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Black Power

Malcolm X. I feel like he was taught badly in my school as a kid. I mean to be fair I grew up in Virginia in a predominantly white lower middle class neighborhood, so really I shouldn’t be surprised. But as I grow older and take classes in college that talk about people like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, I realize that the pictures painted in my mind of them are not pretty. They were always just talked about as the violent part of the Civil Rights movement, and I have come to realize how not so true this is. Okay obviously they were more violent than Martin Luther King Jr, but really I think they were described to us in not so positive of a way as I think they should have been. Also I was never taught that the Black Panthers worked with poor whites who had similar problems they were having with poverty and how this collaboration helped bridge the gap just a little between the lower class whites and the AAs at the time. In Malcolm X’s Bite the Bullet (actually it may have been an article talking about the speech, I honestly cannot remember) it is mentioned that a lot of people think Malcolm is racist against whites. And though it was mentioned in class that it is impossible, I have to agree that he really is not. In the speech he mentions specifically something to the effect of, “if white people want us to not be anti white then they need to stop doing being anti segregation, pro exploitation and pro oppression”. I think that makes a really great point. People often say that they do not hate a person, they just hate what they do, and I think this is what Malcolm is going for here. Honestly I think if I was AA I wouldn’t be so pro white either. Hell I am not actually all that pro white anyway. We suck, let's just put that out there. He goes on to talk about how AAs are not actually Americans, and they feel like they are not Americans because of they way they are not only treated but depicted in the media. I have to say I can really see where he is coming from. America is kind of mostly white, and even though it’s getting to the point where non whites outnumber the whites, whites still have all the power. So even now you have pictures of white people everywhere, in TV, on the internet, billboards, everywhere. I remember reaching a book once, Bud Not Buddy I think it was, about a young AA kid trying to find his parents and how he talked about a billboard with a perfect looking happy white family on it, and how he felt like it was fake because he never saw black families on those billboards. There is really just so much to talk about here, I know I am all over the place with it, but there is too much to cover really. I just understand how a race can feel like they are not American when it seems like most of that country hates them for being that race. This being especially the case when that race is target by the police and segregated by the government.

Dubois asks a pretty interesting question at the beginning of his writing, “How does it feel to be a problem?” A pretty heavy question in fact. It made me think a lot about how lucky I am. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty aware of my white privilege, and I like to think I know at least a little about discrimination because I am not a male. But I think the patriarchy does not really compare to the problems of racial issues. Yeah women are often put on the back burner, ignored and forgotten about, but with the whole police brutality part, being dark skinned right now must just be scary. I do not know what it is like to feel like the problem, but I think that this question really does help to put things into perspective about how things were and still mostly are in America when it comes to race.

He moves on to talk about the difference between being “Negro and American”, which is similar to what Malcolm X brought up about not being an American. I know I have really only read two points of view so far, but this theme seems to be coming up a lot so it probably does hold some truth to it’s points. I often think that this is what immigrants, Mexicans, and Muslims feel right now and especially during the election.

I was actually first introduced to Basquiat’s art this semester actually in my Contemporary Art class, so I was pretty excited to talk about him. Basquiat’s art was looked down on because of it’s distinct “tribal” look and street art vibe, as well as probably the plain fact that he was not white. He explored issues such as race and identity consistently and these paintings are no different. I love his use of colors to grab your attention. They seem to be placed in such a way on purpose to grab the viewer’s attention, like “look here, this is important and what I am telling you”. His use of a black background really enhances that feeling. I also like that he challenges the typical art style by simplifying the figure. His art is not technically abstract because you can tell that he is drawing figures, but at the same time they are simplified. He really obviously wants to portray the message more so than show off his technical talents, which was not usually the case of the high class art world. I especially liked that in “Untitled History of Black People” he included history elements from all over the world.

Though I was excited about Basquiat, I must admit I was really impressed with Douglas’ work. The first thing I thought about when looking at his work was actually Kara Walker. I wonder if she had been inspired by his work when she first started, because she is a silhouette artist as well. Though her work is more so about slavery specifically rather than race, and is um quite a bit more graphic than Douglas. But I love his colors and the layering of the light and colors, its just so beautiful and his work is easy to read. Not to mention, the visual symbols with the combination of the titles pretty much spell out the message he is going for. I find the silhouettes to be powerful because on one hand you can tell they are humans, but on the other hand they are kind of dehumanized. They are no longer people they are just shapes, which is the way slave owners saw them as well as whites in general. I am not sure if that was why he picked to paint in this style, but in the very least it accidentally added to the story line.

I must admit I was a bit surprised by the music. I tend to enjoy instrumental music anyway so obviously I liked the instrumental pieces a lot. I especially liked Mingus Big Band and just found it to be smooth and relaxing. Plus the more so dramatic ending was interesting. I think I see the political aspect of the instrumental music a lot. When most people think about politics, and radical politics at that, they think of hard violent, in your face kind of stuff. I even thought about that really. I kind of expected everything to be like “Fuk da Police” but the mix was more than that. There were more calming and just simply soulful pieces that celebrated the AA culture. Protests and politics can be about celebrating culture, though I think the lack of a governmental reaction is what leads to music like “Fuk da Police” and “Cop Killer”. It is the desperation of the face that nothing has really changed and they are just so freaking tired of being swept under the rug as if there is not a racial problem that leads to more forceful kinds of music and protests. Though I didn’t particularly like the newer rap and hip hop music, I do see where it is coming from.

