Conclusion: Enslaved by Freedom

Comparing the reactions towards the deaths of Steve Jobs, a proponent of freedom and creativity, and Kim Jong-Il, a proponent of the complete opposite, as a Mac user I cannot deny the influence of Steve Jobs; however the North Korean public reaction towards the death of their leader is not much different from the former, and that of Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Gaddafi and Bin Laden, regardless of their deeds, wrong or good, they had all demonstrated how power given by the mass could make great heroes.

The recent news of the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il has inspired me to conclude the Theory 750 coursework with a retrospective study of my blog entries so far in a hypothesis that, really, power is the backbone of society. According to the famous debate between Foucault and Chomsky aired in Dutch television in 1971, Foucault argued that human nature was trained; human value system differed in times and was a product of political and economic agenda, yet Chomsky supposed that people are born with creative power and would overcome the suppression and coercion imposed against their human nature.
Architects doubtlessly are given a role in society to create, thus also elevating their social status and placing them on higher ground. However much architects wish to go beyond the norm, they are still subject to the “Mayan Calendar”, facilitating the already pervasive system that continues to control the masses. The situation in North Korea interests me because it presents as an alternative to today’s democratic capitalist world. Though the world rejects Communism so instinctively and judgmentally, the world basically functions with the very idea of control to begin with. Communism attempts to explicitly control people both physically and psychologically but the relatively civilized Capitalist society does so subliminally. It is just this downright explicitness that puts the rest of the world off. Enslaved in one’s own value system and embracing it at all cost, two ideals seize to gain power by controlling the public. We think we enjoy much greater freedom compared to the people in North Korea and China; true that we could voice our opinions freely and could publicly make fun of stupid leaders, however, the irony is we are so engrained and trained in believing in one RIGHT system, a commonly accepted mode (like religion) of judging who is evil and who is right. Communism must be all evil because it denies human right and breeds tyrannical leaders. Accepting what is already known without critical thinking is dangerous.

All societies work on the basis of power and the success of a person is based on how well received or idolized by the public. Think of Zaha, Gaga, Roark, and even Dubai, they represent some common values desired by all. Their power and popularity allow them to preach and manifest their own worlds. People in power rule, and people are also in turn ruled by power. As mentioned in my fifth week writing, ‘To Reform, One must Conform’, to want to destroy the established power system one must first attain power. It is also the same irony presented in The Fountainhead. Once a rebel becomes a ruler, s/he at the same time becomes precisely what s/he has been trying to fight. Because of the fact that humans are social animals from where collective power is rooted, the singular creative mind of a thinker needs to be recognized publicly to manifest his/her creation. Free thoughts are actually trained thoughts. Independence is actually interdependence. The concept of freedom is an enslavement.

As long as we live in a society, we are no free men. So, what can we do when the world that we pride ourselves of collapses? Well, I think I or we just should be aware of the fallacy in the system and live with it, maintain our conscience and stay openminded and critical.

Week Seven: Me Against the World

Though we are all individuals who have self will and our own different personalities, since birth we all have succumbed to the mass. In the field of architecture where an idea that stems from individual creativity becomes a project that can only be evaluated and appreciated through being used by the public, the debate on the role of an architect arises. The Fountainhead illustrates the struggle of Howard Roark, a visionary architect, who stays steadfast with his idealism, proclaiming that he does not build to serve clients! The success of Howard Roark at the end being honored and hailed as a revolutionary architect that defies pre-establishment is what modern day architects/architecture students still aspire to achieve.
There is a danger that an architecture project, when not concerning for the public good, is a completely selfish, egoistic act. Roark in the Fountainhead has been fighting for her modernist ideals against the collective demand for classical architecture, the accepted taste. The question is on whether his insistence lays in believing his new concept will contribute to the society or he is just too stubborn in getting his ‘sculpture’ built. In this case I say sculpture because if a project does not consider inhabitation it is merely an object. Architects are deemed to be complex. They first of all are taught to be creative and visionary, an ability with which their career life journey of combating/compromising with the public starts. For architects that believe their purpose is to serve the public, their career would be much less complicated. However for those who are firm on the concepts they give birth to, they will have the same ‘disability’ as illustrated in one of Dos Passos’ characters in USA, Professor Veblen in ‘The Bitter Drink’. He has the “constitutional inability to say yes” while all “good jobs (are) kept for the yesmen.” (845, USA, John Dos Passos) The three selected characters from the USA trilogy, Veblen from The Bitter Drink, Henry Ford from Tin Lizzie and Frank Lloyd Wright from Architect are all proponents in the early 20th century American History that had some avant garde spirits of their own. Veblen an academic who ends up sipping in bitter drink lamenting his failure to be accepted by society with his ineptness to play in the ruling class/university system; Henry Ford (a parallel to Gail Wynand in the Fountainhead), by contrast, had tremendously success by he at the end was also revolted by the mass; the architect Frank Lloyd Wright suffers from rumors and gossips. All these characters are vulnerable when it comes to dealing with the masses.
Geniuses do not thrive alone. All are part of the masses and are reliant on the masses. Roark in the Fountainhead I think is a romanticized version of the glory of an architect. The last scene in which Gary Cooper stands on top of his tower with Patricia Neal looking up to him as a worshiper looking up to a Greek statue appears quite ironic. Roark appears precisely in the manner what he is trying to fight against! The sequel of Fountainhead would be: with the previously disadvantaged Roark being the architect in fashion, he soon will lead the opinions of the yesmen, thus, him becoming part of the ruling class system which then be dethroned by the newly disadvantaged.
A similar ironic cycle happens in Occupy Wall Street as well. Two protestors are seen having Starbucks coffee in hands. Can you occupy Wall Street with Starbucks in your hands??? (source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterleeds/2011/10/24/can-you-occupy-wall-street-with-a-starbucks-in-your-hand/)

