The Shit Sandwich Conundrum

Perhaps a strange title to today's blog but all, I'm sure, will become clear soon. "The Shit Sandwich Conundrum" is the name I give to a scenario when you have two choices and both of them are unpalatably bad. Its like having the choice of a shit sandwich to eat or a shit sandwich to eat. Whichever you choose both are shit sandwiches. "Why is this relevant to anything?" I hear you cry. Well that's what I have to explain now.

My primary motivation for this blog is political and this is because it seems to me that there have been a number of scenarios recently where the shit sandwich conundrum applied. Our American friends have a choice between a moronic, self-aggrandizing fool and a corrupt, corporate liar which is all very "shit sandwich". Here in the UK recently we had the choice of the corrupt EU or the boorish "Little Englander" mentality. The latter won. But, of course, it doesn't matter who wins in the "shit sandwich" scenario because, either way, you're going to be chowing down on shit.

What are we to do in such a scenario? It seems that a lot of people think we should accept our fate and start munching. I notice that yesterday comedian Sarah Silverman, formerly a supporter of Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee for President of the USA, now thinks that those who cling to their beliefs that Bernie was the man for the job are, and I quote, "ridiculous" to argue that it should be "Bernie or bust". Their refusal, like her, to give up on Bernie and, instead, fall in behind Hillary Clinton, one of the afore-mentioned shit sandwiches, provokes ire and insults from Ms Silverman. It seems that she thinks that even though some Democrats may have been demonizing Mrs Clinton for a year and saying all the bad things they could think about her now, somehow, they should just forget about all that as if it had never happened. Ms Silverman prioritizes expediency over principle. No doubt, if asked, she would argue that the Clinton shit sandwich is slightly more palatable than the Donald shit sandwich. But its all shit Sarah!

Of course, for the shit sandwich conundrum to be a genuine and real problem, which I think it is, then the stakes have to be real. With my American example I think that's very much the case and I, an outsider to that spectacle and merely watching the depressing show, cannot see a single redeeming factor about either candidate. In a similar way, there wasn't much redeeming about either choice in the Brexit debate. Its not as if the EU is some repository of goodness or that British politicians are any better or worse than European ones. Either side, from my perspective, was equally as shit. And the idea of slightly less shitty shit is a thoroughly shit argument. If that's what you find yourself reduced to then you surely must realize that something greater is wrong. And that is that politics itself is shit from top to bottom. Even in the rather parochial confines of the debate surrounding the leadership of the British Labour Party, a party currently riven with splits and arguments, the choice is between a lifelong left wing oddball, Jeremy Corbyn, (who is the Bernie Sanders figure here) and a man who barely seems to be from the Labour Party at all, Owen Smith (the Hillary Clinton). The former has spent his life disobeying his party and espousing left wing causes whilst the latter has suddenly found lots of reasons why he supports Labour causes yet mysteriously never seemed to before. The first has popular support from the party's members but would probably never win a General Election, the latter is all spin and PR and enrages many party members because he is so obviously a fake. So that's a double dose of shit all round.

I find myself asking how things come to this and I think the answer is that politics has become disengaged from what it ideally is and from what it actually should be. "Politics" comes from Greek and is, in so many words, "the business of the city". The Polis was the Greek city and so politics is how you run such places. It is, ideally, something that each citizen, the people who live in cities, is involved with. Except in our modern societies it isn't. So many of us have abdicated responsibility for this to so-called professional politicians. These professionals, however, are widely open and exposed to corruption and so the people charged with the business of the city become people channelled into serving other interests. British members of parliament yearly claim all kinds of ridiculous expenses as a privilege of their supposed service which, in the past, has been channelled into providing comfortable horse stables for a member's horses, moats for expensive houses or payment for the employment of family members. Some British parliamentarians also feel the need to claim money for taxi journeys of 100 yards or a pair of socks. On the other hand, Government contracts are awarded by politicians to companies who then, mysteriously, become the employers of the same people when they leave office. I'm only scratching the surface here.

