Re: <nettime> The Sudden Stardom of the Third-World City

["Benjamin Geer" <benjamin.geer@gmail.com>]

On 23/03/06, Rana Dasgupta <rana@ranadasgupta.com> wrote:

> i should make clear that this article is not interested in people who
> live in Third-World cities, or in making generalisations about what they
> might think.  nowhere does the "reality" of the Third-World city
> feature: the article is precisely about the commodified images of which
> you speak, which are for the most part not produced by by people in
> Third-World cities.  this article is an anthropology of the west, not
> the east [or the south or whatever one calls it].

I understand, and liked the article in that sense; I was just thinking
how it might be read by someone who had only seen the commodified
images, and wasn't at all aware of the reality.  I thought it wouldn't
hurt to clarify things a bit for such a reader.

> interesting line of thought.  but do you think that the virtue of europe
> is so great that any compromise to it could only come from the corrupt
> third world...?  perhaps european elites have no need of tutors...  (-:

I would never want to suggest an opposition between a virtuous Europe
and a corrupt Third World; I was thinking rather that Europe's
ruthless elites, who have never been happy with democracy's tendency
to threaten their privileges, might be glad to see working examples of
techniques of power that solve this problem.  On the other hand,
you're probably right that they're cunning enough to devise such
techniques on their own.

Ben


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net