Polemos

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14
Feb 10

Teabagging the Nation – A Patriotic Pursuit

Sarah Palin on Twitter

On February 10, Sarah Palin tweeted a public birthday greeting to Glenn Beck: “Happy B’day Glenn Beck! Ah, the wisdom of our elders…” Apart from the feigned folksiness of the word “B’day” and the astonishing attributing of wisdom to Glenn Beck, the tweet primarily declares an attempted strategic alliance. Self-professed “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck soon reciprocated by suggesting one of the few strategic alliances described by the American Constitution: “Happy belated birthday to my younger friend Sarah. Let’s just have a combined party in 2013, to save the WH pastry chef some work.” So, however jokingly it may have been put forth, we now have the proposition of a Palin/Beck ballot in 2012.

This twittering mating game may not disclose actual political plans and aspirations on behalf of Glenn Beck but Palin has declared herself ready and willing if not rough and ready, she has publicly cuddled up to elderly wisdom, and the wise old man is apparently going along as far as the ride will take him. Both twitterers seem to be flaunting blatant political opportunism in a giddy, frivolous manner indicating that whatever they are doing, it is working.
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Polemos / in Danish — No Comments
14
Jan 10

Del og Hersk

I lederen Kulturracisme 1 tager Anne Knudsen til orde i debatten om Lars Hedegaards efterhĂĄnden famøse pĂĄstand: “De voldtager deres egne børn. Det hører man hele tiden. Piger i muslimske familier bliver voldtaget af deres onkler, deres fætre eller deres far.” Til den omfattende stĂĄhej, denne udtalelse har afstedkommet, svarer Anne Knudsen:

“Hvis nogen efter en tĂĄr over tørsten havde forsøgt sig med at lancere pĂĄstanden om, at de missionske boller deres døtre tykke, eller at førtidspensionister driver hjemmebordeller med mindreĂĄrige, som et seriøst indslag i debatten om noget som helst, havde alle og enhver trukket pĂĄ skuldrene over det rablende fjols, uanset hvilken forening han eller hun var formand for. Men adskillige fuldvoksne danskere har nu i ugevis seriøst beskæftiget sig med Lars Hedegaards pĂĄstand fra denne skuffe.

Anne Knudsen mener altsĂĄ, at Lars Hedegaard har været udsat for en noget pedantisk behandling, der ikke var tilkommet nogen anden i en lignende situation. AltsĂĄ udgør “adskillige fuldvoksne danskeres” barnlige reaktion en overfølsomhed over for enten Lars Hedegaard eller enhver kritik af Islam. Dette argument er tidligere fremført af Søren Krarup:
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  1. Weekendavisen nr 01 – 8. januar 2010 ↩
All things theory / Housekeeping / Polemos — No Comments
13
Jan 10

What matter who’s speaking?

A friend recently questioned the use of the personal pronoun “we” on aleph.dk. The question was posed on a rather bacchanalesque occasion, so the debate soon wandered off and finally had to sit down against a wall somewhere. In order to actually answer the very interesting question of personal pronouns, however, it would be pertinent to quote Beckett: “Qu’importe qui parle, quelqu’un a dit qu’importe qui parle” 1

There is a funny double entendre in the French original, which is sadly lost in translation. The sentence has three members. The first one is perceived as a question even though it has no question mark. The second member states that someone said something, this something being the third member. The ambiguity arises in this last member, which can be read as both a direct and an indirect quotation. Either someone repeated the question in the first member – “What matter who’s speaking” – or someone said that, in fact, it matters who is speaking.
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  1. Beckett’s own English translation goes as follows: “What matter who’s speaking, someone said what matter who’s speaking.” ↩
Polemos / in Danish — No Comments
5
Jan 10

Anne Knudsens juleevangelium

Anne Knudsen

Anne Knudsen indleder sit juleevangelium – sin sædvanlige tilsvining af alle, der ikke smertefrit træder den gode produktive borgers sko og marcherer i takt med “det store vi” – med et julemysterium: Hvordan kan det være, at der ĂĄr efter ĂĄr bliver flere værdigt trængende, nĂĄr arbejdsløsheden stadigt er lav. Det mystiske ved mysteriet er naturligvis ikke selve mysteriet, som ikke er et mysterium, men proklameringen af mysteriet. Mysteriet har jo rent faktisk mulige forklaringer, men som sædvanlig foretrækker Anne Knudsen at insinuere uforklarlighedens utilladelighed, ligesom hun afviser “forvildede unge” og “moraliserende lovovertrædere”, fordi muligheden af, at de skulle have legitime motiver, ligger uden for den tidligere antropologiske forskers fatteevne 1.

