13 May 2009: "Flags are metaphors worth protecting."

This post is about postcolonialism. Carles uses images of the casual desecration of flags in the pursuit of hedonism as a means of indicating the way in which consumer-product-oriented globalization has sapped the will to prosecute the imperialistic colonial projects capitalism demanded in the 19th century. The rage Carles feigns is explicitly connected to America's recent half-hearted and abortive escapades in adventurism -- "I feel ‘fucking enraged’ that some1 would deface my flag like that. I feel like this is what people in Iraq and Iran do whenever George W. Bush makes bad foreign policty." The flag, which once rose above symbolic exchange at the level of the brand, has now become indistinguishable from one, and can be consumed and used for identity construction just like any other.

For example, the Union Jack once represented the British dominance of the world's shipping lanes and the viability of its trade monopolies in continents around the world. Now? "I think that the British flag might actually be a ‘fashion statement.’" The fashion statement, of course, is the most definitive proclamation left to us, perhaps more potent and persuasive than a kick from the jackboot of the raj's henchmen, and certainly more thoroughly hegemonic.

What Carles's semi-ironic fury signifies is how this devaluation has deprived us of one of the most durable transcendental subject positions that had been left for us -- that of the patriot awash in the discourse of jingoism and its easy-to-comprehend pieties. This loss prompts Carles to an unusually stark level of despair:

Yall. I’ve been feeling really down lately. Just like ‘fuck everything’ and feelings like that. I decided that if u don’t care about any thing, ur life will never be meaningful.

Is Carles calling for a resurrection of colonial projects and nationalism ("Sort of scared that the South will rise again")? Is he concerned that terrorism has supplanted the previous modes of reaction channeled into state-sponsored nationalism? He writes, "I think it’s kewl that even ‘the dark side’ of the world is a lil bit nationalistic. Think that we should limit their levels of ‘patriotism’ so that it doesn’t cause terrorism." He concludes with an unabashed paean to nationalism ("Think I’m gonna change my ways and rally around America/God/bad ass mp3s/ ‘the scene’"), but it is unclear if this merely meant to be provocative. The most likely interpretation is that Carles conflates state nationalism with the cultural-scene allegiance to show how these forces have been trivialized, and may in fact trivialize each other, as in the knee-jerk way in which music reviewers refer to where bands are from, as if that matters. One fears for an authoritarian turn in Carles thinking, not unlike that which afflicted Ezra Pound in the 1930s. Here's hoping that he pulls back from the brink of fascism and finds a renewed faith in the possibilities of pluralism.