wooo!

2014/04/14 23:36 MISSISSAUGA Item processed

so, i'm thinking tomorrow or the next day.

meaning that i may not end up getting any work done on this old laptop, after all. but it's now fully loaded.

including this neat, fairly new little trick regarding playing direct into midi. always wanted something like that...

(i knew this was going to happen, btw. lol.)

"those guys over there are being divisive."

it works more often than not.

he's not dead yet, apparently.

but there's no new information in this speech.

actually, i took advantage of the snow by going for a long, brisk walk. 'twas nice.

i have a lot of opposition to your concept of personal freedom. capitalism is a shitty way for people the world over to live because it abolishes personal freedom - both at the worker/slave level and at the consumer/bot level. a replacement order should be one where personal freedom is truly maximized. in fact, that was the whole point of the socialist program - we needed socialism precisely because industrial capitalism made liberalism impossible. but, i get your point. it just applies more to the co-modified capitalist ideal of "personal freedom" than it does to actual freedom.

besides that, i like your analogy. unfortunately, there isn't much to add to the debate. the thinking is long done. it's a question of action.

basically, oscar wilde said everything worth saying here:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/

1) civilization requires slaves. even engels admitted that this whole dictatorship of the proletariat thing was the best compromise available relative to nineteenth century technology. we need slaves, but if we make the slaves and the bosses the same thing then the slaves will hopefully be mistreated the least. that's communism, and it's not surprising that it hasn't worked (for all marx' talk of contradictions in capitalism, his solution was merely another one).

2) it's not the nineteenth century anymore. we can actually start building a lot of this stuff. we don't even have to talk about automating luxuries at this point. how about automating food? might it be the best way to solve the food crises we're facing, anyways?

3) we've consequently functionally eliminated the barrier to liberalism that marx and engels pointed out. if we can replace socialized production with automation, we can get on with building a free society.

but there's two reasons why this is going to require something as drastic as nuclear war or secretly starting a colony on another planet or something:

1) scarcity in food production is a weapon in the hands of the ruling class. they demand that breeding be roughly linearly proportional to productivity and the food be rewarded as compensation for forced labour. so, we get scarcity continually enforced as austerity, instead. they start off with this axiom with all the force they have, and they know they cannot maintain the existing system should the lie be exposed as what it is.

2) hierarchical socialism, which would cease to exist.

solution? eventually, the technology to abolish the contradiction between liberalism and industrialization will be cheap and easy enough to produce that it cannot be suppressed. it's all in the mode of production. it's all driven by technology. that's something marx was right about.

until then, the anti-capitalist (anarchism is the only real anti-capitalism) needs to adopt a strategy of avoidance. this is a highly personal thing. what does the individual despise about capitalism? how would the individual live on the other side of it? is there a way to scheme a path to an approximation of this existence? can small, shifting spaces be claimed temporarily so that it's migratory inhabitants can move from bubble to bubble? there's no way to overturn this, to reform it or to revolt against it. it's not a social choice, but a function of the technology. resistance is truly futile, until the technology is innovated upon. so, innovation is possible, but avoidance is the only real means of breaking free.

mass avoidance could raise awareness and temporarily bring the system down, but it can't change it. so long as the technology remains the same, what we call capitalism will recreate itself - because it is a function of the technology. avoidance as a revolutionary strategy could only bring us back to the dark ages, or further back. there's a primitivist strain of anarchism that understands and promotes this.

but if you're opposed to that, you're stuck waiting for the technology that can truly democratize production.

deathtokoalas
the language is edgy, but that only means "racist" to people that lack any sort of critical thinking (i.e. the pc crowd). it's actually starkly anti-racist; it's a sort of an allegory of sin through a sheltered white perspective. the burning is an allegory of hell, and he's burning with them for sinning with them - sleeping with them, which is the ultimate sin in a white patriarchal system that forbids any kind of genetic mixing.  he's not separating himself or the listener out, he's putting everybody on an even level with what he's describing. in the end, we're all on fire.

some kind of white guilt? maybe, but i think it's more of a literary device. he's stated repeatedly that he's just fucking with people. but you can pick up a lot of pynchon in thirlwell's work. i don't think an australian working in london and new york really has anything resembling a first hand understanding of these things, but if you read pynchon you'll get the perspective spot on.

that's how i've always interpreted this, anyways. really, this could very easily be one of pynchon's scattered tunes...

GaussRifleGrunt
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

deathtokoalas
i'm split between trying to interpret that and calling you on trying to confuse me.

NeuroProctologist
Well said. Though I wouldn't say it's only racist to people who lack critical thinking. It is racist. Period. He's using this wording, wielding the power of it, and some still are/would bb very rightly justified in criticizing him or anyone who would fit his profile, of wielding that power for any reason. Some would say he's not justified in making use of that imagery/wording, and I say they're just as if not more correct as he is in attempting to effigize his targets here.

But still, I enjoy the song, and intent behind it, while also recognizing he's kind of stepping over an edge.

deathtokoalas
no. words are meaningless without context.

