where’s Žižek when you need him to make a Lacanian point about a cartoon?

This is pretty good:

another attempt to explain a non-connection

Twice in the past week, I have read or heard the claim (from first-rate thinkers who ought to know better) that a metaphysics of individuals either leads to or is motivated by doctrines of political individualism.

No. There is no necessary connection between these, and it is not a difficult point to demonstrate.

Political doctrines of individualism are taxonomical doctrines. They are not flat ontologies, but single out one privileged kind of entity (namely, individual people) as the source of all political and economic legitimacy.

But the metaphysics of individuals does no such thing. It does not regard individual people as the only real political entity or as the only possible source of political legitimacy. An individual voter/consumer is not necessarily more real than the quarks in his/her body or the parties, unions, societies, or classes to which he/she belongs. We must not confuse two utterly different senses of the word “individual.”

If you want to say that object-oriented ontology arises from “American individualism,” then you’ll also need to argue that Aristotle’s theory of substance arises from “Macedonian individualism.”

Romney’s choice tomorrow

Just saw this as a breaking news headline: “Mitt Romney’s campaign has announced that Romney will reveal his U.S. vice presidential nominee Saturday.”

Whenever something like this happens, I check Intrade.com to see if people are betting inside information or even news that I happen not to have heard yet.

My guess all along was Rob Portman from Ohio, but on Intrade I saw he was down to a 3% chance.

And who leads the field by a longshot, with 80%? The newly leaked favorite of recent days, PAUL RYAN of Wisconsin.

Born in 1970? Wow. He would be the first person on a major party ticket younger than I am. It had to happen someday. The country will soon be run by people I could have known as bratty little kids not that long ago.

Granted, I’ve seen Intrade wrong on heavy bets before, but that was usually with less frequently leaked choices such as Supreme Court nominations. This one is probably Ryan.

At least it won’t be that bore, Tim Pawlenty. Or someone as blatantly inept as McCain’s choice in 2008.

[ADDENDUM: Oh right, I have to add that I’m supporting Obama, in order to prevent any malicious out-of-context tweeted links. I forgot about that aspect of the web.]

Rovinj, Croatia conference link now posted

Speaking of architecture conferences, I’ll be appearing at THIS ONE in Rovinj, Croatia on September 1.

Brazil semi-wrapup

I still have a few days left in Brazil, but with all five lectures now complete, I’ve been reflecting on the trip as a whole.

In any just-completed life situation, it’s good to ask yourself what was most surprising in what happened, as a corrective to any smug sense that might creep in that you already knew everything all along (no one does; every day is filled with stunning shocks of some sort, if you only pay attention).

Probably the biggest surprise on this trip was my positive reaction to São Paulo. Based on things I’d heard, I tacitly expected São Paulo to be a sort of bizarre, otherworldly dystopia with the constant danger of automatic weapons fire, and despicably high and insular skyscrapers serviced by the helicopters of the ultra-wealthy fading in the mists high above.

Needless to say, that’s not really what São Paulo is like. It’s dangerous, but not that dangerous. And there is the biggest helicopter fleet in the world, but not that big a fleet. And the skyscrapers really aren’t all that tall. And it comes off as a perfectly cosmopolitan, hardworking, and fun place to be. The biggest unexpected negative of São Paulo, in fact, is how outrageously expensive a city it is.

Money evaporates in São Paulo as it does in few other places, such as London at its worst, and pre-crash Reykjavik at its worst. (I find the supposed expense of Paris to be vastly overrated, and Tokyo wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d heard it would be, though granted, I wasn’t looking to rent an apartment).

Overall, the most consistently, brutally expensive city in my travel experiences would have to be London. How on earth can you people afford to live there? It’s just ridiculous the way money vanishes from your pocket in London, with so little to show for it much of the time.

Curitiba

Well-attended lecture tonight at the Museu Oscar Niemeyer (built by Niemeyer himself– and by the way, the man is still alive at age 104!).

Then we had a reception at a wonderful 17th floor apartment with an outdoor balcony in central Curitiba. I feel relaxed in this city.

Curitiba has a reputation as an eco-friendly city, but my acquaintances here (mostly young architects) say that the reputation has far outrun the reality. Their take on it is that in the 1970’s and 1980’s Curitiba did indeed have progressive ecological and public transit policies, but that the bureaucrats then took over and the whole thing has become stale and lacking in vision.

Maybe so, but to an outsider, the first impression of the city is one of immense livability compared with most other 1 million+ population cities in the world.