There could be new COVID outbreaks until 2022-24 if social distancing is inadequately implemented. The study cited in that SCMP article also warns against too much social distancing, which could lead to nobody developing immunity at all...but isn't it a risky gamble to just let people go out and contract it? For one thing, I've started seeing people say there could be lasting effects to contraction, like weakened immune systems and compromised respiration. Then there's the issue I still feel is under-addressed: community transmission from asymptomatic carriers to vulnerable populations. It's all well and good for 'healthy' people to go back out into the world, but those people don't exist as discrete units. They have children, parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, community members, etc. who could be put at risk from contact with someone who -- unbeknownst to either party -- is carrying the novel coronavirus. Quite apart from creating new hot spots, it would be cruel forcing people to live under such prolonged stress. Not that I expect sensitivity or pragmatism from the United States...I just really and truly don't see an end to any of this though. And I don't think I'm being overly cynical in thinking so, or having my judgment skewed negatively by depression.
(Anyway, isn't depressive realism supposed to help you see more clearly?)
***
As I've written before, if asked to name my favorite book I would choose The Portrait of a Lady for convenience and relative high profile, not because it truly stands head and shoulders above other books I cherish. But even so, it's fair to say that Henry James occupies a special place in my life, one of those artists I feel compelled to learn more about whenever the opportunity arises, the kind of name that will make me pause during a Twitter scroll session to see what's currently being said about him. So I did enjoy reading about James' relation to solitude, and I even think it's possible to take his forsaking of marriage for "the common good" in a direction opposite to the one indicated in a play he wrote. Instead of religious devotion, why not material commitment to the needs of humankind? Such a choice wouldn't even preclude a life given over to art, if art is taken to be a crucial component of human existence (and I firmly believe it is).
Michael Koresky on SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM. Very accomplished work, and makes me want to revisit TAKE ONE somewhere down the line after not really appreciating it fully the first time.
The world as seen by Abel Ferrara, on lockdown in Rome. Nice asides about Cassavetes. It hadn't really occurred to me to worry about any film directors during this pandemic, but Ferrara's gotten much older...
This essay is a useful way of thinking through the electoral assumption that charismatic leaders both create and direct mass movements. Regrettably, it uses only the Anglophone examples of Bernie and Corbyn, yet even these two examples provide support for a thesis I've been trying to formulate myself without a significant breakthrough. It is the clash of agendas between a mass movement and an electoral process, the power to destroy versus the imperative to maintain order, which forces concessions from the state. Elected leaders (or candidates, MPs, what have you) can't count on personal charisma and election year enthusiasm to "turn out the vote" if there aren't fierce, competing demands for a vision of the future.
I really like Gavin Mueller's attempt to push past the 'liberal public sphere' concept often used in describing the Internet. So many people are fixated on the Internet as some kind of digital democracy, where information and debate lead to rational action by informed participants. Doesn't that sound ridiculous in and of itself? Anyone who's used the Internet enough knows the derangement it produces in people. If we take *that* as a starting point, maybe we can move toward an analogy favored by Mueller and the authors he cites: war. War waged by the state against the people, with weapons supplied by capital (war profiteering, in this metaphor), and an array of actions that blur the distinction between civil protest and 'criminal' insurgency. I wouldn't ordinarily resort to militaristic metaphors right away, but to me, this seems a much sharper way of interrogating the Internet's place in our lives.
Mueller's essay provides an unexpected bridge to one by Rob Horning on the collectibility (and thus, interchangeability) of 'authentic experiences.' It's actually Mueller's citation of Jodi Dean's "communicative capitalism" that came to mind while I was reading this new essay. Since capitalism has the ability to extract data from communication and thus profit from our social interactions, why do we continue communicating online despite knowing the conditions under which it happens? Obviously the urge to connect with other people tends to outweigh whatever ethical or structural concerns we can raise through critiques of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I don't think that's a new observation on my part, even if I also don't believe the implications of it are fully understood. But in reading Horning's essay, I found myself considering one way this natural desire is stoked, then distorted, then turned into profit both directly (through engagement with influencers and celebrities) and indirectly (through fan communities, as well as purchases made under the influence, so to speak).
