Monday, January 7, 2013
Sunday, January 6, 2013
The Accursed Share
Thus according to Bataille's theory of consumption, the accursed share is that excessive and non-recuperable part of any economy which is destined to one of two modes of economic and social expenditure. This must either be spent luxuriously and knowingly without gain in the arts, in non-procreative sexuality, in spectacles and sumptuous monuments, or it is obliviously destined to an outrageous and catastrophic outpouring, in the contemporary age most often in war, or in former ages as destructive and ruinous acts of giving or sacrifice, but always in a manner that threatens the prevailing system.
The notion of "excess" energy is central to Bataille's thinking. Bataille's inquiry takes the superabundance of energy, beginning from the infinite outpouring of solar energy or the surpluses produced by life's basic chemical reactions, as the norm for organisms. In other words, an organism in Bataille's general economy, unlike the rational actors of classical economy who are motivated by scarcity, normally has an "excess" of energy available to it. This extra energy can be used productively for the organism's growth or it can be lavishly expended. Bataille insists that an organism's growth or expansion always runs up against limits and becomes impossible. The wasting of this energy is "luxury". The form and role luxury assumes in a society are characteristic of that society. "The accursed share" refers to this excess, destined for waste.
Crucial to the formulation of the theory was Bataille's reflection upon the phenomenon of potlatch. It is influenced by Marcel Mauss's The Gift, as well as by Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals.
Volume 1 introduces the theory and provides historical examples of the functioning of general economy: human sacrifice in Aztec society, the monastic institutions of Tibetan Lamaism, the Marshall Plan, and many others. Volumes 2 and 3 extend the argument to eroticism and sovereignty, respectively.
The book was first published by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1949, but was re-edited in 1967. It is collected in volume seven of Bataille's complete works.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
While on the subject
"Generally speaking, the misfit's story is easier to tell," Abrahamson says. "I've done it myself – twice. Richard is a good guy, but good guys are complex, too. I was thinking about those boys and the pressure they're under, their inability to deal with fractures in that perfect sphere of life. It's the kind of situation we all know, where we disappoint ourselves, and we have to deal with the disjunction between what we would like to be and what we are. I was interested in the narrative of how we nurture our elite in this society: all that stuff about believing in yourself and not accepting second best. Our inner world is at odds with that. What's fascinating about a boy of Richard's age is that he still believes his own bullshit. If you meet an adult who believes his own schtick to that extent, you're talking about someone like Simon Cowell – you know, a monster. But at 18 or 19, it's naively-held and it can be attractive."
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Was Einsteinian physics the Neo-Liberalism of Science?
'In fact, according to them, it is something worse. Modern physics as we understand it, as has been explained to the public by science-spokesmen like Kaku, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Brian Greene, is almost entirely a product of mathematical modeling which decades ago unmoored itself from any responsibility to make deductions based upon observed data coming from nature. And the universe they describe looks quite different from the universe with which we have come to be familiar.'
Saturday, December 29, 2012
COMEDY/ART
From an interview with Bishop;
cb: Ha! Well spotted. For me, BDSM and comedy provide two other frameworks for thinking about what bodies can say/do in space. There is a lot of moralistic discussion around contemporary art, but comedy also manages to say, very sharp, poignant, transgressive, politically acute things in a way that is highly pleasurable. And in a different way, the 'scenes' that people get into in BDSM are also (for them) highly pleasurable, even though they have no relationship to their actual desire to be dominated (for example) in daily life. Both are areas of experience that suspend the everyday, but also participate in it—they have the double ontology that I see as crucial to participatory art.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Justin Lin
Interesting backstory to this guy
"In 1976 Lin entered the MBA program at National Chengchi University in Taiwan on a defense scholarship and returned to the army upon receiving his MBA in 1978. As a captain in the Republic of China Army (ROC Army) in Taiwan, he defected to Mainland China on May 17, 1979, under the control of the Republic of China (Taiwan), to the nearby island of Xiamen of the People's Republic of China (Mainland China). Lin left his pregnant wife and his three-year-old child in Taiwan; a year after he defected, he was declared "missing" by the ROC Army and his wife claimed the equivalent of US$31,000 from the government.His wife and their children joined him years later when both of them went to study in the United States. While an officer in the ROC Army, Lin was held up as a model soldier; after his desertion, the ROC originally listed him as missing but in 2000 issued an order for his arrest on charges of desertion.
In a letter written to his family in Taiwan about a year after his defection, Lin stated that "based on my cultural, historical, political, economic and military understanding, it is my belief that returning to the motherland is a historical inevitability; it is also the optimal choice. A Taiwan University alumnus Hongsheng Zheng (鄭鴻生) confirmed Lin's reason and motive. Lin's oldest brother said it was unfair to brand his younger brother a traitor. "I don't understand why people regard him as a villain," he said. "My brother just wanted to pursue his ambitions"
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