THEORY TWO SUMMARY BLOG

-My relationship with the bitter drink

In an effort to avoid the Faustian split this short discourse is a theoretical (inner) response to a situation from real (outer) life and a demonstration of how Theory 2 has allowed me to begin to use theory or concepts from theory to analyse and understand life.

I talking to one of my uncles on Boxing Day this year and he said some things to me which have been bothering me very much since. He said...

‘Sarah; I can’t understand why you’ve chosen the route you have. I have always seen you as someone who would want to run their own business and I still think you will but I can’t see how studying architecture is going to get you there. There doesn’t seem to be any money in architecture; How do you intend to make your fortune? You need to have money in this world this is a capitalist society, you can’t do anything without money. Money makes you happy.’

To this I retorted, perhaps too quickly and without enough consideration, (with my sister chipping in, incidentally also an art student)…

‘Money does not make you happy. I love my job you have to love it to do it, I can’t think of anything worse than having a job that means that you don’t want to get up in the morning. It’s true that there is no money but that is partly to do with the recession. Things will improve. I can move to a smaller firm where there is more opportunity to be had but then I will not be able to work on the projects I enjoy such as public buildings as these are only built by large practices, so I have a choice to make. Yes money is important but it is not what makes you happy, money is the enabler that lets you do the things that make you happy’

His response was to ask why I assume that you cannot make money and have a job that you enjoy (more about that later).

This really conversation really niggled me and it bothers me that I am bothered. I strongly believe in most of what I said but the one thing I am questioning is the money/happiness thing. Don’t get me wrong I’ve had enough ‘liberal’ education to hate conspicuous consumption, celebrity and that comes with it (see blog entry for week 10), I get all that- I have no interest in designer clothes, 5 star hotels, flashy cars or wasteful habits of any sort. I do truly believe that the real pleasures in life do not cost a lot of money such as good company, good food, good drink, books, film and walking etc; the real life pleasures; the things that make you feel alive.

However maybe my uncle is onto something. While myself and my one ‘enlightened’ friend sit penniless and angry bad mouthing the system and mocking those who comply perhaps we’d be far better off exploiting it. We feel almost superior for holding out for all bohemian, eating home grown veg and wearing homemade clothes contrite in our discovery of theory and rejection of capitalism but perhaps that makes us just ass smug as our yuppie contemporaries with their BMWs and holidays in the Maldives. I’ve been ‘giving it to the man’ for years now and look where it’s got me. I’m a postgraduate student on minimum wage doing a job that I am repeatedly told to feel grateful to have but makes me feel trapped, burdened with the thousands of pounds worth of debt that were necessary to get me into this privileged position. I can only afford to buy food at the beginning of the month, I turn down invitations to go out with old school friends simply because I can’t afford to. I still go on holiday with my parents, which I enjoy, but it’s not out of choice. I will never be able to buy a property, which I actually have no interest in doing but know I need to do in order to live a semi-comfortable retirement; which is something I would like to do. These things do not contribute to my happiness and are directly contributable to a lack of means.

So is it possible for me to obtain more comfortable means without being a contributor to the negativity of the machine? I am already part of the machine but a lowly, but relatively free, cog at that with no dependents and a desire for enlightenment. Can one search for enlightenment and the intellectual revolution of the mind while also exploiting the benefits of modern economy, modern society and modern culture without hypocrisy? Are we even part of a larger body, a society or is it far more rational to believe, like Maggie that we are a society made up of only individuals accountable only to our own standards and beliefs.

I suppose what I am striving for and what this unit has made me realise is that I want to be able to be happy to be accountable for all my words and deeds. I want to be able to stand up and for myself and not feel beaten by ‘the man’? I dream of opening a deli. Is it time that I stop dreaming, stop being a complicit victim of the acts and deeds of numerous other individuals and start making my own fate?

I remember being asked what I wanted to be in my first religious education lesson at Grammar School and responding quite assuredly that I wanted to be prime minister -what has happened to the spirit of can do? Is it something I can rediscover? Right now I find studying theory to be most useful in examining my life and its context but am beginning to recognize that it should be consumed in moderation with a regular side order of the emotional freedom of human connection found in the real or outer world in order to avoid the path that can only lead to melancholy and self loathing.

I will continue to explore the theoretical concepts contained within this unit with a light heart and a critical mind while attempting to preserve some of my original joie de vivre.

Week 8 27.10.09

The literal story of Faust no longer valid in to today’s society as it relies on a feudal system no longer as pertinent as it was at the time Faust was written. However through Berman’s writing we can see that it is invaluable as a vehicle for the discussion of concepts and theories.