Influencer exhortations shape fan behavior, which is why even well-meaning suggestions to stay safe during COVID-19 come off as branding opportunities. As human brands, influencers make their audiences feel special for the relational experiences 'shared' between marketer and fan. The ideal fan need not interact with other fans -- though of course they often do, and fervently, which is one of many contradictions in this phenomenon that resists easy and reductive rage against the machine. All that's required of a fan is their ongoing commitment to acquisition. What they acquire can range from products to those emotional experiences seen as a unique component in a given "fandom." Particulars don't matter as long as the baseline need for attention is diverted into psychic investment. This is how I understand the attention economy to work. It's more than just the momentary appeal of outrageous headlines or feeling attached to the construct another person projects. It's the gradual re-conditioning of human interiority into an apparatus that responds to advertising's stimulation.
From this angle, algorithms are like clumsy attempts at provoking the same reaction a human brand can induce "authentically." Amazon ads, Spotify playlists, and YouTube video recommendations create an uncanny intimacy by intuiting what you like, then presenting it to you without your asking. Weirdly, this exchange resembles the emotional labor behind gift-giving -- our personal knowledge of another person that tells us what things they like -- without the warmth of kindness that comes with it. I think that's why algorithms don't (always) seem robotic or emotionless; if they're worth their programming, the recipient will enjoy what's being offered. But neither are they fully human. Occupying a strange in-between space, they purport to know us better than we even know ourselves based on meta-analysis of all possible people, categorizing us with sometimes frightening accuracy. None of this could happen without siphoning the energies and emotional investments of countless 'consumers.'
In fact, the more I think of it, the more I see a digital world built on quasi-human interaction. YouTube influencers and their legions of fans; Spotify's customization, filtered through metrics of popularity; Facebook's and Instagram's battle royale for attention; Twitter, with its Likes, Follows, and RTs; Amazon, eternally at the ready with your shopping list that it memorized, gazing back at you on any ad-run site. To various degrees, there are parasocial relationships occurring in all the above interactions. Some, like Tinder, Twitter, and Facebook, feel more concrete because you can reach out and touch the people involved through text or communicative symbols. Others, like Spotify and Amazon, are like stores built just for you, based on what people like you shop for, with salespeople who know what kind of things you bought here before.
With some distance, an all-encompassing vision comes into focus: capital, monstrous in its hunger, preying upon the wants and needs of lonely, atomized consumers. I'm not suggesting we can -- or even should -- withdraw en masse from these websites and their place in our lives. For people who are lonely, misunderstood, or oppressed in real life, the internet can be a haven where likeminded people support you through your offline troubles. In those cases, the ambiguously social spaces of the internet are an improvement over lives without the freedoms of self-determination. Yet at the same time as the internet assuages its disaffected, it also ropes better-adjusted people into a network of new fears, doubts, resentments. Perhaps this is one way we actually can call the internet "the great equalizer." Whoever we were before we came here, it's our shared burden now.
***
It's not just YouTube. Amazon is programming right-wing foot soldiers too. In researching digital currents of fascism -- Thielism is yet another -- I feel like I'm constantly playing catch up not only to new developments in reactionary thought, but also the linkages between the 20th century's far-right and its 21st century successors. One remedial example: this month I watched Walter Heynowski's AKTION J, a documentary film chronicling the career of Hans Josef Maria Globke as he transitioned from high-ranking Nazi to high-ranking post-war government official. I found the film buried in rarefilmm.com's archives, and there's a link in my Letterboxd post there if you're curious.
Following up on my viewing of the film, I decided to familiarize myself a bit with the upper ranks of Nazi Germany. I read up on Eichmann and Müller, and I was about to switch over to Himmler when I noticed a link to the Red Army tucked away in Müller's page...at which point I asked myself, shouldn't I also be reading up on WWII-era Communism, not just Nazism? So I switched over to the Soviet Union's endeavors, which brought me to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which brought me to the Soviet Union's annexations of the 1940s, which at long last generated in me a question: why aren't these seeming acts of imperialism discussed more? Why is the big tankie split centered on Hungary when the Soviet Union had already annexed parts of Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland? I would sincerely be interested in the tankie justification for these actions.
Pondering the tankie issue more, I switched over the Hungarian Revolution page, trying to see if I could find information that might take me somewhere new. I wasn't expecting what I found. Among the names of refugees who'd fled the Hungarian Communist Party replacing its Soviet predecessor, one stood out with great prominence: Georg Lukács!! Whoa! Not only had Lukács been present in Hungary at the time, he had actually served as part of Imre Nagy's interim government!! A world-famous Marxist writer and philosopher, and a primary source for this hugely controversial event in history? Surely there was some account from Lukács on what he felt had transpired?
