Report from the Bower
The L-Tree will continue not putting out any new leaves for at least another day or two as I make my way to Kansas City and environs.
Just one quick further word about competence, which others have spent much time in the box upon: it occurs to me that it's one of those deconstructo-words that mean both themselves and themselves + something else (like "supplement"). Both "just enough" and "plenty of enough." So to say something is competent often suggests a begrudging acknowledgement of bare sufficiency, at the same time that to praise someone for their competence may very well imply that they are pretty hot stuff. I think there's a whole philosophical thesis in there somewhere about aesthetic economy. Discuss.
42 comments:
Kasey,
I agree that there seems to be a great amt. of connotation/tone involved in just as much as how you say "competent" as with what the word actually means.
Competence, at times, seems too close to inept for it to be a term functioning outside of the "I'm not a crook" capability, i.e., Do we say that experts are competent? It is expected that they at least be...but...An expert should be more-than-competent. Those competency tests should be different from a proficiency tests...yet this latter word suffers from "Deconstructo-proxy" too. To have a proclivity to competency is satisfactory (Add this word too), but doesn't cut it against the experts...etc, etc.
Fine and Fine
Re: Competence, Linguistics, Politics, & Post-avant matters
I’ve noticed for some time, and commented, on a few occasions, that there seems to be a lack of knowledge of (or interest in) traditional prosody amongst a good segment of the post-avant community. The same goes for grammar and linguistics. Truth is, the rare times I’ve seen post-avant critics make use of grammatical analysis (even in cases of simple sentence parsing), I’ve noticed that the result is usually completely pedestrian and performatively gratuitous (adjectives! direct objects!). Often, the result is preposterously wrong.
Thus, here I offer something that may have some productive relation to issues of poetic “competence.” Let’s see…
I read yesterday the very interesting interviews with Charles Bernstein and Mark Wallace at the Indian on-line magazine Kaurab http://www.kaurab.com/english/bernstein.html
In their interviews, both CB and MW are asked about Language and “post-language” poetry in relation to “grammar,” and each poet responds, in rather categorical register, to the effect that the power relations of the dominant social order are reflected in grammar's conventional, basic structures. Bernstein, for example, says the following:
AM: You and other Language Poets have professed that grammar structures tend to support the power structures of Western societies. Could you explain that with an example?
CB: Grammar, vocabulary, diction, form, and style reflect the power relations in a society. You can’t change the society by changing your grammar but any radical social, economic, or cultural change must necessarily come to terms with its rhetorics and its metaphors.
And Wallace, within a long answer on Language poetry and its relationship to younger “post-language” poets, makes the following echoing (and in context, approving) remark:
“In particular, many language poets have noted the way in which grammar structures tend to support the power structures of western societies.”
I was surprised to read these comments. Such claims of insidious correspondence between normative grammatical relations and false ideological effects were, of course, a staple of early Language poetry politics. But I hadn’t seen the “grammar principle” repeated anywhere for a long time, and I assumed it had more or less been abandoned as a naïve, quasi-Skinnerian or Whorfian holdover from the late-60s, when Langpo theory was taking its baby steps. After all, other hyperbolic notions from Langpo’s utopian phase (ending ca. first Gulf War) that made claims for linguistic structures reflecting and reproducing “capitalist” categories (e.g., the equivalence between “reference” and “commodity fetishism”) have pretty much been left behind in a quiet that would make a Quietude poet blush.
So I’d assumed an implicit assent had developed amongst “post-avant” poets: An assent around the notion that fundamental grammatical structures--following long-accepted research in the field--are *not* “socially” generated at their core, but are, rather, a deep, native function of the human mind, part of the genetic endowment of the species... I assumed, in other words, there had been an at least grudging recognition that Chomsky’s widely accepted theory of Universal Grammar made any “Marxist” proposals about *grammar proper* as some kind of refracted superstructural effect a problematic wager, to say the least.
But, since I seem to have been mistaken, I want now to ask: In what sense, exactly, as Bernstein and Wallace have it, would the structures of grammar mirror and reinforce existing social orders? Does grammar do this at phonological, morphological, and syntactical levels? If so, how is linguistic phenomena in these areas--the most traditional areas of grammatical study--shaped by ideological forces? What, precisely, is the ideological impact and register of such shaping? What would be a standard, reified syntactic structure, for example, that could be seen as creating collective expressions of "false consciousness"? These would be some questions that are begged by CB and MW's apparent assumptions.
The linguistic study of grammar is a pretty precise and rigorous science, so such vague pronouncements made by poets--particularly since they seem to be proffered as key elements of a “poetic politics”-- should be explained more specifically and at some length. (It’s possible that Bernstein and Wallace are using the term “grammar” somewhat loosely and confusedly, and that they mean specifically “discourse analysis,” or something in relation to the sub-area of pragmatics. Or perhaps they mean primarily, and rather banally, "metaphors," as Bernstein has it--though parataxis is hardly required to expose the often-harmful uses of metaphors. Whatever the case might be, a bit more rigor in explanation would be helpful…)
Going back, however, to my above-mentioned surprise at all this, perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised at all. Because if I ask myself what there is in Langpo literature that takes stock of Universal Grammar and really tries to deal with it in relation to the “reflectionist” schemas of the group’s heroic stage (a stage perhaps still more extant than realized!), well, what I realize is that there is little to nothing available at all.
And I ask myself how it could be possible that the now nearly half-century revolution in linguistics seems to have passed the “Language” poets and their descendants by.
Maybe, to use Kasey's phrasing above, there is, generally speaking, little more in post-avant poetry than a "bare sufficiency of competence" when it comes to linguistics? Which is, I don't know... maybe a good enough reason to drop the term "Language" until the situation changes?
By the way, on another, though related topic: I received yesterday the new issue of Soft Targets journal. The whole matter I was writing about at Lime Tree the past few days in relation to Badiou, Zizek, and the apparent incipient embrace of ultra-left violence-blather by a sector of the younger post-avant is resolutely confirmed. In fact, the situation is much worse than I thought. A couple of the texts therein, really, are just plain insane. (The one by Badiou is both pretty banal *and* a stunning, embarrassing example of how one's rhetorical method can illumine the disingenuousness of one's thesis, exposing, in process, the depths of an Author's arrogance.) It's all elegantly designed though, with a photo (I believe) of Allyssa Wolff baring her breasts and a grotesquely bizarre porn photo at issue's close, bearing a caption that alludes (again, I believe) to the solution of the Palestinian question... Very depressing.
Kent
Kent's incisive comment here seems to chime somewhat with my previous comment to the effect that "competence" is a term that should perhaps be restricted to general grammatical/reading/writing skills, which are (or would be, in an egalitarian society) foundational from "grammar school".
