Guilt is good

[imomus]

Yesterday I was looking at photos of Tokyo Design Week. The student work contained a lot of recycled stuff; this bench, by a designer from Sushin Womens University, is made from the kind of old computer parts I hoard because I'm too guilty about their impact on the environment to throw them out. As public benches, they redeem themselves, and guilt is salved. A carpet by someone from Tokoku University turned out to be made from recycled plastic bottle tops. Looking at it, I found myself thinking "This work is guilty work, and guilty work is good work!"

Why is this work guilty? To answer that, I should quote my last article for AIGA Voice, "Conceptual Design; building a social conscience": "these designers share a concern with ethics and responsibility; one of the reasons the design they make is so often immaterial is their sense that the last thing the world needs is more objects, more consumer goods." Of course, it's the job of designers to fill the world with objects and consumer goods. So if there really is a new generation of designers trying to avoid this, they're guilty designers.

What is guilt? For a start, it's being unselfish. Don't take your own side—or the side of your own culture—just for the sake of it, just for ego, just because you're you; be guilty, be apologetic! See a bigger picture, take other people's perspectives and needs into consideration! Guilt is an internalisation of ethics, but I'd say it's an intuitive ethics rather than something we've made explicit to ourselves. We might have an aesthetic revulsion against certain things, extravagant and wasteful things, and we might experience that as guilt. And guilt is good.



I've been thinking about music, and thinking about decades. We're now half way through the 00s, so we're in a position to say what the dominant narrative of musical styles for the decade might be. Of course, one decade can contain many styles; we think of the 90s as the decade of grunge, but also trip hop, Britpop, loungecore, Shibuya-kei, and so on. Well, it seems increasingly clear to me that any future account of the pop music of the 00s will have to mention the folktronic meme. I've been playing with it since 2000, and you might think it would be over by now, but no, it continues to appear everywhere. Yesterday I mentioned a new "Freak Folk" singer called Viking Moses. Looking last night for a gig to go to, I saw that the choices were between Matt Elliot ("effortlessly switching from late nineteenth century folk tales to crisp 2003 intricate electronica at the drop of a hat") and a Russian outfit called Volga ("successfully combines experimental electronics, contemporary dance rhythms and original Russian folklore"). Now, it seems to me that pop music which so insistently stresses its folk elements is guilty pop music, pop music which wants to be more organic, more innocent, more wholesome, simple and rooted. Less pop, in fact. Folk poptronica is pop which, partly, hates itself. And that's good.

Guilt is deep in my aesthetic, and that's fine. You know, I'm not going to feel guilty about it. No, wait, I am! My favourite writer ever is Kafka, what more do you need to know? I'm a fashion muslim who wears robes and thinks that the people in the photos in the Times of India are much better dressed than the people in the photos in the Times of London. I'm on other people's side, not my own.

Each week I go to thematische Buchhandlung ProQM to browse all the latest visual culture books and magazines, trying to guage changes, trends, sensibilities. Last time I was there I picked up on two things; first of all, I decided that the Bjorky "tendril style" (Illustrator bezier curves doing something vaguely "folky") is looking tired, but that what's looking fresh, to me, anyway, is the even more folky "European migration geographies" style seen on the cover of Anarchitektur magazine. It's basically the decoration style of poor Polish immigrants, but it has something in common with the sensibility you develop if you thrift for your clothes, or even the unglamorous photographs of Ryan McGinley. It also infused an excellent, harrowing documentary I saw on Arte on Tuesday night, Patric Jean's La Raison Du Plus Fort, a 2002 survey of the French ghettos which exploded into violence earlier this month.

One problem with today's political class is that in abandoning left wing politics it has abandoned guilt. Bush and Blair seem pathologically incapable of remorse or self-doubt. The essence of left wing politics is guilt; Marxism is a middle class movement which tries to think on behalf of the working class. And that's fine. But there's a danger, of course, in aestheticizing poverty and demonizing affluence. The danger is that you forget the important fact that any progressive social movement should ultimately be aiming to make the working class disappear, and make those people who were working class as middle class as we are. The point is not to hate myself and my culture so much that I abandon my own laptop, but to love the poor enough to hope they all get an MIT $100 laptop. Then one day, when there are billions of broken laptops all over Africa, folk can turn them into benches and we can all feel a bit less guilty.

Comments

[300letters.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the whole post-Protestant materialist guilt thing.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the whole post-Protestant materialist guilt thing.

You're just guilty about feeling guilt. Relax, stop being so uptight, enjoy it!

