Alternative, Moi?

where next for 'sisterhood'?

2006-03-28T11:07:00.000+01:00

Alison Wolf's article in this month's Prospect magazine entitled 'The End of Sisterhood' has received a fair bit of attention (well a double pager in The Observer, anyway) which amongst other things gives this quality mag some much needed exposure.

The article has spawned a massive surge of responses in The Observer's blog section, all of which I haven't had time to read (although it's great that this issue excites such interest).

While I thought it was a great piece, primarily because I felt it brought attention to the gradual erosion of shared values that a free market encourages, my girlfriend was less positive. She felt that it was a rather sly stab at feminism that offered no alternative or solution to the contradiction facing 21st century women.

The response by 'Arianna' that "what feminism is failing in today is the fact that it fails to engage women from all straits of society"is a very good point and this is what I took out of Wolf's article: that a movement that could potentially unite half the world under a set of shared values has been undermined by those who have benefitted from the equality it fought for in the first place.

This is not a new story. I'm reading Citizenship, Identity and Social History (edited by Chrles Tilly) in which the first essay studies the changing language of citizenship used by 19th century silk weavers. Marc Steinberg explains how with the breakdown of reforms that upheld the rights of the silk weavers of Spitalfields the language the workers adopted was that of 'possessive individualism' whose inalienable rights were the same as those espoused by the free marketeers who wished to take them away. In doing so women and families were excluded from the conversation as they had no official presence in such a system. The outcome of this was a class movemnet that could oppose legislation that could impact negatively on the employment opportunities of its members but at the cost of re-casting women as irrational and slovenly.

Movements by their very nature seem to rest on contradictions because they are often forced to adopt a language (or discourse if you like) of the hegemony they struggle against - likewise equality for women.

The solution is not feminism's alone however, as many of the blog responses argue, altruism and civil society should be a goal for all and men and the institutions they embody need to acknowledge this as much as women do.

The Ideology Phoenix

2006-03-15T16:39:00.000Z

This month the POWER Commission released their inquiry into the state of democracy in the UK. It's a very interesting document and very readable. Their conclusion is that far from being politically apathetic the people of Britain are just as interested and involved as ever, the problem is that the two party system is failing them because it's based on an outdated class/ideology system.

What they propose in its stead is an atomization of the political process, whereby the power of the Executive is decreased and the balance of power is re-established at a much more local level.
I don't disagree with the method of re-balancing power, but I do feel that it does nothing to compensate for effect this will have on individualisation. For example how will this dovetail with the growth of citizenship and national identity the government plan to bring in?

I'm very much of the view that ideology needs to be re-born not abandoned. And I'm not alone. In Terror & Liberalism (a book I thoroughly recommend) Paul Berman makes the same point as does this discussion of Geoff Mulgan's new organisation Involve. The problem with ideology is not that it doesn't exist, rather that it has lost its coherency and its mass appeal, there is no set of guidelines or objectives under which people of all interests can collect. This was always the strength of a secular ideology and the weakness of the cultural relativism that emerged in the 70s and 80s.

In my opinion the POWER inquiry is glossing over the real issue here. Certainly reduce the power the government has to bypass contested legislation and increase the role that the public play in this context, but this needs to be combined with a set of positive values taught to everybody regardless of their particular interest or social background.

Insoluble solutions

2006-02-23T13:13:00.000Z

I've just read (perhaps 'skimmed' is a better word) Chris Huhne's attack on the attitudes of Labour and the Conservatives toward civil liberties.

I share alot of his opnions and disagree with a few, but I am left thinking to myself, as with so much of what falls from the mouths of the Lib Dems, 'so, what are you going to do about it?' (I don't think decentralisation is actually a real solution and certainly doesn't seem to be the 'democratic' solution judging by the response of the people).

The first question to ask is: 'why are these reforms in the law being drafted in?' Terrorist threat, anti-social behaviour you would reply. But, without coming across all 'Adam Curtis', these threats are enthusuastically exaggerated out of all proportion by certain factions of the media. Now, I'm not saying these problems don't exist, but to turn them into issues of national security to sell more copies of your god-forsaken rag isn't help us solve these problems.

Because, consequently, the Government feel the need to bring in some heavy handed policy to demonstrate to the electorate that they have their safety and security in hand as this article demonstrates nicely.

