Neoliberal Futurology Twitterrant

Futurology is not social science, nor historical analysis, nor policy making, nor cultural criticism, nor philosophical thought.

Futurology is a genre of marketing and promotion. Like all advertising, futurology is deception & consolation peddled as information in the service of wealth accumulation & concentration. Quintessentially neoliberal, futurology sells stasis as progress, exploitation as liberty, violence as virtual, conquest as development.

The suffusion of personal and public life by the norms and forms of promotion and self-promotion is our prevalent religiosity now. Faithful advertising mobilizes irrational passions: Denial -- of aging and death, isolation, insecurity, error, life's contingency and wish-fulfillment fantasies -- of youthful health, sex appeal, easy money, relevance, and control.

In Robot Cults like transhumanism, singularitarianism and immortalism the techno-transcendental religiosity of futurology is conspicuous. But techno-transcendentalism isn't confined to such extremities: it drives venture capitalism, consumer fetishism, advertorial journalism. Futurist sub(cult)ures merely expose the underlying and ubiquitous deception and derangement of the neoliberal-neoconservative epoch.

Syllabus for My "What Is Compelling? Argument, Reconciliation, Obligation" Summer Intensive at Berkeley

Rhetoric 10: The Rhetoric of Argument 
"What Is Compelling? Argument, Reconciliation, Obligation"

Summer 2015, Session A, 10-12.30pm., Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 88 Dwinelle

Instructor, Dale Carrico: dcarrico@sfai.edy; ndaleca@gmail.com

Participation/Attendance/In-Class Activities, 20%; Reading Notebook, 20%; Precis, 2-3pp., 10%; Mid-Term Exam, 25%; Final Paper, 5-6pp., 25%. (Rough Basis for Final Grade, subject to contingencies)

A Provisional Schedule of Meetings

Week One
May 27 Course Introduction
SKILL SET: Rhetoric as occasional, interested, figurative; The literal as conventional, the figurative as deviant. Definitions: Rhetoric is the facilitation of efficacious discourse and the inquiry into the terms on the basis of which discourse comes to seem efficacious or not.
An argument is a claim supported by reasons and/or evidence.
May 29 Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose
SKILL SET: Reading Critically/Writing Critically; Audience/Intentions; Ethos, Pathos, Logos; Writing A Precis

Week Two
June 1 Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
SKILL SET: Four Habits of Argumentative Writing: 1. Formulate a Strong Thesis, 2. Define Your Terms, 3, Substantiate/Contextualize, 4, Anticipate Objections; Audience/Intentions; Performativity
June 3 Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
SKILL SET: Audiences: Sympathetic, Unsympathetic, Apathetic; Intentions: Interrogation, Conviction, Persuasion, Reconciliatio; Rogerian Rhetoric; Writing A Precis
June 5 Randal Amster, Anarchism and Nonviolence: Time for a "Complementarity of Tactics"
Arundhati Roy, War Is Peace
George Ciccariello-Maher, Planet of Slums, Age of Riots
Mike Davis, Slum Ecology
Chris Hedges, Evidence of Things Not Seen
Precis should be posted to the blog by six pm, Thursday, June 4 

Week Three
June 8 William May, "Rising to the Occasion of Our Death"
SKILL SET: The Toulmin Schema
June 10 Workshopping
SKILL SET: Propositional Analysis; Enthymemes, Syllogisms, Formal Fallacies, Informal Fallacies
June 12 Nietzsche, On Truth and the Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense; Workshopping
SKILL SET: Literal/Figurative Language; Figures, Tropes, Schemes; Four Master Tropes

Week Four
June 15 Mid-Term Examination
June 17 Screening and Discussion of the Film, "A History of Violence," dir. Cronenberg
June 19 Tom Beasley, The American Atheist, Atheism and Violence;
Edward Oakes, First Things, Atheism and Violence;
Rabia Terri Harris, Fellowship of Reconciliation, On Islamic Nonviolence
Jeremiah Bowden, Jihad and the Qur'an: The Case for a Non-Violent Interpretation

Week Five
June 22 Frantz Fanon, Concerning Violence from The Wretched of the Earth
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations
Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute, From Ferguson to Baltimore: The Fruits of Government Sponsored Segregation
June 24 Hannah Arendt, Reflections On Violence and "Must Eichmann Hang?"
June 26 Workshopping Final Paper: Producing a Strong Thesis; Anticipating Objections; Providing Textual Support

