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<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> After the Second World War Turkey significantly advanced its tangible (as seen in Tables 1-3) and intangible capabilities. During this period Turkey’s modus operandi was clearly different from the 1930s. Two definitive examples of Turkey’s middle power attitude have been selected for elaboration. These are the Cyprus issue and the March 2003 memorandum. In the first example Turkey objected to the Greek Cypriot threats to the status quo on the island after the British withdrawal in 1960. Turkey believed its legal rights to be acknowledged by the Treaty of Guarantee and unilaterally intervened to rebuild the status quo disrupted by the Greek Cypriots throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.69 In the second example Turkey’s rejection of the March 2003 memorandum granting American troop’s access to Iraq through Turkish territory was another significant pro-status quo move.70 In both cases Turkey acted to influence the final outcome of an issue in the process endangering its position within a Western alliance. It was motivated by regional stability but did not avoid conflict asserting its position as an autonomous middle power.71 Turkey as a middle power also believed in using multilateral schemes to deal with international issues. On the Cyprus Question particularly during the 1960s Turkey consistently brought the issue to the guarantor powers72 for consultation and to the US as well. Yet in the post-Cold War era it no longer expected help from multilateral schemes aiming instead to use them to improve its international position. A clear example is Turkey’s role in peacekeeping observer missions and police operations in the Balkans Caucasus and Middle East including Afghanistan 73 and particularly in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFL).74 In all these operations and missions Turkey strived to increase its individual significance and esteem. As a clear example Turkey employed the OIC to increase its foreign policy outreach and amplify its voice. Turkey with the new millennium began to take more direct roles via creating multilateral schemes in its neighboring regions. The Caucasus Peace and Stability Pact proposal in 2000 – covering Turkey Armenia Georgia Russia and Azerbaijan and relying on the 1997 Balkan Stability Pact’s main principles – is a clear example.75 Turkey attempted to strengthen the common interests of the Pact’s prospective members in order to foster cooperation for security and development as well as to cultivate regional and multilateral cooperation projects. Turkey worked with local middle powers to construct bridging alignments. In the mid1950s Turkey’s efforts to create a defense pact – as a “requirement” of its leading role in the implementation of Northern Tier strategy with Iraq Iran and Pakistan – is one example. The efforts were initiated as the Baghdad Pact in 1955 and died as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in 1979.76 Although CENTO did not really deliver what it originally aimed to do it provided a foundation for Turkey to build a bridge between its members and NATO.77 In 1985 Turkey along with Iran and Pakistan founded the Economic Cooperation Organization which was later expanded to include Afghanistan Azerbaijan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Ankara aimed to create a synergy to provide sustainable development by making full use of available resources in the region.78 In 1992 Turkey was the key actor in the formation and the implementation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Scheme for regional economic cooperation and development.79 The Scheme’s integration model was looser and more flexible than that of the EU which would open up “a formerly closed or semiclosed market of more than 350 million people” to Turkey.80 All these efforts exemplify Turkey’s go-between attitude towards international economic coalition building. Turkey was also a go-between for political/security disputes although not very successfully. It aimed to play a major role in the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. The political constraints exerted by the West – i.e. Turkey’s reliance upon US military aid to fight the PKK in the 1990s its need to de-escalate the situation with the EU and its priority of maintaining good relations with Moscow regarding private business interests in Russia – constrained Turkey from involving itself too deeply in Karabakh.81 Turkey was also one of the founding members of the non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative in 2010 82 where it came together with similar-sized and like-minded states to advance the nuclear disarmament agenda as well as greater transparency in the fulfilment of disarmament commitments among nuclear states. How helpful that initiative will be remains to be seen. These examples show the complementarity between capabilities and the foreign policy limits of middle powers. In the economic domain middle powers have more maneuvering space to take the initiative on collaboration/cooperation. In the political and security domains they are still restricted by alliance networks and the perceptions and interests of great powers. Therefore the less their foreign policies conflict with those of the great powers the more effective the middle state can be – or in other words the less ambitious the more successful. In early 2007 Turkey’s sincere efforts to prevent Iraq from descending into chaos and from being divided into Shia and Sunni groups 83 is an example of good international citizenship and its pursuit of stability and balance. Another recent example of this is the MIKTA collaboration an acronym for Mexico Indonesia Korea Turkey and Australia established in 2013. The five members’ major aim has been to amplify their voice on various platforms especially the G20 with the particular aim of achieving regional and global peace and stability.84 This also shows that good international citizenship by middle powers is better received and results in greater leverage than adventurist political moves that cause conflict with great powers. Conclusion The ambiguity in IR literature between small powers and middle powers has been the terminus a quo of this article. By focusing on ambiguities in definition and differentiation the article offers an amalgamated methodology of combining capabilities with foreign policy behavior. This combination assumes not only that there is a relationship but also a complementarity between capabilities and foreign policy. The rise in national capabilities not only lifts a country’s status but also opens up foreign policy maneuverability. Yet this is not so straightforward. Since national capabilities have intangible elements i.e. how various countries perceive and value the capabilities of other nation-states this complementarity may have unexpected results. A small power could be seen as a very valuable asset which amplifies its own foreign policy outreach while a middle power might not be able to achieve a seemingly basic objective due to restrictions imposed by great powers. Turkey’s experience since the 1930s exemplifies both straightforward and non-straightforward cases. In the 1930s Turkey counterbalanced its vulnerabilities with resilience and constantly recalibrated its self-image and in doing so Ankara reconciled multiple identities depending on the major power it was tilting towards. A Russia-friendly foreign policy went hand-in-hand with an anti-Communist domestic policy. similarly a non-pro-Western foreign policy was not an obstacle to a close partnership with Britain and an anti-fascist stance did not hinder an economic partnership with Germany and Italy. Turkey’s foreign policy “pivots” show that a resilient small power is able to manage the strategic calculations of great powers. Its national capabilities determine its status and its foreign policy outreach but intangible elements in its capabilities could complement resilient foreign policy objectives. Since the end of the Second World War Turkey has increased its tangible national capabilities drastically. This has not only elevated its status internationally but has also given it a much larger arena in which to conduct foreign policy. Yet this has not removed all of its constraints particularly in the security and political spheres. Turkey is still limited by great powers. Therefore even boosted national capabilities do not always complement the ability of middle powers to attain political and securityrelated objectives especially if they skirmish with great powers. </source> [/INST] <claim>Turkey builds alliances and goes to war</claim> <psg>After the Second World War Turkey significantly advanced its middle power Turkey believed its legal rights to be acknowledged and unilaterally intervened to rebuild the status quo disrupted by the Greek Turkey’s rejection of granting American troop’s access to Iraq acted to influence the final outcome of an issue in the process endangering its position within a Western alliance. It was motivated by regional stability but did not avoid conflict asserting its position as an autonomous middle power in the post-Cold War era it aiming instead to use them to improve its international position. A clear example is Turkey’s role in peacekeeping observer missions and police operations in the Balkans Caucasus and Middle East including Afghanistan Turkey strived to increase its individual significance and esteem. As a clear example Turkey employed the OIC to increase its foreign policy outreach and amplify its voice. The Caucasus Peace and Stability Pact proposal in 2000 Turkey attempted to strengthen the common interests of the Pact’s prospective members in order to foster cooperation for security and development as well as to cultivate regional and multilateral cooperation projects. Turkey’s efforts to create a defense pact – as a “requirement” of its leading role in the implementation of Northern Tier strategy with Iraq Iran and Pakistan it provided a foundation for Turkey to build a bridge between its members and NATO. Turkey along with Iran and Pakistan founded the Economic Cooperation Organization which was later expanded sustainable development Turkey was the key actor in the formation and the implementation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Scheme for regional economic cooperation and development. model was looser and more flexible than that of the EU would open up “a formerly closed or semiclosed market of more than 350 million people” to Turkey It aimed to play a major role in the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute political constraints exerted by the West constrained Turkey from involving itself too deeply in Karabakh Turkey was also one of the founding members of the non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative in 2010 82 where it came together with similar-sized and like-minded states to advance the nuclear disarmament agenda as well as greater transparency in the fulfilment of disarmament commitments among nuclear states. These examples show the capabilities and the foreign policy of middle powers. middle powers have more maneuvering space to take the initiative on collaboration/cooperation. the less conflict the more effective the middle state can be – or in other words the less ambitious the more successful. Turkey’s sincere efforts to prevent Iraq from descending into chaos and from being divided into Shia and Sunni groups 83 is an example of good international citizenship and its pursuit of stability and balance. Mexico Indonesia Korea Turkey and Australia major aim has been to amplify their voice on various platforms especially the G20 good international citizenship by middle powers is better received and results in greater leverage than adventurist political moves that cause conflict with great powers. The rise in national capabilities not only lifts a country’s status but also opens up foreign policy maneuverability. how various countries perceive and value the capabilities of other nation-states this complementarity may have unexpected results Turkey’s experience since the 1930s exemplifies counterbalanced its vulnerabilities with resilience and constantly recalibrated its self-image Russia-friendly foreign policy went hand-in-hand with an anti-Communist domestic policy. similarly a non-pro-Western foreign policy was not an obstacle to a close partnership with Britain a resilient small power is able to manage the strategic calculations of great powers. Turkey has increased its tangible national capabilities drastically. This has not only elevated its status internationally but has also given it a much larger arena in which to conduct foreign policy</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Turkey has boosted its international position since the 1930s. This process hides two major aspects of the small power and middle power comparison: a clear increase in capabilities (GNP population military expenditure number/content/focus of international agreements) and related examples of foreign policy behavior. Turkey’s boost illustrates to what extent and under which circumstances the increase in capabilities complements foreign policy objectives. The increase in Turkey’s tangible capabilities can be seen in Tables below: [table omitted] One indicator of Turkey’s boost can be seen in its international agreements. During the 1930s Turkey’s international agreements related to friendship neutrality mutual security cooperation maintaining a good neighborhood and joining sanctions regimes. With the end of the Second World War the agreements increased in their number and diversity. This illustrates Turkey’s success in engaging in international politics. In this period several bilateral and multilateral agreements/ conventions were concluded with neighboring and non-neighboring countries within the framework of the UN and its subordinate organizations as well as the OECD the EU NATO Council of Europe the OSCE Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) etc.47 Turkey’s capabilities and attitudes towards foreign policy during the 1930s fall into the small power category. The small powers of the 1930s faced a “dangerous combination of an increasing war threat … the emergence of new and costly military technology and overall offensive military doctrines”.48 Within this dangerous combination of circumstances Ankara successfully balanced its vulnerabilities with resilience which made Turkey a non-negligible element in the strategic calculations of great powers. Turkey’s relations with great powers clearly illustrate this point. Through its relations with Germany Ankara managed to counterbalance threat perceptions with economic opportunities. Turkey increased its trade volume with Germany until the German threat outweighed the economic benefits. With the “clearing” agreement in 1933 49 Germany became a major exporter of manufactured goods and an importer of raw materials and agricultural products from Turkey.50 Until 1936 this relationship served as a panacea for Turkey’s decreasing export incomes.51 By 1936 Germany made up half of Turkey’s imports and exports and as Hitler intensified war preparations Ankara moved to reduce the German influence on the economy by diversifying its trading partners.52 For example Turkey made an accord with the British construction company Brassert for the construction of the first steel factory in Karabük even though the German company Krupps had offered a better deal.53 Turkey’s pivot towards Britain exemplified a “defensive life”. This also changed Britain’s outlook towards Turkey which involved no commitment until 1936. Britain first supported Turkey’s claims as the basis of discussions in Montreux. A clearing agreement was signed in September 1936 to increase the trade volume which distanced Turkey from Germany.54 The shift increased the value of Turkish imports from Great Britain from 6 to 7 million Turkish Lira (TL) and exports from 6 to 9.7 million TL. Meanwhile the German share in Turkish trade decreased in value for the first time from 60 042 000 TL (51%) to 50 412 000 TL (36.5%).55 Turkey’s move to keep its alliances mixed highlights the focus on resilience. Although its relations with Britain deepened in 1938 Turkey did not completely detach from Germany. TurkeyBritain trade did not reach the volume of that with Germany from which it also received 150 million Reichsmarks (RM) of credit.56 The decision to specialize in certain products is another indicator. Turkey as the second largest producer of chrome ore in the world became a major supplier of German industry.57 The chrome trade with Germany rose from a value of 35 thousand RM to 3.5 million RM from 1929 to 1939 which covered almost 60% of Germany’s total demand.58 Chrome sales contributed to Turkey’s budget substantially and gradually made Germany dependent on Turkey’s supply of chrome. </source> [/INST] <claim>Turkey is on the road to being a global power</claim> <psg>Turkey has boosted its international position since the 1930s. With the end of the Second World War agreements increased in number and diversity. This illustrates Turkey’s success in engaging in international politics. bilateral and multilateral agreements/ conventions were concluded with neighboring and non-neighboring countries within the framework of the UN and subordinate organizations the EU NATO Ankara successfully balanced its vulnerabilities with resilience which made Turkey a great power Through its relations with Germany Ankara managed to counterbalance threat perceptions with economic opportunities. Turkey’s pivot towards Britain exemplified a “defensive life”. This also changed Britain’s outlook towards Turkey Turkey as the second largest producer of chrome ore in the world became a major supplier of industry</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> We present our empirical results in table 2. Model 1 includes only Approvalm−1 the independent variable of main theoretical interest and term-fixed effects in addition to the AR(1) and May terms while model 2 adds the dummy variables indicating pre-election months and the gas dispute. Model 3 then adds the variable measuring Turkish citizens’ perceptions of the economy while model 4 instead includes GDP per capita as well as Greek and Turkish defense spending. Econ. perceptionsm−1 is only available from 2015 onward leading to reduced temporal coverage of the time series and hence our sample size. We thus omit this variable from the most complete specification model 4. The results in models 1–4 are in line with our hypothesis as Approvalm−1 exhibits a coefficient that is consistently negative and statistically distinguishable from zero at the 99 percent level. Since the dependent variable in these models is the transformed number of airspace violations while the unit of Approvalm−1 is percent we can interpret its coefficient as the percent change in airspace incursions for a 1 percent increase in approval. Based on model 4 a 1 percent increase in public approval for Recep Tayyip Erdogan leads to a 0.0319 percent decrease in airspace ˘ violations. In contrast the control variables do not assert a statically significant effect on airspace incursions. To examine the substantive effect of approval ratings on airspace violations in more detail we present a plot of the predicted number of Turkish incursions into Greek-claimed airspace over the range of observed approval values in figure 2. The figure underlines that approval rate has a substantive if moderate effect on airspace violations as it shows that model 4 predicts 141 such incursions if Erdogan’s approval was 37.5 percent in the previous month whereas ˘ this number decreases to almost 100 if 50 percent of respondents approved of his leadership. Next we test the robustness of our results to several alternative specifications. Most importantly we follow earlier studies (e.g. DeRouen and Peake 2002. Pickering and Kisangani 2010) by using VAR to model the effect of approval ratings on airspace violations and vice versa as an endogenous relationship. This allows us to examine whether approval drives airspace violations and/or the other way around. For identification purposes it is necessary to restrict the contemporaneous effect of one of the endogenous variables to zero (Enders 2015). Approval data take time to collect with the Metropoll survey data only being collected toward the end Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fpa/article/17/3/orab007/6204770 by University of Michigan user on 22 July 2022 8 Diversionary Politics and Territorial Disputes Table 2. Approval ratings and airspace violations Dependent variable: ln Airspace violations. The Effect of Approval Ratings on Airspace Incursions Note: Predicted Value of ln Airspace Violations across different values of Approval Rate based on model four. Italicized numbers indicate corresponding non-logged number of violations. Dotted lines indicate 90%-Confidence Intervals. The Effect of Approval Ratings on Airspace Incursions - VAR results Note: Impulse Reaction Functions. Grey areas indicate 90%-Confidence Intervals. of the month meaning that they only become available after some time has passed. In contrast reporting on airspace violations is more imminent as they are mentioned in the news and on social media. We thus allow airspace violations to have a contemporaneous effect on approval ratings while only past approval values can affect airspace violations.7 Following standard practice we present impulse response function plots in figure 3 showing how one endogenous variable is affected by a shock in the other endogenous variable as well as results from Granger causality tests to interpret the VAR results instead of relying on regression coefficients. In line with our expectations figure 3 indicates that positive shocks to approval ratings result in less airspace violations. In contrast positive shocks to the number of airspace incursions are found to have no statistically significant effect on leader approval. Accordingly Granger causality tests suggest that approval ratings drive airspace violations but not the other way around. These results provide additional support to our expectation that low approval ratings lead to diversionary action. However they also raise the question why this is the case if such diversionary acts do not result in higher approval. One possible answer is that these diversionary actions do not target a wider domestic audience but instead key players within the governmental coalition (Morgan and Bickers 1992. Nicholls Huth and Appel 2010). Turkish territorial incursions may thus be designed to garner support from ultranationalist elements within the AKP and MHP by showing that the government is not afraid to confront Greece over the contested territory even if such a policy may not find support and hence boost approval among more centrist or opposition voters. We present further specifications examining the robustness of our results in the online appendix but the result that lower approval ratings increase airspace incursions persists. Conclusion Diversionary foreign policies have been the topic of a large literature that however reports mixed findings on whether domestic problems result in interstate conflict. 7 The VAR models include the control variables from model 4 and based on information criteria a lag order of 1. This paper adds to this debate by arguing that while leaders may be hesitant to start an outright war to boost their approval they will pursue smaller scale aggressive actions within existing disputes to gain domestic support. Results from tests using monthly data on leader approval and airspace violations in the territorial dispute between Greece and Turkey offer support for this argument: low approval ratings for Turkey’s leader result in more Turkish incursions into contested airspace. This result most directly contributes to the literature on diversionary conflict. First we introduce Turkey as a new case for quantitatively testing the theory whereas most applications focus on the United States. Second we add to a nascent literature studying diversionary acts below the crisis or militarized dispute level. Third and most importantly we show that when facing domestic disapproval leaders resort to material acts of aggressive foreign policy that are less costly than a new conflict but also more than cheap talk to increase support. This is an important result as such aggressive acts the intensification of an existing territorial dispute in the case of Turkey can lead to actual armed conflict further down the line. Our research thus also provides insights into the escalatory processes leading up to armed confrontations between neighbors such as those on the Indian–Chinese border in early summer 2020. This study suggests several avenues of further research. First future research should investigate whether territorial incursions or provocations are used in a similar diversionary manner in cases other than Turkey. Second they should examine whether domestic problems generally give rise to aggressive foreign policy behaviors below armed conflict or whether this requires the previous existence of a dispute whose salience leaders can tap into. Third our research produced the surprising finding that airspace incursions do not actually succeed in boosting support from the Turkish public. As such future research should further examine to what extent such diversionary policies target the general public or more specific strategically important audiences such as coalition partners </source> [/INST] <claim>Diversionary War Theory specifically between Turkey and Greece is true – studies and calculations prove.</claim> <psg>dummy variables indicating pre-election months and the gas dispute. Model 3 then adds the variable measuring Turkish citizens’ perceptions of the economy while model 4 instead includes GDP per capita as well as Greek and Turkish defense spending Econ. perceptionsm Since the dependent variable in these models is the transformed number of airspace violations while the unit of Approvalm−1 is percent we can interpret its coefficient as the percent change in airspace incursions for a 1 percent increase in approval a 1 percent increase in public approval for Recep Tayyip Erdogan leads to a 0.0319 percent decrease in airspace ˘ violations the control variables do not assert a statically significant effect on airspace incursions To examine the substantive effect of approval ratings on airspace violations in more detail we present a plot of the predicted number of Turkish incursions into Greek-claimed airspace over the range of observed approval values The figure underlines that approval rate has a substantive if moderate effect on airspace violations as it shows that model 4 predicts 141 such incursions if Erdogan’s approval was 37.5 percent in the previous month whereas ˘ this number decreases to almost 100 if 50 percent of respondents approved of his leadership We thus allow airspace violations to have a contemporaneous effect on approval ratings while only past approval values can affect airspace violations Turkish territorial incursions may thus be designed to garner support from ultranationalist elements within the AKP and MHP by showing that the government is not afraid to confront Greece over the contested territory even if such a policy may not find support and hence boost approval among more centrist or opposition voters. We present further specifications examining the robustness of our results in the online appendix but the result that lower approval ratings increase airspace incursions persists they will pursue smaller scale aggressive actions within existing disputes to gain domestic support. Results from tests using monthly data on leader approval and airspace violations in the territorial dispute between Greece and Turkey offer support for this argument low approval ratings for Turkey’s leader result in more Turkish incursions into contested airspace. Third and most importantly we show that when facing domestic disapproval leaders resort to material acts of aggressive foreign policy that are less costly than a new conflict but also more than cheap talk to increase support This is an important result as such aggressive acts the intensification of an existing territorial dispute in the case of Turkey can lead to actual armed conflict further down the line</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Turkish obstructionism against Swedish and Finnish NATO membership its limited offensive in Iraq and its prospective offensive in Syria have grabbed international attention. But more significant is Turkey’s growing diplomatic tension with Greece an ever-festering lesion that threatens to burst. Considering Turkey’s domestic situation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the United States must be wary. Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan could capitalize on international distraction and wage a diversionary war to boost his popularity a conflict that would disrupt NATO’s cohesion and threaten the alliance. Washington should act now to resolve the current incarnation of this long-standing Mediterranean dispute. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics since 2001 when his AKP party first won a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Although Erdogan was banned from Turkish politics for anti-secular incitement his prime ministerial — and later presidential — predecessor Abdullah Gül until the mid-2010s at least was functionally a stand-in for him. Erdogan may have restricted his Islamist proclivities and international assertiveness until he consolidated power in 2014-2016. However Turkey’s break with the United States over the latter’s invasion of Iraq and Turkey’s growing hostility towards Israel indicated a deeper rift between Washington and Ankara. Erdogan consistently sought a greater regional role. through diplomatic pressure against Israel culminating with the Gaza Flotilla — a bald-faced attempt to prompt a confrontation with Israel — Erdogan hoped to position himself as the spiritual leader of the Islamic world. The Arab Spring however transformed the regional balance. No power could pretend that the “Palestine Question” still defined regional politics. The Libyan and Syrian civil wars and the subsequent rise of ISIS thrust Islamism to the fore once again while Iranian expansion in Iraq Syria and Lebanon demonstrated the relevance of traditional coalition competition rather than religious rivalry. Turkey’s response has been to sharpen its shift away from the United States by alternating between Russophilic and Russophobic policies. The Levantine maelstrom that began in Syria and exploded in Iraq stoked Turkish fears of Kurdish revanchism. Even before that Russian presence in Syria prompted Turkey to pursue a more aggressive policy supporting Islamist elements in the Syrian opposition and destroying a Russian Su-24 that briefly violated Turkish airspace. Two years later Turkey agreed to purchase S-400 anti-air systems from Russia that in 2019 prompted its ejection from the West’s F-35 fighter-jet program and U.S. sanctions. More generally Turkey asserted itself militarily since 2016 intervening directly in Syria and Libya. In the latter conflict Turkey aligned with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord opposing the Tobruk-based French- Russian- Emirati- and Egyptian-supported House of Representatives. Although fighting there has subsided tensions may again explode — and by striking a territorial deal in Libya Turkey can lay claims to the Eastern Mediterranean’s natural gas deposits threatening Israel Egypt and Greece. </source> [/INST] <claim>Erdogan will start a diversionary war</claim> <psg>Turkey’s growing diplomatic tension with Greece Considering Turkey’s domestic situation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the United States must be wary. Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan could capitalize on international distraction and wage a diversionary war to boost his popularity conflict that would disrupt NATO’s cohesion and threaten the alliance Turkey’s response has been to sharpen its shift away from the United States by alternating policies Turkey asserted itself militarily since 2016 intervening directly in Syria and Libya</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The long-running dispute between the United States’ NATO allies—Turkey and Greece—in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean heated up over the past year. A tussle over rights to drill for natural gas in contested waters sparked the latest round of tensions but the core issues of sovereign rights and differing interpretations of international law run much deeper. As US President Joe Biden’s administration begins to implement its foreign policy it would be worthwhile for it to draw lessons from the early proponents of US engagement in the region who highly valued the United States’ alliance with both Turkey and Greece. The United States should in a neutral manner mediate and manage tensions between the two countries. </source> [/INST] <claim>Revitalized American diplomacy solves Turkey-Greece Relations</claim> <psg>tussle over rights to drill for natural gas in contested waters sparked the latest round of tensions but the core issues of sovereign rights and differing interpretations of international law run much deeper it would be worthwhile for it to draw lessons from the early proponents of US engagement in the region who highly valued the United States’ alliance with both Turkey and Greece. The United States should in a neutral manner mediate and manage tensions between the two countries</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> As part of NATO’s nuclear umbrella Turkey continues to host approximately 50 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on its territory at Incirlik Air Base. 5 While the Cold War-era B61 bombs serve little military purpose they provide tangible evidence of a continued American commitment to Turkish security. There is ongoing debate in the policy community about whether the United States should continue to station tactical nuclear weapons in Turkey given political instability in Turkey and the wider Middle East. 6 However advocates for the continued presence of the weapons argue that although they serve little military purpose they provide tangible evidence of a continued American commitment to Turkish security. </source> [/INST] <claim>Turkey already cooperates with the US on security</claim> <psg>As part of NATO’s nuclear umbrella Turkey continues to host approximately 50 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on its territory at Incirlik Air Base advocates for the continued presence of the weapons argue that although they serve little military purpose they provide tangible evidence of a continued American commitment to Turkish security.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> As the war between Russia and Ukraine grinds on and as the need to maintain a united front against Moscow grows Turkey and the United States are seeking to put their long-troubled relationship on a better path. The new U.S.-Turkey Strategic Mechanism announced in early April 2022 is a promising (but tentative) step forward. </source> [/INST] <claim>US and Turkey are committed to cooperating – Strategic Mechanism Proves </claim> <psg>As the war between Russia and Ukraine grinds on and as the need to maintain a united front against Moscow grows Turkey and the United States are seeking to put their long-troubled relationship on a better path. The new U.S.-Turkey Strategic Mechanism announced in early April 2022 is a promising step forward.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> ANKARA April 5 (Reuters) - Turkey and the United States announced the culmination of months of talks to set up a procedure for improving their strained ties eyeing cooperation in the areas of economy and defense. </source> [/INST] <claim>US and Turkey are cooperating now </claim> <psg>announced the culmination of months of talks to set up a procedure for improving their strained ties eyeing cooperation in the areas of economy and defense.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Turkey's annual inflation jumped to a two-decade high of 69.97% in April according to data on Thursday fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising energy and commodity prices after last year's lira crash. </source> [/INST] <claim>Inflation destroyed Erdogan’s support</claim> <psg>Turkey's annual inflation jumped to a two-decade high of 69.97% in April</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Turkey is a county that experiences rapid socioeconomic development which in turn leads to high urbanization rates due to migration of people from rural to urban areas many large-scale development projects (e.g. highways dams housing and infrastructure) and environmental problems that adversely affect agriculture such as soil erosion and deforestation. Furthermore Turkey lies in a region prone to natural disasters especially earthquakes landslides flooding and forest fires. Successfully overcoming these challenges requires continuous monitoring to enable rapid response as well as the development of effective socioeconomic policies. In this regard space-based earth observation (EO) systems play a critical role in the rapid acquisiton and extraction of crucial information. The first launch of the first Turkish-designed satellite RASAT in 2011 led to the wide-spread exploitation of space-based resources by Turkish institutions through the dissemination of EO data on an open and free basis via the GEZGIN internet portal (http://www.gezgin.gov.tr). The push for data sharing was further instigated by the nationally funded project GEOPORTAL ('Satellite Image Processing and Geoportal Development Project') and European Union FP7 project EOPOWER ('Earth Observation for Economic Empowerment') which strove to create conditions for sustainable economic development through the increased use of Earth observation products and services for environmental applications. In this work the technical challenges involving processing and preparing raw satellite data for dissemination as well as software design of the GEZGIN Portal will be presented. </source> [/INST] <claim>Turkey knows they need better access to space satellites to monitor environment</claim> <psg>Turkey is a county that experiences rapid socioeconomic development which in turn leads to high urbanization rates due to migration of people from rural to urban areas many large-scale development projects and environmental problems that adversely affect agriculture such as soil erosion and deforestation. Furthermore Turkey lies in a region prone to natural disasters especially earthquakes landslides flooding and forest fires. Successfully overcoming these challenges requires continuous monitoring to enable rapid response as well as the development of effective socioeconomic policies. In this regard space-based earth observation (EO) systems play a critical role in the rapid acquisiton and extraction of crucial information The first launch of the first Turkish-designed satellite RASAT in 2011 led to the wide-spread exploitation of space-based resources by Turkish institutions through the dissemination of EO data on an open and free basis via the GEZGIN internet portal The push for data sharing was further instigated by the nationally funded project GEOPORTAL which strove to create conditions for sustainable economic development through the increased use of Earth observation products and services for environmental applications. In this work the technical challenges involving processing and preparing raw satellite data for dissemination as well as software design of the GEZGIN Portal will be presented.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The Turkish government strongly promotes the mediation system. In the near future mediation is expected to be mandatory as a precondition to formal litigation relating to all IP disputes. In this regard alternative dispute resolution methods will be more important and effective in practice. Further as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow across technical fields the WIPO has started an open process to lead the conversation regarding IP policy implications. In the global IP world the topic of whether AI can be the owner of a patent or not is being discussed. Even though there haven't been any decisions or changes in Turkey it seems that changes regarding AI will be necessary. </source> [/INST] <claim>Turkey is open to discussion on AI IP</claim> <psg>The Turkish government strongly promotes the mediation system In the near future mediation is expected to be mandatory as a precondition to formal litigation relating to all IP disputes Further as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow across technical fields the WIPO has started an open process to lead the conversation regarding IP policy implications. In the global IP world the topic of whether AI can be the owner of a patent or not is being discussed. Even though there haven't been any decisions or changes in Turkey it seems that changes regarding AI will be necessary</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Turkey’s rejection of NATO accession for Sweden and Finland beyond undercutting NATO’s response to Russia’s aggression reflects a deeper rift between the West and Turkey. This is further manifest by Ankara’s recent threat to expand into northern Syria and its overflights of Greek territory. For the sake of the Alliance immediate responses are vital but the rift will worsen unless Washington and European capitals work with Ankara to fundamentally shift their relationship. While such a shift has long been advisable given Turkey’s importance the existential threat of Russian aggression for both Turkey and the Alliance make it urgent. </source> [/INST] <claim>Greece concerns existed before Erdogan and will persist past him</claim> <psg>Turkey’s rejection of NATO accession for Sweden and Finland beyond undercutting NATO’s response to Russia’s aggression reflects a deeper rift between the West and Turkey. For the sake of the Alliance immediate responses are vital but the rift will worsen unless Washington and European capitals work with Ankara to fundamentally shift their relationship.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> This article introduced the theory of diversionary peace which improves our understanding of the link between foreign policy making and contentious civil-military relations. Contributing to peace abroad can have coup proofing effects at home quite like the decision to go to war. A thick description of Tunisia served as an empirical plausibility probe of the mechanisms linking peacekeeping to coup-proofing. Participation in peacekeeping establishes feasibility obstacles for coup coordination the allocation of economic resources to officers the institutionalization of the military apparatus and a professionalized ethos in the officer corps. In an emerging research programme on the interplay of peacekeeping and domestic politics studying Tunisia reveals three novel findings. First coup-proofing can be the unintended outcome of dynamics in civil-military relations where political incumbents did not design specific strategies to keep officers in the barracks. In Tunisia it was the military leadership pushing for peacekeeping participation more so than the Ben Ali regime. Second the Tunisian case reveals that coup-proofing through peacekeeping is particularly effective in countries with small armies where battalion strength mission participation immediately introduces a high percentage of officers into a career trajectory contributing to individual and collective professionalization. It is in larger armies with larger officer corps where military 96Author interview with Tunisian journalist Tunis 17 May 2017. 608 H. ALBRECHT leaderships and political incumbents remain more selective on mission participants. Greater competition creates winners and losers for the perks of peacekeeping and hence individual grievances among those officers deprived of opportunities at professional advancement. Third and relatedly Tunisia shows which mechanisms prove particularly effective in advancing coup proofing. While peacekeeping contributes to institutional professionalization and the development of a professional ethos these remain slow-moving facets of a military’s social fabric. Other dynamics and events such as international support for military training the effect of economic development on recruitment and procurement and a military’s deployment in domestic or external conflicts certainly have an impact on military professionalism as well perhaps at a higher degree than the provision or troops for international peacekeeping. Rather than such corporate factors it is the individual-level mechanisms highlighted in this article – feasibility obstacles and the provision of material resources – where peacekeeping generates the most significant impact on coup-proofing. These findings have important empirical and theoretical implications for scholars in various thematic fields across Comparative Politics and International Relations. Experts of Middle East politics and civil-military relations will note the empirical blind spot in the works on coup-proofing in Tunisia and beyond. Peacekeeping participation has so far not been fully addressed as an important element of the Tunisian military’s engagement and helps us better understand why for instance the military returned to the barracks in 2011 that is at a point in time where it could have assumed power through the post-Arab Spring transition period. Scholars interested in the theory and empirical practice of diversionary war may consider a limitation to the theory’s applicability for weak armies. While war may not always be an option contributing to peace can be equally attractive for its positive effects on civil-military relations. In turn the theory of diversionary peace offers a contribution to the research programme on international peacekeeping in that it proposes novel ideas about the rationale for troop commitments beyond geostrategic considerations. Further research will be necessary to explore the external validity of the findings from the Tunisian case. The broader applicability of the diversionary peace appears to be particularly promising for civil-military relations during democratic transitions such as in Latin America and the post-conflict environments of small states in sub-Sahara Africa. In fact initial observations appear to reveal the explanatory power of the diversionary peace in multiple cases including Ghana Rwanda Burundi Uganda Ethiopia Burkina Faso and Senegal. While the diversionary peace should be seen as an important component in the toolbox of foreign policy making it remains a medium-range theory with its explanatory power subject to important context factors. For one the theory works well for small armies in authoritarian regimes that at the time of increased coup threat would entertain opportunities for participation in peacekeeping missions. Perhaps more importantly participation in peacekeeping missions is not a coup-proofing strategy equally available to authoritarian incumbents across time and space. The very existence of a peacekeeping mission along with the mission sponsor’s invitation to participate come as necessary conditions for incumbents to consider sending troops abroad. These constraints ultimately limit the applicability of diversionary peace to post-Cold War international politics for the dramatic increase in peacekeeping missions after 1990. Yet since the number of interstate wars has declined quite considerably during that same period diversionary war becomes less likely and diversionary peace merits greater attention in contemporary international politics </source> [/INST] <claim>Diversionary peace not war</claim> <psg>Contributing to peace abroad can have coup proofing effects at home quite like the decision to go to war. A thick description of Tunisia served as an empirical plausibility probe of the mechanisms linking peacekeeping to coup-proofing. Participation in peacekeeping establishes feasibility obstacles for coup coordination the allocation of economic resources to officers the institutionalization of the military apparatus and a professionalized ethos in the officer corps . In Tunisia it was the military leadership pushing for peacekeeping participation more so than the Ben Ali regime. Second the Tunisian case reveals that coup-proofing through peacekeeping is particularly effective These findings have important empirical and theoretical implications for scholars in various thematic fields across Comparative Politics and International Relations Scholars interested in the theory and empirical practice of diversionary war may consider a limitation to the theory’s applicability While war may not always be an option contributing to peace can be equally attractive for its positive effects on civil-military relations. In turn the theory of diversionary peace offers a contribution to the research programme on international peacekeeping in that it proposes novel ideas about the rationale for troop commitments beyond geostrategic considerations The broader applicability of the diversionary peace appears to be particularly promising for civil-military relations during democratic transitions For one the theory works well for authoritarian regimes that at the time of increased coup threat would entertain opportunities for participation in peacekeeping missions Yet since the number of interstate wars has declined quite considerably during that same period diversionary war becomes less likely and diversionary peace merits greater attention in contemporary international politics</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> In the same era Turkey followed “a passive strategy of renunciation” and stayed in the nonrevisionist camp.59 Turkey increased its defense expenditures (see Table 2) but its defenses were still only effective for limited regional warfare. Turkey could not face a major threat such as the Italian or German Air Force.60 Ankara remained passive in the hope that the threat would disappear. Turkey also used international regimes particularly when the revision of the Lausanne Straits Convention started with Turkey’s application to the League of Nations in April 1936. During the process Turkey had pro-status quo tendencies carried out via multilateral diplomacy and international law.61 It managed to win the support of greater powers i.e. Britain to reshape other parties’ demands. Turkey invoked the rebus sic stantibus principle to terminate the Straits Convention.62 With these maneuvers Turkey through the Montreux Convention (1936) managed to offset Russia and to achieve control over the Bosporus and the Dardanelles as regulatory authority on the transit of naval warships. Turkey then started shifting between varying alliance structures against Italian expansionism in the Eastern Mediterranean which increased its value as a counterweight between antagonistic alliances.63 Against Italian armaments in the Dodecanese islands and Mussolini’s Mare Nostrum rhetoric Turkey successfully cooperated with the British within the League to impose sanctions on Italy after the invasion of Abyssinia and the signing of the Balkan Entente of 1934. Once the Abyssinia Crisis cooled down Italy tried to reharmonize relations with Turkey by revoking its claims over Turkish lands.64 In its relations with the Soviets Ankara glossed over its anticommunist tendencies65 to test the opportunities for economic and security partnerships. Moscow contributed 8 million USD towards Turkey’s first five-year economic development plan after the Great Depression of 1929.66 Turkey with Russia proclaimed its opposition to Western dominance in the international economy but at the same time became a League member which it considered to be of Western design.67 Turkey also rejected Stalin’s quest for security against Hitler via the joint Turkish-Soviet defense system on the Straits.68 Turkey managed to accomplish these relations while maintaining the framework of neutrality. In the 1930s Ankara made a special effort to not be on either side of the polarizing international system but did not completely detach itself either. Turkey did not conclude agreements with any one side which could potentially have restricted its revenues from the other. Two clear examples were Ankara’s rejection of Stalin’s offer for a joint defense system of the Turkish straits against Germany and its non-conclusion of an agreement with the Germans for chrome which could cut down on sales to the Allies. </source> [/INST] <claim>Turkey prioritizes cooperation with great powers and defense no risk of attack</claim> <psg>Turkey followed “a passive strategy of renunciation” and stayed in the nonrevisionist camp defenses were still only effective for limited regional warfare. Turkey could not face a major threat such as the Italian or German Air Force Turkey also used international regimes application to the League of Nations in April 1936. process Turkey had pro-status quo tendencies carried out via multilateral diplomacy and international law Turkey successfully cooperated with the British within the League to impose sanctions on Italy after the invasion of Abyssinia and the signing of the Balkan Entente of 1934. In its relations with the Soviets Ankara glossed over its anticommunist tendencies65 to test the opportunities for economic and security partnerships Turkey with Russia proclaimed its opposition to Western dominance but at the same time became a League member Ankara made a special effort to not be on either side of the polarizing international system but did not completely detach itself either</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> What is the future of digital reality? What is the consequence of the fateful meeting of digital experience and biotech engineering? What is the fate of the future itself when as Paul Virilio argues in Open Sky time and space as the deep horizon of our existence have been accidented have been radically derealized into the dimensionless void of ‘space-light’ and the real time the instantaneous global networked time of light-time? After the mutation the galactic debris of local time and local space gets in our eyes and history as a chronological succession of events collapses into random events with mutable meanings. Or when reality suddenly flips and we are no longer living in hyper-reality broken boundaries moving at the speed of light but just the opposite – reversed into a digital universe moving at the slow speed of light. </source> [/INST] <claim>The will to emerging technologies amplifies the crisis of the real pirates the body through a genetic matrix harvests flesh and turns bodies into predatory war machines</claim> <psg>What is the future of digital reality? What is the consequence of the fateful meeting of digital experience and biotech engineering? What is the fate of the future itself when time and space as the deep horizon of our existence have been accidented have been radically derealized into the dimensionless void of ‘space-light’ and the real time the instantaneous global networked time of light-time as a chronological succession of events collapses into random events with mutable meanings</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Alarmed by the resurgent global prominence of Huawei a major privately owned Chinese telecommunication corporation now leading the world with its rapid deployment of a highly innovative fast and cheap 5G network information platform – the new network standard for speed fluidity and flexibility in moving vast streams of data – the suddenly challenged software empire of the United States has struck back hard and fast deploying not innovative technological solutions but political stealth. At stake in this struggle between Huawei as a surrogate for Chinese strategic national ambitions to quickly climb the economic value chain from low-wage mass manufacturing to broad spectrum technological innovation and the United States government as a surrogate for American network infrastructure companies that find themselves stuck in the mud of suddenly eclipsed 4G information systems is the question Who will code the digital future? Here control of network technology involves powering up the information bomb that is the digital future putting down codes for which economies cultures and politics matter and which will be silently but no less relentlessly prohibited excluded and silenced. In this scenario California ideology – the technological vision of information technology Silicon Valley style with its concerted orchestration of actions between Silicon Valley and the American national security state – finds itself challenged by a rising star on the previous digital periphery: Huawei a company with a work force of engineers and researchers based in the Pearl River Delta north of Hong Kong. In digital reality innovative code breakthroughs are always restless know no definite boundaries and move from the periphery to the centre at the speed of viral contagion. with this struggle California ideology meets its first real challenge for control of the digital future in the form of the nervous breakthrough that is 5G at the coding hands of Pearl River ideology. It is an ideological struggle. Just as much as California ideology assumed a dominant global position in computer technology by first silencing that other California counter-ideology those hackers of computers politics and art who dreamed of turning the magic of information technology in the direction of digital justice so too Pearl River ideology runs parallel to the global ambitions of the Chinese state namely to demand respect for China for its past history as well as its present accomplishments as an author of a future outside the orbit of American political dominance. So then it’s a classic struggle between massive trading blocks each of which shades into equally massive political empires. In this case information is political and there is nothing more politically sovereign than control over the nervous system of global information infrastructures. </source> [/INST] <claim>The 5G race with China is just an emerging cold (data) war intent on rendering subjects technological</claim> <psg>Alarmed by the resurgent global prominence of Huawei a major privately owned Chinese telecommunication corporation now leading the world with its rapid deployment of a highly innovative fast and cheap 5G network information platform the suddenly challenged software empire of the United States has struck back hard and fast deploying not innovative technological solutions but political stealth Who will code the digital future? Here control of network technology involves powering up the information bomb that is the digital future putting down codes for which economies cultures and politics matter and which will be silently but no less relentlessly prohibited excluded and silenced. In this scenario California ideology meets its first real challenge for control of the digital future in the form of the nervous breakthrough that is 5G at the coding hands of Pearl River ideology. It is an ideological struggle So then it’s a classic struggle between massive trading blocks each of which shades into equally massive political empires. In this case information is political and there is nothing more politically sovereign than control over the nervous system of global information infrastructures.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The fate of the virtual class is inextricably tied to the knowledge theory of value. As a class representing the leading (theoretical) edge of the new economy the virtual class simultaneously brings virtual knowledge into real (digital) material existence patenting its ownership rights codifying its procedures of practical (net) use and recreating the world in terms of a three-tier virtual architecture. At the same time that the virtual class is the self-realized form of the knowledge theory of value the very existence of the virtual class is itself dependent on the actualization of virtual knowledge. Simultaneously a decisive point of the historical realization of virtual knowledge as well as its world cypher the virtual class always occupies the dual position of (active) creator and (passive) portal explosive dynamic of the digital future and servomechanism for consolidating the digital past. </source> [/INST] <claim>The attempt to rid capitalism but attain technicity is a double-turn – it allows the ruling class to attach itself to violent cybernetics in order to cement its power</claim> <psg>The fate of the virtual class is inextricably tied to the knowledge theory of value the virtual class simultaneously brings virtual knowledge into real (digital) material existence patenting its ownership rights codifying its procedures of practical (net) use and recreating the world in terms of a three-tier virtual architecture. At the same time that the virtual class is the self-realized form of the knowledge theory of value the very existence of the virtual class is itself dependent on the actualization of virtual knowledge the virtual class always occupies the dual position of (active) creator and (passive) portal</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> However just like the story of Christianity before it this newest reenactment of the myth of salvation in digital form has its competing myths: one the myth of order is literally the attempt by power and capital to channel the explosive energies released by network connectivity into a new digital order maximizing political loyalty and economic profit. and the other the myth of freedom is network society pushed to its limits and beyond by a rising generation of blended minds data flesh and virtual perception particularly by the generation of the young today moving at particle speed. </source> [/INST] <claim>*Note – this is the same card in the 1AC of the K-Aff</claim> <psg>myth of salvation in digital form has its competing myths: one the myth of order is literally the attempt by power and capital to channel the explosive energies released by network connectivity into a new digital order maximizing political loyalty and economic profit. and the other the myth of freedom is network society pushed to its limits and beyond by a rising generation of blended minds data flesh and virtual perception particularly by the generation of the young today moving at particle speed.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> When the symptomatic signs of fascism have displayed themselves triumphantly and without a hint of apology at the highest levels of American government – the redefinition of American cities as a “battlespace”. the denunciation of peaceful protesters as terrorists. the militarization of police forces. government surveillance planes overhead capturing cell phone data of protesters. the imposition of curfews as part of a generalized state of siege. frequent occurrences of racialized violence and active violent suppression of civic dissent by batons tear gas smoke canisters rubber bullets pepper balls flash bangs helicopter horses and military vehicles – then the question of surveillance becomes a storm centre of contemporary politics. Here the role of surveillance as a powerful tool of the national security state in identifying tracking archiving and isolating sources of democratic dissent quickly moves from the background to the suddenly crystallized foreground of the gathering debate concerning surveillance. If the self-proclaimed aim of this newly articulated version of fascism is to establish “dominance” over the population by the use of “overwhelming force” supplemented by the militarization of policing then a necessary tool in accelerating domination will be the generation of ubiquitous forms of surveillance that would permit the state to identify not only existent sources of popular dissent but also to anticipate and thus suppress the future of dissent itself. Today surveillance never sleeps because power increasingly thinks of its own domestic population in terms of a hostile insurgency controllable only by “overwhelming force” and “domination.” Of course not cowed by a surveillance apparatus acting at the behest of “overwhelming force ” witnesses to scenes of police violence protesters subjected to “domination ” and observers of human rights violations create a vibrant critically engaged network of counter-surveillance by mobile cameras that is as ubiquitous in its instant diffusion across the mass media as it is effective in mobilizing efforts towards political change. All the while in this raging scene of mass surveillance and popular counter-surveillance the triumph of visual media culture with its predictable rhetoric carefully managed narratives and framed images is instantly undercut by the return of oral culture. As the political theorist David Cook notes “Trump’s use of Twitter is a form of oral culture that mesmerizes the individual in short aphorisms slogans and quick spells reducing book culture which is too slow to compete. A culture that produces the vicious turtle.”2 </source> [/INST] <claim>Improving surveillance is a tool for the state to establish dominance over the population militarize policing and create racialized violence</claim> <psg>When the symptomatic signs of fascism have displayed themselves triumphantly and without a hint of apology the redefinition of American cities as a “battlespace”. . government surveillance planes overhead frequent occurrences of racialized violence and active then the question of surveillance becomes a storm centre of contemporary politics. Here the role of surveillance as a powerful tool of the national security state in identifying tracking archiving and isolating sources of democratic dissent quickly moves from the background to the suddenly crystallized foreground of the gathering debate concerning surveillance. If the self-proclaimed aim of this newly articulated version of fascism is to establish “dominance” over the population by the use of “overwhelming force” supplemented by the militarization of policing then a necessary tool in accelerating domination will be the generation of ubiquitous forms of surveillance that would permit the state to identify not only existent sources of popular dissent but also to anticipate and thus suppress the future of dissent itself. Today surveillance never sleeps because power increasingly thinks of its own domestic population in terms of a hostile insurgency controllable only by “overwhelming force” and “domination.” Of course not cowed by a surveillance apparatus acting at the behest of “overwhelming force the triumph of visual media culture with its predictable rhetoric carefully managed narratives and framed images is instantly undercut by the return of oral culture Trump’s use of Twitter is a form of oral culture that mesmerizes the individual in short aphorisms slogans and quick spells reducing book culture which is too slow to compete. A culture that produces the vicious turtle.”2</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> With this the age of Artificial War has begun. In its manifesto for the future of cyber-war Vision 2020 (www.af.mil/vision/) the newly created United States Space Command theorizes a future battlefield of ‘full spectrum dominance.’ Abandoning the earth-bound dimensions of land sea air USSPACECOM projects a new era of artificial war in which the battlefield occurs in the ‘fourth dimension’ of space. Befitting a ‘spacefaring nation’ such as the United States third-dimensional warfare is surpassed by a vision of future war in which ‘battle managers’ are in essence computerized editing systems running on automatic absorbing fluctuating data fields concerning attacks and responses monitoring satellite transmissions from twenty thousand miles in deep space sequencing missile launches integrating ‘dominant maneuvers’ in space with ‘precision engagement’ on the ground sea and air providing ‘full-dimensional protection’ to ‘core national assets’ and ‘focusing logistics’ for a virtual battlefield that stretches into an indefinite future. As USSPACECOM theorizes the control of the seas in defence of commercial economic interests and the war of the western lands in defence of the expansion of the American (technological) empire to the shores of California has now migrated to a war for the ‘control of space.’ Consequently a future of artificial warfare in which space itself is weaponized. Fourth Dimensional warfare is the technical language by which the American empire now projects itself into a future of Artificial War: a fourthdimensional rhetoric of ‘global engagement ’ ‘full-force integration ’ ‘global partnerships ’ weaponized space stations tracking satellites reusable missile launchers and on-line real-time remotely controlled anti-missile systems. </source> [/INST] <claim>The will to control space culminates in the vivisectioning of the code of life itself and permanent species annihilation </claim> <psg>With this the age of Artificial War has begun United States Space Command theorizes a future battlefield of ‘full spectrum dominance.’ Abandoning the earth-bound dimensions of land sea air USSPACECOM projects a new era of artificial war in which the battlefield occurs in the ‘fourth dimension’ of space. Befitting a ‘spacefaring nation’ such as the United States third-dimensional warfare is surpassed by a vision of future war integrating ‘dominant maneuvers’ in space with ‘precision engagement’ on the ground sea and air providing ‘full-dimensional protection’ to ‘core national assets’ and ‘focusing logistics’ for a virtual battlefield that stretches into an indefinite future a future of artificial warfare in which space itself is weaponized. Fourth Dimensional warfare is the technical language by which the American empire now projects itself into a future of Artificial War: a fourthdimensional rhetoric of ‘global engagement ’ ‘full-force integration ’ ‘global partnerships ’ weaponized space stations tracking satellites reusable missile launchers and on-line real-time remotely controlled anti-missile systems.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Consequently while we can be aware that the “power of connections” is swiftly delivering us to a future capable of producing quantified fetuses and password-protected bodies what remains unclear is the ultimate cultural and perhaps even existential impact of the triumph of the transhuman. Considered in terms other than dystopia or utopia is it possible that such adventures in transhumanism – powered by visions of technological rapture and the singularity event practically implemented by the quantified self movement and replete with experiments in vivisectioning neural circuitry by synthetic biologists – are fundamentally changing the meaning of life and death for the human species as a whole? Perhaps it’s not a future of technological rapture but an indefinite period of suspended animation in which the human species as a life form kept waiting for the singularity event that may or may not ever arrive makes its final feverish preparations for a fateful crossing-over point between machines and humans yet not wanting to be untethered from digital prosthetics and definitely not anticipating that very real crossing-over point – the always solitary experience of death – without helpful technologies wrapping themselves around the “soft and curvy” matter of the body organic as it terminates. </source> [/INST] <claim>The transhumanist vision only culminates in the suspending of life and the locking in of the human into the solitary experience of death</claim> <psg>Consequently while we can be aware that the “power of connections” is swiftly delivering us to a future capable of producing quantified fetuses and password-protected bodies what remains unclear is the ultimate cultural and perhaps even existential impact of the triumph of the transhuman adventures in transhumanism – powered by visions of technological rapture and the singularity event are fundamentally changing the meaning of life and death for the human species as a whole? Perhaps it’s not a future of technological rapture but an indefinite period of suspended animation in which the human species as a life form kept waiting for the singularity event that may or may not ever arrive makes its final feverish preparations for a fateful crossing-over point between machines and humans yet not wanting to be untethered from digital prosthetics and definitely not anticipating that very real crossing-over point – the always solitary experience of death – without helpful technologies wrapping themselves around the “soft and curvy” matter of the body organic as it terminates.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Most societies desperately try to immunize themselves against the blast of digital technology. The European Community freeze-dries culture in museums sometimes transforming whole cities into walking talking theme parks. The Canadian Government specializes in creating circuit-breakers (regulatory structures) to stop the flow of digital technology. Telephones ‘banks and insurance companies: that’s the Canadian beaver pond and like all tranquil pools the point is to stop the flow of escaping water. Which is strange because Canadians themselves are digital beings: born with modems in their pockets chips for heads pixels for eyes with satellites on their minds 3D accelerators on their feet for speed travel across the multi-graphical interfaces of the Net in their flesh WEB personalities and deep space radio telemetry as nervous systems. Being digital is being Canadian because Canadians see themselves as improved Americans. </source> [/INST] <claim>American technology is run on technological flesh and the will to technology – the US’ tech dominance ensures communicative war</claim> <psg>Most societies desperately try to immunize themselves against the blast of digital technology Being digital is being Canadian because Canadians see themselves as improved Americans.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> There is no longer digital innocence in the unfolding future of fast surveillance. We know by long immersion in the real world of digital reality that we are always being tracked monitored archived and evaluated – prodded probed and seduced – and in response we have sometimes become brilliant avatars of new counter-surveillance strategies. Consider the messianic all-consuming interest of the rising digital generation of pre-teens and teenagers who have already opted out of the traditional role of passive recipients of mass media becoming instead active creative deeply absorbed participants in the new digital worlds of TikTok Snapchat YouTube and Instagram fascinated in the past by the image repertoire of Vine knowing Snapchat and Instagram by (digital) heart always pressuring the system to move faster produce more novelty in imaging provide new video production breakthroughs create magical apps for linking the multiplicity of imaginations that we all are develop technological platforms that match the speed of digital desire. Here all the smartphones and play stations of social media are no longer simply digital devices for facilitating communication but creative gateways to improved digital perception. And sometimes just sometimes as in the case of K-pop fans better digital perception combines with an abiding affective desire for social justice instantly remaking digital streaming into politics of the street resurgent on the net. </source> [/INST] <claim>Digital innocence is gone the only move left to play is to engage in slow life a form of terminal unpredictability that prevents algorithmic overcoding</claim> <psg>There is no longer digital innocence in the unfolding future of fast surveillance we are always being tracked monitored archived and evaluated – prodded probed and seduced</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> In an embodied material world where we often live the future as past with the present as a specious moment thrown in between and where curiosity typically trumps repetition and the emotional swirl of passion and desire always take precedence over hygienic logic what’s a digital algorithm to do? While it is the master of a system of surveillance that has already broken beyond the classical model of physics and gone quantum in terms of fast information processing the technological system is itself drifting further and further away from the enduring complexities and complications of the human condition. In an epoch where questions of race class religion gender and ethnicity have become in very real time the existential cloud of the world we inhabit sometimes peacefully but increasingly with spasms of bitter political divisions religious zealotry and incipient class struggle the surveillance system has literally nothing to say. It performs analytics not complicated understanding. It runs the numbers not the politics of the street. It profiles without interpretation tracks without understanding archives without complexity records without seeing stores information without knowledge. Fascinated with all the pathos ruins and wasted data of the past it usually has nothing to say about the splendours and terror of the future. Outside the closed field of data fast surveillance is emotionally dysfunctional. It follows digital footprints and sometimes even manages to translate those footprints into larger patterns of movement by all the digital tribes of the world but it is oblivious to face-to-face conversations since those who seek privacy increasingly go offline as much as it is myopic on the question of concealed human intentions and torn-up human hearts. The system may run fast at the speed of subatomic particles machine readability and algorithmic logic but its fatal flaw as a surveillance system is that it only works effectively in the data field. Slip the codes unlink from data go off-grid turn attention to that conflicted turbulent invested world that is the individual human life or even the life of a nation clan tribe empire or caliphate and the system of surveillance suddenly runs on empty. It requires human addiction to life in the codes to be effective. It literally needs life outside the wires to be eliminated in order to function successfully as an effective surveillance system. Which is why of course surveillance now rushes headlong at the speed of quantum computing towards an electronic cloud that surrounds us saturates us and does not let in any social sunshine racial distress or existential rain. In order to function smoothly fast surveillance ultimately requires the impossible – machine-readable populations scrubbed-down hygienic subjectivity carefully sequestered within hardened data borderlands with an army of menacing drones for the remainder of the powerless disavowed excluded populations outside the new digital cities nations and empires of the future. Against this dream of technological perfectibility stands of course the counter-evidence of K-pop fans and “Whiteout Wednesday” as a very visible very readable sign of brilliant unpredictability of human empathy the fabulous unreadability of K-pop fans taking down racist hashtags by (digital) day and night. </source> [/INST] <claim>The system requires human life in the codes – reversing that collapses its power</claim> <psg>hat’s a digital algorithm to do? While it is the master of a system of surveillance that has already broken beyond the classical model of physics and gone quantum in terms of fast information processing the technological system is itself drifting further and further away from the enduring complexities and complications of the human condition. In an epoch where questions of race class religion gender and ethnicity have become in very real time the existential cloud of the world we inhabit sometimes peacefully but increasingly with spasms of bitter political divisions religious zealotry and incipient class struggle the surveillance system has literally nothing to say. It performs analytics not complicated understanding. It runs the numbers not the politics of the street. It profiles without interpretation tracks without understanding archives without complexity records without seeing stores information without knowledge. Fascinated with all the pathos ruins and wasted data of the past it usually has nothing to say about the splendours and terror of the future. The system may run fast at the speed of subatomic particles machine readability and algorithmic logic but its fatal flaw as a surveillance system is that it only works effectively in the data field. Slip the codes unlink from data go off-grid turn attention to that conflicted turbulent invested world that is the individual human life or even the life of a nation clan tribe empire or caliphate and the system of surveillance suddenly runs on empty. It requires human addiction to life in the codes to be effective. It literally needs life outside the wires to be eliminated in order to function successfully as an effective surveillance system. Against this dream of technological perfectibility stands of course the counter-evidence of K-pop fans and “Whiteout Wednesday” as a very visible very readable sign of brilliant unpredictability of human empathy the fabulous unreadability of K-pop fans taking down racist hashtags by (digital) day and night.