I have some issues with the second metamorphosis; The Lover. As far as I can tell the destruction described in this section is wholly attributable to the values and believes of the feudal society in which Gretchen and Faust both live in not that of Faust and Mephistopheles.
Faust’s actions are led by a free mind directed by self expansion. Gretchen is a complicit and conscious participant in Faust’s actions but is fated by the beliefs and morals that form the core of her character as a result of the society in which she lives. The old system with its roots in blind debasement and self virtue are at odds with the new ideas of freedom and self expansion. I see this as old thinking destroying new thinking. Therefore it should not be described as Goethe’s Gretchen tragedy but as Faust’s enlightenment tragedy as he suffers through the emotion of guilt which is a direct result of the non-enlightened and not a fault of the direction of his development.

Therefore it is not a cycle of new attacking old systems and bringing them down but old attacking new until they fight themselves free by the power of their truth. Modernity therefore may not be tragedy but a triumph of evolution of the mind.

Week 7 20.11.09

I have read decline and fall over the last day or so and found it to be a ‘nice’ story. This is not damning through faint praise but ‘nice’ is as good a word as any to describe its nature. I understand from the introduction, and class discussion, that the book is intended to be a social satire describing the failing moral fibre of post war Britain. However it was not the bitter attack on capitalism that I have come to expect from theory two but more of a light hearted funny story with cartoon like characters and a cheerful plot. Despite it promising scandal the humour was simply old fashioned by today’s standards, maybe a little childish, and completely excusable. It did not offend. In light of my opinion of this book I find it difficult to examine the architect, Professor Silenus’ character in any great depth. Silenus and the process of rebuilding King’s Thursday was a manifestation and characterisation of the attitudes of the bright young things. As it happens Silenus’ Corbusian principles appear to harmonise very well with the shock tactics employed by bohemian London society of the time. Waugh manages to make Silenus/Corbu look stupid (- I challenge anyone to read Vers Une Architecture without laughing) clearly showing that such arrogance can only lead to downfall .

My favourite part of the book was the description of the central character, Paul, where for one fleeting moment a glimpse of the possibility of his capability can be seen through his otherwise bumbling story.

‘For an evening at least... Paul Pennyfeather materialised into the solid figure of an intelligent, well-educated, well-conducted young man, a man who could be trusted to use his vote at a general election with discretion and proper detachment, whose opinion on a ballet or critical essay was rather better than most people’s, who could order a dinner without embarrassment and with a creditable French accent, who could be trusted to see to luggage at foreign railway stations and might be expected to acquit himself with decision and decorum in all the emergencies of a civilised life.’

I think that this is a fabulous piece of writing which leaves me asking where can I find one of these gentlemen? Waugh answers this question by reminding the reader that this description is only possibility and that the only interesting thing about the central character is the events that he is involved with. His fate for the remainder of the book is reliant on the decisions of Mrs Beste-Chetwynde the strong female character who lives by independent means courtesy of her numerous whorehouses in the Americas. This is a lovely little observation of the myth of the gentleman and it made me smile.

Week 9 01.12.09

Howard Roark is my tattoo artist- sorry Karl! A man with an unshakeable ego who refuses to do anything other than be allowed to produce his own work. There is no client/designer collaboration here. At one point in the film, The Fountainhead, Roark has no money but still won’t bow down to popularism. For him his is work is divine and it is his and it is part of him to be protected and despite the arrogance required to uphold this view there is little one can do but have at least a grudging respect for that individual. I think that Roark is actually a likeable man, he has a misplaced reverence for his work but also an admirable vindication in what he says. Even if you think he is wrong he has at least a logic which he can apply to his situation, a set of rules an identification of boundaries, something which I know I have not found yet.

As a film it is a little clumsy with the melodrama getting in the way of any meaningful cinema. I haven’t read the novel (but I think I will) which may have had a little more finesse than the over-egged syrup I saw on the screen. The bit about the paper going down for supporting Roark was more than ridiculous but the post modern adornments that were constantly stuck onto Roark’s models were positively genius and nearly made me laugh as much as the character in this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfprIxNfCjk Graphic designer vs client the truest thing I’ve seen on the internet). Having said all that stick me in front of any schmaltzy obviously contrived black and white film and, as a golden age of Hollywood nut- you’ll find me a happy girl. I’m such a prole.

As an aside while in Amsterdam I noticed lots of posters in windows saying ‘no fountainhead’. It was not however an expression of dislike for the film or book or even arrogance of designers but an objection to the construction of a huge block of flats in the Dockland Island of Sporenberg called ‘fountainhead’. It strikes me that they could not have picked a more unfortunate name for a controversial building. Was this meant to be ironic?

http://www.amsterdamdocklands.com/navigation/News/Fountainhead.html

Week 10 13.12.09

As a result of ever continuing cash flow problems I have in hand photocopies of the three chapters from John Dos Passos’ USA detailing commentaries on Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford and Thorstein Veblen. As discussed in the lecture this is a book describing the tragedies of a collection who individuals who were significant in early 21st century America.

