Dog Days of Summer

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Sun Aug 13 19:27:34 PDT 2000


[clip]
>disappear is pretty close to a 'bad' infinity. The problem is that the
>objective resources to abolish capitalism do not exist. In the face of this
>overwhelming reality, the only responsible philosophy that we can practice
is
>dystopian. Hopefully I'm just naive or ignorant.
>
>ken
>

In his new book _The Idea of Culture_ Terry Eagleton doesn't sound very optimistic either. "... Ruling Powers do not plump for coercion if they can secure consensus; but as the gap between the rich and the poor of the world steadily widens, the prospect now looms for the coming millennium of a progressively bunkered, authoritarian capitalism, beleagured in a decaying social landscape by increasingly desperate enemies from within and without, finally abandoning all pretence of consensual government for a brutally forthright defence of privilege. There are many forces which may resist this cheerless prospect, but culture does not rank particularly high among them." (p. 50)

On the other hand, it's nice to see Pinochet and Suharto put on trial in their own countries. Hopefully Pinochet with implicate Kissinger in some way.

Peter



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