Society of the Spectacle 1 - Frankfurt School 0, the real World Cup result

I can't better the Stuff White People Like parody of people who don't have a TV, but suffice to say that we all know self-important people like that who feel very smug about opting out of consumer society and popular culture, despite the fact that it makes them more boring. But one thing to note is that this anti-TV tendency, like so many self-congratulatory middle class ideas, derives from a crass vulgarisation of Frankfurt school ideas, in this case Adorno's and Horkeimer's critique of mass media and culture. This high-brow, but wrong, critique of mass media is now articulated in the form of banal statements like "TV is junk food for the mind", essentially agreeing with Adorno that people are not active subjects who can make their own decisions but they are helpless victims being manipulated by The System.

What was interesting during the World Cup, was how even the most ardent Frankfurt School advocates and TV refuseniks couldn't resist watching the football and getting excited about it. Aside from the question about how did they watch it if they didn't have a TV, this was particularly interesting because the World Cup is the epitomization of Debord's Society of the Spectacle, which was a further elaboration of Frankfurt School concepts also masquerading as Marxist, when in fact it's old-school misanthropic conservatism hiding behind fancy language. Despite the fact that the World Cup is a global staged event, those people couldn't resist taking part except, perhaps, for the most miserablist among them who will always find a way to turn their misanthropy into high-minded moralism.

So, once again, it seems that the Global Spectacle has emerged victorious over the petty self-congratulatory antics of the Frankfurt School adherents. Who but the most miserable of souls wouldn't get excited when Gyan scored against the USA?

Why are Arabists Celebrating Turkey?

Arabists everywhere, a bit of caution in celebrating Turkey: it still occupies large chunks of Arab (Syrian) territory, in parallel with the Armenian genocide it was responsible for the eviction of hundreds of thousands of Arab-speaking people, and it still has draconian laws against Arab speaking minorities. So even by your own pathetic political logic, you should be as opposed to Turkey as you are to Israel.

Parts of this blog are moving

From today, the architectural blog will move to IconoPlastic and the Arabic language blog will move to Mismar. This blog, Karl reMarks, will remain as the political blog in English.

  انتقلت المدونة العربية الى مسمار منذ اليوم

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موازنة التناقضات: الاقتصاد اللبناني بين الخطاب التقني و التزمت العقائدي - كارل شرو

قد يبدو للوهلة الأولى إن الاقتصاد شكَل جزءا كبيرا من النقاش السياسي في لبنان منذ انتهاء الحرب الأهلية بداية التسعينيات. فقد اخذ البعد الاقتصادي لسياسات رئيس الوزراء الراحل رفيق الحريري قسطا وافرا من النقد و النقد المبادل و شكل محورا أساسيا من محاور التناقض بين المعارضة و الموالاة حتى بعد استشهاد الرئيس الحريري وصولا إلى يومنا هذا. لكن التدقيق في محتوى هذا الجدال يدل على إن معظمه لم يلمس الاقتصاد إلا بشكل سطحي على حساب استعمال لغة الاقتصاد لتسجيل نقاط سياسية رخيصة من جانب طرفي هذا النقاش و ملحقاتهم. الحقيقة إن الاقتصاد بمعناه الواسع و علاقته بالمجتمع و السياسة كاد إن يختفي كليا من النقاش السياسي و انحسر حضوره لحساب نوعان من الخطاب: الأول ينظر إلى الاقتصاد بوصفه مسالة تقنية فحسب من الأفضل تركها للخبراء بينما يتسم الخطاب الثاني بعلو النبرة على حساب دقة المضمون و بشعبوية تحاكي الخطاب اليساري لغويا و تجافيه مضمونا و تحليلا.

Elbaradei Presidential Bid: Low-grade Messianism

The hopes hanging on the possible candidacy of Mohamed Elbaradei for President of Egypt reflect the de-politicization of Egyptian society and its misplaced faith in technocrats as agents of political change.

In a scene emblematic of the Egyptian people’s desperation for any signs of political change, hundreds of people gathered in Cairo’s airport to greet Mohamed Elbaradei on his return to Egypt after three decades of living abroad. Elbaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, had fuelled speculation about his possible candidacy for Egypt’s presidential elections due to be held next year.  The crowd’s excitement is understandable: the incumbent Hosni Mubarak has been in power since 1981 and Egypt has been under Emergency Law rule since he took office. Yet there was a hint of artifice about the airport encounter: the posters of Elbaradei held by the crowd were too slickly designed, the scene itself had a whiff of orchestration about it.

Why London needs more skyscrapers.

Read my argument for why London needs more skyscrapers in Culture Wars 

Design your own London skyline.

A great tool has been launched by  Hayes Davidson one of the leading visualisation firms in the UK, it lets you design your own London skyline. It does have some limitations because you can only use existing designs, but still great fun. So what did I decide to do with it? Of course, put the Burj Dubai in London. That immediately shows you how modest the buidlings that are considered tall in London are by comparison. I tried lpacing it within the City of London (above) and Canary Wharf (Below) and I think it looks great in both cases. I guess we need about 3 in London. What don't you try doing your own?