i'm very wary of something called the "idiom of crisis." you see it being used within intellectual circles and the first world to frame the third world, oppressive regimes, the axis of evil -- making these strange, far away places, urban conurbations, and filthy images of poverty into urgent ideological battlezones. when the first world frames the third world in this way, whether it is framing the Middle East, South America, Asia, it suggests the inferiority of the third world, as a child-like / corrupt Other who has not advanced to the Western stage of growth, and reinforces the position of the first world as patriarch and arbiter of values.
for example, this back and forth op ed between a well-known architect and an editor of the respected magazine, Domus. They discuss the implications of featuring North Korean architecture in Domus: one enraged that the publication would support architecture in an evil country, and the other agreeing that the country's evil, but architecture is used subversively and "opens a crack in the regime's isolation." in either case, i don't find trouble with whether or not North Korean architecture ought to be presented in a positive light. i find trouble with the common language between the architect and the editor. people are "automata," the condition is a "nightmare."
it's the language of distance and moral righteousness. the architect spews crisis, the enemy, the hunger, and the editor restates it to form consensus with the outraged architect. both end up telling us, not that he or the other is more ideologically correct, but that both cast the nation (third world, poverty, crisis) as an abstraction -- an idea that they both patch together in contrast to their notions and images of justice and civility (their enlightened Western culture). it's anti-propaganda propaganda.
Dictatorships, poverty, cruelty ought to receive criticism, but the language frequently used by those casting criticism creates a false sense authority -- the illusion of an "objective intellect." And this frequently underscores the reality of what's "on the ground" -- that real people live there, have families, needs, desires. As oppressive their conditions may be, people are not automata. Why negate this in your semiotic battleground?
this is the kind of pretentiousness coming from intellectuals and justice-mongers i hate. nations cannot be seen in such simplistic terms.
October 12, 2005
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2 comments:
"evil". my. fucking. arse.
i've just begun reading a comic book, "Pyongyang". and, while driving (around and around, forever and forever) LA with my dad, we talked about the silly "axis of evil".
it had been a long time since i last felt smart about world politics. i mean, uggh- politics. but anyway, the bush regime wants to e-lim-in-ate or topple these evil forces- it's paranoid about even the possibility that iranian research for nuclear energy development is just a guise for HIDING WEAPONS OF MASS MASS MASS DESTRUCTION!
it doesn't realize what kind of catastrophe might ensue if u.s. soldiers do indeed march into north korea to "install a democracy". fuck, look at that language: "install". what if too many north koreans rush the chinese and southern borders, too many for those countries to welcome? north korea is not an evil country!!!!
remember the music video we saw at res-fest? the one with footage of north korean.. stuff?
i can't remember what more i was gonna type. hi jean!!!
hi andrea!
the music video was taken from the documentary "A State of Mind" shot by British filmmakers (hence the super cheesey electro track!!) -- the mass games. what the narrator repeated throughout that film was these human spectacles of synchronized gymnastic feats that are held every year subjugate the individual to the nation and the Great Leader.
of course, it fails to go deep into how people live on a day to day basis, etc. maybe it has to skim the surface, as a consequence of being under the watchful eye of the government while filming, but i honestly think the filmmaker could have done more research on his part ...
in the end, none of these places are as exotic or distant as we think they are. it's just too bad people are given and accept opinions and ideologies before they even try to understand.
patriarchy. what i mean is, we sympathize for the women, as if they're are the only innocents and victims in their places -- we have to rescue the women from the oppressive men of their culture! i mean, can you think of any stereotype of the third world that doesn't include misogyny? asian men are misogynists, middle eastern, african men are misogynists. what about the effect of economics? of education?
i cringed anytime 'human rights' mongers talked about rescuing 'the middle eastern women' from having to cover their bodies. yes ... destroy the 'culture' ... that'll get to the root of it.
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