Brian Holmes on Sat, 12 May 2001 07:38:50 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Italy for theorists? |
Alan Sondheim's Amerika piece is not just theory, but it is "for" theorists. Which means it's also a tool for Amerikan theorists - one the insignificant Bruce Fancher can neither use, nor replicate. The text says _you_ must understand our meanness. _You_ must understand it, Amerikan. Our meanness "to those of us whose voice is irrelevant, to those of us who oppose us." Our inhumanness to ourselves. You must see it, Amerikan, through other eyes if need be - through the eyes of the beings you crush, complicitly, with increasing cynicism, through a way of life that is "not negociable" (as our oligarchy says, down through the generations). You must root out the marrow of your own killing machine. With help from others, if need be. Anyone who lives under the sway of a powerful nation - and which nations are not powerful? - must turn this kind of theoretical tool upon him or herself, become a theorist of his or her most intimate subjectivity, from the feet and the belly and the genitals to the most sublimated thoughts and ideas. Without doing that work on yourself you can be neither free, nor clear-sighted, nor solidary with others, but just an amplifier for the old ideology of Amerikan delusion and disdain, rewritten for the digital age: the ideology of monetary freedom, "the freedom and wealth, beyond the wildest imaginings of our ancestors, which _virtually_ everyone in our society enjoys" (great work, Bruce). And what about you Italians - getting ready to take the plunge into pure profiteering and the fascination of total TV? With racism and exclusion around the edges and a bit of Church-cake in a flag with the caffe? What makes you Italians able to live with Bossi, with Fini, with Berlusconi? Why have your protests been useless to this day? Where exactly are you going to find the strength, the resources, the outreach to "get key people in the *system* to become aware of the problems and start working from the inside the system to create and maintain a healtier, more critical and more aware information society for the future" - in the hopeful words of Paola di Maio? Even though "we can communicate at such widespread level," I gotta say I feel reasonably afraid about the present and future of all our great media nations, on or off the net. And the thing about theory is it looks so futile when you don't use it. Italy for theorists, anyone? BH # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net