Takeshi Kitano's Dolls

I just watched Takeshi Kitano's film Dolls and was so moved by it that I decided to write about it here. I found the film quite slow at first, but after a while I relaxed into it and found both the images and the simple narrative to be very captivating. The music is appropriately sparse and sad, being scored by Joe Hisaishi (who has scored many films including Spirited Away). The acting is mute, but despite this it manages to convey a great deal of emotion (similar, perhaps, to Robert Bresson's films). After watching it I felt both melancholic and hopeful. The story is a sad one, but touching enough that doesn't fall into a pessimistic tale.

The film tells the story of two lovers who are precariously tied to each other by both their love for each other, and perhaps a force greater than the two of them. Throughout the film we see flashbacks of their time together, which appears mostly happy. But there is a sadness and distance between them because their relationship came to an abrupt end (which we see at the beginning of the film). Despite this, however, they remain bound to each other, dramatised in the film by the real length of rope which ties them together as they walk the land together. This device works to convey both their real ties to each other (perhaps the man returned to his lover), and their symbolic link. The latter is obviously open to interpretation. Some might see it as a way of dramatising fate or destiny, whilst others might see it as a visual depiction of the material traces which bind them together even after their real separation (memory, history, emotion and so on).

Along their journey together, they pass by several people, which triggers other mini-narratives. These take a similar form to the two principle lovers: difficult, temporary, delayed, or failed encounters/relationships. We see some characters trying to have relationships (with varying degrees of success) and we see others running away from them only to return, finally, later in life. In general, these sub-stories are tragic but with enough love to allow hope to survive. Even if the relationships all end (and mostly with death present), the fact that two people managed to come together, if only for a few moments, seems to overcome the sadness of their end.

The cinematography is the main reason that so much emotion is conveyed, and so well. There are many extraordinary scenes in the film: the lovers walking through an avenue of cherry blossoms in full bloom, or walking up a hill covered in snow and lit by a single street lamp. There are even some dream sequences which are surreal and haunting, such as the couple walking past tens of fans blowing in the wind. The film begins, interestingly, with a scene from a Bunraku performance (a traditional form of Japanese puppet theatre). This short sequence foreshadows later events in the film and is also sets the style and tone for the film (Kitano himself has said that the film is Bunraku in film form). I found it very expressive and I liked the combination of puppets with live action. It also has to be said that the costumes in the film are amazing. Late in the film, the two principle lovers dress in costumes similar to that of the two Bunraku puppets and this looks great.

Although death is a prominent theme in the film, I didn't feel despairing or depressed after watching it. In fact, quite the opposite. It was sad and moving, but there was so much love in the film that it managed to avoid the negative connotations that films usually surround death with. The actors and actresses convey a lot without much dialogue, and this heightens the emotion of the film.

I was reminded of another of his films, Hana-Bi, and after watching Dolls I do want to go back and see his earlier film again. Kitano strikes me as a hugely talented director, more so now that I've seen Dolls. I look forward to seeing more by him and I encourage everyone to see Dolls if they get the chance. It's slow, it is partly about death, but it managed to touch me deeply with it's tenderness and bitter-sweet love.

My First Month in Cardiff

Well, it's been rather a long time since my last blog post and I've been meaning to get writing again for quite some time. I moved to Cardiff in the middle of September to start my PhD and since then I've had so much to do that the blog has been left behind sadly. But no longer.

For this blog post I thought I'd just run through some of the highlights of the last month or so. Because of the time that's passed since my last entry, and because a lot has happened in that time, I've been highly selective for this post. I will mostly blog about films I've seen recently as although I've been reading a lot (both for pleasure and for a couple of seminars at uni), I think I'll save that for another blog post. That way I can spend more time on one or two particular things rather than try to summarise it all now.

The photo at the top of this blog is one I took recently. It's the view from the front of my flat as I look out from my desk by the window. For me this is one of the highlights of the flat. It faces onto a wide street with large trees running down the centre island separating the two roads. It's been a pleasure to observe the change in colour of the leaves, and to sometimes watch individual leaves fall to the ground. I'll post more photos of Cardiff soon. So far though, I haven't taken many photos so I must take my camera for a walk one of these days!

The first book I want to mention is David Graeber's book Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. Although I started this before I moved to Cardiff, I read the bulk of it here. I can't praise this book enough. Although there are some sections which begin to drag a little, overall it's one of the best books I've read this year without a doubt. Graeber sets himself the task of exploring and analysing the concept of value, drawing on his years of expertise as an anthropologist. What results is a lucid and stimulating account of his explorations.

There are two principle theorists which underpin the book, Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss, and Graeber brings them together in a complimentary way by using each to address the weak points of the other. Graeber explains various theories of the concept of value, such as Marx's dichotomy of 'use value' and 'exchange value,' as well as different forms of exchange, such as Mauss's theory of 'gift exchange.' Although it's abstract and theoretical at times, the book is peppered with anecdotes and examples from anthropological field work. Furthermore, Graeber demystifies a lot of economic theory and jargon through clear and concise prose.

There are many things to take away from this book. One of the most important things I took from this is that Graeber shows clearly that what is at stake in the concepts of value, exchange, debt and so on, are various forms of social relationship. Debt is, after all, just a system of promises, which can always be re-negotiated. Likewise, value is really just an expression of how much you are willing to invest of your creative energy in some project. Realising this is potentially liberating since once large numbers of people appreciate that all these terms are fundamentally about social relationships, they may well decide to engage in transformative political action.

Shortly after I moved to Cardiff I discovered a great alternative cinema, which I've been back to a couple of time already. But the first film I saw there was Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In. The film is about a surgeon who is working on an experimental new type of skin which he has created in a lab. Without giving too much away, the film centres on the young woman who is being held captive by the surgeon and who is experimented on. I won't say anything about the plot as it would spoil the film greatly.

Thematically, the film can be seen as a meditation on transformation, identity, appearance, vanity, the refusal to let go of desire, and no doubt more besides. The first point of comparison which sprang to my mind was Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve. The film is similar to this book in many ways, particularly the central theme of the transformation of the body. But in the end, the film doesn't have as rich a narrative as the book and ends rather abruptly in my opinion.

Perhaps the best thing about this film is the lush visual style and intense portrayal of sexuality, power and desire. In one scene, the surgeon's criminal brother arrives at his house in an elaborate tiger costume, discovers the beautiful woman being held captive, mistakes her for the now-dead ex-wife of his brother, and proceeds to rape her. Although it's uncomfortable viewing, it's also rather compelling and again reminds me of some of Angela Carter's work. In particular, it reminds me of the short stories collected in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. Again, Carter's work easily surpasses the film in my opinion, but the film still manages to create some visually stunning and intensely disturbing scenes.

It's not a positive story, granted, but it's interesting to see a film which tackles the problems of sexuality, power, and desire in a manner reminiscent of Angela Carter's work. It paints a bleak picture of how desire and resentment can become closely allied, how appearance can become more important than other aspects of living, and how sexuality is a troubling and ambiguous matter.

And speaking of Angela Carter, shortly after watching the film above I read one of her early novels: Love. This was written before The Bloody Chamber, before The Passion of New Eve, and before her more famous Wise Children and Nights at The Circus. It is less playful, less carnivalesque, and much bleaker than most of her other work. However, like all her works it is emotionally intense, rich in imagery and beautifully written. Throughout the novel, there are references to the Gothic, to pre-Raphaelite painting, and to Britain's counter-culture.

