German victimhood?
From the media of society to society of the media
Art is dead!?
Surveillance of society - Society of surveillance
Societies against the state
From a dead culture to the culture of death
Media is the sphere in which understanding and interpretation of history express themselves. In the following I want to describe how the reception of history is organized and on which interests it is based on. I would like to illustrate this at the example of german society and its reception of history, because the political circumstances in german history have changed radicaly in only one century ("Weimarer Republik" 1918 - 1933, national socialism, separation into GDR and FRG) and in the course of these events the reception or interpretation of history have also been altered. Every political system produces an own reception and interpretation of history. That's why german history is very suitable for revealing the same ruling principles of the policy of remembrance and cultural commemoration that effect every capitalistic political system. The reason why the policy of remembrance is working with the same mode of operations everywhere shall be antedated here: if mass-media is existing the common capitalistic circumstances act within mass-media and determine the way information is distributed and by which criteria it is filtered.
Half of the people working on this magazine come from Dresden. The development of this town is exemplary for the changing discourse of history in Germany, because the changes of the "social mindset" manifestate directly in this town. Dresden or the Curch of our Lady is being utilized, it is the consciously charged symbol for the historical discourse in Germany since the end of WWII. Especially in the Church of our Lady the current practise of history is manifestating. In february 1945 the church was destroyed, remained a ruine until 2005 and has been re-opened on november 30th 2005. Since its re-opening the church of our lady is not a memorial anymore, but it became a "symbol of propitiation and freedom for the whole of Europe". It should be shown and known that Germany is back on the stage of the world's strongest nations. But this is only possible if you eclipse the awkward german nationalsocialist history. The Germans don't want to be ashamed and blamed anymore by the outrages of their ancestors and since the end of WWII they do everything to paraphrase history in a way that the singular outrage of the germans enqueues to any other general outrage of war without any difference. Of course Germany feels sorry for the victims of nationalsocialist regime, but they are evermore blinded in case of their own responsibility for WWII. The german perpetrator-collective is not to be victimized! The current generation of germans tries to reach for "propitiation", but it's less about propitiation with attacked countries, it's only about propitiation with the own history. Germany stylises itself more and more as victim and tries to make the fact of being the delinquent forgotten. But the singularity of the Holocaust can't be denied.
Facts about Dresden
In context to the Holocaust, to KZ's and total war Dresden was bombed on february the 13th. For military strategies the "baroque town" Dresden was an important target in which:
1. an important crosspoint of railroads (that also served for the means of massive deportation),
2. ammunition factories and
3. logistic military infrastructures were situated.
Nearly the whole town center was destroyed including the Church of our Lady. As per city archive est. 25000 people died. The Nazis used civilian as shields for military targets (but it's hard to devide between civilians and nazis, because virtually the whole population was integrated into the nationalsocialist system. The Germans were fighting until the last drop of blood, even when they knew the war was already lost. Germany simply was a united collective of delinquents, because civil resistance or disobedience didn't really exist).
What happened
after WWII
Germany was split into GDR and FRG. The powers of the cold war collided on german ground and established two different political systems. Dresden was a part of the GDR and was therefore utilised by politics: the bombardment has been torn out of its historical context and the glance of remembrance focused on the suffering of the people being bombed. The holocaust has solely been assumed as an over-historical dogma and has been detached from historical events, through this historical understanding became an empty phrase.
This was also significant for the FRG. After the german reunification the work to trivialize the outrages has been intensified. Until the middle of the 90ies the sole charge for WWII, the singularity of the Holocaust (as the most horrible crime the world has ever seen) and the bombardments (as deliverance from fascism) had been accepted as common political opinion (at least nobody dared to articulate other attitudes towards this loudly). But the propagated denazification was not completely executed in all sectors of society; many nazi authorities worked in the german press after WWII in east and west. The tabloid with the highest run the "Bild Zeitung" published a lot of anti-Semitic statements camouflaged as letters to the editor themed: "I'm not an anti-Semit, but it must be allowed to say that...". The "Spiegel" (in the german society accepted as a trustful medium) was edited by two SS authorities. Large amounts of the german media shape the national myth since the end of WWII and provide a mispresentation of history in which the germans constructed their identity as victims. You can prove this with a look on the discussed issues in the landscape of german media, because the history of media is the expression of a social understanding of history - in the media one finds the chronicle of the german victimhood.
The creation of german
victimhood
- 1989 december 19th: Helmut Kohl (the german chancellor of the FRG in those times) successfully finished the negotiation for a contract with the GDR, the german reunification has been signed. At the same evening he held a speech to thousands of enthusiastic germans in front of the Church of our Lady. The crowd was shouting "we are one people" and Dresden or rather the Church of our Lady has been utilized as a symbol for german unity and freedom.
- 1990 february 12th: a call for donations with the name the "call from Dresden" ("Ruf aus Dresden") was written aiming directly to the allies of WWII speaking of propitiation with the intention to rebuild the Church of our Lady as a symbol of peace for Europe. One day later when thousands of people commemorated the bombardment of Dresden Helmut Kohl held a speach once again and said: "war mustn't go out from german ground ever"
- 1992 october: The queen of Great Britain visited Dresden. Her car slowly passed by the Church of our Lady, but for security reasons she didn't get out and she also didn't say anything expressing regret about the bombardment. Many germans were in anger, because they got a new national consciousness - the shaping of the german victimhood was already taking place.
- Until the mid of the 90ies the official attitude of the government remained: the dogma of the singularity of the Holocaust and the bombardment assumed as deliverance from nationalsocialism. But revisionism established more and more power with publications of certain books, quotations and movies in the media.
- 1995-99: the first exposition of the armed forces (Wehrmacht) with the name "war of extermination - outrages of the armed forces" visited 33 towns in Germany and Austria. It has been criticized because of mistakes in content. Media scandalised that the director of the exposition Hannes Heer worked together with extremistic left winged groups and that he has criminal records. Consequently the exposition has been retracted in 1999.
- 1998: the conservative political era of Helmut Kohl and his party the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ended, Gerhard Schröder became chancellor, leading a social-democratic/green governing coalition. A new generation ruled the country and meet a society being ready and almost desiring to be allowed to merge in their victimhood. Immediately the construction of german victimhood has been intensified.
- 1999: Germany initiated the war in Kosovo. Helmut Kohl's words "never ever war" turned to "never ever Auschwitz" (Joschka Fischer, foreign minister). The utilization of the nazi history reached a new quality, the phrase "Holocaust" had already been exploited to the point that the Holocaust is unbelieveably being used as justification for a new war, because it was the "duty" of the german nation to "prevent KZ's in Kosovo" (Joschka Fischer).
- 2001-04: the second exposition of armed forces with the name "outrages of armed forces" visited 11 towns in Germany, Luxembourg and Austria. The german left criticized it, because it pictured an emotional equalisation with the general suffering of war, by its composition and representation. The context to the nationalsocialist society and its outrages is not emphesized strong enough compared to the emotional and contextless expression of suffering.