My fundamental point here, and it depresses me that it might come as a shock to some people, is that real politics is about me and you, adults with the right to vote. But its not just about voting. In fact, that's almost the least important thing here. Its mostly about taking an active role in society and recognizing that its actually your responsibility as a citizen that is important here. I always say to myself whenever any unpopular policy is passed that if 10 million people stood in front of the building concerned and refused to move until the policy was changed then it would change immediately. Because people DO count and they DO matter but when we get apathetic and just let it pass because we have life to live or things to do or its not worth the hassle well that just let's whoever is responsible off the hook. And that's mostly what happens in our societies. We let those responsible off the hook. We imagine that there are "other people" whose job it is to run the place. We let slide the notion that, as citizens, its our responsibility to hold every politician and political decision to account. Gandhi did not let this responsibility slide. His movement of peaceful protest, in effect just sitting in the street until the change came, freed India from the British Empire. 

Gandhi's example is quite startling. His example is that any change worth making will take an effort. Nothing comes easily. Gandhi's campaign did take years to achieve its end. But, of course, you can sit back and do nothing. Well I don't know about you but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to choose between this shit or that shit. I don't personally want to have to chow down on either. And in the current situation with the professionalized political class that we have this is all we will ever get offered for you can bet that the other interests in society will keep wanting to push their stooges forward. Of course, there are men and women of conviction and principle in politics. But they are few and far between. My point, however, is that real politics is not about people who call themselves politicians. Its about citizens and being an active one rather than a passive one. Because, it seems to me, if you're happy to zone out and let everyone else get on with it well then what motivation have those that do got to take any care or concern over your needs?

Now in the Star Trek universe there is a famous scenario called the Kobayashi Maru. It is a test designed to test all prospective Starfleet Academy cadets in that fictional world and the point of the test is that it is a no-win scenario. Whatever is done during the test destruction (for some) is sure to follow. I mention this scenario here because it seems to me to have some similarities with the shit sandwich conundrum. In my conundrum we all have to eat shit. In Star Trek someone is going to die. The Star Trek scenario tests character and I think that the shit sandwich conundrum does too. This is not necessarily because I think that in real world human politics everyone is going to die (or eat shit) anyway. To be honest, if we think that then why bother? No, to act politically at all is to believe that things can change, can be different and can be ordered better. That's what Gandhi thought, its what Nelson Mandela thought and its even what the original founders of the USA thought. The shit sandwich scenario tests character because it addresses each citizen individually and asks them if they are going to take responsibility for their habitat, their city, their world. If no, then oh well. You handed over your future. If yes, you still may fail but at least you have a stake and you make yourself heard and, thus, noticed.

My ultimate point here is that real politics bypasses politicians. Real politics isn't professional. Its people, just people. Its people coming together with a common mind about things beneficial to them all. Maybe its a bit hippy or sappy. Maybe you find it all just a bit emotional of me. But its true. Politics is just the expressed will of the people, of any people who deign to take part. There are many who will laugh and smile if you choose not too. It makes their agenda that much easier to bring into effect. So next time you blame a politician for something ask yourself what you did to effect change politically recently. Because it all really starts and stops with the person in the mirror.

Mob Rule

This blog is not going to be very much fun to read. To be honest with you I'm pretty depressed and downbeat. For a change this is not simply a matter of my own circumstances but rather a reflection of what I see in the world. Its dull, grey and rainy outside as I write. When I woke up, about an hour ago, the dull ache I know so well was there somewhere inside my brain. Sometimes, in the past, this has meant that I am to be psychologically and emotionally fragile for the day. But today I think its more to do with a sense of frustration with society at large that I have been feeling quite intently for weeks now.

There are numerous world events affecting me at the moment. These are, let's be blunt, political things and they are vexing. One is the sight of refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe where they imagine better lives and chances of survival await them. Many don't make it because the journey leads to their death. A few months ago there was a picture of a dead boy, maybe only 3 or 4 years old, washed up on some beach somewhere. The media seized on this and wailed and gnashed their teeth. "How can a little boy die this way?" they asked. "Isn't it sad?" they said. Then they moved on to the next thing. These people never seem to ask what could be so bad that the boy's parents, and those like them, would risk their very existence to try and get from where they are to where they want to be. Its just as if people are magicked up from nowhere and have no past lives or context for their actions. People don't think it through or look deeper. These people are just there.

