Recording Surface

A brief thought on the NSA’s monitoring of civilian phone calls:

At the Long Sunday discussion, Jodi Dean asks, “Where is the outrage?” There is no outrage, it seems to me, because everyone already knew they were being listened in on. The so-called revelations and leaks only confirmed what everyone already assumed. Indeed, the public acknowledgement is a necessary part of an effective spying program: Surveillance in itself is only partially efficacious; to be truly successful, the observed subjects must know they are being watched.

Consequently, the lack of outrage indicates to me a crisis not in the subjects of but for the society of control itself. This crisis seems to be now reaching a crescendo, but it didn’t just begin. Usually benchmarked to September 11 for convenience’s sake, it actually reaches further back, to the profitability crisis of the late 90s and the contemporaneous emergence of visible anticapitalist movements. In short, the crisis in the society of control is also the crisis of neoliberalism. As George Caffentzis has said, the problem with the demise of neoliberalism is that there is no heir apparent, no social-economic order waiting to take its place, as, for example, neoliberalism stepped in for Keynesianism. Society of control/neoliberalism’s insufficiency to the task means that the only mechanisms of control available are the instruments of disciplinary society, which explains the Bushist (not to mention Blairist, Chiracist, Howardian, etc.) reversion to old institutions: permawar, the family, the nation. The state’s reactionary reaction signals its desperation and dire need for a new set of tools.

None of this is meant to diminish the horrible consequences of the crisis. As Deleuze and Guattari said in a different context, a discredited idea is more dangerous than an article of faith, because the priests are replaced by the police.

Four weeks after my last post to the blog, I think I’m finally ready to break my silence. Sorry, dear readers, for the long, unannounced pause, but a brutal workload combined with familial health problems forced other priorities on me. I hope to have some new postings in the next few days, including one I promised in honor of Marx’s birthday, which was almost two weeks ago.

Speaking of which, following is some of what I dug during my break: Archive’s and Pinocchio Theory’s posts on Marx, as well as Nate’s birthday present to Old Whiskers, a translation of choice sections from Virno’s Il ricordo del presente, a yummy treat for us monolinguals. Commie Curmudgeon noted Marx’s birthday, but also wrote great posts on, to describe them narrowly and reductively, the streets of lower Manhattan and the politics of housesharing.

Perhaps because I needed an escape, music-related things occupied my reading time (the soundtrack to which included Monk/Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, Sonic Youth, Why?, Gould’s first take on the Goldberg Variations, and Blackalicious): K-Punk on the Fall, Straight No Chaser on Miles month, and Mountain*7 on Jim O’Rourke, postrock, Archie Shepp, and Albert Ayler.

See you soon.