Well AL Borg has sent me another link and this time we must have our say and call out this piece as an example of the limited and repetitive thinking that we mentioned a couple of works ago. The piece is written by a certain Simon Kuper1 and to paraphrase Basil Fawlty2: "next contestant Simon Kuper, specialist subject the bleeding obvious..." His main idea is that alt right strong man leaders & mass protest are two sides of the same coin. Well has that not been clear for years and years? And have little old us not written about it for years (in our own rambling unhelpful fashion of course)? But is it not the case that way before any of the strong men took to the stage you could see how protest is encouraged and manipulated by the powers. Even old Icke has been banging on about it for years. He calls it 'problem reaction solution'.
The thing is these protests happen and are going to happen naturally and always, because people are full of feelings and passion and anger and outrage and they are being baited and many clearly haven't got the script yet and are naive or whatever but if you're being punched repeatedly in the face it is hard to just leave it, even though that may be the best strategy in the end. It is of course a dilemma but what is to be gained by just pointing out the failure of protest and leaving it at that? To do so is not good enough because firstly it is no revelation but more importantly it creates a divide between academics or experts or sociologists and people with whom they would generally seem to be sharing many enemies.
Imagine; some people, men women children students, whoever, protesting about climate change or austerity or some police murder or some space Reich types in government,3 but they have their protest manipulated and are in fact baited and provoked in order to turn people against them through the media battlefield, and all people like Simon Kuper can do is to point all this out and bemoan the naivety of those protesting...for protesting!! Is it going too far to say that it is like if you saw someone being mugged and you say to your friend 'look someones being mugged' and both standby and watch, doing nothing at all to help, and ultimately blame the muggee for being mugged! Protesters are not being mugged quite, but they are being manipulated, baited, beaten, teargassed, misrepresented and gaslit to boot. Look here, is not the successful manipulation of social protest one of the great political problems and dilemmas of the era? A dilemma that has always been part of the game of politics I imagine but now with the power to manipulate on offer via the tech it is even more crucial to figure something more out about this issue rather than endlessly pointing it out or calling for calm. Protests will always occur and be used by powers, and if they didn't occur they would be created, so while backing away and letting it lie and letting the experts deal with it or some such is almost certainly to the good, it's not going to happen. It's like telling a dog not to bark.
Forgive me, with the summer coming to an end and our oil on the boil this is hardly worth our while but we must have our say while the blood is up. Now lets look at this Kuper man. We know nothing of him but he paints quite a picture of himself, sitting on his Paris balcony looking over at the protests, sipsip croissant bite, time to do some expert writing....
"You know all that global protest stuff, well let me explain..."
Then off to lunch with friends. Bite chew swallow sip....
"oh attends, est-ce que je t'ai dit que le petit Jacques traînait à nouveau autour des manifestants, il est toujours là tu sais, il a même été gazé lacrymogène la semaine dernière." ("oh wait, did I tell you little Jaques has been hanging around the protesters again, he's always there you know, he was even tear gassed last week...")
Well no doubt this kind of characterisation is as unhelpful as the Kuper's intellectual complacency so lets cut that out, but we must say that he is asking for it a bit especially given the claims from the Financial Times rag he works for when they proudly invite us to: "Hear it from the experts. Let our global subject matter experts broaden your perspective with timely insights and opinions you can’t find anywhere else." But look here, on his latte stained page he has unwittingly put his finger on the nub of the matter when he says his son is 'drawn' to the protests. That is it exactly. People are attracted, protest is aesthetic, there is a culture, kids will go because it is a laugh, and yes the whole business is played like a fiddle by the alt right powers, obviously, but it is equally clear that blowing some snowflake whistle and calling it all off is not going to happen, so who the hell knows what to do about it?
Here's an idea. Maybe the likes of Simon Kuper and the people who can see and understand the games being played, could help a bit? Instead of using their position and platform to point out the naivete of protesters, perhaps put those expert powers to better use, to call out and properly expose the naughty strong man alt right tic-tacs4 in a broader arena and do it often. To contribute something more productive instead of the self satisfied jack easy cynicism of the critic. It all reminds me of old Ranciere when he says about the endless cycle of critique and recuperation. “The machine,” he says, “can work in this way until the end of time, capitalizing on the impotence of the critique that unveils the impotence of the imbeciles." Cushdy.5
Well, when one spots a gap in the imaginary is it not time for an institution? Forgive the blue sky thinking but why not a special institute with a specific mission to bridge the inevitable divide between the bums rush of the youthful protesters (including their populist left eggerson) and the journalists, intellectuals and experts on the left who believe protest to be counter productive? It would likely begin as a bun fight6 to end all bun fights but better to pull in the same direction nonetheless is it not? But the onus is on the critics to act on this because theirs is the cool head, they are the cornerman so to speak, the 60 second guru whose task it should be to look after their flailing and burnt out fighter, and anyway with the 'experts' falling victim to times as much as any other wouldn't this be a way to gain new influence as a group? Yes yes, this special institute must offer shelter for the gasliten, it must produce case studies of how protest is manipulated and archive them, it must seek to create new language and concepts to assist in this great problem for the left which actually is a great problem for society and while we're at it we must say that it is not only social protest that is the issue here but the manufacturing and manipulation of 'outrage' generally as a political strategy whether to expand the 'overton window' or just to play one group against another. It's all part of the far alt right bag of tricks which has been rolling everyone over for years. So, a new institution and a new way to understand the new dark arts would be nice, but whatever form it takes the mission must be to keep the emphasis on the irresponsible, immoral, corrupt, sinister, unforgivable behaviour of the alt right powers rather than on the understandably enraged but flailing protesters. But enough of this! It is time to shift gears and discuss the work.
Today we took a still life arrangement with old boots, worm eaten apples and the Wedling account of the Alt Right. The whole thing is a harmony of broken violet and yellow on a square french 18. It was painted quickly with little correction and as we look at it now I can say that it may just about pass muster. You know it often seems that we are able to achieve a simplicity and steadiness in execution when we are painting a simple desktop still life and I just wish we could have a bit of that calmness when we are out sur le motif instead of the passionate struggle it often becomes. A mix of the two states would be ideal and is that not what Van Gogh achieves in his delightful mixture of urgency and care? Well, with practice we will surely improve but I do feel we are still on the right course, but is our balance off kilter? Are we leaning too far over into the pool of abstractions, into the written? Are we at risk of drowning in the soup of words as we try to engage with the five themes of the Dignity Scholarship? Perhaps, but we can soon right ourselves with a few harvest studies.
I have run out of titanium white and yellow ochre and only have the brittle Arte canvas to see us through. Any luck with the suppliers?7
The French man of my Danish neighbour popped his head into the laden earlier to enquire about a view of Norrtälje from Bergstugan that we painted a couple of winters ago. I fished it out and he took it away to look at properly, so maybe a sale. I'll give it him for three if he wants it.
Given half a chance I imagine AL BORG will send me plenty more articles but after this rant I think it best to keep quiet.
With a firm handshake,
John
1 Freelance journalist.
2 British sitcom character created by John Cheese.
3 Derogatory label. Refers to the perceived ultimate goal of right wing accelerationist billionaires.
4 Typing error. Should read tac-tics.
5 Should read 'cushty'. London/cockney dialect mean satisfactory or excellent.
6 An uncontrolled debate or disagreement with several parties involved.
7 There is only very expensive white and for the canvas also.