Meanwhile, in the UK, and in related news, we are having a referendum to decide whether we wish to remain part of the EU or not. There are sharp and polemical fault lines in the debate where the vast majority of the written press, historically a factor in political debates in the UK, are in favour of leaving the EU. Virtually all of this press is owned by right wing people (most of whom seem to live abroad) who, let's be honest, viscerally hate the EU because it is something over which they have no control. Newspaper owners are used to being the ones with leverage rather than the ones who have to do what someone else tells them. Every day we have increasingly ridiculous scare stories to the effect that the UK is full of foreign criminals,  our borders (which it is claimed we don't control) are like open gates to whoever wants to come here and we will all be Muslims ruled by Sharia Law in a decade if we do not leave the EU. Throw into the mix the fact that we can blame the EU for wanting all our money and the Leavers have quite a strong mix of selfish concerns to use as a propaganda battering ram. After all, if you can claim that your opponent is letting in all the swarthy foreigners to steal your country AND is also wanting you to pay for it you might think you have a good case. 

This debate about "Brexit" as it is popularly called here is notable, however, probably for one main thing: the complete lack of understanding of the issues by almost everyone concerned with it, for or against. Nearly every "fact" pertinent to this debate is questioned (and questionable) and it is way beyond the ordinary person to even get a handle on the issues involved in being involved in a block of at least 27 nations who exist to deal with their existence in the world across national borders. One side says we shall be overrun by foreign hordes whilst the other says if you vote to leave then we will all be destitute in a decade. Its a debate to see who can scare people the most and so push them to mark their cross in the appropriate box come June 23rd which is polling day. All in all, this is a thoroughly depressing spectacle and a demonstration that, quite frankly, this debate is beyond regular people. Its too complex, too big and too important to be decided by the mass of people who are simply not equipped to examine the issues properly or thoroughly enough.

When this thought occurred to me the other day a light suddenly came on in my mind and it was fundamentally at odds with what our Western civilization has come to believe and stand for. This civilization believes that democracy, one person one vote, is the highest expression of political polity that there could be. It is a cornerstone of all such societies that all adults should be able to vote and this is based on the beliefs that everyone is equal and so should have an equal voice. No qualification is required to be this way. Simply be an adult and be alive and you can register and vote. In some places, though not I think in the UK, criminals in prison can even vote, their criminality is not thought to trump the fact that they are human adults just like all the rest. This belief in democracy, in one person one vote, is very deeply engrained. But what happens to this ideal when the mass of the population are uninformed or willing grazers of nefarious interests? Can the belief in one person one vote then be a tool for bad?

I'm starting to think that democracy is just ideological bullshit. For a start, I don't believe that everybody is equal and I certainly don't think that every viewpoint is equal. What's more, I don't think anybody else does either. I don't think that you reading this now does. Not, at least, if you think about it. Of course, we all think that some views and people can be better than others and, complicating matters, we don't agree on which are better and which are worse. This all raises serious issues and not least when the history of the human race (and, granted, people in general don't often tend to see the bigger picture because they are so wrapped up in themselves) shows that we as a species have been moving together more and more as history moves on. Our history is a history of moving to live together, creating huge cities of millions of people in the process. But when you are going to live cheek by jowl with lots of other people problems are going to arise. Police departments to administer our laws and bring people to justice are relatively new developments in the grand scheme of things. Before about 200 years ago there was no such thing as the police in any nation. This became necessary as a consequence of the coagulation of people in the same places.

