Note: this article was first published in Left Curve no.17 (1993)
in order to present the parameters of our editorial position. It should be read
as an open "working document," rather than a fixed, closed editorial
statement. We welcome critical feedback and will incorporate such comments in
future versions. The essay has been revised several times, the latest revision:
May 29, 2006.
Left Curve Editorial Statement: Tradition/Modernity/Postmodernity,
the Commodity and Paradigmatic Shifts
Csaba Polony
The purpose of this article is to elaborate on some of the basic principles
that guide the editorial content of this journal. I think this is necessary
in light of the radical changes and accelerated sense of global crises (the
hegemony of neo-liberalism since the end of the Cold War; the complete globalization
of the capitalist system; the electronics revolution; vexing issues raised by
the advances in biotechnology [genetic engineering, cloning, cross-species experimentation,
"artificial life", etc.], the environmental crises; and the ongoing
"state of exception" ushered in by 9/11 with the declared, unending
"war on terrorism.") that has developed during the last few decades.
I'm going to begin with a statement that is a concise editorial description
of this journal. This statement was written to appear on our flyers, to be printed
in catalogues, ads, and in various directories:
"Left Curve is an artist produced, open, critical magazine that addresses
the problems of
cultural forms emerging from the crises of modernity that strive to be independent
from
the control of dominant institutions and free from the shackles of instrumental
rationality.
Our orientation is premised on the recognition of the destructiveness of commodity
systems to all life, and the need to build a culture that could potentially
create a more
harmonious relationship among people, and between the human and natural world."
I'm going to first say a few words on three key concepts in this statement,
and then comment on some of the practical criteria that are followed in the
selection of material published in each issue. The three concepts are:
1) "crises of modernity"
2) "commodity system", and
3) "harmonious relationship among people, and between the human and natural
world."
I intend to speculate briefly about these concepts only as a means to indicate
the general scope of this journal, rather than try to lay out definitive positions.
Actually, if there is a definitive position presented, it would be that there
aren't any. I think that it is essential to guard against ossifying thought
or praxis into dogmas. Because, given the failures of previous oppositional
movements, I think that for a viable alternative culture to emerge which could
successfully challenge the dominant system, it will be necessary that the complexity
of reality and historical processes not be reduced to simplistic mechanistic
causes -- such as, for example, biological or physical ("laws of nature"),
philosophical ("ratonalism" vs. "irrationalism"), religious
("theism" vs. "atheism"}, economic ("free market",
"class struggle"), sexual ("patriarchy vs. matriarchy"),
cultural (western culture vs. everyone else), racial ("white" vs.
"people of color"), psychological ("normal vs. abnormal"),
ethical ("good vs. evil"), and so on. The need is to be able to critically,
creatively unmask ideological preconceptions so that it always remains
possible to improve, broaden and make more meaningful the always elusive reality
within which we must live.
Another, more subtle, aspect of "method" that this journal tries to
employ is to present material with the aim of critically provoking the
reader by the words/ideas/images presented and the manner in which they are
juxtaposed in each issue. In other words, the point is not so much to try to
convince the reader of the conclusive truth or falsehood of a particular position,
but rather to ignite a series of thoughts/ associations/ sensations about the
issues raised that could potentially generate within the reader a fresh
perspective. Hopefully then, a (re)evaluation of personal prejudices/dogmas
based on each person's particularity may result. So we wish to encourage an
open, unbounded process with the aim of creating a climate of honest communication
and action, demystified, defetishized and real -- as opposed to trying to force
one's agenda down people's throats (whether through subtle psychological manipulation
, not-so-subtle physical intimidation or outright terror).
