Punk It Up (I'm a Sex Pistol Man Oh Yeah!)

Malcolm McLaren: screenshot taken from the video for 

'Punk It Up' (dir. Ian Gabriel): click here. 

A Sex Pistol - that's what I am / I punk it up / I'm a Sex Pistol Man, oh yeah!

 

 

I. 

 

These days, we're all supposed to agree that the Sex Pistols were a four-piece punk rock band fronted by the presiding genius of Johnny Rotten and that they existed from late 1975 through to January 1978, during which time they recorded and released four singles and one perfect album. 

 

But that's not a narrative I subscribe to or go along with. 

 

For me, the Sex Pistols was always a much wider, more interesting and more radical project, conceived by Malcolm McLaren, involving fashion and politics as well as music, and supported by a number of brilliant individuals, including Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, who had no performing role within the group. 

 

For me, the project begins in the spring of 1974 when McLaren and Westwood refurbish their store at 430 King's Road and rebrand it as SEX and Jordan is the original face of punk long before John Lydon ever reared his ugly head. 

 

For me, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records 1979) is, in many respects, a far more challenging and daring album than Never Mind the Bollocks (Virgin Records 1977) and it should be remembered by those punk purists who insist that the latter is the only true album, that the former featured some of the Sex Pistols' greatest hits [1] - just as the film of that title provided some of the most memorable moments in the Sex Pistols story [2]. 

 

And for me, the last Sex Pistols track doesn't appear on either of these albums and doesn't involve any members of the band who went under that name. Written by McLaren and Trevor Horn, and featuring Zulu musicians and backing singers, the track can be found on McLaren's debut solo album, Duck Rock (Charisma Records, 1983) ...

 

II.

 

'Punk It Up' resulted when McLaren spent a few weeks recording material for Duck Rock in South Africa and was asked by the locals to recount stories from his time as manager of the Sex Pistols, much to their delight and amusement:      

"'They couldn't believe when I told them about causing chaos across the land, taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from gullible record companies and sticking a safety pin through the Queens' lips [...] By the end of the story the Zulus were laughing and cheering [...]'" [3]

 

As Paul Gorman rightly says, whilst McLaren refused to allow his central role in the story of the Sex Pistols define him, he was always happy to look back on this period of his life and career and discuss it at length. And so, encouraged by the response to his storytelling, he wrote lyrics for the song 'Punk It Up' and affirmed that, at heart, he remained a Sex Pistol. 

 

'Punk It Up' is a brilliant track - full of joy, full of sunshine, full of chaos, and full of magic; elements that define McLaren's unique vision of post-punk that quickly moved from piracy to paganism and celebrated (amongst others) hobos, hillbillies, and hip hoppers. It almost makes 'Anarchy in the UK' seem a bit provincial ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The double A-sided single coupling 'Something Else' with 'Friggin' in the Riggin'' was the only Sex Pistols single to sell more than a quarter of a million copies.  

 

[2] I'm thinking here, for example, of Sid's performance of 'My Way', about which I have written here. 

 

[3] Malcolm McLaren quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 291.  

The Grievance Collector

 

Unfortunately, there's a personality type in the world known as a grievance collector ... [1]

 

The grievance collector remembers every detail of every last slight or misfortune they have suffered (even those that have a purely imaginary origin) and they know precisely who to blame. 

 

Having zero self-awareness, they never stop to consider for one moment that their own venomous nature and toxic behaviour might be responsible for the anger and resentment they feel; they always look to hold others accountable. 

 

The grievance collector doesn't forgive, doesn't forget and never moves on; they wallow in their own victimhood (or stew in their own juices, as my mother would say) and sincerely believe themselves to be, like Lear, "more sinned against than sinning" [2]. 

 

The grievance collector rarely changes their mind; being skilled at the wilful misinterpretation of events and the rejection of evidence that challenges their pre-existing beliefs and opinions, they are confirmed in their own self-righteous bubble of bias and bullshit. 

 

This makes the grievance collector not only contemptuous of others, but wise in their own conceit. Which, in turn, causes them to develop maladaptive patterns of thought and behaviour that disrupt interpersonal relationships. It's not easy being friends with - or a sibling to - someone to whom you can never apologise enough.  