Somehow, and I don't really understand just how, the media get away with the 'we're just reporting the facts' poker face, while our poor beleagured politicians not only get it right in the face, but have to clear up their diuretic propaganda. Okay, maybe I'm being too nice about our politicians, but if it came to trusting one of them over, say the editor of the Daily Mail, well I think the answer to that one's fairly obvious isn't it.

If Chris Huhne had begun his paper with an attack on the agitators I would have immediatley had a lot more respect for him and his party, instead we get the same old bickering politics that always leaves liberals looking worse off than they should. To the casual reader (skimmer) it reads as though the civil liberties of the 'possibly guilty' are more important than the 'definitely innocent', that intolerance is something minorities only suffer and never propogate.

He's right that a diverse society is better, but his rather outdated discourse on the issue doesn't help support his case. The first solution is to ensure that the most popular media outlets in the UK take responsibility for the results of the journalism and attempt to deal with the isues in a way that doesn't create alarm and knee-jerk reaction, then we'll get to see how the politicians really deal with it.

The problem of course is the big issue at the moment 'freedom of speech', but that's an issue for another day.

Alternative Moi Reborn

2006-02-03T12:02:00.000Z

Hmm, i just noticed the last post here was August. I didn't realise it was so long ago.

I think the subject matter may have been a little narrow for a protracted blogging feature.

But I think the underlying issue is one that has more breath in it - that is the state of contemporary liberalism.

Given that David Cameron has been painted as 'liberal' if not 'a liberal' and the Lib Dems haven't been liberal enough with the truth about the sexuality of some of their senior MPs (like anyone with a brain really cares) I think the issue is in need of some serious thought....

...lets just see if I can get round to writing something in the next week or two

Rebels with Causes?

2005-08-17T14:32:00.000+01:00

This is what Eric Hobsbawm has to say on the phenomenon of youth culture and the subcultures it spawned:

"What is even more significant is that this rejection was not in the name of some pattern of ordering society, though the new libertarianism was given ideological justification by those who felt it needed such labels, but in the name of the unlimited autonomy of individual desire. It assumed a world of self-regarding individualism pushed to its limits. Paradoxically the rebels against the conventions and restrictions shared the assumptions on which mass consumer society was built, or at least the psychological motivations which those who sold consumers goods and services found most effective in selling them" (pg 334 The Age of Extremes)

I'm glad someone else feels that way, even if you could argue that Eric is an old git, the fact is that he's an intelligent, observant old git. I'm still of the mind that alternative culture is equivalent to 'opt-out' culture in many ways, that is a culture that refuses to acknowledge its responsibility to society. And regardless of what we might think, everybody has a responsibility to society.

That isn't to say that 'alternative' cultures don't have anything going for them, celebrating artistic freedom isn't bad, even if the results all too frequently are, but the state of being liberated has to have limits. Maybe young contemporary artists could think about filling the gap that has been left by the cessation of the creation of public monuments and memorials rather than focusing on out-dated 'taboos' such as sexual promiscuity which is neither particularly subversive nor socially useful. Neither do I think that individuals within these groups are completely sealed from the outside world, I'm sure most voted in the last general election, it's more to do with the lack of public acknowledgement that politics matters.

Our 'alternative'cultures still live under the monolithic shadow of the emergence of youth culture. Yes, it was an unprecedented event and yes it meant we have access to an unimaginable volume of media, in terms of music, film, books, websites etc. but when are we going to get over it. Flaunting social convention stops appearing like political action when we live in a society that, apart from Daily Mail readers, which is admittedly a little too large a percentage for my liking, doesn't look twice. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.

The murder of that poor bloke on the number 43 bus, made me think alot. I couldn't belive that passengers let it happen and when he was lying there bleeding, that only one woman stopped to help. Now I'm not saying that this is the fault of the alternative, what I am saying is that this is the result of a society that values the choice to opt in or out of society.

Unscene

2005-07-20T14:14:00.000+01:00

Although I was only at the Wired Women festival for about an hour and a half on Saturday, I was surprised how distant I felt from it all. Although not everybody there was a heart on their sleeve lesbian, there was a definite 'scene' thing going on that the isolated clusters gathered round picnic tables couldn't quite conceal. It's an old cliche, but it's true that even people who feel that they are different from everybody else seek like-minded people, even if they don't actually communicate with them.

