Folks,
SMC has been quiet for a bit. Lack of time and other stuff has kept us away besides a few valiant attempts by Matti keeps the site going. We have had chats about public suicides and stuff. But given that so much is happening in South Asia right now, Nepal, Pakistan and Tibet, we will talk of deaths later.
I start playing the devil’s advocate and given the Chinese image right now, this is dangerous. The following is a long passage from Arthur Miller’s autobiography Time Flies. The book was recommended to me by an octogenarian in Paris who said if she was allowed just one book, this would be it. I have felt that the book does live up to the recommendation with an intense portrayal of the early 20th century America and New York. (Recently, I have been accused of being lazy and to prove my detractors wrongs, I have keyed in two whole pages from the book with comments later. Enjoy)
One afternoon at the Regent Theatre on 116th and Seventh- the acrobats having come and gone, and the soprano mercifully finished torturing us- a man in a business suit, the house manager appeared before the lowered curtain in an unprecedented interruption of the flow of acts. We are now to “witness” a powerful play, he announced, brief but daring, as a warning to all our young people and even some adults about the evil of narcotics. Promising a thrilling and educational drama, he walked off, and the curtain rose on a Chinatown “crib” where foolish uptown white people surreptitiously came to indulge in opium smoking in order to enter “the land of dreams.” Along the back wall were double decker bunks that except for their untidy bedding, resembled those in a summer camp dormitory. A couple of Chinese wearing long pigtails and wide sleeves and black pumps packed pipes with opium and fed them to customers who entered, lay down, and smoked with hardly a word to these evil clerks.A beautiful young woman in a pure white evening gown entered with two fair young fellows wearing white tuxedos and straw boaters. They were all having a night on the town. First one fellow, the cocky one, took a pipe and lit up, then sat on the edge of a bunk and gaily fell back onto it, giggling as though he had entered dreamland with one puff. The Chinese quickly wore down the mild resistance of the second, more judicious fellow, and even I understood that with bothe of her friends out of thee count she would be totally unprotected against these slimy Chinks, which was exactly what happened. She in turn was handed a pipe, but she seemed a bit worried. I had all I could do not to rush up on stage and knock teh filthy thing out of her hand. How horrible it was to harm a girl so beautiful! But nothing could stop her from also taking a puff, and her eyelids instantly started drooping. Another puff and she was staggering to the bed, Two Chinese instantly pushed her onto it and conferred excitedly in their strange language. The house manager reappeared on stage and announced, “They are discussing her introduction into white slavery and are planning to ship her to a house of ill repute in Singapore!” I was so desperateI wondered why the manager didn’t stop it, but it was not to be. He turned and walked off the stage.
Now one of the Chinese started to climb into the bunk with her. The audience whispered in horror. Gangrenous green light covered thee whole scene. Why oh why had she gone to Chinatown? She could have stayed on Park Avenue in her warm, safe home! The Chinese had one leg over the edge of her bunk. Ah, she was apparently still awake, if doped up, and resisted him, but so weakly, poor thing. His confederate reached in to hold her arm. A struggle. Gasps from the poor girl. And not a sign of life from her two idiot companions. Oh, how I hated them. Then, suddenly, offstage excitement, shouts and bustle, and on came an elderly gentleman and two policemen. Her father! A rich, clean and white, and hearteningly indignant man who, aided by the men in blue, pummeled thee Chinks and collared them both, driving them off the stage. Shaking the two companion awake, the father upbraided both and warned them never, never, ever to touch opium again. With his ashamed and deeply grateful daughter supported by his strong arm, he exited, causing the green light to turn to reassuring rose. Thank God, I certainly had learned my lesson. It would be many a year before I discovered that it was the English who had forced the Chinese government to lift its ban on shipments of opium from India, causing the Opium Wars, the failed Chinese resistance to the white man’s poison. But no such perplexing news disturbed our feelings of white uplift as we, my mother and I, walked confidently down Lennox toward 110th Street and home.
The recent focus on China and human rights and the situation in Tibet made me go back to this passage. At the outset, this is no apologia for China or their brand of Communism. But a few questions need to be asked.
The Tibet situation is not new. So, is our common concern for the suffering Tibetans just a manipulation by the world media and once the Olympics are over, will our candles burning for Tibet on the window sill be blown out and we look for the next perpetrator and victim?
