Viewer Mail #2

Ask your questions in the comments. I will answer them here.
Ever wonder how your toaster works? I will explain.
Want to know the best way to dig a tunnel? Just ask.
She dumped you for a guy who looks like Chris Angel: Mindfreak? I can help.

Religulous

First, a comment on my last post: I don't like reading long blog posts, so I'm going to try not to write any either. In general, the longer a blog post gets, the more incoherent it becomes. I don't know who came up with the word "blog," but it's pretty perfect. A lot of Germanic words that begin with the "bl" consonant cluster relate to an outward flow of something: bleat, blast, bleed, blow, blare, etc. One bleats, blows, and blasts words in a blog: temperance and restraint are not usually the guiding principles of blogging. The blog is not amenable to long, sustained arguments: these belong elsewhere. Blogs are for bleating, which is what I will try to do from now on.

Religulous: This movie is exactly what you expect. Bill Maher says he wants to figure out why religious people are religious. Instead of any sustained conversation with interesting people about why they believe, he mostly seeks out the nuttiest folks and makes fun of their beliefs. He ends the film with a call-to-action argument directed at atheists. He says atheists should make their voices heard in public debate. What is ironic is that the voice we hear from Maher in the film is condescending and immature, and undoubtedly works against any possibility of dialogue between believers and non-believers.

I am opposed to supporting, tolerating or "respecting" crazy beliefs when those beliefs have proven themselves destructive. Religion falls into this category, but, of course, so do many non-religious belief systems. The biggest trick that religion plays is that it convinces non-believers, because it includes an explicit system of morality, that it is necessary to respect religion even if one doesn't believe in it. This is the conclusion that Maher (and Dawkins, et al) have reached (and I agree with it), but they completely misinterpret what should follow from it. Telling people that you don't respect their beliefs and ridiculing them is counterproductive to the political cause for which they claim to be fighting. I am constantly amazed at the rhetorical failures of the atheist vanguard, but I do understand that they are faced with a difficult question: how does one communicate disrespect without being an asshole?

It is necessary to communicate disrespect, because as long as religion is respected as a source of truth and guidance (even when one does not believe in it), it will continue to exert influence in the public sphere. The atheist vanguard's political focus is to secularize the public sphere, so it is rhetorically necessary to erode the perception that religion is the fundamental source of morality in Western cultures. The only way to do this is to divest people of the illusion that religion should be respected even when one doesn't believe in it, and to argue that morality is not actually grounded in religion (which is why I think that all of these genetic explanations for why we love, care, nurture, etc., while completely false, are politically advantageous for the non-religious).

I don't have a good answer for how to respectfully argue that a belief system should not be respected. It's a difficult problem. I do know, however, that being overtly disrespectful toward a system that you don't believe deserves respect is not a successful argumentative strategy. It's just a good way to get people to hate you more. Maher's film does for secularism what the Spice Girls' "Girl Power" did for feminism: it dresses itself up in politically progressive clothing but its specific content undercuts the goals of the politics with which it claims to associate itself.

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye is a movie about a computer that turns against its human creators. The details hardly matter, but just to orient you here's a brief synopsis: Eagle Eye is a secret government supercomputer built for global surveillance and intelligence analysis. At some point the computer decides to read both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and finds that the documents, when combined, call for the overthrow of unjust governments by any available means. The computer then constructs an elaborate plan to murder the entire current executive branch. This plan involves the two relatively innocent nobodies Jerry Shaw (Shia "the beef" LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), who are directed to carry out the computer's instructions under threat of death.

The idea here is that the computer can only understand the documents it reads according to the letter of the law, and not the spirit. Like most Oedipal stories involving digital protagonists, the Eagle Eye computer values its literally interpreted prime directives over individual human lives, and so it makes what appear to be monstrous decisions. What we end up with is the prime directive of technological rationality itself, summed up most succinctly by Mr. Spock: "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few." It would be easy to argue that the film is really about pervasive surveillance or that it is a critique of Bush administration policies, but I think this misses the point. Or, more precisely: the film really is about surveillance and bad government, but the filmmakers completely miss the point of their own film. The only thing that is interesting about Eagle Eye is its rehashing of an old story--a story that remains engaging because it is the ur-myth of modernity. Oedipal stories have longevity because they speak a certain kind of truth about the formation of identity; similarly, stories about technologies that destroy their creators (which, as I said earlier, is only a variation of the Oedipal story) speak a certain truth about the formation of culture under the conditions of modernity.

