The underclass wants to become the overman!

[imomus]

I've discovered a connection between two battles I find myself fighting on Click Opera: the battle against people who think I should pay more attention to the downside of Japan, and the battle against purveyors of a 1980s-style identity politics focused on victimhood.



The connection became clear to me when I answered this anonymous comment in the early hours of this morning:

Momus' perception of Japan seems to be skewed by the fact that his mates are all successful creatives or else trust-fund kids; I mean, how many Japanese does he know who've been hospitalised through overwork, for example? I can count four among my Tokyo friends just off the top of my head, unfortunately. That's a side of this country subject to wholesale sweeping-under-the-carpet on this blog, unfortunately.

Now, I could have answered this by saying that I know very few trust fund kids, somewhat shun the ones I do know, and would much rather have dinner -- as I did on Monday night -- with a group of recent immigrants to Japan from Malaysia, people who get up at 6 in the morning to scour the markets for food ingredients for the Malaysian restaurants they cook in. Or I could have answered that Hisae's family, with whom I'm staying here in Osaka, are mixed Japanese-Korean. Hisae's mother runs a small clothes store on an arcade, importing items from China and Korea. (Neither Hisae's mum nor the Malaysians, by the way, complain about overwork.)

Instead, I wrote a mini-manifesto, between the lines of which anyone attuned to these things can clearly read the ideas of Marx and Nietzsche:

The fundamental premise of this blog is that you get to the essence of a culture via its talents, not its problems. Ability, as Joseph Beuys put it, is the true human capital. Now, of course there's a place for examinations of the stumbling blocks a culture faces on the way to its achievements. But I think the Dogs and Demons approach -- examining Japan through its problems -- does not get to the heart of Japan's amazing achievements, and its massive success. Problems are distractions from the essence of something, someone, or some place, not a key to understanding it.



The useful thing about this statement is, I think, that it expresses -- in the words of Joseph Beuys -- the single most powerful idea of Marxism: that ability, not money, is the true human capital. But there's also a Nietzschean element in the thought, an emphasis on contention, striving and ambition. The underclass wants to become, if you will, the overman. Problems and distractions cannot bend it from a historic act of will: the fulfillment of (in Marxist terms) its historic destiny to enjoy the fruits of its labour, and take the ascendent position warranted by its productive abilities.

Now that's what I call a left wing position! That's the long march! That's the shining future that justifies present austerities and struggles! Unfortunately, I think a lot of power has been sapped from the radical tradition by what I'd call "problem narcissism": the tendency to make problems, obstacles, or deficiencies the key to identity, and a destination in themselves, rather than mere distractions from the goal of dominance-through-ability. The result is the PC identity politics landscape we all know so well, with its emphasis on victimhood, on symbolic reparation and tokenistic compensation, on "respect" based on the hiding of (unchallenged) stigma via policed language, and, worst of all, on the built-in presupposition (so damaging) that all difference is bad difference, and must therefore be suppressed and spun out of view.

Anon's critique raises the spectre of class war in its association of success with "trust fund kids and successful creatives", but it's a phoney class war. As Beuys and Marx (and Nietzsche, for that matter) agreed, creative ability is absolutely key to all human ability. For Beuys, "everyone is an artist". Anon wants to say that rich and privileged people are the only artists, and that normal people are basically victims, falling by the wayside.

Of course victimhood is an important part of Marx and Beuys' thinking: Beuys said "Show your wound!" and Marx covered the problems of 19th century workers in enormous detail. The important thing is that Marx didn't end with that suffering, victimhood and failure. Marxism is a praxis dedicated to putting those who work, those who create, those who control the ultimate human capital of ability, in the place they deserve: the place of power, will, success and determination. Marx would have been appalled by the "problem narcissism" of identity politics, which -- like a sick man proposing you identify him entirely with an illness which is nevertheless unmentionable -- proposes the gaining of respect for "identifying deficiencies" ("deficiencies" mapped spuriously to identities based on difference: being a woman, being black, being gay) as the ultimate goal of radical politics.