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Bodies always have their shadowy doubles: definitely not in the darkness of the night when the sun falls below the earthly horizon and is replaced by the different cycles of the moon but in the clarity of a sunny day and with it the often unnoticed splitting of the world into bodies and their accompanying shadows. Consciousness of this ancient story of bodily shadows with its premonitions of a fatal instability in the accepted framework of the real has sometimes led to strangely interesting mythic possibilities: cinematic scenes of rebellious shadows that suddenly refuse their preordained role of subordination to the governing signifier of the body in favour of striking out on their own – shadows without bodies. or just the reverse bodies stripped of shadows – possessed bodies that clearly mark their break from the terrestrial register of the human by their astonishing failure to cast a shadow no matter how intense the flares of the sun. </source> [/INST] <claim>The alternative is to cast a shadow over the affirmative – only one that is split from its electronic double can refuse human suffering and temporal exile</claim> <psg>Bodies always have their shadowy doubles in the clarity of a sunny day and with it the often unnoticed splitting of the world into bodies and their accompanying shadows. Consciousness of this ancient story of bodily shadows with its premonitions of a fatal instability in the accepted framework of the real has sometimes led to strangely interesting mythic possibilities: cinematic scenes of rebellious shadows that suddenly refuse their preordained role of subordination to the governing signifier of the body in favour of striking out on their own – shadows without bodies. or just the reverse bodies stripped of shadows – possessed bodies that clearly mark their break from the terrestrial register of the human by their astonishing failure to cast a shadow no matter how intense the flares of the sun.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Against the will to technology which is increasingly hygienic art introduces a counter-praxis of smeared images smudged bodies and contaminated optics. In the artistic imagination the ‘hyperbolic sign’ of Nietzsche’s thought finds its quintessential aesthetic expression in streamed images of bodies moving at the speed of light yet no less trapped in the more ancient rituals of ressentiment scapegoating and rage against the facticity of mortality. If the planetary drive to completed technicity is premised on what Marx theorized as the violent fetishism of the speed of circulation then art recovers a sense of temporality – the time of duration – as a way of aesthetically undermining empty spatialization. If technoculture intensifies Nietzsche’s prophecy of cynical power – a theatre of politics populated by ‘blond beasts of prey’ as the spearhead of the present militarization of the global economy and by ‘slave morality’ as popular (technical) consciousness – then art interjects itself in the form of an aesthetics of overexposure. As poiesis art literally overexposes the always hidden language of power drawing to the surface of the cynical image the labyrinth of a power which works now in the language of the despotic eye. Finally if the project of technology is nihilistic in its essence – transforming subjectivity into an ‘objectless object ’ functioning by an ethics of harvesting the ‘standingreserve ’ provoking boredom and anxiety as its key emotional registers – then art implicitly begins with Heidegger’s eloquent admonition. Only by listening to that which is closest at hand only by drawing out what has been suppressed by the coming to be of technicity can we ‘think’ through to another meaning of nihilism. </source> [/INST] <claim>The aesthetics of art recovers a sense of temporality and pulls back forgotten ways of thinking from the black hole of the will to technology</claim> <psg>Against the will to technology which is increasingly hygienic art introduces a counter-praxis of smeared images smudged bodies and contaminated optics If the planetary drive to completed technicity is premised on what Marx theorized as the violent fetishism of the speed of circulation then art recovers a sense of temporality – the time of duration – as a way of aesthetically undermining empty spatialization. If technoculture intensifies Nietzsche’s prophecy of cynical power – a theatre of politics populated by ‘blond beasts of prey’ as the spearhead of the present militarization of the global economy and by ‘slave morality’ as popular (technical) consciousness – then art interjects itself in the form of an aesthetics of overexposure. As poiesis art literally overexposes the always hidden language of power drawing to the surface of the cynical image the labyrinth of a power which works now in the language of the despotic eye. Finally if the project of technology is nihilistic in its essence – transforming subjectivity into an ‘objectless object</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> This situation can be clearly seen in the turbulent events occurring in contemporary society with the very real fear over viral contagion mixed with the quick return of politics in the streets with protests against racialized violence and all of it multiplied in its intensity many times over by the pressures of generalized economic recession severe job losses and coming financial defaults. It’s literally a time of imminent social chaos deep anxiety palpable anger over racialized injustice with the inevitable political backlash just waiting to express itself and all the while what is absolutely strengthened by the crisis are technological platforms putting down the codes for the will to technology. Today remote communication is the digital lifesaver for an educational system that has quickly chosen to disappear into Zoom. mobile communication with its rich array of digital devices provides an instant working infrastructure for working online and at a safe distance. the death of the face-to-face social rapidly gives way to streams of information gaming news flashes and communications as the technical lifeblood of network society. and most definitely the end of (traditional) work as we know it has been accelerated by the pandemic with its reduction of the labour force to “essential services ” clearing the way for a future that will quickly link artificial intelligence deep learning and creative robotics as the coming labour force. Seemingly everything moves now in the direction of intensified functionally required technological platforms. Everywhere of course the present mood of political malaise economic distress and social isolation contrasts sharply with the rising gains of finance capital as the codes of capital accumulation move in precisely the opposite specifically virtual direction from social and political disturbances on the ground left behind. Literally we are witness today to the profoundly historical moment when the will to technology takes off quickly achieving escape velocity dynamically and spectacularly from the inertial drag pressures of the social wasteland. While it is simultaneously predator and parasite magic and drudge fast (codes) and slow (life) agent of creative destruction and equally visionary new designs for the future no one can know with certainty what a future streaming the will to technology will look like. But again there is really no need to be a traditional futurist in this (digital) case since this is one time in which the future is already in our past. And that future – the future of fully exteriorized consciousness synchronized emotion the desire to escape subjectivity and become object-like the triumph of virtual culture – is in its fullest measure deeply immeasurably paradoxical. </source> [/INST] <claim>*Note – this is the same card in the 1AC version</claim> <psg>This situation can be clearly seen in the turbulent events occurring in contemporary society with the very real fear over viral contagion mixed with the quick return of politics in the streets with protests against racialized violence and all of it multiplied in its intensity many times over by the pressures of generalized economic recession severe job losses and coming financial defaults. It’s literally a time of imminent social chaos deep anxiety palpable anger over racialized injustice with the inevitable political backlash just waiting to express itself and all the while what is absolutely strengthened by the crisis are technological platforms putting down the codes for the will to technology streams of information gaming and communications as the technical lifeblood of network society a future that will quickly link artificial intelligence deep learning and creative robotics as the coming labour force. Seemingly everything moves now in the direction of intensified functionally required technological platforms Literally we are witness today to the profoundly historical moment when the will to technology takes off quickly achieving escape velocity dynamically and spectacularly from the inertial drag pressures of the social wasteland. While it is simultaneously predator and parasite magic and drudge fast (codes) and slow (life) agent of creative destruction and equally visionary new designs for the future no one can know with certainty what a future streaming the will to technology will look like. But again there is really no need to be a traditional futurist in this (digital) case since this is one time in which the future is already in our past. And that future – the future of fully exteriorized consciousness synchronized emotion the desire to escape subjectivity and become object-like the triumph of virtual culture – is in its fullest measure deeply immeasurably paradoxical.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Stiegler sets out his theory of the neganthropocene in his recent books Automatic Society (2016) and The Neganthropocene (2018) in order to respond to what he writes about in terms of the entropic conditions of the hyper-industrial society of the anthropocene. In this respect Stiegler (1998 2008 2010b) extends his earlier work on hominisation technics technology and hyper-industrialisation to take in the concept of the anthropocene and related environmental ecological concerns. His thesis here which he first articulates across his books on Disbelief and Discredit (Stiegler 2011 2012 2014b) through the application of psychoanalytic theory to social conditions is that the late capitalism of the hyper-industrial society results in the rise of a kind of post-structural nihilism. In his Disbelief and Discredit (Stiegler 2011 2012 2014b) books Stiegler develops a theory of nihilism based upon a reading of Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis. According to this thesis nihilism occurs when desire which structures action through the subjection of the individual to the symbolic systems that create a meaningful world collapses into drive which is beyond structure and operates on the basis of automatic instinctual and meaningless behaviour. Following Freud and Lacan Stiegler regards this as a psychological and sociological problem because it leads to a process of desubjectivization and individualisation beyond the (oedipal) rules and regulations that structure social life. However in his most recent books under consideration in this article – Automatic Society (2016) and The Neganthropocene (2018) – he extends this thesis to a broader planetary environmental and ecological frame. In this context the nihilism of the hyper-industrial society is no longer simply a psychological and sociological problem but also an issue that starts to threaten the integrity of the biosphere itself. This is the case because the natural world is unable to cope with the drive of the globalised socio-economic system that operates on the basis of uncontrollable individuals who have no sense of the need to defer their wants (desire) into the future but are instead possessed by the drive to have everything now. It is this short-circuit of desire into drive that Stiegler suggests has created the global consumer society the unsustainable anthropocene and the need to pull back from this situation through the creation of what he calls the neganthropocene. Thus the purpose of the neganthropocene is to oppose the endlessly destructive humanisation of the planet which Stiegler suggests has reached its limit in the global consumer society and reconnect the human animal to the earth in the name of a more sustainable way of living. In this way Stiegler suggests that the nihilism of late capitalism has become more than an issue of social cohesion but also a problem of survival and extinction. This is the case because the global economic system which is entirely bound up with the exploitation of the biosphere has become environmentally unsustainable and is in the process of collapsing back towards an entropic state represented by the end of society and beyond this the annihilation of life itself. Here Stiegler adopts the language of thermodynamics in order to theorise the cold death of the hyper-industrial energy system in an entropic state brought about by its complete closure in the anthropocene (total humanisation). In this situation the complete closure of the human world and its absolute colonisation of nature is a problem because there is nowhere else to draw energy from with the result that Stiegler sees the emergence of entropic incoherence and system collapse. This is precisely why he imagines the need for a reversal of entropy towards negentropy or the transition from cold disorder back into some form of warm order. This shift would in turn require the transformation of the (human) anthropocene into what he calls the (post-/pre-human) neganthropocene in order to re-scale the human animal within planetary limits and sustain environmental conditions suitable for the reproduction of life on earth. In this respect the central function of the neganthropocene would be to subject the unleashed drives of the hyper-industrial individual and hyper-industrial society to a structured symbolic system able to contain their excesses and ensure they remain bound within ecologically sustainable limits. Here I think Stiegler argues for a kind of natural law/contract between humans and planet set up to remind human beings of their participation in the natural world. This contract would require the creation of a new environmentally sensitive model of thinking to oppose the contemporary unsustainable growth based model of late capitalist thought that transforms everything into an abstraction that can be commodified and bought and sold on the open market. Thus my objective in this article is to think through the politics of knowledge and education that could make this utopian transformation from an ecologically unsustainable to a sustainable society possible. My central question is therefore concerned with what a politics of knowledge of the neganthropocene would look like and how this new way of knowing the world would work in the context of a late capitalist education system that has itself been based upon teaching abstract information and skills in order to support (unsustainable) economic growth. In order to respond to the above question I want to start with reference to Plato’s classic myth of the cave. The reason I want to start here is because I want to address the problem of knowledge and systemic stupidity in the hyper-industrial society that Stiegler (2014a) sets out in his work. Starting with perhaps the classic metaphorical exploration of the cultural politics of knowledge and stupidity in western thought will enable me to foreground the importance of education in Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene where the essential problem is in a sense the human (in)ability to think otherwise to think outside of the logic of the capitalist anthropocene and imagine some other way of living with nature that does not involve abstraction and commodification. Stiegler makes passing reference to Plato’s myth in The Neganthropocene (2018) and I would argue develops a pharmacological theory of caves over the course of the book. On the one hand Plato’s ancient cave represents a kind of epistemological prison. On the other hand the original Neolithic cave paintings at Lascaux symbolise the origins of what Stiegler calls arche-cinema which we might think about in terms of human imagination and our capacity for utopian projection into a future that is more than simply the endless repetition of the present. Working with these two alternatives I want to suggest that what we might call a pharmacology of the cave represents a kind of subterranean unconscious running through The Neganthropocene that we can excavate in order to capture the contemporary politics of knowledge and education comprising on the one hand (1) a space of abstract information and fascination and on the other hand (2) a world of experience expression and the imagination. As such in what follows I want to explore Plato’s cave in order to capture Stiegler’s epistemological problematic through an environmental metaphor (the cave). Recall Plato’s original speleology (from the Greek spelaion or cave). In his classic story of truth seeking and educational becoming from the Republic (Plato 1991) Plato captures the problem of moving from ignorance towards knowledge by imagining a group of people living deep underground transfixed by shadows cast upon the walls of their cave by the fire that sustains their lives. While the majority of the cave people have no idea they are living underground and spend their lives mistaking shadows for reality Plato explains the fate of the lonely individual who somehow escapes the subterranean world for the bright sunlight of reality and truth. What then is the fate of Plato’s original caver? Blinded by the light of reality the escapee slowly comes to terms with the real world. Their eyes adjust. At this point the escapee starts to think about how to communicate their discovery to the rest of the cave people. This is of course an impossible task. How can the cave people come to terms with or accept the madness of the idea of the surface from the perspective of a life lived underground? They have no idea that they have spent their lives in a subterranean world. In light of the impossibility or revealing this to them from inside the cave Plato’s suggestion is that since it is not possible for the person who has experienced reality to directly communicate this truth to those who remain captured by shadows on the basis that the shadow people must experience the voyage towards the surface and the light of day for themselves the best the escapee who has seen the light will ever be able to do is try to encourage those in love with shadows to find their own path out of the subterranean world. Thus Plato’s point is to say that it is pointless to try to teach and educate those who live inside a world of shadows by simply exposing them to ever more abstract information because this will only confuse them and lead to a radical disconnect between their corporeal experbience (the dancing shadows they see before them) and the surface dweller’s presentation of reality which would simply look like abstract madness theoretical fantasy or idle philosophical speculation from their point of view. Under these conditions the problem of ever more information is clear. This produces disorientation in a state of abstraction relative to the experience of the body in the world. Now in the face of the threat of the surface the cave people are likely to become extremely obstinate insisting upon the fantastical nature of the real world with the increasing desperation of those who need to save the reality of their world (the reality of the shadows upon the walls) in order to protect themselves from the horror of the unthinkable: the existential shock that their world had never been real and that they must step outside. The problem of the cave is therefore a largely irresolvable one from the point of the view of the authoritarian teacher who insists upon leading passive students who simply do what they’re told. There is no way to lead the cave people out of their underground prison unless they themselves are prepared to take a risk on the escapee’s speleological thesis and make the perilous journey towards the surface on their own. The key point here is that bodily experience trumps abstract information every time in Plato’s story. True education must be based upon knowledge (rather than information) of the embodied mind situated within cultural systems and what Marx (1988) called praxis where theoretical knowledge meets embodied practice in order to evade the problem Stiegler talks about in terms of proletarianisation or the transformation of the human into a kind of machine that receives input to produce output. According to Stiegler (see Stiegler 2010a 2011 2012 2014a) praxis relies on the long-term communication of ‘cultural scaffolding’ in order to provide the opportunity for self-discovery and the realisation of wider social and economic transformation. The purpose of this ‘cultural scaffolding’ is to situate the subject within cultural history and provide them with the intellectual tools to question their present reality and the know how to transform their world. In this way Stiegler advances the teaching of a kind of deep cultural grammar that might enable creativity invention and thinking beyond existing paradigms. In Stiegler’s view a deep knowledge of culture is able to oppose processes of proletarianisation where people are confronted with abstract information because it sutures humans into a universe of common understandings shared meanings and a history to practical know-how. This can in turn enable further learning on the basis of its provision of a resource for deep attention (concentration focus discipline and apprenticeship) retention (cultural memory) and protention (the imagination of a future on the basis of a sense of past and present) which we might relate to Marx’s idea of work where humans put thought knowledge and skill into practice (praxis) in order to advance their species being and beyond this the cause of wider civilization which is centrally never separate from natural metabolism (Foster & Burkett 2017). Under conditions of the anthropocene Stiegler’s thesis is that the natural ecosystem has been more or less entirely commodified and made subordinate to capitalist coding systems where everything has quantitative value and can be bought and sold on the open market. But in completing the process that started with the original enclosures in early modern Britain (the original capitalist caves) what the capitalist vision of complete commodification neglects to see is that the anthropocene is parasitic on the biosphere which sustains life and can no longer cope with the expansion of the cycle of production consumption waste and pollution that knows no end. It is because of this situation where the economic system no longer functions on a scale sustainable for the natural ecosystem of the planet that Stiegler (2018) moves towards ecology and frames this issue in speleological/epistemological terms. This is the case because escape from the unsustainable collapsing humanist cave will involve transformative cultural education founded upon embodied experience creativity and invention that are sensitive to ecological limits rather than teaching strategies committed to abstraction pouring drilling deskilling robotisation and automation which see the planet as limitless. The original modern utopian Thomas More responded to the violence of the first capitalist caves (the enclosures) by imagining a leap to some other place on the map (the island of utopia) (More 2016). In a similar way Stiegler’s theory of neganthropocene involves responding to the contemporary epistemological impasse of the anthropocene by first setting out a speleological dystopia and second imagining the possibility of escape into the real world. In the first moment humans are trapped within the final humanist built cave of global capitalism – the anthropocene – which is in the process of destroying the very conditions of life. In the second moment Stiegler suggests an escape route through cultural scaffolding experience-based education creativity and invention founded upon a painful recognition of natural finitude (both human and planetary). Building upon previous works in The Neganthropocene Stiegler (2018) identifies this escape route with a new politics of knowledge and education where cultural history experience in the world praxis creativity and invention are central. In the next section of the article I propose to explain Stiegler’s history of the anthropocene in order to provide context for the political struggle between knowledge founded upon on the one hand abstraction information and automation and on the other hand embodiment experience and praxis. 2. The crisis of the Anthropocene and the possibility of the Neganthropocene Extremism exposure and escape towards a post- or non-human world. This is how Stiegler conceives of the pharmakon of the anthropocene/neganthropocene. For Stiegler we find trauma at the start and the end of the thermodynamic system of the anthropocene. The human is the result of a traumatic break and will end in the same way. Consider the first volume of Technics and Time The Fault of Epimetheus (1998). Here Stiegler mythologises the origin of humanity through reference to Plato’s Protagoras (Plato 2009) and the myth of Epimetheus the less able brother of Prometheus. In this respect Stiegler reimagines the story of the cave. Where Plato’s cave man starts off caught underground before escaping from his subterranean prison Epimetheus and Prometheus conspire to leave humans naturally lacking only to throw them into excess through the gift of technology and the power of invention. In the story of Epimetheus and Prometheus the initial problem of the human is that it is exposed and cannot survive on its own. The human is caught in an ecological bubble or umwelt that cannot sustain its life. The human infant is naked weak and will soon die in the natural world. The result of this situation is that technology invention and creativity become necessary. Prometheus hands them to humanity and they represent a survival strategy that humans have been pushing ever since. In his anthropological discussion in Technics and Time which rests on a reading of LeroiGourhan (1993) work Stiegler makes the point that hominisation (humanisation) started when the early humans broke out of the ecosystem through tool use and began to create their own world (the human system) that would eventually comprise culture language and information. It is on the basis of this fault in the original ecosystem that we can understand the essential modernity invention and creativity of our (human) history which has always been premised upon the need to solve problems and make up for our essential lack relative to our lost relation to mother earth the ecosystem. However it is precisely the focus on modern technology that Stiegler (2018) wants to throw into question in his critique of the contemporary hyper-industrial society and the anthropocene. Perhaps the original response to the human mistake led to an even more serious mistake? Although Epimetheus and Prometheus may have blundered into the creation of the creative creature and humans have been caught in a struggle between lack and excess ever since Stiegler’s Heideggerian problem is that the modern expression of creativity is not in itself particularly creative but rather clearly bounded and limited by a technological system founded upon what we might call a parasitical abusive relationship to nature. </source> [/INST] <claim>This system of capture against both the psyche and planet destroys the very fabric of the world around us which terminally outweighs.</claim> <psg>Stiegler sets out his theory of the neganthropocene to respond to the entropic conditions of the hyper-industrial society of the anthropocene. Stiegler extends hominisation technics technology and hyper-industrialisation to take in the concept of the anthropocene and related environmental ecological concerns. the late capitalism of the hyper-industrial society results in the rise of a kind of post-structural nihilism nihilism occurs when desire which structures action through the subjection of the individual collapses beyond structure and operates on the basis of automatic instinctual and meaningless behaviour. Stiegler regards this as a psychological and sociological problem because it leads to a process of desubjectivization and individualisation the nihilism of the hyper-industrial society is no longer simply a psychological and sociological problem but also an issue that starts to threaten the integrity of the biosphere itself. the natural world is unable to cope with the drive of the globalised socio-economic system that operates on the basis of uncontrollable individuals who have no sense of the need to defer their desire into the future are instead possessed by the drive to have everything now. It is this short-circuit of desire into drive that Stiegler suggests has created the global consumer society the unsustainable anthropocene and the need to pull back from this situation through the creation of what he calls the neganthropocene. the purpose of the neganthropocene is to oppose the endlessly destructive humanisation of the planet which Stiegler suggests has reached its limit in the global consumer society reconnect the human animal to the earth in the name of a more sustainable way of living the nihilism of late capitalism has become more than an issue of social cohesion but also a problem of survival and extinction. the global economic system which is entirely bound up with the exploitation of the biosphere has become environmentally unsustainable and is in the process of collapsing back towards an entropic state represented by the end of society and beyond this the annihilation of life itself. thermodynamics to theorise the cold death of the hyper-industrial energy system in an entropic state brought about by its complete closure in the anthropocene the complete closure of the human world and its absolute colonisation of nature is a problem because there is nowhere else to draw energy from with the result that Stiegler sees the emergence of entropic incoherence and system collapse. This is why he imagines the need for a reversal of entropy towards negentropy or the transition from cold disorder back into some form of warm order. This shift would in turn require the transformation of the anthropocene into what he calls the neganthropocene in order to re-scale the human animal within planetary limits and sustain environmental conditions suitable for the reproduction of life on earth. the central function of the neganthropocene would be to subject the unleashed drives of the hyper-industrial individual and hyper-industrial society to a structured symbolic system able to contain their excesses and ensure they remain bound within ecologically sustainable limits. require the creation of a new environmentally sensitive model of thinking to oppose the contemporary unsustainable growth based model of late capitalist thought that transforms everything into an abstraction that can be commodified and bought and sold on the open market. think through the politics that could make this utopian transformation from an ecologically unsustainable to a sustainable society possible the essential problem is in a sense the human (in)ability to think otherwise to think outside of the logic of the capitalist anthropocene and imagine some other way of living with nature that does not involve abstraction and commodification. it is pointless to try to teach and educate those who live inside a world of shadows by simply exposing them to ever more abstract information because this will only confuse them and lead to a radical disconnect between their corporeal experbience the problem of ever more information is clear. This produces disorientation in a state of abstraction relative to the experience of the body in the world. bodily experience trumps abstract information every time True education must be based upon knowledge of the embodied mind situated within cultural systems ) called praxis where theoretical knowledge meets embodied practice in order to evade proletarianisation or the transformation of the human into a kind of machine that receives input to produce output praxis relies on the long-term communication of ‘cultural scaffolding’ in order to provide the opportunity for self-discovery and the realisation of wider social and economic transformation. a deep knowledge of culture is able to oppose processes of proletarianisation where people are confronted with abstract information because it sutures humans into a universe of common understandings Under conditions of the anthropocene the natural ecosystem has been more or less entirely commodified and made subordinate to capitalist coding systems where everything has quantitative value and can be bought and sold on the open market. the capitalist vision of complete commodification neglects to see is that the anthropocene is parasitic on the biosphere which sustains life and can no longer cope with the expansion of the cycle of production consumption waste and pollution that knows no end. the economic system no longer functions on a scale sustainable for the natural ecosystem of the planet This is the case because escape from the unsustainable collapsing humanist cave will involve transformative cultural education founded upon embodied experience creativity and invention that are sensitive to ecological limits rather than teaching strategies committed to abstraction pouring drilling deskilling robotisation and automation which see the planet as limitless. neganthropocene involves responding to the contemporary epistemological impasse of the anthropocene by first setting out a speleological dystopia and second imagining the possibility of escape into the real world. humans are trapped within the final humanist built cave of global capitalism – the anthropocene – which is in the process of destroying the very conditions of life. Stiegler suggests an escape route through cultural scaffolding experience-based education creativity and invention founded upon a painful recognition of natural finitude Stiegler The crisis of the Anthropocene we find trauma at the start and the end of the thermodynamic system of the anthropocene. The human is the result of a traumatic break and will end in the same way. the initial problem of the human is that it is exposed and cannot survive on its own. The human is caught in an ecological bubble or umwelt that cannot sustain its life. The human infant is naked weak and will soon die in the natural world. The result of this situation is that technology invention and creativity become necessary. Prometheus hands them to humanity and they represent a survival strategy that humans have been pushing ever since. human) history has always been premised upon the need to solve problems and make up for our lost relation to mother earth the ecosystem. it is precisely the focus on modern technology that Stiegler wants to throw into question in his critique of the contemporary hyper-industrial society and the anthropocene. the modern expression of creativity is not in itself particularly creative but rather clearly bounded and limited by a technological system founded upon what we might call a parasitical abusive relationship to nature.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> PROPOSITION X. The State and its poles. Let us return to Dumezil's theses: (1) Political sovereignty has two poles the fearsome magician-emperor operating by capture bonds knots and nets and the jurist-priest-king proceeding by treaties pacts contracts (the couples Varuna-Mitra Odin-Tyr Wotan-Tiwaz Uranus-Zeus Romulus-Numa . . .). (2) the war function is exterior to political sovereignty and is equally distinct from both its poles (Indra or Thor or Tullus Hostilius. . .).' 1. The State apparatus is thus animated by a curious rhythm which is first of all a great mystery: that of the Binder-Gods or magic emperors One-Eyed men emitting from their single eye signs that capture tie knots at a distance. The jurist-kings on the other hand are One-Armed men who raise their single arm as an element of right and technology the law and the tool. In the succession of men of State look always for the One-Eyed and the One-Armed Horatius Codes and Mucius Scaevola (de Gaulle and Pompidou?). This is not to say that one has exclusive right to signs the other to tools. The fearsome emperor is already the master of large-scale works. the wise king takes up and transforms the entire regime of signs. What it means is that the combination signs-tools constitutes the differential trait of political sovereignty or the complementarity of the State.2 2. Of course the two men of State are always getting mixed up in affairs of war. But either the magic emperor sends to battle warriors who are not his own whom he takes into his service by capture. or more important when he makes his appearance on the battlefield he suspends the use of weapons he throws his net over the warriors his single eye throws them into petrified catatonia 'he binds without combat ' he encasts the war machine (this State capture is not to be confused with the captures of war: conquests prisoners spoils).3 As for the other pole the jurist-king is a great organizer of war. but he gives it laws lays out a field for it makes it principled imposes a discipline upon it subordinates it to political ends. He turns the war machine into a military institution he appropriates the war machine for the State apparatus.4 We should not be too hasty in speaking of a softening a humanization: on the contrary this is perhaps when the war machine has only one remaining object that of war itself. Violence is found everywhere but under different regimes and economies. The violence of the magic emperor: his knot his net his way of 'making his moves once and for all' ... The violence of the jurist-king: his way of beginning over again every move always with attention to ends alliances and laws... All things considered the violence of the war machine might appear softer and more supple than that of the State apparatus because it does not yet have war as its 'object ' because it eludes both poles of the State. That is why the man of war in his exteriority is always protesting the alliances and pacts of the jurist-king as well as severing the bonds of the magic emperor. He is equally an unbinder and a betrayer: twice the traitor.5 He has another economy another cruelty but also another justice another pity. To the signs and tools of the State the man of war opposes his weapons and jewelry. Once again who could say which is better and which is worse? It is true that war kills and hideously mutilates. But it is especially true after the State has appropriated the war machine. Above all the State apparatus makes the mutilation and even death come first. It needs them preaccomplished for people to be born that way [injured] and zombielike. The myth of the zombie of the living dead is a work myth and not a war myth. Mutilation is a consequence of war but it is a necessary condition a presupposition of the State apparatus and the organization of work (hence the native infirmity not only of the worker but also of the man of State himself whether of the One-Eyed or the One-Armed type): 'The brutal exhibition of severed flesh shocked me.... Wasn't it an integral part of technical per- fection and the intoxication of it. . . ? Mankind has waged wars since the world began but I can't remember one single example in the Iliad where the loss of an arm or a leg is reported. Mythology reserved mutilation for monsters for human beasts of the race of Tantalus or Procrustes.... It is an optical illusion to attribute these mutilations to accidents. Actually accidents are the result of mutilations that took place long ago in the embryo of our world. and the increase in amputations is one of the symptoms bearing witness to the triumph of the morality of the scalpel. The loss occurred long before it was visibly taken into account.'6 The State apparatus needs at its summit as at its base pre[injured] people preexisting [damaged] the [frozen]born the congenitally [ill] the one-eyed and one-armed. Thus there is a tempting three-part hypothesis: the war machine is 'between' the two poles of political sovereignty and assures the passage from one pole to the other. It is indeed in that order 1-2-3 that things seem to present themselves in myth and history. Take two versions of the One-Eyed and the One-Armed gods analyzed by Dumezil: (1) the god Odin who has a single eye ties up the wolf of war and holds him in his magic bond. (2) but the wolf is wary and has at its disposal all its power of exteriority. (3) the god Tyr gives the wolf a legal security by leaving one of his hands in the wolfs mouth so the wolf can bite it off if it does not succeed in extricating itself from the bond. (1) Horatius Codes the One-Eyed using only his face his grimace and magic power prevents the Etruscan commander from attacking Rome. (2) the war commander then decides to lay siege. (3) Mucius Scaevola takes a political tack offering his hand as a security in order to persuade the warrior that it would be best to abandon the siege and conclude a pact. In an entirely different historical context Marcel Detienne suggests an analogous schema in three moments for ancient Greece: (1) The magic sovereign the 'Master of Truth ' has at his disposal a war machine that doubtless does not originate with him and which enjoys a relative autonomy within his empire. (2) this class of warriors has its own rules defined by 'isonomy ' an isotropic space and a 'milieu' (war spoils are in the middle [au milieu] he who speaks places himself in the middle of the assembly). this is another space the rules are different from those of the sovereign who captures and speaks from on high. (3) the hoplite reform the groundwork for which was laid in the warrior class spread throughout the social body promoting the formation of an army of citizen-soldiers. at the same time the last vestiges of the imperial pole of sovereignty were replaced by the juridical pole of the city-state (with isonomy as its law and isotropy as its space).7 Thus in every case the war machine seems to intervene 'between' the two poles of the State apparatus assuring and necessitating the passage from one to the other. We cannot however assign this schema a causal meaning (the authors cited do not do so). In the first place the war machine explains nothing. for it is either exterior to the State and directed against it. or else it already belongs to the State encasted and appropriated and presupposes it. If the war machine has a part in the evolution of the State it is therefore necessarily in conjunction with other internal factors. And this is the second point: if there is an evolution of the State the second pole the evolved pole must be in resonance with the first it must continually recharge it in some way and the State must have only one milieu of interiority. in other words it must have a unity of composition in spite of all the differences in organization and development among States. It is even necessary for each State to have both poles as the essential moments of its existence even though the organization of the two varies. Third if we call this interior essence or this unity of the State 'capture ' we must say that the words 'magic capture' describe the situation well because it always appears as preaccomplished and self-presupposing. but how is this capture to be explained then if it leads back to no distinct assignable cause? That is why theses on the origin of the State are always tautological. At times exogenous factors tied to war and the war machine are invoked. at times endogenous factors thought to engender private property money etc.. and at times specific factors thought to determine the formation of 'public functions.' All three of these theses are found in Engels in relation to a conception of the diversity of the roads to Domination. But they beg the question. War produces the State only if at least one of the two parts is a preexistent State. and the organization of war is a State factor only if that organization is a part of the State. Either the State has no war machine (and has policemen and jailers before having soldiers) or else it has one but in the form of a military institution or public function.8 Similarly private property presupposes State public property it slips through its net. and money presupposes taxation. It is even more difficult to see how public functions could have existed before the State they imply. We are always brought back to the idea of a State that comes into the world fully formed and rises up in a single stroke the unconditioned Urstaat. PROPOSITION XI. Which comes first? We shall call the first pole of capture imperial or despotic. It corresponds to Marx's Asiatic formation. Archaeology discovers it everywhere often lost in oblivion at the horizon of all systems or States—not only in Asia but also in Africa America Greece Rome. Immemorial Urstaat dating as far back as Neolithic times and perhaps farther still. Following the Marxist description: a State apparatus is erected upon the primitive agricultural communities which already have lineal-territorial codes. but it overcodes them submitting them to the power of a despotic emperor the sole and transcendent public-property owner the master of the surplus or the stock the organizer of large-scale works (surplus labor) the source of public functions and bureaucracy. This is the paradigm of the bond the knot. Such is the regime of signs of the State: overcoding or the Signifier. It is a system of machinic enslavement: the first 'megamachine' in the strict sense to use Mumford's term. A prodigious success in a single stroke. other States will be mere runts measured against this model. The emperor-despot is not a king or a tyrant. these will come into existence only as a function of private property once it has arisen.9 In the imperial regime everything is public: ownership of land is communal each individual is an owner only insofar as he or she is a member of the community. the eminent property of the despot is that of the supposed Unity of the communities. and the functionaries themselves have land only if it comes with their position (although the position may be hereditary). Money may exist notably in the form of the tax that the functionaries owe the emperor but it is not used for buying-selling since land does not exist as an alienable commodity. This is the regime of the nexum the bond: something is lent or even given without a transfer of ownership without private appropriation and the compensation for it does not come in the form of interest or profit for the donor but rather as a 'rent' that accrues to him accompanying the lending of something for another's use or the granting of revenue.10 Marx the historian and Childe the archaeologist are in agreement on the following point: the archaic imperial State which steps in to overcode agricultural communities presupposes at least a certain level of development of these communities' productive forces since there must be a potential surplus capable of constituting a State stock of supporting a specialized handicrafts class (metallurgy) and of progressively giving rise to public functions. That is why Marx links the archaic State to a certain 'mode of production.' However the origin of these Neolithic States is still being pushed back in time. What is at issue when the existence of near-Paleolithic empires is conjectured is not simply the quantity of time. the qualitative problem changes. Catal Hiiyiik in Anatolia makes possible a singularly reinforced imperial paradigm: it is a stock of uncultivated seeds and relatively tame animals from different territories that performs and makes it possible to perform at first by chance hybridizations and selections from which agriculture and small-scale animal raising arise.11 It is easy to see the significance of this change in the givens of the problem. It is no longer the stock that presupposes a potential surplus but the other way around. It is no longer the State that presupposes advanced agricultural communities and developed forces of production. On the contrary the State is established directly in a milieu of hunter-gatherers having no prior agriculture or metallurgy and it is the State that creates agriculture animal raising and metallurgy. it does so first on its own soil then imposes them upon the surrounding world. It is not the country that progressively creates the town but the town that creates the country. It is not the State that presupposes a mode of production. quite the opposite it is the State that makes production a 'mode.' The last reasons for presuming a progressive development are invalidated. Like seeds in a sack: It all begins with a chance intermixing. The 'state and urban revolution' may be Paleolithic not Neolithic as Childe believed. Evolutionism has been challenged in many different ways (zigzag movements stages skipped here or there irreducible overall breaks). We have seen in particular how Pierre Clastres tried to shatter the evolutionist framework by means of the following two theses: (1) societies termed primitive are not societies without a State in the sense that they failed to reach a certain stage but are counter-State societies organizing mechanisms that ward off the State-form which make its crystallization impossible. (2) when the State arises it is in the form of an irreducible break since it is not the result of a progressive development of the forces of production (even the 'Neolithic revolution' cannot be defined in terms of an economic infrastructure).12 However one does not depart from evolutionism by establishing a clean break. In the final state of his work Clastres maintained the preexistence and autarky of counter-State societies and attributed their workings to an overmysterious presentiment of what they warded off and did not yet exist. More generally one marvels at the bizarre indifference that ethnology manifests for archaeology. It seems as though ethnologists fenced off in their respective territories are willing to compare their territories in an abstract or structural way if it comes to that but refuse to set them against archaeological territories that would compromise their autarky. They take snapshots of their primitives but rule out in advance the coexistence and superposition of the two maps the ethnographical and the archaeological. Catal Hiiyuk however would have had a zone of influence extending two thousand miles. how can the ever-recurring problem of the relation of coexistence between primitive societies and empires even those of Paleolithic times be left unattended to? As long as archaeology is passed over the question of the relation between ethnology and history is reduced to an idealist confrontation and fails to wrest itself from the absurd theme of society without history or society against history. Everything is not of the State precisely because there have been States always and everywhere. Not only does writing presuppose the State but so do speech and language. The self-sufficiency autarky independence preexistence of primitive communities is an ethnological dream: not that these communities necessarily depend on States but they coexist with them in a complex network. It is plausible that 'from the beginning' primitive societies have maintained distant ties to one another not just short-range ones and that these ties were channeled through States even if States effected only a partial and local capture of them. Speech communities and languages independently of writing do not define closed groups of people who understand one another but primarily determine relations between groups who do not understand one another: if there is language it is fundamentally between those who do not speak the same tongue. Language is made for that for translation not for communication. And in primitive societies there are as many tendencies that 'seek' the State as many vectors working in the direction of the State as there are movements within the State or outside it that tend to stray from it or guard themselves against it or else to stimulate its evolution or else already to abolish it: everything coexists in perpetual interaction. Economic evolutionism is an impossibility. even a ramified evolution 'gatherers—hunters—animal breeders—farmers-industrialists ' is hardly believable. An evolutionary ethnology is no better: 'nomads— seminomads—sedentaries.' Nor an ecological evolutionism: 'dispersed autarky of local groups—villages and small towns—cities—States.' All we need to do is combine these abstract evolutions to make all of evolutionism crumble. for example it is the city that creates agriculture without going through small towns. To take another example the nomads do not precede the sedentaries. rather nomadism is a movement a becoming that affects sedentaries just as sedentarization is a stoppage that settles the nomads. Griaznov has shown in this connection that the most ancient nomadism can be accurately attributed only to populations that abandoned their semiurban sedentarity or their primitive itineration to set off nomadizing.13 It is under these conditions that the nomads invented the war machine as that which occupies or fills nomad space and opposes towns and States which its tendency is to abolish. Primitive peoples already had mechanisms of war that converged to prevent the State formation. but these mechanisms change when they gain autonomy in the form of a specific nomadism machine that strikes back against the States. We cannot however infer from this even a zigzag evolution that would go from primitive peoples to States from States to nomad war machines. or at least the zigzagging is not successive but passes through the loci of a topology that defines primitive societies here States there and elsewhere war machines. And even when the State appropriates the war machine once again changing its nature it is a phenomenon of transport of transfer and not one of evolution. The nomad exists only in becoming and in interaction. the same goes for the primitive. All history does is to translate a coexistence of becomings into a succession. And collectivities can be transhumant semisedentary sedentary or nomadic without by the same token being preparatory stages for the State which is already there elsewhere or beside. Can it at least be said that the hunter-gatherers are the 'true' primitives and remain in spite of it all the basis or minimal presupposition of the State formation however far back in time we place it? This point of view can be maintained only at the price of a very inadequate conception of causality. And it is true that the human sciences with their materialist evolutionary and even dialectical schemas lag behind the richness and complexity of causal relations in physics or even in biology. Physics and biology present us with reverse causalities that are without finality but testify nonetheless to an action of the future on the present or of the present on the past for example the convergent wave and the anticipated potential which imply an inversion of time. More than breaks or zigzags it is these reverse causalities that shatter evolution. Similarly in the present context it is not adequate to say that the Neolithic or even Paleolithic State once it appeared reacted back on the surrounding world of the hunter-gatherers. it was already acting before it appeared as the actual limit these primitive societies warded off or as the point toward which they converged but could not reach without self-destructing. These societies simultaneously have vectors moving in the direction of the State mechanisms warding it off and a point of convergence that is repelled set outside as fast as it is approached. To ward off is also to anticipate. Of course it is not at all in the same way that the State appears in existence and that it preexists in the capacity of a warded-off limit. hence its irreducible contingency. But in order to give a positive meaning to the idea of a 'presentiment' of what does not yet exist it is necessary to demonstrate that what does not yet exist is already in action in a different form than that of its existence. Once it has appeared the State reacts back on the hunter-gatherers imposing upon them agriculture animal raising an extensive division of labor etc.. it acts therefore in the form of a centrifugal or divergent wave. But before appearing the State already acts in the form of the convergent or centripetal wave of the hunter-gatherers a wave that cancels itself out precisely at the point of convergence marking the inversion of signs or the appearance of the State (hence the functional and intrinsic instability of these primitive societies).14 It is necessary from this standpoint to conceptualize the contemporaneousness or coexistence of the two inverse movements of the two directions of time—of the primitive peoples 'before' the State and of the State 'after' the primitive peoples—as if the two waves that seem to us to exclude or succeed each other unfolded simultaneously in an 'archaeological ' micropo-litical micrological molecular field. There exist collective mechanisms that simultaneously ward off and anticipate the formation of a central power. The appearance of a central power is thus a function of a threshold or degree beyond which what is anticipated takes on consistency or fails to and what is conjured away ceases to be so and arrives. This threshold of consistency or of constraint is not evolutionary but rather coexists with what has yet to cross it. Moreover a distinction must be made between different thresholds of consistency: the town and the State however complementary are not the same thing. The 'urban revolution' and the 'state revolution' may coincide but do not meld. In both cases there is a central power but it does not assume the same figure. Certain authors have made a distinction between the palatial or imperial system (temple-palace) and the urban town system. In both cases there is a town but in one case the town is an outgrowth of the palace or temple and in the other case the palace the temple is a concretion of the town. In one case the town par excellence is the capital and in the other it is the metropolis. Sumer already attests to a town solution as opposed to the imperial solution of Egypt. But to an even greater extent it was the Mediterranean world with the Pelasgians Phoenicians Greeks Carthaginians that created an urban fabric distinct from the imperial organisms of the Orient.15 Once again the question is one not of evolution but of two thresholds of consistency that are themselves coexistent. They differ in several respects. The town is the correlate of the road. The town exists only as a function of circulation and of circuits. it is a remarkable point on the circuits that create it and which it creates. It is defined by entries and exits. something must enter it and exit from it. It imposes a frequency. It effects a polarization of matter inert living or human. it causes the phylum the flow to pass through specific places along horizontal lines. It is a phenomenon of transconsistency a network because it is fundamentally in contact with other towns. It represents a threshold of deterritorialization because whatever the material involved it must be deterritorialized enough to enter the network to submit to the polarization to follow the circuit of urban and road recoding. The maximum deterritorialization appears in the tendency of maritime and commercial towns to separate off from the backcountry from the countryside (Athens Carthage Venice). The commercial character of the town has often been emphasized but the commerce in question is also spiritual as in a network of monasteries or temple-cities. Towns are circuit-points of every kind which enter into counterpoint along horizontal lines. they effect a complete but local town-by-town integration. Each one constitutes a central power but it is a power of polarization or of the middle {milieu) of forced coordination. That is why this kind of power has egalitarian pretensions regardless of the form it takes: tyrannical democratic oligarchic aristocratic. Town power invents the idea of the magistrature which is very different from the State civil-service sector (fonction-nariat).16 Who can say where the greatest civil violence resides? The State indeed proceeds otherwise: it is a phenomenon of intraconsistency. It makes points resonate together points that are not necessarily already town-poles but very diverse points of order geographic ethnic linguistic moral economic technological particularities. It makes the town resonate with the countryside. It operates by stratification. in other words it forms a vertical hierarchized aggregate that spans the horizontal lines in a dimension of depth. In retaining given elements it necessarily cuts off their relations with other elements which become exterior it inhibits slows down or controls those relations. if the State has a circuit of its own it is an internal circuit dependent primarily upon resonance it is a zone of recurrence that isolates itself from the remainder of the network even if in order to do so it must exert even stricter controls over its relations with that remainder. The question is not to find out whether what is retained is natural or artificial (boundaries) because in any event there is deterntorialization. But in this case deterritorialization is a result of the territory itself being taken as an object as a material to stratify to make resonate. Thus the central power of the State is hierarchical and constitutes a civil-service sector. the center is not in the middle {au milieu) but on top because the only way it can recombine what it isolates is through subordination. Of course there is a multiplicity of States no less than of towns but it is not the same type of multiplicity: there are as many States as there are vertical cross sections in a dimension of depth each separated from the others whereas the town is inseparable from the horizontal network of towns. Each State is a global (not local) integration a redundancy of resonance (not of frequency) an operation of the stratification of the territory (not of the polarization of the milieu). It is possible to reconstruct how primitive societies warded off both thresholds while at the same time anticipating them. Levi-Strauss has shown that the same villages are susceptible to two presentations one segmentary and egalitarian the other encompassing and hierarchized. These are like two potentials one anticipating a central point common to two horizontal segments the other anticipating a central point external to a straight line.17 Primitive societies do not lack formations of power. they even have many of them. But what prevents the potential central points from crystallizing from taking on consistency are precisely those mechanisms that keep the formations of power both from resonating together in a higher point and from becoming polarized at a common point: the circles are not concentric and the two segments require a third segment through which to communicate.18 This is the sense in which primitive societies have crossed neither the town-threshold nor the State-threshold. If we now turn our attention to the two thresholds of consistency it is clear that they imply a deterritorialization in relation to the primitive territorial codes. It is futile to ask which came first the city or the State the urban or state revolution because the two are in reciprocal presupposition. Both the melodic lines of the towns and the harmonic cross sections of the States are necessary to effect the striation of space. The only question that arises is the possibility that there may be an inverse relation at the heart of this reciprocity. For although the archaic imperial State necessarily included towns of considerable size they remained more or less strictly subordinated to the State depending on how complete the State's monopoly over foreign trade was. On the other hand the town tended to break free when the State's overcoding itself provoked decoded flows. A decoding was coupled with the deterritorialization and amplified it. the necessary recoding was then achieved through a certain autonomy of the towns or else directly through corporative and commercial towns freed from the State-form. Thus towns arose that no longer had a connection to their own land because they assured the trade between empires or better constituted on their own a free commercial network with other towns. There is therefore an adventure specific to towns in the zones where the most intense decoding occurs for example the ancient Aegean world or the Western world of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Could it not be said that capitalism is the fruit of the towns and arises when an urban recoding tends to replace State overcoding? This however was not the case. The towns did not create capitalism. The banking and commercial towns being unproductive and indifferent to the backcountry did not perform a recoding without also inhibiting the general conjunction of decoded flows. If it is true that they anticipated capitalism they in turn did not anticipate it without also warding it off. They do not cross this new threshold. Thus it is necessary to expand the hypothesis of mechanisms both anticipatory and inhibiting: these mechanisms are at play not only in primitive societies but also in the conflict of towns 'against' the State and 'against' capitalism. Finally it was through the State-form and not the town-form that capitalism triumphed. this occurred when the Western States became models of realization for an axiomatic of decoded flows and in that way resubjugated the towns. As Braudel says there were 'always two runners the state and the town'—two forms and two speeds of deterritorialization—and 'the state usually won. . . . everywhere in Europe it disciplined the towns with instinctive relentlessness whether or not it used violence.. . . [The states] caught up with the forward gallop of the towns.'19 But the relation is a reciprocal one: if it is the modern State that gives capitalism its models of realization what is thus realized is an independent worldwide axiomatic that is like a single City megalopolis or 'megamachine' of which the States are parts or neighborhoods. We define social formations by machinic processes and not by modes of production (these on the contrary depend on the processes). Thus primitive societies are defined by mechanisms of prevention-anticipation. State societies are defined by apparatuses of capture. urban societies by instruments of polarization. nomadic societies by war machines. and finally international or rather ecumenical organizations are defined by the encompassment of heterogeneous social formations. But precisely because these processes are variables of coexistence that are the object of a social topology the various corresponding formations are coexistent. And they coexist in two fashions extrinsically and intrinsically. Primitive societies cannot ward off the formation of an empire or State without anticipating it and they cannot anticipate it without its already being there forming part of their horizon. And States cannot effect a capture unless what is captured coexists resists in primitive societies or escapes under new forms as towns or war machines. . . The numerical composition of the war machine is superposed upon the primitive lineal organization and simultaneously opposes the geometric organization of the State and the physical organization of the town. It is this extrinsic coexistence—interaction—that is brought to its own expression in international aggregates. For these obviously did not wait for capitalism before forming: as early as Neolithic times even Paleolithic we find traces of ecumenical organizations that testify to the existence of long-distance trade and simultaneously cut across the most varied of social formations (as we have seen in the case of metallurgy). The problem of diffusion or of diffusionism is badly formulated if one assumes a center at which the diffusion would begin. Diffusion occurs only through the placing in communication of potentials of very different orders: all diffusion happens in the in-between goes between like everything that 'grows' of the rhizome type. An international ecumenical organization does not proceed from an imperial center that imposes itself upon and homogenizes an exterior milieu. neither is it reducible to relations between formations of the same order between States for example (the League of Nations the United Nations). On the contrary it constitutes an intermediate milieu between the different coexistent orders. Therefore it is not exclusively commercial or economic but is also religious artistic etc. From this standpoint we shall call an international organization anything that has the capacity to move through diverse social formations simultaneously: States towns deserts war machines primitive societies. The great commercial formations in history do not simply have city-poles but also primitive imperial and nomadic segments through which they pass perhaps issuing out again in another form. Samir Amin is totally correct in saying that there can be no economic theory of international relations even economic ones because they sit astride heterogeneous formations.20 The point of departure for ecumenical organization is not a State even an imperial one. the imperial State is only one part of it and it constitutes a part of it in its own mode according to its own order which consists in capturing everything it can. It does not proceed by progressive homogenization or by totalization but by the taking on of consistency or the consolidation of the diverse as such. For example monotheistic religion is distinguished from territorial worship by its pretension to universality. But this pretension is not homogenizing it makes itself felt only by spreading everywhere. this was the case with Christianity which became imperial and urban but not without giving rise to bands deserts war machines of its own.21 Similarly there is no artistic movement that does not have its towns and empires but also its nomads bands and primitives. It might be objected that at least in the case of capitalism international economic relations and at the limit all international relations tend toward the homogenization of social formations. One could cite not only the cold and concerted destruction of primitive societies but also the fall of the last despotic formations for example the Ottoman Empire which met capitalist demands with too much resistance and inertia. This objection however is only partially accurate. To the extent that capitalism constitutes an axiomatic (production for the market) all States and all social formations tend to become isomorphic in their capacity as models of realization: there is but one centered world market the capitalist one in which even the so-called socialist countries participate. Worldwide organization thus ceases to pass 'between' heterogeneous formations since it assures the isomorphy of those formations. But it would be wrong to confuse isomorphy with homogeneity. For one thing isomorphy allows and even incites a great heterogeneity among States (democratic totalitarian and especially 'socialist' States are not facades). For another thing the international capitalist axiomatic effectively assures the isomorphy of the diverse formations only where the domestic market is developing and expanding in other words in 'the center.' But it tolerates in fact it requires a certain peripheral polymorphy to the extent that it is not saturated to the extent that it actively repels its own limits.22 this explains the existence at the periphery of heteromorphic social formations which certainly do not constitute vestiges or transitional forms since they realize an ultramodern capitalist production (oil mines plantations industrial equipment steel chemistry) but which are nonetheless precapitalist or extracapitalist owing to other aspects of their production and to the forced inadequacy of their domestic market in relation to the world market.23 When international organization becomes the capitalist axiomatic it continues to imply a heterogeneity of social formations it gives rise to and organizes its 'Third World.' There is not only an external coexistence of formations but also an intrinsic coexistence of machinic processes. Each process can also function at a 'power' other than its own. it can be taken up by a power corresponding to another process. The State as apparatus of capture has a power of appropriation. but this power does not consist solely in capturing all that it can all that is possible of a matter defined as phylum. The apparatus of capture also appropriates the war machine the instruments of polarization and the anticipation-prevention mechanisms. This is to say conversely that anticipation-prevention mechanisms have a high power of transference: they are at work not only in primitive societies but move into the towns that ward off the State-form into the States that ward off capitalism into capitalism itself insofar as it wards off and repels its own limits. And they are not satisfied to switch over to other powers but form new focal points of resistance and contagion as we have seen in the case of 'band' phenomena which have their own towns their own brand of internationalism etc. Similarly war machines have a power of metamorphosis which of course allows them to be captured by States but also to resist that capture and rise up again in other forms with other 'objects' besides war (revolution?). Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can go along with the others or go against them (even primitive societies have their vectors of deterritorialization). Each process can switch over to other powers but also subordinate other processes to its own power. </source> [/INST] <claim>“This worldwide war machine … displays two successive figures: first that of fascism which makes war an unlimited movement with no other aim than itself. but fascism is only a rough sketch and the second postfascist figure is that of a war machine that takes peace as its direct object as the peace of Terror or Survival.”