Call for Understanding

These days a friend of mine, German sociologist Bodo Weber, published a very important article about the looming political disaster and very possible outbreak of ethnic violence in my country. Bodo is an area expert for Balkans and a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council - a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion. This article is one of the few remaining calls for solidarity on a larger scale and for a joint effort to correct the errors made by international politics in Bosnia. Solidarity through understanding and awareness is what Bodo advocates, and I am grateful for a voice that tries to understand the planetary human trapped in the vicious circle of ethnic interpretation of Bosnia's problems – which is the European interpretation, and now also a part of a growing «the hell with it» sentiment in American foreign policy. It is important to see that this call for understanding has a history. Deeply rooted intellectual history, connected with the problem of Europe as whole, and Europe aware of the world.

In the 1990s Bodo was the editor of the German student magazine «Perspektiven» from Frankfurt/Main, which saw the light of day some time in 1989. It covered the topics of the emancipation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The attempt of editors was to promote the feeling of international solidarity among students, especially for «adequate distribution of wealth».

What serves here as a reminder is the editorial from the first issue.

"So versteht sich PERSPEKTIVEN auch als Forum für eine Wiederaufnahme der Diskussion um den Internationalismus-Begriff, dessen Konturen seit den späten 70er Jahren zunehmend unscharf geworden sind. Die Arbeit der Redaktion läßt sich von der festen Überzeugung leiten, daß Chancen auf Änderung nur dann bestehen, wenn auf breiter Ebene die unmittelbaren Zusammenhänge zwischen schier grenzenlosem Wohlstand und entwürdigem Mangel bewußt gemacht und in der Folge endlich die überfälligen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Konsequenzen gezogen werden."

Which, roughly translated, is:

«Perspektiven are understood as a forum for reinstatement of discussion about the reach of internationalism, whose shapes have become blurred since the late 1970s. The editorial work is led by a belief that the chances for change exist only when the direct relationship between seemingly unlimited wealth and disgracing deficiency is made aware at a larger scale, leading eventually to political and economic consequences.»

Source: Perspektiven, Editorial 1/2 1989, 2

«...whose shapes have become blurred since the late 1970s.» This is an important meme, and there is a deeper meaning to it. Not only in terms of the paradigm change at the end of 1970s, but in terms of awareness and solidarity at a larger scale. Was it first lost in theory or in practice? This meme was a mediated reminder in 1989. It resonated back then and it resonates now. It is a part of the awareness that things were different beyond one point in time, the gestalt of which is blurred, somewhere on the horizon of history. I am still unable to find anything deeper than these mediated reminders, which I have introduced in my previous posts as a category in a lack of a better reference, but there is an entire language behind them. This is not apophenia. There is a planetary language behind this! Traces of this language are in the call that Bodo made. Is there anybody to read between the lines and recognize it? Or at least become AWARE of it?

Deep, Intense Flashes of Meaning

Returning to Graf Oderland's post on Colin Wilson and «peak experiences», I am followed by some deep sense of continuity underlying the blog topics. My recent posts were a sort of reminder for achieving the peak experience. As Wilson puts it, this is a "deep, intense flash of meaning that is easily forgotten the next morning." And it is the case that many of my flashes have faded over night. This I can attribute to layers of factual and historical knowledge in which I oppose the notion of the underlying structure of pure life. Life as an idea, complete in itself. I am aware of this when I think of my factual and historical completeness in the passage of time. It is as if there are two separate individuals, of which one is always the same, and the other one succumbs to the creation of factual and historical superstructures. I do not mean this as assuming some existentialist pose, but more as an awareness of the possibility to return to the actual state of happiness. Individual happiness! This is a mental process, if I understand Wilson, that can be induced voluntarily and can act as a reminder of real, ahistorical life. However, this did not come to my mind until I posted recently on "That Man from Rio" and "Contempt" films. This I understand as a "mediated reminder" for the peak experiences. Another role for the work of art relating to the underlying structure that helps us understand the completeness of being. And this is when it does not fade over night! This understanding comes from a universal language, which I am growingly eager to learn, but more importantly, which I am not afraid to acknowledge, despite my factual and historical self.

