A Recipe For Genuine Angst

1. Find yourself into a slightly godforsaken place. A place that makes you feel like a bored teenager. That reeks of the ultimate failure of the industrial era--the now-commodified past of PBR cans and trucker caps and all that janky formalist sculpture made out of OSB and 2'x3's.

No. Don't just find yourself there like you really are a bored teenager. Compete to put yourself there on purpose, so that you can do great things. Put yourself there so that you can have two whole months of uninterrupted time with your genius self.

(It's okay to gag when you admit that you really did think that you're important enough that you needed to spend two months alone with yourself.)

1. Work too much without taking a break and put yourself into a pretty dank, self-centered mood.

2. Designate a day off, and start reading Hal Niedzviecki's latest effort, Hello, I'm Special, the (tedious) thesis of which basically points over and over again to the fact that you probably became an artist and went on this stupid residency in the first place because of a larger culture that rewards individuality and self-expression to such a pathological degree that the very notion of individualism has turned in on itself and become "the new conformity."

Okay. It's one thing to admit that this book is making me cranky because it's telling me something I don't want to know about myself--that you don't go spend two months on your vision unless you do think you're pretty special. I can separate that tiny angst from the larger rant.

I want to know why it has become acceptable to write a "smart" book about how stupid everything is. It's not just this Niedzviecki fellow. He stands shoulder to shoulder with Al Gore, Morris Berman, Jeanette Winterson and my favorite 9-11 conspiracy theorist, Eric Larsen.

(Note to Eric Larsen: Conspiracy theories are about as weak, logically, as proclaiming all young people stupid. Please. Stop with the emails.)

All these writers are operating out of a weak, hopeless place. They are all saying that we used to be something, but now are less. Less bright. Less capable of democratic discourse. Less writerly. And once again, I cannot buy it! Al Gore deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. But when he argues that we are no longer a reasoning people--that television is inherently bad for democracy because it is images and not words, he makes a very cynical assessment of a people that he sees as incapable of adapting to their technology. When Winterson and Berman adopt a monastic attitude and say that they should keep doing a craft that nobody values anymore, they miss the point of craft and tradition. I mean, Jeanette Winterson has made me cry reading her books--she's a talented author. But don't you think it's important to vault over craft and tradition to a new promised land and you take your audience there? That you don't cluck your tongue over other people not getting it? That it's more generous to either goad them into following or lead them by the hand, because of course they don't get it? Because it's new?

Grieving for a richer past is an official academic pastime now, and Hal Niedzviecki is grieving for my richer countercultural past, which makes it even worse. The Generation X past of actually being able to be a rebel. Those last few years before New Wave and Punk became Alternative and got their own radio stations and uniforms available at the Old Navy. Before you could seek out any niche counterculture you wanted on the internet. I am familiar with the rant. It goes a little something like this:

You know, back when I was your age, I had to go all the way to the thrift store and sort through all sorts of uncool things to find the right trenchcoat to wear in the middle of summer with a thousand earrings in my ears and a whole can of hairspray in my hair. And I had to steal my mother's truck or get on the bus if I wanted to go to the one cool record store near the University to thumb through real limited release LP singles of Love Will Tear Us Apart and Meat Is Murder that really came from England.

And now, Hal says, it's come to this: While I was off investing in real differences, everyone else just became "different" or "special" by cultural fiat. Everyone gets a hallmark card that proclaims their iconoclastic status. And this makes Hal throw up in his mouth a little bit.

What makes me throw up in my mouth is the argument itself. Sure I feel that specific Generation X pain. It does make me feel a little sad that my niece, or my husband's teenage cousins, will never feel that same thrill that I felt the first time I found the Frankenchrist album in its physical manifestation, and knew that it was going to change my life but had no idea how, or what it even sounded like. It saddens me that they are never going to freak out their parents by doing something to their hair. That everyone's going to think it's cute when they "rebel."

So the young people I know will never have that long trip home from the record store, with people staring at them for wearing so many heavy, black items of clothing in the summertime. Or know what savoring a record--looking at the art on the bus before you get it home, and reading all the liner notes during the first listen--feels like. This is individuality as I learned it. It's that one-to-one relationship with things that you go to great lengths to find because these things distinguish you from others. That does seem to be what Hal is mourning. But is this loss worth any handwringing at all? Are we sure it isn't an opportunity?

