An encounter with an African American woman, discussing whuppin's in black culture as relating to Martin/Zimmerman

Which is pretty interesting, difficult, certainly an insightful and compelling issue. I'm not inclined to just dismiss it, but it appears to be a bit telling. Does she evince the very thing I'm talking about? That is, does she affirm that very "whuppin'" mentality, and as an African American? She is, it should be noted, a lawyer, a professional, I guess in a way well-to-do, definitely upper income, and her son, she is certain, won't fall into bad crowds. Her main worry, in the conversation, is of his being profiled when he is older. 

I point out that he is in more danger of being inculcated by association into some of the more violent veins of black culture than he is of suffering a bad take-down or being targetted for being black by bigots. Not to dismiss that possibility, by any means. But I imagine that he is more likely to wind up at a party of mostly blacks, being there because he is black. And that party will, in turn, be conditioned by black culture, a somewhat racist culture, with norms and standards that tend to predispose its members, such as they are (a mix of willing and unwilling participants, of self-identifiers and, certain, people who are "just people"). And some people from another vein may come to the party. Black, maybe. And violent. Maybe. And there maybe a shooting. And he may get hit by a stray bullet. And I'm thinking that danger is just as great, and probably greater.

And the problem is going to be that her defense against bigotry is going to use up any and all possible critique of black culture. And the problem with black culture is going to be that there are too many whuppin's as an accepted norm, not only of child-rearing, but as a basic logic of justice and amelioration. A logic of retributive justice. 

Her response, as I said, was that the rise in black crime is due, as far as whuppin's go, to the rising injunction against corporal punishment, spankings. Blacks are no longer able to make use of an important disciplinary tactic: beatings, or merely spankings (I actually think she stopped herself from saying "beatings" at one point), leading to an improperly raised sub-segment of black males (predominantly) who are too violent for want of this practice in their upbringing. 

I do find the basic endorsement of the practice questionable, to say the least. At the same time, I'm just as prone to critique the anti-whuppin' culture as well, insofar as it favors a "time-out" approach (as opposed to what I call ensubstantiation, or gettin' all substantive on a kid's ass when they do something wrong, as a part of remediation or Ubuntu-type justice) . The "time-out" approach favors a seemliness that has every tendency to lead into bigger times out, in the form of imprisonment culture, as kids get bigger and their mis-deeds become more consequential, just as the logics of beatings play out in more serious ways when they feel wronged or wrong someone when the stakes are higher: adult and late-adolescent "whuppin's" take new and more deadly forms, especially when guns are available. She did not wish to attribute the spikes to the availability of guns, by the way. No, she seemed pretty set on defending whuppin's, although frankly I doubt that she beats her son. Interestingly enough.

I don't doubt, however, that she supports the criminal justice system, which is massive, bloated edifice of systematic violence, often masquerading as "nonviolence" in the form of incarceration of various kinds, oiled and smoothed out with psychotropic drugs for the population who can't take it. Et cetera.

So the question I'm asking is: was she in a way speaking for black culture in endorsing whuppin's? I won't bother with the critiques of this general approach by thinking African Americans. I'm just more interested in  illuminating this basic situation and asking the pointed, difficult question of whether and how this was a "teachable moment", so to speak, as regards that aspect of black culture that does not enjoy what any broad cultural entity should enjoy: critique. "Enjoy" is, of course, a funny word to use here, but I like it. 

I think that withholding critique of black culture in the name of lining up into the ranks of the cause of anti-bigotry is, at the minimum, needful. I liken the situation to there being an elephant in the room covered with a big, brightly colored blanket. That blanket is the cause of anti-bigotry. The elephant, the positive norms and practices of black culture, insofar as it is a definite entity, a culture in which people enlist, on the basis of color of skin or not. 

But this problematic, in the end, and in the beginning, is not really specific only to black culture. It is just another instance of a status quo that has yet, in a way, to be adequately named. It is a certain stasis, a stalemated position in which a glaring lack of progress issues from a too thoughtless business of taking the usual sides and pushing, without bringing those sides into view and seeing how they work together to form a system or economy. The general condition is something like modernism cum post-modernism, where the later simply designates reflective progressivism that is tinged with a fairly thorough-going suspicion, coupled with greater conceptual adumbration and subtlety. 

The condition I mean to instantiate here is post-postmodern and entails what I call nonviolence thoughtaction. I find it needful to articulate these nominations as it seems somehow essential to the territory, while the failure to launch of this kind of approach appears to lie in the difficulty of managing the issues involved, having adequate umbrella terms and getting one's bearings in this kind of space. 

As for the substance of the issue, whether whuppin's are a problem, well, I'd say they are. They lead to a logic of fear, a failure to really solve things, the idea that one does the right thing simply in order to avoid getting beaten. It leads to later, higher-stakes whuppin's, playing right into the ultimate whuppin's: shootings, solitary confinement, languishing in prison, infinite detention, and really, endless wars. Hardly strictly matters of black culture. Which is a fitting point to make, as it should be a general MO of such critique that it does not issue from a focus solely on racial issues, and must make reference to transcendent generalities. This issue, the a problem, indeed, of/for transcendence and thought, is part of the founding conditions of this problematic, the failure to broach which is leading to a whole series of intractable problems we are being forced to witness again and again, be they in the form of persistent problems in black culture, the prisons, the wars, economic stases, etc.

In approaching someone of the usual orientation, one gets, unsurprising, the usual. The usual stance. The usual arguments, the usual causes, played out until they either reach pay dirt or give up and move on to other causes in which to deploy the same arched, single-minded stances. Witness, for example, the strangely mute muttering of Democracy Now, potentially a harbinger of the cessation of the Martin/Zimmerman story: in a recent segment, an "important" bit of evidence was reported: Zimmerman, according to an *anonymous source*, was considered by that source to be racist. That's about the whole of that bit of evidence. Someone called on the phone and said, basically, "I'm not giving my name, But he's racist". And that's news. And Democracy Now will drill to that depths and then pull out the drill bit, if necessary, and move on to other issues. But they will not, absolutely will not, and probably can not, bring into view the whole drilling operation as such.

To do that, to bring the drilling operation into view, requires another approach altogether, which is why, I suggest, the nomination of a kind of post-postmodernism and nonviolence thoughtaction is necessary. Gravely necessary, as evidenced by the wars, by countless (or nearly countless) black on black and black on white killings, by the prisons, by infinite detention, by solitary, by the failure to support nonviolence-based revolution in places where this is, in fact (I suggest), the most critical thing and the only actionable policy, as I think is the case in Syria. 

