[Nettime-bold] FW: American Ruins

[brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>]

----------
From: brian carroll <human@ARCHITEXTUREZ.COM>
Reply-To: "Basic and applied design (Art and
Architecture)"<DESIGN-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 02:08:06 -0800
To: DESIGN-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU
Subject: American Ruins

 hi. i'm glad Joćo M. said something similar to what i was
 contemplating. i don't entirely disagree with Gregory, as
 there is some truth, but not the whole truth, to what he
 presents with clarity and force regarding the United States.

 my contribution would be to add that while the US may have
 great strengths, like Gregory and others (don't remember if
 it was lauf-s or someone else...) that these can also be
 weaknesses at points. yet, my position is that i do not
 think this is an either-or situation. either overwhelming
 force is good, or it is bad. it is obviously both. so, the
 idea of paradox enters this discussion.

 multivalent viewpoints included, it seems that while the
 US is apparently versus the World right now, there are many
 in the US whom dislike or disagree with what could be considered
 the 'party line' of US dogma. such as the idea of being a
 'superpower' or the most powerful nation in the world, or
 leaders of the free world, or whatnot. ideologically this
 may be sound, as it is drilled into the brains through rote
 obedience through the educational system, like most nation
 building in the individuals of a country and its recognition
 and identification of its self, through its people and their
 attitudes to themselves and to the world outside themselves.

 first person experience, as one tiny individual in the 300
 million person USA, in the 33 million person California, is
 that the same forces that are glorified and are sources of
 pride also are used to crush any attempts to change the
 current system, not because of reason, but ideological
 tenets, which to cross them is to cross the realm from
 friend to enemy, *in your own country*. their can be a
 strength in individualism that is no different from the
 heard mentality when interacting in mass culture. while
 the US has free speech, for example, not much speech of
 value is being freely expressed, which challenges the
 system of operation that exists. mostly there is silence,
 and drum banging, calling the troops to line up...

 which is interesting to me, that is, the idea of a civil
 war in the US. not in the past (while i really appreciated
 the analysis and makes me consider it more in the present,
 as i do not have the ancestry, yet feel equally american)...

 the Civil War in the US today has more to do with minds
 than it has to do with bodies. and what minds are going
 to control or lead, the country, - and the World! as the
 American Pundits earn a living by repeating in chorus...

 to cross the boundary between the acceptable and the
 questionable in US culture is to commit treason to the
 current system of operation. one is punished, and that
 very same 'overwhelming use of force' is used against
 citizens to stop changing the status quo system that
 exists, and pre-exists their role in society. maybe
 not an empire, imperial, and most certainly not landed,
 in the feudal/royalty sense, but surely there is a
 class distinction in the US and an aristocracy, if
 not of bodies, then of minds. to succeed, you must
 believe in the system that exists. to challenge this,
 and lose like most all do, is to sign your own death
 warrant, and to prepare the path for your own extinction.

 Americans today are insulated from any reality that they
 do not want to acknowledge, as reality today, no matter
 how objective, is still subjective, in that the individual
 is privatized, and thus does not represent the whole, and
 cannot, in this realm. the privitization goes from minds,
 to land, to architecture, to ideas, copyrights, trademarks,
 ways of seeing, ways of believing, whatnot. when speaking
 as Americans, about the world, 'we' represents that of
 our forefathers and mothers. 'we' are based in language,
 in an inherited identity. but 'we' are more than Americans
 in war, especially in civil war. as it is not so simple
 a fight as right against wrong, but better versus worse,
 for some privatized group of human beings.

 like any war, humans kill humans for their causes. it is
 inevitable, given nature, given the perils of life lived.

 yet, when it is done unconsciously, when the other becomes
 not a human being, but purely an enemy, something turns off
 in the warrior, and death is a detachment, the killing of
 the soldier of the enemy, as a necessary act. if only it
 were so. instead, little babies are being slaughtered in
 the middle east right now from both sides, Israel and
 Palestine. human beings shooting children, to make a point
 about whose humanity and justice are better in the either-
 or world, where winner takes all.

 without paradox, without human vantages, this could be
 rationalized as the price of war, of freedom. but to me
 that is denying something essential about the nature of
 reality as it is lived. that when speaking in absolutes,
 absolutely everything must be taken into account. and if
 it is not, the object of the real is not so real as it is
 a fiction, an illusive veil of reality as a Native American
 once said to me, lift the veil of illusion off your eyes...

 what any of this means, i do not know. while i am glad that
 the US exists in the world, i hate it right now, and i am
 a loyal citizen to the tenets of that the country is founded
 on, yet this country is not my country. it is not about ideas,
 but ideologies. it is not about change but stagnation. it is
 not about freedom, but obedience. it is not about imagination
 but rote training. it is a sick country. it is a sick world,
 too. but the US, for all its mythical omnipotence is impotent.
 is has no longer has a spirit that can match its bravado, and
 fight a civil war to regain what has been lost, the public
 determination over the destiny of the country and its future.

 if you have private wealth, private power, private ideas,
 are a business person who values the creation of wealth,
 et cetera. it is probably an okay place to live. kind of
 like a hotel in disneyland, with pollution and wars on
 the hotel television. but for the rest, it is a struggle,
 an unsaid, unreported, and unacknowledged struggle against
 the forces that have been moving the country since its
 industrialization into a mass culture, without a public
 mass philosophy, other than private individualism. pathos,
 not nearly. psychotic, definitely. this place is nuts.
 the last thing any one cares about is the truth. that is,
 the public truth. that thing about conceding, about the
 idea of reason, about compromise. no, it is not in the
 psychology of indoctrination, in this doctor nation...

 any attempt at change is killed outright, not only by the
 institutions, but by the people. by the neighbors. by the
 students in the same classes. people are scared to think,
 to challenge, to debate, to question authority. and it
 does not happen. when it does, the people disappear, and
 go somewhere else. find a group to join, another version
 of the same socio-cultural bureaucracy, and continue the
 same stinking system moving forward, as if incremental
 change was going to change any increment in this mental
 system, which is whack.