Does China’s economic rise got anything to do with it, this Western media’s sudden denunciation? A smug Gordon Brown, Merkel, Bush all quietly condemning China’s appalling record, yet scared of making too overt a statement, lest the Chinese bash them economically and given the global economic situation, who can blame them.
So, us, part of the outraged world citizens for Tibet, what do we want? Do we want autonomy for this “mysterious land” and its people, do we want complete freedom, do we want an end to the cultural annihilation? These questions are important to answer before we go out and protest. If the Chinese leaves, Tibetan economy collapses. So who will prop it up. Will America open Mc Donalds in the Amdo hills? Or shall we drop food packages. Or are we merely fighting that China lets up a bit, doesnt kill so mnay monks and lets bit of western media creep in to say that the abuses have lessened.
So, what do we want and for how long?
One word (actually two, ok three if you want to be anal): “Violence” by Zizek.
It would be ironic if I accused Som of putting out links and then responding with cryptic comments. So here goes…
I find the reaction to the Olympic torch and the Tibet violence to be “interesting” (as Som put it in a very academic fashion). Sue me for this… but Zizek says the whole world (media and academics actually because us mortals are only trying to get by with existence… I would consider my life worthwhile if I could afford the train trip to London from the boondocks of Leeds) gets caught up in the subjective violence (violence that we can attribute to individuals/bodies etc). This “subjective” violence makes for good copy/television while we ignore the systemic violence that goes around us all the time… blah blah blah….
Som, I find this very tiresome. The left has become very boring. Neither do they have the stomach for a fight (I think I prefer Mao) neither the creativity to come up with an alternative… all they have is academics, or bizarre theatrics (remember Manash!), or melancholy…
If you fail me on this… I think I should just slit my wrists!
My cookbook for knowledge:
1) knowledge is the fear of authority. anybody who has supervised students knows this. the flip-side of this is rebellion, which, usually, is based on the reaction to the same fear. a phd is an effort to exorcise this fear by becoming authority.
2) knowledge is lack on money. as academics, like any other artists, are professional beggars by trade (just ask any wannabe career-lecturer filling out cumbersome grant applications) it revolves eventually around who pays to think.
I suppose both of these reasons make traditional leftists good academics. They have normally neither power nor money. But they have knowledge. Melancholy is therefore perhaps the stubborn refusal to admit that this, post-Foucault, is, alas, not enough.
Now, I am not even sure anymore if I am being ironic? How far have I fallen … well, there is nothing here papa Nietzsche has not said already.
Matti: Leftists (as in the types who know the right words to fill in grant applications while fucking third world students for the shit loads of fees to get a worthless degree) can only be found in academia — at least in the market I can get a refund!
Matti/Som: What is your stand on the exploitation of Third World students in British Universites? Charging £10,000 for an MA degree is indefensible! It is not merely three times the amount that a home/EU student is charged! When converted into the currency of any South Asian or African nation it is shit loads of money…
Do you guys maintain a silence on this because (like the Indian newspaper journalists) because your academic freedom is ensured? So it is much easier to make noises about events that will not affect us.
My apologies in advance. I am being provocative here. But it is not the ends but the means to an end. I find the posturing on Tibet, Nandigram here to be ridiculous. A dalit is harassed/killed/raped/humiliated on a daily basis. In India about one hundred thousand farmers have committed suicide over the last decade. But you guys choose to get all activist over what the media informs you about!!!! And then you go dissing the media (using western media as some sort of shining example!!!) What the fuck was NYT, WP, Guardian, BBC doing when Bush and Blair got away with their lies on Iraq WMD. Not that the dickhead of Saddam was Gandhi!
I agree with 1/f. There are other problems in this world!
If i am found dead with my wrists slit, blame SMC!!!!
dont worry. smc will do a feature on the representations of your death in various media, and we will do you the honour of actually commenting on some of them
but seriously - you are right. i find that we are all becoming more and more spineless as the days go by. academic knowledge is the evaporation of the spine, the sucking dry of third world kids, and the replacement of all of that by clever commentaries and interpretations of telescopes (not taking a personal jibe at you som, its just emblematic of a thought process that exists)
Being a bit provocative here, Kishore, my favorite quirp about the first issue of exploitation and high prices in the UK is:
“It is not the one who sells but the one who pays who is stupid.”