 

Although they mostly stay silent and brood, sometimes the grievance collector can become verbally abusive. And sometimes they will allow their animosity to bubble over into an act of actual violence - the will to revenge motivates them more than a desire to simply right wrongs [3].

Perhaps not surprisingly, if the grievance collector also subscribes to an extreme political or religious ideology, they will often become attracted to terrorism or serial killing. As one expert in this field writes: 

 

"When irrationality, antagonism, and rigidity combine with unyielding overconfidence in their own sentiments, and beliefs go unchecked or are not attenuated, these individuals become metastable - ready to ignite and explode." [4]

 

What then is the best thing to do when confronted by these human tarantulas and time-bombs?

 

Should we lend them a sympathetic ear and attempt to listen more closely to their complaints? I don't think that will make a whole lot of difference, to be honest. 

 

Should we, then, declare war against them; pass judgement and seek to punish or ridicule? Again, I don't think that will help.

 

Probably best we learn from Nietzsche and simply look away ... [5]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I prefer the phrase grievance collector to wound collector, but I'm aware that whilst the latter is often used synonymously with the former, some authors insist on a distinction. In brief, whilst the grievance collector is seen as weighed down or burdened by all the emotional baggage they carry with them, the wound collector is thought of as suffering from a far more profoundly morbid pathology; someone who likes to inflict actual psychological self-harm and, like Jesus, display their injuries.

 

[2] See Shakespeare's King Lear, Act 3, scene 2.  

 

[3] As Nietzsche says: "No one accuses without an underlying notion of punishment and revenge [...] All complaint is accusation [...] we always make some one responsible." See Human, All Too Human, Vol. II. Pt. 1: 'Assorted Opinions and Maxims', 78.

 

[4] See Joe Navarro, 'On Wound Collectors', in Psychology Today (6 Sept 2015): click here to read online. 

 

[5] See Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book IV, §276 where he writes: "I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation."

 

 

William Wordsworth and the Power of a Peculiar Eye

William Wordsworth and 

his green-tinted spectacles [1]

 

'With an inflamed eye, and joy in our hearts, we see into the life of things ...'

 

 

I. 

 

I didn't know, until Chloe told me, that Wordsworth had trouble with his eyes and that his poetic vision was to some extent shaped by the peculiarities of his physical vision:  

"Whether the visible world projected itself more sharply, richly, insistently, upon the eye of Wordsworth than upon that of Dante, Milton, Keats, or Shelley, we cannot know; but from what he tells us we do know that his visual impressions were of a very special intensity, and such as come to few beholders on this earth." [2]

 

In other words, it seems that due to the corruption of an organic function by disease - which not only made him unusually sensitive to light, but left him at times almost unable to see - Wordsworth was able to produce an imaginative body of work of unusual beauty.

 

Of course, having trouble with one's eyes and living in fear of blindness, is not fun; nor does it always have a positive effect on one's work. And I speak here from personal experience; there are times when I am unable to either read or write due to acute eyestrain and impaired vision. 

 

 

II.    

 

Wordsworth first began to have trouble with his eyes in January 1805, when trachoma caused an inflammation of his eyelids [3]. Five years later, first in the summer and then in the winter of 1810, he suffered two further outbreaks of the infection. 

 

Luckily, things cleared up - though it's worth keeping in mind there were no modern drugs or antibiotics available at this time (people relied on various folk remedies - such as holding a blue gemstone to the eyes). 

 

In 1820, however, the problem returned and Wordsworth genuinely worried he would go blind like his hero, Milton [4]. However, this did at least focus his attention and encouraged him to get a move on with the publication of his poetry. 

 

As attacks became more frequent and severe, he started to wear green tinted eye-glasses [5] to protect his eyes from bright light and any dust that might blow in his face. 

 

This seemed to do the trick, as things again improved and it wasn't until 1833 that one of his eyes - not just the lid - became infected; a far more serious concern, that rightly left him feeling extremely anxious about the darkness to come. News of this even made the papers of the time - obliging Wordsworth to issue a press release denying the false claim he had gone blind. 

