Ian Bogost and his commentators have some interesting reactions to K-Punk’s argument on ‘depressive hedonia’. First, Ian connects it to the never-ending debate over ‘hard’ theory:

Yet, as Fisher points out, when students “want Nietzsche in the same way that they want a hamburger” they miss the fact that “the indigestibility is Nietzsche.”

My answer here is probably to say that nothing is inherently worthwhile /because/ it is hard. It can perhaps, though, be good in spite of hardness, and the hardness (if measured in the depth of attention possible/required) can open a door oto stronger feeling/understanding.

Then there is an interesting comment about distraction as a defence mechanism. Of a student wearing headphones in class:

What if the student needed the headphones primarily as a type of anxiety management against the classroom, placing a symbolic barrier of sorts between himself and the room in which he was expected to participate with a degree of fluency, articulateness and incisiveness that, in this society, it’s just as likely he would feel eminently unequal to. To me, the headphones seem much more a way to insulate one from the angst of socio-academic participation in than it is “to be denied, for a moment, the constant flow of sugary gratification on demand.”

This, IMO, is also true as a much more general rule. The cycle of seeking new things, seeking short-term gratification or acceptance — it’s the result of insecurity. If you have the confidence of being surrounded by love and acceptance, you don’t need by-the-minute demonstration thereof.

Incidentally, for reference, this is the post which formed the basis for that section of Capitalist Realism.

On depth of pleasure…something not all that apposite, but which has been rocking around in my mind, and so which I may as well expunge by copying here.

Here’s Roger Ascham on Jane Grey, Anglicanism’s favourite geeky teenage quasi-martyr:

I came to Brodegate in Lecetershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady JaneGrey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with all the household Gentlemen and Gentlewomen were hunting in the Park: I found her in her Chamber, reading Phædon Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentleman would read a merry tale in Bocase. After salutation, and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her why she would carry out such pastime in the Park? smiling she answered me: I know all their sport in the Park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato: Alas good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant.

‘Informational Hygiene’ is a concept dreamt up by Neal Stephenson in his classic cyberpunk novel ‘Snow Crash’. Stephenson riffs on the idea of memes as mind viruses; his conceit is that memes exist with the power not only to propagate themselves and convey ideology as a side-effect, but to destroy the minds which play host to them. Ancient cultures, plagued by these mind viruses, developed forms of cultural protection against them:

Monocultures, like a field of corn, are susceptible to infections, but genetically diverse cultures, like a prairie, are extremely robust. After a few thousand years, one new language developed – Hebrew – that possessed exceptional flexibility and power. The deuteronomists, a group of radical monotheists in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., were the first to take advantage of it. They lived in a time of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, which made it easier for them to reject foreign ideas like Asherah worship. They formalized their old stories into the Torah and implanted within it a law that insured its propagation throughout history – a law that said, in effect, ‘make an exact copy of me and read it every day.’ And they encouraged a sort of informational hygiene, a belief in copying things strictly and taking great care with information, which as they understood, is potentially dangerous. They made data a controlled substance.

Information hygiene has developed a life beyond the pages of this book. [it’s not the only concept to do so — Snow Crash is also the book that inspired Google Earth]. It has a slighty creepy feel, but the principle is sound. The processes inside your head depend on what you put into it. So you should be careful about what you read, for example — an idea, even one you consciously disagree with, will have mental side-effects.

You could take informational hygiene as an injunction not to read, say, racist or sexist rants. I’m not so bothered about that side of things; I believe you can reject such ideas more-or-less consciously.

Informational hygiene is more interesting to me in the context of the attention economy. Political, social and cultural developments are dictated not just by what people believe, but by how much time they spend talking and thinking about it.

If a European spends all her time reading about politics in America, for example, she’ll end up feeling alienated and disempowered. She has few levers with which to change policy in another country, so learning in detail about it is a waste of intellectual and emotional effort. Better to learn about a topic she can affect, and the ways she can affect it.

Afghanistan. Still a war there. And every time you look away for a while, the news gets a bit worse.

Here is a horrifying story of bombing an Afghan village into oblivion. Except the writer isn’t horrified; in her eyes, this is a perfectly sensible military tactic. She’s incomprehending when one of the villagers “


in a fit of theatrics


” accuses the commander of “ruining his life”. Because blowing his home, and his neighbours’ homes, and their farmland, is a trivial thing to get annoyed about.

