Re: <nettime> Reframing the Creative Question

[allan siegel <allan@allansiegel.info>]

Hello,

Thank you Brian for your latest post.

The issues you raise are certainly relevant these days; as they were in the past. An unfortunate problem is that the âorganised Leftâ, or its half-organised versions, have used âcultureâ and the voices of the âcreative classâ in mostly opportunistic ways. One might also say that many voices of the creative class have used the Left opportunistically also. Perhaps these are only my simple-minded observations and that more to the point is the way we understand or envision âcultures of resistanceâ. On the one hand there is a tendency to mystify forms of social consciousness that propel change and on the other to place such consciousness in to the most dogmatic archaic categoriesâ What propels capitalism in all its variants, what seems to neutralise revolt, is the propagation of various forms of false consciousness - the endless spam of counter-intuitive logic that litters consumer societies. Ultimately, and via various forms of negation, the pervasiveness of false consciousness seems to be upended by a kind of re-awakening of a collective memory that shouts: âwait a minute, there is another way.â Weâve seen that in the various movements that have arisen since the most recent financial crisis but find countless examples of this re-awakening throughout history. Now, to the point, what is disastrous is to see processes of change simply in economic terms - as a revolt against neoliberal values, social conditions - the shallow rhetoric of the Labour Party in the UK is a great, pathetic, example of this. Cultures of resistance, voices of change, a more expansive social horizon, do not appear, come into being, as a product of some creative class but emanate from a more nuanced, multi-dimensional social reality. 

Just some brief comments on your post.

best
allan


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