This exposition is the first large attempt to level down the outrages of the germans, thus relativizing the
Holocaust. In that time intense debates about the planned Holocaust memorial in Berlin were fought and some politicians denounced the decees of Benes and Beirut. There had also been mass actions of victims of national socialism, they were fobbed off with nearly nothing.
- 2002 the book "Der Brand" by Jörg Friedrich has been published. In a very short time it became a bestseller. It deals very deonalsocialism and the main attention focused on the personal suffering of the people in Dresden. This book steps in line with the worst revisionism, it talks about a much to high number of dead people, it spreads the myth Dresden was not important as a military target and it implies the accusal that the allies are war criminals. It's not astounding that Friedrich is calling the bombardment on Germany "war of extermination" und through this totally contorts history. The opinion articulated in this book is nothing but a construction of guilt against the allies. The germans are solely presented as victims. Friedrich's structure of arguments is not different to any other argumantation of neonazis nowadays, but still it became a bestseller and seemed to vocalize what the germans were thinking all the time. This book has been quoted and recited very much. The "Spiegel" said this book was a summery of the current scientific stand. The "Nationale Zeitung" (right winged newspaper) said it was a true description of the deaths of over 100000 people in Dresden. And Martin Walser said in relation to the intense debate about the Holocaust memorial "a memorial of the bombardment is better then any other memorial".
- 2003: Wolfgang Sofski said in the newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (conservative newspaper) there mustn't be a "halved remembrance", because remembrance focused not enough on the victims of the bombardments. In the same year the book "Leipzig brennt" (Leipzig is burning) has been published, in the preamble Wolfgang Tiefensee (mayor of Leipzig) said "you can't understand the view of germans without thinking of the traumatisations by the bombardment". But the public attitude has been polarised much more through the iraq war. The german government took position against the war with the justification "the european experience of suffering during WWII must be a lesson, because war has always to be the ultima ratio of politics" but Germany has already shown its honesty about this words considering the war in Kosovo. And even though the government states a different policy of troop deployment the federal armed forces partizipate in many assignments abroad.
- 2004: The movie "Der Untergang" appeared. This movie presents Hitler as a pitiful person. It perfectly fits into the german creation of victimhood.
- 2005 february 13th: Guido Knopp (chief historian of the second german broadcast ZDF) took a speech and lied about 35000 dead victims of the bombardment in Dresden. The chief historian of the ZDF is talking implicitly about the guilt of the allies!
- 2005 november 21st: "Das Drama von Dresden" (drama of dresden) received an international emmy in the category best documentation. Guido Knopp (chief historian of ZDF) interpreted this as a sign of propitiation. But "the best docu" includes some historical mistakes, for example there had been no "Napalm bombs". The director Sebastian Dehnhardt afterwards said his inspiration had been the "suffering of the victims in Dresden". This documentation also fits perfectly into the creation of german victimhood and implies a revisionistic understanding of history.
- 2005 november 30th: the Church of our Lady re-opened with a big media spectacle
- 2006: another epic movie in the style of "Der Untergang" produced by the ZDF appeared with the name "Dresden". Guido Knopp seems to be in a good run and produces one revisionistic movie after another that eclipses the outrages of the Nazis and overemphazises the suffering of the germans. The end of the movie is like a bad propaganda movie showing the cupola of the Church of our Lady in black & white (the whole movie is in black & white) but suddenly it becomes colored and the camera is going down presenting hundreds of happy faces - finally the germans are victims and propitiated with the victims of nationalsocialism.
You don't need to say anything more about this. History tells its own tale. Revisionistic publications are on a constant rise. The germans utilized their Nazi history and use it to achieve their interests everywhere in the world and the other countries don't intervene.
From the media of society to society of the media
Thesis 1:
Images of the society are being communicated by media
To the first principles that hide behind the previous development of production engineering:
1.production engineering is only able to reproduce a certain input, which means it's only able to produce or copy an image (this sentence will be completed in thesis 3)
2.the unique original is being pushed away by it's plentiful fabrications/copies - media is based on production engineering.
Mass media is a product of social work. The result (movie, radio, magazines etc.) is composed of several operating processes which are based on production engineering, too. That's why mass media is only able to create images. So thesis 1 is true.
Thesis 2:
media reproduces society
If you think ahead of thesis 1 you quickly get to the conclusion that media is reproducing the whole society. This is based on an interaction: every human who is producing something in the media is part of the society and has been shaped by it all his life. Since childhood he has internalized the social values of it's environment - so as a result everything that is expressed is nothing but a reproduction of society.
Intelectual/scientific work is dependent of it's employers. Somebody who publishes scientific work is bound to the fact that it has to create a certain benefit to cover the costs. In other words: ethical values have to be sell-able in a capitalistic society! Sure there are subsidizations and foundations that try to support different attitudes, but their efficiency will allways be behind the market-leading-media. So thesis 2 is true, too.
The history of economy is also the history of a qualitative improvement of reproduction to the point you can't distinguish the difference between fabrication and the original through human senses. What appears in media is nothing but a commodity. Guy Debord recognizes: "The spectacle is the moment when the commodity reached a complete occupation of social life"
Thesis 3:
media produces society
But media can truly do more then just reproducing. It may also create something new, this ability goes back to another aspect of production engineering - variation - now let's take a closer look at it. The described phenomenon in thesis 1 and 2 can be described differently - production engineering want's the fabrication to look more real, a simple example is the development of "Barbie". In the beginning it didn't look as perfect as it look's today, in the course of time it has been recreated to a more and more detailed level. But through a plentiful production of such cult-products social standards are being shifted. Everybody knows that no healthy human being is alive having the proportions of "Barbie". What is called normal has been changed by technical mass-production to a degree that this mass-production is nowadays creating normality. What is real has been standardized - normality is being produced.
Technic is only able to convert an input from reality. Nowadays there are a lot of instruments of technical development to change reality in the process of converting. Let's take the example of the ideal of beauty: in nearly every magazine pictures of celebrities are being post-worked, it's common to manipulate their eyes with "Photoshop". There are countless production stages modifying the original of reality - the unreal appears real. Surprise, surprise mass-media is indeed creating ideals.
So there are two opposing movements in mass media:
1.to picture reality more and more detailed (reality shows, talkshows etc.) and
2.to create unreachable ideals.
The creation of new ideals or status symbols, mostly by advertisement and starcult, has got a simple economic sense, the creation of a new market. Furthermore one may say that the economic circle has even been spread into imagination, because it pictures the imagined and offers it as a commodity. Even what can be imagined is being instrumentalized.
In this process human self-realisation is restricted to owning property on one hand and producing property on the other. The human being is completely opressed by the circuit of economy, the only compensation it has is time for leisure, in which it's being shadowed by cultural industry every second, it can merely search for hobbies which are appropriated by the same economic circuit that is oppressing it. But this statement has to be modified, because the social circumstances have changed.
