Crib Notes on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week: Identity Politics (15th October 2018)

I am not going to be completist here, have just focussed on Fukuyama's and Kaufmann's arguments, the sections about theatre and student activism are ignored. This was done quickly and is in note form in order to highlight some key points from the broadcast:

BBC Radio 4: Start the Week, 15th October 2018

Arguments made by Francis Fukuyama: 

People are motivated by an inner sense of dignity, 21^st century politics is not driven by conflicts over resources or the ideologies of left and right we saw in the 20^th century, rather in terms of a perceived lack of dignity (or striving to have more dignity than other groups in society). The old left focussed on inequality in general, but this shifted over to specific 'identity' groups, meaning they gradually lost the support of the white working class majority, who have drifted over to the anti-immigrant, populist right.

“The framing of identity in the modern world is a very specific form, where you feel that you are victimised and you feel that your dignity has to be recognised, it is not you that has to change and conform to society's values, it's really the surrounding society that must change its norms”

Economic motivation is important because of globalisation, economists and politicians do not appreciate that white working classes have interpreted loss of work as a loss of status and cultural identity, which other groups are interpreted as 'stealing'. It is harder to have rational conversations about this than it is about traditional economic differences, hence the polarisation of views seen in recent times.

”If you don't have a common framework on ideas about legitimacy you can't deliberate, you can't make decisions, and you can't come to collective action”.

Identity groups tend to demonise those that do not share that identity, and attribute faults to them without taking into account the nuances of history. In the ancient world it was expected that the inner self had to conform to the outer world, today we say that the outer world has to conform to the authenticity of the inner person.

Arguments made by Eric Kaufmann: 

Left wing identity politics is hierarchically structured (race > sex > gender) so for example leftist feminists may not feel able to challenge patriarchal practices in ethnic groups. No such hierarchy exists on the right (eg race, religion deemed equally valid).

White majorities will disappear in the US mid-century and in the UK in 22^nd century (replaced with a mixed race majority in the UK, although likely to have adopted many parts of traditional white British identity).

Possible responses:

1 Fight (anti-immigration, right popularism);

2 Repress any innate instinct you have to fight the trend, as that is perceived to be racist;

3 Flight/Retreat (into distinct ethnic social networks, enclaves);

4 Join (interracial friendships, mixing).

Multi-multiculturalism needs to be replaced my 'multi-vocalism' different groups in a society can select things from a 'common menu' of characteristics that they identify with and makes them (say) British. They do not all have to select the same things as long as they are from the common menu.

Keywords:

Francis Fukuyama, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition, Eric Kaufmann, Whiteshift: Populism Immigration and the Future of White Majorities, ideology, immigration, populist right, globalisation, anti-globalisation, identity, multi-multiculturalism, multi-vocalism

Liberal Communism, Tech Billionaires and Ideology: notes on 
“Elon Musk” published in August 2018 on Olly Thorn’s ‘Philosophy Tube’ YouTube channel

I recently watched this very interesting Philosophy Tube video, but found that I needed to make some notes to get my head around all of the arguments, these can be found below.

Parts 1/2: The ‘Comprehensive Designer’ 
Elon Musk has cult status, a kind of Tony Stark billionaire. The counterculture of the 1960s has led to modern Technoculture. 1960s Counterculture had two strands:
1 Radical Left Wing
2 New Communalists (our idea of 60s counterculture) - seen as ‘cool’, close links with early Technoculture which saw computers and the internet as a possible means to ‘set people free’ and overturn the old, stuffy order. The Comprehensive Designers (a 1960s term meaning a “synthesis of artist, innovator, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist”) were the new countercultural heroes.

Part 3 The Backlash
Susan Faludi claimed in The Backlash (1991) that those whose privilege is threatened by progress fight to challenge that progress (and have access to the levers to power to do so effectively). By the 1990s the countercultural Technoculture entrepreneurs were very rich and now had a powerful incentive not to change the structures of privilege they previously challenged, indeed as they got richer they pushed for deregulation and smaller government (ie Liberal values). They had become Techno-Libertarians. The tech billionaires have mythologised their status as ‘self-made’ (fitting into a libertarian narrative) however many came from rich backgrounds, and they built on the work of others.