If such basic literary skills were valued and inculcated in primary school we wouldn't be talking about some phantom artistic "competence", because art takes place in a free sphere on a whole different level from these questions of primary education.
But as Kent emphasizes, the "poetry wars" for several decades have been about politicizing levels of diction (raw vs cooked, free vs metered, neo-formal vs generational NY School vs "language meanies", blah blah). Now we have the theorisms of "language dominance" (written, of course, by poets & philosophers well-fed & comfortable enough themselves to write complex sentences).
What a bore, said Chenier.
Kent, long an admirer of your work...so I feel the need to follow Joshua the other day and say you're not quite getting this "state violence" issue in Badiou.
Badiou's politics are anti-statist and jacobinist; and he has a long piece on the bankrupt nature of state "violence" (if by which we mean the revolutionary overcoming/will-to-change and not some pseudo-humanist ethics of numbers of corpses, today's ideology--in the strong sense--conceit numero uno) viz. the cultural revolution ( the essay also conceptualizes the paris commune as both anti-Statist and jacobinist. Zizek's return to the state here is in contradistinction to Badiou.)
Also: the crux of your intervention I do follow. It is a wonder to behold the way is which strikingly extreme comments meet little to no retort in contemporary american intellectual life. This seems to be a criterion for becoming well known. Badiou's comments are no doubt trained on the head of democracy, or as he puts it "capital-parliamentarianism"--"money, family, elections" as Le Siecle has it; yet relaxed liberal discourse seems to see it as another opinion, healthy even. At recent talks in LA Badiou sold out the house to what is a drastically embourgeoisified art establishment. What gives? one asks, without being surprised.
After formulating more fully his politics I think one can subsequently ask after the inherent limits to such a stance: anti-statist jacobinism. It is a decidedly post marxist one. It should also be pointed out that Robespierre himself was a polemicist against both the extreme ultra revolutionary position and the conservative attitude of consolidation... so Badiou, at best, has some form of temperance in mind. but what does a quasi-provincial political stance mean today in context of, to be crude, globalized slums, mega cities, the changing nature of war? Is the thickness of today's political scene even on such an ideational map? But your argument tends toward some form of unreconstructed rights discourse, it seems to me--and, of course, Zizek and Badiou are principle opponents of it.
Relatedly, I am not surprised to see the remarks from Bernstein in their unreconstructed state. The thing that always saved all of langpo's attendant self-regard for me was its kind of politicization of new criticism; not the social constructivist claims about grammar.
yours,
David Lau
Henry,
This: "...because art takes place in a free sphere on a whole different level from these questions of primary education," seems like generalization. What about art really takes place on a free sphere? How is the art given or bestowed? Only the act of endowing art would imply a trade. So how is it free? Mustn't there be endowment to also have freebies? Doesn't the term "free" itself play into the idea that there are endeavors that are costly? And isn't art one of them?
David,
Thanks for the comements. I saw your work in the Boston Reivew and elsewhere and I have liked it very much.
This is all quite interesting. But I don't know... I was an active Trotskyist for fifteen years, or so, back in youth; now I seem to have become in my nearing dotage (it's my b-day today, I'm feeling self-pity) something of a left social democrat who holds out hope that things like "unreconstructed rights discourse," as you put it, might have some partial, good role to play in the whole mix. I hope the Morales government in Bolivia, for example, maybe Chavez in Venezuela, might point ways toward relatively peaceful and generous transitions to more just social arrangements. Probably not, I well realize. It's a tough world. But I can tell you one thing: the indigenous people of Bolivia who are leading things down there are every bit as visionary and heroic as the communards of Paris. And many of them are committed to making a revolution that is not drenched in blood and Terror. I've met some of these people, and I will listen to them over a Zizek or a Badiou on revolution any day, frankly.
You say that Badiou is "anti-Statist and jacobinist." (And please don't misunderstand me--I really appreciate the intelligent commentary you and Joshua have made.) But Badiou, is a former defender of Stalin and Mao. I am not as closely familiar iwth his work as you, clearly. Can you or Joshua point me to any essays he's written of late that renounce his former Stalinism? Has he unequivocally written that he rejects the murder of tens of thousands of honest communists in teh USSR by a monstrous, criminal regime, one that not only betrayed its own people but the cause of world socialism, as well? If so, I will read Badiou with a new heart. (I didn't like his essay in Soft Targets, to tell the truth--overwhelmed by command language, completely at odds with the essay's theme and call.)
Anyway, I'll keep looking. Let me know anything you can in regard to my questions above. I thank you for the thoughtful response.
Kent
Kasey,
You're heading to my home town. I've been hearing great things about the Nelson Art Gallery's newest addition: The Bloch Building.
(http://briefepigrams.blogspot.com/2007/06/bloch-is-bustling.html)
Safe travels,
hi kent, yes absolutely I follow your point about developments in Bolivia and Venezuela, the great beacons for all kinds of practical and utopian hopes in such barbarous times. Nor am I trying to dismiss questions of rights--after all, what else is it about. I was trying to diagnose your locked in position on Zizek and Badiou, which I am sympathetic too, if I also believe there to be more productive ones.
There is something of a development in Badiou's thought on these historical crimes of communism. An earlier piece from the seventies is reinscribed in a late 90s piece, "D'une desastre obscur," on the death of communism, so to speak. A translation appears in Lacanian ink 22. Also there's this recent text called Polemics, which has a translation of his short book on the paris commune and the cultural revolution. (apologies for not pointing to these in the earlier post). And the texts I think most relevant to this discussion would be the book Ethics and a short piece he co-authored with others on the Le Pen run-off in 2002, "What is to be thought, what is to be done," a translation of which is still on counterpunch.org.
The problem with some of our rights discourse as I, following others, see it: the emergent configuration of humanitarian militarism, in which many of the left's rhetorical armaments, denatured and dematerialized, now sheath neo-imperial ambitions.
I'm trying to get an email for Mark Wallace. Can anyone help me out?
And David Lau and Josh Clover, would you kindly send me your email addresses? It concerns a possible publication of material around issues beginning to get discussed here.
kent.johnson@highland.edu
thanks,
Kent
Hi
There is no photograph of me anywhere, in any magazine, including Soft Targets, "baring my breasts". This is disinformation: a fucking lie.
Allyssa
Clarification: the breasts in question do not belong to Allyssa Wolf. It's a photograph of Marie-France/Mario, the figure referred to in Jean-Jacques Schuhl's piece, 'Boots' (which immediately precedes the photo in SOFT TARGETS v.2.1). Those pictured with her form the band 'Les Gazolines'. But Allyssa Wolf's poems are found elsewhere in ST v.2.1.
