In a 1971 interview, John Lennon gives an interesting assessment of the '60s:
TA: What did you think was the reason for the success of your sort of music?
JL: Well, at the time it was thought that the workers had broken through, but I realise in retrospect that it's the same phoney deal they gave the blacks, it was just like they allowed blacks to be runners or boxers or entertainers. That's the choice they allow you--now the outlet is being a pop star, which is really what I'm saying on the album in 'Working class hero'. As I told Rolling Stone, it's the same people who have the power, the class system didn't change one little bit.
Of course, there are a lot of people walking around with long hair now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything.
Read the rest of the interview here:
http://counterpunch.org/lennon12082005.html
And this quote from Hakim Bey seems in a similar vein:
It seems clear that in human society, despite the best intentions, technology has alienated people to such an extent that they mistake technological and symbolic action for social/political action. This is the commodity stance. You buy a certain product, and you’ve made a political statement. You buy a car that runs on salad oil. It’s still a car! Or make a documentary. Where did we cross that line where we forgot that making a documentary about how everyone would like to have a food co-op is not the same as having a food co-op? I think some people have lost that distinction. Now, about art in the service of the revolution: There is no art in the service of the revolution, because
if there’s no revolution, there’s no art in its service. So to say that you’re an artist but you’re progressive is a schizo position. We have only capital, so all art is either in its service or it fails. Those are the two alternatives. If it’s successful, it’s in the service of capital. I don’t care what the content is. The content could be Malcolm X crucified on a bed of lettuce. It doesn’t matter.
The source:
http://www.thebrooklynrail.org/spotlight/july04/wilson.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
You write a blog, it's still just ones and zeros that create images on a glowing screen.
In your Luddite definition of alienation, I'm afraid that you overlook an important point that Marx makes well: humans are defined by their capacity to produce-- it is natural for them to create cultural objects. I don't know why you think coops and walking are inherently good and documentaries and driving cars, inherently bad. I mean, I still think hybrid cars suck pretty hard, but that's not because I reject all technology. They still suck because they require us to continue to pour billions of dollars into paving and repaving the world and because those roads shape the landscape and communities around them in ways that are really annoying to look at and live in. In other words, their value is determined by the highly elaborate cultural practices and artifacts surrounding cars. Coops and documentaries about coops are related in important ways.
If when you say "you" you mean Hakim Bey (aka Peter Lamborn Wilson), that is odd because I doubt he reads my blog. If you mean me, that is odd because I didn't give a definition of alienation, I just out up a quote from Hakim Bey. And it's odd anyway, because HB didn't give a definition of alienation either, although I suppose you mean one is implicit.
First of all, I don't think Bey necessarily implies that coops are inherently good and documentaries inherently bad. I think what he means is that social movements are becoming more and more about web sites, zines, pamphlets, and spectacular activities like holding signs, and less about direct action and social activity. A documentary about a co-op wouldn't be a bad thing, but you could have one co-op and 30 documentaries about it, to take it to an absurd extreme, and that would be a bad thing. This is how I take his point.
Second of all, I have no idea why you think the reasons he thinks cars suck are not the identical reasons you gave for thinking cars suck, he gives no indication that this is not the case. I see no implication that he thinks documentaries and cars are inherently bad.
Third of all, and I say this last because it is hardest to defend and implies the longest conversation, I find Marx's notion that humans are defined by their capacity to produce problematic, even if it does say something true. Marx seems to hold the view that nature is a resource that has no meaning or value until it is appropriated and stamped by human beings.
This view is harder to argue against than one may think because the alternative can look like a passive enthrallment to the given, which is why Heidegger's notion of letting-be (gelassenheit) gets criticized for being quietistic. Even as vehement a critic of industrialism as Blake held that "Nature is barren where Man is not" and extolled the creative, tranformative powers of the human. Blake was a critic of modern science because it was too passive, believe it or not, and seemed to him to be a form of nature-worship. This seems to be a very common 19th-century view, and incidentally it's one good reason why Blake is not a Romantic. Marx got this view directly from Hegel, I would imagine.
The alternative view is that, as Heidegger says, "everywhere man encounters only himself," and that this is the most extreme form of nihilism. Letting-be is still an active engagement in things, but one that frees them to be what they are, rather than trying to stamp them with one's own likeness. This involves the recognition that human communities are embedded in a wider natural framework that is not simply a repository of resources for human production and consumption, or a neutral enabling factor for the will to power.
This doesn't mean that humans aren't always creating cultural artifacts, but it does imply that the relation to the extra-human world is not simply one of appropriation and production.
Post a Comment