RE: [-empyre-] Matrixial Encounters

["Sally Jane Norman" <S.J.Norman@newcastle.ac.uk>]

Who was that biologist who said that Marx had a really interesting
theory, but that he'd just got the wrong species?

peace, love and gm flowers

sjn 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au 
>[mailto:empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of 
>Mathieu O'Neil
>Sent: 13 April 2005 10:23
>To: soft_skinned_space
>Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Matrixial Encounters
>
>Hi all
>
>Been reading on and off - just a short note.
>
>Henry made some very valid points. I'd like to add something 
>on the collapse of the USSR. To simplify dreadfully, Castells 
>writes that the USSR could not compete with the 
>"informationalist" revolution initiated by counter-cultural 
>entrepreneurs in the US. Its rigid social structure
>- bureaucratic elite  - could never accommodate the likes of 
>Wozniak, Jobs and Gates (to name a few well-known "hackers").
>
>It's been accepted by most reasonable people - since Orwell, 
>in fact - that the Vanguard Party Leading The Masses Until 
>They Can Catch Up pretty well always ends in disaster. The 
>one-party model - still defended (in the case of Cuba for 
>example) by Stalinists the world over as the only foil to 
>Imperialistik Aggression means that the first to be locked up, 
>shot etc are the Anarchists. Like in Spain in the thirties.
>
>Now, I'm reminded of what Michel Houellebecq once said: that 
>that is not the Only Problem, however. Marx was dead wrong: 
>changing the material base of society does not suffice to 
>realize communism. There must be an ethical or spiritual (for 
>want of a better word) dimension. 
>It's all very well to blame Stalin etc for what happened in 
>Russia. But do you really think that the speed with which it 
>morphed from a nominally socialist model to a morass of 
>gangsterism can only be explained in those terms? If the West 
>(for want of a better word) does not find some kind of 
>progressive ethical identity to project in the world, if all 
>we can offer is ever more materialism, or christian 
>fundamentalism, we are doomed. The environmental movement is 
>all that comes to mind. Not that inspiring though?...
>
>Better stop!
>best,
>
>Mathieu
>
>.
>On 13/04/2005, at 3:20 PM, Henry Warwick wrote:
>
>> The Voices in my Head tell me that on 4/12/05 12:23 AM, 
>Eduardo Navas 
>> at eduardo@navasse.net wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Intense exchange.
>>>
>>> I want to comment on the contention with Capital that has been 
>>> prevalent throughout the discussion.
>>
>> I agree, and I would like to build on your discussion. 
>Disagreement is 
>> encouraged. Ruffled feathers are a good thing.
>>
>>>  While, yes, there are currently many forms of resistance out there 
>>> following notions of ruptures, "interventions"
>>> "problematizations" within the paradigms of Foucault or Debord and 
>>> any other theorist that is relevant to issues of global 
>politics, the 
>>> one thing that they all share is that they are not able to work 
>>> together like Capital does.
>>
>> This is because there is a distinct difference between cultural 
>> production and political economy: cultural production is an 
>> influencing subset of political economy. Capitalism is a form of 
>> political economy. Barking about the "movies" is not.
>>
>>> While Capital is extremely different from place to place, it is 
>>> extremely prevalent in its purpose--it is homogeneous.
>>
>> I disagree. I think Capital is identical from place to place 
>- that's 
>> what makes it so effective. Different places and different 
>people have 
>> different responses and uses for it.
>>
>> Example: an instrument of capital : credit.
>>
>> People loan each other money all over the place. How "interest" is 
>> acquired varies between culture, but money is still loaned 
>and capital 
>> is still formed. How people deal with it varies.
>>
>> People can take deep breaths of the living world air spirit, people 
>> can convulse and gasp mightily for their last dying breath, 
>people can 
>> calming inhale and exhale in meditation: but:
>>
>>  the exchange of oxygen in the lungs is the exchange of 
>oxygen in the 
>> lungs
>>
>> - and like "breathing", capital is as transparent (in a 
>Marxian sense 
>> / the obviousness of the physical activity) as it is Opaque 
>(in terms 
>> of finding effective alternatives to it, as a mystery or a puzzle is 
>> opaque)
>>
>>>  This is the strength behind globalization.