Here is the image, for reference: http://members.aol.com/and125/gazoline.htm
This, coupled with the recent ridiculous reactions to an entirely normal Jessica Smith photo (a serious and seriously interesting poet) nicely highlight disturbing post-avant sexism. Now that's depressing.
I've sent an apology to Allyssa
b-c. Below is the relevant part of the email. I do apologize. There was no intent to spread "disinformation." I think Allyssa and Jon know I've admired their consistently provocative work. I've certainly told them that, plenty of times.
My apologies, again.
Now, may more important matters reign...
*
Allyssa,
I'm really sorry about this. The photo is the only non-attributed piece of art work in the Soft Targets issue, and the person's face I'm referring to looked rather like you, at least to me, from a couple of photos of you I've seen. Maybe it's that the non-attributed photo comes right before Jon's sequence in the magazine, whose theme more or less matches the young hipster-decadence theatrics of the photo. So I guess I thought it was all of a piece. I am really sorry to have gotten that wrong! I suppose maybe that earlier book of Jon's (very powerful, in its curious way), the one held together by the safety pin, made me think that this all might have been an extension of that, too. In fact, one of the guys in the photo next to the person I took to be you, well, I could have sworn it was handsome Jon in shades!
(Kent)
Sorry, I see the letter copy to Allyssa got cut in half. Here is the rest of it:
[...]
Anyway, I hope you will accept my apologies. I certainly wasn't trying to spread any "disinformation." You and Jon are very edgy and daring and provocative in your poetry (Jon, in fact, can be outrightly pornographic!), and so I thought it was just a relatively harmless little gesture of screw you to the tame crowd.
I'll put up a correction at Lime Tree and wherever else you want me to.
sincerely, with apologies,
Kent
Argh, I see that one more clarification is in order: "Jon," whom I refer to a number of times in the letter to Allyssa, is the fine young poet Jon Leon, Allyssa's companion and co-editor in different projects.
finito,
Kent
its odd you and bernstein are saying the same thingss in slightly different ways. professor bernstein is an estabishment/critic (sequined radical)arguing against his own "country club"constructs (to excusehimself)from the very world he endorses. YOu on the other hand represent the obverse position, arguing( as an academic )for systemic accountability. You -are frontal, he is frontally challenged (less obviously frontal-but still frontal)why not each consider thickness?
While I'm impressed by D-Lau's ability to point toward possible responses regarding Badiou's history, I'm not sure that I accept the terms of that debate, wherein person X's reasoning is automatically false if they tarried with bad men in the past. That's mere ad hominem, and gets us right back to arguing Lehman's position regarding DeMan.
Kent, by your own admission you were "an active Trotskyist" — and we all know what Trotsky arranged for the Makhnovshchina. That doesn't delegitimate everything you say now, any more than a requisite public autocritique (a Maoist demand, no?) would suddenly legitimate your ideas. They're ideas. They can be thought. It's when I'm told I can't think about stuff that I get nervous.
I dunno, I find that I can find, e.g., Badiou's thought about "democracy" and its role in current political discourse to be interesting, useful, even insightful...without that leading me to pogrom. Just as I can enjoy Kent's thoughts on Language writing and grammar without, you know, "consolidating" the Ukraine.
Can I suggest that there seems to be one element left out of the discussion here, and that is to do with editorial process?
Hasn't there been some degree of suggestion that the choice of editors to publish certain material, in this case the Badiou, represents a tacit agreement with same? It's obvious that putting work in the public domain is not an implicit sign of editorial head-nodding. Sorry to underline an evidence, but the criticism of editors for the mere circulation of material seems presumptive.
Who's for the mise en place of a dialectic?
And I'm sure there's no problems about the honest misunderstanding Kent: I was just wondering why these questions of body image keep coming up in surprising contexts.
Jane,
I know all about the dark side of Trotsky during the civil war... Tough times. So point taken. But I hope you don't mean to draw some kind of equals sign between Trotsky and Stalin! That would be, to coin a phrase from the neo-Skinnerean Barrett Watten, really bad history.
In any case, as I earlier confessed, I've evolved, or mutated, into the hazy atmosphere of what one might call "left social democracy." Were it March, 1917 (back when I was in my late teens), I'd probably be passing out leaflets for the Left Mensheviks; were it post-October, I'd probably be running to join the anarchists and Social Revolutionaries at Kronstadt. Hindsight with tri-focals.
What's interesting about Trotsky is the change he undergoes after exile. His whole relationship with Surrealism, for one, is fascinating. Did you know that Neruda was involved with Siqueiros in a plot to murder Trotsky in Mexico? Not a good guy, really, that Stalinist Neruda.
Nicholas, of course, you are right that the publication of something doesn't necessarily imply editorial assent. But the Badiou is actually quite tame compared to other pieces in the ST issue. There is a theme that runs through it all--the editors call it Civil War. When one takes it as a package (including the porn), there is a definite drift and atmoshphere that I find both amusing (for its let's-play-at-armchair-revolution naivete) and troubling (for its tacit endorsement--again, my inference from accretion of contextual details--of an irreponsible, Stalinist-rooted ultra-leftism).
Frankly, I'll take the Second International Langpos and their booming academic farm system over that stuff anyday--even with all of Langpo's knee-slappingly funny social-constructivist ideas about grammar and syntax!
Olgastamata, I teach at a community college, where I am a dues paying member of the AFT. I teach low-income students remedial grammar. Charles Bernstein is an Endowed Donald Regan Professor of English at an Ivy League University. He teaches privileged students that our grammar reflects the hierarchies of a repressive social order.
Jordan, Kasey's email is ksilem@gmail.com.
So... let us undermine the bourgeoisie,
Kent
Kent & David,
I don't share your optimism (even if it's guarded) about Venezuela:
"...Bolivia and Venezuela, the great beacons for all kinds of practical and utopian hopes in such barbarous times."
I can't speak for Bolivia, but having studied Hugo Chávez's words & actions closely over the last 8 years, I can tell you that he's simply another in a long line of Latin American military dictators. He is just as much a caudillo as Pinochet in Chile, Fujimori in Peru or Gómez & Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela (to name a few).
