The sun flecks on a table,
clouds in heavens,
and blue eyes left behind,
are waiting for words, silences to come.
The wind moves hair, leaves, voices,
quenches souls’ thirst
and dies inked on bible paper.

Short note on David Brooks’ editorial column of today’s *NYT* on the superficiality of empathy, which he is willing, the great expert that he is, to explain by the presence of mirror neurons in our brains. Diafoirus in Molière’s *Le malade imaginaire* didn’t know yet about these *neuronii specularii*. How convenient for Brooks that empathy doesn’t work too well, because it is apparently dropping, according to this U of Michigan study. That drop kind of shocked the moralist in Brooks, apparently, as he told us in his previous paper. He recovered in a couple days and saw a way he could cut his losses. Since empathy doesn’t really trigger behavioral changes, Brooks calls for a return to moral codes. The equivalent of abandoning leveraging and going back to old fashioned pay as you go. Here is his conclusion:
>The code isn’t just a set of rules. It’s a source of identity. It’s pursued with joy. It arouses the strongest emotions and attachments. Empathy is a sideshow. If you want to make the world a better place, help people debate, understand, reform, revere and enact their codes. Accept that codes conflict.

Ah, the joys of modern kantism without Kant. I am not too surprised to see Brooks defending codes (he mentions religious, military, social or philosophic codes), although I don’t understand how this call of his fits with the capitalism he systematically defends. Modern capitalism really doesn’t want any of those annoying, restrictive codes and positively needs to see them destroyed, though it keeps exploiting (for a while longer at least) the beliefs of those who still go by them.

There are people who have little choice but to live by very demanding moral codes. An example of the power of such codes can be found in an article in *Le Monde Diplomatique* of September 2011 which describes the shameless exploitation of women from the Philippines (among others) by rich households the world over. The article focusses on Hong Kong. The Filipino foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong are paid the equivalent of about 500 euros per month + whatever is necessary to have them doing the service on the spot (little room, etc.), work 6/7 days, shouldn’t count their hours of course (10, 12 a day?), must make their employers happy at all times, etc… Many of those workers live by very conservative codes, Christian often. Salt of the earth. No empathy on the part of their employers, or only of the fake kind, according to the article. Capitalism apparently needs to exploit them to the fullest, including their sense of moral values, but also needs them to be voracious consumers of goods, because the economic machinery must continue and grow.

What does Brooks recommend in their case? To stick to their moral codes?

All local stations this morning, whether broadcasting BBC, NPR, or other programs, were in memory mode. I shut the radio off after a couple of minutes, for the same reason I shut off the television ten years ago when I realized I was looking at people jumping off the WTC buildings. Time enough to hear a line or two of the psalm Obama read and recognize Psalm 46. This is the psalm in which one of the translators or arrangers of the 1610 King James Version placed the words “shake” and “spear” respectively 46 words down from the beginning and 46 words from the end (not counting the concluding *sela*), presumably to honor Shakespeare’s 46th birthday in 1611. A mundane thing to do to a sacred text, yet not so different from what the Hebrew poet (or arranger) did in the same Psalm when making sure the words Elohim and Yahweh were used respectively 7 and 3 times. It is understandable the 1610 translator would be fascinated by such an artificial arrangement of three stanzas and a refrain that appears only after stanzas 2 and 3, and carry it a little further.

I don’t find this particular psalm very comforting or helpful. The reason for the impression is not simply that it uses a little rhetorical gadgetry. To say that: “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge” (NRSV translation) is a fine incantation. It may help those who suffer real losses. But the others? When the powers that be use this incantatory language, what is it for? I still remember Billy Graham a few days after the attack on the towers, in Washington’s cathedral, calling for moral rearmament, struggle against Satan, evil…. exactly the same discourse Mollah Omar was giving to the Pashtun population at about the same time.

There is hope. Perhaps Wall Street will stop selling and trading labor Monday. Perhaps radio and television stations will go real quiet.