And what about these nations themselves? Well, they haven't really been around that long either. Go back a measly 2000 years and the map of the world is unrecognizable. Countries, as we know them now, don't exist and won't for centuries. And yet, here and now, we can have political campaigns by people claiming to "want their country back" or "make their country great again". These people don't seem to realize that the countries concerned are mere historical particularities. Nothing is or was ever set in stone about them. The ideas of these countries are figments of various people's fevered imaginations, ideals they wish to espouse or promote for reasons both good and bad. This leads to what I often call a "pulling up the drawbridge" mentality and I can see it in both American and British political debate. Within this mentality your ideas of your country are literally a castle in your mind and your opponents are those who threaten to invade it. So what do you do? You pull up the drawbridge and deny access to all those you don't like. This might be by building walls or withdrawing from political and economic unions. The thought is the same. I stand back and stare. What does it matter what country you come from? A while ago none of these countries existed. America, hilariously, is actually a country that was basically stolen at gunpoint by the white people who came from Europe. Some of their descendants now claim to want "their" country back! The lack of self-awareness or broader historical awareness is staggering. I ask simply "Does it say anything important about anyone what piece of land they were birthed on?"

Let me be clear here. Everyone alive has a cultural and social background and we are creatures that are formed and developed by such things. I don't want to belittle that because many of us find it important and we can't really do any other since we seem made that way. But we should not confuse this with a belief that, in abstraction, what country you were born in is remotely important. Countries are mere time-conditioned entities that come and go on a constantly moving timescale. The same democratic belief which informs us that everyone is equal and so deserves an equal vote also tells us, if we apply it honestly, that an American is worth no more than a Jordanian and a Russian is worth no more than a Chilean. We are all just people. Donald Trump would not agree here. He tweets with the hashtag #AmericaFirst on his tweets. So presumably he sees the world as a contest between competing nations. Maybe he thinks that Americans are inherently worth more as people. I don't know. In the UK those in the Leave camp seem to be made up of a large proportion of people who think that the problems of people from other countries are something they can and should ignore. Such "other" people certainly should not be allowed to share in what's "ours". This issue of nationality is thought to say something fundamental about a person as a person. But does it? Does a line on a map indicate who matters and who doesn't?

There is much pressure in the modern world to conform and to buy into the narrative. I don't know what it must be like to be Arab-looking in America or the UK today but I imagine it can't be good. The narrative is increasingly pushed that such people are "our" enemies and are a danger. "They" want to kill us. "They" want to take over. Media organisations are quick to hijack such discussions, discussions which are only ever powered by soundbites that coalesce into a sort of narrative of "things that are understood". This narrative is more often than not highly questionable if not full of outright untruths. But it doesn't matter now. Its common knowledge. The people in general, even if they don't fully believe it or overly think about it, are used to hearing it and habit is, more often than not, enough to convince people of things. (Just one reason I don't watch or listen to regular news or read newspapers.) This is why various news organisations just plough on and on with the same thing. Say things often enough and people come to believe them. Or, at least, some will. And maybe that will be enough. In UK context this means that people regularly overestimate how many EU people are in the UK or how much of "our" money it is taking. They are told that hordes invade us daily. The truth is always rather less than it has been painted. But conventions are created and conforming to them becomes expected. It becomes harder and harder to stand out against the crowd even as it becomes more and more necessary to do so. 

The question I ask myself is if these hordes fed half truths, lies and propaganda by those who want to influence others in their favour should get to dictate the circumstances of my life. This problem is not a new one and was, incidentally, considered in the formation of the USA. The problem is known as "the tyranny of the majority". The issue is that if a side can get enough people to agree with it then it wins. This is based on the idea, of course, that we are all equal. Numbers will out. But is this right or fair? All true democrats would say yes. But I'm starting to think no. It is not liberty if you must go along with any hair-brained, nonsensical or downright wretched idea just because any number of people you may well be right to consider selfish or degenerate fools think differently. This is the tyranny of the majority. Another word for it, in modern media context, is the "zombiocracy". There was a film a while back called "Idiocracy" that expresses pretty much the same thought. And we live in a world today where people with various nefarious intents use their wealth and influence to convince people to support certain ideas which are quite plainly detrimental to people at large. These people use democracy to their advantage. Because democracy is simply a numbers game they seek to buy off or otherwise persuade as many as possible to their side of the argument. Right and wrong, pure morality, has nothing at all to do with this and its important to note that. Democracy is not moral nor must it lead unerringly to moral choices. Its just a way of deciding things based on certain assumptions. America is a supposedly democratic nation and yet it seems to kill more people, at home and abroad, legally and illegally, than anybody else.

