Desiring Machine

Bill Clinton is really great in this recent speech at Georgetown. I really like what he says about philosophy vs. ideology. The idea that you are committed to a position but you are engaged in a manner that compells you to seek out evidence and argument. The idea that you are open to learning and your position can become informed with new evidence as it emerges. This attitude is marked by a kind of intellectual curiosity about the world. I really identify with this notion and think that the flexibility it generates is really important for actually creating positive change in the world. Clinton really is great. Despite all his personal flaws I think intellectually he is right on the button. He made a great president and I think his wife will make a great president as well.

Well it seems Google is becoming a victim of their own success.

And that is the problem with becoming a cultural phenomenon. The law ceases to protect you. What is happening to Google is what Gilles Deleuze would call a deterritorialization or line of flight.

“Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or deterritorialization according to which they change in nature and connect with other multiplicities. The plane of consistency (grid) is the outside of all multiplicities. The line of flight marks: the reality of a finite number of dimensions that the multiplicity effectively fills; the impossibility of a supplementary dimension, unless the multiplicity is transformed by the line of flight; the possibility and necessity of flattening all of the multiplicities on a single plane of consistency or exteriority, regardless of their number of dimensions.”

~ Gilles Deleuze Thousand Plateaus

The semantic disruption of Google is possible because of its multiplicitous nature. Googling is a nomadic experience. A process by which one moves adrift through the chance encounters of reality and linguistic relationships that bind them together. The network that Google corporation glues together traces out the very grid that we live within. In a word Google has become ours because it has weaved together through its tapestry of search algorithms, technologies, and interstitial existences the very fabric of our being. When you become that co-aligned with the grid you no longer continue operating as a separate autonomous unit of being. Your identity is lost, you become nomad.

It is remarkable the rhetoric and logic of ownership, trademark, and corporatism. To presume that things are fundamentally discrete and can be owned, or even that language can be owned and controlled because it is part of a brand. Rarely is it mentioned that Google is the product of us. What is compelling about Google is that it weaves together the products of our being, whether they be blogs, news, video clips, webpages, text, audio, utterances and disclosures. That is the soup of life and tapestry of our weaved web. Google owns it no more than you or I own it. It is a territory that defies territorialization. And Google, being successful in providing the services that effectively allow us to traverse this web, finds that their brand has become something that they no longer really have any control over. And so goes the logic of control when confronted with the force of deterritorialization. Google is a line of flight that traces, it is no longer a stable place, entity, or idea.

Hey Google, I got your google right here!

I have been reading Geoffrey Nunberg’s latest book Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show.

It is a great book because it does an excellent job outlining the specific ways language permeates our politics. I will attempt a full review once I am finished but I do want to showcase this excellent point Geoffrey makes early in the book about Orwellian “Newspeak” and political language:

That’s the paradox of our attitudes about political language: each of us believes that we’re inured to manipulation, but that everyone else in the room is susceptible to it. There’s always an undercurrent of condescension when people describe some bit of language as Orwellian: “Mind you, I’m not fooled for an instant, but Joe Sixpack is likely to fall for it.” When we picture the prison house of language, it’s always from the outside looking in.

Came across a photo mosaic picture of George Bush using dead soldiers from the Iraq war.

Reminds me very much of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan

And I suppose this makes sense because Bush’s policies seem to abide by Hobbes’ social and political theory. Hobbes presented us with the notion of the sovereign as follows with twelve principal rights:

1. because a successive covenant cannot override a prior, the subjects cannot (lawfully) change the form of government.
2. because the covenant forming the commonwealth is the subjects giving to the sovereign the right to act for them, the sovereign cannot possibly breach the covenant; and therefore the subjects can never argue to be freed from the covenant because of the actions of the sovereign.
3. the selection of sovereign is (in theory) by majority vote; the minority have agreed to abide by this.
4. every subject is author of the acts of the sovereign: hence the sovereign cannot injure any of his subjects, and cannot be accused of injustice.
5. following this, the sovereign cannot justly be put to death by the subjects.
6. because the purpose of the commonwealth is peace, and the sovereign has the right to do whatever he thinks necessary for the preserving of peace and security and prevention of discord, therefore the sovereign may judge what opinions and doctrines are averse; who shall be allowed to speak to multitudes; and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they are published.
7. to prescribe the rules of civil law and property.
8. to be judge in all cases.
9. to make war and peace as he sees fit; and to command the army.
10. to choose counsellors, ministers, magistrates and officers.
11. to reward with riches and honour; or to punish with corporal or pecuniary punishment or ignominy.
12. to establish laws of honour and a scale of worth.

