely written essay, though; the bit about Lovecraft’s “universe in which heavy, nameless adjectives slither across vast, hideous paragraphs in pursuit of nameless and inhuman dooms” is deliciously witty…
…even if eclipsed in hilarity (reading another Noah piece at http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/matt-irie-you-are-the-vanishing-point-ebersmoore/Content?oid=4410312 ) by Matt Irie’s paintings described as suggesting “…Mondrian fed amphetamines and dropped into Tron.”
It’s possible that cockroaches now are not the same as cockroaches then. And obviously I was referring to cockroaches who live with humans, not the other species. Sheesh.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
It’s possible that cockroaches now are not the same as cockroaches then…
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The reality is hardly shrouded in mystery:
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The ‘old timers’ of the ecosystem, Cockroaches have remained practically unchanged in form for over 320 million years. The fact that they have outlasted about every other life form known to man can in large part be attributed to their ability to adapt to practically any situation…
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http://www.altasierrapestcontrol.com/common-household-pests/pest-control-cockroaches-the-ultimate-survivors/
See, also: http://tinyurl.com/3wn2sxl
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…And obviously I was referring to cockroaches who live with humans, not the other species. Sheesh.
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“Obviously”? Does that mean when you made statements like…
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…rationality is itself a part of post-enlightenment liberal ideology which is tied into a capitalist, imperialist project.
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Like most things in high school textbooks, the scientific method is just bullshit.
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https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/06/shorter-utilitarian-review-61111/
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[If we had a “financial apocalypse”] The other major benefit of the U.S. buying less of everything is that it would mean, logically, that the US would buy fewer guns…
…because…our standard of living is so high that we can’t figure out what to do with our money—we are currently fighting at least three wars, and have troops everywhere on the globe…
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https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/07/hating-america-first/
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…scientists have very little idea of how hormones and brain function connect with actual human behavior. Our understanding of human minds is very, very rudimentary.
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https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/04/dyspeptic-oroborous-reacting-to-it/
…”obviously” all manner of left-out caveats and qualifications should be understood, to make the statements sensible rather than absurd?
Also, what’s up with that Zizek link? He seems to be doing a lot of tricky intellectual work but the overall feeling I get from the piece is “of course we mustn’t criticize the Jews. Why mustn’t we criticize the Jews? Because we are good liberals and good liberals don’t criticize the Jews.” The argument is totally based on an asumption about liberal identity. What if you don’t identify as a iberal? Then it’s natural to express your antisemitism? The closest he gets to an actual critique of antisemitism not tied up in identity politics is when he quotes Marx. This article annoys me, and I’m a liberal AND a Jew!
Well, obviously then — as is said about Jewish folks who criticize any Israeli government policy — you’re a “self-hating Jew.”
I’d just rather read something that didn’t claim to engage antisemitic ideas while actually starting from a place from which no engagement outside of liberal circles is possible. Maybe Zizek doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel in this article, but he ends up giving the impression that antisemitism is a totally received idea that he would question more if he was allowed to.
I like this article on Breivik: http://ireadoddbooks.com/2083-by-andrew-berwick-aka-anders-behring-breivik/
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subdee says:
I’d just rather read something that didn’t claim to engage antisemitic ideas while actually starting from a place from which no engagement outside of liberal circles is possible…
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Rereading Zizek’s essay, I actually don’t get much of an impression that he’s operating from a “of course we mustn’t criticize the Jews. Why mustn’t we criticize the Jews? Because we are good liberals and good liberals don’t criticize the Jews” attitude.
Though it doesn’t help that the article — and people covered in it — is messily imprecise where that quality is crucial.
If one is opposed to fundamentalist Islam for its oppression of women, wish to have gays put to death, intolerance of other religions, etc., does that make one “anti-Muslim”?
If — much as I hate to defend anything about him — Anders Behring Breivik has the “view…that Jews are OK as long as there aren’t too many of them,” as Zizek put it, is that the “old” antisemitism (hatred of Jews for being “Christ-killers,” moneygrubbers, opposed to Our Values) or a wish not to see the ethnic balance of one’s homeland thrown out of whack, the preservation of its culture?
(Someone back at the old TCJ message board had argued that opposition to immigration in order to protect the ethnic balance of a country was racist and inexcusable. By that argument, then, no way could the American Indians have morally justified keeping the European invaders from flooding in, and overwhelming the native culture.)