I increasingly come to think of society as a trap. Its certainly a game that some people play. In America tens of thousands of people are shot with guns every year. There isn't a month without a mass shooting (defined as 4 people or more shot to death by an assailant). No other developed country kills as many of its own citizens with guns as the USA does. And yet its people are seemingly happy to let this carry on. If you are an American who does not want to live in a society which is basically a large gun store and shooting gallery all combined in one its too bad. Democracy decrees you're "shit outta luck" to use the words of Dirty Harry. Too many Americans, and too many powerful ones, are of the opinion guns should be relatively freely available in a world in which, for any sane mind, the more guns there are, the more people will be shot by them. The tyranny of the majority kills. When you see the arguments of gun advocates in the USA it chills the bones. I openly wonder how people can both think this way and get so attached to an instrument of death. But they do and they are and their views are thought by the democratic process to be equal to and just as valid as yours. Let's examine one.

It is said by gun advocates that even if guns were restricted the bad guys would still get hold of them anyway. The inference is then that there is no point to their restriction as it would make no difference. Is this a valid point of view? I don't think so. Firstly, even if it were true, so what? People can get hold of drugs anyway but most of them are still banned. Their availability to bad people does not stop their restriction on other grounds and the spending of millions of dollars to restrict their dispersal. Women can get back street abortions but it doesn't stop many gun-toting people trying to ban them legally. Second, even if bad people could still get hold of weapons is that any reason to make the whole process much easier and legal? No, it isn't. Bad people will always break laws if they choose to but we don't have laws based on what bad people might do regardless. We have laws based on what we think is right and safe for society. There is clear evidence from around the world that gun restrictions limit deaths and not just from people killing each other but from people killing themselves. Guns are a major instrument of suicide as well. Less guns, less deaths. So for people to say, as an ex-friend I had to block kept saying yesterday, that this "is not about guns" is quite simply false. It is about guns because where there aren't any no one gets shot. In both Australia and the UK, both places where guns are highly restricted, there hasn't been a significant domestic mass shooting for over 20 years. A reminder here: there is at least one in America EVERY MONTH. So what, as an American, do you do if you don't want to live in that kind of society? Its seems to me there's not a whole lot you can do and certainly not quickly. Democracy is a numbers game. And that's all it is. If the gun-toting folk outnumber you tough luck.

I've been quite depressed recently by the number of people, old people set in their ways, grumpy at the "foreigners" who they think are changing "their" country, who have been coming out of the woodwork. "Freedom" from Europe is regarded by these people as "independence" from various phantoms they have conjured up. I see it at merely ignorant selfishness. It is clear that many of these people cannot discuss the subjects relevant to the discussion. They have been fed with their propaganda from their outlets of choice and have become firmly convinced of their unchallengable views. It remains possible that the Leave camp may even win the referendum and the UK's drawbridge would be pulled up. No one has remotely a clue what this would mean going forward but many don't seem to care. Much more important to them is a largely figurative opportunity to assert themselves no matter how ignorantly or unedifyingly. The chance to raise a rampant middle digit to some amorphous enemy seems compelling to them. And I think it stinks. Of course, I don't really have another way forward. The truth of Churchill's assertion that democracy is the "least worst" form of government is well borne in on me. It is just one more absurdity of life, one more dead end.  Democracy is not a good thing. Its a least bad thing. Its a corrupt thing, an abused thing, a means to bad ends. Our only comfort is that it is not something worse. It is the terror of brute minds manipulated by those with the power and finance to do so. In a very real sense it is mob rule. And mobs can always be led, at least for a while, by charismatic speakers.

Sound familiar?

PS I don't know what the answer is. 

Politics, Noise and Citizens of the World

One of the benefits of being on Twitter is that, occasionally and usually out of the blue, a reasonable and interesting conversation might break out. I had two such conversations last night about what might, at first glance, appear to be unrelated subjects. However, on further reflection it seems to me that perhaps they aren't so different at all. The first subject is politics in general although the context in which I discussed this was the American political system and, of course, the presidential campaigns which are currently in full swing over there. The second subject was that brand of electronic music known as "noise". This can be anything from abstract sound washes or creepy atmospheres and textures to maniacal ranting into a microphone over a background of insane amounts of electronic feedback. The question is "How do these disparate subjects come to be seen as similar?" Let me try and explain.