I. Crises of Modernity
"Modernity" as it has come to be used during the last few decades
is a term that covers the last 500 years or so of world history and refers to
the over-all process of modernization and industrialization. I say "as
it has come to be used" because the use and meaning of the term "modernity"
or "modern" has shifted in time, and had only relatively recently
acquired its current widely accepted usage as the historical period of "modern
civilization" that is pretty much synonymous with industrialization, western
hegemony, imperialism, capitalist development, and in general the Enlightenment
ideology of progress. And most recently, with the ever increasing globalization
of the economy, with economic power of global impact no longer solely located
in the "West", the idea of "modernity" has begun to lose
a sense of geographical specificity. In other words, the use of the term "modernity"
now necessitates an awareness of its specific contemporary ideological nature
-- reflecting, for example, current cultural/political disputes about the "end
of modernity" and the "advent of postmodernism." The point is
that by now, during the first decade of the 21st century, we must strive to
consider the term "modern" (or anything else for that matter) from
the perspective of the evolution of all (human) history -- or perhaps better
put, from the bottom up, from the bowels of the earth up to the heavens, from
the existential praxis of our daily lives to the subtle nuances of formative
consciousness. To do so it is necessary to guard against our vision being filtered
and distorted through the refracted one-way mirrors encasing the celestial towers
of given dominant economic, political, academic or cultural institutions --
or through the shattered lenses of defunct ideologies, whether of the Left or
the Right.
As an aside and to illustrate the relativity of the use of the term "modernism"
let me cite the following from a chapter titled "The Battle of the Books"
from The Classical Tradition by Gilbert Highet, a book published in 1949:
"There was a very famous and very long-drawn-out dispute in the seventeenth
and
eighteenth centuries which agitated not only the world of literature but the
worlds of
science, religion, philosophy, the fine arts, and even classical scholarship.
... and is now
remembered under the satiric titles of La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes
and The
Battle of the Books.( ... ) They recur (although often disguised or misunderstood)
in nearly
every contemporary discussion of education, of aesthetic criticism, and of the
transmission of culture. The battle waged in France and England at the turn
of the
seventeenth century was only one conflict in a great war which has been going
on for
2,000 years and is still raging. It is the war between tradition and modernism;
between
originality and authority."[1]
This quote concerning the "war between tradition and modernism" is
interesting since it is framed within a universalizing Eurocentrism that pretty
much assumed, quite provincially and perhaps unconsciously, that "history"
only occurred in the "West." And within that history, "tradition"
was deemed "reactionary" (authority) and modernism "progressive"
(originality). Within the last few decades or so however, "modernity"
has increasingly become identified with the dominant global corporate/capitalist
system (less and less confined only to the "West" as it now also includes
Asian and other industrialized regions around the world as well); and as a consequence,
"tradition" in many contexts has come to be read as sites for the
struggle for local control, self-determination, equality and social justice.
"Originality", in the meantime, has by and large been replaced by
fashion cycles, or at least its become harder to concretize or clearly pinpoint.
So in returning to our above quote, while it is true that, by and large, the
great war between tradition and modernism "... which has been going on
for 2,000 years ...", is only true for European, or Western civilization,
today that conflict is played out throughout the world, regardless of region,
culture or ethnicity.
And when viewed from a contemporary global perspective, we can see some interesting
convolutions and contortions occurring between "tradition" and "modernism."
From outside the ruling system, or from a local, regional, non-corporate, nonwestern,
or third world perspective, "tradition" often implies a progressive
defense of one's roots, origins, as well as an anti-bureaucratic, anti-(neo)colonial,
anti-imperialist struggle for self-determination. And by self-determination
is meant not just the demand for democratic rights, but also a struggle for
an equitable share in global social production based on one's own cultural traditions
-- rather than that share only being parceled out according to the degree to
which one's identity is liquidated and transformed into just a "different"
form of the dominant system. "Modernism" here is taken as being synonymous
with the movement of the progressive onslaught and liquidation of one's heritage,
breakdown of familial structures, destruction of organic communities, of nonwestern
(and non-bourgeois) cultures -- and the desecration of the Earth. Hence "progressive"
and "reactionary" become flipped. On the other hand, from within First
Worldist culture (which, again, need not necessarily be confined to a specific
geographical area) -- and I am here including many presumably First Worldist
oppositional tendencies (new age technologists, social advocacy careerists,
academic leftists, etc.) -- tradition remains reactionary (fundamentalism, sexual
repression, authoritarian, etc.); whereas modernism remains ...? progressive?