My classic illustrative anecdote for this was from the Slimelight 'goth' club at Electrowerks, where a lone middle aged tranny could be seen wandering around it's scummy halls, past the cyber goths with their glowsticks and EBM, down through the old skool Siouxsie Sioux look-alikes past the assorted goth/metal groups who clog up the corridors and back up to the cyber goths. He never spoke a word to anybody and I never saw him with a drink, but he seemed happy to be somewhere he felt comfortable, where a middle aged man can wear a figure hugging, thigh length leather dress and black stilettoes and barely stand out from the fauna.

I didn't feel like part of the scene there either, actually I felt like I stood out more than the tranny, which I probably did.

I don't think alternative cultures should be little more than safe houses for outsiders, I think they should encourage people to question everything, even the scene they are a part of. Within these cultures a hierarchy is inevitably formed and the same inequalities are reinforced, except they are hidden away from public view and obscured by a veneer of liberalness.

That sounds quite bitter and harsh, doesn't it. I'm not quite sure why being different is even that important. Here's one suggestion though.

According to cognitive scientists, that the human brain is unique because of it's 'plasticity' - basically the reason we as a species have been so successful at survival is because of our inherent adaptability to our environment. What this also means is that technically speaking every human being is unique, because there are simply so many possible variations of connections that can be made between the billions of neurons that make up our brains.

Now there are two explanations of how this occured (actually there are probably loads but I'm just going to mention two) and I'm going to simplify them awfully. One suggests that language preceded this ability, and was probably conducive to the evolution of a brain capable of creating the unique, another theory has it that we were already capable of incredibly imaginative mental feats and that this gave us the capacity to speak. Now obviously both were implicit in early human socialising, but theory 1 puts sociability at the heart of the imagination, as speech could only be developed in a highly dynamic social milieu and theory 2 puts less emphasis on the social side, suggesting that huamn imagination is not wholly reliant on social interaction.

If theory 2 is right, then that would suggest that social pressure could unduly restrict imagination and creativity, because although the human brain is capable of making meaning out of the most obscure sets of words, not every individual would create the same meaning, hence it could be argued that social groups require a fixed set of prompts in order that everybody understands everybody else and cohesiveness is maintained.

So what is the answer? ... I don't know, in fact it may be that the Slimlight Tranny has it right, and that if you can find somewhere were you feel comfortable doing the things you want to do then that's all you need, but he still seemed a lonely soul and whether sociability came 1st or 2nd it is here to stay and an element of sociability should be the freedom to discuss ideas that differ from the norm.

questions worth asking

2005-06-15T14:25:00.000+01:00

This book sounds very interesting, if a little pessimistic. But it's attack on alternative forms of consumption is quite refreshing. Again this is a book I will have to read (like the DIY culture one), but I think the question of whether any of the ethical/radical/alternative forms of consumption have any validity or are simply forms of social distinction is interesting. On the one hand it seems to posit capitalism as a complete and bounded system and assumes that truly ethical behaviour is antithetical to any status seeking motivations.

This second point is rather stupid, as their book itself could be construed as a piece of status-seeking 'we're better than you' type hype and secondly we'd have to dispense with the great ethically minded heroes of the past as attention seeking hypocrites - goodbye Jesus, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King & co, they were clearly no better than the latest batch of Big Brother contestants.

The first point is slightly harder to discredit, capitalism seems to be everywhere, although it does depend what is meant by capitalism in this case. Selling things doesn't equal capitalist behvaiour per se. Human beings have probably always sold things, commodities are nothing new. Plus while economic institutions may apply free market rules literally (although G8 might change that a little, it appears to be an exception rather than a rule and comes with lots of rather dodgy caveats apparently) most businesses that participate in capitalism are less strict in their adherence (see profits being 'invested' in shareholders offshore accounts rather than business improvements).

What it does bring into question is: precisely what are alternative consumer practices doing to actually make the world a better place, and more pertinently to this blog does buying some obscure new wave album from the late 70s qualify for truly alternative behaviour or just a classic example of social distinction?

The new 'sensibility'?

2005-06-03T11:59:00.000+01:00

"SHE: — I have zero confidence in those procedures as you call them; they are much too nice; too pacific; there is no conflict any more. Whenever there is a dispute, we gather around the table, we talk, and we reach a conclusion. It is now about governance, and that’s the final emasculation of politics. No teeth. No guts. No balls."

