technical images and linear text

So, I’ve been neglecting this blog of late, as I’ve been devoting my internet energies to maintaining another blog related to a course I’ve been taking. I noticed that my recent post on critical animal studies was of some interest, and so I encourage those interested in such issues to check out the other blog, dealing generally with the question of ‘life itself,’ and eventually with specific topics directly tied to CAS.

But I came across this piece recently in the WSJ, and I wanted to link to it and comment, but it was simply too far removed from the other blog.

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This is perhaps the least surprising resolution to a police investigation in recent memory:

The officer, a seven-year veteran, recognized Mr. Clemmons “immediately,” Mr. Diaz said, and noticed that the suspect was trying to pull something from one of his pockets. He ordered Mr. Clemmons to put his hands up, but he refused and began to move away from the officer. The officer shot at least twice, Mr. Diaz said. Mr. Clemmons was pronounced dead at the scene.

I remember as soon as I read about those four policemen shot dead in Washington, I thought to myself – whoever the suspect turns out to be, they sure as hell aren’t going to be brought into the station in handcuffs. Ah well. Whatever noise we want to make about due process, this is more or less par for the course in any conflict between groups of armed thugs.

What you think of as offensive is hilariously tame by the standards of the Internet. Your standards of decency are positively Victorian to the new generation of people who have grown up with and on the Internet.

What am I talking about?

If you’re like most average folks, you’ll say ‘fuck’ and ’shit’ from time to time. Perhaps if you’re in a real mood you’ll say ‘cunt’ or ‘motherfucker.’ Maybe you are open to watching a bit of pornography, and certainly you’ll joke about sex. You’re not racist, but you might laugh at racial humour – especially if you’ve had a few drinks and the person offering said humour is of the race being mocked, or otherwise distances themselves from the old-fashioned, scary kind of racism.

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Never trust a cut-rate theologian – you’ll end up needing a new foundation on them metaphysics in less than five years!

So-called ‘critical animal studies’ is the kind of disciplinary identification that just seems designed to irritate me from the get-go. I mean you have the usual collision of disciplines (according to Wiki, it includes “scholars from fields as diverse as art history, anthropology, film studies, history, sociology, biology, psychology, literary studies, geography,philosophy and feminism or queer theory“), a collection that could be applied to just about every newfangled discipline like this. Certainly everything that gets called “critical x studies.” Worst of all, you have an explicit political aim identified with the movement itself, something that almost always gets associated with something called ‘critical’ but which I think is anything but.

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