I really can't agree there. Not least because a good deal of oppression is not simply absurd, but actually quite carefully calculated in terms of the interests of the oppressors. This is one case where perhaps the oppression enacted by the Nazis is not the best example, for that, whilst it may have grown from some sorts of horribly twisted rationale, took on a life of its own, so that the genocide became not merely a means to an end but an end in itself. In one sense that could be said to be absurd, but I hardly imagine you or anyone else would want to decry the fact of being outraged by it (the fact that many of the Allies were not outraged enough to act, even when the full details of the Final Solution were well known to them, acting only when it was in their interests to do so, is itself a reason for outrage). But in many other cases, oppression is cold and calculated rather than being the outcome of absurd hysteria. The oppression on the West Bank is not simply absurd, it is all tied in with Israeli strategies to terrorise, intimidate, and hopefully drive away, a whole people (so that they can annex the territory). Not to be outraged by that (though not simply to be outraged, also to act upon that outrage) seems to me a through evasion. Whilst fuelled in part by paranoia and meglomania, which could be seen as absurd, the unprecendented mass murders committed by Stalin were also very carefully planned and executed.

Though a Camp ideologue might respond by asking why we have to worry about these terribly grim matters, why we can't simply have fun instead?

That's certainly true as part of the discussion. An example I would cite would be Michael Finnissy's North American Spirituals, in which he takes material derived from William Billings hymns, removing a tenor line, and inserting the pitches from various African-American spirituals instead, as a type of evocation of a black man forced to sing at a white church, but subverting the procedures (which is enacted also by modifying the other parts in relation to the tenor part according to Billings' own rules for harmony), refusing to 'sing the white man's (or woman's) tune', I suppose. The tenor line clashes quite markedly with, and sends somewhat off-track, the other parts. But in some critical discourse about this work, what I've seen most praised is an approach that tries to smooth over all these tensions as far as possible, making the work into pure 'lyricism', and as such neutering it of most of the implied political charge, so that it will play well to petite-bourgeois American audiences who would rather not be reminded of such things. The point is not simply about the critics or performers, though (I take it for granted that the dominant ideologies in the US in this respect will be reactionary), but actually the question of how Finnissy's work relates to its explicit premises, if it can be appropriated as such without significantly contravening the score? Quite simply, does it succeed in it's self-stated aims (my answer to that is quite complex, I won't bore you all with that here).


Meta-criticism (and meta-musicology) viewed purely within a hermetically-sealed field of discourse is indeed a pretty fruitless endeavour. But I'm talking about something much broader than that, a particular set of aesthetic values by the terms of which certain types of music gets played and supported (and broadcast) and other types much less so or not at all. Those values seem increasingly, in the US, UK and to an extent Europe as well, accepted uncritically and go unchallenged, and as such have an palpable effect upon the nature of musical production. Such things as why certain programmes are pulled or cut on Radio 3 might not be unrelated to similar issues. If we care about the music we like, then surely there is good reason for challenging some of these assumptions, preferably of course in a wider arena? I sort of anticipate that you will answer that by saying that the point is simply to create good music as an alternative, but when the practicalities of doing so (not least financial) are increasingly curtailed, such a possibility may not exist other than in isolation. You might like to look at the stuff Beverly Crew wrote quite a few years ago in terms of her reasoning for supporting a superficially eclectic choice of music to be supported by the Contemporary Music Network, and above all for rejecting most everything that comes under the heading of contemporary 'classical' music. Should that not be responded to, should her actions (and indeed position) not be challenged? I think they should. The same goes for the attempts in universities to rid the curricula of almost all 'modernist' music, to tie this into another thread. Or else a lot of the damage will be done, and I wonder if you would be surprised for not seeing it coming?

The assumptions of postmodernism and Camp might also be borne in mind if some answers are required as to why the recent 'Riot' concert in reality amounted to nothing more than an assortment of uttery ephemeral SPNM-style works (Rzewski and Ligeti excepted), in flagrant contradiction of the exalted claims that were made for it in the publicity? This type of 'political music' becomes simply another lifestyle choice. Claudia Molitor's work certainly subverts the notion that a piece has to be any good to be performed at such an event.

