Mediacologyputting the ‘eco’ into media ecology (and other tangential meditations)

After hearing so much about Hurt Locker and its Best Picture award (I’ve always been intrigued by war movies), I thought I’d give it a whirl. For starters, this ain’t Apocalypse Now! or Full Metal Jacket, let alone even close to some of the better, more complex war films that delve into the distorted and demented politics of its leaders. In particular I’m thinking of Major Dundee by Sam Peckinpah, which is set during the so-called Indian Wars. Hurt Locker also lacks the psychological nuance of something like Terrence Malick’s brilliant The Thin Red Line.

Hurt Locker is neither adventurous nor cutting edge, and not much better stylistically than a TV show like CSI. Ultimately it’s a really boring movie with bad dialogue that poorly fleshes out a series of tension and release sequences that draw on music video and video game aesthetics. It is full of cliches about poor American soldiers who cannot make sense of a chaotic environment not of their choosing as they enter the labyrinth of a surreal war landscape populated by an alien Other. Framed as an “American tragedy,” once again an invaded country becomes a purification drama for Hollywood’s liberal consciousness.

So I hope no one thinks Hurt Locker is a serious anti-war movie, because if this is what passes these days as war criticism, then the depoliticization of Iraq has truly succeeded to permeate the pop culture landscape.

Just compare, for example, the Americans–self-identified as “USA friendlies”– versus the zero-dimensional Iraqis who seem to have no history or personality beyond the usual tropes and stereotypes (see my list below). The only insight into how the other side thinks comes from an Iraqi professor who is allowed three lines of dialogue, one being that he is pleased to have the CIA in his home. Moreover, the film forces you to sympathize with the military every time they kill Iraqis. Army recruiters most love that.

The only hint of the film’s consciousness comes at the end of the movie. We transition from a closing shot in Iraq with kids throwing stones at the Americans to the returning soldier’s existential crisis at home when he faces a wall of cereal in a market– recalling the clash’s prescient protest song, “Lost in the Supermarket.” In the end, cleaning rain gutters is not as thrilling as war, so this middle class soldier–a cypher for our system– has to go back to Iraq because now he is addicted to the adrenaline of war–like our consumer economy. The last shot has him transformed as a technologically shielded man who lurches suicidally towards another bomb. Like our militarized system, he has lost his humanity.

Though the last shot is a pretty strong image, compare it to some of the dialog when two soldiers complain about the war. Soldier 1: “How do you deal with it?” Soldier 2: “I just don’t think about it.” Wow, heavy shit.

If “I fucking hate this place” and “Let’s get out of this fucking desert” are the strongest statements the film’s characters can make, then Hollywood is as spineless and addicted to the military as the Democrats. Because in the end, though Hollywood cast a guilt vote to make this their best picture, in the film industry the war machine will continue to march unabated as a primary partner in the development of animation and other block-buster special effects technology to be prototyped for war training VR.

Ultimately I concur with Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles (a much better and more introspective book/picture than Hurt Locker), who wrote that there is no such thing as an anti-war movie:

“There is talk that many films are antiwar, that the message is war is inhumane and look what happens when you train young American men to fight and kill, they turn their fighting and killing everywhere, they ignore their targets and desecrate the entire country, shooting fully automatic, forgetting they were trained to aim. But actually, Vietnam War films are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message, what Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended… [soldiers] watch the same films and are excited by them, because the magic brutality of the films celebrate the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroking his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his real first fuck. It doesn’t matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar—the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.” (pp. 6-7)

It seems to me that the film’s Best Picture award is driven by a sense of shame about the war– a need to feel and say something about it, but even in the Obama years no one (that is, anyone in a position of power) is willing to stand up and call the Iraq war for what it is: a crime against humanity. So when a dramatic film can make this case, then it will certainly get my vote. But I’m not holding out hope. At least not for it to be made by Hollywood.