NeuroProctologist
Just because you don't possess that context doesn't mean others don't. We do not speak/act in a vacuum. If you think there's nothing to criticize about him, I think you're getting starstruck a bit too much. I've always seen it as being his intent to walk that line and be target for as much for critique as he is for praise. His persona at the time was meant to provoke, good intent or no.

deathtokoalas
he's certainly trying to provoke, but his aim was always quite clearly to ridicule various *isms. he focuses pretty strongly on racism, but he ripped down misogyny and homophobia just as strongly. it was a common tactic in punk rock ("kill the poor" isn't a request, it's an explanation) and probably hit it's apex in industrial music with all the authoritarian imaging and in your face performance art. it's true that a lot of people aren't going to get it, but that doesn't give the messaging a meaning it doesn't have, it just means people aren't understanding it.

i mentioned pynchon, and i really think it's a huge influence. when pynchon starts exploring american racism (or south african racism after this was released), he gets very in depth. he uses a lot of language and imagery designed to explain various types of thinking that have defined how society has operated in the past (and that still linger, socially). but it's not racist to do that. if you want to really rip something apart, you have to understand it. not using certain words or just ignoring the whole thing  isn't going to eliminate institutional racism or the kind of racism that defines social ostracism. if you really want to get to the core of it, you have to talk openly about it by exploring and exposing it.

so, are some people going to get offended by this? probably, yeah. but anybody that takes a song that's meant to ridicule racism and calls it racist is just not understanding the song. it's not the artist that deserves to be criticized, it's the people that don't understand the art.

really, the best way to ensure that nothing changes is to never talk about it. and, whether the pc crowd realizes it or not, i really don't think it's an accident that political correctness is so heavily enforced by interests that don't want anything to change at all.

actually, i want to rephrase this a little: it's meant to be provoking and offensive, so being offended means you do understand it. it's the reaction of condemning him for it that is misunderstanding it. he's throwing it in your face, telling you it exists, because he wants you to do something about it. that's what separates it from being racist, and it's also what allows it to function as art.

...and it's the precise thing that defines the art movement that he was a part of.

i also just want to get in before somebody starts talking about agitprop, because i really made an attempt not to. sure: it's propaganda meant to agitate. but, it's subverting the idea of agitprop, by just throwing it in your face. somewhere, it derives from it, but industrial music really took the idea somewhere else entirely...

NeuroProctologist
I agree with much of what you say, except for where you begin to draw this line in the sand where people who become offended "don't get it". Being non-minorities, this is a common refrain. But in listening to people who are part of the marginalized groups being addressed with this type of language, a common notion is that it is not our place to take up and brandish these words/ideas. This isn't "not talking about it", It's simply avoiding the idea that "I, an outsider know what's best for you".

If I decide to make a statement using swaztikas, and a holocaust survivor takes offense a my delivery, or decides that my message is drowned in the delivery, I don't see how you, me, or thirlwell, can tell them they are wrong.  This seems a pretty plain and intuitive notion to me, and dressing any defense against it in "But well...art" is mostly just self-serving and tone deaf in my opinion.

Goes hand in hand with the belief I've been sticking to for a while that offensive art does not need to be defended, and shouldn't be. The moment we successfully do so is the moment it begins to lose it's impact/significance.

I can see arguing that there are two equally valid and mutually exclusive sides to this issue, but saying that it's definitively one way or another basically equates with saying "My lived experience is valid, yours is not".

deathtokoalas
but, there's an objective intent and it overpowers the subjective reaction. interpreting something is not the same thing as analyzing it. ultimately, the question of whether it's racist or not is a true/false binary that has nothing to do with how it's interpreted or what the sum of the person who's interpreting it's life experiences are. you can't force your experiences on to reality - and, really, trying to do so is completely tyrannical. i'm really not in line with this critical race theory stuff, i find it fundamentally anti-scientific and in direct contradiction with any kind of post-enlightenment thinking. that doesn't necessarily mean rejecting experiences, it just means enforcing them as subjective and, quite possibly, completely wrong.

in this case, because he's trying to piss people off, you can't really disagree with people that get offended. but, in a more subtle situation, if you had somebody who wasn't trying to be offensive and accidentally offended somebody? i'm going to tell the person that's offended that they've misunderstood, not that the sum of their life experiences is a more important metric and the person should consequently be silenced. that's bullshit...

fwiw, i think thirlwell would agree with you that there's a line, and he recognizes it. i've read interviews where he claims he wouldn't walk through a jewish neighbourhood with a swastika, because there's no "irony" in it. but i think he's not expressing himself as well as he'd like to. what he's trying to do is separate between a hateful act or message (which he'd reject) and a type of violent art that's meant to agitate people into a reaction (which defines the bulk of his work). you're drawing the line in terms of an audience reaction rather than the artist's intent, which is missing the point of what art is.