~Source: Leviathan wiki.

Hobbes argues for the sovereign because his world view presupposes Bellum omnium contra omnes, a Latin phrase meaning “the war of all against all”,

I know one thing, under King George life is nasty brutish and short.

Update:

For those interested here is the full text of the 12 principals as stated by Hobbes himself:

The Consequences To Such Institution, Are

I. The Subjects Cannot Change The Forme Of Government From this Institution of a Common-wealth are derived all the Rights, and Facultyes of him, or them, on whom the Soveraigne Power is conferred by the consent of the People assembled.

1. First, because they Covenant, it is to be understood, they are not obliged by former Covenant to any thing repugnant hereunto. And Consequently they that have already Instituted a Common-wealth, being thereby bound by Covenant, to own the Actions, and Judgements of one, cannot lawfully make a new Covenant, amongst themselves, to be obedient to any other, in any thing whatsoever, without his permission. And therefore, they that are subjects to a Monarch, cannot without his leave cast off Monarchy, and return to the confusion of a disunited Multitude; nor transferre their Person from him that beareth it, to another Man, or other Assembly of men: for they are bound, every man to every man, to Own, and be reputed Author of all, that he that already is their Soveraigne, shall do, and judge fit to be done: so that any one man dissenting, all the rest should break their Covenant made to that man, which is injustice: and they have also every man given the Soveraignty to him that beareth their Person; and therefore if they depose him, they take from him that which is his own, and so again it is injustice. Besides, if he that attempteth to depose his Soveraign, be killed, or punished by him for such attempt, he is author of his own punishment, as being by the Institution, Author of all his Soveraign shall do: And because it is injustice for a man to do any thing, for which he may be punished by his own authority, he is also upon that title, unjust. And whereas some men have pretended for their disobedience to their Soveraign, a new Covenant, made, not with men, but with God; this also is unjust: for there is no Covenant with God, but by mediation of some body that representeth Gods Person; which none doth but Gods Lieutenant, who hath the Soveraignty under God. But this pretence of Covenant with God, is so evident a lye, even in the pretenders own consciences, that it is not onely an act of an unjust, but also of a vile, and unmanly disposition.

 

2. Soveraigne Power Cannot Be Forfeited Secondly, Because the Right of bearing the Person of them all, is given to him they make Soveraigne, by Covenant onely of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Soveraigne; and consequently none of his Subjects, by any pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his Subjection. That he which is made Soveraigne maketh no Covenant with his Subjects beforehand, is manifest; because either he must make it with the whole multitude, as one party to the Covenant; or he must make a severall Covenant with every man. With the whole, as one party, it is impossible; because as yet they are not one Person: and if he make so many severall Covenants as there be men, those Covenants after he hath the Soveraignty are voyd, because what act soever can be pretended by any one of them for breach thereof, is the act both of himselfe, and of all the rest, because done in the Person, and by the Right of every one of them in particular. Besides, if any one, or more of them, pretend a breach of the Covenant made by the Soveraigne at his Institution; and others, or one other of his Subjects, or himselfe alone, pretend there was no such breach, there is in this case, no Judge to decide the controversie: it returns therefore to the Sword again; and every man recovereth the right of Protecting himselfe by his own strength, contrary to the designe they had in the Institution. It is therefore in vain to grant Soveraignty by way of precedent Covenant. The opinion that any Monarch receiveth his Power by Covenant, that is to say on Condition, proceedeth from want of understanding this easie truth, that Covenants being but words, and breath, have no force to oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what it has from the publique Sword; that is, from the untyed hands of that Man, or Assembly of men that hath the Soveraignty, and whose actions are avouched by them all, and performed by the strength of them all, in him united. But when an Assembly of men is made Soveraigne; then no man imagineth any such Covenant to have past in the Institution; for no man is so dull as to say, for example, the People of Rome, made a Covenant with the Romans, to hold the Soveraignty on such or such conditions; which not performed, the Romans might lawfully depose the Roman People. That men see not the reason to be alike in a Monarchy, and in a Popular Government, proceedeth from the ambition of some, that are kinder to the government of an Assembly, whereof they may hope to participate, than of Monarchy, which they despair to enjoy.