The novel focuses on three characters: two brothers and a young woman, who eventually marries one of the brothers. Whilst Lee tries to hold down a university course and then a job as a teacher, his drug-addict brother Buzz girlfriend Annabel stay mostly at home in their shared flat. Whilst Buzz spends his time stealing, taking photographs and doing drugs, Annabel mostly just sits in the flat all day. Occasionally she goes out to wander through a gothic park or paints on the walls of the flat.

The novel deals with many themes and ideas: obsessive love, being trapped in a hermetic world, dependency, suicide and the inability to face up to a sense of shared reality. Annabel mostly lives in her own private world, a world in which she can become invisible, and which she prefers to the external reality outside of the flat. Buzz has similar issues though in a different way. Lee seems the most sane of all of them, yet he has his own issues to deal with. In particular, he seems disturbingly irresponsible and insensitive to Annabel or Buzz's needs.

There are lots of interesting visual elements which drew my attention. In one scene, Lee arrives home to find that Annabel has painted an enormous, colourful tree on the wall. In a move typical of male heterosexual anxiety Lee construes this as a sign that they should have sex for the first time. It seems to him an answer to that most fraught question: what does woman want? Interestingly, Darian Leader talks about this in one of his books, which I read recently. His example is even more strange and disturbing: a jealous husband inspects his wife's underwear to count the number of pubic hairs that have fallen off her body - this being his way of trying to find her hidden jouissance. What Leader says is that most heterosexual men want the woman's body/sexuality to speak to them (and when it obviously doesn't they get anxious). Hence the love of hysterical women - their body really does seem to speak!

There is another great visual scene in the novel that takes place later. Annabel takes Lee to a tattoo parlour and has him agree to a tattoo of a heart with her name inscribed on his chest. Because Lee feels guilty about how he has treated her (she spends time in a hospital after attempting to commit suicide) he agrees to the tattoo without complaint or hesitation. But after this point, things only go from bad to worse.

This is a bleak novel which shows how painful love can be, how sexuality and power are never far apart, and how people can become trapped in their own closed off worlds. Despite this bleakness, it is an amazing read because of the power of its images and beautiful style.

Just two more films to report on before I finish the blog post. Firstly, I saw Lar von Trier's latest film, Melancholia. It's a film about the end of the world, and about how people might react to their immanent death. More than this, it's a meditation on life: on how we live our lives, how we can become suffocated by the depressing aspects of contemporary society, and about the lack of affective/aesthetic engagement present today.

The beginning was my favourite part of the film because the first few scenes are shot in ultra-slow motion and lit in a greenish, saturated way. This gives the film an other-worldly feel and also draws attention to the intensity of imperceptible moments in time. It seemed to me as if slowing down time allowed one to grasp something which is lost in the high-speed of contemporary society. In a certain sense, this relates to what I said about The Double Life of Veronique in my last blog post. Film has its own particular way of creating/showing intensities, intense processes which are lost in the buzz of modern societies, drowned out by the spectacular, the commercial and the banal.

This is rather surprising, since the film is about a catastrophe, something which is usually the staple of Hollywood blockbuster spectacles. But in von Trier's film, the catastrophe is not averted by an all-American hero and his team of rogues. Instead, the end of the world is inevitable and all we can do is face our existential dilemma. It is this inevitable doom which seems to turn the film into a kind of diagnosis of modern society. The depressed character in the film becomes animated, becomes alive, once she discovers that the end is near. It is as if her sickness is caused not by a mental disorder (a pathology) but by society itself. Her only happiness is in those endless moments before the earth is obliterated forever.

Lastly, I want to briefly mention Lynne Ramsey's latest film, We Need To Talk About Kevin. Her last film, Morven Callar, was released in 2002, so it's been a long to wait. But the wait has been worth it as her latest film is an extraordinarily moving and powerful film. The film concerns a mother reflecting on the horrendous crime her son has committed, and on her trying to understand her role in this (through her parenting role). Tilda Swinton plays the mother and I don't think she or anyone else could have done a better job. Her acting is incredible in this film. She manages to convey such an intense level of emotion that I felt truly drawn into her story.

Furthermore, this is one of those films which really makes the most of its medium (unsurprising given her two previous films). There are beautiful shots of lights caused by unfocusing the camera lens, numerous shots of everyday items, and a use of editing that creates a vivid sense of time and memory (much like Proust's involuntary memory). The camera will focus on an object and suddenly we are transported to a different time. Or a sound will be heard which again takes us back in time. It reminds me of films like Don't Look Now because it's brilliant use of the filmic medium to tell it's story.

Again, like all the films in the blog post, it's a disturbing story. But one worth viewing. If you like film for what it can do, then see this. If you enjoy films that challenge and provoke, then see this. I was captivated throughout.

That's it for this blog post. Hopefully, things will be back to normal now with more regular posting. Thanks for reading!

Distance and Closeness - Letting things draw near in The Double Life of Veronique

Tonight I watched The Double Life of Veronique and it provoked in me some thoughts about my relationship to others, to the world, and to technology. In particular, it started off a process of thinking about distance and closeness, and how these function in relationships. Whilst distance might be thought of as a barrier to relationships, something to be overcome in order to share one's space and life with another person, I believe this film paints a more subtle picture. Namely, the film suggests that distance can actually facilitate relationships and that what matters is how we relate to this distance.

The two main characters of the film, Weronika and Veronique, are both the same and different, separated by great distance and yet unified. They have the same appearance, the are both musically talented, and they seem to have an intense relationship to the world around them. Even though they don't text or email each other every day, they have an awareness of the other which is often lacking in typical communications today. This awareness could be referred to as intuition, feeling, premonition or other such terms. What matters though is that their awareness of each other does not take the form of endless updates of their status on facebook or even face-to-face meetings. Rather, their awareness of each other is vague but intense, something deep within them, yet hard to convert into the language of text messaging.

As you can tell, I thought about the contrast between modern technology and the relationships dramatised so brilliantly in The Double Life of Veronique after watching the film. What struck me was that whereas in the film distance seems no barrier to unification, togetherness, belonging and so on, a lot of modern technology actually separates people, even though this goes against the slogans used to sell a lot of it. Much communication technology is designed to bring people together who are separated spatially. We phone each other from anywhere to anywhere, have wireless internet and so on. And yet after watching The Double Life of Veronique I had the sense that the film stages beautifully a more enriching and wonderful sense of togetherness through distance than any experience I've ever had with using modern communication technology for bridging spatial gaps.

Because the film shows that a kind of closeness can be achieved despite, or because of, a certain kind of distance, I will refer to this as a dialectical togetherness. There are several examples of this dialectical togetherness in the film. The most obvious and powerful is the link between Weronika and Veronique. The former glimpses the latter in Krakow, getting onto a bus, whilst Veronique first sees Weronika in a photo she herself took (though at the time not realising what she'd taken a picture of). There are other elements which link the two: the piece of music which repeats throughout the film, the tiny transparent ball, and most strongly the feeling they both have of the other (Veronique feels as though she is grieving just after the death of Weronika for example).

The other obvious instance of dialectical togetherness takes place between Alexandre and Veronique. Their relationship starts off and continues for much of the film as a relationship at a distance. Veronique spies Alexandre in a mirror as he is performing a marionette show for the school children that Veronique teaches. Later she comes across him by chance at a traffic light stop and exchanges glance with him through the windows of their vehicles. Alexandre then begins sending Veronique items in the post, calls her on the telephone and even manages to shine a light into her apartment. What brings them together, spatially, is a cassette tape which Alexandre records for Veronique, which gives her a number of clues as to his location. This is one of my favourite scenes in the film: Veronique listens to the sounds which Alexandre has recorded (walking down a street, through a busy train station, into a cafe where we hear the waitress talking and so on) on a pair of wireless headphones, walking through her apartment, taking off her jacket and even brushing her teeth. What is so brilliant and fascinating about this scene is the juxtaposition of ambient sounds from one location with images of another. The sounds which Veronique listens to do not match the spatial location she is in. Both Veronique and we the audience are in two places at once.