The now sadly deceased philosopher, Richard Rorty, was an American liberal. Besides being a philosopher in the pragmatist tradition he was also that most interesting of things, the "public intellectual". He had a lifelong interest in politics which seemingly stemmed from childhood and his parents had been politically active too. He wrote both papers and books about America as a political entity explaining what he regarded that the American political hope was. When I have read him I am always struck by his notion that America is the greatest political experiment that the world has ever undertaken, a bold and audacious attempt to build the best kind of society we humans can conceive of. Rorty has much to say about this. Of course, not being American myself I see in this a deal of what us non-Americans would sniggeringly regard as American big-headedness too. And yet for Rorty there is in the historical vicissitudes of the creation of America, with its Constitution and various Amendments, something worth having and preserving, something good, hopeful and beneficial to human kind. America, seen in this positive light, becomes a beacon of hope for all of us.

Of course, such positive and hopeful talk is always likely to be blasted away by the realities. I'm not a fan of television news or mainstream media but if I look at any of it I see in America a country that seems anything but "a beacon of hope for all of us". America seems set (if I may be so bold) to soon host an election between a racist clown called Donald Trump and a dishonest corporate stooge called Hillary Clinton. But its more than that. America seems a country riven from top to toe by deep-seated and thorough-going division and partisanship. It proclaims itself as the "Land of the Free" but I don't see very much freedom there unless you happen to be a billionaire. America is a land of many powerful myths - and that you are free seems to be one of them. There are those there who venerate the written articles of its inception as if they were commandments handed down by God himself. Yet these are just the historical formulations of certain men at a certain time and place which some have taken as holy writ. Look to many kinds of political strife today and America leads the way on it (besides killing many of its own citizens as a matter of course). Is it the case that black lives matter, blue lives matter or all lives matter, for example? For many, they have a cartoonish political stance ready for any possible happening in the world and this politically-motivated identity informs their whole existence and their view of the world and everybody in it. This is a vision of hell not of hope.

In my discussion last night I talked about this in the context of forms of government. It was suggested that I was taking umbrage at all forms of government when I said during that conversation that the American Constitution is a fable based only on the willingness of people to enforce it, that is, by force. My point there was what I regard as the obvious one: all political power is ultimately achieved and enforced by force of arms. During the conversation I said that the only interesting political question is "What happens to me if I disagree with what you say?" This question was posed to highlight the fact that somewhere down the line force comes into play and it was meant to open a chink of light for those who wanted to think it through and see where such a question leads. The world we have today is over 200 political fiefdoms many of which are nominally "democratic" in formulation but I wonder at the sense and force of the word "democratic" there. It is probably true that any kind of democracy is worse than none at all so please don't take me to be anti-democratic. What I am, in a King Canute kind of a way (he's the guy who couldn't hold back the waves by his command for those not up on their old English history), is probably anti-political. I avoid party politics since the very stench of it repulses me. The very idea of party politics is to represent, stand up for and defend a political position. I cannot think of anything worse.

How this has worked out, at least in our Western societies that are being notionally democratic, is to enshrine all kinds of conventional notions and truths. These conventionalities serve purposes and the people who have those purposes. Political parties have and serve ideologies and these ideologies serve certain, but not all, people. I would agree with both French and American revolutionaries that the citizen should be the most important person in any democracy but it seems naive to believe this or that it could ever be so.  My political question still remains for me front and center: "What happens to me if I disagree with you?" This question highlights, I think, that no one is politically free and that the sanction of "might is right" will always be against you. The truth is we hope to be left alone in the world to go about our peaceful business. But we cannot guarantee this. We live in a world where political powers take things into their own hands as judge, jury and often executioner. Many are those who have found themselves plucked out of life never to be seen again. Its important to note here that, basically, we are relying on other people being honest or playing fair. We don't have much more than this to rely on. Rules are made to be broken, remember?

