[Reader-list] Re: Residue

Rana Dasgupta rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 5 13:26:37 IST 2002


hi pratap

an initial engagement only with your mail, partly
because i need to try and understand bits of it more
fully.

you are right to try and pin down what is meant by
'residue'.  both of the meanings you put forward are
close.  i think we are talking about the 'necessary
by-products of a process'.  

if we are to believe the dialogues in pulp fiction
then there is a build-up of red meat in the gut of a
burger-eater over time that can neither be absorbed
into the body nor passed out.  this 'residue' of the
whole system of digestive processes is something that
can be ignored for long enough that all the inputs and
outputs of the system can be believed to be in perfect
balance.  it can however reach a stage where the
system itself is thrown into crisis.

the idea of speaking of the 'residue' with reference
to the market is to try and call into question the
idea that the system can exist in a state of perfect
balance, and to bring a systemic understanding to many
of the isolated incidents (refugee camps, jail
populations etc) that have been mentioned in this
discussion.  there is a disgusting overtone to the
word which is not unintended.

but your criticism is well-founded and needs to be
taken seriously.  in actual fact we are talking about
a global underclass and we do not need to find more
ways of naming that class as 'detritus'.  perhaps we
should be talking, not about 'residue' but about the
*process* by which residue is generated?

R

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