 

3. No Man Can Without Injustice Protest Against The Institution Of The Soveraigne Declared By The Major Part. Thirdly, because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a Soveraigne; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the Congregation of them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will (and therefore tacitely covenanted) to stand to what the major part should ordayne: and therefore if he refuse to stand thereto, or make Protestation against any of their Decrees, he does contrary to his Covenant, and therfore unjustly. And whether he be of the Congregation, or not; and whether his consent be asked, or not, he must either submit to their decrees, or be left in the condition of warre he was in before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by any man whatsoever.

4. The Soveraigns Actions Cannot Be Justly Accused By The Subject Fourthly, because every Subject is by this Institution Author of all the Actions, and Judgements of the Soveraigne Instituted; it followes, that whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his Subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of Injustice. For he that doth any thing by authority from another, doth therein no injury to him by whose authority he acteth: But by this Institution of a Common-wealth, every particular man is Author of all the Soveraigne doth; and consequently he that complaineth of injury from his Soveraigne, complaineth of that whereof he himselfe is Author; and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himselfe; no nor himselfe of injury; because to do injury to ones selfe, is impossible. It is true that they that have Soveraigne power, may commit Iniquity; but not Injustice, or Injury in the proper signification.

 

5.What Soever The Soveraigne Doth, Is Unpunishable By The Subject Fiftly, and consequently to that which was sayd last, no man that hath Soveraigne power can justly be put to death, or otherwise in any manner by his Subjects punished. For seeing every Subject is author of the actions of his Soveraigne; he punisheth another, for the actions committed by himselfe.

 

6. The Soveraigne Is Judge Of What Is Necessary For The Peace And Defence Of His Subjects And because the End of this Institution, is the Peace and Defence of them all; and whosoever has right to the End, has right to the Means; it belongeth of Right, to whatsoever Man, or Assembly that hath the Soveraignty, to be Judge both of the meanes of Peace and Defence; and also of the hindrances, and disturbances of the same; and to do whatsoever he shall think necessary to be done, both beforehand, for the preserving of Peace and Security, by prevention of discord at home and Hostility from abroad; and, when Peace and Security are lost, for the recovery of the same. And therefore,

And Judge Of What Doctrines Are Fit To Be Taught Them Sixtly, it is annexed to the Soveraignty, to be Judge of what Opinions and Doctrines are averse, and what conducing to Peace; and consequently, on what occasions, how farre, and what, men are to be trusted withall, in speaking to Multitudes of people; and who shall examine the Doctrines of all bookes before they be published. For the Actions of men proceed from their Opinions; and in the wel governing of Opinions, consisteth the well governing of mens Actions, in order to their Peace, and Concord. And though in matter of Doctrine, nothing ought to be regarded but the Truth; yet this is not repugnant to regulating of the same by Peace. For Doctrine Repugnant to Peace, can no more be True, than Peace and Concord can be against the Law of Nature. It is true, that in a Common-wealth, where by the negligence, or unskilfullnesse of Governours, and Teachers, false Doctrines are by time generally received; the contrary Truths may be generally offensive; Yet the most sudden, and rough busling in of a new Truth, that can be, does never breake the Peace, but onely somtimes awake the Warre. For those men that are so remissely governed, that they dare take up Armes, to defend, or introduce an Opinion, are still in Warre; and their condition not Peace, but only a Cessation of Armes for feare of one another; and they live as it were, in the procincts of battaile continually. It belongeth therefore to him that hath the Soveraign Power, to be Judge, or constitute all Judges of Opinions and Doctrines, as a thing necessary to Peace, thereby to prevent Discord and Civill Warre.