Thanks to Chávez, the Cuban G2 is now deeply involved at all levels of the Venezuelan government and military (if it's immoral for the CIA to do this, what makes it OK for the G2?), a huge portion of government officials are military officers, and violent crime has continued to increase to horrific levels (while Chávez has yet to implement a serious plan to deal with violent crime, which affects all Venezuelans regardless of our political affiliations). I could go on with this list of misfortunes that Chávez has brought to Venezuela. At the very least you should know that a large percentage of the Venezuelan left is opposed to Chávez. This includes avant-garde poets such as Rafael Cadenas, Yolanda Pantin, Armando Rojas Guardia and intellectuals such Oswaldo Barreto, Teodoro Petkoff, Ana Teresa Torres, Colette Capriles and Demetrio Boersner.
What saddens me is how gullible so many on the left have been in Europe & the US regarding Chávez. Why on earth would anyone want to support a Lieutenant Colonel whose conception of democracy is based entirely on intimidation, violence, militarism and self-mythologization?
--Guillermo
[I originally backchannelled this but Kent wanted to make it public]
Kent--
I just wanted to add, per you continuing discussion on Kasey's blog that you should check out Badiou's _Metapolitics_ in addition to _Ethics_. Both books, along with _Handbook of Inaesthetics_ are worth reading; they are provocative and clear and right about lots of things, I think. I'm not sure I know what you're referring to when you mention his support for Stalinism and the Cultural Revolution. Can you point me to this? As for a "renunciation," in Ethics, he does say that Stalinism and the later stage of the Cultural Revolution, represent a forcing of the affirmative political/ethical solidarity of the original political event. He defines terror as the forcing of a political truth which, instead, must be subjectively affirmed not objectified and forced. I don't know if you'd find that satisfying; indeed, I don't know that I do. But I agree with Joshua that one can still read, and use, a philosopher who has questionable affiliations. Indeed, I don't think that a previous support for say, the Cultural Revolution, rules out the entire theory, or that all elements of his philosophy would tend this way. If we were to ask for these kinds of perfections from philosophers, we'd probably have very little to read. Just because Derrida uses Heidegger doesn't make the former a fascist, or, as O'Hara says: "Just because I'm alone in the snow / doesn't necessarily mean I'm a Nazi."
I don't think he's advocating any kind of bloodthirsty militancy, purges and forced collectivization and all that, but rather, like I said, suggesting that all non- parliamentarian resistance involves violence, force, even the non-violent kind . And, then, part of what he's trying to do is uncouple the instant association of actually possible anti-capitalism and mass murder, rather than link them further together. Since, as I'm sure you'll note, the first thing people do when one mentions some other way than capitalism, is to point out what happened in the past. . . and tell you that voting/legislation or purchasing power (free range chicken! fair trade coffee! ethically laundered commodities!) is the only politics there is.
That said, I think I disagree with Badiou on numerous points; I find his formalism and universalism troubling, in its "indifference" to all of the material determinations inside of which we exist, and I worry about the possibly authoritarian streak in his conceptualizing of the subject and the event. I still have to think about this more. At some point, I want to think about how his notion of the event, its truth, and the subject to that truth, is a rethinking of Lukacs notion of class consciousness. . . I feel the same way, even more strongly, about Zizek's prank Leninism, but that doesn't mean I don't think these two can't teach a different inclined thinker a thing or two, right?
Lots of stuff on the philosophy blogs about those two. Infinite Thought is good on Badiou. As are some of the others IT links to. A good example of Badiou's specific political sympathies can be found in this piece he wrote after the banlieu riots:
http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2005/11/badious-lorganisation-politique-on.asp
Do you think that maybe Bernstein's remarks about grammar are Wittgensteinian: the grammar of use? Certainly facile social constructivist claims continue to damage certain language poets' ability to be taken seriously. The magical thinking of langpo in its most extreme form, where the fragment is an instant undoing of ideology. But acknowledging the usefulness of Chomsky doesn't mean social construction goes out the window. . . It's still pretty live in the humanities, no?, albeit in a more subtle forms than one might have encountered it in, say, Content's Dream. And hasn't linguistics moved way past generative grammar, isn't it about cognitive psychological theories of embodiment and intention? That is, finding a way to deal with culture? At least that's what the people who read this stuff tell me. . . I guess that I would give Bernstein the benefit of the doubt and wonder if he doesn't mean, by grammar, something like Barthesian ideological codes that get applied to the reading of texts, and which the texts themselves force upon us, social grammars, etc.
And, David, on the point of Badiou's popularity among the "embourgeoisified" LA art-scene ), I think it might be because Badiou has one of the strongest accounts of art's agency, its ability to remake and reconstellate the world, to produce a universalizable experience. Other aesthetic theories give you a weak reflective or diagnostic power. But not Badiou's! It's gratifying for an artist, no? Or one could be cynical and think that Badiou's universalism licenses a certain reactionary by those in the dominant, I dunno. Or it's just becuase he's always in Lacanian Ink and they have such strong connections to the spigots of artland.
Soft Targets is coming in the mail, I hear, and if I have thoughts about it, I'll post them over at my place.
Jasper
I am not familar with Kent Johnson's work, but if this discussion is indicative of a cross section of representation of USA poetics and the debates in your part of the worldetc., his voice strikes me as the most authentic. Please don't spout out Foucault and tell me there is no authenticity left in the world.
http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html
So my question really is: what of those emerging voices who distrust the poetry of today, entangled as it is in MFA industry etc; estranged from body. I know one woman (recently nominated for the Griffin prize) who told said I could not write b/c I have no 'professional experience.' This is sickening. And if you have an MFA, it probably makes it easier to get publications in the 'leading' journals of the day. Who wants to write like those poets?
Who believes in poetry so much not to give a fuck about schools and whatnot? There's a few in Canada. But look at CHP, how many writers of colour? There will be influences, but those who try to create genealogies are the people to distrust. They are speaking for the professional classes and their mainly white, male position. Even all the academic jargon that gets deployed and thrown around like undigested beef, overtakes the conversations. They are also speaking of their location in the Western world. What if place was broken down; what would happen to languish? So why is there so much alienation now, why don't those marginal voices attempt to form some sort of under-erasure group across the reified lines of 'race' and gender. Where is the ground upon which such a social/aesthetic formation can begin to form? Why this Asian, that South Asian, this flarf. The decaying rubric of representation--in the case of these new aesthetics, in rejection to it, perhaps. But there is no social ground which would suggest something emerging from that old calcified 'subversion.' But these people have power, will they open their doorways wide enough to question their own colonial constructs written in blood? Where is space in any of this for community of exiles?
Comrade guillermo sounds kinda like the new york times circa the coup in 2002? And, really, nah, there are people to the left of Chavez--who would seem some days to merely be trying to negotiate better terms of entry into the straight up world market. Apologies, but for anti-chavistas, I get glib. The difference between the G2 and the CIA, as Marcuse once noted in a letter to Heidegger viz. stalin and hitler, is the thin line between civilization and barbarism.
