This is a much-needed and thorough critique of the predominant conversations within the left/progressive groups. After all the built-up momentum it appears it may be wasted on misguided energy directed at attacks on individuals all for "likes and shares". Even though as a whole we are fairly progressive-leaning, I often find deep frustration even within my own profession of architecture and design as we seemed to repeatedly fall short of critiquing the system responsible for all these "systemic issues" they love to talk about . We talk about things like racial and social inequities prevalent in the urban environment/architecture, yet we frame solutions based on the very system expecting different results. Even academia is guilty of this as though collectively we subconsciously embrace Francis fukuyama's declaration of the "end of history" with the triumph of neoliberal capitalism. I see this in every proposal about issues within my own wonderful Crescent City with serious discourse framing these current failures as if they are just temporal flaws as opposed to fundamental characteristics of the prevailing system. Anyway, it was an enjoyable read.
Excellent essay. It really hits on so many levels. I think it is critical to step back and analyze social issues through the systems lens. I have been frustrated and sickened by the state of the homeless crisis in Portland and the hopelessness that I feel about it improving. It is another systems issue that is more often seen as a "personal failure". Demonizing and "otherizing" humans that are in a profound state of crisis is another way to steer the focus away from the massive systems that fuel and compound inequities.
Jan 18, 2022·edited Jan 18, 2022Liked by Alex Ebert
Wow! This is the most relevant and scrappy A. Ebert essay I've yet read. This article needs publishing in Leftist mags like The Nation. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops! To think of how just a few feel-good commercials can earn even the most exploitative of companies the fully virtue-signaled blessing of Wokeness!
Neoliberal Capitalism, 'the Corporotocracy', is indeed ascendant, and actually growing in both political power and accumulated wealth, as the work of Piketty and others continue to quantify.
Until there is some sort of massive consciousness shift about the need to mediate the ever- strengthening economic dominance of Corporate, it would seem the best short term effect is a robust revival of federal anti-trust action. Trust-busting arguably broke the tyranny of the Robber Barons. Perhaps it could save us once again.
This is a much-needed and thorough critique of the predominant conversations within the left/progressive groups. After all the built-up momentum it appears it may be wasted on misguided energy directed at attacks on individuals all for "likes and shares". Even though as a whole we are fairly progressive-leaning, I often find deep frustration even within my own profession of architecture and design as we seemed to repeatedly fall short of critiquing the system responsible for all these "systemic issues" they love to talk about . We talk about things like racial and social inequities prevalent in the urban environment/architecture, yet we frame solutions based on the very system expecting different results. Even academia is guilty of this as though collectively we subconsciously embrace Francis fukuyama's declaration of the "end of history" with the triumph of neoliberal capitalism. I see this in every proposal about issues within my own wonderful Crescent City with serious discourse framing these current failures as if they are just temporal flaws as opposed to fundamental characteristics of the prevailing system. Anyway, it was an enjoyable read.
Excellent essay. It really hits on so many levels. I think it is critical to step back and analyze social issues through the systems lens. I have been frustrated and sickened by the state of the homeless crisis in Portland and the hopelessness that I feel about it improving. It is another systems issue that is more often seen as a "personal failure". Demonizing and "otherizing" humans that are in a profound state of crisis is another way to steer the focus away from the massive systems that fuel and compound inequities.
Wow! This is the most relevant and scrappy A. Ebert essay I've yet read. This article needs publishing in Leftist mags like The Nation. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops! To think of how just a few feel-good commercials can earn even the most exploitative of companies the fully virtue-signaled blessing of Wokeness!
Neoliberal Capitalism, 'the Corporotocracy', is indeed ascendant, and actually growing in both political power and accumulated wealth, as the work of Piketty and others continue to quantify.
Until there is some sort of massive consciousness shift about the need to mediate the ever- strengthening economic dominance of Corporate, it would seem the best short term effect is a robust revival of federal anti-trust action. Trust-busting arguably broke the tyranny of the Robber Barons. Perhaps it could save us once again.
I agree