And if there is a problem with too much individuality

(I bought the book because I happen to think that there is)

then isn't its utter meaninglessness as a concept within our society a good thing? And shouldn't academics, artists and intellectuals be looking forward to the new horizons that stretch beyond our (obviously failing) cultural experiment with mass individuality?

Comments

[Jello Biafra]

Hey! I liked that bored teenager. Just found your bloggie thing. Yay!

I'll pop you an email.

-Mark

[Lisa K]

Deborah: I've been enjoying your musings (I'm always impressed with the quality of your writing), and vicariously experiencing the artist retreat. (Kinda jealous, too - I'd love a couple months away just to do art!) Don't let the godforsakenness get you down.

[carla]

It seems strange to consider individuality as something to strive for. I think of it more as an involuntary reaction against one's immediate cultural influences; a rebellion against the expected path to social success/acceptance. A person may want to go along with the flow, and make attempts to do so, but ultimately just can't give up theirself entirely. They can't make that forfeit. This can be anti-social and detrimental if not channeled somewhere.

Individuality may now be meaningless as a concept, but I'm not sure the identity of individuality (the striving to be that way) ever had a lot of meaning anyway. As a genuine near-sociopathic reaction to life, though, I think one's individuality still has the potential to lead her in vital (or abysmal) directions.

Also, If you ever again desire a soul-crushing environment in which to make art, come to Indiana.

[Paul]

I read this earlier today and have spent ever since trying to remember the name of the comedian, or satirist, I forget which, I once heard on tv go off on a similar kind of rant about self worth. What sticks in my mind was the way he concluded; he spoke of "the because I'm worth it society" which was also as I recall a l'Oreal ad slogan at the time.
Fruitless hours spent searching the darker recesses of my memory later I'm still drawing a blank. But my point is that this memory seems to coincide, certainly in my consciousness, with the first time I became aware that individuality was actually being sold to us as a commercially available product.
I've been interested for a while with the idea of customisation and the way that it allows for a personal investment with an object beyond ownership. I suppose really it is the difference between ownership and possession in that possession might imply emotional attachment through an invested extension of ownership. I'm not sure that I'm expressing this well, but the demystification process involved in customising an object, as you transform it from factory default to individual ornament seems to me to be an important part in establishing the value of worth.
So it is interesting that this attempt to bypass the personal connection with an object with something tailored from the shelf for you seems capable only of demystifying the concept of individuality itself.
Like you, I'm of the opinion that the perception of individuality in society may indeed be too great, but I do wonder how we as artists who by default invest worth into an object, and exist in an industrial economy that determines to inflate the worth of individuality, may actually route around it. It's a good question.

[21st Century Plowshare]

Hey Carla,

I respectfully disagree that the identity of individuality never had any meaning. Our whole culture is organized around confirming the illusion that we are discrete individuals--down to the most mundane details. My Computer--MyBarackObama.com. When I log into my bank's secure server, it becomes "mybank". Yes, these are hollow, kind of meaningless echoes, but they are rooted in a grand cultural experiment with individualism that depended on identifying individuals as individuals, and some individuals as more individual than others.

Modernism (the long arc) made Leonardo and Michelangelo into colorful genius individuals, with Vasari's help, despite a competing narrative, in which they were just relatively incompetent artisans who didn't complete much and were difficult to work with.

Modernism became increasingly dependent on an avant garde of individuals who were more individual than you and I--that broke boundaries, not by exploring the outer world or finding new things, but with their sense of self. Jackson Pollock plumbed his inner depths and was, famously, more fucked up than you. Duchamp plumbed his wit and his logic, and was, famously, smarter than you. Chris Burden, Magdalena Abramovic and Eleanor Antin looked to their physical bodies for meaning because they were playing the last literal round of Navel Astronomy. And Burden and Abramovic's insistence on physical pain and shock was not theater. It was an insistence, I think, on being either braver than you or stupider than you.

I think that proving the illusion that we are discrete individuals, and that this has meaning, has been a five hundred year long project, and that it is failing. And that it is failing slowly because it is such a powerful illusion, and because we have been working so hard at proving it for so long.