We are already in the age of information society, in which the production of information increases enormously and becomes more important. In the state of information society it's not about publishing truth. Through an eerily high concentration of information and the possibilities to spread information by magazines, tv, radio and internet it's less about quality, but even more about quantity, that can be utilized better. That is for simple products and also for more complex ones like a newspaper, thus mass-media. That means nothing more but a lie, if it is spread far enough, it looks like truth and the consumer assumes it as true. Modern information society has already developed to a point in which the normal consumer can no longer distinguish between true and false information. We simply don't know what is right and wrong.
This knowledge is being used by the authorities of the system. The common circumstances defend themselves more and more through concealment of facts for example by the use of desinformation: logic lines of argumentation are being broken based on the separation of consumer and expert. The expert is able to fool the consumer by expressing facts with terms seemingly right so the consumer can't understand it because definitions of terms are being changed in the way it is needed. Political issues for example are being concealed by constant juggling of fragmentary knowledge. So it looks a little bit like chaostheory.
The spectacle is the master of the sense of terms, on one hand because politicians, scientists and other experts are in a financial dependency on the other because they are only able to express themselves within the spectacle. Different cognitions are being put together in the way it is needed. Social values are nothing but a certain connection of fragments, that always leave other fragments aside and pretend there is nothing else.
Whenever new cognitions appear contrary to expectations it won't take long until they are opposed by other contradicting cognitions. It's not anymore about truth or understanding, it's about balances that justify what already exists. Behind this there is always only one antagonsim: economy - human.
Facts that cast a negative light on the already existing are not kept secret anymore, they are being explained absurdly. But the tactics of concealment are not always willingly used in full awareness. Concealment is also caused by not-knowning because it's undeniable that social, political and scietific issues are to complex that a human being is not able to understand them completely. Because of our physical-biological premises there will always be something hidden to us, we will never understand the world entirely. Objectivity is non-existent, because we are only able to act and think as humans. We are not able to slip out off our body for any second.
An example for unconscious concealment is the feulleton: things are getting subjectified. The author picks up fragments and puts them together. It is characteristical for information society that a massive increase of production of the feulleton is taking place, because more and more people have got the possibility to express themselves via internet for example. An impenetrable jungle of true information and conscious as well as unconscious desinformation has been established. The concentration of true information that are reaching the consumer is very low, because desinformation is relatively overbalanced.
At this point the original question why Communique 1 is cooperating with the EU can be answered easier. This cooperation is an expression of the political duty of the EU to comply with it's social charge and to support integrative projects allowing young persons to participate in society. If you read closely over the clause which is contractually required you realize that the EU dissociates from any charge of content in this project. This is only possible, because virtually everything expressed in such projects perishes in the jungle of information. We have no illusions that this magazine will have a low effect, it is more like a teardrop falling down on hot stone. The EU simply doesn't have to fear anything from us: whatever we write we can't be "dangerous" to it and that's why every content is allowed.
But still it is useful to express yourself, even if you will never stand a chance against market-leading media. At least your own environment can be reached and that's what we try to do.
Art is a part of culture and at the same time speaks to the society. As a special way of culture it is as culture is, a mixture of social knowledge, imagination and the aspects that were mentioned before which consistently exist in art, too. The domain of knowledge consists of a fragmented accumulation of social insight, that is useless in a spectacle since the maintenance of the current demands the renouncement of this knowledge (and the spectacle aims at nothing but that). This accumulation of insight is in contrast to the practice that carries the secret to put this insight to use. The sphere of imagination contains the critical destruction of the old common language on the one, and the new composition within the spectacle on the other hand which is the illusion of the not-experienced.
If society loses the mutuality of the myth it loses its common language until the split of the idle society from the actual historic society is resolved. Art has been the common language of social inactivity but modern art detached from its religious background and developed to an individual production of separated works. Thereby art as a special form undergoes the same historic movement that also befalls the whole separated culture. Arts' independent affirmation is the beginning of its dissolution.
The modern movement of dissolution of art lets the formal destruction of the language of communication and the loss of this language seem positive. As a negative fact it is stated that a common language has to be found again.
Art talked to others about what art had experienced without dialogue and therefore found lopsided conclusions. A common language can only be found if arts' practice unifies direct action and the language of this direct action. It boils down to actually own or induce dialogue and the play with time that has already been introduced by the poetic-artistic work. As an example a concert of John Cage can be mentioned in which flutes were passed to the audience before the concert and therefore totally gave away control over the emerging work since everybody in was playing as they liked to. This event and the created dynamic in which the traditional role allocation of artist and audience was disrupted (as everybody who is in the room at a certain point of time is part of the work of art) is the moment when the lost common language could be found again.
History of art and the reform of art in the present-day social circumstances
The historic time which took over art initially expressed itself in the sphere of art from the baroque era. The art of baroque begins in the time when the entity of Christianity and the realm of the empire collapsed or was in the process of breaking down. The society of that time lost the last known mythic-religious system of the world and the authority the state. This time is coined by the loss of a world view. The art of change carries the fading principle of the world that is happening. The theatre and the festival are moments in which baroque art is realised through its clear reference to the stage setting of a constructed location. This construction is the centre of combination and the centre is caducity.
In the period between Romanticism and Cubism the individual art of negation intensified, it reinvented itself until the artistic sphere was completely fragmented and negatived.
The disappearance of historical art also expresses that capitalism is the first social order which admits to be far from any doctrine of being. The power of this reign is purely based on economic management and is nothing but the deprivation of any human control. The artistic elite had its half independent base in the condition that still existed among the last aristocracies. The elite's internal communication is closely bound to the disappearance of historic art.
The baroque era as a whole is the lost artistic entity which is to a certain extent found again in the consume of the whole art history. The historic knowledge and appreciation of art as a whole and its past which was elevated to world art in the retrospective relativise world art to a global confusion which itself builds a baroque superstructure. In this superstructure the output of baroque art merges with all its reappearances. For the first time all art in the world can be known and accredited. The state in which the reminiscence of the history of art is possible marks the end of the world of art. Because of the loss of the here and now, the so-called aura, through technical conditions of production, art also lost the prerequisite for communication. Every single moment in the history of art is accredited in the same way and none of those moments suffer from the loss of their before special condition of communication or the already mentioned aura.
With the step of development to dissolution the movement of art, in places where history has not yet been experienced, has become an art of change but at the same time it expresses the impossibility of change. The greater its claim, the more is its realisation beyond of itself. The avant- garde and this particular art do not exit: "Its avant-garde is the reason its disappearance." Dadaism and surrealism are the last two arts that mark the end of modern art. Both of them existed in the era of the last revolutionary proletarian rush. The failure of this movement which includes both mentioned art styles is the main reason for its immobilisation. Still both art schools are historically linked but both stand in contrast to each other. The perpetuation of this contrast is most consequent and radical contribution of both styles but therein the inadequacy of both criticisms is revealed because both were only developed one-sided. Dadaism wanted to put an end to art without realising this art, surrealism wanted to realise art without ending it. The critic position, which situationists thereto compiled, indicated that the bringing art to an end and realisation of art are inseparable aspects of one and the same dissolution movement.