So for me this is not your usual topical engagement; it is another instance, stepping foot momentarily, in the issue of black culture as such, but moving on to other things in the process. This stance pretty much absolutely requires the affirmation of the usual progressive causes: anti-racism, anti-war efforts, even prison activism. I include the last with a bit of trepidation simply because the movement, such as it is, is so incredibly weak and because most strident Leftism is in such a kindred spirit with the very logic of imprisonment, in which it really just turns into "finding the real killers" and putting *them* in the same prisons. A mess? More than a mess. A system that requires transcendent thought to even bring into view. But isn't transcendence a word usually reserved for spirituality?

Indeed it is. Indeed it is.

An unfolding in the vicinity of Chomsky (and Foucault)

Someone suggested I go ahead and "unfold" as regards to why Chomsky was the "cause" of the wars.  

Chomsky follows what might be described as a procedure. It's remarkable that he does so in that his procedure parallels what is commonly described as deconstruction, something of which, rather surprisingly, Chomsky has little to no understanding. This appears to find a general parallel in those Leftists who have an almost doctrinaire opposition to postmodernism, whereas postmodernism really is, in a certain way, Leftism. It is simply realized, under that moniker, in a certain range of concerns and issues that are more substantially conceptual as such, just as deconstruction tends to have been developed or deployed in what are likewise more conceptual and literary registers. Yet, in both cases, the more "on the ground" thinking of the Left as regards general geo-political concerns is pretty much of a piece with deconstruction and postmodernism. 

In the most general sense, postmodernism is pretty well what Lyotard said: a suspicion regarding grand narratives. Deconstruction is what happens when that suspicion is put to work in a close textual manner within a patient and richly "charitable" reading of a text. While its conclusions may not be so charitable, it works to take a text on its terms, but reads it closely to the point showing that the text itself is not as tenable as its author(s) or tradition may think. There are two versions of these: one is what might be called sane decon and pomo, the other more or less insane. Sane decon and pomo are rooted in a fairly pedestrian understanding that our belief in grand narratives, in particular of progress and accomplishment, human rights and general improvement of humanity, the quest for peace and well-being, etc., is itself more or less acceptable and not especially problematic. While even these beliefs (if the are beliefs) may be drawn in to question, they are not viewed as being without merit. Even the great Derrida admitted a retention of respect and "fondness" for great texts like those vaunting the "rights of Man". The insane version tends to push these operations and methods to a kind of limitless limit, suggesting rather that there is simply no meaning or valid quest for the good of humanity whatsoever; that there are simply no "grand narratives" at all that. Once touched by any valid suspicion or even refutation or what might really be called "discombobulation", by dint of a certain leap of generalization, the overall fundamental logics of truth and the good are utterly rended and without merit. Whether sane/insane is a good way of summing up these modalities of pomo/decon, I'll just leave open and specify that I mean this pretty provisionally.

Much of the reaction to pomo/decon on the part of "grounded" leftism would appear to be a reaction to insane pomo/decon. I take insane pomo/decon to be a particular variety and development of thought that is rooted in academic capitalism, dishonesty and naivete within the academy. In culture at large, I view it is a similar kind of capitalism, not rooted in protocols of publish, perish, tenure and university fees, but rather playing into the hands of any number of interests in vaunting thought, using thought to counter, perhaps, quests for political positions, etc. 

Leaving the insane version aside for the moment, Leftists like Chomsky simply don't understand pomo/decon very well. Chomsky himself admits this freely and with at least a modicum of humility. But the story that Chomsky drills into our heads over and over is very much a postmodern one, in that he is constantly deconstructing US policies, and showing, or trying to show, that the net results of US policies, taken from a certain realist standpoint, are quite other than either the story that is told by supporters on the Right or the dreams and hopes of any how have supported any number of ventures, policies, programs, etc. He is basically constantly helping to promote a certain postmodern condition. *Tete a tete* with Foucault, Chomsky's adherence to and within a general horizon of a kind of trajectory and orientation towards the something like the betterment of humankind came to a head in one famous dialogue from the 70's, I think. Before this more "naive" idealism, Foucault was given to laughter, if not exactly *schadenfreude*, in that Chomsky could be seen as being a bit naive about this. But, then, I'd suggest that Foucault, in this respect at least, could be seen as being a bit insane. And if not insane, then simply dishonest.

Dishonest because this academe, for whom a whole new university program relating to history and philosophy would be developed in order to accommodate his extraordinary talents, was, whether he wished to admit this or not, presenting to Chomsky and the world under the auspices of a very firmly rooted "narrative" and social edifice of the university system of France, whose directive is in evidence everywhere: a general orientation towards the good of, yes, humankind (more or less), through eduction, research, discourse, etc. 

We can begin to see the features of some problematics unraveling. Here I have at least indicated a route for a kind of "deconstruction" of both Foucault and, really, Chomsky, since Foucault did have a good point -- of inquiry, if not exactly total annihilation. In any case, I'm going to pause in this very moment and give it some thought. You asked for a kind of "unfolding", of what I called nonviolence thoughtaction and envolutionary postpostmodernism, which I am seeking to do here, which is a certain most general space. It might be a fitting one for dealing with the *very* figure of Chomsky. It is a most difficult space, I think, to come to terms with. And this will be one of the critical features of nonviolence thoughtaction (which I'll call nvta for short).

I might very easily step forward here to say the following: "To come to terms...To see in the coalescence of language the *termination* of thought into the anchor of a *word* or *term*, the terminal progression of thought and its de-limitation into the concretation of the flow of signifiers and signifieds into the established, or in this case inaugural, finality of the 'term' as such. What does it mean to come to terms? Etc." Derrida could pretty well say this sort of thing. I'm not exactly going o do that. I am, however, wending along a way that makes use of such a textual approach or approach in thinking. Along this way, I am given to speak of the term as such, to characterize it in its *essence*, with some background, however incomplete, in the deconstruction of metaphysics by which much of the Continental movement has secured for itself the ability to think, to use and coin terms, question them, free them from not merely the terminality of their specific roles and usages, but the stagnation and overuse by which they so often sink into a thoughtlessness of unquestionable tradition, the very sort of tradition that may be subjected to postmodern critique. But I am not going into that at length. 

