Talern, thanks for adding nuance here, this is a complex topic. I very much agree with your assessment of how the power/culture cycle operates --- something vital, fresh, and dangerous is pioneered in the margins. The power center, if they are savvy, will leverage that new thing by coopting it. Now normative, bureaucratic, and political,…
Talern, thanks for adding nuance here, this is a complex topic. I very much agree with your assessment of how the power/culture cycle operates --- something vital, fresh, and dangerous is pioneered in the margins. The power center, if they are savvy, will leverage that new thing by coopting it. Now normative, bureaucratic, and political, that new thing will ossify and start to smell of halitosis. Repeat.
However, just in this high level summary, look at how complex the feedback loop is:
Something fresh is created in the margins, that is, as far outside of state power one can be while still being part of the state, that is, subject to state power but much less so than the normal subject. So the new thing is created by resisting state power, but not resisting it so much as to completely break away. It needs to be distant from central power because central power has a deleterious effect on creation, but it needs to let enough central power in that it has the scent of power about it, because, as Curtis points out, power is always cool. It's very much like how a vaccine allows a small portion of the virus in. Pure power will kill the new thing. A sliver of power allows the new thing to kill the old thing.
This new thing is created by the powerless (or close enough), yet the thing itself can be leveraged as a form of power. So the creator now has power, but only because he's leveraging the culture he created without power. And again, he is combining a form of rebellion against central power with a form of submission to central power.
Now the power center, or state, coopts this thing, which was partially state power to begin with, but mostly not. The new thing becomes all state power, then inevitably normative, centralized power exerts its un-cool poison on the thing, the thing loses its power. Repeat.
I guess it's the implication that power/politics or culture/art is at one end of the river, and the other is _only_ the dirty laundry water from the first. That generalization is not true in either direction, and it's so far from true that I don't find the categories useful. The two ends are part of a larger system of influence that forms feedback loops. Democracy has a demoralizing effect on culture. Oligarchy pushes the kind of lowest common denominator pap that dominates our society. Maybe monarchy is the only context in which we could have created the great cathedrals. But there is always human will outside of power, in individuals and in groups.
Perhaps the best way to say what these idioms are getting at is that culture can be a form of power in and of itself. This power can be leveraged by the state, by dissident groups, by individuals, and so on. However, it's important to remember that culture is not _only_ power, and cannot be understood through this single factor analysis.
Talern, thanks for adding nuance here, this is a complex topic. I very much agree with your assessment of how the power/culture cycle operates --- something vital, fresh, and dangerous is pioneered in the margins. The power center, if they are savvy, will leverage that new thing by coopting it. Now normative, bureaucratic, and political, that new thing will ossify and start to smell of halitosis. Repeat.
However, just in this high level summary, look at how complex the feedback loop is:
Something fresh is created in the margins, that is, as far outside of state power one can be while still being part of the state, that is, subject to state power but much less so than the normal subject. So the new thing is created by resisting state power, but not resisting it so much as to completely break away. It needs to be distant from central power because central power has a deleterious effect on creation, but it needs to let enough central power in that it has the scent of power about it, because, as Curtis points out, power is always cool. It's very much like how a vaccine allows a small portion of the virus in. Pure power will kill the new thing. A sliver of power allows the new thing to kill the old thing.
This new thing is created by the powerless (or close enough), yet the thing itself can be leveraged as a form of power. So the creator now has power, but only because he's leveraging the culture he created without power. And again, he is combining a form of rebellion against central power with a form of submission to central power.
Now the power center, or state, coopts this thing, which was partially state power to begin with, but mostly not. The new thing becomes all state power, then inevitably normative, centralized power exerts its un-cool poison on the thing, the thing loses its power. Repeat.
I guess it's the implication that power/politics or culture/art is at one end of the river, and the other is _only_ the dirty laundry water from the first. That generalization is not true in either direction, and it's so far from true that I don't find the categories useful. The two ends are part of a larger system of influence that forms feedback loops. Democracy has a demoralizing effect on culture. Oligarchy pushes the kind of lowest common denominator pap that dominates our society. Maybe monarchy is the only context in which we could have created the great cathedrals. But there is always human will outside of power, in individuals and in groups.
Perhaps the best way to say what these idioms are getting at is that culture can be a form of power in and of itself. This power can be leveraged by the state, by dissident groups, by individuals, and so on. However, it's important to remember that culture is not _only_ power, and cannot be understood through this single factor analysis.