>>
>> First, I would like to be clear: the whole contemporary notion of 
>> "globalisation" is absurd. People have been trading goods 
>and services 
>> over enormous distances for a very very long time. The English 
>> invasion of North America was, in no small part, instigated by a 
>> corporation: the Hudson Bay Company. And that was 200+ years ago.
>>
>> Intercontinental trade was accomplished by the Esquimaux 
>even earlier.
>> Humanity's invasion of the Americas even earlier still. So, when I 
>> hear people whinging about "globalisation", a bunch of 
>detectors in my 
>> head send warning signals saying "misunderstanding of the big 
>> picture".
>>
>> People have been travelling all over the place for a very long time 
>> and have been bringing things with them. So-called globalisation is 
>> simply the contemporary manifestation (and insane 
>amplification) of a 
>> process that has been going on for an extremely long time.
>>
>> Note: Neolithic hunter-gatherers were not using sweatshops to make 
>> sharper spear points cheaper.
>>
>> But: if you take the same urge to travel (proof: we're 
>everywhere) and 
>> combine it with an equally old urge to survive more easily 
>using "low 
>> cost"
>> resource banks (proof: technological intensification of both the 
>> sophistication of tools and the acquisition and consumption of
>> resources)
>> and an abstract wealth economy of credit and wage slavery 
>sitting on a 
>> system of class and privilege via mystified justifications (i.e.
>> capitalism)
>>
>> the math get simple: our contemporary understanding of globalisation 
>> is a (but not the) logical result. And therefore completely off the 
>> mark.
>>
>>> Capital knows to do one thing: expand.
>>
>> No, it also knows how to create wealth ex nihilo, among 
>other things...
>>
>>> It does not care for any cultural
>>> issue that any resistance movement can claim.
>>
>> 10 points. Very good.
>>
>>>  Yet, differences within
>>> movements separates them from each other and often leads 
>them to weak 
>>> positions.
>>
>> This is because "movements" see themselves as separate from 
>capitalism.
>> Capitalism is Part of the Problem.  However: as Marx even noted: 
>> Capitalism
>> is a DRAMATIC improvement over what earlier obtained. The 
>> socio-historic conditions for the arrival of capitalism are well 
>> documented.
>>
>> Hence: Capitalism USES opposition to improve itself.
>>
>> The conclusions from that are So Utterly Fucking Depressing, I don't 
>> even know where to begin - because then we're tossed back to earlier 
>> slave states methods of social hegemony - the classic "bread and 
>> circuses".
>>
>> Art (and cultural production in general) is part of the circus.
>>
>> Bread is brought to you by ADM.
>>
>> Note: their website is http://www.admWORLD.com
>>
>> Going there is like visiting some brave new world...
>>
>> We are all part of the "System". Even when we critique the "System" 
>> we're
>> part of the System. Getting outside of it is like asking:
>>
>> "Define The Universe: give three examples..."
>>
>>
>>
>>> The bottom line is that since Marxism fell to the wayside there has 
>>> not been any other cultural paradigm that can claim a 
>strong position 
>>> against Capital.
>>
>> Marxism did not "fall to the wayside". The Soviet Union, which had 
>> evolved into a state capitalist system, failed. When it all hit the 
>> fan, the only people who knew how to run a market based econoy were 
>> the people engaged in
>> Marketing: the Black Marketers, and the Mafia surrounding it: hence 
>> the present suituaion today, where Russia is dominated by looses 
>> affiliates of different corrput and corrupting gangs (the former 
>> communists being one of those gangs...) China saw the writing on the 
>> wall, and followed suit, but with typically Chinese intensiveness. 
>> They saw the efficiency of the Soviet Union's tyranny and one upped 
>> it, by combining it with bloodless capitalist economics. The result?
>>
>> The Soviet Union dissolved, and China is now the second most 
>powerful 
>> economy in the world. And they are deeply afraid of what the 
>USA will 
>> do as it deteriorates.
>>
>> For more on that I recommend this:
>>
>> http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/pills2/
>>
>> It's 5 years old, and pre-9/11, but political economy sees 
>things like
>> 9/11
>> as round bumps...
