{"id":797,"date":"2026-10-01T02:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T02:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2026\/10\/01\/between-potatoes-and-barley-los-angeles-review-of-books\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T02:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T02:20:20","slug":"between-potatoes-and-barley-los-angeles-review-of-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2026\/10\/01\/between-potatoes-and-barley-los-angeles-review-of-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Potatoes and Barley | Los Angeles Review of Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The ship had encountered a hurricane, which it should have been able to survive. The problem was that it had been hauling loose barley, as opposed to barley in sacks. In the storm\u2019s upheaval, the barley shifted around and unbalanced the ship, causing it to capsize. While J\u00e4ger connects this tale with a previously discussed anecdote from the work of Peter Sloterdijk, with the loose barley representing atomized citizens in the hold of the ship of state, unbounded by being held in the sacks of communal and political organizational bonds, it also functions as a commentary on a much earlier metaphor. Marx in the \u201cEighteenth Brumaire\u201d compares the French peasantry to a loose sack of potatoes, similar in form but unable to organize and recognize their position in society, which leaves them as easy pickings for a demagogue to throw them together toward his own aims.<\/p>\n<p>We find ourselves in a similar predicament, caught between being shapeless potatoes scooped into arbitrary sacks by strongmen, or resembling loose barley that can only show its power by destroying the system that binds and carries it. How do we get ourselves into structures that will themselves form us and allow us to wield power outside of crashing society in a Sorelian mass mobilization? How do the potatoes and the barley rise to determine their own fate? How do we get out of the sacks and the holds and onto the earth, where we can put down roots and plant seeds? J\u00e4ger is a young historian and intellectual who shows great promise. I hope that his next work provides his answers to these questions.<br \/>\n\u2014 Read on <a href=\"https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/hyperpolitics-anton-jager-extreme-politicization-without-political-consequences\/\">lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/hyperpolitics-anton-jager-extreme-politicization-without-political-consequences\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ship had encountered a hurricane, which it should have been able to survive. The problem was that it had been hauling loose barley, as opposed to barley in sacks. In the storm\u2019s upheaval, the barley shifted around and unbalanced the ship, causing it to capsize. While J\u00e4ger connects this tale with a previously discussed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[80,10,63,154,77,38],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-capitalism","tag-democracy","tag-history","tag-social-contract","tag-social-media","tag-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}