bassnation
the abyss
and lets not forget the film that made castlemorton look like a teddy bears picnic in terms of subversion - foot loose.
Reynolds on planet-mu
- Thread starter wonk_vitesse
- Start date
and lets not forget the film that made castlemorton look like a teddy bears picnic in terms of subversion - foot loose.
Could it be that the only people who thought they were changing the world were a few university weekend hippy types and some journalists looking for a story?
I remember going to raves cos I loved the music, others (the majority) enjoyed getting off their tits. I don't remember anyone thinking they were changing the world really until things like Megatripolis started bringing out all the old zippy types to cash in.
Went to some awesome parties though.
I remember being a bit irritated by the number of sweaty blokes going "what's your name / where you from / how many pills you had?" but it was preferable to them wanting to fight me for having funny hair.
I remember going to raves cos I loved the music, others (the majority) enjoyed getting off their tits. I don't remember anyone thinking they were changing the world really until things like Megatripolis started bringing out all the old zippy types to cash in.
Went to some awesome parties though.
I remember being a bit irritated by the number of sweaty blokes going "what's your name / where you from / how many pills you had?" but it was preferable to them wanting to fight me for having funny hair.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Um, well it probably had quite a lot to do with unmarried mothers no longer being cast out into the street to become destitute, and gay men no longer being given long prison sentences or involuntary 'treatment' for acting on their desires. :slanted:
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Fine then, have it your way. Just don't come running to me when your sinister interest in marihuana cigarettes and degenerate negro 'music' earns you some involuntary shock treatment for suspected communistical/homosexualising tendencies!
Though they are linked I think womens' rights/gay rights are not reducible to the sexual revolution (which was what I was referring to with "a few good orgasms" and the "politics of pleasure") Obviously there has been real political progress in these areas which is to be lauded, though again the more subversive elements of both movements have been notably absented from the final social settlement (ie- those radical aspects which challenged the notion of the human itself, instead the homosexual is now kind of reduced to a hetero-replicant and woman to man, all the potentially revolutionary content transmuted back towards a hegemonic naturalism of substantive categories of the human, as is the wont of our times, mere animal humanism-- and the human rights that implies, man-as-pitiable animal-- rather than the human-as-project or as the beginning of the inhuman or whatever...) And in this same way we can draw a parallel with Rave and how its most radical elements end up being "naturalised" within the market as "just another leisure option". The tantalising possibility that it might not have been again leaving open the possibility of a more radical project to come.
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bassnation
the abyss
i can see the point you are making here (gay marriages, adoption etc) - but i think its laying it on a bit thick. there are more radical elements of homosexuality (cruising, cottaging) which if not completely accepted, hardly raise an eyebrow now. when has a revolution immediately delivered everything anyone could hope for, there on a plate? it just doesn't work like that, change is incremental and often people have to fight for every single freedom. rave is just like that, some good, some bad but yeah it didn't change the world as much as some might have hoped. still no reason to throw away the ivf baby with the bathtub.
But the point I am trying to make is that if all we end up with is everyone with equal rights to consume pleasure, and to be free from pain under Human Rights and Capitalism, then we are left with a vision of the human that is simply not worth living for (a comfortable animal, basically). Though maybe that's perhaps a little too strong. But in a sense then being made more comfortable is the very thing which prevents a more fundamental rupture from occurring? In a world of productivity vs. pleasure/leisure, the temptation towards the human animal is inexorable. And utopia is postponed again.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I think the right to engage in pleasurable activity (within certain ethical bounds, naturally) is something that should not be taken for granted, given that much of the world has historically laboured, and much still does, under ideologies, particularly religions, that equate Pleasure with Sin.
bassnation
the abyss
but don't you get the feeling that this century will bring a round of human suffering greater than anything that has gone before with deaths in untold billions? (happy new year everyone, btw, lol)
so it seems churlish to deny a bit of human animal pleasure before the slide into that good night, surely?
