Demagogues in light of the WTC

[Patrick Lichty]

The other day, I found myself enraged by the conversation between nn and Joy
Garnett over American obesities and the religion of food.  Of what I know of
the two artists, the differences are striking, but there are two key points
that come to mind when seeing these posts; the banality of online demagogues
and the necessity for compassion.

The necessity for compassion in times like these is the more important of the
two, so I'll talk about that first.  This human quality is surely not in short
supply at this time, but the apparent lack of it in the online demagogue 
brings to light a couple questions.  These are whether they are, or are not in
fact human at all, or whether they are humans who are so devoid of comapassion,
filled with hate for the destruction and disenfranchisement in their own
counties, or are so completely self-involved that they are incapable of showing
any emp/sym-pathy for those in New York and DC.  In examining the last week's
posts, this quality of (in)humanity sticks out like a sore thumb, and shows the
naked agendas of those individuals, whether it is a detached sense of cool
irony, hatred for anything related to NATO, or OCD ranting.

However, in this liminal social space that we inhabit at this time, it is
ESSENTIAL that we remember that the United States is not alone in its share of
atrocity.  The WTC is only unique in its location, place in the world hegemony,
and the methods in which it was destroyed.  The US media has historically been
almost dismissive about the the suffering in other countries, such as the
disproportionate casualties in the Gulf War, the 3-minute clips about the
slaughters in Rwanda, the oppression in Tibet, and the atrocities in the former
Yugoslavia and Chechnya.  Although these events are by far not the same, the
degree of suffering certainly translates well, and begs our remembrance in the
light that America has now had a taste of it.

1990 and 1998 were very bad times in our lives, as I sat in my living room, my
wife on the phone with her Serbian expatriate colleague in a rage over the
handling of Belgrade and Kosova.  It is one of the reasons why my wife and I
have worked on a number of projects to attempt to raise the awareness of the
events in that part of the world which were highly distorted by the media in
the US.  In fact, it was funny that in one of my first conversations with
colleague Maja Kuzmanovic, she asked me what a 'cluster bomb' was, since I was
an American, and she assumed I should automatically know such things.  In
addition, although I typically am only occasionally in agreement with many of
nn's 'discursive tactics', I understand that as a female of the Former
Yugoslavia that she has a lot of hatred, pain, and resentment toward the US for
her feelings, but I do not support the taunting and  almost vindictive tone of
recent quotes.  Such does not reflect well on the Croatian people as Western
media culture tends to stereotype from the information given, and from such
suffering, one would hope that from such pain would come empathy for those who
are going through it now.  This is not a call for Disney-esque, Barney-style
group hugs, but for genuine backing for those in tough times.  I sis so for
those I knew in the Balkan conflicts, I do so for those I am getting to know in
the Tibetan situation, those in the Deep South where racism is still a big
issue, and hopefully in some small part for my friends in NYC. 

The other problem with the tactics of the online demagogue is that the
contextual frame under which they once operated has been raised far beyond the
background noise against which they operated before the crashes.  The 'fame' of
an artist, the railing against institutions, cool spitting of regurgitated
postmodernism, or recalcitrant posings through tens of daily posts are now made
utterly banal by the events of September 11th.

This is not to say that we are to stop making art, as if we were in an
Adorno-esque "Art After New York", but the cultural terrain in which we operate
has been radically altered, and demands the artist's consideration of the
context their work retains in light of these events.  Once again, this is not
to say that we all have to do work about 'terror' and 'New York', but the
cultural awareness is now desensitized to the point where previous forms of
engagements with the subject seem meaningless, or simply are drained of their
emotional power.  This is merely the reality of the conceptual artist at this
time.  The contextual framing of all work made after September 11, 2001 has
changed, and whether the artist chooses to acknoledge this or not is up to
them, but that shift exists nonetheless.

Therefore, although I may not agree with their opinions, and although I may
filter a number of them out because they create too much of a 'noise' factor
for my daily life, our demagogue friends are deserving of our compassion (just
before we hit the delete key) as they obviously have had issues of pain and
suffering in their own lives, that they have not been able to convert this
information into knolwdge, and therefore wisdom, and that most importantly,
they have been instantly been made relics of of a previous time in which their
methods of engagement ring hollow at best.  Cleverness is not enough now, there
must also be a human being behind the facade. 

I have been fortunate, as I do not live in New York, Belgrade, or many of the
hot spots of the world (but many of my friends do), although I have seen the
pain that change to the mortal coil affords.  I can't even begin to speak at
the level that those who live in Manhattan on the events that took place
there.  However, The events of last week make me realize that if only for a
while (hopefully) that the cultural playing field has been stretched at
near-asymptotic angles, and in light of all this, we are made to be seen as
small as we truly are.