Week Six
June 29 Octavia Butler, Kindred
July 1 Concluding Remarks: Judith Butler, from Undoing Gender and Precarious Life
Final Paper Due

Syllabus for My "Patriarchal Philosophistry" Summer Intensive at Berkeley

Rhet 103A: Approaches and Paradigms in the History of Rhetorical Theory:
Patriarchal Philosophistry

Course Description

Rhetoric was conceived in antiquity as the art of speaking well. But the act of speaking in public was always also a doing of deeds, and even well done it could do you in -- whether one was declaiming in the assemblies and courts of the radical (and radically exclusive) democracies and anti-democracies of the Greek city-states, or drawing up ideal Republics in dreamy discourses among scholars, or engaging in the rough and tumble of state-craft and electioneering in the all too real and corrupt Republic of Rome, or circulating satires among sardonic snickers in the shadow of Emperors. In Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian engagements with and through rhetoric delineated critical, deliberative, civic, pedagogical visions of human agencies fraught with inhumanity.

The societies of Greek, Roman, and Christian antiquity were conspicuously patriarchal, they were societies in which Homeric heroes made history and conquered death with great words and deeds in an aspirational fantasy of masculine agency; they were horrific rape cultures in which women were conceived as beasts, slaves and dutiful wives, a patriarchy finding perhaps its quintessential expression in the Roman paterfamilias, the authoritarian male head of the household who held the power of life and death over his children, female relatives, and household slaves. But in philosophy and in poetry, in Greek tragedies and in Roman comedies we find glimpses of a considerably richer and more complicated world of gendered relations, erotic imaginations, and human possibilities, we encounter profound anxieties, ambivalences, and resistances to patriarchal practices and prejudices.

Although we will be reading texts in which philosophy declares its opposition to rhetoric's opportunism and deceit, we will read them as rhetorical skirmishes in the politics of truth-telling. Although we will read discourses on civic deliberation, we will read them as anxious testaments to ubiquitous corruption and violence. Although we will be reading orations aspiring to a world of Heroes and of Men, we will read them as brutal reflections on a world in which many were not heroes and many were not men. We will be reading works by Aristophanes, Aristotle, Augustine, Marcus and Quintus Cicero, Euripides, Gorgias, Homer, Juvenal, Libanus, Petronius, Plato, Quintilian, Sappho, Seneca, Suetonius, Terence, and Thucydides. All of the readings will be available either online or in a course reader.

Rhet 103A: Patriarchal Convention and Conviction in Classical Antiquity
Summer 2015

Instructor: Dale Carrico, dcarrico@sfai.edu, ndaleca@gmail.com
Course Blog: http://patriarchalphilosophistry.blogspot.com
Session A, May 26-July 2, 2015, TWR 4-6.30pm, 160 Dwinelle

Participation/Attendance/In-Class Activities, 10%; Reading Notebook, 30%; Precis 1, 2-3pp., 15%; Precis 2, 2-3pp., 15%; Final Paper, 5-6pp., 30%. (Rough Basis for Final Grade, subject to contingencies)

Provisional Schedule of Meetings

Week One

May 26 –- Introduction, and a selection of poems by Sappho
May 27 –- Homer, Books I, II, IX, and XXIV from the Iliad, Gorgias, "Encomium of Helen"
May 28 –- Thucydides, Books I and II and The Melian Dialogue from the History of the Peloponnesian War, Plato Menexenus

Week Two

June 2 –- Euripides, Hecuba, Plato, Protagorus
June 3 –- Plato, Apology, and also Book V and Book VII from Republic
June 4 –- Aristophanes, Wasps; Plato, Symposium

Week Three

June 9 -- Plato, Gorgias, Phaedrus
June 10 –- Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I and Book II and from Topics
June 11 –- Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book III and from Poetics

Week Four

June 16 –- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Against Verres, Against Cataline, Against Antony -- First Essay Due (5-6pp.)
June 17 –- Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Ideal Orator
June 18 –- Terence, Eunuchus; Quintus Tullius Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis

Week Five

June 23 –- Juvenal, Satires
June 24 -- Quintillian, from Institutio Oratoria: Book I -- Preface, Chapters 1-3; Book III -- Chapters 1-5; Book VI -- Chapter 1; Book VII -- Chapters 8-10; Book VIII -- Chapter 1-3, and also Chapter 6; Book IX -- Chapter 1; Book XII -- Chapter 1
June 25 –- Workshopping Final Paper

Week Six

June 30 –- Suetonius, Caligula; Seneca, Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii
July 1 –- Gaius Petronius, Satyricon
July 2 -- Augustine, from City of God, Read as much as you will, but Books I and XI are crucial, Libanius, "The Silence of Socrates" -- Final Essay Due (5-6pp.)