What strikes me about both these relationships is that distance is not a barrier to be overcome in order to have a close relationship. There is a sense of togetherness without the need for technological solutions. Having said that, one might object that the tape recording is a piece of technology and therefore an example of how technology can bring people together. In response, I would just briefly say that the use of technology here is not to bring the other into immediate presence, but to use absence and distance in order to defamiliarise both Veronique and the audience's relation to space, and to facilitate a creative relationship between Veronique and Alexandre. Therefore, perhaps I should say that technology is not inherently poor at creating relationships and doesn't necessarily alienate people, but that it depends on its use.

To give one more example of dialectical together from the film let me consider briefly the role of the marionettes. Though they are mute and are clearly constructed puppets controlled by human beings, they take on a life of their own suggesting that they are not what they seem, or perhaps not just what they seem. A scene near the end of the film shows two puppets made to look like Veronique. There is a beautiful shot which shows Veronique being almost caressed by her puppet double, or even hypnotised. To me this suggests a relationship which has more meaning and depth than one could make with a virtual pet, for example. The puppet was hand-made, it is manipulated by hand, and it's static expression seems to be defied by its movements. Hence, we are drawn in by the puppet despite the sense of obvious distance which it creates because of it's artificiality.

I suppose in one sense I'm merely trying to put together a number of ideas and concepts that I have read of: Heidegger's remarks on technology, Benjamin's thoughts on art and the aura which is lost in mechanical repetition, and no doubt more besides. It does strike me that The Double Life of Veronique can be productively read alongside such ideas and concepts. For example, there are so many fragile, beautiful elements to the film which might be seen as auratic elements or things which technology hides or even destroys. The tiny transparent ball which creates an upside-down miniature world, or Veronique's strange intuitions of being suddenly alone in the world, and of remembering the feeling that she was not, before, alone in the world because there was someone out there, just for her.

To me, technology is enormously helpful in providing solutions to various problems, such as long distance communication. But I do believe that the technologisation of life comes at a price. Watching The Double Life of Veronique reminded me in a very sensual way that there are things which are both more special than anything that could come from, or through, technology, and that technology is actually one threat to some of these things. To take an example, the film somehow captures the feeling and atmosphere of solitude. Through the film's lighting, use of music and camera angles, very fragile qualities and almost imperceptible elements are drawn out, including a feeling of solitude. To me this is what makes the film so special: that it manages to film things which one might think impossible to do so. Solitude is a very fragile thing and hard to describe or experience. It is not simply being on one's own or being in a quiet space. It is not something which one achieves through satisfying certain criteria. If this were the case, then we could imagine technological devices which would create the conditions necessary for solitude. Having said that, this will not stop people from trying to achieve this, and no doubt there are such devices already available (ambient music, luxury spas and so on might qualify). But in trying to create a sense of solitude through technology, one ends up trying to force a situation through instrumental rationality rather than letting it emerge.

In conclusion, The Double Life of Veronique strikes me as something rather rare and special. It is a truly beautiful film which manages to let the more fragile and precarious aspects and elements of life come out of their hiding places for a few moments. In particular, it shows how relationships based on these fragile elements are possible in spite of, or because of, a certain kind of distance. Perhaps this is the distance of letting things be (as Heidegger might put it), as opposed to the distance between two mobile phones. Or perhaps this is the distance which creates and sustains the aura of things which Benjamin speaks of. In any case, for me this film rekindles my hope of having a more spiritual, precious and intense relationship to life, appreciating the singularity of things, people and events, and of allowing relationships to blossom through distance.

Social Inequality in the U.S.

Just watched the latest Fault Lines episode about the wealthiest people in the U.S. and was impressed with it, so I thought I'd mention it in my blog. Fault Lines is a great video series produced by Al Jazeera. It tackles major social and political issues and is mainly concerned with the U.S. and its impact throughout the world.

Here are the program notes for this episode:

"The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country’s income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it’s been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US’ 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US’s social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further.

The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically.

How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest."

During the episode, a wide variety of people are interviewed including economist Jeffrey Sachs, sociologist Shamus Khan, representatives of both the Democratic party and the Republican party, as well as a Harvard graduate and a progressive businessman who feels let down by Obama.

For me, the most sickening aspect presented was the self-serving bull-shit ideology of the rich and successful: the American-dream, rags-to-riches, "we're richer because we worked harder and because we're brighter" rubbish that gets spouted a lot. And of course all those cliches that are dragged out constantly: a rising tide lifts all boats and other grossly insulting myths.

One of the most disappointing stories of the last couple of years is Obama, and this program contributes to our understanding of this immensely disappointing figure of contemporary politics. As the show points out, Obama has extended the Bush tax cuts, and has accepted the terms of the debate on cutting the deficit provided by the Republican party. Obama has given a lot away and seems to have gained nothing in return. It seems that Obama is either unable or unwilling to fight. But then as Sachs makes clear in the video, Obama isn't about to upset his Wall Street donors the year before his re-election campaign. [As a side note, I recently learned that the projected total campaign spending for both parties in 2012 will be over $2 billion!]

Another frightening but significant issue which this episode of Fault Lines examines is the huge political power that the wealthy have accrued thanks to their increased incomes. One prominent example which is explored is that of the Koch brothers, whose estimated total wealth is fourth highest in the U.S. The brothers not only support the Tea Party but also many right-wing think tanks including the Tax Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. They have donated large sums of money to many political candidates and are against many current issues such as climate change, financial reform and health care reform. The case of the Koch brothers illustrates rather bluntly and boldly the falsity of the idea of shareholder-democracy since it is clearly the case that the more wealthy you are, the more political influence you have.

The program ends with a rather sobering image of Harvard students celebrating their graduation, alongside an interview with one of them who boasts of his superior intelligence and discipline which have given him access to an elite club of businessmen and entrepeneurs. He argues that the wealthy would be wasting their time in distributing their greater income throughout society, and instead should invest it in order to make yet more money. Once again we see this illusory idea of the rising tide which lifts all boats: if the rich get richer, it helps all society. This is clearly nonsense as many prominent scholars and intellectuals have pointed out time and again. But it makes sense as it serves the ideological needs of the rich and no doubt serves them psychologically too.

There is a nice short video which accompanies this episode of Fault Lines in which the presenter talks about the difficulty of interviewing the wealthy in the U.S. The rich might like to show off their wealth through conspicuous consumption but clearly they are not particularly keen to discuss and debate it!

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Fault Lines: The Top 1% video presented by Zeina Awad for Al Jazeera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVODFombco&feature=relmfu

An extra video with presenter Zeina Awad on the difficulty of interviewing the wealthy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFYH4ROPgAo

Fault Lines website: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/

Freedom of Thought - How Much Is That Then?

I've been reading some material recently on the issue of privatisation of education and decided to blog about it and share some links. The debate is not a new one by any means, but I've come across some new issues which I'd previously not heard of and thought I'd share them in the interest of spreading awareness.

