Of cabbages, kings, babies, books, marx and harvey
This has been a hell of a week. First, on Friday morning, I intended to head townwards to find out what the deal was with my screwed up Fingerprinting form, only to be informed rather curtly that I was, in fact, spending the weekend back home in Sutton. Supposedly I'd been told this earlier in the week, but I bloody well hadn't. So I came home for a fairly uneventful weekend. Read. The Communist Manifesto, some of Harvey's work on Postmodernism, a few chapters in my various textbooks on social justice education and feminism which I've picked up at library book sales since graduation. All very fascinating (more on that below). Monday morning, my sister went into the hospital to be induced (she was two weeks overdue with the baby). For those who may have met her on her few visits to campus, this is my twin sister BTW. So I called my cousin, arranged to have Monday night off from work. Kid was born 3:41 am on Tuesday after a long and uncomfortable night for everybody. caught up on sleep. Spent today reading A.G. Scott's novel Childmare in its entirety (more on that below). Tonight, my sister-in-law picked me up and brought me to her house, where I will spend two days keeping the house warm and helping her somewhat slow 12 yr old daughter babysit her brothers (5 and 1). Back to work on Sunday. Now, to the other, more interesting topics...
Tell you what: if you've never been in the hospital maternity ward while a loved one is going through difficult child labor, you're missing one of the scariest experiences available. This is especially true when, as was my case, you are a male relative and not the child's father, which means you have to sit down the hall from the birthing room with everyone else all trying to make idle conversation and stay calm while your sister screams and moans in agony for eight or so hours. You read an anthology of science fiction stories purchased from the lobby downstairs and put together childish jigsaw puzzles to focus on something that can appear constructive, willing your nerves to leave you alone, trying not to cry or moan yourself everytime you hear her down the hall. Finally, after hours of nerves, laughter, near-tears, the sounds of a new voice, screaming in the rage, confusion and agony of being thrust into the world, penetrates the door of the room. You join the other visitors in a tight cluster around the door, until at last the new father emerges, shaky, elated, and announces "His name is Garrett Andrew." This is a shock after being told for so long with near certainty ()thanks to mistaken ultrasouns techs that SHE would be Stella Jean, but when it boils down to it, nobody really gives a flying fuck. A new life has arrived, and all of our lives will be forever changed. I'll post pics of my new nephew when I can get them. Garrett Andrew Friend, son of Jessie Friend and Andrew Mitchell, born 3:41 am October 21st, 2008, St Johnsbury Vermont; 21.5 inches long, 8 lbs 10 oz. Beautiful.
To begin, I have a question for anyone knowledgeable with women's/gender studies, feminism, and related frameworks/disciplines: is it a common line of thought that a) only women are interested in the topics, and b)only women SHOULD be interested, because men as a whole prefer to dominate and subjugate women? Or is that really as sexist as I found it?
On the whole, the early chapter of the women's studies book was both interesting and informative. Large portions of the chapter struck me as relevant to revamping education in general, particularly with a view toward bettering the world, and I've underlined, dog-eared, or otherwise marked a number of particularly good passages and ideas. Also, one secondary reading in the chapter, an artical purporting to report on scientific studies (conducted entirely by female scientists, with no input whatsoever from the male sunjects) into the myth or reality of the male orgasm was screamingly/bitingly funny. Particularly since one of the scifi stories that I read Monday night revolved around an Arctic expedition searching frantically for the world's women, mythologized creatures who have vanished but live on in stories that reflect the ugliest of malekind's stereotypes of female humans...
So we come at last to Childmare. An internet search for the author--named on the cover as A.G. Scott, on the copyright page as Nick Sharman-- proves convoluted; Sharman in turn is a pseudonym for another author, whose name I forget at the moment. But the book is fascinating, gripping, yet multi-layered--everything good horror fiction, even paperback originals, ought to be.