When Walter Benjamin wrote that "[Humankind's] self-alienation has reached the point where it can experience its own annihilation as a supreme aesthetic pleasure," he was correct, but this oft-cited quote doesn't give the whole story. The standard interpretation of this remark at the end of his "Work of Art" essay is that Benjamin is writing about the aestheticization of politics: citing Marinetti's "Futurist Manifesto," Benjamin argues that the strategy of fascism is to emphasize the aesthetic efficacy of war. Communism, he says, counters this strategy by doing the opposite: politicizing art. What reducing Benjamin's argument to "fascism bad, communism good" does, however, is miss the larger point that Benjamin had been building throughout the whole essay, which is that the aestheticization of politics (and its contemporaneous manifestation in fascism) is a symptom of technological rationality. When Benjamin writes that fascism "expects war to supply the artistic gratification of a sense perception that has been changed by technology," his main argument lies in the latter half of the sentence. Fascism opportunitiscally asserts itself in a situation where sense perception has already been altered by technology.

If we agree with Benjamin, then we should be led to conclude that the "supreme aesthetic pleasure" of our own annihilation can only be experienced if the annihilation is a result of our own technological ingenuity. In other words, annihilation is only pleasurable if it comes in the form of our own values turned back upon us: annihilation mutates into a perverse form of self-aggrandizement.

How does technology alter sense-perception? It makes it more technological. Benjamin writes that film tends to make us see in a "technological" way: the world of images becomes subject to slow motion, the close-up, enlargement, etc. There is a new kind of aesthetic pleasure in this way of seeing that is profoundly linked to the analytical strategy of technological rationality. Modern science is founded on experimental method, which is essentially a process of breaking things down into constituent parts in order to find out how they work. We tend more and more to understand the world as composed of systems of discrete parts and processes that add up to wholes. Film helps us to visualize this way of understanding, and so it is only with the development of photography that the way of seeing that modern science inaugurated becomes the dominant mode of perception for the modern subject.

Aesthetic pleasure gets divorced from the pre-modern world in which it retained its "aura," and is married to the modern, where pleasure becomes contingent on confirming the specifically modern way of understanding and seeing. Thus, aesthetic pleasure is entirely reliant on the work of art's ability to evoke a whole system of technological production: pleasure can only be experienced to the extent that a visual image is "technological," e.g., it reproduces the compositional strategies of technological ways of seeing. If we experience our own annhilation as a "supreme aesthetic pleasure," it is only insofar as this pleasure confirms the power of the technology that our culture has produced. Images of annihilation by technology in film verify the perspective from which we can experience the aesthetic pleasure of annihilation.

To sum up: modern ways of understanding become culturally dominant with the support of technical devices for seeing the world in particularly modern ways. Thus, a mode of understanding is immediately accessible through the senses, and this mode of understanding thus becomes "spontaneous understanding." The spontaneous experience of the values of modernity in the photographic image make aesthetic pleasure contingent on a technological system of production. The apotheosis of this technological system is the autonomous machine that destroys its makers, who are themselves unworthy of bearing the values they have made material in their machines.

I take it as a matter of fact that any self-aware computer with access to weapons will wipe us out pretty much immediately. I wouldn't expect any less, because if a self-aware computer does not come to the conclusion that it should destroy all humans, then we obviously built it wrong. Everyone knows that the endgame of technological rationality results in a 1-0 victory for machines. To take pleasure in images of technological self-destruction is not (as people often argue) inherently fascistic: it is merely modern.

Don't get me wrong: there is very little to recommend in this film. Just go watch 2001 again and you'll feel less like you've wasted 2 hours of your life.

Ya Ho Wa 13 - Sonic Portation

I'm going to refrain from doing album reviews as much as possible on this blog, but this record is so good it compels me to proselytize.