Of course we know about the recent increase in UK tuition fees (£9,000, up from £3,000), and we know that some governmental support services for those from lower income backgrounds have been either decreased or entirely cut. Less well known is that governmental grants for the arts, humanities and social sciences have been entirely cut. This is not true for science, engineering, technology or mathematics however. The National Union of Students reported that at least 24 universities could therefore lose all their funding. This reflects a troubling utiliarian perspective which values institutions in so far as they produce graduates who will directly increase the national economy. Such a move also places a very low value on the arts and on culture more generally. Charlotte Higgins, writing in the Guardian, sums up this state of affairs by declaring that a "dark new philistinism" is now abroad.

As Alan Finlayson has written, the arts, humanities and social sciences "can best contribute to collective understanding of our social, economic and political situation" and "enable citizens to understand what is being done to them, why, and by whom. " As he goes on to say, in cutting funding to these subject areas the government is "seeking to weaken the fields that help people know who they are or what they might be; knowledge that is part of what everyone needs to question authority and become fully human in fast changing times."

And of course these subjects do contribute to industry, namely the "creative industries" as they are called. Paul Thompson, rector of the Royal College of Art, has warned that cutting funding to arts colleges will lead to a lack of supply of talent for the creative industries, and will also force talent abroad. Interestingly, he also talked about the way in which artists often collaborate with engineers and so prioritising the hard sciences over the arts and humanities would lead to less collaborations.

Barry Ife, principle of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, has also pointed out that as many of the most talented artists come from the postgraduate population, increasing fees will deter more people from postgraduate study and therefore affect the supply of creative talent.

But the biggest and most interesting new development that emerged recently is that of the growth of private universities and colleges. The British philosopher A.C. Grayling has just announced a private for-profit undergraduate college called the New College of the Humanities (NCH), which will open in the autumn of 2012. The college will charge £18,000 per year in tuition fees and offer a liberal arts style education. However, although it is a private for-profit college, backed by private investors, it is in fact parasitic upon the public education sector. The University of London will be awarding the degrees and the NCH will be using their libraries and other facilities. Whilst Grayling and his supporters argue that the college represents a defence of the humanities (saving them from extinction since no one else will fund them), critics accuse Grayling of betraying his humanist values and of throwing in his lot with elitism and venture capitalism.

But whilst some critics, such as Terry Eagleton, accuse Grayling's college of being staffed by "a bunch of prima donnas jumping ship and creaming off the bright and loaded", Priyamvada Gopal argues more interestingly that Grayling's NCH is "at least partly a reflection of how we scholars in the humanities have made or failed to make history in institutional and political circumstances not of our own choosing." She argues that people working in the humanities are divided and have not found a way to resist against and fight back at the government's policies of cutting.

Gopal's article goes on to raise many well known but crucial issues concerning the humanities. One issue is that academics within the humanities have "played" the system too much, accepting the terms of the debate set by the government and the corporate sector. For example, they have too often accepted the idea that the humanities must show that it provides narrowly defined "transferable skills" with applications outside the field.

There is another issue at stake in the idea of private for-profit colleges like NCH. If Grayling is accepted as defending the humanities with this venture, then the question must arise: 'what will the humanities look like from the point of view of private colleges like NCH?' One look at the professor-shareholders who have signed up to NCH and you will see, in Gopal's words, "many of the world’s most renowned votaries of the superiority of Western civilisation, advocates of a narrow and parochial humanism defined as a Western possession, indeed in some cases, specifically, if implicitly, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant." This narrow representation of the humanities is hardly much of a defence of the best the humanities has to offer. It seems more of a return to elitism, class homogeneity, and intolerant rationalism, masked as liberal humanism.

In the face of all these attacks on public education, on the arts and humanities, and on the value of a liberal arts education, what can be done? There are a number of things that must be done. The arts and humanities must be defended as a social and public good in itself. We mustn't accept the terms of the debate from either the government or the corporate sector. There are other systems of value besides pecuniary ones and utiliarian/pragmatic ones. In part this means paying attention to language because it is instructive to notice how the government and the business sector talk. They talk of 'a global knowledge economy', of 'value-for-money education,' and of 'transferable skills.' Whilst this kind of language is arguably useful and appropriate in some areas of society, I don't believe it is appropriate when talking about the arts and humanities. Or, rather, the arts and humanities offer more than just transferable skills and enrich society in more ways than just the economic one. An education in the arts and humanities enriches one's life, helps one to become critical of the structures of society, allows one to appreciate beauty, creativity and other values which transcend the imperative to make profit, and at its best encourages free thought and independent inquiry.

Secondly, public education and the arts and humanities must be defended from within and from without. This means both public demonstrations and protests, and it means academics and intellectuals resisting pressure to conform to business practices and standing up for what they (should) do. The arts and humanities are often seen as either harmless or useless, and this must be shown to be false by engaging in independent and critical thinking. In times of crisis, when governments are lowering the living standard of the majority of people through austerity measures in order to save the banks, and when the rich are lining their pockets thanks to tax breaks, we need educated people more than ever and we need what the arts and humanities give us more than anything. We need the ability to critique existing power structures which will then lay the ground for emancipation. We need artists to both offer artistic portraits of the times and open our minds to new ways of looking at things. And we need intellectuals who can reinvigorate our sense of the past in order to create a different, and hopefully better, present and future.

There are many great articles and videos on this topic. I've posted some below. I hope they prove useful.

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Jane Hardy writing in the Socialist Review on Grayling's NCH: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=11712

Noam Chomsky speaking about academic freedom and the corporatisation of universities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q97tFyqHVLs&feature=feedlik

Here is the UCU's website: http://www.ucu.org.uk/stopprivatisation

Alan Finlayson's piece at OpenDemocracy.net: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/alan-finlayson/britain-greet-age-of-privatised-higher-education

Andy Worthington's article: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/11/22/did-you-miss-this-100-percent-funding-cuts-to-arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-courses-at-uk-universities/

Charlotte Higgins' piece in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/14/arts-funding-cuts-universities

A great myth-busting article in Red Pepper: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/higher-education-the-lie-busting-low-down/

An article on how the cuts affect art colleges and artists: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/14/arts-cuts-education-designers-musicians-overseas

Priyamvada Gopal's article at New Left Project: http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_humanities_going_down_without_a_fight

Terry Eagleton's article for The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/06/ac-graylings-new-private-univerity-is-odious

Riots in the Big Society

Having read quite a lot about the recent riots in the UK, I thought I'd collect some of the better pieces that I've read and post links to them here. I won't add my own thoughts here though. This is just a post about what some others have said. I hope it will prove useful and interesting.

Firstly, here is a piece by Nina Power, writing in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/08/context-london-riots

She argues that those condemning the violence should step back and consider the larger picture: that of the rising social inequality, rampart individualism, massive unemployment, the intensification of consumerism based on personal debt, racism, police corruption, systematic crushing of unions and the criminalisation of dissent.

Next is a piece by Tom Fox, writing in Red Pepper:

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-riots-a-grim-mirror-image-of-neoliberal-britain/

Fox draws attention to the following: "police incompetence and arrogance, media complicity and callousness, the short-sightedness of the rioters, and the contempt politicians have had for the public over the past year that evidently continued this week." He goes on to say that "Looting and burning is not the virtue of the left, but instead of neo-liberalism, and we now have a grim mirror image of capitalism’s savaging of our society over the last three decades.

The rioters are a microcosm of the ethics that resulted from that savaging: self-indulgence, competition, and violence."