Rather, I am given to a moment of what I am calling "entermination" in the coining of the term "nvta", within this laying out of the problematic of Leftism and sane and insane postmodernism.  And Chomsky. Who, again, is more of a postmodernist than he realizes. I am poised, within this general discourse -- which is a discourse of summation and sketching out forests in decidedly broad strokes -- to unfold this nvta within the question of Chomsky as postmodernist, say, but also with a view towards my original criticisms, that take Chomsky to be instrumental not simply in setting a standard for Left critique but, furthermore, helping in a way to ensure the progression of the worst from his object of critique (the US government and corporate/industrial complexes). And likewise, if you haven't imagined it yet, I view Foucault in the same way. 

There are several points that might be useful to make at this point. While this seems a pretty hefty range of things to be taking into consideration, I'm not, for all of that, going into these issues in depth. I'm working at a sketchy level, or at a very general level. I think it is possible to do nth degree argumentation to back up these...well, they aren't points so much as general characterizations. And that is part of the problem of the lay of the land here. The business of summary as such is crucial to it, and the key features of moving through this kind of space are things like the characterizations being reasonably accurate or true, that they are understandable, but perhaps most importantly, that they don't fall into certain traps, traps which are by no means simple errors. The main trap I have in mind here is that of either attempting or demanding (or both) too elaborate and extended a treatment. That is, attempting a dissertation. 

A disseration: that is what one writes when getting a PhD. And the question is, must we get a dissertation to talk about these things? And if part of what one is questioning is a certain dominance of academia, from one end at least, that will always entail that one get a degree within the academy, and that furthermore what one comes up with will require something near a dissertation to understand or be able to respond to acceptably. From the less academic side, the "action" side, this may seem easier: plenty of activists quote Chomsky or Foucault en route to shoring up their positions. This only seems simpler. It is by precisely this gesture of use, facile or not, that the status of those quoted is put in the background even more, so that were one actually to question what is taking place in their thinking on a broad level, one would be automatically referred to the academic labyrinth.

This condition, which I'll enterm "rooted stasis" (I literally just made that up), feeds right into some major capitalization conditions that obtain for both Chomsky and Foucault. Taken together, this all leads to a pretty hefty situation of difficult where one seeks to do what I'm doing here: at this general level, characterizing the trajectories and modus operandi of these thinkers, situating them in broader movements, linking them, identifying certain basic problems, and furthermore enacting a certain "turn" or unfolding that pertains to some very, very broad movements and socio-historical, even epochal conditions. 

Yet it is necessary to do precisely that, and to do so decisively, owing to the rooted status of these writers and what they represent. I will suggest that this is not as difficult to do as it seems.

Going back to Chomsky, we see that he is a bit more "postmodern" than he realizes, in that he peddles a suspicion of US policies that go against the assuredness by which the great forward momentum of the US dominance has developed itself. That assuredness is by no means reducible to mere hubris, but rather has a substantive purchase. Chomsky's position is "postal" in relation to this, but not in relation to some of the basic assumptions of the "supposed" or "professed" desiderata of US policy, according to a charitable assumption of its best intentions: things like democratization and human rights are not simply to be dismissed, even if in reality the story about US actions and policies may reveal a far different sort of actor than one imagines in the stories one is told. Postmodern? Yet, from the Foucauldian end of things, this would seem to render the "humanity" issues that Chomsky retains rather questionable as well. Yet Foucault, it turns out, by virtue of the *humanities* that supported his work, the departments in which he is studied, etc., may be taken in either a sane or somewhat insane way, as I'm putting it very provisionally here. Chomsky's US is fallen from its prime directives, while Foucault's thought is disingenuous and basically lies about its own issues of a certain liberatory humanism, while we know that in the world of political action, the postmodern writers in general are seen as vacillating between an anti-oppressive project or that malaise which I think is very postmodern indeed, a malaise in which the forward momenta of various researches and quests for truth lead to the *aporia* of their being, ostensibly "no truth at all", and "no grand narratives at all". These fall prey to the performative fallacies of failing to recognize that such pronouncements or demonstrations themselves still maintain a general "truth" narrative. Their very issuance arises from within a highly productive academic culture and may be seen, when stepping beyond any narrative whatsoever, that is, into a certain insanity, as being something along the lines of a "drilling operation" in which the postmodern mode of critique and questioning is in a process of *capitalization*. Richly ensconced in genuine structures of financial and existential economies, the grand pronouncements, which are indeed shocking at times, have a great deal of play, and this play, *when taken into view*, reveals a different situation, one of interests, trajectories, fundamental concerns well established in the humanities, etc.

While this last point may be easier to see in the case of Foucault, the question of capitalization in Chomsky may be a bit harder. And we will recall that you asked me to "unfold" after I had said, provocatively, that Chomsky helped to make the wars happen. 

Before going on to Chomsky, in this regard, let me pause again to consider this phrase, "*when taken into view*". As I pointed out, there is a certain mode of generalization involved in this kind of thinking. Generalization and thought in certain ways. Thought that is, in its turn, schooled by both or either Foucault, Chomsky, Derrida, Heidegger, other thinkers, you name it. The "view" is so broad it would seem to be impossible even to take it. Yet, I will strongly suggest that such a view accompanies much more modest usages of the very same authors/thinkers. In this case, the view is activated and engaged in more reflectively, but even whey Chomsky and Foucault are used in the more "normal" way, the backgrounds that go along with them are included, assumed, vaguely understood, just as Foucault's being deeply embedded in "the humanities" is of a piece with his bold statements and projects, and just as Chomsky, as "anti-American" as he would seem to be, is an American citizen, enjoying services, support and general living conditions that are American, and just as he is most likely to be a proponent of democracy, even in places in which the wars to "install democracy" have been anywhere from misguided and misjudged to corrupt and completely false pretenses. Whether they have been so completely so, however, is part of this problematic.

As we have taken this little passage through a few views, we have taken up the question of "viewing" as such, and steered a course away from being drawn into either the nth degree demands for academic discourse or what might be viewed as the historical rigor of Chomsky's mode of discourse, one that will send one into a fairly hefty burden of dealing with historical fact after historical fact. Chomsky's mode here has been criticized by Zizek as not really covering much conceptual ground, as not telling one anything particularly new, but rather taking situation after situation through the same (postmodern, I suggest) paces of rethinking the stories we are told as the truth is sifted and a certain reality is seen to pan out, one that gives a certain "lie" or at least untruth or having strayed character to the stories we are told.

