This post is about surplus repression. The question: how to rid oneself of the anxiety of consumerist identity, how to express identity in a totally administered society. Terrorism is the moment in which one realizes that one's desires are not spontaneous and self-generated but anticipated and inculcated. Is one then predestined to react with a desperate act of spontaneity in the only way conceivable, in a gesture that attempts to negate or refute society as it really exists? Or are those gestures already encoded in the operant program? This is the syllogism Carles attempts to articulate and deconstruct simultaneously.
As radical sociologists have long noted, consumerist capitalism shows its dark repressive side when consumers are motivated not by desire but by fear. Carles assesses the rippling ramifications of this proposition through the lens of "retail terrorism." With much deliberate irony, he proclaims that "I was sorta getting behind the concept of buying stuff from trusted brands to express who I am," but has been forced to reconsider by the actions of a mob who assailed an American Apparel location in an unnamed city. The hesitation he feigns about the embrace of consumerist modes of identity formation is not altogether fictitious, or factitious, for that matter; rather Carles means to suggest the provision, hesitant nature of all consumers, the fragility of identity that must hinge on the subject's ability to "trust" a corporate identity that bears no tangible ethical responsibility, has no face to show to the other in a Levinasian sense. He is "getting behind" the concept of branded identity in several senses of the expression, both as a provisional subscriber to the tenet and as someone who has literally fallen behind it, chronically late, finding it impossible to keep up with the various connotations and shifting meanings of brands. Carles professes to endorse the idea that "the concept of ‘consumerism’ has sort of become ‘chill’ these days, as opposed to something that we are supposed 2 h8," but that stance is in part attributable to his wish to withhold reifying emotion in the commodity relation -- anger spent deploring consumerism feeds the very system it deplores. Vampiristically it sucks the energy from such contempt and uses it to fuel fashion's revolutions. One is reminded of Marx's description of capital: "Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks." Consumerism similarly sucks energy from those struggling against its confines; it rechannels retail terrorism -- attempts to strike it at its heart -- into new memes, or as CArles would have it, "a relevant alt trend."
A studied indifference, or even a bemused approval is instead called for -- a "chill", as Carles suggests, relaxed, yet cold and distant. He tentatively offers an aesthetic solution to the problems of alienation brought on by consumerism: "I like the way things are now, where I just have to keep up to date on buzzbands to be interesting." Yet he implicitly critiques the escapist mode of quotidian existence, in which decentered subjectivities "watch viral videos and forget" about class struggle, the inescapable immanence, mortality, etc. The escapism is itself a virus, a mass hypnotism that interpellates subjects at the moment it seems to be dissolving them.
Though consumerism is immediately responsible, there are some proximate causes. Carles identifies the state as one possibility, but dismisses "‘the government enables this bull shit society in which we are trapped’" as a reified concept, merely another brand rather than an immanent critique worth regarding and with any possible efficaciousness.
But Carles hesitates to pursue this line of argument to far, to a case built on a transcendental locus of authenticity. This is the true terrorism of the soul: "Worried I might have to ‘backpack bomb’ a local suburban mall or something in order to be alt + authentic," he points out, cutting to the reductio ad absurdem, of all arguments from authenticity. Ultimately the only thing that can stand as authentic in a nihilistic society built on an ever-shuffling set of ideals and values driven entirely by the processes of exchange, is violence. Carles offers this vertiginous syllogism: "terrorism is ‘violence’, but maybe ’standing up for something’ in the real world will become a more popular trend." Can one "stand up for" something one believes in only because it is a "trend" -- or is this the perfect, concise expression of the metaphysical violence the consumer society exercises/exorcises on our souls?
Posts like these exemplify Carles' true radicalness. His play with the notion that even to identify onself as a revolutionary in this modern society means to just subscribe to another brand. If he sincerely thinks that "anger spent deploring consumerism feeds the very system it deplores," then it seems that he rejects any forms of rebellion too. However, my analysis leaves me unsure if he necessarily means to reject the brands of leftist politics and critical theory. Clearly, there is a marked difference between a brand that embraces consumerism, and an identity based on its rejection. Perhaps there is even an element of identifying with a revolutionary brand, in which case I would contend that such an embrace is one's only way to escape consumerist branding. Not to be "chill" towards it, but to speak as loudly as possible.
ReplyDeleteInstead, I wonder if he is commenting on how even stances rejecting consumerism/capitalism become branded identities to others through a combination of the viewpoints of the brainwashed masses and the corporations themselves. For example, if one posts a link to an article on Facebook that connects consumerism to our current environmental crisis and the impending end of humanity itself, many will dismiss is as a "pretentious" move to appear smart. Of course, corporations have reified radical ecological desire long ago, along with the desire to appear like an intelligent. A brand undeniably more destructive than one based on revolution is that of the faux-intellectual, one who embraces the aesthetics of looking "smart" without actually being it. Can't we weigh the impacts of different identities? Doesn't the dissemination of the information itself outweigh compromising an "authentic" identity? Do we not have a duty to liberate as many people as we can for both their sake, and ours? Surely we must, for terrorism is certainly not a viable option here.
Fiddled around with a few sentences without proofreading, and it shows. Please excuse my several glaring grammatical errors.
ReplyDelete@ 1st anonymous, I was thinking the exact same thing. I think the worst of all sins is to be a false intellectual/revolutionary. if you garner true intellect and seminal ideas, a 'brand'as used within a consumerist society may be one of the best means to a radical end. If all of civilization's past revolutionaries spent too much time concerned with their personal brand and 'authenticity' then nothing would ever get done. Until there are perfect human beings, there will be no perfect revolution.
ReplyDeletejust because we can conceive 'the perfect wife' doesn't mean we should spend our entire lives rejecting every girl with a slight imperfection.