I think this could be the debate of the 21st century. Domestically, at least, the preference for a strong ideological stance seems to have withered away, and re-emerged on the fringes as UKIP or the BNP, groups whose ideologies are overly simple and anachronistic. In some ways HE is right because, the kind of people involved in these groups have reduced something very complex to a simple, single issue. There undoubtedly is a danger to the adherence to a single, all powerful Truth. But that doesn't mean it can't be useful to at least toy with the idea so long as it doesn't become dogmatic.

I think it's fair to say that we, of the liberal leanings, tend to be sceptical of unambiguous claims, we prefer 'points of view', 'perspectives' and when we summon up some passion we focus it on a band or a film, something apolitical and safe, the reason we love it comes down to personal taste and preference, it needn't be reflective of our overall political standpoint. And if it comes to that, we try to skirt the issue...

This is just as true of the current alternative mindset (I'll explain what I think this is in another post). There seems to be a love of all things twee and cutesy, whether it's Joanna Newsom or fairy cakes or pixie ears. I'll admit I'm a big fan of the middle one, and I'm sure there could be a discussion of the political economy of traditional recipes and cooking, but this side of things tends to remain in silence, explicitly politicising these issues seems to be taboo for the alternative. There is a whiff of the 18th century notion of sensibility about this stance - of compassionate emotion that appears to be outwardly directed but is actually a self-gratifying sense of one's own goodness...

Radical?

2005-05-23T23:04:00.000+01:00

I've just finished reading The World Turned Upsidedown by Christopher Hill, a study of radicalism in the mid 17th century and I've just started reading Customs in Common, a study of 18th century plebian culture. The former includes such radical groups as the Quakers, Ranters and Levellers many of whom had constructed radical and revolutionary oppositional ideologies to those provided by state and church, the latter, so far anyway, are no less passive when it comes to the wrongs of society but are certainly less ideologically driven and therefore have less scope to their activity. While the 17th century radicals were pro-active, the tendency for the 18th century plebs appears to have been generally responsive.

Amongst the former, for example, Gerrard Winstanley, developed communist ideas that Karl Marx would have been proud of (even though he claimed they were divinely inspired, which I imagine Marx would have been less impressed with). Amongst the more mature views expressed were those that called for universal suffrage and equality between the sexes. If we take the 18th century plebs, even though their culture developed its own forms of resistance, it never assumed a conscious ideological form, even if wife-swapping and rough music managed to piss off the gentry.

Why? Well, I hypothesize that our 17th century radicals were the outcome of over a century of major social upheaval, Martin Luther and Protestantism, the Reformation and finally the English Civil War and effective anti-monarchical sentiment. Change was the name of the era and as such it seemed genuinely possible that the existing social order would be turned on its head. The possibility of extreme social revolution seems to have bred increasingly active radical activity. Our 18th century plebians however were born into an era of relative stability, a restored monarchy and a balanced political climate. It wasn't as though there weren't abuses in the 18th century, far from it, but until the late 18th early 19th century a general equilibrium seems to have been established, in Britain anyway.

Does this latter scenario sound familiar? Maybe we've just been born in the wrong era (see what I mean) and our alternative culture simply devises it's own versions of wife swapping and rough music (like er.... rough music). So we've been left with what cultural studies types would call 'resistance' (I think that was Foucault's chestnut). A term I personally hate, because the word resistance should mean so much more. Its suggestion that any activity contrary to the norm deserves elevation to an act of political relevance is as ridiculous as it is desperate. While I'd be the first person to say that in stable social climates the locus of political activity often takes place in the minutiae of life, it doesn't mean all this activity is worthy of navel gazing self righteousness.

Maybe that's why we get up to stuff like this... artists....