I have self-authorized the "viewing" I'm doing here according to what are really three principles: one is that viewing is "always already" (as they say in some postmodern discourses) in fact involved, another is through a certain activation and invocation of "thought" (which may be informed by some Continental thinkers and disciplines), and a third, which I haven't mentioned yet, is nonviolence. Part of the happening of postpostmodernism is the realization that nonviolence is a kind of "law of Being", while not being exactly a law, but rather the precondition for any law whatsoever, and the basic form or ideality underlying so many liberatory discourses of anti-oppression. This goes against "insane" postmodernism, insofar as it knows that most postmodern discourses, outside of those concerned in a more pure form with the dual questions of truth and morality, quite fully affirm a certain meta-narrative, or perhaps really it is a pre-narrative or ground of narratives, of anti-oppression, taking a definite side against things like racism, sexism, homophobia and all manner of social oppression, to the point of governmental oppression through themes such as anarchy and, in the case of Foucault, "governmentality". 

This is an emergent fundament, in a way, and is not obviated by the more extreme postmodern claims. Likewise, the nonviolence status of democratization is not mitigated by, if not exactly Chomsky, who really isn't anti-democracy, then by those who have succumbed to a state of pure cynicism, which would seem to be the political version of postmodern malaise. 

In any case, we are at a point in this meditation in which we can now move around within a number of basic figures: Chomsky and Foucault, postmodernism, Left politics, fundaments as such, thought, action, democracy, critique, anarchism, govenmentality, geo-politics, etc. We are in a position of viewing while undertaking a certain path in thinking that is a bit more grounded than it may seem, even if it is more indicating than fleshing out to the nth degree. 

From here, I can begin to characterize what I think is going on, why it is needful to think like this is, why this thinking is an "unfolding of nonviolence thoughtaction", why it is post-postmodern, why it is necessary, why the status quo has tended to give the wars to the hawks, despite the best efforts of the likes of Chomsky. Yet, perhaps a certain additional pause regarding thought could be in order here as well. 

I have suggested a thinking that is in certain ways informed by great and extensive discourses that are usually reserved, if taken seriously, for "PhD-level" arenas of dicourse, presentation and discussion. Meanwhile, I have suggested that we are in a mode of *viewing*. I will direct you a simple, but profound quote from Heidegger: "Language is the language of Being as the clouds are the clouds of the sky". This was issued in the context of a discussion, in part, of the problems of certain kinds of analysis as regards what thinking really can accomplish. Look at the quote. Being, what is, has language within it, yet this language is situated within what is in such a manner that it is also something that "is", in a certain way, yet the broader "being" of which it is has a relation to this thing, language, such that it is a whole that is not only greater than the parts, but inclusive of them. It is enough simply to show this kind of holistic, synthetic thinking to give a clue for the sort of thinking I am suggesting in this most general thinking here. Chomsky is the Chomsky who is of the United States. Foucault is quoted by Leftists as a part of a broader world, situated in the humanities while so strongly suspecting the grand narrative of "the humanities" or, more precisely, "human rights and betterment", etc., that he may lose sight of this basic, irreducible condition. Yet he was a part of this whole involved in the interpretation of this whole, while Chomsky is a part of a democratic process of discourse, publishing things which, in another country, would get him killed. He knows this and would not deny it, but it has a substantial purchase for some of the more extreme takes on the implications of his prosecutorial project regarding particularly the American establishment, from which the political and especially govermmental Left is not at all immune to his critique. He's recently come out saying that Obama is basically worse than Bush was in terms of policies that are failures as regards basic goods such as human rights and basic respect of others, other nations, etc. 

Taken together, we can see the vague outlines of some very general conditions of a fully retained, general and robust fundamentalism, minimal but far reaching, concerning human rights, humanity, truth, and so forth. It's general character is that it is ameliorative and concerned with an original nonviolence (even if it authorizes violences at times), anarchistic (in the best sense of the word), inclusive, anti-oppressive and pro-democratic. It's true enough that I didn't have to do all this work to affirm such a modest list of "goods". But to bring this around to the business of carrying out some of the additional critiques and syntheses I mean to accomplish here, it seems to have been necessary. 

It is hard to find a way to articulate what I wish to say here. As we move into this space, the space of the post-postmodern and nonviolence thoughtaction, we enter a space that has a kind of "at every turn" character to it, which could be a bit like a room being spun around by a tornado, in which, at ever turn, every item in the room is unseated, tossed around, spinning in the air, is out of place, while no one element really is the axis of what is happening. This has the character of the kind of over-turning, perhaps a meta-turning, that one associates with the revolutionary as such. 

Yet any mention of the "revolutionary" as such today gives one pause,does it not? Even with the Arab Spring (Arab Summer Nightmare), the figure of nonviolence has been prominent and critical, especially where it has been unsupported, as with the case of Syria. And this may well be as good a point as any to make the point concerning thought and the necessity of these turns as any. Thought, which we have sought provisionally to release into this passage of "viewing and characterization", has tended to be ensconced, in a certain way immanent, within accepted, great structures and institutions, whose general grounded has gone unquestioned, be it the basic constitution of the academic and intellectuality as such, or governmentality. The question, in particular, of nonviolence, has not been taking up, precisely, by thinkers, such as Chomsky. One thinker who has done so, Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution, whose writings played important roles in Egypt and who wrote of "how to overthrow dictators", could easily be seen as a more "mild mannered" sort of the kind of historical intellectual Chomsky is, but one who has devoted himself to the historical study of nonviolence. 

So as we have stepped into what is more revolutionary in this thinking, we have been given pause, to consider the revolutionary in light of the problem of violence, in light of a general fundamentum of nonviolence (and nonharm in various ways). At the same time, we have been given to consider "thinking", as such. There is a history of philosophy which postmodern thinkers such as Deleuze and Guattari, and Heidegger, have strongly and convincingly suggested makes thought impossible, at least without an internal revolution of sorts.Deconstruction was an offshoot of Heideggerian "Destruktion", which itself was an effort not simply to destroy, but rather to render accepted concepts questionable and basically to take them apart and put them together in better forms. Some seminal discourses on thinking are instructive here, such as Heidegger's general discourses on this, along with Arendt and Nietzsche, and many others who basically were affected by Nietzsche's substantial and artful critiques of thinkers through history, along with the whole history of thought and, in particular, discourse *on* thinking. And yet...while it is nice to tell the "story of thought", which I am simply giving a vague notion of in the above paragraph, the situation is not so simple as directing one to the history of philosophy and discourse specifically on thinking. Since we must think in any case, and everything we do will have a dimension of thought. In fact, anything anyone does has this dimension, even if they do not want to admit this, even if they are so fully in the throes of direct action that they would imagine that there was no time to stop and think, let alone pursue such a complex history of discourse of on thinking as such.

