You know you've been reading too much Marx when
Demi Moore starts to sound, well, not like a Marxist exactly, but like someone who has been reading Marx: "I had an extreme obsession with my body. I made it a measure of my own value. I tried to dominate it, which I did, and I changed it multiple times over."
What is resonating around this? Well, the metaphysic of value, the question of domination of nature and domination of history, the question of whether in the 1844 Manuscripts women (here, particularly women's bodies?) give men a privileged access to nature they could not otherwise have. Also: when the question of collective praxis has been removed from people's historical memories, the notion that our (for Marx, natural) desire to be self-making creatures gets turned into this domination and art of the self, particularly the body, the refinement of the beautiful corpse.
All of this made sense somehow when I was at the gym, seeing this story on the TV screen, engaged in my own transmutation of value, reflecting on the way my own body has changed multiple times over. Not different forms of celebrity hotness, but gaining and losing weight, growing and shaving beards ... fewer people have commented this time than last time, maybe because it has been more gradual or it hasn't gone as far yet, but I do start to look like a different person even to myself. And not necessarily better. I don't actually recognize myself, in some deep sense, without the beard. But I was beginning to become very attached to it, and I wondered if I thought I was Samson or something, and then I read a Gramsci quote about different arbitrary standards for leadership, and backwards cultures in which one gets followed if one has a beard. I couldn't help but think of our insurrectionist scene and the numbers of bearded grad student men being more or less followed by ostensibly anarchist undergrads. I wonder if Gramsci was thinking of the Marxist beard when he wrote this? This was probably less of a thing in Italy. Then, the quote itself is actually pretty fucked up. Anyway. For the moment, it had to go, because before, I couldn't imagine teaching this course without it.
None of this really makes sense now. But the need to make sense has never been a premise of Cannon Fodder. Perhaps that makes this whole thing a bit of a dilettantish project, but I still appreciate having the space - even though posting on LJ feels a bit lonely these days.
What is resonating around this? Well, the metaphysic of value, the question of domination of nature and domination of history, the question of whether in the 1844 Manuscripts women (here, particularly women's bodies?) give men a privileged access to nature they could not otherwise have. Also: when the question of collective praxis has been removed from people's historical memories, the notion that our (for Marx, natural) desire to be self-making creatures gets turned into this domination and art of the self, particularly the body, the refinement of the beautiful corpse.
All of this made sense somehow when I was at the gym, seeing this story on the TV screen, engaged in my own transmutation of value, reflecting on the way my own body has changed multiple times over. Not different forms of celebrity hotness, but gaining and losing weight, growing and shaving beards ... fewer people have commented this time than last time, maybe because it has been more gradual or it hasn't gone as far yet, but I do start to look like a different person even to myself. And not necessarily better. I don't actually recognize myself, in some deep sense, without the beard. But I was beginning to become very attached to it, and I wondered if I thought I was Samson or something, and then I read a Gramsci quote about different arbitrary standards for leadership, and backwards cultures in which one gets followed if one has a beard. I couldn't help but think of our insurrectionist scene and the numbers of bearded grad student men being more or less followed by ostensibly anarchist undergrads. I wonder if Gramsci was thinking of the Marxist beard when he wrote this? This was probably less of a thing in Italy. Then, the quote itself is actually pretty fucked up. Anyway. For the moment, it had to go, because before, I couldn't imagine teaching this course without it.
None of this really makes sense now. But the need to make sense has never been a premise of Cannon Fodder. Perhaps that makes this whole thing a bit of a dilettantish project, but I still appreciate having the space - even though posting on LJ feels a bit lonely these days.