At this point the convolutions become more complicated. Modernism, the teleology
of progress, technological development, scientific rationality, domination of
nature, the creation of supposedly ever new art styles and fashions, the liberation
of the individual from the restraints of repressive tradition -- these tendencies
now present some ever "progressive" problems. Looked at from such
an angle, the advent of postmodernism as a dominant academic and cultural trend,
can be taken as a way to resolve (or occlude) such inconsistencies -- pointing
to one form of its underlying ideological nature -- hence postmodernism's supposed
all-encompassing pluralistic open-endedness and claims to acceptance of "differences."
Yet, from the position of actual daily life of the vast majority of the world's
peoples, I think it is fair to say that dominant institutional systems (corporate,
political, academic, cultural, whatever) remain guided by the same "modernism"
as before. The emperor may change into "different" costumes from time
to time; but underneath, he's still the same ol' guy.
So I think that it is important not to schematically simplify the "war
between tradition and modernism" as, for example, a conflict between the
"First World" and the "Third World," where the former =
modernism and the latter = tradition. Or as equating "modern" = progressive,
and "tradition" = reactionary. For this conflict of historical forces
plays itself out within all regions and cultures in the world today: in Europe
(East and West); in India -- how are we to locate the conflict between Hindu
and Muslim within the divide of "modernism vs. tradition," or First
and Third World? -- life is never as simple as our thought constructs would
like it to be; Africa, among Native Peoples, the Mideast, China, and anywhere
else one wishes to look. The specific meanings and political implications of
the modern/tradition conflict in each area or culture can assume quite different
connotations in regard to just what can be considered an advance or a setback
for the well-being of life on this planet. Modernism (or today its clone
of dominant Postmodernism) can no longer make a convincing case for its centuries-old
claim to be leading humanity to a better, just, and enlightened era. Rather,
we have been brought to the brink of a fatal catastrophe -- or...?
At any rate, such are some of the issues involving "the crises of modernism"
that this journal has tried and will continue to try to deal with. As already
mentioned, from our perspective "modernity" is used as a term to cover
the over-all process of modernization and industrialization which began in Western
Europe in the 15th century. We need only recall that Columbus' "discoveries"in
1492 was also the year when the Moors were driven out of the Iberian peninsula.
Shortly thereafter the Islamic invasion of Europe was confined to South-Eastern
Europe and gradually turned back in the Balkans (an historical consequence of
which, once again, tragically unfolded in the former Yugoslavia during the last
decade of the 20th century). And, is it just a coincidence that a militant Islamic
fundamentalism emerged in conjunction with the collapse of the welfare state
and "really existing socialism" and the subsequent declaration of
"victory" by globalized neo-liberalism, led by the US? And now, after
9/11, the "war on terrorism" can be seen, in a sense, to be the taking
on of an historical "unfinished business" by a western modernity in
need of a "Bad Other" as a countervailing force to its deep cultural/spiritual
crises and fear of decline. The unfolding, unpredictable consequences of the
drive to incorporate Islamic civilization into the neo-liberal system (the illegal
invasion and occupation of Iraq being a most blatant example) is a major new
international development since this essay was first written in 1993, and as
such, has become an important focus of this journal. A focal point of this confrontation
is, of course, the relentless effort of Israel and its powerful western advocates
to appropriate as much of historical Palestine as possible—a conflict that
we have always addressed and will continue to do.
To return to our historical sketch: prior to the takeoff of western modernity:
Islamic civilization -- the only other pre-modern, militarily proselytizing,
world system besides the Christian west -- had been superior to and vied for
hegemony with Europe. Commensurate with the decline of
Islam, western modernity began its relentless spread throughout the world. The
means were in stark contrast to its "Enlightened, Scientific, Christian"
ideology: subjugation (and often extermination) of indigenous populations, the
slave trade, colonialism and imperialism which resulted in the brutal oppression
and exploitation of what is now referred as the Third World -- as well as, and
this shouldn't be forgotten, the exploitation of Europe's own peasantry and
working classes.
