Re: Reflections on Florian Cramer & Angela Nagle, discussion
Hi Florian, thanks to you and Angela Nagle for the fascinating discussion in Berlin.. I wish I had been present but at least we have the recording.. I take your point that you and Angela soon took the conversation away from sub-cultures and as you indicate in the paragraph below the focus is very much on transgression rather than sub-cultures per se, you wrote: > If my memory doesn't fail me too badly, then both Angela Nagle and me tried > to focus more on the subject matter of transgression. Transgression isn't > exclusive to what is conventionally called "subculture" at all, but a > leitmotif in modernist and contemporary arts, in social, political, sexual > and media activism, to name only the most prominent areas. What both of us > tried to reconstruct is how transgression has never been an exclusive > property of the political left, but has been propagated and practiced on both > extremes of the political spectrum, or - better said - in discourses whose > politics were, often intentionally, ambivalent. Here, we both referred to > Sade as a forerunner (whose ambivalence of enlightenment and its other had > already been analyzed in Adorno's and Horkheimer's "Dialectic of > Enlightenment). The main point of transgression not being the property of the left or neccesarily the source of a progressive direction of travel is clear. But actually I think that Angela goes further than you when at a certain point in the discussion when she asks: "So the question for me on the sub-cultures question; are we to conclude that subcultures itself is just a neutral thing and that it can take on any political form?” My guess is her answer would be no...In the discussion you don’t take her up on this point.. My guess is that her position is that transgression is not neutral but to be avoided is something Iconclude because in her book she argues that the fetishisation of transgression culminates in the 1960s counter-culture of Altamont and the Manson Murders which she asserts is the “logical culmination of throwing off the shackles of conscience and consciousness, the grim flowering of the id’s voodoo energies”. I suspect that the rise of the altright with all its occultist overtones (Kek etc) confirms this bias for her. I am interested in whether you are on the same page on this question as Angela on this.. ? This is not a trivial question as the kind of answers we might give to this question will have profound effects on the way we do politics. Best David > > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: > > > > -- > I'm on diaspora*, a non-corporate social network: > https://social.gibberfish.org/people/a76da580ba9b01353317cb0b1a05 > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Reflections on Florian Cramer & Angela Nagle, discussion
Hello Kristoffer, David, Actually, I had tried (but may have failed) in my own contribution to the debate not to make any firm distinction between "subculture" and culture at large. This is why I had pulled in the "high-brow" examples of Simon Strauss and Götz Kubitschek, the examples of fascist modernism, or that of Peter Sotos whose recognition spans underground music/publishing and institutionally recognized contemporary art. The same is true for Laibach; however it wasn't my intention at all to frame them as right-wingers. It's just a historical fact that their highly ironic music and visuals, just like those of the band DAF/Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, were misunderstood, in the 1980s and early 1990s, as pro-fascist by the many neonazis who went to their concerts. It is conversely true for the American "Alt-Right" that it doesn't only manifest as populist meme culture, but has made major efforts to present itself as an intellectual discourse, for example in the publications of "American Renaissance", in Richard Spencer's websites that emulate academic journals and hijack the language of cultural theory (demanding "safe spaces for white Americans" and the like) and of course in the recent popularity surge for Jordan Peterson (someone Angela Nagle and I addressed on the transmediale panel, too). If my memory doesn't fail me too badly, then both Angela Nagle and me tried to focus more on the subject matter of transgression. Transgression isn't exclusive to what is conventionally called "subculture" at all, but a leitmotif in modernist and contemporary arts, in social, political, sexual and media activism, to name only the most prominent areas. What both of us tried to reconstruct is how transgression has never been an exclusive property of the political left, but has been propagated and practiced on both extremes of the political spectrum, or - better said - in discourses whose politics were, often intentionally, ambivalent. Here, we both referred to Sade as a forerunner (whose ambivalence of enlightenment and its other had already been analyzed in Adorno's and Horkheimer's "Dialectic of Enlightenment). Kristoffer wrote: > But this doesn't make them harmless of course, and actually creates a public sphere even more prone to manipulation through those who can indeed legitimise certain views over others as well as a scribing power to a form of quantified affect, where opinions with more followers, more data etc increasingly looks like valid knowledge. This is precisely the deadlock - where the only two philosophical alternatives are either Popperian or analytic philosophy rationalism, where an argument is only valid when it is logically consistent, or post-Nietzschean/post-Heideggerian/Sloterdijk-ian affect and "Stimmung". Politically, this translates into the binary alternative of liberalism (in the original European meaning of the word, i.e. in the sense of Adam Smith, Popper and their successors) and populism/fascism. Florian On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 7:39 PM, Kristoffer Gansing wrote: > David Garcia wrote: > > A questioner towards the end of the discussion asked if Cramer and > Nagle could talk more about affect and affective politics.. more about the > emergence of movements and how sub-cultural energies today mobilised. Which > the questioner added is ?also a question of power that is able to > legitimise these subcultural sentiments in ways that enable them to enter > into the political mainstream.. I?d like you to address the strategies, > sentiments within subcultural politics. It was a very good point but sadly > it arose to close to the end.. Perhaps we can take up this challenge here? > > Thanks to David for taking the time to transcribe and comment on this > dense discussion. Together with Daphne Dragona, I was responsible for > organising this and felt that the atmosphere during the event was one of > great attention and sense of urgency in terms of the audience wanting to > have more of a say. Due to time constraints and two very talkative > speakers, this didn't happen as much as it should have but it's nice to see > the discussion continuing here. Since I was the one asking the question > David mentions at the end, I can't but to help to step in and elaborate on > this further. While I agree that one should not ascribe intrinsically > progressive values to subcultures, I think it is important to situate the > rise of the academic study and idealisation of subcultures in a historical > context. Adorno and Horkheimer in all glory but what the British culture > studies approach did was to take pop culture seriously as a thrust against > the idealisation of high culture. One might say that th > is was snobbish academic appropriation of popular and working class > cultural movements - but today the impact of this can also be seen in how > academia has become more accessible to many, where being in a subculture > and researching it at the same time might even be a viable option
Re: Bifo (Franco Berardi): Bonino and the Fiscal Compact - the same mistake as the anti-EU crowd.