Also writing in Red Pepper, Emma Gallwey:

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/these-riots-are-the-fruits-of-austerity/

Among other things, she draws attention to social policies from both the current coalition government and the previous New Labour government. She also reminds readers of the Conservative ideology which sees the provision of welfare as both a fiscal burden and as creating a "welfare dependent, morally feckless, underclass of single mothers, young black men without fathers, delinquent hooligans, and long term unemployed." It is this moralism and paternalism which explains (in part) the Conservative agenda of using the debt crisis to push through austerity measures which sharply decrease the standards of living for most ordinary people and especially the poor. Gallwey is critical not just of the moralism of the Conservatives but also of the media and the conservative elements of the British public opinion. Moralism leads to speeches of condemnation and discussion about the failure of parenting whilst often ignoring the social causes of the riots.

For an article which concentrates mostly on the issue of race, see this article in Counter Punch by Hal Austin:

http://counterpunch.org/austin08092011.html

Austin draws parallels with the riots in 1980/81 and the Broadwater Farm uprising in 1985, and argues that lessons were not learned and that a number of people, including Diane Abbott, are dangerously peddling a revisionist account of these historical events. Austin also discusses the political impotence of the black community in the UK.

New Left Project have gathered some responses to the riots from groups on the left:

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/blog_comments/left_groups_respond_to_the_riots

Helpfully, Alex Callinicos' statement from his facebook page is here for those of us not on facebook. Callinicos compares the riots to those of 1980s, and to those in LA in 1992. He makes a number of points: political alienation is greater now than thirty years ago, the looting reflects the increase in commodification of desires in the neo-liberal era, and we now see a greater co-existence of rich and poor in London which explains the acts of class hatred demonstrated for example by the scenes of broom-waving in Clapham and Ealing. Callinicos also recommends Chris Harman's analysis of the 1981 riots, arguing that such an analysis applies to the riots seen this past week. Here is the link to Harman's analysis of the 1980s riots: http://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1981/xx/riots.html

The Socialist Workers Party has made this statement:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=25645

It focuses on a number of key points: police racism and brutality, the Tory attacks on welfare provision and social programs, the growing inequality in Britain (the country is now less equal than at any time since the 1930s: the combined fortunes of the 1,000 richest people in Britain rose £60 billion in 2011), and the failure of the Labour party to offer a proper alternative. They quote Martin Luther King: riots are an expression of anger, "the language of the unheard." The statement ends with a call to demonstrate, strike and protest, as a response to the state of despair which leads to riots.

Tariq Ali, writing in the LRB blog asks "Why here, why now?":

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/08/09/tariq-ali/why-here-why-now/

Ali sees one answer to such a question as the build up of grievances over a long period of time, then triggered by a particular event (in this case the police shooting of Mark Duggan). Ali blames the governments of the last three decades (for privileging the wealthy), along with the lacklustre state media and the Murdoch networks, and the business elite. Ali also complains about the lack of a political alternative to seriously challenge the neo-liberal structures which have increased social inequality over the last 30-40 years.

For a slightly different view of the riots, see this article in New Statesman by The Staggers:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/08/british-society-riots

Here it is argued that the riots are not a modern problem and that the explanation of most on the Left, that the riots are the result of contemporary social issues, is misleading. Instead, this article offers a historical look at rioting, arguing that riots have often occurred in Britain, in both urban and rural settings, and that the common thread uniting them all is economic pressure. It ends with a hopeful message that in today's Britain we have progressed beyond the usual response: sending in the army, making arrests, but not addressing the economic situation which leads to riots.

Lastly, David Harvey has just written an article on the riots in Counter Punch:

http://www.counterpunch.com/harvey08122011.html

He begins by noting that the use of animal-terminology to describe the looters - the Daily Mail called them "nihilistic and feral teenagers" - was also used to describe the communards in Paris in 1871. The latter were referred to as wild animals, as hyenas, that deserved to be executed (which they were) in the name of the sanctity of private property, morality, religion, and the family. He then goes on to make the point that we live in a society where capitalism itself is feral:

"Feral politicians cheat on their expenses, feral bankers plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge fund operators and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth, telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on everyone's bills, shopkeepers price gouge, and, at the drop of a hat swindlers and scam artists get to practice three-card monte right up into the highest echelons of the corporate and political world."

Harvey notes that what he is saying sounds shocking, that no politician would dare say it and that the press would only publish it to pour scorn on the sayer. But he believes that some people can see this is the case, particularly the people rioting. As for the rioting and looting, Harvey sees this as a more visible and blatant form of what is going on elsewhere. But he notes that sadly the rioters cannot see that it is capitalism which is feral and which should be put on trial. Nor could they demand it. But Harvey sees hope in the movements in Spain, Greece, and elsewhere. The difficult task is for more people to see feral global capitalism for what it is, and to ask the right questions in order to begin changing our societies.

******

That's it for now. Please feel free to recommend other articles by posting links in the comments section below.

The Price of Telling the Truth About Oneself

Drawing by Franz Kafka

It's been a long time since my last post so I thought I'd make an effort to get back to posting more often. Thankfully, I have just read a very stimulating book which I think is worth writing about. The book is a work of philosophy, which is helpful because so far I haven't posted much on this topic (despite it being in my blog title!)

The book in question is Giving an Account of Oneself by Judith Butler. Although Butler is known mostly for her work in gender studies, she has written on other topics including ethics, language, politics and many other philosophical topics. Whilst her style is dry, intellectual and abstract, she grapples expertly with complex and fascinating ideas, concepts and bodies of work, and has produced some impressive works over the last 20 years. Clearly, her notion of the performative character of gender has made a bigger influence on scholarship than anything else she has worked on, but from what I've read I think her other studies deserve more attention than they appear to receive.

In Giving an Account of Oneself, Butler takes up issues in moral philosophy but looks at them from the point of view of social relations. In other words, she looks at the social context in which moral issues arise. From here she moves her discussion quickly to the question of the individual self and how it gives an account of itself. This is important because giving an account of oneself is often what is at stake in moral issues or what often takes place within the moral sphere, for instance in being made accountable to a system of justice. As Butler explains, this is how Nietzsche understands the formation of conscience and memory, of how we become reflective about our actions and how we come to give an account of ourselves. What is important in this for Butler's discussion is the fact that the moral, reflective subject is brought in existence through an address from an other.

It is this issue, the formation of the (moral) subject through the need to be accountable, which is one of the key strands throughout the book. From here Butler looks at various kinds of issues which relate to this key strand: what form does an address take (both an address from an other and an address made to an other), in what context does an address take place, and how full an account can a subject give of itself. For example, although Butler is clearly sympathetic to much of Nietzsche's account, she asks whether fear is the only valence carried by the address of the other. Are there not other reasons and motivations to give an account of oneself besides fear of punishment?

Assuming one is, in one way or another, interpellated by an address from an other, Butler next turns to issues of narration. As she makes clear, being able to narrate one's life requires certain abilities such as being able to link sequential events with plausible transitions, being able to draw on narrative voice and authority, and directing one's account at an audience whom will be persuaded by such an account. Furthermore, these capacities (the capacity for narrative), are a precondition for an account of moral agency. Hence, there is a sense in which the self arrives late. The self is formed from forces and capacities which limit the self's freedom, and therefore it's ability to give an account of itself.

From this examination of the formation of the moral, reflective subject, Butler then examines various intellectual positions which differ in their understanding of this formation and the consequences for giving an account of oneself. For example, she contrasts Nietzsche's view of the formation of the moral subject with Foucault's account. The latter departs from Nietzsche by considering how subjects are constituted through codes of conduct which are not necessarily or always codes of punishment. Butler also shows how Foucault is different to Freud in this matter - the latter arguing that aggression is the basis of morality. Butler seems to prefer Foucault's account because it is less cynical and more subtle. For Foucault, the self forms itself in relation to codes, prescriptions and norms in a more dynamic and critical way. Hence, the self is not reduced to just an effect of those codes, prescriptions and norms.