We broached the topic of revolution, which was cause for some concern, a certain pause and a  consideration of nonviolence as such. We were given to *pause*, to give thought to the idea of revolution in light of th problem of violence, and to give thought to the idea of thought itself. 

I warned you about a kind revolutionary passage, in which, turn by turn, the world or things in the world may begin to turn, so that step by step, the whole world might be changing in a certain way. And we paused to consider thought as such, and the pause to which we were given was also due to the question of violence in relation to revolution. 

This pause is something that stops a forward progression. The forward progression is the form of the ascent, such as it is, into modernity. The arrival at post-modernism is the realization that an unchecked, uncritical passage forward may lead to many illusions, false narratives. To stand in a post-modern position is to find oneself in a condition of questioning what has been hitherto a somewhat inexorable progression of "progress itself". The pause we broached was a pause concerning revolution and the possibility of violence. The history of revolution itself is unquestionably one of violence at the same time, and a violence that can not be forgotten. In the words of Lyotard in **The Postmodern Condition**, "The 19th and 20th centuries have given us all the terror we can take". Arent was given to report on the "evils" of the Holocaust and to write **On Violence**, yet on the whole the discourse concerning violence as such has been pretty weak in the history of thinkers to date.

So we find ourselves in a complex condition that really has a hard time articulating itself. It varies but tends to hover between a few critical points, none of which will likely be unfamiliar to you:

* postmodern malaise, itself a kind of grinding forward of capitalized discourses that remains stuck in the modern momentum of progress, hovering, perhaps, in the face of a kind of "mad" postmodernism that simply concludes, rather disingenuously, that there is no truth or good whatsoever

* postmodern suspicion, which questions the story of progress we are told. Chomsky is really an example of this, albeit in a rather pedestrian geo-political register.

* A disingenuousness of postmodern thought in that, while it claims no grand narrative, it fully adopts and vaunts many anti-oppression narratives at the same time

* An emergent need for thought as such, in light of *both* the situation of developed discourses on thought and the simple fact of the omnipresence of thought, with or without academic training

* A critique of thought that both questions, in a kind of postmodern form, the history of thought and also inaugurates new paths in thinking

* A history of revolution and change which has a problem of violence associated with it

* A situation of the need for giving thought to nonviolence

* A general paucity of the opening of the question of nonviolence in thought

* A limit or series of limits on the ability to carry out extensive thought concerning major thinkers of the day

* A need to think about thinking, in the vicinity of major thinkers, such that this will call into question their own general engagement and role in "the big picture" as regards thought and certain basic goods. It is here that one may begin to make the characterization of Chomsky as a "high priest" of leftism, left activism, etc. Ditto the likes of Foucault as regards postmodern/Continental thought, etc.

I'll pause with this barrage of "bullets", but here I will try to give you some indication of where this all is going. I promise that I will be able to boil it down significantly, although I will end up suggesting that this kind of work of building this kind of picture is itself a special kind of work, which I call an "unfolding of nonviolence thoughtaction", and which I also characterize as a kind of *spinning*, which I'll introduce to you here as a general reference to *Gandhi*. Which will be a very interesting *twist* or *turn* in this progression. 

The layout is as follows: postmodernism must be critiqued. Thinkers are seen as being a bit lost in their projects and their capital concerns. The world remains and we remain bound in thought and action, in thoughtaction. The gravity of the world and morality is nonviolence, into which we are already thrown, grown and engaged. The problem of finding one's way on this necessitates a decisive confrontation with the double conditions of thought and nonviolence. The history of thought stands in need of a further deconstruction: of the absence of the treatment and engagement of nonviolence as such, specifically and thematically. Yet this engagement rends thought's secure and separate space, drawing into question much of the history of the very idea of the work of thought, its proper place. This, in turn, will reflect back onto the roles of the likes of Chomsky and Foucault, where thought is seen as being under the grips of various conceptual burdens and capital enterprises. The critique of these and other thinkers will enable a releasing of thought while their limitations are brought into view according to some broad-stroked depictions. They are respected, on the one hand, and seen as being problematically limited, on the other. 

The space into which this thinking enters thus becomes post-postmodern in a number of ways, and is post-revolutionary as taking up and taking on what tends not to get adequately activated in the usual modes of thought which depict with a radical degree of separation from the progresson of things in "the world"; it becomes *envolutionary*, for want of a better word, while various modes of thoughtaction suggest themselves as enconstructive, as opposed to deconstructive, which is a turn on that basic potential, "deconstruction". Likewise, the anarchical is shifted from its dominant negational posture into *enarchical* as the positive deployment of projects and experiment after passage through the anarchical moment. Yet, in and among all these concepts, their simple *neutrality* begins to show itself: there is a gravity of violence, the potential for violence, and an irreducible need for thought and action concerning violence itself in a certain standing in nonviolence, even if many would like to preserve the potential for violence. Again, for even these, there is an original condition of nonviolence, as when one wishing to carry out violence in response to racism will have been responsive to an original violence and thereby will be affirming this originary condition of nonviolence as "anti-racism". This is the source of the emergence of nonviolence within postmodern liberatory and anti-oppressive discourses and practices.

Neither Chomsky nor Foucault can be of much help in this regard. And this is a problem. Because when we look at the need for thought and action, and nonviolence, that is, for nonviolence thoughtaction in regards to things like Syria or Egypt, yet also in terms of the need for "revolution" or some alternative to this in regards to the 99 versus the 1 percent, etc., we see a need for thought and action, where thought, in particular, is all too likely to get sucked into the great enterprises of the likes of Chomsky and Foucault. We are given both to respect them and to call them into question. But this calling into question can not be in the usual negative form that characterizes their own discourses, any more than this call for change can find its way by falling into the negation that occurs in an-archism or in the negation that lies in the very concept of the "post", as an "after", that is a negation of a certain "before", an innocence and belief. The post-postmodern is truly "post-post" in precisely this way: it is no mere appending of "post" upon "post", but something that has drawn the postality of postmodernism into question. 

This post-postality questions progress's mode of movement. It questions both static conservatism and radical revolution, eschewing each in the pause of thought that is given to consider the question of violence, at least, and for other reasons. The form of its turns lies in the unleashing of the "en" of "enarchy" or "envolution", say, as when we use the term "enact". This is a certain positivity that stands in a strange relation to the great formations of negation that lies within the depths, if not the heart, of the work of the likes of Chomsky and Foucault. But thought, then,  comes into play in important ways.

