[WS:] My intention was to make a sarcastic remark, not to ask for a clarification. I am an old coot and I know academic pissing contests in and out - it is not about explanation but about personality.
PS. Sarcasm was not aimed at Chuck (whose postings I enjoy,) but the genre in general.
Wojtek
On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> WS, Chuck took notes at a lecture and shared them, notes are incomplete,
> cursory skeletal outlines, they do not represent a comprehensive
> representation of the content or artfulness of a talk... well, mine never
> are, perhaps yours are "essentially" different. He even said that some of
> the talk put him to sleep...
> Rather than slap at Chuck, Harvey and the folks at the presentation, isn't
> it possible to imagine that the lived experience of the lecture wasn't
> obscure?
> In short, its quite easy to ask for clarification, for an explanation,
> without this snarky tone. I'm sure Chuck'd try to oblige, he's a pretty
> nice guy in my estimation. The faux ;) and BS self-attribution of
> "essentialism" are simple assertions of some kind of
> rolling-your-eyes-at-the-obscure-intellectuals superiority... why would
> anyone want to respond to questions posed in that manner?
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 7:09 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [WS:] Sorry for not being able to discern artfulness in this form of
>> talk - that is what years of working in data mining do to you :) - but
>> what exactly does all this mean? That is, other than showing
>> erudition of the speaker and maybe the audience? In my narrow-minded
>> "essentialist" world, the role of theory is to explain i.e. turn
>> obscure into obvious, not the other way around. Can anyone explain
>> what is the purpose of this generalized four-section wide intellectual
>> edifice?
>>
>> Wojtek
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 2:54 AM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > Harvey presented, under a description of his approach four sections. The
>> > first was the axiomatic level where Production was the top generalized
>> > level, then below Distribution, and Exchange---which are fed back into
>> the
>> > top level. He considered this something of fixed form, an abstract
>> > architecture.
>> >
>> > The next area he considered not in terms of a fixed architectonic, but a
>> > flow in the sense of thermodynamics. The central form was the flow of
>> money,
>> > composed of labor value, rents... I lost him here, almost nodding out. He
>> > wrote out a relational equation of balance that essentially said, if any
>> of
>> > these factors is stopped it stops the flow, and shit breaks down.
>> >
>> > His third category was the dynamic of interlocking systems which included
>> > technology, social relations, conditions of daily life, relation to
>> nature,
>> > an ideological system and its discontents, and others. The basic idea was
>> > the presentation of the categories of potential change that animate the
>> > system and which Capital mobilizes. The condition was that if these
>> > interdependent factors are not simultaneously addressed, change on our
>> side
>> > fails.
>> >
>> > The fourth section was on Geography, the wide field of application, which
>> > for Harvey the urban environment was central. The city was center place
>> in
>> > its dialectic with nature, as landscape was the locus of
>> change-revolution.
>> >
>> > The latter was really interesting and I definitely woke up for this part,
>> > since my ex-wife was a city planner, worked for Berkeley city government,
>> > and we had talked endlessly about this dialectic between city and
>> country,
>> > Berkeley and Yosemite, the take over of local business by national
>> > franchise, the nastiness of the Chamber of Commerce and its feudal land
>> > system...
>> >
>> > The crowd were all graduate students, old timers something like me, and
>> the
>> > young professional turks. This was a fine view of actual, living,
>> breathing
>> > left. Very glad I got off my hermit(internet) ass. It was really nice to
>> be
>> > around smart people. These folk have no idea how lonely it gets in the
>> > bullshit that passes for life in the US. I want to debate
>> Darwin---fucking
>> > kiss my ass.
>> >
>> > The questions were interesting. The first was about the role of
>> > proletariat---standard issue Marxism.. Havery redirected the
>> understanding
>> > of who the prols were, in caspule, the makers of cities. He used several
>> > other examples like the obvious disaffect intellectuals...
>> >
>> > The DOE library is under current occupation---who knew? The guy sitting
>> next
>> > to me was an archaeologist on staff in Geography whose period, place was
>> > ancient Peru. We chatted about the Peruvian collection below the Hearst
>> > women's gym and swimming pool, a Julia Morgan building, which worries the
>> > archivialists---as it fucking should below many tons of water.
>> >
>> > Patrick Bond turned me on to this lecture, but he was very distracted. We
>> > only exchanged a few words of greeting. I have to say, the most beautiful
>> > thing geography does is maps, fabulous maps that track the rotten-right
>> > through its Mason-Dixon territories. If you notice these traces follow
>> the
>> > central river systems of the US, the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri.
>> What
>> > does that mean?
>> >
>> > Then there are the scatter diagrams of blacks and minorities in major
>> urban
>> > centers, or the crop intensity plots of the California landscape. The
>> > landscape creates the gigantic wealth of California because it has
>> virtually
>> > every productive eco-system from SEA rice paddies to grasslands for live
>> > stock to valleys of custom Tuscan grapes for wine, cheese, and wheat
>> plains
>> > for bread. It has three giant natural ports in SF, LA, and San Diego. The
>> > idiots that run this state have never seen it. The river systems that
>> flow
>> > into the Sacramento Delta create something compariable to the ancient
>> deltas
>> > of yore. Well that's the conceptual level of the geography of California;
>> >
>> > I have gone on about this because there is a lot of intellectual life in
>> > Berkeley, but it is incrediably difficult to keep track of. You have to
>> > evolve a system of some social sort I never mastered to follow all the
>> > goings on. The Berkeley Planet sure ain't the New Yorker or the NYT.
>> >
>> > For those around the bay area here is the link to David Harvey's big
>> public
>> > lecture:
>> >
>> >
>> http://events.berkeley.edu/?event_ID=32976&date=2010-10-08&tab=all_events
>> >
>> > Summary. Wurster Hall 112, 4pm. Parking. Go to the concrete parking
>> > structure on Bancroft a block below College in front of Kroeber Hall and
>> > cheat anyway you can. It is a short walk from this parking structure to
>> the
>> > Architecture and Design building of Wurster---a souless Le Courbusier
>> > modular structure. I assume this lecture will be a book lecture on The
>> > Engima of Capital. Of course it is popular because art and architecture
>> > students are too stupid to grasp the abstract concepts. I hate the idea,
>> but
>> > that is about right.
>> >
>> > CG
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ___________________________________
>> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>> >
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *********************************************************
> Alan P. Rudy
> Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> Central Michigan University
> 124 Anspach Hall
> Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
> 517-881-6319
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