The political form of modernity has been the bourgeois revolution (the "Classical"
form of which was the French Revolution) against feudalism and all pre-capitalist
traditions. Economically, modernization involved the rise and consolidation
of capitalism (commodity production). Philosophically, it involved the development
and universalization of the modern scientific method and its application to
technological development. Synonymous with the growth of modern science was
the gradual and thorough desacrelization of inner and outer experience. Thus,
culturally, modernism has meant the separation of church and state, liberation
of art and culture from religion and the cyclical rituals associated with daily
life. A consequence of this in the realm of culture was that the artist became
"free", accompanied by a mystified "cult of genius", "individual
creative liberty"; in effect, the human form pretending to become divine.
So culturally, modernity has meant the "liberation" of the individual
from all traditional bonds (economic, political, religious, communal, familial,
sexual, etc.). Modernity has a linear sense of history: humanity's rise out
of barbarism to rational enlightenment, or the idea of infinite progress. It
presumes that by rationally understanding and controlling our social and physical
environment, humanity can achieve an enlightened liberation from despotism,
bondage to nature and traditional superstition.
The crisis of this system is by now an acknowledged part of contemporary culture,
reflected in the catchall label of Postmodernism, and best represented by the
growing acknowledgment of the environmental crises with the subsequent recognition
that we are bound to a planet of finite resources which can no longer be exploited
forever. And, as referred to above, the "crises" has extended to the
last rationalistic system that developed out of modernity: classical Marxism,
the command economy, state socialism, and vanguardist party politics in general.
So such are some of the issues raised by the crises of modernity that have been
and will continue to be a major focus of this journal.
II. The Commodity System
The second term that I want to say a few words about is the "commodity
system," i.e. the capitalist system. Regardless of the practical failure
of creating a viable, not to mention qualitatively better, new system based
on Marx's theoretical critique of 19th century capitalism, I think that the
Marxian notion of commodity-fetishism is still a very useful and revealing means
of approach to understanding today's world, and a discussion of it sheds much
light on the state of art, culture and human relations. Put simply, a commodity
is the production of goods or services for exchange in order to realize a profit,
rather than production for direct use. Once commodity production becomes structurally
the dominant form in society the result is reification and commodity-fetishism,
or the domination of humanity by the products of our labor. Actual relationships
among people that exist in meeting the needs of life assume, as Marx said, "the
fantastic form of a relation between things." The illusion of gods are
replaced by the illusion of money, leaving no other nexus among people than
naked self-interest.
With the failure of the historical experiment of centralized, rationalized planning
("really existing socialism") as the alternative to capitalism and
the subsequent global dictatorship of the commodity system, all of social life
has been penetrated by the commodity form. From the basic material necessities
of life, such as food, clothing, shelter, the commodity form has by now extended
into all aspects of our lives: from work to culture and into the depths of our
subjectivity: our experience of interpersonal relations, feelings, sexuality
-- even our dreams. It's not just an accident that, since the advent of consumerism
as the primary impetus of production, so much of advertising and mass media
cultural production have taken on sexual forms ("sex sells"), subliminally
manipulating our most private fantasies, fears and dreams. And with what results?
We keep working for the promise of being able to consume an infinitely revolving
potpourri of redundant gadgets, bodily condiments and forms of "entertainment"
in an ever shrinking atomized private space where we can be "free."
"Free" for what? -- to be laid open to an always frustrated promise
of instant gratification.
This then returns us to the above discussed issue of the relationship between
tradition and modernism. Because in many ways modernism can be seen as the progressive
march of the commodity form, colonizing first external and then internal nature.