July 01, 2011, I was lucky to see the Manet exhibit at the musée d’Orsay. I waited a long time outside, after a long walk along les quais de la Seine, while reading *Le Monde Diplomatique* on the architecture and social dynamics of the modern city. Mobile city where the powerful make the world move around themselves: RER trains for instance, or a fireman yesterday going far (2 hours +) to his appointment with top officers and administrators of the region for a boost to his retirement (not granted), versus the French president not wanting windows on his presidential plane or Paris looking like the museum of our being, our expensive tax-gobbling center for desultory luxury lovers à la *Midnight in Paris*.

A few notes on Manet. *Les courses à Longchamp*, 1866: I re-imagine or remember that the emerald trees or the images on the horizon explode in a gallop that engulfs me. The horses, whipped to the point of folly, scatter around the spectator. The world hurled at me. *Clair de lune sur le port de Boulogne*, 1869: a group of women waits for men in the night. The little orange spots sprinkled at half-frame (flames), the blinding whiteness in the harbor, it’s for them, it’s them. *La rue Mosnier aux drapeaux*, 1878: a one-legged man—war wound?—his back to the spectator, walks alone on the shady side of a long, flag-decorated street, a sort of canyon where the national, republican procession has aroused everyone. Light colors however, not an obvious political commentary.

Outside the exhibit: what Manet had begun to dare, Van Gogh completes. *L’arlésienne* of 1888, detached on yellow, not on a hole in the sky, sitting on a chair of matter, with her near-green face. *La méridienne*, its burning vault, the sickles properly put away behind, it is not Boaz and Ruth. Everything is burning in this painting. Must one have done the harvest oneself with sickle or scythe, and have read the book of Ruth, to feel it?

Two days ago, NPR broadcast an interview on an “apostolic” or “dominionist” movement that is seeking not simply to influence all spheres of human activity but infiltrate, conquer, and control them with the supposed goal of putting them back under complete divine guidance. The divinity has entrusted the world to humanity (see Genesis 1.28) but clearly must be helped, because it has been either too busy or remote to notice the entropy in the administration of terrestrial affairs (neglect?), or unable to counteract the power grab by Satan and his demonic underlings (so, a weak and improvident or even reckless divinity?). And now, time is pressing, the coming of the millenium is to be helped, even accelerated, there is a second coming of Christ around the corner, either at the beginning of the millenium of peace, or at its completion. Strange, contradictory theories that look like a composite of pieces from ancient gnosticism (the world a prison controlled by demonic powers) and Christian millenarism.

Modern politics, business, education, arts, media, even religion, are marked by a rationalism and especially a tolerance that Satan uses to its own ends, world conquest. Satan has taken over: abortion and gay rights, evolution… They must be taken back, even through violence or trickery, and be under divine dominion. As if this hadn’t been done by the Catholic Church for centuries. No matter: they were papists, also under Satan’s yoke. Thin excuse for the likes of Perry or Bachman, together with business-savvy church leaders, to bamboozle people all too happy to relinquish control of their affairs and not examine the more complex reasons for our economic and political problems.

Note that the moral issues raised by the Christian right cost little to public finances. Very convenient for politicians.