Electronic noise can be harsh and unforgiving, even unlistenable. There is a documentary film called PEOPLE WHO DO NOISE that you can find on You Tube about people who make Noise in Portland, Oregon. Underneath it are a bunch of interesting comments, many of which point to a social function in the making of noise music. Its noted by one commenter that Punk was a form of music that was, overtly, a "kick against the rules". I think, too, of the industrial music of the mid to late 1970s in Great Britain which was explicitly non-conventional (and overtly political), an attempt to completely disregard any mainstream thought on what music even was and to mark new territory as musical and, more importantly, as theirs. A similar phenomenon occurred in early 1970s Germany with various electronic noisemakers, many lumped together by a disrespectful English-speaking press as "Krautrock" but often known as "kosmische" in Germany itself. These people, too, wanted to throw off the received musical conventions and mark out their own territory. This territorial aspect is important for it is one way we can link political ambitions to musical ones. 

Most interesting to me are the reactions of those commenting on the People Who Do Noise video who completely take against it. These are those who would answer my question "What happens if I disagree with what you say?" likely in a very negative and possibly confrontational way. One commenter describes a lot of the noisemakers featured as "delusional", regarding them as nihilistic attention-seekers. To the suggestion of some of those interviewed that their noisemaking has a political purpose - to free them from capitalism and society - he replies by pillorying them. Another commenter suggests that the noise enthusiasts are "trying to out suck each other" and he refers to their "limited imagination". He refers to the many "interesting noises" that could be made and yet that word "interesting", it seems to me, is what trips this particular commenter up. "Interesting" is not an objective category. People, individuals, citizens, get to decide for themselves what's "interesting". Nothing is or isn't inherently interesting. We decide for ourselves. This is another clue to where noise and politics meet. For the politically motivated will tell you that some political polities just are the case. But there, too, it seems to me that we get to decide for ourselves.

A further commenter on this video appreciates that people can make electronic noise and that this is a valid activity - but somehow it isn't enough. Instead, you have to be like (his example) Trent Reznor who uses noise but has formed it into something more musically conventional. He has made a tune out of it and not just left it in its raw, basic state as chaotic and visceral. This is, to me, an example of those people who are trying to be reasonable but, actually, they are just more of the conventional people. The challenge in listening to noise is to hear it as music at all and most people fail in this task. That is a change that needs to take place in you. You need, in modern parlance, to "get it". This commenter again believes in some kind of real music as if noise isn't really that but if only we will use some conventional artifice then it could be. We can't allow use of sounds to fall back into the chaotic and unordered dark ages. We need to step out into the light that human action has revealed.

I see this attitude prevalent in both musical and political spheres. Where, for some, the chaos and harshness of noise is not within the boundaries of music, for others it is any number of political ideas which are not genuine and true. But, in the end, it all comes down to power and who has the might to bring their visions to be. This is what creates the mainstream and all the accepted conventions of life. This is why so many of the noisier forms of music (at least the ones not co-opted by capitalists such as the bizarre spectacle of heavy metal as done by Metallica) regard themselves as overtly political. This is why they see themselves as leaving the common ground that is claimed and ruled by the predominant ideology and heading out to make new ground. Metallica are a noisy band but they are conventional and capitalist through and through. Its a money-making exercise. Contrast this with the people in People Who Do Noise or bands such as Cluster (particularly their first two albums which are abstract noise), Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire. The latter have their art guided by their political ideas. They are free spirits not societal clones. The former are to all intents and purposes apolitical but, of course, end up being political exactly because of that. "Get rich and live the rich man's lifestyle" is their creed. 

Of course, it will come as a shock to some that music is regarded as political at all. But it absolutely is. By some this is deliberate and they make it plain and spell out what the political message of their music is. Others don't but it can be divined from how they position themselves musically. Do they fit in or do they stand at odds with prevailing trends? Music has long been known to lend itself to propaganda or to certain ideas of lifestyle or philosophy. As the early German electronic pioneers knew, the blues-based rock of the 1960s spoke of American values that they did not share or want and the native pop music of Germany, called Schlager, was tame and conventional, speaking of a different political orthodoxy. It enshrined within it ideas of being a good, conventional German. Goebbels loved it in a way that he did not love what he regarded as the debased music called jazz, particularly free jazz. People like Edgar Froese, who founded Tangerine Dream in the late 1960s, wanted to create a new music that had none of these political associations. They wanted a different canvas that they could give their own meanings to. For bands like this and others like Popol Vuh and Cluster this would start off with abstract, electronic noise. The message was clear: we are not like that.