This process, grounded and emanating from contemporary economic relations, for
all practical purposes, has reached the finite boundaries of our planet as well
as our inner reality, and has resorted to cannabalistically consuming itself.
The "next frontier" has been mapped out of space, out of mind, out
of our bodies. The growing fantasies about space travel and genetic engineering
as the "next evolutionary leap" (virtual reality, the anthropomorphization
of robotics, cyborg implants, "artificial intelligence," conscious
modification of the genome, etc.) can be taken as signs of this. There is no
where else left to go. The Utopian genre has been pretty much supplanted by
Science Fiction and left the planet Earth behind. Star Wars and Star
Trek have become the cultural expressions of utopian hope. Hope now lies
outside of humanity and beyond the planet Earth. As Stephen Hawking recently
stated: "It is important for the human race to spread out into space for
the survival of the species," since "Life on Earth is at an ever-increasing
risk of being wiped out by a disaster..." [2] It's as if our imaginations,
confined within the bodily limitations of our species as Homo Sapien Sapiens
as evolved on the planet Earth, can no longer conceive of a better world
in the here and now of our actual lives on earth: we have to leave the Earth
and/or take conscious command of our evolutionary process by transforming our
genetic make-up.
In History and Class Consciousness, Lukács says that "...the
worker can only become conscious of his existence in society when he becomes
aware of himself as a commodity. ... his immediate existence integrates him
as a pure, naked object into the production process." But, "Once this
immediacy turns out to be the consequence of a multiplicity of mediations...
then the fetishistic forms of the commodity system begin to dissolve: in the
commodity the worker recognizes himself and his own relations with capital."
Lukacs assumes this to be so based on the total rationalization of the work
process as found in the Fordist assembly-line factory of the 1st part of the
20th century. The worker becomes a commodity that is bought, sold, exchanged
as a mere bodily extension of the machine which, "...dehumanizes him and
cripples and atrophies his 'soul' -- as long as he does not consciously rebel
against it..." However, since it is his body which is turned into a "thing",
"...his humanity and his soul are not changed into commodities. He is able
therefore to objectify himself completely against his existence..." Whereas,
"The more deeply reification penetrates into the soul of the man who sells
his achievement as a commodity the more deceptive appearances are (as in the
case of journalism)." Or, "...the man reified in the bureaucracy,
for instance, is turned into a commodity, mechanized and reified in the only
faculties that might enable him to rebel against reification. Even his thoughts
and feelings become reified."[3]
But In today's post-Fordist world, this is more true than ever before throughout almost all of working life: from service jobs to government work, from the advertising and media industries, to academia and cultural institutions. Further, with the increased blurring of the distinction between "work" and "leisure" that has been a byproduct of post-Fordism, reified modes of behavior have become the norm rather then the exception in many aspects of daily life, including interpersonal relationships.
Commodity critique, or "past the postmodern divide"
So a position such as Lukács' presents problems today. To begin with,
there are serious philosophical problems in Lukács' identical subject-object
in the form of the potential revolutionary consciousness arising out of the
industrial proletariat. The kind of production that position was based on has
since been radically altered. Since the 60's the Fordist model (assembly-line,
heavy industry, etc.) of production has been gradually supplanted by automation,
computerization, and the corresponding growth of the government and service
sectors. The majority of jobs today require the buying, selling, exchange
and manipulation, less and less our bodies, but more and more our cognitive
and emotional selves. Put in this way, it is not surprising that Lukács'
totalizing revolutionary consciousness that could transcend capitalist society
did not develop. Or why, contrary to the predictions of orthodox Marxism, the
industrial proletariat did not overthrow capitalism. At the same time, given
the much more intensive and extensive penetration of the commodity form, the
consequences of commodity-fetishism of which Lukács speaks (treating
people as things to be exchanged, used and consumed -- the difficulties
in maintaining stable relationships, breakup of families, has much to do with
this; status and fashion consciousness; the atomization and fragmentation of
life; emotional manipulations; intellectual obfuscations; the difficulty of
imagining anything other than the given) are much more true today than it was
over a half century ago.