I realized that due to my taste in music I also really enjoyed some of the older artists, such as Nina Simone and Sam Cooke. Though I wouldn’t put them on my every day play list, I just love the passionate way they sing. It is so full of emotion and at the same time just beautiful. I think when listening to Nina Simone I realized that her song seemed a bit angry for her time, which may be why it stands out a lot. It is angry in a still entertaining and not in your face kind of way like the language in “Fuk da Police”

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Situationism

Honestly I found the L = A = N = G = U = A = G = E Poets to be really interesting. Funny enough probably about as interesting as Hitler, but for different reasons. The most annoying part about them is the way they want to make me have to type out Language which in turn makes me feel the need to double and triple check the spelling because I suck at it already haha. But then to add in those symbols, good lord. Anyway I think it’s funny how they kind of break the fourth wall of poetry. I am not saying poetry isn’t supposed to be about poetry, but you don’t find that a lot. Just like you don’t find actors talking into the camera or at the audience a lot. Plus I was rather impressed with myself for that comparison, so there is that. I love it when people break the fourth wall in any kind of way, so I think that is something that just really drew me in.

I think I like Bernstein the most for a myriad of reasons. Obviously the self admitted biased teacher painted a pretty great picture of him. On the other hand he also speaks pretty well for himself. I think that it is really interesting that he found inspiration from phone books and dictionaries and things like that. First of all it makes one wonder how in the heck? Then when he explains he likes that those books are lists within lists, I don’t know, I am not really a list person all the time, but I can see it. I just think it says a lot about a person if they like organization. I may not be sure what it says about them, but I always find this an interesting thing. Though this may be because I am a complete wreck when it comes to organization. People always say you admire the traits about other people that you wish you had yourself, so this is probably one of those weird things. Also I thought it was cool when he talked about teaching. He mentions that he doesn’t teach poetry he wants to teach the love of poetry, or probably something to that effect but I just don’t have a moment to go back and look. But I think it i just a good teaching philosophy, with all these freaking standard tests and teaching to the book and blah blah that people have to deal with in public school, I admire somebody who i passionate about what they teach and wants to teach the same passion. It may not seem like passion cannot be taught, and maybe yeah in some cases it can’t, but I like to think that in some cases it can. If a student has the tiniest spark of potential passion about something, just the slightest interest, a teacher can influence that and mold it into something brighter.

Bernstein as a poet is rather interesting as well. I like the visual aspects of his poems. I thought as I was reading that it was cool that the visual part of his poem Me and My Pharaoh mimicked the content of the poem which was challenging and making fun of the way poetry rules are often taught in schools. We mentioned something in class that he was talking about, ugh crap I forgot what it was called, something like I can’t remember. It was the rules of poetry basically or at least how they are taught in schools. Anyway, as I was reading this one again I thought about because we are taught that poems have to rhyme and do this and that, that we also learn to read them that way too. This may be one of the reasons poetry is so hard in high school and once students get into reading poetry that does not follow these rules. Also the visuals of the Pharaoh poem reminded me of Shel Silverstein and how he made his poems more visually interesting as well. Yes I know he follows a lot of the rules, but eh his poems are still pretty great.

I did enjoy Pasolini a lot. I thought his language was interesting where he added in the extra “it is”  “who” and “what” at times. I just found it to be playful and add a bit of an extra something to it. I am not really sure how to explain it. I am a visual artist, poetry is great but hard to explain for me. On the other hand, I pretty much had no idea what was going on in the poem. I noticed he seemed to be personifying something, probably? That something changed gender a few times, unless he was personifying different things throughout the poem. It seems like he’s just telling some sort of weird nonsense story and then randomly breaks the fourth wall as an interruption then goes back to the story or completely changes the subject. I think if I had more time to sit down and really read more of his work that I would probably like him a lot.

Oh Silliman, your references are probably the most interesting thing about your work, okay the one poem we had to read. I think he makes a lot more references than I recognize, but I am pretty thrilled at the ones I do recognize. I was surprised at his reference to Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind I didn’t honestly like the movie a lot. I thought it was odd, but I didn’t hate it. I will probably never watch it again, but I’m appreciative of the fact that I actually did watch it. I also kind of liked that he seemed to call people out for not liking it because it wasn’t funny and the plot was too dense. As I watch more movies over the years I think that people only appreciate humor and feel alone in my weird movie taste and possibly frustrated that people don’t appreciate the movies I think are the best. My movies are always underrated. Anyway I just love the tone of Silliman. It’ fin and keeps you on your toes. At least I read it as having a fun rhythm, kind of like when people are trying to say things all in one breath, but are also really good at it so you can actually understand what they are saying. Though at the same time you are worried about their health. The sudden subject changes added to that for me. I enjoyed them though. Again, these poets were one of the more interesting things we had to read over the past few months.