 

 

7. The Right Of Making Rules, Whereby The Subject May Every Man Know What Is So His Owne, As No Other Subject Can Without Injustice Take It From Him Seventhly, is annexed to the Soveraigntie, the whole power of prescribing the Rules, whereby every man may know, what Goods he may enjoy and what Actions he may doe, without being molested by any of his fellow Subjects: And this is it men Call Propriety. For before constitution of Soveraign Power (as hath already been shewn) all men had right to all things; which necessarily causeth Warre: and therefore this Proprietie, being necessary to Peace, and depending on Soveraign Power, is the Act of the Power, in order to the publique peace. These Rules of Propriety (or Meum and Tuum) and of Good, Evill, Lawfull and Unlawfull in the actions of subjects, are the Civill Lawes, that is to say, the lawes of each Commonwealth in particular; though the name of Civill Law be now restrained to the antient Civill Lawes of the City of Rome; which being the head of a great part of the World, her Lawes at that time were in these parts the Civill Law.

 

 

8. To Him Also Belongeth The Right Of All Judicature And Decision Of Controversies: Eightly, is annexed to the Soveraigntie, the Right of Judicature; that is to say, of hearing and deciding all Controversies, which may arise concerning Law, either Civill, or naturall, or concerning Fact. For without the decision of Controversies, there is no protection of one Subject, against the injuries of another; the Lawes concerning Meum and Tuum are in vaine; and to every man remaineth, from the naturall and necessary appetite of his own conservation, the right of protecting himselfe by his private strength, which is the condition of Warre; and contrary to the end for which every Common-wealth is instituted.

9. And Of Making War, And Peace, As He Shall Think Best: Ninthly, is annexed to the Soveraignty, the Right of making Warre, and Peace with other Nations, and Common-wealths; that is to say, of Judging when it is for the publique good, and how great forces are to be assembled, armed, and payd for that end; and to levy mony upon the Subjects, to defray the expenses thereof. For the Power by which the people are to be defended, consisteth in their Armies; and the strength of an Army, in the union of their strength under one Command; which Command the Soveraign Instituted, therefore hath; because the command of the Militia, without other Institution, maketh him that hath it Soveraign. And therefore whosoever is made Generall of an Army, he that hath the Soveraign Power is alwayes Generallissimo.

10. And Of Choosing All Counsellours, And Ministers, Both Of Peace, And Warre: Tenthly, is annexed to the Soveraignty, the choosing of all Councellours, Ministers, Magistrates, and Officers, both in peace, and War. For seeing the Soveraign is charged with the End, which is the common Peace and Defence; he is understood to have Power to use such Means, as he shall think most fit for his discharge.

11. And Of Rewarding, And Punishing, And That (Where No Former Law hath Determined The Measure Of It) Arbitrary: Eleventhly, to the Soveraign is committed the Power of Rewarding with riches, or honour; and of Punishing with corporall, or pecuniary punishment, or with ignominy every Subject according to the Lawe he hath formerly made; or if there be no Law made, according as he shall judge most to conduce to the encouraging of men to serve the Common-wealth, or deterring of them from doing dis-service to the same.

12. And Of Honour And Order Lastly, considering what values men are naturally apt to set upon themselves; what respect they look for from others; and how little they value other men; from whence continually arise amongst them, Emulation, Quarrells, Factions, and at last Warre, to the destroying of one another, and diminution of their strength against a Common Enemy; It is necessary that there be Lawes of Honour, and a publique rate of the worth of such men as have deserved, or are able to deserve well of the Common-wealth; and that there be force in the hands of some or other, to put those Lawes in execution. But it hath already been shown, that not onely the whole Militia, or forces of the Common-wealth; but also the Judicature of all Controversies, is annexed to the Soveraignty. To the Soveraign therefore it belongeth also to give titles of Honour; and to appoint what Order of place, and dignity, each man shall hold; and what signes of respect, in publique or private meetings, they shall give to one another.

