Thanks - tldr yet - but to link it to the discussion from before, LD50 Gallery and Nick Land and the question If it’s right to attack a fascist gallery get directly mentioned at 64:22
> Am 05.03.2018 um 15:27 schrieb David Garcia > <[email protected]>: > > Florian Cramer & Angela Nagle at Transmedialle - > > Reflections on Don’t Think Twice- Subcultures and the Politics of > Transgression > > This year’s Transmedialle featured a very valuable discussion between Media > Theorist, Florian Cramer and writer and author of Kill all Normies Angela > Nagle. Though riveting it was very long with a great many digressions. So > this is just scratching the surface extracting some of the things that > interested me. There is plenty more to explore and take further. > > Discussion extracts + commentary > > Nagle begins by describinh her book as being about the on-line culture wars > of the last 8 years, that culminated in the emergence of the identitarian > white nationalists widely known as the alt-right. Cramer didn’t introduce his > lecture but most people will know that it was given in Rotterdam just after > Trump’s election and traced in great detail the origins of the alt-right, as > it took shape in the back alleys of the internet messaage boards and the > complex ways in which these subcultural energies were oportunistically > exploited by a generation of very far right white nationalists. In the > lecture Cramer used his capability as media theorist to trace in detail the > evolution and importance of memes (and by inference the significance of > Girrard’s theory of Memetic desire) and the effective weaponisation of > 4chan’s distinctive culture of cynical irony. > > Both Nagle began by emphasising the bias of the Birmingham School (and the > wider European left) in favour of Transgressive sub-cultures as an > intrinsically progressive force. Both Cramer’s lecture and Nagle’s book call > out the media theorists and digital anthropologists who allowed this bias in > the field of cultural studies and media theory which are blamed for > insufficient attention to the direction of travel of the so called alt right. > > -The Centrality of Feminist Critique- > > An important aspect of Nagle’s contribution was her emphasis on the absolute > centrality of feminist critique to her insights. She credits Angela Mcrobbie > Sarah Thornton’s longstanding critiques of the Birmingham school’s tendency > of to mistake certain kinds of aesthetic traits for something progressive > politically. Nagle goes on to quote Sarah Thornton’s The Social logic of > sub-cultural capital.. at length stating that it encapsulated the core > argument of her book. (published in 1995) > > “vague opposition is certainly how many members of youth sub-cultures > characterise their own activity. However we can’t take youth discourses > literally. They are not a transparent window on the world many cultural > studies have made the mistake of doing this. They have been insufficiently > critical of sub-cultural ideologies. Firstly because they were diverted by > the task of puncturing and contesting dominant ideology and second because > their biases have tended to agree with anti-mass society discourses of the > youth discourses they study”“ while youth have celebrated underground the > academics have venerated sub-cultures. While young people have denounced the > commercial, scholars have criticised hegemony. While one has lamented selling > out the other has theorised incorporation. In this way the Birmingham > tradition has both over politicised youthful leisure and at the same time > ignored the subtle relations at play within it” (Sarah Thornton) > > Nagle staes is essentially the argument of her book that "there are quite > reactionary and quite misanthropic and quite nasty elements that were there > for a very long time in this on-line world and it came to full fruition in > the form of the Alt.right.." > > -A well Established Story – > > Cramer brought up the fact that this was not new and that various examples of > European avant-garde expressions from Laibach to Peter Soto’s magazine Pure. > And emphasised how the shock value of the transgressive is a “double edge > sword” and that this is a very old subject. "There is a recurring naivete in > seeing transgressions or sub-cultures as embracing just one political > orientation…: He reminds us that Adorno and Hokheimer in the Dialectics of > Enlightenment is at least in part an investigation into how progressive > discourse turns into barbarism. > > - A Complete Re-orientation of the Political Landscape- > > Cramer goes on to explore the important wider picture when he points out > that the there are two strategies running in parallel by the so called > Altright (that has now morphed from a sub-culture into a fully fledged > political movement). One is to take over counterculture, sub-culture and > transgression from the left and the other strategy is to replace the > traditional conservative right. He then asks Nagle whether she thinks it is > this actually happening. He argues that under Trump and among others. Are we > seeing the fire-walls that exist between traditional conservatism you and > new generation far-right extremism being more or less burnt down ? He asks do > you would agree that this is a larger tendency that basically what is coming > out of th network is currently what is replacing mainstream conservatism ? > > - Bigger picture and Important Question- > > Nagle agrees that this tendency will not only influence but actually replace > the whole spirit and style of the establishment right. But she then to ask > what is for me the most important question of the discussion: So the question > for me on the sub-cultures question are we to conclude that subcultures > itself is just a neutral thing and that it can take on any political form? > > Implicit in this question is Nagle’s own answer to this question is that > sub-cultures (at least in their more transgressive mode) are not neutral. In > the book (though not stated so clearly in the discussion) her position is > unequivocal; she argues that there is a nihilistic thread running through the > heart of the modernist avant-garde that stretches from de Sade to the > surrealists and the Situationists (whom she at least concedes “have a better > world in their hearts”) en route to the 1960s and the culmination of the > counter-culture in the Manson Murders which she argues is the “logical > culmination of throwing off the shackles of conscience and consciousness, the > grim flowering of the id’s voodoo energies”. > > If I have got this right, it would have been great to know how far Florian > goes with Nagle on this on this journey? If the conversation had unfolded > in a different way we might have looked at other contributing factors. For > example the alt.right’s dominance of the message boards might have been > mitigated somewhat if the US state had not been so successful in supressing > the one on-line force with the capability of standing up to them: the left > leaning activists od Anonymous, a number of whom as we know are enduring > cruelly disproportionate prison sentences. Nagle herself points out that this > suppression “created a vacuum on the image boards that the rightest side of > culture was able to fill with their expert style of anti-PC shock humour and > memes”. Nagle is right to warn us but sub-cultural participatory values and > energies though not inevitably progressive remain vital to any ambitious > political project or party. Though we must remain vigilant inevitable > destination of transgressive sub-cultures is not the equivalent of the Manson > Murders. The mistake was to leave the vacuum for the altright to fill. Their > success is a demonstration of the importance of sub-cultures and “folk > politics” and should not be taken as evidence that sub-cultures are > intrinsically malign. > > A questioner towards the end of the discussion asked if Cramer and Nagle > could talk more about affect and affective politics.. more about the > emergence of movements and how sub-cultural energies today mobilised. Which > the questioner added is “also a question of power that is able to legitimise > these subcultural sentiments in ways that enable them to enter into the > political mainstream.. I’d like you to address the strategies, sentiments > within subcultural politics. It was a very good point but sadly it arose to > close to the end.. Perhaps we can take up this challenge here? > > PS. Sadly this important discussion is not posted prominently on the > Transmedialle website even though a lot of other stuff is. Florian kindly > sent me this link so. You can hear the extended discussion. I have made a > preliminary transcription of the discussion and will post it soon. But only > once I have liaised with the principles to see if they agree. > https://voicerepublic.com/talks/better-think-twice-subcultures-alt-s-and-the-politics-of-transgression > > <https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvoicerepublic.com%2Ftalks%2Fbetter-think-twice-subcultures-alt-s-and-the-politics-of-transgression&h=ATMGPWYJYujDXLcPKjPNTswwjs1TuyiW9WO1xJoU_CYJNu0vYQipLUXD64vizrDNTZrVTVDMImUqS49vx5IXhGy48iaEz79IAz2DUmMd6IQRwl0a1IIETf4yaQ> > > David Garcia > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
