I read an article on "Critical Whiteness Studies", which tries to expose and analyze white privileged, especially on terrains such as culture and language. The interesting part was the section of criticism of the whiteness studies. Avoiding "white" language could generate the problem of discriminating against people with less access to academic "education" and these studies, that use normal everyday language that could be seen as "white" without being aware of it or having evil intent.
Now I don't want to talk about "whiteness" or political correctness. But what we see here is the problem the western world faces right now. Concepts are deconstructed, rationally analyzed, criticized. But the criticism, the deconstruction, the analysis itself gets in the focus of rational deconstruction. And so on. Leading to total nihilism and chaos, a state where you can trust or believe in nothing anymore.
And this is the appeal of fascism. The fascists don't follow this path. They don't question their belief-system all the time. They don't use their rationality on it. Imagine a fictional Joe McBob from Texas; he was raised with racist views by his father. His friends believed in racism. He stays racist all his life because he never really sat down and rationally questioned his belief.
People admire racist, fascist and rightwing ideas because they're dumb. There is nothing rational about them. You don't have to be smart to believe them. These concepts avoid the "post-rational blur" that I mentioned. Rational critique can not touch them, because they are not rational.
The non-fascists on the other hand will for example criticize capitalism. So, they follow socialism instead. But then socialism gets criticized too. So they choose a "third way" position or maybe anarchism. But this gets criticized too. And so on. But our racists believe that whites are superior but never criticize that belief. That's how they can keep this belief.
What is the solution to this problem then? There are two problems with the "post-rational blur" of the leftists and cultural critics; or rather with the whole of western intellectualism. Which is that it is anti-idealist.
Ideals like freedom, justice, equality, rebellion or anarchy are perfect, spotless, eternal. These are things you can believe in, and you can keep that belief. They are in many senses above critique. Because they are perfect, critique can not touch them. But our westerners will think things like "real equality is impossible" or "there is no true freedom", "anarchy is impossible" or even - the worst of all - "there is no real goodness". If they only knew how wrong they are! This is the very problem.
The second thing that this wayward "rationalism" is anti-rational. It tempts people to stop rational thinking. Say you build a prototype and it doesn't work. On this experience you build a better one but there are still problems. What do you do now? You continue. Even if you have to come up with ten prototypes and "fixes". The same should be done with rational criticism. If there are problems with the criticism of "whiteness"; fix them. If there are still problems, fix these too. But continue to use your rational mind; even if it includes not over-analyzing some things.
These are the problems, and this is what we ought to do; keep rationalism idealistic, and, above all, rational.
Change And Responsibility
Art changes the world and people's lives. In the past, only very few people - the "stars" - could reach a larger audience, and often only with a select output (cue all the unreleased demos, jams and b-sides).
Nowadays someone coming from nowhere can reach 100,000s, even millions of people.
That means his art has an influence on and possibly change thousands of lives and many more, and has a large impact on the world.
With great power comes great responsibility.
What if you change peoples life to the worse? Not even by intent?
How do artists deal with this responsibility? What would you suggest?
Nowadays someone coming from nowhere can reach 100,000s, even millions of people.
That means his art has an influence on and possibly change thousands of lives and many more, and has a large impact on the world.
With great power comes great responsibility.
What if you change peoples life to the worse? Not even by intent?
How do artists deal with this responsibility? What would you suggest?
Art And Responsibility
In the beginning, I always tried to steer clear of big labels, big parties, large audiences. At first this was because I was a follower of the theorist Hakim Bey; and he urgently warned against these things. When I advanced beyond the ideas of Hakim Bey, I finally started to play gigs regularly, even at places like Tresor in Berlin, something I would have never done in my first years. Yet at the core I still was sceptical of any "larger" approach so I kept it at that.
I got into other ideas and other theorists later in my life.
I tried to keep my profile still low. It was no longer a question of tactics, but of responsibility. Art changes the world and people's life. Should an artist really have and / or use that power?
Throbbing Gristle for example warned against any approach to art that goes beyond the "output is shared between individuals" level, because, as they said, if art enters the social or even political level, things get dangerous very quickly (I don't remember the exact quote but you get the point).
I posted my music on a lot of forums but tried to make my releases unappealing, for example by using cryptic titles like "Doomcore 2", "Futuristic 3" or lack of cover pictures and lack of decriptions, so that only "individuals" who saw beyond this would listen to my music.
This all changed when I became an idealist. Ideals cannot be tainted or corrupted and are always positive. So I thought, if someone makes art based on ideals, only positive change can come from such an art.
Now it became imperative to spread such art as far as possible, and I reached numbers such as 100,000 plays with some of my tracks.
Still something told me to steer away from most of the bigger labels and organisations.
Recently, it came to my knowledge that such a way of thought might be a bit naive.