>>
>> The American imperialists have responded to the above report and one 
>> theoretician is getting a lot of notice by the neocons:
>>
>> http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/
>>
>> and his terrifying vision in his own words:
>>
>> http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/media/interviews.htm
>>
>> Note: I found out that he indoctrinates each "class" of new Generals 
>> in the Army (and Admirals in the Navy) with his lecture. I 
>saw a video 
>> of his lecture. Be. Afraid.
>>
>> But: Marxism never failed. It was pressed into service for which it 
>> was ill-equipped (it's hard to run a country wit ha theory 
>that has no 
>> notion of exactly how to organise the State.) Marxism was always a 
>> predominantly "critical" notion  - ut was always weak on 
>> prescriptions, a preferring to punt this into the notion of 
>historical 
>> necessity.
>>
>>> All we have, even today, are ruptures, interventions, 
>>> problematizations, go down the line with more trendy terms.
>>
>> In a post that never made it's way here, your point was well covered 
>> byt the Red Crayola with Art and Language in the song "A Portrait of 
>> VI Lenin in the style of Jackson Pollock part 2" where Mayo Thompson 
>> sings:
>>
>> "If you think culture's revolution
>> If you think culture's revolution
>> If you think culture's revolution
>> you can stick it up your ass."
>>
>>
>>>  People only
>>> function with small moments of resistance.
>>
>> Because they get distracted by bread and circuses.
>>
>>> In the end, what is the real
>>> purpose in resisting and is there a vision for a new type 
>of culture?
>>
>> I htink the whole notion of a "New Type of Culture" is so weighted 
>> down with early 20th Century notions of the role of culture it's not 
>> useful.
>>
>>> Today, people are not willing to take a harder stance and instead 
>>> stick to short term interventions.
>>
>> No no no no. No. Oddly enough, an example is Hezbollah. I 
>*detest* the 
>> fact that they recruit people to strap ordnance to their bodies to 
>> blow up buses depots, cafes, etc. BUT: they also run clinics. They 
>> teach people how to read. THINGS LIKE THAT.
>>
>> Twittering about "transgressive art" does nothing for the vast 
>> majority of people who's concerns are much more immediate.
>>
>> To the left:
>>
>> Are you feeding them? No.
>> Are you assembling a global network of food distribution and 
>> acquisition that can feed 10 billion people? No.
>> Are you helping them have babies? No.
>> Are you taking care of Grampa as he drops dead in the hospital? No.
>> Are you even changing his bedpan? Hell no.
>>
>> Does capitalism?  Yup.
>>
>> Food? Be a wage slave and buy some. All things as they are, most 
>> people get enough to live long enough to reproduce their labour.
>> Having a baby? hire a doctor.
>> Grampa? put him in a hospital.
>> Bedpan? Part of the "hospital care plan".
>>
>> It doesn't do any of the above really well, but it does it 
>well enough 
>> that (for now) there aren't too many food riots.
>>
>>
>>> The politics of the artworld since conceptualism
>>> have turned into an extreme form of conventionalized institutional 
>>> critique,
>>
>> By necessity. Art is not Political Theory. All it can do in terms of
>> critique is discuss its attachments to the dominant 
>political-economy. 
>> Same
>> thing with the samizdat in Soviet Union. Its meaning as a literary 
>> form was
>> entirely conditioned by it political repression. this 
>doesn't mean that
>> everything that came out of it wasn't more than propaganda - on the 
>> contrary
>> - there was some very fine writing there - but its meaning 
>as a mode of
>> expression was determined by it being "in opposition" to the 
>political
>> economy.
>>
>>
>>> and new media circles, thanks to their dependency on institutions, 
>>> are not
>>> too far behind this situation--if not already in it.
>>
>> Gee - not too great of an understatement....
>>
>>>  That it is not brought
>>> up is another issue, because those in such circles can always focus 
>>> on the
>>> new possibilities of communication...  Much easier to suspend 
>>> politics by
>>> focusing on the constant development of technology.
>>
>> In fact, I see much of New Media's "formalism" as one of its greatest
>> weaknesses. That and the criminally myopic notion that New Media must
>> devolve in terms of computability.
