about the difficulties of cutting clouds

Earlier I wrote about the toothless tigers of todays theorists who still struggle with the justification of an epic failure called communism. But what is the problem? Why are we not able to address todays problems in a way that we can generate ideas that suggest how to tackle todays crisis?

For example gentrification. No one I know likes gentrification – naturally. Because the only point from where you can observe it, is from the point of the victim. I was always curious how you could stop gentrification. Having street festivals with lots of banners arguing against investment? Causes just the opposite. Shitting on your doorstep would help, but honestly who wants that? The point is, and thats whats Terry Eagleton makes clear, we are fighting against the most abstract thing one can imagine: Money. Fighting money is like trying to fight a cloud. Since money became pure information in the 1970s with no real value behind it, it is probably the most fluid thing we know. At the moment we do not have the right means to control it, because once we think we have it, the cloud changed already. In gentrification one can't stop the money from flowing in, on the other hand it's also impossible to keep it if you want it as a society. Last year I lived together with a computer programmer who scripts software for high speed trading. I asked him about the Tobin Tax. He just laughed at me. A tax that tries to stop high speed trading will just create new and probably even more controversial forms of money making or just move to some countries with doubtful moral principles who grant free flow of capital and low taxation, probably some African dictatorships.

The same situation appears when it comes to social understanding of postmodernity. After the thinking in strict categories, nowadays everything has to be inclusive, pluralistic and the multitude. Because of the dominance of neoliberal thinking the cloud expanded to the last corner of our small world. Everything is possible anywhere and at any time (at least in thought). The cloud has become a foggy soup and for my part I have little orientation at the moment. Of course Mr. Eagleton promises guide me out of the fog. I am curious.