Yes, I do agree with you to an extent. But the question of propaganda is especially interesting - would you say that art can have the most effect when it aspires to the condition of propaganda? And isn't that type of art more amenable to reactionary and oppressive forces?

When I say art 'can't change the world for the better', I maybe overstate the case somewhat; I just mean that I think it's unlikely to effect really significant change on its own, though it may be able to contribute in some small way. My beef is with those who promulgate art as an alternative to other forms of action.


Certainly Uncle Tom's Cabin could be said to have bolstered the abolitionist case, in a manner similar to what I was describing earlier in the thread with respect to Nelson Mandela. Adorno took a hard line on 'political' art (of a leftist variety), arguing that its function was essentially to serve as a superficial corrective in society, that enables such society to demonstrate and proclaim its 'tolerance' without actually changing anything; as such many political artists ended up unwittingly bolstering the very thing they were supposed to be attacking. Whilst I think Adorno overstates his case (and does not take account of the fact that many societies wish to censor such art, though less so in Western liberal democracies than elsewhere), he does have a certain point. And certain varieties of 'Camp' art seem to fulfil such a prognosis all-too-readily.

But Adorno also argued (as part of a dialectic) for the value of art which transcends social function, whilst at the same time recognising its essential powerlessness to have any significant effect by the very act of doing so. But there do still remain gaps, fissures, in the total system, that allow for some type of political art which is neither easily appropriable nor merely esoteric, I'd at least like to believe.

Did you learn how to load your picture to photobacket? There are many pictures there already. I don't know how to do that, but people here do it. May be they can explain how to do it on Meeting thread.

I'm posting far too much in this thread, I know (will try and keep stumm for a bit after this one), but ought to respond to this point. I do think there are fundamental flaws in identity politics per se when elevated to a primary ideology. But that's not because I necessarily want to hold up some form of old-fashioned Marxism as a shining, infinitely preferable alternative. It could hardly be denied that at least certain forms of Marxism could neglect issues of gender, race and sexuality, though it's easy to overstate the case in this respect (and a comparison, say, of the situation of women in West and East Germany immediately following the war can be informative in this respect). Engels certainly engaged with the situation of woman in his writings on the family, though it could be argued that he only addressed the issue in very broad terms. There are varieties of utopian Marxism that pin everything upon the need for international socialist revolution and as such are relatively unconcerned with more short-term issues of such things as equal pay, child-care provision, safety on the streets, and so on, hardly much comfort to those for whom such things are very real issues in their day-to-day life. And it is not hard, to say the least, to find a high degree of macho rhetoric and personality cults amongst the far left.

