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For the last several years, and with no particular purpose other than a desire to meander through reflection, I have taken the period between Christmas and New Years Eve to produce a summary of the slice of the year to which I paid attention through epigrams and aphorisms. It follows an end-of-year tradition I started in 2016 (for those see here), 2017 (for these see here), 2018 (for those see here), 2019 (for those see here); 2020 (for those see here); 2022 (for those see here); and 2023 (for those see here).
2023
was the year of belief, of the believer, and in the believing. It was
the year in which one could personalize truth --my truth conflated
belief in a thing with the thing itself. And it became a marker--not of
the thing itself but of faith and loyalty to the holder of this
personalized belief-truth. In 2023 it became clear that the suzerainty
of the Enlightenment was now contested even as its own nature was being
interrogated away by its feuding factions. 2023 was, in this sense, the
year of total war in the sense of conflict at virtually every level of
human relations. Nothing is now uncontested. And all of the old
prejudices, tactics, ploys, tropes, are on display as they are hurled
into the battles among those who would claim not merely the rights of
the suzerain but also that of the high priest. Yet these trajectories
appeared poisoned as well by addiction, by desire, and by the
irrational. Belief here is not merely the exercise of a rational faith,
but the eruption of passions and lusts which, in their own way, assert
the sort of control that in its 21st century manifestation is
increasingly played by our rich investment in pharmacopeia of the body and of the mind--that cornucopia
now provides the ambrosia in the service of which and in the
expectation of uninterrupted access to that sustaining elixir, some
sectors of the human collective have sworn fealty.
At the start of this year I noted, in passing on the Annual Oracle of the Ifa practitioners of Cuba, that this was to be the year of Obatala (The
Orishas Speak: The 2023 Letter of the Yoruba Association of Cuba (Letra
del Año para el 2023 de la Asociación Yoruba de Cuba) and My
Preliminary Interpretation
). "For
2023, there is something new and something old. Working through the
semiotic signification embodied in Ifa and the ruling spirits one can
translate the fundamentals of the 2023 oracle this way: Obtalá returns
as the ruling sign--but with a vengeance. " Obatala
is the essence of rationality and irrationality. Obatala represents the
highest form of rational creative potential as well as its basest forms
of dissipation. Obatala in 2023 was reinforced by Oshun, the essence of
fertility, wealth--and passion. Passion that served as an intensifier
of the positive and negative gyrations of the rational irrationality
that marked the year.
And 2023 did not
disappoint. It
was a year of the passionate and dispassionate believer; and it was the
year that belief, again, became the primary addiction of the human
collective and its social relations. However presented, in whatever
fancy dress it might be offered up. . . .and consumed by humans who
appear to have been starving for its nourishment. It was a year in which
the only belief worth having, was in the passionate/dispassion of the
believer. If the year had a credo, it might be this (with apologies for
the inelegance of the Latin text):
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Quod ex fide;
Quod formare omnia potest;
Veram formationem dant desiderio meo;
Vera illa imago fidei meae communitatis est;
In quo absurditas rationis essentiam format;
et appetitus formae rationis;
Fides autem in sua transmissione est;
Credentia autem in sua logica et veritate est
I believe in one absurdity
That emerges from a faith;
That can shape all things;
That give true formation to my desire;
That is a true reflection of my community of faith;
In which absurdity forms the essence of reason;
and desire reason's form;
And faith is in its transmission;
And belief is in its logic and truth
Links to the 2023 Year End Ruminations here:
Part 1: I believe I believe I believe;
Part 2: The Human Spirit Spirited Away
Part 3: The Masses Must be Educated!
Part 4: The (Re)(De)(Trans)(Con)volution will be Televised!
1. At some point context specific analysis can make anything justifiable.; but that may be the point of the modern; the rest then can be dismissed as unwanted interventionism or accepted as solidarity enhancing interventions by like minded groups. For mass consumption the rest is reduced to battles over the management of authoritative stories welll-curated to its objectives.
"The U.N. refugee agency on Tuesday expressed concern over widespread distress in large Afghan refugee communities across Pakistan where authorities are conducting searches to round up and expel undocumented foreigners. Islamabad last month announced it would expel over a million undocumented refugees, mostly Afghans, amid a row with Kabul over charges it harbours anti-Pakistan militants. Over 370,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan since Oct. 1. * * * "The announcement and follow-up actions, including reports of intimidation by local authorities and evictions by landlords, have created a sense of panic," UNHCR's Pakistan representative, Philippa Candler, said at a briefing in Geneva, according to a statement from the agency.* * * Thousands of Afghans have gone underground in Pakistan fearing deportation, saying they feared for their lives if they returned to Afghanistan, which is now run by the Islamist Taliban movement following the hasty and chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led western forces in 2021." (Deportation drive sparks 'sense of panic' among Afghan refugees in Pakistan: UNHCR; November 2023)
2. The sorts of bridges political leaders and their followers sometimes build, in the present era at least, have a way of collapsing while they stride across; leaving to others to clean up the mess very much in the manner of that in Thornton Wilder’s “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” (1927); sometimes the bridges hold long enough for them to cross before collapsing.
