Elsewhere

A few items of intellectual note: (1) Nina Power interviews Chantel Mouffe in the New Statesman. It's short and offers a quick introduction to some of the major ideas of Mouffe's work. (2) Four noted scholars—Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West—discussed religion and the public sphere at Stonybrook. Their blog has the audio online. (3) The Decline has linked to a few pieces by Slavoj Žižek recently, so I am now belately linking to Jodi Dean, who has excerpted a review of his new book.

stolen!

The new normal in politics is conspiracy mongering, as
evidenced by a new poll.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.

Discussion Class Link

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier.

I apologize for posting a kind of spam, but being able to pull up a link easily in class is a life saver.

Does That Sparkle With All The Girls?

Yglesias' Twilight-inspired post reminded me of this epically hilarious explanation of the true meaning of Christmas Mormonism Twilight. With the release of New Moon, it seems a good time to drag this back up for its very own epically hilarious explanation.

So, enjoy. Give yourself an hour or two to read the rest: Part III, Part IV.

rogue

Zizek Blogging

In the London Review of Books: Zizek on the state of Eastern European politics and liberal democracy v. socialist utopianism after the fall of the Berlin Wall; the economy pre- and post-9/11; and the implications of China's robust authoritarian capitalism.

It seems that Fukuyama’s 1990s utopia had to die twice: the collapse of the liberal-democratic political utopia on 9/11 did not affect the economic utopia of global market capitalism, but the 2008 financial meltdown surely has. In the 1990s, it was believed that humanity had finally found the formula for an optimal socio-economic order. The experience of the last few decades has clearly shown that the market is not a benign mechanism that works best when left alone. It requires violence to create the conditions necessary for it to function. The way market fundamentalists react to the turmoil that ensues when their ideas are implemented is typical of utopian ‘totalitarians’: they blame the failure on compromise – there is still too much state intervention – and demand an even more radical implementation of market doctrine.

Also: Michael Wood on Roland Barthes' continued relevancy. And, John Gray on John Maynard Keynes renewed relevancy in George Akerlof and Robert Shiller’s Animal Spirits:

Keynes has been revived because he understood that markets are very often irrational. Unfortunately, few of those who urge that we go back to him seem to have understood why he believed this.

Breaking News

Greg, aka "Rabble," branches out into the fascinating world of real estate financing. This is a clear attempt to create a blog less likely to be read than The Decline. For someone who once fancied himself un écrivain, the precipitous fall into techno-economic jargon must be painful. So, um, go read it...