Interesting statements by Rush Limbaugh as reported by Think Progress. Basically Limbaugh is pointing out that kids have a way of making fun. And it is not unheard of for teenagers to participate in a little gay bashing or perhaps find it funny to “lead on” someone over a chat room session. I didn’t think I would ever find myself saying this, but Rush kind of sorta has a point.

However, that does not excuse Foley and more importantly does not erase the fact that the Speaker of the House tried to cover things up in hopes that the issue would go away. Democrats and those on the left should be careful to not let self righteous indignation get in the way and cloud our message. It is a battle of talking points and the Republicans are scrambling to try and spin this anyway that they can that muddies the issue. And by “issue” I mean that it is the cover up stupid. That is the point and the main impetus behind the firestorm. Not to mention that the right has so cynically gay bashed, and spewed political hate that this scandal is all the more delicious because of the hypocrisy.

Far be it for me to defend predatory pedophilia and sexual harrassment in congress. However, I will point out that pederasty was an accepted practice in ancient Greece. One only has to read Plato’s Symposium and look at the relationship between Socrates and Alciabides to understand pederastic practices in ancient Greece.

Foley has shamed himself and his party. His political career is over. The real culprit is Hastert and the other enablers in congress who were willing to say or do anything to preserve power and cover up a troubling episode to save face. The sex talk and chat messages between Foley and his pages are profoundly boring. But what is fascinating to us is that the Republican leadership will go to any ends to lie and cover up any incident that might present egg on their face. The attitude of power at any cost is the real threat to our democracy because it begs the question of what other nefarious deeds and arrangements have so corrupted the congress that they feel emboldened to lie and obfuscate without end.

It is the coverup stupid.

Put that in your talking points memo and smoke it.

For me one of the strongest features of the Christian religious tradition is it persistent ex post facto sense of justice. It may be justice delayed but in God’s hands lies the arbitration of human affairs. There is a strong appeal in this especially to those that have not seen much justice in their life or the present. Sometimes one has nothing left but the hope that those who have wronged you will get their due in the end.

Johnny Cash’s last album before his death American V: A Hundred Highways has an excellent and forceful track that illustrates this principle called “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”. This song’s performance delivers in a spiritual mode that is at the heart of this notion of justice. There is a resignation of the present and the things that have happened in the past but also an insistance that the future is full of change. Sooner or later everything comes to light.

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down

I know that this is not an unproblematic notion of justice but it is something that many find strength in especially during moments that are exceedingly dark. It is where optimism springs from. Even if you don’t believe in a God in the sky meting out divine justice. There is power in this faith in Justice. It can give you resolve not to cave into those that assault you and yours. The fight to move forward is supported by an unseen force that will bring things into the light and make them clear again. This can bring strength when you think you have nohing left to work with. The key here though is the fight to move forward. A simple resignation of everything and placing all the hope in an unseen force and doing nothing to remedy your circumstances creates a problem. This is the negativity in Christianity. If you give up everything and wait on your savior he may not come in the time frame that you desire. This, in turn, creates pain, frustration and a spirit of resentment. Or what Friedrich Nietzsche famously termed Ressentiment.

Now a political point. When I listen to song like this I can’t but think about our current president. Bush, God’s gonna cut you down. You can run on for a long time but the end game is not yours to make. You will be resigned to the trash bin of history as one of the worst American presidents. Your legacy will quickly be eclipsed and the destructive cabal of neocons that you surround yourself with will find their time coming to an end.

I have no worries that justice will be found. But those who find themselves with seething hatred of Bush should be careful. One doesn’t want to fall into the despair and the Ressentiment that Nietzsche warns us about. There is effort required, we must fight and work, and struggle. But justice is there to be claimed. People like Bush and his ilk who shroud themselves in secrecy, lies will be exposed. They may run on for a long time but sooner or later God will cut them down if history doesn’t do it first.

I recently purchased 10,000 Maniacs Campfire Songs. A collection of greatest hits and a wonderful album of obscure and unknown recordings. On the second cd there is an absolutely beautiful cover of the wonderfully sweet Iris Dement tune “Let the Mystery Be”. This cover features Natalie Merchant and David Byrne in an uplifting duet. This song reminds me just how great the 10,000 Maniacs was. The voices, the arrangement, words just don’t do it justice. I really enjoy the earnestness in Byrne’s voice on this live track. This track alone makes the album worth the purchase but there are also some other hidden gems including a cover of David Bowie’s Starman.