Part 4 Che Guevara T-Shirts
Slavoj Žižek coined the term ‘Liberal Communists’ as those who simultaneously want to support and seek to destroy Capitalism (a deliberately self-contradictory term). It is like flirting, both sides are deliberately ambiguous and know the nature of the game that is going on, and can plausibly disavow their real intentions if challenged. If your wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt it has probably been made by an underpaid worker in a poor country and sold to you for a profit by a large corporation. This goes against what Che Guevara would have stood for. However if you claim to be wearing in ‘ironically’ you can disavow the exploitation that went into its production. Žižek claims that such disavowals are not a valid excuse, the real world consequences of the consumption of the T-Shirt (or other goods or services) are what matters.

So Liberal Communists are both massively benefitting from the existing capitalist system yet simultaneously (and very publicly) criticising it. Wealth creation only happens by under-compensating labour (Marx, Das Kapital, 1867) - unless you pay a worker less than the true monetary value that they create through their labour then there is nothing left over for capitalist profit. So (a Marxist would argue) all of the enormous wealth of the Liberal Communist Techno-Libertarian billionaires is built on the exploitation of the labour employed in creating that wealth, and they (the billionaires) will use their power and influence to protect that wealth: for example by donating to political parties, or ‘discouraging’ workers from joining unions (thus denying them the chance to collectively bargain for better terms and conditions for example, so leaving the employer/employee power dynamic very one-sided in favour of the employer).

The Liberal Communist tech billionaires will support (fund) those ‘think-tanks’ (whose job is to develop policy and advise governments) that do not threaten the wealth of billionaires or seek to give more rights or protections to workers, thus ‘manufacturing’ a political consensus (in their favour).

Mark Fisher in Capitalist Realism claims “far from constituting any kind of progressive alternative to official capitalist ideology, liberal communism constitutes the dominant ideology of capitalism now”

The aesthetics of counterculture have been appropriated to sell us symbols of anti-capitalist resistance (oh, the irony!) (after Horkheimer & Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1944). The power of any genuine anti-capitalist ideology is thus blunted and the prospect of any real change neutralised. Liberal Communist Techno-Libertarians are therefore powerfully supporting the capitalist status quo.

Part 5: The Real Elon Musk Was Inside You All Along
The myth of the ‘Tech-Daddy’ (aka the Liberal Communist Techno-Libertarian billionaires) is used to sell Backlash to men. Corporations will use similar tactics to appeal to other groups: “There are corporations who have floats in the London Pride Parade who sell weapons to countries that use those weapons on LGBT people…” (no reference was given for this claim unfortunately) “… counterculture will have the anti-capitalist strains removed, and what is left will be used to sell you shit”.

Thorn concludes with the question of whether the process of ‘Counterculture into Backlash’ is inevitable for leftist YouTube channels as they become successful.

Performing for the Camera photobook review

Performing for the Camera, edited by Simon Baker and Fiontán Moran with an essay by Jonah Westerman, Tate Publishing, 2016. Paperback, 240 pages.

Why do so many people spend so much time and effort posting pictures onto social media in an attempt to craft a coherent identity which may have little relation to their true selves? Do people inevitably put on a performance when faced with the lens of a camera? Are they, indeed, any different to those artists who deliberately set out to record performances? These are some of the questions asked by Performing for the Camera.

Produced to accompany the exhibition at Tate Modern, Performing for the Camera contains some short essays exploring the relationship between photography and performance (both records of actual artistic performances and, more interestingly, performances of the ‘self’) illustrated by over 300 well reproduced pictures.

The paper is of reasonable quality and thickness; white, smooth and slightly glossy. Unfortunately the book does not open out flat and the cover is made of quite thin card (although this is doubled over). As an object it feels nice in the hand, but a little prone to damage.

The main part of the book is divided into seven sections, each with its own short introduction highlighting the photographers featured. Documenting Performance examines photographers recording artistic performances, focusing mainly on the work of Shunk-Kender. Staging/Collaboration asks is it the performer or photographer who directs, notable here are Nadar and Eikoh Hosoe.