In today's consumption old culture is virtually available "deep-frozen". In the range of culture the entirety of consumption is exposed: "The communicating of the incommunicable". Since in the current condition it is about reconciliating and the preservation of the governing situation the destruction of language has to be seen as a positive quality. The spirit of art and poetry includes the critic truth of this destruction but the spirit stays hidden for the function of the governing situation is to "make history forgotten in culture". In the frame of its pseudo-novelty the current social relation uses modern means, which it draws from its deepest nature, in that way neo-literature claims to be new and admits to regard the written only for the sake of itself. The latest tendency in today's culture is most tightly connected to the repressive practice of the abstract society and proclaims the beauty of dissolving of the communicable. This tendency also tries to establish a neo-artistic milieu through the help of "complete artworks" which consist of the dissolved elements of culture this is especially true for the "artistic debris" and "technical-aesthetic hybrids in urbanism. This development shows the transition of the project to control the parcelled out worker to a constant integration of the worker's personality in certain group of people. So the creation of a neo-artistic milieu is the project of a restructuring without mutuality based on the individualisation of complete artworks, thus the fragmentation of artistic milieu.
Notations
While reading this article one got to be aware that it is basically a summary of the chapter "The negation and consumption in culture" by Guy Debord from the book "the society of the spectacle". Hereby Debord refers to the western culture and art. He creates a model in which two extremes are confronted and he does not regard any hybrid forms. The interdependency of art and society seems complex in a way that the question of reciprocal impulses is comparable to the allegory of "hen and egg". It is simply not traceable from which direction any impulse emerged first, because both - art respectively culture and society - exist at the same time, just as all hybrid forms exist. They all influence each other and it is impossible to trace down every detail. In my opinion Debord's approach underlies the same problem which all people have who in some way deal with history and try to bring it into order: virtually everybody is restricted to what is traded from the past. Truly nobody may know what inspirations there maybe resulted from dialogues that are not known anymore. No matter what point in history one takes, as soon as a analytical reminiscence is dared a non-definable grey area of not traded history remains. Any statement of history is thus blurred in some way. Anybody who draws conclusions from history has to rely on generalisations.
This article does nothing but state a precise position or at least giving an interpretation of the position. Some of the theses seem risky to me but beyond there are impulses that are worthy of consideration and leave some essential questions open.
The summarized chapter also poses the question for the appreciation of art. What is art? Is art already realised? Can art ever be realised?
Moreover I wonder about the question whether modern art can be anything else than plagiarism, provided Debord's thesis is right. I think art is never going to end, art has to exist endlessly as long as there is one human. Furthermore I think Debord's thesis that considers the art of change as not existent is thought too short, because such a conclusion can only be drawn if there is no knowledge about the whole history of art. What I am aiming at is the already mentioned problem that not everything that existed has been traded until now. However already in the baroque era artistic counter-movements existed which ran along-side to the art mainstream. This in my mind obtrudes the reproach that Debord, against his own analysis, believes that everything traded in history is absolutely and true.
It seems as if Debord only looks at the continuity of the art mainstream without considering parallel counter-movements. If I see it in a spiteful manner it seems like Debord only took particular facts that suited his analytical construct. Nevertheless information that oppose this construct either stays secretive or there is truly no evidence about it.
So the article is not a comprehensive analysis but more an analysis of art mainstream. From this angle the article delivers information about the current art mainstream but the tendency for complete artworks, the mix up of all culture and arts in the age of globalization are to be found true in many places. This is also shown by the development in World music that according to Debord, could be taken as the rise for the lost consistent culture language.
Maybe the idea behind Debord's thesis that western art is already realised is easily explained because of the common globalization art must become a world art. Here is the interest for modern western art. Art has - on its quest for the lost entity of the culture language and in a globalized world - to ad mix with other cultures.
Art could be a precursor and push in the direction to a common global culture language and therefore become a harbinger for the still utopian human world society. Maybe this is what Debord means with the conclusion that the emerged chaos after all arts of this world are regarded and admitted build a baroque superstructure: art, that knows all traded art schools draws its inspiration out of a sheer endless pool that unfolds unbelievable possibilities. As a result a blending of the arts could lead to baroque-like complete artworks which are the expression of a global culture.
Surveillance of society - Society of surveillance
A better life without cameras
We can see a worldwide tendency towards video surveillance. Surveillance technology is used in any shopping centre as well as in most "public places", a phenomenon strongly linked to the issue of security. The discussion around this issue is going two ways: the media reproduce what the masses want to hear, at the same time a feeling of insecurity is produced by politics (with abstract dangers such as terrorism). Nobody should feel save any more, leading to a majority of the population actually supporting the surveillance of "public spaces". In fact it should be clear to everybody that there cannot be such a thing as security - even if a camera is watching, it does not protect anyone from a robbery. Surveillance technology cannot prevent crime, it can only deter and intimidate people. This idea is somewhat paranoid, since it implies the consequence of being afraid of everybody. Everything is feared from every person. Is this really about the protection of people or rather about the protection of private property from people ? (The economy of this world leads to a wold of economy.) Is it about the protection of public space (being a clearly private space by law) or about the conscious exclusion and displacement of people deviating from the norm ? (The norm here means a behaviour accoring to the economic expectations of the place, the norm means a uniform mass of people consuming thoughlessly.) Urban repression is the tool to normalize society, to deprive deviation of its means of existence.
From security to insecurity, from insecurity to security
The development of Western capitalism follows the same irection in all regions where it has been established, only delayed by some time. This text will illustrate this by the example of Germany. After the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century and the establishing of the foundations of capitalism the early ruthless exploitation of the workers was followed by a more social type of capitalsm (at least in the Western world) with liberal basic values. Around the end of WWI the Ford car company in the USA became a model enterprise of modern capitalism. This second level of Western capitalism after the Industrial Revolution came to be known as Fordism. It was characterized by standardized mass production and mass consumption. The workers' wages were adapted to the inflation rate and even additionally increased in case of an increase in company profits, thus raising the workers' motivation. This model succeeded in most European countries. In the FRG a far-reaching welfare state system was established after WWII, but began to experience some problems when economic growth dropped in the sixties due to increasing wages. These problems grew into a crisis of the Fordist welfare state. The following reorganization of society (called Post-Fordism) under the dogma of Neoliberalism created a whole set of new insecurities, since the achievements of the social state appeared to be more and more difficult to finance. Unemployment grew and an increasing number of people were forced to resort to the financial assistance of the state. This development culminated in the negation of the society's responsibility for people in need. Neoliberalism has established itself, social exclusion is no longer seen as accidental, but as the usual case. There is no structural problem (the capitalist organisation of society), but the fault is solely with the individual. Whoever does not make it lacks the competence for a responsible life. Whoever lacks this competence has to be helped by force, be it by enforced labour, welfare cuts or prison.