One of the instant reactions to leftist critiques of identity politics is to assume that we are insisting simply on the primacy of one type of identity (class) above others (gender, race, sexuality). But I do not believe this is the case, not least because class is a purely historical product, rather than a wider identity (no-one surely suggests that there will not be different sexes, races, sexualities, in a socialist society, but a primary aim of such transformation is to radically alter the whole nature of class). Though there are forms of vulgar Marxism that make a fetish out of 'proletarian identity' and the like, and as such fall into the same problems as other forms of identity politics. Identity politics, as I see it, privileges certain groups primarily on the very basis of their identity, rather than beliefs and actions. It inverts certain paradigms of discrimination and oppression based upon reified identity, but often does not fundamentally question the very nature of those identities. It would be rather like responding to anti-semitic rhetoric about Jewish bankers with a 'bankers of the world, unite!' slogan. In appropriating certain stereotypes but simply valorising them differently, identity politics continues to perpetuate those same stereotypes. An example would be a stereotype of gay men as being vain, narcissistic, image-obsessed, oblivious to any serious matters. The reasons why traditionally gay men have only been able to find safe employment in certain fields of employment that to an extent perpetuate such stereotypes does not mean that these things are an innate part of some essentialised 'gay identity'. Whilst some of the attributes in question deserve not to be dismissed so curtly as they often are, to merely reverse the terms of debate and present them as primary virtues, as Camp does, can be no less prescriptive and oppressive. And such attitudes depend on equally essentialised views of the supposedly antipathetic groups, portrayed as homogenous entities in which other distinctions (especially to do with class) are ignored. Talk of 'male power' may make sense in terms of the fact that those with power are primarily men, but in no sense does it follow from that that all men have power. The difference between a poor black man in Brixton and Bill Gates should amply demonstrate that. Of course some identity politics does attempt to fuse and grapple with different components of identity, but still generally ends up viewing people in terms of birth rather than anything else. Edward Said, despite his later attempts to cover his tracks, was a particularly striking case of this, through his assignment of an a priori inferiority of insight into certain peoples (and racism, imperialism, etc.) purely through being Western, a view that is every bit as racist as that it purports to oppose. Now, of course racism or other forms of discriminatory attitudes on the part of those without power is a different phenomenon to that exercised by those with power, and the two should not be equated. But what Said perpetuates does not necessarily fall into the former category; as the Indian Marxist writer Aijaz Ahmad points out, the major beneficiaries of Said's narrative are the sons and daughters of the upper classes in the former colonial countries, for whom he offers a discourse that to all intents and purposes ignores their own class status, and enables them to obtain all the dividends incumbent upon portraying themselves as primary victims of oppression. And this is not an isolated example, I believe it is intrinsic to identity politics. Such a politics presents no obstacle to being hijacked by the most reactionary people belonging to such an identity. Thus gay Camp becomes appropriated for the purposes of promoting consumerist values, feminist arguments are used to bolster the case for fighting imperial wars in Bosnia (with disinformation about the fictitional rape of 50 000 Bosnian Muslim women that played a major part in garnering feminist support for US military action, and was also proclaimed most shrilly by one Claire Short) and Afghanistan, the memory of the Holocaust is cynically invoked in a bullying manner against any criticisms of Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, this type of identity politics is profoundly dehumanising to the members of the identities in question, as it tends to deny their existence as individuals capable of making choices.

But to get back to your question! I do think postmodernism and Camp for the most part present the mere trappings of radicalism (like Lachenmann's claims of 'pseudo-radicalism') in the manner you describe. That's not to say that art has to be radical, by any means, nor that there isn't a place for the more ephemeral, diverting, even trivial. But when these things are sold as a radical and progressive alternative to all other artistic possibilities, then the very claims being made deserve further scrutiny. Pauline Kael, in the 1960s, started to champion the case of lightweight, somewhat kitschy B-movies as an alternative to more 'serious' culture, but later in life said that if she had known that the former would become the only culture left, she would have thought very differently.

However, there are various aspects of Camp that can be radical and subversive at least to an extent; it's not to be simply dismissed out of hand. What I'm not sure about is whether many of them cannot equally be found in other artistic/aesthetic approaches.

I shuddered a bit when I first saw the image, (maybe partly because I came to it from the context of this thread and also because Elton's frown seems so convincingly military) but isn't this possibly an example of reclaiming an image or artefact that would normally represent a great threat to you, and by parading about in it you partially diminish its power (at least to menace you pschologically) and its authority?
 
I don't know what the motivation was in this case, but I think the gay community for example does this with certain words initially used as insults against them, and by adopting them into their own use of language they gain some kind of power over the words.

I think that's very true. The same issues arose in the 1970s when some people involved with the punk movement began to appropriate the swastika. I remember Siouxsie saying somewhere about how this was some sort of statement of defiance towards their parents' generation, who were always going on about having fought fascism. However cathartic such a gesture may be in terms of adolescent rebellion, it doesn't in any sense diminish all that the swastika represents; nor is being offended by such a casual use of a potent symbol merely a statement of conservative fuddy-duddiness, by any means. The crassness of adopting that symbol as a supposedly 'subversive' statement, which could then be paraded in the media to an audience which might include Auschwitz survivors, is obvious. The same could be said about this:



Daniel, you talk about this reappropriation of that imagery being a means to 'partially diminish its power'. But is that necessarily a positive end? I personally think it's probably, all things told, for the better if the sight of a military dictator makes people think about torture, murder and 'disappearances' (and the CIA standing behind them) than if it is seen merely as a whim of style. The reappropriation of such words as 'gay', 'queer', 'black' and so on seems a relatively positive thing, but I'm less sure when you hear gangsta-rappers calling themselves 'niggaz' (and also presenting violently misogynistic lyrics which portend to be some type of reclaiming of tropes of black sexuality, and the like).