Hejinian was probably my least favorite though. It was just really hard to follow compared to the other poets. I did like his like of “the family plot” though, it just stuck with me. It kind of reminds me of this other writer we studied in Anarchist Art, I cannot remember for the life of me, but they talked about the family government, how the man is the head of the house and he governs over all, and how that needs to be broken because it conditions children to think of government that way. I thought it was a really interesting way of looking at things. I also think that line has a bit to do with what society thinks of family; straight, white, kids, a dog, white picket fence and all that crap.

Ah the situationists. I really don’t know what to say about the really. I think that I get where they are coming form, like a lot. Though at the same time I feel like they clump themselves in with the other manifestos that may or may not be bleeding into each other into this blur of “good lord how do I deal with all of this” in my head right now.

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Fascism

M from 1931 is a particularly interesting film that seems to be about a Child Murderer who lure and kidnaps children when he sees then alone in the streets. There are a lot of interesting points to this film. First I found it really odd for the time that they would cover such a heavy idea such as a child murderer. Plus it brings in the whole pefafile undertones and its just uncomfortable honestly. Though when I saw who the murdered was I instantly became biased because I love that actor. Anyways the citizens, criminals and the police suddenly become obsessed with catching the murderer. This is not surprising because well, this is a pretty awful situation. But throughout the movie the way it is handled is almost like a case study for watching how people react against one common enemy. When they all have this common enemy the citizens start turning on each other and suddenly they and the police begin to profile every male walking with a kid down the street, even if is the kid’s father. Police start searching everybody’s houses in the name of safety and even the criminals get on the case. Which poses the question of who is even running the town, the police or the criminals? One can’t help but draw in the similarities of Hitler bringing in the Jews as the common enemy in Germany and then again Trump, as well as others, bringing up immigrants who are obviously terrorists as the common in the U.S. today.

From Caligari to Hitler was a little difficult to watch I must say. I think the hardest part was just keeping up, while reading subtitles is really not a difficult feat, it was hard to swap my brain from tuning out German while reading English to suddenly having to listen to English again while the one Director was being interviewed throughout the film. It did bring up a lot of interesting points though, I found it the most interesting that films seemed to predict the future, well kind of. The films would explore ideas that would wind up happening in real life. For example, M explores the government declaring a common enemy and then citizens and criminals trying to take matters into their own hands at times to catch and prosecute that enemy. This later happened and still happens at times to this day. The narrator asks, “what do films know what we do not?” And a lot of me wonders if the films are what influences people to make these things happen, rather than the films “knowing” what society is going to wind up doing in the future. Flms do not always have an insanely clear message like Nosferatu is supposed to represent our souls but who really gets that the first time they walk into a theatre to watch a movie for leisure. Not everybody thinks so deeply about movies all the time, but that does not mean the subliminal messages are not there. I just wonder if films had more of an influence than people think on the minds of the people who watched them when it came to guiding desires and opinions of the general public, or Hitler.

Cabaret was actually more of an okay movie as a general. I was glad to have watched it because I hear a lot about it being a musical lover myself, but I think it was kind of more interesting to watch from a “looking for political undertones” point of view. Side note though, one complains is absolutely that there were not enough songs, I thought this was supposed to be more of a musical than that. Anyways I found it really interesting the way the Nazis basically snuck into the film, and how they were mostly looked at as harmless in the beginning and even throughout the middle. The beginning starts with a “Welcome to the Cabaret” number that has a similar beat and instrumental chorus as the number that ends the show, and in both cases you see the audience. In the beginning the audience is just a simple batch of people having fun at the show and eating dinner, and then by the end the audience is about 90% Nazis sitting there quietly, kind of like the audience in real life would be while looking at a room completely full of Nazis. Though the film did not revolve around the whole Nazis coming to power in Germany, I think it also kind of was. This is how these things happen, people downplay the party and think they are just bullies who will never be able to take over because they are too radical and too political, the problem will just take care of itself. Then by the middle the Cabaret is even sympathizing with them by playing anti-Semitic songs “for fun”. And by the end of the whole movie the main characters who go their separate ways do not even notice that their whole country is now basically overrun by the Nazis. Honestly the whole thing is kind of scary, how if you do not pay attention and think that the problem is not a problem and will just go away, then it is more likely to actually happen. But even if you do pay attention, who is to say that paying attention is enough, if you are the only one paying attention and nobody else cares, then it will still probably happen anyway.

I found the Hitler and Mussolini writings to be a lot more interesting that some of the things we have read in the past. Hitler talks a lot about how Jews are actually a race and not a religion. Though I have heard that is true now, I wonder if it is really true or if we are just taking that from Hitler. Obviously Judaism is a religion, and yes a lot of people who practice it have a lot of the same characteristics, but isn't that because they just tend to marry each other so those traits get passed on? What makes up a race anyway? Are humans really like breeds of dogs? ANyways Hitler goes on to say how there is hardly a race in the world to which almost all its members belong to a single religion. I mean has he ever heard of Christianity? That is basically all white people right there, or at the very least at one time it was. Now a days there are a lot more whites who do not identify with any religion, or at least that particular religion. Also technically aren't Jews white? It makes you wonder how people even started to believe Hitler, and then you see the crisis mentality that happens today and realize it's not so hard to believe. Even if it is sad and scary.