The work of Chomsky is seen as deploying a certain procedure of negativitity. This is a drilling operation, in which Chomsky drills, ceaselessly, really, for the same point over and over: a truth or panning out that stand in stark contrast to the professed directives and desiderata of the US government and other similar entities. We come to questioning his thought in a number of ways. It shows itself to be limited and biased, a kind of drilling operation that systematically forwards one point only and posits actors who are too one-sidedly depicted as acting in self-interest and in a state of moral failing. This is an enterprise. As a great thinker, Chomsky lead is noted as being profoundly influential regarding thought in the world. The left and impetae to change are funnelled into his drilling operation, and everyone goes around carrying out this negational form and positing of the one-sided other, that is, those in power, at times the Right, at times the Right an the Left, conservatives and liberals. 

Yet the drilling operation must be given to thought. The objects of his criticisms have not been reducible to the sort of depiction he's carried out. This has, in turn, given them to carry on with their actions, with much violence and disaster. In this way, Chomsky has helped, more than almost anyone else, to secure US foreign policy, for example, simply by funnelling both popular and academic progressive and liberal thought into the form of his kind of drilling operation. In a way, however, to find ones way out of Chomsky's dominance is about as difficult, perhaps, as it would be for Chomsky to understand Continental thought, even if he has many basic similarities with such thought, although the concepts used therein are opaque to him. This may be a telling datum, but I'll leave that go.

From here, however, I am going to suggest that all this extra talk, which would seem quite unnecessary, and that a short critique of Chomsky would be quite enough to get going in another direction, is much more necessary than meets the eye. That we face an overwhemlingly intractable situation that leaves us bound in unacceptable conditions more than we may realize. That certain necessities may arise from a careful and able consideration of the lay of the land here. Bear in mind, however, that "able" is not by any means simply reducible to "being very educated", using a lot of terms, and knowing a great deal of history, etc. Indeed, these, taken unreflectively, will tend to funnel one right back into the major formations that hold sway today, leaving the world trapped and leaving thought and action bound in impotent forms.

Here I plunged into the characterization of "where this all goes". Now I will move into a certain business of the *management* of this strange complex, while only making a very specific mention of a general problematic: there obtains an emergent unfolding of an internal deconstruction of thought and academic work that views the entire history of thought as having ignored nonviolence, where to undertake dealing with this calls the very business of conceptuality as such into question. At the same time, from the action side of things, the history of the world, most generally speaking, is one of a great deal of forgetting or ignoring of noviolence as well, even while it is also variously in play, is the active law of laws themselves, the ground of morality, and the best and most needful mode of engagement in dealing with tyrants, dictators and oppression of most or even potentially all kinds. 

Once these basic conditions are held in mind, and certainly only thought can do this, there emerge some basic minimal conditions to consider. Again, this is an issue of managing a complex situation. Please bear in mind, however, that this writing and thinking I am doing here "with you", if only in theory, as I don't know if you'll even read this far, of course, is no simple "theoretical writing". It is not simply a summary of "postmodernism", as one might find on Wikipedia or a secondary text in philosophy. It is a spinning, an unfolding of nonviolence thoughaction. It is its own substantiality, in a way, and it is enactive arealdy, in certain ways. While it seems, as I am admitting here, a bit complex, I am going to point you to the consideration of things like thought and action in the world as you encounter them. While they may be more simple, they lead to many problems that this thinking addresses. And this thinking, as incredibly involuted as it seems to be, is actually much simpler than you may realize. 

In any case, from this standpoint of management, I propose a kind of activity of this "spinning" that has a character to it that can help to illustrate what is at work, what needs to be at work, and what is at stake in these issues. I characterize this spinning as being in parallel to the "spinning" of Gandhi in his *satyagraha*; here it is a spinning in thought, truth, and action. This spinning is an "unfolding" as I called it. As a spinning, it is an envutionary develoment. I am suggesting that passage into post-postmodern envolutionary nonviolence thoughtaction does require some degree of meditation, which I am *doing* in this writing to you. I am spinning, here, in this unfolding. I am saying that it appears to me to be somehow needful that such a "special thinking" find its way and understand itself to be precisely this. That the alternative is the falling of thought back into the dominant formations and their capitalized and inadequate forms.

So if you allow, for the moment, this issue of practical management of the practice of the special thinking that thinks this, as the spinning of nonviolence thoughtaction, then this unfolding happens in this way. Or it might happen whether you allow it or not. In any case, we have moved into the space in which we can bring Chomsky into view, in the firmament, so to speak, in which he is such a luminary. In which, as it were, he is a cloud in being as the clouds are the clouds of the sky. Yet we have been given to think this relation beteween the two: cloud and sky, Chomsky and the world, by dint of a *thought* that, in some ways, Chomsky could never enable. Yet, it is *this thought* that is needful to respond to the very situations of such importance that Chomsky addresses so inadequately. Thus, the emergence of this spinning is in response to what Chomsky takes to be needful: wrongs and harms in the world that need to be ameliorated. But ameliorating them is not possible without dealing with Chomsky in the ways I'm doing here.

So this is all rather unwieldy, I would agree. It is not technically so terribly difficult, and *nota bene*, it does not make a ton of references a lot of specific authors or require that one do so. In fact, it eschews this, while retaining a sense for "thought" and "the academy" that "allows" for this. Yet, have no illusions: we must act in the world anyhow, and our discourse must also attain some general and somewhat universal form, at times. Yet, I will suggest that it is not as unwieldy as it seems, and that, on the contrary, it is strangely more enabling and more freeing than you may realize. 

I'm going to leave this incomplete. The passages through the Gandhi connection here are very interesting and important. As the unfoldings happen more and more, one gets on one's feet in nvta, and it becomes much clearer. On this basis, one is better able to begin to positive positive work and programs, which are so needful. Stalemated situations, or indeeds ones that are progressing into worse forms, can be opened up, finally, and our engagement may be able to undertake real and positive change. 

So I'm suggesting that if you spent a bit more time with this thinking, you'd start to see changes all over the place that you might not expect, changes that could lead to what really is needed today: not a revolution but a kind of envolution. 

"Crippling sanctions" are "diplomatic"

The quotes are from Obama in a recent speech.

The sanctions on Iraq killed 1.5 million, including 500,000 children ("the price is worth it" -- Madeline Albright under Clinton).

OK. Get out your calculators and start doing the math, if you dare.

What transpires in this logic? What does it mean for Obama to call sanctions "crippling" at all? Does he mean to bring about the deaths of 1.5 million Iranians, with a disproportionate number of the victims being the very young and the elderly, as was the case in Iraq?

