Monday, December 19th, 2011 
Ideological clichés are deadly. In 1989, the end of the short twentieth century (1917 – 1989) with all its horrors, I thought this simple proposition was something that had been learned, broadly across the political spectrum . I was wrong, and the evidence has been overwhelming. This was my biggest mistake as a sociologist of the politics and culture.
When Soviet Communism collapsed, I thought it had come to be generally understood that simple ideological explanations that purported to provide complete understanding of past, present and future, and the grounds for solving the problems of the human condition, were destined for the dustbin of history. The fantasies of race and class theory resulted in profound human suffering. I thought there was global awareness that modern magical thinking about human affairs should and would come to an end.
My first indication I had that I was mistaken came quickly, December 31, 1989, to be precise. It came in the form of an op ed. piece by Milton Friedman. While celebrating the demis e of socialism in the Soviet bloc, he called for its demise in the United States, which he asserted was forty-five per cent socialist, highlighting the post office, the military (a necessary evil to his mind) and education. He called for a domestic roll back of the socialist threat now that the foreign threat had been vanquished. Friedman knew with absolute certainty that only capitalism promoted freedom, and he consequentially promoted radical privatization as a solution to all social problems. This was an early battle cry for the neo-liberal assault of the post-cold war era.
The assault seemed particularly silly to me, and hit close to home, since I heard Friedman lecture when I . . .
Read more: My Big Mistake: The End of Ideology, Then and Now
Sunday, December 18th, 2011 
The late Christopher Hitchens had taught at the New School, and several cohorts of students in the Committee on Liberal Studies had gotten to know him well. But those of us who participated in the 2009 Democracy & Diversity Summer Institute in Poland will always remember him from Wroclaw.
The institute had just relocated from Krakow to Wroclaw, an old and booming city in western Poland (formerly Breslau, prewar Germany’s second largest city) to be closer to the challenging issues of an expanding Europe. Hitchens was working on his memoirs, published a year later as “Hitch 22,” and his visit to Wroclaw was a private journey to find out more about his Jewish great-grandmother from Kepno, a small town in Lower Silesia, not far from Wroclaw. We helped him get to Kepno accompanied by the head of the Wroclaw Jewish community, and to get access to archives there.
Hitch was more than generous in return. Long late-night intensive discussions with him were an amazing gift. We talked together about the place, the shifting borders, the shifted populations, the imprint of German Wroclaw, but also of Czech, Austrian, and Polish Wroclaw, and about the remnants of the Jewish past here, the languages and accents heard on the streets, and the social potential of borderlands in the new Europe.
We were walking through the park to Centennial Hall, an impressive modernist structure where Hitchens was to give a public talk, when the news came in from Oxford that Leszek Kolakowski, a youthful Marxist, then a critic of Communism, intellectual godfather of the Solidarity movement, and one of Europe’s most distinguished thinkers had just died.
We did not know that Christopher Hitchens had studied under Kolakowski at Oxford. He quickly changed the focus of his talk, asked for a moment of silence, and spoke about the impact of developments in Eastern Europe on his generation of British leftist students. It was a magical moment, as it was at once a eulogy for his teacher, for his ancestors from Kepno, and for his youth.
. . .
Read more: Hitchens in Wroclaw – A Remembrance
Thursday, December 15th, 2011 
One Russian blogger has dubbed his country’s current developments “Russia’s Great December Evolution,” a quip on the Great October Revolution of 1917, and many mass media have eagerly reported the signs of a Russian Winter, following the Arab Spring. Interestingly, almost all Russia watchers who for years have categorized the new Russia as an increasingly authoritarian state where democratic reforms have ceased or failed altogether, are warming up to the possibility of a more democratic Russia.
However, some very significant developments that have been mostly overlooked by both researchers and journalists are aspects of social transformation in the past twenty years combined with long existing germs of democracy. These phenomena have convinced me that democratic ideas and practices exist in Russia. Hence, I was happy to see that during one of the recent demonstrations a participant carried around a sign that read, “We exist.”
Yes, of course it is important to note that Russia’s current political system can be described as a façade democracy or managed democracy, whose leaders are neither interacting with the citizens nor showing any interest in letting them participate in a meaningful way. Nor have these leaders been capable to respond appropriately to social change. This Potemkin political system ignores but has not killed the citizens’ democratic values. Developments such as changes in work ethic, entrepreneurialism, increased foreign travel, and the rising use of new (social) media all need to be taken into account when analyzing the political values of Russians in their daily lives, and ultimately, understanding the country’s political reality.