The Inequality of the Human Race made some points that though seemed good on paper, don’t make a lot of sense. At one point he says that “if all countries became one they will see differences as useful then inequality will die”. But I do not really see how this could be true. There is inequality inside nations, which are technically one in the sense of the word he means. If a nation cannot have equality inside itself, even if you take out the idea of “foreigners” then how can this happen if all nations become one? The U.S. for example, is supposed to be a melting pot, yet the black and white struggle continues, not to mention the whole gender issue. If anything should be equal by now it should be gender for goodness sake. Just because people live together does not mean that they will always find “differences” useful.

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Communism

So I think the reading on the three parts of Marxism was a bit of an easier read than pretty much anything actually written by Marx. In the first part of Marxism the author writes about Marxism being materialism. Which I think I can see that. Marx mostly talks about capital a lot of the time and how everything is capital and ownership of that capital. He also talks a lot a bout labor, but often about how that labor relates to capital and how big business is screwing over the laborer. In a way I see how it all is kind of about materialism. Hmm though as I type it out maybe not. Marxism is not really about being for big businesses exploiting their workers he just wanted to let the workers know what was going on. It really was just the businesses that were being materialistic.

Part 2 talks a lot about economics and how money is everything so yeah I guess it just says what Marx had said  in all of his readings really. The author also states that Marx studied modern economics and how “where bourgeois economists saw relations between things Mars saw relationships between people.” I think I can see that for the most part. Marx’s big thing seemed to be labor really. Or at least that is the most common subject I was able to get out of him. Maybe I found it more interesting than anything else. Anyway, he talked about labor and the ownership of labor and in a way personified capital. He was trying to bring people back into the labor process by making them realize they were having their own human element sucked out of them by the businesses they labored for, and how the businesses did not give a crap other than wanting the laborers to go to work all day.

Part 3 is about socialism and how early socialism was basically utopian which in a way reminds me of utopian anarchy. It criticized capitalism and mentioned that revolutions reveal the struggle of the classes. I really like this statement and see a lot of truth to it. I mean how do revolutions start anyway? One particular group, usually a class of people, again usually the lower class, is exploited and/or treated very unfairly by the upper classes. The upper classes get a lot out of mistreating the lower classes and eventually conditions get so bad for the lower classes that they have to stand up and say something or they all die off. Which in this case brings me right back around to the point of what seems to be the same in every part of radical politics that confuses me… How on earth do higher classes expect to exploit the lower classes to the point of killing them and then still turn around a profit if they no longer have people to squeeze money out of? I suppose in class we talked about this a little where we mentioned that the people who use the laborers pay them just enough to make it to work every day. But when you take a closer look at it like in the Paris Commune, eventually they try to pay them so little that they do NOT have enough money to live and make it to work every day. Then they die off and my question still stands. Or if they do not die off then they revolt, which seems to almost always end well for the upper class. Just kidding.

Molecular Red has an interesting picture of Lenin and Bogdanov where it says other people have been erased. Quick note, I always find old photos so fascinating, and especially old school “photoshop” like how did they do that before photoshop? What was the process? I also wonder about this a lot with old movies, which I will probably talk about later when talking about the film we watched in class. I think that is why I find old film so fascinating. Just all the extra work it takes to make a person disappear from a photo without the ease of a computer. Bah! Super cool. Bogdanov is known for having the wrong philosophy because he brought the utopian philosophy back into Marxism. Though I know utopian societies never work out and are rarely the same based on human nature that not everybody will agree so everybody has a different picture of their utopia, I still find it super interesting. Maybe that is why I find it so interesting. It would be cool if everybody a manifesto on their own utopian society. I think maybe you can learn a lot about a person based on that, like if they are a creep, or way too wishy washy, or best friend material you may want to merge your society with. The tone of the writing also seems like they are saying that the fact that the utopia was set on Mars makes it absolutely crazy. I honestly do not know which year we are in anymore when it comes to these writings, but I do think the whole Mars society thing has been around for a while. Not to mention if one believes in science and that it always advances and grows, I do not see how it is all that far fetched really. But that is me looking at it from a 2017 student who is trying their best to keep up with intense readings as much as she possibly can.

The next chapter of Molecular Red mentions that Marx changed the view of how one writes about economics. Apparently no one has before written about it from the point of view from the laborers. Which I think now would seem obvious. But on the other hand we think about how we are told to write, and teachers always say “write about what you know” so maybe this was as revolutionary as the author is saying. I think it is funny that something so simple would not have been thought up for a long time. But then I look at the government we have rich white straight christian men writing about health care for a nation with less white people than non whites as well at at least the same amount of women as men. This and the fact that I am not surprised the new health care seems to cater the rich white men and the insurance companies they all have stock in, then yes I may not be so surprised economics was only written about by the elites. Was Marx an elite? I don’t think that was mentioned in class, or asked at the very least. So really my question is did he flip the point of view or did he just write from his point of view? I do think he deserves all the credit for this no matter which class he was in, but it would be interesting to know eh?

