Feb+2nd

What does Sartre meant by, “to make men out of the natives?” French Humanism preaches that all men are equal and thus have the right to be free. Once the “natives” were liberated from their colonial oppressors, we all became men, thus, bearers of rights.

Since the 1970s, funding has been poured into formerly colonized countries, disaster areas and war zones so they could build or rebuild their infrastructure (housing, administration of common goods, such as electricity, roads, education, health).

This money was given through the International Monetary Fund (IFM) and other credit organisms (and NGOs), establishing relationships of symbolic or economic debt. The 17th century narrative of “progress” (taken up by Marx as progress toward the liberation of men and a classless society) was substituted by the idea of “development.”

The world has since the 1970s been divided into “developed” and “underdeveloped” countries. This is measured by a nation’s accumulation of intellectual, monetary and infrastructural capital.

What are the new struggles once “revolution” and taking over power failed? Anti-imperialist struggles became either: corrupt, terrorist movements, dictatorships, //narcoguerrillas// (drug cartels)… violating human’s rights.

What are the new struggles now that capitalism and empire predominate, since the option of socialism evidently failed?

To speak truth to power implies: to denounce oppression, to point at fingers, to create a supplement of the mass media.

Since the 1970s, mediation (or representation, formerly the task of delegates and intellectuals) has been //mediatized//. That is, the //media// are the site to speak truth to power.

Is the //mediatization of mediation// a problem of //content// (the violation of a right, somewhere) or of //form//?

Last week we asked the question: “Can the Subaltern speak?” The “subaltern” is the discursive position of the formerly colonized.

The discursive regime of the victim is to bear witness in the first person.

The discursive regime of the journalist and of the activist is to bear witness from a given angle. Which one?

The discursive regime of the subaltern (or former colonized) is: “I speak therefore I am” = “I am therefore I resist.” The subaltern’s is a speech act that asserts presence as a way to be recognized; the production of a subject is the political work. The main imperative is to provide a singular and radical counter-narrative to hegemonic history. à The victim and the subaltern have in common the discursive regime of struggles based on religious, ethic, cultural or racial difference; the problem is that such struggles tend to obstruct empathy, thereby making ethnocentrism inescapable. This further creates imagined communities of oppressed groups, which lodge in their centre “wounded solidarities,” giving leeway to a pageant of identities and discursive categories by which their subordination has been either transacted or imposed.

à the “Capture of speech” from May ’68 implied to give voice and visibility to those who formerly lacked it). Before, there was one point of view (the official point of view). Today, a SINGLE point of view has been substituted by a plurality of points of view; the “truth” of diversity and difference is revealed. I would argue that both serve equally to pacify antagonisms (or disagreement).

Multiculturalism: does it prompt solidarity? Or as Zizek argues, it brings the “Other” (he or she who is “outside” our community) too close and without his or her otherness (like sugarless sugar, or decaffeinated sugar)…. The collective “unconscious” consequence of this is the phobia of harassment and stalking?

As some of your responses to Mahmoud Darwish’s “Speech of the Red Indian” and to Gómez-Peñas “Declaration of Poetic Disobedience” there are two tendencies: Both poems address us from the point of view of the subaltern or colonized victim. Either their //lament// did not provoke any sympathy… because we do not identify with their ordeal, or struggle. OR the produce shock and indignation. How is it possible to convey empathy and solidarity (without doing charity, which is prompted by guilt and pity?)

Forms or types of speech to enounce dispossession: denunciation, pointing at fingers (opinion), lament.

How do we relate to those suffering? What emotions do they create in us? Sympathy, compassion, solidarity, outrage and indignation? Or they cause fear and anxiety? (Like the underdeveloped and polluted Dantesque South?)

à What are the emotions that information about the truth elsewhere triggered by? Is it by the way they address us? Is it a question of form or content?

à The media: centralizes information… along similar lines than Brecht, Enzensberger argues for: BECAUSE **it allows no reciprocal action between transmitter and receiver, it REDUCES FEEDBACK TO THE LOWEST POINT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SYSTEM.** à To make the media INTERACTIVE (as opposed to passive); to make FEEDBACK possible; to make everyone a MANIPULATOR; to turn everyone into a producer (You hear the Benjaminian echoes here)
 * à It is not a technical problem… transmitter and receiver; there is the possibility of interaction;**
 * (Distribution medium as opposed to a communications medium)**
 * à As the case with parliamentary elections… the feedback is reduced to indices (Polls).**

à Enzensberger: the media is the “superstructure” or ideology; it is subject to the interests of capital;

(alternative information, opinion “from below;”)

