1. A long paragraph from a book I am currently working through by Jacques Rancière:
The legitimacy of state power is thereby reinforced by the very affirmation of its impotence, of its lack of choice faced with the world-wide necessity it is dominated by. The theme of the common will is replaced by that of the lack of personal will, of capacity for autonomous action that is anything more than just management of necessity. From an allegedly defunct Marxism, the supposedly reigning liberalism borrows the theme of objective necessity. Marx's once-scandalous thesis that governments are simple business agents for international capital is today obvious fact on which "liberals" and "socialists" agree. The absolute identification of politics with the management of capital is no longer the shameful secret hidden behind the "forms" of democracy; it is the openly declared truth by which our governments acquire legitimacy. In this process of legitimization, any demonstration of capability needs to be based on a demonstration of powerlessness. The dreams of politically astute housewives at the stove or of simple laborers rising up against fate are opposed by the theme of a reverse Marxism: optimizing the pleasures of the individuals is only possible on the basis of their acknowledged inability to manage the conditions of this optimization. The state then establishes its authority based on its ability to internalize common powerlessness, to determine the thin ground, the "almost nothing" of a possible on which everyone's prosperity as well as the maintenance of the community bond depends. On the one hand, this almost nothing is posited as so little it is not worth the trouble of fighting over with the managers of the state machine. But, on the other hand, it is posited as the decisive minute difference that separates the prosperity to come from the misery hanging over us, the social bond from looming chaos, a minute difference too decisive and too sustained not to be left to the experts, to those who know how, by placing 0.5 percent of the Gross National Product on one side rather than on the other, we pass over to the good or the bad side of the line, from prosperity to the brink of ruin, from social peace to a general coming apart at the seams. Management of abundance thus becomes identical with crisis management. It is management of the sole possible necessity that must be incessantly anticipated, followed, planned, put off, day in, day out. The management of this "almost nothing" is also an uninterrupted demonstration of the identity between the legitimate state and the expert state, of the identity between the power of this state and its powerlessness, a power that internalizes the identity of the great power of enterprising and contracting individuals and groups with the powerlessness of the demos as a political force.
- from Jacques Rancière, Dis-agreement, p113-114 (emphases added)
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
1. That these numbers are so high is terrifying to me:
A 2002 literature review of elective abortion rates found that 91–93% of pregnancies in the United States with a diagnosis of Down syndrome were terminated. Data from the National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register in the United Kingdom indicates that from 1989 to 2006 the proportion of women choosing to terminate a pregnancy following prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome has remained constant at around 92%.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down%27s_Syndrome#Screening
A 2002 literature review of elective abortion rates found that 91–93% of pregnancies in the United States with a diagnosis of Down syndrome were terminated. Data from the National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register in the United Kingdom indicates that from 1989 to 2006 the proportion of women choosing to terminate a pregnancy following prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome has remained constant at around 92%.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down%27s_Syndrome#Screening
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