[carla]

Individuality as a distinct personal identifier is a fairly recent practice, and as indicated in your post, it's a conformist stance.

I don't think this state is the conclusion to a five hundred year project, though. It's just one very prevalent cultural thread. It's a "how will this describe me" mentality which has led to Myspace. It's a blip. I don't think it's accurate to define history, and previous motives, with our currently narrow focus.

The evolving awareness of individualism is not an illusion that we're trying to prove. It is more of a genie out of the bottle. It's still very much an opportunity for innovation/invention. While recognition via identity can drive us to seek individual achievement, the real source for innovation has come from independent thought and action.

When one applies herself, interesting things may happen. In general, a more intense application yields a better chance for a more vibrant experience, a more interesting result. Society (sometimes) appreciates the effort, and designates status, sometimes 'hero' status. This may encourage or hinder one's future efforts, and it may alter historical perceptions, and it may finally cause a backlash against such designations in general. But the fruits of individual labor are still there for the picking; the opportunity for exploration is still there. Is it still a vibrant arena if it's no longer officially recognized as such? This becomes the ultimate individual choice. Do these independent actions have meaning now, without the support of what has become, and maybe has always been, a conformist framework?

[Brad Borevitz]

i can't help but think that by focusing on nostalgia, you may be missing the point of the critique you are arguing with.

certainly it must be admitted that the location of oppositional culture has shifted -- that what may have constituted oppositional practice just decades ago does not function as opposition today. and while it may be inadequate to simply point that out, or be mired in a nostalgia for a bygone era, it is equally facile and insufficient to dismiss the observation of that change as being based in weakness or hopelessness.

the bigger question is about the capacity of capital to absorb and disarm strategies of resistance through assimilation to the market and spectacle. expressive individualism is a core value of liberal thought, and, as you mention in your later comment, deeply connected with modernist modes of both artistic practice and political resistance. it is difficult to imagine strategies of art making or of political change making without reference to liberal ideas.

but the particular constellations of these ideas do change over time, and we are fools if we keep doing the same things and expect them to have the same effects that that once did, even after the assimilation and denaturing of their strategies by market forces.

if there is a commitment to challenging capital in the moment and through cultural production, then an accounting must be made of the ways in which modernist modes of assertion have already succumbed to failure.

[carla]

Good points, Brad. However, I'm not going to alter what I do, where I go artistically, because the genre has been coopted and altered by market forces. I'm not going to grope around for the appropriate path, the one that's most culturally relevant. I'd rather confront the distinctions between one's personal discoveries and those coopted experiences, be it in my work or in my framing of my work. This is a great opportunity for a revelation in meaning; a time for dissecting and splitting hairs. Just what is the core importance of individual expression? Why is it different from borrowed or affected expressions? And you do really start to see distinctions that you otherwise would not.

I do agree, that we must take account of the ways in which this is happening, as Deborah does in her post. I go back and forth between head-in-the-sand and paying attention, and I appreciate being reminded of the big picture issues.

[21st Century Plowshare]

Brad!! How are you?

You are absolutely right. Have you read this book? You are writing a critique of the main problem of this book. It's the author's nostalgia--not mine. I am just reading about it.

I am only 100 pages in, but the problem is that it slides off that critique of, how did you put it...

"the ways in which modernist modes of assertion have already succumbed to failure"

precisely because it can't let go of its nostalgic grip. The author cannot seem to forget the way he grew up believing in his own "specialness," and this taints every single argument he makes or weird group or anecdote with a judgement that these people are stupid because they are not like him. Instead of truly rebelling, as he did, they are faux rebels.

The problem is not his wanting to (to paraphrase) account for the ways modernist modes of assertion have already failed. He wants to do that, but he fails because he takes the modes of assertion very personally. He identifies with them.

Because of this refusal to let go of the meaning these expressions of individuality used to have, his book winds up looking backward instead of forward. More Morris Berman or Eric Larsen. Less Zizek.

What I wish is that someone would write this book in a way that isn't mourning the death of modernism.