His family were, arguably, not quite as understanding as they might have been: 

 

"A letter dated December 29th 1834 from William's nephew, Chris, to his father (William's brother) reads: 'My Uncle's eyes are … much better, indeed they would be quite well, if he did not write verses: but this he will do; and therefore it is extremely difficult to prevent him from ruining his eyesight'." [6]

 

Six years later, even his wife Mary was writing that "'tho' he labours in constant fear of his eyes and complains of discomfort from them - yet in reality he has had very little suffering'" [7]. 

I have to say, I find this apparent lack of sympathy from his nearest and dearest all a bit troubling; even if the inflammation of his eyelids wasn't quite as serious as he thought, his fear of blindness and physical discomfort was surely genuine. 

Even more shocking - to me at least - is the fact that the commentator who quotes these letters concludes his (otherwise informative) piece on Wordsworth and his ocular issues with this dismissive (almost sneering) remark.

 

"Mary's comment in 1840 acts, I think, as a caution as we assess the severity of Wordsworth's eye trouble. While Wordsworth suffered from a very real affliction, his wife's remark tells us that maybe it was not always as severe as the poet made out. This could be expected from a man of artistic temperament who was also very anxious about his illness." [8]    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The glasses are on display at Wordsworth's home in the Lake District, Dove Cottage (Grasmere). For details, visit the Wordsworth Trust website: click here.  

 

[2] Marian Mead, 'Wordsworth's Eye', PMLA, Vol. 34, No. 2 (1919), pp. 202-224. Click here for open access on JSTOR.

 

[3] Trachoma is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium. It damages the inner surface of the eyelids and can lead to pain and even permanent blindness if left untreated and one is unfortunate enough to experience repeated infections. Although it is often categorised as a neglected tropical disease, it is known to infect tens of millions of people in developing regions and is a recognised public health issue in over forty countries.    

 

[4] John Milton had become totally blind in both eyes by 1652 (i.e., fifteen years before the first publication of Paradise Lost). The cause of his blindness is debated, but bilateral retinal detachment or glaucoma seem to be the most likely explanations. His sightlessness forced him to dictate his verse and prose to secretarial assistants (amanuenses) who transcribed the work for him.  

 

[5] Again, without wanting to make this all about me, I sympathise here; following surgery on my right eye to restore vision following damage to my cornea (probably as the result of an ealier infection), I had to wear similarly shaded glasses for several months. Luckily, this was during the punk period in the late 1970s, so they didn't attract too much attention; people thought I was just another teenage poser.

 

[6] This letter is quoted by Philip Harper, in 'William Wordsworth's glasses and the lifelong struggle with his eyesight', on the always interesting website Museum Crush: click here. 

 

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

 

 

This post is for that phantom of delight, Chloe Rose Campbell.

What Was I Thinking? (22 May)

Images used for the posts published on this date 

in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020

 

 

Sometimes - especially those times when, like today, I'm busy working on an 8000-word essay, the structuring of which is giving me a real headache - it's convenient to be able to look back and see what one was thinking on this date in years gone by, rather than produce all-new material. 

 

It seems that I published a post on this date for five consecutive years: 2016 - 2020. And these posts were: 

 

 

On the Death of a Wellness Warrior (The Case of Jessica Ainscough)

In the first of the May 22nd posts (2016), I discussed the tragic case of a so-called Wellness Warrior from Down Under called Jessica Ainscough. She died, in 2015, from cancer, despite her fanatic adherence to a range of alternative treatments based on diet and lifestyle rather than medical science - including the ludicrous Gerson therapy. 

 

Her case perfectly illustrating the peculiar mix of denial, dishonesty and desperate self-delusion of those who reject chemo and surgery in favour of fruit juice and coffee enemas.  

 

Ainscough sadly placed her hopes in quackery and became a pin-up girl for those who believe there's a global conspiracy by the medical establishment (in cahoots with big business and governments) to cover up the beautiful truth about cancer; i.e. that it can be cured with positive thinking and a bizarre range of practices that are basically forms of faith healing and folk magic despite the pseudo-scientific language they are disguised with. 