Well, I might have to keep digging around for that. Apparently a Budapest Diary does exist that relates to the event (though a quick search hasn't produced any results). But the reason I'm detailing this long Wikipedia digression is because of the unlikely things I found on this unlikely page. You know that feeling of encountering a Wikipedia page that's been surprisingly well-tended, even magisterial in its upkeep? Lukács has such a page. Reading it, I came closer to understanding the slippery concept of dialectical materialism than I've yet managed on my own. Not only does Lukács, in quotes below, describe it very clearly:
"For this reason the task of orthodox Marxism, its victory over Revisionism and utopianism can never mean the defeat, once and for all, of false tendencies. It is an ever-renewed struggle against the insidious effects of bourgeois ideology on the thought of the proletariat. Marxist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate present and the totality of the historical process."
He even goes further, downplaying the role of the "individual" in this churning of time and power that would seem to overwhelm any one person's ability to make a change. And guess what: basically, that is what happens. Lukács again -- not in quotes this time to avoid confusion; and sorry for the lengthy block of text, but it really is all necessary:
According to him, "The premise of dialectical materialism is, we recall: 'It is not men's consciousness that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.' ...Only when the core of existence stands revealed as a social process can existence be seen as the product, albeit the hitherto unconscious product, of human activity." (§5). In line with Marx's thought, he criticises the individualist bourgeois philosophy of the subject, which founds itself on the voluntary and conscious subject. Against this ideology, he asserts the primacy of social relations. Existence – and thus the world – is the product of human activity; but this can be seen only if the primacy of social process on individual consciousness is accepted. Lukács does not restrain human liberty for sociological determinism: to the contrary, this production of existence is the possibility of praxis.
(Me now:) History makes us, having itself been made by people, but we as individuals struggle to make history because we are not as powerful as we've been led to believe. I'm going to drop one more big Lukács claim, comment on it, then do a little fake page break, so that this doesn't get too unwieldy...even though there's so much more to be said (this one is without quotes again):
For Lukács, "ideology" is a projection of the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie, which functions to prevent the proletariat from attaining consciousness of its revolutionary position. Ideology determines the "form of objectivity", thus the very structure of knowledge. According to Lukács, real science must attain the "concrete totality" through which only it is possible to think the current form of objectivity as a historical period. Thus, the so-called eternal "laws" of economics are dismissed as the ideological illusion projected by the current form of objectivity ("What is Orthodoxical Marxism?", §3). He also writes: "It is only when the core of being has showed itself as social becoming, that the being itself can appear as a product, so far unconscious, of human activity, and this activity, in turn, as the decisive element of the transformation of being." ("What is Orthodoxical Marxism?", §5)
Am I wrong, or is this all like 100% correct? I'd have to do the reading myself, yet I feel like this is something I've intuitively known for years, without ever seeing it expressed so plainly. I gather that studying dialectical materialism might have given me this view of history as a process, but as for viewing the "individual" as a product of their environment, of economic forces beyond their control? It sounds simple to say, but this is a truth that challenges so much of Western thinking on subjectivity. I think I've actually been coming at it almost from the opposite angle, from within the field of psychology and critical theory, and especially via Lacan, whose work eludes me as much as it tantalizes me, but from which I've carried this crucial insight for quite a while now: at the core of our 'being' is not our "self," but in fact, the language through which other people have taught us to engage the world.
***
Still on Lukács: if this were all the Wikipedia page had given me, I'd have more than enough to investigate further. But not only did Lukács contribute these ideas to Marxism, he also applied them to literature, developing a theory of aesthetics whose outline I think can be applied to some questions I've been wondering about art. Big big quote here, a paragraph and a half:
The Historical Novel is probably Lukács's most influential work of literary history. In it he traces the development of the genre of historical fiction. While prior to 1789, he argues, people's consciousness of history was relatively underdeveloped, the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars that followed brought about a realisation of the constantly changing, evolving character of human existence. This new historical consciousness was reflected in the work of Sir Walter Scott, whose novels use 'representative' or 'typical' characters to dramatise major social conflicts and historical transformations, for example the dissolution of feudal society in the Scottish Highlands and the entrenchment of mercantile capitalism. Lukács argues that Scott's new brand of historical realism was taken up by Balzac and Tolstoy, and enabled novelists to depict contemporary social life not as a static drama of fixed, universal types, but rather as a moment of history, constantly changing, open to the potential of revolutionary transformation. For this reason he sees these authors as progressive and their work as potentially radical, despite their own personal conservative politics.
