[Marxism-Thaxis] Thailand: challenging the heroic revolution archetype
Thailand: challenging the heroic revolution archetype by Somtow Sucharitkul ABC - Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Drum Unleashed May 20, 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2905056.htm I have been composing a long, day by day account of the troubles of the last three days, which I have not yet posted. The reason is that I've been getting a lot of mail asking me to explain the truth to people overseas. A lot of people here are astonished and appalled at the level of irresponsibility and inaccuracy shown by such major news sources as CNN, and are attributing the most astonishing motives to this, such as suggesting that they're in the pay of Thaksin and so on. I don't think this is really what is going on. Rather, I think that there are two basic problems: preconception and language. CNN first became a force to be reckoned with during the People Power movement in the Philippines. The kind of coverage we had for this was amazing. There was a camera in every camp, and we could follow this exciting revolution every step of the way. We knew exactly who to root for: the oppressed masses led by the widow of the iconic Aquino, and we knew that whenever President Marcos appeared he was Darth Vader, the symbol of an evil empire. The arc of the story was simple and inexorable. A whole new way of looking at the news was born, with all the excitement of a TV miniseries and, prophetically, a reality show as well. Of course, many of the little details of the story were conveniently glossed over. Reality was not - never is - so black and white. But there are three important things about this story: first, in its essentials, there was a lot of truth. And all the protagonists spoke English. The Philippines, as Filipinos never tire of telling me, is the third most populous English speaking country in the world. We will leave the definition of English-speaking to another blog, but it's very important that the various sides in this conflict were able to articulate their viewpoints in a language which CNN well understood. The third important thing about the story is that it fulfilled a vision of history that is an inseparable part of the inheritance of western culture, that is so ingrained in western thinking that it is virtually impossible for an educated member of western society to divorce himself from it. It is a vision of history as a series of liberations. From Harmodius and Aristogeiton throwing off the tyrant's yoke to the removal of the Tarquins and the establishment of the Roman Republic to the failed rebellion of Spartacus, from Magna Carta to the Bastille to the American Civil War to the Russian Revolution, there is this Platonic Model against which these big historical movements are always compared. There is a bad guy - often a dictator - who can be demonised. There is a struggling proletariat. The end comes with liberty and justice for all. This is Star Wars. The dark times. The Empire. The People Power coverage was riveting, compelling, and contained all the emotional components of this mythical story arc. Finding another such story, therefore, is a kind of Holy Grail for the international media. When a story comes that appears to contain some of the elements, and it's too much hard work to verify those elements or get all the background detail, you go with the Great Archetype of Western Civilisation. Now, let us consider the redshirt conflict. Let's not consider what has actually been happening in Thailand, but how it looks to someone whose worldview has been coloured with this particular view of history. Let's consider the fact that there is pretty much nothing being explained in English, and that there are perhaps a dozen foreigners who really understand Thai thoroughly. I don't mean Thai for shopping, bargirls, casual conversation and the like. Thai is a highly ambiguous language and is particularly well suited for seeming to say opposite things simultaneously. To get what is really being said takes total immersion. When you watch a red shirt rally, notice how many English signs and placards there are, and note that they are designed to show that these are events conforming to the archetype. The placards say Democracy, No Violence, Stop killing innocent women and children and so on. Speakers are passionately orating, crowds are moved. But there are no subtitles. What does it look like? The answer is obvious. It looks like oppressed masses demanding freedom from an evil dictator. Don't blame Dan Rivers, et al, who are only doing what they are paid to do: find the compelling story within the mass of incomprehensible data, match that story to what the audience already knows and believes, and make sure the advertising money keeps flowing in. A vigorous counter-propaganda campaign in clear and simple English words of one syllable has always been lacking and is the reason the government is losing the PR war while actually following the most logical steps toward a real and
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man
c b cb31450 at gmail.com Thu May 27 15:00:48 MDT 2010 Engels: First labour, after it and then with it speech – these were the two most essential stimuli under the influence of which the brain of the ape gradually changed into that of man, which, for all its similarity is far larger and more perfect. ^ CB: This seems to be a LaMarckian hypothesis. Of course, LaMarckianism is not anti-natural selection. It is anti-Mendelianism. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Opposable thumb
Engels: But the decisive step had been taken, the hand had become free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexterity; the greater flexibility thus acquired was inherited and increased from generation to generation. ^^^ CB: There is a qualitative leap in the development of dexterity in the hand in the opposable thumb. This differentiates apes and humans. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Why , oh, why are humans so thoroughly socially determined ?
Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity CeJ jannuzi at gmail.com ] CB: A demonstration is worth 10,000 words. But ten thousand words can get across the death barrier and a bodily demonstraton cannot .Most of what I'm saying, my premises are anthropology a,b,c. I'm just posing a little esoteric hypothesis for some basic anthropology. Alas, apparently 10,000 words didn't work for the Etruscans or the Egyptians or Ozymandias. ^ CB: Well, it worked to get across the death barrier for scores if not hundreds of generations. I'm not sure what you are talking about. Some of the Egyptian stuff and the others _did_ get across to us. We are not utterly ignorant of those cultures and lives. I think the only thing necessary for language and culture to get across the 'death barrier' is simply that there is another living generation in existence who can accept them before the previous generation dies off. That is all you have hinted at here as well. CJ ^^^ CB: My esoteric hypothesis is that language and culture can get across the death barrier but a live demonstrating experienced body cannot. My hypothesis is based on two very trivial truths. It is only interesting if you are part of the school of thought that says symboling-language-culture is the differentia specifica of the human species. The question arises why did symboling come to be so ubiquitous and omnipotent in human society ? Why all the social determinism ? Why not follow our instincts and genes as all other species do ? Why did humans come to be the culture bearing species (Leslie White's definition of humans) ? ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Evolutionary timeline for language: Chose a pensee
CB: Levi-Strauss' concepts for the below are both logic of the concretre and chose a pensee , things to think with ^^^. CB: The first language was probably not just in bodily parts. The first people arranged their landscape syntactically. Or named specific trees and rocks, bolders. In the begining was the Word in the form of Landmarks. The whole of their land was a language of the concrete. The prevalence of sacred spots as a way of For that matter they were astronomers. And mountain namers, hill namers, etc. The emphasis on Land as fundamental to preliterate culture comes through in the emphasis of Native Americans and Australian Aborigines on land recovery today. I wrote several papers on land recovery for the Yurok of Northwest California. The more general paper is Indigenous Knowledge in Aboriginal Land Recovery d So, the preliterate peoples were literate in terms of having a concrete writing system. Both movable stones, which remain, and no doubt moveable thousands of other objects which have dissolved, not been preserved like stones. And relatively immovable landmarks , and skymarks, like the sun, the moon, the stars. In sense, the Pyramids of Egypt and America are the final monuments to the stone age, obviously very complex cosmological monoliths, artificial mountains, artificial sacred geographical spots, b ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Human origin and rules
Early use of sound for language would likely included whistling and clicking , as well as the vocal chords. Head shakes , yes, no is simple but fundamental and powerful. It gives us negation . Here is a significant binary opposition. Also, sounds produced with instruments , tools, drums I'm not sure the concept of rule has been mentioned as a definitional feature of grammar, syntax. Humans can follow large amounts of rules. Culture, tradition, taboo are systems of rules of conduct Kinsystems are lots of rules. Rules are symbolic , built on symbols. CB ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Thailand
http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_battle_for_thailand ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why , oh, why are humans so thoroughly socially determined ?
Why , oh, why are humans so thoroughly socially determined ? CB: Well, it worked to get across the death barrier for scores if not hundreds of generations. I'm not sure what you are talking about. Some of the Egyptian stuff and the others _did_ get across to us. We are not utterly ignorant of those cultures and lives. Yes, of course, so Cecil B. Demille could completely recreate Egyptian culture on screen for us. Etruscan is a dead language of unknown origin and affiliation. Egypt is now Arabic language. The 'ancient' cultures' to which you refer were not stone age, nor were they altogether as ancient as many people think. However, those cultures did not survive; they are extinct. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Apple Overtakes Microsoft
Apple Overtakes Microsoft Prove more than anything that the .com bubble didn't go away, it just farted its way into a handful of stocks. Both Apple and MS are bubble-valued stocks, because hope never dies apparently. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] How the GOP Became the White Man's Party
Although Goldwater was not the man to lead them into their promised land, this supports my idea that we need to account for Goldwaterism too. Now we see Buchanan can't lead some of them out into populist nationalism because he is a Catholic. CJ http://www.alternet.org/rights/147004/how_the_gop_became_the_white_man%27s_party?page=4 Such obdurate pronouncements proved too ideological for the 1964 electorate. When a journalist asked Goldwater what it might feel like to become president one day, he had replied, Frankly, it scares the hell out of me. Voters agreed, and he picked up just 52 of 538 electoral votes. Even as the Arizona senator fell far short in his drive for national power, however, he proved an able revolutionary within his own party. Unlike any politician since Prohibition, he made crime a galvanizing national campaign issue. By winning five ex-Confederate states plus his own, he proved that Republicans could compete in the solid South, and he shifted the party's center of gravity to the Sunbelt. Proclaiming famously that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, he drove liberals like his primary opponent Nelson Rockefeller into Republican exile. Within a single election cycle he repositioned the Grand Old Party as the standard bearer of opposition to civil rights. Only two years earlier, poll respondents had perceived almost no difference between the two major parties when it came to race. By late 1964, however, Americans overwhelmingly identified Democrats with civil rights and Republicans with a go-slow, states' rights approach. The sea change was apparent at party gatherings, where the conservative journalist Robert Novak was dismayed to hear a new cadre of GOP activists conversing freely about niggers and nigger lovers. Under Goldwater's leadership, he concluded, the Republican Party was now a White Man's Party. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