Applies to over-priced tomatoes. Applies to education.
So, I’m sorry, while I agree that there are entrenched inequalities, academia merely reflects the contemporary political economy of knowledge. The UK universities cater to the elites of the Third World who use these university degrees to maintain their privileges. A diabolic cybernetic feedback loop, I agree. An Indian is worth about three Italians. Sucks. I agree.
Of course, this could be explained via a more complicated system of taxation, nationalism, marketing strategy etc but, in any case there is nothing here that Ivan Illich has not touched upon. So rather than saying its indefensible, we would be better of with a more sustained and intellectual discussion on what, in fact, education is and/or is supposed to be. Why do people buy a Mercedes rather than Tata if they have money? Why do people go to SOAS rather than a small university in India?
I also though, at least following India’s and China’s economic rise (or perhaps post-colonialism and more nuanced theory of exploitation), Third World kids had some agency now rather than being poor victims of exploitation. In any case, I have never subscribed to any form of methdological nationalism or methdological thirdworldism or methodological post-colonialism in this, as this would force me to be Finnish. And that would be quite boring. Reality is more complex.
And one last clarification from my part. Not once here, if I recall, I have not dissed mainstream news-media nor gone activist. Not that I do not have my own ways of trying to change the world but, trust me, SMC is not one of them nor ever was intended to be. For me, this is merely a playground for ideas where I like to see everybody say what the fuck they want. For a blog, you expect us to be capable of miracles.
Matti: I agree with you on the need to discuss what is knowledge. Of course those who pay high prices are stupid. But then isn’t it easy to say such things when one is not the stupid who pays the high price. The other problem with your argument is that you are using a market argument for something that does not operate by the rules of the market. Tax payers fund the university, academics, and MA/PhD scholarships. If the University was made commercial half of the academics would be on the dole (because they have no other skills) and a majority of the PhD students would be straightened up to do “knowledge-transfer” research.
But that counter-argument is being used to deflect my original question. I only used that example to point how we pick and choose what we say and are inconsistent in our criticality. I don’t understand this… how can we do critical research about media and not be critical of the immediate world around us? We do it because the knowledge industry likes such research and inquiry and will help us get a job in academia. I don’t know if you can see this… but I see parallels between journalists and academics.
We are either critical and we apply it to everything around us and as much as we can or we remain uncritical. I don’t think criticality is a pick and mix. And true friendship/camaraderie (whatever you want to label it) is in being critical of each other.
You may choose to not answer this (I would understand for obvious reasons), but how many at SMC have received scholarships?
And to your last part: I have not asked for miracles. I am only pointing at our own lack of reflexivity. I don’t think that is too much to ask is it?
And this whole “fun” argument you and Som keep bandying about is rather facile. Can you explain to me the fun in collecting links about Nandigram (the death of people). I do understand you don’t want to come across as a bunch of serious and want to appear cool and all that.
Good points Kishore - and well taken. Just a few clarifications:
1) “The other problem with your argument is that you are using a market argument for something that does not operate by the rules of the market. Tax payers fund the university, academics, and MA/PhD scholarships.”
What you are saying is, in fact, an old argument against the corporatisation of universities, especially in the Anglo-American world. Today, universities pretty much operate under the market, at least if you work inside. More so increasingly. So I agree 100 percent. In other countries in Europe, education in fact is free for all (at least nationals). The problem here becomes exactly what you say - taxation: governments operate under nationalist policies and somehow have a hard time subsidizing people who do not pay taxes ie foreign nationals - hence the debate about making foreigners pay. The problem here, as I see it, is two-fold: either you subsidize foreign nationals across the board or you include some kind of a civilizing mission (ie Fullbright scholarships etc). Both of these have serious problems. So I agree, a lot of discussion here would be needed - no answers from my part.
The other point was merely rhetoric. In the end, agency if of course much more complex that stupid/smart.
Sorry, gots to run. Will try to elaborate later on the other points.
“We are either critical and we apply it to everything around us and as much as we can or we remain uncritical. I don’t think criticality is a pick and mix. And true friendship/camaraderie (whatever you want to label it) is in being critical of each other.”