Baudrillard: has a more pessimistic view; he says… the media as an //apparatus// influences the message and thus we can never interact with it –because we have no agency in the form or the content or the apparatus. It is a standard way of communicating; and we will never be able to interact with it genuinely; It is only an exchange of signs and cannot produce meaning; Baudrillard: finds problematic the idea that technology will free humanity, and as a sign of progress; For Baudrillard, the media are anti-mediatory; they cannot serve as mediation because they fabricate non-communication… speech dies. The mutual correlation of exchange in speech and politics dies with the media. à All impulses to democratize, subvert content or to restore the “transparency of the code”, control the information process, contrive a reversibility of circuits, or take power over media are hopeless –unless the monopoly of speech is broken… speech must be able to exchange, give and repay itself… it cannot simply be interrupted, congealed, stockpiled and restributed in the corner of the social process. --**For the time being we live in the era of non-response (irresponsibility);**


 * Media Activism**… as an alternative to the media; what we have now;

Godard’s alternative… was to use cinema as the “other” of the mass media and of course, of Hollywood –as apparatus for the centralization of OPINION. à Godard applying Brecht and Benjamin: à Cinema and illusion… criticism of cinema on the grounds that it was illusionistic… but realistically conveyed and that the viewers identify with the characters… à The task: To de-identify the spectator from what he is seeing on the screen; to interrupt his viewing habits and to make him produce knowledge WITH the film, as opposed to consuming the film. à The producer (filmmaker), didactically, or pedagogically tells us he is making a movie; he explains to us how are movies are made; filmmaking industry’s realationship to capitalism. Using stars or not and the consequences. He tells us, the film is going to tell a story. He situates the story //historically// AND the characters in terms of class struggle. He shows us the //apparatus// of cinema. (The mechanical, material, economic and conceptual aspects of cinema); à Film: (like Brecht discusses radio) is One-sided; so Godard wanted to make the viewer active in the consumption of the film; to make the viewer participate; to give pleasure as well as instructions. à Innovations in the apparatus (what Benjamin calls //technique//)… how does Godard deal with them? Not yet; he would later move on to use video; for now, he “unveils” the cinematic apparatus.

à Like Brecht says: to turn the pupils (or listeners) into producers of knowledge (teachers)


 * Summary of the readings:**

Brecht, “The radio as an Apparatus of Communication,” 1932.

Radio as a subtitute for theatre, opera, concerts, lectures, café music, local newspapers and so forth. The radio’s object: Is it to prettify public life? To bring back coziness to home? To make family bearable again? Radio is a mere apparatus for distribution, a mere sharing out. Brecht: Change this apparatus over __from distribution to communication__. à What does Brecht mean by the distinction between distribution and communication. The radio: WOULD BE the finest possible communication **apparatus** in public life. IT would be a vast network of pipe: IF IT COULD RECEIVE AS WELL AS TO TRANSMIT (to let speak as it lets hear); TO BRING THE LISTENER INTO A RELATIONSHIP INSTEAD OF ISOLATING HIM. The public character of radio –What is it, according to Brecht? à To turn the pupils not only into pupils but also into teachers. The radio: should have an educational purpose; it should put its instruction into artistic form… to give Modern art an instructive character. à The individual will reach spontaneously for a means to pleasure, but not for an object of instruction that offers him neither profit nor social advantages. Such exercises only serve the individual in so far as they serve the State, and they only serve a State that wishes to serve all men equally. His piece: //Der Flug der Lindberghs// is not intended to be of use to the radio BUT TO ALTER THE RADIO. Or “The Flight Across the Ocean.” (1928) it is called a //Lehrstuck// (pedagogical play); inspired by Lindebergh’s flight across the Atlantic. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/brecht-and-weill-the-flight-fantastic-409959.html A text accompanied by Music (BY Kurt Weill); Based on Lindebergh’s book “We”…. Facts from the flight, descrption of the experience (fog, storms… struggle) Natural elements… fight of the Pilot… comparison between weather, pilot, machines andd… distantion from der pilot… memory… we do not know the motivation of the flight; we ‘discover it’; American Dream; Struggle… (HOLYWOOD) Man’s relationship to nature; Lindbergh’s battle against the elements. The listener should RESIST. And become a PRODUCER. Pleasure and instruction;
 * Radio is one-sided; when it should be two**.
 * à “It is not at all our job to renovate ideological institutions on the basis of the existing social order by means of innovations. Instead our innovations must force them to surrender that basis. Innovations against renovation!”**


 * Hans-Manus Enzensberger, “Constitutents of a Theory of the Media” (1970)**

Rhizome, “relay,” Network. Temporality of the media: toward action in the present (not tradition, not contemplation). Superstructure: (traditionally said to be made up of things like political systems, religion-and the media); Superstruction, Apparatus, Ideology. (to perpetuate the relationships of production);

The media as the “consciousness industry” (as the superstructure). A big business;

The media “CENTRALIZE” (Public opinion, forums, broadcasting) The media: can also be alternative productions. Feedback and interactivity versus passivity.