From here we get to the nub of Butler's argument. Although the self has certain powers, capacities and a certain moral agency, nonetheless this self emerges in a context of unfreedom. The self is formed by conditions and forces it itself did not choose. This is a rather uncontroversial point when one thinks about the fact that we are forced to learn a language we ourselves did not invent or choose, as well as the fact that our whole environment was already up and running before we came along. Hence, it is intuitively clear that the subject emerges into an initial state of unfreedom. The question that has to be asked then is thus: how to we come to exercise freedom? Or rather, how to we acquire to capacity to exercise freedom?

This leads Butler to address a common complaint made against 'post-structuralists' such as Foucault: don't accounts like his undermine moral agency and responsibility? Butler takes up this question in a slightly different way. She wants to see whether a self that is ungrounded, divided and incoherent from the start can be ethically responsible. She does this by turning the issue around. Rather than seeing the limitations of self-knowledge as undermining the project of morality and ethics, she turns this into a virtue. It is because we are formed by primary social relations with others that there is something opaque about ourselves when we reflect on and try to give an account of ourselves. But because this opaqueness stems from a sociality, we are therefore bound to others in important (ethical) ways. Hence, Butler argues that an ethics which acknowledges and is based on this kind of social bond is more attentive to the other(s). For example, if we can acknowledge our own incoherence and opacity, then hopefully we can recognise this in others and hence treat more ethically. Butler thus sees a strength for ethics in acknowledging the limits of self-knowledge and acknowledging the limits of acknowledgement itself.

This is a very brief and partial outline of some of the book. I have largely concentrated on the first chapter of the book. In the other two chapters Butler considers many other issues and bodies of work, including two short stories by Kafka, psychoanalysis's contribution to the issue of self-knowledge and to the issue of otherness, and influential accounts of the self and its relation to the other/others such as those of Levinas, Laplanche and Foucault.

In short, Butler takes the notion of there being a kind of opacity to the self, a limit to self-knowledge, and hence self-narration, and theorises it using various philosophical, psychoanalytic, existential, and historical accounts. But more than this, Butler examines the ethical, moral and social consequences for this and comes out in defence of a highly sensitive ethical philosophy which is attuned to the otherness in oneself and so the otherness outside oneself also.

It is, in my opinion, a brilliant piece of work which will provoke and stimulate, and which deserves repeated reading of, meditation on, and discussion of. There are some great analyses of interesting thinkers and the comparisons make for a fascinating mix of ideas. For those people who are drawn to existential, moral and social questions, this is a worthwhile book to read. There can be few issues as momentous, as pressing, and as at once personal and social, as the issue of giving an account of oneself. However, there is also something terrifying about giving an account of oneself. At what price must we pay for (trying to give) such an account?

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life

I've just returned from watching Terrence Malick's latest film The Tree of Life and felt compelled to write about it in my blog. It is a truly extraordinary work of art and I recommend it to everyone. It is something very special and rare: a captivating film that combines the mundane with the philosophical, the emotional with the intellectual, and the beautiful with the thoughtful. It is a film about many things: memory, spirituality, existence, faith, growing up, family life, the beginning of the universe, and many other things besides. Although this will sound vague for those who haven't seen it, the film is truly about life in the broadest sense.

The film can be thought of as consisting of two parts: on the one hand there is a family drama, told mostly from a middle aged man's perspective as he looks back on his childhood. The sections of the film that focus on this are emotionally rich and the child-actors deserve special mention as they play their roles very convincingly. Brad Pitt's character, the father of the family, is a complex one. He is a strict, disciplinarian father who occasionally takes things too far. However, he is also loving, protective and takes an active role in shaping his children's lives. The mother, played by Jessica Chastain, is perhaps a less interesting character since she is mainly portrayed as embodying more positive aspects. She is graceful, gentle, hard-working and full of love. But we don't see much more from her. None the less, the role is well acted. As I said though, the main stars for me are the children, and in particular Hunter McCracken, who plays the young Jack (Sean Penn plays Jack as a middle-aged man). For me the most striking feature of his performance was his facial expressions. He often looks frustrated, angry and confused, and he portrays these qualities perfectly.

The second part of the film concerns the more philosophical and spiritual aspects, which are told through long sequences of images with either no dialogue or short monologues. Whilst there are some shorter sequences which interrupt the family drama portions, there is one very long sequence which some cinema viewers have apparently dubbed The Dawn of Time sequence. This sequence of images combines space photography, computer graphics of bacteria, footage of oceans and various sea creatures, and something which I'll leave as a surprise for you! This sequence reminded me of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and indeed the film itself has been liked to Kubrick's classic from 1968. The images in Malick's film are on a much grander scale though, and in fact I would venture that it is probably the boldest and most impressive piece of cinematography that I've ever seen. Malick has become known for his cinematography, and I recommend his earlier film Days of Heaven as a great example of beautiful cinematography.

I won't describe the film in any more detail as this post is really just about recommending the film to those who have yet to see it, and I don't want to spoil it. For the same reason, I will refrain from interpretations. However, perhaps at a later date, and after viewing the film at least one more time, I might offer some thoughts on the film. For now though, let me just say again that I think everyone should go and see this film in the cinema if they can. This is an epic and inspiring film, and must, if possible, be seen on the big screen. There were moments when the combination of extraordinary images with powerful music made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. In fact, it's been many years since I've felt such electricity in the cinema. I hope you will all get a chance to see this film. I'm sure it will be an unforgettable experience.

David Harvey lecture on Emancipation

I just watched a recent talk that David Harvey gave at the Subversive Film Festival in Croatia on the 19th May 2011. He was one of many speakers at the event, though I haven't listened to the other speakers yet. His talk was entitled "Emancipation from What and from Whom?" In the course of this lecture, Harvey talked about the urban roots of the current financial crisis and of many other crises throughout the 20th century, the rise of the neo-liberal project, issues of urbanisation, and finally the project which he thinks the Left today should engage in. As always, Harvey presents his ideas clearly and passionately, and it was a very worthwhile talk to listen to.

For those of you who are not familiar with his work, David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Geography and Anthropology at the Graduate Centre of The City University of New York (CUNY). He is a leading social theorist, and his work fuses his training in geography with his expert knowledge of Marxism. Combining the two, he has written extensively about the relationship between urbanisation and capitalism, the geographical flows of capital, and the way social justice relates to questions of lived space. Harvey has been credited with bringing back Marxist methods as useful tools for diagnosing and critiquing global capitalism, and particularly neo-liberalism.

In the lecture I just watched Harvey talks about most of these very issues. One of the most interesting things that Harvey talks about in the lecture, however, is what he considers to be the two main responses to the financial crisis we are currently in. On the one hand, he says, there is the response of countries like China. These countries pour enormous amounts of money into development projects (debt-financed of course, though China can draw on huge surpluses from foreign investment) in order to stimulate their economy. Whilst there are many important social and ethical issues involved in the case of China, nonetheless they have massively improved their unemployment levels (Harvey reports that unemployment has been cut from around 20 million in 2008 to around 3 million today).