Right, yup I totally agree, but it ends up serving itself, pleasure as end in itself, rather than portending of some greater liberation. That's what I'm saying, and so whilst up to a certain point it is an achievement, ultimately pleasure is the very matter of the trap of the human animal, and is easily absorbable by consumer Capitalist systems of social and economic organization. Unless of course you take the apolitical line (or at least only political up to the point where its aim of pleasure is achieved) that ALL people want is the right to pleasure, and to maximise that as much as they can, which is as good a definition of the human as animal, as neuro-electro-chemical mechanism, as I've heard.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Impossible to say, surely. Who, in 1907, could have predicted gas chambers and nukes in 1945?
And if you're just predicting generic Rack And Ruin, rather than any particular catastrophe(s), it's worth remembering that people have been convinced the end of the world was just around the corner almost since the beginning of the world.
Not only must we think beyond pleasure, but equally beyond the pitiable suffering animal of the human too. They are different sides of the same coin. And hence my suspicion of the revolutionary potential of pleasure. Because it seems inexorably tied in with conceptions of the human which serve the political and economic status quo. Or at least, that are readily absorbable and profitable for the status quo. Or rather perhaps, it is this particular aspect (the securing of the right to pleasure) of various radical movements which is successful, and people seem to be happy enough with that- "We didn't change the world, but at least we had a lot of orgasms/got fucking high etc..." To which you will inevitably argue that at least that is better than not experiencing that pleasure... but to which I can only add that mere pleasure here is being fundamentally cheated, and indeed constitutes part of the effective control system (as an emergent property) of our society.
Interestingly of course (and to guide us back on topic somewhat) Reynolds' alludes to a lot of this in "Energy Flash", the sense that Rave at its best (darkside 'ardkore) was a music aware of the limits of its own emancipatory powers, and of its more sinister hegemony-serving aspects.
Yes, happy new year...
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Look at them laughing. BASTARDS!!!
Right, I'm off in a bit, but all I will say is: if you've been denied, for whatever reason, the right to get high/have orgasms, then achieving those rights actually is pretty revolutionary. Of course, once you have them, it's time to start thinking about what to do next.
Yes I agree with you here Mr Tea, its just that perhaps in the very act of achieving the rights to pleasure, we construct a prison from which it is difficult to escape, we get too comfotable in our pleasures to actually think the "what next?"
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
You're serious about this, right?
mixed_biscuits
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Shoot for the stars, you might hit the moon.
I agree with others in this thread that pleasure can be transcendent or a political act of reclaiming the self, where taking or losing control is a means of opting out of the banality of mass media or norms of behaviour, or that simply having the experience of feeling something entirely good (pre-comedown) can be perception changing. Pleasure can be a rite of passage in this sense, or the experience of sensual intensity can help develop an appreciation of the mundane, smoothing the way for a deeper, more socialised rhythm of life with family etc. Sometimes the dance/drug ritual is used to extremes almost in order to purge (or numb) the pleasure impulse/addiction.
This can become a prison, though people can get stuck at any point in their lives. Most people who get into clubbing seem to do it for a bit, get bored and move on.
Could it have ever been something other than what it is?
I genuinely think that pleasure is so intrinsically tied in with the mechanisms of consumer Capitalist culture in all its forms (both legal and illegal) that it needs to be entirely re-thought outside of the mode of interrelation between the human being and their pleasure implied with consumption. So either the solution lies in rethinking pleasure, putting it into an entirely a-consumerist context (eg- perhaps religious or else some new and as yet unthought configuration) or else rejecting it all together (along with its double: pain and pity and empathising with the human as a suffering animal species). Only then can drug use escape precisely the banality you rightly accuse the rest of culture of, reclaim its inherent weirdness, become non-naturalised, frightening and sublime. And in so doing escape many of its negative externalities associated with excess.
bassnation
the abyss
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/i...tart=5&scope=iplayeratoz&version_pid=b008m831
interesting programme that touches upon many of the things we've talked about here.
"Series about the history of British social dancing in the 20th century. In the 1970s, allegiance to music types created separate dance scenes, from punk to disco."
interesting programme that touches upon many of the things we've talked about here.
"Series about the history of British social dancing in the 20th century. In the 1970s, allegiance to music types created separate dance scenes, from punk to disco."