what I love about the book is that it does something I've been wanting to see someone do for a while, which is connect our existence and our politics to the distorting/shadow/simulacra effect of social media. we now have (thank god) a ton of books about how social media is addicting, polarizing, etc, but not enough about how it doesn't just destroy our critical and communal and social skills so much as distort them into (to use her metaphor) "upside down" versions of themselves. the destruction of something is easier to combat politically, I think, than the distortion or corruption of something. because the people whose empathy and discernment is distorted do not feel they lost empathy and discernment--if that makes sense. and we have not developed a counter for this moment, because We Have Never Been Here (except we have, which is why Naomi Klein digs beyond Raoul Peck and the Swedish author of Exterminate to Du Bois and Aimé Césaire--we have been here before, some of us). and side note as a fan who is a writer, who has been trying to write about this mess, I'm in awe of her willingness and ability to write something that had to be so hard to manage and keep "straight" in her own head as she wrote. Like the vertigo musta been no joke!
Yes, yes, yes! She is really good and thoughtful and careful at documenting the "upside down." And, thank you for mentioning Du Bois and Césaire. I took notes on that passage but thought this post was going too long so didn't include it but I was just so....relieved and encouraged that she cited them in the text. Will be thinking about this one for a while.
Yeah I was yelling at the book (Peck didn’t come up with that! That’s in “the World and Africa” and “Discourse on Colonialism!) and I was so relieved when she did mention them. My only critique is why not start with them? Because that’s crucial: some of us do know better but folks don’t listen to anyone but the white men of the “this is not who we are” and “our institutions are strong” liberalism cult that don’t know better and can’t solve the problem, at best, or are the problem, at worst. I hope we can do better in these end times!
Yes, I know what you mean about why not START with those two. I read that as her writerly device for staging her discovery process for the reader. We just weren't the readers she was writing for in that moment.
what I love about the book is that it does something I've been wanting to see someone do for a while, which is connect our existence and our politics to the distorting/shadow/simulacra effect of social media. we now have (thank god) a ton of books about how social media is addicting, polarizing, etc, but not enough about how it doesn't just destroy our critical and communal and social skills so much as distort them into (to use her metaphor) "upside down" versions of themselves. the destruction of something is easier to combat politically, I think, than the distortion or corruption of something. because the people whose empathy and discernment is distorted do not feel they lost empathy and discernment--if that makes sense. and we have not developed a counter for this moment, because We Have Never Been Here (except we have, which is why Naomi Klein digs beyond Raoul Peck and the Swedish author of Exterminate to Du Bois and Aimé Césaire--we have been here before, some of us). and side note as a fan who is a writer, who has been trying to write about this mess, I'm in awe of her willingness and ability to write something that had to be so hard to manage and keep "straight" in her own head as she wrote. Like the vertigo musta been no joke!
Yes, yes, yes! She is really good and thoughtful and careful at documenting the "upside down." And, thank you for mentioning Du Bois and Césaire. I took notes on that passage but thought this post was going too long so didn't include it but I was just so....relieved and encouraged that she cited them in the text. Will be thinking about this one for a while.
Yeah I was yelling at the book (Peck didn’t come up with that! That’s in “the World and Africa” and “Discourse on Colonialism!) and I was so relieved when she did mention them. My only critique is why not start with them? Because that’s crucial: some of us do know better but folks don’t listen to anyone but the white men of the “this is not who we are” and “our institutions are strong” liberalism cult that don’t know better and can’t solve the problem, at best, or are the problem, at worst. I hope we can do better in these end times!
Yes, I know what you mean about why not START with those two. I read that as her writerly device for staging her discovery process for the reader. We just weren't the readers she was writing for in that moment.
Totally. I saw it and was like this is super skillful actually.
obsessed and so excited she wrote this book!