The writings about The Battleship Potemkin were a bit on the informative side but also oddly opinionated. One mentioned that the film is not an art film and anyone who claims it as such has obviously never seen the film. Okay let me take this on as an art student then. Ahem. In 1917 Duchamp presented a found urinal and turned it on it’s side then signed it therefore claiming it as art. This piece of art was then accepted as art therefore proving that anything is art as long as it is called art. And then BOOM basically all the rest of the contemporary art movements were born. Okay maybe the movie was not made specifically to be a piece of art. There are lots or art films that could fall into the category of being specifically film art. But honestly what is film art anyway? The director of the movie may have wanted it to be a political film, and yes it is obviously a political film, but there is way more to the film than that. The author of the article goes on and on forever about cinematography and montage style and blah blah whatever. That is artistic ya dummy. We have spent the entire semester reading long boring writings that I honestly cannot stand in order for me to wait around for the more visual art we get to later and if a dang manifesto is art, then so is this film.

The director uses so many carefully placed artistic shots to tell his story. For example, I noticed how he always showed the captain of the ship as standing on a platform with just the sky as the background. This shows the camera angle from the sailor's’ point of view. That is a storytelling choice as well as an artistic choice. This shows not only is the captain LITERALLY above them but he sees himself as above them and they see him as above them, but not in a good way. The director also tended to use a lot of intimate face shots to show emotion. This is necessary because there is not a lot of talking in the film to express emotion anyway. Portraits as a general are artsy and these dynamic shots help being the audience into the film more, they care more because they recognize the characters and the pure human aspect of emotions. In order for something to be political it has to relate to the audience, well at least in this case with the message the director seems to be trying to get across. He obviously wants the audience to sympathize with the sailors and the citizens. This only happens with dynamic shots of close ups and wide shots of the vas amounts of people. Tension is constantly built with the rhythmic cuts in the stairway scene between people falling down the stairs, being shot and the faces of horror. He also uses intimate shots of the boy getting his hand stepped on which takes the audience right up in the action creating more tension and anxiety from the audience by pretty much throwing them into the action. There is almost no way that anybody could argue that this film is not artistic. You do not have to like art in order for it to be art. Anything is art, especially this film.

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Marx

Reading Marx is like going on a hike in a forest that the even animals have deserted for the last hundred years. It is so overgrown you have to cut your own path through and as soon as you cut a clear path and understand what is going on, you have to concentrate on making a new path, so you forget all about the first path, then wind up constantly lost. That being said my writing now may be confusing for two different reasons; one being the above message and two being that I got my days all mixed up because of the snow day and now my notes look like crap.

Marx has a lot to say about labor. Well he has a lot to say about everything, but mostly labor and capital and how they tie into each other like some kind of super obnoxious crazy boy scout knot that goes on forever. I think Marx has me in a metaphor mood. Anyway, After weeding through everything I think he has a fairly good point for the most part. In Capital he talks a lot about how big businesses screw us over, or I suppose people back in the day over, but it seems the same thing is happening now so may as well update the terms. Big businesses make sure that we have just enough money to live so that we can go into work every day, and sometimes enough money to be able to buy the goods or services we make/provide to them for such a low wage cost. Then big businesses make a huge profit off of us and hoard the money and we go back to work again to start the process all over. Which is highly frustrating. As if we weren’t already pretty much aware of this already, in class we broke down just how fucked up it is, and let me tell you. The profit they make is rather insane. I mean we hate big business bad enough, because well, we signed up for a radical politics class, what else could we think about big business? But sheesh this is over the top.

But back to Marx, as he is talking about capital he relates everything to capital, which makes a lot of sense, except I keep thinking what is the point in all of this though? Okay maybe he is trying to wake us up as laborers? If we jump back to Alienated Labor real quick Marx mentions not only how laborers are getting ripped off, but about how everything relates to big business owners and capital. All there is in the world is the property owners and the property workers. He basically states that workers equal poop in this situation. Land ownsers get the benefits of working the property workers half to death and making a profit off them in the long run. Which I see as still being very true today, especially with part time workers. They don’t even get health benefits half the time, their hours are up and down all the time and business owners just see them as cheap fillers to replace full time employees anyway. I honestly wonder from both readings how a big business expects little workers to keep this up? Okay so I get paid an amount of wages, but I have to eat, have a place to live, have clothing and transportation. If i am paid not enough to afford those things then how does that big business expect me to buy their super expensive high profit product? If they get rid of all of the full time workers and hire cheaper workers who work less hours for way less pay, then how are those workers supposed to afford to buy their products? Because isn't it really technically the consumer that owns the market? Obviously according to Marx no, and he has every right to say no because we are still having the same problems, but if you really take a step back and think about it, the consumer should and did have the original power because they had the buying power. But now somehow we have become such desperate and needy consumers that we cannot live without certain luxuries that we gave the power back to corporations because we want our phones and electronics and easy access online products so much. .Not that I am at all saying I have bought into it any less than the next person. I have an iphone right next to me as I’m typing away on my laptop thinking about ordering a pair of prescription sunglasses as soon as I get my tax return. But it is still something to think about. I guess what helps me sleep at night is that the sunglasses at least donate to charity from my purchase.