1. While reading and thinking about imaginary kings (the title of a book by Hekster and Fowler about royal images in the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome), I had these few reactions to the recent droolings by our US political apparitchiks. My first movement was of great anger at an impotent and supercilious White House or Obama. I take the recent discussions, decisions, and their effects on Wall Street to be a further phase or pause in the inexorable weakening of the nation-state. The arrangement voted on by the house and the senate this past week decides or pretends to decide that
1. we allow ourselves to create enough money for a while so we don’t have the debt ceiling framed as a defining topic before the 2012 presidential elections; a side aspect is that the country can continue to borrow at low interest rates. These have been kept artificially low until now, but the enabling forces seem to be dispersing. Among these enabling aspects, I see the deeply unjust and unbalanced notion of the dollar as single reserve currency, our military support of it by dint of huge investments and presence that no one dares confront, the logic of foreign investing looking for “safe” placements, etc…
2. there will be cuts in budget expenses, meaning entitlements and military outlays, including a 4% cut in medicare and ca. 300 billion in military expenses, but no cut in Social Security (or in federal pensions). These cuts promise to be impossible to enact in practice. For instance, I can’t believe that doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies, which are supposed to bear the brunt of this 4% cut, are going to sit quiet. They and others (insurance companies) seem to have gotten their way in 2009 in the debate on reforming our health agencies. As for the 300b reduction in the military, what part of the pork barrel would that be?
3. there will be no change in tax structure, i.e. no touching the enormous tax decreases temporarily enacted by Bush II. No “revenue enhancement.” That is a massive capitulation on the part of the government (or is it? good friends might persuade themselves that some retreats are good policy). This is not a victory of rational thinking, but chaos.
4. since the problem is not taken care of for the long term (in which we are all dead), yet another congress super commission is being created. Its task is to meet urgently and discuss how and where to find at least 1,200 billion dollars more “savings”, up to 1,500b, with its homework due by November of this year. By further “entitlement” cuts and “revenue enhancement”? If no agreement is found by this December, there will be “automatic” cuts of at least 1,200 billion in federal expenses.

2. So Obama and the whole executive caved in, following a long-established Democratic pattern. There was the national health fiasco, but this was only one of many decisions going the way of financial institutions’ interests. As it turns out, not their best interests, qua institutions. All of these concessions make me question why I should vote for Obama in 2012. How different has he been from Republicans and most Democrats on the following three issues: 1) decreased or regressive taxation since at least the seventies, 2) need to rethink defense and war (with extremely costly wars in the past decade generating negative foreign policy results—no more walking softly and carrying a big stick, doesn’t work anymore), and 3) massive bailouts of dysfunctional banking and insurance system since 2008? Where has he been on these issues which are also main causes for the ballooning deficit. I say “also” because the increased cost of social expenditures does have to be considered, though only as part of the larger political structure, certainly not alone and even worse as the main problem, as the whole political class does now. For what purpose should one re-elect this President? To focus on more cuts to so-called “entitlements?” With much credit to his name as a bona fide “Democrat” who is young, intelligent, compassionate, emblematic of this complex, multi-ethnic nation, wouldn’t he be in a singularly powerful position to deliver such cuts? Do I believe that for a period of a year and a half or so after November 2012, he would and could somewhat correct the course? To see what he hasn’t done so far (or very late and half-heartedly regarding our military adventures in Irak and Afghanistan), and now to see him accepting to have a budget commission augurs badly of the future. The possibilities were there, as can be seen in the right calls the White House finally began to make in regard to the “Arab spring”. But now? And yet, I see Obama like another self too: vulnerable, searching, bewildered, perhaps frightened, surely mindful of the immense power of his office. No matter, here are a few more questions:
1. What is the main reason that Republicans and especially its numerous extreme right-wingers want to balance the budget? It seems obvious that it is to shrink certain functions of government instead of seeking an equilibrium in which the government would have more latitude in its capacity to help and sustain hard-pressed people. They want to avoid all discussion of what might be the proper level of public funds commitment in a modern economy. If the state is unable to invest into social structures and support, while private capital is waiting on the sidelines, where are we going?
2. Government shrinking is also destabilizing. It was done by Bush II in the grand desultory manner, both in tax issues and foreign policy. This destabilizing and weakening is bound to increase the government’s already patent inability to control the negative effects of financial speculation. The absence of regulation and control in turn will lead to more financial weakening of the state and the increase of its borrowing costs. This weakening increases risks which trigger higher costs, further impacting manœuverability, and especially the ability to rescue the financial structures at the next “event,” since this intervention has already been factored in (or at least I think so).
3. Effects on foreign policy? I would think a retreat in major theaters is in order, including Afghanistan and Iraq (and already happening). Without obvious gains by the major other players: China, India, Brazil, or Europe. Footnote: Iran should gain from the retreat, but the US are lucky that the “Arab spring” is happening just now and complicates Teheran’s moves. The retreat would include the impossibility to maintain means of military influence at their present level (Navy, space research). More importantly, even if other powers don’t move for a while, it has serious negative effects. It becomes especially impossible, or seriously difficult, to bring world actors together and cooperate on anything. In this regard, the feeling the US are diminished or at risk financially and militarily is waiting to play itself out. The interest of major emergent economies and states, as is that of the US, is to protect themselves and not cooperate on financial or military issues (not to mention climate, land and sea resources, energy, etc.). I take it that the main reason is that the level of their debt in regard to GDP is much lower than that of the US (about to rise to something between 75 and 100% of GDP) or Europe (higher ratios). The other reason being their own sizable chunks of US/Europe debt.
4. If we are contemplating an “inexorable” weakening of nation-states, including the US, so what? Isn’t that what liberation movements of all kinds have meant since the 20th c.? Freedom from our common enemy, the nation-state? Without it, will we see new forms of social regrouping around “national issues?” For instance, what happens if the cost of borrowing sees a dramatic, uncontrollable increase?