However, as mentioned above, the commodification process is grounded in and
emanates from contemporary economic relations. And, as mentioned above,
it is important to guard against reductive thinking. Because it is also true
that no matter how difficult it may be, active and creative resistance continues
to exist -- from the Los Angeles explosion of 1992; the Zapatista rebellion;
the international movement against globalization that began in the late 90s;
the growth of the antiwar movement in response to the invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq; the growing importance of the precarity movement; as well as the growing
anti-imperialism in Latin America, best exemplified by Hugo Chavez's Boliviarian
movement. And a basic purpose of this journal is to work to be a part of the
emergence and development of this "spirit of resistance" past the
"postmodern divide." So where are we to locate the sources of this
"spirit of resistance"?
For starters, I think that it is necessary to look at this issue from as wide
a perspective as has been achieved by the global capitalist economy, and
view our subjectivity in a broader and deeper sense than currently accepted
socioeconomic structures circumscribe. The process of relentless cultural modernism
and rationalization of life (and thus of commodification) has taken its most
thorough form in the "advanced" regions of the world, and primarily
through the agency of the corporate and bureaucratic class and those who service
it. And this process has unfolded in large measure through the exploitation
of anyone outside of the dominant culture -- domestically and internationally.
With respect to our subjectivity, again, we need to avoid reductionism. The
widely held view, much of it from the Left, that our whole being is "socially
constructed" (or just a reflex of the commodity) and we just need to change
the "social structure" and then a "new" human being will
magically appear that would fit into our preconceived (self-serving) notions
of what would be "better," has turned out to be shortsighted. Because,
again, life is never as simple as our ideas would wish it to be. Reality always
proves to be more than whatever ideas, intentions, theories with which we may
hope to understand (change and subdue) it. We need but recall the recent history
of planned "social engineering" schemes (whether of the Welfare State
or State Socialism). Nothing ever turns out quite like how we expected (or hoped)
it would. I think the reasons for this involve the simple fact that life can
never be wholly rationalized and controlled, but involves necessarily indeterminate
areas of phenomena and experience whose unfolding in time are always unpredictable.
Attempts to force life, regardless of how well-intentioned, into a preconceived
mold result in repression, oppression, atrophy and then breakdown. It is from
within such "indeterminate areas" that resistance and new forms of
being have the potential to emerge -- beyond the neurotic floating fragments
left in the wake of the demise of the modernist subject.
Many of the most recent developments in science are showing that the limitations
of rationalization, planning, and predictability are not just confined to the
human sphere or to "subjectivity." Recent developments in the physical
sciences point to a fundamental paradigmatic shift: "... changes which
have been characterizing the panorama of the sciences in the last thirty years
... are not only limited to the emergence of chaos theory, but more generally
refer to the paradigmatic shifts ...in many disciplines with the abandonment
of the epistemological priority of simplicity, order and regularity." And,
"... suddenly, after centuries of science founded on the postulate of the
continuity of nature and the myth of its fundamental simplicity, fractual structure
is widely used to describe lungs as well as galaxies, and complex structures
such as spin glasses provide models for neural networks as well as for evolutionary
processes. " And, "... all these 'forces' and others as well (the
extraordinary diffusion of computers is certainly one of them) have concurred
in creating a widespread cultural background which incorporates the idea that
most of the events occurring in nature and in society are unpredictable and
random..." [4] (my emphasis). An exploration of the nature and meaning
of this paradigmatic shift for the emergence of a viable oppositional culture
is thus of prime importance, so that the errors of the past may not be repeated.
Now obviously all such issues are complex and, as I mentioned in the beginning
of this article, my purpose here is not to explore them to an extent they would
deserve, much less to presume to come up with any "solutions." Rather
my purpose is to sketch the broad outlines of questions and issues that this
journal wishes to address, and we invite readers to take part in this.
III. Harmonious relationship among people, and between the human and natural
world.