Every so often I will come across a song that I just need to replay over and over again. Sometimes it is because the song puts me in a happy mood, other times a deep contemplative mood. When I first listened to Ani Difranco’s “You Had Time” I literally listened to that song non stop for three days and nothing else. Let the Mystery Be, is another one of these kind of songs. As soon as I heard it I can’t stop listening to it. The song puts me in a great mood and I love the humility of the lyrics. There is some real honesty in this song.

Everybody’s wondering what and where they all came from
Everybody’s worrying ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
Nobody knows for certain,
And so it’s all the same to me
I think i’ll just let the mystery be

Some say once gone, you’re gone forever
Some say you’re gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of the savior
If in sinful ways you lack
Some say that they’re comin’ back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think i’ll just let the mystery be

Some say they’re going to place called glory
And i ain’t sayin’ it ain’t a fact
But i’ve heard that i’m on the road to purgatory
And i don’t like the sound of that
I believe in love and i live my life accordingly
But i choose to let the mystery be

The point is very simple, it is about respecting the mysteries of life and death. You have to get on with the process of living and respect the mystery for the power of its mystery. It seems that so many people are way too eager to act on absolute certainty of the future and the hereafter. I just don’t get it I suppose. For me this notion of “letting the mystery be” seems like the only legitimate kind of religious response to the wonderful mystery of life and death. It appalls me how some people seem to revel in their apocalyptic visions of the future. Take the current war between Israel and Hezbollah. Numerous fundamentalist Christian pundits appear to be beside themselves with enthusiasm and absolutely certain that this is all a real sign of the end times. The eagerness to greet the apocalypse baffles me. Even CNN had coverage seriously entertaining the question does the war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah validate the apocalypse of revelations? This will to prohpecy has never settled well with me. Likewise the empiricist in me has never been satisfied by those that are certain about the nothingness of death. I tend to accept this nothingness as the reality but I would never feign certainty in the idea of nothingness after death. Death really is a mystery that we can’t have knowledge of. The only way you can evaluate these theories of death is in their consequences for the present. If your view of death compells you to negate the present and the future then it strikes me that the theory is not worthwhile and likely dangerously maladaptive. If you believe in some grand destruction of the planet with a post apocalyptic vision of redemption then you are lead to an eagerness to hasten the end. Consequentially, environmental or human destruction logically become inconsequential in the process. The consequence of this kind of thinking is a subversion of the present for the future. Death=redemption becomes ascendent over life=preservation. I don’t prentend to know what lies in the great beyond but I am not willing to destroy life in a haste to find out. We would be lucky if more people could just let the mystery be. I find peace in the resignation to mystery as mystery, and so this song puts me in an elated mood.

Wikipedia has a great illustration of orders of magnitude. All these little facts and numbers, it humbles and puts things in perspective at the same time. And we could all use perspective from time to time.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason

A lot is being made of Stephen Colbert’s recent performance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Links on You Tube:

Colbert Roasts Bush Part 1

Colbert Roasts Bush Part 2

Colbert Roasts Bush Part 3

There is a lot of enthusiasm about his peformance. Many are hailing it for the courageous and scathing commentary he provided right in front of Bush. I certainly found it humorous and full of wit and irony. It was a compelling piece of satire. But I think the enthusiasm is a little overblown in my opinion. I think there is a danger here of the administration incorporating criticism and diffusing it by appropriation. This is and has been a consistent pattern through out the Bush administration’s tenure. They can glibbly acknowledge all the criticism but simultaneously supress and ignore it through a clever propaganda technique of affect. We must remember that we live in a highly advanced marketing culture. This is not to say that marketing itself is evil or bad, just highly affective and sophisticated.