Photographic Actions examines the photograph as a way to record a performative act. Among others we have Carolee Schneemann in her studio, Ai Weiwei dropping an ancient urn, and Francesca Woodman alone in a decrepit room, her figure seemingly just another part of the surroundings.

In Performing Icons ideas about gender and cultural roles are examined; Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, Man Ray’s portraits of Marcel Duchamp in the guise of his female alter ego, David Lamelas imagining himself in the role of rock god, and F. Holland Day imagining himself as the crucified Christ.

Public Relations considers how the self can be created and performed in a world of mass media, Hannah Wilke challenging feminist criticisms of her choice to use her own naked body in her art, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons mass producing art as product.

In Self-Portrait ideas about cultural roles are challenged, Jemima Stehli literally dealing with the ‘male gaze’, Martin Parr giving control over his representation to commercial photographic studios who set him in stereotypical settings and poses, Hans Eijkelboom inserting himself in the role of father in otherwise seemingly normal happy family portraits.

Performing Real Life is the final and perhaps most interesting section. Romain Mader’s Ekaterina series, charting his ‘search’ for a Ukrainian bride is a masterful blending of semi fact and semi fiction. Boris Mikhailov’s portrayal of a family holiday under the context of the constant acting out of expected roles demanded under Soviet Communism is at once performance and reality, satirical and sincere. Masahisa Fukase’s From Window series in which he photographed his wife Yoko from an upper window every day as she headed out from work, is compelling. It is part documentation, part performance on Yoko’s part. Fully aware of what her husband is doing, she sometimes plays to the camera sometimes glares at him (but is that too a performance?) Which brings us to Amalia Ulman’s Excellences and Perfections series, a fictional narrative posted onto her personal Instagram account. Like Mader, Ulman blurs the line between what is real and what is fiction. It was a planned and staged performance, but most of the tens of thousands of people who followed her were not aware of this. In an age of Instagram, Ulman is asking us, do we all to some extent create a fictional version of ourselves for the world to consume and comment on?

While I am unlikely to be able to get down to London to see the exhibition before it closes, Performing for the Camera is a fascinating and generally well realised book and well worth getting for anyone interested in photography and its use in creating versions of ourselves for others to consume.

Tags:

Performing for the Camera, Tate Modern, Shunk-Kender, Nadar, Eikoh Hosoe, Carolee Schneemann, Ai Weiwei, Francesca Woodman, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, David Lamelas, F. Holland Day, Hannah Wilke, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Jemima Stehli, Martin Parr, Hans Eijkelboom, Romain Mader, Boris Mikhailov, Masahisa Fukase, Amalia Ulman

On the pleasures and frustrations of hand dryers

Now, I like hand dryers. None of that mucking around with paper towels that never quite seem to get the skin between the fingers dry and that other people somehow find inexplicably difficult to put in the bins. However not all hand driers are created equal. Some make the simple act of removing water from the skin a slightly thrilling experience, something to take pleasure in. You leave the facilities in an ever so slightly better frame of mind having encountered a machine that does its job well, and with a touch of flair. Other dryers however leave a feeling of annoyance at a what should be a simple task poorly done and pondering that eternal question, how hard can it be?

The example in the first picture falls into the second category. The hand drying equivalent of being breathed on by an asthmatic mouse, it fails to dry my hands in anything like a reasonable time while simultaneously being so cold as to leave me worrying about chapped skin. Looks good but fails to deliver.

The Dyson Airblade brings some theatre to the task, drying your hands with a certain panache, It is pretty effective too, getting your hands dry (and warm) quickly. The sensation as you move your hands up and down in the air, trying to find the perfect balance of pressure on both sides is almost like a game, with yourself, with the machine.

But for sheer power, these unbranded dryers (second picture) are second to none.

Deceptively small, they pack a surprising punch. It is like you have decided to use an English Electric Lightning with the afterburners full on as your preferred method of removing moisture. The skin on the back of your hand ripples from the onslaught of air in a rather pleasing manner, it is almost like you are getting a free massage. The temperature is just right, warming without being hot. Drying is accomplished in next to no time, but it has been such a blast you wish it would go on just that little bit longer, you are left wanting more.

How we remove the moisture from our hands after washing might seem trivial, but in our increasingly hectic and hassled lives it is important to appreciate and take pleasure in the little things like good design, efficiency, and attention to detail. Because the little things add up.

