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SINCERE_OBJECT

                                                December 14, 2018

So: is Graham Harman serious?
Is he sincere?                                         OOONT
                                                       INTO_THE_OOONT
Is he a madman, or
a con-artist?                    DEGENERATE_TRIANGLE

  The trouble is that he's been
  determinedly repeating and
  re-iterating this line of nonsense      The other side of the question
  quite some time, the objects two        is, how is it possible that
  it are really pretty obvious...         people are *still* getting
                                          fooled by this kind of thing?
  But the trouble is the art-and-arc      You would think that after the
  design school fools have been taking    post-modernism fad crashed and
  him seriously--                         burned, people would be more
                                          gun-shy of latching on to this
    I theorize it's a cynical move:       sort of craziness.
    it's not easy for a philosphy
    boy to score, and how can you           They must really *need*
    turn down modest fame and some          it for some reason...
    paying gigs just to earn the
    respect of your Colleages most            Consider that at the core of this
    of whom were lucky to get out of          is some left-wing doctrine about
    the cab-driving business before           leveling, avoiding "privileging".
    it got itself "disrupted".
                                              ("Mr Sun causes the plants to
       On the other-hand, it                  grow!"; "How dare you privilege
       could be that he's been                the Sun?  You, Solar fascists!")
       blinded by the flattery
       of being taken seriously               Even if the key element is
       by *someone*, and has                  social signalling to the left
       somehow managed to ignore              that you are a member in good
       how bone-headed most of                standing, wouldn't you avoid
       his moves look to people               falling into the "science
       not easily blinded by                  wars" trap?  The party line,
       jargon.                                *at present* is that the
                                              right is crazy for dismissing
                                              scientific opinion.  Why
                                              would your opening move be to
                                              dismiss the natural sciences?

                                                     For that matter,
                                                     nearly the first thing
                                                     Harman does in the intro
                                                     to his latest book is
                                                     to *dismiss* "speaking
                                                     truth to power" and
                                                     sneer at the attempts
                                                     at fact-checking Trump.
                             INTO_THE_OOONT
                                                     It could be this is the
                                                     artists vs activists
                                                     split... many art-types
                                                     seem to feel guilty that
                                                     they're not more political,
                                                     telling 'em it doesn't
                                                     matter could be a win.





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