 

Having said that - writing in a post-Covid era - I have to admit I'm a lot more reluctant to follow the science and allow untested experimental vaccines to be used on me at the behest of the authorities.

 

 

Towards a Queer Ethology: Who Fucked Bambi (The Case of the Deer-Loving Monkey) 

 

In the second of the May 22nd posts (2017), I discussed a short ethological study of something that those who like to idealise animal behaviour and use Nature as a metaphysical reference point for their own moral values, would probably prefer not to know about; a female sika deer contentedly having sex with a male Japanese macaque (or snow monkey) on the island of Yakushima. 

 

Apparently, although these two species enjoy a close and playful symbiotic relationship, it's extremely rare for them to engage in acts of coition. It seems wrong here to speak of consent or rape and the lead author of the study insisted that both animals seemed to enjoy their shared sexual experience (the female deer even licking the male monkey's ejaculate off her body).

 

 

On the Erotics and Etiquette of Wearing Gloves 

 

In the third of the May 22nd posts (2018), I reflected on a time when respectable women (including my mother) still wore gloves as a matter of course; not just as an elegant fashion accessory to be matched with hat and shoes - nor simply to protect the hands - but as a sign of culture, discipline and breeding.

 

Gloves encoded an entire set of values and were worn to display one's knowledge of - and conformity to - a complex series of social norms governing polite behaviour. In other words, the wearing of gloves was a question of etiquette, belonging to a wider politics of style.

 

But just as important as the wearing of gloves was their removal; a lady should always do so discreetly and not as if performing a striptease of the hand - a point that led us on to the erotics of the glove, as examined by Roland Barthes in his beautiful little book Le plaisir du texte (1973). 

 

According to Barthes, the erotics of the glove is often tied to the pleasure of glimpsing naked female flesh exposed between two edges. In other words, it's 'the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing' which the amorous subject finds arousing. 

 

But of course, there are fetishists who love gloves in and of themselves and couldn't care less about glimpsing the flesh or intermittence; their concern is with the length, style, colour and - often most crucially of all - the material of the glove (be it leather, silk, cotton, or latex).

 

 

The Man and the Dreaming Woman: Notes on D. H. Lawrence's The Witch à la Mode

 

In the fourth of the May 22nd posts (2019), I provided a reading of Lawrence's early short story 'The Witch à la Mode' - one that anticipates his often underrated second novel The Tresspasser (1912) and which is born of the author's sexual frustration and sardonic anger.

 

Interestingly, at the end of the tale, Lawrence seems to come down firmly on the side of sexual maturity and a conventional married life. For having saved his ex-girlfriend from the flames, the protagonist of the story, Coutts, abandons her in order to become the good husband and father, growing fat and amiable in domestic bliss, that he always wanted to be.

 

 

Clap Trap  

 

Finally, there's this post dated 22 May 2020 on the North Korean style communal clap-along in support of our NHS heroes and other key workers that became almost compulsory during the Covid pandemic when we were all in lockdown (a slightly sexier-sounding way of saying imprisoned in our own homes).

 

Doubtless, many clapped with sincerity and a sense of civic duty and were not just showing off or virtue signalling with their saucepans, but the entire performance was cynically orchestrated by politicians and the media and, as I said at the time, I would rather have had a dose of the clap than stand on my doorstep and join in with a depressing (and sinister) display of mock-solidarity. 

 

Freedom is often best expressed as refusal and not-doing, because, as Barthes powerfully reminds us, fascism is the power to compel activity. 

 

 

In Anticipation of and Reflections on a Post-Punk Salon (with Dorothy Max Prior and Richard Cabut)

 

 

In Anticipation of a Post-Punk Salon 

 

This looks like, sounds like, good fun, don't you think? 

 

Regrettably, I don't know Dorothy Max Prior and haven't read her book - 69 Exhibition Road: Twelve True-Life Tales from the Fag End of Punk, Porn & Performance (MIT Press, 2023) - which, according to the publishers' blurb, is a 'vibrant, wry, and engaging account of life as an adventurous, queer young person in late 1970s London discovering themselves as an artist, and an individual'. 