And also, excuse the pittorialist approach to Badiou or whatever else. Badiou does recapitulate a number of themes from western marxist aesthetics (and doesn't seem to think Adorno an interlocutor, though much of Badiou's aesthetics newly articulates adornian (aes-)themes... and I don't know of a text addressed to Lukacs.) His approach to aesthetics is anti-Platonic platonist, his greatest american poet is Stevens...maybe he would like B. Guest too.
In addition to your plausible hypotheses, Jasper, I was trying to image this scene in LA simply to point out, stick figure style, that nobody thinks anymore--here's Badiou, anathema to substantial portion of mainstream curatorial and gallery practice, predicated as it is on an identitarian trend from the early 90s, ethnic art, and body art: "the minor mode of our expression"--"the lukewarmness of sharing" as "15 theses on contemporary art" puts it cuttingly--or they don't seem to mind the dereifying and disclosive turning inside out of their objects. I also follow the point about his potent optic; I would add that he's positioned himself polemically for a critical intervention in the field of "making" all kinds of art.
But aren't you ignoring the material conditions of say Heidegger's thought and then criticizing
Badiou for doing the same in relation to art? Could it be said that what we really value in art or politics is an emergent dimension irreducible to the material admixture of its contingent articulation? (Politics being a thought.) That, in adorno's dictum on surrealism, we value an art that "batters its own foundations"?
David
David,
Setting aside your irony, I suggest you spend some time in Venezuela (not, mind you, on some Global Exchange "revolutionary" tour). Until you've experienced the horrific wave of violent crime that has afflicted Venezuela since Chávez came into power, you're simply spouting talking points from the Venezuela Information Office, or any one of the many other propaganda outfits funded by the Venezuelan government. Petrodollars at work.
In my book the Cuban G2 you seem to adore are just as barbaric as the CIA. Or, are you gonna to tell us Fidel is another one of your heroes?
You don't seem to know much about the broad range of political voices in Venezuela, within and against Chavismo. No need to apologize for being gullible & misinformed about Venezuela. Spend some time in Venezuela, and less time writing clichés about that reactionary Lieutenant Colonel.
--Guillermo
you, guillermo, are also intoning cliches... and darkening all the keys here; all now come encrusted with a certain kind of firestarter. No one is dismissing your expert knowledge, here, but trying to see what's at work in the thought, however glibly...maybe you missed the earlier thread, which was a long way towards anti-stalinism, without anti-comintern.
keeping cool,
David
David--
It's a good question, this one: "Could it be said that what we really value in art or politics is an emergent dimension irreducible to the material admixture of its contingent articulation?" I admit that many people will value this: that's why I think Badiou's notion of ruptures and events are gratifying to artists and writers, who often traffic in pseudo-ruptures and pseudo-events. And for those who live a diet of all modernism all the time. I'm not sure this is what I value. If it's an emergent dimension, then it has some material or historical quality, just one not yet remarked. This is, for me, the best I get from art, to point out the leading edge of changing conditions. And I'm still not sure whether or not this is consonant with Badiou, or whether his account of soustraction isn't ultimately too romantic. No magic bullets here, I'm afraid. Not that I don't want them.
As for politics, yes, this is exactly what I value in it. Now, for some politics. . . Btw, I liked the trailer to your film.
Jasper
David,
There's no hassle. I'm not looking for an argument. We can simply continue on our diverging paths regarding Venezuela.
I'm not concerned with commenting on the thread, though I've followed it with great interest for the last week. But I do want to point out your use of clichés when it comes to speaking about Venezuela ("...the great beacons for all kinds of practical and utopian hopes in such barbarous times.") Venezuela right now is a confusing, violent and disastrous place. It's been that way since before Chávez came into power, but his regime has exacerbated the tensions in a reactionary and destructive manner (typical of most military regimes).
As for Stalinism, the Venezuelan and Cuban governments are doing a fine job of resurrecting that specter. They are militaristic movements, though experts at marketing themselves as "progressive" or "socialist."
I'm not an authority on Venezuela, I've simply suffered the effects of Chavismo in person so I have no illusion about it being a "beacon of hope." I felt that way briefly in 1998 and 1999 but the reality of a military government quickly changed my mind.
--Guillermo
ok, but the resort to the personal, however impossible, is what we've got to resist, at least in forms of thought: otherwise we play opinionated one ups till blue faced. on the left, we've got to be able to go our separate ways on things, but be able to have reasoned our way there. saying he's a military regime is, thinking about the world writ large, sort of rhetorical? My statement, which you've quoted twice now, rings I think with some clarity at the level of the general exceptional status of Ven and Bol. in the region: judge how you will, the qualitative difference between them and others in the south remains.
David
David,
When you say:
"My statement, which you've quoted twice now, rings I think with some clarity at the level of the general exceptional status of Ven and Bol. in the region: judge how you will, the qualitative difference between them and others in the south remains."
you seem to be assuming that because Venezuela's political situation is "exceptional" it's somehow admirable. I'll take Lula any day over Chávez because at least in Brazil the military isn't running the show. At least with Lula (or Bachelet) there is some hope for a democratic, pluralistic debate of ideas & policies. In Venezuela, the military sets the tone and the rules for any political discourse. The tone is violent and confrontational, thoroughly militaristic.
I don't see why the left should consider an autocratic military officer with delusions of grandeur as an inspiration. Though I do acknowledge that the Venezuelan government has been marketing itself internationally quite well, managing to convince countless people in the U.S. and Europe that they represent some new type of socialism (21st Century Socialism).
But marketing is usually false. The tactical brilliance of Chavismo is its ability to portray itself internationally as a progressive movement, while within Venezuela it proceeds as countless other military governments in Latin America have done for centuries. Behind all his savvy marketing flair, Chávez is just another caudillo enamored of his own power and guns.
--Guillermo
But wait, Guillermo: while I'm sure your claims match your experience, certain empirical questions remain. Do you deny the vast increase in medical access for the poorest 60% of Venezuelans? Do you deny the equivalent increase in teachers and access to education?
And what do you make of the fact that your military strongman, in keeping with the spirit and letter of the constitution, stood for a recall election? That this election was one of the most closely-monitored in history, by international delegations and NGOs, and that it was certified a free election with "no elements of fraud" by Jimmy Carter and the Sec. General of the OAS (neither of whom were particular adherents of Chavismo, to say the least)? And what of the fact that Chavez polled almost 60% in this election, as he has won every other open election?
So yes, I am curious as to how you reconcile these facts. I had heard that Chavez "bought the election" with his expenditures on medical care and education for the poor — but is that not the ideal outcome of electoral politics?