Just as Japan reportage which looks at perceived problems (themselves, all too often, seen through an ethnocentric lens focused on "bad differences") rather than its core creative abilities as a nation misses the essence of Japan -- the Japanese people's extraordinary will matched to their great abilities -- so 1980s-style identity politics defines identity as a series of shortcomings, sees them as "bad differences" from the norm, and demands respect for them in terms which merely underline its bad faith; the perception it shares with its enemies is that it perceives difference as deficiency. And so political struggle gets turned into a series of semantic negotiations in which supposedly-bad differences are spun, if not into good differences exactly, at least into a series of respectful silences, compensations, tips of the hat, correct terminology (according to an endlessly-turning treadmill powered by stigmas which are never, themselves, challenged, probably because the stigmas encode the victimhood so essential to the whole enterprise) and "appropriate language".



I fundamentally reject the idea that this is a progressive politics. As I've said, this negotiation simply encodes more subtly the prejudice it seeks to rebuff. Progressive politics, for me, has to go back to Marx's basic, positive, clear and forceful idea (it was William Morris's too) that ability is the true human capital. We have to stop associating creativity with privilege or class. All human beings are creative. That, rather than problems or victimhood, is what's at the core of an individual, a class, a nation, and the species itself.

Comments

[charitypomaybo.livejournal.com]

great post, thank you

[eptified.livejournal.com]

My god, this is exhausting. "Victimhood is over", proclaims white male bohemian artist of upper-class extraction...

I personally think the most interesting things about Japan are its weaknesses, but there again I'm coming from a place where I've had to go to parties with people who study Japan for a living, and are as a general matter the most tiresome exceptionalist pricks. Japan is not so great at showing its wound - I don't think they've yet begun to praxis, in any meaningful way - but hey, that's their bag, and it's very "bad difference" of me to point that out, yes?

theorizing about people who theorize

[(Anonymous)]

i'm conflicted; while i agree with you about the stubborness of japan--and yes, some of them have a touch of smugness about their exceptionalism, they don't even need western academics to help them point it out either; in these respects i always call them the americans of asia.

but aren't you being a bit blind about your own theorizing tendencies while putting others down for it?

[crowjake.livejournal.com]

For sure, identity politics suck, but I do think that when you look at the west/anglosphere, you do stop at the failures. I think there is a lot of cool americanism and englishness which I rather like... i mean there are some cool facial hair aesthetics, and interesting community based projects which I find rather rocking, not to mention a whole load of cool ideas, like free speach etc etc... I mean political/social shortfalls are easy to comeby and good to assess... as japan's would be, especially for the japanese... though I think if the uk/us was as much psychological hell-hole as you often portray (to often illustrate points much more valid than their own premise)... I'd be a lot madder a lot quicker, and certainly would not be enjoying the stuff I have found.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting post. Had to read it a couple of times to really absorb your argument.

So how do the Japanese report themselves? Is what the West perceives as a deficiency discussed at all, and if so is it mapped to a more virtuous assessment?

The nations that are most dominant ( as per the FT report discussed here recently) are probably the hardest working and most creative - America is based on the idea that initiative, a work ethic, and being a creative entreprenuer can elevate one's standing - which in the US is about money status as opposed to ascending the class system ( like in Britain). It seems that all that effort is really directed towards becoming a consumer and Marxism has become a 'victim' of that. Don't the Japanese fall foul of the same consumerist disease?

Richard

re consumerist disease

[(Anonymous)]

richard, old chap, if you've ever been to japan, to tokyo or osaka, you would know just how much of an epidemic it is. it's heartbreaking to see the depths to which consumerism has poisoned the populace; or, if you like, the depths to which the populace has poisoned themselves with it.

at any rate, every time i'm in japan, i always think to myself: my god, these people put america to SHAME when it comes to consumerism.

now, the chinese, and HK in particular--that's a whole other ball game...

[(Anonymous)]

Slightly off topic: I just realize (12 years after its release) how good your "1000 twentieth century chairs" song is, and how well its stands the test of time. Really, that's magnificent songwriting. Beats every song on Odelay.

