Thanks for spending a little time on deCerteau... > > And as for your call to revolution, to “arms,” as Nick might call it, given > his initial interest in creativity and armature, I think of de Certeau’s > notion of La Perruque in The Practice of Everyday Life: all those tiny, > little breaks in the system we effect each day, everything from oppositional > shopping (label-switching, kleptomania) to the simple act of writing a love > letter “on the boss’ time.” No giant Arendtian break, but sweet and > individual tears in the social tapestry that give meaning to the banal, the > programmatic, the codified, the staid, the static. >
I think this might be wear the artist's work is important. Brian mentioned previously the idea that a crisis of confidence is precisely what is needed to turn people away from this idea that financial markets are the measure of a society's health and that Wall Street is somehow "sexy." For years, the evening news would should the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a shorthand for the "health" of the economy. But as my father got older and had difficulties finding employment and finding stable housing, I always saw the Dow Jones as a fetish that was increasingly divorced from any stable referent... it would climb and people would cheer.... but for a growing segment of the population, things got harder and harder. I don't think that artists should have to worry too terribly much about fixing everything. But what artists can do is illustrate the many small moments and mark them so that others can see them. Rather than exposing the insufficient nature of the financial system at delivering social goods.... art can illustrate the many other sites where social goods are delivered. The artist does not have a special corner on the market of these small detours, they just have a great excuse for talking about detours--they're artists! We all make detours throughout our days. In fact, we live for the detours. Art can provide the occasion, the pretext, and the excuse for making a detour. (If you have a friend shoot you in the arm... normally this is frowned upon. But when Chris Burden decides to do it... people think about it differently.) But even within finance itself, we live for detours. If you listen to talk radio, they love to go on and on about this idea of the "welfare queen"--who has children so she doesn't have to work (The Octo-mom is just an hyper-example of this). Talk radio personalities love to rant and rave about how lazy welfare recipients are... about how unjust it is for them to be unproductive, but still draw an income, by working the system. BUT.... if you listen to these very same talk radio personalities, they gush with praise for elite investors. The paradigmatic hero for our age is the man who gets rich on the stock market. Why? Because the investor figured out a way to make money without breaking his back all day. Warren Buffet or Donald Trump or whoever has figured out a way to make money without actually doing anything, by working the system. This is the kind of a god that we can believe in.... the kind of figure who can transcend the evil that we fear (poverty, being a nobody, etc.)... who can warp the laws of the material world and triumph over them. What is this dream but the hope for a detour? Instead of working all day, I might be snatched from ill-fortune by purchasing the right thing at the right time. Hence, the "success" of multi-level-marketing companies like Amway and Herbalife and Monavie... they offer the working class person a chance to be "the boss" and to reap rewards by having others do the work for them. (And, in the process, they tend to lose money.... but more tragically.... they lose friends. The biggest irony: the money they lose and the work they put in, the very fruits of their failure, will be used, up the ladder, as evidence of "success.") Artists can do a lot just by affirming "human" experiences--imagination, love, tragedy, laughter, absurdity, etc. I cannot tell an artist what he or she should or shouldn't do... but I do prefer artists who can speak to me. I like art that taps into my notions and desires in such a way that I feel validated in my experiences. And, I love art which helps me see something that I didn't quite understand or couldn't precisely articulate in a way that makes the experience useful to me. In short, these little ruptures are everywhere all the time. What artists can do is mark them. They can show people that their own lives are filled with meaningful alternatives to the machinations of capitalism. And, in the process, people might seek happiness in one of the many compelling alternative narratives. Peace! Davin _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://www.subtle.net/empyre
