This blurb is so enticing.
Declarations of Dependence: Money, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Care
by Scott Ferguson
Human being is born and remains dependent, yet everywhere she is abandoned. Today, so many yearn to be free from the governing center, but they are more reliant upon its care than they know. Traditionally, critique has answered care’s entanglements by insisting that money enslaves and the aesthetic saves. Yet neoliberal fecklessness has revealed the impotence of this dialectic, requiring us to set the historical relation between money and aesthetics on more capacious foundations. For this, critical theory must desert the Marxist image of money as a private, finite, and alienable quantum of value. Instead, it should embrace the heterodoxy of Modern Monetary Theory, for which money is a boundless public center that can be made to support all.
It wasn’t so much the move from the finite to the boundless which can be read as a move from the restricted to the generous. It was the harkening back to care (à la Heidegger?) that for me led to a consideration of the history of critique generated by queer and feminist theory where desire is theorized as plural (and yes, desire is not the same as care) and imagine other economies. Money. Meaning. Margins. Which gives rise to which?
And so for day 2479
26.09.2013
Thanks for your brief response to the blurb from my book. Curious, though, how you could comment on this in fall 2013 when the book didn’t appear until the summer of 2018.
Scott,
The dates on Berneval function as accession numbers. Producing every once in a while an odd temporal dislocation. My goal is to catch up and yet enjoy the look of the ruins (abandoned blog) along the way. Also keeps readers mindful of textual questions: when was it composed, when was it posted, when is it dated. And sensitive to anachronism as a discursive device.
I recorded a response to another curious mind:
https://berneval.hcommons.org/2013/04/05/regular-irregularities-temporal-dislocations/
All the best
François
Scott,
Time has elapsed and your intriguing question about the play with time lines here at Berneval has sparked some further mediation on the nature of money flows and time.
I wonder how much of Modern Monetary Theory takes up the issue of a decentralized approach to reparations. I do not only mean debt relief but also what we in Canada call reconciliation and what I believe in the United States is covered by the overlapping concept of reparations.
An authority such as the state can act retroactively. Such is the case with pardons and indulgences.
Just who may set up as an authority is of course a matter of occasion (go fund me pipelines, Harlem rent parties, etc.). The structure is similar: dam(n) and release.
This came to mind recently during an exchange with a friend who works in philanthropy.
Between friends
Subject line: check out the cool UX at St. Mikes < Re: I am raising funds to support St. Michael's medical teams and patients
To a friend:
Please pass along my sincerest appreciation to the designers of the site and the whole welcome and acknowledgement system. A model to truly emulate elsewhere and everywhere.
Although I have not availed myself of the ecard features – they look swell.
Do you know if the other hospitals in Toronto have a similar system? I asked because I would like to remember a friend by donating to Woman’s.
From a friend…
Hi Francois — this is a new platform for us (Do It Yourself Fundraising, or Peer to Peer Fundraising), launched just a few months ago. I’ll be sure to tell Navaz [Mistry] (who is spearheading this project) know your response; she will be very pleased. It was a lot of work. I helped out at the front end (not on this particular appeal), and it was a big learning experience for me.
Places like WWF and Heart & Stroke and Stephen Lewis Foundation all have them (I know, I am often the recipient of friends’ appeals). As for hospitals, a quick google revealed that both SickKids and Women’s College have the ability to set up your own fundraisers.
https://www.sickkidsfoundation.com/fundraise
http://womenscollegehospitalfoundation.com/Get-Involved/Fundraise.aspx
Otherwise of course if you just want to make a donation in memory of a friend here is the page: […]
And thank you again — it meant a lot to me.
To a friend…
A question of rhetoric for you : how do you politely say “no” to a friend? With all the Erasmus (De Copia) variations : not now, not ever etc etc…. — the next step of Navaz and company might be time-released donations …. Careful though not to complicate a basically very sound design and interface — maybe a calendar drop down somewhere ?
From a friend…
Interesting… you mean, not at this time, but contact me again in a (set period of time) — so a reminder is generated automatically; or the ability when such an appeal comes to set a date for when that donation would go through (because sometimes timing is everything)
To a friend…
You bet.
I have been thinking a lot about time recently and its relation to place.
Just helping people manage the time and place of requests and control their info flows boosts ROI (investment in the how of philanthropy leads to crowdsourcing and also the “goodwill and consideration” generated by an effective campaign)
See: http://www.stmichaelsfoundation.com/donor-centre/donor-centre.html
Thanks to Scott for provoking this opportunity to compound interest.