Meanwhile, I am waiting for my own national leader to distribute 1,000,000 free copies of Gravity's Rainbow, as Chavez did with Don Quixote. Caudillo mijo!
Jane,
No, I don't deny the increase in access to medicine and education for a large percentage of the poor. Those two programs (Misión Barrio Adentro and Misión Robinson) remain the core of Chávez's ability to remain in power. They're programs that have offered valuable contributions to the poor. Indeed.
However, why is Chávez doing nothing to sustain and develop the medical and educational infrastructure of Venezuela. The health and education programs are "missions" that have been set up as temporary solutions to problems that require much more comprehensive planning. Venezuela needs hospitals and schools (especially elementary, middle & secondary). The Barrio Adentro health modules are set up all over poorer areas but they don't always have the necessary equipment and personnel. Meanwhile, the hospitals and clinics in those same poor areas are underfunded, crumbling and not well-maintained.
Chávez began his missions as a way to shore up his popularity when he faced a referendum, and it worked. But he has yet to show that he can improve, sustain and build Venezuela's infrastructure (schools, hospitals, highways, homes, etc.) Instead, he spends millions marketing himself abroad and giving money to reactionary military figures such as Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro.
Now, Fidel brings me to another aspect of his health and education "missions." These two programs, in particular, are being run with a huge percentage of Cuban workers (teachers, doctors, sports trainers, nurses & so forth). Fidel sends these workers to Venezuela as a form of payment for all the hugely-discounted oil Chávez sends to Cuba (which has saved that plantation from crumbling, and in my view Cuba today is undeniably a plantation, where the masses are enslaved by an elite, it long ago ceased being a revolutionary project).
But among those visiting educators and health care workers are scores of Cuban intelligence and military officers, who now operate freely throughout Venezuela. So, while Chávez constantly talks about the threat of the CIA meddling in Venezuela, he has allowed Cuba's G2 access to the highest levels of the military and government. What makes the G2 any better than the CIA? Understandably, this is why so many on the left in Venezuela are doubtful about Chávez's claim to be inventing a "21st Century Socialism." It looks and acts like Fidelismo, tired old militarism.
You mention the referendum against Chávez, which he "won." Now, who was the head of the CNE (Venezuela's electoral council) in 2004 when the referendum was held? The president of the CNE back then was Jorge Rodríguez, who is now the Vice President of Venezuela, one of Chávez's strongest collaborators (although rumors say he's gonna be fired soon--another Chávez tactic taken from Fidel: never trust your closest collaborators for too long). So, likewise, the obvious pro-Chávez bias of the CNE since at least 2003 makes many on the Venezuelan left skeptical about the transparency of elections in Venezuela.
Finally, yes Chávez handed out free copies of Cervantes. I can't complain about that. You know, that's one aspect of Chávez I do like, he's an avid reader. His interest in books is authentic, he's genuinely interested in ideas.
But, the problem with Chávez is that he always reverts back to his military mindset (look at how often he walks around in army fatigues, even now that he's gotten fat), refusing to listen to any dissenting views whether they come from the opposition or from his own ranks. He's grown used to being adulated and obeyed. He doesn't know how to allow dialogue or dissent, which a true revolution would be able to accommodate.
You mention Pynchon. He's someone whose work relates quite well to Venezuela's situation today, a political landscape where paranoia and secrecy are the norm, on all sides. Chávez is constantly denouncing plans to assassinate him (nearly 200 so far, though I've lost count) and those of us who oppose him are constantly worried about surveillance, political harassment and the violence of Chávez's armed militias. And EVERONE is paranoid about getting robbed, killed, car-jacked, having their home's invaded, assaulted & so forth. Do you know what a "secuestro express" is? An "express kidnapping." Those are quite frequent and routine nowadays in Caracas. My theory is that when it comes to violent crime, Chávez doesn't know how to deal with it but he also finds it in his best interest to let it run wild, so that Venezuelans live in fear for their lives, leaving him more room to maneuver.
If you ever go to Caracas, you'll notice anyone involved in the government never travels without a retinue of heavily armed bodyguards. But most Venezuelans can;t afford bodyguards. So, as with the educational and health care systems, Chávez has done nothing to develop a long-term, comprehensive plan to deal with violent crime.
I mentioned the poet Rafael Cadenas (b. 1930) above. In the 1950s he was jailed and exiled for fighting against the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. He was a crucial member of a generation of poets (all on the left) who developed an avant-garde whose effects continue to be influential in Venezuela. In a 2003 interview he explained what's wrong with Chavismo, as he sees it:
"I'm very worried about the country's division. We're facing a government that's trying to fabricate a revolution it has yet to define clearly, and we're facing an opposition that rejects it because it believes it aims to implement a regime made out of ideological leftovers from the old left, militarism and caudillismo, all that blanketed under the name of Bolívar, whose excessive use gives the impression that the government has made literal the poem by Neruda about this hero, do you remember it? "Everything carries your name, in our dwelling..." Which is fine in a poem, but in reality it ends up being excessive. Freedom of speech exists in the country, undoubtedly, but the so-called Bolivarian Circles – they had to be called that, right? – constituted by the government itself for its own defense, insult and attack journalists and opposition demonstrators. Justice is suffering a radical defect: the public powers – comptroller, attorney general, and the peoples defender – are figures who are at the service of the regime and not of society. The Supreme Court judges were also chosen with the same intention, but they recently gave an unexpected display of independence to the consternation of the government, which reacted immediately with insults and threats against the judges who didn't vote according to its wishes. In a democracy it's essential that public powers be truly autonomous. In my view, that's been the central problem here because without justice the truth is inoperable."
http://www.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero23/rcadenas.html
So, I've jumped into what has been a fascinating exchange on theoretical & political subjects I have much to learn about still.
I simply wonder: if philosophy, poetry and theory are so important to your conceptions of revolution, then wouldn't it make sense to see what Venezuela's philosophers, poets & theorists are saying and writing about Chavismo? Why be limited to the amateur ravings of a Lieutenant Colonel who is a marketing genius but whose conceptions of philosophy, poetry and revolution were shaped in military barracks? I find militarism reactionary, regardless of its surface enchantments.
Chávez benefits from the dearth of translations of Venezuelan intellectual production, whether poetry, philosophy or fiction. (Fernando Coronil and Ana Teresa Torres come to mind as two great Venezuelan writers available in English.) No one in the US seems to know anything about Venezuela and yet Chávez has sparked their interest. He's a brilliant salesman but just because he's alluring doesn't mean he represents a progressive or revolutionary ideology.
