[Marxism] It's a big, big long road

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> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 17:15:17 +0100
> From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] Americana: invent an enemy to win swinging voters,
>         or,     the politics of negativity
> To: "PEN-L list" <PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx, Marxmail List <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>         Chris Doss <itschris13@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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> I have to think here of Adorno's remark that "The very people who burst with
> proofs of exuberant vitality could easily be taken for prepared corpses,
> from whom the news of their not-quite-successful decease has been withheld
> for reasons of population policy. Underlying the prevalent health is death.
> All the movements of health resemble the reflex-movements of beings whose
> hearts have stopped beating (Minima moralia. Reflections from damaged life,
> p59).
> The Washington Post said (ibid.)  today also that "a recent poll conducted
> by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that nearly 70 percent of
> Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans expressed strong religious beliefs
> when asked questions designed to measure these attitudes." These are also
> the parties which support more killing industries and more military wars,
> i.e. mass murder and christianism go hand in hand. But what about the other
> political parties ?

Actually, very recently I've been feeling like I have the "Health Unto
Death", disturbingly a relatively cheering development.  But "Cognitive
Americana" is not quite an unavoidably oppressive epiphenomenon of consumer
culture, it's actually about 150 years old (think of the St. Louis Hegelians
and their Camden gardening assistant, or rather don't because the former are
never thought of by anybody, a sort of placeholder for forgotten salutary
influence, and the latter perhaps could not be thought of in the right way
given the contemporary intellectual climate).

Jeff Rubard