[Brad Borevitz]

deb - i'm hangin' in there.

i haven't read that book, but from what you've written i have some sense of what it might say.

i've lived through a time when it seemed like revolt was possible. i think about punk rock -- what that was like in the late 70s early 80s. you have jello biafra posting on your blog! compare dead kenedys to green day. its not just that the former tackled issues of class warfare, its that they did it in a way was an affront to the ruling classes. in contrast, there is nothing that green day could do that wouldn't end up on the pop charts -- making money for the man.

i was kicked out of places for the way i looked. now there is nothing short of evoking the bedraggled and downtrodden signs of homelessness, or maybe donning a turban, that would bar me from anywhere. all is assimilated to style.

think about the street battles of 68 in contrast to the million this and million that marches on washington with absolutely no political effect at all.

all of this represents a loss of possibility: for confrontation, and for creating preasure for change. it is difficult not to feel hopeless, to feel nostalgic.

zizek, at least as far as i understand, is critical of the moralistic and self-satisfied hand wringing of the left, he would think it's defeatist. but he is still for revolution.

what could revolution possibly be like today? can you imagine an act that would bring us closer? an artifact that would so threaten the status quo, it would be ripped from the walls by angry reactionaries? that would be recognized in its prescience and deffended in the streets by a throng of proto-revolutionaries?

sure, there are things that offend the powers that be. but what is the narritive of steve kurtz's confrontation with power? it is possible to offend, to catch sparks from the fervant fascist defence of capital and the scapegoating of islam. but there will be no fires. kurtz was lucky he could muster the funds for his defense. but there were no riots for the outrages against him, or against principal. these are sad times.

no matter what new fascist degradations the bushites enact, no matter the capitulations of the democrats, there will be no riots in the streets of america. nostalgia seems the most forgivable crime.

[21st Century Plowshare]

Hey Brad,

Yes, this is basically the argument, although I think you are being more wistful and mature about it, and the author is being more kneejerk, more convinced that his nostalgia is simply correct.

But yeah. There's no there there. There isn't a riot. Steve Kurtz is an excellent example of resistance being rather futile. You mourn this, and I understand the impulse to mourn--that's why I went ahead and indulged in my own nostalgia about my own youth.

But you see sad times. You see the total inefficacy of political protest or funny hair as a "loss of opportunity," while I can't help but remain optimistic. Is revolution the only path to change? Is resistance the only kind of power?

Aren't those interesting questions?

The Tao Te Ching was a revolutionary political text that empowered through inaction and allowing. Perhaps different times call for different measures? Maybe this is really a very exciting time?

[Brad Borevitz]

i think maybe you are too generous in dividing the wistfull from the nostalgic ...

i was born in the 60s and i always had a feeling that i missed something by not being able to live them as an adult. punk, even short lived, was a compensatory gift.

the question IS interesting: if in the moment one can recognize the problems -- the degradations of capital, in economic terms, in environmental terms, the violence, the injustice, the unfreedom -- what must be done?

i'm deeply suspicious of quiescence, since spiritual narratives that cannonize originary revolt (weather toaist or christian) have been thuroughy taken into dominant culture, and again, probably won't function in resistant modes very easily.

but you wonder about resistence and revolt, and what they mean to begin with. power. change. ... all these terms have to be attatched to something to become meaningful. the rebels in the US civil war (the slave states) or the spanish civil war (the fascists) are not who i would want to side with. its not rebellion itself that i value.

i value resistence to the forces which enslave, which accumulate vast resources by taking them from the many, which promote oligarchy rather than democracy, which out of greed wreck the planet, etc. etc. it all starts to sound rather preachy and boring. but why does it sound that way? it didn't 200 years ago (nostalgia?). why does it feel like those grand sentiments are disqualified?

it is just a little too convenient for those with lots of money and power that it is so. that's why i feel to compelled to ask certain question about the state of culture now.

maybe nostalgia (and it DEPENDS for what) is not as bad as capitulation (you would be right to ask if those are the only choices). nostalgia, like dreamy utopianism, is both the hazy opiate of malcontents, AND the measure of today's wrongs. how else do we mark the distance between what we have now, and what we could have -- how things could be better. without that measure, there is little to motivate change, little impetus to struggle to find the ways change might happen now.