Lastly, I want to stress briefly that a fundamental position of this journal
is the recognition of the importance of incorporating a sound ecological perspective
in any work that presumes to be offering a better life than had the project
of modernity and capitalist domination. Apart from the very real danger of ecological
and environmental catastrophe that are significant aspects of the "crisis
of modernity," deeper cultural, psychological dimensions exist as well.
I firmly believe that the "crises of modernity", as well as the failures
of past socialist and other oppositional movements -- politically and culturally
--, were to a significant degree due to the one-sided instrumental mentality
that viewed the natural world as but an exploitable wilderness to be tamed and
dominated. In that sense there was no real difference offered from capitalism.
What was lacking was the creation of a culture that could potentially (re)harmonize
human society with the universe in and all around us, and in so doing create
a more humane atmosphere among people. Instead, a culture was created over the
last half-millennium that was unconsciously permeated with a fundamental lack
of respect for life and the world, and thus of anything that might be other
than ourselves. A huge ego-trip, if you will. The reduction of life to primarily
a struggle for just economic redistribution and growth, precluded the possibility
of the emergence of a genuine culture that people could organically incorporate
into their lives. Instead, a wide gulf came into being between subjective awareness
and external objects -- among all groups and classes. The unbounded, unconscious
patterns that weave and tie together everything, which in traditional cultures
had formed deeply sedimented symbolic systems, was shattered. The repairing
of this disastrous cleavage -- while fully accepting and building on the positive
scientific and technological achievements of modernity -- is, in the deepest
sense, a work that culture in the future needs to undertake.
Within this context, I find these words of Chief Seattle in 1854 revealing:
"We did not weave the
web of life. We are merely
a strand in it. Whatever
we do to the web, we do
to ourselves."
IV. Some Practical Points:
Finally, I want to list some practical criteria that inform the selection of
work that we publish.
* Left Curve is open, nonsectarian, politically and artistically. The purpose
is to critically
appraise our world and ourselves, rather than promote a closed system that presumes
to
have all the answers. The journal is autonomous, independent of any organized
institution, official, oppositional, or whatever.
* A basic premise is to look for and promote work done outside of dominant institutions
(the art world, academia, corporate funding, government agencies, etc.). This
position is taken not just to
guard against co-optation, but as a means to maintain and encourage autonomy
and fresh,
critical thinking and action.
* Another basic position is to remain in touch and part of the daily reality
of the working
population and not become isolated in closed-off subcultural ghettoes, whether
of an
artistic or political nature. This means that we have an open submissions policy,
don't
look for "names" to publish, but to the relevance of the issues addressed
and the nature
of the work itself, and remain open to new or unknown writers and artists -- particularly to
people from oppressed or excluded groups who do not have access to mainstream outlets.
However, the stress is on the relevance and quality of the work itself, rather
than on some
liberalistic "affirmative action."
* A fundamental focus is from an artistic or creative viewpoint. This journal
was started
by artists as a response to the "bankruptcy of modernism" in the formalist
dead-end
reached by conceptual and process art of the early 70's. The initial problem
faced was
what to do "after modernism," viewed then more from within the ideology
of late
modernist art. Our parameters have since expanded beyond just "art"
issues as
determined by the dominant art world. However, the problems and promise of genuine
creative liberty, the liberation of the artistic sensibility that had been a
positive
motivation of the historic avant-garde, is still very much a pivotal focus to
the work of
this journal -- particularly the issue of how the "liberation of art"
relates to the
"liberation of life."
* Finally, I want to stress again that it is important to recognize that today's
problems are
not just concerned with questions of social inequality or injustice, but are
also related to
our damaged relationship to the whole ecosphere.
In closing, I just want to invite anyone who feels kinship to the ideas expressed
here to
feel free to contact us and contribute in whatever way possible.
Notes:
1. Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition, Greek and Roman Influences on
Western Literature. Oxford University Press, New York, 1949, p.261.
2. Lukacs, Georg."Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,"
in History and Class Consciousness, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1971.
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