Wither Page 3: Right Campaign, Wrong Target?

Wither Page 3: Right Campaign, Wrong Target?

Media reports today suggest that following a high profile campaign The Sun might be quietly dropping the Page 3 photo of a topless (female) model in its print edition. The 'Page 3 Girl' has been a daily feature of the paper for forty-four years and as a symbol of leery misogyny and media sexism it has been rightly criticised.

Page 3 is a powerful symbol but there are more important feminist battlegrounds today. Indeed, it can be argued that it is something of an 'Aunt Sally' - an obvious target and that victory over it will make little real difference. I would argue that while the Stop Page 3 campaign is right protesting against the objectification of women, they picked the wrong target.

As I was planning to do some Feminism revision with my A2 students next week, I thought it might be a good idea to pose some questions to explore the issue, based broadly around the following arguments (obviously stated in a rather more neutral manner!):

The 'Victory for the neoConservative Mary Whitehouse Brigade' Argument.

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s I made it a rule to be wary of anything that Mary Whitehouse would have approved of. Her religiously inspired moral crusade was enthusiastically taken up by the anti-Libertarian right who wanted to tell everybody what they were and were not allowed to do or say or even think when it came to sexuality. Prime Minister John Major famously espoused a 'Back to Basics' approach to morals which included a heavy dose of 'Victorian Values' for the masses while concealing his extramarital affair; different rules apply to those wielding power it seems. This argument posits that by limiting women’s ability to express themselves the campaign has actually played into the hands of those who for political, ideological or religious reasons want to exercise control over women's freedoms.

The Elitist Argument
The readership of the Sun is broadly working class, and it is reasonable to assume most of the models are too. Critics could portray the campaign against Page 3 as an elitist Middle and Upper class attack on working class culture, this time the attack coming from the Liberal left as well as the right.

The Body Ownership Argument
Prudish sentiment is on the rise. In general culture, bodies are being covered up (again, consider who benefits from this and who loses out). Nudity is less common on mainstream television than a couple of decades ago although a huge range of pornography is available on digital tv if you want to pay a subscription and free online if you don't mind or don't care about your browsing and sexual tastes being tracked by advertisers and probably the government too. The models on Page 3 might be relatively poorly paid and used to sell newspapers, but why should they be denied the right to model topless if that is their choice? It is, after all, their body. Displaying a nipple (unless you are male of course) is frowned upon, even if it is to feed a baby. It is almost as if the 1970's didn't happen.

The Body Fascism Argument
With Page 3 (seemingly) gone are the pressures on women generally and young girls in particular reduced? Music videos routinely show thin, scantily clad female singers and dancers in a sexualised (and often submissive) manner, performing for the ‘male gaze’. What message is that sending to young women about how to succeed in life?

Now I have to hold my hand up here, I have not seen a copy of The Sun for some time but my recollection is that the typical Page 3 model is not a size zero supermodel. While perhaps not the average body shape the Page 3 model offered a somewhat more realistic portrayal of an aspirational body shape to her peers than those found in the fashion magazines.

The Bigger Problem, and the Better Target?

Which leaves us with the newspaper that had taken over from The Sun in influence: the Daily Mail. With its 'Sidebar of Shame' criticising women who transgress its ideas of proper behaviour or appearance; its leering over the 'womanly curves' of teenage celebrities and defining women by their body shape rather than their brains or abilities, the Daily Mail is arguably much more pernicious in its undermining of the self image and self confidence of women than 'Leggy Linda from Luton' ever was.

Maybe it should have been the campaigners' target.

References

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/24/mail-online-sidebar-of-shame

http://www.buzzfeed.com/samjparker/the-daily-mail-translation-guide?s=mobile 

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daily_Mail 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/12/government-s-new-porn-laws-are-arbitrary-and-sexist

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/02/claridges-hotel-breastfeeding-woman-cover-up

http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/mailonline-and-womanly-curves-on-14yo.html

On Constitutional Reform, Gerrymandering and Political Expediency

Prime Minister David Cameron's hurried announcement of UK wide constitutional reform in the wake of the Scottish Referendum result risks breaking his pledge to the Scottish people and leaving England with an ill thought through settlement driven by narrow party political considerations.