</claim> <psg>Political sovereignty has two poles the fearsome magician-emperor operating by capture bonds knots and nets and the jurist-priest-king proceeding by treaties pacts contracts the war function is exterior to political sovereignty and is equally distinct from both its poles The State apparatus is thus animated by a curious rhythm which is first of all a great mystery: that of the Binder-Gods or magic emperors One-Eyed men emitting from their single eye signs that capture tie knots at a distance. The jurist-kings on the other hand are One-Armed men who raise their single arm as an element of right and technology the law and the tool. The fearsome emperor is already the master of large-scale works. the wise king takes up and transforms the entire regime of signs. the combination signs-tools constitutes the differential trait of political sovereignty or the complementarity of the State the two men of State are always getting mixed up in affairs of war either the magic emperor sends to battle warriors who are not his own whom he takes into his service by capture. or when he makes his appearance on the battlefield he suspends the use of weapons he throws his net over the warriors his single eye throws them into petrified catatonia 'he binds without combat ' he encasts the war machine As for the other pole the jurist-king is a great organizer of war. but he gives it laws lays out a field for it makes it principled imposes a discipline upon it subordinates it to political ends. He turns the war machine into a military institution he appropriates the war machine for the State apparatus this is perhaps when the war machine has only one remaining object that of war itself Violence is found everywhere but under different regimes and economies The violence of the magic emperor: his knot his net his way of 'making his moves once and for all The violence of the jurist-king: his way of beginning over again every move always with attention to ends alliances and laws All things considered the violence of the war machine might appear softer and more supple than that of the State apparatus because it does not yet have war as its 'object ' because it eludes both poles of the State That is why the man of war in his exteriority is always protesting the alliances and pacts of the jurist-king as well as severing the bonds of the magic emperor He is equally an unbinder and a betrayer: twice the traitor He has another economy another cruelty but also another justice another pity. It is true that war kills and hideously mutilates. But it is especially true after the State has appropriated the war machine the State apparatus makes the mutilation and even death come first It needs them preaccomplished for people to be born that way [injured] and zombielike The myth of the zombie of the living dead is a work myth and not a war myth. Mutilation is a consequence of war but it is a necessary condition a presupposition of the State apparatus and the organization of work the war machine is 'between' the two poles of political sovereignty and assures the passage from one pole to the other. The magic sovereign the 'Master of Truth ' has at his disposal a war machine that doubtless does not originate with him and which enjoys a relative autonomy within his empire in every case the war machine seems to intervene 'between' the two poles of the State apparatus assuring and necessitating the passage from one to the other We cannot assign this schema a causal meaning In the first place the war machine explains nothing. for it is either exterior to the State and directed against it. or else it already belongs to the State encasted and appropriated and presupposes it If the war machine has a part in the evolution of the State it is therefore necessarily in conjunction with other internal factors if there is an evolution of the State the second pole the evolved pole must be in resonance with the first it must continually recharge it in some way and the State must have only one milieu of interiority it must have a unity of composition It is even necessary for each State to have both poles as the essential moments of its existence if we call this interior essence or this unity of the State 'capture ' we must say that the words 'magic capture' describe the situation well because it always appears as preaccomplished and self-presupposing That is why theses on the origin of the State are always tautological War produces the State only if at least one of the two parts is a preexistent State. and the organization of war is a State factor only if that organization is a part of the State We are always brought back to the idea of a State that comes into the world fully formed and rises up in a single stroke the unconditioned Urstaat. We shall call the first pole of capture imperial or despotic It corresponds to Marx's Asiatic formation Immemorial Urstaat dating as far back as Neolithic times and perhaps farther still a State apparatus is erected upon the primitive agricultural communities which already have lineal-territorial codes. but it overcodes them submitting them to the power of a despotic emperor the sole and transcendent public-property owner the master of the surplus or the stock the organizer of large-scale works the source of public functions and bureaucracy. This is the paradigm of the bond the knot. Such is the regime of signs of the State: overcoding or the Signifier. It is a system of machinic enslavement: the first 'megamachine' in the strict sense The emperor-despot is not a king or a tyrant. these will come into existence only as a function of private property once it has arisen This is the regime of the nexum the bond: something is lent or even given without a transfer of ownership without private appropriation and the compensation for it does not come in the form of interest or profit for the donor but rather as a 'rent' that accrues to him accompanying the lending of something for another's use or the granting of revenue the archaic imperial State which steps in to overcode agricultural communities presupposes a certain level of development of these communities' productive forces It is no longer the stock that presupposes a potential surplus but the other way around . It is not the State that presupposes a mode of production. quite the opposite it is the State that makes production a 'mode.' Everything is not of the State precisely because there have been States always and everywhere. Not only does writing presuppose the State but so do speech and language the nomads do not precede the sedentaries. rather nomadism is a movement a becoming that affects sedentaries just as sedentarization is a stoppage that settles the nomads It is under these conditions that the nomads invented the war machine as that which occupies or fills nomad space and opposes towns and States which its tendency is to abolish even when the State appropriates the war machine once again changing its nature it is a phenomenon of transport of transfer and not one of evolution The nomad exists only in becoming and in interaction All history does is to translate a coexistence of becomings into a succession The appearance of a central power is thus a function of a threshold or degree beyond which what is anticipated takes on consistency or fails to and what is conjured away ceases to be so and arrives. The 'urban revolution' and the 'state revolution' may coincide but do not meld In both cases there is a central power but it does not assume the same figure. In both cases there is a town but in one case the town is an outgrowth of the palace or temple and in the other case the palace the temple is a concretion of the town. In one case the town par excellence is the capital and in the other it is the metropolis The town exists only as a function of circulation and of circuits. it is a remarkable point on the circuits that create it and which it creates. It imposes a frequency. It effects a polarization of matter inert living or human. it causes the phylum the flow to pass through specific places along horizontal lines. It represents a threshold of deterritorialization because whatever the material involved it must be deterritorialized enough to enter the network to submit to the polarization The commercial character of the town has often been emphasized but the commerce in question is also spiritual as in a network of monasteries or temple-cities Each one constitutes a central power but it is a power of polarization or of the middle of forced coordination The State indeed proceeds otherwise: it is a phenomenon of intraconsistency It makes points resonate together points that are not necessarily already town-poles but very diverse points of order geographic ethnic linguistic moral economic technological particularities . It operates by stratification. in other words it forms a vertical hierarchized aggregate that spans the horizontal lines in a dimension of depth. in this case deterritorialization is a result of the territory itself being taken as an object as a material to stratify to make resonate the central power of the State is hierarchical the center is not in the middle but on top because the only way it can recombine what it isolates is through subordination. there is a multiplicity of States no less than of towns but it is not the same type of multiplicity what prevents the potential central points from crystallizing from taking on consistency are precisely those mechanisms that keep the formations of power both from resonating together in a higher point and from becoming polarized at a common point the circles are not concentric and the two segments require a third segment through which to communicate It is futile to ask which came first the city or the State the urban or state revolution because the two are in reciprocal presupposition the town tended to break free when the State's overcoding itself provoked decoded flows. A decoding was coupled with the deterritorialization and amplified it. the necessary recoding was then achieved through a certain autonomy of the towns it was through the State-form and not the town-form that capitalism triumphed. this occurred when the Western States became models of realization for an axiomatic of decoded flows and in that way resubjugated the towns the relation is a reciprocal one: if it is the modern State that gives capitalism its models of realization what is thus realized is an independent worldwide axiomatic that is like a single City megalopolis or 'megamachine' of which the States are parts We define social formations by machinic processes and not by modes of production State societies are defined by apparatuses of capture. urban societies by instruments of polarization. nomadic societies by war machines. and finally international organizations are defined by the encompassment of heterogeneous social formations States cannot effect a capture unless what is captured coexists The numerical composition of the war machine is superposed upon the primitive lineal organization and simultaneously opposes the geometric organization of the State and the physical organization of the town these obviously did not wait for capitalism before forming An international ecumenical organization does not proceed from an imperial center that imposes itself upon and homogenizes an exterior milieu we shall call an international organization anything that has the capacity to move through diverse social formations simultaneously: States towns deserts war machines primitive societies the imperial State is only one part of it and it constitutes a part of it in its own mode according to its own order which consists in capturing everything it can. It does not proceed by progressive homogenization or by totalization but by the taking on of consistency or the consolidation of the diverse as such. To the extent that capitalism constitutes an axiomatic (production for the market) all States and all social formations tend to become isomorphic in their capacity as models of realization: there is but one centered world market the capitalist one in which even the so-called socialist countries participate. Worldwide organization thus ceases to pass 'between' heterogeneous formations since it assures the isomorphy of those formations the international capitalist axiomatic effectively assures the isomorphy of the diverse formations only where the domestic market is developing and expanding in other words in 'the center.' When international organization becomes the capitalist axiomatic it continues to imply a heterogeneity of social formations it gives rise to and organizes its 'Third World.' The State as apparatus of capture has a power of appropriation. but this power does not consist solely in capturing all that it can all that is possible of a matter defined as phylum. The apparatus of capture also appropriates the war machine the instruments of polarization and the anticipation-prevention mechanisms. anticipation-prevention mechanisms are at work not only in primitive societies but move into the towns that ward off the State-form into the States that ward off capitalism into capitalism itself insofar as it wards off and repels its own limits war machines have a power of metamorphosis which of course allows them to be captured by States but also to resist that capture and rise up again in other forms with other 'objects' besides war Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can go along with the others or go against them</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> 1. History Foucault located the disciplinary societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. they reach their height at the outset of the twentieth. They initiate the organization of vast spaces of enclosure. The individual never ceases passing from one closed environment to another each having its own laws: first the family. then the school (“you are no longer in your family'). then the barracks (“you are no longer at school'). then the factory. from time to time the hospital. possibly the prison the preeminent instance of the enclosed environment. It's the prison that serves as the analogical model: at the sight of some laborers the heroine of Rossellini’s Europa '51 could exclaim “I thought I was seeing convicts.' Foucault has brilliantly analyzed the ideal project of these environments of enclosure particularly visible within the factory: to concentrate. to distribute in space. to order in time. to compose a productive force within the dimension of space-time whose effect will be greater than the sum of its component forces. But what Foucault recognized as well was the transience of this model: it succeeded that of the societies of sovereignty the goal and functions of which were something quite different (to tax rather than to organize production to rule on death rather than to administer life). the transition took place over time and Napoleon seemed to effect the large-scale conversion from one society to the other. But in their turn the disciplines underwent a crisis to the benefit of new forces that were gradually instituted and which accelerated after World War II: a disciplinary society was what we already no longer were what we had ceased to be. We are in a generalized crisis in relation to all the environments of enclosure—prison hospital factory school family. The family is an “interior ' in crisis like all other interiors—scholarly professional etc. The administrations in charge never cease announcing supposedly necessary reforms: to reform schools to reform industries hospitals the armed forces prisons. But everyone knows that these institutions are finished whatever the length of their expiration periods. It's only a matter of administering their last rites and of keeping people employed until the installation of the new forces knocking at the door. These are the societies of control which are in the process of replacing the disciplinary societies. “Control' is the name Burroughs proposes as a term for the new monster one that Foucault recognizes as our immediate future. Paul Virilio also is continually analyzing the ultrarapid forms of free-floating control that replaced the old disciplines operating in the time frame of a closed system. There is no need here to invoke the extraordinary pharmaceutical productions the molecular engineering the genetic manipulations although these are slated to enter into the new process. There is no need to ask which is the toughest or most tolerable regime for it’s within each of them that liberating and enslaving forces confront one another. For example in the crisis of the hospital as environment of enclosure neighborhood clinics hospices and day care could at first express new freedom but they could participate as well in mechanisms of control that are equal to the harshest of confinements. There is no need to fear or hope but only to look for new weapons. 2. Logic The different internments or spaces of enclosure through which the individual passes are independent variables: each time one is supposed to start from zero and although a common language for all these places exists it is analogical. On the other hand the different control mechanisms are inseparable variations forming a system of variable geometry the language of which is numerical (which doesn't necessarily mean binary). Enclosures are molds distinct castings but controls are a modulation like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other or like a sieve whose mesh will transmute from point to point. This is obvious in the matter of salaries: the factory was a body that contained its internal forces at a level of equilibrium the highest possible in terms of production the lowest possible in terms of wages. but in a society of control the corporation has replaced the factory and the corporation is a spirit a gas. Of course the factory was already familiar with the system of bonuses but the corporation works more deeply to impose a modulation of each salary in states of perpetual metastability that operate through challenges contests and highly comic group sessions. If the most idiotic television game shows are so successful it's because they express the corporate situation with great precision. The factory constituted individuals as a single body to the double advantage of the boss who surveyed each element within the mass and the unions who mobilized a mass resistance. but the corporation constantly presents the brashest rivalry as a healthy form of emulation an excellent motivational force that opposes individuals against one another and runs through each dividing each within. The modulating principle of “salary according to merit“ has not failed to tempt national education itself. Indeed just as the corporation replaces the factory perpetual training tends to replace the school and continuous control to replace the examination. Which is the surest way of delivering the school over to the corporation. In the disciplinary societies one was always starting again (from school to the barracks from the barracks to the factory) while in the societies of control one is never finished with anything—the corporation the educational system the armed services being metastable states coexisting in one and the same modulation like a universal system of deformation. In The Trial Kafka who had already placed himself at the pivotal point between two types of social formation described the most fearsome of juridical forms. The apparent acquittal of the disciplinary societies (between two incarcerations). and the limitless postponements of the societies of control (in continuous variation) are two very different modes of juridical life and if our law is hesitant itself in crisis it's because we are leaving one in order to enter into the other. The disciplinary societies have two poles: the signature that designates the individual and the number or administrative numeration that indicates his or her position within a mass. This is because the disciplines never saw any incompatibility between these two and because at the same time power individualizes and masses together that is constitutes those over whom it exercises power into a body and molds the individuality of each member of that body. (Foucault saw the origin of this double charge in the pastoral power of the priest—the flock and each of its animals—but civil power moves in turn and by other means to make itself lay “priest.”) In the societies of control on the other hand what is important is no longer either a signature or a number but a code: the code is a password while on the other hand the disciplinary societies are regulated by watchwords (as much from the point of view of integration as from that of resistance). The numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information or reject it. We no longer find ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become “dividuals ' and masses samples data markets or “banks.' Perhaps it is money that expresses the distinction between the two societies best since discipline always referred back to minted money that locks gold in as numerical standard while control relates to floating rates of exchange modulated according to a rate established by a set of standard currencies. The old monetary mole is the animal of the spaces of enclosure but the serpent is that of the societies of control. We have passed from one animal to the other from the mole to the serpent in the system under which we live but also in our manner of living and in our relations with others. The disciplinary [person] was a discontinuous producer of energy but the [person] of control is undulatory in orbit in a continuous network. Everywhere surfing has already replaced the older sports. Types of machines are easily matched with each type of society—not that machines are determining but because they express those social forms capable of generating them and using them. The old societies of sovereignty made use of simple machines—levers pulleys clocks. but the recent disciplinary societies equipped themselves with machines involving energy with the passive danger of entropy and the active danger of sabotage. the societies of control operate with machines of a third type computers whose passive danger is jamming and whose active one is piracy and the introduction of viruses. This technological evolution must be even more profoundly a mutation of capitalism an already well-known or familiar mutation that can be summed up as follows: nineteenth- century capitalism is a capitalism of concentration for production and for property. It therefore erects the factory as a space of enclosure the capitalist being the owner of the means of production but also progressively the owner of other spaces conceived through analogy (the worker's familial house the school). As for markets they are conquered sometimes by specialization sometimes by colonization sometimes by lowering the costs of production. But in the present situation capitalism is no longer involved in production which it often relegates to the Third World even for the complex forms of textiles metallurgy or oil production. It’s a capitalism of higher-order production. It no longer buys raw materials and no longer sells the finished products: it buys the finished products or assembles parts. What it wants to sell is services and what it wants to buy is stocks. This is no longer a capitalism for production but for the product which is to say for being sold or marketed. Thus it is essentially dispersive and the factory has given way to the corporation. The family the school the army the factory are no longer the distinct analogical spaces that converge towards an owner—state or private power—but coded figures—deformable and transformable—of a single corporation that now has only stockholders. Even art has left the spaces of enclosure in order to enter into the open circuits of the bank. The conquests of the market are made by grabbing control and no longer by disciplinary training by fixing the exchange rate much more than by lowering costs by transformation of the product more than by specialization of production. Corruption thereby gains a new power. Marketing has become the center or the “soul' of the corporation. We are taught that corporations have a soul which is the most terrifying news in the world. The operation of markets is now the instrument of social control and forms the impudent breed of our masters. Control is short-term and of rapid rates of turnover but also continuous and without limit while discipline was of long duration infinite and discontinuous. [The subject] is no longer [someone] enclosed but [someone] in debt. It is true that capitalism has retained as a constant the extreme poverty of three quarters of humanity too poor for debt too numerous for confinement: control will not only have to deal with erosions of frontiers but with the explosions within shanty towns or ghettos. 3. Program The conception of a control mechanism giving the position of any element within an open environment at any given instant (whether animal in a reserve or human in a corporation as with an electronic collar) is not necessarily one of science fiction. Félix Guattari has imagined a city where one would be able to leave one’s apartment one’s street one’s neighborhood thanks to one’s (dividual) electronic card that raises a given barrier. but the card could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours. what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person’s position—licit or illicit —and effects a universal modulation. The socio-technological study of the mechanisms of control grasped at their inception would have to be categorical and to describe what is already in the process of substitution for the disciplinary sites of enclosure whose crisis is everywhere proclaimed. It may be that older methods borrowed from the former societies of sovereignty will return to the fore but with the necessary modifications. What counts is that we are at the beginning of something. In the prison system: the attempt to find penalties of “substitution ” at least for petty crimes and the use of electronic collars that force the convicted person to stay at home during certain hours. For the school system: continuous forms of control and the effect on the school of perpetual training the corresponding abandonment of all university research the introduction of the “corporation' at all levels of schooling. For the hospital system: the new medicine “without doctor or patient' that singles out potential sick people and subjects at risk which in no way attests to individuation—as they say—but substitutes for the individual or numerical body the code of a “dividual' material to be controlled. In the corporate system: new ways of handling money profits and humans that no longer pass through the old factory form. These are very small examples but ones that will allow for better understanding of what is meant by the crisis of the institutions which is to say the progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination. One of the most important questions will concern the ineptitude of the unions: tied to the whole of their history of struggle against the disciplines or within the spaces of enclosure will they be able to adapt themselves or will they give way to new forms of resistance against the societies of control? Can we already grasp the rough outlines of these coming forms capable of threatening the joys of marketing? Many young people strangely boast of being “motivated'. they re-request apprenticeships and permanent training. It's up to them to discover what they're being made to serve just as their elders discovered not without difficulty the telos of the disciplines. The coils of a serpent are even more complex than the burrows of a molehill. </source> [/INST] <claim>There is a spectre haunting the 1AC: the emergence of the control society. Modern forms of capture are premised on the radical shift away from disciplinary power from the clock to the computer from power as repression to production. We have ceased to be disciplinary but what counts is that we are at the beginning of something—there is no need to fear or hope but only to look for new weapons.</claim> <psg>Foucault located the disciplinary societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries They initiate the organization of vast spaces of enclosure. the family. then the school then the barracks then the factory. from time to time the hospital. possibly the prison Foucault has brilliantly analyzed the ideal project of these environments of enclosure to concentrate. to distribute in space. to order in time. But Foucault recognized the transience of this model: it succeeded that of the societies of sovereignty and in their turn the disciplines underwent a crisis to the benefit of new forces which accelerated after World War II: a disciplinary society was what we already no longer were what we had ceased to be. We are in a crisis of enclosure administrations in charge never cease announcing supposedly necessary reforms: to reform schools to reform industries hospitals the armed forces prisons. But everyone knows that these institutions are finished It's only a matter of administering their last rites and of keeping people employed until the installation of the new forces knocking at the door. These are the societies of control There is no need to ask which is the toughest or most tolerable regime for it’s within each of them that liberating and enslaving forces confront one another. For example in the crisis of the hospital as environment of enclosure neighborhood clinics hospices and day care could at first express new freedom but they could participate as well in mechanisms of control that are equal to the harshest of confinements. There is no need to fear or hope but only to look for new weapons. The different spaces of enclosure through which the individual passes each time one is supposed to start from zero it is analogical. On the other hand the different control mechanisms are inseparable variations forming a system of variable geometry the language of which is numerical Enclosures are molds distinct castings but controls are a modulation like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other This is obvious in the matter of salaries: the factory contained its internal forces at equilibrium highest possible production lowest possible wages. but in a society of control the corporation has replaced the factory and the corporation is a spirit a gas. the corporation works to impose a modulation of each salary in states of perpetual metastability that operate through challenges contests and highly comic group sessions. If the most idiotic television game shows are so successful it's because they express the corporate situation with great precision just as the corporation replaces the factory perpetual training tends to replace the school and continuous control to replace the examination. delivering the school over to the corporation In the disciplinary societies one was always starting again while in the societies of control one is never finished with anything Kafka described disciplinary societies and the limitless postponements of the societies of control two very different modes of juridical life if our law is hesitant itself in crisis it's because we are leaving one in order to enter into the other. In the societies of control what is important is no longer either a signature or a number but a code: a password The numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information or reject it. Individuals have become “dividuals ' discipline always referred back to minted money that locks gold in as numerical standard while control relates to floating rates of exchange We have passed from one to the other The disciplinary [person] was a discontinuous producer of energy but the [person] of control is undulatory in orbit in a continuous network. The old societies of sovereignty made use of simple machines—levers pulleys clocks. but the recent disciplinary societies equipped themselves with machines involving energy with the passive danger of entropy and the active danger of sabotage. the societies of control operate with machines of a third type computers whose passive danger is jamming and whose active one is piracy and the introduction of viruses. This technological evolution must be a mutation of capitalism nineteenth- century capitalism is a capitalism of concentration It therefore erects the factory as a space of enclosure But in the present situation capitalism is no longer involved in production which it often relegates to the Third World It’s a capitalism of higher-order production It no longer buys raw materials and no longer sells the finished products: it buys the finished products or assembles parts. What it wants to sell is services and what it wants to buy is stocks. This is no longer a capitalism for production but for the product which is to say for being sold or marketed. The family the school the army the factory are no longer the distinct analogical spaces that converge towards an owner but coded figures—deformable and transformable of a single corporation The conquests of the market are made by fixing the exchange rate much more than by lowering costs by transformation of the product more than by specialization of production. Corruption thereby gains a new power. Marketing has become the center or the “soul' of the corporation. We are taught that corporations have a soul which is the most terrifying news in the world. The operation of markets is now the instrument of social control and forms the impudent breed of our masters. Control is short-term and of rapid rates of turnover but also continuous and without limit while discipline was of long duration infinite and discontinuous. [The subject] is no longer [someone] enclosed but [someone] in debt. capitalism has retained as a constant the extreme poverty of three quarters of humanity too poor for debt too numerous for confinement: control will have to deal with erosions of frontiers the explosions within shanty towns or ghettos. The conception of a control mechanism giving the position of any element not necessarily one of science fiction. one’s (dividual) electronic card that raises a given barrier. could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours. what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person’s position—licit or illicit —and effects a universal modulation. What counts is that we are at the beginning of something. For the school system: continuous forms of control perpetual training the corresponding abandonment of all university research the introduction of the “corporation' at all levels of schooling These examples will allow for better understanding of the progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination. One of the most important questions will concern the ineptitude of the unions: will they give way to new forms of resistance against the societies of control? Can we already grasp the rough outlines of these coming forms capable of threatening the joys of marketing? Many young people strangely boast of being “motivated'. they re-request apprenticeships and permanent training. It's up to them to discover what they're being made to serve just as their elders discovered not without difficulty the telos of the disciplines. The coils of a serpent are even more complex than the burrows of a molehill.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> So what in Deleuzian theory is the alternative to the state? Deleuze and Guattari argue for a type of assemblage (social group or cluster of relations) which they refer to as the ‘war-machine’ though with the proviso that certain kinds of ‘war-machines’ can also be captured and used by states. This should not be considered a militarist theory and the term ‘war-machine’ is in many respects misleading. It is used because Deleuze and Guattari derive their theory from Pierre Clastres’ theory of the role of ritualised (often non-lethal) warfare among indigenous groups. Paul Patton has suggested that the war-machine would be better called a metamorphosis-machine others have used the term ‘difference engine’ a machine of differentiation and there is a lot of overlap with the idea of autonomous groups or movements in how the war-machine is theorised. We should also remember that ‘machine’ in Deleuze and Guattari simply refers to a combination of forces or elements. it does not have overtones of instrumentalism or of mindless mechanisms – a social group an ecosystem a knight on horseback are all ‘machines’. The term ‘war-machine’ has the unfortunate connotations of brutal military machinery and of uncontrollable militarist apparatuses such as NATO which operate with a machine-like rigidity and inhumanity (c.f. the phrase ‘military-industrial complex’). For Deleuze and Guattari these kinds of statist war-machines are also war-machines of a sort because they descend from a historical process through which states ‘captured’ or incorporated autonomous social movements (particularly those of nomadic indigenous societies) and made them part of the state so as to contain their subversive power. Early states learned to capture war-machines because they were previously vulnerable to being destroyed by the war-machines of nomadic stateless societies having no similar means of response. Hence armies are a kind of hybrid social form containing some of the power of autonomous war-machines but contained in such a way as to harness it to state instrumentalism and inhumanity. Captured in this way war-machines lose their affirmative force becoming simply machines of purposeless destruction – having lost the purpose of deterritorialisation (see below) they take on the purpose of pure war as a goal in itself. Deleuze and Guattari argue that state-captured war-machines are regaining their autonomy in a dangerous way tending to replace limited war in the service of a state’s goals with a drive to total war. This drive is expressed for instance in the ‘war on terror’ as permanent state of emergency. There was a recent controversy about Israeli strategists adopting Deleuzian ideas which reflects the continuities between state war-machines and autonomous war-machines but depends on a selective conceptual misreading in which the drive to total war denounced by Deleuze and Guattari is explicitly valorised. The Israeli army is a captured war-machine in the worst possible sense pursuing the destruction of others’ existential territories in order to accumulate destructive power for a state. For Deleuze and Guattari it is not the Israeli army but the Palestinian resistance which is a war-machine in the full sense. The autonomous war-machine as opposed to the state-captured war-machine is a form of social assemblage directed against the state and against the coalescence of sovereignty. The way such machines undermine the state is by exercising diffuse power to break down concentrated power and through the replacement of ‘striated’ (regulated marked) space with ‘smooth’ space (although the war-machine is the ‘constituent element of smooth space’ I shall save discussion of smooth space for some other time). In Clastres’ account of Amazonian societies on which Deleuze and Guattari’s theory is based this is done by means of each band defending its own autonomy and reacting to any potential accumulation of power by other bands. One could similarly think of how neighbourhood gangs resist subordination by rival gangs or how autonomous social movements resist concentrations of political power. Autonomous social movements such as the European squatters’ movement the Zapatistas and networks of protest against summits are the principal example Deleuze and Guattari have in mind of war-machines in the global North though they also use the concept in relation to Southern guerrilla and popular movements such as the Palestinian intifada and the Vietnamese resistance to American occupation and also in relation to everyday practices of indigenous groups resisting state control. One could also argue that the ‘war-machine’ is implicit in practices of everyday resistance of the kind studies by James Scott. Marginal groups termed ‘minorities’ in Deleuzian theory often coalesce as war-machines because the state-form is inappropriate for them. According to Deleuze and Guattari war is not the aim of the war-machine (except when it is captured by the state). rather war-machines tend to end up in a situation of war with states because of the incommensurability of the war-machine with the state and with striated space. War-machines end up in conflict with states because their goal is the ‘deterritorialisation’ of the rigid fixities of state space often to create space for difference or for particular ways of life. Think for instance of squatters’ movements: in themselves they do not aim for conflict but rather seek different kinds of arrangements of space by forming new combinations of unused geographical spaces with otherwise ‘spaceless’ social groups. Yet such movements are often forced into conflict with the machinery of state repression because the state ignores or refuses to recognise these new articulations. As I write this the JB Spray squat in Nottingham is continuing a campaign of resistance to reoccupation by state forces acting on behalf of capitalist owners who have no intent of putting the space to use. This is a struggle I would very much encourage readers to support (see this article and related links for details. contact 07817493824 or email jbspray[at]hotmail.co.uk). It is also a clear local example of how autonomous social movements are forced into conflict by the state’s drive to repress difference. War-machines are also associated with the formation of special types of groups which are variously termed ‘bands’ ‘packs’ and ‘multiplicities’. These groups are seen as operating as dense local clusters of emotionally-intense connections strongly differentiated from the ‘mass’ which is a type of group based on large scale lack of intensity and vertical integration. ‘Packs’ or ‘bands’ instead form as unstable groups avoiding fixed hierarchies (any leaders emerging are subject to rapid succession) usually with small numbers and dispersed through space rather than concentrated in particular sites. Their diffusion is enabled by a multiplicity of objectives which resonate through horizontal molecular connections rather than being represented in overarching structures. They tend to detach materials from the connections in which they are inserted in the dominant system instead reconstructing different ‘universes’ or perspectives around other ways of seeing and relating. One can think for instance of the way groups of children reconstruct urban spaces as spaces of play finding new dissident uses for objects such as shopping trollies. For Deleuze and Guattari the process of forming ‘bands’ or ‘packs’ is necessarily dangerous risking the self-destructive implosion of small groups but also offering hopeful possibilities of forming ways of relating which are more open to difference than those prevalent in the dominant system. Deleuze and Guattari’s usefulness for radical activism is by no means limited to this particular pair of concepts but this way of thinking about social transformation raises useful questions and provides insights into how autonomous groups differ from dominant hierarchical forms of social collectivity. For instance this theory points towards the need to avoid duplicating statist ways of relating within autonomous spaces and to avoid coalescing in formal organisations which ultimately lead back into the state-form (albeit usually through the addition of axioms). It also suggests the inevitability of antagonism between radical movements and the state even when the goal of a radical movement is simply to defend or express its own difference. Strategically therefore autonomous activists need to be prepared to ‘ward off’ the state both within movements (by challenging statist ways of thinking and acting) and in relation to the wider context (by resisting state repression). According to Deleuze and Guattari there is a basic incompatibility between state ‘antiproduction’ and the flourishing of difference and this requires overcoming the former. This requires attention to the creation and defence of autonomous spaces in full awareness of their underlying transformative potential. </source> [/INST] <claim>“An abstract machine… is what draws the lines of flight: it steers the quantum flows assures the connection-creation of flows and emits new quanta. It itself is in a state of flight and erects war machines on its lines.”</claim> <psg>So what is the alternative to the state? Deleuze and Guattari argue for a type of assemblage which they refer to as the ‘war-machine’ though with the proviso that certain kinds of ‘war-machines’ can also be captured and used by states. The term ‘war-machine’ has the unfortunate connotations of brutal military machinery and of uncontrollable militarist apparatuses such as NATO which operate with a machine-like rigidity and inhumanity these kinds of statist war-machines are also war-machines of a sort because they descend from a historical process through which states ‘captured’ or incorporated autonomous social movements and made them part of the state so as to contain their subversive power. Early states learned to capture war-machines because they were previously vulnerable to being destroyed by the war-machines of nomadic stateless societies having no similar means of response. armies are a kind of hybrid social form containing some of the power of autonomous war-machines but contained in such a way as to harness it to state instrumentalism and inhumanity. war-machines lose their affirmative force becoming simply machines of purposeless destruction having lost the purpose of deterritorialisation they take on the purpose of pure war as a goal in itself. Deleuze and Guattari argue that state-captured war-machines are regaining their autonomy in a dangerous way tending to replace limited war in the service of a state’s goals with a drive to total war. This drive is expressed for instance in the ‘war on terror’ as permanent state of emergency. The Israeli army is a captured war-machine in the worst possible sense pursuing the destruction of others’ existential territories in order to accumulate destructive power for a state. it is not the Israeli army but the Palestinian resistance which is a war-machine in the full sense. The autonomous war-machine as opposed to the state-captured war-machine is a form of social assemblage directed against the state and against the coalescence of sovereignty. The way such machines undermine the state is by exercising diffuse power to break down concentrated power and through the replacement of ‘striated’ space with ‘smooth’ space this is done by means of each band defending its own autonomy and reacting to any potential accumulation of power by other bands. One could similarly think of how autonomous social movements resist concentrations of political power. Autonomous social movements such as the European squatters’ movement the Zapatistas and networks of protest against summits are the principal example though they also use the concept in relation to Southern guerrilla and popular movements such as the Palestinian intifada and the Vietnamese resistance to American occupation and also in relation to everyday practices of indigenous groups resisting state control. the ‘war-machine’ is implicit in practices of everyday resistance Marginal groups often coalesce as war-machines because the state-form is inappropriate for them. war is not the aim of the war-machine except when it is captured by the state rather war-machines tend to end up in a situation of war with states because of the incommensurability of the war-machine with the state and with striated space. War-machines end up in conflict with states because their goal is the ‘deterritorialisation’ of the rigid fixities of state space often to create space for difference or for particular ways of life. of squatters’ movements do not aim for conflict but rather seek different kinds of arrangements of space by forming new combinations of unused geographical spaces with otherwise ‘spaceless’ social groups. Yet such movements are often forced into conflict with the machinery of state repression because the state ignores or refuses to recognise these new articulations. autonomous social movements are forced into conflict by the state’s drive to repress difference. War-machines are also associated with the formation of special types of groups which are variously termed ‘bands’ ‘packs’ and ‘multiplicities’. Packs’ or ‘bands’ instead form as unstable groups avoiding fixed hierarchies (any leaders emerging are subject to rapid succession) usually with small numbers and dispersed through space rather than concentrated in particular sites. Their diffusion is enabled by a multiplicity of objectives which resonate through horizontal molecular connections rather than being represented in overarching structures. They tend to detach materials from the connections in which they are inserted in the dominant system instead reconstructing different ‘universes’ or perspectives around other ways of seeing and relating. Deleuze and Guattari’s usefulness for radical activism is by no means limited to this particular pair of concepts but this way of thinking about social transformation raises useful questions and provides insights into how autonomous groups differ from dominant hierarchical forms of social collectivity. this theory points towards the need to avoid duplicating statist ways of relating within autonomous spaces and to avoid coalescing in formal organisations which ultimately lead back into the state-form It suggests the inevitability of antagonism between radical movements and the state even when the goal of a radical movement is simply to defend or express its own difference. autonomous activists need to be prepared to ‘ward off’ the state both within movements by challenging statist ways of thinking and acting) and in relation to the wider context (by resisting state repression). there is a basic incompatibility between state ‘antiproduction’ and the flourishing of difference and this requires overcoming the former. This requires attention to the creation and defence of autonomous spaces in full awareness of their underlying transformative potential.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the war machine was worked out in the context of the global confrontation of the Cold War in which hair-trigger ‘nuclear security’ produced ‘a peace still more terrifying than fascist death’ whereby the spectre of war seemed to determine the conditions for international and domestic politics. Rather than be subject to control by the state the war machine began to take control of the state and directly invest a particular configuration of global (in-) security. However the Cold War genesis of the war machine concept does not mean that it has nothing to offer a post-Cold War post-September 11th. Deleuze’s essay ‘Postscript on Societies of Control’ indicates the ways in which he saw the security environment changing to one of modulated control and the management of flows and circulation rather than the strict policing of identities. The concept of the war machine itself seems to resonate with the post-September 11th world in which the nature of threats unclear and ‘unknown unknowns’ determine military planning. Indeed it is arguable that Deleuze more than any other is the ideal philosopher for helping us make sense of today’s radically interconnected post-Clausewitzean security terrain. Something which has certainly not been lost on some of the key centres for strategic affairs such as the RAND Corporation and the Israeli Defence Force who have operationalised Deleuzian principles to enhance military efficacy. With this in mind it was our conviction that an edited volume which specifically dealt with “Deleuze and War” was long since overdue not in order to definitively pronounce on the relationship between Deleuze and War but precisely to gesture to the multiple lines of engagement and intersection between Deleuze’s work and contemporary problems of war peace security and resistance. It is our hope that this volume serves to catalyse a consideration of Deleuze in the context of war and to open up debates and lines of enquiry that may enrich our engagement with the often dispiriting problems of militarism and security. Brad Evans and Michael Hardt discuss the extent to which civil war is no longer understood primarily through the prism of sovereignty. This is to say with the primary mode of warfare no longer taking place between states or for that matter within states for the acquisition of state power (as in conventional civil war) then the once familiar location of ‘war’ in relation to ‘peaceful politics’ now becomes intensely problematic. To put it another way in focusing exclusively on the relationship between sovereignty and war we are in danger of becoming blind [oblivious] to the iterations of war/governance which generate the conditions of possibility for everyday politics. Indeed as Evans and Hardt suggest while Liberal forms of governance are increasingly unhindered by the muddying of the waters between ‘war’ and ‘not war’ Liberalism itself as a framework for a politics concerned with emancipation and resistance might be fatally imperilled by the generalised state of war. Not only does this suggest the need for a rethinking of the politics of the left or of radical democracy but also that this new politics should take account of the ways in which modern strategies of rule are dedicated to the differential production and organisation of bodies in ways which determine the possibilities for resistance and make the emergence of certain forms of life complicit in the martial logic of rule. Examples include the potentially redeemable body of the insurgent the life-inimical body of the terrorist and the inviolable and valuable body of the US soldier. What this means is that one can no longer assume that war is fought according to the structures of friend/enemy them/us. Instead it is that the production of these categories (and the multiple sub-categories that populate them) which itself is internal to ‘war.’ In turn this necessitates a change in the way in which we think about war which becomes less associated with transcendent categories of power (good/evil friend/enemy) such as are associated with a moment of sovereign decision and more concerned with the immanent production of identities and lives: with what we might call a political economy whereby the production of life is itself the production of war. Economy thus becomes as great a concern in the analysis of contemporary war as the transcendent principles of law and sovereignty. Hence whilst the ‘exceptional’ instances of transcendent sovereign domination are easy to find in the recent past—as with for example Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib—these Evans and Hardt suggest may not be the essence of the current paradigm of war. Indeed there is a potential danger for a politics of resistance or criticism in focusing exclusively on these dramatic examples of sovereign rule. This has the potential to conceal the ‘normalised’ ways in which power operates through the juridical policing of humanity through the production and organisation of life through the regulation of flow and exchange in accordance with the predicates of the economising facets of global Liberal rule. It is to these that we must turn if we are to conceive a politics of resistance adequate to the task of confronting the multifaceted dimensions of war and the martial economy. Laura Guillaume begins the interview with James Der Derian by broaching the militarization of Deleuzian concepts. Whilst for many this tendency is problematic as Der Derian reminds us the militaristic appropriation of critical thought reveals a clear genealogy of (ab)use. While Der Derian invokes the experiences of Derrida Foucault and Virilio one could have also added here Nietzsche whose malicious appropriation by the forces of fascism still leaves him somewhat tarnished. Indeed he argues given the evident conceptual richness of the authors in question is there any wonder that the military would be equally seduced? Hence that there remains a possibility for concepts which have the aim of “liberation and resistance” to be turned into concepts for “occupation and destruction” serves to be a healthy reminder us all that our works may further rationalise the war machine. Against this backdrop Der Derian attends specifically to the collapse of the meaningful distinctions which once marked out Clausewitzean war. An active agent in this has been what he terms the MIME-NET (military-industrial-media-entertainment network) which actively producing the conditions for war conditions the theatre along complex adaptive and networked lines. Importantly for Der Derian since the onset of a global state of war inscribes the war machine with a “virtuous” quality (understood in terms of technological and ethical supremacy) then to understand more fully the political implications it is necessary to have a more sophisticated analytic of the composition of global war machine. “It is all too easy he argues “to dump this all on Bush’s doorstep.” Liberals too have a vested interest in all this. Der Derian’s analytic of the MIME-NET points to the oxymoronic nature of virtuous war. A war that seeks to secure its peace through technological enforcement cannot achieve anything other than the creation of new political problems. The stage is thus set ‘for endless cycles of conflict in which worst case scenarios produce the future they claim only to anticipate.’ Fulfilling the prophecies of ones own making the war machine is therefore not only virtually endowed but in the process of going to war it actively produces the reality of the situation. With this preemptive rationality in mind Guillaume poses the use of Bobbit’s strategic conflations between the human and the natural in order to make sense of this new virtual terrain. Supporting the notion that pre-emptive action “colonises the future ” Der Derian explains the absurd quality to all this in the sense that our interventions even take the “evils yet to be born” to be their object. This certainly offers some lessons to us— especially concerning what not to do. Pre-empting evil is not only ludicrous. it has proven to be disastrous. Provoking threats simply ups the ante. Nevertheless there is some optimism to be gleaned for if this century can be called Deleuzian then it will be realised in the active counter-production of heterogeneous media whose cultural outputs have the potential to change attitudes far greater than any political program which claims to hold the key to universal truth. Julian Reid’s paper addresses the function of the concept of war in Deleuze’s thought starting with a consideration of its role in transforming representative practice as outlined in Cinema II. Reid is troubled by Deleuze’s assumption of distinctive pre-and post-war cinema (and representative practice more broadly) and his suggestion that the Second World War brought about a schism in the way that representation functions. Whereas pre-war cinema is concerned with the representation of ‘a people’ post-war cinema arises out of the recognition of the impossibility of this task. Indeed not only is the representation of the people now impossible it is undesirable as it reinforces a fascist fetishization of people as being of a given identity or type. Post-war cinema focuses on gesturing to this very impossibility whereby the people are always missing or ‘to come.’ The problem here according to Deleuze’s own discussion of war in A Thousand Plateaus is the supposition that war is something extra-cultural extra-representative which can influence culture and representation from without. On the contrary Deleuze is elsewhere at pains to insist that war is immanently cultural and aesthetic and indeed that we can see certain modes of culture and aesthetics as themselves constituting ‘war’ on established forms of cultural practice. In other words cinema itself might be a war on convention: in Deleuze and Guattari’s terms a ‘war machine.’ This changes the stakes of the analysis. Rather than seeing a linear progression from one form of representation to another what is called for is the understanding that culture and representation are themselves always being taken up by a war machine oscillating between capture by the state and escape in a line of flight. While the former may faithfully reproduce images of the people and the territory the latter produces only the inescapable flight into incalculability where the people are always missing and the territory shattered. War is an amalgam of cultural and political affects which may swing between two poles: obedience to the state and the deterritorialisation of all the state stands for. Reid suggests that Deleuze makes use of the figure of ‘the seer’ in modern cinema who is engaged in an encounter with the ‘the intolerable’ and thus is always pointing to that which is outside the frame and beyond representation. However Reid argues that the seer becomes enmeshed in cliché and is therefore bound to a particular time-frame (1945–1968) in terms of the distortion of cinematic claims to truth. More broadly sight itself becomes thoroughly contaminated with military logic as outlined by Paul Virilio whereby perception capture and domination become part of the same affective moment. Reid suggests that rather than identify the ciphers of deterritorialisation in postmodern cinema we would do better to focus on the processes of state capture and escape through which we can access the ongoing flux present in every relation to the state. At these crossroads where the macro-and micropolitical encounter each other the people are at stake. Brian Massumi addresses the tendencies of contemporary war which were intensified though not caused by September 11th 2001. On the one hand the post-September 11th security response was undertaken in the name of the spectre of the absent towers: one remembers what one does not see. On the other military action becomes increasingly conceived under the banner of ‘pre-emption’ where one acts to prevent something which has not occurred which has not been experienced. In this sense a schism grows between (military) action and perception— we can no longer trust our senses. For Massumi this has revealing consequences for how we are to think contemporary war in relation to the politics of everyday life. Rather than thinking in terms of what we experience or perceive Massumi suggests that we ought to explore what takes place in this space before perception in which we are primed for attention ready to perceive on ‘red alert.’ This space before action before decision is increasingly the subject of a military ‘occupation.’ Rather than being a discreet activity which takes place in a defined location against a pre-determined set of people war becomes generalised ubiquitised prior to politics. Massumi cites Arquilla and Ronfeldt who define ‘soft power’ as ‘epistemological warfare’ because it is concerned with what people know or what they think they know. Massumi suggests that soft power is now ubiquitous. No longer merely the companion to exceptional ‘hard power’ operations ‘epistemological warfare’ has become the condition of ‘normal’ political life. However this is not quite right. For the current ‘everyday war’ is concerned not so much with what we know (or think we know) as what we are (or are becoming). This is not so much epistemological as ontological war concerned with the ongoing emergence of subjects of certain kinds primed to react and respond in certain ways to emergent dangers which are themselves in a permanent condition of emergence. This future-facing war is always in the process of conditioning corporeal emergence and determining future reactions. Like capitalism itself this process is non-linear and seemingly compatible with the Liberal predicates of freedom and individualism: predicates which are incapable of interrogating the pre-individual domain of affect and which are thereby entirely compatible with this generalised state of war (as a mode of governance) and unable to provide the platform for an effective critique (as a politics of resistance). Consequently Massumi says that ‘[i]t is not enough to stop one war or even many. It is not enough to vote out one government bent on war nor many.’ Rather the task is to reclaim the space of emergence—of the virtual—which is in danger of being given over to a military logic of pre-emption. John Protevi is concerned with the production of certain ‘bodies politic’ which constitute aspects of war. The term ‘body politic’ is intended to draw attention to the extent that military bodies cannot be understood exclusively through the prism of either the somatic or the social. Rather they must be understood as dynamic assemblages. as Protevi says ‘geo-bio-techno-affective assemblages’ which exceed capture by any one interpretative framework. This suggests a change in the way in which we deploy the concept of the body in making sense of affective responses to war. It is no longer sufficient to rely on biological accounts of why bodies perform in certain ways. Rather Protevi suggests we should mobilise Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of affect which refers to the ability of bodies to form assemblages with other bodies. Indeed this is a problematic formulation in the sense that the body cannot be understood apart from this ability. It is the formation of assemblages and the ongoing interaction that bodies have with other bodies that enables us to define ‘what a body is.’ And this challenges the analytic approach to bodies at war which would seek to distinguish among history biology culture society and so on when in fact the connections that bodies make exceed and undermine these distinctions. What is the key for Protevi is the way in which we can think of war in adaptive terms or as a selection pressure without essentialising either what we mean by ‘war’ or what we take to be the responses and reactions of bodies. This involves rescuing from the idea of simple evolution a notion of the ‘body politic’ as a dynamic active and evolving assemblage. Discussing the phenomenon of ‘rage’ across historical cultures Protevi wants to rescue some notion of ‘human nature’ from the notion that all emotions and affective manifestations are socially constructed or context specific. However this does not mean that they are amenable to facile capture or representation through any single prism of analysis. Rather considering bodily responses and reactions from the perspective of affect demands attention to the cyclical dynamic and reactive character of all actions/reactions. It is the differential bio-cultural production of certain war-bodies with which Protevi is concerned which means that it is not enough for us to say that war is an eternal human experience because of the highly variable ways in which ‘war’ is experienced and conceived in different cultures. He gives the example of music which may create certain possibilities for group activity and prime certain affective responses resulting in variable iterations of ‘war.’ In this sense music is immediately physiological social cultural and military in an emergent assemblage of bodies and populations. Brad Evans analyses the post-9/11 security landscape through the prism of Foucauldian biopolitics in order to outline the ways in which the referent object of security is changing and to catalyse an exploration of the consequences of this for political possibility and resistance. We can see security becoming decreasingly concerned with identity and increasingly focused on circulation and emergence. In this sense it is no longer what things are that is the focus of the martial sciences but what they are becoming. This produces a re-evaluation of the very meaning of ‘security’ and of its meaning for politics and the place of war in contemporary society. Moreover it is productive of a change in the object of security which is no longer a defined group or state but life itself. life understood as always being in the process of change and emergence. Indeed it is this ongoing process of becoming which defines ‘life’ as such. Life is becoming. It therefore cannot be secured through being fixed rather its becomings must be monitored and if necessary terminated before danger can be said to have emerged. As Evans indicates this creates serious challenges for political thought. Firstly ‘freedom’ becomes internalised within the system of security and governance so that we can no longer think of freedom from security but of security as the production of freedom. Secondly the consequences of ‘freedom’ become radically unpredictable. The new sciences of complexity tell us that we cannot contain this radical freedom within a certain political territory or ideology: rather the consequences of freedom are inherently unpredictable and unstable. This is nowhere better illustrated than by the events of 9/11 when the potential of a ‘catastrophic individual’ to bring destruction and to transform perceptions of the security situation was brought into painfully sharp relief. What this means is that the event in Deleuzian terms becomes the object of security thereby creating a paradox in which the moment of political possibility is also the moment for the concentration of an arsenal of military-strategic forces which are actually productive of the terrifying sorts of event which they would seek to foreclose. Evans suggests that resources from Deleuze’s thought may allow us to think through binaries such as present/future finite/infinite known/unknown which litter the terrain of discourses of security/freedom through the concept of difference which may mobilise an openness to political formation which enables us to think a future beyond security danger and pre-emption. Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc offers an analysis of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the war machine which is concerned with the way it can produce a theory of war in which the repressive powers of the state are not localised in the army the police forces and so on but comes to be constituted in certain ways through the dynamic interaction of forces which either affirm the state or flee from it. In this respect a genealogy of war involves tracing the processes by which the war machine comes to be captured by the state as well as being attentive to the lines of flight along which the war machine escapes capture and comes to constitute a force of resistance to state appropriation. Reading Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine together with Clausewitzian precepts concerning the status of war what becomes apparent are the profound social and economic ramifications of this reading of war. For Clausewitz war is the servant of state politics and can be so precisely because it is not itself political. Similarly for Deleuze and Guattari the war machine is always potentially setting up a line of flight from state politics and is not itself exhausted or determined by it. But Sibertin-Blanc argues that Clausewitz places too much emphasis on war as an institutionally governed historical reality whereas Deleuze and Guattari are concerned with the identification of the concept of the war machine deterritorialised from its geo-political manifestations. The process by which the war machine is captured by the state is not itself military because the military is the outcome of this process. Rather it is territorial and relates to the circulation of men and things within the state. In the current system the state has lost control of the war machine and thus the war machine no longer has war as its object as this would have to be given by the state. Rather it is through the political economy and the interstices of society themselves that the war machine operates manifesting itself as a global security order rather than an exceptional moment of war. Although states of exception still present a challenge the war machine becomes associated with the very fabric of normality as such which no longer driven by the state becomes disaggregated from politics: a technocracy of order which presents itself as being the very underlying conditions of life itself. Sibertin-Blanc suggests that one could replace the political end given to the war machine with the economic end that it now has in the sense that the war machine is concerned with the immanent unfolding of the capitalist economy itself. Further he argues that the idea of a war machine dedicated to a ‘global peace’ should not deceive us into expecting a degree of pacification or a decline in violence. Quite the contrary. The point is rather that the global violence and instability is itself internal to the world wide war machine and does not constitute an interruption in its rule. Sibertin-Blanc leaves us with the challenge of thinking a politics of resistance which can contend with the normalisation of war as a background condition for everyday life. a politics which one cannot be think may itself derive some sustenance from the resources of the war machine with which to construct its line of flight. Gregg Lambert traces the exteriority of the war machine to the state and the relationship this conjures between the state and ‘the people.’ He suggests that the state is always in the process of seeking to capture the people in ideology in political philosophy or in a martial relation to those who defy the state’s insistence on interiority and regularity. While the left might seek to build its legitimacy on the morality of the people this is an appropriation which actually serves to cauterise the revolutionary potential of the people in Deleuze and Guattari’s thinking. The problem is that ‘the people’ may all too readily collapse into a fascist assemblage the nomad may appear most prominently in the guise of an ambulant suicide bomber and as Deleuze and Guattari are themselves appropriated by the IDF for the contribution that they can make into the pacification of hostile striated space it seems that there is no conceptual territory which is safe from the grasping hands of the militarists or from the threat of a fatal territorialisation on the black hole of negation. However the point is that the schizophrenic bipolar nature of concepts in Deleuze and Guattari hauls us back from the brink of despair because ‘the people’ may also appear as a war machine with respect to the state producing the emergence of new political possibilities. Lambert explores the figures used by Deleuze and Guattari to dramatise the elusive and contradictory nature of ‘the people.’ For example Ahab and Bartleby both in their different ways defy the state and thereby somehow embody it. They betray it and at the same time express what is most essential about it. In this sense they produce the American dream through their refusal to conform to it. Through their failure in the eyes of the state they produce a creative line of flight from it. Only by failing can they produce. These refusenik or defiant figures who populate Deleuze and Guattari’s texts are actually the poles of the revolutionary becomings of the people. No one truly embodies the American dream there is no perfect citizen and there are no people. It is only through the rejection of or escape from these injunctions that a ‘people to come’ can be summoned. a people who never arrives but stands for the permanent possibility of difference within a political system. Lambert suggests that there are problems with the ineluctable bipolarity of Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine however not least that we are left with the task of distinguishing between ‘destructive violence and creative violence.’ This is not a new problem for is not the task of revolutionary violence the dedication of force to the redemption of the world? The question is whether Deleuze and Guattari offer us a novel way out of this conundrum. Lambert suggests that we concentrate our research on the idea of death which may be the genocidal nadir to which the modern military arsenal dedicates itself or which may be a space of pure becoming ‘A Life’ which represents the pure form of political possibility and therefore the counter to the black hole to which the war machine collapse. </source> [/INST] <claim>“The Fascists were only child precursors and the absolute peace of survival succeeded where total war had failed. The Third World War was already upon us…The world became a smooth space again over which reigned a single war machine even when it opposed its own parts. Wars had become a part of peace. More than that the States no longer appropriated the war machine. they reconstituted a war machine of which they themselves were only the parts.”</claim> <psg>the war machine was worked out in the context of the global confrontation of the Cold War in which hair-trigger ‘nuclear security’ produced ‘a peace still more terrifying than fascist death’ whereby the spectre of war seemed to determine the conditions for international and domestic politics. Rather than be subject to control by the state the war machine began to take control of the state and directly invest a particular configuration of global security. Control’ indicates the ways in which he saw the security environment changing to one of modulated control and the management of flows and circulation rather than the strict policing of identities the war machine itself seems to resonate with the post-September 11th world in which the nature of threats unclear and ‘unknown unknowns’ determine military planning. civil war is no longer understood primarily through the prism of sovereignty. with the primary mode of warfare no longer taking place between states or for that matter within states for the acquisition of state power then the once familiar location of ‘war’ in relation to ‘peaceful politics’ now becomes intensely problematic. in focusing exclusively on the relationship between sovereignty and war we are in danger of becoming blind [oblivious] to the iterations of war/governance which generate the conditions of possibility for everyday politics. while Liberal forms of governance are increasingly unhindered by the muddying of the waters between ‘war’ and ‘not war’ Liberalism itself as a framework for a politics concerned with emancipation and resistance might be fatally imperilled by the generalised state of war. Not only does this suggest the need for a rethinking of the politics of the left radical democracy but also that this new politics should take account of the ways in which modern strategies of rule are dedicated to the differential production and organisation of bodies in ways which determine the possibilities for resistance and make the emergence of certain forms of life complicit in the martial logic of rule What this means is that one can no longer assume that war is fought according to the structures of friend/enemy them/us. Instead it is that the production of these categories which itself is internal to ‘war.’ In turn this necessitates a change in the way in which we think about war which becomes less associated with transcendent categories of power (good/evil friend/enemy) such as are associated with a moment of sovereign decision and more concerned with the immanent production of identities and lives: with what we might call a political economy whereby the production of life is itself the production of war. Economy thus becomes as great a concern in the analysis of contemporary war as the transcendent principles of law and sovereignty. whilst the ‘exceptional’ instances of transcendent sovereign domination are easy to find in the recent past these may not be the essence of the current paradigm of war. there is a potential danger for a politics of resistance or criticism in focusing exclusively on these dramatic examples of sovereign rule. This has the potential to conceal the ‘normalised’ ways in which power operates through the juridical policing of humanity through the production and organisation of life through the regulation of flow and exchange in accordance with the predicates of the economising facets of global Liberal rule there remains a possibility for concepts which have the aim of “liberation and resistance” to be turned into concepts for “occupation and destruction” An active agent in this has been what he terms the MIME-NET military-industrial-media-entertainment network which actively producing the conditions for war conditions the theatre along complex adaptive and networked lines. since the onset of a global state of war inscribes the war machine with a “virtuous” quality then to understand more fully the political implications it is necessary to have a more sophisticated analytic of the composition of global war machine. A war that seeks to secure its peace through technological enforcement cannot achieve anything other than the creation of new political problems. The stage is thus set ‘for endless cycles of conflict in which worst case scenarios produce the future they claim only to anticipate.’ Fulfilling the prophecies of ones own making the war machine is therefore not only virtually endowed but in the process of going to war it actively produces the reality of the situation. . Supporting the notion that pre-emptive action “colonises the future ” Der Derian explains the absurd quality to all this in the sense that our interventions even take the “evils yet to be born” to be their object. Pre-empting evil is not only ludicrous. it has proven to be disastrous. Provoking threats simply ups the ante. for if this century can be called Deleuzian then it will be realised in the active counter-production of heterogeneous media whose cultural outputs have the potential to change attitudes far greater than any political program which claims to hold the key to universal truth. the representation of the people now impossible as it reinforces a fascist fetishization of people as being of a given identity or type. ’ The problem here is the supposition that war is something extra-cultural extra-representative which can influence culture and representation from without. war is immanently cultural and aesthetic and indeed that we can see certain modes of culture and aesthetics as themselves constituting ‘war’ on established forms of cultural practice. Rather than seeing a linear progression from one form of representation to another what is called for is the understanding that culture and representation are themselves always being taken up by a war machine oscillating between capture by the state and escape in a line of flight. While the former may faithfully reproduce images of the people and the territory the latter produces only the inescapable flight into incalculability where the people are always missing and the territory shattered. War is an amalgam of cultural and political affects which may swing between two poles: obedience to the state and the deterritorialisation of all the state stands for. sight itself becomes thoroughly contaminated with military logic whereby perception capture and domination become part of the same affective moment. rather than identify the ciphers of deterritorialisation we would do better to focus on the processes of state capture and escape through which we can access the ongoing flux present in every relation to the state. At these crossroads where the macro-and micropolitical encounter each other the people are at stake. the tendencies of contemporary war were intensified though not caused by September 11th 2001 the post-September 11th security response was undertaken in the name of the spectre of the absent towers: one remembers what one does not see. military action becomes increasingly conceived under the banner of ‘pre-emption’ where one acts to prevent something which has not occurred which has not been experienced. a schism grows between (military) action and perception— we can no longer trust our senses. this has revealing consequences for how we are to think contemporary war in relation to the politics of everyday life. Rather than thinking in terms of what we experience or perceive we ought to explore what takes place in this space before perception in which we are primed for attention ready to perceive on ‘red alert.’ This space before action before decision is increasingly the subject of a military ‘occupation.’ Rather than being a discreet activity which takes place in a defined location against a pre-determined set of people war becomes generalised ubiquitised prior to politics. the current ‘everyday war’ is concerned not so much with what we know (or think we know) as what we are (or are becoming). This is not so much epistemological as ontological war concerned with the ongoing emergence of subjects of certain kinds primed to react and respond in certain ways to emergent dangers which are themselves in a permanent condition of emergence. This future-facing war is always in the process of conditioning corporeal emergence and determining future reactions. Like capitalism itself this process is non-linear and seemingly compatible with the Liberal predicates of freedom and individualism: predicates which are incapable of interrogating the pre-individual domain of affect and which are thereby entirely compatible with this generalised state of war (as a mode of governance) and unable to provide the platform for an effective critique (as a politics of resistance). ‘[i]t is not enough to stop one war or even many. It is not enough to vote out one government bent on war nor many.’ Rather the task is to reclaim the space of emergence—of the virtual—which is in danger of being given over to a military logic of pre-emption. This suggests a change in the way in which we deploy the concept of the body in making sense of affective responses to war. It is no longer sufficient to rely on biological accounts of why bodies perform in certain ways. we should mobilise Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of affect which refers to the ability of bodies to form assemblages with other bodies. this is a problematic formulation in the sense that the body cannot be understood apart from this ability. It is the formation of assemblages and the ongoing interaction that bodies have with other bodies that enables us to define ‘what a body is.’ This involves rescuing from the idea of simple evolution a notion of the ‘body politic’ as a dynamic active and evolving assemblage. We can see security becoming decreasingly concerned with identity and increasingly focused on circulation and emergence. In this sense it is no longer what things are that is the focus of the martial sciences but what they are becoming. it is productive of a change in the object of security which is no longer a defined group or state but life itself. life understood as always being in the process of change and emergence. it is this ongoing process of becoming which defines ‘life’ as such. Life is becoming. It therefore cannot be secured through being fixed rather its becomings must be monitored and if necessary terminated before danger can be said to have emerged. ‘freedom’ becomes internalised within the system of security and governance so that we can no longer think of freedom from security but of security as the production of freedom the consequences of ‘freedom’ become radically unpredictable. we cannot contain this radical freedom within a certain political territory or ideology: rather the consequences of freedom are inherently unpredictable and unstable. . What this means is that the event becomes the object of security thereby creating a paradox in which the moment of political possibility is also the moment for the concentration of an arsenal of military-strategic forces which are actually productive of the terrifying sorts of event which they would seek to foreclose. the war machine is concerned with the way it can produce a theory of war in which the repressive powers of the state are not localised in the army the police forces and so on but comes to be constituted in certain ways through the dynamic interaction of forces which either affirm the state or flee from it. a genealogy of war involves tracing the processes by which the war machine comes to be captured by the state as well as being attentive to the lines of flight along which the war machine escapes capture and comes to constitute a force of resistance to state appropriation. war is the servant of state politics and can be so precisely because it is not itself political. the war machine is always potentially setting up a line of flight from state politics and is not itself exhausted or determined by it. The process by which the war machine is captured by the state is not itself military because the military is the outcome of this process. it is territorial and relates to the circulation of men and things within the state it is through the political economy and the interstices of society themselves that the war machine operates manifesting itself as a global security order rather than an exceptional moment of war. the war machine becomes associated with the very fabric of normality as such which no longer driven by the state becomes disaggregated from politics: a technocracy of order which presents itself as being the very underlying conditions of life itself. one could replace the political end given to the war machine with the economic end that it now has in the sense that the war machine is concerned with the immanent unfolding of the capitalist economy itself. the idea of a war machine dedicated to a ‘global peace’ should not deceive us into expecting a degree of pacification or a decline in violence. the global violence and instability is itself internal to the world wide war machine and does not constitute an interruption in its rule. a politics which one cannot be think may itself derive some sustenance from the resources of the war machine with which to construct its line of flight. the state is always in the process of seeking to capture the people in ideology in political philosophy or in a martial relation to those who defy the state’s insistence on interiority and regularity. While the left might seek to build its legitimacy on the morality of the people this is an appropriation which actually serves to cauterise the revolutionary potential of the peopl The problem is that ‘the people’ may all too readily collapse into a fascist assemblage the nomad may appear most prominently in the guise of an ambulant suicide bomber there is no conceptual territory which is safe from the grasping hands of the militarists or from the threat of a fatal territorialisation on the black hole of negation. the schizophrenic bipolar nature of concepts hauls us back from the brink of despair because ‘the people’ may also appear as a war machine with respect to the state producing the emergence of new political possibilities. These refusenik or defiant figures are actually the poles of the revolutionary becomings of the people. No one truly embodies the American dream there is no perfect citizen and there are no people. It is only through the rejection of or escape from these injunctions that a ‘people to come’ can be summoned. a people who never arrives but stands for the permanent possibility of difference within a political system. which may be a space of pure becoming ‘A Life’ which represents the pure form of political possibility and therefore the counter to the black hole to which the war machine collapse.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> As I write this essay it is a week into the 2015 United Nations Convention of Climate Change (officially known as “Conference of Parties” or “COP21”). It is also two weeks after the attacks in Paris by Syrian teams said to be working on behalf of ISIS. Syria is one of the many ground-zero sites for climate change a fact not often mentioned in descriptions of the nation’s situation with ISIS. The complexities of religious and ethnic diversity along with pressures from global neoliberalism certainly play a factor here. But according to climate changes specialists “water and climatic conditions have played a direct role in the deterioration of Syria’s economic conditions” (Gleick 2014 p. 331). Anthropogenic effects on ecosystems are at the heart of water-related violence around the world and water scarcity will only become more of a “security risk” for communities as we move further into the twenty-first century. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC – the world’s leading authority on global warming) this projected future will not change in time to substantially reverse the course of significant ecological transformatons even with heroic efforts. The toxic fallout from anthropogenic desire – the coconstitutive underside of humanity’s transcendence of environmental limitations – will continue to have an effect for centuries to come. We are already locked into at least a 1.5–2 °C increase in total atmospheric temperature. In fact total elimination of C02 emissions today would only result in a decrease in atmospheric C02 of approximately 40 percent by the end of the century (bringing us back to roughly 1995 levels) (Meehl et al. 2007 p. 749). With current emissions “as usual” (which involves a continual increase in CO2s and other greenhouse gases from economic “development”) we could possibly see a 5 or 6° increase which would have a devastating effect on planetary life. This deterritorialization of the world’s ecosystem constitutes the new parameters of human and nonhuman ecological existence. It is no wonder then that the military and security institutions take climate change seriously. They have come to draw out the necessary consequences of our ecological occasion when others have continued to debate its existence. The singular challenge in the face of these events for the kind of philosophy made possible by Deleuze it seems to me is the struggle to conceptualize possible alternatives to current ecological circumstances (or perhaps “ecological immanence” would be a more appropriate syntagma to use here). But this also requires an intense analysis of both current and past affiliations between security and the planet’s environment. These affiliations are complex and have a long history dating back to military developments that predate modern nineteenth- and twentieth-century military innovations and technologies. Such an analysis is beyond the scope of this essay but suffice it to say that the military in the modern era (from the seventeenth century onward) has increasingly attempted to strike up organic immanent relations to ecosystems alongside its more obvious attempts to control environments in order to transcend them. With the official commencement of the security society (when the US National Security Act was signed into law in 1947) attempts to territorialize the immanence of nature become both more scientific and systematized (in accordance with State protocols). The most recent wave began overtly with the publication of dozens of Defense Department documents such as “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” (2007) “Taking Up the Security Challenges of Climate Change” (2009) and others including as well the official targeting of climate change in the 2010 Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review Report. These have been followed by hundreds of statements by military officials and by speeches in which President Obama and other politicians directly link climate change to national security. This “incitement to discourse ” to take a phrase from Foucault followed the publication in 2007 of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report which provided the most evidence and was the most emphatic statement to date about the precariousness of our environmental situation. This discursive event I want to argue here differs from earlier Cold War affiliations between security and the environment. As we’ll see security in the Cold War was characterized by a State-incorporated war machine (which I’ll refer to in this essay as “the military machine”). Its role in both political and civil society was to act as an apparatus of capture. However the post-fascist and now post-9/11 and post-IPCC 2007-Report military machine take a fundamentally different attitude toward nature. After roughly 2007 the military machine gives up the desire to transcend the immanence of the planet’s ecological bankruptcy. Instead the military machine moving beyond the State seeks to take on this eco-crisis to “surf” its molecular movements.1 During the Cold War the military took the role of the State was incorporated as the State’s War Machine and operated as a machine of transcendence – attempting to transform environmental events such as climate harvests insect infestations and even considered creating climate change itself in order to redirect the earth’s climate to a US advantage (Hamblin 2013). Today “Nature” has been retooled as “climate change” – an empty axiomatic that in the hands of security experts functions to saturate the socius in the same style as “terrorism.” The military machine – which has evolved into the “security society” (or “control society ” as Deleuze terms it) – therefore now takes up a fundamentally different relation to immanence. Faced with these developments can Deleuzian philosophy offer a counterpoint to such an immanent technology of security? Security and immanence Deleuze’s focus on immanence constitutes a struggle to release thought from moralizing transcendent formations that constrain it within frameworks of logic certainty and dependability. Opposed to the authoritative transcendence of a moralizing system immanence offers a more concrete engagement with the molecular heterogeneous singularities of a moving existence. It defines the struggle within thought for what has yet to be thought rather than the application of already constituted knowledge on new forms of existence. Furthermore as Dan Smith elegantly argues immanence is key to Deleuze’s development of ethical explorations which arise always “from a purely immanent point of view” (Smith 1998. p. 251). In developing an ethics grounded in immanence Deleuze distinguishes between “ethics” and “morality”: morality attempts to subsume all acts within a transcendent code to capture them within predetermined nets of rules and regulations. ethics instead is a term that refers to “facilitative” rules that evaluate our actions according to “immanent modes of existence”(Smith 1998 p. 252). Yet as Deleuze and Guattari consistently emphasize States imperialisms and apparatuses of domination in general also strike up immanent relations. They even depend on them and function by establishing certain transcendent-immanent affiliations that do not deny or destroy immanent matter-in-motion (there is no destroying immanence only reworking its general movements and potentials). Even the illusory transcendent systems of morality such as Christianity only exist by grafting themselves onto immanent relations: it is “not the existence or nonexistence of a transcendent God but rather the immanent modes or existence of those who must choose between his existence or nonexistence” (Smith 1998 p. 258). Early post-structuralism would approach this problem of transcendence (its nonpositive impossibility) in Derridian terms of the “absent center ” in which the deconstructive act (namely: tracing the logic of a system through to its inevitable antagonistic conclusion) reveals the center of a structure to be imaginary and its supposed presence not a positivism but a “play of différance.” The power of this “critique of Western metaphysics” lies in its revealing of power structures to be functions of an inherent emptiness that acquires its “cohesion” in a “contradiction” that “expresses the force of a desire” (Derrida 1978 p. 352). Deleuze’s conceptualization of immanence complicates this critical recourse of emptiness by substituting the focus on emptiness as the ultimate act of unveiling for a focus on the material manifestation of transcendental impulses: “Transcendence may be entirely ‘empty’ in itself yet it becomes full to the extent that it descends and crosses different hierarchized levels that are projected together” (Deleuze & Guattari 1994 p. 89). The fantasy of transcendence is made possible Deleuze and Guattari argue by the continual generation of this metaphysical desire by individuals and communities in specific modalities: “The transcendent God would remain empty … if it were not projected on a plane of immanence of creation” (Deleuze & Guattari 1994 p. 89). The “appearance” of Christian transcendence manifests itself only in the individualized relations one strikes up with this system of belief which is heterogeneously interpreted. The key difference in the relation of State apparatuses (transcendence) and War Machines (immanence) would appear to lie at least in What is Philosophy? in the constitution of the Figure: “In … imperial unity or spiritual empire the transcendence that is projected on the plane of immanence paves it or populates it with Figures” (Deleuze & Guattari 1994 p. 89). We can find many such “Figures” in today’s environmental developments and struggles for “energy security”: “oil ” “gas ” “ethanol ” and now even “water” itself have become key “Figures” of national security in addition to global commodities. The geopolitics of national and global security also transforms ecosystems into geopolitical regions that take on the character of Figures: the Amazonian Rainforest the areas of dying water zones (such as in Syria) the North Pole with its gas and oil reserves (accessible now that the polar ice caps have decreased so extensively). These ecosystems have been deterritorialized in the sense that they are no longer complex ecosystems in the anthropocene.2 They have become zones of insecurity demanding to be captured by security and developed by capitalist interests. It becomes a question as to how the machine of security functions in relation to this new deterritorialized earth – if its capturing mechanisms function like the old State or if its mechanisms extend beyond State rigidity to enact a different relation to immanence. To return Deleuze’s connection of immanence to “deterritorialization” in “The Treatise on Nomadology” and “The Apparatus of Capture ” and later in “Geophilosophy ” complicates the relationship between transcendence and immanence even further. In “Geophilosophy” Deleuze and Gauttari describe two forms of relationship between immanence and deterritoralization: “a major difference arises depending on whether relative deterritorialization takes place through immanence or through transcendence” (Deleuze & Guattari 1994 p. 88). Here it would seem as if a fundamental distinction were being made between immanence and transcendence yet the phrase deterritorialization “through transcendence” is further clarified in terms of what might be called an integrated or streamlined repetition. The specific term they use is “rotation”: “When it is transcendence vertical celestial and brought about by the imperial unity the transcendent element must always give way or submit to a sort of rotation in order to be inscribed on the always-immanent plane of Nature-Thought” (Deleuze & Guattari 1994 p. 89). The security society has an intense interest in such forms of “rotation ” and in fact it might be said that the movement of security as a fundamental feature of existence depends on this capturing of immanence within what might be called a controlled vortex of desire. For instance a new ontological demand arose in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century military theory a disciplinary but also securitizing demand that would seamlessly combine the military need for a central command structure that could control soldiers who were coming to be deployed at greater and greater distances: battlefields in other words were expanding as war came to develop along national international and colonial lines. The command network and its communication systems often broke down when soldiers were in the field. Out of range and in the midst of a chaotic conflict more encounters became more nomadic. they arose outside the parameters of battle anticipated by those in command who had always necessarily stood “off site” (to invoke Deleuze and Gauttari’s description of the architectural plan in relation to the construction of cathedrals). In the face of this new challenge the military machine came to be enamored with the idea of an organic architecture one that could combine the immanence of the battlefield with the transcendence of the central command. The search began for what came to be known as the “higher-order motor.” The higher order motor as Manuel De Landa has powerfully described in his Deleuzian analysis of military history arises from the desire to move from mechanistic assemblages (which operate through forced and inflexible “top down” command structures) to machinic assemblages (that function instead as self-organizing singularities) (De Landa 1991). At the center of the military machine lies the demand of course for organized uniformity. This demand is problematic for immanence is anything but uniform. The theory of the higher order machine however combined the overwhelming logic of 1) a unidirectional pattern of thought with 2) the belief in an organic form of organization and rationality. But as an incorporated and highly disciplined military machine gave way after the World War II to the security society the demand for uniform security gives way to singular sites of security organized around a progressively heterogeneous deployment of insecurity. At this point the higher order motor begins to take on a scientific-ecological character. It becomes less a matter of creating an ultimate military command structure and instead a scientific expedition for ontological presences – powerful organizational forces – assumed to be lurking underneath human and nonhuman activity. A different set of questions come to be posed: When and why do certain animals and insects change their inharmonious movements into a unified assemblage (crickets chirping in unison for instance)? How do whales communicate and organize their movements across such great distances? How do deep-ocean currents form a natural pattern? How do weather patterns come to solidify to develop into disasters? The search for these organizational sequences were an attempt to constitute an engagement with Nature “from the ground up ” not from a transcendental imperative. The nineteenth-century higher order motor to add another dimension here predated Taylorism and thus was already operational when Jeremy Taylor was conducting his research on the army. In other words the movement of the higher order motor to a “ground level” before and after the World War II predated the State’s decentralization of capital to the private sector. The importance of De Landa’s work lies in his reconstellation of history in terms of these events and the extensive manner in which they make possible a human integration within a machinic assemblage governed by war: the “history of military applications” must be thought in terms of “the effects of technology on the military understood here as being itself a coherent ‘higher level’ machine: a machine that actually integrates men tools and weapons as if they were no more than the machine’s components” (De Landa 1991 p. 4). This is precisely the direction that Deleuze and Gauttari take toward the end of both the “Treatise on Nomadology” and the “Apparatus of Capture” (which I will come to shortly). The ability of a self-organizing event – a singularity that changes the course in which environments (human mechanical ecological) rise and develop – to take on higher level or higher order activations names the moment at which a certain mode of production formerly limited to a specific site or field of creativity expands to enchain multiple sites thus becoming a globalized and a seemingly “Nature-made” mode of production. It is the moment when war takes on the pretension of being the basis of existence. In such a way military technology sets itself up as a field of knowledge production concerned with the fundamental questions of the universe – fundamental questions that can lead the scientist and the military leader on the path to find the ultimate natural foundations for universal security itself (the moment when “peace” and “war” collapse in upon one another – when “peace” becomes “a form” that releases “total (planetary) war” (Deleuze & Guattari 1987 pp. 421 422 448 467). De Landa first traces out the development of a higher order machine of war at the site of cryptology. This development begins with the creation of cipher machines – the tool that eventually develops into the modern personal computer: The first modern computers were assembled in the crucible of World War II in the heat of several arms races: the cryptological race against the cipher machines of Nazi Germany and Japan and the race against German scientists to build the first atomic bomb. The war produced not only new machines but also forged new bonds between the scientific and military communities. (1991 p. 5) Here we can begin to understand the essential relation between the war machine its incorporation by the State and the phenomenon of acceleration demanded by the circumstances of State-generated war. Militarized ontology has its essence in the enforcement of what we might call a “rotated velocity ” designed to replace discretely heterogeneous forms of motion and movement and teleologically direct them toward the generation of a process that “biologically” organizes itself. This empirical need to expeditiously solve the problem of encrypted messages however did not remain distinctive to the problem of breaking enemy codes. The intense pressure on the allied forces to crack codes generated a magnitude of force that angled an explanatory form of science (which it concurrently developed) to military concerns: “Never before had science been applied at so grand a scale to such a variety of warfare problems” (1991 p. 5). This particular brand of science and the objects it produced formed a kind of technological “swell” that impacted both political and social production on a massive scale. The result of this collaboration the discipline known as “operations research ” has evolved in the hands of cold warriors and think tanks into the more inclusive “management science” (systems analysis) which in effect transfers the command and control structures of military logistics to “the rest of society and the economy.” At such a point human agency and the larger-than-human structures become effects of the higher order motor connected to the larger groundswell generated through the intense pressure of science and the military working in conjunction to solve the problem of mathematical encryption. De Landa’s Deleuzian analysis reveals how this new organizational process arises out of the pressures of a historical occasion that brings about a unique machine a new set of procedures that expand in multiple directions: from the immediate context of decoding encrypted material to an entire field of logistics that begin to take up residence in the economy and social system at large. </source> [/INST] <claim>We have entered a crisis of global security. In the face of anthropogenic climate change the Magician Emperor and Jurist Priest have produced an ecological will to transcendence to surf the molecular movements of the climate. This transcendence over the Earth’s ecosystems is thus the modus operandi of sovereign modes of capture constantly deterritorializing fields of immanence to reterritorialize them upon lines of the market the state the international. </claim> <psg>Syria is one of the many ground-zero sites for climate change a fact not often mentioned in descriptions of the nation’s situation with ISIS. according to climate changes specialists “water and climatic conditions have played a direct role in the deterioration of Syria’s economic conditions” Anthropogenic effects on ecosystems are at the heart of water-related violence around the world and water scarcity will only become more of a “security risk” for communities as we move further into the twenty-first century. According to the UN IPCC this projected future will not change in time to substantially reverse the course of significant ecological transformatons even with heroic efforts. The toxic fallout from anthropogenic desire – the coconstitutive underside of humanity’s transcendence of environmental limitations – will continue to have an effect for centuries to come. This deterritorialization of the world’s ecosystem constitutes the new parameters of human and nonhuman ecological existence. It is no wonder then that the military and security institutions take climate change seriously. The singular challenge in the face of these events for the kind of philosophy made possible by Deleuze is the struggle to conceptualize possible alternatives to current ecological circumstances “ecological immanence” would be a more appropriate this requires an intense analysis of both current and past affiliations between security and the planet’s environment. These affiliations are complex and have a long history dating back to military developments and technologies. the military in the modern era ( has increasingly attempted to strike up organic immanent relations to ecosystems alongside its more obvious attempts to control environments in order to transcend them. With the official commencement of the security society attempts to territorialize the immanence of nature become both more scientific and systematized (in accordance with State protocols). The most recent wave began overtly with the publication of dozens of Defense Department documents such as “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” “Taking Up the Security Challenges of Climate Change” and the official targeting of climate change in the 2010 Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review Report. the post-fascist and now post-9/11 and post-IPCC 2007-Report military machine take a fundamentally different attitude toward nature. After 2007 the military machine gives up the desire to transcend the immanence of the planet’s ecological bankruptcy. Instead the military machine moving beyond the State seeks to take on this eco-crisis to “surf” its molecular movements. Today “Nature” has been retooled as “climate change” – an empty axiomatic that in the hands of security experts functions to saturate the socius in the same style as “terrorism.” The military machine which has evolved into the “control society therefore now takes up a fundamentally different relation to immanence. immanence constitutes a struggle to release thought from moralizing transcendent formations that constrain it within frameworks of logic certainty and dependability. Opposed to the authoritative transcendence of a moralizing system immanence offers a more concrete engagement with the molecular heterogeneous singularities of a moving existence. It defines the struggle within thought for what has yet to be thought rather than the application of already constituted knowledge on new forms of existence. immanence is key to Deleuze’s development of ethical explorations which arise always “from a purely immanent point of view” States imperialisms and apparatuses of domination in general also strike up immanent relations. They even depend on them and function by establishing certain transcendent-immanent affiliations that do not deny or destroy immanent matter-in-motion The key difference in the relation of State apparatuses (transcendence) and War Machines (immanence) would appear to lie in the constitution of the Figure We can find many such “Figures” in today’s environmental developments and struggles for “energy security”: “oil ” “gas ” “ethanol ” and now even “water” have become key “Figures” of national security in addition to global commodities. The geopolitics of national and global security also transforms ecosystems into geopolitical regions that take on the character of Figures the Amazonian Rainforest the areas of dying water zones (such as in Syria) the North Pole with its gas and oil reserves (accessible now that the polar ice caps have decreased so extensively). These ecosystems have been deterritorialized in the sense that they are no longer complex ecosystems in the anthropocene. They have become zones of insecurity demanding to be captured by security and developed by capitalist interests. It becomes a question as to how the machine of security functions in relation to this new deterritorialized earth a major difference arises depending on whether relative deterritorialization takes place through immanence or through transcendence “When it is transcendence vertical celestial and brought about by the imperial unity the transcendent element must always give way or submit to a sort of rotation in order to be inscribed on the always-immanent plane of Nature-Thought” The security society has an intense interest in such forms of “rotation ” the movement of security as a fundamental feature of existence depends on this capturing of immanence within what might be called a controlled vortex of desire a new ontological demand arose in military theory a disciplinary but also securitizing demand that would seamlessly combine the military need for a central command structure that could control soldiers who were deployed at greater and greater distances In the face of this new challenge the military machine came to be enamored with the idea of an organic architecture one that could combine the immanence of the battlefield with the transcendence of the central command. At the center of the military machine lies the demand for organized uniformity This demand is problematic for immanence is anything but uniform. At this point the higher order motor begins to take on a scientific-ecological character. It becomes less a matter of creating an ultimate military command structure and instead a scientific expedition for ontological presences – powerful organizational forces – assumed to be lurking underneath human and nonhuman activity. How do weather patterns come to solidify to develop into disasters? The search for these organizational sequences were an attempt to constitute an engagement with Nature “from the ground up ” not from a transcendental imperative. : the “history of military applications” must be thought in terms of “the effects of technology on the military understood here as being itself a coherent ‘higher level’ machine: The ability of a self-organizing event – a singularity that changes the course in which environments rise and develop – to take on higher level or higher order activations names the moment at which a certain mode of production formerly limited to a specific site or field of creativity expands to enchain multiple sites thus becoming a globalized and a seemingly “Nature-made” mode of production. It is the moment when war takes on the pretension of being the basis of existence. In such a way military technology sets itself up as a field of knowledge production concerned with the fundamental questions of the universe lead the scientist and the military leader on the path to find the ultimate natural foundations for universal security itself Militarized ontology has its essence in the enforcement of what we might call a “rotated velocity ” designed to replace discretely heterogeneous forms of motion and movement and teleologically direct them toward the generation of a process that “biologically” organizes itself. This particular brand of science and the objects it produced formed a kind of technological “swell” that impacted both political and social production on a massive scale. this new organizational process arises out of the pressures of a historical occasion that brings about a unique machine a new set of procedures that expand in multiple directions: from the immediate context of decoding encrypted material to an entire field of logistics that begin to take up residence in the economy and social system at large.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> What I have argued in this book about the relationship between philosophy and imperialism is that the euphoric annunciation of the end of history and the advent of the New World Order by the deputies of the dominant American culture at the end of the Cold War is symptomatic of the achievement of the global hegemony of 'America' understood not simply as a political order but as a way of thinking. I have claimed that this triumphant 'American' way of thinking is not exceptionalist as it has always been claimed by Americans especially since de Tocqueville's announcement of the advent of democracy in America but European which means metaphysical: an imperial thinking whose provenance resides in Roman antiquity that sees the being into which it inquires as a totalized spatial image a 'field' or 'region' or 'domain' to be comprehended mastered and exploited. </source> [/INST] <claim>Conceiving of the world as transnational alliance rather than structured by an exceptionalist antagonism produces a political order that maintains the ontological foundations for global hegemony --- only embracing American defeat guarantees a maintenance of the metaphysical coordinates that sustain America </claim> <psg>the euphoric annunciation of the end of history by the deputies of the dominant American culture at the end of the Cold War is symptomatic of the achievement of the global hegemony of 'America' understood not simply as a political order but as a way of thinking. this triumphant 'American' way of thinking is not exceptionalist as it has always been claimed by Americans but European which means metaphysical: an imperial thinking whose provenance resides in Roman antiquity that sees the being into which it inquires as a totalized spatial image a 'field' or 'region' or 'domain' to be comprehended mastered and exploited.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Unlike many who appeal to the Anthropocene simply to advance the cause of geoengineering Jedediah Purdy begins with an assessment of our political condition. Still he fails to appreciate the nature of the geopolitics responsible for the crisis we face. If we are to take up his noble call for an ecological democracy we must acknowledge that the violence done to our planet has largely been perpetrated not by all humans but by a select group of Europeans. The Anthropos—the human species as such—is not to blame. Properly named our era is not the Anthropocene but the Eurocene. It was a European elite that developed a distinctively mechanistic view of matter an oppositional relationship to nature and an economic system indebted to geographical expansion. The resulting political orders measured success by how much wealth could be generated in the exploitation of peoples and resources. The geological record bears the mark of this European assemblage of hierarchies. Understanding the forces of Europeanization—the forces of racial superiority economic hegemony and global resettlement—is essential to understanding how the planet got to this point and how “we” could possibly become democratic. Purdy and others claim there are two reasons for renaming the last few centuries to mark a new geological era. The first is a matter of accuracy: there is significant evidence that humans have contributed to climate change. The second is a matter of consciousness raising: renaming the Holocene is essential to raising awareness that humans are responsible. Yet on both counts we should reconsider what we mean by “human.” It would be more accurate and go further in raising awareness to acknowledge the grossly disproportionate impact Europeans have had on our planet. This is not just another hyperbolic jeremiad against European peoples: Purdy’s invitation for global democratic thinking requires a geological history and name that foregrounds what really stands in the way of such a future. As Purdy points out (unlike Paul Crutzen and others) the “human” footprint involves much more than just carbon dioxide. On a geological time scale the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide are dwarfed by those of radioactivity and are comparable to those of plastic the modern waste product par excellence. If the Anthropocene is meant to name the scale of human impacts on the planet it should refer not only to warming but also to cooling the earth and Europeanization has done both at levels that even China’s current growth cannot match. Beginning in 1610 a small-scale ice age took hold of the planet when a wilder arboreal nature took back what had been inhabited land: some 20 million people killed by the European invasion of the Americas resulted in vast reforestation of the North and South American continents. The providence spoken of by those who arrived was not God but syphilis influenza and the number of other species that went along for the ride. Waves of well-armed European explorers and settlers leveraged the devastation for their own gain. There is no way to know how many languages cities ideas cosmologies and ways of inhabiting the world were lost in this genocide and terraforming of the Americas. The history of nuclear weapons is also predominantly European. The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 1945 is only the beginning of this story. In the years that have followed more than 2 000 nuclear weapons have been tested about 97 percent of which were detonated by European powers. Those detonations do not appear as tests from the perspectives of the Marshallese or Western Shoshone. A seventy-year nuclear war has spread cancer incinerated sacred lands and made other spaces uninhabitable on a temporal scale several orders of magnitude more condensed than the lifespan of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The nuclear powers of the Eurocene—the United States Russia the United Kingdom France and Israel—possess 97 percent of the 15 800 nuclear weapons around the planet. The beleaguered state of the arms control agenda means self-annihilation is still a very real possibility. As for plastic the Texas-sized trash gyres that swirl in the world’s oceans are another reminder of what a cosmology of disposability and synthetic chemistry has wrought. Plastic may lack the longevity of carbon dioxide and irradiated earth but for hundreds maybe thousands of years it will continue to circulate wreaking havoc throughout the food chain. We have post–World War II European development to thank for single-serve plastic shampoo pouches and bottled water—the latter needed only because nearby streams have been sold to Coca-Cola. Acknowledging the distinctively European history of our geological era serves a practical as well as a polemical end. Any democratic project must confront the geopolitics of the Eurocene because it challenges the very paradigm of equality. “In the Anthropocene ” Purdy writes “environmental justice might also mean an equal role in shaping the future of the planet.” In fact environmental justice will require unequal roles: significantly constraining even repressing the powers of the Eurocene. On the eve of the creation of the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks conference W. E. B. Du Bois saw the failure of a dream before it had even been fully formed: the vast new international body was little more than the institutionalization of the global “color line.” The great powers had insisted upon a Security Council and the General Assembly would be subordinated to its nuclear authority. Purdy’s suggestion that the planet could be governed equally ignores the vast systems of injustice—settler-colonialism primitive accumulation and violent power politics—that stand in the way upheld by great powers that use nuclear weapons to deter change and deploy swarms of drones to hunt down those too small for the nuclear option. I would like to be part of Purdy’s ecological democracy but he is wrong to say “There is no political agent community or even movement on the scale of humanity’s world-making decisions.” We share a world governed by a few states with the capability of ending all life on the planet. At the international scale these states are essentially authoritarian. they rule by economic violence and warfare. That some of those states are not authoritarian at the domestic level is of little consequence to the rest of the world. It should come as no surprise that the leaders of the food sovereignty and anti–fossil fuel movements Purdy describes belong to marginalized groups that see no future in our current geopolitical order. Indigenous black and brown people are at the vanguard of political struggle not because they are more natural but because they have had front row seats in the making of this crisis. The Eurocene is not perpetrated by all people of European heritage many of whom oppose the existing geopolitical order—myself included. This distinction—between being European and being an agent of the Eurocene—only intensifies the need to rethink democratization as demanding a politics of inequality rather than a politics of incorporation. Such a remaking of justice is as complex and difficult as the climate crisis itself and just as worthy a struggle irrespective of whether we can succeed. As Sylvia Wynter has said “we must now collectively undertake a rewriting of knowledge as we know it. . . . because the West did change the world totally.” To do so means exiting the Anthropocene as an idea and collectively—even if not equally—exiting the Eurocene as a failed epoch. As Wynter says we need to consider other “genres of the human.” Wynter explains she will not miss the Anthropos because she among so many others was never considered human to begin with. To invent a new species is the task that must be undertaken before there can be a “we ” an “our ” or a “cene” that is more than a requiem for the end. </source> [/INST] <claim>Confronting the metaphysical structures of European thought is a prerequisite to solving any environmental catastrophe or nuclear war </claim> <psg>Purdy fails to appreciate the nature of the geopolitics responsible for the crisis we face the violence done to our planet has largely been perpetrated not by all humans but by a select group of Europeans. The Anthropos is not to blame. Properly named our era is not the Anthropocene but the Eurocene. It was a European elite that developed a distinctively mechanistic view of matter and an economic system indebted to geographical expansion. The resulting political orders measured success by how much wealth could be generated in the exploitation of peoples and resources The geological record bears the mark of this European assemblage of hierarchies Understanding the forces of Europeanization racial superiority economic hegemony and global resettlement is essential to understanding how the planet got to this point and how “we” could possibly become democratic. we should reconsider what we mean by “human This is not just another hyperbolic jeremiad against European peoples: Purdy’s invitation for global democratic thinking requires a geological history and name that foregrounds what really stands in the way of such a future. On a geological time scale the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide are dwarfed by those of radioactivity and are comparable to those of plastic the modern waste product par excellence. If the Anthropocene is meant to name the scale of human impacts on the planet it should refer not only to warming but also to cooling the earth and Europeanization has done both at levels that even China’s current growth cannot match. some 20 million people killed by the European invasion of the Americas resulted in vast reforestation of the North and South American continents. The providence spoken of by those who arrived was not God but syphilis influenza and the number of other species that went along for the ride. Waves of well-armed European explorers and settlers leveraged the devastation for their own gain. There is no way to know how many languages cities ideas cosmologies and ways of inhabiting the world were lost in this genocide and terraforming of the Americas. The history of nuclear weapons is also predominantly European Hiroshima is only the beginning of this story In the years that have followed more than 2 000 nuclear weapons have been tested 97 percent of which were detonated by European powers Those detonations do not appear as tests from the perspectives of the Marshallese or Western Shoshone. A seventy-year nuclear war has spread cancer incinerated sacred lands and made other spaces uninhabitable on a temporal scale several orders of magnitude more condensed than the lifespan of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The beleaguered state of the arms control agenda means self-annihilation is still a very real possibility As for plastic the Texas-sized trash gyres that swirl in the world’s oceans are another reminder of what a cosmology of disposability and synthetic chemistry has wrought Plastic may lack the longevity of carbon dioxide and irradiated earth but for hundreds maybe thousands of years it will continue to circulate wreaking havoc throughout the food chain Acknowledging the distinctively European history of our geological era serves a practical as well as a polemical end Any democratic project must confront the geopolitics of the Eurocene because it challenges the very paradigm of equality environmental justice will require unequal roles: significantly constraining even repressing the powers of the Eurocene. On the eve of the creation of the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks conference . Du Bois saw the failure of a dream before it had even been fully formed: the vast new international body was little more than the institutionalization of the global “color line Purdy’s suggestion that the planet could be governed equally ignores the vast systems of injustice—settler-colonialism primitive accumulation and violent power politics—that stand in the way upheld by great powers that use nuclear weapons to deter change and deploy swarms of drones to hunt down those too small for the nuclear option. We share a world governed by a few states with the capability of ending all life on the planet. At the international scale these states are essentially authoritarian. they rule by economic violence and warfare That some of those states are not authoritarian at the domestic level is of little consequence to the rest of the world. This distinction—between being European and being an agent of the Eurocene—only intensifies the need to rethink democratization as demanding a politics of inequality rather than a politics of incorporation . As Wynter has said “we must now collectively undertake a rewriting of knowledge as we know it. . . . because the West did change the world totally.” To do so means exiting the Anthropocene as an idea and collectively—even if not equally—exiting the Eurocene as a failed epoch we need to consider other “genres of the human.” Wynter explains she will not miss the Anthropos because she among so many others was never considered human to begin with. To invent a new species is the task that must be undertaken before there can be a “we ” an “our ” or a “cene” that is more than a requiem for the end.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The other difference as we have seen indissolubly related to the first is that despite its infinitely more powerful military might the United States lost the war to the recalcitrant subaltern Other it would have subdued and accommodated to its Logos. And it lost it primarily because in this globalized postcolonial context—and by way of the disclosures re- leased by the self-destruction of the end-oriented philosophical epistemo- logical ecological cultural political and military mechanisms of Western imperialism—America’s Other as Greene foresaw and Caputo O’Brien and many other veterans who have recalled their experience in writing have testified refused to be answerable to the imperatives of the polyvalent American exceptionalist narrative. The Vietnamese’s response rather was to be rhizomatically mobile strategically indeterminate in its goals erratic in its actions indifferent to temporal and spatial boundaries resistant (in its attunement to the slow motion of being) to the dictates of technological speed and not least invisible to America’s techno-Ahabian gaze all calculated to decompose the relay of American power extending back from its forward-oriented military machine through its progressivist capitalist cultural apparatus to the instrumentalist (Franklinian “can-do”) thinking that was envisioning planning and conducting the war from the remote distance of the Pentagon. </source> [/INST] <claim>The global domination of western metaphysics is not centrally a military project but rather a project of knowledge production. Attempts to expand cooperation naturalize the global presence of a militarized American way of thinking seeing and mastering the world. These impotent gestures of imperial violence exemplify the logic of Hercules pursuit of power order and nation-building and are intended to pave over the US’ spectacular defeat in Vietnam. This violence makes imperative the intellectual task of retrieving the memory of Vietnam to oppose the War on Terror. It is the only way to undermine the metaphysical search and destroy mission of the Pax Metaphysica</claim> <psg>The other difference indissolubly related to the first is that despite its infinitely more powerful military might the United States lost the war to the recalcitrant subaltern Other it would have subdued and accommodated to its Logos it lost it primarily because in this globalized postcolonial context by way of the disclosures re- leased by the self-destruction of the end-oriented philosophical epistemo- logical ecological cultural political and military mechanisms of Western imperialism America’s Other refused to be answerable to the imperatives of the polyvalent American exceptionalist narrative. The Vietnamese’s response rather was to be rhizomatically mobile strategically indeterminate in its goals erratic in its actions indifferent to temporal and spatial boundaries resistant (in its attunement to the slow motion of being) to the dictates of technological speed and not least invisible to America’s techno-Ahabian gaze all calculated to decompose the relay of American power extending back from its forward-oriented military machine through its progressivist capitalist cultural apparatus to the instrumentalist (Franklinian “can-do”) thinking that was envisioning planning and conducting the war from the remote distance of the Pentagon.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> It is this radical contradiction that the American Cultural Memory's remembrance of the war has obsessively tried to forget. As I have shown this inordinate amnesiac will to obliterate the disclosures of Vietnam has been the hidden ideological agenda not simply of the American media's representation of the war in its long aftermath but of the intellectual deputies of the dominant post-Cold War culture who have been compelled by their recuperative exceptionalist 'Hegelian' metanarrative to negate — or sublate — the history of the Vietnam War in order to celebrate the advent of the end of history and the Pax Americana. What needs to be remarked about this victorious post-Cold War discourse is that in affirming its universal truth its spokespersons are compelled to speak something different. What matters to them is not the historically specific event of the Vietnam War but the globally triumphant idea of liberal capitalist democracy. Is it an accident that they insistently speak of the post-Cold War occasion in this way? What about this 'not Vietnam'? </source> [/INST] <claim>The alternative is to advocate political resistance and emancipation that are inherent in the spectral political being an anti-metaphysical project that enables guerilla warfare against empire capable of unsettling the totality of global control --- this is the first directive towards rethinking thinking </claim> <psg>this inordinate amnesiac will to obliterate the disclosures of Vietnam has been the hidden ideological agenda not simply of the American media's representation of the war in its long aftermath but of the intellectual deputies of the dominant post-Cold War culture</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Undertaken in the name of the 'promise' of 'America ' these reforms were intended to reestablish the ontological cultural and political authority of the enlightened American 'vital center' and its circumference and thus to recontain the dark force of the insurgent differential constituencies that had emerged at the margins in the wake of the disclosures of the Vietnam War. At the domestic site these included the coalescence of capital (the Republican Party) and the religious and political Right into a powerful dominant neoconservative culture (a new 'Holy Alliance ' as it were) committed to an indissolubly linked militantly racist antifeminist antigay and anti-working-class agenda. the dominant liberal humanist culture's massive indictment of deconstructive and destructive theory as complicitous with fascist totalitarianism. the nationwide legislative assault on the post-Vietnam public university by way of programs of economic retrenchment affiliated with the representation of its multicultural initiative as a political correctness of the Left.30 the increasing subsumption of the various agencies of cultural production and dissemination (most significantly the electronic information highways) under fewer and fewer parent mostly American corporations. the dismantling of the welfare program. and symptomatically the rehabilitation of the criminal president Richard Nixon. At the international site this 'reformist' initiative has manifested itself as the rehabilitation of the American errand in the world a rehabilitation exemplified by the United States's virtually uncontested moral/military interventions in Panama Somalia Haiti Bosnia the Middle East and Kosovo. its interference in the political processes of Russia by way of providing massive economic support for Boris Yeltsin's democratic/capitalist agenda against the communist opposition. its unilateral assumption of the lead in demanding economic/political reforms in Southeast Asian countries following the collapse of their economies in 1998. its internationalization of the 'free market'. and not least its globalization of the instrumentalist version of the English language. </source> [/INST] <claim>Our Spanos ev says that the perm fails as long as it retains the trappings of ontological thought in favor of neutral dialogue etc: “even those who would oppose American global hegemony are insofar as they remain indifferent to the ontological grounds of its sociopolitical practices condemned to think their opposition according to the imperatives of the discursive practices they would oppose.”</claim> <psg>these reforms were intended to reestablish the ontological cultural and political authority of the enlightened American 'vital center' and its to recontain the dark force of the insurgent differential this 'reformist' initiative has manifested itself as the rehabilitation of the American errand in the world a rehabilitation exemplified by the United States's virtually uncontested moral/military interventions in Panama Somalia Haiti Bosnia the Middle East and Kosovo its interference in the political processes of Russia its internationalization of the 'free market'. and not least its globalization of the instrumentalist version of the English language.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Such a political program has far reaching consequences both for Western sovereignty and the way that the business of politics is conducted. The living population of the earth has inherited a vision of sovereign power which has spread cancerously into even the most seemingly inaccessible aspects of everyday life. This vision commands all claims legitimacy for all and determines the conduct of living for all within its domain. Politics ‘as we know it’ is caught inextricably in the web of sovereign power in such a way that it seems that modern political debate cannot help but circulate around the same routine issues: 'What is the appropriate legislative response?'. 'Is it within the State’s powers to intervene in this particular conflict?'. 'How can we ensure the citizen’s rights are maintained in the face of the state?'. To challenge such an encompassing and peremptory political discourse — where every question implies the sovereign absolutely and every decision made refers to life itself — would require the most intensive rethinking of the way in which territory governance and economy are imagined. In this sense whilst Agamben’s analysis of bare life and Foucault’s theory of bio-power provide a means by which to assess the condition of non-human life with respect to sovereign power the political project must reach beyond these terms and embrace an intertwining of the human and the non-human: an intersection which may be found in the animal life shared by both entities. </source> [/INST] <claim>Sequencing DA – only confronting issues of sovereignty allows us to break free of the circular political practices that entrench militarism – their reformism guarantees reification of the system.</claim> <psg>Such a political program has far reaching consequences both for Western sovereignty and the way that the business of politics is conducted. The living population of the earth has inherited a vision of sovereign power which has spread cancerously into even the most seemingly inaccessible aspects of everyday life. This vision commands all claims legitimacy for all and determines the conduct of living for all within its domain. Politics ‘as we know it’ is caught inextricably in the web of sovereign power in such a way that it seems that modern political debate cannot help but circulate around the same routine issues: 'What is the appropriate legislative response?'. 'Is it within the State’s powers to intervene in this particular conflict?' To challenge such an encompassing and peremptory political discourse — where every question implies the sovereign absolutely and every decision made refers to life itself — would require the most intensive rethinking of the way in which territory governance and economy are imagined. the political project must reach beyond these terms and embrace an intertwining of the human and the non-human: an intersection shared by both entities</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The only way out of such a dilemma to escape the fetish is perhaps to eschew the logic of security altogether – to reject it as so ideologically loaded in favour of the state that any real political thought other than the authoritarian and reactionary should be pressed to give it up. That is clearly something that can not be achieved within the limits of bourgeois thought and thus could never even begin to be imagined by the security intellectual. It is also something that the constant iteration of the refrain ‘this is an insecure world’ and reiteration of one fear anxiety and insecurity after another will also make it hard to do. But it is something that the critique of security suggests we may have to consider if we want a political way out of the impasse of security. This impasse exists because security has now become so all-encom passing that it marginalises all else most notably the constructive conflicts debates and discussions that animate political life. The con stant prioritising of a mythical security as a political end – as the political end – constitutes a rejection of politics in any meaningful sense of the term. That is as a mode of action in which differences can be articulated in which the conflicts and struggles that arise from such differences can be fought for and negotiated in which people might come to believe that another world is possible – that they might transform the world and in turn be transformed. Security politics simply removes this. worse it removes it while purportedly addressing it. In so doing it suppresses all issues of power and turns political questions into debates about the most efficient way to achieve ‘security’ despite the fact that we are never quite told – never could be told – what might count as having achieved it. Security politics is in this sense an anti-politics 141 dominating political discourse in much the same manner as the security state tries to dominate human beings reinforcing security fetishism and the monopolistic character of security on the political imagination. We therefore need to get beyond security politics not add yet more ‘sectors’ to it in a way that simply expands the scope of the state and legitimises state intervention in yet more and more areas of our lives. Simon Dalby reports a personal communication with Michael Williams co-editor of the important text Critical Security Studies in which the latter asks: if you take away security what do you put in the hole that’s left behind? But I’m inclined to agree with Dalby: maybe there is no hole.142 The mistake has been to think that there is a hole and that this hole needs to be filled with a new vision or revision of security in which it is re-mapped or civilised or gendered or humanised or expanded or whatever. All of these ultimately remain within the statist political imaginary and consequently end up re affirming the state as the terrain of modern politics the grounds of security. The real task is not to fill the supposed hole with yet another vision of security but to fight for an alternative political language which takes us beyond the narrow horizon of bourgeois security and which therefore does not constantly throw us into the arms of the state. That’s the point of critical politics: to develop a new political language more adequate to the kind of society we want. Thus while much of what I have said here has been of a negative order part of the tradition of critical theory is that the negative may be as significant as the positive in setting thought on new paths. For if security really is the supreme concept of bourgeois society and the fundamental thematic of liberalism then to keep harping on about insecurity and to keep demanding‘more security’ (while meekly hoping that this increased security doesn’t damage our liberty) is to blind ourselves to the possibility of building real alternatives to the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics. To situate ourselves against security politics would allow us to circumvent the debilitating effect achieved through the constant securitising of social and political issues debilitating in the sense that ‘security’ helps consolidate the power of the existing forms of social domination and justifies the short-circuiting of even the most democratic forms. It would also allow us to forge another kind of politics centred on a different con ception of the good. We need a new way of thinking and talking about social being and politics that moves us beyond security. This would perhaps be emancipatory in the true sense of the word. What this might mean precisely must be open to debate. But it certainly requires recognising that security is an illusion that has forgotten it is an illusion. it requires recognising that security is not the same as solidarity. it requires accepting that insecurity is part of the human condition and thus giving up the search for the certainty of security and instead learning to tolerate the uncertainties ambiguities and ‘insecurities’ that come with being human. it requires accepting that ‘securitizing’ an issue does not mean dealing with it politically but bracketing it out and handing it to the state. it requires us to be brave enough to return the gift.143 </source> [/INST] <claim>No perm the alt isn’t a commitment to political praxis which means you can’t combine it with plan action it’s an act of critique which removes the possibility of plan action from consideration and focuses on the processes of constructing the 1ac speech act—situating plan action within that process shuts down critical potential—complete rejection is key</claim> <psg>The only way out to escape the fetish is perhaps to eschew the logic of security altogether – to reject it as so ideologically loaded that any real political thought should be pressed to give it up it is something that the critique of security suggests we may have to consider if we want a political way out of security security marginalises all else most notably debates and discussions that animate political life. prioritising security as a political end – as the political end – constitutes a rejection of politics people might come to believe that another world is possible – that they might transform the world and in turn be transformed. Security politics simply removes this. worse it removes it while purportedly addressing it Security politics is anti-politics 141 dominating political discourse in much the same manner as the security state tries to dominate human beings reinforcing security fetishism We therefore need to get beyond security politics not add yet more ‘sectors’ to it The mistake has been to think that there is a hole and that this hole needs to be filled with a new vision or revision of security in which it is re-mapped or civilised or gendered or humanised or expanded these ultimately remain within the statist political imaginary and re affirming the state as the terrain of modern politics The real task is not to fill the supposed hole with yet another vision of security but to fight for an alternative political language which takes us beyond the narrow horizon of bourgeois security and which therefore does not constantly throw us into the arms of the state. That’s the point of critical politics: to develop a new political language to demand ‘more security’ is to blind ourselves to the possibility of building real alternatives to the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics. To situate ourselves against security politics would allow us to circumvent the debilitating effect achieved through the constant securitising of social and political issues It would also allow us to forge another kind of politics centred on a different con ception of the good This would perhaps be emancipatory in the true sense of the word. What this might mean must be open to debate. But it certainly requires recognising that security is an illusion that has forgotten it is an illusion securitizing’ an issue does not mean dealing with it politically but bracketing it out and handing it to the state. it requires us to be brave enough to return the gift</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> As its binarism suggests the foundational privileging of Identity over difference in metaphysical thinking means operationally that it enables the inquirer to read the temporal process as a system of evanescent or always changing signatures fragments enigmas shadows phantasms and so on. It enables him/her to address the differential dynamics of time as a spectral subaltern surface (an adulterated or 'fallen ' and thus worthless but always threatening Other) that obscures — or rather reveals as in a glass darkly — a prior informing luminous presence (an abiding or universal or permanent meaning) that a willed penetration will reveal. Plato for example in the Phaedrus called the partial temporal body into which the soul had fallen a 'polluted...walking sepulchre' that only the recollection (anamnesis) of a prior 'pure' and 'whole' state vaguely shadowed in this corrupt and partial body could redeem.12 However that 'otherly' surface is represented whether as shadow (as in Plato) or as signature (as in St. Augustine and the Church Fathers) or as negation (as in Hegel) or as fragment (as in modern empirical science) the metaphysical mode of inquiry assumes that the difference the inquirer encounters is not an irresolvable contradiction or contingency but a problem that can and must be solved in the name of the truth. It assumes the Other to be a mere appearance: a recalcitrant agency of concealment and instability that must yield what it conceals to the stabilizing truth of Identity of the One of the End of Presence. In short metaphysical inquiry represents that which is Other than its truth not simply as a negative term (specter or spirit) but as such as that which corroborates its Identity (Spirit) and endows its Truth with power. Thus perceiving meta-ta-physika produces and validates the essential logic of the ontotheological tradition. This is of course the hierarchized binary logic that enables the first 'major' term — the term representing a self-present and plenary object — to demonize the second 'minor' or 'subaltern ' term: the term representing an entity that is not present to itself. This binary logic in other words empowers the privileged term to represent the Other as nonbeing (spectral) as some kind of arbitrary threat to Being — the benign total order to which the first term is committed — and thus to subdue and appropriate this Other to the latter's essential truth. It is in this sense that one can say that Western metaphysical thinking is essentially a colonialism. By this I do not simply mean as does much postcolonial discourse that acknowledges in some degree the polyvalency of the imperial project a metaphor ap- propriated to the thought of being (or of any site on the continuum of being other than the economic or political) from another 'more practi- cal and fundamental' — 'real' — domain of reference.13 In identifying Western metaphysical thought with colonialism I am positing a literal and precise definition of the process of metaphysical inquiry. </source> [/INST] <claim>The aff’s plan is a double turn with their impact evidence – the scholarship produced by the 1ac justifies neoconservative redeployment even if the plan’s hypothetically a good idea. This impasse is precisely why liberal anti-war activists fail and they can’t access ANY of their “reform solves” cards because they don’t assume the shitty scholarship introduced by the aff. </claim> <psg>the foundational privileging of Identity over difference in metaphysical thinking means operationally that it enables the inquirer to read the temporal process as a system of evanescent or always changing signatures fragments enigmas shadows phantasms and so on It enables him/her to address the differential dynamics of time as a spectral subaltern surface (an adulterated or 'fallen ' and thus worthless but always threatening Other) that obscures — or reveals as in a glass darkly a prior informing luminous presence (an abiding or universal or permanent meaning) that a willed penetration will reveal Plato called the partial temporal body into which the soul had fallen a 'polluted...walking sepulchre' that only the recollection (anamnesis) of a prior 'pure' and 'whole' state vaguely shadowed in this corrupt and partial body could redeem However that 'otherly' surface is represented whether as shadow (as in Plato) or as signature (as in St. Augustine and the Church Fathers) or as negation (as in Hegel) or as fragment (as in modern empirical science) the metaphysical mode of inquiry assumes that the difference the inquirer encounters is not an irresolvable contradiction or contingency but a problem that can and must be solved in the name of the truth It assumes the Other to be a mere appearance a recalcitrant agency of concealment and instability that must yield what it conceals to the stabilizing truth of Identity of the One of the End of Presence metaphysical inquiry represents that which is Other than its truth not simply as a negative term (specter or spirit) but as that which corroborates its Identity and endows its Truth with power perceiving meta-ta-physika produces and validates the essential logic of the ontotheological tradition This is the hierarchized binary logic that enables the first 'major' term — the term representing a self-present and plenary object — to demonize the second 'minor' or 'subaltern ' term: the term representing an entity that is not present to itself This binary logic empowers the privileged term to represent the Other as nonbeing (spectral) as some kind of arbitrary threat to Being the benign total order to which the first term is committed — and thus to subdue and appropriate this Other to the latter's essential truth Western metaphysical thinking is essentially a colonialism do not simply mean as does much postcolonial discourse that acknowledges in some degree the polyvalency of the imperial project a metaphor ap- propriated to the thought of being (or of any site on the continuum of being other than the economic or political) from another 'more practi- cal and fundamental' — 'real' — domain of reference In identifying Western metaphysical thought with colonialism I am positing a literal and precise definition of the process of metaphysical inquiry</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara argued that ‘the guerrilla fighter who is general of himself need not die in every battle’ but he must always be ‘ready to give his life’. For Guevara what supplies the ‘positive quality of this guerrilla warfare is precisely that each one of the guerrilla fighters is ready to die not to defend an ideal but rather to convert it into reality’.17 Indeed as the embodiment of this positive principle in the establishment of revolutionary focos he advocates the forming of a ‘suicide-platoon’ of volunteers who can strike at the most dangerous locations: ‘Entrance to this platoon should be regarded as almost a prize for merit’. Guevara was careful to distinguish however the willingness to die from the will to die. Unnecessary self-exposure to ‘defeat or annihilation’ is simply the marker of bad strategy. Death and destruction carry no integral charge. Death is revolutionary only as a code of practice. suffering ‘formidable privations’ up to the point of death is essential to the pedagogy of the revolutionary.18 Guevara’s contemporary Regis Debray was no less explicit. for the focoist death is a principle of conduct.19 To be a revolutionary is to risk all and through such a commitment to be able to turn any failure into a springboard to later success.20 ‘To conquer is to accept as a matter of principle that life for the revolutionary is not the supreme good’.21 Only commitment unto death can prevent the taming of the revolution under reformism. A pragmatics of revolutionary suicide was similarly central for Mao Tse-Tung. Mao shared with Bakunin and Nechayev the view that violent action must spark a revolutionary moment.22 Unlike Nechayev however he distinguished between worthy and unworthy suicides.23 He recognised death is a common occurrence whenever there is revolutionary struggle. An indomitable spirit willing to ‘fight the enemy to the last drop of our blood’ is always critical.24 But the revolutionary must avoid unnecessary sacrifices. Mao stated in a classical excerpt that the meaning of weight of death varies widely in accordance with the place of our self-expenditure: ‘it may be heavier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather’.25 Not all deaths are equal. </source> [/INST] <claim>The alt’s refusal to play by the rules of imperial logic is crucial to rip up our ontological map of planetary hegemony and fashion an ontological challenge to American empire --- our refusal to know clogs the wheels of imperial machinery and enables ethical thought to formulate in its place </claim> <psg>Che’ argued that ‘the guerrilla fighter who is general of himself need not die in every battle’ but he must always be ‘ready to give his life’ For Guevara what supplies the ‘positive quality of this guerrilla warfare is precisely that each one of the guerrilla fighters is ready to die not to defend an ideal but rather to convert it into reality’ Guevara was careful to distinguish the willingness to die from the will to die Unnecessary self-exposure to ‘defeat or annihilation’ is simply the marker of bad strategy Death and destruction carry no integral charge Death is revolutionary only as a code of practice suffering ‘formidable privations’ up to the point of death is essential to the pedagogy of the revolutionary. To be a revolutionary is to risk all and through such a commitment to be able to turn any failure into a springboard to later success To conquer is to accept as a matter of principle that life for the revolutionary is not the supreme good’.21 Only commitment unto death can prevent the taming of the revolution under reformism A pragmatics of revolutionary suicide was similarly central for Mao violent action must spark a revolutionary moment he distinguished between worthy and unworthy suicides He recognised death is a common occurrence whenever there is revolutionary struggle. An indomitable spirit willing to ‘fight the enemy to the last drop of our blood’ is always critical. the revolutionary must avoid unnecessary sacrifices Not all deaths are equal</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> We live now at a genuinely peculiar historical juncture. The credit crisis has provided us with a vivid illustration of the principle set out in the last chapter: that capitalism cannot really operate in a world where people believe it will be around forever. For most of the last several centuries most people assumed that credit could not be generated infinitely because they assumed that the economic system itself was unlikely to endure forever. The future was likely to be fundamentally different. Yet somehow the anticipated revolutions never happened. The basic structures of financial capitalism largely remained in place. It’s only now at the very moment when it’s becoming increasingly clear that current arrangements are not viable that we suddenly have hit the wall in terms of our collective imagination. There is very good reason to believe that in a generation or so capitalism itself will no longer exist—most obviously as ecologists keep reminding us because it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet and the current form of capitalism doesn’t seem to be capable of generating the kind of vast technological breakthroughs and mobilizations that would be required for us to start finding and colonizing any other planets. Yet faced with the prospect of capitalism actually ending the most common reaction—even from those who call themselves “progressives”—is simply fear. We cling to what exists because we can no longer imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse. How did we get here? My own suspicion is that we are looking at the final effects of the militarization of American capitalism itself. In fact it could well be said that the last thirty years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus for the creation and maintenance of hopelessness a giant machine designed first and foremost to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures. At its root is a veritable obsession on the part of the rulers of the world—in response to the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s—with ensuring that social movements cannot be seen to grow flourish or propose alternatives. that those who challenge existing power arrangements can never under any circumstances be perceived to win.35 To do so requires creating a vast apparatus of armies prisons police various forms of private security firms and police and military intelligence apparatus and propaganda engines of every conceivable variety most of which do not attack alternatives directly so much as create a pervasive climate of fear jingoistic conformity and simple despair that renders any thought of changing the world seem an idle fantasy. Maintaining this apparatus seems even more important to exponents of the “free market ” even than maintaining any sort of viable market economy. How else can one explain what happened in the former Soviet Union? One would ordinarily have imagined that the end of the Cold War would have led to the dismantling of the army and the KGB and rebuilding the factories but in fact what happened was precisely the other way around. This is just an extreme example of what has been happening everywhere. Economically the apparatus is pure dead weight. all the guns surveillance cameras and propaganda engines are extraordinarily expensive and really produce nothing and no doubt it’s yet another element dragging the entire capitalist system down—along with producing the illusion of an endless capitalist future that laid the groundwork for the endless bubbles to begin with. Finance capital became the buying and selling of chunks of that future and economic freedom for most of us was reduced to the right to buy a small piece of one’s own permanent subordination. In other words there seems to have been a profound contradiction between the political imperative of establishing capitalism as the only possible way to manage anything and capitalism’s own unacknowledged need to limit its future horizons lest speculation predictably go haywire. Once it did and the whole machine imploded we were left in the strange situation of not being able to even imagine any other way that things might be arranged. About the only thing we can imagine is catastrophe. To begin to free ourselves the first thing we need to do is to see ourselves again as historical actors as people who can make a difference in the course of world events. This is exactly what the militarization of history is trying to take away. Even if we are at the beginning of the turn of a very long historical cycle it’s still largely up to us to determine how it’s going to turn out. For instance: the last time we shifted from a bullion economy to one of virtual credit money at the end of the Axial Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages the immediate shift was experienced largely as a series of great catastrophes. Will it be the same this time around? Presumably a lot depends on how consciously we set out to ensure that it won’t be. Will a return to virtual money lead to a move away from empires and vast standing armies and to the creation of larger structures limiting the depredations of creditors? There is good reason to believe that all these things will happen—and if humanity is to survive they will probably have to—but we have no idea how long it will take or what if it does it would really look like. Capitalism has transformed the world in many ways that are clearly irreversible. What I have been trying to do in this book is not so much to propose a vision of what precisely the next age will be like but to throw open perspectives enlarge our sense of possibilities. to begin to ask what it would mean to start thinking on a breadth and with a grandeur appropriate to the times. </source> [/INST] <claim>The process of rethinking thinking that doesn’t hold to a specific tradition of criticism but highlights contradictions within security narratives that make it impossible to translate into policy—it opens cracks within militarism for more ethical understandings of governance to emerge that we can then strive for</claim> <psg>For most of the last several centuries most people assumed that credit could not be generated infinitely because they assumed that the economic system itself was unlikely to endure forever Yet somehow the anticipated revolutions never happened It’s only now at the very moment when it’s becoming increasingly clear that current arrangements are not viable that we suddenly have hit the wall in terms of our collective imagination. in a generation or so capitalism itself will no longer exist most obviously as ecologists keep reminding us because it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet and the current form of capitalism doesn’t seem to be capable of generating the kind of vast technological breakthroughs and mobilizations that would be required for us to start finding and colonizing any other planets. Yet faced with the prospect of capitalism actually ending the most common reaction is simply fear. We cling to what exists because we can no longer imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse. we are looking at the final effects of the militarization of American capitalism itself the last thirty years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus for the creation and maintenance of hopelessness a giant machine designed to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures. At its root is a veritable obsession on the part of the rulers of the world with ensuring that social movements cannot be seen to grow flourish or propose alternatives. that those who challenge existing power arrangements can never under any circumstances be perceived to win To do so requires creating a vast apparatus of armies prisons police various forms of private security firms and police and military intelligence apparatus and propaganda engines of every conceivable variety most of which do not attack alternatives directly so much as create a pervasive climate of fear jingoistic conformity and simple despair that renders any thought of changing the world seem an idle fantasy. there seems to have been a profound contradiction between the political imperative of establishing capitalism as the only possible way to manage anything and capitalism’s own unacknowledged need to limit its future horizons lest speculation predictably go haywi To begin to free ourselves the first thing we need to do is to see ourselves again as historical actors people who can make a difference in the course of world events Capitalism has transformed the world in many ways that are clearly irreversible ask what it would mean to start thinking on a breadth and with a grandeur appropriate to the times.