There are outraged posts and further information popping up online.

One of the best responses is from Joshua Foust, writing at Central Asia blog Registan. As he points out, this isn’t an individual outrage. It’s a standard tactic, something that the soldiers involved now barely see as controversial:

I cannot comprehend why the deliberate destruction of villages seems to be an official, sanctioned ISAF policy in the South. Is is abhorrent, an atrocity, and there is no excuse for it (nor are there words for the anger it’s stirred in me, reading about it from afar; I suspect Broadwell would sniff at me to stop whining as well, were we to discuss it in person). This should outrage and infuriate everyone who reads about it. But, and this is where I move from rage to despair: how could we ever possibly hope to stop it?

Afghanistan. Still a war there, y’know.

And every time you look away for a while, the news gets steadily worse.

Here is a horrifying story of bombing a village into oblivion. But the writer is in total sympathy with the military, and doesn’t understand how anybody could dislike their home being destroyed::

Mohammad [one of the villagers]…in a fit of theatrics had accused Flynn of ruining his life after the demolition

…

clearing operations are a necessary evil to weed out the Taliban, and they often leave devastating destruction in the wake. But [critics overlook] the tremendous effort some units, like 1-320th, have made to rebuild his country

There’s been entirely justified outrage at wired and at Central Asia blog Registan

what is happening right now in Southern Afghanistan is

inexcusable

. There were rumors of this policy of collective punishment in the Arghandab before (see this overwrought Daily Mail story that stops right before the village actually was destroyed for an idea of what is going on), and I’m really struggling to see how such behavior does not violate Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention—that is, how this behavior is not a war crime, especially given the explicit admission that such behavior is merely for the convenience of the soldier and not any grander strategy or purpose.

I cannot comprehend why the deliberate destruction of villages seems to be an official, sanctioned ISAF policy in the South. Is is abhorrent, an atrocity, and there is no excuse for it (nor are there words for the anger it’s stirred in me, reading about it from afar; I suspect Broadwell would sniff at me to stop whining as well, were we to discuss it in person). This should outrage and infuriate everyone who reads about it. But, and this is where I move from rage to despair: how could we ever possibly hope to stop it?

Extra horror: read the comments on any of the posts above. They’re all full of people defending the policy of blowing up villages for the good of the inhabitants.

In the soviet bloc, it was apparently common for punk gigs to happen in churches.

Punk groups were officially banned, or at the least subject to disapproval. The scene was monitored, and being known as a punk meant throwing away pretty much any chance of a career. In the official venues, it was a rare and brave promoter who would give them space.

…so the priests stepped in. Either as an extension of their youth-work, or because some priests were themselves punks — or because the church loathed the state almost as much as the punks did, so “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” applied.

Whatever the reasons, it happened. Certainly in Poland and East Germany, presumably elsewhere as well. It’s fairly well-known among people who lived through it, even as children.

But the internet is being oddly unbountiful with information. I’ve found a bit in German, including on a neo-nazi attack on a punk gig in a Berlin church, on “Blues” masses (which became punk masses), and a documentary. In English, this is about the most I’ve found.

But somewhere out there online, there must be a really good account, ideally complete with beautiful and incongruous photos. Help me; where is it?

The Guardian on the wife of the ousted president:

The former hairdresser and her extended family had a grip on business, construction and foreign investment, living a lifestyle so lavish

they would fly in food from other continents

for parties.

What’s hilarious is how this excess is something the supermarkets achieve constantly for European consumers. Just with much greater efficiency.

Criticism

Left-wing, liberal and Green MEPs however have expressed their dismay at a “delayed” and “weak” response to the killings by foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.

Emelie Doromzee, of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, told EUobserver that the EU should suspend its talks with the government and more strongly condemn the regime’s actions: “Until now, the language has been so far from what one would expect and sees elsewhere. The EU has put out a very weak statement. It’s past the stage of written statements. It’s almost a month now that these protests have been going on. We need concrete actions from the EU.”

John Samson, a mostly-ignored documentary-maker active in the 70s:

In 1977 Samson made Dressing For Pleasure, a documentary about ordinary people who enjoyed dressing in rubber and who approached their fetish with a matter of factness that seems almost quaint. The film was an immediate sensation among British fashion designers and within the London punk scene and was promptly banned as a video nasty. It ended becoming one of the most ripped off British films of the 1970s.