Form the control of social policy to social policy of control (in the surveillance society)
The dismantling of the welfare state is accompanied by an increase in state and non-state control strategies.
The old security strategies now work in a new way. While the control of the human body by physical force (in prisons, factories or lunatic asylums) was predominant until the nineteenth century, by now the number of methods to control the will have increased. Benthams "panoptical prison" stands for the social process described by Foucault as the transition from a disciplinary society to a control society.
This control society is legitimized by the discourse on security: The rise of social risks is contrasted by security as a condition including all aspects of life, always promised and never achieved. Security becomes a key concept and constituating symbol of modern societies.
The production of (in)security is done by various sides with often differing interests. Fears and anxieties are exploited politically and economically and established as a power strategy. This is illustrated by the call for flexibility. The flexible enterprise works with the fear of social descent and consciously exploits this situation for its own interests.
At the same time a need for security (enlarged by the media) is voiced within the population. The subjective feeling of insecurity - not any objective threat - is given as a reason to call for or legitimize stronger control measures or more severe punishment.
The call for more security is answered by the state or private companies with surveillance technologies, new laws, increased competences of security forces etc. Control and surveillance measures are no longer offered only by the state, but by many actors, thus enabling us to speak of a surveillance society instead of a surveillance state.
Form the insecurities of the city to the city of insecurities
The increasing discourse on security and fear of crime is mainly a discourse on urban insecurities. The city is the place where most social conflicts are fought out and where social changes suface most clearly.
Insecurities often are not felt to be connected with one's own conditions, but rather with "degeneration" and "disorder" in public spaces. Graffiti, rubbish, noisy youth or petty crime are seen as threatening and serve as a projection of social insecurities. The feeling of insecurity often becomes connected to people deviating from the norm in one way or another. Urbal insecurity can be understood as the the marginalized and disadvantaged being feared by the privileged and the integrated. The latter are said to be occupying the public space, making central parts of the city more interesting to the middle classes under the ideological paradigm of "reclaiming the public space".
From the new public space to the space of the new public
This reclamation does not aim at the restoration of public access, but at a shift of control: Certain groups of people are to be excluded from the use of the space in question, making it usable for other people. In fact urban space never really was public. Some people always were denied their right to the city: women, jews, paupers or adolescents. Political conditions are reflected in the definition of public spaces, causing them to be embattled spaces. For that reason the present development is often called the "revanchism of the middle class": the public space is to be reclaimed for the endangered middle class by state and private control strategies. Souvereignty over space is one of the most effective ways of power exertion, since manipulation of the spacial distribution of social groups can be used as an instrument of manipulation and control of the these groups themselves.
Exclusion and increased control
In order to enforce this reclamation two strategies are applied: exclusion and increased control.
Social exclusion is to completely ban certain groups from using the space. This can be achieved by architectural restrictions (e.g. bright rooms or traffic layouts) or the de-facto privatization of formerly public spaces leading to new legal conditions: In railway stations, shopping malls and places such as Potsdamer Platz [a square in central Berlin, the interpreter] the domestic authority of the owner now applies and is executed by private security services. Unwanted people can easily be kept out as trespassers. Who is wanted and who is not is solely determined by the commercial criteria of the owning entrepreneur.
Local so-called "begging laws" have the same function - they forbid aggressive begging, drinking and sleeping in public, a violation resulting in fines, arrest and banishment.
Increased control as the second strategy aims at preventing or visibly restricting unwanted behaviour: examples are ID checks without any specific reason in so-called high-crime places, increased presence of police and other security forces, racist searches by the BGS [German federal police, the interpreter] in railway stations and in border regions. And surveillance by video cameras.
Why are we against video surveillance ?
Video surveillance is not new. In the FRG it has been used since the Seventies, officially for traffic guidance, but also for surveillance of political manifestations. In the GDR cameras were used for the surveillance of "important" public places. Privately owned cameras have been in existence just as long as video technology itself, their use in the area between property protection and public space making them an especially difficult issue. Only since the Nineties cameras are used for preventive police measures of behaviour control and normalizing. The city of Leipzig took a leading role in 1999, by now video surveillance of public places has been included in most police laws.
Video surveillance affects everybody visiting or crossing the place in question, only its intensity changes: British surveys show that mainly young people (in groups) and members of ethnic and subcultural minorities are affected by focussed observation (and following police intervention). The uncertainty about the criteria for focussed obervation and about what constitutes a deviation (and thus a need for sanctions) in the eye of the observer remains and creates the possibility of behaviour control. We do not view video surveillance as the most severe method in the range of state and private control strategies, the border and immigration system and enforced labour having a much more existential effect on people. On the other side camera surveillance has caused public controversy, even if the increased security measures and restrictions of civil rights have largely met with a broad consensus. It is our hope that the high number of people potentially affected opens the opportunity to discuss control and exclusion strategies and to develope options of political action.
The presence of sovereignty on whatever level and in whatever form (centralized as in monarchies and dictatorships or differenciated and de-personalized in parliamentary democracies), the basic assumption of the absolute necessity of governmental institutions has a large impact on todays political thought. The very idea of societies getting on without it appears to us rather strange and incredible.
Assuming their existence in general, the topic of this text will be to find out what elaborate political mechanisms were able to develop such stateless societies and how they managed to stabilize. What enabled (and - despite centuries of colonization and growing economical globalization - partly still enables) a large number of so-called primitive societies to stop the concentration of power in the hands of individuals or some elite group ? The main focus will be on the question whether the political systems of segmentary societies are somewhat deficient and thus simply "culturally unable" to develop sovereignty or whether the absence of government can be seen as a deliberate cultural achievement. In the first case "pre-state" would take the meaning of a lower level of cultural and political evolution than modern Western society, while in the latter case we would have to speak of "societies against the state".
Ethnosociology and the concept of
"segmentary societies"
European scientists travelling Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australasia during the 19th century found a substantial number of societies completely lacking centralized instances wielding power or even the sovereignty of individuals. In this context Emile Durkheim introduced the concept of segmentary societies in his sociological theory (1893), their main property being the absence of both a central instance and of a social division of labour. Durkheims "societes segmentaires" are based on a system of relationships called clans.
In the twenties and thirties of the 20th century mainly British social anthropologists conducted some more focused field research, culminating in the publication of the report "African Political Systems" by Evan-Pritchard and Fortes in 1940, in which the political structures of eight African societies were examined. Again acephalous ("head-less") structures were found in some of those societies. The authors described the presence and function of organized power as the most important difference between centralized and segmentary political systems. In the latter there is no group, no class and no segment able to assume a dominating position by gaining a higher degree of organized power.
With the poltical and cultural impact of the years around and after 1968 a new generation of politically motivated and ambitious ethnologists and sociologists began to include the aim of showing poltical alternatives in their works on the societies of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. In his book "Regulated Anarchy" Sigrist wrote: "The research into stateless societies originated not in an arbitrary academic preference, but in genuine revolt against statehood and bureaucracy in Germany being accepted as a matter of course again after the excesses of state-organized mass-extermination."
