tsparks:

LINK
Steven Shaviro has written a personal piece concerning the current “crisis” at Re-public. It is well worth reading.
Shaviro is a Professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI

Excerpt:
Even now, when the crisis is fully upon us, it’s impossible to understand it, or to make coherent sense of it. For the collapse takes place invisibly, and in slow motion. You can’t really see it as it happens. The day after all the credit dried up, the world looked the same as it had the day before. Eventually, you notice that there have been small, incremental changes. Some businesses have closed; there are less cars out on the street; there have been a few more break-ins in my neighborhood. But the “trickle-down” nature of these disruptions is such that you cannot ever view the changes directly.

The crisis is a disaster, in the sense described by Maurice Blanchot: “the disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact.” My house has not been changed in the time since the crisis hit. It is physically exactly the same as it was, and it is just as comfortable to live in. But it has nonetheless been impalpably transformed. It has gone from being a source of notional wealth to being a burdensome debt. Just a few years ago, the equity I held in it was greater than my yearly salary. But now, its market value is considerably less than the principal that I still owe the bank, according to the terms of my mortgage.

Of course, I am one of the lucky ones. I still have a well-paying job; and one that, as a tenured academic, I am unlikely to lose. I should be able to keep on paying my mortgage without defaulting — even though, strictly speaking, I am paying a considerable sum each month in return for a property value that no longer exists.The bank will continue to earn a profit from me — even as my own savings are negative, and still going down. Because of my employment situation, I won’t face the consequences of this deficit until I am forced to retire — something I hope I can hold off doing as long as possible.

oK just to speak honestly for a second if one cannot view change directly? Than how is one to view change? Just curious. Odd statement!