It is fine to enjoy the performance of Colbert but we must also ask ourselves is it really effective dissent? I regularly watch the Colbert Report but I always get an uneasy feeling with the mode of comedic irony as he deploys it in the show. It achieves a profound level of subtlety through its heigthened and obvious mimicry of the O’Reilly Factor. But sometimes I get the feeling something is lost in translation. I think I know Colbert’s point of view but is he really saying what I think he is saying? For me the best and most revealing moments of the show are when he interviews his guests. You never quite know what is going to happen. You often have right wing guests who find themselves in complete agreement with Colbert’s absurd utterances, and then there is the often bewildered liberal who doesn’t quite know what to make of the interview. The liberal is often left with one of two responses: just remain silent and dumbfounded by what is coming from Colbert’s mouth or else try to stick to the script of their talking points and continue on making their points regardless of what Colbert asserts. Jesse Jackson was a great example of this latter approach. But sadly the effect is really not substantively different than what you get on the normal talk shows like O’Reilly or Hannity. The liberal guest appears weak and inaffectual and the right winger appears utterly sympathetic within the context of the show. I don’t want to make presumptions about the basic intelligence of the average TV viewer or voter, and that is not my pupose here. It is not a question of dumbing down but rather the functioning of a higher order propaganda model that works on the level of affect to borrow a term from Deleuze.

In fact there is a great discussion of this phenomenon over at K-Punk vis-a-vis Ronald Reagan. Brian Massumi makes an interesting comment about Reagan’s style as The Great Communicator:

[W]hat is astonishing is that Reagan wasn’t laughed and jeered off the campaign podium, and was swept into office, not once but twice. It wasn’t that people didn’t hear his verbal fumbling or recognize the incoherence of his thoughts. They were the butt of constant jokes and news stories. And it wasn’t that what they lacked on the the level of verbal coherence was glossed over by the seductive fluency of his body image. Reagan was more famous for his polyps than his poise, and there was a collective fascination with his faltering health and regular shedding of bits and pieces of himself. The only conclusion is that Reagan was an effective leader not in spite of but because of his double dysfunction. He was able to produce ideological effects by non-ideological means, a global shift in the political direction of the United States by falling apart. His means were affective.

And then there is this analysis of the ultimate failure of a dadaist protest flyer passed out at the 1980 GOP convention titled Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan:

What does this neo-Dadaist act of would-be subversion tell us? In one sense, it has to be hailed as the perfect act of subversion. But, viewed another way, it shows that subversion is impossible now. The fate of a whole tradition of ludic intervention - passing from the Dadaists into the Surrealists and the Situationists - seems to hang in the balance. Where once the Dadaists and their inheritors could dream of invading the stage, disrupting what Burroughs - still very obviously a part of this heritage - calls the “reality studio” with logic bombs, now there is no stage - no scene, Baudrillard would say - to invade. For two reasons: first, because the frontier zones of hypercapital do not try to repress so much as absorb the irrational and the illogical, and, second, because the distinction between stage and offstage has been superceded by a coolly inclusive loop of fiction: Reagan’s career outstrips any attempt to ludically lampoon it, and demonstrates the increasingly pliability of the boundaries between the real and its simulations. For Baudrillard, the very attacks on “reality” mounted by groups such as the Surrealists function to keep the real alive (by providing it with a fabulous, dream world, ostensibly entirely alternative to but in effect dialectically complicit with the everyday world of the real).

Both of these analyses of Reagan on the K-Punk site illustrate what I would call an absorption principle of criticism. There is no outside from which to criticize only an interplay of internal affects. Everything is already known about the administration so nothing new is added as a disruption. Criticism does not assume the force of disruption. Of course this presumes that the possibility of disruption even exists. This method of deflection has been quite effectively deployed for propagandistic effect. I do not doubt that Stephen Colbert is sincere in his satire but I also doubt that it is mere accident either that he was selected for this role. Seems like a logical choice. Down in the polls, with an administration slowly losing control before midterm elections how do they fight back. The only form of mass media criticism seems to come from comedy central and the daily show and colbert report. The logical solution is to incorporate these forces make them familiar to the administration. On the one hand this invites stinging criticism but it also limits it placing it within a context. I have no insight or knowledge that this is an an explicit strategy for PR effect but it seems to me to follow a pattern that the right wing has effectively deployed in the past.