Very poignant, thank you for translating and sharing.
-Yusef
On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 5:58 PM, Patrice Riemens wrote:
>
> Since 'Bifo' is one of the tutelary divinities of nettime (just ask Geert)
> I thought it was appropriate to translate (Q&D as usual, Alex F can always
> redress my Italian) the op-ed he published in yesterday's edition of Il
> Manifesto ('quotidiano comunista') the day of the general elections, which
> as we know have both delivered a hung parliament (in both chambers) and a
> larger than expected victory for the 5*Movement.
>
> Bifo's pice resonates with the feeling I had this morning that Italy now
> stands where Greece stood in 2010, with the same road map of austerity
> without end, and in the end the total victory of Big Finance and Big
> Corporate in an accelerated race to the bottom neatly harmonizing with the
> inevitable generalized collapse of both society and nature as we know it,
> a.k.a. l'accident integral theoretized by Paul Virilio.
>
> But then as that other 'foggy' French thinker said (Louis Althusser):
> "l'Avenir dure longtemps".
>
> Have a funky week!
> p+7D!
>
> --
> Bifo (Franco Berardi, a.k.a.) (Emma) Bonino and the Fiscal Compact - the
> same mistake as the anti-EU crowd.
> Il Manifesto. March 4, 2018
>
> A number of my friends, especially among my female friends, have expressed
> the intention to vote for +Europa [a political party in the general
> elections -PR] and its candidate Emma Bonino. An excellent choice I would
> be tempted to say, because she is a person of coherence and sympathy, and
> she carries a history of dignity and courage: the history of the [Italian]
> Radical Party, despite current polemics I do'nt understand.
>
> Marco Panella came to Paris when I was an exile there in 1977. in those
> days politicians of all parties considered me a scoundrel and wouldn't
> touch me with a bargepole because me and my mates were talking on a radio
> that blasted the austerity favoring alliance of the Christian Democracy and
> the Ppc [couldn't find which party that was, but probably on the
> center-left -PR]. Panella came to express his solidarity and we went
> together to an event dedicated to Pasolini chaired by Julia Kristeva. Great
> times.
>
> I was thinking of them because both Panella's and Emma Bonino's culture is
> entirely political and juridical. On the other hand however, they don't
> have the faintest idea of what things like exploitation or social struggles
> are about.
>
> Emma Bonini is asking you to vote for more Europe, and adds that in order
> to abide by the rules of the Fiscal compact we must abstain from any new
> budgetary expenditures over the next five years. A fantastic idea, but for
> the fact that it is fraught with dangers: our high speed 'pendular' trains
> will fall further apart (*), worse than they already do now. Pupils in
> schools in the peripheries will either die from the cold or be buried under
> the rubble, while thousands of teacher will commit suicide, either from
> misery of depression. Millions of people will be deprived of health care,
> and hospitals will run out of syringes and dressing material. Medical
> personnel will say goodbye to the public service and take up jobs in
> private health institutions.
>
> So how many tens of thousands of deaths is Emma's brilliant idea going to
> cost? No, I do not think that destroying what is left of the welfare state
> is a good plan. Does that mean that I am for less Europe? Not at all! I
> just want to say that Emma Bonino doesn't 'get' what (current) Europe is
> about.
>
> Over the last years the European Union died in the heart of the majority
> of Europeans. And the anti-Europe sentiment has grown in exact proportion
> with the pace the neo-liberal ruling class has transformed Europe in an
> instrument of the powers of finance, reason why workers see Europe as the
> cause of their misery. The imposition of the Fiscal Compact, which amounts
> to systematic removal of resources from the pockets of the workers to
> compensate for the [abysmal] debentures of the banks is the obvious cause
> why the European Union is in its death throws.
>
> The Fiscal Compact is a noose around the neck of the european population.
> And when the noose is pulled, no blood reaches the head any more, and the
> European population in agony flees into the hands of those preaching
> violence, hate, and nationalistic racism. This is what the Fiscal Compact
> amounts to.
>
> Bonino makes exactly the same mistake as the anti-Europe crowd of whatever
> hue, which clamors for an illusory national sovereignty: taking Europe and
> the Fiscal Compact for one and the same thing.
>
> I vote for the Power to the People (Potere al popolo) Party, because I
> want Europe to be not the instrument of the financial system but an
> instrument for equality in salaries for all European citizens, and for
> solidarity, a universal basic income, and a reduction in working hours. I
> Vote for the P
