> I read most of Eric Beck's essay. It's actually pretty good, why silly(?).
> It's long but at about the right level of detail. Did you get paid--I hope?
Thanks for reading it! Good to know someone has. I didn't get paid
> It's only real draw back is an advanced POV, and written for a well read
> crowd who already knows the basic score.
Well, I tried to explain that POV a little bit and to avoid the slang, but the argument does, I guess, assume some familiarity with The Literature.
> Simon got to figure out these relationships through his journalism. I got to
> similar view through a social service job, first as a hopeful reformer, then
> as just a job that deteriorated into a delivery gatekeeper, i.e. a cop.
For what it's worth, which is probably not much, my modes of learning were very close to yours. I struggled to even finish my undergrad and I never want to see the inside of the academy again. My "real" education came from the crappy, menial, low-skill, low-wage jobs I worked to get through college and for years afterward.
> There is a problem with using the street crime world as the central
> metaphor. The problem is that it tends to obscure the fundamental
> criminality (corruption of purpose) of institutional relationships with
> capital production systems. You get to see this by working within such a
> system.
If I get your point, I disagree. The show is all about the similarities between the street business and regular business (and the legal business, the school business, etc.). (I think I put something in the article about that.) The show doesn't obscure how things work, illuminates them. And despite what Simon sometimes says, it's also not about corruption, at least as I understand the term, as describing instances of individual venality or, at most, institutions that don't function as they are (allegedly) intended to. The show is all about how things function, not intent.
Okay, maybe not true. There is intent, but usually the desires of characters are thwarted because there is no real collective way for them to be met. The only functioning collectives are the police and the gangs, and they work precisely by blocking desire.
(I've intentionally not listened to Simon talk about the show much.
>From what I have heard he sounds like an angry liberal, which is fine.
But I don't think there's any reason to read the show as being limited
to that. Fortunately, art is usually much smarter than the artist.)