A16

John Gulick jlgulick at sfo.com
Tue Mar 28 19:52:13 PST 2000


Call this a stretch, or call me a fuddy-duddy Frankfurtian, but are any of you annoyed by the "movement" designating the events in Seattle "N30" and the to-be-events in Washington D.C. "A16" and the to-be-events in Los Angeles "D2K" ?

Despite what the discursive-determinists would have us believe, there _is_ "something beyond the text" -- yet, I cringe everytime I see the left adopt the linguistic style of the late capitalists. And the linguistic style of the late capitalists is acronym buzz-words which short-circuit critical thought. Stewart Ewen showed in _All-Consuming Images_ how representations of corporate capitalist identity -- i.e. logos and company names -- have become increasingly abstract in the age of information technology, microchips, and so forth -- from "National Cash Register" to "NCR," U.S. Steel to "USX," and all that. Or do "N30," "A16," and "D2K" simply reflect the fact that the "movement" is becoming "as radical as reality itself" and turning the code of late capital against itself ?

Or am I just nit-picking or hallucinating ?

John Gulick
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