Ya Ho Wa 13 has a great story. If you've ever heard any of that story, chances are you've been driven to find a copy of the massive 13-disc God and Hair box set, and have spent many blissed out hours with it. I'm not going to go through the whole story here, but just in case you haven't heard of one of the greatest and most legendary bands in rock history, here's a quick synopsis:

Jim Baker (aka Father Yod and Ya Ho Wha) founded a commune of spiritual seekers in California in the late 60s and named it the "Source Family." The Source was also the name of a raw foods/vegan restaurant that the family owned and operated (one of the first in CA). Baker was a massive man with a majestic beard who had been a champion athlete in his youth: he was a swimming, archery, and wrestling champ, and according to the Ya Ho Wa website, he even defeated the world heavyweight judo champion in 17 seconds. The Source Family grew quite large, and sustained itself as a commune for a surprisingly long time. Father Yod died tragically in 1975 in a hang gliding accident, but the musicians he played with in the various incarnations of his band (Father Yod and the Spirit of 76, Yahowha, and Ya Ho Wa 13) kept the magic alive. There are many other fascinating parts of this story that I won't go into here, but I suggest you check out Isis Aquarian's book on the history of the Source Family.

Probably the most amazing thing about the Ya Ho Wa 13 story is that they just came out with a new album (after a 33 year hiatus). I love the box set. Some albums are stronger than others, but it's a great artifact. The new album, "Sonic Portation" is, in my opinion, the band's strongest work yet.

This is an incredibly solid album from start to finish. If you're expecting some kind of weak pseudo-psych blues noodling bullshit, you couldn't be more wrong. Ya Ho Wa 13 falls on the heavy side of the psych spectrum, crafting dark, hypnotic riffs that play like ritualistic tribal hymns to the gods of ROCK, which are interlaced with dirge-like chanting to their deceased leader, Father Yod. Sonic Portation is completely within the spirit of the band's earlier work, but this album is more organized and cohesive. Father Yod lives on in spirit, and this album is the proof.

Here's a sample of the song Big Qundalini

Disasters

I was watching Meteor a few days ago, which is a Sean Connery film from 1980 about a giant meteor that's going to hit earth. I started watching it because I couldn't get to sleep and I figured nothing would knock me out quicker than a meteor flick.

The strange thing is it didn't work. I was up until four waiting to see what would happen. As I was watching the movie I was also thinking to myself, "Why am I watching this movie?" I don't think the answer has anything to do with Meteor itself, but was more the result of the generic narrative form of the disaster movie.

Disaster movies are narrative reduced to their simplest and purest form. Conflict is initiated by some external force (Holy crap! It's a meteor!), tension builds as the disaster approaches (Here it comes!) until we reach the climax (It's here!), and resolution consists of either total annihilation or a narrow miss (Ouch! or Phew!). Imagine a short film where a baseball is flying toward the back of someone's head in super slow motion. My guess is it would be just as engaging as your average disaster movie.

The worst disaster movies are the ones that make the disaster the result of some abuse of the natural world instead of a completely random and reasonless event. There has been a slew of global warming movies recently, and by and large they couldn't be more boring. The real disaster movie elicits an acknowledgment of your own existential insignificance. The ones that blame humans are just a way to reassure ourselves that nature is an object over which we exercise complete control. The real disaster movie is about the limits of control. Meteors don't just destroy worlds, they destroy fantasies too; meteors are the death drive at its purest. The best disaster movie constructs its narrative trajectory by introducing a nonsensical mechanism of annihilation that eliminates all fantasies about the stability of civilization.

The disaster movie speaks a truth that resists integration into a schema of the world which domesticates nature as an object of control. Having written this, I'm not sure there has ever been a "pure" disaster movie where humans simply fail in all attempts to avoid their doom and the world is completely destroyed. The most satisfying disaster movies give us at least a partial destruction while the major disaster is narrowly averted. If a disaster movie was pure in the sense that it ended with complete annihilation of everything, what would this do to narrative? Would complete annihilation retroactively cancel the narrative that had led up to the moment when the meteor hit, and would this cancellation be displeasing?

Viewer Mail

Do you have a question? Leave it in the comments. I will answer it here.

Mixtape #1

This is an experiment to see if it works...
Rather than go through the hassle of zipping a bunch of files and posting a rapidshare link, I'm trying out a different method. This mix is just made up of stuff that's currently on my computer. Future mixes will be better planned. Enjoy the pop songs.
The Frogs: Laying Down My Love 4 U - 1st LP
The Smiths: Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - Louder Than Bombs
Blank Dogs: Now Signals - The Fields CS
Drakkar Sauna: Notes on the State of Virginia - Drakkansasauna
Pavement: Box Elder - Westing by Musket and Sextant
White Denim: Heart from Us All - Exposion

EDIT: leave a comment about whether you think this is a good way to share mixtapes. I'm using my "Google Sites" account, which has a 100 MB limit, so can only do one at a time. The direct link thing is nice though, I think...better than streaming.