[gubia.livejournal.com]

f u

"problematic" language

[(Anonymous)]

nick, yes, this is 'left.' unfortunately, it's OLD left.

new left is uncomfortable with language like "ascendent" and "dominance" fearing as it does that it and all this "marching" will only lead to a replacement of the old hard ass ideologues (old right) with a new group of hard ass ideologues (the old left). don't you remember mai 68?

what about those who don't want to set up a new regime in place of the old. (go back and read some of foucault's fall outs with the marxists and maoists over this. they called him a conservative--because he didn't want to "march" "dominate" and set up a new "regime" of "power"!!!

you're still using the same old tools to try and build a new house. it's not that easy...

Re: "problematic" language

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

yes. surrender power.

Olympia was a mannequin, and the man who made her eyes broke her apart in front of Hoffman

[(Anonymous)]

reporting on the existence of problems in Japan, the problem of existence in Japan, in no way questions the creative abilities of Japanese people.
Also even invoking the spectre of political struggle, in Japan, in 2009, is laughable.
Do some leg work. Get someone to translate for you. Engage someone on the street, someone young, talk to them about either politics or struggle. You'll come up empty.
Someone will no doubt tell you about the struggle, ie the grind, for cash. Someone will tell you about Nori P. Still. Still talking about Nori P. Also the Michael Jackson Doc. This is it, Momus.

Whether people are being hospitalized from overwork or not is irrelevant.
Marx is irrelevant. Beuys is resplendent.

What the anon above, not myself so I am just paraphrasing (not really), seems to be stabbing at is this depiction of Japan which appears in your blog, spoken with the air of authority, spoken with the insecurity of someone clutching something dear, something unearned, is rosy beyond all proportion with the everyday realities. Whether your friends have money or not and how they earn it is irrelevant. You want to talk about a burgeoning creative place which by association to you, the one delivering the news, adds color to your coat. Some kind of greater east asian co-prosperity sphere, you tell the news of art and live in the magical isles and your rep grows, and so does the brand.
But living here and seeing the everyday is less idealistic. Also that you are perturbed by any mention of problems in Japan is confusing. You aren't some socially impaired basement anime exoticist, overseas, dreaming of a Japan you'll never go to. You've been here. Your orientalism seems willful. Magical thinking? Ask your shrink. Ask Copernicus about pushing limits. Ask someone in Japan. An internet link to a cool event in Koenji that hasn't happened in two years doesn't help. The kids are painting shit on canvasses that looks like VH1 logos from 2004 in hopes of designing a shoe. These are the people I know.
Perhaps you shouldn't try to tackle the existence of a nation as a problematic to throw some jargon at. And don't get mad at people who live in this biological art garden criticize it and your misconceptions.
Old news, and why bring it up, but I will. Your feathers were ruffled up by Marxy talking about goings on and more importantly not goings on in this country, and it conflicted with your ideas. Taking him on this fight was like E. Wilson taking on V. Nabokov in questions of Russian in Pushkin. He speaks the language and has done the research. Bad analogy. Marxy is no Nabokov. But the point remains. As inarticulately as I have levelled it. Perhaps it hasn't been conveyed at all, sorry.

Love ya

Re: Olympia was a mannequin, and the man who made her eyes broke her apart in front of Hoffman

[(Anonymous)]

yep. bad analogy. nabokov was the perv, so you'll have to switch it around

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Some interesting points popped up here while I was sleeping. I'm going to answer what seem to be the basic ones. First, ask a Japanese. That's absolutely what I recommend too, and in that spirit I'm going to tell you in detail what the Malaysian-Japanese I spoke to on Monday night told me.

