[DEBATE] : Re: What's behind the 'new anti-Semitism'?

[Dominic Tweedie]

My memory is much longer than that, Patrick, and no, this is not
particularly personal, except to the extent that we are all cursed with this
affliction, the bourgeois family. The point is to change it. Russell is an
architect, which James is not, and it shows.

All you wanted them days was a bigger subsidy. That was the entire extent of
your critique. I wonder if you have moved on? A bigger subsidy would have
meant the "armed propaganda", the "facts on the ground" of the family-trap
model that is the RDP "housing" would have been a bit more effective.

Nobody can say that there should not be family housing at all. It may be an
anachronism but it lives on, and the same attitude has to be taken as to the
French peasants after the revolution. They must have their land (or house)
at once, even if they are historically doomed. That is a political
necessity.

If that is all, then we are all doomed. There must also be not one but two
things, both of which require architectural discrimination of a high order.
The less important one is the design of dwellings for non-stereotypes, and
more pointedly, for proletarians, as touched upon by Engels in The Housing
Question.

The absolutely crucial one is the creation of the open polity, the Agora,
the public space. What have you done about that, people? You read "City of
Quartz" and go "Oh wow! The insights!" but what have you done in this
country that has almost nothing of this kind?

I could say a lot more.



-----Original Message-----
From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
[mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org]On Behalf Of Patrick Bond
Sent: 09 March 2007 07:54 AM
To: debate: SA discussion list
Subject: [DEBATE] : Re: What's behind the 'new anti-Semitism'?

Phew this is getting uncomfortably personal. Of course I don't think the
nuclear family is the end of history; I'll go with Engels here. Dominic
would stretch to find anything remotely close to his allegation, and
indeed much of subsequent work we've been up to in the municipal
services field - e.g. breaking down 6kl/household/month into a per
capita demand precisely because nuclear families are so rare in
townships and rural areas - is unsuccessful in policy terms because
*government* (and its key early advisors at the Urban Foundation and
World Bank) designed the central building blocks of
shelter/housing/services policy with the household in mind.

I assume Dom is egging on Russell, who has a really wonderful family. As
does James (and quite hypocritically, he leads a civilised and exciting
urban life, not the primitive sterile alienated suburban one he
advocates for others, last time I checked over a bitter with him in
London).

I think poor Dom is still smarting from being whipped in a 1996 M&G
debate with me, in which he supported neoliberal populist do-it-yourself
housing - Slovo/Cobbett's shelter-on-the-ultracheap-policy, ultimately
deemed unconstitutional - instead of a decent programme, as indicated
would happen in the RDP, section 2.5. Chin up, Dom, those are long ago
days and we've nearly forgotten that rare deviation from Pure Communism
(though maybe google hasn't - I haven't checked).

P.

Dominic Tweedie wrote:
> I doubt if a philosopher like Heartfield would be entirely happy to be
> described as merely "alternative". Another world is indeed possible. But
any
> old alternative will not do.
>
> If you want to know, I think his ideas on domestic arrangements are
> half-baked, in about the same way as Patrick Bond's have always been. Both
> of them take the bourgeois family as a given, and hence the need for the
> commodity "housing".
>
> I think you would probably do a better job than your friend Heartfield in
> this matter, since you have a better knowledge of the subject than he has.
> That's one reason why I regret that you so seldom write on your own
account.
>
> Domza.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
> [mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org]On Behalf Of Russell Grinker
> Sent: 08 March 2007 08:32 AM
> To: 'debate: SA discussion list '
> Subject: [DEBATE] : Re: What's behind the 'new anti-Semitism'?
>
> Not sure what you are you arguing Dominic. That there should be no
> alternative vision of what cities should look like this side of the
> proletarian dictatorship?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
> [mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org] On Behalf Of Dominic Tweedie
> Sent: 07 March 2007 11:06 PM
> To: debate: SA discussion list
> Subject: [DEBATE] : Re: What's behind the 'new anti-Semitism'?
>
> Alternative? Is that what it is? The alternative society?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
> [mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org]On Behalf Of Russell Grinker
> Sent: 07 March 2007 10:46 PM
> To: pbond at mail.ngo.za; 'debate: SA discussion list '
> Subject: [DEBATE] : Re: What's behind the 'new anti-Semitism'?
>
> As opposed to what Patrick - making do with disintegrating terraces or
> crappy 60s highrises and a working class forced to subsist on the margins
of
> the commuter belt because it can't afford decent housing close to work?
You
> may not agree with what he suggests but what's wrong with developing an
> alternative vision for modern cities?
>
>
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