Mechanisms of
segmentary societies
One of the most obvious properties of segmentary societies is their acephaly, meaning the absence of central instances of sovereignty. This is accompanied by the nonexistence of souvereign power that could cause (or increase) "the chance to find compliance with a given order". The political order is not based on sovereignty. In the societies examined the central instances - as far as they exist at all - are powerless. "Segmentary" appears to be the most suitable description of societies whose political organisation is based on several equally-ranked and similarly divided groups on various levels.
The question of how segmentary societies work is the question of the mechanisms to deliberately avoid the development of political sovereignty. To understand these mechanisms it will be necessary to not only look at political structures in the area predefined as "political", but rather to concentrate on the political implications of structures in other aspects of society. Here the genealogical relations between individual members of society are of special importance, because they constitute the basis of social conditions. In the following sections we will try to shed some light on the structure of segmentation, the regard in which a society holds labour and the general position towards the concept of sovereignty.
Segementation
and Lineage
The genealogical relations in segmentary societies determine to a large extent their social as well as ther political organisation. Where social integration is not based on sovereignty, another "mode of integration" is needed. In segementary societies this is granted by a reference to common (real or fictitious) ancestry and continually renewed wide-ranging family relations. By the regular separation (called segmentation) of small groups from a continuous ancestry group large "family trees" are accumulated and passed on by the elders of each segment. The larger ones of the groups formed this way can consist of more than ten generations. At its founding a new subgroup can eigther territorially segmentate or remain in the territory of its old ancestry group. Segmentation occurs in lineage systems, lineage meaning a range of ancestry lines that enables each of its members to adress any other member in terms of genealogical relation. Each segment can only be in opposition to another segment of the same level, while in times of conflict of the larger common ancestry group with another group hostilities between conflicting subgroups cease. This applies to all "levels" of each segment.
Here is an example: The Tiv are an acephalic ethnic group living in Northern and Central Nigeria. With around 800,000 people they form one of the largest segmentary societies. Their language is equally understandable to all members. Each Tiv lives in his or her "tar", a term that only partially translates into the territoril concept of "country" and also includes the patrilinear descendancy system. The Tiv assume that in times of war each man has to return to his tar to support his "ityo". Ityo is the name given to a man's patrilineage - a concept going into the past - , while the name for all living members of a genealogical segment is "nongo". Usually several nongos can live in the same tar, so that the dwellings and fields are within a common territory. The political structure is made up of the "ipaven", a concept meaning a political segment and being territorially identical with the tar. The inclusiveness of the political-territorial units ensures the highest possible integration, which can be elucidated by the example of warfare. The means (club, arrows, poisoned arrows) and intensity (killing of the opponent intended or not) of fighting are determined by the genealogical distance between both parties. The spreading of conflict is prevented by segmentation ("structural limitation"), since only segments of the same level can go to war with each other. Both remain loyal to their common ityo. In addition to this there is the possibility of mediation by a third segment of the same level (provided its relation to both warring segments being more or less equal). All segment-based modes of dealing with conflict only work within the constructed ancestry with clear outer boundaries: "A Tiv is a Tiv and can prove it."
Another example: Unlike the subsistence-farming Tiv the Nuer of the White Nile swamps in Sudan are a pastoral people. Its 400,000 members live in several tribes of between 5,000 and 45,000 people, each tribe having its own grazing grounds, water holes and fishing reservations. Tribes define themselves by being the largest units capable of settling internal conflict and of dealing with external enemies. Conflicts between parts of the same tribe that cannot be solved by the complex, dynamic norms depending on the genealogical system will cause war. If the differences turn out to be stronger than the norms regarded as binding by the common tribe, the tribe will divide or a smaller segment will leave it, possibly joining another tribe.
Similar to the Tiv, the Nuer have a patrilinear lineage system with dynamic processes of relative membership to various segments. Depending on the nature of each conflict members of other segments become enemies, whom to fight it is legitimate as long as they are on the same level of the segmentary system, or friends, members of the same segment, common ancestry forcing the individual into absolute loyalty. Evan-Pritchard, who did ethnographic research in Southern Sudan in the 1930s, writes: "The generalisation of any differences and individuality of a political group only existing in relation to similar political groups is valid for all Nuer groups, from the largest to the smallest."
Refusal to work
Older reports by Western travellers often contain information about the indigenous people's attitue towards work. The "visitors" are surprised and irritated to see the majority of the population spending the day "doing nothing". This time is not, as usual and according to the norm in Westen culture, reserved for work, but rather for activities such as eating, sleeping, celebrations, hunting, drinking - in short: for activities not seen as a burden, but as enjoyable. Despite this fact the same reports do not speak of poverty and want, but of wealth, health and a flourishing people. How could that be ? In general modern research is assuming the existence of subsistence economies. Usually this is understood as an autarkic econony unable of higher production, regardless of the reasons for this inability, whether they be geographical (e.g. climatological) or racial, as in older interpretations. The latter explanations portray "savages" as people incapable of higher cultural achievements such as complex technology. In both cases it is assumed that subsistence economies at an immense input of time can produce only just the amount needed for survival. How does this fit in with the high percentage of spare time in combination with plentiful material goods ? The only explanation is the refusal to work as a basic socio-economic value.
This assumption is based on the fact that each society is able to shape and control its environment. For that purpose cultural achievements highly adapted to this envoronment are developed, as the numerous evidence of technologies for hunting, fishing, agriculture and the construction of dwellings shows.
The production of surplus requires more work. This is not wanted by the segmentary societies of Africa and South America, the production of surplus is not regarded to be necessary. "People only work more than their needs require by force. This force is absent in the world of the Primitive." When South American indigenos people aquired iron adzes instead of lithic ones they did not use them to chop down ten times as many trees in the same time, but to chop down the same number of trees in a tenth of the time previously needed.
The Marxist-evolutionist theory of the development of statehood tells us that after the separation between the owners of the means of production and those merely working with them (producing a surplus) statehood rises to permanently guarantee this order of economic inequality. This Marxist class dichotomy is caused by a surplus production being seized by the future rulers. This economic separation cannot occur in an autonomous society practising conscious refusal to work and to create a surplus.
Mechanisms
of egalization
Despite the impossibility of an individual becoming economically powerful by the work of all this does not necessarily imply the complete economic equality of all members of society. The Luiya used to share the spoils of war among the bravest and strongest participants, making them the richest of all society. At this point we find many regulation mechanisms, especially within family or ancestry structures, but also within neighbourhoods:
Obligation to share
The most important way to prevent the accumulation of wealth is the obligation to share. This obligation chiefly applies to food (in the scanty time before harvest) but can just as well include the means of production. This system works two ways: The rich person is expected to share his wealth among the less well-off, who on the other side see it as their right to take the "surplus". Should the violator of equality norms - the rich - be unwilling to offer his goods to society, a prosecution for sorcery or incest could follow, possibly resulting in capital punishment. The principle says that wealth and greed contradict each other, that whoever is rich is forced to share in order to avoid conflict with the group's perception of equality. The obligation to share is an instrument to level economic differences demanded by society, if neccessary by force.