Intolerable

It is intolerant, not tolerant, to tolerate intolerance.

GOPuhDUMpum

What do Republicans call a hundred clowns climbing out of a clown car? A deep bench.

A hundred clowns walk into a bar. It's a Republican presidential primary.

How many clowns does it take to screw in a light bulb? The same one clown it takes for Republicans to screw the country.

Why did a hundred clowns cross the road? They were all Republicans running for president.

Republican clowns destroy the country. We call it "The Aristocrats."

SFAI Adjuncts Invoke San Precario

On bended knee
We pray to Thee
For the Majority
Of SFAI Faculty
Living in Uncertainty

How Do You Solve A Problem Like the Neoliberal Academy?

How do you solve a problem like the neoliberal academy?
How do you catch their spin and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means the neoliberal academy?
A PR release? A digital app? A killer clown?

Many a thing you know they'd like to sell us.
Many a fraud we ought to understand!
But how do you make them stop,
And listen as standards drop?
How can you steal supply and meet demand?

Oh, how do you solve a problem like the neoliberal academy?
How do you eat the future with your hands?

Goods and money get confused,
All the teachers just get used,
While administrators multiply at will...
Unpredictable your fate,
Until Death demands his date:
You’re a cypher! You're a loser! Take a pill!

All that's solid melts in air,
Individualize your hair,
Education's just like tee vee, if you're hip!
MOOCify the classroom, stat!
All the think tanks tell you that.
School's a TED Talk!
Feudalism!
Sinking ship!

How do you solve a problem like the neoliberal academy?
How do you stop them while they tear it down?
How do you find the words that scream neoliberal academy?
A faculty of temps? Thought Leaders and pimps? A company town?

Many a con you know they'll try to sell us
Until the day we finally understand,
That nothing will make them stop,
But fighting back they drop!
Can't you see ruination 'cross the land?

Oh, how do you solve a problem like the neoliberal academy?
Now you must see the future's in our hands.

"Get Out Of My Office!" President Charles Desmarais Responds to His Students and Faculty

Yesterday, SFAI student Drew Grasso invited visiting faculty members to join him at his scheduled meeting with President Charles Desmarais.

The purpose of the meeting: to give the president a student's perspective on the need for a more stable, secure, cohesive faculty to provide continuity and consistency, and to deliver a letter from visiting faculty (see full text below) asking the president to intervene in contract negotiations and instruct his administration to make an acceptable counter proposal on job security.

President Charles Desmarais's response to his student and faculty? "Get out of my office!" Visiting faculty and students posted a letter to Charles Desmarais (see below) all over campus after he refused to accept it in his office.

Since he refused to listen to us or read the letter in his office, we made sure he would see it by posting it all around campus. But his utter disregard for 85% of his faculty--and even students--is unacceptable. We need to make sure he gets our message. If he won't listen to us in his office or in contract negotiations, maybe he will listen to us at Gala Vernissage?

While Vernissage is a celebration of our MFA students' work and talent, and Gala Vernissage raises funds for the noble purpose of student scholarships, there is no better time or place to get his full, undivided attention.

Donors and students also deserve to know how SFAI's administration has treated and plans to continue treating the majority of their faculty. Students have volunteered to help make our protest party outside Gala Vernissage a memorable--and meaningful--event, and will also be wearing "Adjuncts Unite" buttons in support of us.

But the party would not be complete without the backbone of SFAI, the visiting faculty.

Join us to tell Charles that justice won't wait another semester!

See you there! Wednesday, May 13, 5 PM at Fort Mason Center, Pier 2 (Herbst Pavilion), 2 Marina Blvd., SF.