On the other hand, countries like the U.S., the U.K., and Greece represent a different response to the crisis: namely, austerity measures. Harvey looks at this response as a (not-so) covert political project, that of cutting back on social institutions in order to let business gain more control (justified by the enormous debt and the notion that we cannot let the financial institutions fail). This can be seen as part of a trend over the last 30-40 years, that of the rise to power of neo-liberal economics. Harvey sees neo-liberalism as a class project: the aim of the neo-liberals and their supporters was and is to fight back against the labour struggles that have taken place more and more since the second World War. With the rise of the welfare state, and because of many forms of popular struggle and protest, capital has, in Harvey's terms, been made to bear the cost of what economists refer to as 'externalities'. If the main purpose of capital is to reproduce itself and grow, then anything which is a barrier to this will be (hopefully) externalised. For example, if a factory pollutes the environment then this is seen from the capitalist's point of view as an externality: it is someone else's problem. Their concern is with generating more surplus value.

Harvey identifies two main externalities: the environment and the reproduction of social life. The environment and the quality of daily life are seen as external issues from the point of view of capital. Therefore, the labour struggles and social movements that have taken place over the last 200 years have been a way of trying to force capital to bear those costs - to internalise them. But as Harvey points out, the 1970s saw a backlash from the capitalist class, especially under the guise of neo-liberalism. One of the responses was to move labour to a place where labour rights were not established and where social pressure would be minimal. Hence the rise of out-sourced labour or 'sweatshop' factories. Conversely, another response is not to move labour production abroad but to change the workforce. Immigrant labour, and especially illegal immigrant labour, has the advantage (for the capitalist) of severely lacking in labour rights. There can be no worker's union for illegal immigrant workers, and therefore no pressure can be put on capital to internalise the costs of the reproduction of daily life, let alone the harm caused to the environment.

The government can also play a role in helping the capitalist, as governments like the Reagan and Thatcher administrations did. Firstly, if you place a complete idiot at the head of a public institution then you can effectively force that institution to crumble and lose favour with the public by denouncing it as inefficient, incompetent and so on. Secondly, the government can de-fund institutions, thereby disempowering them without scrapping them. They still exist, but they have no money to do anything, or so little money they are not effective.

Harvey goes on to point out that Reagan created huge deficit problems in the U.S., largely through two ways: firstly, by cutting the top tax rate from 72 per cent to 32 per cent, and secondly by escalating the arms race with the Soviet Union (his administration poured large sums of money into the 'Star Wars' project of building laser weapons in space in order to shoot down enemy missiles - the project was a complete failure). Interestingly, Harvey continues, Reagan's budget director made a controversial statement during Reagan's second term as president. He stated that the aim all along was to run up the debt so drastically that they could go after all those annoying social institutions which put pressure on capital.

Fast-forward to Bush Jr.'s government and we see a similar problem: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost around a trillion dollars. Yet when anyone questioned Cheney, he would reply that everything is fine because Reagan taught us that debt isn't a problem. However, today's Republican party cites the debt as reason to put more austerity measures into practice. And this does not just apply to the U.S. In the U.K. David Cameron's coalition government is doing more or less the same thing: bail out the financial institutions, creating a sovereign debt crisis, and then reduce the living standard of the population in order to pay back some of that debt. Of course, as Harvey points out, people often make the argument that taxing the rich leads to societies of low growth. Yet, he argues that when you look at the figures this is simply not the case. The top tax rate in the U.S. was 92 per cent back in the 1950s, and was cut by Reagan from 72 per cent to 32 per cent in the 1980s as already stated. Over this period the U.S. enjoyed growth and expansion. Since Reagan the U.S. has been transformed from the biggest creditor to one of the biggest debtors. Since at least as far back as 2007, the U.S. was borrowing an average of around $3 billion per day!

Returning to Harvey's main point, what is important to focus on is that this whole issue of the financial crisis highlights the problems internal to capitalism. It is not a freak accident that there are crises in capitalist societies. As Harvey points out, particularly in his last book The Enigma of Capital, crises are a necessary part of how capitalism works. They highlight the internal contradictions of capitalism, and expose the harsh inequalities in society and around the globe. Those governments who use the debt as a way to justify austerity are almost undoubtedly taking advantage of the situation in order to give more power to the rich minority at the expense of the poor majority. It is for this reason that one can learn a lot from how crises arise and how they are responded to by governments.

As Harvey concludes, the hard task faced by the Left today is to find new ways and principles of organisation. Harvey's own response is to concentrate on the urban site of struggle. This means organising people in order to think about, discuss, and find ways of changing the city after our own heart's desire, and not after the developer's (Harvey often points out the way Manhattan is being transformed into an enclave for the super-rich. He also speaks frequently about the Right to the City movement which is trying to fight back). Harvey concentrates on the city largely because of his view that the city is one of the best places for both investment and development. As he has shown, both Haussmann in Second Empire Paris, and Robert Moses in post-WWII New York, demonstrated the potential of cities as ways of disposing of too much capital. Cities are the sites of huge investment and development, and they reveal on a large scale the social inequalities of society. Therefore, in remaking the city we can remake society and ourselves. The question is: who do we want to be? Depending on how the city is remade, we may remake ourselves for the better, or for the worse.

Harvey believes that with proper self-organising, the people can remake the city into a space that is more socially just. This means transforming the city from a space that developers appropriate and remake for the rich, into a space for all, a space democratically run and accountable. But this is not going to be easy, as he himself admits. The hope is there though: hope that we will come together to discuss and find ways of remaking the city in order to make society more just, more inclined towards helping the weak, the elderly and less able.

For those of you who haven't heard David Harvey speak, I recommend you to start here. This is a fantastic lecture, which covers many of the topics and themes prominent in his work, and which ends with a question and answer session in which Harvey talks about concrete struggles such as his own in Baltimore. Links are provided below. Thanks for reading!

David Harvey lecture Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZodgVvezNuw&feature=related

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVe8iJ6C8yQ&feature=related

Noam Chomsky lecture at the University of Cologne

Last night I watched a recording of a lecture that Noam Chomsky gave at the University of Cologne on 7th June of this year. This was the second lecture that Chomsky gave at the university, the first having taken place the previous day. Whilst that lecture was on language, the one I watched concerned the current global political order. It was, unsurprisingly, a fantastic lecture and Chomsky deservedly received much applause.

Chomsky spoke very broadly about the post-1945 geo-political world order and about some of the prospects that we may all face. As usual Chomsky displayed his vast knowledge of political history along with his courageous spirit of activism. As I sat listening to him speak I felt stunned at the fact that here is a man of 82 years who is still full of life and energy, who continues to travel all over the world to give talks (he once said in an interview that he is booked at least 2 years in advance!), and who bravely continues to speak truth to power.

In December 2002, Harold Pinter introduced Chomsky at St. Paul's Cathedral for the Kurdish Human Rights Project's 10th Anniversary lecture. In his introduction, Pinter said of Chomsky that:

"...he will not be bullied. He will not be intimidated. He is a fearless, formidable, totally independent voice. He does something which is really quite simple but highly unusual. He tells the truth"

Indeed, I can think of no better way of introducing Noam Chomsky. During the lecture I watched Chomsky recalled so many important historical events, policies and decisions made, which we rarely hear about in the mainstream media. In this way, Chomsky is doing the world an invaluable service - at least to people who care about democracy, freedom and civil society - by saving important information from oblivion. One of the things that must strike anyone on hearing him speak is his extraordinary memory. Because of it, he can remind us of things worth remembering and can facilitate important and much-needed historical and comparative debates. When one learns about the bloody involvement that the West has had in, say, the Middle East, for example, it puts things in a different perspective - such as whether the West should necessarily intervene in the struggles in the Middle East today.