His coupling of more powers for Scotland (which the three big Westminster parties promised in the independence referendum campaign) with constitutional reform in the whole of the UK brings together two issues, one of which has been thoroughly worked through and one of which hasn't. Scotland has had two years of intense debate and campaigning on these issues, England only started thinking about it on Friday morning when the Scottish result came through. Getting the promised Scottish reforms through Parliament was always going to be challenging with the promised timetable of proposals in a couple of months and draft legislation by January, especially as we have a General Election next year.

Cameron's solution to the 'West Lothian Question" involves stopping Scottish MPs voting on English matters. Now, at first glance this seems fair enough, why should they vote on matters affecting only voters who did not elect them? However such a solution would, entirely uncoincidentally, remove a whole swathe of Labour MPs and give the Conservative Party a pretty unassailable (and given past voting patterns, a seemingly also permanent) majority in any English Parliament. And presumably if Wales and Northern Ireland also win new powers (as seems likely) their MPs would be barred too, further strengthening the Conservative position. Indeed any future Labour government for the UK as a whole would need a pretty hefty majority of about 100 to stand any chance of getting legislation through an 'English only' Parliament.

Trying to ram this through from a standing start in double quick time without a proper breathing space for debate and consideration in the wider country is not good for democracy. By linking the issue of more Scottish powers with wider constitutional change, which David Cameron did within an hour of the referendum result coming through, he risks the promises to the Scottish electorate being broken, which will reawaken the whole independence question again. Boris Johnson more or less confirmed this on the BBC News channel on Friday afternoon when he said that if the English reforms did not go through, he could not see how the Scottish ones could either. One of the main gripes of the Scottish 'Yes' campaign was with the remote and arrogant Westminster elite who break promises.

If the Prime Minister does get it through this has gerrymandered us all. The Labour Party may not be strong enough to stop this. They want to devolve more power to the English cities and regions rather than to England as a whole, but may not see that this might also be a good time to push for proportional representation. While the Scots seem to have got the best of both worlds (effective autonomy while still remaining within the UK), in contrast those parts of England north of the Home Counties or left of Nigel Farage (who seems to be effectively driving Conservative policy at the moment from within UKIP Towers) look screwed. 

The country deserves better than this. Sort out Scotland as promised and don't rush through proposals for the rest of the country based merely on expediency. 

Review: Goddesses of Water and Sky: Feminist Ideologies of the Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki by Daniel Nienhuis.

In this short book, Nienhuis gives a feminist reading of the films directed by Hayao Miyazaki (including Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo). He does not cover Studio Ghibli films by other directors, such as Only Yesterday, My Neighbours the Yamadas and Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata) or Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo) which is a shame as it would have given scope to examine Miyazaki's influence on the studio and also give wider context for the place of his films within Japanese animation more generally.

Nienhuis states in the abstract that: “a central theme of Miyazalki’s work has been his unique utilization of female protagonists. This paper investigates the gender ideologies espoused by Miyazalki’s feature films. Questions regarding narrative structure, character agency, gender role deviation, and genre precedence are addressed.”

Nienhuis examines the sometimes blurred gender roles Miyazaki gives to his female leads (from the point of view of traditional film tropes, both Western and Japanese), the unusual use of moral ambiguity in some of the plots, and 'big sister, little sister' pairings. He also contrasts the psychoanalytic feminist readings of female characters by Laura Mulvey and Linda Williams with that of Cynthia Freeland's 'intra-filmic' readings (which he favours) and Miyazaki's use (and adaptation of) 'Shojo' heroines (female characters "between childhood and adulthood, cutely attractive, but outside the heterosexual economy").

It is certainly the case that female characters in Miyazaki's films (and those of Studio Ghibli generally) tend to be a lot more nuanced than the simple, often highly formulaic and sexualised portrayals given in many anime and for that reason alone they are worthy of serious study. Don't be put out off by the fact that this book is essentially a reproduction of a Master of Arts thesis; while written from an academic viewpoint it is accessible enough for a general audience and fans of Studio Ghibli films and those interested in the portrayal of female characters in film will find it a worthwhile read.