A gentle introduction to Asemic Horizon

What is meant by “asemic horizon”?

• bits and pieces of theory (recursive definition: theory is the theory of generic structure); streams threatening to coalesce into rivulets;
• an asymptote (a horizon); as theory approaches it, the entire world becomes pure gestures. Pure gestures can be understood; in the real situation which is saturated with meanings, the world can be only coped with.
• an attempt to systematize said theoretical resources, the Theory FAQ. This is not open to the public; either contact me, if you can discover how, or ask someone who already has the password.
• a blog, in your screen right now, that purports to explain what the hell is going on and how can one cope with it.  This spirals out out from the rise and tenure of Jair Messias Bolsonaro. (Note: I’d rather make you — and myself — rich rather than make you understand.  But this is a promise I’m not willing to make yet.)

By clicking on the link shortly to come (probably titled “read more”) WordPress will expand this page onto a short recap of where we began and where we’re going.

Theory began to emerge out of the sustained effort to say something cogent about the rise and times of Jair (whose middle name literally means “the Messiah”). In the beginning, this was inordinately painful, since I was starting from a point where the story of  had already been framed for international audiences. Because this is all structural (everything is structural up to the generic structure) a plain denial followed by a presentation that hopefully preserved some of my deep ambivalence would miss all incident structural local and global issues. Can you see how it’s a no-win scenario?

Fortunately enough I was trained in analytical carpentry.  I have the cerebral calluses typical of a life spent in theoretical work. Even in civilian life, my whole brand and livelihood is linked to theory. Besides, I had a few idle, sterile speculative concepts cached in notebooks and shoeboxes; and it was high time that something intelligent was said about the rise of Messias as a noteworthy event in the ongoing context of Brazil’s constitutional crisis.

To “do theory” is to lift concrete events to higher degrees of abstraction: from truth (and the whole surrounding noise) to ambient conditions, from social processes to interlocking axiologies that dispense with the problems of representativeness and legitimacy (and, again, the whole surrouding noise); from contingent relational claims (true, false, probable, adequate, fitting) to quability; from history (personal and galactic alike) to tempo and scenarios. These (and a few more) are technical terms without which you will not get much out of asemic horizon — and while I can’t promise a quick lift-off to general axiology, I can promise being conversant in this stuff is worth your while.