The one I liked was the story of Veblen- The Bitter Drink. Accused by a fellow student as lazy I immediately empathised with this man. The story describes a very clever and natural thinker who didn’t fit to the path his Norwegian parents, or indeed society at large, sought for him but neither did he feel at ease with the academic life that he was resigned to. Dos Passos repeatedly says that Veblen ‘had a constitutional inability to say yes’ I don’t believe that this was right. He was a man who did not say yes to society, he did not say yes to the things that would lead him to the life that others had or others expected him to have. He said yes to what he wanted to do. To say yes to this above anything else and takes the most courage of all. It is also because of this that I do not believe that he was a lazy man. He was not. He simply did not say yes, because he knew he did not have to and he knew it would not serve him. This man said yes more than any of them, he said yes to more difficult things than taking a job offer or buying a house or a car, he said yes to not taking employment, he said yes to reading Latin and Greek and owning nothing but books and boating on the river and turning up to the university in a coonskin hat. He said yes to scandal on a cruise liner, to living like a hermit and practicing carpentry, to teaching what he believed in and not what he was asked to teach. He said yes to resigning from a job he wasn’t happy to do. These are the hardest things to say yes to, this man is the man who says yes in the noblest way.
These thought were further clarified after ‘googling’ him where I learnt about his theories relating to conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption. Veblen believed that businessmen (or service providers as we might call them today) are barbarians in that they do not do the difficult tasks themselves, they do not produce like farmers or labourers but simply shift goods around, taking a profit for themselves while creating the illusion to the genuinely ‘working’ class that they are necessary and represent an improvement of the basic feudal society history while actually promoting a feudal society run by themselves. This is made possible by man’s disposition to consume or waste money in order to display a higher status when compared others.

All I can say is jeez; if this guy thought this back then he would have a whole lot more to say about it now. The first thing that came into my mind when reading this was Range Rovers. One can buy a perfectly good working car that offers the same amount of utility (I am specifically referring to those idiots who drive clean Range Rovers in cities) for a far smaller amount of money yet the Range Rovers and Range Rover dealers still exist profiting from conspicuous consumption.

Week 6 10.11.09

I’m not very good at reading poetry. I have to speak it. Howl was a pleasure to recite. It has a very specific tempo. This tempo seems to bring a joy to what, when read, appears as a torrent of distasteful actions and events. Interestingly I really enjoyed this poem yet some might say it describes a horror far worse than that described in the article about Las Vegas by Tom Wolfe that we read last week- which I didn’t enjoy. I have a little background knowledge of the context of the poem and readily admit that I was looking forward to reading it; that probably helped a little. I recently read Jack Kerouac’s Dharma bums and it has probably been one of the most influential books I have ever read, it was just so easy to relate to a frustrated generation looking for fulfilment elsewhere that the society forced upon them, hell. Who isn’t? The poem captured the spirit of the period where physical acts were viewed as ultimate human freedom. The poem is a celebration of human encounter, of food, of sex, of drink; of reality.

I’m a little dubious about the link to Archigram. Is it that the work of Archigram is just another commentary on time and place? Did they believe in this stuff as ideal or inevitable? Was it positive or negative? For me Archigram is a group of gifted illustrators (but then I know very little about them) whereas Ginsberg and the beat generation represent something raw with more spirit and energy.

Week 5 05.11.09

Not having been to Las Vegas, I tried to read this piece with an open mind. Tom Wolfe quite clearly finds the place to be nothing but odious. This is evident in his descriptive language. There can be nothing attractive in pissed nobodies rambling nonsense suffering from toxic schizophrenia, piped muzak , being trapped in a car where the radio will not turn off and being surrounded by exposed butt cracks of pregnant women and aging ‘babes’. Not to mention phlegmy old men with oatmeal skin.
The image created by this writing is that of an exploitative machine aimed at the intellectually inferior. Wolfe describes a never ending drone fuelled by an infinite number of generic, interchangeable and replaceable characters. It’s worse than the lives they are trying to escape. It’s pleasure without a cause.

Hedonism and indulgence are far more palatable when linked to some kind of agenda such as search for enlightenment or rebellion in fact pleasure when coupled with cause has a certain glamour.

Las Vegas used to have glamour in spades. It was there once. Anyone who has seen Ocean’s eleven (the real Ocean’s eleven not the less than mediocre remake with George Clooney and Julia Roberts in it) can see that Las Vegas had once been fresh and pioneering and dangerous and exciting and edgy. It seems that today it has more in common with an aging British seaside town, tragic and slightly sinister in its trashiness; distinctively for the proles. It has crossed over the fine line between glamour and vulgarity and it did so a long time ago.

As always Tom Wolfe manages to veil his criticism in a blithe satirical way which results in a vivid read but ultimately in the realisation that it is a narrative you cannot trust. I will not let this essay form my basis for the judgment of the city but I must say that it hasn’t encouraged exactly cultivated any glimmer of affection or interest I might have had in the place. It just made me feel dirty.