>>
>>> This is the reason why I was wondering about Aliette's take 
>on Wark's 
>>> book.
>>> I personally hate to discuss a book when there is no decent summary 
>>> put
>>> forward by those who bring it up.
>>
>> I completely disagree. This list is already wordy enough. Full on 
>> critiques
>> of referenced texts I would find burdensome.
>>
>>>  It often leads to abstract soundbites
>>> around the actual content, and is always easy to misunderstand what 
>>> the book
>>> may actually be about.
>>
>> People do that anyway.
>>
>>> Or people during discussion can perform incredible
>>> sleights of hands.
>>
>> *People do that anyway.*
>>
>>> I am not going to describe the book in detail here, but I will say 
>>> that as
>>> many on the list know, it proposes hackers as a new type of class 
>>> resisting
>>> yet another class: the vector class (a global form of the bourgeois 
>>> adept to
>>> information).  The book has been proposed as a reproposition of 
>>> Marxism and
>>> has been praised by many.  I, however, admit to be a bit skeptical 
>>> because
>>> the book fails to deal with a major problem with class--its 
>hierarchy.
>>
>> I go back to the basics: Political economy. To quote the 
>Gang of Four:
>>
>> " who owns what you use, who owns what you do?"
>>
>> To which I would paraphrase a quote from Sokal:
>>
>> "I... never quite understood how (critical art theory) was 
>supposed to 
>> help
>> the working class."
>>
>>
>>
>>> So where to look?  I would say Benjamin.  He knew better than to 
>>> speculate,
>>> even though he heavily relied on Marx for his critical position, he
>>> certainly knew better than to predict.
>>
>> Benjamin's failure wasn't his fault - he knew what he knew at the 
>> time. He
>> couldn't see culture as part of a primate species mating 
>ritual. He was
>> completely caught up in the intellectual process of Art. He didn't
>> understand that Art was the creation and plaything of social elites.
>>
>> Proof: a painting by Van Gogh sells for millions. The aura 
>isn't lost: 
>> it's
>> fetishised and amplified. The aura becomes a Halo you can play on an 
>> xBox -
>> all fascist blood and gore.
>>
>>
>>> This is the real border we need to cross.  Where to or with what
>>> methodology?
>>
>> No. The border is one that needs to be crossed when the moment is 
>> opportune.
>> That was the realisation of Lenin and Mao: you take an 
>opportunity when
>> history provides it, and then force the hand of history. The problem 
>> with
>> that, I see as mostly having to do with Chaos Theory and the laws of
>> unintended consequences. Pareto (nutty fascist screwball he was) saw 
>> this
>> clearly as a cycling of elites.
>>
>> I see the problems we face today as inherently catastrophic. At some 
>> point,
>> catastrophe will be preferable to the Weberian chokehold of 
>> bureaucracy or
>> the self-exhausting battle of globalised superstates or 
>both, and then 
>> it
>> will suck to be alive.
>>
>> What happens next, at the catastrophe, is what matters. What's 
>> happening now
>> is simply disgraceful.
>>
>>
>>
>> HW
>>
>>
>> IMHO: Frankly, unless the planet gets a big fat clue, we're 
>looking at 
>> a
>> slow extinction (without issue) in a few hundred thousand years as a
>> neolithic race of warlike primates. Metals exhausted, the only thing 
>> left
>> are rocks, and chasing the buffalo until our dwindling numbers are 
>> wiped out
>> by a Natural Transgression. Whether it is an asteroid, a 
>disease, or a
>> supervolcano - doesn't matter.
>>
>> Eventually, a couple of neutron stars will collide and sterilise the 
>> planet,
>> like the last time...
>>
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1456594,00.html
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>>
>-- 
>Dr Mathieu O'Neil
>Visiting Fellow
>Centre for New Media Arts (CNMA)
>Peter Karmel Building
>Childers St
>The Australian National University
>Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
>
>T: +61 02 6260 6124
>F: +61 02 6247 0229
>E: oneil@homemail.com.au
>ANU new media group weblog:
>http://underthesun.anu.edu.au/weblogs/underthesun/
>
>
>
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