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> But I would suggest that while Spanos can be (and has been) criticized for his often alienating style—which too often remains in a “negative” destructive mode sounding both pedantic and frequently dismissive of those who might otherwise be allies in various collaborative efforts to accomplish the institutional changes he seeks—his work continues to be relevant. Spanos has sought to engage with those he calls “post post- structuralist theorists ” among them Giorgio Agamben Alain Badiou Judith Butler and others in an effort to rethink the work performed by theory in a posttheory moment. It’s not accidental that some of his most recent engagements have focused on the potentialities of the Occupy movement the Arab Spring and the legacies of the writings of Said and Hannah Arendt.18 Foregrounding the importance of refusing consensus his late work seeks to make[s] visible the ontopolitical ruptures in the logic of Western influence and transnational capitalism to which Said’s and Arendt’s thought is vital. While much of this work is highly controversial for a number of reasons Spanos has remained engaged in contemporary debates not merely to be “trendy” but to continue the dialogic process he has engaged in his entire scholarly life. </source> [/INST] <claim>The appropriation of Spanos for debate is a-ok ---- voting for the Spanos K is the only unique use of the ballot --- we control uniqueness because academia is in crisis now </claim> <psg>while Spanos can be (and has been) criticized for his often alienating style which too often remains in a “negative” destructive mode sounding both pedantic and frequently dismissive of those who might otherwise be allies in various collaborative efforts to accomplish the institutional changes he seeks his work continues to be relevant Spanos has sought to engage with those he calls “post post- structuralist theorists Agamben Badiou Butler in an effort to rethink the work performed by theory in a posttheory moment some of his most recent engagements have focused on the potentialities of the Occupy movement the Arab Spring and the legacies of the writings of Said and Hannah Arendt Foregrounding the importance of refusing consensus his late work seeks to make[s] visible the ontopolitical ruptures in the logic of Western influence and transnational capitalism</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Interpreting our own historical situation is a risky business for we are still too close to the events. We do not have the distance needed to put everything into proper perspective. Nevertheless without such an interpretation it is impossible to identify the ethical challenges that face us so we must risk it. In this chapter we argue that two major trends unfolded in the twentieth century that are of significance for thinking about ethics: (1) the phenomenon of mass killing encouraged by sacred narratives that authorize 'killing in order to heal ' as symbolized by Auschwitz and Hiroshima and (2) a cross-cultural and interreligious ethic of non-violent resistance or civil disobedience symbolized by figures like Gandhi and King – one that functions as an ethic of audacity on behalf of the stranger. The second we suggest offers an ethic of the holy in response to the sacred morality of the first. The modern period which began with a utopian hope that science and technology would create an age of peace prosperity and progress ended in an apocalyptic nightmare of mass death symbolized by Auschwitz and Hiroshima leaving us with the task of creating a post/modern ethic that can transcend the techno-bureaucratic tribalism that expressed itself in two world wars. Technobureaucratic tribalism occurs when sacred narratives are combined with the technical capacity to produce mass death. While we do not pretend to offer an exhaustive explanation of the modern propensity for mass death we do suggest two key elements: (1) the use of sacred narratives that define killing as a form of healing and (2) the undermining of ethical consciousness by techno-bureaucratic organization through a psychological process of doubling (separating one's personal and professional identities) which enables individuals to deny that they are responsible for some of their actions. Through sacred stories the stranger is defined as less than human and therefore beyond the pale of ethical obligation as well as a threat to sacred order. At the same time bureaucracies encourage one to engage in a total surrender of self in unquestioning obedience to higher (sacred) authority (whether God religious leaders or political leaders) so that when one acts as a professional self on behalf of an institution (the state the military the church etc.) one can say 'It is not I that acts: a higher authority is acting through me so I am not personally responsible.' Yet despite the seemingly overwhelming dominance of techno- bureaucratic tribalism and mass killing in the twentieth century a modest but important counter-trend also emerged – a cross-cultural and interreligious ethic of audacity on behalf of the stranger linked to such names as Tolstoy Gandhi and King. The purpose of this chapter is to grasp the ethical challenge of modernity as symbolized by Auschwitz and Hiroshima. The purpose of the remainder of this book is to examine the potential of the ethical response to that challenge offered by the tradition of non-violent civil disobedience symbolized by Gandhi and King for a cross-cultural and interreligious post/modern ethic of human dignity human rights and human liberation. </source> [/INST] <claim>As a result orient your ballot around the differential subjectivities inured by your decision --- such a decision structure creates substantively more enriching albeit difficult debates that center questions of theoretical structure over political tweaks --- voting aff induces a liberal carelessness that makes creative solutions to global problems less likely and acceding to widespread interventions more likely</claim> <psg>The modern period which began with a utopian hope that science and technology would create an age of peace prosperity and progress ended in an apocalyptic nightmare of mass death symbolized by Auschwitz and Hiroshima leaving us with the task of creating a post/modern ethic that can transcend the techno-bureaucratic tribalism that expressed itself in two world wars the undermining of ethical consciousness by techno-bureaucratic organization through a psychological process of doubling (separating one's personal and professional identities) enables individuals to deny that they are responsible for their actions bureaucracies encourage one to engage in a total surrender of self in unquestioning obedience to higher authority whether God or political leaders so that when one acts as a professional self on behalf of an institution one can say 'It is not I that acts: a higher authority is acting through me so I am not personally responsible.' despite the techno- bureaucratic mass killing in the twentieth century</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Another reason I hesitate to make policy suggestions is that I am suspicious of the very idea of policy. Policy implies the existence of an elite group—government officials typically—that gets to decide on something (“a policy”) that they then arrange to be imposed on everybody else. There’s a little mental trick we often play on ourselves when discussing such matters. We say for instance “What are we going to do about the problem of X?” as if “we” were society as a whole somehow acting on ourselves but in fact unless we happen to be part of that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of the population whose views actually do affect policy makers this is all a game of make-believe. we are identifying with our rulers when in fact we’re the ones being ruled. This is what happens when we watch a politician on television say “What shall we do about the less fortunate?” even though at least half of us would almost certainly fit that category ourselves. Myself I find such games particularly pernicious because I’d prefer not to have policy elites around at all. I’m personally an anarchist which means that not only do I look forward to a day sometime in the future when governments corporations and the rest will be looked at as historical curiosities in the same way as we now look at the Spanish Inquisition or nomadic invasions but I prefer solutions to immediate problems that do not give more power to governments or corporations but rather give people the means to manage their own affairs. It follows that when faced with a social problem my impulse is not to imagine myself in charge and ponder what sort of solutions I would then impose but to look for a movement already out there already trying to address the problem and create its own solutions. The problem of bullshit jobs though presents unusual challenges in this regard. There are no anti–bullshit job movements. This is partly because most people don’t acknowledge the proliferation of bullshit jobs to be a problem but also because even if they did it would be difficult to organize a movement around such a problem. What local initiatives might such a movement propose? One could imagine unions or other worker organizations launching anti-bullshit initiatives in their own workplaces or even across specific industries—but they would presumably call for the de-bullshitization of real work rather than firing people in unnecessary positions. It’s notatall clear whata broader campaign against bullshit jobs would even look like. One might try to shorten the working week and hope things would sort themselves out in response. But it seems unlikely that they would. Even a successful campaign for a fifteen-hour week would be unlikely to cause the unnecessary jobs and industries to be spontaneously abandoned. at the same time calling for a new government bureaucracy to assess the usefulness of jobs would inevitably itself turn into a vast generator of bullshit. </source> [/INST] <claim>Their FW perniciously reinforces ideologies that indoctrinate us into adapting elitist and nationalist values. Given that academic policy suggestions are woefully incapable of addressing policy prioritize solvency arguments that endorse building and reinforcing actually-existing social movements </claim> <psg>that I am suspicious of the very idea of policy Policy implies the existence of an elite group—government officials typically that gets to decide on something that they then arrange to be imposed on everybody else. There’s a little mental trick we often play on ourselves when discussing such matters We say What are we going to do about the problem of X were society as a whole somehow acting on ourselves but in fact unless we happen to be part of that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of the population whose views actually do affect policy makers this is all a game of make-believe. we are identifying with our rulers when in fact we’re the ones being ruled I find such games particularly pernicious because I’d prefer not to have policy elites around at all not only do I look forward to a day sometime in the future when governments corporations and the rest will be looked at as historical curiosities in the same way as we now look at the Spanish Inquisition or nomadic invasions but I prefer solutions to immediate problems that do not give more power to governments or corporations but rather give people the means to manage their own affairs It follows that when faced with a social problem my impulse is not to imagine myself in charge and ponder what sort of solutions I would then impose to look for a movement already out there already trying to address the problem and create its own solutions. What local initiatives might such a movement propose</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> against policy (a tiny manifesto): The notion of “policy” presumes a state or governing apparatus which imposes its will on others. “Policy” is the negation of politics. policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted. By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs. So in this case the question becomes: What sort of social theory would actually be of interest to those who are trying to help bring about a world in which people are free to govern their own affairs? This is what this pamphlet is mainly about. For starters I would say any such theory would have to begin with some initial assumptions. Not many. Probably just two. First it would have to proceed from the assumption that as the Brazilian folk song puts it “another world is possible.” That institutions like the state capitalism racism and male dominance are not inevitable. that it would be possible to have a world in which these things would not exist and that we’d all be better off as a result. To commit oneself to such a principle is almost an act of faith since how can one have certain knowledge of such matters? It might possibly turn out that such a world is not possible. But one could also make the argument that it’s this very unavailability of absolute knowledge which makes a commitment to optimism a moral imperative: Since one cannot know a radically better world is not possible are we not betraying everyone by insisting on continuing to justify and reproduce the mess we have today? And anyway even if we’re wrong we might well get a lot closer. </source> [/INST] <claim>That elite ideological indoctrination precludes the creative solution-building necessary to concoct alternative arrangements of global political economy </claim> <psg>policy presumes a state or governing apparatus which imposes its will on others Policy” is the negation of politics. policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs. What sort of social theory would actually be of interest to those who are trying to help bring about a world in which people are free to govern their own affairs it would have to proceed from the assumption that another world is possible institutions like the state capitalism racism and male dominance are not inevitable that it would be possible to have a world in which these things would not exist and that we’d all be better off as a result how can one have certain knowledge of such matters it’s this very unavailability of absolute knowledge which makes a commitment to optimism a moral imperative: Since one cannot know a radically better world is not possible are we not betraying everyone by insisting on continuing to justify and reproduce the mess we have today even if we’re wrong we might well get a lot closer</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Perhaps it was with something like this in mind that led Obama to break with the harsh policies of the Bush regime encapsulated in all its bitterness and sense of American exceptionalism in the phrase -- 'You're either with us or against us.' Presiding in the bleak aftermath of the Bush administration with poll after poll confirming profound mistrust of American intentions in Muslim countries Obama chose not to evade issues of mistrust fear and skepticism but to do the opposite namely to turn directly into the wind of Islamic discontent. In doing so Obama's Cairo speech is a lesson in the metaphysics of power. While the Bush administration implicitly operated on the basis of a theory of power that held that power must always expand must always seek out new opportunities for control that the world must be subjected to military policies aimed at 'full spectrum dominance ' Obama's theory of power is different. Perhaps at some point he might have reflected on Nietzsche's The Will to Power wherein Nietzsche argued that power always seeks external resistances in order to thrive that power establishes boundaries and limits in order both to test its strength as well as to mobilize its energies. In the most mature stages of the development of power a period that Nietzsche described as 'completed nihilism ' the will to power finding itself without external enemies of merit turns back on itself making of itself its own opposition. Considered in terms of political theory while the Bush administration represented the highpoint of American will to power before its political fortunes stalled in the face of gathering global opposition the Obama administration may be the quintessential expression of power as the will to will that point where power having tested its outer limits turns back upon itself. </source> [/INST] <claim>The plan’s pairing of aggressive force postures with diplomatic initiatives is the quintessential expression of the will to will the perfection of nihilism in which the imposition of American power is accomplished through the division of global nations into allies and enemies </claim> <psg>something led Obama to break with the harsh policies of the Bush regime and American exceptionalism Obama chose not to evade issues of mistrust fear and skepticism but to do the opposite Obama's theory of power is different Nietzsche argued that power always seeks external resistances in order to thrive power establishes boundaries and limits in order both to test its strength as well as to mobilize its energies In the most mature stages of the development of power completed nihilism the will to power without external enemies of merit turns back on itself making of itself its own opposition. Considered in terms of political theory while Bush represented the highpoint of American will to power Obama may be the quintessential expression of power as the will to will that point where power having tested its outer limits turns back upon itself</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> In a discussion with the distinguished French analytical philosopher Pascal Engel on the uses of truth Rorty showed how contemporary philosophy is divided not only between realist and antirealist conceptions of truth but most of all between those who argue over truth's realism or antirealism and those who try to avoid this metaphysical quarrel altogether.10 While Engel was only interested in justifying his 'minimal realism' theory of truth at all costs Rorty tried to indicate that while both realist and antirealist theorists belong to the politics of descriptions (because even the antirealist imposes his description of truth's nonexistence) those who overcome such dualism belong to a post- metaphysical culture that is to a politics of interpretation (which we will study in chapter 3). But Rorty's most significant implications concern not the democratic opportunities that philosophy might gain from leaving aside the realist-versus-antirealist quarrel but rather the violent political consequences of the politics of descriptions. It must be for these reasons that Rorty in a famous essay of 1985 entitled 'Solidarity or Objectivity?' emphasized the centrality of truth in our philosophical tradition: </source> [/INST] <claim>The aff represents metaphysical politics of description endemic of “framed democracy ” our current global milieu---this metaphysical will to truth is the foundation of violence in framed democracy </claim> <psg>contemporary philosophy is divided between those who argue over truth's realism or antirealism and those who try to avoid this metaphysical quarrel altogether while both realist and antirealist theorists belong to the politics of descriptions those who overcome such dualism belong to a post- metaphysical culture to a politics of interpretation Rorty's most significant implications concern that philosophy might gain from leaving aside the but rather the violent political consequences of the politics of descriptions</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Both Fukuyama and Kagan who are among the establishment's most respected political scientists have given an account of the current world order where democracy has prevailed over history and must conserve that victory. Against many interpreters of this debate we do not believe Kagan was contradicting Fukuyama's thesis but confirming it. Kagan's call for a 'league of democracies' to 'legitimate' their interests against foreign states indicates his fear of change that is of the return of history. As we can see more than in a debate over the end or return of history Fukuyama and Kagan have engaged in an attempt to present framed democracy as the only legitimate and legitimizing force regardless of the administration in the White House. What is most interesting about their argument is not the political scenario they present (at the service of framed democracy) but rather what they leave out that is what in the previous chapter we called defeated weak or other history. </source> [/INST] <claim>Framed democracy’s commitment to a politics of description produces an ever-expanding mass of violence and war as the discharges of capitalism are targeted as potential threats to the metaphysical imposition of liberal truth </claim> <psg>Kagan was contradicting Fukuyama's thesis but confirming it. Fukuyama and Kagan have engaged in an attempt to present framed democracy as the only legitimate and legitimizing force regardless of the administration in the White House</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> ON WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 17 2004 PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush awarded the National Humanities Medal to among others John Searle. In this beautiful ceremony at the White House Searle was honored for his 'efforts to deepen understanding of the human mind for using his writings to shape modern thought defend reason and objectivity and define debate about the nature of artificial intelligence.'1 What is most interesting about the awarding of this prize is not that Searle accepted it but rather what sort of philosophy is endorsed by a president who had both just invaded a country contrary to the desires of the majority of the world's population and restricted the fundamental civil rights of his own citizens. While Searle's justifications for accepting a prize from such a source might run from a need for national recognition to a feeling of personal accomplishment the prize itself is appropriate to his philosophical position which represents a politics of descriptions as the latest development at the service of power. </source> [/INST] <claim>A politics of description inevitably is imposed violently --- philosophical justifications inevitably shape policy creation --- support of the intellectual community is key </claim> <psg>what sort of philosophy is endorsed by a president who had both just invaded a country contrary to the desires of the majority of the world's population a politics of descriptions the latest development at the service of power</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Here I think we can see Stiegler's reliance on the work of Adorno and Horkheimer whose concept of consumption in their Dialectic of Enlightenment is based on a fusion of Marx and Freud. Adorno and Horkheimer explain that the reason we consume is to fill out the lack or emotional void left by the sadism of the technological capitalist system that alienates estranges and objectifies us. As Einstein's Nightmare reveals individuals turn to things and objects because there are no people and the people there are become competitors whom the individual absolutely cannot relate to in a meaningful way. But in this situation the capitalist object never achieves the sacred quality of Winnicott's transitional object because it is always on the move on the verge of obsolescence and being-wasted by a techno-system that has to keep producing newness and novelty in order to maintain the rate of the consumer's consumption which is ultimately a search for escape from the horror of his or her lack relative to the monstrous perfection of the machine. Unfortunately the consumer will never escape through the capitalist object or what Marx called the commodity because today under conditions of late capitalism the object has no magical aura. Unlike Marx's commodity where the object was able to move by itself the value of the object in late or neoliberal capitalism is cancelled by the destruction of (first) spiritual and (second) symbolic value in the turn to instrumental rationality which means that the only meaningful symbols are zeroes and ones. This is why the only meaning of the object in Stiegler's late capitalist society revolves around sadistic value or what Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein call 'abuse' value [50] -- I am either above or below the other on the basis of whether I own or do not own the object -- but even this base mode of valuation is momentary in that it is endlessly cancelled by the condition of spiritual and symbolic misery. </source> [/INST] <claim>The alternative affirms a transvaluation and complete re-understanding of the aura of objects – such a psychological shift produces space that can conceive of objects as more than “a means to an end” whereas voting affirmative consigns us to an information-gorged society that can only produce nihilism and despair </claim> <psg>only meaning of the object in Stiegler's late capitalist society revolves around sadistic value or what Kroker and Weinstein call 'abuse' value</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> In the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War and the subsequent excesses of the Global War on Terror realist advocacy has gravitated towards a more active promotion of restraint. Walt’s (2006) Taming American Power makes the case to a popular audience for the value of the US exercising restraint on the global stage. Similarly Posen (2013 2014) has argued for a grand strategy of restraint against an increasingly expansive liberal hegemony. Rosato and Schuessler’s (2011: 813) realist foreign policy manifesto explicitly ‘counsels restraint’ in dealing with minor powers such as Iran. While less visible a similar concern with restraint is also evident in securitization theory. Increasingly its proponents are carving out a nuanced middle ground where the dangers of intense patterns of threat construction mean that the practice of ‘desecuritization is preferable in the abstract but concrete situations might call for securitization’ (Wæver 2011: 469). Vibeke Schou Tjalve goes even further by pointing to how visions of civil society inspired by early 20th-century Atlantic republicanism could be used to curb but never altogether eliminate securitizing moves. She argues: </source> [/INST] <claim>Restraint fails – their realist security documents establish a will to order that guarantees their approach fails</claim> <psg>realist advocacy has gravitated towards a more active promotion of restraint a similar concern with restraint is also evident in securitization theory proponents are carving out a nuanced middle ground where the dangers of intense patterns of threat construction She argues:</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Does Marx’s law fit the facts? Some Marxist critics of Marx’s law of profitability reckon that the law cannot be empirically proven or refuted because official statistics cannot be used to show Marx’s law in operation. But there are plenty of studies by Marxist economists that show otherwise. The key tests of the validity of the law in modern capitalist economies would be to show whether 1) the rate of profit falls over time as the organic composition of capital rises. 2) the rate of profit rises when the organic composition falls or when the rate of surplus value rises faster than the organic composition of capital. 3) the rate of profit rises if there is sharp fall in the organic composition of capital as in a slump. These would be the empirical tests and there is plenty of empirical evidence for the US and world economy to show that the answer is yes to all these questions. For example Basu and Manolakos applied econometric analysis to the US economy between 1948 and 2007 and found that there was a secular tendency for the rate of profit to fall with a measurable decline of about 0.3 percent a year “after controlling for counter-tendencies.” In my work on the US rate of profit I also found an average decline of 0.4 percent a year through 2009. And here is a figure by G Carchedi for the rise in the organic composition of capital (OCC) in the industrial sector of the US since 1947 versus the average rate of profit (ARP). It tells the same story. US ARP and OCC (i.e. C/V) versus the average rate of profit (ARP). It tells the same story. US ARP and OCC (i.e. C/V) </source> [/INST] <claim>Marx’s law of profitability explains cyclical recessions and renders capitalism unsustainable </claim> <psg>Does Marx’s law fit the facts? Some critics of Marx’s law of profitability reckon that the law cannot be empirically proven because official statistics cannot be used to show Marx’s law in operation. But there are plenty of studies by Marxist economists that show otherwise. The key tests would be to show whether 1) the rate of profit falls over time as the organic composition of capital rises. 2) the rate of profit rises when the organic composition falls or when the rate of surplus value rises faster 3) the rate of profit rises if there is sharp fall in the organic composition of capital as in a slump. there is plenty of empirical evidence for the US and world economy to show that the answer is yes to all these questions. For example Basu and Manolakos applied econometric analysis to the US economy between 1948 and 2007 and found a secular tendency for the rate of profit to fall with a measurable decline of about 0.3 percent a year “after controlling for counter-tendencies.” In my work on the US rate of profit I also found an average decline of 0.4 percent a year through 2009. here is a figure by G Carchedi for OCC) versus ARP versus ARP</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> That capitalism is unsustainable has long been empirically observable. Most obviously manufacturing costs and consumer commodity prices are trending towards zero. For example whereas the world’s fastest supercomputer in 1975 was worth $5m ($32m in 2013’s money) the price of an iPhone 4 released in 2010 with the equivalent performance was $400. Aerospace companies producing propulsion systems in 2010 for $24m in 24 months are now 3-D printing their engines for $2 000 in two weeks. And rather than having globalised supply chains such companies foresee the entire rocket being built in ‘at home’ [7]. While ‘offshoring’ manufacturing jobs to the ‘low-income economies’ is said to save up to 65% on labour costs replacing human workers with robots saves up to 90% [8]. Unlike workers robots do not need wages breaks sick days holidays or pensions. And they work quicker in the first place too. While industrialisation particularly in Asia saw 83 ‘developing countries’ achieving growth rates by the early 2000s that were more than twice the rate of the ‘developed’ OECD members the rest of the world has seen the same opportunity end ‘prematurely’. Latin America and Africa are already deindustrialising (shifting to services-based workforces) – from a much lower starting point than Asia [9]. Whereas industrialisation peaked in western European countries at income levels of around $14 000 India and many sub-Saharan African countries appear to have reached their peak manufacturing employment at income levels of $700 (both at 1990 levels) [10]. Not only do robots and 3D-printing increasingly remove the incentive for capitalists based in the US and Europe to exploit workers overseas the incentive to exploit transit workers – who add production time/value to the commodities they transport around the world – is also removed [11]. The emergence of cellular agriculture (lab-grown food) with falling prices and rising quality estimated to see the beef industry go bust by 2035 is going to have the same effect [12]. For the past 145 years the imperialist powers – the US Britain France Germany and Japan – have been increasingly compelled to export capital (invest) overseas in order to expand and cheapen their exploitable labour bases thereby sustaining their own economies by living off profits generated by commodity-producing workers in the ‘developing world’. Britain for example exported capital equal to 560% of its GDP in 2014 [13]. Between 1980 and 2012 the net outflows of capital from ‘developing’ countries being funnelled into ‘developed’ ie imperialist nations totalled $16.3 trillion [14]. But the economic relation that underpins imperialism is now unravelling. If prices are trending historically towards zero so too must the ‘global’ aggregate rate of profit. According to Estaban Maito’s estimates it fell in a secular trend from 43% in the 1870s to 17% in the 2000s and is (as of 2014) on course to reach zero around 2054 [15]. Automation and absolute overaccumulation But as the criminally under-appreciated Polish Marxist Henryk Grossman warned in 1929 capitalism is bound to collapse “much earlier than a zero rate of profit” [16] because capital inherently does not accumulate harmoniously – the process tends to break down. Overaccumulated capital – surplus capital that has become unprofitable to reinvest – is inevitable. It causes every recession a partial and temporary breakdown and is at the same time an underproduction of surplus value. ie too little profit has been generated to preserve and expand the value of total capital. (Surplus value or surplus labour time is the amount of value the capitalist appropriates from the worker who on average keeps only what they need to subsist their necessary labour time. Profit then is essentially unpaid labour which tends to increase with innovation. Hence falling prices.) Debt therefore rises to ‘fill the gap’ caused by this underproduction but can only cover the lag in profit for so long before recession becomes inevitable since investors are bound to withdraw funds when growth becomes too stagnant channelling this new surplus instead into tax havens land and the competitive gambling of speculation that generates financial ‘bubbles’. Each breakdown is overcome through the sufficient destruction cheapening and centralisation of capital. But the resulting innovation means fewer workers tend to remain employed relative to total capital. Despite the increased rate of exploitation that temporarily lifts profit rates the next overaccumulation tends to be greater than the one which preceded it. There is no such thing as ‘technological unemployment’ though – alongside surplus capital grows unexploitable surplus labour (unemployment). Clearly the closer we get to the completion of the historical trend towards fully-automated production the closer capitalism gets to its final breakdown. Production is already highly automated. As James Manyika McKinsey Global Institute director said in June 2017: “Find a factory anywhere in the world built in the past five years – not many people work there.” But the services jobs – relatively unproductive since they tend to handle near-finished commodities if they handle commodities at all – that replaced manufacturing work are now becoming increasingly automated too. In Britain where services count for 80% of economic activity the number of supermarket checkout assistants fell by 25.3% between 2011 and 2017. At the end of March after most countries had entered lockdown almost half of company bosses in 45 countries said they were speeding up plans to automate their businesses. [17] Innovation always takes place most rapidly during a recession when prices are low. With lockdown turning the home into the place of work Microsoft could boast of having discovered a fresh way of reducing labour costs and extending absolute labour time as it announced “two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months”. As The Guardian reported at the end of April: “Bank branches were already closing in droves before the epidemic but here is the perfect excuse to shut more. And that’s not all. The authors of an Oxford University study thought that by 2035 it would be possible to automate 86% of restaurant jobs three-quarters of retail jobs and 59% of recreation jobs. By unlucky coincidence those are among the very industries hardest hit by an epidemic now demanding quantum leaps in efficiency if some companies are to avoid going under.” [18] But automation is abolishing the source of profit ie commodity-producing human labour. To be more precise automation is the final expression of capitalism’s self-abolishing tendency. As Marx wrote in 1858: “As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great wellspring of wealth labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure... Capital thus works towards its own dissolution as the form dominating production.” [19] But this dissolution does not happen in a seamless falling rate of profit towards zero since – as explained and as indicated by both zig-zagging profit rates and the recessions that tend to strike roughly every 10 years – capital does not accumulate harmoniously. As the Soviet Russian philosopher Genrikh Volkov wrote in 1967 increasing automation eventually leads to “the breakdown instead of the consolidation of the existing relations ... of the private ownership of the means of production…. Its consummation is incompatible with capitalism.” [20] In Capital Marx anticipates an eventual “absolute overaccumulation” of capital. “The limit of capitalist production is the excess time of the labourers ” says Marx. [21] But stretching the rate of exploitation of the working class to anywhere near 100% is obviously impossible – for starters capital cannot even afford to exploit an ever-increasing part of it a surplus population that grows alongside surplus capital while workers in the growing services sector are also relatively unproductive. “As the capitalist mode of production develops an ever larger quantity of capital is required to employ the same let alone an increased amount of labour-power.” But there are other limits too: “As soon as capital would therefore have grown in such a ratio to the labouring population that neither the absolute working time supplied by this population nor the relative surplus working time could be expanded any further (this last would not be feasible at any rate in the case where the demand for labour were so strong that there were a tendency for wages to rise). at a point therefore when the increased capital produced just as much or even less surplus value than it did before its increase there would be absolute overproduction of capital.” [22] From zero interest rates to worldwide hyperinflation If the rate of profit is on course to hit zero around 2054 but the final breakdown is bound to happen much earlier than that it at least becomes impossible to dismiss the theory that we are entering this uncharted territory right now. But empirically there also seem to be several approaching economic limits or ‘tipping points’ which cannot be converging at the same time merely by coincidence. For starters average GDP growth rates in what the World Bank defines as ‘high income countries’ are already closing in on zero having fallen every decade for the past half century: from 5.59% in the 1960s to 4.15% in the 1970s 2.93% in the 1980s 2.35% in the 1990s and 1.78% in the 2000s. The figure rose slightly to 1.97% in the years 2010-2017 but this minor reprieve has already proven to be unsustainable. GDP in the imperialist nations though is inflated by the profits leached from the rest of the world since much of the profit from each commodity goes towards the GDP of the nation in which it is sold rather than where it was made. [23] Productivity growth in the high income countries has itself since 2011 spluttered below 1%. Aggregate global debt (the total debt of governments corporations and households) already mountainous before the Great Recession has hit new heights indicating record-high overaccumulation [24]. According to the IMF global debt fell by 1.5% of GDP in 2017 compared to a year earlier but remained more than 11 percentage points of GDP above the previous high in 2009. In June 2019 the IMF said global debt stood officially at $184 trillion 225% of global GDP. This averages out at $86 000 for every person in the world 2.5 times average annual per capita income. But according to financial analyst Ron Surz once ‘off-the-books’ net obligations such as social security and health care are taken into account official figures are understated by a factor of 2.5 making actual global debt $460 trillion 560% of GDP and $215 000 per person (as of July 2019) [25]. He put the US figure not at the official 105% but 390%. Even that is without taking into account the serious accounting problem in the US Department of Defense. In 2016 before Trump was elected the department’s Inspector General said he could not properly track $6.5 trillion in defence spending. An academic study looking at the years 1998-2015 later put the figure at $21 trillion [26]. The US defence budget has ballooned to $748bn as the long-time imperialist superpower scrambles to hold on to its dying empire. Another financial analyst Simon Thorpe calculated in 2015 that global debt was 2.5 times higher than the global money supply (up from two times higher in 2013) [27]. This is despite the fact that the US’s monetary base exploded from $842bn in August 2008 to $2.9 trillion in January 2013 and then $4 trillion in August 2014. The sheer amount of debt is unsustainable since the tax base needed to pay it is obviously shrinking in relative terms. Though it has been socialised it is now simply too large to work off. Something the capitalist state can do to ease the government’s ability to pay its debt is reduce interest rates which also makes borrowing cheaper and stimulates lending maintaining the circulation of money. But lifting the economy out of recession usually takes a 4-5% base interest rate cut. In the US and across Europe base rates are already at zero having been cut by around only 2%. Central banks have said going negative would make the banks unviable. Therefore it is highly probable – lockdown or no lockdown – that capitalism as Pento says is soon going to spiral for the first time in its history into a crisis of worldwide hyperinflation since rates will have to start going back up to re-incentivise bond holding and sustain the tax base. But debt-to-GDP – already at record highs and rising – will surge and so the tax base will continue to shrink. bondholders will realise that what they are owed cannot be repaid and increasingly transfer their funds into hard assets especially precious metals. The only way to avoid hyperinflation is for states to default on their debt through hyperdeflation – which the record bailouts imply they are understandably trying to avoid – but that would happen after hyperinflation anyway. The US’s national annual deficit is now expected to soar from $984bn in 2019 to $3.8 trillion in 2020. The US has never meaningfully defaulted on its debt but historically countries that have failed to get their debt-to-GDP back below 90% have gone on to default meaning they have had to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bail out (usually in the form of high-interest loans and on the condition of privatising state assets). But given that the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency – all oil must be traded in US dollars for example making the solvency of all countries dependent on their ability to purchase US dollars – the IMF effectively is the US. The US dollar has lost more than 96% of its value its purchasing power since 1913. The figure is more than 99.5% for British pound sterling compared to 1694 the year it was founded [28]. This is why negative rates would make the banks unviable – they would finish off the depreciation of fiat currency. Many countries including Russia and China have started diversifying their foreign currency reserves in the past few years meaning the main source of financing US debt is disappearing. Even the biggest US bank JP Morgan told its clients in August 2019 to sell the dollar. The world economy will likely soon be without a reserve currency. While smaller economies have survived defaults through bailouts in the past the US and western European countries are the richest and most developed in the world. They represent monopoly capitalism or imperialism the highest stage of capitalism. As mentioned with their workforces now largely services-based the imperialist nations have been largely living off of profit produced by the labour of commodity-producing workers in Africa Asia and South America. If the imperialist economies collapse it’s because the whole system has collapsed. Indeed as of 7 March investors had already pulled $83bn from developing markets the largest capital outflow ever recorded according to the Institute of International Finance. If all these converging factors – near-zero prices flat productivity growth unsustainably high debt zero interest rates exhausted currencies – do not constitute a final breakdown of the system then what will? </source> [/INST] <claim>Profitability will hit zero by 2054---but converging tipping points ensure collapse much sooner </claim> <psg>That capitalism is unsustainable has long been empirically observable. . If prices are trending historically towards zero so too must the ‘global’ aggregate rate of profit. According to Maito’s estimates it fell in a secular trend from 43% in the 1870s to 17% in the 2000s and is on course to reach zero around 2054 But as Grossman warned in 1929 capitalism is bound to collapse “much earlier than a zero rate of profit” there seem to be several approaching economic limits or ‘tipping points’ which cannot be converging merely by coincidence. For starters average GDP growth rates in ‘high income countries’ are already closing in on zero having fallen every decade for the past half century: from 5.59% in the 1960s to 4.15% in the 1970s 2.93% in the 1980s 2.35% in the 1990s and 1.78% in the 2000s. Aggregate global debt already mountainous before the Great Recession has hit new heights indicating record-high overaccumulation Thorpe calculated that global debt was 2.5 times higher than the global money supply The sheer amount of debt is unsustainable since the tax base needed to pay it is obviously shrinking in relative terms. In the US and across Europe base rates are already at zero having been cut by around only 2%. Central banks have said going negative would make the banks unviable. Therefore it is highly probable that capitalism is soon going to spiral into a crisis of worldwide hyperinflation The only way to avoid hyperinflation is for states to default on their debt through hyperdeflation these converging factors – near-zero prices flat productivity growth unsustainably high debt zero interest rates exhausted currencies – do not constitute a final breakdown of the system</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The century since the slaughter in the First World War has been littered with endless more bloody wars. Sally Campbell argues the drive to war is not accidental but inherent in the logic of capitalism. </source> [/INST] <claim>Capitalism ensures armed conflict---profit compels militaristic statecraft and escalating crises---nuclear war inevitable absent transition</claim> <psg>The century since the slaughter in the First World War has been littered with endless more bloody wars inherent in the logic of capitalism</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The people I have interviewed from Daniel Ellsberg to Larry Wilkerson who used to be Colin Powell’s chief of staff. I’ve seen interviews with the former diplomats military people. They all think that nuclear war is not likely. They think it is assured. It’s not that there’s a chance they think of nuclear war. They think there is 100 % certainty that if things continue as they are at some point sooner it could be today or tomorrow or later it could be some years from now there will be at the very least accidental nuclear war. The safeguards simply aren’t safe enough and that this new investment the new nuclear arms race that has started under Obama but it’s also happening under Putin driven by the military-industrial complexes of Russia and the United States although the Americans are certainly more the instigators. But these whole new whack of nuclear weapons are coming online and the old ones that still exist and in deteriorating situations that are not safe the possibility of accidental nuclear war is not possible it is certain. They think the possibility of some kind of terrorist attack using dirty bombs could be mistaken for an attack by a major power. And if the dirty bomb went off in New York as someone would have put a small nuclear bomb in a container ship and it blows up in New York Harbor there’s only a 10 second window. We’re still on a hair-trigger alert between Russia and the United States. 10 seconds for the militaries of both countries to decide if what just happened was an attack or terrorist attack an accident ten seconds. </source> [/INST] <claim>Profit motive drives nuclear security mismanagement---makes inadvertent escalation structurally inevitable</claim> <psg>The people I have interviewed from Daniel Ellsberg to Larry Wilkerson who used to be Colin Powell’s chief of staff diplomats military people They all think that nuclear war is not likely. They think it is assured They think there is 100 % certainty that if things continue as they are at some point sooner it could be today or tomorrow or later it could be some years from now there will be accidental nuclear war these whole new whack of nuclear weapons are coming online and the old ones that still exist and in deteriorating situations that are not safe the possibility of accidental nuclear war is not possible is certain</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Graeber’s lesson is not that once we see the arbitrariness of our institutions we should come to realize that we have no obligations to each other and disobey anything that do not fully endorse in the moment. Rather to borrow a trick from the Marxian account of (commodity) fetishism: we should not become alienated from our own (social) labor. We create/reproduce the social forms that shape our lives and we can recreate them in an infinite number of ways. But that does not mean social forms do not have power over us. There is no way to create a world without social forms that are somehow outside of our power. </source> [/INST] <claim>Creativity DA---their model trains debaters never to question geopolitical political or economic structure bc you can never have a true “cap good/bad” or “heg good/bad” debate under plan focus---that forecloses the ability to develop creative solutions to global problems and is independently key to value to life </claim> <psg>Graeber’s lesson is not that once we see the arbitrariness of our institutions we should come to realize that we have no obligations to each other and disobey anything We create/reproduce the social forms that shape our lives and we can recreate them in an infinite number of ways But that does not mean social forms do not have power over us. There is no way to create a world without social forms that are somehow outside of our power.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> What is a revolution? We used to think we knew. Revolutions were seizures of power by popular forces aiming to transform the very nature of the political social and economic system in the country in which the revolution took place usually according to some visionary dream of a just society. Nowadays we live in an age when if rebel armies do come sweeping into a city or mass uprisings overthrow a dictator it’s unlikely to have any such implications. when profound social transformation does occur—as with say the rise of feminism—it’s likely to take an entirely different form. It’s not that revolutionary dreams aren’t out there. But contemporary revolutionaries rarely think they can bring them into being by some modern-day equivalent of storming the Bastille. At moments like this it generally pays to go back to the history one already knows and ask: Were revolutions ever really what we thought them to be? For me the person who has asked this most effectively is the great world historian Immanuel Wallerstein. He argues that for the last quarter millennium or so revolutions have consisted above all of planetwide transformations of political common sense. Already by the time of the French Revolution Wallerstein notes there was a single world market and increasingly a single world political system as well dominated by the huge colonial empires. As a result the storming of the Bastille in Paris could well end up having effects on Denmark or even Egypt just as profound as on France itself—in some cases even more so. Hence he speaks of the “world revolution of 1789 ” followed by the “world revolution of 1848 ” which saw revolutions break out almost simultaneously in fifty countries from Wallachia to Brazil. In no case did the revolutionaries succeed in taking power but afterward institutions inspired by the French Revolution—notably universal systems of primary education—were put in place pretty much everywhere. Similarly the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a world revolution ultimately responsible for the New Deal and European welfare states as much as for Soviet communism. The last in the series was the world revolution of 1968—which much like 1848 broke out almost everywhere from China to Mexico seized power nowhere but nonetheless changed everything. This was a revolution against state bureaucracies and for the inseparability of personal and political liberation whose most lasting legacy will likely be the birth of modern feminism. Revolutions are thus planetary phenomena. But there is more. What they really do is transform basic assumptions about what politics is ultimately about. In the wake of a revolution ideas that had been considered veritably lunatic fringe quickly become the accepted currency of debate. Before the French Revolution the ideas that change is good that government policy is the proper way to manage it and that governments derive their authority from an entity called “the people” were considered the sorts of things one might hear from crackpots and demagogues or at best a handful of freethinking intellectuals who spend their time debating in cafés. A generation later even the stuffiest magistrates priests and headmasters had to at least pay lip service to these ideas. Before long we had reached the situation we are in today: that it’s necessary to lay out the terms for anyone to even notice they are there. They’ve become common sense the very grounds of political discussion. Until 1968 most world revolutions really just introduced practical refinements: an expanded franchise universal primary education the welfare state. The world revolution of 1968 in contrast—whether it took the form it did in China of a revolt by students and young cadres supporting Mao’s call for a Cultural Revolution. or in Berkeley and New York where it marked an alliance of students dropouts and cultural rebels. or even in Paris where it was an alliance of students and workers—was a rebellion against bureaucracy conformity or anything that fettered the human imagination a project for the revolutionizing of not just political or economic life but every aspect of human existence. As a result in most cases the rebels didn’t even try to take over the apparatus of state. they saw that apparatus as itself the problem. It’s fashionable nowadays to view the social movements of the late sixties as an embarrassing failure. A case can be made for that view. It’s certainly true that in the political sphere the immediate beneficiary of any widespread change in political common sense—a prioritizing of ideals of individual liberty imagination and desire. a hatred of bureaucracy. and suspicions about the role of government—was the political Right. Above all the movements of the sixties allowed for the mass revival of free market doctrines that had largely been abandoned since the nineteenth century. It’s no coincidence that the same generation who as teenagers made the Cultural Revolution in China was the one who as forty-year-olds presided over the introduction of capitalism. Since the eighties “freedom” has come to mean “the market ” and “the market” has come to be seen as identical with capitalism—even ironically in places like China which had known sophisticated markets for thousands of years but rarely anything that could be described as capitalism. The ironies are endless. While the new free market ideology has framed itself above all as a rejection of bureaucracy it has in fact been responsible for the first administrative system that has operated on a planetary scale with its endless layering of public and private bureaucracies: the IMF World Bank WTO trade organizations financial institutions transnational corporations NGOs. This is precisely the system that has imposed free market orthodoxy and opened the world to financial pillage under the watchful aegis of American arms. It only made sense that the first attempt to recreate a global revolutionary movement the Global Justice Movement that peaked between 1998 and 2003 was effectively a rebellion against the rule of that very planetary bureaucracy. Future Stop In retrospect though I think that later historians will conclude that the legacy of the sixties revolution was deeper than we now imagine and that the triumph of capitalist markets and their various planetary administrators and enforcers—which seemed so epochal and permanent in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—was in fact far shallower. I’ll take an obvious example. One often hears that antiwar protests in the late sixties and early seventies were ultimately failures since they did not appreciably speed up the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina. But afterward those controlling U.S. foreign policy were so anxious about being met with similar popular unrest—and even more with unrest within the military itself which was genuinely falling apart by the early seventies—that they refused to commit U.S. forces to any major ground conflict for almost thirty years. It took 9/11 an attack that led to thousands of civilian deaths on U.S. soil to fully overcome the notorious “Vietnam syndrome”—and even then the war planners made an almost obsessive effort to ensure the wars were effectively protest-proof. Propaganda was incessant the media was brought on board experts provided exact calculations on body bag counts (how many U.S. casualties it would take to stir mass opposition) and the rules of engagement were carefully written to keep the count below that. </source> [/INST] <claim>Revolutionary Possibility DA---The assumptions that ground our debates predetermine the scope of alternative futures we can imagine which means that you should accept the neg’s ability to fiat seemingly fringe possibilities to enable debaters to question basic assumptions and enable creative social transformations --- empirically these have thwarted imperialist warmongering </claim> <psg>What is a revolution? We used to think we knew. Revolutions were seizures of power by popular forces aiming to transform the very nature of the political social and economic system in the country in which the revolution took place usually according to some visionary dream of a just society. contemporary revolutionaries rarely think they can bring them into being by some modern-day equivalent of storming the Bastille. Were revolutions ever really what we thought them to be revolutions have consisted above all of planetwide transformations of political common sense. Revolutions are thus planetary phenomena But there is more. What they really do is transform basic assumptions about what politics is ultimately about. In the wake of a revolution ideas that had been considered veritably lunatic fringe quickly become the accepted currency of debate Before the French Revolution the ideas that change is good that government policy is the proper way to manage it and that governments derive their authority from an entity called “the people” were considered the sorts of things one might hear from crackpots and demagogues Before long we had reached the situation we are in today: that it’s necessary to lay out the terms for anyone to even notice they are there. They’ve become common sense the very grounds of political discussion. Until 1968 most world revolutions really just introduced practical refinements the eighties “freedom” has come to mean “the market ” and “the market” has come to be seen as identical with capitalism even in places like China which had known sophisticated markets for thousands of years but rarely anything that could be described as capitalism. While the new free market ideology has framed itself above all as a rejection of bureaucracy it has in fact been responsible for the first administrative system that has operated on a planetary scale with its endless layering of public and private bureaucracies the IMF World Bank WTO trade organizations financial institutions corporations This is precisely the system that has imposed free market orthodoxy under the watchful aegis of American arms. It only made sense that the first attempt to recreate a global revolutionary movement the Global Justice Movement that peaked between 1998 and 2003 was effectively a rebellion against the rule of that very planetary bureaucracy. One often hears that antiwar protests in the late sixties and early seventies were ultimately failures But afterward those controlling U.S. foreign policy were so anxious about being met with similar popular unrest—and even more with unrest within the military itself which was genuinely falling apart by the early seventies—that they refused to commit U.S. forces to any major ground conflict for almost thirty years. It took 9/11 to fully overcome the notorious “Vietnam syndrome”—and even then the war planners made an almost obsessive effort to ensure the wars were effectively protest-proof</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The creation of new regulatory institutions to implement these economic policies and to govern the modern economy points to another set of strategies employed by Progressive Era thinkers to counteract domination: changes to the structure of the political process. The creation of regulatory agencies and commissions at state local and national levels offered reformers the hope of an effective new tool for managing the increasingly complex modern economy asserting the public good against powerful private actors such as trusts or corporations and sidestepping the problems of political corruption and capture within legislatures. To expand democratic agency to counteract economic domination these reformers effectively reinvented the fundamental structure of the political process itself creating new channels for the expression of popular sovereignty. Thus reformers succeeded in institutionalizing ballot recall initiative and referendum procedures in many state constitutions from 1890 to 1912. 85 Others established for the first time home rule powers for local government bodies as a way to expand participation and bypass the corruption of state legislatures and party machines. 86 </source> [/INST] <claim>Agency DA---forcing teams to defend radical alternatives provides them with both the desire and ability to inaugurate change---only our model spills up </claim> <psg>To expand democratic agency to counteract economic domination reformers effectively reinvented the fundamental structure of the political process itself creating new channels for the expression of popular sovereignty</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Another reason I hesitate to make policy suggestions is that I am suspicious of the very idea of policy. Policy implies the existence of an elite group—government officials typically—that gets to decide on something (“a policy”) that they then arrange to be imposed on everybody else. There’s a little mental trick we often play on ourselves when discussing such matters. We say for instance “What are we going to do about the problem of X?” as if “we” were society as a whole somehow acting on ourselves but in fact unless we happen to be part of that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of the population whose views actually do affect policy makers this is all a game of make-believe. we are identifying with our rulers when in fact we’re the ones being ruled. This is what happens when we watch a politician on television say “What shall we do about the less fortunate?” even though at least half of us would almost certainly fit that category ourselves. Myself I find such games particularly pernicious because I’d prefer not to have policy elites around at all. I’m personally an anarchist which means that not only do I look forward to a day sometime in the future when governments corporations and the rest will be looked at as historical curiosities in the same way as we now look at the Spanish Inquisition or nomadic invasions but I prefer solutions to immediate problems that do not give more power to governments or corporations but rather give people the means to manage their own affairs. It follows that when faced with a social problem my impulse is not to imagine myself in charge and ponder what sort of solutions I would then impose but to look for a movement already out there already trying to address the problem and create its own solutions. The problem of bullshit jobs though presents unusual challenges in this regard. There are no anti–bullshit job movements. This is partly because most people don’t acknowledge the proliferation of bullshit jobs to be a problem but also because even if they did it would be difficult to organize a movement around such a problem. What local initiatives might such a movement propose? </source> [/INST] <claim>Alts should be able to fiat a general increase in the scope and intensity of their movements:</claim> <psg>that I am suspicious of the very idea of policy Policy implies the existence of an elite group—government officials typically that gets to decide on something that they then arrange to be imposed on everybody else. There’s a little mental trick we often play on ourselves when discussing such matters We say What are we going to do about the problem of X were society as a whole somehow acting on ourselves but in fact unless we happen to be part of that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of the population whose views actually do affect policy makers this is all a game of make-believe. we are identifying with our rulers when in fact we’re the ones being ruled I find such games particularly pernicious because I’d prefer not to have policy elites around at all not only do I look forward to a day sometime in the future when governments corporations and the rest will be looked at as historical curiosities in the same way as we now look at the Spanish Inquisition or nomadic invasions but I prefer solutions to immediate problems that do not give more power to governments or corporations but rather give people the means to manage their own affairs It follows that when faced with a social problem my impulse is not to imagine myself in charge and ponder what sort of solutions I would then impose to look for a movement already out there already trying to address the problem and create its own solutions. What local initiatives might such a movement propose</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> A growing literature is now exploring options for so-called degrowth which aims to promote human wellbeing and ecological resilience without requiring GDP growth (Hickel et al. 2021. Kallis 2017. Keyßer and Lenzen 2021. Wiedmann et al. 2020. Kallis 2020). The experiences of the last few years including COVID-19 may have shifted public understanding and opinion on these issues especially in richer countries which are best placed to lead with new policies. In a recent survey of people in G20 countries 74% of respondents supported the idea that their country’s economic priorities should move beyond profit and increasing wealth to focus more on human wellbeing and ecological protection (Gaffney et al. 2021). Overcoming the research-implementation gap remains a challenge however. We do not yet know how degrowth policies could be adopted at scale or how they would interact with our current economic processes and patterns of behaviour. Nonetheless our climate predicament demands openness to new approaches. To better understand the options further research into basic relations between societal metabolism and social-ecological wellbeing is crucial (Haberl et al. 2019. Hagens 2020. King 2020. Leiva and Schramski 2020. Schramski et al. 2015. West 2018. Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl 2015. Garrett et al. 2020. Giampietro et al. 2013. Ringsmuth et al. 2016). Although the many challenges and risks associated with a fundamental economic transition are formidable arguably they may be overcome on the time scale of a human life (decades).4 Conversely the risks associated with ever more radiative forcing as we avoid adequately reducing emissions include transitions of the Earth system to inhospitable states that may not be reversible on the time scales of civilisations (centuries to millennia) (Lenton et al. 2019. Steffen et al. 2018). The growing literature on tipping dynamics in socioeconomic systems may offer reasons for optimism about societies’ potentials for a timely rise to the challenge of systemic transformation (Otto et al. 2020. Lenton 2020). </source> [/INST] <claim>Aff is utopian/vague/multi-actor fiat---it wouldn’t happen either---no threshold for when it becomes too utopian or too many private actors</claim> <psg>A growing literature is now exploring degrowth COVID-19 shifted public understanding and opinion especially in richer countries which are best placed to lead with new policies in G20 countries 74% supported their country’s economic priorities should move beyond profit and increasing wealth to focus more on human wellbeing and ecological protection our climate predicament demands openness to new approaches risks associated with a fundamental economic transition may be overcome on the time scale of a human life decades transitions of the Earth system to inhospitable states that may not be reversible on the time scales of civilisations centuries to millennia literature offer optimism about societies’ potentials for a timely rise to the challenge of systemic transformation</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Experiences in socialist construction Thanks in great part to the practical experience of Lenin in making revolution 21st-century socialists have a wealth of experience on which to base further conclusions. Marxists have been able to use accumulated theory and practice in order to lead revolutions in Russia China Korea Yugoslavia Cuba and many other countries. While there have been vast differences in the experiences of those socialist revolutions they share one common feature: The socialist revolutions of the 20th century took place in countries where the level of productive forces was very low compared to the imperialist countries. Every successful revolution faced the primary task of developing their economies—while under constant military threat by world imperialism. For that reason Lenin described the challenges of building communism in 1920 in very practical terms: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” There was no hope in building socialism if the economy remained underdeveloped. Because of the combined challenges of developing the productive forces under the gun of world imperialism no socialist revolution has yet reached a stage where the “withering away of the state” could be imagined. Imperialism has seized on any weakness in the revolutionary states in order to foment counterrevolution. Nevertheless the working classes in the countries that have set out to build socialism have made tremendous gains. Russia’s working class in 1917 was 4 percent of the population. Within 50 years it was the second-most powerful economy in the world. China had never been able to feed its entire population prior to the revolution. Millions died during famines in China prior to 1949. Yet after the 1949 revolution for the first time the economy was able to feed the largest population in the world. Despite immense pressure from imperialism Cuba has been able to achieve tremendous gains—despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Cuban workers enjoy among the highest living standards of any of their counterparts in Latin America or much of the oppressed world. The continued military and economic dominance by world imperialism—first and foremost by U.S. imperialism—has made the transition to socialism that Marx and Lenin described so far impossible. The workers’ states have needed to devote a considerable part of their social development toward the strengthening of the proletarian dictatorship—the army and police—in order to defend against invasion or counterrevolution. Taking that next step will require a society based on the dictatorship of the proletariat in the United States. Toppling the world’s dominant capitalist power would not only lift a tremendous burden from the workers around the world who are trying to engage in socialist construction. It would put at the disposal of the world working class the tremendous wealth produced by the U.S. working class. All the social wealth extracted from the oppressed world by U.S. corporations and mines could be used to reverse the effects of centuries of colonial and imperialist exploitation. A revolution in the United States would undercut the economic basis for divisions among the working class that promote racism sexism and homophobia. Socialism is a system of peace justice and equality. The road to socialism begins with revolution in the United States. </source> [/INST] <claim>Reasonability- anything could make debate marginally better but their ad hoc theory interp crowds out important questionings of their reps</claim> <psg>Thanks to the practical experience of Lenin in revolution 21st-century socialists have a wealth of experience on which to base further conclusions. Marxists have been able to use accumulated theory to lead revolutions in Russia China Korea Yugoslavia Cuba and many other countries. While there have been vast differences in the experiences of socialist revolutions they share one common feature: The socialist revolutions of the 20th century took place in countries where the level of productive forces was very low compared to the imperialist countries. Every successful revolution faced the primary task of developing their economies—while under constant military threat Imperialism has seized on any weakness in the revolutionary states in order to foment counterrevolution. The continued military and economic dominance by world imperialism—first and foremost by U.S. imperialism—has made the transition to socialism impossible. Toppling the world’s dominant capitalist power would not only lift a tremendous burden from the workers around the world who are trying to engage in socialist construction. It would put at the disposal of the world working class the tremendous wealth produced by the U.S. working class. A revolution in the United States would undercut the economic basis for divisions The road to socialism begins with the United States.