First, the Japanese mother in the family told me about how she was in labour (giving birth to her new baby, who has a Malaysian father) for 36 hours, and that her entire extended family was in the delivery room with her stuffing golf balls into her anus to stop what she called "a tsunami" from emerging there. In retrospect she thinks this is what prolonged the birth so long, and was a mistake. (By contrast, Kahimi's baby, scheduled to have a super-natural-organic water birth with aromatherapy for palliatives, was in the end delivered by caesarian section because the doctors thought the pain and difficulty would be too much, and because the baby was too large. These two birth styles -- no extended family or golf balls for Kahimi! -- reflect a class difference.)

Then the Malaysian immigrant cook spoke to me. I asked him how well he was accepted in Japan, and he said fine, but noted that the Japanese are very strict at work and very lax at play. That division is very different from Malaysia, where people play and work, I guess, in somewhat the same spirit. He said that he really appreciates the Japanese sense of harmony and politeness, because in Malaysia people spend half the time arguing pointlessly with each other, and get nothing done.

Then I spoke to his 17 year-old daughter (by his first marriage to a Malaysian) and just asked her if she liked Japan, and if she wanted to live in Malaysia again at some point in the future. She's been in Japan just three months, but wants to stay here all her life. She loves it.

hyperuberextremeconsumerism

The danger we face in abstracting terms like "ability" and "creativity" is extracting them from all contexts in which they apply. I'm not at all sure I have any problem whatsoever with consumerism per se. Bring it on -- it is, after all, simply the commercial expression of making things, of ability, of production. There are no workers without products, and no products without workers. What I have problems with are extreme inequality of access to consumer items, irresponsibility when it comes to environmental issues, and consumerism that sacrifices other values to pointless consumption. That's why I've paid particular attention to the Slow Life movement in Japan. I'm convinced that the thing-after-consumerism will emerge from the societies which are most frenetically engaged in it. I think Japan is poised (particularly in terms of a growing interest in sibling differentiation from China) to pioneer post-consumerist values, and that's one of the main themes in the Aftergold exhibition I'm here to put together (or "feather my costume with", as the cynical Anon-Johns prefer).

wtf

[(Anonymous)]

"What I have problems with are extreme inequality of access to consumer items, irresponsibility when it comes to environmental issues, and consumerism that sacrifices other values to pointless consumption."

good god; this is unbelievable. sounds exactly like the neo-liberal pabulum zizek is always raving against...

not to mention the original post was talking about excessive consumerism in particular. which is the vibe you certainly get in japan...and america too...and hong kong. there's absolutely no denying this...

[st-ranger.livejournal.com]

I don't mind your rose colored glasses for Japan, it's just that you have to put the shit colored glasses on when you look at the west, invariably. Both cultures have roses and shit, so we might as well be clear-eyed about things, or clear-mindedly pinkglassed.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Click Opera is read by a Western audience. I believe strongly that people should put their own houses in order. When you put other people's houses in order, that's called war.

[(Anonymous)]

All human beings are creative. But some bring shame upon themselves and their social group. Shame can be avoided. If the individual avoids social exposure, shame will be avoided.

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

I like your comment, anon.

[robotmummies.livejournal.com]

i am thinking the concept of "consumerism" is always framed as some kind of aesceticism ("non" consumerism) vs greed (consumerism) but it can be a bridge between supposed alternatives if it is expanded to mean the central role production and consumption play in human self-conceptualization in general. i think economics is our paganism. victimhood as capital is an interesting idea

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're echoing some of Erich Fromm's ideas in To Have or To Be. Asceticism is not the answer. (http://www.frieze.com/comment/print_article/to_have_or_to_be/)

[(Anonymous)]

we should help each other and love each other. stop to the dictature artistique. ability has to be shared and not used as a private power over others! fuck the selfish. fuck the hipster "paraitre" when people suffer right next to them. Fuck the elite!

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

help the selfish by fucking them. wait, don't help the selfish. fuck, dissonance.

[green-paint.livejournal.com]

At work yesterday, a speech was given by an sociologist (I think his name was Miyano or Miyadai) for the local PTA - his theme was suicide. According to him, the reason 30,000 Japanese people a year kill themselves is because sometime after the war, Japan became a society in which individuals lived and work for the good of the economy, as opposed to for themselves and their own happiness.