[300letters.livejournal.com]

No I really do think its a post-protestant thing. I appreciate the humor, but I think this strikes at a core problem area in western cultures. Guilt is a concept that can only really exist with a short term or myopic cultural view. The post-colonialists would not have felt so 'guilty' if they had perceived the rise of China and India in the geopolitics of our post-industrial world economy. Take the long view. Allow the forces of chaos and change to work and this too shall pass.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I do think that guilt is part of liberalism's "pompous universalism". Thinking and acting on behalf of others can be pompous and patronising. Perhaps we should just be selfish and situated instead. But this view ignores how interconnected we all are; the rise of India and China is not "despite" the West, but because of it. Their rise depends on ours, and won't lead to our fall. The problem with this and/and view, though, is that the environment cannot sustain the material success of so many people. We need guilt, if only to save the environment.

[300letters.livejournal.com]

Sure but why "guilt" what unique benefit does that create, aside from my continued disbelief that that is in fact the correct terminology in this instance. There is a view amoung a subset of generally radical evironmentalists that we need to allow if not construct a crisis (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/gas.html?tw=wn_tophead_7) to cause real change.

Of course this view tends to come from the "consciousness" environmentalists like many of the old guard deep ecologists. Its the same view that led Marx to say thetransition to post-capitalism MUST be revolutionary despite the fact that his own argument ultiamtely supports a long term evolutionary process.

Think locally and the interconnectedness of the world will take care of itself. Venezuela is slowly eliminating the effects of poverty internally. Not by buying into globalism, but by new protectionism. Look out for your own and doing so with true intentions will result in great works.

Material success will ultiamtely force change if for no other reason than the wealthy will want to maintain their lifestyle when we run out of oil. Suddenly solar power becomes fashionable. Orbital was a little early with the eco-techno-chic bit, but Girl With the Sun in Her Head may one day become the global soundtrack.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't agree that selfishness and "acting local" is the answer. I think we need global planning, and for that to happen we need guilty electorates, because without them responsible global planners will never get elected.

[300letters.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but I haven't yet seen a global political organization that, in the long term, does more good than herm. How many nations are currently trapped in a cycle of credit/debt and forced to export to the US and the EU?
American federalism is great for the wealthy states, but the poverty in some parts of Arkansas and Mississippi and Louisiana is as bad as in the "third world." Delapitated towns with vacant eyes and shallow graves.
But I have a strong empiricist streak. So just because I have never seen successful largescale government I don't believe it. But hey, I'm willing to have my mind changed.

chip chip chip

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

I don't agree that selfishness and "acting local" is the answer.

I'm a firm believer in chipping away in my little corner of the world. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks did not invent civil rights. They arose from a movement of chippers. Rosa Parks was not the first black to sit at the front of the bus. Plenty of other chippers did it before her and were thrown in jail. But Rosa Parks was the test case that went to the Supreme Court.

I think it's Chomsky who talks about how the people in power want you to believe that you have to wait for that one great man or woman to come along and save you. And if that person is killed then you're shit outta luck until the next godlike leader comes along. The front page of The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/content/) had a picture of Rosa Parks' funeral with the headline "Finaly we can put civil rights behind us".

Have you read the book, and I'll bet you have, A Patern Language (http://downlode.org/etext/patterns/)? I love that book. It's not just about how buildings should be constructed but how towns should be laid out to reflect the lives and activities of human beings.

I have a friend who is a Landscape Architect who works for a very large firm and every time he is assigned the task of laying out a housing development he draws in some curvey paths in wooded areas with a covered bench or two where you can stop and rest and think. And every time the client looks at him like he is a lunatic and say's "we can fit ten more units there!" He has a sense of humor. He enjoys watching there faces contort when they see his drawings. He just keeps chipping away at them.

Forgive me for inserting a Winston Churchill quote here: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm".

I think I see your point about the value of guilt. People in the USA are finally beginning to feel guilt about the Iraq war. Far too late - too few journalists chipping away i suppose. But now that they feel the guilt they will no longer be able to support the guilt free phony cowboys who run this country.

Re: chip chip chip

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely agree with you on that last point.

I haven't read the Christopher Alexander book, and am rather afraid that if I do I'll turn into Prince Charles. In other words, that I'll be drawn from fringe anti-establishmentarianism to establishment anti-establishmentarianism. The latter category includes all sorts of wretched conservatives like art critic Brian Sewell.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I was actually going to post a comment asking what you meant but suddenly it all became clear to me sort of.

A carpet made of bottle tops?

[charleston.livejournal.com]

That's not very practical is it!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I want to add something; it might look like I'm contradicting my thoughts on Guilty Pleasures (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/86472.html) here, but I think you can distinguish ethical guilt (good) from aesthetic guilt (bad). Ethical guilt operates in the practical realm, and makes us vote for things that help others rather than ourselves, or try to save heat or drive the car less in town, because we don't want to make the situation worse. Aesthetic guilt has no practical consequences, and is simply the legacy of puritan cultures. There's no need to feel it.