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Zizek writes:
Antisemitism belongs to this series, alongside other forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. The state of Israel is here making a catastrophic mistake: it decided to downplay, if not completely ignore, the “old” (traditional European) antisemitism, focusing instead on the “new” and allegedly “progressive” antisemitism masked as the critique of the Zionist politics of the state of Israel. Along these lines, Bernard Henri-Lévy (in his Left in Dark Times) recently claimed that the antisemitism of the 21st century would be “progressive” or not exist at all.
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The “old” antisemitism is moronic, vile, inexcusable. (And alas, alive and well in the 21st century.) But to criticize the noxious (if often understandable) actions done by Israel — many by its own right-wing religious fundamentalists — need not be antisemitic at all; indeed, many progressive Jews reject those actions, or were opposed to Zionism in the first place.
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…Something that should worry us even more is the rise of a weird accommodation between Christian fundamentalists and Zionists in the US.
There is only one solution to this enigma: it is not that the US fundamentalists have changed, it is that Zionism itself has paradoxically come to adopt some antisemitic logic in its hatred of Jews who do not fully identify with the politics of the state of Israel.
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Not necessarily “antisemitic logic,” simply authoritarian thinking (shared by right, left, ideological extremes), always hating those who do not march in lockstep, seeing differing viewpoints as indicating betrayal and mortal enmity.
Certainly Christian fundamentalists have not changed in their inmost attitudes about Jews: they wish to see Israel preserved not out of affection, but so that Biblical policy may be fulfilled, and Armageddon be fought there. At the end of that predicted battle, Jews then would be given the chance by God to accept Jesus, or be annihilated. Hardly the beliefs of friends…
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The old fascist habit of attributing to the enemy mutually exclusive features (“Bolshevik-plutocratic Jewish plot” – Bolshevik radical left, plutocratic capitalism, ethnic-religious identity) returns here in a new guise.
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Heh! With the modern Fox-News right, we hear about how the feminist, atheist Left wants to force fundamentalist Muslim Sharia Law upon America…
The problem with the Western invasion of America was not the immigration itself. The problem was that they murdered, enslaved, and more or less deliberately committed genocide against native populations. Columbus’ actions against the Arawaks are emblematic in this regard.
So if an alien culture floods a region, overwhelming the natives with their own culture, language, religion, etc; covering the countryside with their homes and businesses (where they naturally prefer to hire “their own kind,” and those who can speak their language); in the case of the colonists “settling” in the Americas, chopping down forests, claiming ownership over and fencing off land; through the mass of their numbers dominating local politics…
…that’s not a “problem,” unless they’re actually murdering and enslaving the locals?
A few articles from “The Atlantic” on immigration and its discontents:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/immigrat/beckf.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96nov/immigrat/borjas.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/11/can-we-still-afford-to-be-a-nation-of-immigrants/4835/
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/immigrat/miles2f.htm
Well, stealing land is obviously a problem, yes, as is destroying resources. But, again, the problem is the stealing and the destruction and the murdering and the genocide, not the immigration per se. If native groups had engaged in imperialism (as for example the Aztecs did) that would be bad too. Imperialism is wrong; immigration is morally neutral.
Comparing the invasion of the Americas, with its large scale theft and murder, to immigration today, where people basically come into the country to find work, would be offensive if it weren’t so laughable.
Having said that; there were some instances of peaceful and friendly coexistence between the Europeans and native peoples. In fact, many Indian tribes were happy to integrate outsiders. Some native tribes like the Seminoles were essentially multi-ethnic, incorporating (in the Seminole’s case) many blacks and escaped slaves.
http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l542/Mike_59_Hunter/IndianExpressway.jpg
Even without their perpetrating “stealing, destruction, murdering and genocide” upon the Native Americans, when the alien, European culture moved in and by sheer numbers overwhelmed the Indians, that would’ve been the result anyway…
No, that’s just historically inaccurate.
First, the main advantage the Europeans had wasn’t numbers but smallpox. Initially Indians vastly outnumbered Europeans on the North American continent. Indian populations were quickly devastated by smallpox, though.
Second, even with smallpox, European imperialism and European genocidal impulses were hugely consequential for the way that European/Indian relations developed. As one example, if Columbus hadn’t basically decided to enslave and/or exterminate everyone on Haiti, the Taino could have survived as something other than a vanishing remnant of the population. But he did and they effectively don’t.
