(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

So after reading like five more articles about Baghdad museum curators crying and the soldiers hanging out and watching as the looting of priceless artifacts was commencing, and about centuries-old manuscripts burning in the Baghdad library!, and in keeping with the historical parallels theme from yesterday, I have concluded that Bush is like a philistine Herostratus. I mean, Herostratus knew the value of the Temple of Artemis that he burned down in a (succesful) attempt to make his name go down in history. Bush does not know the value of anything. I am by no means justifying Herostarus' actions, but his torching on the temple is almost ritualistic, wherein the significance of the Temple (important enough that its destruction would assure immortality) is in a way reified in the blaze of its destruction. There is nothing quite as grandiose taking place here--it's just greed and entitlement, and everything that is being destroyed, is just a waste, waste, waste, and its destroyers don't know, and furthermore don't care about its value. Herostratus' actions (and people's subsequent horror and a temporary policy that prohibited mentioning his name under the threat of death) were rooted in the significance that culture/cultural artifacts were of utmost imporatnce. What he chose to do with one is a whole other story. But with Bush there is no basic premise like that; his actions or the soldiers' lack of actions to stop the looting comes out of not giving a flying fuck about culture, or anything except for oil (of course, only oil-related institutions were secured from looting). Herostratus' actions to Bush's m.o. are like nihilism (default engagement with the system through rejecting it) to Cartman's "Whatevah. I do what I want" where the system is obscured by a blind spot the size of, well, everything around a keyhole through which the black glistening sheen of oil is visible. it all comes back to the banality of evil. Cartman would have made an excellent Nazi.

Comments

The Destruction of Ur

[tomorrow-devil.livejournal.com]

I think that "Bush" - and I'm using that word as a term that includes everyone in the Office of the Presidency and especially those executive individuals who actively make the decisions that bring these events about - isn't ignorant of value. Conservative political discourse is by no means uninformed with regard to things like culture shock, the production of history, colonialism, and cultural relativity. It's just that the dominant schools of conservative political thought in the U.S. nowadays are unable to come up with an adequate response to those issues and still go on with the tried and true nation-building techniques of their predecessors. So the response is a retreat. "Bush" knows the value, but steadfastly refuses to recognize it in any context but the one which they know best and in which they may operate most effectively. If you know your goal (State power) the best thing to do is to earnestly make use of those technologies that seem to bring about the desired effect, without too much criticism. At best they can hope that the dialogue springing up around the holes in their technique, like looted museums and the utter destruction of Ur (which didn't happen but would have been mighty poetic), can be manipulated so as to moderate liberal meddling. At worst it'll remain a PR difficulty that'll lend a sheen of the spontaneity and authenticity to events.

[creed-of-hubris.livejournal.com]

The army spokesmen on the scene for at least the initial looting were rather pleased by it, since they perceived the looting to be primarily targeted at the houses, palaces, and offices of Baath party officials. Their glee blinded them to the fact (that's a charitable way of putting it; another is that they ignored the fact) that looters were also hitting hospitals, banks, and museums.

Some of my friends were justifying the museum sacking as wealth redistribution: instead of being shut up in a museum for the elite to see, now the treasures are in the hands of the poor, who will gain wealth from them on eBay.

It's hard to quantify cultural value. Still, I think this is a grand tragedy.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

that's a really strange argument. not your explanation of the initial glee (although i don't understand how the people that were actually in the vicinity failed to notice where the looters were...well...looting, i mean i understand that maybe there was an imaginary where the offices/palaces would get looted, but there were a lot of imaginaries, like no civilian casualties and everyone dancing in the streets with joy).
but your friends' argument is really bizzarre. sure, as cultural spaces in the bourdieuian sense, museums are "elitist" but more in term of the kind of selective narratives that they offer and the dominant discourse they propagate, not in terms of public access, especially in a country that was at least nominally a "socialist" one (obviously it was a dictatorship, so was the USSR, but since the official party line of such governments is "for the people" lots of emphasis was placed on access to museums to cultivate national pride or whatever). secondly, what the hell does redistribution of wealth even mean? this is not some robin hood stealing-from-the-rich-giving-to-the-poor predicament, which is kind of the ethos of "redistribution of wealth"--it's a completely darwinian paradigm where the people who were capable of looting took things, depriving everyone else of it. i think it's particularly evident with looting of the hospitals. obviously people who were physically capable of taking things from the hospital and running were not the ones who needed treatment. now there will be a black market of necessary supplies in Iraq itself, people will make money, like they always do in the time of war and misery, and there will be a "stolen Iraqui artifacts" section on ebay, and those things will find their way into the collections of the richest, most privileged Westerners. another sweeping win for globalization at its ugliest.