For Lukács, this historical realist tradition began to give way after the 1848 revolutions, when the bourgeoisie ceased to be a progressive force and their role as agents of history was usurped by the proletariat. After this time, historical realism begins to sicken and lose its concern with social life as inescapably historical.
I guess I'm the latecomer to this way of thinking, because the Wikipedia page calls it "hugely influential," but I'm totally fascinated at first contact, and I think it has plenty of applications outside literature. For instance, I could complain that a lot of current films lack this situated tendency, existing in some shapeless and eternal Now that -- while I suppose accurate to the erasure of past and future under neoliberalism -- is ultimately false, and we know this because of what Lukács himself said!! If we can mock Francis Fukuyama while agreeing amongst ourselves that history hasn't ended, then the next step should be theorizing ourselves as products of history. Back to Lukács!
"Realism in the Balance"[45] is a 1938 essay by Georg Lukács (written while he lived in Soviet Russia and first published in a German literary journal) in which he defends the "traditional" realism of authors like Thomas Mann in the face of rising Modernist movements, such as Expressionism, Surrealism, and Naturalism. Practitioners of these movements, such as James Joyce, placed an emphasis on displaying the discord and disenchantment of modern life through techniques that highlight individualism and individual consciousness, such as stream of consciousness. In his essay, Lukács presents a complex, nuanced view of these movements and their relation to what he regards as "true" realism: On the one hand, Lukács argues that such movements are a historical necessity, but he also strongly expresses the sentiment that these new artistic movements lack what he views as revolutionary power.
Another two block quotes:
He explains that the pervasiveness of capitalism, the unity in its economic and ideological theory, and its profound influence on social relations comprise a "closed integration" or "totality," an objective whole that functions independent of human consciousness. Lukács cites Marx to bolster this historical materialist worldview: "The relations of production in every society form a whole." He further relies on Marx to argue that the bourgeoisie's unabated development of the world's markets are so far-reaching as to create a unified totality, and explains that because the increasing autonomy of elements of the capitalist system (such as the autonomy of currency) is perceived by society as "crisis," there must be an underlying unity that binds these seemingly autonomous elements of the capitalist system together, and makes their separation appear as crisis.
Returning to modernist forms, Lukács stipulates that such theories disregard the relationship of literature to objective reality, in favour of the portrayal of subjective experience and immediacy that do little to evince the underlying capitalist totality of existence. It is clear that Lukács regards the representation of reality as art's chief purpose—in this he is perhaps not in disagreement with the modernists—but he maintains that "If a writer strives to represent reality as it truly is, i.e. if he is an authentic realist, then the question of totality plays a decisive role." "True realists" demonstrate the importance of the social context, and since the unmasking of this objective totality is a crucial element in Lukács's Marxist ideology, he privileges their authorial approach.
Naturally, I shy away from the word "objective" as a way of viewing the world, but there seems to be room in Lukács' theory for individual subjectivity, which he grants can be a necessary abstraction that's useful for explaining how the "totality" affects people. And now one more quote, because this has gone on long enough:
Lukács then sets up a dialectical opposition between two elements he believes inherent to human experience. He maintains that this dialectical relation exists between the "appearance" of events as subjective, unfettered experiences and their "essence" as provoked by the objective totality of capitalism. Lukács explains that good realists, such as Thomas Mann, create a contrast between the consciousnesses of their characters (appearance) and a reality independent of them (essence). According to Lukács, Mann succeeds because he creates this contrast. Conversely, modernist writers fail because they portray reality only as it appears to themselves and their characters—subjectively—and "fail to pierce the surface" of these immediate, subjective experiences "to discover the underlying essence, i.e. the real factors that relate their experiences to the hidden social forces that produce them." The pitfalls of relying on immediacy are manifold, according to Lukács. Because the prejudices inculcated by the capitalist system are so insidious, they cannot be escaped without the abandonment of subjective experience and immediacy in the literary sphere. They can only be superseded by realist authors who "abandon and transcend the limits of immediacy, by scrutinising all subjective experiences and measuring them against social reality;" this is no easy task. Lukács relies on Hegelian dialectics to explain how the relationship between this immediacy and abstraction effects a subtle indoctrination on the part of capitalist totality. The circulation of money, he explains, as well as other elements of capitalism, is entirely abstracted away from its place in the broader capitalist system, and therefore appears as a subjective immediacy, which elides its position as a crucial element of objective totality.
