Dem Apples

Epic Titans 101: Josef vs. Leon


The issue of an “audience” response is nothing more than an unproductive distraction.


Currently I’m exploring Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and their utilization of the capitalist oppressive structure to denote Freud’s contribution to “determinate systems of representation.” Where a Marxist essence of labor becomes enslaved by it’s ultimate consumption by capital or political economy, likewise they posit a similar Freudian essence of desire that becomes subsumed by the libidinal economy determined by the capitalist nuclear familial trinity of the Oedipal complex. Their thought experiment highlights a salient point within this conversation.


The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein saw the complications in positing a “good object” in that “one can never be sure that the good object does not contain a bad piece” (The Logic of Sense Deleuze). Deleuze and Guattari intend to break or at least destabilize the Kantian category in its sacred form and lofty pretension through the idea of schizoanalysis (by introducing an opposition of the traditional as paranoia with the revolutionary in schizophrenia – less mental disease than the process of the breakdown of institutional structure found in the mind).


It is in this light that I insist the craftsman’s labor must be seen and should be considered - a multifaceted action that cannot be strictly categorized. Why should one limit one’s practice to a dogmatic binary principle of denotation when the possibilities of connotation can be so rewarding? With the history of crafts intertwining with so many communes seeking financial stability, self-sufficiency, or a derivation on the protestant work ethic, I cannot fathom that any moralistic Luddite call could be considered revolutionary especially given the malaise of our pancapitalist/hypercapitalist/posthuman environs. I am not calling for an abandonment of a priori values or moral axioms, instead I insist on a full consideration of the power structure in which it is to be found.


My issue with Gabriel’s talk was the inclusion of greenwashing vertical monopolies as the exemplary model for reform. As The Corporation (and the current economic debacle - disaster capitalism come home to roost) proved the corporate model itself must be replaced if exploitation and the anti-production/colonization of the Brand are to be avoided. Noted economist Ravi Batra (Greenspan's Fraud) has set up an alternative calculation method of GDP to account for those “externalized costs” that could not be accounted for by the decontextualized absolute axiom of a Kantian imperative.


In my own realm I refuse to define myself as the product of my consumption. Once the citizen becomes the consumer it is categorically impossible to make, let alone produce change.


The revolution will not be artisan.


Gregor Kropotkin