More from the 1960s

It's like Nietzsche said, books will fall off the shelves into your hands. After the last post, I remembered Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film "Le Mepris" (Contempt). Contempt was shot partly at Casa Malaparte in Capri, designed and owned by Italian writer Curzio Malaparte, which is more a sundeck than a house. Casa Malaparte is the object of artistic worship and it is no wonder that you can find the abundance of data about it. But, there is rarely an opportunity to experience the experience of the Casa Malaparte that happened at one particular moment in time. There's a YouTube video that somebody made, with exactly those moments in the movie when Brigitte Bardot walks on the sundeck, with the roof lines stretching to the blue horizon of this cineastic structuralist plain extending above the Gulf of Salerno. Like with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Brasilia, in these sequences the moment in time with the work of art will outlast the work of art itself. This intention is obvious in the film. Were the 1960s more patient with their moments or was it something that was found back then, the underlying structures that were supposed to connect the world into a single experience of the planetary human and extend to the horizon?

Casa Malaparte was abandoned and neglected, later renovated. Regardless of its previous or current state, there is one permanent state of that architectural marvel that will never change, and that is the state of its moment in this cineastic human time that stretches indefinitely. This is the feature of one particular era where the film camera had an eye for it, there was a special lens - some strange naïveté towards the structure. Open and uncritical of the existence of something underlying the time and space of the planetary human.

Nascent Brasilia

My God, I can't believe that Oscar Niemeyer is still alive and still involved in diverse projects! He was born in 1907! One can say that the glory of the work of art outlasts the glory of the artist. But in the case of Brasilia, as the capital work of art of Kubitschek, Niemeyer and Lucio Costa, situation is somewhat different. The vision of human in artist's mind at that particular point in history, which are the wonderful structuralist 1960s, will outlast the work of art. A sequence of scenes in 1964 movie "That Man From Rio" with Jean-Paul Belmondo was shot in Brasilia, and the perfect photography in that movie captured the movement of the human body through the architecture like never before and never after! Editing played its role, but there is something in the movie that brings that strange feeling of nostalgia for large-scale human projects. The socialist city is still there to remind me of the roads less travelled. "That Man From Rio" is one of my childhood favorites, but more as a proof in favor of Baudrillard's claim that only the child knows that there is no childhood. What I know now I knew back then! I want to run on the great structuralist plains in the City of the Sun.

L'homme de Rio 1964
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It's been a while

Back on this blog after more than a year! I apologize to my co-blogger for missing that last post from September last year. Technology confuses me a little, and I tend to get totally distracted by something that's new and interesting. I began tweeting on Twitter early this year, and later turned to FaceBook, because that's where the action is. However, that does not mean that I have to totally disappear. Graf Oderland showed some of his fabulous writings here. To honor that, I will continue posting. My co-blogger is blogging elsewhere, but we'll surely meet again here.

When parody is reality is parody

Zoran,

I don't know if you're following the ongoing political campaign here, as it becomes more impervious to satire with each passing day (some brilliant tactic, no?). But you really need to watch this comedy bit, which aired on the venerable Saturday Night Live this past weekend.



A little background, since I don't know if you got acquainted while you were living here; SNL has been around since the mid 1970s, and since maybe the second episode aired it has been strictly de rigeur to talk about how it has really gone downhill, how it's not funny (at least 60% of the time, it isn't) or just downright bad, how it was so much better in 1977/1985/1983/1996/2000/whatever, and the show should really be mercifully killed off. The cast rolls over with the years, and while most people talk as if the current players suck when they are on the show, when they leave they are thought of as legends. Well, some of them, anyway. Even when most go on to a career of really bad moviemaking and dull sitcoms.

Strangely enough, being a (sometimes) live comedy show running late at night, SNL still has the potential to move the public needle like few other things in this age of hyperpluralized media. I mean, I don't know who sits down and watches the 7 PM national news to get their info and views anymore. I sure don't.

The SNL parody of the first Palin interview, from two weeks ago, is here. It's also pretty good. And the comedian playing Palin - well, she's not actually on SNL anymore, though she was for years, as a writer and performer. She's well-known enough as a sort of babe for intellectuals and model for smart girls - the glasses, the glasses - that most people figured she'd be brought back after Palin was chosen, given the obvious resemblance.

You know, what's amazing and funny, in fact downright magnificent (and you may catch it, depending on how inundated you've been with the few cryptic and comically inept statements this woman has graced us with) is this; the high point of the comedy, right in the middle of the skit, isn't comedy writing at all - it's taken right from the original interview our dear VP candidate gave last week.

Blogging

Apropos of nothing, but for the fact that I ran across it today just as I'm thinking of turning up my blog production (here and in other places), here's a story on how the Information Economy is killing people.