Part of that political reality is the understanding that Russia’s aspirations for democracy go far back, thinking mainly of the alternative political culture that Russian emigrants and Soviet dissidents helped flourish, even though it was not manifested publicly. Soviet citizens had learned to cope with many of the practical difficulties and hardships of daily life through an effective system of social informal networks. Over time, Soviet citizens had created varied responses to . . .
Read more: Russia’s Democratic Ideas and Practices
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 
Kevin Kallaugher, the world famous political cartoonist, KAL, recently spoke at a meeting of the New Canaan Senior Men’s Club. He discussed his career, the creative processes involved in his approach to expression, shared his works, and he highlighted recent developments in editorial and political cartoons, highlighting the hazards of being a political and editorial cartoonist. KAL is known for his innovative work in print, animation and interactive animation. He noted that in two thirds of the world his talk would not be possible. He and his audience could either be harassed or prosecuted by authorities or other groups seeking to suppress speech. KAL is a past president of the Cartoonist Rights Network (CRNI), an organization that is dedicated to supporting cartoonists who are at risk. He is a great storyteller — even people not particularly interested in his work, were very interested in his comments. He didn’t spend a lot of time lamenting about the plight of editorial and political cartoonists, just enough to get me interested in trying to find out about the problem.
Political and editorial cartoonists use satire to identify issues and to try to change beliefs and behaviors. They raise issues, but rarely offer solutions. Reactions to their representations are almost always mixed. While cartoonists only occasionally hear from those who approve of their works, people who object to their images, ideas and sentiments often let cartoonists know what they think in no uncertain terms. Negative reactions range from harsh comments to threats, beatings and worse. Many governments ban satirical political and editorial cartoons. Satire is perceived to be disrespectful, and a threat to power and authority. Some groups view the expressions as blasphemous. Cartoonists and organizations that publish and distribute their works have been threatened even with death threats. Success for cartoonists is illusive, but the dangers to them are all too real. In one sense, political and editorial cartoons are no laughing matter.
According to the CRNI, “Editorial cartoonists are frequently the first individuals to be silenced by extremists, thugs and tyrants.” . . .
Read more: Political and Editorial Cartoons: No Laughing Matter
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 
This is the second part of a two-part post on new developments in Israeli and Palestinian film. Part 1 provided the historical and aesthetic background. Today, the new developments are considered. -Jeff
One of the first attempts to undermine and transcend Israeli cinema’s tendentious rhetorics and contents was Avanti Popolo (Rafi Bukai, 1986). It takes place in Sinai during the 1967 Six Days War. Two Egyptian soldiers (acted by Palestinian actors Salim Daw and Suhel Haddad) lost in the desert without water, discover two bottles of whiskey in a UN abandoned jeep, which they drink to survive. Khaled is an aspiring actor in Cairo fringe theater. He would love to act Hamlet but instead has been given the part of Shylock, the Jew, in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” As the two wander, thirsty and drunk in the desert, they run into an Israeli patrol. Their captors refuse to share a can of water with them. Khaled stuns them as he desperately quotes Shakespeare tinged with an Arab accent “I am a Jew! Has a Jew not eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food…”
An article by the Palestinian poet and critic Anton Shammas has brought to my attention that
“the two allegedly Egyptian soldiers lost in the desert talk behave like typical Palestinians. They represent the Palestinian to the Israeli cognition through the back door, through a brilliant, humane, humoristic and most of all clever cinematic distraction. Bukai, maybe intuitively, felt that the only way in which the Palestinian could touch Israeli conscience and raise his interest would be through a softened, retouched image of the ‘Egyptian’, who has existed significantly in this awareness since the days of the Bible.” (Shammas Anton, ‘He Confused the Parts’ in Bukai Rafi, Avanti Popolo, Kinneret Publishing House, 1990. Hebrew)
What strikes me about Avanti Popolo, is its yearning for a disinterested and universal “promesse du Bonheur” according to Stendhal’s famous definition of beauty, for Shakespeare, capable of transcending Israeli/Arab differences and conflicts. Avanti Popolo was followed . . .
