Jo > Recent Status Updates

"This points2what may well prove2b th deepest danger of our era of branded humans. Brands are not built2 contain our multitudes; they demand fixedness, stasis, one singular self per person. Human statues."

"Since th crisis is permanent, th sense of emergency is always present; planning4 th future seems impossible or disloyal. How can we even think of reform when th enemy is always at th gate?"

"In th politics of eternity, th seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. Th habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls th impulse of self-correction. Since th nation is defined by its inherent virtue rather than by its future potential, politics becomes a discussion of good & evil rather than a discussion of possible solutions to real problems."

"Eternity politicians bring us th past as a vast misty courtyard of illegible monuments to national victimhood, all of them equally accessible for manipulation. Every reference to th past seems to involve an attack by some external enemy upon th purity of th nation."

On the 'politics of eternity': "Like th politics of inevitability, th politics of eternity performs a masquerade of history, though a different1. It is concerned with th past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concern with facts. Its mood is a longing4past moments tht never really happened during epochs that were, in fact, disastrous."

"BE CALM WHEN TH UNTHINKABLE HAPPENS. Modern tyranny is terror management. When th terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order2 consolidate power. Th sudden disaster that requires th end of checks & balances, th dissolution of opposition parties, th suspension of freedom of expression, th right2 a fair trial, and so on, is th oldest trick in th Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

"When politicians today invoke terrorism they are spkg, ofc, of an actual danger. But when they try to train us to surrender freedom in the name of safety, we should be on our guard. There is no necessary tradeoff between th two. Ppl who assure you that you can *only* gain security at th price of liberty usually want to deny you both.

"You might one day be offered the opportunity to display symbols of loyalty. Make sure that such symbols include your fellow citizens rather than exclude them... what might seem like a gesture of pride can be a source of exclusion."

"Life is political, not bc the world cares about how you feel, but bc the world reacts to what you do. The minor choices we make are themselves a kind of vote, making it more or less likely that free & fair elections will be held in the future. In the politics of the everyday, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much."

"Paul was naturally curious about girls; he didn't know how to find a boyfriend; and sex was sex, he thought. What was sex but newness? And sensation & conquest & intrigue & desire & romance & fantasy, & specific people sometimes, sure, but not always."

"What could be more punk than being a dyke? What better way to say fuck you to the Man?"

"Everything Paul knew boiled down to this one gimmick: try for what you want. Paul tried for a smile, a look back, an eyeful, a number, some illicit hallway kiss, a blow job, a romance, a massage, a handjob, a finger up an ass, a free show, a licked lip, a passed note, a present, a surprise, something good, something better than the nothing he had." Fucking ay, Paul!

On the hospital: "Ah, how the poor body recoils with its every nerve from the sight, the smell, the feel of this place! Blindly, it shies, rears, struggles to escape. That it should ever be brought here - stupified by their drugs, pricked by their needles, cut by their little knives - what an unthinkable outrage to the flesh!"

"Together with this anonymity, George feels a fatigue come over him which is not disagreeable. The tide of his vitality is ebbing fast, and he ebbs with it, content. This is a way of resting. All of a sudden, he is much, much older."

"Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, & somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery."

"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself come from, and where you will go."

"A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was th pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, 'How will u go about finding th thing th nature of which is totally unknown to you?"

"I wanted to say, 'You're deluded, the only way you're going to succeed in the arts is if your fathrt bankrolls you and your mother pulls in a few favours at the Telegraph!'".

'TWAS EVER THUS.

"Sometimes my memory feels like nothing more than a 2kg plum pudding, unassailably rich, densely monotonous, and I am forced to plough my way through it alone, occasionally striking a gold coin reminiscence."

Wow, Anna Metcalfe's story! Bravo. I am officially invested.

"Th schools I went2arguably taught me more about injustice than I've experienced b4or since. In mny ways, they were experiments in soc justice which, for a lot of th ppl who went2them, succeeded only in reinforcing unfairness."

"Th fact is tht 99% of ppl do hav2do a job in order2pay th bills, but by no means does it put 99% of ppl, never mind 99% of th jobs they do, in th same boat. Power accrues more fiercely th closer2th top u are&2 deny this fact is an act of what Bourdieu termed 'symbolic violence' towards third with less of it."

"Anybody says he knows just how someone else feels is a fool."

"I told Angus my mom being dead wasn't something I pinned exactly on my birthday. 'It's more like this bag of gravel I'm hauling around every day of the year. If somebody else brings it up, honestly, I'm glad of it. Like just for that minute they can help me drag the gravel."

On th tabloids & the working class: "if you live in a soc & linguistic environment where any broadsheet might as well be published in Greek - until u acquire th cultural & educational capital to tune into its, by turns, Olympian & self-consciously demonic wavelength - how will u now find print news reporting that is not based on the assumption that you are an imbecile?"

Christina Patterson's Indy column on Shannon Matthews: sickening. Sick.

"That a 40-yr-old British man, in 2008, might have no teeth, suggests a sickness in the society rather than in the person: the sickness of being unable or unwilling to give dignity to all its members." This.

"As Hoggart implied of the socially immobile 'carousel' existence which he knew & resented from his childhood, it's in th interests of institutionally powerful people to tell you that you're thick & that it's too late to do anything about it."

"...to keep those you love close to you requires keeping them within the world you know. Th consequences of advancement may mean good news for the individual but bad news for the family & th neighbourhood...With every departure came a loss of th meaning & hope that comes from being with others. Th flourishing of individual potential was seen as harmful to th collective"

Comp schls: "Rathr thn brng about a greater mix of soc groups & academc abilities thru a single-tier system, ingrained assumptions about th insubordinate & disengaged 'nature' of w/c children made comprehensive schools arguably even more class-ridden."