What does it mean for this to be understood as a "diplomatic" measure? Where does the ability even to see this as acceptable come from? Why aren't the Iraq sanctions talked about today? Did they Iraq sanctions really play a role in the 9/11 bombings, as was said by the perpetrator-mastermind, Osama Bin Laden?

When Obama basically threatens to bring about the deaths of maybe a million Iranians, does he realize this includes those who want revolution there?

I believe the basic epistemological and moral/ethical capacity for this gross ignorance and, apparently, incompetence, comes right from the heart of Obama's Judeo-Christian commitments, just as this was operating for Clinton, for Albright and for GW Bush. How this is the case is far more difficult to spell out, but the fact is that there lies in the heart of this operation some basic capacities, certain, one might say, talents, or abilities to set forth a sense of program that is ready, willing and able to view things in a certain way. This means: an ability to take sanctions as "diplomatic" in the first place. The ability to say "crippling" without using so many words, that is, without saying: "We will starve your nations until your morgues fill with the corpses of your babies".

Look for yourself. Do the math. That was Albright's response about the 500,000 children of the Iraq sanctions. It was Obama who said "crippling" in this way, and, of course, "everything is on the table".

The real weapon here is epistemology, an ethos that tolerates and white-washes all kinds of collateral damage, a logic concerning what is to be called violent, the matter of how the imposition of a contingency is to be carried out. Sanctions on Iraq are a contingency put to the president and others who make decisions in Iraq. It's "up to them". That is the logic of such sanctions, as was the case with Iraq. This is a matter of not letting one's right hand know what one's left hand is doing. On the one hand, the sanctions are, indeed, chose, enacted, imposed, enforced; on the other hand, the decision for their continuance is ostensibly up to the rulers of Iraq. Or, if the revolutionaries can do it, up to their revolution.

This is not acceptable. It is not even competent. It is literally incompetent. It must be thought about more. Thought must emerge as an independent value in such circumstances. In this regard, for Obama, thought is far too fully subjugated by religions commitment, by belief, by faith, and what lies therein. I think it is not possible to clarify these issues without making this point, just as it was impossible for Gandhi not to make such a point regarding faith and his satyagraha. These may seem unrelated, but I submit that they are more related to this circumstance than it may seem.

Regardless of how one stands on this last point, the threat of sanctions on Iran is great, grave and evinces a true, glaring incompetence and righteous "blood" lust, though there be little blood in sanctions. No, just corpses. So call it "corpse-lust" if you like. My language here is not extremist.

To be clear: when Obama says "crippling" sanctions, he means piles of babies in morgues. This is no fucking joke, and it is not an exaggeration. Look at the Iraq sanctions. Recall Albright. The numbers are pretty steady at 1.5 million, maybe less, maybe more.

The passing of Elisabeth Young-Bruehl

Please post a comment as per invitation if you are interested in thinking, at least, about some coordination of work that responds to the themes and work of Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and Hannah Arendt.

Regarding the question of Gandhian "positive programs" and Zuccotti park. There has been discussion concerning whether Gandhi would either try to disband the movement in that location or work to encourage positive programs right there. This mediation works with this issue -- rather like a fiber that one spins, as may become evident to the reader in the progression of the meditation.

It is important to realize is that positive programs also provide sites for meaningful satyagraha. A positive project basically is the bus on which Rosa Parks rode. The occupiers are creating a false conflict in the main; they have to build the bus first. The skirmish line with the police is more appropriate for a movement concerned primarily with police brutality. Positive projects would involve initiatives which would then be sites in which people forwarding their alternatives could run up against the prevailing systems and face the stasis that might well never provide an opportunity for these programs to be implemented without real resistance and holding-to-truth. Thereupon the satyagraha as protest and civil disobedience might -- might -- be needed but would and should only take place out of an original relation to others that itself is essentially good-willed. But therein lies a host of problems that really need explication. It is not easy; it is both highly possible and at the same time very hidden by the over-developed rage and vengeance culture, including the entirety of the Western traditions.

To realize "positive programs" in Zuccotti park or elsewhere and get clear on what this entails requires the decisive turn from the hidden-in-plain-sight capitalism of rage that dominates both Left and Right, creating, quite often, a mockery of Gandhi's own simple – and not so simple -- path and professed belief and practice of a deeper, truer nonviolence founded not simply in a practice of “non-anger” and “good-will”, but rather, quite radically, on a truth upon which that good will is founded. This points to the heart of Gandhi which is apparently simply rarely understood. While many idolize mohan (let us not go along with Chernus in saying “the Mahatma”!), far fewer actually step foot on the path he actually trod (indeed, who would dare call themselves a saint or mahatma, so why bother trying that sort of level of engagement…), which is by no means reducible to creativity, nor even to experimentation with the truth: it is the truth that he experimented with that is the issue.

The creativity to few rightly emphasize remains trapped in the rage culture and rage capitalism that systematically degrades it, in spite of its own ostensible manifestations of "creativity", hiding the fact that beyond the many rage-products we are sold and which have lodged themselves in many hearts, there lie resources of creativity whose quantity, like the light of the sun, can one day dwarf our best efforts today and empower those in great need beyond what is considered in any way realistically possible currently. The path to these “resources” is closed by the great economy that diverts the emergence of this truth. No, it is not the materialism we are constantly told is the “man behind the curtain” determining the stasis and dominance of our culture. It is the great economy of rage and vengeance as this expresses itself in heart, mind, court, social milieus, media, religion, philosophy, theory and activism. It is this culture that must be refused, both in its dark moments, which is easy, but also in its boldest affirmations of “necessary” violence, as in the war in Iraq and the sanctions before and in the rage against oppression that flourishes within progressive culture.

Yet what was Gandhi’s truth? Was it simply the disclosure of the world founded in good-will and nonviolence? In other words, one version of truth? Not exactly. The culture that sells us the truth that the media and capitalism sell us “lies” has sold us many lies as well. They are no mere lies, however. They are meta-lies in service of the greatest lie of all: that materialism and greed are the problem rather than the rage and vengeance culture that goes on unchecked. When the meta-lies are exposed along with the fundamental lies of violence itself, mohan’s truth begins to show itself for what it is: the truth. Without a capital letter, oddly enough! Positive programs (which I term enconstruction, enarchy and envolution) limp in precisely this way: truth is diverted into rage and vengeance culture which serves as the true basis for materialism. Materialism flourishes in violence culture because violence is the great illusion of justice and action, and thus has great stakes in rendering minds being fitted for reception of the spirit of violence. Gandhiji’s fundamental action was the refusal of the reception of and participation in that spirit and illusion.