Week Six: Moloch is in our blood

Ginsberg’s and Burroughs' works, written 50 plus years ago, are still relevant in addressing the social turmoil these days. Just like how Burroughs states in Journey through time-space in The Job:
“Now translate the Mayan control calendar into modern terms. The mass media of newspapers, radio, television, magazines from a ceremonial calendar to which all citizens are subjected. The ‘priests’ wisely conceal themselves behind masses of contradictory data and vociferously deny that they exist. Like the Mayan priests they can reconstruct the past and predict the future on a statistical basis through manipulation of media.
Factors that can be controlled and predicted: 1. Layout: format of newspapers and magazines; 2. The news to be played up and played down; 3. Editorials and letters to the editor: letters selected in accordance with perceived policy; 4. Advertisements: subliminal orders.” (44-45, The Job, William Burroughs)
In the 21st Century, we are still susceptible to another reincarnation of the Maya control calendar through which we are unknowingly manipulated. The mode of human civilization has not changed much as what worked 2000 yeas ago is still applicable now. It all comes down to manipulation of people, thus gaining power, through media. The modern day comparables to the Mayan priests are the ruling business class. Clairvoyant as he was, Burroughs lists out the four factors we succumb our mentality to, making us aware of the information we choose to feed ourselves. Just lately I have seen a prime example of the second factor mentioned, the news to be played up and played down, on Time Magazine.
Same December 5, 2011 issue of Time magazine, the US cover chose a relatively mellow cover compared to the international issues. The importance of this example is how easily we could let our conscience run down the drain if we do not be openminded and begin thinking critically of our sources of news and information. so, thank god we have internet and our internet servers are not censored and blocked. Though as a student in London, I can have unbound freedom in serving whichever sites I wish, the power to knowing is still in my hands whether I choose to expand my scope; for example in hearing different opinions, reading not only the Time magazines. This sort of “openmindedness” is what Burroughs finds in touch with the Beat poets. They are both analytical and critical of their own times; while people pride themselves on the technological advancement achieved by human ingenuity, they remain critical of mankind losing their souls in the sea of machines and bubble wealth.
In Howl, the presence of Moloch foreshadows a soulless industrial age. Representing industrialization and modernization, Moloch:
“whose mind is pure machinery, whose blood is running money, whose fingers are ten armies, whose breast is a cannibal dynamo, whose ear is a smoking tomb!
whose love is endless oil and stone, whose soul is electricity and banks, whose poverty is the specter of genius, whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen, whose name is the Mind!
whose eyes are a thousand blind windows, skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs, whose factories dream and croak in the fog, whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!”
is nothing human. However it is specifically designed to employ humans. It is a model of production, a business mode and a mobilizing tool that the ‘priests’ employ to make people work for them, wittingly by using to capitalize on human nature, be it greed, hubris, desire and etc. The result is people “broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven,” worshipping what has consumed their humanity.

Weeks Four and Five: To Reform One Must Conform!

from architext.us

“Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social relations, everlasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier times. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned ...”

Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto (1848)

All That is Solid Melts into Air is the title of Marshall Berman’s book on modernity for a reason. In a world in which almost all parts are ridden with capitalism, mankind cannot escape the realm of mindless production.

It is obvious that everyone in the capitalistic world can feel for Doctor Faust, subject to selling skills and brain s/he has got to deal with the devil, also known as the “system”. To reform, one must first conform.

Yet, architects with skills, intellect and ideals need to conform to the devilish society in an attempt to effect their ideologies in the world, either with selfish intent in just making a living or a moral one in bettering the world. Ironically, if one’s goal is just to make a living and one is content with just being a machine, an executor, the tug of war of morality and ethics does not exist since s/he is not equipped to evaluate his/her act because s/he simply executes commands; s/he is just another machine made out of flesh. However when one has the intellect, the ability to think, then the story can be two-fold based on the awareness of the devilish lure. When people have accustomed to capitalist way of thinking working and doing, the prevalence of such system conceals its wrong. Because of its prevalence then it is just. If one is comfortable in participating in such system there is not even a question of morality, devil or not. This is a case of willingly and, say unknowingly, selling oneself to the devil. Another case of selling oneself knowingly in hopes of overturning it is a trying one, which in fact I could see in myself, my friends and practising architects also.

Allow me to be boring and raise Rem Koolhaas as a study topic for I have just paid my pilgrimage to OMA Progress at the Barbican recently and coincidentally I read an article on the Architects’ Journal about Faust, Koolhaas and Berman all in one! (link: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/critics/oma/progress-at-the-barbican/8621415.article)

Rem writes in 2006 special edition of Domus, “Architects were ‘a contemporary Faustus, drowning in attention, but not taken seriously’. So away they went, ‘away from the triumphalist or miserabilist glare of media’ to record how their buildings were now being used. And to make a fat, glossy magazine, of course, occupying the role of architect and critic at once.”

and

AJ Senior Editor James Pallister writes, “Go and see it. Once there, to end with sociologist Marshall Berman’s thoughts on modernity, you can ‘make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, make its rhythms one’s own, [and] move within its currents in search of the forms of reality, of beauty… that its fervid and perilous flow allow’.”

After having read the AJ articles, Lefevre’s Social Space, Berman’s All That is Solid Melts into Air and having been to OMA’s progress, a feeling of helplessness arises. When in practice, all that is solid would melt into air. The manifesto, the ideal, the grand master plan and the ingenious prototype would all be the devil’s preys; and in turn, we and our works are our baits. Effortlessly, the system is perpetuated by people who buy into it but perhaps forget to effect a new order.

Weeks Three and Four: Power to the Masses

Politics of Amnesia, opening chapter of Terry Eagleton’s After Theory, suggests that the high brow theory is not over. After theory means after high theory, a new era in which everyone, not only the elitist philosphers and intellectuals, can be taught how to theorize. Theory has long been a field only for the intellectuals. Tracing back in history when words and printed books were rights to the upper class, and when the Bible was written in codes only could be read and preached by the priests, transmission of knowledge and theorization, as a result, have come a long way. Formerly coined “high theory” for the high society, theory has taken on a phenomenon in popularizing itself in the modern era.

So, what kind of fresh thinking does the new era demand?

“an interest in French philosophy has given way to fascination with French kissing” (2, After Theory)

Theory has now seeped down to popular culture and the everyday, evidenced in the Lady Gaga Sociology course in University of South Carolina. High Theory has been transformed to adapt to modern mentality, in a time more people are being educated than ever and knowledge is not exclusive. Thus, knowledge and critical thinking are applied to the issues relevant to the masses.

The Lady Gaga course will “look at business and marketing strategies, the role of old and new media, fans and live concerts, gay culture, religious and political themes, sex and sexuality, and the cities of New York and Hollywood.” Because of the fact that Lady Gaga appeals to the masses she deserves to be studied; it is the power of the masses in line with Eagleton’s take on postmodernism:

By Postmodern, I mean, roughly speaking, the contemporary movement of thought which rejects totalities, universal values, grand historical narratives, solid foundations to human existence and the possibility of objective knowledge. Postmodernism is skeptical of truth, unit and progress, opposes what it sees as elitism in culture, tends towards cultural relativism, and celebrates pluralism, discontinuity and heterogeneity. (13, After Theory)

Nothing is absolute; everything is under the scrutinization of the mass based on what influences their daily lives. Therefore, what appeals to the mass receives more attention and by attaining more attention such object becomes a subject! The wide dissemination of knowledge correlates with the development of postmodernism and Capitalism as well. The recent anti-Capitalist movement speaks of the power of the masses, of their desire to regain control over the elites which is in accordance with “After Theory”. Knowledge bestows power and with power the minorities could revolt against the establishment.

