june booklist (the wish feeling of empathy could replace regulation)

• the three arched bridge - ismail kadare, 
• the hawkline monster: a gothic western - richard brautigan, 
• ends and beginnings - alexander herzen, 
• from rousseau to lenin - lucio colletti (introduction and a few essays), 
• a fortunate man - john berger and jean mohr, 
• two years beside the strait - paul bowles, 
• we the cosmopolitans - ed. lisette josephides and alexandra hall, 
• affective relations: transnatinal politicsof empathy - carolyn pedwell (introduction only), 
• literary theory - terry eagleton (introduction only) 

today horsemouth will be wandering around the hinterlands in morning (doing a little reading and scribbling desultory notes in his diary). he will then (probably) retreat to his flat for a few hours before venturing out in the afternoon.

horsemouth has been reading affective relations:the transnational politics of empathy which after an opening chapter (written entirely in academic cover-your-arse language, as if there wasn't much empathy in academia) has settled down to discussing the modern form of empathy - is it a vital lifeskill that anyone and everyone should possess? one that it can and must be developed? or is something relational, produced by circulation (the hint is in the title).

if there's the empathy for social justice crowd (jacqui alexander, breda gray) there is also the better capitalism through empathy school (martensen and patniak). the hope that the wish feeling of empathy could replace regulation. but horsemouth says why regulate capitaism when everybody is just trying to do their best for everyone else right - what could go wrong with that? given the perfection of empathic connection between capitalist and worker (and seller and buyer) why would regulation have ever evolved? it is as if utopia has already arrived unheralded amongst us and all we need to do is flick a switch.

of course the first side of this division - empathy the lifeskill - is really what is discussed in the existentialist we the cosmopolitans - pedwell, in critiquing modern deployments of empathy in affective relations points to the covert self-interest of this and so she has cunningly arranged it so that the less naive take on empathy falls on the transnational flows side of the argument. however even the authors of we the cosmopolitans were capable of spotting the problems with and inconsistencies within the notion of empathy the lifeskill.

and yet still in their ethnographic studies there's the tragic moment where immigration detention center guard and inmate each check that the other is 'ok' after another inmate has committed suicide (if this is where empathy (and cosmopolitanism) gets you then fuck it one might be tempted to say).