Correct link to Rafael Cadenas interview (in Spanish):
http://www.ucm.es/info/especulo/
numero23/rcadenas.html
In the end, it's very difficult to feel sanguine about anyone — including Hugo Chavez — who accrues so much power to himself.
But I'm glad we've agreed that he's arranged for unprecedented medical care and education for the poor, and (no doubt as a result of that, in part) managed to win free and open elections overseen by powerful and suspicious international observers. We also agree that he's literate and gives away great books to citizens. The middle and upper classes, conversely, have been far less the beneficiaries of his programs and have opposed the governent strenuously.
So perhaps we can agree that Venezuela's leader is not a social visionary or nice man — but that its citizens, within the very same electoral confines as we see elsewhere (including in the US), have figured out how to pursue their own class interests politically, and the more immiserated classes have even in some part secure managed to secure those interests.
That may be the beacon of hope; not the man in the uniform.
Jane,
We don't agree as much as you imply. See, you're glossing over the whole authoritarian, military aspect of the Chávez regime and the power of intimidation. Chávez is arming various paramilitary groups that are outside the military or police jurisdictions. These groups (such as the Tupamaros or Alexis Vive, in Caracas) operate as "defenders of the revolution" intimidating and attacking protesters, journalists and anyone considered "enemies of the revolution.")
Chávez is imposing his desire to be in power until at least 2021 (his words, not mine), which is much longer than when his term ends. He's doing this by means of actual violence, as well as threats of violence. Power is the only goal of the "Bolivarian revolution," help for the poor and dispossessed is the camouflage it uses to maintain its power. (I think of Corso's "Power" just now.)
I don't agree with you that elections in Venezuela were "free and open," not any more than the US elections in 2000. As I said above, the head of the electoral council until last December was Jorge Rodríguez, who is now Chávez's Vice-President. How is that "free and open"? The Venezuelan electoral council has been with Chávez since at least 2003, making it impossible for him to lose an election. Jimmy Carter doesn't convince me as to the transparency of elections in Venezuela, he didn't even stay long enough to analyze the situation in 2004.
Sure, Chávez has popular support (which fluctuates between 40 and 60 percent of registered voters, and even those numbers are unreliable). But so did Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet et el. Fujimori remains quite popular in Peru. The list of "popular" tyrants is long.
Speaking of Pinochet, the Spanish judge who jailed him in England, Baltazar Garzon, was in Caracas last week giving a lecture and he warned about leaders who concentrate power into their hands, how that leads to dictatorship. Within days, Chávez and various underlings threw a whole array of insults at Garzon, calling him a "clown" and "mercenary." So, the judge who jailed Pinochet is now, according to Chávez, a "mercenary." That's the type of rhetoric Chavismo constantly produces, even if you might not read about it every day in Berkeley.
Regarding class interests, Venezuela has witnessed the rise of a whole new class of oligarchs, the so-called "Boli-burgeses," or Boli-bourgeoise. These are the military officers and government officials who are fervently loyal to Chávez and who have become millionaires in a matter of two or three years. They're buying up properties all over Florida nowadays.
The "class interests" of the Boli-bourgeoisie elite in Venezuela are neither progressive nor revolutionary. This new elite is blending quite nicely with the old oligarchy in Venezuela (with a few minor readjustments) while the middle classes (what's left of us) and the poor get fucked.
Venezuela has been "enjoying" a boom in oil prices during Chávez's time in power (he's been quite good at managing economic affairs). However, he's wasted so much of that money on creating a new elite, on giving money away to the likes of Cuba, Nicaragua et al and building temporary solutions to educational and health problems that require long-term investment and infrastructure.
Poverty & inequality continue to rise in Venezuela, and one result of that is the increase in violent crime, as the poor become more desperate. The only thing that's changed is that now the Venezuelan government claims to be "revolutionary," "for the people," "progressive," "21st Century Socialism," and so forth. But inequality, corruption and the rising control of civilian, political, economic & educational affairs by the military is taking the country back to the 19th century, when generals and chieftans ruled by force.
The "beacon of hope" you cite is an illusion. Granted, illusions are often necessary and they can help us visualize future solutions. But to settle for Chavismo as a source of revolutionary inspiration is a terribly sad situation.
In a situation where all political, cultural and social factors depend on a single person (Mao, Castro, Mugabe, Chávez, etc.) there is no hope for revolutionary action (however one might define it).
Perhaps what Chávez signals (and I'll give him his due as a tactician) is that Venezuela, like Cuba 50 years ago, is now on the map internationally. People such as yourself are curious about the country. I suppose some good will come out of that interest, eventually. But I fear there's gonna be a lot of blood and suffering before any good comes from Venezuela, because Chávez is intent on leading the country towards increasing violence.
--Guillermo
guillermo, you seem to be intuiting jean kirkpatrick or john dean's recent book, which stumbled onto the american-psychological conception of an authoritarian personality complex... it's like hushed old school frankfurt. And ceaselessly obnubilating the variegated collection of world leaders/presidents/etc. from different historical periods (does he also have a napoleon complex, not short enough?), does little to buttress your own claims or clarify the Chavez "we know", as you continuously assume the knowledge we possess in the US--something like a pseudo spectacle of chavismo agitprop. hardly. and, against another your whirligig of insinuations, chavez ain't pinochet, bro.
You must also be aware that the line on Hitler being democratic as a corollary to Chavez's multiple vote tests is a pentagon talking point? What's with this, and the ongoing consonance in many of your other statements?
For a highly interesting text viz. this debate and the word "hope", which is distinct from the solace on offer from liberal democracy,--check Tariq Ali's Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope.
Chavez has arrayed himself and tried to help others against the washington consensus for latin america (democracy anyone? columbia, major recipient of foreign aid and dead union leaders: 2000 per year). it should also be noted that Bachelet and Lula have so far performed maintenance on or enhanced the neoliberal strategy for the region... debt repayment receipts are up in the lula's government, and his broad coalition continues to fracture: as of late but wherefore he knows not, MST has broken ranks...
The strong claim of Ali's book, that a people are on the march again, as in the days of Allende... but in Venezuela the majority matters. Allende's razor thin win and closely divided country kept people out of the streets in the coup, but Chavez was able to hold on during the coup, despite endorsements from Washington, because he had the numbers in the street.
David,
I'm aware of the psychological profile of Chávez that the US govt. is compiling & propagating (relatedly, something came out in the Washington Post just recently). He surely gives them plenty of material. I'll be very clear right now and state that I do NOT align myself with US foreign policy in Latin America. I think Chávez is a complex and enigmatic leader, very hard to define. But I've had about 8 years of listening to him, which has given me some idea of where he stands.