However, despites of increasing literacy rate and education level, a sign of a well-read/informed public, the future of an ideal society is still very grim because the solid foundations of civilization are still very rigid. With people still attaching to elitism and benefiting from exploitation nowadays, I think the shift of power depends on the mass. The Lady Gaga sociology course just signifies preliminary step in deposing establishment, further development lies on the hands of people willing to give up their private interests for a common good.

Lady Gaga sociology course http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11672679

Recent Wall Street Protest and Badiou

Zizek's speech (transcript) given at the recent Wall Street protest bears a striking relevance to our Theory 750 first reading on Badiou. Apparently, as the negative sentiments towards financial crisis (among lots of other crises which appear to be 'spectacles' and a dream that we have lived in) intensify and people are fed up with mythical Wall Street solutions and compromises from politicians; it's time to wake up!

Zizek does raise a fallacy shared by the civilized and democratic ones that capitalism and democracy are correlated. He rang the bell that it actually is not the case. The moral high ground embraced by those who believe in their correlation is a tool that the democratic countries have used to blame the communists, which through some brain-washing and propaganda has become a given!

It is utterly important to think critically for the common good of all. After the failure of capitalism, what's next?

Week Two: No Justice, Only Privilege and Profit

Modern Slaves of Dubai: The workers are waiting for the bus to bring them back to the camp after a hard day of work in the heat of Dubai.

The theme of this week’s reading is social mobility and dream. Las Vegas and Dubai are man-made modern marvels that demonstrate humans’, or say, capitalists’ endeavor in exploiting every resources in sight. However, with relatively more civilization and sanity, America’s creation of Las Vegas has created a comfortable home for Dave Hickey (author of Air Guitar) and thousands of happiness pursuers. However, Dubai in contrast is described as a “Devil Paradise”, where megalomania has been materialized with no restraints.

Las Vegas and Dubai are cities built on purely fantasy. Their appeals lie in their very conception. Illogical and boisterous, the births of Las Vegas and Dubai draw on our search for something exotic, distant and different. The more different the desert city is from the mundane city that one is living in, the more appeal it carries. The physical and geographical difference is directly linked to the development potentials. Its separation from pre-establishment nurtures a sense of venture and guilt-free sins. The deserts are a blank canvas, waiting to be drawn on, freely.

Making a desert habitable requires a lot of human and natural resources. In Las Vegas, there is exploitation in nature in irrigating a desert city. In At Home in the Neon, the hopeful. residents of Las Vegas find comfort in the Sin City because they are being accepted. Yet in Dubai, there is not only exploitation in nature but also in labor force and in laws. Doubtlessly Dubai has all the freedom it needs it is almost like playing SIMS City in real life. To supply labor force to build Dubai an ancient but almost extinct trade remerged – the slave trade. Putting Las Vegas and Dubai side by side for comparison, Las Vegas is more habitable for its openness to culture and social mobility; at least the work force is not slaves. Moreover, with the hope of moving up the social rank, they could start fostering a sense of belonging to a place. Unluckily in Dubai, where laws could be changed casually to tailor to the profits of the international investments, hopes of the work force extinguish.

Who cares about workers’ lives while the millionaires ski in a refrigerated dome?

Las Vegas people would feel at home because of being accepted and having a common ground. Yet in Dubai the gap between the rich and the poor is huge. People in the conception of the devil paradise adopt a capitalist mode of everything is weighted on profit motive. Flexible measures such as exemption from legal enforcement and lawful exploitation are all justified by the drive to develop. Human basic values are thrown out of the windows at the cost of capitalism as being the golden rule.

Doubtlessly designing the very iconic Burj Dubai will gain Dubai and its architects a place in the world record and the front-page. However as ethical practitioners, we must also consider the logistics and the system of creating architecture. City planners and architects’ duty does not merely stay at completing ever-growing towers and the biggest city in an extreme environment. The focus on the symbolic significance of the biggest and the tallest must be curbed by environmental awareness, human right condition, availability of resources and the happiness of its citizens.

No justice. Only privilege in Dubai.

The thinkers (architects, financiers, oil tycoons) who are on the privilege side need to reassess justice not on the scale of dollar sign, but of morality, social equality and environmental impact.