This shift in perogatives, combined with the tradition of suicide in Japan and the tradition of striving in Japan produces the kinds of stresses which result in people offing themselves.

According to the professor, Japan in the Meiji-era and before did indeed have a strong drive to suceed and work hard, but that in the end, people lived `for themselves` and not for the sake of the company. Where he gets his information, I don`t know!

(now that I am a `company man` I can see that some of my colleagues do plainly live for the company, which rewards them with bonuses and raises. But there are a very few people that seem to prioritize their interests and go home at the end of the day)

Now, these aren`t my opinions, but I thought them interesting to share, even though it is indeed concentrating on the negative, which in turn produces pessimism, which is no good for anyone in my opinion.

[green-paint.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I asked my wife (Japanese) about this, and she said his theory was too pat and a little spurious sounding, a comment a few other Japanese friends have echoed.

[pixelmist.livejournal.com]

Have you read much Badiou, Momus? His "Ethics" and "Meta-Politics" fit in VERY well with your assertions here. For a breezier introduction to his philosophy, check out the more recent "Pocket Pantheon."

Momus, Japan, UK

[(Anonymous)]

There is always this thread that the U.K. and the West generally never appreciated Momus, while Japan is a creative environment that does understand Momus. Yet, when I last went into HMV on Oxford Street, London and Other Music in N.Y., there was a large selection of Momus cds, yet when I went into HMV in Shibuya last year they only had one Momus cd. Are you sure that you're not as appreciated in the U.K.?

[(Anonymous)]

Your ideas here sound good but I wonder whether they really map onto reality. Have the "victims" really been fetishising their victimhood? The expression that springs to mind when thinking about the gay civil rights movement of the 70s and 80s, for example, is "gay pride" - ie, an expression of difference, and a positive spin on that difference. As for the language games, they work both ways, don't they? There are the newly-coined PC expressions, but there also reclamations (queers, dykes etc.) which attempt to put a positive spin on what have hitherto been negative expressions.

And then, what are actual victims supposed to do? Keep quite about their victimhood? Ideologies don't come from nowhere, they are situated, as you so often remind us. And you're speaking as someone who has essentially experienced no victimisation (I mean, all you can come up with is is that you didn't like your boarding school and they were mean to you at Creation Records!). It's a bit galling to have the dead white males of this world telling "victims" that they should shut up about it.

[(Anonymous)]

And so political struggle gets turned into a series of semantic negotiations in which supposedly-bad differences are spun, if not into good differences exactly, at least into a series of respectful silences, compensations, tips of the hat, correct terminology (according to an endlessly-turning treadmill powered by stigmas which are never, themselves, challenged, probably because the stigmas encode the victimhood so essential to the whole enterprise) and "appropriate language".

The trouble here is that you ignore the way that the old terminologies change their meaning. They start neutral, then become negative, get appropriated as general terms of denigration. There was a time when, for example, "retarded" or "spastic" were relatively neutral medical terms. But once they got appropriated as insults, then they obviously couldn't be used in the same way. It's not just the PC brigade making up new words, it's that old words get degraded.

[(Anonymous)]

Problems are distractions from the essence of something, someone, or some place, not a key to understanding it.

This is silly. You need both the positive and negative perspectives of something to understanding it. After all, you can find something positive in anything. A description of Mussolini's Italy that talked mostly about how he got the trains to run on time would hardly give us a rounded portrait, would it? And how does this square with your writings on the U.S., where you almost exclusively focus on its problems?

[(Anonymous)]

I have to agree that your anti-PC argument seems to come from a position of privilege. You assume that everyone is like you, in a position to achieve what they want to achieve if only they focus on the positive. Stop bally well moaning and get on with expressing your creative abilities! But the trouble is some people can't do that. They're too fucked up by their circumstances. They need help. And therefore they need people to recognise that they need help. And they might never entirely recover from their circumstances, because their circumstances might be out of their control. And therefore they will continue needing help. They might never be able to entirely not be victims, but they will nonetheless do better if society at large recognises them as victims. Sure, there are people out there jumping on the "victim" bandwagon when they'd do better just getting on with what they've got. But that's a marginal issue, not the main one you want it to be.