Julemysteriet er naturligvis relateret til gaven: “Riges omsorg for fattige mennesker er imidlertid en af de dyder, den moderne velfærdsstat har gjort en del for at udrydde; man fandt det nemlig uværdigt, at private fattige skulle (eller bare kunne) sige tak til private rige.” Statens gavegiveri er sĂĄledes “endnu et skridt pĂĄ vejen væk fra det personlige ansvar og frem mod staten som det eneste voksne samfundsmedlem.” Den patroniserende stat skal altsĂĄ afløses af de riges patronat. I stedet for en eftergivende stat skal de fattige børn fĂĄ en anden kærlighed at føle.
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  1. se evt. indlæggene Muligheden af en anden verden og Dyr og dyr – angivelighedens pris ↩
Polemos / in Danish — 1 Comment
22
Dec 09

Muligheden af en anden verden

I fredags var Anne Knudsen som sĂĄ ofte før 1 ude med sin lettere sløve rive efter alle, der ikke indgĂĄr i “det store vi” med dertil hørende respekt for ejendomsretten og generel tilfredshed med det bestĂĄende samfund. Hun indleder med, hvad der i en bedre verden var en overflødig anerkendelse af ytringsfriheden. Hmm…

Hvis man anerkender menneskerettighederne, hvilket Anne Knudsen jo foregiver, giver det ikke mening at relativisere og hierarkisere dem. Menneskerettighederne betragtes vel som ubestridelige, som a priori strukturer i menneskets konstitution. Er ytringsfriheden vigtigere end artikel 6, der fremstĂĄr lettere overset i de politihandlinger, som Anne Knudsen hylder: “Ethvert menneske har overalt i verden ret til at blive anerkendt som retssubjekt”? Derudover er menneskerettighederne jo en “anerkendelse af den mennesket iboende værdighed og af de lige og ufortabelige rettigheder,” hvorfor de som fundamentale menneskelige elementer er evige. Skal man absolut give dem en historie, springer 1948 i øjnene som ĂĄbenlyst pejlemærke for alle menneskerettighederne, hvorfor det igen er meningsløst at tale om “ældste.”
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  1. se evt. vores sidste svada mod Anne Knudsen her ↩
Polemos / Waffle — No Comments
14
Dec 09

To speak and say nothing

“I am here, and there is nothing to say.” “I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it.” These two quotes are, respectively, the first and one of the first sentences of John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing 1. Usually, to speak and say nothing is not appreciated by the listener, the speech will be categorized as waffle, a waste of time. And rightfully so! There is, however, such an abundance of empty utterances that actually aim at – but horribly miss – meaningful communication that, from time to time, you long for the willful undermining of language, the brave probings of nonsense.

These are the days of the COP15 summit and more or less everyone is busy stating their views of a better world. There are a lot of professional opinion makers in the fray. Prominent among them, Naomi Klein yesterday contributed with the following commentary in her Memo to Danes: Even You Cannot Control This Summit: “In the morning demonstrators are going to march to the Bella Center to demand real solutions to the climate crisis, not the fuzzy math and carbon trading on offer inside.”

Carbon trading might be a legitimate means for handling the current problems, it might be the contrary, but to simply oppose “real solutions” to “fuzzy math and carbon trading” is downright silly. Why is math an unreal tool to the task? One should think that mathematics would be a necessary and very real element in fighting climate change. What she means, of course, is that the official negotiators have trouble agreeing on the math and that carbon trading is an unacceptable solution. But sadly, the math seems equally fuzzy at Klimaforum09, and carbon trading is, supposedly, a manifestly more real solution than “real solutions.”
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  1. A 2007 performance of Lecture on Nothing can be found at Ubuweb and heard here:
    ↩
All things theory / Polemos / Waffle — No Comments
9
Dec 09

We the People

“We the people” is a weird constellation. Is the plural subsumed under the singular or is it the other way around? Who is “We” and what is a people? Well in the case of “We the people,” “We” are the “people” of the United States, but again what does this entail? This question has no doubt been scrutinized endlessly by jurists and philosophers and our goal here is not to attempt what better men and women have already achieved. It is simply to draw attention to an unsettling frequency of similar statements in current political discourse and the problematic consequences thereof.