In Solidarity, The SFAI Visiting Faculty Bargaining Team

Full text of the letter to President Charles Desmarais from the SFAI VF Bargaining Team and Action Team:

President Charles Desmarais:

For many years now, more than three-quarters of the teaching taking place at the San Francisco Art Institute has been the work of adjuncts who have no job security, who can be dismissed at the discretion of the administration without notice, who are provided no benefits, professional recognition, or seniority even after contributing decades of exemplary service to the community. We have long been described as “Visiting Faculty” at SFAI, even those of us who have been an integral part of the work of the school for decades. Lately, we have been described instead as “Contract Faculty,” a no less ironic designation since our “contracts” confer on us no security, no status, no stability, no respect for our service and loyalty, no recognized stake in the community to which we devote so much of our lives.

Given all this, it is unsurprising that last year adjuncts at SFAI voted to be represented by SEIU in unprecedented numbers. And this year we have been negotiating the terms of a new adjunct faculty contract with the administration. Throughout this process of negotiations, our priorities have been the same as the ones that impelled us to organize in the first place: we have sought real job security, recognitions of excellence and seniority, and a greater voice in governance to reflect the unique insights emerging from our experience doing so much of the actual teaching of the actual students for whom SFAI actually exists.

Throughout the year we have made many proposals and regularly offered compromises in the face of administration counter-proposals, proceeding in good faith, but the bargaining progress has recently stalled. The administration’s representatives have become less timely in responding to our proposals in what has begun to seem an effort to run out the clock as the academic year draws to a close and public attention strays from the injurious impacts of administration policies. More and more unionized adjuncts with many years of service to SFAI are finding that they will no longer be offered courses for the coming year; meanwhile, advertisements for new replacement instructors grow apace. The most recent administration proposal has not remotely met any of our concerns or reflected the least awareness of our core values: it refuses to provide any job security, any recognition of excellent or long service, any relevant stake in governance. This is worse than unacceptable, it is an outrageous expression of indifference and disrespect to the history that brought us to this moment of distress.

In a communication to tenured faculty -- but apparently not to adjuncts -- Dean Schreiber expressed incredulity at our response to the administration’s blanket rejection of our key demands, then went on to explain that any “job security proposal… must take into account our obligation to the entire institution to create a system that provides the level of flexibility that we need.” It is very clear “the level of flexibility” that the administration thinks it “needs” amounts to arbitrary discretion over hiring and firing at will, precisely the intolerable state of affairs that inaugurated this dispute. So long as “flexibility” amounts to absolute unaccountable control over the terms of our employment it is antithetical to any security for the dedicated, talented, professionals who do most of the teaching at SFAI. It should go without saying that the administration’s “obligation to the entire institution” actually includes obligations to all the people who are working here, to the maintenance of a community that includes us, and also requires support of ongoing academic standards and traditions and a shared ethos that is ill-served by a precarious, short-term, isolated, ill-respected cohort of teachers.

In your welcome message at the official SFAI website, you speak of the Institute as a “tight-knit community of peers and accomplished faculty” and that word “faculty” links to a directory that includes us all. You say that “SFAI must apply its distinct culture and long-held values in a contemporary context.” We are sure you understand that we are indispensable to that distinct culture and that we are doing the work of applying those shared values. You immediately recognized the verdict of our vote to unionize and expressed a commitment to work with us on what you agreed were shared concerns. That is why we are exhorting you now to become involved in the bargaining at this crucial moment. Come to the table yourself and offer up an acceptable and respectful proposal to restore the good faith bargaining to which we must all remain committed.

Over the next two weeks there will be a number of events celebrating the accomplishments of our wonderful students at the close of another academic year. As you know these events will be thronged with students, donors, alumni, celebrated figures and press. You should expect that we will be a presence in these events, educating all the interested (and often, we fear, misinformed) stakeholders to this institution about our circumstances and the present status of our bargaining. Let us be clear, we are as dedicated to and proud of our students as only their teachers could be, and we are more thrilled than anybody to celebrate their work and achievements with our community. The information we provide the public will not disrupt their events or distract from their accomplishments. If you could provide a tentative proposal by May 12 on job security that satisfies the Bargaining Team that administration is finally showing real movement reflecting our demands for a system recognizing tiers of seniority, providing a path for advancement including multi-year contracts, offering a grandfathering system to recognize the long service of many adjuncts, and a greater voice in our coursework and school governance you can be sure that the information we provide the public would reflect that promising change and provide a congenial end-of-term for all.