there's a lot of contradictions in the crt approach, and i don't want to sit here and list them. i've read more than enough essays by people of colour to come to the understanding that those contradictions are understood by some people of all colours, genders and orientations and that it's enforcement by academics in the last quarter of the twentieth century and the beginning of this one is going to be a temporary phenomenon. it's just intellectually unworkable.

but, it's contradictory to say "it's not our place, as members of the majority, to take the lead in the struggle" and then say "it's not my place to educate you on your oppression" and then say "it's not the majority's place to construct tactics to deal with racism within the majority itself". there may be valid reasons underlying each of these positions, but when extrapolated to full generality they are just not consistent with each other, and they consequently need to be more carefully defined. nor is there any logical reason why the people defining them ought to be of any specific racial or gender type.

i don't, personally, see anything wrong with what thirlwell has done over his career in trying to get certain ideas across to what is overwhelmingly a white, male audience and i don't see anything contentious with explaining the tactics to people that might otherwise be confrontational about it - because i think that, once it's understood, the core of that anger will mostly alleviate.

i mean "you don't understand" isn't meant to be a statement of superiority. it's meant to be a prelude to an explanation that will help people understand. and, once it's understood, there's not a reason to be angry, there's a reason to stand in solidarity.

NeuroProctologist
I would disagree that I am drawing that line. I think both the artist and the listeners perspective are valid, and that neither overrides the other. My very point is that each of us get to draw our own lines. It's sort of a paradox, as many areas of life are. Extrapolating to a generality doesn't work in this case, sure, but that is usually the case with most things.

Pretty sure I read that same interview! and again I do agree with much of what you say. I don't see anything wrong with his work according to my own values, I'm just not about to try to argue against someone who's personal experience dictates he did step over a line. Slurs don't hit me the same way. I'm not a target.

To put it flatly, the nuance here is highly likely to be lost on a black person. Why? Because they don't get? Or because the effigy he's trying to create is already too real to them, and there's nothing empowering to be found in someone shoving it in their face more? I don't think they would care if it's ironic. Nor should they really. This particular exploration of the subject is not likely to be funny or empowering in any way for them. I see that as valid. It works for you or me, because we get to laugh at and distance ourselves from this cartoonish representation of our own culture/demographic. That is empowering.

Make it more real: if you play this around a black friend, and they take offense, you gonna argue with them? Or just say "Sure whatever, we can listen to something else". It's not a matter of being silenced, it's just being friendly and recognizing that intent isn't magic.

BTW, cool conversation. Not often you get this quality of discourse on youtube of all places ;)

deathtokoalas
see, the thing is that i think it's a little dismissive to deduce a black person would get more upset about it because they're black. and that's kind of exactly the criticism of crt that you hear coming from minorities - all this "woah. wait a minute. just 'cause i'm black doesn't mean i can't like pink floyd or beethoven, or dislike hip hop or miles davis.". it loses the whole basis of an individual with individual perspectives, in favour of a group identity. this is another contradiction that is right as it's core, because it's supposed to be about experience. but it would reject the kind of individual experience that doesn't uphold it's values.

i've met some black people that i feel i could have a conversation with this about and that i think are entirely willing and able to get their head around it. and, the "irony" may even be more real to them. but, i mean, the art scenes foetus was involved with in london and new york were both overwhelmingly white scenes....that was the audience, and this was meant for it....

this kind of thing is actually pretty common in hip-hop, too. it might come from a different perspective and mostly be directed at a different audience, but it's really the same thing when you break it down.

you're opening a can of worms about art that i'm maybe at fault for leading the conversation to, but have ranted about all over youtube and don't really want to revisit. but an artist can't be producing art to satisfy an audience's concern, otherwise they're merely catering to a market and producing a commodity. art must challenge it's audience.

NeuroProctologist
All I can really say, is you seem to have a sense for nuance, but you also seem to be really insistent to drive each point of nuance into some expanded generality. Of course anyone can defy any stereotype that is placed on them, and most people often do in one or more ways. The majority of the time I'd say.

This started with "the language is edgy, but that only means "racist" to people that lack any sort of critical thinking",  and to loop back to that, the only real point I think I contend is that people can not "get it" while still being fully aware of the artist's intent. Non racist people can still do racist things. Under a persona, for art, or not.  And racism, in general, is not some clearly defined thing with neatly identifiable borders.

Saying "I'm not okay with him ironically dropping n-bombs" is not censoring, or being anti-art, or small-minded, or generally anything.  Whether the producer or the consumer is right or wrong is sort of irrelevant, and it need not be expanded into how art should be produced, or for what reasons...trying to even go there would be absurd I think.

But then again, I'm not really of the opinion that everything must reduce into a collected set of neatly reconcilable facts. These two things can be at odds with each other. One doesn't need to be more correct the way I see it. Perhaps I won't convince you of this, but I at least appreciate the good faith discourse.

And if you ask me, art must'nt do anything, aside from be observed. But I'm sure that could get broken down easily enough if dissected ;)