Honestly I read the Critique of Hegel but I got pretty much nothing out of it. This referencing back to the forest idea, where as soon as I have to concentrate on decoding one sentence, I absolutely forgot the last 8 I read three minutes ago. It was something about the political state vs the family and how they needed each other, and possibly how they were the same. There may have been something about there being a head of the state like there is a head of the family, or I could be molding that with a reading from my Anarchy class, which I now feel is highly likely. It was an interesting concept though. Even if it was massively gender roled with father ruling the house and children being taught to respect father like subjects are taught to respect the government head.

The Fragment on Machines got me a little confused with Capital because in Machines Marx mentions that everything has two values, a use value and a physical value. Then we turn around in Capital and he says that there is only value at all if a thing has use value, which I feel like is kind of untrue because gold is valuable but it does not really have a use. But then I realize that I suppose it can be made into things like jewelry and then technically it has a use. Then I go back again and think that technically jewelry doesn’t have a use, it just sits there, on your neck or finger to either be pretty or show that you have status, or belong to someone. What is the point in stuff like that anyway? I suppose one could argue a use for pretty much everything. Dirt is valuable because is is used to grow plants, but it does not have a physical value because you walk outside your house and there it is. But let’s not forget technically physical value is not a thing. Maybe I imagined that part too just to help the jumble of words Marx likes to use make sense. I could have been that desperate. Also Machines was a lot about labor and how machines were replacing people I think. And then he mentions that machines always have use value even if it is not for labor. This really confuses me because how is it useful if it is not for labor? I use my smartphone to look up information at the touch of a button in a hot second for me and I think that is labor and therefore use value. I don’t even see how a machine would be for anything other than labor. I mean a laptop can be used for entertainment but when it boils down to it, it is still intended really for labor. Laptops are used to do banking, writing emails, letters, essays. They do all kind of labor for us. What machines do not do labor? And how then are they useful?

[chrisgis4680-blog]

Module 2

So I am to guess we were supposed to include readings on the paintings of the day two reading, but obviously I already wrote a whole bit on that so I will direct you there if you wish to read about them haha. 

I really enjoyed “The Mask of Anarchy” though it took me a few times to reread bits to get the gist, I still think it was a much easier read than some of the other poems we have had to read. Like the next one I will be writing about. I think the rhythm and overall set up just really helped make this poem an easier read. I may get overwhelmed by a massive pile of words in one clustered form. When I read it I thought Hope was actually the one who did the speech. The analysis stated that they are not sure who is doing the speech, but that it seems to be a woman, and honestly the whole time I just assumed it was Hope, so that is what I am going to go with. It seemed to me that hope was lost until she saw anarchy then happened to find her voice. To which I thought the author was maybe praising anarchy. But then in class we clarified my whole four horsemen theory of them being bad, and it was actually the high up people who were under the masks if I remember correctly. Which helped a lot because the analysis confused me, making me think anarchy died and that anarchy was basically everything that was evil in the world. Then I could not tell if it was good or bad again, and I just got all mixed up. Also I quite enjoyed the last line as a general. Hope basically just does a mic drop with the final line, “Ye are many -- they are few.” Not that I have never heard that before, but at the end of the poem, it is simply amazing.

Okay I was not so in love with “Ode to the West Wind” I absolutely read this wrong at first I think I read the title wrong (I cannot for the life of me remember what I thought it was) so because of that I thought it was about a barren wasteland at first, then there was suddenly a tree and I was just all messed up. After reading it again I actually still did not get it. I am not one for huge vague metaphors. I thought the leaves were ideas and the wind spreads the ideas in autumn, during which the ideas just die. Then new ideas were born in spring. Oh I just got to the end of my notes, I thought it said Wild West Wind. That is where I got the desert visual from haha.

Foot seemed to love this poem way more than I ever could. Foot clarified that the leaves were not ideas, but indeed the seeds of revolution. I just did not see that at all, but maybe it made more sense in the context of history. Even the analysis language was rough for me. I really try but if I am not interested my eyes read the page and my brain does not process.

The Communal Luxury was kind of hit or miss for me throughout the book. First off I found it really frustrating that Ross used a lot of French and did not bother to translate it. This being because, well I am reading a book and you should translate so I don’t have to look it up, and the fact that (as every language teacher in the history of the world has mentioned) Google translate does not actually translate all that well. I think the history bit of the commune in the book was rather helpful. Though the documentary helps explain a lot, Ross does dive into the real root of the commune more than I have seen people dive into the explanation in the past. Plus she really helped me understand the whole cannon thing from the documentary because it was kind of confusing in the film honestly. I thought it was really cool that the people who met in the “clubs” had their own language for wanting to talk about things they were not legally allowed to talk about, like bread for property and such. I think this was really clever. Also I am torn between being upset and also kind of amused at the fact that the government did not bother to send their “spies” to the radical women’s clubs. On one hand, obviously women should be seen as more of a threat than they are, but on the other hand it is kind of funny that they weren't seen as such, then they turned around and were basically the whole reason the commune was able to take control of the cannon in the first place. So HA to you government. But not that that has changed either, like basically everything else I have learned about politics in the last several years.