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Marx himself never imagined that socialism could be achieved in impoverished conditions. Such a project would require almost as bizarre a loop in time as inventing the Internet in the Middle Ages. Nor did any Marxist thinker until Stalin imagine that this was possible including Lenin Trotsky and the rest of the Bolshevik leadership. You cannot reorganise wealth for the benefit of all if there is precious little wealth to reorganise. You cannot abolish social classes in conditions of scarcity since conflicts over a material surplus too meagre to meet everyone’s needs will simply revive them again. As Marx comments in The German Ideology the result of a revolution in such conditions is that ‘‘the old filthy business’’ (or in less tasteful translation ‘‘the same old crap’’) will simply reappear. All you will get is socialised scarcity. If you need to accumulate capital more or less from scratch then the most effective way of doing so however brutal is through the profit motive. Avid self-interest is likely to pile up wealth with remarkable speed though it is likely to amass spectacular poverty at the same time. Nor did Marxists ever imagine that it was possible to achieve socialism in one country alone. The movement was international or it was nothing. This was a hardheaded materialist claim not a piously idealist one. If a socialist nation failed to win international support in a world where production was specialized and divided among different nations it would be unable to draw upon the global resources needed to abolish scarcity. The productive wealth of a single country was unlikely to be enough. The outlandish notion of socialism in one country was invented by Stalin in the 1920s partly as a cynical rationalisation of the fact that other nations had been unable to come to the aid of the Soviet Union. It has no warrant in Marx himself. Socialist revolutions must of course start somewhere. But they cannot be completed within national boundaries. To judge socialism by its results in one desperately isolated country would be like drawing conclusions about the human race from a study of psychopaths in Kalamazoo. Building up an economy from very low levels is a backbreaking dispiriting task. It is unlikely that men and women will freely submit to the hardships it involves. So unless this project is executed gradually under democratic control and in accordance with socialist values an authoritarian state may step in and force its citizens to do what they are reluctant to undertake voluntarily. The militarization of labour in Bolshevik Russia is a case in point. The result in a grisly irony will be to undermine the political superstructure of socialism (popular democracy genuine self-government) in the very attempt to build up its economic base. It would be like being invited to a party only to discover that you had not only to bake the cakes and brew the beer but to dig the foundations and lay the floorboards. There wouldn’t be much time to enjoy yourself. Ideally socialism requires a skilled educated politically sophisticated populace thriving civic institutions a wellevolved technology enlightened liberal traditions and the habit of democracy. None of this is likely to be on hand if you cannot even afford to mend the dismally few highways you have or have no insurance policy against sickness or starvation beyond a pig in the back shed. Nations with a history of colonial rule are especially likely to be bereft of the benefits I have just listed since colonial powers have not been remarkable for their zeal to implant civil liberties or democratic institutions among their underlings. As Marx insists socialism also requires a shortening of the working day—partly to provide men and women with the leisure for personal fulfillment partly to create time for the business of political and economic self-government. You cannot do this if people have no shoes. and to distribute shoes among millions of citizens is likely to require a centralised bureaucratic state. If your nation is under invasion from an array of hostile capitalist powers as Russia was in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution an autocratic state will seem all the more inevitable. Britain during the Second World War was far from an autocracy. but it was by no means a free country and one would not have expected it to be. </source> [/INST] <claim>Past revolutions weren’t Marxist – impoverishment and socialism in one country caused failure </claim> <psg>Marx himself never imagined that socialism could be achieved in impoverished conditions. You cannot reorganise wealth for the benefit of all if there is precious little wealth to reorganise. You cannot abolish social classes in conditions of scarcity since conflicts over a material surplus As Marx comments the result of a revolution in such conditions is that ‘‘the old filthy business’’ will simply reappear. All you will get is socialised scarcity. If you need to accumulate capital more or less from scratch then the most effective way of doing so is through the profit motive Avid self-interest is likely to pile up wealth with remarkable speed Nor did Marxists ever imagine that it was possible to achieve socialism in one country alone The movement was international or it was nothing. This was a hardheaded materialist claim not a piously idealist one. If a socialist nation failed to win international support in a world where production was specialized and divided among different nations it would be unable to draw upon the global resources needed to abolish scarcity The productive wealth of a single country was unlikely to be enough socialism in one country was invented by Stalin as a cynical rationalisation of the fact that other nations had been unable to come to the aid It has no warrant in Marx himself Socialist revolutions must of course start somewhere. But they cannot be completed within national boundaries. To judge socialism by its results in one desperately isolated country would be like drawing conclusions about the human race from a study of psychopaths in Kalamazoo. Building up an economy from very low levels is a backbreaking dispiriting task. It is unlikely that men and women will freely submit to the hardships it involves So unless this project is executed gradually under democratic control and in accordance with socialist values authoritarian state may step in and force its citizens to do what they are reluctant to undertake voluntarily The militarization of labour in Bolshevik Russia is a case in point. It would be like being invited to a party only to discover that you had not only to bake the cakes and brew the beer but to dig the foundations and lay the floorboards. There wouldn’t be much time to enjoy yourself socialism requires a skilled educated politically sophisticated populace thriving civic institutions enlightened liberal traditions and the habit of democracy None of this is likely to be on hand if you cannot even afford to mend the dismally few highways you have or have no insurance policy against starvation beyond a pig in the back shed Nations with a history of colonial rule are especially likely to be bereft of the benefits As Marx insists socialism also requires a shortening of the working day to create time for the business of political and economic self-government You cannot do this if people have no shoes If your nation is under invasion from an array of hostile capitalist powers an autocratic state will seem all the more inevitable but it was by no means a free country and one would not have expected it to be</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Some advocates of the participatory model hold that everyone should be remunerated equally for the same amount of work despite differences of talent training and occupation. As Michael Albert puts it ‘‘The doctor working in a plush setting with comfortable and fulfilling circumstances earns more than the assembly worker working in a horrible din risking life and limb and enduring boredom and denigration regardless of how long or how hard each works.’’∞≠ There is in fact a strong case for paying those who engage in boring heavy dirty or dangerous work more than say medics or academics whose labours are considerably more rewarding. Much of this dirty and dangerous work could perhaps be carried out by former members of the royal family. We need to reverse our priorities. Since I have just mentioned the media as ripe for public ownership let us take this as an exemplary case. Over half a century ago in an excellent little book entitled Communications ∞∞ Raymond Williams outlined a socialist plan for the arts and media which rejected state control of its content on the one hand and the sovereignty of the profit motive on the other. Instead the active contributors in this field would have control of their own means of expression and communication. The actual ‘‘plant’’ of the arts and media—radio stations concert halls TV networks theatres newspaper offices and so on—would be taken into public ownership (of which there are a variety of forms) and their management invested in democratically elected bodies. These would include both members of the public and representatives of media or artistic bodies. These commissions which would be strictly independent of the state would then be responsible for awarding public resources and ‘‘leasing’’ the socially owned facilities either to individual practitioners or to independent democratically self-governing companies of actors journalists musicians and the like. These men and women could then produce work free of both state regulation and the distorting pressures of the market. Among other things we would be free of the situation in which a bunch of power-crazed avaricious bullies dictate through their privately owned media outlets what the public should believe—which is to say their own self-interested opinions and the system they support. We will know that socialism has established itself when we are able to look back with utter incredulity on the idea that a handful of commercial thugs were given free rein to corrupt the minds of the public with Neanderthal political views convenient for their own bank balances but for little else. Much of the media under capitalism avoid difficult controversial or innovative work because it is bad for profits. Instead they settle for banality sensationalism and gut prejudice. Socialist media by contrast would not ban everything but Schoenberg Racine and endless dramatized versions of Marx’s Capital. There would be popular theatre TV and newspapers galore. ‘‘Popular’’ does not necessarily mean ‘‘inferior.’’ Nelson Mandela is popular but not inferior. Plenty of ordinary people read highly specialist journals littered with jargon unintelligible to outsiders. It is just that these journals tend to be about angling farm equipment or dog breeding rather than aesthetics or endocrinology. The popular becomes junk and kitsch when the media feel the need to hijack as large a slice of the market as quickly and painlessly as possible. And this need is for the most part commercially driven. </source> [/INST] <claim>Communism works – reversing economic priorities produces new social arrangements</claim> <psg>There is a strong case for paying those who engage in boring heavy dirty or dangerous work more than medics or academics whose labours are considerably more rewarding Much of this dirty and dangerous work could perhaps be carried out by former members of the royal family We need to reverse our priorities. Williams outlined a socialist plan for the arts and media which rejected state control of its content and the sovereignty of the profit motive on the other. the active contributors in this field would have control of their own means of expression and communication. The actual ‘‘plant’’ radio stations concert halls TV networks theatres newspaper offices and so on—would be taken into public ownership and their management invested in democratically elected bodies These would include both members of the public and representatives of media or artistic bodies These commissions would then be responsible for awarding public resources and ‘‘leasing’’ the socially owned facilities either to individual practitioners or to independent democratically self-governing companies of actors journalists musicians and the like These men and women could then produce work free of both state regulation and the distorting pressures of the market. we would be free of the situation in which a bunch of power-crazed avaricious bullies dictate through their privately owned media outlets what the public should believe . We will know that socialism has established itself when we are able to look back with utter incredulity on the idea that a handful of commercial thugs were given free rein to corrupt the minds of the public with Neanderthal political views convenient for their own bank balances but for little else Much of the media under capitalism avoid difficult innovative work because it is bad for profits. they settle for banality sensationalism and gut prejudice . There would be popular theatre TV and newspapers galore Plenty of ordinary people read highly specialist journals littered with jargon unintelligible to outsiders. these journals tend to be about angling or dog breeding rather than aesthetics or endocrinology. The popular becomes junk and kitsch when the media feel the need to hijack as large a slice of the market as quickly and painlessly as possible. And this need is for the most part commercially driven</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Education and state monitoring might diminish these dangers but some Marxists look instead to an economy which would be neither centrally planned nor market-governed.π On this model resources would be allocated by negotiations between producers consumers environmentalists and other relevant parties in networks of workplace neighbourhood and consumer councils. The broad parameters of the economy including decisions on the overall allocation of resources rates of growth and investment energy transport and ecological policies and the like would be set by representative assemblies at local regional and national level. These general decisions about say allocation would then be devolved downwards to regional and local levels where more detailed planning would be progressively worked out. At every stage public debate over alternative economic plans and policies would be essential. In this way what and how we produce could be determined by social need rather than private profit. Under capitalism we are deprived of the power to decide whether we want to produce more hospitals or more breakfast cereals. Under socialism this freedom would be regularly exercised. Power in such assemblies would pass by democratic election from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Democratically elected bodies representing each branch of commerce or production would negotiate with a national economic commission to achieve an agreed set of investment decisions. Prices would be determined not centrally but by production units on the basis of input from consumers users interest groups and so on. </source> [/INST] <claim>A Marxist economy could be implemented through participatory economic planning </claim> <psg>some Marxists look instead to an economy which would be neither centrally planned nor market-governed. resources would be allocated by negotiations between producers consumers environmentalists and other relevant parties in networks of workplace neighbourhood and consumer councils broad parameters of the economy including decisions on the overall allocation of resources would be set by representative assemblies at local regional and national level These general decisions about say allocation would then be devolved downwards to regional and local levels where more detailed planning would be progressively worked out public debate over alternative economic plans and policies would be essential what and how we produce could be determined by social need rather than private profit Under capitalism we are deprived of the power to decide whether we want to produce more hospitals or more breakfast cereals. Under socialism this freedom would be regularly exercised Democratically elected bodies would negotiate with a national economic commission to achieve an agreed set of investment decisions Prices would be determined not centrally but by production units on the basis of input from consumers</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> One must distinguish here between the near-term impossibility of Musk’s dreams of cities on Mars and the very long-term necessity of humanity spreading itself throughout the cosmos sometime within the next eon in order to ensure our survival. </source> [/INST] <claim>Zero chance capitalist space efforts colonize space before </claim> <psg>One must distinguish between the near-term impossibility of Musk’s dreams of cities on Mars and the very long-term necessity of humanity spreading itself throughout the cosmos</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> However the true lesson is a different one. If what we are concerned with is (something like) maximizing the expected number of worthwhile lives that we will create then in addition to the opportunity cost of delayed colonization we have to take into account the risk of failure to colonize at all. We might fall victim to an existential risk one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.[8] Because the lifespan of galaxies is measured in billions of years whereas the time-scale of any delays that we could realistically affect would rather be measured in years or decades the consideration of risk trumps the consideration of opportunity cost. For example a single percentage point of reduction of existential risks would be worth (from a utilitarian expected utility point-of-view) a delay of over 10 million years. Therefore if our actions have even the slightest effect on the probability of eventual colonization this will outweigh their effect on when colonization takes place. For standard utilitarians priority number one two three and four should consequently be to reduce existential risk. The utilitarian imperative “Maximize expected aggregate utility!” can be simplified to the maxim “Minimize existential risk!”. </source> [/INST] <claim>Every percentage point of existential risk reduction is equal to a delay of 10 million years</claim> <psg>If what we are concerned with is maximizing the expected number of lives that we will create then in addition to the opportunity cost of delayed colonization we have to take into account the risk of failure to colonize at all. We might fall victim to an existential risk one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential Because the lifespan of galaxies is measured in billions of years whereas the time-scale of any delays that we could realistically affect would rather be measured in years or decades the consideration of risk trumps the consideration of opportunity cost a single percentage point of reduction of existential risks would be worth a delay of over 10 million years Therefore if our actions have even the slightest effect on the probability of eventual colonization this will outweigh their effect on when colonization takes place</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The central thesis here is that ‘domestic institutions associated with capitalism namely private property and competitive market structures have promoted peace between states over the past two centuries’.84 The reason for this it is claimed is that states tightly bound together by mutually beneficial trade tend to look to settle conflicts peacefully as high levels of international commerce between states raised ‘the costs of military conflict to unacceptable levels for modern economies’.85 According to Bussmann ‘[i]t is not in a country’s interest to go to war with a state with which its private economic agents maintain an extensive exchange of goods and capital’.86 There is a similar claim concerning how levels of foreign investment can contribute to pacific relations between states and even within states. Again the idea here is that states will try to avoid violent conflict so as not to deter foreign investors. The threat or onset of violent conflict on the other hand disrupts not only trade but FDI flows. The decision of foreign investors to locate their capital is influenced not only by the economic policy of the host country but also by the risk of violent conflict in that state. War deters investors because it creates insecurity leading even to the total loss of investments as factories are closed raw materials are in short supply and employees are killed or are drafted into service.87 One example of how the lure of FDI can help provide a context for stability between formerly warring neighbours concerns Bosnia and Serbia. Although relations between the two states have remained volatile since the end of the war in the mid-1990s in 2010 an attempt was made to ameliorate relations between these neighbours in order to lure FDI stock to the region. After a meeting between the two states to discuss a joint approach toward international markets a member of Bosnia’s tripartite rotating presidency stated that ‘[b]adly needed investments will come only if there is security and stability’.88 There are some critiques that can be directed at the above proposition. First while interdependent trade and the lure of FDI may make states highly wary of engaging in war due to its exorbitant cost ironically it may encourage insurgents to mobilise. Calculating that the state may do anything short of military action to protect economic stability insurgents may provoke violence in the reasonable hope that the state may give in to their demands to expedite a quick peace. For example the British government’s fear of the IRA bombing the financial City of London led it to provide concessions to Irish republicans after one bomb cost damage estimated as £350 million.89 Second it is not always the case that states will avoid war at all costs to protect FDI. far from it they may resort to extremely coercive anti-insurgency methods precisely to guarantee the security of foreign investors. The region of Aceh in Indonesia provides a case in point here. In the early 1970s an abundance of oil and natural liquefied gas was discovered in the region by Mobile. In response an industrial zone was created to allow the inflow of heavy foreign investment. As part of the development of the industrial zone the local Acehnese experienced severe disruption including forced evictions and some loss of indigenous industry. moreover the Acehnese received only a small percentage of the profits. Due in part to the disruptive impact of the industrial zone an Acehnese secessionist movement emerged – the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) – and some of their attacks were targeted at Exxon Mobil facilities and migrant Javanese workers. In direct response to the attacks by GAM Exxon Mobil threatened to suspend production in Aceh until security could be guaranteed. Taking action the Indonesian government responded to the GAM campaign by initiating Operation ‘Red Net’: a brutal counter-insurgency initiative which led to the deaths of up to 5 000 people. The counter-insurgency campaign did little to convince Exxon that their investment and employees were safe and the corporation cancelled operations in Aceh in 2001 which cost the Indonesian government an estimated $100 million per month in lost revenue. Later on that year the International Labor Rights Fund acting behalf of Acehnese villagers filed a lawsuit against Exxon accusing them of human rights abuses including murder and torture when they hired army units to protect natural gas fields.90 Third and related to the last point in regions characterised by extreme security problems due to the threat of violence the carrot waved to attract foreign investors must be so great that it threatens to offset the potential balance between the local and international ownership of post-war reconstruction. This problem can be witnessed in Iraq. In the aftermath of the occupation the US-run CPA decreed the privatisation of 200 state-owned Iraqi firms the reduction of corporate tax from 40 to 15 per cent and permission for foreign companies to own 100 per cent of privatised Iraqi assets including the right to ‘transfer abroad without delay all funds associated with its foreign investment including shares or profits and dividends’.91 All of this was passed without seeking consent from the Iraqi people thus acting to ignite grievances and filling the ranks of a growing insurgency seeking to exploit ethnic conflict especially since little was done by the CPA to deal with basic problems like water sanitation unemployment security and electricity. Many Iraqis viewed the privatisation of the nation’s industry into the hands of foreign contractors as little less than colonisation especially as oil contracts became the focus of bribery price-fixing and embezzlement. Over $12 billion of oil revenue went unaccounted for and the CPA granted immunity from prosecution to US personnel.92 According to Whyte the scale of the appropriation of Iraq’s oil revenue in particular was a ‘neo-liberal strategy of economic colonization’ carried out by the CPA especially since the authority dismissed the universal principles of international law enshrined in the Hague and Geneva treaties so that they could ‘privilege the primacy and autonomy of market actors over laws intended to enshrine universal protections for civilian populations in war and conflict’.93 Another problem here is that there is often an expectation that neoliberal processes will expedite a relatively speedy and tangible improvement in people’s everyday life. This is rarely so. Free-market economics largely relies on trickledown economics with the profits garnered by the vanguard entrepreneurs eventually arriving to those located at the lower levels of society. The anticipation of immediate results may thus act to raise hopes only for them to be dashed when little seems to change. In fact the situation in the short term may actually worsen as public workers are laid off as state spending declines and existing welfare systems are rolled back. This is a potentially inflammatory scenario as protest mobilisation is most likely when expectations of improvement are generated but are ultimately deflated.94 In his analysis of peace building initiatives Roland Paris notes that in order to pave the way for divided societies to become fully functioning peaceful market economies the IMF and World Bank typically initiate structural-adjustment programmes. In exchange for loans states are required to instigate sweeping economic and institutional reform including privatising strategies deregulation decreases in corporation tax and austerity measures involving severe cutbacks in public spending to ensure budgetary balance.95 Rather than delivering any peace divided in the short term the population of divided societies undergoing structural adjustment policies are subject to what is tantamount to a ‘peace penalty’ as public sectorworkers are laid off and public services are underresourced.96 This situation can exacerbate the ethnic security dilemma mentioned earlier in regard to rapid democratisation. If a particular ethnic group are overrepresented in the public sector (such as Serbs in Croatia) they will be obviously fearful for their future security and may resort to militant means to protect their interests. More broadly the decrease in security wrought by rapid market reform may exacerbate social and ethnic tensions. Ironically attempts to stimulate future prosperity may create a new ‘conflict trap’ reducing the recruitment costs for spoilers of the peace process. For instance in the early 1990s the Rwandan government had implemented internationally mandated austerity measures (government spending cuts reductions in price subsidies and deregulation of the domestic economy) to help engender a market economy. These measures Paris argues ‘fostered an atmosphere of economic insecurity that strained intergroup relations in the vital period leading up to the genocide’.97 A related problem occurs when market reforms act to intensify socio-economic inequalities in a divided society especially when such disparities have been a focus for violent ethnic mobilisation before. After years of civil war during the 1990s the Chammoro government in Nicaragua initiated sweeping economic reforms (public sector lay-offs privatisation policies the liberalisation of the banking sector and a reduction of public spending) under the auspices of the World Bank and IMF. These reforms resulted in an absolute decline in living standards and exacerbated distributional inequalities between the rural largely indigenous peasantry and the wealthy urban elite. Since these inequalities were at the root of previous periods of violence in Nicaragua the transition to economic liberalism ‘worked against the goal of promoting a stable and lasting peace’.98 (229-32) </source> [/INST] <claim>No capitalist peace theory</claim> <psg>The central thesis is institutions associated with capitalism private property and competitive market structures have promoted peace The reason claimed is that states bound by trade settle conflicts peacefully commerce raised ‘the costs of military conflict to unacceptable levels critiques that can be directed at the above proposition while interdependent trade and FDI may make state wary ironically it may encourage insurgents to mobilise Calculating that the state may do anything to protect economic stability insurgents may provoke violence in the reasonable hope that the state may give in to their demands to expedite a quick peace. is not always the case that states will avoid war at all costs far from it they may resort to extremely coercive anti-insurgency methods precisely to guarantee the security of foreign investors. in regions characterised by extreme security problems the carrot waved to attract foreign investors must be so great that it threatens to offset the potential balance between the local and international ownership of post-war reconstruction This problem can be witnessed in Iraq the US-run CPA decreed the privatisation of 200 state-owned Iraqi firms and permission for foreign companies to own 100 per cent of privatised Iraqi assets All of this was passed without consent from the Iraqi people acting to ignite grievances and filling the ranks of a growing insurgency seeking to exploit ethnic conflict Iraqis viewed privatisation as colonisation appropriation of Iraq’s oil revenue was a ‘neo-liberal strategy of economic colonization’ there is often an expectation that neoliberal processes will expedite a relatively speedy and tangible improvement This is rarely so Free-market economics relies on trickledown anticipation of immediate results may raise hopes only for them to be dashed when little seems to change the situation in the short term may actually worsen This is a inflammatory scenario protest mobilisation is most likely when expectations of improvement are generated but are ultimately deflated. IMF and World Bank typically initiate structural-adjustment programmes Rather than delivering any peace divided in the short term the population are subject to what is tantamount to a ‘peace penalty’ as public sectorworkers are laid off and public services are underresourced. This can exacerbate the ethnic security dilemma a ethnic group overrepresented in the public sector will be fearful for their future security and may resort to militant means the decrease in security wrought by rapid market reform may exacerbate social and ethnic tensions. attempts to stimulate future prosperity may create a new ‘conflict trap’ reducing the recruitment costs for spoilers of the peace process the Rwandan government had implemented austerity measures These fostered an atmosphere of economic insecurity that strained intergroup relations in the vital period leading up to the genocide market reforms act to intensify socio-economic inequalities in a divided society . After years of civil war during the 1990s the Chammoro government in Nicaragua initiated sweeping economic reforms These reforms resulted in an absolute decline in living standards and exacerbated distributional inequalities Since these inequalities were at the root of previous periods of violence in Nicaragua the transition to economic liberalism ‘worked against the goal of promoting a stable and lasting peace’</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Another strand to the global thesis is that ‘[d]isconnectedness defines danger’.51 That is states ‘dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world from its rule sets its norms and all the ties that bind countries together in mutually assured dependence’ 52 are viewed as more likely to engage in conflict since they do not have to worry about the costs (diplomatic and financial) associated with war. These ‘disconnected’ states are not harmonised with other neoliberal economies especially in terms of trade regulations and human rights legislation. The idea here is that globalisation creates costly signalling by making communication convincing.53 When leaders make political decisions they have to weigh the economic costs and global markets act as a forum to signal resolve.54 Such is the pacific quality of economic globalism that one proponent states: Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity financial transactions liberal media flows and collective security and I will show you regions featuring stable governments rising standards of living and more deaths by suicide than murder . . . But show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes widespread poverty and disease routine mass murder and – most important – the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists.55 There are numerous flaws to this globalism thesis. The argument that global cosmopolitan values are eradicating ethno-national differences is unconvincing so far. Although in strictly economic terms the power of most states organised at the national scale is eroding national and ethnic identities are incredibly robust entities.56 As one theorist notes although relatively discrete national economic systems have become enmeshed in global processes ‘there are few grounds for thinking that a concomitant widespread pluralisation of political identities has taken place’.57 Globalism while it offers the opportunity for identity to be a palimpsest upon which any number of associations can be penned is also a profoundly disorientating process. Many ethnic conflicts are inspired by a backlash against globalism especially ‘the disruptive effects of global integration and the failure of markets to self-regulate in a way that protects the interests of the people’ in the poorer regions of the world.58 A point that will be returned to later. (225) </source> [/INST] <claim>Rules based trade fails to solve war---perceived inequality increases ethnic conflict</claim> <psg>‘[d]isconnectedness defines danger states disconnected from the globalizing world its rule sets its norms are viewed as more likely to engage in conflict These ‘disconnected’ states are not harmonised with other neoliberal economies especially in terms of trade regulations The idea is that globalisation creates costly signalling There are numerous flaws to this globalism thesis. that global cosmopolitan values are eradicating ethno-national differences is unconvincing so far Although the power of most states organised at the national scale is eroding national and ethnic identities are incredibly robust entities. although discrete national economic systems have become enmeshed in global processes ‘there are few grounds for thinking widespread pluralisation of political identities has taken place’ Globalism is a profoundly disorientating process Many ethnic conflicts are inspired by a backlash against globalism especially ‘the disruptive effects of global integration and the failure of markets to self-regulate in a way that protects the interests of the people’ in the poorer regions</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The Capitalist Peace Model: Three Errors Based on a sample of all dyad years from 1950 to 1992 Gartzke’s (2007) work addresses the question of whether capitalism exerts a pacifying effect on the onset of international conflict.2 It proposes that the absence of militarized disputes between democracies is largely explained by the fact that since democracies tend to espouse capitalism the likelihood of disputes is greatly reduced. More specifically economic development globalization of capital and similar state policy interests are hypothesized to lead dyads to be less likely to experience a dispute. For empirical testing the capitalist peace model is built on a replication of the democratic peace model proposed by Oneal and Russett [1997:278 Model 1 Table 2 as indicated in note 47 of Gartzke’s (2007:176) study] which ‘‘allows for ready comparison of results and diminishes the danger that [his] findings result from idiosyncrasies in coding or model specification’’ (Gartzke 2007:173). The model consists of a lower score of democracy a higher score of democracy capitalist variables and several control variables.3 Model Specification Error: Peace Years Taking note of Beck Katz and Tucker’s (1998) methodological suggestion Gartzke’s capitalist peace model includes three temporal spline variables (that is spline1 spline2 and spline3) to control for time dependence. However a peace year variable that measures the number of peace years since the last conflict and that serves as the base variable to create those three spline variables is left out. Since logit splines require that all four variables be included together the exclusion of a peace year variable makes the estimates of the capitalist peace model untenable. Because Gartzke’s study does not control for the complete spline function for the years of peace it obtains inconsistent parameter estimates and incorrect standard errors.4 Thus the capitalist model is misleading because its estimation suffers from omitted variable bias. These omissions explain why the effect of democracy does not hold up in the capitalist peace model rather than the capitalist variables winning over the democracy variable in competition. As demonstrated in the next section when the model specification error is properly corrected democracy re-emerges as a pacifying factor in a consistent manner whether a crisis is related to a militarized dispute or a war. Observation Omission: Regional Dummies When statistical software drops some observations upon the execution of a model it issues warning notes. Generally researchers investigate whether those drops are a justifiable procedure in order to obtain unbiased and consistent estimates. If researchers overlook critical error messages about observation drops and report coefficients and standard errors as they are their findings may be misleading or even worse erroneous. The next section illustrates how ignoring warning notes about observation drops can stymie one’s analysis. In particular this relates to Gartzke’s study that does not analyze the implications of warning notes regarding dropped observations that are caused by the inclusion of regional dummy variables. Sample Selection Bias: All Dyads versus Politically Relevant Dyads Sample selection bias is caused by the selection of a particular sample instead of conducting a census of the population. Gartzke’s study examines the capitalism– conflict connection with a focus on all dyads but not on politically relevant dyads. However the use of all possible dyads is open to two criticisms. The first is theoretical: for example there is no reason to expect a militarized dispute between Malaysia and Uganda. The second is methodological as the inclusion of all possible dyads makes the non-zero militarized dispute event extremely rare. Politically relevant dyads that either share a border or include at least one major power are considered more conflict prone than any other type of dyad because they are exposed to more opportunities to interact increasing the likelihood of conflict. For this reason students of conflict have emphasized the importance of politically relevant dyads over all dyads (for example Lemke and Reed 2001. Russett and Oneal 2001). The next section demonstrates that when the capitalist peace model is fitted with politically relevant dyads capitalist variables become less robust and in some cases insignificant.(760-2) </source> [/INST] <claim>Gartzke’s model is trash</claim> <psg>Based on dyad years from 1950 to 1992 Gartzke’s work addresses the question of whether capitalism exerts a pacifying effect For empirical testing the capitalist peace model is built on a replication of the democratic peace model which ‘‘allows for ready comparison of results Gartzke’s model includes three temporal spline variables (that is spline1 spline2 and spline3) to control for time dependence. However a peace year variable that measures the number of peace years since the last conflict and that serves as the base variable to create those three spline variables is left out. Since logit splines require that all four variables be included together the exclusion of a peace year variable makes the estimates of the capitalist peace model untenable. Because Gartzke’s study does not control for the complete spline function it obtains inconsistent parameter estimates and incorrect standard errors.4 the capitalist model is misleading because its estimation suffers from omitted variable bias. These omissions explain why the effect of democracy does not hold up rather than the capitalist variables winning over the democracy variable in competition If researchers overlook critical error messages about observation drops and report coefficients and standard errors as they are their findings may be misleading or even worse erroneous particular this relates to Gartzke’s study that does not analyze the implications of warning notes regarding dropped observations that are caused by the inclusion of regional dummy variables Sample selection bias is caused by the selection of a particular sample instead of conducting a census of the population. Gartzke’s study examines the capitalism– conflict connection with a focus on all dyads but not on politically relevant dyads use of all possible dyads is open to two criticisms. The first is theoretical: for example there is no reason to expect a militarized dispute between Malaysia and Uganda. The second is methodological as the inclusion of all possible dyads makes the non-zero militarized dispute event extremely rare. Politically relevant dyads that either share a border or include at least one major power are considered more conflict prone than any other type of dyad because they are exposed to more opportunities to interact increasing the likelihood of conflict. For this reason students of conflict have emphasized the importance of politically relevant dyads over all dyads when the capitalist peace model is fitted with politically relevant dyads capitalist variables become less robust and in some cases insignificant</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> The stakes are large for researchers to better understand the mechanisms supporting the liberal peace. This study sought to do so by investigating the family of market-mediated signaling mechanisms purported to generate the observed correlation between mutually open capital markets and peace. We examined six most likely crucial cases to look for evidence of the mechanisms suggested by Gartzke Li & Boehmer (2001): that open capital markets facilitate costly signaling through economic costs ex ante to militarized conflict. We employed a novel formal case selection strategy that maximizes the leverage and minimizes the bias of our cases. Because our case selection strategy was objective other scholars may examine potential problems with our design and may extend our analysis to the next most promising cases. Our research finds some support for market-mediated signaling mechanisms clarifies the means by which they may operate suggests reasons why they may fail to obviate a conflict and finds suggestive evidence for alternative explanations for the relationship between capital openness and peace. </source> [/INST] <claim>Dafoe’s results are inconclusive at best</claim> <psg>examined six most likely crucial cases to look for evidence of the mechanisms suggested by Gartzke . We employed a novel formal case selection strategy that maximizes the leverage and minimizes the bias of our cases Because our case selection strategy was objective other scholars may examine potential problems with our design and may extend our analysis to the next most promising cases</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> There is at first a very material sense in which its advocates justify the turn to objects. We are at a point where our faith in the powers of the subject to critique and subvert reality as grounded in Enlightenment theory has been truly defeated not least by capitalism’s now much discussed ability to demand precisely subjective – emotional or affective – investments in its exploitative machinery.5 Thus it is not only the fact that ‘subjects are always already subjected’ which we have learned from Foucault Butler and other poststructuralists.6 But if capitalism wants us to be ever more alive happy and truly engaged in shaping our own lives on the basis of the endless possibilities this world has to offer then the critique offered by vitalist theories aesthetic modes such as Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ and more critical forms of emancipated spectatorship against an objectifying and alienating capitalist reality appear assimilated and defused.7 As Diedrich Diederichsen outlines in a recent e-flux article it is precisely what was still antithetical to the Fordist assembly line – different modes of dreaming ‘dangerously’ or living authentic or alternative lives – that seems to have become part of the post-Fordist ‘imperative to produce a perfect self as a perfect thing’.8 Smiles or grins day-dreams and ways of being that could formerly help alleviate or escape the alienated existence of the labourer have themselves become reified as part of the requisite service we are compelled to provide.9 Diederichsen describes a sense similar to the German theatre director René Pollesch in his play Love is Colder than Capital in which all relations have become toxic and emotions have been rendered cold objects for capital.10 Thus the primary concern seems to be with oppressive exploitative and reified capitalist social relations and how to break out of them – but the solutions we’re confronted with from the diverse strands of the ‘new materialisms’ no longer lie in the critique of these relations but rather in a nonrelational and un-dialectical gesture that posits the world of matter against the man-made disaster of a neoliberal existence.11 </source> [/INST] <claim>Aesthetics doesn’t solve anything but attempting to endorse it both reentrenches capitalism and enables racialized capitalist oppression</claim> <psg>We are at a point where our faith in the powers of the subject to critique and subvert reality as grounded in Enlightenment theory has been truly defeated not least by capitalism’s now much discussed ability to demand precisely subjective – emotional or affective – investments in its exploitative machinery. 5 Thus it is not only the fact that ‘subjects are always already subjected’ 6 But if capitalism wants us to be ever more alive happy and truly engaged in shaping our own lives on the basis of the endless possibilities this world has to offer then the critique offered by vitalist theories aesthetic modes such as Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ and more critical forms of emancipated spectatorship against an objectifying and alienating capitalist reality appear assimilated and defused. 7 different modes of dreaming ‘dangerously’ or living authentic or alternative lives – that seems to have become part of the post-Fordist ‘imperative to produce a perfect self as a perfect thing’. 8 Smiles or grins day-dreams and ways of being that could formerly help alleviate or escape the alienated existence of the labourer have themselves become reified as part of the requisite service we are compelled to provide. 9 all relations have become toxic and emotions have been rendered cold objects for capital. 10 Thus the primary concern seems to be with oppressive exploitative and reified capitalist social relations and how to break out of them – but the solutions we’re confronted with from the diverse strands of the ‘new materialisms’ no longer lie in the critique of these relations but rather in a nonrelational and un-dialectical gesture that posits the world of matter against the man-made disaster of a neoliberal existence. 11</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Yet it is my claim that the willful Realist tradition does not lack an understanding of the contingency of practice or a vision of responsibility to otherness.On the contrary its strategy of objectification is precisely an attempt to bring together a responsibility to otherness and a responsibility to act within a willfully liberal vision. The construction of a realm of objectivity and calculation is not just a consequence of a need to act - the framing of an epistemic context for successful calculation. It is a form of responsibility to otherness an attempt to allow for diversity and irreconcilability precisely by-- at least initially -- reducing the self and the other to a structure of material calculation in order to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility mediation and stability. It is in short a strategy of limitation: a willful attempt to construct a subject and a social world limited -- both epistemically and politically -- in the name of a politics of toleration: a liberal strategy that John Gray has recently characterized as one of modus Vivendi. </source> [/INST] <claim>They link to their K of “flows” bc they read evidence</claim> <psg>the Realist tradition does not lack responsibility to otherness. its strategy of objectification is calculation a consequence of a need to act an attempt to allow for diversity and irreconcilability precisely by reducing the self and the other to a structure of material calculation to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility mediation in the name of a politics of toleration</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Scholars and practitioners frequently employ the term “dilemma” to describe painful decision making but “quandary” would be more apt.27A dilemma involves two or more alternative courses of action with unintended but unavoidable and equally undesirable consequences. If consequences are equally unpalatable then remaining inactive on the sidelines is an option rather than entering the serum on the field. A quandary on the other hand entails tough choices among unattractive options with better or worse possible outcomes. While humanitarians are perplexed they are not and should not be immobilized. The solution is not indifference or withdrawal but rather appropriate engagement. The key lies in making a good faith effort to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different alloys of politics and humanitarianism and then to choose what often amounts to the lesser of evils. </source> [/INST] <claim>Ethics demands we make tough choices -- deontological imperatives are catastrophic.</claim> <psg>A quandary entails tough choices among unattractive options While humanitarians are perplexed The key lies in a good faith effort to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different politics and then to choose the lesser of evils</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> There is no zone of complete neutrality in a world of role performances. Obedient performances in cumulative effect tend to support the existing regime as they insinuate its dictates into our collective habits of perception judgment and action. Unless a dissident group of workers meticulously “works according to rule” to disrupt production through excruciating obedience in a way that discloses how tangled formal rules can become. Or a group creatively improvises on the performance of Bartleby the Scrivener posing endless questions about the orders given to it until the machine overflows itself or is jammed. These indeed are creative role experimentations. So was the practice in Eastern Europe during the late stages of Soviet rule to clap endlessly when a Soviet stooge spoke until the bewildered speaker was moved to sit down amid the roar around him. I recently attended a faculty meeting with the president of my university at which the entire faculty remained silent after his Ceo-style talk ended and he departed slowly up the aisle. Sometimes silence sends a message to power. Our lives are messages.5 Role experimentation can disrupt and redirect the flow of authority habit institutional regularity and future projection. It can also encourage others to look more closely at their own performances in this or that domain. Such experiments can also set the stage for more adventurous and larger scale actions. My examples will be limited to con- stituencies who are the most apt to read this book though they could easily be adjusted to a broader array. Suppose a constellation of students studying to enter professional life forms study groups to explore more closely how those professions presuppose and enforce a set of practices that contribute to the fragility of things as they simultaneously draw attention away from that contribution. The students may pose untimely questions in their political science economics engineering medical business legal and biology classes. If in a secular institution they may seek out courses that complicate the assumptions of secularism. If in a religious school they may organize a group to explore the history of atheism or of minority faiths that eschew the theme of a per- sonal God. They can engage experimental artistic work that stretches their habitual patterns of perception and judgment. The nature- and soundscape compositions of John Luther Adams have salutary effects on many in this respect. Such activities can also prime you to experiment with other role performances once you enter professional life. If a lawyer you may organize to rethink your connections to the ugly prison system and to adjust your practice to protest its ugliness. Or you may give a portion of your time to challenge corporations localities and states that defile the environment. If a doctor you may organize voluntary medical care for the poor and publicize what you are doing. In both cases these experimentations make a modest difference on their own prime our capacities for more sensitive perception in other domains of life and may prepare us to participate with others in yet more adventurous activities. These are minor moments but an accumulation of minor moments can jostle settled habits of perception. they can encourage a readiness to become more exploratory. and they can extend the time horizon within which we think and act. Suppose now you are middle- or upper-middle-class citizens in a polity that has competitive elections. You have become increasingly dissatisfied with the course your society is taking. Voting while pertinent seems radically insufficient to the issues involved. Its time horizon is too short and the strategic place of ill-informed undecided voters in electoral politics skews campaigns too sharply. Inequality has been extended. The lower reaches of society are left out in the cold and often blamed for the suffering they undergo. The news media are organized around scandal and a brief time horizon. Racial differences are exploited to break up potential coalitions on the left. A large slice of the population is periodically suscep- tible to war fever. Climate change is widely subjected to deferral denial or formal acceptance disconnected from action. And the right wing actively promotes filibusters and legislative stalemates to encourage more and more people to withdraw from citizenship and to tolerate the privatization of more and more of life. The sciences and professions with which you are familiar are often too narrowly defined. Too many churches either provide refuges from the world or serve as sites of aggressive attack on ecological concerns homosexu- ality carriers of alternative faiths or poor minorities. You know what po- litical party you support. you vote regularly. and you give time and money to your party. But you also find it difficult to connect the sentiments you profess to the role expectations sedimented into your practices of work church consumption neighborhood association investment portfolio children’s school artistic pursuits and local news reporting. Now is the time to join others in becoming role experimentalists. You may actively support the farm-to-table movement in the restaurants you visit. you may support the slow food movement. you may frequent stores that offer food based on sustainable processes. you may buy a hybrid or if feasible join an urban zip-car collective explaining to friends family and neighbors what effect such choices could have on late modern ecology if a majority of the populace did one or the other. you may press your neighborhood association and workplace to buy solar panels and install them yourself. you may use writing and media skills developed in school to write for a blog. you may shift a large portion of your retirement account into investments that support sustainable energy. you may withdraw from aggressive investments that presuppose an unsustainable growth pattern threaten economic collapse and/or undermine the collec- tive future. you may bring new issues and visitors to your church temple or mosque to support rethinking about interdenominational issues and the contemporary fragility of things. you may found join or frequent a repair club at which volunteers collect and repair old appliances furni- ture and vehicles to cut back on urban waste and increase the longevity of these items. you may probe and publicize the multimodal tactics by which twenty-four-hour news stations work on the visceral register of their viewers as you explore ways to counter those techniques. you may travel to places where unconscious American assumptions about world entitlement are challenged on a regular basis. you may augment your pattern of films and artistic exhibits attended to stretch your habitual powers of perception and to challenge some affect-imbued prejudgments embedded in them. you may seek out new friends who are also moving in these directions. You may regularly relay pregnant essays you encounter to friends colleagues and relatives. A series of minor role experiments. As we proceed our aspirational selves may now begin to exceed our operational selves and the shame we feel about the discrepancy between these two aspects of the self may generate energy to enter into yet new modes of role experimentation.6 We thus begin to make ourselves and our engagements more experimental rather than simply falling into a ready- made set of role expectations. We have begun to become what Nietzsche calls “our own guinea pigs” rather than merely being the guinea pigs of those in charge of these institutions. As such experiments accumulate the ice in and around us begins to crack. First the shaky perceptions feelings and beliefs with which we started these experimentations now become more refined and more entrenched. Second we are now better situated to forge connections with yet larger constituencies engaging in similar experiments. Third as these connections accumulate we may be more inspired to join macropolitical movements that speak to the issues. Fourth as we now join protests slowdowns and confrontational meetings with corporate managers church leaders union officials university officials and neighborhood leaders we may now become more alert to the institutional pressures that propel these constituencies forward too. They are also both enmeshed in a web of roles that en- able and constrain them and often more than mere role bearers. These roles too exhibit varying degrees of pressure and slack as they link the details of daily conduct to the strategic practices of the larger political economy. </source> [/INST] <claim>Role experimentation should orient our politics. Viewing the world through the lens of a policymaker can alter our perception in ways that catalyze micro and macro political action. This link turns neg offense---our reading of Deleuze better enables lines of flight allowing for liberatory potentials</claim> <psg>There is no zone of complete neutrality in a world of role performances Obedient performances in cumulative effect tend to support the existing regime as they insinuate its dictates into our collective habits of perception judgment and action Unless a dissident group of workers meticulously “works according to rule” to disrupt production through excruciating obedience in a way that discloses how tangled formal rules can become These indeed are creative role experimentations So was the practice in Eastern Europe during the late stages of Soviet rule to clap endlessly when a Soviet stooge spoke until the bewildered speaker was moved to sit down amid the roar around him I recently attended a faculty meeting with the president of my university at which the entire faculty remained silent after his Ceo-style talk ended and he departed slowly up the aisle. Sometimes silence sends a message to power. Our lives are messages Role experimentation can disrupt and redirect the flow of authority habit institutional regularity and future projection. It can also encourage others to look more closely at their own performances in this or that domain Such experiments can also set the stage for more adventurous and larger scale actions Suppose a constellation of students studying to enter professional life forms study groups to explore a set of practices that contribute to the fragility of things as they simultaneously draw attention away from that contribution The students may pose untimely questions Such activities can also prime you to experiment with other role performances once you enter professional life If a lawyer you may organize to rethink your connections to the ugly prison system and to adjust your practice to protest its ugliness. Or you may give a portion of your time to challenge corporations localities and states that defile the environment. If a doctor you may organize voluntary medical care for the poor and publicize what you are doing. these experimentations make a modest difference on their own prime our capacities for more sensitive perception in other domains of life and may prepare us to participate with others in yet more adventurous activities These are minor moments but an accumulation of minor moments can jostle settled habits of perception. they can encourage a readiness to become more exploratory. and they can extend the time horizon within which we think and act Suppose you are middle- or upper-middle-class citizens in a polity that has competitive elections You have become increasingly dissatisfied with the course your society is taking. Voting seems radically insufficient Inequality has been extended lower reaches of society are left out in the cold and often blamed for the suffering they undergo. The news media are organized around scandal and a brief time horizon Racial differences are exploited to break up potential coalitions on the left. A large slice of the population is periodically suscep- tible to war fever. Climate change is widely subjected to deferral denial or formal acceptance disconnected from action. And the right wing actively promotes filibusters and legislative stalemates to encourage more and more people to withdraw from citizenship and to tolerate the privatization of more and more of life. you vote regularly. and you give time and money to your party. But you also find it difficult to connect the sentiments you profess to the role expectations sedimented into your practices of work church consumption neighborhood association investment portfolio children’s school artistic pursuits and local news reporting. Now is the time to join others in becoming role experimentalists . A series of minor role experiments. As we proceed our aspirational selves may now begin to exceed our operational selves and the shame we feel about the discrepancy between these two aspects of the self may generate energy to enter into yet new modes of role experimentation We begin to make ourselves and our engagements more experimental rather than simply falling into a ready- made set of role expectations As such experiments accumulate the ice in and around us begins to crack the shaky perceptions feelings and beliefs with which we started these experimentations now become more refined and more entrenched as these connections accumulate we may be more inspired to join macropolitical movements that speak to the issues as we now join protests slowdowns and confrontational meetings with corporate managers church leaders union officials university officials and neighborhood leaders we may now become more alert to the institutional pressures that propel these constituencies forward too</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Mengue turns this difference into opposition in suggesting that the position of majority is by nature opposed to the creativity of the minoritarian: majoritarian democratic politics inevitably 'crushes' creative becomings (Mengue 2003 102). According to this view to adopt the standpoint of the majority is always to abandon the standpoint of the untimely and the creative in favour of the state and established values. This is a misrepresentation of Deleuze and Guattari's view and an implausible view of democratic politics. Legislative measures introduced in a number of democracies in recent years have served to broaden the standard to include non-whites non-males and even to allow equal rights to homosexual partners. These measures suggest that far from 'crushing novelty' as Mengue suggests democratic politics can have its own forms of creativity. No doubt such measures have been implemented in response to micropolitical changes already underway. For this reason William Connolly reminds us that in order to be responsive to new claims for the reconfiguration of the standard democratic political life needs to be infused with a public ethos of critical engagement (Connolly 1999 51). For Deleuze and Guattari the different forms of minority becoming provide the impulse for change at the level of social and political institutions but this change only occurs to the extent that there is adaptation and incorporation on the side of the majority. When they say that the power of minorities 'is not measured by their capacity to enter into and make themselves felt within the majority system nor even to reverse the necessarily tautological criterion of the majority' they mean that the majorities do not determine the limits of the potential for transformation (Deleuze and Guattari 1987 471). They do not mean to suggest that minorities do not enter into and produce effects upon the majority. On the contrary they insist upon the importance of piecemeal changes to the form and content of a given majority: 'molecular escapes and movements would be nothing if they did not return to the molar organizations to reshuffle their segments their binary distributions of sexes classes and parties' (Deleuze and Guattari 1987 216–217).6 Deleuze and Guattari's insistence on the transformative potential of minoritarian becomings does not imply a refusal of democratic politics much less a rejection of democratic principles. The irreducible character of the difference in kind between majority and minority aligns them firmly with the proponents of democratic pluralism such as Connolly for whom the key to an open-ended democratic process lies in the 'productive tension' between majoritarian governance rights and recognition on the one hand and minoritarian becoming on the other (Connolly 2002 172). For Deleuze and Guattari it is precisely those excluded from the majority as defined by a given set of axioms who are the potential bearers of the power to transform that set whether in the direction of a new set of axioms or an altogether new axiomatic. These are the source of minoritarian becomings that carry the potential for new earths and peoples unlike like those found in existing democracies. </source> [/INST] <claim>Saying that the state is always bad is a terrible misreading of Deleuze – piecemeal reform is important and you should affirm it – rejecting the state in a totalizing way means the aff links to itself since they turn difference into opposition – creativity with democratic politics solves all their offense </claim> <psg>Mengue turns difference into opposition in suggesting majoritarian democratic politics inevitably 'crush creative becomings This is a misrepresentation of Deleuze and Guattari's view and an implausible view of democratic politics. Legislative measures introduced in a number of democracies have served to broaden the standard to include non-whites non-males and to allow equal rights to homosexual partners These measures suggest that far from 'crushing novelty' democratic politics can have its own forms of creativity such measures have been implemented in response to micropolitical changes already underway democratic political life needs to be infused with a public ethos of critical engagement this change only occurs to the extent that there is adaptation and incorporation on the side of the majority When they say that the power of minorities 'is not measured by their capacity to enter into and make themselves felt within the majority system nor even to reverse the necessarily tautological criterion of the majority' they mean that the majorities do not determine the limits of the potential for transformation they insist upon the importance of piecemeal changes 'molecular escapes and movements would be nothing if they did not return to the molar organizations to reshuffle their segments their binary distributions of sexes classes and parties' it is precisely those excluded from the majority as defined by a given set of axioms who are the potential bearers of the power to transform that set These are the source of minoritarian becomings that carry the potential for new earths and peoples unlike like those found in existing democracies</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Political ecology is integral to a counter-hegemonic reform agenda because it offers a substantive set of directions for a post-capitalist ecologically sustainable model of development. Returning to the brief discussion of resource sector workers above and to Raymond Williams's insistence that people need to be able to believe that “practical alternatives” are available it is clear that political ecologists must build coalitions to develop and negotiate transitional plans as well as new institutions. The starting points for such coalitions may be municipal or regional. the ways in which national and global institutions (treaties trade and investment agreements WTO rules jurisdictional division of powers etc.) constrain obstruct (or occasionally enable) changes at the local level will become clear soon enough and will point the way toward the coalitions and reforms needed at other scales. What is important as Williams observed is that: “while certain principles can be established all actual policies have to depend on new and difficult audits of resources which must by definition be specific. We can look first at the principles but their full practical bearings cannot be set down except in this place and that by [END PAGE 109] this enquiry and that in a sustained and necessarily negotiated process” (1983: 256). This conclusion directs our attention to what are in my view the critical tasks of the organic intellectuals of counter-hegemonic politics. There is of course the need to root political discourse in shared values and a common agenda of democratic reforms. Research must construct a solid account of the political economic cultural and ecological relationships operative within a given frame of action including the ways in which these relationships cross multiple scales (from the local to the global). This foundation is essential to identifying the agency of change and the resources needed to strengthen civil society and to develop a program and strategy for change. All of the social movements including the unions have important necessary roles to play in such planning and negotiation. </source> [/INST] <claim>Critique alone without action won’t do anything to mobilize lines of flight or political possibility.</claim> <psg>Political ecology is integral to counter-hegemonic reform because it offers substantive directions for a post-capitalist model of development people need to believe that “practical alternatives” are available it is clear that political ecologists must build coalitions to develop and negotiate new institutions What is important is that: “while certain principles can be established all actual policies have to depend on new resources which must be specific This conclusion directs our attention to what are the critical tasks of the organic intellectuals of counter-hegemonic politics. There is the need to root political discourse in shared values and a common agenda of democratic reforms. Research must construct a solid account of the political economic cultural and ecological relationships operative within a given frame of action including the ways in which these relationships cross multiple scales This foundation is essential to identifying the agency of change and the resources needed to strengthen civil society and to develop a program and strategy for change. All of the social movements have necessary roles to play in planning</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Yet for some reason at least partially explicated in Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country a book that I think is long overdue leftist critics continue to cite and refer to the eccentric and often a priori ruminations of people like those just mentioned and a litany of others including Derrida Deleuze Lyotard Jameson and Lacan who are to me hugely more irrelevant than Habermas in their narrative attempts to suggest policy prescriptions (when they actually do suggest them) aimed at curing the ills of homelessness poverty market greed national belligerence and racism. I would like to suggest that it is time for American social critics who are enamored with this group those who actually want to be relevant to recognize that they have a disease and a disease regarding which I myself must remember to stay faithful to my own twelve step program of recovery. The disease is the need for elaborate theoretical 'remedies' wrapped in neological and multi-syllabic jargon. These elaborate theoretical remedies are more 'interesting ' to be sure than the pragmatically settled questions about what shape democracy should take in various contexts or whether private property should be protected by the state or regarding our basic human nature (described if not defined (heaven forbid!) in such statements as 'We don't like to starve' and 'We like to speak our minds without fear of death' and 'We like to keep our children safe from poverty'). As Rorty puts it 'When one of today's academic leftists says that some topic has been 'inadequately theorized ' you can be pretty certain that he or she is going to drag in either philosophy of language or Lacanian psychoanalysis or some neo-Marxist version of economic determinism. . . . These futile attempts to philosophize one's way into political relevance are a symptom of what happens when a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach to the problems of its country. Disengagement from practice produces theoretical hallucinations'(italics mine).(1) Or as John Dewey put it in his The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy 'I believe that philosophy in America will be lost between chewing a historical cud long since reduced to woody fiber or an apologetics for lost causes . . . . or a scholastic schematic formalism unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own needs and its own implicit principle of successful action.' </source> [/INST] <claim>The alt cedes the political and turns us insular---turns their offense and feeds climate disasters.