Equal succession
Another instrument to avoid the accumulation of economic power in almost all segmentary societies is the complete lack of preferential treatment of any single descendant in case of someone's death. This prevents the intergenerational accumulation of wealth, giving all advantages a temporary nature. The absence of primogeniture tends to lead to a certain degree of equality of the segments of common ancestry, since no segment can be economically advantaged by "higher birth".
Both mechanisms mentioned help to guarantee a high degree of economic equality. Similarly deviation from social norms is not wanted in non-economic matters if it violates the "consciousness of equality". This is very clearly illustrated by the
Behaviour towards prominent people, people of higher prestige. There is an ambivalent relation towards them, moving between the extremes of the individual sharing his/her prestige with the group and the presumption of souvereignty, making life difficult for the prominent person. Towards other segments he is supported, because he increases the group prestige of the own segment. Within the segment he is confronted with social sanctions smilar to those in the case of wealth accumulation.
Equality norms are enforced by social pressure up to physical violence. Often individuals who violate the consciousness of equality felt by the group in one way or another are persecuted with suspicions of witchcraft or sorcery. Ambition for power and souvereignty is stigmatised and disapproved of.
The consciousness of equality in segmentary societies can also be shown by other institutions. After games or competitions it is customary to reward all parties involved equally and not according to their achievement (victory or defeat, scores etc.). The equality temporarily suspended during the competition is thus symbolically restored.
The function of the chief in societies of the Amazon Basin
In contrast to segmentary societies in Africa those of South America do have central instances embodied by chiefs. These chiefs play a central role in their societies, but they are not endowed with political souvereignty, have no power and can claim no obedience.
Communication in South American segmentary societies is centered around the exchange on three important levels of everyday life - goods, words and marriage partners. Goods include everything needed for survival, mainly food and clothes, "words" symbolise the function of the chief as judge, while marriage partners - in patrilinear societies women - are the most important "article of consumption". Each of these three spheres of communication is characterized by equality of all members of society except for the chief. The chief must have the following attributes: 1. He is the "bringer of peace", his function is a mediating one. 2. He must be generous with his goods and must not refuse the never-ending demands of his "subjects". 3. Only a good orator may become chief. Peacemaker the chief can be only by the power of his word. His speeches are always centered around the ever-repeated appeal to and conjuring of the common peaceful past, the shared war expeditions full of heroism and the mutual understanding of the ancestors. Their aim is to enable the chief to integrate various groups and interests within the larger community, but also to keep up his prestige as an orator and "professional peacemaker". Since he has no power - it would not be recognised - the only thing he has is the word about a past worth preserving. Only of him this speech is expected, as well as his continuous generousity regarding his personal goods. Clastres reports that in many Souh American societies the chief can be recognized by being the poorest of all, dressed in old garments and wearing the least amount of jewellery. The obligation of making presents and sharing goods is an important base of his popularity, for "to be a chief, one has to be generous". These observations are very similar to the treatment of prominent people in African segmentary societies.
Clastres mentions the number of around 200 societies for the Amazon Basin. Of those only ten live in strict monogamy, in a majority of the others the chief is the only person having the privilege of polygyny and thus being entitled to a higher amount of the most important article of consumption (women) than the average.
This inequality in the central spheres of communication always makes him an outsider, since he continuously violates the principle of mutuality. The fact of the chief acquiring several women in a non-mutual way puts him into a state of debt towards his people, making him their servant.
The conception of this dilemma is the real achievement of the chief using his function in order to prevent the appearance of political souvereignty. "By the refusal of exchange in all three spheres the political field is institutionalized beyond the group, making it impossible to exercise any influence on the social structure". The centre of society does not remain empty, but is filled in by a chief who is characterized by his lack of power, his political inability of exercising souvereignty.
Summary
Pre-state or rather anti-state societies are societies based on genealogical relations between different segments with common ancestry. The social, economical and political life is regulated by dynamic processes between those segments. The most important property of such societies is their acephalous structure, i.e. their lack of central instances of souvereignty.
All such societies do possess elaborate mechanisms to avoid and limit permanent political souvereignty in the hands of individuals or groups. Besides the refusal of surplus production (by subsistence economy and refusal to work) these mechanisms include structures to limit economic and social inequality such as the absence of primogeniture and the obligation to share (both of which restrict the accumulation of wealth to a single generation). This is accompanied by a consciousness of equality expressed by sactions against prominent people.
For many decades Western ethnology assumed "primitive" pre-state societies to be on a level of development before the rise of the state, supporting a eurocentric view. A broad range of more recent research and its interpretation point out the neccessity of high cultural achievements and complex social structures in order to prevent the development of political souvereignty. Acephaly is no sign of cultural or even "racial" inferiority (shown by the inability to develop souvereignty as a system of political order), but a system deliberately upheld and continuously re-established.
The sovereignty of people over people is no universal neccessity, no axiom in the universe of political possibilities, but just one way. Even though it is rather unlikely that stateless societies and their mechanisms can give some thought to people in Western culture regarding their own ways of preserving state order, in the light of the huge "collateral damage" done by our views towards order it would be highly desirable.
From a dead culture to the culture of death
This article is refering to the book "the society of the spectacle" by Guy Debord. His term "spectacle" is used as a substitude for the ruling system in that we all live. So here we go.
The double pole of culture - life and suicide
Culture is the sphere of recognition and imagination of the experience of the historical society. It is the ability of generalization which is seperated from the society. This generalization is
1.the division of the intelectual work and
2.the intelectual work of division
In this way culture detached itself from the (by the myth united) society. With this gained autonomy a movement of enrichment started which leads to the decline of this autonomy. Through this culture created the history of it's autonomy and it's illusions about this autonomy which you may call cultural history bearing testimony about it's conquests. In the history of cultural conquests it's own insufficiency is getting obvious. It is striving for it's self-amortization. Culture is searching for a lost unity and has to be self-denying because with it's autonomy culture itself is a separeted sphere.
The most inner principle of the developement of culture is the fight between old and new. Culture only progresses if the newness is winning. These improvements were arising from history which is getting aware of it's totality and that is the reason why culture is striving for the elimination of every separation which means nothing else than culture (which is separated from the society) is declining itself.
The heart of culture is the understanding of the history, which has been raised by the growing knowledge about the society. This process reached an irreversible self-awareness which revealed itself in the destruction of god. This was the condition for critic, but at the same time it commited to an endless critic. But once endless critic is established as the essential active principle in culture it can no longer hold directives and is coming closer and closer to it's decline with every new improvement - culture is searching for the lost unity, it's trying to explain social totality. But culture is bound into an interaction with the society and consequently has to question itself to the point of self-cancellation.
