[iDC] (no subject)

[Brian Holmes]

Kevin Hamilton wrote:

> But since you've framed the problem existentially, I'll put it back to 
> you existentially - can't collective inquiry into the effects of small 
> decisions on the world be more than self-justified indulgence or 
> delusion? 

Thanks for your reflections, Kevin. I would say, yes of course. You well 
realize that I have no more answers than you about what to do with the 
problem of the University. The point is, just just just, that a 
fundamental distance, having to do with respect for a lot of things, for 
the Other, for the unknowable, for the reasons why we sometimes pause 
before speaking or acting, seems to be almost lost. We who are involved 
with art and culture were once the guardians of that respect. No 
procedure, law or budget can insure its continuity. My intervention will 
appear useless from the perspective of a balanced budget. Still I think 
we are talking about something important here. Which by the way is not 
meant to deny the interest of the previous conversations. But instead to 
add a layer, maybe a vital one.

> We've been taught to put new systems and machines and representations to 
> work in support of achieving the society we desire, but enough money and 
> power seems to be able to adapt and adopt any system we propose. So we 
> need new models for acting, awakened sensoria, and spaces to speak with 
> clarity and confidence about what's wrong with the present. I was taught 
> that learning such new ways of seeing and being requires that I try 
> things on the short-term and the small scale; push material around, 
> reflect with others, engage and highlight contingency, push some more, 
> and look to make it stick when it works. This sloppy and privileged 
> methodology can only be improved, can only be reminded of its impact and 
> dependency on others, through practice, no?

Well, yes, that's right. But I think that a mistake has also been made, 
in the pragmatics of small solutions. In the real world there are 
nothing but small solutions, because a general, systemic change has 
proven impossible. But there is a need to keep alive and explicit the 
possibility of changing the whole thing, which is also the possibility 
of having an entirely different life. I don't think it can be done 
without some kind of risk to one's own position within the status quo. 
It is everyone's decision what they want to do with their lives. The 
unquestioned focus on having a career is to me, shameful. Recent and 
not-so-recent evidence on climate change sums up where all this progress 
is leading.

> This is why it's too bad 
> that Luis couldn't recount any more details for Saul of his experiment 
> (at least on the list, that I know of.) I understand why some, why 
> perhaps Luis, might be loathe to lend a hand to the reflective process 
> of a broken and even colonizing entity. But where are we to go then, if 
> we don't at least talk together and experiment and try to learn, with as 
> much caution and loud warnings as possible?

I think Luis said something quite important. Which may be the essence of 
his experiment. But let's not prejudge what else he may have to say.

> To attempt to build on what Luis learned could be to try to absorb 
> critique into the worst sort of progress. Is that all it could be 
> though? I am under no illusions that the innovations or reconfigurations 
> I desire or pursue will win against the dominant priorities and forces 
> that guide my employer.

Hmm, the funny thing is, I am. May I encourage you to work on something 
together? One of those short-term, small-scale, push some material 
around type endeavors? I am very curious how the university has been 
turned into what seems an almost pure machine for the production of 
surplus value, notably through the device of intellectual property. I 
think that art collaborates very intensely with science on this, 
providing "innovation power" within the larger frame of what some of my 
colleagues theorize as "cognitive capitalism." I would like to know a 
lot more about this in the hopes that by describing it accurately and I 
strikingly, I can help convince people to help convince other people to 
increasingly and publicly ask why it is we consent to being part of this 
system. Creativity, that magical thing everybody loves, is really now 
driving a death machine. Very sorry to say so, I know it's offensive and 
all, but it's also a massive fact, as you know from looking at and 
listening to the majority content of the media with which you deal 
professionally. We have a emergency situation in the world, on the 
social, political, economic, diplomatic and ecological levels, and our 
governing mechanisms want us to think in terms of making a profit or 
balancing the budget. Well, I am not gonna take your time right now with 
explanations of what making a profit or balancing a budget means in a 
country like the USA which imports billions of dollars a day from the 
rest of the world, basically to pay for the useless consumption of the 
very garbage that both destroys the ecosystem and pollutes our minds. I 
suppose you probably all know something about the functioning or 
malfunctioning of the world economy. More interesting, pragmatic and 
maybe more useful would be to push around some material about how the U 
works, how it fits into this disaster, where are all the little barriers 
and obstacles that together make up the walls of the gilded prison. 
Basically, what I find wrong with all these conversations on iDC is 
they're so cheery and positive. How can anyone be cheery and positive 
right now? Part of the art of living in civilization is to be 
relentlessly negative, relentlessly critical, relentlessly lucid, and 
still not let that get you down, find the resources of pleasure and 
enthusiasm somewhere else than in the deluded belief that things are all 
right. Because they are not.

>  But wouldn't my leaving or 
> standing against this place be simply employing symbol against symbol? 
> Please forgive my ignorance on the philosophy and strategy of collective 
> action, but how is refusal in this case less instrumental, hubristic, or 
> even less self-serving than speculative experiment and discourse?

Refusal doesn't mean you leave. It means you do not consent to believe 
as you are asked to, and you express that. Of course it means having a 
plan B, because ultimately all kinds of things might happen. I would 
definitely suggest that trying to get the technical equipment to work a 
little better, at this point, is really absurd. To merely keep up with 
the way it changes is a way of becoming what Suely Rolnik calls a 
hyper-active zombie. Well, I'm afraid she's right about that, even if I 
do not relish the expression. All the communication machinery, and all 
the organizational innovations built upon it, including this very 
valuable and carefully built email list, should be used to analyze how 
our dominant world system, with the US at the center of it, has now 
reached the threshold of possibly dropping nuclear bombs on Iran, and in 
that way opening up a cycle of wars whose violence or outcome cannot be 
predicted. We're all involved in these things, wherever we live, they 
are of a piece with every other aspect of the contemporary economy and 
its social relations. And the only possible solutions are social, they 
necessarily depend on communication, they structurally have to involve 
the institutions of learning, innovation and communication called 
universities. Those who think that's not their business, who focus on 
the details and priorities of their specialties or professions, to my 
mind, have really lost something fundamental. But still, we are all part 
of a system that tells us to focus on our professions, me too no less 
than anyone else. Recognizing this double bind is the place to begin 
something.

> I will not call your initial intervention rude

You are very generous!

best, Brian