To start, I suppose that I ought to admit that a) the book is, on the whole, pretty sexist, and b) the main character is sort of an action hero-one-dimensional drag after a promising inital start. To whit: the protagonist's British school teacher girlfriend is a buxom blonde who spends her time saying wonderfully helpful things like "Don't shoot them!" when the hero prepares to kill the murderous rampaging children that are on the verge of beating them to death. She's the sort of fainty, damsel in distress character that makes you want to puke. She's sort of useless in combat, though still a fairly intelligent woman. Worse by far is her boyfriend's blatant resistance to taking her seriously, ever: early on, he reflects how her anger at him transforms her into a "belligerent kitten"--i.e., something cute and not to be taken seriously. Later, he views her as some kind of cute street urchin, her clothes torn, her face smeared with dirt. This is shortly after her honors class pins her down while one of the boys, perhaps taken over the by the monstrous virus worse than his fellows, starts raping her. Later, when she starts speculating quite intelligently about the causes of the school's outbreak of insanity and violence among the students, he gives her several "that's nice honey, now shut up and let me do some real thinking," responses. Far more interesting is the secondary main character, a British cop named Tarrant (this takes place in England, BTW), who latches onto several of the ironies and painful truths partway through the novel; of course Our Hero (an American Vietnam vet, ex-school teacher, current school security manager for a tough London school) ignores Tarrant despite his acuteness, yet suffers no consequences (Tarrant himself dies when their Hummer, loaded with extra tanks of gasoline, explodes in the novel's last ten pages).
On the whole, however, the book is a fascinating look at 1970s social unrests and the emerging recognition by citizens of the industry/government collusion that continues today. In the end (SPOILER ALERT!!), it turns out that the non-dead rampaging zombielike kids were made thus in part by a fever-causing dye put unintentionally into the cream filling of basically Twinkies that were then fed to school-attending teenagers throughout England, which forced the kids' bones to excrete massive amounts of lead, absorbed from the polluted city air--primarily from gas fumes, as this was before unleaded gas--which led to massive lead poisoning, causing brain damage, especially to the agression centers, in these kids--both industrial issues, the lead one being done pretty much with the goverment's help through non-action. So, on the one hand, you have the sort of stock environmental problems that crop up so often in 70s horror flicks, much as nuclear testing created so many of the 50s era monster. Just as important, however, are the novel's analyses and use of 70s London and its social conditions.
First, it is important to note that Scott's fictional school services primarily inner city students from the projects. There are hints of ethnic diversity, bad homelife, drugs, gangs, vandalism. Hence to a large extent the events of the novel can be seen as a commentary on the social unrest and riots of 70s London, which found their expression in songs by The Clash and other major Brit punk bands, Sex Pistols especially. Despite the rationalization of the children's occupation of West End London as a craving for concentrated areas of leaded air, the symbolic intentions cannot be ignored. The West End houses much of London's goverment facilities, landmarks, and major businesses; the image of a ruined and burning Buckingham Palace, its grounds strewn with mutilated corpses, is "Anarchy in the UK" fully realized in all its nightmarish potential. Yet it is not only the deadly children who serve as expressions of unrest: early on, the protagonist bemoans the school's appearance and location. Located in a posh suburb, the school serves inner city youth: "Perhaps some well-intentioned planner had imagined it would give the poorer children something to aspire to...it merely seemed to exacerbate their sense of hopelessness....most of them believed they were locked into a system designed to make losers of them." Meanwhile, the school itself is "aesthetically displeasing," being plain cement and glass, exhibiting "all the worse tendencies of modern architecture; it was cold, impersonal, and prisonlike." Worse, in the protagonist's view, the school "created no sense of identity or community." In short, it reflects the soul of what David Harvey calls High Modernism, with its alienating interpetations of Universal Humanity [ironically, I'd just read Harvey's chapter on u4rban planning and architecture when it hit this passage]. The same current runs through a slightly later chapter, in which an elderly man, newly moved from the old slums to the new modernist housing project, bemoans the structures lack of community and neighborliness, seeminglythe price paid for the conveniences of late 20th century comforts like running water. It is absolutely crucial to recognize that this very building--also the home of several of the afflicted teenagers--is the site of the first mass assault on London normalcy. A gang of crazed kids soaks the lobby with gasoline and guts the lower levels, killing the occupants. In essence, the immediate attack by this New Wave-esque band of crazed teenagers is the ultimate symbol of modernism destroying community and deeper values. There is a sense that no one likes living in the building; it was really meant to be a plus for those outside (nicer to look at then slums). And the punks burn it down.