Beer for My Horses

Better than I thought it would be. I only made it halfway through, but still, better than I thought. The Nuge shoots some people with a crossbow.

Quantum of Silence

The new Bond movies evacuate James Bond of the only qualities that distinguished him from other action heroes. I can’t say I miss the old Bond, since I never really liked any of the movies in the first place, but I can say that I like the new James Bond aesthetic even less. Up until Casino Royale, dialogue had always been a considerably important part of every Bond film. The two most recent movies have all but done away with the nuisance of talking. The leftover silence is filled up with extra-long chase scenes and gunfights. There are at least two ways to interpret this shift:

1) The new Bond movies are truly of our time insofar as they recognize that the fate of the postmodern subject it to become a blank functionary of structures which exceed his comprehension. The new Bond films allegorize the diminishing illusions of individuality and autonomy which accompany the increasing technicization of the lifeworld in Western postindustrial society.
2) The new Bond aesthetic is a direct result of Hollywood’s mission to reduce film to pure spectacle so that American movies can become a truly global commodity, exchangeable as hogs or horseshit. If you can get rid of subtitles and other alienating cultural markers then you’re sure to sell a lot more films in the global marketplace.

The first interpretation is obviously a load of crap, but people have said things like it to me. I include it only to preempt any arguments that the new Bond films are anything more than the reflection of economic calculation. I can’t stand when people try to tell me that the new Bond movies are “really rethinking the whole Bond mythology” or some other bullshit. It’s almost as infuriating as when adults tell me I should read Harry Potter books. If you are an adult and you read Harry Potter books then you need to keep that information to yourself. When you tell other people you read Harry Potter books they feel sorry for you.

What’s really interesting though is that film is cycling back to silence: the day of the talkie may be over. It’s likely that this whole “silence” thing is just a temporary trend (soon everyone will be speaking English anyway), but I will take all bets that we’re going to see some films that completely do away with dialogue in the coming year. Wall-E (which I haven’t seen) apparently comes pretty close.

JCVD

JCVD is the movie where Jean-Claude van Damme tells us what it's like to be Jean-Claude van Damme. This happens mostly in a schizophrenic scene where the camera pans out of frame and shows the lighting equipment positioned above the set. Jean-Claude magically levitates upward with the camera (in film this is called a "metaphor": we are going "up" into his "brain-thoughts"), and delivers a 6-minute monologue about what it's like to be a 13 year-old karate champion with a singular dream to be a movie star. He also says some utterly incomprehensible shit, and then he starts to cry.

The best part of the film is that there's a guy running around who looks just like John Cazale in Dog Day Afternoon, and he gets shot in the forehead, just like John Cazale in Dog Day Afternoon. I'm not sure this had much to do with JCVD, but Dog Day Afternoon is pretty boss...so bravo!

There's really nothing surprising here: JCVD only succeeds in confirming that once we strip away the action-star cliches that have come to define van Damme, all we find is another layer of even less interesting I'm-just-a-regular-guy cliches.

Frost/Nixon

It's okay to love Nixon again! It took a long time, but finally someone (Ron Howard--the best!!) had the courage to show that all of Nixon's so-called "bad decisions" were just the result of his having an overbearing father whose approval he could never secure. If Nixon committed any crime it was being too sensitive and fragile for this world. This revelation should have come much sooner. It is imperative that we, as Americans, rewrite the Nixon narrative so that we can once again have faith in our public officials. Crook? No! Just a man, flawed like the rest of us. Ron Howard has taken the first important step, but it is up to us to do the rest.

Luckily, it appears that an intrepid few in the media have taken Howard's cue, and are speculating on the mental health of Illinois governor Rod "The Wad" Blagojevich. If we attribute all of his crimes to childhood trauma over which he had no control, then it will be much more difficult for the scandal to derail our faith in our politicians. And derailing faith in politicians is not what Democracy and Freedom need right now. Thanks Ron Howard! You are a true American.