[lbo-talk] crises kill

Eric rayrena at realtime.net
Wed Feb 27 12:25:05 PST 2008



>On Feb 27, 2008, at 1:51 PM, Eric wrote:
>
> > I keep thinking of this as related to parenting. If the father in the
>> disciplinary society was controlling and tyrannical, the neoliberal
>> parent is understanding and helpful. Instead of forcing the will of
>> capital on kids as the fordist father did, the neoliberal parent
>> blocks lines of flight, through more caring mechanisms: empowering
>> kids to explore themselves, encouraging them to be questioning and
>> activist, and sending them to punk-rock camps.
>
>Well what the hell is a parent supposed to do? You make the
>"neoliberal" father sound sinister, but what's wrong with encouraging
>self-exploration and skepticism? This is not a merely theoretical
>question for me!

It's not for me either: a five-year-old and a seven-year-old call me Dad. It scares me to think that many of the things that I think make me a good parent -- my treating my kids as their own beings not my property, my encouraging them to question and think and do and create, my allowing them to make important decisions about things that affect them -- are not only not dissonant with capital but actually encouraged by it. But that's postfordism's genius.

B. brought up Zizek, but unlike him, I don't think the point of "liberal" parenting is necessarily (or just) control. (This would be part of his general hatred of tolerance and multiculturalism, which are fine pasttimes in themselves, but not when imbued with his Stalinist stupidities.) Zizek would, if his political prescriptions are any guide, probably recommend more discipline and less tolerance. I take an opposite view: since the state is incapable of capturing everything, overwhelm it with skepticism, question, and criticism. Don't be mopey because it can reterritorialize. Don't be sad because the thing you fight is capable of recouping some of you.



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