SFAI Visiting Faculty Bargaining Team and Action Team

An Open Letter to SFAI President Charles Desmarais

President Charles Desmarais:

For many years now, more than three-quarters of the teaching taking place at the San Francisco Art Institute has been the work of adjuncts who have no job security, who can be dismissed at the discretion of the administration without notice, who are provided no benefits, professional recognition, or seniority even after contributing decades of exemplary service to the community. We have long been described as "Visiting Faculty" at SFAI, even those of us who have been an integral part of the work of the school for decades. Lately, we have been described instead as "Contract Faculty," a no less ironic designation since our "contracts" confer on us no security, no status, no stability, no respect for our service and loyalty, no recognized stake in the community to which we devote so much of our lives.

Given all this, it is unsurprising that last year adjuncts at SFAI voted to be represented by SEIU in unprecedented numbers. And this year we have been negotiating the terms of a new adjunct faculty contract with the administration. Throughout this process of negotiations, our priorities have been the same as the ones that impelled us to organize in the first place: we have sought real job security, recognitions of excellence and seniority, and a greater voice in governance to reflect the unique insights emerging from our experience doing so much of the actual teaching of the actual students for whom SFAI actually exists.

Throughout the year we have made many proposals and regularly offered compromises in the face of administration counter-proposals, proceeding in good faith, but the bargaining progress has recently stalled. The administration's representatives have become less timely in responding to our proposals in what has begun to seem an effort to run out the clock as the academic year draws to a close and public attention strays from the injurious impacts of administration policies. More and more unionized adjuncts with many years of service to SFAI are finding that they will no longer be offered courses for the coming year; meanwhile, advertisements for new replacement instructors grow apace. The most recent administration proposal has not remotely met any of our concerns or reflected the least awareness of our core values: it refuses to provide any job security, any recognition of excellent or long service, any relevant stake in governance. This is worse than unacceptable, it is an outrageous expression of indifference and disrespect to the history that brought us to this moment of distress.

In a communication to tenured faculty -- but apparently not to adjuncts -- Dean Schreiber expressed incredulity at our response to the administration's blanket rejection of our key demands, then went on to explain that any "job security proposal… must take into account our obligation to the entire institution to create a system that provides the level of flexibility that we need." It is very clear "the level of flexibility" that the administration thinks it "needs" amounts to arbitrary discretion over hiring and firing at will, precisely the intolerable state of affairs that inaugurated this dispute. So long as "flexibility" amounts to absolute unaccountable control over the terms of our employment it is antithetical to any security for the dedicated, talented, professionals who do most of the teaching at SFAI. It should go without saying that the administration's "obligation to the entire institution" actually includes obligations to all the people who are working here, to the maintenance of a community that includes us, and also requires support of ongoing academic standards and traditions and a shared ethos that is ill-served by a precarious, short-term, isolated, ill-respected cohort of teachers.

In your welcome message at the official SFAI website, you speak of the Institute as a "tight-knit community of peers and accomplished faculty" and that word "faculty" links to a directory that includes us all. You say that "SFAI must apply its distinct culture and long-held values in a contemporary context." We are sure you understand that we are indispensable to that distinct culture and that we are doing the work of applying those shared values. You immediately recognized the verdict of our vote to unionize and expressed a commitment to work with us on what you agreed were shared concerns. That is why we are exhorting you now to become involved in the bargaining at this crucial moment. Come to the table yourself and offer up an acceptable and respectful proposal to restore the good faith bargaining to which we must all remain committed.

Over the next two weeks there will be a number of events celebrating the accomplishments of our wonderful students at the close of another academic year. As you know these events will be thronged with students, donors, alumni, celebrated figures and press. You should expect that we will be a presence in these events, educating all the interested (and often, we fear, misinformed) stakeholders to this institution about our circumstances and the present status of our bargaining. Let us be clear, we are as dedicated to and proud of our students as only their teachers could be, and we are more thrilled than anybody to celebrate their work and achievements with our community. The information we provide the public will not disrupt their events or distract from their accomplishments. If you could provide a tentative proposal by on job security that satisfies the Bargaining Team that administration is finally showing real movement reflecting our demands for a system recognizing tiers of seniority, providing a path for advancement including multi-year contracts, offering a grandfathering system to recognize the long service of many adjuncts, and a greater voice in our coursework and school governance you can be sure that the information we provide the public would reflect that promising change and provide a congenial end-of-term for all.


