Sukrit > Recent Status Updates

Nothing “so effectively stifles our lives as the transformation into work of the activities and relations that satisfy our desires.”

Colonialism demands history begin past the points of colonialism precisely because, under those narrative conditions, the colonist’s every action is one of self-defense.

Just for a moment, for the greater good, cease to believe that this particular group of people, from whose experience we are already so safely distanced, are human.

“It is a hallmark of failing societies, …, this requirement that one always be in possession of a valid reason to exist.”

Still shit, fuck your half-baked arguments.

Biggest load of bullshit I’ve seen about conservative talking points.

Here we go again on the conservative talking point about trickle down economics being the best thing invented since the freaking wheel.

Not sure why I picked this book up and why I’m trying to finish it

A colonized man is dominated but not domesticated. He patiently waits for the colonizer to let his guard down, and then seeks to replace him: of sitting at the colonist’s table and sleeping in his bed, preferably with his wife.

Challenging the colonial world is not a rational confrontation.

Foreword:

“It is the peculiarity of regimes of racial oppression that they make immediately visible and vivid the more mediated and abstract practices of power such as class division, the exploitation of labor, and social hierarchies of status.”

If I have to be propagandized by someone, I would much rather choose Frantz Fanon.

Views on the first chapter:

Could the blatant jingoism come through more clearly? I feel like the comparison of the US and Mexican history was some of the most obvious forms of propaganda journalism I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

I'm curious how the book will redeem itself, or if the answers to "Why Nations Fail?" will be some modern contrived version of eugenics.

"Of the Oriental Menagerie" explores the view of India as a "romantic and beautiful" but also "hideous and barbaric" place.

White America fetishized India as a spiritual place while simultaneously claiming that the Indian "is the most undesirable immigrant in the state" (of California) ("His lack of personal cleanliness.. and adherence to theories so repugnant to American people make him unfit for association.")

USA's history with India has been complex: while the English saw the Indians living in a universe of static impracticality that led them to poverty and famine, the US intellectuals sought to transfer some values to benefit their new republic and prevent its "moral decline into materialism."

The East was seen as impractical in a gendered way, for the region was claimed to be both romantic and overly emotional.

Us "Indians" are seen as spiritual beings in America: pliant and cooperative, whose goal is to "provide taxes, the culture -- and the wonderful restaurants."

Right-wing pundits like D'Souza take this analysis to a whole new degree and argue that "oppressive conditions of life among black Americans" is a result of a "civilization collapse rather than the persistence of racist structures."

Akin to W.E.B Dubois' question of "How does it feel to be a problem?" to the Black Souls, this book seeks to explore the Desi's problem of "How does it feel to be a solution?"

In America, Desis are seen as bearing a spiritual patina, one that is sometimes seen as worthy and sometimes undesirable. Under the guise of a racist social policy, the claim to a higher spirituality allows Desis to produce anti-black racism.

Prisons are formed around the idea of deterrence by fear rather than morality, and the argument contains three parts:
1. For those who have been imprisoned, the prison experience should be sufficiently distasteful to convince them that crime needs to be avoided.
2. Imprisonment serves as a deterrent for the great mass of citizens who totter on the edge of breaking the law.
3. Keep known criminals out of circulation

Examines the issues arising in a small-scale society where numerous features of the free community have been drastically changed:
- Activity of work transfigured by realities of prison servitude.
- Race relations when different groups live under conditions of forced equality.
- Norms concerning masculine role and sexuality in a society devoid of women.
- Emergence of new power symbols when old ones are stripped away.

Bancroft details an abuser's behavior under addiction and when faced with an imminent breakup initiated by the abused.

Unsurprisingly, alcohol and marijuana abuse does not make a man abusive (although some substances like crack cocaine may), but they do lower the barrier to entry, and enable abusers to act on their value systems while having the excuse of "being under influence" at hand.

On the uses and abuses of "sexualization of subordination", Bancroft paints a dichotomous picture of an abusive men: from the physically violent men who coerce their partners into sexual fantasies derived from a dehumanization of women through pornography, to the tender, caring men who make their partners feel valued, but only at the moment of sex, and only as a way to boost his self-confidence.

To answer the question of "Why does he do that?", we must understand the three planes on which the foundation of abuse is based:
1. The abuser's attitude, beliefs, and habits.
2. The learning process by which some boys develop into abusive men.
3. The benefits that an abuser gets that makes his behavior desirable to him.

As abuse grows, the man grows attached to his ballooning collection of comforts and privileges

Bancroft details 10 different types of abusive men, with the caveat that your abuser might not fit cleanly into one of them and may have traits of more than one.

More insidiously, almost half of the abusive personalities are not violent at all, and have a much more malevolent effect on the confidence and psyche of the abused woman.

I would have preferred that the tone of the work be more academic than a podcast, but I know Mark Manson wants to make his work more palatable to the general audience and academic works with citations can get draining.

That said, it was interesting to hear the discussion of narcissism and low-confidence be two sides of the same coin. I guess the takeaway he wants us to leave with is “You’re not special”.

There has been a slow yet gradual trend from judging the crime to judging the soul and rationale of the person who committed it. This change has brought about with it a slew of "extra-juridical elements and personnel" like psychiatrists.

Foucault posits that this seemingly outward "leniency of punishment" has occurred to exploit the 'political economy' of the body i.e., through forced labor of prisoners.

Despite modern world's outward commitment to a humane treatment of prisoners, remnants of past corporal punishments remain in current judicial practices.

The lives of prisoners is regimented and made worse with a physical impact on their body through rationing of food, sexual deprivation, solitary confinement etc., with the ideology that "the condemned man should suffer physically more than other men."

Ughh this is all hopeless mumbo-jumbo but dear god did the author cite the most badass quote from the most badass guy ever:

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” - Tom Waits

"From being an art of unbearable sensations, punishment has become an economy of suspended rights."

Foucault illustrates how in a span of a century, the modern penal code usurped the age-old traditions of the body being the ultimate instrument of punishment. Why? Maybe because the act of the punishment "excited rhetoric" and remorselessly repeated the very crime it sought to punish.

Initial thoughts: Very American in its thought process and examples.

I don't really buy the "everyone hopes to be a hero" ideology and example, but I'll give the benefit of doubt to the author and listen to what they have to say in the book.

More choice does not equal more happiness. Looks like the book is filled with things everyone should know, but needs to be told regardless!