 

However, I do (sort of) know Richard Cabut and have read his book - Looking for a Kiss (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020); a true story based on lies (and vice versa), set in post-punk London and featuring a couple adrift in a world of sex, drugs, and the im/possibility of dreams in a time of nihilism. 

 

Cabut - then writing under the name of Richard North - was the man who coined the term positive punk, about which I have written previously on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

I completely agree with him that, initially, punk was a defiant and stylish response to the boredom of everyday life. However, whereas he also sees punk as a quest for truth and meaning, I see it as a playful (but nonetheless violent) deconstruction of these and related ideals. 

 

Still, there's no reason why such differences should prevent us being on friendly terms ... And so I look forward to meeting him this evening at this post-punk salon; as I do Ms Prior, who is 100% correct to say that punk - as conceived by McLaren and Westwood - was primarily conceptual and performance art, rather than "just another chapter in the history of rock 'n' roll" [1]. 

 

 

Reflections on a Post-Punk Salon 

 

Well, as anticipated, that was fun! 

 

Sean McLusky's got himself a nice new space just off Tin Pan Alley and this event was far more enjoyable than the Crass book launch at the Horse Hospital last month. I may not be a fan of positive punk, but it's surely preferable to militant asceticism and I would rather spend an evening with Cabut and Prior than Rimbaud and Vaucher [2]. 

 

And that's true even though Cabut's fictional self (Robert) clearly misunderstands that punk nihilism was, in fact, a joyous and active negation of the negative. He, Robert, finds the chaos of punk as lived experience almost unbearable and is petrified at the thought of the ruins [3]. The fact that Cabut chose to echo this fear on the night was disappointing. 

 

As for Ms Prior, she seemed very nice and she has certainly had an interesting life and career. Unfortunately, she remains politically naive in her sex radicalism and the belief that punk, porn, and art not only empower and liberate, but present a real challenge to the established order. 

 

She informed her audience that the punk attitude can be summed up by the phrase just do it. But that's an upbeat, aspirational slogan associated more with Nike [4] than the Sex Pistols, is it not? 

 

And it's the motto also of what Byung-Chul Han terms Müdigkeitsgesellschaft - i.e., a society characterised by an incessant (and ultimately exhausting) compulsion to perform and achieve [5]. Contrast this positive imperative with Malcolm McLaren's instructing us to destroy success. 

 

Still, putting these things to one side, it was a well-organised and enjoyable event and there were some interesting people and colourful characters present; none more so than Cuban cigar-smoking punk dandy Algernon Aloysius St. John-Cholmondeley-Featherstonehaugh, who dispensed wit, wisdom, and matches with great aplomb. 

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] Dorothy Max Prior, speaking in an interview with Lene Cortina on the excellent blog Punk Girl Diaries (12 March 2018): click here. 

 

[2] I would remind those who organised the event with Crass at the Horse Hospital that, as a rule, it's always a good idea to provide seating and drinks for your guests; particularly when charging an entrance fee and promoting a book priced at £50 a pop. Best also to allow them plenty of opportunity to chat and mingle freely. Nobody, apart from the most committed of Crass fans, really wants to be crammed into a small space and forced to stand for well over an hour whilst being lectured on how the revolution might have succeeded, if only ... by an 80-year-old Penny Rimbaud. See the post 'Crass By Name ...' (12 April 2024): click here. 

 

[3] See pp. 77-78 of Richard Cabut's Looking for a Kiss (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020). Note that Cabut was reading from the revised and extended edition of his novel, published by PC Press (2023), featuring new text, photos and artwork. 

 

[4] Just Do It is a trademarked tagline of sports shoe company Nike, coined in 1988 by the advertising executive Dan Wieden, inspired, he says, by Gary Gilmore, who is alleged to have said 'Let's do it' shortly before his execution for murder in January 1977. 

 

[5] See Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, trans. Erik Butler (Stanford University Press, 2015). The original German text, entitled Müdigkeitsgesellschaft, was published in Berlin by Matthes & Seitz Verlag (2010). 

      I published a two-part post on this work for Torpedo the Ark on 7 November 2021. Click here to read part one - 'On Neuronal Power to Vita Activa' - and/or here to read part two - 'From the Pedagogy of Seeing to Burnout Society'.