As (hopefully) a future teacher I find everything Ross explains about education to be fascinating. I get super excited when she and the film talk about girls being allowed to learn actual trade skills and things instead of sewing and cooking and other crap like that. Though those things are important if one wants to learn them, girls should have the same opportunity as boys. I think i remember either the book or the film saying something about there still being a separation in schools for girls and boys, but hey it was the nineteenth century, even modern thinking of that day can only go so far. Also I appreciate that Peltier was a schoolteacher and an artist, because well obvious reasons. All these different people with different occupations gets me thinking a bit about things, like why aren't there more people involved in the government that actually experience it? All we have is business people and lawyers and they are great, but maybe a teacher should have a say in the school system because they know what the heck they are doing, and maybe a banker or whatever should say things about the economy. I think part of this was some of the basis of the commune. It was just regular people trying to make up government that worked based on their experiences. Though it obviously did not work out in the end, because well everybody has different opinions, I feel like if maybe you got the right group of people together shit could get figured out. Obviously the problem is who picks the right people? Look at who technically gets picked now. But say in the commune where you start completely over without the corruption and the greed, at least you have a fighting chance of figuring it out.

Though the documentary was kind of weird and a little hard to follow, it was not altogether a horrible film. It probably could have been shorter honestly. I found the concept kind of odd but interesting. I may or may not have thought I was crazy and had to double check when the TV was invented to confirm this haha. But overall it was pretty informative. Though I was confused by the weird and sudden change from the actors acting in the film to actually talking about the film in town hall meetings I did see the point. I will probably say this over and over again throughout the course, but I think pretty much all of the radical politics is almost always relevant to today’s day and age. There have alway been the governed who have all the power and suppress all the little people and the little people will always hate it and sometimes try to change it. I just can’t help but wonder if the elites will always have all the money and power if a revolution just winds up putting a new powerful person back into power the same way they tried to get rid of the last one. Though the commune seemed to be revolutionary and this new amazing thing, history still always repeats itself and I feel we never get out of the governmental lock of the elites vs the poor, especially while the poor stay uninformed and stupid about it.

[chrisgis4680-blog]

Readings Day 2

Okay so I was a bit more into these readings because well I am an art major. I am actually quite familiar with the painting by David. I have long been a fan of it. I love the colors and the big empty space at the top. I love the shadowing and the skill is just amazing. He is not quite as skilled as Caravaggio but I do often think of their art together because they are at least in the same league. I think the position of the body is very dynamic and just interesting to look at. Also after reading how the murder actually took place I appreciate the fact that Marat is in the bathtub. Not only does it make him look more vulnerable and like the tragic victim, but it also just tells more of the story than just the end murder scene. Apparently he was in the bath when he heard his wife arguing with his murderer and came down to talk to her before she stabbed him. So though he did not actually die in his bathtub, it just still works out and makes for a better version of the story.

After reading the long winded analysis on the painting I feel like the extra victimization of Marat was quite intentional for several reasons. David imitated old paintings of Christ in his mother’s arms, with the positioning of the hands and the bright lighting on the body almost as if the body is illuminating itself and not some outside light source. These both tie into a ceremony after the death of Marat where the people who were gathered to talk about him also compare him to a Christ figure. According to Christian belief, Christ died for our sins even though he was completely innocent and made this great sacrifice. Christ is made out to be a victim just as Marat is. Marat is said to be a man of the people like Christ and they even mentioned almost worshiping him. Well not everybody agreed, but the suggestion was still there. That is, only if Clarke is to be believed with what actually happened.

Also as I read about Marat’s life I was quite surprised that the nobles and lawmakers did not just find an excuse to execute him in the many times they brought him to trial. I mean if i was a powerful official and only cared about my wants and needs, all while trying to keep the common folk submissive and blind, I would absolutely want the guy who was calling me out to those common folk to not do just that. From my rough memory of history class it does not seem all that far fetched that to get a radical out of the way a government would do that. I mean look at the beheadings of the nobles. But on the other hand I suppose that was quite lucky for the Revolution that it did not turn out that way in the end.

I was not as knowledgeable of Turner’s Slave Ship as I was about David’s so this was a bit of a guess for me. On first impressions I really liked the colors, and the brush stroked kind of reminded me of the Impressionist period. The one writing on the piece was boring and I felt pointed out basically nothing. It just talked about the colors and brush strokes and maybe a little history but that was basically it. Unless I missed something more important, I am not sure.

The next reading was pretty confusing honestly. I was able to make a lot more sense of the painting after the explanation of the real title of the painting was mentioned. I feel like it should just have had the full title all along. Why even shorten the title if it completely misses the point. In class we mentioned that the storm has already happened probably and those were the dead slaves that died on the ship in the storm? I think, or at least that is what I got out of the talks. But I remember in the reading that it was mentioned that the sick, dying and already dead were thrown off the ship before going into the storm. Which I think says a whole lot more about the slave trade. The fact that the dead are not worht burying in the first place, and the fact that if dead and dying weight are not of use then they should just wind up in the ocean like trash anyway. Not that I think trash should wind up in the ocean actually, it is bad for the environment and the fish and all obviously. Anyways I think that makes a more powerful story. It was mentioned in the reading that either the artist was on the ship or he had talked to a person on the ship that told him this version of the story and I kind of just think that makes a lot more sense. Though I do not know enough about sailing to know if a lighter ship would help to save the ship in a storm or not.