In other words, the call for the positive program, and the idea that Gandhi wouldn’t be simply protesting as the occupiers are today may be true, but this entails dealing with certain, specific issues. Only when the occupation movement is oriented fundamentally to confront the criminal justice system and vengeance-based media and spirituality will it be able to adequately limit corporate, capitalizing greed and its partner, *consumption*. For this other consumption remains the chief problem: the spiritual consumption of rage logics wherever these occur. They flourish in their own way in the progressive movements and additionally systematically degrade positive projects and creativity, not to mention problem solving.

The decisive confrontation with, departure from and enpositivization of the rage culture need not seem daunting, however. For if one is given to the positive program one need only realize this: that it is not just any positive program that needs to be enacted, but specifically, that program which consists in the unfolding of the essential matters as is needful regarding the elucidation of the rage and vengeance culture. This is a specific, substantive turning, which I would suggest is itself a kind of spinning. I suggest it is an elegant solution to a difficult problem that enables the most full-fledged efforts possible but does not suffer from the problem in which Gandhi’s truth languishes and limps today in the effort to vaunt positive action and *satyagraha* without understanding the situation as regards the great capitalism taking place and what is truly unique about Gandhi’s holding-to-truth.

In other words, there is indeed a great need for the positive program, but if one thinks Gandhi would just be setting up positive programs, think again. And again. And again. In fact, don’t stop thinking at all: realize this, if you will: that the positive program that needs to be developed is precisely the positive program of the unfolding of the nonviolence thoughtaction in its essence that addresses specifically this rage and vengeance, that is to say, violence-based, culture. For that is truly Gandhiji’s – mohan’s – truth. That is the truth of satyagraha. No mere tactic, nor violence of shaming, nor method of trumping up crimes for which to prosecute cops or oust chancellors or fill the prisons with Wall Street bandits, or method of social shunning that capitalizes on the idea that not to physically hit amounts to nonviolence like the sanctions in Iraq capitalized on the idea that not to bomb is relatively nonviolent (the opposite is evidently true), mohan’s first and foremost positive program was this truth, spun together in his first act of spinning truth and action together in satya-agraha. Specific actions were founded on precisely this and in a way only this. This is what eludes most of the “nonviolence” contingent within most movements. The releasing and realization of nonviolence at the same time releases and realizes the potential of the positive program. The rage and vengeance culture shuts down this development systematically because it orients the mind to receive its proffered illusions of violence as such, crippling in essential ways the development of positive potential. Without getting clear on this, calling for positive programs is like suggesting that a firefighter who is spraying a burning house with gasoline point the spraying hose on another part of the house. Satyagraha consists in this: standing in the stream of that gasoline in such a manner as to transform it into water. It is a fitting analogy given the role of the self-immolation of the Tunisian who helped to start these revolutions and attempted revolutions, while we do not serve his hideous and sad suffering adequately if we do not do precisely this.

The finding of nonviolence does not lie in its capacity to vaunt positive programs, although these are obviously quite important. Gandhi wasn’t simply creative. Pushing for these won’t suffice. No, it lies in the happenstance, felicity and unique and irreducible condition that the positive program one chooses to develop is nonviolence as such, a happening that one must strive ever to make happen more, but never with violent force, but only by working to help unfold and develop the conditions of possibility of this turn and specific devotion. For this is at the same time the very form of alternative, restorative and meditative justice, which Gandhi likewise vaunted quite fully in spirit. The radical action of nonviolence lies in this turn. Gandhi’s promotion of positive programs was a fruit of his nonviolence. The lack of the manifestation of this fruit today is an indication of the underlying status of nonviolence. Nonviolence is indeed “creative”, but not simply in order to “solve things in order to ameliorate violence” or creatively interact with violent oppressors, although these things are good and are involved. No, nonviolence fosters creativity in a more original way, and it is out of that specific way that Gandhi was able to vaunt the positive program: that nonviolence opens the eyes of its practitioner far beyond the squint of rage’s hyper-focusing and can disclose rage for what it is: the blinding of possibility that in turn closes the positive program.

This turn is a spinning. This is always in a way the first spinning. This was Gandhi’s spinning. This turn is a kind of revolving that turns and spins, in a kind of revolution that enjoins without toppling, enlists without forcing, enables without owning, enriches without suffering depletion, enacts without pummeling with “action” and force, en-… well you see the role of the “en” in this, and that is why I term what is needful here as “envolution”, which was Gandhi’s mode of revolution and the basic mode of the positive program some are en-visioning. This nonviolence thoughtaction is engaged and creative, unfolding and in a way infinite. I would suggest it is far more Jeffersonian than one might think at first, oddly enough, and that his kind of cosmopolitian, learned, disciplined, skilled, polymath engagement and living might be an important example of the kind of work that is needed. And that really is a bit of a far cry from Zuccotti park, but closer to Gandhiji than one might think, in a way. But it is a far cry from Zuccotti for a real reason, and that has to do with the culture of rage and vengeance and its great capitalizations that continue to hold sway and essentially immolate truth, indeed, Gandhi’s truth. For this we must stand in the face of the stream of rage, the flow of the gasoline, and help to create the happening of the positive program that finds itself unfolding the specific positive program of nonviolence that identifies and release from the strangle-hold of the culture of rage and vengeance that keeps positive programs from developing.

While this thinking seems complex, it is at the same time repetitive and may even admit of a certain beauty and, in any case, an odd capacity for a kind of continuing unfolding. Indeed, it does so just as spinning may be repetitive and may unfold or en-fold together disparate strands and fibers into a certain thread, a spinning thread that may constitute a certain act of affirmation of a kind of freedom and a kind of resistance to a dominating capitalism. I have indicated just what I think that capitalism is. I hereby spin and continue to spin in a kind of joyous spirit (for the moment), what I call *satyagrahaha* that stands within the flow of the flames and gasoline of the culture of rage, vengeance, judgment and its ongoing crippling of positive work, amelioration, problem solving, empowerment and nonviolence in that peculiar manner in which the violence of it is at one and the same time the very closer of the unfolding that this unfolding releases itself from in this spinning that has happened to take up the issue of this very spinning in this way: that it undertakes in the space of the question of nonviolence the opening of the question in light of the nature of that opening and in the darkness of the closure of that opening in the dominance of the violence of many kinds that holds sway both in the darkness of the prisons but in the blinding light of the rage of the movements that protest materialism yet, oddly enough, not so much the prisons, not so much the sanctions, not so much the wars, even. Oddly enough.