Read more: Promesse de Bonheur in Nowhere: Fantasies of Art & Beauty in Israeli and Palestinian Films, Part 2
Monday, December 12th, 2011 
This is the first of a two-part post on developments in Israeli and Palestinian films: Today a reflection on the historical and aesthetic background, tomorrow on new developments. -Jeff
“The promise of happiness” bequeathed by art and beauty (Stendhal) does not seem to have much political or social relevance in the grim perspective of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict today. For most Palestinians, happiness probably depends on getting rid of the Israeli occupation, if not of the Israelis themselves, For most Israelis, happiness may consist of being relieved of Arab threats, if not of the Arabs. Artifacts of both cultures, especially their respective cinemas, tended to reflect this irrelevance till the late 20th Century.
Recent developments in Israeli and Palestinian film share a new, unexpected theme: an outspoken yearning for high-art and beauty. In Atash (Thirst) by Tawfiq Abu Wa’el, an Arab village girl, oppressed and almost raped by her father, obsessively reads classical poetry. In Rafi Bukai’s Avanti Popolo, an Egyptian soldier captured by Israelis in the 6 Day War Sinai quotes Shylock’s monologue to save his life. In Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention, a beautifully stylized fashion-model causes a military checkpoint watch-tower to collapse. In Yoav Shamir’s documentary, Checkpoint, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians in a routine search are accompanied by a beautiful Italian opera tune coming from a radio-transistor. These (and many more) works juxtapose art and beauty with bleak, everyday reality, creating an unanticipated, almost utopian vision in which art and beauty transcend reality, thus becoming critical (and self-critical) comments on their respective Israeli and Palestinian societies. They “help sketch new configurations of what can be seen, what can be said and what can be thought and, consequently, a new landscape of the possible” (Jacques Rancière).
*****
In 1899, Shaul Tshernichovski published “Facing the Statue of Apollo,” one of the most influential poems in modern Hebrew literature:
Youth-God, sublime and free, the acme of beauty…
I came to you – do you recognize me?
I am a Jew, your eternal adversary…
I bow to life and courage and beauty…
The outspoken idolatry of the poem . . .
Read more: Promesse de Bonheur in Nowhere: Fantasies of Art & Beauty in Israeli and Palestinian Films, Part 1
Thursday, December 8th, 2011 
I am reliably informed that Deliberately Considered is not the first website that Republican operatives turn to, and I have little interest in stalking these worthies, at least without a Newt Gingrich-level consulting contract. However, I do follow the Republican nomination demolition derby with skeptical amusement, awaiting the Santorum boomlet and wondering if, by some Mormon miracle, Jon Huntsman might be the last man standing. More likely is that Republicans will find themselves with a set of fatally-damaged goods.
What has been most notable about the current Republican contenders is who has chosen not to run. These are politicians who have avoided the injurious process that constitutes what we term the American democratic process. Significant figures such as Mike Huckabee, Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, John Thune, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush (!) – and, for comic relief, Sarah and The Donald – have all determined that they should watch this unreality show from afar. While one – even a Republican one – might not embrace all of these possibilities, several compare favorably to the current field.
Some commentators, such as Howard Megdal of Salon.com, speculate that Republicans can save themselves from themselves if none of the announced candidate were to win, and for Republicans to retreat to the once common outcome of a brokered convention in which through negotiation wise men anointed a candidate. Will we see a convention of the sort that through a night of cigar smoke gave birth to Warren Gamaliel Harding on the tenth ballot? Or the one that selected Woodrow Wilson on the 46th ballot? With the Republican commitment to proportional awarding of delegates, if the current candidates remain in the race, it is likely that no candidate will gain a majority of delegates, and the decision will be made at their late August convention in Tampa, Florida with delegates eventually released from their commitments. The gift that Republicans can hope for late summer is a collection of losers.
The question is not who would have the . . .
Read more: Brokered Democracy
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 
(In the memory of Vladimir Ilyich, who in spite of everything was a great political man.)
The Occupation of Wall Street has already done important things. It has put the very important issue of inequality on the collective American agenda. It has experimented with forms of direct democracy and in ways of seriously influencing the political system outside the official channels. It has the potential of becoming not only the forerunner, but also a key component of a new American movement for more democracy and more justice. But, as all movements, it must confront its own worst tendencies to realize its genuine potential.