 

 

Seven Little Geese and One Little Greek

Seven Baby Geese

 Raphael Park, (May 2024)

 

 

Watching Maria interact with seven recently hatched goslings in the local park, I was reminded of that scene in Lady Chatterley's Lover when Connie encounters the pheasant chicks: 

 

"Life! Life! Pure, sparky, fearless new life. New life! So tiny, and so utterly without fear!" [1]

Like Connie, M seemed fascinated by the adorable young birds; golden-coloured and bobbing about on the green water, whilst watched over by anxious parents.

I only hope she wasn't feeling the same agony of forlornness felt by the former. 

 

(I didn't notice any tears, so that's a good sign, I suppose.)     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 114.  

 

 

Ad Hominem à la Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

Master of the argumentum ad hominem

 

I.

 

Academic philosophers, who like to take a serious and professional approach to their discipline, hate ad hominem attacks. 

 

In other words, they believe that when addressing someone else's argument or position, one should always refrain from maliciously (and fallaciously) attacking the person or some attribute of the person who is making the argument. 

 

Always stick to the substance of what they say; don't question their motives, denigrate their character, or insult their looks. 

 

In other words, play the ball, not the man. To do otherwise, is just not cricket; something that even Aristotle appreciated [1]. 

 

 

II. 

Nietzsche, however, was not an academic philosopher. 

 

He may have been the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel, when appointed in 1869, aged 24, but he made his name as a philosopher only after resigning from the post ten years later (due to ill health) and becoming a fiercely independent thinker; one who cheerfully attacked his philosophical enemies - from Plato and Socrates to Kant and Hegel - directly employing an abusive model of ad hominem argument.      

 

As a psychologist, as a clinician, and as a genealogist, Nietzsche was far more interested in what made the individual (or an entire people) tick - what forces were at play within them - than in the validity of their arguments, or the falseness of their judgements. He valued those with healthy instincts over those whom he regarded as decadent, or those whose values betrayed their ressentiment.     

As many readers of Nietzsche have noted, his philosophy consists to a very large extent of speculative diagnoses, concerning the virtues and vices of those figures (or those cultures) that most excite his interest. This certainly makes him unusual amongst philosophers. 

There are times when ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious; and there may even be times when it's relevant to question the personal conduct, character, or motives of an opponent. But it's highly debatable if Nietzsche is justified in dismissing Socrates, for example, on the grounds that his being monstrous of face proves he was also monstrous of soul [2]. 

 

Ugliness may be an objection, but is it really sufficient grounds to refute a persons thought?

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Aristotle is credited with first making the distinction between (legitimate) logical arguments and (illegitimate) personal attacks. In his work Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle showed the fallaciousness of placing the questioner rather than their argument under scrutiny. The proper thing for a philosopher to do, he wrote, is not to question the attributes of an intellectual opponent, but to address the weaknesses and ambiguities in their argument. 

      This isn't to say, however, that all ad hominem arguments are fallacious; one might, for example, adopt a dialectical strategy of using an opponents own ideas and assumptions against them. But the term ad hominem was by the beginning of the 20th century almost always linked to a logical fallacy and today, except within very specialised philosophical circles, the term ad hominem signifies an attack on the character of a person in an attempt to refute their argument.

 

[2] See Nietzsche, 'The Problem of Socrates' (3), in Twilight of the Idols. 

 

 

Musical bonus: 'Attack', taken from the debut album by Public Image Ltd. (Virgin Records, 1978): click here. Note this is the remastered version from 2011.  

 

 

On the Rise of the Useful Idiot

 Adapted from the poster for I Am Greta

(a documentary film dir. Nathan Grossman, 2020)

 

I. 

 

Byung-Chul Han says that the idiot has all but vanished from our society. But Han is not using the term idiot in its familiar modern sense (i.e., to refer to a stupid person). 

 

Rather, he's returning to the ancient Greek term from which it derives - ἰδιώτης - which refers to a private individual who prefers to think their own thoughts rather than simply subscribe to common sense or conform to popular opinion (even at the risk of appearing ignorant or foolish). 