Or is there? It may be that guilty aesthetic tastes (like the current folk fad) are inextricably linked to ethical issues like saving the environment. It would certainly explain why so many of these new folk arists are almost literally hugging trees in their artist pictures, or messing about in forests you know they've been driven to in cars (but the cars are edited out of the video). It may be that my taste for Islamic clothes, or Polish migrant decor, is linked very intimately to my politics. The ethical and the aesthetic are inseperable.

What I object to in the guilty pleasures mentality, therefore, is not that it's guilty, but that it's not guilty enough. In other words, if consumers are feeling guilt, they should find less destructive pleasures (of themselves and the environment) rather than bingeing on chocolate and manufactured pop.

Anyway, guilt vs. non-guilt is just one of the dialectics I bounce about within, and never resolve one way or the other. Another (and related) dialectic is deadness vs. energy. I'm grappling with this right now as I make my album. Deadness can be lovely (http://www.imomus.com/thought200502.html), but, as Blake said in his very dialectical musing "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", energy is eternal delight.

[henryperri.livejournal.com]

Maybe your taste for Islamic clothing and Polish decor is simply a contrarian reaction to common western styles. Kind of like how black fingernail paint, studded belts and blue hair dye are the western teenager's juvenile reaction to common American teenage aesthetic. Same with your analog baroque period. What's less relevant to western pop than baroque? Shouldn't artists/creative people feel guilt or shame about falling for such predictable psychology? But then maybe I feel guilty for taking the anti-anti position. Ah, well. Better leave this aesthetic guilt thing alone.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

Maybe your taste for Islamic clothing and Polish decor is simply a contrarian reaction to common western styles. Kind of like how black fingernail paint, studded belts and blue hair dye are the western teenager's juvenile reaction to common American teenage aesthetic.

Ah, but there is a difference: black fingernail paint, studded belts and blue hair dye look silly. Islamic clothing, on the other hand, looks nifty.

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

i agree, ethical views when made conscious shape your aesthetic taste. i don't quite understand what you mean by aesthetic guilt vs. ethical guilt. you rather seem to distinguish between destructive, self-denying guilt (bad), and constructive, self-critical guilt (good). religious guilt for instance never comes up with a productive change or critique, but only leads to neurosis, while post-colonial guilt heads for political change.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Then again, Nina, I notice you quote Oscar Wilde on your blog: "No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style."

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

caught me there..
i also have one of dilthey saying basically the same.
i'm actually just collecting different view points, it's a question and answer game. schopenhauer is next, but he's so depressing (guilty!) and i haven't found a tight enough quote yet.

and besides, i'm almost positive that wilde didn't mean it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think there's an ethics and a politics of homosexuality that is in such a different register that at first it's hard to see it as an ethics or a politics at all. Wilde to me is an amazingly subversive thinker, and so is Warhol, but they're quite unlike more conventional philosophers. Wilde tends to invert the doxa and replace everything with sex and aesthetics, whereas Warhol tends to resist emotional manipulation and centralize peripherals. He's so accepting of everything that he somehow questions everything, the ultimate passive aggressive. Zero "politics" as we know it, but when you put everything in a different place (emotions, colours, durations, icons) it's bound to be political.

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

do excuse me for deleting my last comment, i was just thinking out aloud.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Damn, I missed it!

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

i think, this was it.

[dubow-org.livejournal.com]

Guilt is good.....
Guilty pleasure is even better!

[kitaycev.livejournal.com]

A conscience is not a foot-rag - one can not wear it. And the projection of a leftists ideas on the middle class is not exactly the Marxism. I'd get this laptop with dynamo, just because it is an indispensable thing in a household.

guilt pays..

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

"....is made from the kind of old computer parts I hoard because I'm too guilty about their impact on the environment to throw them out...."




one of my first "design" projects in 3-design... made from the burned out light bulbs I hoarded in my first ever apartment alone because I really couldn't bring myself to throw them away...eventually the strange thought entered my mind and I put them in a bath to see if they could float, but the number of industrial kitchen sized jars my friend aquired also got me thinking maybe those too could float on water... well eventually it ended up like this, "Light bulbs packed in water"

eventually I built a light box for them and stacked up as many as I could make... they ended up winning me 1,000 dollars, money I needed for school, but I also used to buy a Pentax K-1000 (at a thrift shop where things of use are donated out of guilt, possibly) but also my Fender Strat, and my G and L bass...(bought from various pawnshops/second hand instrument shops)

...I don't think I should feel too guilty for feeling guilty.

[maybeimdead.livejournal.com]

Do you think there is any pompous universalism in your discussion of guilt?

better dressed

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

Re: better dressed

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Fabulous! All the mesh caps in the world are withering with shame!

[sonderangebot.livejournal.com]