Starred in Monday, May 01, 2006
Are you looking for a challenge?
Open challenge to Justin (my Berkeley Unitarian theologian friend):
Backstory of this challenge: As Justin had blogged, I ran into him randomly on the Civic Center BART platform yesterday (I was on my way home from the airport). In the discussion, he pulled out one of his theology texts. I pulled out Naked Economics, which prompted us to begin arguing about the merits of capitalism.
Paraphrased conversation:
We'll see. He'll probably make me read "Das Kapital" or something.
I will read any book of your choosing provided you read Naked Economics. We will then blog about the experience.Ground rules:
- It has to be something you've read.
- The book has to be something substantial and thoughtful. Through making you read Naked Economics, I hope to expose you to ideas that you haven't had a lot of exposure to. I intend for you to do the same for me.
- No choosing a book that is absurdly long or has an absurd topic for the purpose of just making me sit through it. For example, The Illustrated Medical Guide to Really Disturbing Dermatological Diseases would be off-limits, as would Webster's Dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume E.
- I think you'd potentially enjoy Naked Economics (all of the economics, none of that pesky math). Please choose something that won't put me to sleep or make me (excessively) curse Derrida.
Backstory of this challenge: As Justin had blogged, I ran into him randomly on the Civic Center BART platform yesterday (I was on my way home from the airport). In the discussion, he pulled out one of his theology texts. I pulled out Naked Economics, which prompted us to begin arguing about the merits of capitalism.
Paraphrased conversation:
Me: When properly regulated, capitalism is mostly good and can be an incredible engine for economic growth and poverty reduction. Global trade is the best hope for pulling the third world out of poverty.Okay, so it didn't go exactly like that.
Him: Capitalism is oppressive, corrupting, violent, uncaring, amoral, and destructive.
Me: You nonsense-spewing postmodernist!
Him: You complacently oppressive neoliberal!
Me: Jerkhead!
Him: Dorkface!
We'll see. He'll probably make me read "Das Kapital" or something.
posted at 10:26 AM 
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pfft, Das Kapital, please...I'm sure, as an economist, you've read it. (Or at least you should have.)
I'm game. It will be over the summer, though, as I have quite enough to read to keep my blood-espresso level through the roof until mid-May.
While I particularly enjoyed Derrida's The Truth in Painting, I won't make you read it. Right now I'm thinking it'll be either Butler's Bodies that Matter: on the Discursive Limits of Sex, Althaus-Reid's Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender, and Politics, or Delany's Shorter Views: Queer Theoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary. Personally, I think you'd probably enjoy the last; though it's not quite fair as I've only read three chapters of it.
Incidentally, the book that prompted the God-awful blog-entry was Haver's The Body of This Death:
Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS. I won't make you read that, as I really don't want to (1) put that on anybody, and, (2) have to read the whole thing myself!
More backstory: In the hypothetical conversation my retort may have sounded more like,
"Because ethico-political dissent actualizes only through discursive structures that privilege the ortho-political, ortho-linguistic, ortho-sexual, ortho-ethnic, and ortho-economic (that is, privileging hegemonic systems that define and disseminate modes of power), effective changes to what causes poverty (economic, moral, theological, etc. poverty) and violence to exist in/to people of color, and "third-world," "disabled," "queer" communities will only happen through epistemological and economic revolution (for lack of better words)."
(What Nathan wrote does sorta fit, though I think I would have had to spout a bit more nonsense in that conversation, for sure. And, I think I would have used way more words because I'm a nonsense spewing postmodernist, anyway!)
I'm game. It will be over the summer, though, as I have quite enough to read to keep my blood-espresso level through the roof until mid-May.
While I particularly enjoyed Derrida's The Truth in Painting, I won't make you read it. Right now I'm thinking it'll be either Butler's Bodies that Matter: on the Discursive Limits of Sex, Althaus-Reid's Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender, and Politics, or Delany's Shorter Views: Queer Theoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary. Personally, I think you'd probably enjoy the last; though it's not quite fair as I've only read three chapters of it.
Incidentally, the book that prompted the God-awful blog-entry was Haver's The Body of This Death:
Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS. I won't make you read that, as I really don't want to (1) put that on anybody, and, (2) have to read the whole thing myself!
More backstory: In the hypothetical conversation my retort may have sounded more like,
"Because ethico-political dissent actualizes only through discursive structures that privilege the ortho-political, ortho-linguistic, ortho-sexual, ortho-ethnic, and ortho-economic (that is, privileging hegemonic systems that define and disseminate modes of power), effective changes to what causes poverty (economic, moral, theological, etc. poverty) and violence to exist in/to people of color, and "third-world," "disabled," "queer" communities will only happen through epistemological and economic revolution (for lack of better words)."
(What Nathan wrote does sorta fit, though I think I would have had to spout a bit more nonsense in that conversation, for sure. And, I think I would have used way more words because I'm a nonsense spewing postmodernist, anyway!)
# posted by 
: 1:04 PM
: 1:04 PM lol, I love it! A public blog challenge. I challenge you to a non-shower off. We will both not shower for the next week or more until we can't stand sitting next to one another.
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