I've glanced through Tariq Ali's book "Pirates of the Caribbean" and I just read his piece in the current London Review of Books. I found "Pirates" disappointing enough to not read all of it, I skimmed it. My main reason for being disappointed with it is that he falls back on the worn out notion that Fidel Castro is somehow a "revolutionary" force, when I consider him to be the one of the most reactionary dictators Latin America has ever seen. I go by the accounts of him by Huber Matos, Dariel Alarcón Ramíres (aka Benigno), Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Régis Debray, Elizabeth Burgos and Carlos Franqui, among others.
Fidel long ago ceased being an agent of anything but his own omnivorous power. I grew up in a family that respected him a great deal, although we had to learn the hard way how wrong Fidel has been.
Evo Morales, I have to admit appeals to me sometimes, but I find his dependence on Fidel (calling him his "father") and Chávez (sitting on his lap politically) to be bad omens. But my knowledge of Bolivia is much more sparse.
I do see your point when you write: "...that a people are on the march again, as in the days of Allende... but in Venezuela the majority matters." I don't agree with you on that, but I can respect your stance. I think there is no single, united "people." That's the harsh reality of our current age, we are scattered into thousands of islands.
I think Chávez barely survived the April 2002 "mini-coup." That was one hell of a confusing event, which neither side has fully clarified to this day. (The book "El acertijo de abril" by Sandra La Fuente and Alfredo Meza, Random House Mondadori, 2004 is an excellent investigative report.)
April 11th 2002 was, in my analysis, a power struggle between various sectors of the Venezuelan armed forces, along with a genuine coup attempt from fascist sectors within the opposition (Carmona & co.). But the truth committee that was formed to investigate the events of April 11-13, 2002 fizzled out by the end of 2002 due to lack of government initiative and the events have never been clarified. Both sides have much to hide. How did snipers with high-powered rifles get onto government buildings in downtown Caracas on April 11th? If the CIA was involved, why didn't they kill Chávez when he was held prisoner in Fuerte Tiuna and the island of La Orchila?
One thing's certain, Pedro Carmona & his crew of fascists were operating on a level parallel to much of the opposition but within their own sphere. Their mini-coup caught everyone by surprise, though there had been rumors of a coup all in the months leading up to it. But the real struggle was within the group of generals who debated with each other during the chaos of those days as to what to do with Chávez, some for him and some against. That's why he's still one paranoid motherfucker today.
I have family members who were at that opposition march on April 11th. They were surely not planning on participating in a coup. They were practicing their democratic right to dissent. I was in Caracas 2 months after the coup and it was a paranoid, frightening place to be. No one knew what the hell was going on.
Back to Ali, his piece in the new LRB is interesting because he hints at a certain exasperation with Chávez's style, having to sit through a rambling, endless speech. I think Ali is old school (his LRB piece attests to that, when he compares himself & Richard Gott to veterans of the Spanish civil war), so he's hopelessly out of tune with where they left should move now, in Venezuela and Latin America. I mean, Tariq Ali "discovered" Venezuela along with Richard Gott sometime in 1998.
Chavismo is a dead end, the last gasp of Fidelismo, a dying segment of the dinosaur left in Latin America. I can honestly respect if that's the path you feel is viable, but as for me I've had enough of Fidel to last the rest of my life. No more for me, thanks.
As a counterweight to Ali's book, I'll mention someone who's unknown outside Venezuela, the philosopher, professor and columnist Oswaldo Barreto, who writes for Teodoro Petkoff's small newspaper Tal Cual. He's of the same generation as the poet Rafael Cadenas. Barreto was a close friend of Régis Debray and Roque Dalton in Cuba and Europe during the 1960s, he was a close associate of Che Guevara in Algeria, an adviser to Fidel in the mid-1960s and an adviser to Salvador Allende as well in Chile before the coup. Barreto spent two decades as a clandestine fighter, in Venezuela and internationally. He left the armed struggle in the mid-1970s and is now a professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. He writes frequently for Tal Cual and is one of Chavismo's most eloquent and insightful critics. In his column today, he wrote about a recent speech by Chávez:
"...this condensation of president Chávez's principal themes is presented under the form of opaque expressions or ones that carry different, even opposing meanings.
On the one hand, the obsessive presence of Fidel Castro and his "revolutionary" process: "Fidel Castro has told me that if I die this revolution will vanish with the wind (...) He's told me this many times and I still resist accepting it, but when I think and see the realities around me I realized that sadly Fidel Castro, once more, is right (...) because we still haven't been able to build a single party."
On the other hand, the equally obsessive desire of mimicking (not just mimicking, but imitating, aping and copying every last detail) each and every one of the vicissitudes Fidel Castro's "revolution" has known."
(Oswaldo Barreto, Tal Cual, 27 June 2007)
This mimicking of Fidel is a crucial point. If you feel that somehow Fidel is the lesser of two evils (between him & W) then, of course, that's your choice to go with Ali's thesis that somehow Fidel can still turn out to be a "revolutionary." But for many of us in Venezuela and Latin America, Fidel stopped being a "revolutionary" decades ago. I won't be riding that train. I think you'll regret your choice decades from now, but who knows if any of us will be here at that point anyways.
The global situation is bleak today. But what evidence can you provide that following Fidel's playbook (Chávez is without a doubt his star pupil) will bring anything but more militarism, dictatorship & despair? Do we need to go over what happened to poets such as José Lezama Lima, Heberto Padilla, Reinaldo Arenas or Virgilio Piñera in Cuba under Fidel?
As a poet, I will always oppose political figures such as Fidel and Chávez.
--Guillermo
I appreciate Guillermo's well-informed reports here.
Though I don't count myself among the well-informed about either Venezuela or Latin America, it seems to me that, generally speaking, governments set up on the Strongman-Against-Capital model are doomed to fail, and the people themselves will be defrauded.
Elected government-by-consent requires a middle path of compromise - between rich & poor, property rights & public oversight. It requires a devotion to the rule of law, and a concept of justice which INCLUDES : equal rights for all, individual rights, & rights of minorities.
This approach seems threatened by the Bigman tradition, which combines the self-interest of a Party (& its military) with a demagogic class war theory of social justice.
This is not a defense of a status quo. The democratic ideal of balance I just sketched out is just that, an ideal. It's an admittedly simplistic sketch of the ideal of the "democratic public intellectual class" (usually the first to go under populist-fascist regimes).
Who wants to flex their competence with me?
Compu-tents. Compu Serve. Where are you, AOL disks of free minutes?
slugbert, you're a fucking genius!
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