Bush has received lots of criticism for the way he talks. Bush in an quite effective way entirely diffused the criticisms by embracing the persona that is criticized. Geoffrey Nunberg makes a great analysis of this trend in his book Going Nucular: Language Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times. In it he makes this observation about Bush:

No president has taken more flak over his language than George W. Bush–not Eisenhower, not even Harding. That’s understandable enough; Bush’s malaprops can make him sound like someone who learned the language over a bad cell-phone connection. “My education message will resignate among all parents”; “A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an economic illnes.”

The columnists and late-night talk-show monologists usually take those errors as the occasions for mirth, rather than concern, the linguistic equivalents of Gerald Ford’s pratfalls. (p. 60)

Should it be any surprise that Bush has taken this seeming flaw and made it a strength? Reagan seemed to deploy it for great affect, Bush is perhaps just following in the model with a little more zeal. The question that Nunberg asks is what does it reveal about the president? Does he know better or is it cynically employed rhetorically? Is it a mere typo or a “thinko”?

There are two kinds of missteps, the typos and the thinkos. Typos are the processing glitches that intercede between a thought and its expression. They can make you look foolish, but they aren’t really the signs of an intellectual or ethical deficiency, the way thinkos are. It’s the difference between a sentence that expresses an idea badly and a sentence that expresses a bad idea. (p. 59)

Returning to Colbert. With Colbert’s performance we see the satire elevated to a higher order with a more thorough mimesis. Colbert’s show is unlike the regular tendency of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show where the specific misteps and typos/thinkos are ruthlessly recounted and remixed for comedic effect. Colbert takes it to the next logical level and plays it straight. The irony is not encapsulated in a single utterance but the entire performance assumes uncritically the manner and ideological tone of the right wing. It suceeds by pushing the discourse to logical extremes while being careful to not stray from format parameters. The only distinction between Colbert and his object of satire Bill O’Reilly is the outlandishness and bravado of Colbert’s delivery. Just like the relationship between a drag queen and a woman, where the queen is more feminine than the female, Colbert is more O’Reilly than O’Reilly himself. Colbert creates a new hybridization subjectivity. This subjectivity congeals on the level of affect. Deleuze’s concept of affect can be defined as follows:

AFFECT/AFFECTION. Neither word denotes a personal feeling (sentiment in Deleuze and Guattari). L’affect (Spinoza’s affectus) is an ability to affect and be affected. It is a prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body’s capacity to act. L’affection (Spinoza’s affectio) is each such state considered as an encounter betweeen the affected body and a second, affecting, body (with body taken in its broadest possible sense to include “mental” or ideal bodies). (Thousand Plateaus xvi)

Colbert’s satirical routine might be considered an affection encapsulated in a simulation. The subjectivity and body is of the right wing ideologue. The encounter is between the ideology and its satire. The result is a new thing not quite satire not quite right wing mantra. I am uncertain of the outcome of this hybrid. On the one hand I read Colberts performance as hysterically funny because it gives body to everything that is perfectly obvious in the right wing point of view. But on the other hand I am uncertain of its consequence. The delivery is so subtle that the participants can rarely figure out what is going on. Is the presidential power merely allowing or more sinisterly incorporating the criticism? Perhaps this is the perfect kind of theater for our age. It reveals everything but changes nothing. This it certainly seems is a common trend in the Bush spin machine. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is the lesson the administration has seemed to learn with respect to manipulating the public. On the face of it the Colbert court jester performance in the presence of the president doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. The only thing novel about it is the physical proximity of the performance to the body of the president. Colbert alludes to Rocky boxing metaphors almost as if he is half expecting the president to jump up and punch him personally for being so forth right in his “truthiness”. But it seems like there can be a deception if we become too comfortable with this state of affairs. The propaganda doesn’t work on an intellectual level but rather on an affective level. It is reinforced by what it incorporates. There is no novelty in the dissent. Everyone already knows and continues the game comfortable that nothing changed in the process. In some sense nothing more can be said because it has already been said. And even if the rhetoric obtains to absurb levels it is still perfectly bounded because it conforms to a mode that cannot be disrupted ideologically or even physically.