Though either way the story really happened it all says bad things about the slave trade. I mean the people who were thrown in the ocean were just a mass of floating body parts instead of humans; therefore, dehumanizing them as the slave trade tends to do. The colors are pretty but also kind of looming and bad, suggesting evil and dread.

[chrisgis4680-blog]

Day One Readings

As a general statement, I remember in my class last semester, Anarchist Art that the readings we often had, way up and even through the twentieth century mankind was always referred to as man. For example, in the Declaration of Independence they say mankind often plus there is the whole, “all men are created equal” bit and then we have the Declaration of Rights of Man, which the title speaks for itself on top of them basically quoting the United States “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” The whole thing to me is still just crazy that so many people get left out of documents like this that claim to fight for human rights, but it just turns out they are just white, straight, christian, cisgender, male rights. And unfortunately as the readings get closer to our time frame the fight for rights does not seem to change much.

When reading the Declaration of Independence I feel a bit sentimental I suppose. I find it really interesting that no teacher till now has actually required me to read it; not even in other political classes throughout college. But here I am reading it and it just sounds so personal. Before reading it I thought I would constantly zone out and have to reread parts a few times to get the point across, but though several parts are a bit wordy and need a minute to understand, a lot of it is not really that bad. It is very organized and to the point, “we don’t want to be under the king anymore and here is why.” I never knew that the King had done so much, you get the gist of it in general education history classes throughout the public school system, but not much more than that. I just found it very interesting to read what happened and how they saw everything rather than the interpretation out of a mass produced textbook that only tells half of the truth anyway.

Real quick referencing my first paragraph… go Adam Smith for being for equality for women at least haha. As I read Adam Smith I noticed that government and poverty really have not changed much in the last two to three hundred years. And I find that to be rather frustrating honestly. He talked about how the poor have a shorter life, they tend to have more children and how those children tend to die at a higher rate than children of the more wealthy class. Seriously? In three hundred years we have not been able to get our crap together in order to help out the poor? What has the human race been doing all these centuries? Centuries! It is the twenty first century for goodness sake, and the death rate for the poor is still lower than the rich, as well as the birth rate among the poor and one could stretch the argument towards the death rate of poor children, but I will admit that is pushing it. Yes this has improved a bit. The death rate gap has closed a lot, and people are not having twenty children to make up for the ten of them that died in childbirth or the first five years of their life. But the fact still remains that though this has improved a bit, it still hasn't been solved completely. Plus with the new administration I cannot see this whole helping the poor out idea solving itself any time soon in the United Stated of Business.

Honestly John Locke is pretty long winded. Though I feel like almost everybody from that age was long winded. I wonder if as a human race our attention spans have just gotten so much shorter over the years. Even my professors sometimes ask students to cut down on filler words just to reach the word count. Which on one hand I completely understand this, but on the other hand I read John Locke and all of his filler words and it kind of makes me wonder what the heck is going on with these professors. Though from what I could get out of it his arguments make a lot of sense for the time. There was a huge surplus of land compared to the population especially in the Americas (I am choosing to ignore the whole stealing the land from Native Americans thing because we may be here all day). I like when he talked about not taking more land than you need and how you only have the right to the part that you actually work. This way you don't wind up with somebody owning one hundred acres of land and only actually having crops on five of those acres. I feel like this makes a lot of sense, that part may even make sense for now. I just don’t understand why people need so much more than they really need or use ya know? Though I am not saying if a person works hard then they should just give all of their excess away, just that in some cases there is more excess than a person could ever use in their lifetime. That part confuses me and makes me more of the side of Locke there.

I also picked up a bit on Locke hinting at a utopian society. He explains how working the land not only gives a person the right to the land but helps the community as a general because if one person grows an acre of tomatoes and another an acre of corn then they can both trade for the different crops. It kind of motivates people in a way to work and earn the land they live on and then help out the economy around them and eliminate the need for money. I see a lot of good in the trading system, but I also kind of understand why humans moved on to money eventually anyway. Again I just think it works for the times as technology progresses then the barter system does not tend to work out as well because humans need to be motivated. And what better way to motivate them than money?

Wordsworth seems to have a very romantic view of the French Revolution and I don’t really understand why. As far as I can tell from discussions in class as well as references to past classes, it was a pretty bloody war. I mean people were being beheaded in the streets and has their heads paraded around on spikes. This doesn’t sound all that romantic to me. But I suppose if he was one of the oppressed poor then after being oppressed for so long and wanting the revolution maybe he could see it as romantic in a way?

Ah the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It was not so bad to get through the first half and then my eyes basically glazed over. After class I can kind of see the political element of the poem, but it is pretty hard to see this on my own. Though the scenes of the dead bodies all around him did give a battlefield tone, and that was one of the easiest parts to see I think. I did enjoy the beginning of the story, and I think the rhyming helped keep my attention a lot. I often like modern poems that have a rhythm but do not rhyme, but on the other hand epic poems need the rhyme to keep my attention and hold my brain onto it without zoning and having to read it twice. At least his view of the French Revolution was not as romantic and weird as Wordsworth.