"Indeed, that was the message received by some 200 Australian corporate leaders traveling with Albanese to Shanghai. Freed from the burdens of geopolitical reality, they toasted Albanese and their own expectations of new export sales to China. There is an obvious folly in encouraging Australian businesses to let bygones be bygones and disregarding the lessons learned over the past two years about the vagaries of China's political economy. Albanese's actions also contradict Australia's declared commitment to join with the U.S. and other allies to "de-risk" to reduce dependence on China in critical areas and confront their vulnerability to potential economic coercion. Australia's last two governments invested significant energy in persuading local companies to take the threat of Chinese economic coercion seriously. Albanese has set back the progress they made. In return for Australian capitulation in the name of stabilization, Beijing has given up little beyond removing trade restrictions it was wrong to impose in the first place." (Australia's Albanese paid a high price for his trip to China: Canberra no longer seems willing to stand up for rules-based international order)
3. The great lesson gleaned by those born in the shadow of the great sacrifice of their forebearers is that it is easier to run from a similar fate or pay others to bear it; it is a wonder, though, that concepts of duty and responsibility for the system built by their ancestors, and protection of the bounty it has provided, appears to have become incomprehensible concepts; though in the case of what passes for the American political class and their entourages in the current era, it must be said that a less ultimately successful version of this circus did pose challenges for American Administrations in the 1930s-1940s.
"Congress is facing a fierce battle next month over military aid to Israel and Ukraine, which has been thrown into flux by divisions among Republicans over how to move forward. While both chambers moved quickly last week to pass bipartisan legislation averting a government shutdown, they left assistance for the two war-torn countries up in the air. The decision has highlighted the GOP divisions when it comes to America’s role in global affairs, and it’s raised questions about how, or if, lawmakers will get that emergency funding over the finish line before year’s end. * * * Kick-starting the debate last month, President Biden proposed a massive, $105 billion supplemental spending package featuring emergency assistance for both Ukraine and Israel, largely in the form of military amenities, as well as funding to provide humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, boost security at the southern border and help America’s Indo-Pacific allies counter China’s growing influence." (Congress faces fierce battle over Israel, Ukraine aid)
4. Of course, the ultimate problem of the techniques of virtual video narrative, like that of mutually assured destruction, is that all narrative is reduced to the absurd--or, inversely, that in an era where there is only mis; dis- and mal- information, the relationship between power and (mandatory or orthodox) belief becomes more exposed; facts become lost in the offal of interpretation that is itself the expression of power relations; but the sophists would be smiling--if they existed at all. . . . .
"Did Aristotle really exist? The provocative question, which was the topic of a viral video by nationalistic Chinese scholar Jin Canrong, has launched yet another battle in the narrative war between China and the West.Jin is not a historian but a leading expert on China-US relations at Renmin University in Beijing and an adviser to the Chinese government. He is also an influencer on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, where a video clip of his speech on Aristotle went viral last month, generating a tsunami of public debate on the reliability of Western history." (Aristotle becomes latest casualty in China’s narrative war with the West as scholar questions philosopher’s existence)
6. The cultures of functionaries are entirely risk shifting and risk averse; perhaps they ought to be.
"Activists were seen waving Palestine flags and chanting "free Palestine" and "ceasefire now" from atop the memorial. Police last night said they "regret" officers not being close enough to the memorial to prevent anyone from climbing on the memorial. But cops have insisted it would have been illegal to arrest the protesters. It comes as footage appears to show a group of officers standing idly by - despite a dispersal order covering Westminster being in place between 7.50pm last night through to 2am this morning.* * * Home Secretary James Cleverley also vowed to investigate the Met's failure to take action. * * * He added: "We have made a commitment to review the legislation around public order policing. "If the police need more powers to make sure that really deeply distasteful, provocative things like that do not happen for the public good, because of course this is about making sure it doesn't stimulate violent action or any kind of violent responses, but if we need to take action specifically to give police more powers, we are looking at doing that."" (PROTEST OUTRAGEPolice ‘regret’ response after cops ‘stood by and watched’ while pro-Palestine protesters climbed on war memorial)
7. The cultural-political habits of subaltern states are hard to break; in every case local leaders find ways to make explicit the need for a subaltern to find a patron even when their langauge invites a different interpretation.
"Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar, during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, underscored the ‘blind’ trust Pakistan places in China, referring to their bilateral partnership as one made “in heaven.” He emphasized that Pakistan's commitment to the strategic partnership with China would remain steadfast, and they would not allow anything to undermine it." (Pakistan blindly trusts China, says Kakar).
8. There is no more sublime comedy than farce; and no better farce than that of sad time traveling personages from a century that was itself a bloody episode of mad farce.
"Gerhard Schröder, former German Social Democrat Chancellor, known for his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has claimed that the US supposedly disrupted "peace talks" between Ukraine and Russia at the beginning of the full-scale invasion and that Kyiv invited him to mediate. * * * "However, nothing eventually happened. My impression is that nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington. It was fatal. Because the result now is that Russia will be more closely tied to China, which the West should not want," concludes Schröder, who is close to Putin. Answering the question of whether any agreements with Russia, which has grossly violated international law and attacked Ukraine despite its own promises, are credible, the former chancellor said Western Europe is "not in danger" as Russia cannot defeat NATO." (Former German Chancellor claims he "mediated" situation between Ukraine and Russia in 2022)9. Elite consensus now appears to have been moving from "the masses must be educated" to the new imperative--the masses must be educated by the enterprise!