The second half of the novel could largely serve as the outline for a fairly unoriginal zombie pic. Two flashes of brilliance: first, Tarrant's comment as the heroes pass the ruins of Buckingham Palace, regarding the government's bomb-proff underground shelters: "so that the people who got us into whatever mess it was made it necessary to use the shelters can survive to make the same mistakes again." Given the eventual revelation of the problem's source, these words prove more perceptive than anything the Hero manages to deduce himself. Second, as the novel winds toward its denouement, it becomes clear that the children's illness cannot be reversed. The only cure is to kill them all. An entire generation must be wiped out. Exterminated. This of course ties into the novel's overall subtext of New Wave unrest--how do we stop our children from going beserk in rage against the world? Kill them of course. The final chapter is a bit heavy-handed in places, but essentially serves to bring the points home sledgehammer style for those who haven't noticed them pop up more subtly in the preceding 200 pages. Some readers probably needed it.
So, I finally got around to reading my copy of The Communist Manifesto, and I must admit that a great deal of it lived up to my expectations in all sorts of ways. I find his analysis convincing, particularly once I started toying with it in the context of US history. The Civil War especially. I see a number of his points as variations on conclusions that I'd already reached on my own through thought and study of others who based some of their work on bits of his. But there are a few issues that, in some cases, place him firmly within the scope of his time period's modes of thought.
To begin, Marx retains his era's infatuation with scientific and industrial progress. Writing at a time well before any of the world technological and catastrophic wars (largely events of the 20th century), Marx champions ideas of industrialized agriculture and rapid mechanization, and decries those socialists advocating models which he sees as reactionary, returning to smaller economies and simpler modes of production. His emphasis is essentially toward globalization, industry expanding outward until it forces international barriers to collapse. I suspect that this is one area in which he and present day commies would tend to differ (Lord knows I disagree wholeheartedly).
Secondly, and largely because of his passion for outward, global expansion (fitting for the producer of a meta-narrative, haha), Marx strongly advocates essentially totalitarian, repressive take overs in capitalist societies. He insists on the necessity of government controlled communications, media, etc, as well as industry. This strikes me as dangerous and far too easily corruptible (e.g., the USSR). I firmly view grassroot communism as the only way to really achieve goals.
Third, Marx's explanation of how prices are determined--i.e., by the amount of labor required in production--no longer holds true, if it ever did. As Dean MacCannell points out, what is generally of equal or greater importance is the symbolic nature of the product. Nike charges more for its shoes, not because they're more expensive to make, but because of their association with the company's brand imagery. CDs cost 25c to make, but cost more to buy than tapes by a long shot because they are considered more advanced, cooler, etc. Some with various plastic, cheap Asian produced technological instruments that can cost hundreds of dollars but are put together primarily by low-skill assembly-line workers. It isn't about amount of skill and labor at all.
Finally, and perhaps most important in terms of Marx's analysis: it is not inevitable. What Marx misunderstood was the overarching tendency throughout history (at least in America) of one generation's fringes being the next generation's establishment. American labor, once our radical, liberal, revolutionary element--in short, the epitome of Marx's proletariat--eventually became just another part of bourgeois culture through the absorption of unions into the economic-political fabric ofsociety. They became the working elite, middle class, comfortable. In the end, all they wanted was a bigger slice of pie, not a new dessert. Granted, much of this was due to the "bourgeois socialism" of FDR and his friends in industry--keep em appeased, and they won't rattle the train so much. Which leads to the question, who are the prresent American proletariat? Those in the biggest growing, least paid sector, services & retail? Perhaps. But the odds of them banding together to overthrow their bourgeois slave owners. Naw. They'd rather buy iPods.
This had nothing to do with David Harvey at all. Oh well. Perhaps another time.