We can sum up this and discover that culture is composed of a double-pole:
1. the self-abolishment in a total history through social critics
2. the perpetuation as a "dead" object in the spectacle, as a defence of the current social order
From organized intelectual science to the science of intelectual organization
The culture completely transformed to a commodity and inevitably has to mutate to a "star-commodity" in the spectacular society. Clark Kerr predicted that culture will become the driving force in the development of the economy, because in the first half of the 20th century it already claimed 29% of the gross domestic product of the USA (production, distribution and the consume of "social knowledge"). Every "knowledge" that advances to spectacular thinking has to justify a society which is beyond any justification and becomes the "science of false awareness". This science is blind for it's own material conditions in the spectacular system. It simply can't see for what reason it is existing, it doesn't know about it's own birth.
The thinking of the society which organizes the illusiveness is being obscured by the generalized subcommunication which defends this thinking. This kind of thinking doesn't know that the conflict is the father of all existing things. This society is based on a system of speech without answers. The power within this system is absolute and the spectator/consumer who is integrated in this system appears contemptible and dumb.
Social thinking is subdevided like art and culture. It specializes itself more and more and it's task-sharing is suited to make a system more perfect, which brings up new problems, so sociology becomes a spectacular critic of the spectacle because it studies the separation only with terms and instruments of separation. But the parts of science which are influenced by structuralism appear as an apology of the spectacle, as thinking of not-thinking, as subdivided oblivion of historic practice. The false desperation of non-dialectical critic and the optimism of advertisement are both identic with submissive thinking.
Sociology firstly started to moot the ruling conditions of existence in the USA. It was able to show large empirical data, but it was blind for the critic implied in it's very own sphere. It is merely based on morale and the sanity of mankind, that's why sociology solely came to the conclusion to appeal to temperance. It was damned to ensnarl in boycott-thinking. It disregarded it's own linkage to the ruling system and put its view at everything, but itself. Like Adorno already recognized there is no right life in the wrong, sociology is not able to discover this and that's why it could only call others to sanity. You may describe it as an indignant good will which considers itself as being critical, but it's just critizising the surface of the system. Through this sociology became another brick keeping the system going.
Those who denounce the call for wastage (hedonism) don't know what wastage is for in a society of economic abundance, they denounce the irrationality of the consumer but they misconceive that this fallacy is being produced by the rational economy and that it's even necessary for it. The sociologist Boorstin describes the american consume of the commodity in his book "Image" and tries to eclipse the idea of the "honest commodity" from his view, but he doesn't understand that the commodity itself is making the laws, their honest use also leads to the loss of private experience through passivity, just like the later recapture of the experience through social consume of images. He describes exaggerations which became alienated to us as exaggerations which were alienated to the world. But the foundation of the society to which the author is relating, when he judges the dominion of images as a product of our "extravagant" wishes, is not existing in this way in reality, because those "extravagant" wishes are being created by the object he is analyzing - the economic rationality. For him the true human life is situated in the past including the past religious resignation, but this assumption blocks his complete understanding of the society of the image at large. The truth of this society is its self-negation.
Sociology believes that one can analyse economic rationality seperated from the whole social life and picks out the technics of global economic production and it's transmission. With this method Boorstin concludes that the reason for his discovered phenomenons is simply a random clash of a too large machine for distribution of images and a to high attraction that pseudo-sensations have for the viewers. For him the current social circumstances are explained by the fact that the human being is a spectator too much. He doesn't understand that the reason for the extreme growth of prefabricated pseudo-happenings is simply to find in the fact that human beings, in a massive social reality, don't experience happenings themselves. The history has been kept a "dead" object in the society, it reveals itself as pseudo-history on all levels of the consume of life and keeps the equation of the "frozen time".
The structuralistic method opposes sociology. It's systematizations are the expression of an anti-historical thinking which has come to the opinion that the system in which we are living is going to exist eternaly, that it never has been created and that it will never end. Very often you find the fallacy that only the existing structures which endlessly develop are the reason for social practice. Debord thinks that this fallacy is based on the academic thinking of middle employees who simply ascribe everything that is to the existence of the system.
The structuralistic method expresses ways of existence and conditions of existance. You cannot understand a society if you simply ascribe it to the individual on one hand or only to it's mere structure on the other. Structuralism which analyzes the existing conditions takes the ruling structures for guaranteed and absolute. It's only exploring what already exists without questioning it and thereby it shapes and acknowledges everything it is describing. Structuralism is not a proof of an over-historical validity of the society, the reality becoming society is a proof of structuralistic thinking.
No idea can lead beyond the existing spectacle, it can solely lead beyond the current ideas of the spectacle. So the critical concept of the spectacle can be published through a sociologic-politic rhethorical phrase and at the same time serves as an abstract explanation and denunciation of everything to keep the system running. To really destroy the system it takes people having a practical power. The critical theory of the spectacle can only be right if it connects with the practice to negation. This negation, the subversive social practice has to develop a theory about it's own conditions - the conditions of the current oppression - to become aware about itself and to reveal what it could be. The restatement of subversive requirements is a long work and you cannot understand it without a strict practice. The critical theory has to become the destiny of the practical movement on a social level. This theory has got its own language, it is dialectical in form and content. It is the critic of totality and at the same time it is a historical critic. It's not the point of the origin of writing it is its eversion. And it's not the negation of style it is the style of negation.
Critic developed out of history and in the moment it names what it is critizising the critizised becomes rigid - history is being banned and remains as a monument. The dialectic style is not only critizising it also expresses that its critic is intensifying what it names. It's important to understand that the object of critic is being useded and formed by critic like a tool. Changes are only possible if the semantics of language and its named objects is being broken. It simply means to put the meaning of concepts out of their context to change their meaning. This way of thinking finds its grammatical expression in the converse of the genitive. Because previous critics were not aware of their influence as a tool working on history it had to come to false conclusions. The misapropriation of their concepts is bringing misunderstandings closer to subversion.
Misapropriation is the opposite of citation and it's necessary, because citation is nothing else than a hardening of a meaning in a certain case. This case has to be broken to make it possible that meanings and terms get back their flowing movement and stay changeable, instead of freezing to an eternal dogma. That's why dialectic speach is important, because it merely expresses, only with its form, the knowledge that there is no guarantee for recent knowledge - there is nothing one may call absolutely true. That's why it is so important to keep the language fluid.
What reveals itself reminds of recent theoretic knowledge is only true in its selfset frame, but those truths have to be adapted and corrected in the course of history, misapropriation is the expression of this necessary correction and destroys every established order at the same time.
Culture cannot be cultural anymore. Culture today only is what is left in the sphere of culture. That's why only the negation of culture can keep the sense of culture, because it reminds of what culture once has been. But at the same time it shows what culture is not anymore today.
So culture is dead, the only thing which is still alive is the consume of culture. The Hardcore/Punk/Metalcore scene is just another part of culture. Our scene is affected by the same rules which are included in culture in general. This article explained those rules. The next step is to use this knowledge and put our eyes on the Hardcore/Punk/Metalcore scene. Just have a look at our homepage. It will be updated with new articles about this soon. Feel free to share your thoughts about this issue with us.