Another quick point. Here I would disagree. Why such either/or’ism - such categorical criticality. I see being critical as a good tool for a certain purpose: sometimes works; sometimes just annoying. The problem, I find, with academics is exactly this identity-based criticality. They cannot shut of the record. Change the tune. Why can’t you be inconsistent? I like watching bad Hollywood films and still be critical about it - completely inconsistently - without seeing this as a problem.
Part of the focus on “fun”, from my part, stems exactly from this. Being critical and fun have no logical contradiction. Sometimes having fun is being critical; sometimes not. Emma Goldman: “I do not want a revolution where I cannot dance.”
My scholarship list goes as follows:
- IIE Scholarship (Undergraduate Fullbright) to study in the US (Fine arts);
- Student Research Fellowship for PhD - SOAS.
And, I also must confess, I am quite a bad dancer :).
On the question of self-reflexivity. You say you agree with 1/f about there being ‘bigger’ issues in the world. For 1/f gay poets is a ’small’ issue and for you Nandigram and Tibet, presumably even gay politics since you agreed with him. However discomforting it might be the fact is that there are very very very many people in this world and even a few writing on this site. All of us have different ideas, investments, politics, desires which we bring to the site. In SMC all kinds of discussions take place and each one of them is open for all kind of questioning. But none should presume which is a ’small’ or ‘big’ issue for the rest of us.
I think your concern about whether the big media cycle is replicated because of endless discussion on certain issues generated as it were by the media in the first place is valid. I think the motivation for many of the posts here stem from that very concern. I must add that while the ways in which dissent turns into a media spectacle is crucial, an issue/event doesn’t becomes less important because it has been media spectacalized. Finally, I would invite you to write on the site (its also been very long since your last post!) on those very silences that you mention.
On an aside- Kishore you say “remember manash” so as to illustrate some point about leftist academics. The “remember manash” seems like an attempt to make a closure on a discussion that was not closed at all. I don’t remember there to be such a consensus. So no I don’t “remember manash” in the way that you seek to remind me of him. Actually I remember it all quite differently!
>For 1/f gay poets is a ’small’ issue and for you Nandigram and Tibet, presumably even gay politics since you agreed with him.
For 1/f everything except the sustenance of his own, active sexual correspondence with extra-terrestrials is a small issue. For 1/f, gayness is natural, it is heterosexuality which is deviant. We are gay by nature, if heterosexuality is a ‘choice’ at all.
Let us be clear about some things here. Is Nandigram an issue by itself? Are gay rights issues by themselves? Yes! My god! I would be an idiot to say they should be forgotten. So let us set that argument aside.
My point is simple (and not a new one. I had made this earlier during the debate which slowly degenerated). We need to reflect on why we pick on one issue and not the other. Especially as media researchers, we should resist the temptation to fall into the trap of spectacles — what Zizek rightly pointed was the subjective violence. While the violence against protesting villagers cannot be washed under the carpet, we conveniently choose to ignore the systems that will continue and ensure that such incidents will happen all the time.
Nandigram happened, we made noises and now we move on to the next one, like Tibet. Thus I equate us with vultures. I am very much a part of this problem, so I am not exonerating myself. Didn’t we know China has been causing an ecological devastation in Tibet. Didn’t we know Tibetians have been fighting for freedom? Why this sudden interest.
I completely agree with you when you say we did not obtain a closure on the debate. I think the answer is that our own debate on it was a microcosm of the wider problem. Like the wider set of elites, Nandigram was an incident to prove our leftist credentials in the comfortable confines of the spaces where we live in. Systemic violence (that is invisible and affecting people on a scale much larger than Nandigram and Tibet) takes place all the time and we are part of it. For example, we avail of cheap Chinese goods that increase the economic strength of China, which in turn allows the state to get away with subjective violence.
So to use Matti’s argument — those who complain about exploitation in higher education are stupid because they pay for their exploitation — those who complain about violence in Tibet are stupid because they support the economic system (of which China is a part) that enacts the subjective violence.
Do send me copy of your film. Would love to review it for Subaltern Cinema.