Europeans didn’t overwhelm the Indians by numbers. They did it through disease and through imperialist and at worst genocidal policies. The problem was imperialism and poor knowledge of disease (coupled with bad European sanitary habits, probably.) It wasn’t immigration per se.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…First, the main advantage the Europeans had wasn’t numbers but smallpox. Initially Indians vastly outnumbered Europeans on the North American continent. Indian populations were quickly devastated by smallpox, though…
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Sure, initially the Indians “vastly outnumbered Europeans on the North American continent.” Did I say the entire mass of European immigrants instantly teleported into the Americas? A demographic overwhelming does not happen all-at-once.
And, in what way does the fact that the diseases the invaders brought along annihilated about 80% of the natives cancel out that the Europeans “by sheer numbers overwhelmed the Indians”? The diseases, genocides, stealing and fencing-off of once-free land were part of the process.
But then, I guess the way to argue that “immigration is morally neutral” is to separate from the process all of the negative consequences that go along with it, all the attitudes that the immigrants bring with them.
Another version of the process, from businessdictionary.com:
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gentrification
The process of wealthier residents moving to an area, and the changes that occur due to the influx of wealth. As wealthier inhabitants move into an area that is already populated with lower-income residents, the neighborhood begins to change as well. Often this will spark an urban renewal process, which cleans up the town, but often leads to an increase in rent, taxes, and other items. Sometimes this change means that the previous residents can no longer afford to live in that neighborhood, which is why gentrification can sometimes be used in a negative context. However, many good changes also historically accompany gentrification, such as decreased crime rates and increased economic activity.
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“Sometimes this change means that the previous residents can no longer afford to live in that neighborhood, which is why gentrification can sometimes be used in a negative context,” indeed…
Would you say that, to the countless poor folks who can no longer afford their humble homes, and end up in far worse slums or thrown out in the street, that “”immigration is morally neutral”?
I mean, those “wealthier inhabitants” are only looking for more affordable places to live; actual violence is seldom used to displace the original residents, only higher rents…
Oops, meant to write that “gentrification is morally neutral”…
I’m not reading all of that…but I think gentrification is in fact morally neutral for the most part. Ta-Nehisi Coates convinced me recently…though I can’t find the link, unfortunately. Basically, income integration is not a bad thing. The real problem is lack of affordable housing…which has been somewhat mitigated recently by the bottom dropping out of the housing market, I’d suspect.
Also…there are more people in China than in the United States. Some Chinese immigrate to the United States. Does that mean that inevitably over time the Chinese will overrun us?
Immigration isn’t osmosis. It’s a cultural process, not an inevitable natural one. And for the most part it’s not a dangerous problem. Immigration into the US isn’t a serious problem, for example; it’s in no way comparable to the imperialism and genocide associated with Western European colonization of North America.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…I think gentrification is in fact morally neutral for the most part…
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Well, consider a related if somewhat different situation: American retirees, on a fixed income, moving to Mexico, where the cost of living is lower, so that their pensions/Social Security might go along further.
Hardly a sinister move; yet look at the “unintended consequences”: because the retirees, for all the modesty of their income, are wealthier than the average Mexican, they drive up the cost of living for others wherever they settle. Landlords, stores, markets know they can charge the Yanquis more, so they bump up the prices. Which ends up hurting everyone who doesn’t have an American-style income.
I tried Google’ing confirmatory articles, but all I found were “retire in Mexico and live the cushy life cheap”-type stuff.
Though, ran across this (yes, I’d heard of it before):
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Just as Americans want Mexicans out, Mexicans, who might be tolerant of their country as a passageway north to the United States, have no patience with the undocumented Guatemalans and Hondurans increasingly falling short of their destinations….
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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/1009/Global-doors-slam-shut-on-immigrants
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Ta-Nehisi Coates convinced me recently…though I can’t find the link, unfortunately…
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I tried Google’ing “Ta-Nehisi Coates gentrification,” and this popped up at the very top:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/07/a-hard-look-at-gentrification/242286/
Unfortunately, the piece is a mass of mush; basically all it says is that “things aren’t that simple”; research and documentation are piss-poor; and it also focuses on Washington, D.C. as a whole, rather than studying the effect on neighborhoods where gentrification actually took place.
