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“Like a tropical storm, I, too, may one day become ‘better organized.”
― The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
― The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
“Emotions and the feelings are not a luxury, they are a means of communicating our states of mind to others. But they are also a way of guiding our own judgments and decisions. Emotions bring the body into the loop of reason.”
― Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
― Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
“[W]hat counts as ‘realistic’, what seems possible at any point in the social field, is defined by a series of political determinations. An ideological position can never be really successful until it is naturalized, and it cannot be naturalized while it is still thought of as a value rather than a fact. Accordingly, neoliberalism has sought to eliminate the very category of value in the ethical sense. Over the past thirty years, capitalist realism has successfully installed a ‘business ontology’ in which it is simply obvious that everything in society, including healthcare and education, should be run as a business. … [E]mancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.”
― Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
― Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
“the "small goodness" from one person to his fellowman is lost and deformed as soon as it seeks organization and universality and system, as soon as it opts for doctrine, a treatise of politics and theology, a party, a state, and even a church. Yet it remains the sole refuge of the good in being. Unbeaten, it undergoes the violence of evil, which, as small goodness, it can neither vanquish nor drive out. A little kindness going only from man to man, not crossing distances to get to the places where events and forces unfold! A remarkable utopia of the good or the secret of its beyond.”
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“The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its depoliticization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital’s drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRIs). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of repoliticizing mental illness is an urgent one if the left wants to challenge capitalist realism.”
― Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
― Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
The Flowers of Decadence
— 66 members
— last activity Jul 11, 2016 02:19PM
Here lies the lost souls who cling to the decaying beauty of Decadent literature and poetry. A group for appreciators of pessimistic literature that c ...more
Tashina’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Tashina’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
182 books
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31 friends
265 books
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49 friends
903 books
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46 friends
1,471 books
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36 friends
6,418 books
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3,841 friends
366 books
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70 friends
927 books
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48 friends
245 books
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63 friends
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