for my sins i am watching and surprisingly enjoying Andor
recuperation, as the situationists communicated it, has its conterpart
namely, putting ideas into pop culture which corrode it
i joke only slightly, but playing FF7 as a teenager did make me consider: what act would be unconscionable in the face of an existential threat to the planet or furthermore to a mass of humanity?
i think recuperation is taking radical ideas and paring them down till they can be sold to a mass market
i don't think an explicit call for violence against those using forced prison labour *is* recuperable
i think, generally, there is such a gross strain of pessimism running through the Frankfurt school, the letterists and the situationists (though my reading is hardly comprehensive)
I've previously used the term "adornian pessimism", but this equally could be "debordian"
especially Society of the Spectacle, while laying out an actual problem, seems to describe it as intractable, impossible to overcome
i do not rail against the analysis, i just think that it comes from a current of authors who, i think to be fair, had resigned themselves to mostly describing the world, the problem, and left absent or sparing any approach to overcoming this
and i feel a lot of this is a retreat from the possibility of mass politics
what the hell does this have to do with a star wars tv show?
well it takes as granted that the enemy are not only in power, but massively strong and capable
and then moves to show they have become, to some extent, complacent with their power
it elucidates an understanding that revolutions are made in blood, that factions in opposition have their own beliefs that cannot be papered over, that death can be sudden
I've been long fretting about the absolutely grotesque volume of plastic i have little choice not to have in my house,
even were i to avoid it with fruits and vegetables (which im aiming to do)
shampoo, bleach, salt, juice (and so on and so on) sits in my apartment like a waystation till the endlessly expanding dump
i think it lacks much of the idealistic bent of other related series, it accepts that getting your hands dirty and knuckles raw is inevitable
its not the apex of art and culture, but it seems like something a little different
much has to be considered as to its effect, material circumstances make the possibilities for change and art is not the driver of change, but it can shape, can mould