à To give to the masses the means of production… and where there is social conflict. NEtwworklike communications models built on the principle of reversibility of circuits… a mass newspaper, written and distributed by its readers….

à Enzensberger’s…. network-like communication (feedback, interactivity)… and current forms of communication… it was actualized in the internet (blogs, chats, youtube)… De-centralization of the production and distribution of information… can it bring social change and how? The “liberation of the media”; (alternative information, opinion “from below;”) New forms of media constantly forming new connections both with each other and with older media like printing, radio, film, television, telephone… (Universal system) Contradiction: “Monopoly capitalism” : develops the consciousness-shaping industry and fetters it; to be critical is not enough (in the media field, neutralizing the media field, interpreting it through the lens of liberalism…. Critiquing the author… hegemonic position… (opposition, compromise, alliance): Is not enough. Mobilizing power of the masses… of the media. à The media make mass participation possible in social and socialized productive processes. Television or film: DO NOT SERVE COMMUNICATION BUT PREVENT IT: BECAUSE **it allows no reciprocal action between transmitter and receiver, it REDUCES FEEDBACK TO THE LOWEST POINT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SYSTEM.** à It corresponds to the **absolutely correct view that the decisive means of production are in enemy hands**. à Means of production in everyone’s hands: Is this a cause or a consequence that has led to “historical progress”? Does this means emancipation or liberation?
 * à It is not a technical problem… transmitter and receiver; there is the possibility of interaction;**
 * (Distribution medium as opposed to a communications medium)**
 * à As the case with parliamentary elections… the feedback is reduced to indices (Polls).**
 * à A state of emergency is the only alternative to leakage in the consciousness industry; but it cannot be maintained in the long run.**
 * “Leakage” in the informational network; and censorship (Today?)**
 * à The New Left of the sixties** has reduced the development of the media to a single concept –that of manipulation. This concept was useful originally… bu tit now threatens to degenerate into a mere slogan. The current theory of manipulation on the Left is essentially defensive; its effects can lead the movement into defeatism. Subjectively speaking, behind the tendency to go on the defensive lies a sense o impotence.

To react to this state of affairs with moral indignation is naïve; (Manipulation and idealistic expectations); “Participatory democracy” The liberal superstition that in political and social questions there is such a thing as pure, unmanipualted turth seems to enjoy remarkable currency among the socialist left. It is ithe unspoken basic premise of the manipulation thesis. The theory of “repressive tolerance” has also permeated sicussions of the media by the left; à The newssheets presuppose a structure of party members and sympathizers and a situation, where the media are concerned… that roughly corresponds to the historical situation; only in their capacity as producers do they make an exception, and, in their analyses, the whole media sector is reduced to the slogan of “manipulation.” à Fear of being swalled up by the system is a sign of weakness; it presupposes that capitalism could overcome any contradiction –a conviction which can easily be refuted historically and is theoretically untenable. Capitalism alone benefits from the Left’s antagonism to the media; as it does from the depoliticization of the counterculture. “Manipulation”: means technical treatment of a given material with a particular mind. (Manipulation is a political act); EVERY use of the media presupposes manipulation.
 * There is no such thing as unmanipulated writing, filming, or broadcasging**…

Transparency and mass-media manipulation (Enzensberger: “Manipulation” is part of every step… The question is not WHETHER the meadia are manipulated, but WHO manipulates them. (To MAKE EVERYONE A MANIPULATOR) à Interaction of free producers; the new media are egalitarian in structure; anyone can take part in them by a simple switching process; Potentially, the new media do away with all educational privileges and thereby with the cultural monopoly of the bourgeois intelligentsia. This is one of the reasons for the intelligentsia’s resentment against the new industry… the “depersonalization” of “mass culture”; New media: oriented toward action and the present. It is wrong to regard media equipement as a mere means of consumption. It is always, in principle, also means of production; The contradiction between producers and consumers is not inherent in the electronic media; on the contrary; it has to be artificially reinforced by economic and administrative measures. à Any socialist strategy for the media must, strive to end the isolation of the individual participants from the social learning and production process. This is impossible unless those concerned organize themselves. This is the political core of the question of the media. Marxists have not understood the consciousness industry and have been aware only of its bourgeois-capitalist dark side and not of its socialist possibilities; Enzensberger: Relationship between tradition, the avant-garde and the media. (Marxist)

Baudrillard, “Requiem for the Media.”