SFAI Visiting Faculty Bargaining Team and Action Team

***
BACKGROUND:

San Francisco Art Institute Touts Diego Rivera Fresco Celebrating Labor Politics While Engaging in Union Busting
It's Now Or Never: An Adjunct Responds to SFAI's Latest Talking Points
It's Not Just SEIU They Oppose, That's Just the Line They've Settled On
The Willfulness of the "At Will" Academy
SFAI's Adjunct Union Voting Commences -- As Does the Latest and Last Union-Busting Gambit
SFAI Adjuncts Vote Overwhelmingly to Unionize With SEIU!

So, Just How Large Can A "Lesser" Evil Grow Before It Becomes Too Evil For Me?

Upgraded and adapted from the Moot, a question is asked of a certain democratic socialist of your acquaintance who has the temerity to support the less progressive and occasionally quite awful by my lights Hillary Clinton:

How large can a "lesser" evil grow before it becomes too much evil for you?

Ethically? Morally? I condemn evil by my lights as evil in no uncertain terms. Always. Just read through my archive to discern whether this green anti-racist anti-militarist vegetarian socialist feminist atheist queer teacher and writer and activist passes muster by the reckoning of your moral compass, my friend.

But how evil can the lesser evil get before it no longer recommends itself over the greater politically? Let me be as clear as I can be: ANY difference that makes a difference is enough of a difference to adjudicate a political decision to vote one way or another.

I make a lot of fun of what I see as falsely equivalent "a plague on both house" complaints about (obviously often awful) Democrats, ridiculing these as amounting to treating voting as looking for a dream date or perfect parent or Revolutionary Daddy or what have you. But, putting the point more modestly, you really do seem to think voting for a candidate is an endorsement of their every policy in some sense. What nonsense! Politicians scarcely know what their policies will even play out as in the scrum of events themselves, for heaven's sake. I'm nearing fifty years old and there hasn't been a President whose every policy I was remotely close to endorsing my whole life. What part of green anti-racist anti-militarist vegetarian socialist feminist atheist queer in the United States of America are you not getting? But do I vote in every election every time? Oh, yes, I do! Trust that.

I am a broken record on this score. Let me repeat the chestnut once more: The lesser of two evils is still evil, but the difference between them can still make a difference. Ethics Is Not Politics.

Look, I'm all for uncompromising ethical and factual and aesthetic stands, but to demand them of political compromises in a diverse shared world is no sign of high principles but of a straightforward mis-recognition of the nature of politics -- especially what passes for representative politics in capitalist countries!

Why the repeated recourse to atrocity porn? Parading all the war crimes and rapes you want is quite beside the point actually at hand. Can you possibly be self-congratulatory enough to imagine you know more or care more about such atrocities than I do? Because I am a pragmatic voter, among the other ways in which I engage in political struggle? You don't know me very well, to say the least.

Partisan politics, especially the partisan politics focused on voting and contributions of time and money and that sort of thing are not the place for making ethical stands. Perhaps running for office, or organizing campaigns to inspire legislative outcomes come closer. Certainly broader educational and agitational spaces of action are fine places for such unqualified judgments. At any rate, it isn't unless politics in the other domains I mentioned has done the real work of preparing the way for viable partisan politics on such questions. That simply isn't what voting is for, or usually even should be for.

Perhaps you lack the stomach for the debased choices that happen at the level of voting for the best actually-existing candidate actually on offer, or the heartbreaking reconciliations at the heart of legislative reform. But don't expect me to admire you for it, or to pretend that you are a more ferocious activist for justice and sanity in history than I am because I can walk and chew gum at the same time. If you can't vote for the lesser of two evils to restrain the greater of them -- all the while condemning the evil for the evil it is and organizing to defeat it or expressing yourself creatively to change general perceptions to better accord with your sense of that evil -- then I just think you are being lazy, irresponsible, and narcissistic.

Voting is certainly usually insufficient to achieve justice, but it remains necessary all the same. I can't say I admire those who confine their politics to voting and yet declare themselves principled, but I have less patience still for those who refrain from the costly demands of voting in the compromised service of principle and who would pretend this is the sign of their principle. At best, it indicates profound ignorance, at worst it is privileged self-indulgence.