I had said back then. “Nandigram has become a spectacle for media, politicians, and academics to feed upon. Once this dies down, the pack will move elsewhere.” Doesn’t the sudden interest about Tibet on SMC mirror this pack tendency? I do understand as media researchers you want to study how the media is covering issues. Perfectly justified. But am the only one seeing a correlation between the two?
It’s not my film (I am assuming you are referring to Nar Narman). But I will try and get the filmmakers to send you a copy.
>Doesn’t the sudden interest about Tibet on SMC mirror this pack tendency?
Of course, it mirrors the same tendency. But when you break a mirror, and shake the image, you get a kaleidoscope. I don’t see the problem, KB.
Actually, again I find an uncofortable either/or’ism here - which I am as quilty of. Have to remember to retain from rhetorical acrobatics in the future. I actually try to subscribe to the philosophy of “sometimes.”
“Those who complain about exploitation in higher education are stupid because they pay for their exploitation?”
Yes, sometimes.
“Those who complain about violence in Tibet are stupid because they support the economic system (of which China is a part) that enacts the subjective violence.”
Yes, sometimes.
Most often, however, I see a double problem here. Either we oppose the whole economic or education system in every instance or do nothing? What about sometimes? We all know of systemic violence. We all know exploitation. These are the advertisement slogans of today’s critical leftists. However, how do you ccombat systemic violence as we are dealing with an abstractification, no? I love the old sentence - “smash capitalism!” As if it was a fragile flower vase. How the do you smash an abstract power diagram? Breaking the window of McDonalds? Not eating instant noodles?
Struggles are local with clearly defined goals. So, the question here is, that I think righfully should be debated: why do we pick some local struggles over other as our cause du jour? Such as Nandigran or Tibet. The supermarket of causes requires a consumer decision we have not thought about enough.
But I leave this to other people as I am actually not very political.
Usually.
Being the Lord of the Universe, I really need a politician right now.
Or then I am a skillful politican
1/f: who is breaking the mirror?
Matti: “Most often, however, I see a double problem here. Either we oppose the whole economic or education system in every instance or do nothing? What about sometimes? We all know of systemic violence. We all know exploitation. These are the advertisement slogans of today’s critical leftists. However, how do you ccombat systemic violence as we are dealing with an abstractification, no? I love the old sentence - “smash capitalism!†As if it was a fragile flower vase. How the do you smash an abstract power diagram? Breaking the window of McDonalds? Not eating instant noodles? UNQUOTE
What should be the basis to decide what time is that sometime? Tibet, Nandigram? On what basis?
Ah, Kishore, but that is the exactly question we all have been after - in a rather crystallized form. I probably would see this as a coctail of contingency, entertainment and a small desire to be heard.
We could of course go here into the question of motives and why we do something in the first place but that would take us into an entirely different realm.
It’s my mother, dammit! She looks like Dalai Lama and I want to…
What do you think should be the basis?
If I was political, it would be pragmatic efficiency. However, fortunately I am really not…
And this is what I am challenging. This urge to act is a mask for nothingness. I think we should resist the urge to “do something”. This lure prevents us from thinking. We need to step back and withdraw and go and read, read, read! As has been demonstrated time and again, this hypocritical engagement leads to possibilities of appropriation. Just glance at any consumer product pack and you notice a cynical appeal to this urge — buy this product and save children from catching malaria in Uruguay, or each pack you buy helps provide water for villages in Africa, or schools for children in Asia. When those very systems are responsible for this imbalance.
And I am willing to accept criticism of this position.
Granted I am very skeptical the imperative “read read read! leads us anywhere. Books are usually rather useless, at least in my reading :). Books prevent us often from thinking as much as anything else. I am more inclined to subscribe to an ethos of experimentation than withdrawal. Poke! Kick! Experiment! Create! Fail! Fail better!
You’ve probably read this, but a sophisticated analysis of some of the points you make can be found in Deleuze’s “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” Its conclusion makes me always smile for some reason:
“Many young people strangely boast of being “motivated”; they re-request apprenticeships and permanent training. It’s up to them to discover what they’re being made to serve, just as their elders discovered, not without difficulty, the telos of the disciplines. The coils of a serpent are even more complex that the burrows of a molehill.”
http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000962.txt
Lack of motivation as a strategem of resistance?
>>1/f: who is breaking the mirror?
Some decent people, I guess. I’d rather not take the metaphor too far though.
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