…in a talk loaded with one after another. The astonishingly brilliant Lauren Berlant at AAA in 2011: http://supervalentthought.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/berlant-aaa-2011final.pdf

“Austerity, Precarity, Awkwardness”

“But fantasy can’t be garbaged in the same way that governmental infrastructures have been: for the state’s legitimacy to continue appearing sovereign and performative, the state finds it still imperative for citizens and denizens not only to appear to consent to the law, the police, and the tax code, but also to harbor the sentimental collective memories of suffering and optimism that maintain the fantasy of the common that still floats the nation form’s promise, even as its material presence, sold off to the highest private bidders, disappoints, defunds, and deserts the mass of the people who rely on it.”