By tendencies I mean strategies rather than people or individuals or groups. Such a negative strategy is symbolized by the slogan that appeared just before the taking of a part of the New School: “occupy everything.” I regard it as a childhood ailment not to denigrate any participants or to represent their age (they were adults!), but to indicate problems of an early, developmental phase that can still be overcome.
“Occupy everything” is a slogan and a program incompatible with a non-violent movement aiming to raise moral as well as political consciousness. The idea of “seizing public or quasi-public spaces to make broad claims about the overall (mis)direction of our society” cannot be justified as a general right in the name of which the law is violated to transform or improve it. It is incompatible with productively addressing “the public at large.” Finally, and most clearly “occupy everything” is deeply contradictory with the creative slogan “we are the 99%.”
“Occupation” as against “sit-in” is a military metaphor. Occupation easily calls to mind the occupation of Iraq, and of the West Bank of the Jordan River. Sit-in means that we enter and stay in the space of an institution, non-violently, space where we have some kind of right to be and exercise civil disobedience, accepting to pay a price when arrested. For example, African Americans who sat in had a right to . . .
Read more: The Occupation of the New School as a Childhood Ailment of the OWS
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 
As I agreed to publish the faculty letter concerning Occupy New School, authored by Andrew Arato, I asked Nancy Fraser for permission to publish her dissenting note, which also circulated among the faculty. Unfortunately, there was an email mix up, and she didn’t get back to me. Yesterday, we finally were in contact. She asked me to publish it as I received it, which I gladly do here. -Jeff
Dear all, I hate to be a party pooper, but I must tell you that I will not sign this letter. While I agree that the administration handled the situation very well, I belong to the group, described as a “small minority,” that believes that a building occupation need not be justified by demands addressed explicitly to its owners. In fact, that idea runs directly counter to the premise of the occupy movement, as I understand it, which involves seizing public or quasi-public spaces to make broad claims about the overall (mis)direction of our society. Hence, the occupiers of Zucotti Park were not addressing demands to its owners, but were seeking to speak to the public at large. I see no principled reason why a movement should not occupy a university building to make such a statement or initiate such a discussion. The students who did so in this case may have misjudged the situation, overestimating their support and failing to communicate clearly what they were doing and why. But if so, those were tactical errors in executing what might have been a promising strategy. The letter that many of you have chosen to sign does not even contemplate such possibilities. It seems to me to be written from the standpoint of those who govern, whereas I prefer to consider this matter from the standpoint of those who protest injustice, a group our society already marginalizes–politically, intellectually, and spatially.
Best to all, Nancy Fraser
To comment on this post, click on the title.
Monday, December 5th, 2011 ![Book cover of Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionist Collage, and Copyright Law [Paperback] © 2011 Duke University Press Books](../../wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Cutting-Across-Media-96x150.jpg)
In his recent book Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, British-born writer Simon Reynolds laments what he believes is the lack of creative originality in contemporary popular music. He compares what he perceives as the debilitated state of today’s sounds to the toxic instruments of financial piracy that nearly collapsed the global economy: “music,” he writes, “has been depleted by derivativeness and indebtedness.”
And yet one might note the irony that Reynolds himself initially emerged as a champion of English punk, a musical form that leapfrogged back over the stylistic excesses of glam, disco, and arena rock to mine the lode of romantic primitivism that fueled skiffle and the thrashier proponents of beat, in particular groups like Them, the Kinks, and the Yardbirds. What’s more, the subsequent style Reynolds lionized, rave, is even more obviously built upon a preexisting foundation, pilfering tracks from a variety of sources, which are sampled, looped, and mashed-up into collages of sound.
That this is pretty much the way that popular music, and indeed much of art, both high and low, has long been made is obvious to Kembrew McLeod and Rudolf Kuenzli, who have put together the collection of essays, Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionist Collage, and Copyright Law (Duke University, 2011). As befits its subject, the book brings together a broad range of contributors, from highfalutin academics to cutting-edge (no pun intended) street-level remixers, who reflect on a plethora of creative practices in all manner of media and genres.
An idea underlying the book is that the process of exchanging, altering, and assimilating information is and always has been central to humankind’s conscious being in the world. Natural scientist Richard Dawkins terms the basic unit of information exchange the meme, which is to culture what the gene is . . .
Read more: Cutting Up: Art in the Age of Electronic Reproduction
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