Budrillard: the media serve a social function: to reproduce to pale models… foreclosing any possibility of genuine reciprocity. “the medium is the message.” Baudrillard: the situation will not get any better simply by making everyone a producer; (Reversibility has nothing to do with reciprocity); Our MODEL OF COMMUNICATION in political and economic life: transmitter-message-receiver.” (SIMULATION model of communication; Baudrillard: the alternative is joint production **through genuine interaction**. Do the media purport “liberatory social relations” and emancipatory potential from the superstructure (or apparatus)? Schizophrenia on the Left according to Enzenzberger: On one side, a whole (subversive) revolutionary faction abandons itself to apolitical exploration of new media (subculture, undeground); on the other, militant political groups still live essentially through archaic modes of communicating, refusing to “play the game” or to exploit the immense possibilities of the electronic media.
 * Producer, consumer, transmitter, receiver, feedback; interaction; pedagogy**;
 * Exchange of signs; production of meaning, messages and signs;**
 * The Left**: dreams of media takeover, sometimes as a means of nudging the revolutionary prise the conscience of the masses, sometimes as a consequence of radical change in social structures. But this is a contradictory velleity; reflecting straightforwardly the impossibility of integrating the media into a theory of infra-and superstructure. The media remain a social mystery for the Left because the Left has failed to cnceive of them as enw and gigantic potential of productive forces. The Left is divided between fascination and practice…

à Enzensberger: attempts to develop an optimistic and offensive position: the media are monopolized by the dominant classes, which //divert// them to their own advantage. But the structure of the media remains “fundamentally egalitarian,” and it is up to the revolutionary praxis to disengage this potentiality inscribed in the media, but perverted by the capitalist order. To “liberate the media, to return them to their social vocation of open communication and unlimited democratic exchange, their true socialist destiny.” à Technology as the promise of human fulfillment; as progress; (but Capitalism freezes or confiscates them) à For the first time in history, the media make possible the aprticipation of the masses in a collective process that is social and socialized, participation in which the practical means are in the hands of the masses themselves. à The existing order, says Enzensberger following Brecht, reduces the media to a simple “medium of distribution.” So they must be revamped into a true medium of communication; (to strip objects of their exchange value in order to restore their use value); à The media as marketing and merchandizing of the dominant ideology. MEDIA PRODUCER-TRANSMITTER vs. IRRESPONSIBLE, RECEPTIVE MASSES (capitalist vs. salaried worker); The media induce a social relation; non-exploitative; Brecht and Enzensberger: affirm that the transformation of the media into a true medium of communication is not technically a problem (“it is nothing more,” says Brecht, “than the natural consequence of their technical development)… in effect it is not a TECHNICAL problem but at the level of FORM: Separation (a social division) (Into producers and consumers) The media and social control; RESPONSE: (power belongs to the one who can give and //cannot be repaid//. To give…. Is to disrupt exchange; (social process is thrown out of equilibrium); The media: They speak, or something spoken but in such a way as to exclude any response anywhere. The revolution: Lies in restoring this possibility of response. à All impulses to democratize, subvert content or to restore the “transparency of the code”, control the information process, contrive a reversibility of circuits, or take power over media are hopeless –unless the monopoly of speech is broken… speech must be able to exchange, give and repay itself… it cannot simply be interrupted, congealed, stockpiled and restributed in the corner of the social process. --**For the time being we live in the era of non-response (irresponsibility);** Consumption goods also constitute a mass medium: they answer to the general state of affairs we have described. à There is no //response to a functional object// (to own a TV set or a camera, a refrigerator or a toaster) the “functionalized object” Speech without response; (Mind the difference Baudrillard establishes between //communication// and //speech//?) Why is the communication model problematic? Reversible or reciprocal? Why? Formal “reversibility” of circuits (Letters to the editor, phone-in, today: blogs… FEEDBACK); Why is this for Baudrillard a “Decentralized totalitarianism?” Bear in mind Umberto Eco’s hypothesis cited by Baudrillard: “Changing the contents of the message serves no purpose; it is necessary to modify the reading codes, to impose other interpretive codes.” (Is this subversive?) Where is the possibility of “fundamental change”?
 * Baudrillard**: The media are anti-mediatory and intransitive. They fabricate non-communication. Communication is an exchange, a reciprocal space of speech and response and thus of RESPONSIBILITY (moral, mutual correlation in exchange)
 * Electoral system (the referendum) and the media; (Baudrillard’s comparison);**
 * Today the STATUS OF THE CONSUMER defines this banishment**; generalized order of consumption…