DIY Culture done right

2005-05-19T15:37:00.000+01:00

I just have to say, that having caught the midnight showing of Revenge of the Sith last night/this morning, George Lucas is easily the best DIYer. This guy has made a fortune out of doing things his own way which is what DIY culture should be about - "Making money is not wrong though y'know - DIY organisations should make money. They deserve it, if what they are doing is good. Making money doesn't make it any less valid or DIY"

DIY Culture book launch: "Rubbish"

2005-05-13T13:12:00.000+01:00

I will read the book and give it a chance to prove me wrong, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t really like the term DIY Culture to begin with. It sounds like one of those paper thin terms that predominate in cultural studies camps, like Visual Culture and Virtuality, that try to draw together so many heterogeneous ideas and activities that placed under any scrutiny they crumble into meaninglessness . Plus ‘lo-fi’ culture sounded rather invalid, especially now that the technology available for DIY culture manipulation is pretty hi-tech, at least to my eyes . But my main issue was; when does DIY culture cease to be DIY culture? Can a magazine like Plan B be strictly considered DIY seeing as it has an organisational structure and a brand identity. It may be that I’ve got DIY culture wrong and that entrepreneurship could sit just as comfortably under that definition, but, at least from the publisher’s blurb, the contents of the book seems to focus solely on reactions against the mainstream. Obviously I do need to read the book.

So, the launch party: given that the book itself seems to be a celebration of alternative movements that could at least be considered radical in theory if not in action, I expected something that might try to mirror these perspectives. But just to prove all my expectations right, the atmosphere was subdued, the speakers slightly apologetic, repeatedly self-deprecating, almost embarrassed. The film that was being projected when we first got there actually looked interesting, I recognised GWAR, who I always thought were funny, and Lydia Lunch but there was no sound because the dj was playing some whingey, miserable emo type stuff, followed by some twee, cutesy, folkways style roots music, probably because the emo was too loud and aggressive for some of the frail, malnourished souls in there. The cookies were quite nice though.

This kind of alternative is just kind’ve content ‘to be’, although content is probably to strong a word for it. It ‘knows its place’ in the hierarchy and as such is left to its own rather predictable devices, so long as it can do its thing its happy, although probably not ecstatic. As the blurb proclaims ‘if you can’t find the cultural experience you’re looking for simply create your own’ – I read ‘opt out’, basically a call to apathy. Don’t challenge anything just get on with your own little thing - quietly - so nobody notices you.

I’m reading a book called ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ at the moment, it’s a study of radical ideas in the 17th century, particularly those that took place during the Civil War and I suppose it’s quite inspiring to see how advanced some of the (more reasonable) ideas actually were. But I’ve written way too much, so I’ll write more about this one on next time. It’s relevant, honest.

http://www.marionboyars.co.uk/Amy%20individual%20book%20info/DIY.html

I just read a review of the book here http://www.marionboyars.co.uk/Amy%20Pages/AC%20Press%20&%20Reviews.html and apparently most lo-fi stuff is "rubbish". I'll read the extract too.

What is the point?

2005-05-12T13:31:00.000+01:00

That there are alternative cultures and/or 'subcultures' is something we take for granted, we don't question their existence, and in fact to anyone who gives it some thought it makes perfect sense that there should be alternatives to mainstream, orthodox values, viewpoints and activities. History attests that few stable societies don't have subcultures or groups that advocate alternative views. Modernity may have given these alternative perspectives a safer and therefore more legitimate opportunity to thrive, but the heresies of the Middle Ages and persecutions of the Roman Empire illustrate that alternatives have always been sought.

My issue is with the word 'alternative' as it is used today, at least in my encounters with it. Despite our culture's misgivings about our political system, most alternative culture appears to be largely apolitical and primarily aesthetic. Alternative has no agenda it is simply a different set of rules and references propagated by various social circles who are associated with or orbit relatively influential establishments. But there is clearly a market for it, people want to be a part of it, or at least experience it. Do they feel more individual for doing so? Is that even their motivation? Or maybe it's just all about acceptance amongst like-minded outcasts.

Perhaps what is most depressing/interesting is that teenage rebellion, so often dismissed as overabundant hormonal activity, is in reality often fuelled by far more conviction and passion than its mature counterparts. After university age 'alternative' seems to become little more than a set of lifestyle accoutrements; condescending attitude towards chart music and blockbuster films, second hand clothes, grotty clubs and bars, a penchant for performance art, acme scowl etc, but little awareness of what this could or should translate into on a more significant scale.

I'm interested in this because I'm part of this alternative perspective and have been since I was a teen, but I'm losing faith in it's motives. Maybe I'm just growing up, but I don't really want to accept that thought. I have no intention of conforming or at least of conforming as little as I can so I want to see if alternative culture is capable of changing too.

Next entry will be my thoughts on the book launch party for DIY: The Rise of Lo Fi Culture at the Horse Hospital, near Russel Square and 17th Century Radicalism. Pretentious, isn't it.