Let us begin at home. At their main annual convention this summer, leader of Danish People’s Party Pia Kjærsgaard said something like the following: “So while the potential maximum penalty for a crime has maybe doubled, the actually passed sentences have only augmented slightly. We will not stand for this. The judges are not the rulers of this country!” As well as crying out for mandatory minimums, this angry minx is decreeing the power of “We” over the power of the judges. “We the people” may be sovereign in American law but even the Americans try to uphold the seperation of powers as described by Montesquieu. Kjærsgaard is actually calling for direct popular control of the judiciary branch. “We the people shall not accept delicate judicial treatment of those who dare defy our laws.”
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Polemos / in Danish — No Comments
15
Nov 09

Dyr og dyr – angivelighedens pris

A bit of criticism in Danish:

Fra tid til anden støder man på udsagn, der i struktur og indhold er så vildfarne, at man næsten ikke orker at løfte pegefingeren til opbyggelig retningsangivelse mod fornuftens åbenbart svært navigerbare sti, men blot i mat stilhed græmmes over det velunderbyggede standpunkts devaluering til fordel for en polemisk mauvaise foi. Når denne tilmed stolt stilles til skue i Weekendavisen på lederplads – hvilket den jo desværre gør med jævne mellemrum – bør den rette finger dog alligevel med dertil passende gestus indikere den kejserlige nøgenhed.

I indlægget ”Dyr og dyr” præsenterer Anne Knudsen på ublu maner sin polemiske retningssans i allerførste sætning: ”Mink er blevet dyreaktivisters foretrukne demonstrationsdyr.” Først og fremmest bør det bemærkes, at AK formentlig henviser til dyreretsaktivister eller dyreværnsaktivister. ”Dyreaktivister” såvel som ”demonstrationsdyr” synes at være lidet poetiske neologismer, der ikke udtrykker andet end skribentens uvilje mod sit emne. Dernæst dette ”blevet … foretrukne”, der med polemisk snilde skal fremvise aktivismens objekt som uden videre omskifteligt alt efter mode og tendenser og dermed afbilde en aktivisme uden substans. Påstanden om rebeller uden egentligt forehavende underbygges på hul vis i omtalen af minkfarmene, hvor aktivister ”angiveligt har fundet dyr, der ikke blev behandlet efter forskrifterne.” Har AK mon set videooptagelserne af de angivelige rædsler? I så fald må hun da medgive, at det er som så med ”angiveligheden”. Skulle ”angiveligheden” derimod komme af lederens forfatning før Operation X tirsdag d. 27. eller AKs manglende ønske om at komme angiveligheden til livs, er det vel atter en demonstration af førnævnte mauvaise foi.
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Polemos / Waffle — No Comments
21
Mar 09

Anything but a fatal blow (usually) requires a ready defense

As a last installment (promised!) in our whole “commentary on the spectacular horrors of commentary”-debacle (now a trilogy with parts one and two already out) we should take a quick look at the ground values, not of bloggery as such, but of this our own particular verbal version of loose-stooled effluent. And as the greek word in the header (to the right of the backslash, not the hebrew one to the left) cries out in an embarrassingly high brow fashion, there is only one ground value: War!

So, the idea of this fecal accumulation was to have a place through which to channel the pile of bile that rises within us all when encountering that which is too high, too low, too in the middle, as well as that which just generally rubs us the wrong way.

An example: When some semi-celeb on the front page of a wholly disgraceful newspaper states “I am good in bed”, you must be made of sturdier stuff than me to avoid shaking your fists at the world, shouting insults and death threats at all who would even think of finding such a journalistic abomination worthy of print. Another one: The former princess Alexandra (Denmark), once visited a very hot country, somewhere with elephants, I forget… A photo of this young lady in a sweat stained t-shirt appeared on the front page of one of the weekly attacks on the minds of the already challenged with the following title “The Princess’ Hot Flashes”. I mean, really!
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Polemos / Waffle — 1 Comment
10
Mar 09

The importance of being Elvis

Something which has really gotten my goat lately is intellectual commentary. There are certainly innumerable culprits within this field of pseudo-intellectual guff but two among them annoy me on a daily basis: Christopher Hitchens and Slavoj Zizek.

Let us begin with the anti-theist. Hitchens is a very educated man. He went to Oxford, which is often mentioned when he is introduced before going on stage. But this is another thing: Why is it important that the man went to Oxford?! It is without a doubt a good school, but in no way is it a guarantee of the man’s competence. The snobbery of it! I know plenty of people who went to La Sorbonne. I see no greater assembly of geniuses there than anywhere else and yet it is mentioned with a certain awe, as if it were the proof of a mind as sharp as a surgical laser. Why can’t we simply accept that it is not the teaching which makes the thinker, but the studying.

Hitchens probably did a fair deal of studying. He seems to be a well-read man. But this also seems to be his only intellectual strength. If you listen to his speeches, interviews or debates or you actually read his texts you might notice that he is all reference and no analysis. He refers to literary quotes and the experiences of his own wicked self or those of others. His argument is thus based on the authority of texts or the allusion to “real life”.
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