[Reader-list] re: reader, boell, lab, adorno, jail, textz.com

[sebastian at rolux.org]

Britta Ohm wrote:
 > Oh Sebastian, I'm afraid this is going to be a bit polemic after all: pretty
 > easy to stick a hip, intellectually sounding argument together on Kafka's
 > back and even easier to put the label of fascism on it, the ultimate
 > arument-killer. Great. Perfect way to scare 'small authors' back into their
 > little holes of ineffectivity and self-delusion, let them rot there unless
 > they wake up to the new times we claim for ourselves and unless they bend
 > down to our authority of defining what's art now and what is not and what's
 > a text worth reproducing and what's not. Who's more of the petty bourgeois,
 > the pedantic property-holder (even if there is no intellectual property to
 > be held, really) or the self-righteous definer of 'new eras' which will
 > finally wipe out those who are declared to have been an obstacle for them to
 > unfold? If you ask me, which you obviously didn't, they are two sides of the
 > same coin, both lacking self-reflexion, with one in addition lacking
 > generosity and the other respect. I really don't think that dwelling upon
 > new (or rather old) dichotomies leads us any further.
 > By the way, I didn't introduce the term 'only artist' - which is why I set
 > it in inverted commas -, I picked up a term Andreas used in his mail: "so
 > long as the digital avantgarde has to play the 'I'm only an artist' card,
 > rather than offering a tenable political economy of copy culture, i doubt
 > whether those property regimes will go away so soon." The flip side is that
 > the one who is losing property rights can actually be identical with the one
 > 'playing around' with them - as I might lose out on royalties for our films
 > whilst I'm at the same time copying unauthorised texts or listening to
 > pirated music, sometimes without even knowing it. I think this is a more
 > interesting problem to think about rather than unleashing verbal attacks or
 > boycotts on 'small authors' of pre-war colouring.
 > All the best for your case  --  Britta

dear all, dear britta -- yes, what a silly way to introduce myself. still,
please don't think i was writing about you. i don't know you at all, and i
don't know anything about your case. the misattributed photograph. i was
writing about a 'figure', something structural. even though that may be a
lot less interesting. and when i say a fascist in the making, i don't say
the discussion has to stop there. when i say in the making, i'm refering to
a process. the outcome is not certain. a kleinbuerger in the twenties. he
may be a fascist later. that's all i can say. he may as well not. if the
small workers had been scared into their little holes of ineffectivity, had
bended down to the authority of defining what's work and what's worth
reproducing, we would not have seen the russian revolution. it's about
becoming. then, what you say about the two sides of the same coin -- it's
exactly adorno's argument in his minima moralia. part 18, asylum for the
homeless. the one that ends on "there is no right life within wrong life".
i guess the official english translation differs. adorno says: it is an
ethical must not to be at home at home. the individual's relation to his
property, if he still has any, is difficult. the only way would be to keep
evident that your private property does no longer belong to you. the amount
of commodities has grown beyond the point where any individual still had the
right to claim the principle of scarcity. still, you need property in order
not to be dependent and poor, which only would strengthen property relations.
but the thesis of this *paradoxie* leads to destruction, a loveless
carelessness towards things and, necessarily, towards humans as well. and the
anti-thesis is nothing more than an ideology for those who just want to keep
what they own. my translation may not be so great. but still. what i find
interesting is that adorno does not make this a dialectial relationship, or
a contradiction, but a paradoxon. paradoxon is very weak. eternal, not
historical. not collective. and that is the very point where i started to
think: keep adorno, free benjamin. benjamin states that the masses have a
right to change property relations. these are no longer small individuals.
i stuck with that quote for a while, and i have to thank ariane mueller for
pointing out to me what goes even further: refering to the capitalistic
exploitation of the film, benjamin states that it denies consideration to
modern man's legitimate claim to being reproduced. that's the furthest
i've come so far. there is a right to be copied. to me, that is one of
the most elementary, most wonderful and most productive contributions
to the discussion about "intellectual property". -- and then, yes, of
course, you are right. the 'only artist' was me. and i guess i totally
agree to andreas' argument. it's a very weak point. european even.
later, seb.