To take an issue closer to home for many of us: the financial crisis. When the mainstream media interview people in the streets and ask them about austerity measures, people going on strike, and so forth, one hears many voices of capitulation and resignation: "well, the country is in trouble so we all have to cut back and make do with less", "I don't think teachers should go on strike because we have to accept what is going on right now" and so on. Perhaps if these people heard what Chomsky and others have been saying for many years now, they might stop and think, and say very different things when interviewed. Perhaps they wouldn't blame themselves, perhaps they would be more in favour of strike-action, and perhaps then we could sort out our collective problems by going to the roots of them.

As Chomsky says in the lecture:

"the major [financial] players [in the U.S.] benefit from a government insurance policy, which is called 'too big to fail', and as one commentator quipped 'too big to jail' [...] the result is that with the government insurance policy they can make, and do make, very risky transactions which mean rich rewards while adhering to a basic market principle that you ignore externalities - a market system where you make a transaction and you ignore the effect on others, what economists call externalities - in this case the externality is systemic risk, the risk that if one of your transactions goes bad the whole system may collapse. Well, the system inevitably crashes, it's happened over and over again since the Reagen years, each time more serious than the last, but that's not a problem because they can run to the 'nanny state' that they nurture and ask for a taxpayer bailout meanwhile they clutch their copies of Hayek, and Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand in their hands."

It's a sad fact that many people blame themselves for the problems we now face, or alternatively lay the blame on a group of people that are merely the scapegoat for our woes (the rise in xenophobia during economic crises is not surprising, for example). I've seen many interviews in the mainstream news media with the general public, and I'm always staggered at how many people accept the austerity measures, blame themselves or a minority group (immigrants, the unemployed, benefit claimers, and so on), and often criticise those who go on strike. The same is true in the U.S. As commentators like Chomsky have pointed out, after the foreclosures crisis in the U.S., many people from poor neighbourhoods, when interviewed by the news media, reportedly blamed themselves for losing their homes. Is not this at least partly due to the dominant myth or ideology of the U.S.: the American Dream, the dream of the self-made man, the hope that everyone who works hard can make it to the top?

We should be grateful to intellectuals like Chomsky for having the courage to speak out and critically analyse the institutions which we are dominated by in our societies, and which are responsible for the problems we face today. It is clear that many of the problems we face are not private or personal problems, but systemic institutional problems. It is not a case of "a few bad apples" as too many people have said, but rather a case of rotten barrels.

One brilliant example that Chomsky gives during his lecture is that of the Great Depression. Chomsky reports that during the Great Depression, President Roosevelt said to the union leaders that they have to make him do things for them because otherwise he is powerless against big business. This is still true today and just as relevant. In the last 40 years or so, many countries have undergone processes which have increased the power of businesses: the financialisation of the market, privatisation, deregulation of corporations, and so on. Because of the dogma of the 'efficient market' hypothesis in the economic profession, because of the rise to power of neo-liberal economics, and because of the growing fluidity of capital flows, we have seen our civil and political freedoms either taken away or made to seem irrelevant by contrast with the more pressing issues of individualistic, consumer culture.

What someone like Chomsky does is help us to engage more with social and political issues. He shows us how institutions work, how they arose in the first place, and how it is possible to change them, since they are not eternal and unchangeable. With the help of intellectuals like him we can begin to make sense of our shared social space, learn how to think for ourselves, and see that changes are always possible (because we've changed things before). People like him do us all an enormous favour: after all, how many people have the time or desire to trawl through all the news in order to see what is said and what is left unsaid, to see how things are presented differently amongst different broadcasters, and to critically analyse what is being said? How many of us have studied U.S. foreign policy between 1945 and the present? We cannot rely on the mainstream media to inform us properly or to encourage us to think for ourselves and perhaps change society for the good of the many, not the few. We must recognise the valuable role that intellectuals play. By devoting their life to critically analysing the media, political and corporate institutions, and many other things besides, they help us to see how problems are often institutional in character, and thereby help us to start to change those institutions.

To take another example from Chomsky's lecture which casts new light on one of the global issues today: we often hear about the shift of global power from West to East. We hear many commentators talking about China and India rising to power. But again, Chomsky has much to say that can illuminate these discussions as the following transcription from the lecture demonstrates:

"There is in fact a very noticeable and significant global shift of power, but a different one. Not from the West to the Asian Giants, but from the global workforce all around the world to the very rich. That's happening everywhere. The tendency is implicit in what are called Free Trade Agreements which have little to do with free trade and certainly aren't agreements, at least if people are part of their countries they're mostly opposed. But what are called Free Trade Agreements, they're designed to set working people in competition with one another, globally, while protecting wealthy professionals and providing investors with extraordinary rights; among other benefits for investors these agreements allow free movement of capital but they firmly reject Adam Smith's principle that free circulation of labour is a foundation of free trade and in many other ways too they violate basic free trade principles. And these tendencies are exaserbated in very ugly ways by growing xenophobia in the rich societies, notably in Europe."

Once again, it is refreshing to hear a different point of view. We've all heard talk about the rise of China and India, but have we heard about the shift in power between the global workforce and the very rich? Chomsky further illustrates his point by telling his audience about a brochure for investors published by CitiGroup. In this brochure, CitiGroup outlines how the world is becoming more and more split between two groups: the plutonomy, i.e. the super-rich, and what they call the 'precariats', which is a word combining 'proletariat' and 'precarious'. What the report goes on to say, according to Chomsky, is that there are massive opportunities for the plutonomous (the rich) because of the rise of worker precarity. And, as Chomsky also recalls, Alan Greenspan's testimony to Congress made it clear why the economy under his leadership was booming: the working conditions for the 'precariats' were extremely insecure. This makes obvious sense: if the workers have poor worker security then they won't go on strike, ask for a wage increase, or ask for more worker rights. These kinds of things are not said enough, if they are said at all, in the mainstream media. It is thanks to intellectuals such as Chomsky that we can learn about things which are highly important and relevant, and which will undoubtedly help us to understand the problems we face today in order that we can change our societies for the better.

I hope that after reading this blog post, many of you will go and listen to Chomsky speak, or perhaps read one of his many excellent books. As you can tell, I have been hugely inspired by him and I would recommend him to anyone. Before I started reading him I was largely uninterested in political and social issues. But since that time I have become more interested in politics and have discovered many wonderful books, documentaries and alternative news websites, as well as other courageous and intelligent thinkers. There is, of course, still the issue of practical engagement, the question of what is to be done. I confess I find this immensely difficult. However, I think that education is an important component of being politically engaged and I hope that throughout my life I will experiment more and more with forms of practical engagement alongside reading and discussion. Noam Chomsky's work has at least helped me and inspired me. I will continue to blog about these issues in the future, so stay tuned for more blogs about other exciting videos, documentaries and books that I've come across.

Finally, I'd like to end this post with a wonderfully empowering comment by Chomsky, made at the end of an interview with Jeremy Paxman, back in March of this year. In response to Paxman's question "Why haven't you mellowed [since you are 82 years old]?" Chomsky replied:

"Because I look at the world, and there are things happening in the world which should lead anyone to become indignant, outraged, active and simply engaged..."

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Links:

Chomsky's second lecture at the University of Cologne on 7th June 2011:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBZ-NvbZWH8&feature=BFp&list=PL6AFA540918FBEDD0&index=64

Harold Pinter's introduction to Chomsky:

http://www.haroldpinter.org/politics/introtochomskyspeech.html

Paxman's March 2011 interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_1A8er-bGU