</claim> <psg>leftist critics continue to cite and refer to Deleuze who are to me hugely more irrelevant than Habermas in their narrative attempts to suggest policy prescriptions aimed at curing the ills of national belligerence and racism When one of today's academic leftists says that some topic has been 'inadequately theorized ' you can be pretty certain that he or she is going to drag in either philosophy of language or Lacanian psychoanalysis or some neo-Marxist version of economic determinism. . . . These futile attempts to philosophize one's way into political relevance are a symptom of what happens when a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach to the problems of its country. philosophy in America will be lost between chewing a historical cud or a scholastic schematic formalism unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own needs and its own implicit principle of successful action</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Now Deleuze understands perfectly well why ‘most of the objections raised against the great philosophers are empty’. Indignant readers say to them: ‘things are not like that […]. But in fact it is not a matter of knowing whether things are like that or not. it is a matter of knowing whether the question which presents things in such a light is good or not rigorous or not’ (ES 106). Rather than test its accuracy according to the criteria of representation ‘the genius of a philosophy must first be measured by the new distribution which it imposes on beings and concepts’ (LS 6). In reality then Deleuze concludes ‘only one kind of objection is worthwhile: the objection which shows that the question raised by a philosopher is not a good question’ that it ‘does not force the nature of things enough’ (ES 107. cC WP 82). Deleuze certainly forces the nature of things into conformity with his own question. Just as certainly however his question inhibits any consequential engagement with the constraints of our actual world. For readers who remain concerned with these constraints and their consequences Deleuze’s question is not the best available question. Rather than try to refute Deleuze this book has tried to show how his system works and to draw attention to what should now be the obvious (and perfectly explicit) limitations of this philosophy of unlimited affirmation. First of all since it acknowledges only a unilateral relation between virtual and actual there is no place in Deleuze’s philosophy for any notion of change time or history that is mediated by actuality. In the end Deleuze offers few resources for thinking the consequences of what happens within the actually existing world as such. Unlike Darwin or Marx for instance the adamantly virtual orientation of Deleuze’s ‘constructivism’ does not allow him to account for cumulative transformation or novelty in terms of actual materials and tendencies. No doubt few contemporary philosophers have had as an acute a sense of the internal dynamic of capitalism — but equally few have proposed so elusive a response as the virtual ‘war machine’ that roams through the pages of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Like the nomads who invented it this abstract machine operates at an ‘absolute speed by being “synonymous with speed”’ as the incarnation of ‘a pure and immeasurable multiplicity. an irruption of the ephemeral and of the power of metamorphosis’ (TP 336 352). Like any creating a war machine consists and ‘exists only in its own metamorphoses’ (T~ 360). By posing the question of politics in the starkly dualistic terms of war machine or state — by posing it in the end in the apocalyptic terms of a new people and a new earth or else no people and no earth — the political aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy amounts to little more than utopian distraction. Although no small number of enthusiasts continue to devote much energy and ingenuity to the task the truth is that Deleuze’s work is essentially indifferent to the politics of this world. A philosophy based on deterritorialisation dissipation and flight can offer only the most immaterial and evanescent grip on the mechanisms of exploitation and domination that continue to condition so much of what happens in our world. Deleuze’s philosophical war remains ‘absolute’ and ‘abstract’ precisely rather than directed or ‘waged’ [menee]. Once ‘a social field is defined less by its conflicts and contradictions than by the lines of flight running through it’ any distinctive space for political action can only be subsumed within the more general dynamics of creation or life. And since these dynamics are themselves anti-dialectical if not anti-relational there can be little room in Deleuze’s philosophy for relations of conflict or solidarity i.e. relations that are genuinely between rather than external to individuals classes or principles. </source> [/INST] <claim>Deleuzian philosophy cedes the political – the abstract and immaterial nature of the alternative is a utopian distraction</claim> <psg>Deleuze forces the nature of things into conformity with his question his question inhibits consequential engagement with the constraints of our world there is no place in Deleuze’s philosophy for any change mediated by actuality. Deleuze’s ‘constructivism’ does not allow him to account for transformation of actual materials and tendencies By posing the question of politics in dualistic terms of war machine or state Deleuze amounts to little more than utopian distraction Deleuze’s work is indifferent to the politics of this world A philosophy based on deterritorialisation and flight can offer only the most immaterial grip on the mechanisms of exploitation and domination that condition our world</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Unfortunately Connolly is inconsistent in this regard for he also positions Foucauldian self- artistry as an “essential preliminary to ” and even the necessary “condition of ” change at the macropolitical level.104 That is although Connolly claims that micropolitics and political movements work “in tandem ” each producing effects on the other 105 he sometimes privileges “action by the self on itself” as a starting point and necessary prelude to macropolitical change. This approach not only avoids the question of the genesis of such reflexive action and its possible harmful effects but also indicates that collective efforts to alter social conditions actually await proper techniques of the self. For example in a rich discussion of criminal punishment in the United States Connolly contends that “today the micropolitics of desire in the domain of criminal violence has become a condition for a macropolitics that reconfigures existing relations between class race crime and punishment.”106 Here and elsewhere in Connolly’s writing the sequencing renders these activities primary and secondary rather than mutually inspiring and reinforcing.107 It is a mistake to grant chronological primacy to ethical self-intervention however. How after all is such intervention credited with producing salient effects at the macropolitical level going to get off the ground so to speak or assuredly move in the direction of democratic engagement (rather than withdrawal for example) if it is not tethered from the beginning to public claims that direct attention to a specific problem defined as publicly significant and changeable? How and why would an individual take up reflexive work on the desire to punish if she were not already attuned at least partially to problems afflicting current criminal punishment practices? And that attunement is fostered crucially by the macropolitical efforts of democratic actors who define a public matter of concern and elicit the attention of other citizens.108 For reflexive self- care to be democratically significant it must be inspired by and continually connected to larger political mobilizations. Connolly sometimes acknowledges that the arts of the self he celebrates are not themselves the starting point of collaborative action but instead exist in a dynamic reciprocal relation with cooperative and antagonistic efforts to shape collective arrangements. Yet the self’s relation with itself is also treated as a privileged site the very source of democratic spirit and action. This tendency to prioritize the self’s reflexive relationship over other modes of relation defines the therapeutic ethics that ultimately emerges out of Foucault’s and to a lesser degree Connolly’s work. This ethics not only elides differences between caring for oneself and caring for conditions but also celebrates the former as primary or as Foucault says “ontologically prior.” An ethics centered on the self’s engagement with itself may have value but it is not an ethics fit for democracy. </source> [/INST] <claim>Ethical projects of self-creation must be tethered from the outset to advocacy for institutional change---the alt lapses into new-age individualistic therapy which demolishes collective political action</claim> <psg>Connolly positions self- artistry as an “essential preliminary to ” and even the necessary “condition of ” change at the macropolitical level although Connolly claims that micropolitics and political movements work “in tandem he privileges “action by the self on itself as a starting point and necessary prelude to macropolitical change. This approach not only avoids the question of the genesis of such reflexive action and its possible harmful effects but also indicates that collective efforts to alter social conditions actually await proper techniques of the self Connolly contends that “today the micropolitics of desire in the domain of criminal violence has become a condition for a macropolitics that reconfigures existing relations between class race crime and punishment the sequencing renders these activities primary and secondary rather than mutually inspiring and reinforcing It is a mistake to grant chronological primacy to ethical self-intervention How is such intervention credited with producing salient effects at the macropolitical level going to get off the ground or assuredly move in the direction of democratic engagement rather than withdrawal if it is not tethered from the beginning to public claims that direct attention to a specific problem defined as publicly significant and changeable? How and why would an individual take up reflexive work on the desire to punish if she were not already attuned to problems afflicting current criminal punishment practices? that attunement is fostered crucially by the macropolitical efforts of democratic actors For reflexive self- care to be democratically significant it must be inspired by and continually connected to larger political mobilizations Connolly acknowledges that the arts of the self he celebrates are not themselves the starting point of collaborative action but instead exist in a dynamic reciprocal relation with cooperative and antagonistic efforts to shape collective arrangements. Yet the self’s relation with itself is also treated as a privileged site This tendency to prioritize the self’s reflexive relationship over other modes of relation defines therapeutic ethics This ethics not only elides differences between caring for oneself and caring for conditions but also celebrates the former as primary or ontologically prior An ethics centered on the self’s engagement with itself is not an ethics fit for democracy</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Playfulness and a general lack of seriousness became another hallmark of theory. French philosophers Deleuze and Félix Guattari perhaps the most infamous innovators of the genre insisted that their anti-psychoanalytic tract Anti-Oedipus was not a work of philosophy in any traditional sense. By this they meant it did not seek to produce a unified worldview or to answer age-old questions about the reality of freedom or the legitimate authority of the state. The task of philosophy was instead the duo claimed in What is Philosophy? the creation of problems. Lost in this reformulation was any vision of philosophy as an attempt to make sense of the human life understood as limited by specific anthropological or historical constraints. Philosophy-as-theory was Guattari claimed ideally addressed “to people who are now between 7 and 15 years old.” Clearly disingenuous Guattari’s comment did however say something about the co-authors’ commitment to a child-like playfulness taking as much from geology and mathematics as they did from philosophy. Unlike the socialist political economy and philosophy of the early 20th century postwar theory was propelled not by any kind of practical engagement but by a constant demand for innovation and newness needed to keep up with a postwar political landscape that was thoroughly fragmented. The social transformations that theory attempted to make sense of—disillusionment with communism anti-colonial movements women’s liberation the existence of an underclass the continued existence of capitalism—undermined so many assumptions about the world held across the political spectrum that it was hard to see how any overarching ideas could synthesize them or whether theorists’ inability to do so should be considered a failure. Consequently the portrait that Philipp Felsch painted in The Summer of Theory: History of a Rebellion 1960-1990 is that of an open-ended journey rather than a decisive verdict on the value and usefulness of theory. Felsch’s account largely focuses on the radical publishing house Merve which made its name as a popularizer of theory in the German-speaking world. Founded in 1970 Merve was created by a generation for which the recent memory of the second world war was still strong. The divide between parents and their children many of whom perceived their elders to be bystanders to fascism motivated many postwar Germans to take up the political task of creating a liberal public sphere in the present. A key feature of this public sphere was an emphasis on discussion as conducive of civility and as an antidote to authoritarianism. Throughout this period the country’s leading intellectuals engaged in fierce public debates around the relationship between fascism and German culture. Theory in Felsch’s account emerges out of an attempt to take seriously that which “the bourgeois relegate to non-working hours as ‘culture ’” as the German philosopher Theodor Adorno writes in Minima Moralia. Art literature and music would in the publishers’ catalogue receive the same critical scrutiny previously reserved for politics following the example set by Adorno. Adorno’s book subtitled Reflections on a Damaged Life was a lodestar for a generation of young Germans such as Merve co-founder Peter Gente for whom the desire for discussion had not yet broken down the traditional hierarchical boundaries between intellectuals and their readership. These new readers were still willing to look for validation in traditions incapable of keeping up with the pace of societal transformation. (Felsch neatly illustrates this new incongruence between past and present by recounting episodes of various members of the growing public sphere seeking out Adorno’s advice on everything from sexual alienation to depression. Adorno’s response to these letters speaks both to the gap between himself and his readership and the sincerity with which he sought to understand this chasm. One correspondent remarked after meeting Adorno in person that she realized she had not been “looking for hope but for solidarity in my hopelessness.”) The desire for community already present in the cultishness that developed around the work of Adorno remains inextricable from the story of theory. This is the source of the ambivalence Felsch wrestles with throughout his narrative. Theory responded to a desire completely understandable in the context of postwar Germany of many leftists to be part of a community of the like-minded. It was a desire exacerbated by the Social Democratic Party’s abandonment of socialism in 1959 and consolidated by the hopelessness of left-wing terrorism during 1977’s “German Autumn.” But was it powerful enough to compel those would-be community members to ignore any scruples they would otherwise have about the intellectual or political value of the community created? Did theory advance a genuine critique of society or did it simply create subcultures unified by an increasingly self-referential use of language? The specter of theory as mere fashion already loomed over Merve as a negative exemplar. Merve’s editors were up until their last days insistent on describing themselves not as “professionals” but as “bookworms.” Merve’s self-appointed task was in Felsch’s words to “jump-start German Marxism out of its dogmatic standstill with boosts from Italy and France.” Not content with abstract theorizing Merve understood itself as pursuing revolutionary politics through letters. The political project the publisher sought to animate was one that afforded special privilege to theoretical discussion. Never willing to abandon the bourgeois idea of a public sphere being conducive to the healthy functioning of a society the collective motivated by their radical politics sought interlocutors among the migrant workers propping up postwar German industrial capitalism. In the northern city of Wolfsburg Merve’s editors descended on the 6 000 odd Italian guest workers employed in the local Volkswagen factory with the aim of discussing the latest Marxist theory in proletarian pubs. Their hope was that they would find there soil as fertile for political tumult as that which existed in the European coffee shops of the 17th century. Not only did this project in revolutionary outreach fail miserably proximity to the migrant workers during this sojourn exposed differences in outlook between Merve’s members. Shockingly while the collective lay on shared mattresses placed on the floor one of its members admitted a secret dream of having a family children and a garden. Bourgeois society had clearly not been transcended. Fractures within the private sphere continued to affect the project of building a public sphere. In the mid-70s Gente became romantically involved with a young student Heidi Paris with whom he collaborated as a fellow editor. His wife at the time Merve Lowien who lent her name to the publishing house would document the often-unsurprising gender dynamics at the company in Feminine Productive Power—Is There Another Economy? Experience in a Left Project. Market imperatives forced Merve to look for fresh theory a search that proved incompatible with the strictures of Marxist politics traditionally conceived. Of course temperamentally Merve’s editors were already prone to searching for new trends. Drug addicts social rejects and those deemed insane became the foci of Merve’s books and radical theory in the 1970s. Jean-François Lyotard author of The Postmodern Condition could proclaim during this period that all thinking about universal subjects such as the working class the human being or the citizen was “obsolete.” A hostility to the guidance sought by Adorno’s readers had started to emerge and a general skepticism towards the discipline present in education took the place of this early desire for instruction. Subsequently the writer as sage was replaced by the reader as the participant. The shift here was that the pace of production of new text meant that the only thing that remained fixed was the readership. The latter were active as consumers of cultural content while writers had to struggle to keep up with the latest trends. Unmoored from any fixed institutions or political worldview theory was free to turn to areas that its origin as a response to the trauma of the second world war had previously prevented it from engaging with. By the late ‘70s Merve was publishing books rehabilitating the conservative philosopher Ernst Jünger and the Nazi legal philosopher Carl Schmitt. Schmitt’s anti-liberal decisionism would have run afoul of Merve’s early discussion-centered conception of politics. In the heady days of theory however the far-right thinker’s conceptualization of politics in terms of opposition between friends and enemies proved perfectly amenable to the iconoclasm of the 1980s. In The Summer of Theory’s closing sections Felsch paints a portrait of an intellectual world completely detached from any real constituencies: American artists and musicians schmoozing in Berlin bars and discotheques with radical theorists speculating about the end of art. The social forces that made this dealignment possible are not in Felsch’s account brought to the fore. What we are presented with instead is an image of theory as a series of waves appearing above a body of water beneath which the quotidian realities of politics and everyday culture clash vigorously. The goal of eliminating the distinction between culture and politics results ironically in theory distancing itself from both. Consequently Felsch’s narrative arc leaves the reader with a decidedly pessimistic view of the relationship of theory to politics and culture. At its very best theory seems to be a balm for the despair caused by politics. at its worst an accommodation with an increasingly disorientating world. Unsurprisingly it was theory’s separation from Marxism a worldview that thought seriously about the relationship between ideas and politics that left it ill-equipped to understand the causes of its own transformations. The same holds true of attempts made by contemporary progressives to overturn sedimented prejudice and inequality by introducing concepts from the classroom. Marxism has always contended that social structures and institutions constrain the way we think not the other way around. We would do well to take this insight seriously if we are to try to bridge the gap between theory and practice. </source> [/INST] <claim>Their theory is over-reductionist and can’t ever materialize</claim> <psg>Playfulness and a general lack of seriousness became another hallmark of theory. French philosophers Deleuze and Félix Guattari insisted that their anti-psychoanalytic tract Anti-Oedipus was not a work of philosophy in any traditional sense it did not seek to produce a unified worldview or to answer age-old questions about the reality of freedom or the legitimate authority of the state The task of philosophy was instead the creation of problems Lost in this reformulation was any vision of philosophy as an attempt to make sense of the human life understood as limited by specific anthropological or historical constraints postwar theory was propelled not by any kind of practical engagement but by a constant demand for innovation and newness The social transformations that theory attempted to make sense of—disillusionment with communism anti-colonial movements women’s liberation the existence of an underclass the continued existence of capitalism—undermined so many assumptions about the world The divide between parents and their children many of whom perceived their elders to be bystanders to fascism motivated many postwar Germans to take up the political task of creating a liberal public sphere in the present Theory emerges out of an attempt to take seriously that which “the bourgeois relegate to non-working hours as ‘culture Theory responded to a desire completely understandable in the context of postwar Germany of many leftists to be part of a community of the like-minded. a desire exacerbated by the Social Democratic Party’s abandonment of socialism in 1959 and consolidated by the hopelessness of left-wing terrorism during 1977’s “German Autumn Jean-François Lyotard author of The Postmodern Condition could proclaim during this period that all thinking about universal subjects such as the working class the human being or the citizen was “obsolete A hostility to the guidance sought by Adorno’s readers had started to emerge and a general skepticism towards the discipline present in education took the place of this early desire for instruction the writer as sage was replaced by the reader as the participant it was theory’s separation from Marxism a worldview that thought seriously about the relationship between ideas and politics that left it ill-equipped to understand the causes of its own transformations. holds true of attempts made by contemporary progressives to overturn sedimented prejudice and inequality by introducing concepts from the classroom social structures and institutions constrain the way we think not the other way around We would do well to take this insight seriously if we are to try to bridge the gap between theory and practice.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> BAE Systems engages in sales of advanced weaponry to the United Kingdom’s allies globally directly contributing to the 7 665 airstrikes that have hit Syria in the last two years. Is it ethically accountable for the UK to be a leading power in creating advanced weaponry when it gives rise to unfavorable impacts on human life? Or are the net benefits of weapons as deterrents and economic stimuli a force for good? This article aims to create discussion around BAE Systems’ role as a weapons manufacturer and its impact around the world. Weapons as deterrents “There is in the world in which we all live the principle of speaking softly but carrying a big stick – and that very often encourages people to negotiate” argued Sir Roger Carr at the recent BAE Systems annual general meeting – “we try and provide our people our government our allies with the very best weapons the very best sticks they can have to encourage peace.” Applying ethics of care principles to the business of warmongering is useless in the realm of engineering rather one must take a pragmatic view of the ethical cycle. The question of whether BAE Systems conducts its advanced weaponry business ethically is grounded by the principle that conflict will always exist. as such it is human nature for distrust to fester. Hence a case can be made that to cease the supply of advanced weaponry to responsible nations would in fact not be principled martyrdom but ethical suicide. As Carr points out advanced weaponry can often prove a very effective deterrent to conflict in the first place – but furthermore as an influential western arms dealer BAE Systems also has the opportunity to minimize collateral damage in war zones. The supply of advanced weaponry with high levels of precision allows for targeted airstrikes that eliminate the specific threat to life posed by the target with a minimal loss of civilian life. Now contrast this with the alternative of withdrawing supply. Undoubtedly unprincipled arms distributors would step into cover the gap in the market supplying less precise weaponry. The most recent major example of aging unguided weaponry being supplied to a war zone is Russian support of President Assad’s disputed and morally reprehensible regime in Syria – which has since caused a humanitarian crisis in Aleppo. Permitting the growth of such regressive means of conflict (potentially including the rise of chemical weaponry) is the alternative to BAE supplying advanced weaponry and so abandoning western influence on the global arms market can only lead one way – to a greater disregard for international humanitarian law. In any case this cannot be considered a morally acceptable action – and so by default if nothing else the alternative of BAE Systems supplying sophisticated weaponry must be considered ethical. Such rationality illustrates why ethics of care fails to provide an acceptable moral solution in this case. Utilitarianism and regulation of the arms market From a utilitarian viewpoint the sustainment of powerful weaponry enables a country to defend its people and provide assistance in foreign conflicts where there is a suffering population. Doing so arguably protects a majority of people. Furthermore with the FTSE 100 index about to suffer from Brexit uncertainty the nation’s industrial future is at risk. BAE System’s economic contribution is critical for jobs in turbulent times. The UK defence industry employs 300 000 people supplies 10 per cent of the country’s manufacturing and engineering jobs and has a turnover of £35bn through 9 000 different companies. BAE Systems has a pivotal role in ensuring the UK economy’s prosperous future by being the real driver of the next skills generation: promoting STEM subject pathways through which graduates get into engineering. Additionally as a result of the profits from the manufacture and sale of arms BAE Systems provides a backbone of technical support to other market sectors – for example building solutions for other industries such as transport. including the digital transformation of the UK rail network. There are a number of key international weapons regulations whereby some governments have very robust arms trade control systems in place but other governments are fuelling the illicit and irresponsible trade in arms by having weak control systems or none at all. BAE Systems ensures risks like this are minimised by implementing an Arms Trade Treaty that reduces and prevents excessive conflict via making it difficult for armed groups that commit human rights abuses to acquire a ready flow of arms. The treaty provides an important framework for well-regulated defence trade and the reduction of illegal arms sales around the world. Money should be invested in diplomacy instead of fuelling war and destruction. BAE Systems deals with numerous countries which do not rank favorably on the human freedom index. The sale of advanced weaponry demonstrates solely an archaic form of diplomacy which is not apt for the modern world where conflict is rife and human life is priceless. Arms do not have to be the prime medium through which diplomacy is navigated. The UK should explore other avenues. China for all its prowess utilizes Pandas as a bargaining tool to advance their agenda with other world powers. Joseph Nye named this “Soft Power”. By using civilian instruments of national security such as strategic communications foreign assistance civic action and economic reconstruction – relationships are built on the exchange of culture and knowledge as opposed to exploiting their perceived insecurity. BAE Systems could incorporate promotion of this moral intellectualism into their budget where exchange of intelligence and civic action lead to stronger mutual relationships developing without the transfer of arms. Destruction created by the weaponry not only physically affects those that are targeted but also creates a long-term drop in quality of life for citizens. Millions of civilians have fled Syria due to the destruction of their homes and lack of basic amenities. Around two million people struggle to find clean water in Aleppo as airstrikes have been targeted the water infrastructure of the city and this has cut civilian access to clean drinking water. Furthermore refugee camps such as those in Za’atari camp in Jordan contain only temporary solutions for progressively longer-term issues such as maternity centres and wash blocks. This is the environment the next generation are being born into and are therefore starting life with an inherent handicap. BAE Systems could adopt an ethics of care framework which would allow them to reconsider and understand the severity of the consequences of their actions. principally selling such weapons. There is no foolproof way of determining the end user of advanced weaponry or of usage intentions – but by not producing such weaponry BAE Systems could avoid any risk of misuse. </source> [/INST] <claim>It causes a net reduction in violence</claim> <psg>Is it ethically accountable to be a leading power in creating advanced weaponry when it gives rise to unfavorable impacts on human life? Or are the net benefits of weapons as deterrents and economic stimuli a force for good? Weapons as deterrents we try and provide our people our government our allies with the very best weapons the very best sticks they can have to encourage peace one must take a pragmatic view of the ethical cycle to cease the supply of advanced weaponry to responsible nations would in fact not be principled martyrdom but ethical suicide. advanced weaponry can often prove a very effective deterrent to conflict in the first place – but furthermore as an influential western arms dealer BAE Systems also has the opportunity to minimize collateral damage in war zones. The supply of advanced weaponry with high levels of precision allows for targeted airstrikes that eliminate the specific threat to life posed by the target with a minimal loss of civilian life unprincipled arms distributors would step into cover the gap in the market supplying less precise weaponry Permitting the growth of such regressive means of conflict (potentially including the rise of chemical weaponry) is the alternative to BAE supplying advanced weaponry and so abandoning western influence on the global arms market can only lead one way – to a greater disregard for international humanitarian law. this cannot be considered a morally acceptable action From a utilitarian viewpoint the sustainment of powerful weaponry enables a country to defend its people and provide assistance in foreign conflicts where there is a suffering population. Doing so arguably protects a majority of people. other governments are fuelling the illicit and irresponsible trade in arms by having weak control systems or none at all Systems ensures risks like this are minimised by implementing an Arms Trade Treaty that reduces and prevents excessive conflict via making it difficult for armed groups that commit human rights abuses to acquire a ready flow of arms. Arms do not have to be the prime medium through which diplomacy is navigated. By using civilian instruments of national security such as strategic communications foreign assistance civic action and economic reconstruction – relationships are built on the exchange of culture and knowledge as opposed to exploiting their perceived insecurity. exchange of intelligence and civic action lead to stronger mutual relationships developing without the transfer of arms. There is no foolproof way of determining the end user of advanced weaponry or of usage intentions – but by not producing such weaponry BAE Systems could avoid any risk of misuse.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> In Exits to the Posthuman Future (2014) Arthur Kroker deploys a mutant strain of Marshall McLuhan’s (McLuhan and McLuhan 1988) medium theory to paint a dark picture of high-technology capitalist societies. At its most dire points this book appears to be an affirmation of Friedrich Nietzsche (1964) and Jean Baudrillard’s (1994) theses that God is dead and meaning is impossible. Advanced technology is the primary cause of this condition which is the posthuman era. Kroker contends that previous conceptions of the posthuman were misguidedly optimistic and that the posthuman must be grasped as a state of total indeterminacy in which a literally living technology dominates human agency. Yet there is a tension. Throughout the text there are moments of tangible hope for a traditionally humanistic future and perplexingly the book closes with an explicit call to recover the social and ethical values lost in the ravages of capitalism. In the end it is hard to say what this book is intended to do. Kroker’s dark posthumanist prognosis stands starkly juxtaposed with his latent humanism. Arthur Kroker is a postmodernist Canadian theorist who has been studying the intersections of technology and culture since the mid-1980s. This new book consists of several essays comprised of original material and new versions of previously presented material. It is wide-ranging in topic roving from drone warfare to Obama’s political rhetoric to media theory. In a high-speed and prolix style that recalls William Gibson’s cyberpunk fiction and the work of McLuhan and Paul Virilio Kroker sets out a way of thinking about contemporary high-technological society' that follows the McLuhanian insistence on the constant and unavoidable influence of media on humans—but inverts it. The theoretical linchpin of this text is the “dark tetrad” (p. 25) Kroker’s inversion of McLuhan’s four laws of media. McLuhan asserted that all media have four effects on individuals and societies: to enhance something to obsolesce something to retrieve something that was previously obsolesced and to intensify something to the point of its reversal (McLuhan & McLuhan 4988). Kroker presents another side to the tetrad which he describes following Jacques Derrida (2006) as “hauntological” (p. 193). The dark tetrad describes disappearance instead of enhancement substitution instead of obsolescence abandonment instead of retrieval and stasis instead of reversal (Kroker 2014). These four functions describe the actions of media from a non-anthropomorphic standpoint. This dehumanization of McLuhan is necessary Kroker asserts because a fundamental feature of the posthuman era is that technology has “in the most literal sense ... now come alive” (p. 28). Yet Kroker’s main interest here is not the autonomous artificial intelligences of transhumanist speculation nor is it the academic posthumanisms of Katherine Hayles (2008) or Donna Harraway (2000). Kroker’s posthuman age is “that historical moment when the power of technology turns back on itself effectively undermining traditional concepts such as subjectivity privacy and bounded consciousness in order to render all things truly uncertain and unknowable” (p. 7). It is a “dystopian phase of information technology” in which “the informatics of domination has appropriated the resistance spirit of the borderlands” (p. 96). Kroker argues that the permeable human/machine boundaries of Hayles and Hanaway have been superseded by7 all-encompassing machinic control. Kroker’s posthuman is thus a dark time for beings that still think of themselves as human. It is also a dark time because it is quite literally haunted. Kroker holds that: “the essence of the posthuman axiomatic inheres in the fact that technology now eagerly seeks out that which was previously marginalized as simultaneously ways of mobilizing itself as it effectively recodes every aspect of social and nonsocial existence” (p. 6). This is the hauntological aspect of media: that which was previously marginalized is resurrected by technologies to serve as their contents and reasons for being with no logic discernable to humans. The result is the bewildering posthuman era which Kroker adumbrates using the concepts of acceleration drift and crash. Acceleration will be familiar to readers of other postmodernist technology theorists such as Virilio and needs little elaboration. Crash depicts the collision between accelerated technologies and traditional human qualities. Drift is Kroker’s most compelling contribution to thinking the posthuman. Drift describes the perturbations of a society no longer directed by human intention but by myriad incremental and unpredictable mutations in the codes that underlie molar reality. Code drift “is the spectral destiny of the story of technology ” (p. 50) but it is also “nothing new ” (p. 52) in that human evolution is a history of sampling errors. The posthuman era is described as one of “drift culture” in that the randomness and non-teleological nature of the molecular realm takes over the molar. The dark tetrad is thus to be understood as a schematic of how code drift rearranges the world without intention or consciousness. Code drift converts humans to “data flesh” that fully absorbs the primary modernist disavowal—the sense of the absurd in all the great referentials—as its key conditions of possibility” (p. 53). Drift culture is the technological proof of existentialism. Kroker is quite brief on suggesting how we ought to proceed with social life in the drifting absurdity of the posthuman era. He devotes only a four-page epilogue to the question of what is to be done now. Not surprisingly given the existentialist tone of the work he advocates an aesthetic comportment toward the posthuman. Specifically he endorses an aesthetics based on Jean-Frangois Lyotard’s (2011) notion of the “figural” or adiscursive gestalt—presumably adapting it to grasp the adiscursivity of ubiquitous code: “Art of this (posthuman) order recodes the question of aesthetics by the creation of a mode of perception that fully opens to the discontinuous tire fragmentary the uncertain the reversal” (Kroker 2014 P-197)- This call for extreme openness evokes Nietzsche’s Dionysian mode of being in which destruction and creation possess equal valence but Kroker quickly qualifies this asserting that since: the posthuman condition has revealed decadence ... as the basic ontology of late capitalism the point of a figural art that would “harden worsen accelerate decadence” would be precisely the reverse that is to say it would draw into a greater visibility those intangible but very real impulses to social solidarity and ethical probity that haunt the order of the real. (p. 198) This foray into the supposedly posthuman ends with a call for the reinstatement of the most humanistic of principles. The idea seems to be that the novel form of living in the posthuman era is analogous to the collective yearnings of the “spirit of ’68.” </source> [/INST] <claim>Kroker’s thesis is wrong and they devolve into the same humanistic principles he criticizes</claim> <psg>Kroker deploys a dark picture of high-technology capitalist societies this appears to be an affirmation of Baudrillard’s theses that God is dead and meaning is impossible. Advanced technology is the primary cause of this condition which is the posthuman era. Kroker contends that previous conceptions of the posthuman were misguidedly optimistic and that the posthuman must be grasped as a state of total indeterminacy in which a literally living technology dominates human agency. Yet there is a tension the book closes with an explicit call to recover the social and ethical values lost in the ravages of capitalism Kroker’s dark posthumanist prognosis stands starkly juxtaposed with his latent humanism Kroker sets out a way of thinking about contemporary high-technological society' that follows the insistence on the constant and unavoidable influence of media on humans—but inverts it Kroker’s posthuman age is “that historical moment when the power of technology turns back on itself effectively undermining traditional concepts such as subjectivity privacy and bounded consciousness in order to render all things truly uncertain and unknowable” Kroker argues that the permeable human/machine boundaries have been superseded by machinic control The result is the bewildering posthuman era which Kroker adumbrates using the concepts of acceleration drift and crash Drift describes the perturbations of a society no longer directed by human intention but by myriad incremental and unpredictable mutations in the codes that underlie molar reality Kroker is brief on suggesting how we ought to proceed with social life Not surprisingly given the existentialist tone of the work he advocates an aesthetic comportment toward the posthuman This call for extreme openness evokes Nietzsche’s Dionysian mode of being in which destruction and creation possess equal valence This foray into the supposedly posthuman ends with a call for the reinstatement of the most humanistic of principles. The idea seems to be that the novel form of living in the posthuman era is analogous to the collective yearnings of the “spirit of ’68.”</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Moreover Heidegger maintains: ‘‘Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are ‘in themselves’ are defined ontologico-categorially.’’47 According to Heidegger’s fundamental phenomenology which he unfolds in detail in Being and Time and reaffirms a decisive part of in ‘‘The Question Concerning Technology ’’ nature is ‘‘primally’’ revealed in its ‘‘usability’’ and ‘‘serviceability-for-.’’ that is to say ‘‘nature’’ is a resource long before the actual rise of modern and ancient technology namely simultaneously with the very origin of human beings. That something is primordially revealed in its ‘‘usability’’ and ‘‘serviceability-for-’’ does not imply that it is actually used or serves accordingly but that it is revealed as standing ready to be utilized in the corresponding context. As such it is revealed as ‘‘standing-reserve.’’ This for example also corresponds to the empirical fact that prehistoric humans settled close to woods and rivers. In these areas they always had stockpiles of timber power for transportation and easy access to drinking water. Based on ‘‘The Question Concerning Technology’’ and completed through references to Being and Time we now have an interpretation of the origin of the essence of modern technology which traces back the characteristic revealing of das Gestell to the beginning of humankind.48 This does not imply that prehistoric technology is identical with contemporary technology. rather the third genealogy of the rule of das Gestell suggests that when ‘‘we still more primally’’ try to consider the origin of the challenging revealing characterizing the rule of das Gestell we in fact rediscover that it is connected to being human. The rule of das Gestell has challenged humans as long as they have existed. In this sense humans first and foremost exist under the rule of das Gestell.49 This also entails a revision and precision of Heidegger’s renowned formula characterizing the world-connectedness of human existence: being-in-the-world. Based on the comparison of ‘‘The Question Concerning Technology’’ and Being and Time human existence is better described as being-under-the-spell-of-das-Gestell. Trying to understand the various more-or-less explicit accounts of the origin of the rule of das Gestell in ‘‘The Question Concerning Technology’’ and the resulting ambiguity is not just an exercise nor only a way to criticize Heidegger. Rather it is a way to better understand the nuances and layers in Heidegger’s thinking concerning technology and to warn against a short-sighted ‘‘saving’’ from an alleged danger. If the challenging revealing of nature which characterizes the rule of das Gestell is taken seriously then we cannot avoid it just by revolutionizing our technology instead we must revise our very human existence. </source> [/INST] <claim>AND it’s biologically impossible---the thing that makes humans not chimpanzees is instrumental rationality <<< – they’ll assert that this argument naturalizes our model of thinking BUT that’s not a bad thing since we’re right – it’s their burden to prove efficacy in the short-term or the case obviously outweighs >>></claim> <psg>nature is revealed in its ‘‘usability’’ that is to say ‘‘nature’’ is a resource long before the actual rise of modern and ancient technology namely simultaneously with the very origin of human beings corresponds to the empirical fact that prehistoric humans always had stockpiles of timber power for transportation and easy access to drinking water genealogy suggests when ‘‘we still more primally’’ try to consider the origin of the challenging revealing characterizing the rule of das Gestell we in fact rediscover that it is connected to being human The rule of das Gestell has challenged humans as long as they have existed. In this sense humans first and foremost exist under the rule of das Gestell This entails a revision of Heidegger’s renowned formula characterizing the world-connectedness of human existence: being-in-the-world human existence is better described as being-under-the-spell-of-das-Gestell.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Kroker is correct that the science most prevalent in the 20th century is that of biology rather than physics and the most controversial technology therefore bio-technology. Kroker like much of the public not actually versed in the technology part of bio-technology jumps to the assumption that the small successes (such as bio-engineering bacteria to produce insulin) indicate that large scale human bio-engineering is ‘just around the corner’. The reality is far different — having just completed a short stint at a firm involved with Google in producing a genome variant search engine that meets all the security and identity management requirements that each genetic database owner puts on their data we’re not even at the point where a reasonably simple search for a given genome variant can be accomplished. </source> [/INST] <claim>Kroker is wrong – doesn’t understand biotechnology doesn’t understand his own philosophy and ignores that the will to technology is inevitable</claim> <psg>Kroker like much of the public not actually versed in the technology part of bio-technology jumps to the assumption that the small successes (such as bio-engineering bacteria to produce insulin) indicate that large scale human bio-engineering is ‘just around the corner’. The reality is far different we’re not even at the point where a reasonably simple search for a given genome variant can be accomplished.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> These policy positions require little analytical effort or political capital and let Democrats occasionally posture as morally superior by emphasizing “non-military tools” of foreign policy. The opposite alternative of a more rigid pacifism and anti-militarism though common in the grassroots progressive community has no consistently organized political presence on the Hill and thus also escapes thorough interrogation.75 For those outside the Beltway opposition to all things military offers the refuge of principle without critical justification or analysis. For many Democrats the Obama model was a strangely tolerable middle ground: a bipartisan budget mess made while a “responsible” president ramped up security interventions in enough secrecy to avoid nagging scrutiny or self-examination. Re-Politicizing Defense Despite the valiant efforts of some individuals there is no political home for responsible defense debate oversight and accountability.76 Yet with determination the left might find a real foothold in defense policy — without compromising progressive values. To be clear: There is substantial work to be done on figuring out what cohesive view of America’s role in the world the left can tolerate and advance. There is even greater work to be done on determining how to renew reuse and reform international institutions.77 But any such agendas would be well served by embracing a set of principles that make clear-eyed debate and evaluation of defense policy and execution an asset not an unforgiveable sin. Critical analysis of defense affairs is too often left to the technocratic and comparatively powerless “blob ” which can write a mean op-ed or tweet but has limited ability to engage the American people on its will and interests. And although Congress has willfully declawed itself so that it cannot maintain meaningful oversight of national security 78 its ability to stage and amplify policy debate for the American people is without parallel and it has tremendous latent potential to restore greater balance in civil-military relations. Congress’s absence and the associated de-politicization of national security affairs is costly. For instance the American public is deeply ambivalent about the 17-year conflict in Afghanistan and generally ignorant of the widespread activities of the war on terror.79 This is unsurprising: Congress too is disaffected often ignorant of where the U.S. military is even engaged 80 and has made little headway into questioning or shaping this intervention. The most substantive and serious debate about executive war authorities and the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism strategy has resulted in little more than a reauthorization proposal that still failed to move forward.81 Too many examples of political leaders’ stand-off or superficial approach to defense policy and execution abound. Military superiority is generally viewed as sacrosanct placed on “so high a pedestal as to render real debate meaningless.”82 That reverence infantilizes defense budget debates. Thanking troops for their service is a politicized ritual that divorces politicians and their constituents from the intent and costs of that service. With decisions on the needs of the U.S. military and sustaining legacy systems openly linked to the economies of congressional districts it’s understandable that skeptics of utilizing military tools have been unwilling to evaluate their merits. These must all change. While at its worst the political right treats the use of force abroad as a metric of patriotism and the size of the force as the measure of one’s love of America the political left ought to draw from its skepticism toward intervention and its faith in institutions to advance a more rational and accountable approach to national security. For years Robert Farley has highlighted that “progressives consistently underestimate the importance of discussions about military doctrine and technology ”83 taking what Michael Walzer calls “shortcuts”84 in their critiques of defense policy that relieve them from contributing to key debates. Instead of excusing themselves the left should instead propose legitimate questions about major shifts in force employment and development: Will it work? What are its goals? What is the U.S. national security apparatus learning? Why didn’t it work? Were U.S. objectives wrong? What did America change when it didn’t work? Will America do it again? What could be improved? What should America do now? Joining the Conversation Jackson’s notion of what a progressive “wager” on national security might look like in practice is useful filling the gap between the “Republican-lite” default and the stubbornness of anti-militarism. But the left’s diversity of thought can accommodate a wider playing field of potential alternative approaches to security than even he proposes. A true pacifist movement on the Hill and on the campaign trail dedicated to the advancement of non-military approaches but premised on analysis and logical arguments would be a serious advancement in national security and should be welcomed by the most ardent military advocates. Likewise a more prudent middle ground approach — one that is skeptical of but open to military might and intervention and demands a better return on investment of national security tools — should play a more prominent political role. The full range of the left’s national security spectrum should forcefully engage in oversight of the rationale for and quality of American forces and interventions abroad. The left should therefore consider adopting a series of principles on defense matters — including criteria for the use of force — that apply to the military-friendly and anti-militarist left alike. In practice this means acknowledging that there are valid political positions on matters of defense that lie somewhere in between “yes and” and “no never” and that trivializing them is harmful to America’s national security. There are alternatives to today’s counterterror strategy and it would not be an insult to the military to debate them. It’s entirely legitimate to study whether the military is equipped to face today’s threats without being accused of retreating from the world or starting with an artificial budget cut. It’s sensible to consider whether the planned growth of ground forces a 350-ship Navy or a 386-squadron Air Force are the right investments or political benchmarks.85 These questions involve choices and values and should not be avoided under the umbrella of a supposed technocratic bipartisan agreement. Just as important it’s essential that the left avoid becoming a caricature of itself that promotes simplistic and superficial positions that set rigid unserious standards. The left may not agree on the size or purpose of the military but it can agree America should strive for informed oversight and accountability. </source> [/INST] <claim>The alt’s rigid ideological rejection precludes any serious attempt at anti-militaristic politics---engagement is crucial to successful political pressure</claim> <psg>These policy positions require little analytical effort or political capital and let Democrats occasionally posture as morally superior by emphasizing “non-military tools” of foreign policy. The opposite alternative of a more rigid pacifism and anti-militarism though common in the grassroots progressive community has no consistently organized political presence and escapes thorough interrogation opposition to all things military offers the refuge of principle without critical justification or analysis Re-Politicizing Defense Despite the valiant efforts of some individuals there is no political home for responsible defense debate with determination the left might find a real foothold in defense policy — without compromising progressive values. To be clear: There is substantial work to be done on figuring out what cohesive view of America’s role in the world the left can tolerate and advance. There is even greater work to be done on determining how to renew reuse and reform international institutions But any such agendas would be well served by embracing a set of principles that make clear debate and evaluation of defense policy and execution an asset Critical analysis of defense affairs is too often left to the technocratic and comparatively powerless “blob ” which can write a mean op-ed or tweet but has limited ability to engage the American people on its will and interests although Congress has willfully declawed itself so that it cannot maintain meaningful oversight of national security its ability to stage and amplify policy debate for the American people is without parallel and it has tremendous latent potential to restore greater balance in civil-military relations. Congress’s absence and the associated de-politicization of national security affairs is costly the American public is deeply ambivalent about the 17-year conflict in Afghanistan and generally ignorant of the widespread activities of the war on terror This is unsurprising: Congress too is disaffected often ignorant of where the U.S. military is even engaged and has made little headway into questioning or shaping this intervention. The most substantive and serious debate about executive war authorities and the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism strategy has resulted in little more than a reauthorization proposal Too many examples of political leaders’ stand-off or superficial approach to defense policy and execution abound. Military superiority is generally viewed as sacrosanct placed on “so high a pedestal as to render real debate meaningless That reverence infantilizes defense budget debates These must all change the political right treats the use of force abroad as a metric of patriotism and the size of the force as the measure of one’s love of America the political left ought to draw from its skepticism toward intervention and its faith in institutions to advance a more rational and accountable approach to national security in their critiques of defense policy that relieve them from contributing to key debates. Instead of excusing themselves the left should instead propose legitimate questions about major shifts in force employment and development: Will it work? What are its goals? What is the U.S. national security apparatus learning? Why didn’t it work? Were U.S. objectives wrong? What did America change when it didn’t work? Will America do it again? What could be improved? What should America do now? Joining the Conversation A true pacifist movement on the Hill and on the campaign trail dedicated to the advancement of non-military approaches but premised on analysis and logical arguments would be a serious advancement in national security and should be welcomed by the most ardent military advocates a more prudent middle ground approach — one that is skeptical of but open to military might and demands a better return on investment of national security tools should play a more prominent political role. The full range of the left’s national security spectrum should forcefully engage in oversight of the rationale for and quality of American forces The left should therefore consider adopting a series of principles on defense matters including criteria for the use of force that apply to the military-friendly and anti-militarist left alike this means acknowledging that there are valid political positions on matters of defense that lie somewhere in between “yes and” and “no never” and that trivializing them is harmful to America’s national security These questions involve choices and values and should not be avoided under the umbrella of a supposed technocratic bipartisan agreement it’s essential that the left avoid becoming a caricature of itself that promotes simplistic and superficial positions that set rigid unserious standards. The left may not agree on the size or purpose of the military but it can agree America should strive for informed oversight and accountability</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Right now there is considerable discussion going on about the best way to do all these things. Tactics that make us feel good because they are exhilarating are not necessarily the same as effective tactics. They can in fact be precisely the opposite. History teaches us is that the ruling class the state and non-state institutions it controls as well as the right have learned the political judo whereby the left’s actions may be turned around and used to strengthen the right and weaken the left. Specifically we should learn from the history of the agent provocateur a specialist in manipulating conflict so as to benefit our enemies. Agents provocateurs are not merely enemy spies within the people’s movement. The provocateur has an even more sinister mission which sometimes has deadly results. What the provocateur frequently provokes is actions that either discredit the left or the people’s movement in the eyes of large numbers of people or which entrap the unwary into acts that will allow police to pounce accuse activists of plotting violent or other anti-social acts and then lock them up. Agents provocateurs have been known for well over a century in many countries. the breed was especially rife in tsarist Russia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the United States agents provocateurs often targeted labor union organizing efforts. Since the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War there are many accounts of the FBI other police bodies the military and private right-wing vigilante groups sending agents provocateurs into people’s organizations with the purpose of dividing disrupting and discrediting them and then laying them open to arrest and prosecution or worse. More radical than thou In the 1960s and 1970s there was a great outpouring of grassroots rejection of the policies domestic and international of the Cold War. The Civil Rights Movement plus the movement against the Vietnam War brought millions into the streets protesting courageously against the many injustices of our society. The Cold Warriors and the ruling class did not like this as they saw their interests threatened. So they developed open and covert strategies for undermining the new radicalism as well as the “old left” (communists and socialists). The idea was to make sure that the left did not continue to win over the support of the mass of the people of the United States to progressive and ultimately revolutionary socialist ideas. The “new left” tendencies that arose at this time included many positive features but had some dangerous flaws also. One flaw was that too often a fetish was made of the absolute right of anybody involved in an organization to express his or her opinion no matter how divergent from the main goals of the organization or to engage in any activity which was “radical” regardless of whether it helped or harmed the cause. This extreme liberalism laid many organizations open to manipulation of some of their weakest elements by agents provocateurs. There was also a tendency to compete to see who was most radical. The competition for revolutionary “cred” was a godsend for agents provocateurs who actively encouraged such competition. The lack of connections especially among campus-based white radicals to the working class and its politics exacerbated this trend by eliminating an important reality check. Picking off leaders and undermining public support There also tended to be a cult of leadership within many radical organizations which put their leaders into a vulnerable position in which they could be targeted for neutralization so as to undermine the whole movement. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI for instance put a huge amount of effort into neutralizing leaders. The agents provocateurs were deployed in such a way as to discredit the leaders and their organizations to create splits in the movement and in some cases to provoke violence which would lead to physical elimination of leaders plus a societal repudiation of the movement. The 1960s campus-based movement against the Vietnam War was a top target for agents provocateurs. There were several at work but one known as “Tommy the Traveler” was particularly memorable. He too concentrated on enticing impressionable young would-be “revolutionaries” to commit acts that would divide the movement while landing them in jail. Hoover a crusading anti-communist and paranoid racist paid particular attention to disrupting the highly-effective African American people’s movement often employing agents provocateurs to create friction within and between liberation organizations. This led to several murders. In 1967 for example agents provocateurs especially a certain William O’Neal described in a Nation article as “infatuated with weapons ” played a role in the police murder of Illinois Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Hampton had been suspicious of O’Neal because of his violent talk but others did not see through him with tragic results. O’Neal’s promotion of crackpot violent schemes should have been a giveaway. When O’Neal set up Hampton and Clark for a brutal murder by police acting under the orders of Cook County State’s Attorney Ed Hanrahan the perpetrators were able to convince sectors of the public that the Panthers were prone to violence and shot first which was untrue. Another example was the crime of Cerro Maravilla in Puerto Rico on July 25 1978. An agent provocateur Alejandro González Malavé working undercover for the Puerto Rican police enticed two idealistic young supporters of independence for Puerto Rico into a reckless act that cost them their lives. One was Carlos Enrique Soto Areví the son of one of Puerto Rico’s most important literary figures the novelist Pedro Juan Soto. The second was a self-taught worker Arnaldo Dario Rosado. Both were on fire with indignation at the colonialist treatment that Puerto Rico received at the hands of the United States (treatment which continues today). They wanted to demonstrate this indignation in some dramatic way. Their lack of practical political experience made them easy prey for González Malavé. He persuaded them that a noble act for their homeland would be to destroy some communications towers on the top of a hill called “Cerro Maravilla.” This was supposed to express solidarity with some imprisoned Puerto Rican independence fighters. The three kidnapped a taxi driver and forced him to drive them up to Cerro Maravilla. But when they arrived they found they had been led into a police ambush. As the armed police approached González Malavé identified himself as an agent but Soto and Rosado were killed and the “official” story was put out that they had been shot in a firefight with the cops. The right-wing pro-statehood governor at the time Carlos Romero Barceló hailed the police as heroes and the FBI helpfully pitched in to support the Puerto Rican Justice Department with the cover-up. However the police had left a “loose end ” namely the taxi driver who spoke to the press and revealed that in fact González Malavé was a police agent and that the two young men were still alive when he left the place. The police had entrapped the two men then murdered them after they surrendered. This became a big scandal and eventually led to prosecutions and the defeat of Romero Barceló’s party in the next elections. But the use of agents provocateurs to divide and isolate the Puerto Rican left has been unrelenting both before and after that incident. Disrupting today’s movements Such agent provocateur tactics surfaced again during the protests against the Iraq War and in the “Occupy” movement. In each case glib charismatic strangers wormed their way into protest organizations and then entrapped inexperienced young radicals to get involved in plans which were sometimes really just talk to engage in violence. A typical case is that of the “Cleveland bomb plot” of 2012. Another is the San Francisco Mission District riot of May 2012 when a mysterious black-clad contingent hijacked part of a peaceful “Occupy” demonstration and turned it toward random violence. In both cases the purpose of the provocateurs was to discredit the movement in the eyes of the public which otherwise might have been receptive to Occupy’s “99 percent versus one percent” message. This kind of manipulation still continues by all accounts. As before the purpose is to discredit the movement divide it deprive it of allies and set up leaders and organizations for repressive action while making sure that this repression will not produce a wave of public indignation as happened with the Cerro Maravilla case. The right and the ruling class always try to portray these people’s movements as violent because this is the alchemy best suited to turn public opinion against them. This is the main lesson to be learned from the agent provocateur experiences of the past. In the conditions of our country today injecting violent tactics into the mass movement of protest undermines that movement and plays the enemy’s game. Loose talk about violence can be just as dangerous. This danger is multiplied by the development of online communications and social media—there are no secrets now. Hijacking other people’s protest actions to “move them to a higher level ” meaning toward violent confrontations is really a dirty kind of pseudo-left politics. What is needed now is to build the movement into a great wave of rejection against the reactionary policies of the ruling class the right and the Trump administration and its allies. Let us work on that basis and avoid tactics that undermine it. </source> [/INST] <claim>State sabotages the alt</claim> <psg>Tactics that make us feel good because they are exhilarating are not the same as effective tactics They can be the opposite the state have learned political judo whereby the left’s actions may be turned around and used to strengthen the right and weaken the left we should learn from the history of the agent provocateur a specialist in manipulating conflict so as to benefit our enemies Agents provocateurs are not merely enemy spies The provocateur has an sinister mission the provocateur frequently provokes is actions that either discredit the left or the people’s movement in the eyes of large numbers of people or which entrap the unwary into acts that will allow police to pounce accuse activists of plotting violent or other anti-social acts and then lock them up there are many accounts of the FBI other police bodies sending agents provocateurs into people’s organizations with the purpose of dividing disrupting and discrediting them and then laying them open to arrest The Civil Rights Movement plus the movement against the Vietnam War brought millions into the streets protesting courageously against the many injustices of our society. The Cold Warriors and the ruling class did not like this as they saw their interests developed covert strategies for undermining the new radicalism The idea was to make sure that the left did not continue to win over the support of the mass of the people of the United States to progressive and ultimately revolutionary socialist ideas. There was also a tendency to compete to see who was most radical. The competition for revolutionary “cred” was a godsend for agents provocateurs who actively encouraged such competition The agents provocateurs were deployed in such a way as to discredit the leaders and their organizations to create splits in the movement and in some cases to provoke violence which would lead to physical elimination of leaders plus a societal repudiation of the movement. concentrated on enticing revolutionaries to commit acts that would divide the movement landing them in jail disrupting the highly-effective African American people’s movement often employing agents provocateurs to create friction within and between liberation organizations This led to several murders agent provocateur tactics surfaced during the protests against the Iraq War and in Occupy In each case glib charismatic strangers wormed their way into protest organizations and then entrapped inexperienced young radicals to get involved in plans which were sometimes really just talk to engage in violence the purpose of the provocateurs was to discredit the movement in the eyes of the public which otherwise might have been receptive to Occupy’s “99 percent versus one percent” message This kind of manipulation still continues As before the purpose is to discredit the movement divide it deprive it of allies and set up leaders and organizations for repressive action while making sure that this repression will not produce a wave of public indignation injecting violent tactics into the mass movement of protest undermines that movement and plays the enemy’s game</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Yet Bush’s wish to skirt the filter points to something profound in the desire for the political. He wants to transmit not the message but the noise. He wants the public to feel the funk the live intensities and desires that make messages affectively immediate seductive and binding.3 In his head a public’s binding to the political is best achieved neither by policy nor ideology but the affect of feeling political together an effect of having communicated true feeling without the distancing mediation of speech.4 The transmission of noise performs political attachment as a sustaining intimate relation without which great dramas of betrayal are felt and staged. In The Ethical Soundscape Charles Hirschkind talks about the role of “maieutic listening” in constructing the intimate political publics of Egypt.5 There the feeling tones of the affective soundscape produce attachments to and investments in a sense of political and social mutuality that is performed in moments of collective audition. This process involves taking on listening together as itself an object/scene of desire. The attainment of that attunement produces a sense of shared worldness apart from whatever aim or claim the listening public might later bring to a particular political world because of what they have heard. </source> [/INST] <claim>Alts that fiat substantial private actors are a voting issue---not assumed in the literature disincentivizes good research and overdetermines the debate</claim> <psg>Bush’s wish to skirt the filter points to something profound He wants to transmit not the message but the noise. He wants the public to feel the funk the live intensities and desires that make messages affectively immediate public’s binding to the political is best achieved by the affect of feeling political together This process involves taking on listening together as itself an object/scene of desire</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> . Public policy planners are tested in like manner when they attempt to stitch together institutional arguments from various and sundry inputs ranging from expert testimony to historical precedent to public comment. Just as intelligence managers find that algorithmic formal methods of analysis often don’t work when it comes to the task of interpreting and synthesizing copious amounts of disparate data public-policy planners encounter similar challenges. In fact the argumentative turn in public-policy planning elaborates an approach to public-policy analysis that foregrounds deliberative interchange and critical thinking as alternatives to “decisionism ” the formulaic application of “objective” decision algorithms to the public policy process. Stating the matter plainly Majone suggests “whether in written or oral form argument is central in all stages of the policy process.” Accordingly he notes “we miss a great deal if we try to understand policy-making solely in terms of power influence and bargaining to the exclusion of debate and argument.”51 One can see similar rationales driving Goodwin and Davis’s EPA debating project where debaters are invited to conduct on-site public debates covering resolutions craft ed to reflect key points of stasis in the EPA decision-making process. For example in the 2008 Water Wars debates held at EPA headquarters in Washington D.C. resolutions were crafted to focus attention on the topic of water pollution with one resolution focusing on downstream states’ authority to control upstream states’ discharges and sources of pollutants and a second resolution exploring the policy merits of bottled water and toilet paper taxes as revenue sources to fund water infrastructure projects. In the first debate on interstate river pollution the team of Seth Gannon and Seungwon Chung from Wake Forest University argued in favor of downstream state control with the Michigan State University team of Carly Wunderlich and Garrett Abelkop providing opposition. In the second debate on taxation policy Kevin Kallmyer and Matthew Struth from University of Mary Washington defended taxes on bottled water and toilet paper while their opponents from Howard University Dominique Scott and Jarred McKee argued against this proposal. Reflecting on the project Goodwin noted how the intercollegiate Switch-Side Debating Meets Demand-Driven Rhetoric of Science 107 debaters’ ability to act as “honest brokers” in the policy arguments contributed positively to internal EPA deliberation on both issues.52 Davis observed that since the invited debaters “didn’t have a dog in the fight ” they were able to give voice to previously buried arguments that some EPA subject matter experts felt reticent to elucidate because of their institutional affiliations.53 Such findings are consistent with the views of policy analysts advocating the argumentative turn in policy planning. As Majone claims “Dialectical confrontation between generalists and experts often succeeds in bringing out unstated assumptions conflicting interpretations of the facts and the risks posed by new projects.”54 Frank Fischer goes even further in this context explicitly appropriating rhetorical scholar Charles Willard’s concept of argumentative “epistemics” to flesh out his vision for policy studies: Uncovering the epistemic dynamics of public controversies would allow for a more enlightened understanding of what is at stake in a particular dispute making possible a sophisticated evaluation of the various viewpoints and merits of different policy options. In so doing the differing oft en tacitly held contextual perspectives and values could be juxtaposed. the viewpoints and demands of experts special interest groups and the wider public could be directly compared. and the dynamics among the participants could be scrutizined. This would by no means sideline or even exclude scientific assessment. it would only situate it within the framework of a more comprehensive evaluation.55 As Davis notes institutional constraints present within the EPA communicative milieu can complicate eff orts to provide a full airing of all relevant arguments pertaining to a given regulatory issue. Thus intercollegiate debaters can play key roles in retrieving and amplifying positions that might otherwise remain sedimented in the policy process. The dynamics entailed in this symbiotic relationship are underscored by deliberative planner John Forester who observes “If planners and public administrators are to make democratic political debate and argument possible they will need strategically located allies to avoid being fully thwarted by the characteristic self-protecting behaviors of the planning organizations and bureaucracies within which they work.”56 Here an institution’s need for “strategically located allies” to support deliberative practice constitutes the demand for rhetorically informed expertise setting up what can be considered a demand-driven rhetoric of science. As an instance of rhetoric of science scholarship this type of “switch-side public 108 Rhetoric & Public Affairs debate” differs both from insular contest tournament debating where the main focus is on the pedagogical benefit for student participants and first-generation rhetoric of science scholarship where critics concentrated on unmasking the rhetoricity of scientific artifacts circulating in what many perceived to be purely technical spheres of knowledge production.58 As a form of demand-driven rhetoric of science switch-side debating connects directly with the communication field’s performative tradition of argumentative engagement in public controversy—a different route of theoretical grounding than rhetorical criticism’s tendency to locate its foundations in the English field’s tradition of literary criticism and textual analysis.59 Given this genealogy it is not surprising to learn how Davis’s response to the EPA’s institutional need for rhetorical expertise took the form of a public debate proposal shaped by Davis’s dual background as a practitioner and historian of intercollegiate debate. Davis competed as an undergraduate policy debater for Howard University in the 1970s and then went on to enjoy substantial success as coach of the Howard team in the new millennium. In an essay reviewing the broad sweep of debating history Davis notes “Academic debate began at least 2 400 years ago when the scholar Protagoras of Abdera (481–411 bc) known as the father of debate conducted debates among his students in Athens.”60 As John Poulakos points out “older” Sophists such as Protagoras taught Greek students the value of dissoi logoi or pulling apart complex questions by debating two sides of an issue.61 The few surviving fragments of Protagoras’s work suggest that his notion of dissoi logoi stood for the principle that “two accounts [logoi] are present about every ‘thing ’ opposed to each other ” and further that humans could “measure” the relative soundness of knowledge claims by engaging in give-and-take where parties would make the “weaker argument stronger” to activate the generative aspect of rhetorical practice a key element of the Sophistical tradition.62 Following in Protagoras’s wake Isocrates would complement this centrifugal push with the pull of synerchesthe a centripetal exercise of “coming together” deliberatively to listen respond and form common social bonds.63 Isocrates incorporated Protagorean dissoi logoi into synerchesthe a broader concept that he used flexibly to express interlocking senses of (1) inquiry as in groups convening to search for answers to common questions through discussion.64 (2) deliberation with interlocutors gathering in a political setting to deliberate about proposed courses of action.65 and (3) alliance formation a form of collective action typical at festivals 66 or in the exchange of pledges that deepen social ties.67 Switch-Side Debating Meets Demand-Driven Rhetoric of Science 109 Returning once again to the Kettering-informed sharp distinction between debate and deliberation one sees in Isocratic synerchesthe as well as in the EPA debating initiative a fusion of debate with deliberative functions. Echoing a theme raised in this essay’s earlier discussion of intelligence tradecraft such a fusion troubles categorical attempts to classify debate and deliberation as fundamentally opposed activities. Th e significance of such a finding is amplified by the frequency of attempts in the deliberative democracy literature to insist on the theoretical bifurcation of debate and deliberation as an article of theoretical faith. Tandem analysis of the EPA and intelligence community debating initiatives also brings to light dimensions of contrast at the third level of Isocratic synerchesthe alliance formation. Th e intelligence community’s Analytic Outreach initiative invites largely one-way communication flowing from outside experts into the black box of classified intelligence analysis. On the contrary the EPA debating program gestures toward a more expansive project of deliberative alliance building. In this vein Howard University’s participation in the 2008 EPA Water Wars debates can be seen as the harbinger of a trend by historically black colleges and universities (hbcus) to catalyze their debate programs in a strategy that evinces Davis’s dual-focus vision. On the one hand Davis aims to recuperate Wiley College’s tradition of competitive excellence in intercollegiate debate depicted so powerfully in the feature film The Great Debaters by starting a wave of new debate programs housed in hbcus across the nation.68 On the other hand Davis sees potential for these new programs to complement their competitive debate programming with participation in the EPA’s public debating initiative. Th is dual-focus vision recalls Douglas Ehninger’s and Wayne Brockriede’s vision of “total” debate programs that blend switch-side intercollegiate tournament debating with forms of public debate designed to contribute to wider communities beyond the tournament setting.69 Whereas the political telos animating Davis’s dual-focus vision certainly embraces background assumptions that Greene and Hicks would find disconcerting—notions of liberal political agency the idea of debate using “words as weapons”70—there is little doubt that the project of pursuing environmental protection by tapping the creative energy of hbcu-leveraged dissoi logoi differs significantly from the intelligence community’s eff ort to improve its tradecraft through online digital debate programming. Such diff erence is especially evident in light of the EPA’s commitment to extend debates to public realms with the attendant possible benefits unpacked by Jane Munksgaard and Damien Pfister: 110 Rhetoric & Public Affairs Having a public debater argue against their convictions or confess their indecision on a subject and subsequent embrace of argument as a way to seek clarity could shake up the prevailing view of debate as a war of words. Public uptake of the possibility of switch-sides debate may help lessen the polarization of issues inherent in prevailing debate formats because students are no longer seen as wedded to their arguments. This could transform public debate from a tussle between advocates with each public debater trying to convince the audience in a Manichean struggle about the truth of their side to a more inviting exchange focused on the content of the other’s argumentation and the process of deliberative exchange.71 Re </source> [/INST] <claim>Objectivity in debate is good:</claim> <psg>Public policy planners are tested when they attempt to stitch together arguments from various and sundry inputs algorithmic formal methods of analysis often don’t work when it comes to the task of interpreting and synthesizing copious amounts of disparate data In fact the argumentative turn foregrounds alternatives to “decisionism ” the formulaic application of “objective” decision algorithms argument is central in all stages of the policy process we miss a great deal if we try to understand policy-making solely in terms of power influence and bargaining to the exclusion of debate and argument For example in the 2008 Water debates held at EPA resolutions were crafted Gannon and Seungwon Chung Wake Michigan State Wunderlich Abelkop Kallmyer and defended taxes on bottled water and toilet paper Dominique Scott and Jarred McKee argued the intercollegiate debaters’ ability to act as “honest brokers” in the policy arguments contributed positively to internal EPA deliberation Such findings are consistent with the views of policy analysts advocating the argumentative turn in policy planning Dialectical confrontation often succeeds in bringing out unstated assumptions conflicting interpretations of the facts and the risks posed by new projects This would by no means sideline or even exclude scientific assessment. it would only situate it within the framework of a more comprehensive evaluation. intercollegiate debaters can play key roles in retrieving and amplifying positions that might otherwise remain sedimented in the policy process switch-side debating connects directly with the communication field’s performative tradition of argumentative engagement a different route than rhetorical criticism’s tendency to locate its foundations in literary criticism and textual analysis Sophists taught Greek students the value of dissoi logoi or pulling apart complex questions by debating two sides of an issue one sees in synerchesthe fusion of debate with deliberative functions Tandem analysis of debating initiatives also brings to light deliberative alliance building Having a public debater argue against their convictions could shake up the prevailing view of debate as a war of words. Public uptake of the possibility of switch-sides debate may help lessen the polarization of issues because students are no longer as wedded to their arguments. This could transform public debate to a more inviting exchange focused on the content of the other’s argumentation Re</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Arthur Kroker suggests that the genetic engineering of the “codes” of life in humans and other organic resources at one end and the monitoring surveillance and precision targeting of the global population in space-based network warfare through full spectrum global dominance at the other represent the two extremes of this way of being in the world (legitimated in terms of “openness” of scientific inquiry and “security” of individuals and the species). Here life itself is pictured as both a network and an object of manipulation and control by informational technologies. Human nature and the environment are absorbed into culture and so culture/nature is pictured as a kind of standing reserve of manipulable networks. [21] [22] This is not a form of subjectivity and intersubjectivity that a person bears in one particular role among many. It is a communicative habitus that communicators tend to operate within at work and leisure on the home computer the cell phone the wireless laptop and the BlackBerry. When networkers put these more interactive modes of communication down they tend to turn to the technology of the communication of “affects”: radio television movies and videos. As a result this worldview and skill set is carried into other areas of life either colonizing them or disregarding them if they are inaccessible through the network technology. The form of subjectivity and intersubjectivity of network communicators is not an ideology or a worldview in the traditional sense. It is rather the opposite: a mode of being that is skilled in and accustomed to “worldviewing” — surfing through interacting with and negotiating a kaleidoscope of shifting ideologies and worldviews. Secular modernists western scientists indigenous peoples neo-liberals non-governmental organizations anti-globalization activists hyper-globalisers deep ecologists apocalyptic religious fundamentalists in the Bush administration and Bin Laden terrorist networks are all at home in this habitat. Yet it is not a neutral all-inclusive medium of communication. It substantially modifies the pre-network forms of subjectivity it includes transforming them into contingent and malleable worldviews civilizations codes programs and “scapes” yet paradoxically placing beyond question its own background horizon of disclosure of the world as a complex system of contingent and programmable networks. This taken-for-granted form of subjectification tends to come with the network and goes without saying. It is the characteristic form of subjectivity of network imperialism. We are just beginning to study and make explicit the tacit ways communication networks are re-organizing human subjectivity. Boaventura de Sousa Santos and other critical sociologists of network communication and control argue that the net brings with it in tandem with programmability other taken-for-granted ways of organizing and imagining experience privileging certain forms of communication communicative rationality knowledge problem solving cooperation and competition and production and consumption and discounting or excluding others.