Art and Terrorism
Apropos the banner above, which everyone should visit and support, immediately, I am not sure that art is not terrorism after all. At least, it isn’t so clear if you adopt the language games of the Bush or Howard governments. Alexander Downer, when talking about Iraq, for instance, classes the insurgents as either Saddam loyalists or terrorists. If we shoot you, we are liberators. If you shoot us, you are terrorists. It seems likely that terrorism as an ideological organising principle will be extended further and further as time goes on, to include any dissenting voice at all, including politically oriented art practices. As usual, DeLillo is way ahead of the game; the parallels between art and terrorism are explored throughout his work, most explicitly in Mao II. It would be a nice act of poetic terrorism to coordinate the mass sending of printouts of Hakim Bey’s TAZ to the White House, wrapped up in junk electronics and excreta.
February 1st, 2005 at 6:33 am
Victory by reductio ad absurdum? It seems you presume expansive definitions of terrorism on the basis of unstated assumptions about the moral or ideological character of the (presumed) proponents (Mr. Bush and/or Mr. Howard). Your assumptions may indeed be true, but I am not prepared to accept them at this point. And is there not a further unexplored explanation for the distinction between shooting “insurgents” and shooting American (or Australian) servicemen and women in a moral decision to stop, say, violent denial of political enfranchisement? On such a scale, I personally come down in favor of shooting the people who are try to kill voters versus shooting those who seek to make voting possible. Some might counter that Western purposes for Iraqi intervention are not entirely pure, but such an argument is not the same thing as saying that America and Australia hide behind deceptive language by merely using “terrorism” to describe the evil being fought.
February 5th, 2005 at 12:37 am
Brad—You label my comment as a statement “from the US military.” Yet, I signed my statement without any reference to the Air Force and gave a personal email address. I did not claim to speak for anyone but myself. To label my response as some kind of official statement, it appears you wish to paint yourself as engaged in something more than a discussion between two individuals. As a private person, I would be glad to respond to your comments. As a forced spokesman for the United States Department of Defense in what is unwillingly turned into a political debate, I am silenced. How ironic you yourself used technology to twist the plain words of a posting into something those words are not; namely, some kind of official “post from the US military.”
Signed,
Mark
Private Citizen
February 15th, 2005 at 2:53 pm
Maybe I expressed myself infelicitously—I didn’t intend to suggest you were an official spokesperson or even that you were speaking on behalf of your employer. It remains interesting to me that I received a comment from an IP address at a US Airforce base, even if the comment is from you qua private citizen. If I have not offended you by saying so, maybe you would like to respond , again on your own behalf, to the content of my post rather than the manner in which it was addressed?
February 16th, 2005 at 4:35 am
Brad—As of today, it appears you removed your response to my original posting (I only see my two responses above). Maybe this was an error. I didn’t save your response, though, so I can’t really respond in turn. But, I can respond to today’s posting. You call your earlier inaccurate labeling of me as “infelicitous” and disavow any attempt to suggest official status to my comments. Yet, you say my presumed location “remains interesting.” You don’t explain why. Moreover, you do not explain what you originally meant by describing my posting as “from the US military,” apart from calling it an unhappy event. If I recall your reply posting correctly, there was more than a “manner of address” at issue. You began the posting with an unexplained, ominous-sounding comment about the internet server from which my posting originated. Are you unhappy because I called you to task for attempting to paint with too broad a brush? Or, do you merely acknowledge the fact that I was unhappy by your unwarranted labeling? By continuing to maintain “interest” in my server while disavowing any intent to label my posting as a government statement, it appears you want to have your cake and eat it too. If your intent was not to paint yourself as David fighting Goliath, then please explain fully what your intent was, considering that my internet server remains interesting to you. It appears once again that you are doing the same thing you originally chastised U.S. and Australian chief executives for; namely, hiding behind unexplained, unhappy language.