Yes, Ideals are perfect. But if you create art or a track, this is no longer idealism, it might become corrupted. If you put it into the world, it might become corrupted.
And then art can have a very negative effect on people and the world.
I don't know if my first idealistic theory was right, or the latter theory.
Since I got these doubts, I essentially stopped producing original tracks, with very few exceptions.
What would be the solution? I think only time will tell. One way might be something that I had detested the most in the past: to leave the political level, to make unpolitical art. The other, to leave the social level in art, to make music for select individuals again who can handle the content.
But there most be a better way!
I got into other ideas and other theorists later in my life.
I tried to keep my profile still low. It was no longer a question of tactics, but of responsibility. Art changes the world and people's life. Should an artist really have and / or use that power?
Throbbing Gristle for example warned against any approach to art that goes beyond the "output is shared between individuals" level, because, as they said, if art enters the social or even political level, things get dangerous very quickly (I don't remember the exact quote but you get the point).
I posted my music on a lot of forums but tried to make my releases unappealing, for example by using cryptic titles like "Doomcore 2", "Futuristic 3" or lack of cover pictures and lack of decriptions, so that only "individuals" who saw beyond this would listen to my music.
This all changed when I became an idealist. Ideals cannot be tainted or corrupted and are always positive. So I thought, if someone makes art based on ideals, only positive change can come from such an art.
Now it became imperative to spread such art as far as possible, and I reached numbers such as 100,000 plays with some of my tracks.
Still something told me to steer away from most of the bigger labels and organisations.
Recently, it came to my knowledge that such a way of thought might be a bit naive.
Yes, Ideals are perfect. But if you create art or a track, this is no longer idealism, it might become corrupted. If you put it into the world, it might become corrupted.
And then art can have a very negative effect on people and the world.
I don't know if my first idealistic theory was right, or the latter theory.
Since I got these doubts, I essentially stopped producing original tracks, with very few exceptions.
What would be the solution? I think only time will tell. One way might be something that I had detested the most in the past: to leave the political level, to make unpolitical art. The other, to leave the social level in art, to make music for select individuals again who can handle the content.
But there most be a better way!
Hypernormalisation
Hypernormalisation is a documentary by Adam Curtis that was recommended to me. It is definitely worth watching. He makes a lot of valid and interesting points, of which I found these four the most interesting:
1. The capitalistic world order is collapsing and it's getting worse each year. Wholeheartedly agree with that one.
2. The mass media and social media creates an illusionary reality that is fake in which this collapse is not mentioned e.g. there is no capitalist crisis in the 'adventures' of the Kardashians or in Geordie Shore, life is just fun and party etc etc. Again, I agree.
3. Not mentioned, but implied is that a way out would be to leave this fake reality and face the complexity of the real world below it again. Can't agree here.
Instead of going "below" to the everyday reality, we need to go "above" to the realm of ideals, ideas, theories, ideology, abstract thinking. In a sense, the general citizen is right to escape into this fake safe reality provided by the media; anyone who would face the dire everyday world 24 hours a day would go insane within a few days as "everyday reality" is so corrupting to the mind.
But that behavior is not the right solution; we need to go above this illusion.
4. But what was really interesting, and completely new to me, was that there is a method to the madness of phenomenas like Trump etc: that method is creating a world which is total chaos, where nothing is true or right or persistant or safe. He threatens North Korea with nukes; then the threat is off; then it's on again; then a meeting for peace is announced; then it's called off; then it's on again, and so on. It's a new political strategy aimed at total confusion. Similar things make their way to Europe and the rest of the world.
1. The capitalistic world order is collapsing and it's getting worse each year. Wholeheartedly agree with that one.
2. The mass media and social media creates an illusionary reality that is fake in which this collapse is not mentioned e.g. there is no capitalist crisis in the 'adventures' of the Kardashians or in Geordie Shore, life is just fun and party etc etc. Again, I agree.
3. Not mentioned, but implied is that a way out would be to leave this fake reality and face the complexity of the real world below it again. Can't agree here.
Instead of going "below" to the everyday reality, we need to go "above" to the realm of ideals, ideas, theories, ideology, abstract thinking. In a sense, the general citizen is right to escape into this fake safe reality provided by the media; anyone who would face the dire everyday world 24 hours a day would go insane within a few days as "everyday reality" is so corrupting to the mind.
But that behavior is not the right solution; we need to go above this illusion.
4. But what was really interesting, and completely new to me, was that there is a method to the madness of phenomenas like Trump etc: that method is creating a world which is total chaos, where nothing is true or right or persistant or safe. He threatens North Korea with nukes; then the threat is off; then it's on again; then a meeting for peace is announced; then it's called off; then it's on again, and so on. It's a new political strategy aimed at total confusion. Similar things make their way to Europe and the rest of the world.
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