"What the generations-long movement from corporate social responsibility to responsible business conduct and norm-compliance based accountability founded on a corporate responsibility to respect human rights and other international norms has appeared to produce is not merely a strong taste for compliance, but also a desire for entities, once the object against which educated masses were deployed, to become a source of mass education in their own right. In effect, a long process of core normative changes in the way in which society imagines the role and function of economic activity--from inward facing and profit generating and risk bearing; to outward facing and impacts generating and risk controlling-- has transformed the expectations built into permitted collective economic activity from one that is passive with respect to the construction and implementation of political and social ideologies and objectives, to one in which the enterprise is now expected to embed those ideologies and expectations into its production and market behaviors. That change, in turn, changes the way understands the source and management of mass education in liberal democratic and post-colonial spaces--or at least puts it in a different light. * * * That, certainly, was spectacularly documented in the recent arc of the story of efforts by the manufacturers of Bud Light beer to educate its consuming masses respecting social justice and inclusion issues for the LGBTQ+ community. That, in turn, was centered on a marketing-as-education campaign that would have featured a social influencer of some prominence." (The Masses Must be Educated!--The (Mis)Management of Business and Human Rights Populism). The complexities were much on display in 2023, emblematic of which was the disasterous public relations campaign around Bud Lite. "Conservative and right-leaning personalities took to social media to vent their anger with “Transheuser Busch”, as they dubbed Anheuser-Busch, which owns the beer brand. First out of the trap was the 52 year-old singer Kid Rock, who posted a video of him shooting up a stack of Bud Light cases. Within hours, social media was awash with similar anti-Bud videos of people dumping slabs of Bud Light into bins, and thrashing supermarket shelves where the beer was stacked high." (Transgender advert for Bud Light sparks massive backlash and beer shortages in US).
10. There is nothing that says de-coupling of empires louder than meetings of their respective Imperial cores where the core discursive trope is, as the Franco-German bloc would have it, about risk and solidarity but not de-coupling; there is almost nothing more descriptive than the discourse of their (re)coupling as they develop the language of reconstitution as increasingly differentiated authority-cores at the center of their respective trading and production chains even as they proclaim their respective desires to deal with all comers--on their terms.
"On 19 May 2023, Mr. Xi delivered a speech China hosted their meeting of Central Asian leaders in the old Tang dynasty imperial capital, now called Xi'an. On 19 May 2023, Mr. Xi delivered a keynote address at the inaugural China-Central Asia summit. The circulated summary of the speech is tremendously interesting (President Xi Jinping Chairs the Inaugural China-Central Asia Summit and Delivers a Keynote Speech). * * * The G-7 meeting was held in Hiroshima under the presidency of Japan. The G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communiqué (May 20, 2023) suggests a quite distinct vision for the global order, though also one that is centered on a core metropolis and then extending out "leaving no one behind." (Ibid.). They reject notions of "de-coupling" and posit instead that theirs is a strategy for "de-risking." (Ibid). Yet when one attaches meaning to the words, the end product is the same."(Comparing What is on Offer as Empires De-Couple (work together to build a community of one heart and one mind (同心同德的共同体)): Studying the G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communiqué and President Xi Jinping Keynote Speech at the Inaugural China-Central Asia Summit )
11. Revolution comes in small steps and from the sides; where frontal assaults on core values fails, gnawing at the peripheral contradictions assures that the fortress of orthodoxy can be undermined.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, David R. Boyd, chronicles the compelling evidence that a secretive international arbitration process called investor-State dispute settlement has become a major obstacle to the urgent actions needed to address the planetary environmental and human rights crises. Foreign investors use the dispute settlement process to seek exorbitant compensation from States that strengthen environmental protection, with the fossil fuel and mining industries already winning over $100 billion in awards. These cases create regulatory chill. The Special Rapporteur identifies specific actions that States must take to avoid future claims under the investor-State dispute settlement process and fulfil their human rights obligations. (Paying polluters: the catastrophic consequences of investor-State dispute settlement for climate and environment action and human rights)
12. Where Empires harden borders, merchants invariably split their business; empires think they are forcing a choice or cultivating national productive forces; business they must merely split production to optimize global wealth production.
"Apple and its suppliers aim to build more than 50 million iPhones in India annually within the next two to three y years, with additional tens of millions of units planned after that. * * * Apple is emblematic of a move among companies worried about overdependence on China to move parts of their supply chains elsewhere. . . Diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and its allies to block Beijing's access to advanced technology and strengthen ties with New Dehli have accelerated the trend. * * * Apple has faced challenges n China this ear beyond trade tensions with the U.S. including the Chinese government instructing some officials not to use iPhones at work." (Apple Aims to Make a Quarter of the World’s iPhones in India: Supplier Foxconn plans to build more factories and give India a production role once limited mostly to China)
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