I've noticed that very often your arguments, ostensibly argued from a Left position, end up looking like a Right position. The anti-PC argument is one of them, as is your anti-human rights argument.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Human rights and PC are totally Tony Blair, ie centre right politics. If you want anti-PC and anti-rights arguments, look to leftists like Badiou and Zizek.

[(Anonymous)]

We have to stop associating creativity with privilege or class. All human beings are creative. That, rather than problems or victimhood, is what's at the core of an individual, a class, a nation, and the species itself.

There's something almost libertarian about this. All human beings are not creative, but they are all potentially creative. And whether they turn out creative or not may well have a lot to do what class they are or what privileges they have. Those who have to expend all their energies just surviving or helping their families to survive are probably going to far fewer gallery openings than others. Those who have the benefits of education are probably going to be a lot more imaginative about how they deploy their talents than those who haven't, etc., etc.

[(Anonymous)]

But surely that doesn't really explain the fact that many of the most beautiful craft work is produced by the very poor, people not far above subsistence level. Look at the average middle-class family in the developed world and what they mostly do is consume. Look at peasant cultures until very recently and craft/decoration are often an intrinsic part of their societies. It seems, sadly, that once we can buy it in and have someone else make the choices for us, we give it all up. Perhaps human beings are just lazy?

Veggie Shokudo

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Momus,
A pleasure to meet you tonight at Yoyo's. Hope you enjoyed the food and reconnecting with Koenji. If you have the time, why don't you drop by the TAB office to say hi to Paul and the rest of the team? Cheers and see you around,

Darryl

Re: Veggie Shokudo

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, great to meet you all! I got a guided tour afterwards of the Shiroto no Ran areas, and the Asoko clubhouse!

[(Anonymous)]

"(Neither Hisae's mum nor the Malaysians, by the way, complain about overwork.)"

Oh, that's alright then. From your highly representative control group we can safely
disregard illness (not to mention death) by overwork as not really an issue in Japan.

Pat, to say the least.

Tell that to my two friends who lost their fathers while in early childhood, thanks to the 残業 culture.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah.... they aren't exactly held to or even have access to the kind of duty that fells overworked Japanese. Restauranting and officework have very different failure risks and stress schedules. Completely different emotional environments.

[(Anonymous)]

Great post. Dismissing the Japanese Way simply because they have a relatively high suicide rate (or some other Inexcusable Fault) would be to miss out on a lot of good ideas. But it seems Westerners--or at least Americans--are constitutionally disposed to cynical snarkiness.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus takes a swing at victim culture, political correctness and human rights... have you been reading the Daily Mail or something?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-320038/So-human-rights-really-violated.html

no abilty no money no soceity

[(Anonymous)]

leave the capital,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
........................what else was it

"talents, not problems"

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's necessary to make this an either/or proposition. And as an American, I don't get how you get to the essence of our culture w/o looking at slavery - which is definitely a "problem." -Robyn

Re: "talents, not problems"

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In my text I don't say problems shouldn't be looked at, but that they cannot be allowed to become an end in themselves, or the kernel of a politics.

I planned to add -- or rather make specific, since the idea is present in Nietzsche -- that identity politics and Christianity have a lot in common, notably an emphasis on sacrifice, and the idea of a magical transformation of losing into winning.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Riding the shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo, after publishing this blog about ability being the true capital, I passed a mysterious building entitled Ability Bank.

lolz

[(Anonymous)]

keep digging that hole, old chap...

the tyranny of the capable

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

what do we do with the losers, the lame, the incapable, the ignorant do-nothings who fail at putting on their own shoes and have bad haircuts and can't understand when we explain to them the simple truth

Re: the tyranny of the capable

[(Anonymous)]

we ought to judge societies precisely over how they treat these so-called lumpenproletariat. we've already seen in history what the most heartless of societies like to do with them...