A Brooklyn Culture Mafia

[version]

This is interesting two-fold for me cos... on the one hand I do see a huge lessening of US soft power, over my lifetime the appeal of stuff from the US relative to that from all other countries appears to have lessened palpably. I mean dramatically.
But on the other hand, it was weird, I went on the BLM marches in Lisbon and it was weird to see how they did mirror the US ones so much. Same slogans and stuff, and a lot of it felt odd because it didn't seem totally appropriate. Walking past the police station and shouting all this stuff that specifically referred to certain incidents in the US - I dunno, I felt a little for some fat donut eater being blamed for the death of a guy in another country. It's not that the Portuguese police are beyond reproach, or anything like, it's just that importing US protests lock, stock and barrel wasn't the right way to go about it.

The Triumph of American Idealism

In worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, protestors are fantasizing their participation in America's problems, and in the process ignoring their own.

damagemag.com

 

[version]

Jam City was at the LD50 protest. He's in one of the vids.

 

[version]

Jam City was at the LD50 protest. He's in one of the vids.

0:13 to 0:22.

 

[IdleRich]

i find it almost unbelievable that suspendreason and constant escape are that young. i knew nothing at that age, i was just smoking weed and playing football.

Sounds as though you had discovered a perfect zen state of happiness and since then you have been slowly chipping away at your contentment by adding layers of extra knowledge.

 

[line b]

was the ld50 gallery doing specifically?

 

[vimothy]

I’ve been on a kick of posting things that will get me properly cancelled, so I may as well say that on formal grounds, Hitler had one of the most impressive and iconic graphic identity programs of the 20th century.

the nazi's had the first really well developed design system

 

[luka]

the nazi's had the first really well developed design system

Your Journey to the Alt-Right.

i did a really good interview with my far-right friend Vim years ago where i got him to open up about his personal jounrey to the far right of the political spectrum (all babies are born left wing). he said for him it was discovering the work of 'Nick Land' and realising that, in his own words...

dissensus.com

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

on formal grounds, Hitler had one of the most impressive and iconic graphic identity programs of the 20th century

but when I hear 'nazi art' I think their strand of socialist realism
which Id say is all bad. its boring

It's often hard to define a difference between art and design. Perhaps towards one here - remove someone's soul and they can still make good design but have no chance of touching art.

right, I never said they didn't have a grasp of aesthetics. I said their art was bad and uninteresting, which I stick by.

you don't need to resolve art v design in an abstract sense here, the Nazis themselves were quite clear on the difference for them

i.e. "when I hear the word culture, that's when I reach for my revolver", the literal Degenerate Art exhibit, etc

you'd think such a strong aesthetic sense for presentation and design would transfer over to art but it's totally subordinated to ideology

their music is also uninteresting, i.e. banning both jazz and atonality

 

[vimothy]

or the american blend of anti-american culture has worked its way into the reserve. see european student protests mirroring the american despite an incongruent set of systemic issues. though globalism could come to make the whole premise of the question obsolete.

maybe the increase in general interest of, say, eastern culture could be representative of some lessening in total american cultural cache, but Im not sure thats too different from exotica.

hard to know what's the right way to look at it - is it that ppl are turned off by the conflict, or is the conflict itself a higher level of the universal appeal, drawing you even further in?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it gets into something I've brought up before, which is the interesting disconnect in extreme right and/or fascist art produced in liberal democratic societies between its creators vision of what they're advocating and what would happen actually happen to them in such a state

black metal again is a great example - NSBM dudes have x fantasy of themselves as heroic members of the fascist state when the reality is that they'd be quickly liquidated as degenerates, or at the very least silenced just as the Nazis silenced actual Nazi modernists like Emil Nolde

that's also why Varg Vikernes abandoned black metal, both musically and aesthetically. if you're serious about the politics you have to choose one or the other at a certain point. most people aren't actually that serious about the politics.

 

[vimothy]

that's common to both sides of the horseshoe, probably. are totalitarian states inherently reactionary?

 

[IdleRich]

right, I never said they didn't have a grasp of aesthetics. I said their art was bad and uninteresting, which I stick by.

you don't need to resolve art v design in an abstract sense here, the Nazis themselves were quite clear on the difference for them

i.e. "when I hear the word culture, that's when I reach for my revolver", the literal Degenerate Art exhibit, etc

you'd think such a strong aesthetic sense for presentation and design would transfer over to art but it's totally subordinated to ideology

their music is also uninteresting, i.e. banning both jazz and atonality

I'm not saying that you need to resolve that question. I'm just suggesting that possibly it provides a way towards resolving that question IF you are interested in it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

are totalitarian states inherently reactionary?

I'm not entirely clear. fascism obviously is, state socialism probably is as a general rule. the USSR certainly was.

I would guess the longer a totalitarian state is in power and the more secure its grip on power is, the more reactionary it's likely to become.

i.e. the strongest counterexamples I can think of are Reign of Terror France and the Khmer Rouge, both of which were only in power briefly and never securely, under attack both externally and internally

 

[vimothy]

but theres also a sense in which a totalitarian state is inherently a modern phenomenon, and therefore not very reactionary. its strange melange. maybe the reactionary elements enter as a way of legitimising it's more radical aspects

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but theres also a sense in which a totalitarian state is inherently a modern phenomenon, and therefore not very reactionary.

I think that has to do with technology and advances in centralized bureaucracy (often but not always facilitated by technology) making modern totalitarianism possible, rather than totalitarianism of itself being a modern phenomenon. i.e. medieval kings would have loved to have more control over things, they simply lacked the means to do so.

reactionary elements as a form of legitimization sounds like a feasible direction to pursue. I suspect it's also plain self-interest, hanging to what you have once there's a new ruling class in place - which might explain why reaction doesn't set in when things are still in flux.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but yeah read for example any history of the 100 Years War and really it's one endless stretch of the French and English kings absolutely going out of their minds trying to wring enough taxes out of their subjects to fund their wars. those dudes would have loved a more efficient, centralized bureaucracy. and in fact one did arise in each country out of necessity, leading to more centralized states whence eventually absolutism, which even then was as nothing - outside of perhaps the court itself - compared to modern totalitarianism. they just didn't have the means.

 

[Murphy]

but theres also a sense in which a totalitarian state is inherently a modern phenomenon, and therefore not very reactionary. its strange melange. maybe the reactionary elements enter as a way of legitimising it's more radical aspects

Gobekli Tepe (in the non Hancock sense) is an intriguing study in power

Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?

Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey's stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization

www.smithsonianmag.com

Time Lords

Heart of Neolithic Orkney

The group of Neolithic monuments on Orkney consists of a large chambered tomb (Maes Howe), two ceremonial stone circles (the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar) and a settlement (Skara Brae), together with a ...

whc.unesco.org

You can take the Raymond Williams route in and it sticks.

 

[Murphy]

Later prehistory/Iron Age hill forts, highly militarised society, 800BC

Roman conquest, wick is inaccurate though

Next 1000 years and there's stacks missing

That's a lot of control.

 

[sus]

Gobekli Tepe (in the non Hancock sense) is an intriguing study in power

Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?

Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey's stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization

www.smithsonianmag.com

Time Lords

Heart of Neolithic Orkney

The group of Neolithic monuments on Orkney consists of a large chambered tomb (Maes Howe), two ceremonial stone circles (the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar) and a settlement (Skara Brae), together with a ...

whc.unesco.org

You can take the Raymond Williams route in and it sticks.

What's the Raymond Williams route?

 

[Murphy]

The Raymond Williams Society

raymondwilliams.co.uk