Going beyond confrontation.
Eight years ago, the dawning millennium looked quite promising. The bug scare was over and the dotcom economy was still bubbling. As November 4th 2000 approached, the election result seemed a foregone conclusion. But then the NASDAC crashed and some jiggery-pokery in Florida gave the White House tenancy to George W. Bush. The world and most of America were aghast, realising that this bemused born-again with a dissolute past and his gangster entourage were to rule the empire. The new president stumbled and strutted through the first months of his occupancy. Then, by luck or laissez-faire, came the successful terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. These tragic September events, aptly compared to the Reichstag fire of 1933, provided a golden opportunity for obtaining special powers. The War on Terror was declared, and when at war it is legitimate to restrict civil rights and liberties. The US PATRIOT Act was passed and police powers were extended. While overseas diplomatic wrangling made way for cluster bombs and depleted uranium, for murder and mayhem.
Both Brecht (Arturo Ui, 1941) and Pasolini (Salo, 1974) have in their distinct ways described how absolute power is acquired. Taking advantage of greedy capitalists and corrupt politicians, Bretch’s gangsters use violence and intimidation to take control of Chicago and the fictional town of Cicero. Bretch describes tyranny as the rule of terror, but he wrote his play at the very start of WW2 when the Nazi drama had yet to reach its final conclusion. With hindsight and with a contemporary reading of Sade’s 120 Days, Pasolini paints a much darker picture covering the last days of the Fascist republic of Salo, in Northern Italy. His film argues that tyranny needs the consent of its victims. That absolute power builds up progressively from the basic premise of them and us. A mirror image where the laws that are applied to them must then apply to us, creating a spiral of increasing savagery. If Bush is Arturo Ui, who is to replace him for the outcome after next month’s elections? In the midst of financial, industrial, climatic and social disorders, will a new administration be able to interrupt the spiralling horror set off by 9/11?
History repeats itself (according to Schumpeter’s 57 year time scale, the short term reference should be 1951, not 1929) because the same causes produce the same effects. There is never a tabula rasa. New worlds are always built on old world foundations. And so the same misery is passed on through generations and millennia. Rome is said to have owed much to Greek civilisation, but the two worlds remained quite distinct. An ideological divide renewed by the Christian schism between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, finalised in 1054. And again by the East-West divide of the Cold War. Two worlds that rise and fall and rise again, always opposed. An opposition that is fundamental to the overall structure. Because they lean on each other for support and construct themselves as mutual buttresses, and when the East collapses the West is left alone on the edge. And its first reaction to this sudden emptiness is conquest. Pompey seized the Seleucid empire and, twelve and a half centuries later, Baudouin took Constantinople. The break up of the Soviet Union produced a similar vacuum that drew in the West financially and militarily. And, as usual, the victor overstretched his capacities. The West’s material victories brought world dominion, but they never conquered hearts and minds. And the backlash was civil war and the end of the Roman republic, or Reformation versus counter-reformation and the end of feudalism. The events to come will be just as momentous, but they are not just located around the Mediterranean, or on the European continent. This time the whole planet is concerned. An awesome prospect, and a comforting one as well. As, once the dust has settled, there can be no bigger confrontation to construct (unless war with another solar system is considered imaginable). Our species has reached the ultimate stage of confrontation and future centuries will have to invent something new to build on. They will be obliged to put aside the idea of otherness and accept the inescapable reality of planet Earth’s common humanity.
Both Brecht (Arturo Ui, 1941) and Pasolini (Salo, 1974) have in their distinct ways described how absolute power is acquired. Taking advantage of greedy capitalists and corrupt politicians, Bretch’s gangsters use violence and intimidation to take control of Chicago and the fictional town of Cicero. Bretch describes tyranny as the rule of terror, but he wrote his play at the very start of WW2 when the Nazi drama had yet to reach its final conclusion. With hindsight and with a contemporary reading of Sade’s 120 Days, Pasolini paints a much darker picture covering the last days of the Fascist republic of Salo, in Northern Italy. His film argues that tyranny needs the consent of its victims. That absolute power builds up progressively from the basic premise of them and us. A mirror image where the laws that are applied to them must then apply to us, creating a spiral of increasing savagery. If Bush is Arturo Ui, who is to replace him for the outcome after next month’s elections? In the midst of financial, industrial, climatic and social disorders, will a new administration be able to interrupt the spiralling horror set off by 9/11?
History repeats itself (according to Schumpeter’s 57 year time scale, the short term reference should be 1951, not 1929) because the same causes produce the same effects. There is never a tabula rasa. New worlds are always built on old world foundations. And so the same misery is passed on through generations and millennia. Rome is said to have owed much to Greek civilisation, but the two worlds remained quite distinct. An ideological divide renewed by the Christian schism between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, finalised in 1054. And again by the East-West divide of the Cold War. Two worlds that rise and fall and rise again, always opposed. An opposition that is fundamental to the overall structure. Because they lean on each other for support and construct themselves as mutual buttresses, and when the East collapses the West is left alone on the edge. And its first reaction to this sudden emptiness is conquest. Pompey seized the Seleucid empire and, twelve and a half centuries later, Baudouin took Constantinople. The break up of the Soviet Union produced a similar vacuum that drew in the West financially and militarily. And, as usual, the victor overstretched his capacities. The West’s material victories brought world dominion, but they never conquered hearts and minds. And the backlash was civil war and the end of the Roman republic, or Reformation versus counter-reformation and the end of feudalism. The events to come will be just as momentous, but they are not just located around the Mediterranean, or on the European continent. This time the whole planet is concerned. An awesome prospect, and a comforting one as well. As, once the dust has settled, there can be no bigger confrontation to construct (unless war with another solar system is considered imaginable). Our species has reached the ultimate stage of confrontation and future centuries will have to invent something new to build on. They will be obliged to put aside the idea of otherness and accept the inescapable reality of planet Earth’s common humanity.
posted by le Lézard at 2:06 AM
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