 America is not the land of the free. people are not equal.
 justice is not fair and humane. this whole country is cruel
 and inhumane punishment to any one who dares confront it
 on terms other than the ones it sets out for itself.

 sure, everyone can take a drink, smoke a cigarette or
 whatnot, and believe it will all work out, with or without
 bloodshed. but that bloodshed is already happening, that
 civil war, in the cities of america, in the schools, in
 the minds. the statistically perfect person is theoreticized
 on the nightly news along with commercials selling pills
 to meet these ideal needs. while no mention is made of
 any of the initiatives to challenge the status quo. it
 is not only a fortress mentality to the world, America
 has a fortress mentality to itself. it is an enigma,
 a puzzle. to solve it, you join the battle, you join
 the war, and you fight. and people conceptually and
 literally die doing this. while trumpeters go up on
 the hill on their horses and blare the sound of the
 charge, there is a bloody mess on the ground, on the
 land, in the minds. America is in Ruins. America is
 Ruined in terms dream it professes to have achieved.
 it is a big lie, if need be said.

 while the US may have its colonial history, to me this
 is even remote from my daily experience. it is all a
 part of the mythical and ideal grand narrative that is
 the US in its private his-story. the America i know is
 the one of nature, of the land, of waterfalls and lakes,
 trees and snow, wildflowers and raccoons, bird, and fish.
 it is of ancient paths along rivers, along creeks, along
 the woods, where natives walked, where animals moved, and
 where the ancient world that pre-exists it all still does
 exist. it is the pre-American America. while it may be
 capitalized, with lake homes and motor boats and jet
 skis and fishing boats, this is not it. it is an artificial
 amusement park. it is a fossil, a species, a geography
 that creates an ethnography, and it is still true today.

 the most basic truth i can find, for myself, in what i
 put out for public comment, is that the America i have
 known is a relationship between the wilderness and that
 which is developed, as a garden, or as an office building.
 the wilderness, of mind, of body, of beings, has all but
 been killed off in society. it is on the verge of extinction,
 both literally and metaphorically. everything, every idea,
 every action, is so cultivated (acculturated) that it is
 a neat puzzle piece which fits into the larger America,
 which makes it tick, makes it work, and these are the
 ideas that go forward, the people whom move ahead. if
 you are a square, and don't fit in the round hole, you
 have the opportunity to find some squares to exist with.
 often, to have this, many people have fought for alternative
 opportunities. but there are so many pieces which do not
 fit this puzzle, and so many fights going on, everyone
 against everyone, issue after issue, that the private
 world views fight for the right to be absolute, while
 everyone dies in some way or another, and loses part
 and parcel of their rights, one after another, no matter
 whom the victor is.

 if there were a public, an America of human beings, and
 not private citizens alone, and a common discourse that
 was objective in this sense were to be established, it
 could be much different. cooperation could come before
 competition, but still innovation could happen while
 shared needs are addressed. public and private goals
 could be pursued without one winning and taking away
 the others rights, via more money or power or prestige.
 but this is not going to happen, this change. as it has
 been killed off. there are no students whom will rise in
 the system to challenge this condition. as there is no
 way to rationalize what is going on as a whole, in private
 terms. the only thing anyone can do is fight a private
 battle, and win or lose, kill your fellow citizens, and
 the world. else, dissent and become a traitor to your
 neighbors, when declaring aloud the corruption and the
 deceit and the pure greed of this Country and its total
 lack of culture beyond that of its-self and its-interests,
 which are private, and viewed as inalienable rights, even
 if one person's rights take away anothers.

 for all whom fought and died for the US and its beliefs,
 it is a sad thing to stand behind the US as it exists
 today, and to support it with the faith of a true believer.
 skepticism is even not good enough in this cultural holocaust.
 just as everyone in America has their deity, so too, they have
 their enemies, which is everyone who is not like them. and it
 is in this state of mind that the US meets the world. and the
 world sees America, US, as a narcissist with a big mirror and
 no interest in anyone but its-self and its belief in its self.
 the rites of passage here, for a nation, will be that not only
 does the bubble burst, but so do bombs, in the minds of the
 people whom believe this mythical America, who have faith
 in the system of operation that exists, as it exists. and
 whom put down any attempt to change, in a reactionary
 conservatism based on fear and private self-interest above
 that of harder, longer-term cultural goals for the land
 and its people. America may be a dream, but today it is
 a nightmare, and people need to wake up to this reality.

 without free minds, there is no free thought. and without
 exercising these, and not only talking, but acting, doing
 something, something bigger than a private donation or
 act of charity, but putting your life on the line for
 changing this culture- then, no matter what you past in
 this culture, you are not an American on my side of this
 civil war, but a coward. go silent and promote the status
 quo. else, put your ideas in the messy pit that is this
 hell hole and let's fight, and see who's reality is more
 real, whose truth is more true, in this paradoxical mind
 field. peace before war, but if there is no basis for
 peace, no human connection, then it is private wo|man
 against private wo|man, private geopolitical aims and
 nuclear games. the hubris of the US is an achilles heel.

 this is the last place for free thought. where do you go
 in the world when in the US one can no longer think? hmmm.
 take that drink, that pill, that needle, that gun, and
 take your life out of your own hands. else join the
 parade, marching into oblivion, and salute the despots
 leading this country into their own privatized armageddon.

 and, this is only an architectural analysis of the situation.



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