I’m an anthropologist, sometimes I occupy things & such.

I see anarchism as something you do not an identity...

...so don’t call me the anarchist anthropologist

Twitter was David’s public platform and tools for practicing a new language – clear and understandable for everyone, it was a space where he made friends and enemies.

Tweets 7,501 Replies 51,144 Retweets 24,559 Everything 83,204
Sat 25 Jan 2020 12:27

the day I see economists form a wolf pack or use delegitimisation tactics to descend on the rightwinger who uses ec theory to justify bad public policy, or general life cynicism, rather than vs the lefty who complains about him, is the day I’ll take their claims seriously 5/

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Sat 25 Jan 2020 12:23

if, in contrast, someone makes the same statements in a positive way, praises economists for their supposed Chicago orthodoxy, says “economists have shown humans are basically just rational utility maximising machines”, THIS NEVER HAPPENS. The economists always let it stand. 4/

15
Sat 25 Jan 2020 12:21

by the latter I mean: look through your book or essay, try to locate some statement they can claim is an “error” (usually really a diff in interpretation) & scream to high heavens you’re an ignoramus, not a legitimate scholar, nothing you say should be taken seriously 3/

12
Sat 25 Jan 2020 12:20

if someone like me writes an essay casting doubt on Neoclassical orthodoxy, or the idea of the maximising individual, the result is always the same: 1. a wolfpack of angry economists descend saying this is outrageous & completely untrue 2. they’ll try to delegitimate you 2/

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Sat 25 Jan 2020 12:18

I meet a lot of economists who take issue with my criticisms, & insist economics has changed since the days of Chicago hegemony. Of course in one sense that is true. But this is my problem. 1/

95
Fri 24 Jan 2020 15:21

Is it possible Bernie read my UK election analysis? Or has he been saying this for some time? “One of the crises in America today is people are sick and tired of filling out forms.” https://t.co/5sjlZO0JZQ

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Fri 24 Jan 2020 10:03

and supreme irony, it’s the Guardian, which of course did everything they possibly could think to do to slime Corbyn & bring this far right gov’t to power, which is now moaning how unfair it all is

57
Fri 24 Jan 2020 09:55

schadenfreude alert! BBC in trouble as Osbourne made them offer Tory Pravda services for free to old people, who then voted uniformly Tory, allowing a far right gov’t which will use this very circumstance as an excuse to gut the BBC. https://t.co/fS0Hq8MvsN

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Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:18

I said “you provide the worst service I have ever heard of and I am going to have to go back to NYC to cancel my account and get a new bank now.”

3
Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:17

they’re like “oh we can’t do that, that’s a different office” and send me to another person. I’m on hold for fifteen minutes. Finally I give up and hang up. They call back, and say sorry you have to remain on hold. I say “why aren’t you sending it to my address?” They say “no”

1
Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:16

so I do, and they again won’t tell me the wrong address they used but keep trying to make me guess what address it might be (could it be a PO box? could it be a work address? I never gave any of these things). Finally I say who cares I just want you to send it to my real address

4
Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:15

so they send me to someone else who says, well, someone will call you back. Two days later the phone rings and it’s someone in India, a private contractor to HSBC. Once again I am asked to provide endless personal data to confirm I’m me.

2
Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:15

I said, well, can I switch it to my actual address. They said yes but we’ll have to send you to someone else to cancel the card we sent to the wrong address (which I’ve never seen and presumably no one has ever used). I said ok. All this required endless confirmatory info

2
Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:13

never arrived. I called now and asked why. They said they sent it to another address. I said I’ve only ever had the address I have now. They said sorry no we have a different one. I asked what it was. They said, nope, sorry, we’re not allowed to tell you.

6
Thu 23 Jan 2020 19:13

When I was in NYC in summer I opened an HSBC account because it was possible to have an international account, unlike my existing bank, transferred some money in. They were supposed to send me checks & bank card etc.

8
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:51

I saw this in action in the late ’80s when the October Surprise revelations came out: when brought up to senators who were piously denouncing Iran-Contra, they just treated it as a joke. Since it couldn’t by definition be true the evidence must be false 8/

43
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:39

there should be a technical term for this. I propose “the terrifying truth effect.” It’s related, but not the same, as Goebbels’ “big lie” tactic (if the government says something that seems flagrantly false people will assume they can’t be lying, as they’d get caught) 7/

66
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:32

you might imagine the reaction on hearing this news would be “omg this changes everything!” But for that very reason, the reaction was instead, “oh come on, you’re being ridiculous, that can’t be true, that’d change everything.” So there was no significant formal investigation 6/

56
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:30

they could frame it as “who watches the watchers” (as they did) – they were trying to do right but did they go to far? But bribing Iran not to release hostages was just treason. That would mean a conservative icon & popular President came to power by betraying his country 5/

58
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:27

the Iran-Contra scandal was an embarrassment – you’d think if there’s any legit reason for the US to employ James-Bond-style covert ops spies, it would be to rescue hostages like that, but apparently lacking competence they used them to cover up that they were paying ransom. 4/

49
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:25

but when former Iranian Pres Bani Sadr announced that actually, the Reagan campaign had offered weapons to Iran for NOT releasing the hostages until they’d won the elections, suddenly everyone treated this as it could not possibly be true & there was no serious investigation 3/

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Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:21

speaking as someone who was following these events in the ’80s, the “Iran-Contra scandal” was in all the news continually, but that was acceptable, because it was about the administration illegally bribing the other side to release US hostages. It was an acceptable narrative. 2/

71
Wed 22 Jan 2020 11:19

so it’s official: Ronald Reagan became President of the United States by committing the crime of high treason. To offer to pay a declared enemy not to release American officials they hold hostage is about as clear an example of treason as you can get 1/ https://t.co/pT8It2y2Z8

2051
Tue 21 Jan 2020 18:31

Now that we’re moving back toward fascism again we really need analytic tools that can avoid the absurdities & pessimism of e.g. Adorno but still allow that people can be duped & manipulated in horrific ways – even that they can’t really be free w/out an understanding of this 7/

10
Tue 21 Jan 2020 18:27

Were those who became Storm Troopers “ironically reinterpreting” the propaganda they were getting from Goebbels? Sure maybe to a degree. The point is WHO THE FUCK CARES if they followed orders & carried out atrocities anyway 6/

3
Tue 21 Jan 2020 18:25

The irony is the Frankfurt school Marxists – for all they really were elitist & puritanical – we’re also Jews who’d had to flee Nazism – one of the first ideologies to use modern advertising & PR techniques to seize and hold power 5/

7
Tue 21 Jan 2020 18:23

So basically all consumers were treated as if they were in subcultures & all subcultures were countercultures. Anyone who thought PR manipulated anyone was an idiotic fuddy duddy Marxist throwback. I used to call this “liberation in the imaginary” 4/

7
Tue 21 Jan 2020 18:20

This was considered elitist and puritanical – “what a hypocrite you are claiming to care about the proletariat and then attacking consumerism. Clearly their motorcycles & cars & (etc) are what’s really important to them – they’re just subversively reinterpreting them 3/

6
Tue 21 Jan 2020 18:17

This is actually an important point. I was introduced to social theory in the ’80s when there was no worse accusation than of engaging in a “Frankfurt School” style analysis which assumes consumers, voters etc are dupes of media, advertising etc 2/

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