Okay, that's it, but really the entire section is worth reading. I just can't help wonder who put in the time to make this all flow so lucidly. And keeping in mind, once again, that I'm only gleaning Lukács' theoretical work from these (comparatively) brief summaries, I nevertheless think there's value in 'playing around' with Wikipedia like this. Would I have come across Lukács' work otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say. There are so many other things I want to read too. Am I more interested in reading him for real than I was before browsing Wikipedia? Absolutely, now that I know his deep involvement in questions and situations that are often on my mind. There are several things I'm wondering now, and I'd like to air them out just a little before I close up, hopefully to be reprised later:
- Continuing with the concept of 'play': this connection might seem silly from the outside, but it seems pretty vital to me from inside my head. The process of seeing the past, the present, and one's place in them are a form of play that people can only figure out for themselves. Everyone's conclusions will be different, which is one area I might diverge from Lukács (assuming he doesn't address this himself). The "totality" of capitalism, or something close to it, has only grown more complex under neoliberalism, and it would take a lot of creative thinking to puzzle out a realism that could be considered equal to the task. Then there's the matter of tools, what's available to us for research, guidance, and personal experience once it's time to start. The need to learn, the need to experiment, the knowledge to of how to apply acquired skills in service of art. How do we optimize conditions so that creativity will flourish?
- Who depicts this totality? What do they choose to emphasize? Again, I think there's a lot of room for interpretation here. Not everyone would respond to a given realist novel the same way. Even Lukács had to play favorites. I'm not just arguing in defense of individual subjectivity, of which I hope I've been clear in expressing my distrust. I mean that it's harder to rally behind a realist novel than, say, the Communist Manifesto. That concise, electrifying document may well have illustrated the "totality" better than any work of literature. But even a manifesto is a work of art, first and foremost in its use of rhetoric. Where does that leave us?
- I guess tying the two above points together are questions of access and freedom to create. That's a political challenge, and I want to bring in Isiah Medina's INVENTING THE FUTURE to undergird my inquiries in this section. As I've written in my review of that film, a Universal Basic Income coupled with a reduced workweek would be huge boons for marginalized people whose creativity has been stifled by capitalism.
- The use of the term "realism" irks me on a bunch of levels, but having not read Lukács' work myself and trusting he has his reasons, I won't complain. What I will say is that I've very much been thinking about the basics of creation lately. The simple act of putting words together, and the joining together of two images. These sequential decisions alone are feats of tremendous creativity, though not everyone appreciates their enormity. But to me this is style, and it's inseparable from substance for the very reason that substance couldn't exist without it. I'm definitely with Lukács so far, but I don't see how you can subtract the encoding and decoding processes from artistic practice and interpretation. Of course it's possible to stray too far from exploring history and the "totality" it made, but that appears to be Lukács' complaint with the Modernists anyhow.
- What about (post-)cinema then? Here's what really interests me. I've been trying to assimilate Eisensteinian montage into my own point-of-view, and while it's been a challenge, I don't see how cinema can continue to evolve without incorporating increasing levels of "abstraction." Referring back to Medina, I imagine this happening through digital imagery, critical theory, and a renewed emphasis on montage. Perhaps I'm still not getting the point, but these all seem like non-negotiable pieces of creating an artwork that tackles the "totality," which not many films outside INVENTING THE FUTURE seem to be attempting. Experimentation with style is itself a way of generating new substance. I'd like to read Lukács and see where we agree and where we differ on that point.
And I guess just a piece of trivia: I think one reason this was all so thrilling to me is because it helps me understand my affection for The Portrait of a Lady, professed several weeks ago at the top of this post. The feeling James gives of watching a world change in front of you is indescribable. Not only does it illuminate that world, it also gives a deeper sense of the people in it too. It's such a full fictional experience, unmatched by most other books I've read. If that's what Lukács wanted more of, then I do too.
***
While the recent Comrade Britney meme has been silly fun to watch from afar, unjust conservatorship is a real disability rights issue, Britney included, and Sara Luterman was able to persuade The Nation to let her write about this very serious problem after previously failing to generate interest in it. I'm sure she and The Nation would rather not rely on memes to underwrite journalism, but hey, I clicked too.
