Decius wrote:
] ] This uncontrollable unraveling of reversibility is the
] ] true victory of terrorism. It is a victory visible in the
] ] underground and extensive ramifications of the event -
] ] not only in direct, economic, political, market and
] ] financial recessions for the whole system, and in the
] ] moral and psychological regression that follows; but also
] ] in the regression of the value system, of all the
] ] ideology of freedom and free movement etc... that the
] ] Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its
] ] eyes its power over the rest of the world.
] ]

] ] Already, the idea of freedom, a new and recent (sic)
] ] idea, is being erased from everyday lives and
] ] consciousness, and liberal globalization is being
] ] realized as its exact reverse: a 'Law and Order'
] ] globalization, a total control, a policing terror.
] ] Deregulation ends in maximal constraints and
] ] restrictions, equal to those in a fundamentalist society.
]
] Baudrillard is perhaps living proof that the opposite of art
] is politics. I don't find myself standing with him in his
] world, but I find an honesty in his observations that perhaps
] those who stand with me are afraid to exhibit. There is an
] artistic purity to this essay. Like that feeling you get
] staring at a Rothko, or reading Hakim Bey. He makes a stark
] observation upon the radicalization that terrorism
] births, and the inevitable hypocrisy of attempting to secure
] the world while claiming to stand for freedom.
]
] He also offers a unique cultural answer that I haven't seen
] yet, but which he feels is impossible in this case.
] Consumption. Assimilation. As one who strove for years to surf
] the edge of culture, and one who feels exasperatingly
] suffocated in recent years as I've found myself sliding back
] from it, I know the process well, as do many others on this
] system. Culture consumes; from Sex Pistols to Blink 182...
] from Nine Inch Nails to Janet Jackson... from the Computer
] Underground to Hackers: The Movie... There used to be a
] revolution on Haight street. Now there is a Gap and a Ben and
] Jerry's. Culture consumes everything... Nothing can escape
] it... The reason liberal culture is so successful is because
] it is like the borg. Died haired spiky metal leather jacket
] fuck you is boiled down and put in church with the rest of the
] sheep. Only the symbols remain... The style shucked from it's
] meaning. Again and again and again...
]
] Baudrillard is wrong. We'll do it to fundamentalist Islam
] too... Those left wing kids that keep flying over there to act
] as human shields are actually our little cultural ambassadors,
] much to their chagrin. They are the first wave.

Isn't Baudrillard saying that the commodization of culture in areas where Islam is present, by the forces of globalization, is the very driving force behind the radicalization that leads to the suicide-protest? And that the more hegemonic culture consumes... the stronger the backlash against it, in this final symbolic way that is all that is left against so powerful an adversary? After all, hasn't small town American produced its own Islamic fundametalists that have sought to join Al-Queda?

I'm not sure whether I agree with him or not. But like you, I found the honesty of his essay very refreshing. I'm not so sure that this all consuming culture you describe can assimilate cultures so fundamentally different from our own without many more powerful symbolic backlashes. I'm not sure that it will ever stop. Certainly not without ending the open society that is supposed to make the West so great. And I tend to agree with him, about the absurdity of fighting terrorism as we are, instead of addressing the root causes.

I don't think that you can use the examples of punk rock, hacker culture, etc. and how easily they underwent commodization, how their core was "shucked" and only the imagery remained, in areas where poverty prevails. In areas with cultures that are not compatible with globalization. Much of the brutal efficiency of commodization of these subcultures was because they were birthed in the prosperous west. They were of the west, and so they were easily processed by the western commodification machine.

If there's anything my time in Russia taught me, its that when globalization confronts a culture with truly incompatible/oppositional elements, the hybrid that is generated uses the western imagery, but does so in new and unique ways. Yes, the Sovok style of communism among youth was supplanted in the early 90s by hip hop and punk rock. But these rappers/punks were not like their American counterparts. Instead, they formed something new and different. Using the imagery of the west... the clothes, the music, the style, they birthed completely new subcultures. Rappers and Punks formed large groups that opposed one another. They fought like hooligans. There's a class element to it... rappers tend to be wealthier, punks tend to be poor. Punks more frequently have neo-nazi leanings than Rappers. In the late 90s/today, these definitions don't work as well as they once did. New youth subcultures have formed, split, and redefined themselves. Globalism has worked its magic and these subcultures have become more assimilated. But the legacy remains. To this day baggy pants can be a fucking hazard in Moscow, if you happen across a group of violent Punks, or Sovok kids. Hip Hop/Punk Rock imagery was invoked by Russian youth in new and completely different ways. And the ideology of these groups bore little resemblence to their American counterparts.

Sure, we may culturally consume Jihad. But that will not extinguish it. It will only change it. More than imagery from the original will remain. Jihad may present itself in the context of western symbols in time, as we assimilate the cultures that spawn it... but as long as the profound alienation and opposition to globalism remains, so shall the will of these people to attack globalization. The differences between McWorld and Jihad are too profound to be as simply overcome as the differences between hax0r and schmoe, between punk and prep.

RE: The Spirit of Terrorism -- Jean Baudrillard