tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post8469826592151991522..comments2024-03-27T01:28:28.346-07:00Comments on False Machine: The tactical annals of patronagepjamesstuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-35135904635714904542013-02-24T12:57:28.258-08:002013-02-24T12:57:28.258-08:00You'd think he'd be thrilled since its a b...You'd think he'd be thrilled since its a binch of people being paid to pretend to be something that is valued precisely because it doesn't exist. They are a symbol leading to nothing.<br /><br />Has no-one ever tried to 'Baudrillard' Baudrillard by pointing out his book about a world of empty symbols is actually made of symbols and is itself a symbol therefore we should reasonably expect his argument to fold itself out of space and time in a puff of green smoke?pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-70682419995744238632013-02-23T18:38:49.893-08:002013-02-23T18:38:49.893-08:00I think he does have some interesting ideas. Symbo...I think he does have some interesting ideas. Symbols that occlude the fact that they don't refer to anything anymore. <br /><br />On the other hand, he has the frustrating habit of not considering things on their own terms. He has a particularly odd section where he criticizes ethnologists for cutting off access to the native Filipino Tasaday people, because even though he concedes that modern society had a toxic effect on them, they would only be a simulation if their were to live undisturbed in their preserve again. He didn't object to it because it was paternalistic, and he didn't care or address the fact that their culture would be damaged if they weren't protected. He just didn't like simulation.<br /><br />The whole Tasaday restoration thing was just bizarre. A fair number of people evidently think that they are a hoax put on by a Filipino government official so he could start a scammy foundation, but that's unrelated to Baudrillard's argument.jacintohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15830023557305593115noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-73304544700073076532013-02-23T14:15:18.831-08:002013-02-23T14:15:18.831-08:00Tch, I read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia a...Tch, I read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article of that book. He's wrong.<br /><br />Check out Ian McGilchrist's 'The Master and His Emissary' it will cure you permenantly of brain-damaged philosophers who think that 'human experience is a simulation of reality.'<br /><br />The first Sea Lord is effectively shut down for a week when the woman he loves (not his wife) is unexpectadly shot in a theatre. No-one knows what to do without him. The Prime Minister breaks down during questions because his two-year old child has just died. Cornwallis only returns to America because he went home to see his wife. She died. He went back to the was because 'her death had made England intolerable for him'. He was our best general. And because he was our best he attacked, and because he attacked, he was trapped and we lost. A mediocraty wouldn't have done it.<br /><br />Where are your 'Simulacra' in that Baudrillard you silly tit?pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-50109929476433816972013-02-23T13:15:34.980-08:002013-02-23T13:15:34.980-08:00Reading history makes me oscillate between wonderi...Reading history makes me oscillate between wondering at how little individuals can do in the face of an entire civilization and and boggling at the ability of a handful of people to wreck shit up across countries and decades (continents and centuries?). <br /><br />Cabinet meetings and long lists of ships might be a refreshing change of pace. My friend has induced me to at least try to read Simulcra and Simulation, and so far it wobbles back and forth between being utterly impenetrable and being the sort of thing a disheveled street preacher might shout at you.jacintohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15830023557305593115noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-73613524810056891162013-02-22T22:25:51.593-08:002013-02-22T22:25:51.593-08:00It's hard to tell exactly as I may be a bit ou...It's hard to tell exactly as I may be a bit outside the mainstream. I think it orbits between two broad poles.. There's the BBC'ish 'what a bunch of vital, aggressive murdering bastards, lets feel obsurely proud we did something great at some point and lets also be glad its over as a lot of murdering was done.' And the Nial Fergussenish 'At least you got railroads. free markets and a cheap trip across the atlantic. Better than other empires at least! (Soz about the deaths)'<br /><br />Its a great book if you can tlerate long long lists of ships going back and forth and long cabinet arguments bout ships, wheich seems to be what most british strategy was about. Its awesome on the capturing of some individuals. Especially the ruinously incompetant swarm of british army commanders.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-37572533588369124302013-02-22T16:44:23.979-08:002013-02-22T16:44:23.979-08:00Another book for my list. It'll be interesting...Another book for my list. It'll be interesting to see the Revolutionary War from a British scholar's point of view. My high school classes presented it as a Victory For Freethinkers Everywhere And An Inevitable Product Of The Enlightenment, and while I am as a rule not a fan of empires, I imagine it was a bit more complicated than that. What's the general view of the Revolutionary War in the UK?jacintohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15830023557305593115noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-78932952650085519862013-02-22T14:03:52.921-08:002013-02-22T14:03:52.921-08:00Obfuscating stupidity: the Brits may not have inve...Obfuscating stupidity: the Brits may not have invented it, but they raised it to an art form.<br /><br />That, and incompetence jujitsu. ;)Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04072272223837426211noreply@blogger.com