"Politics" comes from the Greek language. The polis was the Greek city and politics is, accordingly, the business of the city. Cities are where groups of people congregate to live together because, this is the thinking, doing so will benefit everyone. It gives advantages of security and defense and being able to live in relative peace. But from this simple idea things become more complicated. It would be alright if everyone was happy with this. But the truth is some people aren't. People seem to have a need to seek their own advantage and this is often at the expense of other people. This creates difference, division and partisanship. Some try to broach this issue with rules or statements of principle. This, I believe, is what the American Constitution (as just one example) tries to do. But it cannot work because even those pledged to uphold such things will betray them for personal gain. Words don't mean much by themselves and they require people to make them speak. People, it may be noted, will often speak from their own interest and words, even words written in a Constitution, are powerless to resist. And there is always the question of "the spirit of the law" and what such things were always meant to achieve. We all know how easy it is to make weasel words regarding what is written yet trample all over the ideas those words were meant to represent. Politics, it seems to me, is, at bottom, just a dog fight for survival. Those engaged in it will use any means necessary, not least rhetorical, to achieve their goals. And that includes duping any and every body else as to what is really at stake. People will talk of "concepts" and "ideas" but this is just a political powerplay. It is saying "I want the world to be like this".

Most people who make noise, particularly those making abstract noise, are often political too. Their vision is non-standard just as their means of expressing it is. I see such artists as these as those who are explicitly putting my question to society. They are saying, in the feedback and random, tuneless chaos, "What happens if I disagree with what you say?". They are doing this by overtly making music that many others won't even recognize as music. They are causing all kinds of otherwise regular people to regard them as "delusional" or strange or offbeat. Of course, to be offbeat is simply not to be in time with the main flow of something. But who says anyone has to be in time with it? If you believe that life itself, not just in its political dimension, is not a game then we have a duty to ask all the pertinent questions and to take them to their logical conclusions, to go all the way, as it were. Am I free? Will you and the rest of society allow me to be truly free? Or is it the case that "freedom" is a sham word? Am I really bound in by freedom which becomes the freedom to live as the rest of society has decided I should be allowed to live? And, if so, is that really freedom at all? What is the truth of the thought that one person's freedom becomes another person's lack of it? Just as politicians try to take power to themselves and exercise its dominion over us so noise musicians take musical territory to themselves in an attempt to establish their own kingdoms. At bottom, both see the world a certain way and try to bring it about. Both have a vision. And a vision can be a powerful thing.

What is my dog in this particular hunt? I am a non-conventional person. It seems to me more and more that my only purpose in life is to battle all the dumb, mainstream, conventional thoughts that hold people in a trance. I have philosophical precursors in this task, not least Diogenes, the man who lived in a barrel (so we are told) and who, when asked, called himself a "citizen of the world". But the question is will the world let people like him, and now like me, break the rules and be non-conventional? Are we allowed to be free spirits or will the might of conventionality crush us and call us "delusional"? Certainly the non-conventional risk being misunderstood in a world in which the very language is given its meaning with all the might of political force (gender studies is a powerful example of that!). And the problem for the misunderstood, the non-conventional, the outsiders, is that people in general find it easier to be nasty to those they consider "not like them". So, in the end, its this I see as the real human challenge. That challenge is to see us all as just citizens of the world, equal citizens of the world. Richard Rorty, in his ever hopeful way, saw America at its best as a step on the road to this, a step on the road to identifying with ever larger groups of people, extending the circle of our commitment and togetherness, the group of people we would regard as "like us".

"But don't hold your breath just yet," I say, pessimistically. My question still stands: 

WHAT HAPPENS IF I DISAGREE WITH WHAT YOU SAY?