Jason Read

@jasonread

Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine, Author of The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work from Verso Books: More here:

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Jason Read@jasonread· 27d

"So how are we going to advertise our new dinosaur theme park, where people can see living dinosaurs for the first time ever?" "Well, we were thinking with going with the silhouette of a fossilized T-Rex skeleton, the sort of thing that people can find in their nearest natural history museum."

Jason Read@jasonread· 27d

Smoke from Canadian wildfires can be seen on the beach in Maine

Jason Read@jasonread· 29d

The early dog gets to swim

Bento (dog) next to sign which reads “No Dogs on Beach 9 AM to 5 PM

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 12

I imagine this trail will be very different when this apartment building is done.

Bento (dog) on trail with construction in background

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 11

It is the time of the year when we are harvesting most of the lettuce, cilantro, and basil from our garden. When we built the beds a few years ago (when this picture was taken) I never imagined that one of the plus sides of having a garden would be avoiding a national outbreak of disease.

Me watering garden with Bento in background

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 11

Backyard Baseball cards

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 11

Okay fine, Platner again. Although he did tend to use the word oligarch a lot, and, even worse, "the Epstein class," Platner was often very clear about the class division in society. He defined the working class as anyone who sells their labor in order to live; the New York Times called this definition capacious, I would call it Marx's (but maybe not Marxist). However, this broad definition of class was undercut by the aesthetics of class that fueled his appeal. He is a white man, who wears flannel, and works with his hands as an oyster farmer. The same claim, that everyone who sells their work, their labor power is working class, would be received very differently if it came from a barista, an undocumented farm worker, or even a college professor. In the US at this moment, class is more of an aesthetic category than a political or economic one, and the Platner situation is just one more example of why that is so bad for politics.

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 11

State of the Art

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 10

Summer office

Picture of coffee cup and books on table outside with dog in background

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 9

Two pictures with the same energy

Bento (dog) under Willow tree with clover

Illustration from The Story of Ferdinand of Ferdinand the bull under cork tree sniffing flowers

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 9

Day and night

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 8

Guardian of the garden

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 7

One of the things that drew a lot of people in Maine to Platner was that he broke with a pattern of calculated electability, in which Democrats in particular, weigh their support for transgender people or opposition to the genocide in Gaza, against some metric of established opinion. He came out for trans rights, against the bombardment of Gaza, and against ICE, and in support of Maine's communities of immigrants (I only ever heard him speak once, and it was during an anti-ICE rally, as he shared the stage with members of Maine's Somalian community). This solidarity eroded bit by bit, as his history emerged, and supporters began to frame another hierarchy, not that of electability, but one understood in terms of class versus, race, or gender. Class, support for the working class, came first, and everything else had to take a back seat. This priority of class over race and gender on the part of the "left" is just a reprehensible as attempts to calculate the most electable position. Any politics which sacrifices one group, one issue, for others is doomed to fail. As Frédéric Lordon puts it, "If therefore, to put it in big words, we had to formulate a political ethics of struggles, or of the coexistence of struggles, its first principle would be to do nothing in one's struggle that could harm other struggles."

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 7

For months now, almost since the beginning of Graham Platner's campaign, I have seen the same pattern unfold. Some scandal breaks out, first the tattoo, then the racist and sexist Reddit posts, and then the texts, but I walk around my neighborhood and still see the Platner signs up, still hear about the massive turn outs for his rallies across the state. Support never wavered, and I do not think that it was for the reasons that people out of state thought; it was not because people in the state were basically Nazis, or so caught up in some fantasy of flannel and masculinity that they fell for the image. People were willing to forgive, to believe that he had changed, because they wanted very much to believe that there was a politician who wanted to help working people, to deliver promises of universal healthcare, to say no to genocide and war, and to openly confront the rise of fascism in Washington. People believed that Platner was the person he said he was, and he exploited that belief until it could no longer be sustained.

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 7

Spotted in the wild

Unemployed Negativity: Fragments on Philosophy, Politics and Culture along with other books

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 6

Goal!

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 6

Goalie

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 6

Persistence

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 6

Bento in the pumpkin patch

Bento (dog), pumpkin leaves, soccer ball

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 5

I interrupt my flow of dog pictures to bring you some cat content

Jason Read@jasonread· Jul 5

Bento is ridiculously proud of himself for being to race other dogs and beat them to their toys. He has no interest in the toy, he just wants other dogs to chase him.