also of interest is his argument that the natural result of a political ontology of violence is terrorism.
Oh, he also argues, and I wonder what people think about this, that:
1. the anti-capitalist insurrections throughout the 90s and very early 00s were successful. 2. global elites were challenged and terrified at this successful global resistance. 3. Afghanistan, Iraq was the response for a global elite terrified that movements had successful rewritten neo-liberal hegemony.
(War with Iran, on this view, is very likely going to be the result if Occupations continue unabated this Spring)
At 09:26 AM 2/22/2012, Wojtek S wrote:
>Shag: "Graeber has a fascinating analysis of all this in terms of what he
>calls a Political Ontology of the Imagination v Political Ontology of
>Violence. (Speaking of, I really like his explanation of how cops are
>simply low level bureaucrats with guns, which is a good way to
>understand their behavior.)"
>
>[WS:] I think he does much better when he talks about cops wanting to
>"define the situation" (in the section why cops hate puppets) - which
>does not have much to do with them being bureaucrats with guns. It
>has something to do with the fact that in any situation defining the
>situation is a crucial element of making other people to "go with the
>program."
>
>Katz ("Seductions of Crime") demonstrates that by studying crime,
>especially stick up. A successful stick up is when everyone,
>including the victims, accept the definition of the situation as a
>stickup, and consequently plays the respective role. Any disruption
>poses a threat to defining the situation the way the robbers (or cops
>or Carrol Cox ;) for that matter) want, and thus foils their plans. A
>good example of it is in one of the Woody Allen films in which a would
>be bank robber hands a stick-up note to the teller in which he
>misspells the word "gun" ("I have a gub"). The tellers starts asking
>him and then everyone around 'What is a gub?"
>
>I did not notice Graeber citing Katz on this, but he should have. I
>find Katz's argument far more developed than Graeber's simple state
>bashing. But he makes an excellent point why cops hate puppets, which
>can be extend to some of the behaviors on this list as well ;).
>
>Wojtek
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)