The most “radical” and polemical forms of theory are being co-opted by capital

September 11, 2007 Sensation and Sensibility: Deleuze’s Aesthetic Metaphysics Posted by larvalsubjects under Deleuze

I suppose I shouldn’t post these things on a blog. But why publish anything anymore? Where there are no encounters and where there is no possibility of dialogue save the occasional inquiry I receive in email, what could the possible value of publication be?

Perhaps one aim of academic writing today should be the destruction of the privilege surrounding the academic apparatus, its journals, its conferences, its books; all of which produce isolated islands and foster specialization, staving off any encounter with the non-specialist and fostering a form of writing aimed only at the specialist. Of course, I say all this as a rationalization for my own anxieties and idiosyncracies...

larvalsubjects Says: September 12, 2007 at 1:33 am At any rate, I think this is a perpetual danger for political critique. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with EGS: http://www.egs.edu/
At the EGS you get to do your graduate work with some of the foremost theorists alive today (Badiou, Agamben, Zizek, DeLanda, Butler, etc). They offer a masters and phd in communications, though certainly of a highly unique sort. Sociologically, one of the most interesting things about EGS is that a high number of the graduates go into fields like network and cable news, advertising, various forms of media production, etc. In short, here we have a case where the most “radical” and polemical forms of theory are being co-opted by capital and put to very different ends. Does that mean the tool itself is inherently tainted? A scalpel can be used to heal or kill.