Here is a quick an dirty laundry list of unoriginal war film tropes from Hurt Locker:

• Inane dialogue as indication that somewhat will die (also used in horror films).
• Kid Iraqi (“Beckham”–yawn) who learns American black slang (and sells DVDs) as symbol of the hybridized, Utopian future of Iraq.
• Zero-dimensional Iraqis except as The Horrible Evil Enemy Without Any Consciousness (unlike the technocratic warriors of America who kill with high technology but also have feelings of guilt).
• A cameo of the sadistic yahoo commander (we only get a momentary glimpse of him).
• War-stressed, PTSD soldier who doesn’t have the capacity (or stomach) to “hold it in,” and of course is the one character who gets wounded right before he is supposed to finish his tour.
• Veteran perverted by horrors of war harbors an idiosyncratic secret obsession.
• Strange and creepy intellectual analyst whose healing powers are over-shadowed by his naivety and lack of warrior purification (and of course is killed).
• Depersonalized death/massacre of the other/enemy.
• Spectacularized violence as cleansing ritual for do-gooder Americans.

Back in my Berkeley days there was a “notorious” coop called Barrington, which was ground zero for Cal’s population of freaks. I put “notorious” in quotes because the term is relative, of course. The coop’s neighbors were convinced that it was actually a cult, arguing that Barrington’s motto– “Those who know don’t tell, and those who tell don’t know”– was evidence of its secret society status.

I bring this up because of a reader’s response to Douglas Rushkoff‘s video in the previous post, which I didn’t properly set-up (due to the fact that I have been grading finals and research papers and am in blog-lite mode at the moment). Life, Inc. is Rushkoff’s response to a situation he found himself in a while back (this site has more details on the book project). He was mugged on Christmas Eve, and when he posted the information for the crime’s exact location and time to a neighborhood email list, several people responded angrily that making such info public would lower their property values. This is the ultimate triumph of capitalism, which culminates in its most devious form as neo-liberalism– the complete conversion of community value into monetary value. The video goes on to describe a basic premise of the book, which is that banking and finance was deliberately created to disempower and de-democratize our lives. It has worked well, up to now. But things have changed.

So, Mediacology reader Ken asks, what to do? He recalls how reading Mother Jones at a military super market in Germany opened his eyes to see the Matrix. But once armed with this knowledge, what can we do about it? Where is the Whole Earth Catalog of our times that offers us alternative solutions, such as local currencies or life without banks?

This leads back to my opening story. I had an email conversation with Rushkoff a while back, and in it I mentioned a desire to create some kind “freakipedia” of forbidden knowledge, a place where you could read about an alternate history of banks or forward thinkers like Robert Anton Wilson (RAW). The inspiration for creating such a space was spurred by a discussion I had had with a college student I randomly met at the Bonnaroo festival a few years ago. We happened to be eating at the same picnic bench and ended up having a conversation which turned into a mini-deconstruction/lecture on the commodification of music and culture. This young man from Arkansas was shocked to learn about demographics, cool hunting and how much of culture production was contrived for profit. He didn’t like the idea that he was a target market. But I was more shocked because such knowledge is commonplace among my peers, and I naively assume that most people understand how the system “really” works. But what brought me to the point of my own awareness was no accident: I was involved with a self-educated knowledge community (punk), and I had countercultural mentors who helped me learn about subcultural art and protest movements like Dada and Situationism.

I told Rushkoff that I wanted to help kids like the one I met at Bonnaroo discover the secret history of the world, and that a collectively produced Website could do the trick. To paraphrase, he responded by stating that this kind of information comes organically, and perhaps shouldn’t be forced upon anyone or centralized as a Website. That is, we discover and learn things when it is appropriate and when we are ready. This helped me realize that the network that possesses this knowledge avails itself to us as part of our process of learning and growing. This kind of deep life knowledge is designed as a great puzzle and journey of discovery, a mystery school, so-to-speak, that has no certified degrees, but lots of teachers and students who don’t necessarily know each other. Sometimes I think I’m actually playing an intergalactic virtual reality arcade game and I keep wondering when the “deposit another quarter” screen is going to pop up in front of my face.

Given the nature of our current crisis– economic, ecological, educational, societal, spiritual and so on– maybe it’s time for the mystery school to be less mysterious. It seems to me that the opportunity calls for everyone’s collective wisdom, but in what form I don’t know. I certainly believe the Internet has the potential to coordinate all our efforts, not because it is a technological innovation, but because it’s a human creation, and it’s a human trait to come together to solve problems and to design solutions. After all, consider the miracle that we have evolved to the point we are at now. Every time a baby is born I’m dumbstruck about how amazing it is we haven’t died as a species, considering how hazardous birth is. But we know how to successfully bring kids into the world and educate them to build cities and world economic systems. Surely there is a way to tap this capacity for sustainability and deep democracy.