Many present and past graduate students of the History of Consciousness program met over the weekend last week. They celebrated Donna Haraway’s retirement, the end of the year, and the unusual intellectual and political enterprise that goes under this beautiful name, history of consciousness.

I am thinking about History of Consciousness with Taubes, i.e. at the borders, or from the borders (*From cult to culture. Fragments toward a critique of historical reason,* Stanford, 2010). Dissolving borders. HoC was long a non-program (NOBrown: “There is no history of consciousness” in a letter to CF, if I remember correctly). Last week, we were asked, or we asked each other, a couple of seemingly simple questions: what brought you to HoC? i.e. a question on the existential ground of the individual which became a question on the Zeitgeist. What brought me? Circumstances? But the Hegelian Geist, I recognize, was hiding behind a going to Israel, meeting someone, following that person to the US, thankfully to a place with an ocean west of oneself rather than east, then come to UCSC. From my perspective just a place like any other, where you put your sack down. Not this anecdotally countercultural place that some thought it was. There was also a longer history: a sense of place (Brittany, the mad Celtic fringe) and time (the Augustinian map), language(s), of being beyond the old state-church conundrum, finding a *beruf*, call and service, early questions on the role of institutions, including the state and the church etc… Eventually my reactions to what was going on in Rennes university in 1969-71 and the political orientation of students there, leading to a secularized form of “churchyness” by going to Israel to learn Hebrew, after having been “dislocated” by two years in 1966-68 in East Jerusalem where I discovered the Palestinian question, political analysis, and reporting, through the likes of Eric Rouleau. HoC was no surprise, a natural lightness of being.

Second question: has HoC had an effect on your life (work) since? Historicizing question. HoC would have to exist as a weighty, institutional object to weigh on things and have an effect or effects, the stuff glory or re-puta-tion is made of. One hundred fifty graduates or so, some school presidents, writers, film makers, books, i.e. something inscribable and worthy of memorials. Of a theology too. Influences…. We are talking of a spiritual event à la Hegel or Taubes, a wind or breath, which you don’t know whence it comes and where it goes… I don’t want to name it. Memories? In my case, one is of Bateson drawing a squiggly line on the blackboard and asking us to describe it in a short writing exercise, or throwing a paper-wrapped crab on the table and asking us to reflect on life: how did we know that it had been alive?

No name. Hist Con artist as that crab today. Is there, was there a HoC? No, according to NOB, yes according to students, especially the more recent ones, involved in something like sociology of knowledge.

Last thing: part of the impulse for this memorializing was to react against any perception that the early period of the program (pre-1978?) had been something without being or spirit. It did have life, and then even more with HWhite, JClifford, DHaraway, FJameson for some time, TdeLauretis, ADavis, etc. Before 1978, it had been a student-directed collective at times, there were many conversations among students and faculty, some extraordinary seminars, and of course no expectation to have a career in academia or at least it was not the first line of thought.