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The real problem is lack of affordable housing…which has been somewhat mitigated recently by the bottom dropping out of the housing market, I’d suspect.
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Oh, ’cause people who couldn’t afford housing before, are in this economic climate doing financially as well or better than they used to?
I’m actually pretty interested to find out what’s happened to homelessness stats. I certainly have anecdotal evidence that people of more modest means are now able to afford homes. Creating an enormous speculative bubble in the housing market was really a bad thing for people who wanted to buy homes to live in, I think…on top of all the other adverse consequences.
Can’t really find anything on a quick search that talks much about housing prices and homelessness though….
The thing about wealthy people moving to Mexico is that it pumps a lot of money into the economy, which has some downsides but is at least potentially overall a positive. Haven’t read that article you’re talking about, but I think Coates is right that it’s complicated, at least. Like I said, I think income (and other kinds of ) segregation are a huge problem in the U.S. It’s hard to turn around from that and say, well people contributing to income integration are the problem.
More income integration means better services (schools, police, infrastructure, everything) for everyone in the community. I don’t think that’s a bad thing…especially now, where pretty much nothing anyone can do is going to make housing prices go up anywhere.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
I’m actually pretty interested to find out what’s happened to homelessness stats…
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My Pessimism-Sense says that, if the economy’s doing terribly and unemployment rates are rising, therefore (this is a real brain-strainer)… homelessness will go UP!
Lemme Google an’ see what turns up:
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Homelessness is rising dramatically for the first time in years in the UK as the effects of the recession are felt, with recent increases in some areas of more than 50% in the numbers of people declaring themselves in need of housing, government figures find….
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/10/homelessness-rise-recession-cuts
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The National Alliance to End Homelessness released a report Wednesday that showed the number of homeless families in the United States went up four percent during the recession in 2008 and 2009…
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http://abcnewsradioonline.com/national-news/homelessness-increases-due-to-recession.html#ixzz1VfF6Agsm
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Homelessness increases dramatically throughout State of Oregon
The State of Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services released the annual Point In Time Counts yesterday, showing homelessness has increased 29% since the count conducted in 2009, despite federal stimulus funds designed to prevent increases in homelessness due to the recession.
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http://streetroots.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/homelessness-increases-dramatically-throughout-state-of-oregon/
A story from 2009:
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…The housing market crisis adds to the risk of increased homelessness. Foreclosures have pushed many families into the rental market, driving up rents in many areas and making housing less affordable.
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http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2228
Just to confuse things a bit, a 2011 article from the National Alliance to End Homelessness:
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No Increase in Homelessness Despite Recession
Future of homelessness numbers less certain
Homelessness in the United States did not increase significantly during the height of the recession, according to the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (AHAR) released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) yesterday. The flat numbers, in spite of an idling economy, are a testament to improved homeless assistance systems and the adoption of housing-based strategies to end homelessness. However, budget cuts at the federal, state, and local levels threaten to destabilize the efforts made to avert increases in homelessness. ..
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http://www.endhomelessness.org/content/article/detail/4011
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…More income integration means better services (schools, police, infrastructure, everything) for everyone in the community. I don’t think that’s a bad thing…
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By itself it’s not a bad thing; but, as with housing foreclosures driving up the price of rentals, other “stuff” comes along and causes damage that far counteracts the positives.
I saw gentrification happen in the run-down Miami Beach area of South Beach. First, artists and other low-income but creative, hip young folks discover a run-down part of town where rents are cheap, and the poor can afford to live.
The newcomers fix up and paint their homes; convert some into artists’ lofts; start lil’ clubs and art galleries, and add a cool cachet to the area…
…thereby making it attractive to the noncreative but well-heeled Yuppies, who start moving in. Landlords start jacking up rents, driving out not only the original inhabitants, but the very arty folk whose labor set the wheels of gentrification in motion. The yuppies want bigger, fancier apartments, rents go up more…
A related cartoon from Derf ( http://www.derfcity.com/ ) http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l542/Mike_59_Hunter/Derf_Gentrification.jpg
And sure, the improved tax base from these high-income folks means “better services (schools, police, infrastructure, everything) for everyone in the community.” Only thing is, everyone who isn’t rich can’t afford to live in what once was their community any more…