Just knowing you are not alone is a start. To quote one my favorite sayings from RAW,

You should view the world as a conspiracy run by very closely-knit group of nearly omnipotent people, and you should think of those people as yourself and your friends.

Bless the freakatoni!

What follows is a response to someone who felt that my elation from the results of the last presidential was “junk”:

What I was expressing, and I think others were too, was a shift in energy and an opening for new possibility. All of us are responsible for co-creating democracy, even if it has been reduced to glorified public relations. I believe it’s important to remain critical while committed to making change within our own communities (and selves). What troubles me is how many on the left are so unwilling to feel good about anything. We now have someone who speaks in complete sentences and takes global warming seriously, who believes in net neutrality and in the rapid deployment alternative energy. These are things that cannot be delayed even for one minute. We no longer have time to screw around on these points. So for that I have some gratitude and find it remarkable that some would rather see Palin and McCain punt these critical issues for four more years.

I agree that on the surface many of Obama’s appointments look like the same-old, same-old, but I would like to offer just a few tidbits. These are not ordinary times; everyone has the potential to change and alter his or her views. That is the amazing thing about this moment. We don’t know how people will react. Also, the US government is a massive, complex machine based on social networks, personal relationships and connections. It’s important to keep your enemies close to you and to have good operatives who can get things done. It’s very logical that there are so many “players” coming into the transition team. How else can you run a government? I mention these things not because I’m an apologist for US imperialism or the government, but I do believe whole-heartedly there are people in the military, government and corporations who want to change their relationship with the world and the environment, and some of these people will be coming in from the periphery. Not everyone in the system is an evil, selfish conspirator. I believe we’ll inhibit growth and change if we do not participate in co-creating the emergent reality with all parties, even ones that we do not like. Real change comes from dialog, and I hope that we will not shut if off from those who hold “power” because of our own prejudices of how we think people should behave according to their position in society.

My argument is for taking advantage of this opening and to push it open wider. The physicist David Bohm argues that every seed is like an aperture to a potential reality, but that the environment in which it is planted conditions its reality. I hope that we can contribute to a space that nurtures greater possibility and change rather than succumb to cynicism and despair. Thanks for listening.

Will eco-prison reform criminals? – World Environment – MSNBC.com:

The island is about 1 1/2 miles from the mainland, but that’s not what keeps inmates in. Few escape from Norway’s most pleasant prison because that could mean returning to a maximum-security unit.

All of the prison’s agricultural products are raised without artificial chemicals, such as insecticides or man-made fertilizers, and with humane treatment of livestock. It also strives to be energy self-sufficient, using renewable power.

Alnaes said the prison’s philosophy is what he called “human ecology.”

(c) ODTmaps
An interesting article on how the world can teach the US a thing or two. What follows is a snip that discusses “ubuntu.”

AlterNet: 11 Things We Can Learn from the Rest of the World:

Here’s a surprise. What Africa has to offer the West is democracy! History says Ancient Greece invented democracy. But the Greeks took their inspiration from the other side of the Mediterranean in Egypt. “African democracy,” which is practiced to this day in villages and towns across the continent — where 70 percent of Africans live — is very different from “Western democracy.” It is based on the humanist philosophy called Ubuntu, originating in southern Africa, which teaches, “I am because you are.” African democracy is focussed on including everyone, whereas Western democracy, with its basis in majority rule, divides people and nations.

Traditional African democracy doesn’t involve organized opposition. Power is arranged like a pyramid. At the top is the king who exercises supreme authority, assisted by his council of elders and sub-chiefs. But the king or chief has no power except that which is given to him by the people. He is usually enthroned for life, but the actual duration of his reign depends on how well or poorly he performs. If he is a good king, he stays. If he is a bad king — who oppresses the people, or acts against their interests and traditions — he is overthrown by the people, using the constitutional means established for the purpose.