Can't student debt be "bad debt" too - something one does not intend to repay? I don't see the opposition. I also find the explanation of "study" - as a practice - and the "undercommons" here to be disappointing. Reading the chapter on the university and the undercommons from Harney and Moten's book, it begins with a radical-sounding proposition: “The only possible relationship to the university today is a criminal one.” They go on to talk about the notion of the fugitive. What Harney describes here sounds quite banal in contrast.
Dear Caroline. Maybe study is banal, but that does not make it permissible. At least in our experience, any time you set out together to study the way you want to, taking the time you need, in the space you want, with the people you want to be with, you immediately encounter regulation preventing you from doing what you want to do. That regulation may be economic necessity, private property, patriarchal structures, racial zones, etc. In other words this very banal thing, as you call it, calls into force regulation preventing you from conducting even this banality. But we do it precisely because it is the theft from the university that matters, the theft of our own organisational and social capacities, put to work for us, not for the university. For us, bad debt is shared, not paying your loans could be bad debt if you do it together with and for each other.
@@StefanoHarney Thanks for taking the time to respond. I don't mean to "attack" here or to say that "study" itself is banal. I only mean that I was a bit disappointed in your explanation in the video of what you meant by this - esp. after reading your chapter on the university in The Undercommons. I agree that study can be a radical practice. Your comment clarifies.
@@caro_es Thanks, Caroline, I found the term banal sort of useful actually and definitely did not feel attacked - thanks for your comments and thoughts.
As someone working at/struggling with a university I can perfectly relate: it is precisely the "banality" of acts such as spending time together, leaving empty space for people to react and to experiment, cultivating idleness as a method for breeding thinking, what is prevented by the workings of academia. A more boisterous act aimed at provoking sensation and claiming attention would be much more easily capitalizable, and ultimately respond to the all-pervading logic of production which is what needs to be undermined. It is perhaps the humble force of such banality that we need today.
Can't student debt be "bad debt" too - something one does not intend to repay? I don't see the opposition. I also find the explanation of "study" - as a practice - and the "undercommons" here to be disappointing. Reading the chapter on the university and the undercommons from Harney and Moten's book, it begins with a radical-sounding proposition: “The only possible relationship to the university today is a criminal one.” They go on to talk about the notion of the fugitive. What Harney describes here sounds quite banal in contrast.
Dear Caroline. Maybe study is banal, but that does not make it permissible. At least in our experience, any time you set out together to study the way you want to, taking the time you need, in the space you want, with the people you want to be with, you immediately encounter regulation preventing you from doing what you want to do. That regulation may be economic necessity, private property, patriarchal structures, racial zones, etc. In other words this very banal thing, as you call it, calls into force regulation preventing you from conducting even this banality. But we do it precisely because it is the theft from the university that matters, the theft of our own organisational and social capacities, put to work for us, not for the university. For us, bad debt is shared, not paying your loans could be bad debt if you do it together with and for each other.
@@StefanoHarney Thanks for taking the time to respond. I don't mean to "attack" here or to say that "study" itself is banal. I only mean that I was a bit disappointed in your explanation in the video of what you meant by this - esp. after reading your chapter on the university in The Undercommons. I agree that study can be a radical practice. Your comment clarifies.
@@caro_es Thanks, Caroline, I found the term banal sort of useful actually and definitely did not feel attacked - thanks for your comments and thoughts.
As someone working at/struggling with a university I can perfectly relate: it is precisely the "banality" of acts such as spending time together, leaving empty space for people to react and to experiment, cultivating idleness as a method for breeding thinking, what is prevented by the workings of academia. A more boisterous act aimed at provoking sensation and claiming attention would be much more easily capitalizable, and ultimately respond to the all-pervading logic of production which is what needs to be undermined. It is perhaps the humble force of such banality that we need today.