[23] Finally although this is a powerful new form of subjectivity and social ordering it is one form among many that we bear as modern subjects and we are not passive recipients of it (as we will see in section 3). </source> [/INST] <claim>They also link which demonstrates the alt’s futility---the structure of their argument the process through which it was written and the context in which they are articulating it in pursuit of the ballot obviously technologize communicative thought---AND their ability to dismiss this by saying sure but self-awareness and reflexivity inoculates us is precisely why we the perm solves</claim> <psg>Arthur Kroker suggests that the genetic engineering of the “codes” of life in humans and other organic resources at one end and the monitoring surveillance and precision targeting of the global population in space-based network warfare through full spectrum global dominance at the other represent the two extremes of this way of being in the world This is not a form of subjectivity and intersubjectivity that a person bears in one particular role among many. It is a communicative habitus that communicators tend to operate within at work and leisure on the home computer the cell phone the wireless laptop and the BlackBerry. When networkers put these more interactive modes of communication down they tend to turn to the technology of the communication of “affects”: radio television movies and videos. As a result this worldview and skill set is carried into other areas of life either colonizing them or disregarding them if they are inaccessible through the network technology The form of subjectivity and intersubjectivity of network communicators is not an ideology or a worldview in the traditional sense. It is rather the opposite: a mode of being that is skilled in and accustomed to “worldviewing” — surfing through interacting with and negotiating a kaleidoscope of shifting ideologies and worldviews. Secular modernists western scientists indigenous peoples neo-liberals non-governmental organizations anti-globalization activists hyper-globalisers deep ecologists apocalyptic religious fundamentalists in the Bush administration and Bin Laden terrorist networks are all at home in this habitat yet paradoxically placing beyond question its own background horizon of disclosure of the world as a complex system of contingent and programmable networks critical sociologists of network communication and control argue that the net brings with it in tandem with programmability other taken-for-granted ways of organizing and imagining experience privileging certain forms of communication communicative rationality knowledge problem solving cooperation and competition Finally although this is a powerful new form of subjectivity and social ordering it is one form among many that we bear as modern subjects and we are not passive recipients of it</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> If it is true that a situation is racist then it is absolutely true. It is not just my opinion or yours. But of course it may not be true. Or it may be partially true - in which case it absolutely is partially true as opposed to being completely true or not true at all. Defenders of absolute truth are not necessarily dogmatists. In any case dogmatism does just not mean thumping the table with one hand and clutching your opponent by the throat with the other. It means refusing to give grounds for your beliefs appealing instead simply to authority. There are plenty of courteous soft-spoken dogmatists. Holding something to be absolutely true does not mean affirming it against all conceivable evidence and argument and refusing in any circumstances to concede that you are mistaken. Those who believe in absolute truth may well be the kind of people who are pathologically cautious about accepting anything as true unless it seems plainly undeniable. They may stumble through life in a haze of scepticism and a miasma of doubt. It is just that when they do perhaps once every decade or so come grudgingly to accept a proposition such as ‘The head gardener has just shot himself through the foot’ as true they recognize that its opposite cannot also be true and that its being true for them means its being true for everyone else as well. Nor does ‘absolutely true’ mean true independently of any context. We can only judge the world from within some kind of framework. But this does not necessarily mean that what is true from one viewpoint is false from another. Elephants may be sacred for you but not for me if this represents a difference between our ways of signifying them. But it cannot be true that elephants really are sacred in the same way that they really have four legs and that they are in the same sense not sacred. Cultures make sense of the world in different ways and what some see as a fact others do not. but if truth simply means truth-for-us then there can be no conflict between us and other cultures since truth is equally just truth-for-them. This is tolerable enough when it comes to the sacred status of elephants as well as being extremely convenient for us if we hold that forcing sexual relations on toddlers contributes to their emotional well-being and psychological stability in later years and the culture next door does not. Since their view is entirely relative to their own way of life it can naturally have no effect on our behaviour. In any case if each cultural framework constructs the world differently enough it is hard to see how they could share the same proposition in common. A different world yields a different meaning. Absolute truth has nothing to do with fanaticism. It does not necessarily mean the kind of truth to which you are fervently committed. ‘Erlangen is in Germany’ is absolutely true but one would not go to one’s death for it. It is not the kind of truth which sets the blood coursing and quickens the heartbeat. It does not have the same emotional force as ‘You strangled my great-aunt you despicable bastard!’ Most absolute truths are pretty trivial. Much the same goes for the word ‘absolute’ when used in some moral discourse. For Thomas Aquinas ‘absolutely wrong’ does not necessarily mean ‘very very wrong’. The word ‘absolute’ here is not an intensifier. It just means ‘shouldn’t be done under any circumstances’. Aquinas thought rather strangely that lying was absolutely wrong but not killing. but he did not of course believe that lying was always more grievous an offence than killing. Being of reasonable intelligence he appreciated well enough that lying is sometimes pretty harmless. It was just that for him it was absolutely wrong. Absolute truth is not truth removed from time and change. Things that are true at one time can cease to be true at another or new truths can emerge. The claim that some truth is absolute is a claim about what it means to call something true not a denial that there are different truths at different times. Absolute truth does not mean non-historical truth: it does not mean the kind of truths which drop from the sky or which are vouchsafed to us by some bogus prophet from Utah. On the contrary they are truths which are discovered by argument evidence experiment investigation. A lot of what is taken as (absolutely) true at any given time will no doubt turn out to be false. Most apparently watertight scientific hypotheses have turned out to be full of holes. Not everything which is considered to be true is actually true. But it remains the case that it cannot just be raining from my viewpoint. Why does any of this matter? It matters for one thing because it belongs to our dignity as moderately rational creatures to know the truth. And that includes knowing the truth about truth. It is best not to be deceived if we can possibly help it. But it also matters because a ludicrous bugbear has been made of the word 'absolute' in this context. and because if the relativist is right then truth is emptied of much of its value. As Bernard Williams points out relativism is really a way of explaining away conflict.2 If you maintain that democracy means everyone being allowed to vote while I maintain it means that only those people may vote who have passed a set of fiendishly complicated intelligence tests there will always be a liberal on hand to claim that we are both right from our different points of view. If true loses its force then political radicals can stop talking as though it is unequivocally true that women are oppressed or that the planet is being gradually poisoned by corporate greed. They may still want to insist that logic is a ruling-class conspiracy but they cannot logically expect anyone to believe them. The champions of Enlightenment are right: truth indeed exists. But so are their counter-Enlightenment critics: </source> [/INST] <claim>Making truth claims is inevitable vital to solve either team’s impacts and unrelated to “imposing” truths violently</claim> <psg>If it is true that a situation is racist then it is absolutely true. It is not just my opinion or yours Or it may be partially true - in which case it absolutely is partially true as opposed to being completely true or not true at all. Defenders of absolute truth are not necessarily dogmatists. dogmatism does just not mean thumping the table with one hand and clutching your opponent by the throat with the other There are plenty of courteous soft-spoken dogmatists Holding something to be absolutely true does not mean affirming it against all conceivable evidence and argument and refusing in any circumstances to concede that you are mistaken Those who believe in absolute truth may well be the kind of people who are pathologically cautious about accepting anything as true unless it seems plainly undeniable It is just when they do perhaps once every decade or so come grudgingly to accept a proposition such as ‘The head gardener has just shot himself through the foot’ as true they recognize that its opposite cannot also be true and that its being true for them means its being true for everyone else as well. Nor does ‘absolutely true’ mean true independently of any context. We can only judge the world from within some kind of framework Elephants may be sacred for you but not for me if this represents a difference between our ways of signifying them But it cannot be true that elephants really are sacred in the same way that they really have four legs Cultures make sense of the world in different ways and what some see as a fact others do not but if truth simply means truth-for-us then there can be no conflict between us and other cultures This is tolerable enough when it comes to the sacred status of elephants as well as being extremely convenient for us if we hold that forcing sexual relations on toddlers contributes to their emotional well-being and psychological stability in later years and the culture next door does not it can naturally have no effect on our behaviour. if each cultural framework constructs the world differently enough it is hard to see how they could share the same proposition in common. A different world yields a different meaning. Absolute truth has nothing to do with fanaticism. It is not the kind of truth which sets the blood coursing and quickens the heartbeat It does not have the same emotional force as ‘You strangled my great-aunt you despicable bastard! Most absolute truths are pretty trivial. absolutely does not necessarily mean ‘very very wrong’ absolute’ here is not an intensifier It just means ‘shouldn’t be done under any circumstances’ Absolute truth is not truth removed from time and change The claim that some truth is absolute is a claim about what it means to call something true not a denial that there are different truths at different times Absolute truth does not mean non-historical truth: it does not mean the kind of truths which drop from the sky or which are vouchsafed to us by some bogus prophet from Utah they are truths which are discovered by argument evidence experiment investigation A lot of what is taken as (absolutely) true at any given time will no doubt turn out to be false Most apparently watertight scientific hypotheses have turned out to be full of holes Not everything which is considered to be true is actually true. But it remains the case that it cannot just be raining from my viewpoint. relativism is really a way of explaining away conflict If you maintain that democracy means everyone being allowed to vote while I maintain it means that only those people may vote who have passed a set of fiendishly complicated intelligence tests there will always be a liberal on hand to claim that we are both right from our different points of view If true loses its force then political radicals can stop talking as though it is unequivocally true that women are oppressed or that the planet is being gradually poisoned by corporate greed</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> One more recent development in organizational theorizing results from taking the problem of reflexivity seriously. Such organizational writers accept that both their own accounts and those generated by others are first and foremost linguistic constructions which operate according to established conventional linguistic codes. Theories of organization are deemed to be self-justifying 'intelligible narratives' which enable a community of inquirers to arrive at some consensus regarding their social experiences. As Gergen (1992) puts it: If there is one theme that unites most of those confronting the postmodern irony it is a certain sense of ludic humility. The view of knowledge‑making as a transcendental pursuit removed from the trivial enthralments of daily life pristinely rational and transparently virtuous becomes so much puffery. We should view these bodies of language we call knowledge in a lighter vein‑as ways of putting things together some pretty and others petty. (Gergen 1992: 215) Hence 'irony' 'self‑reflection' and 'playful seriousness' replace the rational quest for 'certain' or even 'partially true' knowledge of an external organizational reality. For these 'metareflexive' theorists both the bodyof‑knowledge claims in organization theory and their own claims are to be understood in a lighter vein as artistically crafted pieces of work in their own right. Theories generated mirror the concerns and preoccupations of the theorists themselves and do not as such claim any absolute grounded connexion with a reality beyond. Such writers would argue that these crafted pieces of 'linguistic web' contribute to the making of our organizational reality. </source> [/INST] <claim>The imagination and debate over competing words is artistic playful and scholarly simultaneously. </claim> <psg>Hence 'irony' 'self‑reflection' and 'playful seriousness' replace the rational quest for 'certain' or even 'partially true' knowledge of an external organizational reality. For these 'metareflexive' theorists both the bodyof‑knowledge claims in organization theory and their own claims are to be understood in a lighter vein as artistically crafted pieces of work in their own right. Theories generated mirror the concerns and preoccupations of the theorists themselves and do not as such claim any absolute grounded connexion with a reality beyond. Such writers would argue that these crafted pieces of 'linguistic web' contribute to the making of our organizational reality.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> JM: One of the things that I think is interesting about the approach is that it is both concerned with the creative limitations required for producing an event and also concerned with how various events resonate with each other and amplify each other. This seems to bring us back to the problem we discussed earlier regarding how an affective politics may have a global presence or work up to a scale larger than a single event. BM: Yes a micropolitical event can have broad range. What qualifies it as micropolitical is the way it happens not the dimensions it takes. By micropolitical we mean returning to the generative moment of experience at the dawning of an event to produce a modulatory commotion internal to the constitution of the event. It’s a question of reconnecting processually with what’s germinal in your living with the conditions of emergence of the situations you live. The idea is then to find a mechanism to pass that reconnection forward. Not impose it not even suggest it as a general model. Rather to give it as a gift a gift of self- renewing process. This question of event-propagation of processual seeding as part of a gift economy of revivifying experience is the problem of a large-scale micropolitics. The process itself has to be self-valorizing. It has to have a value in itself because the situation of the world Obama notwithstanding is not overall one of hope. The situation of the world is desperate. There’s no rational ground for hope. If you look at things rationally if you look at the increasing disparities of wealth and health in the world if you look at the spreading environmental destruction if you look at the looming disasters in the foundations of the economy if you look at the the energy crisis and the food crises affecting the globe and especially if you look at the way they interrelate if you look at the virulence of renascent nationalist sentiment and of the culture of war there is no hope. So the micropolitical question is how to live more intensely live more fully with augmented powers of existence within the limits of that desperate situation while finding ways to continue nevertheless chipping away at the macro problems. There’s a certain incompleteness to any micropolitical event like the events I was talking about. A lot of things that you feel were on the verge of taking shape didn’t quite happen. Potentials that you could just glimpse didn’t come into focus. The goal is not to overcome the incompleteness. It’s to make it compelling. Compelling enough that you are moved to do it again differently bringing out another set of potentials some more formed and focused others that were clearly expressed before now backgrounded. That creates a small moveable environment of potential. The goal is to live in that moveable environment of potential. If you manage to you will avoid the paralysis of hopelessness. Neither hope nor hopelessness—a pragmatics of potential. You have to live it at every level. In the way you relate to your partner and even your cat. The way you teach a class if you’re a professor. The way you create and present your art if you’re an artist. If you participate in more punctual events like the ones I was describing this will provide a continuous background for what comes of those events to disseminate into and diffuse through. A symbiosis of the special event and the day-to-day in creative connivance. This is not to say that operating in a more macro top-down manner is wrong or should not be undertaken. It’s just to say that if it’s done to the exclusion of micropolitical activity it’s mortifying even when it’s done for survival’s sake. Sometimes there is no alternative but to centrally impose certain enabling constraints. For example I’d be very happy if the transition to a renewable energy future or a global redistribution of wealth or a non-growth paradigm were imposed on the capitalist system. But high-level solutions of that kind are only part of the political equation and it’s not the part that the affective politics we’ve been talking about specifically addresses. Micropolitics is not programmatic. It doesn’t construct and impose global solutions. But it would be naïve to think that is separate from that kind of macro-activity. Anything that augments powers of existence creates conditions for micropolitical flourishings. No body flourishes without enough food and without health care. Micropolitical interventions need macro solutions. But success at the macropolitical level is at best partial without a complementary micropolitical flourishing. Without it the tendency is toward standardization. Since macropolitical solutions are generally applicable by definition by definition they act to curtail the variety and exuberance of forms of life. Macropolitical intervention targets minimal conditions of survival. Micropolitics complements that by fostering an excess of conditions of emergence. That inventiveness is where new solutions start to crystallize. The potentials produced at the micropolitical level feed up climbing the slope that macropolitics descends. Micropolitical and macropolitical go together. One is never without the other. They are processual reciprocals. They aliment each other. At their best they are mutually corrective. Even macro solutions designed to curtail micropolitical activity often end up feeding it by making it a necessity to invent new ways of getting by and getting around. Creative variation is the only real constant of politics. Deleuze and Guattari often made this point for example in their slogan that that the State is built on what escapes it. It has become a commonplace recently to say that we are in a situation where the end of the world is now imaginable—but the end of capitalism isn’t. That is definitely one “solution” that is not likely to come programmatically top-down— given who’s on top. The dismantling of capitalism is a “corrective” that will only come from a breaking of the reciprocity I was just talking about between the macro- and micropolitical. The prevailing operating conditions of macro/micropolitical reciprocity should not be taken to imply that the symmetry is never broken that a bifurcation can never occur. The complementarity can be broken in both directions. When macrostructures miniaturize themselves and work to usurp the ground of the micropolitical with scaled-down versions of the dominant generalities that is fascism. When micropolitical flourishings proliferate to produce a singularity in the sense of a systemic tipping point that’s revolution. The ultimate vocation of micropolitics is this: enacting the unimaginable. The symmetry-breaking point the point at which the unimaginable eventuates is but a cut “smaller” than the smallest historically perceivable interval. That is to say qualitatively different. A moment of a different color one you never see coming that comes when it’s least expected. Inevitably a next micro/macro complementarity will quickly settle in. But it will take a form that could not have been predicted but is now suddenly doable and thinkable. Micropolitics is what makes the unimaginable practicable. It’s the potential that makes possible. </source> [/INST] <claim>Perm do both – macropolitical and micropolitical action are compatible - the perm solves all their offense</claim> <psg>the approach is is both concerned with the creative limitations required for producing an event and also concerned with how various events resonate with each other and amplify each other an affective politics may have a global presence or work up to a scale larger than a single event. a micropolitical event can have broad range. What qualifies it as micropolitical is the way it happens not the dimensions it takes. By micropolitical we mean returning to the generative moment of experience at the dawning of an event to produce a modulatory commotion internal to the constitution of the event. It’s a question of reconnecting processually with what’s germinal in your living with the conditions of emergence of the situations you live The idea is then to find a mechanism to pass that reconnection forward. Not impose it not even suggest it as a general model. Rather to give it as a gift a gift of self- renewing process This question of event-propagation of processual seeding as part of a gift economy of revivifying experience is the problem of a large-scale micropolitics The situation of the world is desperate. There’s no rational ground for hope If you look at things rationally if you look at the increasing disparities of wealth and health in the world if you look at the spreading environmental destruction if you look at the looming disasters in the foundations of the economy if you look at the the energy crisis and the food crises affecting the globe and especially if you look at the way they interrelate if you look at the virulence of renascent nationalist sentiment and of the culture of war there is no hope the micropolitical question is how to live more intensely live more fully with augmented powers of existence within the limits of that desperate situation while finding ways to continue nevertheless chipping away at the macro problems There’s a certain incompleteness to any micropolitical event The goal is not to overcome the incompleteness. It’s to make it compelling. Compelling enough that you are moved to do it again differently bringing out another set of potentials some more formed and focused others that were clearly expressed before now backgrounded The goal is to live in that moveable environment of potential If you manage to you will avoid the paralysis of hopelessness Neither hope nor hopelessness—a pragmatics of potential You have to live it at every level. In the way you relate to your partner and even your cat. The way you teach a class if you’re a professor. The way you create and present your art if you’re an artist. If you participate in more punctual events like the ones I was describing this will provide a continuous background for what comes of those events to disseminate into and diffuse through. A symbiosis of the special event and the day-to-day in creative connivance. This is not to say that operating in a more macro top-down manner is wrong or should not be undertaken. It’s just to say that if it’s done to the exclusion of micropolitical activity it’s mortifying even when it’s done for survival’s sake Sometimes there is no alternative but to centrally impose certain enabling constraints. For example I’d be very happy if the transition to a renewable energy future or a global redistribution of wealth or a non-growth paradigm were imposed on the capitalist system high-level solutions of that kind are only part of the political equation and it’s not the part that the affective politics we’ve been talking about specifically addresses Micropolitics is not programmatic It doesn’t construct and impose global solutions it would be naïve to think that is separate from that kind of macro-activity Anything that augments powers of existence creates conditions for micropolitical flourishings. No body flourishes without enough food and without health care. Micropolitical interventions need macro solutions. But success at the macropolitical level is at best partial without a complementary micropolitical flourishing Without it the tendency is toward standardization Since macropolitical solutions are generally applicable by definition by definition they act to curtail the variety and exuberance of forms of life Macropolitical intervention targets minimal conditions of survival. Micropolitics complements that by fostering an excess of conditions of emergence That inventiveness is where new solutions start to crystallize Micropolitical and macropolitical go together At their best they are mutually corrective. Even macro solutions designed to curtail micropolitical activity often end up feeding it by making it a necessity to invent new ways of getting by and getting around. Creative variation is the only real constant of politics the State is built on what escapes it. It has become a commonplace recently to say that we are in a situation where the end of the world is now imaginable—but the end of capitalism isn’t. That is definitely one “solution” that is not likely to come programmatically top-down— given who’s on top The prevailing operating conditions of macro/micropolitical reciprocity should not be taken to imply that the symmetry is never broken that a bifurcation can never occur. The complementarity can be broken in both directions. When macrostructures miniaturize themselves and work to usurp the ground of the micropolitical with scaled-down versions of the dominant generalities that is fascism When micropolitical flourishings proliferate to produce a singularity in the sense of a systemic tipping point that’s revolution The ultimate vocation of micropolitics is this: enacting the unimaginable The symmetry-breaking point the point at which the unimaginable eventuates is but a cut “smaller” than the smallest historically perceivable interval A moment of a different color one you never see coming that comes when it’s least expected a next micro/macro complementarity will quickly settle in. But it will take a form that could not have been predicted but is now suddenly doable and thinkable. Micropolitics is what makes the unimaginable practicable. It’s the potential that makes possible. </psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> What is more our discussion in the previous section of the kinds of tools which can help deal with the political problem of urgency makes clear the variety of tempos at which such political practices take place. Sometimes it is a matter of embracing techniques and technologies which can accelerate our response times. Sometimes it is a matter of working vigorously to introduce institutional and political mechanisms which can slow down the pace of events. Sometimes it is a matter of creating slow spaces which can allow us to cultivate particular affects and habits through which we can respond effectively to an accelerating and uncertain world. Most importantly it always involves pushing for circumstances in which questions of technological acceleration are increasingly subject to democratic control rather than the vicissitudes of the market or control of the militaristic wings of the state. Again Wajcman is thoughtful on the question of accelerating technology: I want to argue that a more well-rounded understanding of the relationships between temporality and technology must inform an emancipatory politics of time. This involves the democratization of technoscience deciding what sort of technologies we want and how we are going to use them. Resisting technological innovation and calling for deceleration or a digital detox is an inadequate intellectual and political response. Indeed wistfully looking back to idealized slower time and mourning its passing has long been the preserve of conservative political theory. (26–27) Again this does not mean an uncritical embrace of accelerative technologies. It means rather an approach which refuses to presume a fundamental or necessarily ‘human’ pace which requires a unilateral deccelerationist stance. Indeed if at times this text seems to be more of a ‘pro-speed’ manifesto this is only because as Sharma points out it is fighting against a more broadly ‘anti-speed’ tendency in the literature. But this should not be mistaken for an uncritical or unthinking accelerationism. Indeed at several points throughout the text I will point to either specific contexts in which we might wish to reject or challenge accelerative technologies as well as provide general theoretical rubrics which might help us to judge the value and desirability of certain types of technological change. This rejection of an ‘either/or’ response to the question of speed and politics is another case in which our historical approach to speed is enlightening. Recognizing the reoccurring engagement with the political problem of speed throughout human history helps to show the insufficiency of either a pro- or anti-speed approach. It shows the way in which anti-speed accounts’ nostalgia for the slowness of the past was rarely experienced by the actual participants of those periods themselves. And for those who wish a vision of social acceleration as tied to a vision of human progress we see how repeated human societies articulate questions of speed in terms of danger and violence. Ultimately what this means is that in interrogating the question of speed and politics we must go beyond fast and slow. We must refuse to see it as a matter of either embracing speed or negating it but rather developing a nuanced and complex account of the ways in which social acceleration shapes bodies minds communities and futures and develop theories and tools which can tell us when we might want to accelerate and when we want to slow down when we want to embrace speed and when we want to reject it </source> [/INST] <claim>Perm do the aff and all non-mutually exclusive parts of the alt- Glezos concludes that totalizing accounts are bad</claim> <psg>our discussion in the previous section of the kinds of tools which can help deal with the political problem of urgency makes clear the variety of tempos at which such political practices take place Sometimes it is a matter of embracing techniques and technologies which can accelerate our response times Sometimes it is a matter of working vigorously to introduce institutional and political mechanisms which can slow down the pace of events Sometimes it is a matter of creating slow spaces which can allow us to cultivate particular affects and habits through which we can respond effectively to an accelerating and uncertain world a more well-rounded understanding of the relationships between temporality and technology must inform an emancipatory politics of time this does not mean an uncritical embrace of accelerative technologies. It means rather an approach which refuses to presume a fundamental or necessarily ‘human’ pace which requires a unilateral deccelerationist stance if at times this text seems to be more of a ‘pro-speed’ manifesto this is only because as Sharma points out it is fighting against a more broadly ‘anti-speed’ tendency in the literature this should not be mistaken for an uncritical or unthinking accelerationism This rejection of an ‘either/or’ response to the question of speed and politics is another case in which our historical approach to speed is enlightening the reoccurring engagement with the political problem of speed throughout human history helps to show the insufficiency of either a pro- or anti-speed approach anti-speed accounts’ nostalgia for the slowness of the past was rarely experienced by the actual participants of those periods themselves And for those who wish a vision of social acceleration as tied to a vision of human progress we see how repeated human societies articulate questions of speed in terms of danger and violence we must go beyond fast and slow We must refuse to see it as a matter of either embracing speed or negating a nuanced and complex account of the ways in which social acceleration shapes bodies minds communities and futures develop theories and tools which can tell us when we might want to accelerate and when we want to slow down when we want to embrace speed and when we want to reject it</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Many are understandably pessimistic about platforms and technology. This year has been a tough one from Cambridge Analytica and Russian trolls to the implementation of GDPR and data breaches galore. Those who think about the world about the problems that we see every day and about their own place in it will quickly realize the immense frailty of humankind. Fear and worry makes sense. We are flawed each one of us. And technology only seems to exacerbate those problems. But life is getting better. Poverty continues nose-diving. adult literacy is at an all-time high. people around the world are living longer living in democracies and are better educated than at any other time in history. Meanwhile the digital revolution has resulted in a glut of informational abundance helping to correct the informational asymmetries that have long plagued humankind. The problem we now face is not how to address informational constraints but how to provide the means for people to sort through and make sense of this abundant trove of data. These macro trends don’t make headlines. Psychologists know that people love to read negative articles. Our brains are wired for pessimism. In the shadow of a year of bad news it helpful to remember that Facebook and Google and Reddit and Twitter also support humane conversations. Most people aren’t going online to talk about politics and if you are then you are rare. These sites are places where families and friends can connect. They offer a space of solace – like when chronic pain sufferers find others on Facebook or when widows vent rage laugh and cry without judgement through the Hot Young Widows Club. Let’s also not forget that Reddit while sometimes a place of rage and spite is also where a weight lifter with cerebral palsy can become a hero and where those with addiction can find healing. And in the hardest to reach places in Canada in Iqaluit people say that “Amazon Prime has done more toward elevating the standard of living of my family than any territorial or federal program. Full stop. Period” Three-fourths of Americans say major technology companies’ products and services have been more good than bad for them personally. But when it comes to the whole of society they are more skeptical about technology bringing benefits. Here is how I read that disparity: Most of us think that we have benefited from technology but we worry about where it is taking the human collective. That is an understandable worry but one that shouldn’t hobble us to inaction. Nor is technology making us stupid. Indeed quite the opposite is happening. Technology use in those aged 50 and above seems to have caused them to be cognitively younger than their parents to the tune of 4 to 8 years. While the use of Google does seem to reduce our ability to recall information studies find that it has boosted other kinds of memory like retrieving information. Why remember a fact when you can remember where it is located? Concerned how audiobooks might be affecting people Beth Rogowsky an associate professor of education compared them to physical reading and was surprised to find “no significant differences in comprehension between reading listening or reading and listening simultaneously.” Cyberbullying and excessive use might make parents worry but NIH supported work found that “Heavy use of the Internet and video gaming may be more a symptom of mental health problems than a cause. Moderate use of the Internet especially for acquiring information is most supportive of healthy development.” Don’t worry. The kids are going to be alright. And yes there is a lot we still need to fix. There is cruelty racism sexism and poverty of all kinds embedded in our technological systems. But the best way to handle these issues is through the application of human ingenuity. Human ingenuity begets technology in all of its varieties. When Scott Alexander over at Star Slate Codex recently looked at 52 startups being groomed by startup incubator Y Combinator he rightly pointed out that many of them were working for the betterment of all: Thirteen of them had an altruistic or international development focus including Neema an app to help poor people without access to banks gain financial services. Kangpe online health services for people in Africa without access to doctors. Credy a peer-to-peer lending service in India. Clear Genetics an automated genetic counseling tool for at-risk parents. and Dost Education helping to teach literacy skills in India via a $1/month course. Twelve of them seemed like really exciting cutting-edge technology including CBAS which describes itself as “human bionics plug-and-play”. Solugen which has a way to manufacture hydrogen peroxide from plant sugars. AON3D which makes 3D printers for industrial uses. Indee a new genetic engineering system. Alem Health applying AI to radiology and of course the obligatory drone delivery startup. Eighteen of them seemed like boring meat-and-potatoes companies aimed at businesses that need enterprise data solution software application package analytics targeting management something something something “the cloud”. As for the other companies they were the kind of niche products that Silicon Valley has come to be criticized for supporting. Perhaps the Valley deserves some criticism but perhaps it deserves more credit than it’s been receiving as-of-late. Contemporary tech criticism displays a kind of anti-nostalgia. Instead of being reverent for the past anxiety for the future abounds. In these visions the future is imagined as a strange foreign land beset with problems. And yet to quote that old adage tomorrow is the visitor that is always coming but never arrives. The future never arrives because we are assembling it today. We need to work diligently together to piece together a better world. But if we constantly live in fear of what comes next that future won’t be built. Optimism needn’t be pollyannaish. It only needs to be hopeful of a better world. </source> [/INST] <claim>Unsustainability claims are suspect because our brains are wired for techno-pessimism – digital synchronicity can fix racism embedded in cybernetics thru human ingenuity and make the world materially better</claim> <psg>Many are pessimistic about technology from Cambridge Analytica and Russian trolls to GDPR and data breaches But life is getting better Poverty continues nose-diving. people around the world are living longer the digital revolution has resulted in informational abundance helping to correct the informational asymmetries that have long plagued humankind Psychologists know that people love to read negative articles. Our brains are wired for pessimism. yes there is a lot we still need to fix. There is cruelty racism sexism and poverty of all kinds embedded in our technological systems. But the best way to handle these issues is through the application of human ingenuity. Human ingenuity begets technology in all of its varieties startups had an altruistic focus online health services for people in Africa without access to doctors an automated genetic counseling tool for at-risk parents Perhaps the Valley deserves some criticism but perhaps it deserves more credit than it’s been receiving as-of-late. Contemporary tech criticism displays a kind of anti-nostalgia But if we constantly live in fear of what comes next that future won’t be built. Optimism needn’t be pollyannaish. It only needs to be hopeful of a better world</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Through policy debate students can develop information literacy and learn how to make critical arguments of fact. This experience is politically empowering for students who will also build confidence for political engagement. Information literacy While there are many definitions of information literacy the term generally is understood to mean that a student is “able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate evaluate and use effectively the information needed” for problem- solving and decision-making (Spitzer Eisenberg & Lowe 1998 p. 19). Information exists in a variety of forms in visual data computer graphics sound-recordings film and photographs. Information is also constructed and disseminated through a wide range of sources and mediums. Therefore “information literacy” functions as a blanket term which covers a wide range of more specific literacies. Critiques of service-learning’s knowl- edge-building power such as those articulated by Eby (1998) and Colby (2008) are chal- lenging both the emphasis the pedagogy places on information gained through experience and the limited scope of political information students are exposed to in the process. Policy debate can augment a student’s civic and political learning by fostering extended information literacies. Snider and Schnurer (2002) identify policy debate as an especially research intensive form of oral discussion which requires extensive time and commitment to learn the dimensions of a topic. Understanding policy issues calls for contemplating a range of materials from traditional news media publications to court proceedings research data and institutional propaganda. Moreover the nature of policy debate which involves public presentation of arguments on two competing sides of a question motivates students to go beyond basic information to achieve a more advanced level of expertise and credibility on a topic (Dybvig & Iverson n.d.). This type of work differs from traditional research projects where students gather only the materials needed to support their argument while neglecting contrary evidence. Instead the “debate research process encourages a kind of holistic approach where students need to pay attention to the critics of their argument because they will have to respond to those attacks” (Snider & Schnurer 2002 p. 32). In today’s attention economy cultivating a sensibility for well- rounded information gathering can also aid students in recognizing when and how the knowledge produced in their social environments can be effectively translated to specific contexts. The “cultural shift in the production of data” which has followed the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies means that all students are likely “prosumers”—that is they consume produce and coproduce information online all at the same time (Scoble 2011). Coupling service- learning with policy debate calls on students to apply information across registers of public engagement including their own service efforts and their own public argumentation in and outside of their debates. Information is used in the service experience which in turn informs the use of information in debates where students then produce new information through their argumentation. The process is what Bruce (2008) refers to “informed learning ” or “using information in order to learn.” When individuals move from learning how to gather materials for a task to a cognitive awareness and understanding of how the information-seeking process shapes their learning they are engaged in informed learning. Through this process students can come to recognize that information management and credibility is deeply disciplinary and historically con- textual (Bruce & Hughes 2010). This understanding combined with practical experience in locating information is a critical missing element in contemporary political engage- ment. Over 20 years ago Graber (1994) argued that one of the biggest obstacles to political engagement was not apathy but a gap between the way news media presents information during elections and the type of information voters need and will listen to during electoral campaigns. The challenge extends beyond elections into policy-making especially as younger generations continue to revise their notions of citizenship away from institutional politics towards more social forms of activism (Bennett Wells & Freelon 2011). For stu- dents to effectively practice more expressive forms of citizenship they need experience managing the breadth of information available about issues they care about. As past research indicates a strong correlation between service-learning experience and the motiv- ation and desire for post-graduation service it seems likely that students who debate about policy issues related to service areas will continue their informed learning practices after they have left the classroom (Soria & Thomas-Card 2014). Arguing facts In addition to building information literacies students who combine policy debate with service-learning can practice “politically relevant skills ” which will help them have confidence for political engagement in the future. As Colby (2008) explains this confidence should be tempered by tolerance for difference and differing opinions. On the surface debating about institutional politics might seem counterintuitive to this goal. Politicians and the press have a credibility problem among college-aged students and this leaves younger generations less inclined to feel obligated to the state or to look to traditional modes of policy- making for social change (Bennett et al. 2011. Manning & Edwards 2014). This lack of faith in government and media outlets also makes political argument more difficult (Klumpp 2006). Whereas these institutions once served as authoritative and trustworthy sources of information the credibility of legislators and journalists has decreased over the last 40 years or so. Today politicians and pundits are viewed as political actors interested in spectacle power and profit rather than truth-seeking or the common good. While some political controversies are rooted in competing values Klumpp (2006) explains that arguments about policy are more often based in fact. Indeed when engaged in public arguments over questions of policy people tend to “invoke the authority of facts to support their positions.” Likewise “the governmental sphere has developed elaborate legal and deliberative processes in recognition of the power of facts as the basis for a decision.” Yet while shared values are often quickly agreed upon differences over fact are more difficult to resolve. Without credible institutions of authority that can disseminate facts public deliberation requires more time information-gathering evaluation and reasoning. The Bush administration’s decision to take military action in Iraq for example was presumably based on the “fact” that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction. This has now become a classic example of poor policy-making grounded in faulty factual evidence. This shortcoming is precisely why policy debate is a valuable complement to service- learning activities. Not only can students use their developing literacies to better understand social problems they can also learn to access a broader range of knowledge sources thereby mitigating the absence of fact-finding from traditional institutions. Fur- thermore policy advocacy gives students experience testing the reasoning underlying claims of fact. Issues of source credibility analogic comparisons and data analysis are three examples of the type of critical thinking skills that students may need to apply in order to engage a question of policy (Allen Berkowitz Hunt & Louden 1999). While the effect may be to undermine government action in some instances in others students will gain a better understanding of when and where institutional activities can work to make change. As students gain knowledge about the relationship between institutional structures and the communities they serve they grow confidence in their ability to engage in future conversations about policy issues. Zwarensteyn’s (2012) research high- lights these sorts of effects in high school students who engage in competitive policy debate. Zwarensteyn theorizes that even minimal increases in technical knowledge about politics can translate to significant increases in a student’s sense of self-efficacy. Many students start off feeling very insecure when it comes to their mastery of insti- tutional politics. policy debate helps overcome that insecurity. Moreover because training in policy debate encourages students to address issues as arguments rather than partisan positions it encourages them to engage policy-making without the hostility and incivility that often characterizes today’s political scene. Indeed it is precisely that perceived hostility and incivility that prompts many young people to avoid politics in the first place. I do not mean to imply that students who debate about their service-learning experi- ences will draw homogenous conclusions about policies. Quite the contrary. Students who engage in service-learning still bring their personal visions and history to bear on their debates. As a result students will often have very different opinions after engaging in a shared debate experience. More importantly the practice of debating should operate to particularize students’ knowledge of community partners and clients working against the destructive generalizations and power dynamics that can result when students feel privileged to serve less fortunate “others.” For civic and political engagement through service-learning to be meaningful and productive it must do more to challenge students’ concepts of the homogenous “we” who helps “them.” Seligman (2013) argues that this civic spirit can be cultivated through the core pedagogical principle of a “shared practice ” which emphasizes the application of knowledge to purpose (p. 60). Policy debate achieves this outcome by calling on students to consider and reconsider their understanding of themselves institutions community and policy every time the question “should” may arise. As Seligman writes: ... the orientation of thought to purpose (having an explanation rest at a place a purpose) is of extreme importance. We must recognize that the orientation of thought to purpose is to recognize moving from providing a knowledge of to providing a knowledge for. This means that in the context of encountering difference it is not sufficient to learn about (have an idea of) the other rather it means to have ideas for certain joint purposes—for a set of “to-does.” A purpose becomes the goal towards which our explanations should be oriented. (p. 61) Put another way policy debate challenges students “to maintain a sense of doubt and to carry on a systematic and protracted inquiry” in the process of service-learning itself (Seligman 2013 p. 60). This is precisely the type of complex ongoing reflective inquiry that John Dewey had in mind. Political engagement through policy debate This essay began with a discussion of the growing attention to civic engagement programs in higher education. The national trend is to accomplish higher levels of student civic responsibility during and after their time in college through service-learning experiences tied to curricular learning objectives. A challenge for service-learning scholars and teachers is to recognize a distinction between civic activities that are accomplished by helping others and political activities that require engagement with the collective institutional structures and processes that govern social life. Both are necessary for democracy to thrive. Policy debate pedagogy can help service-learning educators accomplish these dual objectives. To call policy debate a pedagogy rather than just a style of debate is purposeful. A pedagogy is a praxis for cultivating learning in others. The pedagogy of service-learning helps students to know and engage social conditions through physical engagement with their environments and communities. Policy debate pedagogy leads students to know and engage these same social conditions while also challenging them to apply their knowledge for the purpose of political advocacy. These pedagogies are natural compliments for cul- tivating student learning. Therefore future studies should explore how well service-learn- ing combined with policy debate can resolve concerns that policy debate alone does not go far enough to invest students with political agency (Mitchell 1998). The present analysis suggests the potential for such an outcome is likely. Moreover research is clear that the civic effects of service-learning as an instructional method are improved simply by increasing the amount of time spent on in-class discus- sion about the service work students do (Levesque-Bristol Knapp & Fisher 2010). Policy debates related to students’ service can accomplish this goal and more. Policy debates can also facilitate the political learning students need to build their political efficacy and capacity for political engagement. Through informed learning about the political process—especially in the context of service practice—students develop literacies that will extend beyond the classroom. Using this knowledge in reasoned public argument about policy challenges invites students to move beyond cynical disengagement towards a productive recognition of their own potential voice in the political world. Policy debate pedagogy brings unique elements to the process of political learning. By emphasizing the conditional and dynamic nature of political arguments and processes debates can work to relieve students of the misconception that there is a single “right answer” for questions about policy-making and politics especially during election time. The communication perspective on policy debates also highlights students’ collective involvement in the ever-changing field of political terms symbols and meanings that constitute interpretations of our social world. In fact the historical roots of the term “communication” seem to demand that speech and debate educators call for such emphasis on political learning. “To make common ” the Latin interpretation of communicare situ- ates our discipline as the heart of public political affairs (Peters 1999). Connecting policy debate to service-learning helps highlight the common purpose of these approaches in efforts to promote civic engagement in higher education. </source> [/INST] <claim>Debating about hypothetical political action improves the capacity motivation and ability to inaugurate change in myriad areas of human activity </claim> <psg>Through policy debate students can develop information literacy and learn how to make critical arguments of fact. This experience is politically empowering for students who will also build confidence for political engagement. While there are many definitions of information literacy the term generally is understood to mean that a student is “able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate evaluate and use effectively the information needed” for problem- solving and decision-making Policy debate can augment a student’s civic and political learning by fostering extended information literacies Snider and Schnurer identify policy debate as an especially research intensive form of oral discussion which requires extensive time and commitment to learn the dimensions of a topic Understanding policy issues calls for contemplating a range of materials from traditional news media publications to court proceedings research data and institutional propaganda the nature of policy debate which involves public presentation of arguments on two competing sides of a question motivates students to go beyond basic information to achieve a more advanced level of expertise and credibility on a topic This type of work differs from traditional research projects where students gather only the materials needed to support their argument while neglecting contrary evidence the “debate research process encourages a kind of holistic approach where students need to pay attention to the critics of their argument because they will have to respond to those attacks In today’s attention economy cultivating a sensibility for well- rounded information gathering can also aid students in recognizing when and how the knowledge produced in their social environments can be effectively translated to specific contexts The “cultural shift in the production of data” which has followed the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies means that all students are likely “prosumers”—that is they consume produce and coproduce information online all at the same time Information is used in the service experience which in turn informs the use of information in debates where students then produce new information through their argumentation When individuals move from learning how to gather materials for a task to a cognitive awareness and understanding of how the information-seeking process shapes their learning they are engaged in informed learning In addition to building information literacies students who combine policy debate with service-learning can practice “politically relevant skills ” which will help them have confidence for political engagement in the future On the surface debating about institutional politics might seem counterintuitive to this goal. Politicians and the press have a credibility problem among college-aged students and this leaves younger generations less inclined to feel obligated to the state or to look to traditional modes of policy- making for social change This lack of faith in government and media outlets also makes political argument more difficult Whereas these institutions once served as authoritative and trustworthy sources of information the credibility of legislators and journalists has decreased Today politicians and pundits are viewed as political actors interested in spectacle power and profit rather than truth-seeking or the common good. arguments about policy are more often based in fact when engaged in public arguments over questions of policy people tend to “invoke the authority of facts to support their positions the governmental sphere has developed elaborate legal and deliberative processes in recognition of the power of facts as the basis for a decision Yet while shared values are often quickly agreed upon differences over fact are more difficult to resolve. Without credible institutions of authority that can disseminate facts public deliberation requires more time information-gathering evaluation and reasoning The Bush administration’s decision to take military action in Iraq for example was presumably based on the “fact” that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction. This has now become a classic example of poor policy-making grounded in faulty factual evidence. This shortcoming is precisely why policy debate is a valuable complement to service- learning activities Not only can students use their developing literacies to better understand social problems they can also learn to access a broader range of knowledge sources thereby mitigating the absence of fact-finding from traditional institutions policy advocacy gives students experience testing the reasoning underlying claims of fact Issues of source credibility analogic comparisons and data analysis are three examples of the type of critical thinking skills that students may need to apply in order to engage a question of policy As students gain knowledge about the relationship between institutional structures and the communities they serve they grow confidence in their ability to engage in future conversations about policy issues even minimal increases in technical knowledge about politics can translate to significant increases in a student’s sense of self-efficacy Many students start off feeling very insecure when it comes to their mastery of insti- tutional politics. policy debate helps overcome that insecurity because training in policy debate encourages students to address issues as arguments rather than partisan positions it encourages them to engage policy-making without the hostility and incivility that often characterizes today’s political scene it is precisely that perceived hostility and incivility that prompts many young people to avoid politics in the first place. the practice of debating should operate to particularize students’ knowledge of community partners and clients working against the destructive generalizations and power dynamics that can result when students feel privileged to serve less fortunate “others For civic and political engagement through service-learning to be meaningful and productive it must do more to challenge students’ concepts of the homogenous “we” who helps “them this civic spirit can be cultivated through the core pedagogical principle of a “shared practice ” which emphasizes the application of knowledge to purpose Policy debate achieves this outcome by calling on students to consider and reconsider their understanding of themselves institutions community and policy every time the question “should” may arise the orientation of thought to purpose (having an explanation rest at a place a purpose) is of extreme importance We must recognize that the orientation of thought to purpose is to recognize moving from providing a knowledge of to providing a knowledge for policy debate challenges students “to maintain a sense of doubt and to carry on a systematic and protracted inquiry” in the process of service-learning itself The national trend is to accomplish higher levels of student civic responsibility during and after their time in college through service-learning experiences tied to curricular learning objectives. A challenge for service-learning scholars and teachers is to recognize a distinction between civic activities that are accomplished by helping others and political activities that require engagement with the collective institutional structures and processes that govern social life. Both are necessary for democracy to thrive. Policy debate pedagogy can help service-learning educators accomplish these dual objectives To call policy debate a pedagogy rather than just a style of debate is purposeful A pedagogy is a praxis for cultivating learning in others Policy debate pedagogy leads students to know and engage these same social conditions while also challenging them to apply their knowledge for the purpose of political advocacy Policy debates related to students’ service can accomplish this goal and more Policy debates can also facilitate the political learning students need to build their political efficacy and capacity for political engagement Through informed learning about the political process—especially in the context of service practice—students develop literacies that will extend beyond the classroom Using this knowledge in reasoned public argument about policy challenges invites students to move beyond cynical disengagement towards a productive recognition of their own potential voice in the political world Policy debate pedagogy brings unique elements to the process of political learning By emphasizing the conditional and dynamic nature of political arguments and processes debates can work to relieve students of the misconception that there is a single “right answer” for questions about policy-making and politics especially during election time The communication perspective on policy debates also highlights students’ collective involvement in the ever-changing field of political terms symbols and meanings that constitute interpretations of our social world the historical roots of the term “communication” seem to demand that speech and debate educators call for such emphasis on political learning Connecting policy debate to service-learning helps highlight the common purpose of these approaches in efforts to promote civic engagement in higher education.</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> Scientists who reviewed IFLScience’s story found that it failed to provide sufficient context for this report—differentiating for example between speculative claims and descriptions of peer-reviewed research. In particular the story’s headline (“New Report Warns ‘High Likelihood Of Human Civilization Coming To An End’ Within 30 Years”) misrepresents the report as a likely projection rather than an exploration of an intrinsically unlikely worst case scenario. </source> [/INST] <claim>No ‘environment stress’ impact.</claim> <psg>‘High Likelihood Of Human Civilization Coming To An End’ Within 30 Years misrepresents the report as a likely projection rather than an exploration of an intrinsically unlikely worst case scenario</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> But the harshest critics have the story backwards. We are on the precipice of an epochal shift that will help make space travel cheaper safer and more accessible. Thanks to nearly two decades of reform at NASA American entrepreneurialism and ingenuity are flourishing in space. The story is told as a failure but it is actually a sign of success. </source> [/INST] <claim>Commercial space is crucial---their ev makes fun of revolutionary tech changes that socialists could only dream of innovating. </claim> <psg>We are on the precipice of an epochal shift that will help make space travel cheaper safer and more accessible</psg></s> |
<s>[INST] Construct an argument in XML format made of an argument claim (<claim>....</claim>) and selected passages from the source text (<psg>...</psg>). Use the source passage: <source> This entire history of space launches illustrates the problem with all government programs. A letter from von Braun to Lyndon Johnson (Von Braun W. 1961) marvelously demonstrates the ossified thinking that afflicted the plans for space travel of both Russia and the United States. In a missive intended to answer questions put forward by John F. Kennedy and forwarded by Johnson von Braun spelled out the capabilities and needs of the space program as compared to the Soviet Union. In this letter there are alternatives suggested: multi-stage super-rockets with liquid fuel rendezvous in Earth's orbit to enable the use of smaller launch vehicles strapping together several small rockets nuclear fuel and solid chemical propellants. This document goes on to discuss work hours shifts and whether 'we are making a maximum effort? Are we achieving necessary results?' </source> [/INST] <claim>Commercial space is vital to developing efficient and resilient techs capable of developing space. </claim> <psg>This entire history of space launches illustrates the problem with all government programs</psg></s> |