 

For Han, the idiot is thus a type of outsider or heretic; not so much uninformed as unaligned with any party or cause; someone who values freedom and opposes the violence of consensus [1]. The idiot, in brief, is the kind of person attracted to philosophy, a practice born - like psychology - of idleness and characterised - like art - by its uselessness [2].   

 

 

II.

 

Unfortunately, however, there's more than one type of idiot in this world.

 

And if the type of useless philosophical idiot privileged by Byung-Chul Han has all but vanished from contemporary society, the political idiot who prides themselves on their allegiance to a cause, party, or ideology and happily makes themselves useful to such is, it seems, proliferating in number ...

 

Some commentators may clutch their pearls - or even reach for the smelling salts - when they hear the term useful idiot [3], but it's a widely accepted term within political discourse [4] to refer to someone who believes they are fighting for a just cause and have history on their side, without fully appreciating the consequences of their actions or the extent to which they are being cynically manipulated by nefarious forces.  

 

Many supporters of Extinction Rebellion, or Black Lives Matter, or those we currently see larping for Palestine on streets and campuses across the Western world, are probably well-intentioned idealists; i.e., perfectly sincere in their views, but they are politically naive to the point that idiocy hardly even covers it; closing their eyes to reality and shutting their ears to reason, they unwittingly assist in the destruction of their own culture, history, and society.   

 

Notes

 

[1] See Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, trans. Erik Butler, (Verso, 2017). And see also the post 'On Heresy and Philosophical Idiotism' (20 Nov 2021): click here. 

 

[2] Nietzsche famously asserts in Twilight of the Idols (1889) that idleness is the beginning of psychology (and is therefore the result of vice). 

      Oscar Wilde, meanwhile, writing in a Preface to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) claimed: "All art is quite useless." He later explained in a letter what he meant by this: "Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way." Similarly, philosophy is simply intended to open up a space for thinking - nothing else. Wilde's letter can be read in full here. 

 

[3] For those gentle souls who prefer a slightly less harsh-sounding term, it might be noted that some commentators speak of useful innocents, whilst those within the intelligence community apparently refer to unwitting agents.

 

[4] Frequently used during the Cold War to describe those susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation, the phrase useful idiot was (ironically but mistakenly) attributed to Lenin by the Russian human rights activist and Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Lenin may have liked to use it, but he certainly didn't coin it, and nor is it found in any of his writings.

 

 

Remembering Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita

Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968) 

@mariearlethskov

 

 

I. 

 

One of the reasons why I choose to follow the art historian and punk scholar Marie Arleth Skov on Instagram, is because she regularly posts amazing photographs that I've not seen before (but wish I had) of people I've never heard of before (but wish I had). 

 

For example, a couple of days ago she posted (a slightly cropped version) of this picture of the Japanese-French painter Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, taken in 1926, and looking decidedly dapper (if not dandyish indeed). 

 

I mean, I'm not a fan of the toothbrush moustache, the bowl cut hairstyle, or the windsor glasses, but I do like that shirt, those trousers, and the socks. 

 

 

II.

 

But who is (or was) Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita?

Born in born in 1886, in Ushigome (Tokyo), Foujita developed a childhood love of art and by the time he reached adolescence had already decided he wanted to become a painter and move to Paris. However, he was encouraged by his father to complete his studies in fine art in Japan before setting off to France.   

In 1905, Foujitta enrolled at what is now the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, graduating in 1910. Having never lost sight of his original plan, he left for Paris in 1913, aged twenty-seven. His father agreed to support him for three years - after which, if he had failed to find success as an artist, it was agreed he would return home to Japan. 

Foujita settled in Montparnasse and rapidly became part of the Paris art scene. Wisely, whilst many other Japanese artists in the City of Light tended to keep to themselves and struggled to adjust to a European lifestyle, Foujita made a concerted effort to adapt to his new surroundings and improve his French language skills.  

Before long, Foujita was pals with Modigliani and visiting Picasso in his studio. The outbreak of war in 1914 made things tough for him (as for many others - not least of all those called up to fight at the front). But again, unlike most other Japanese artists, he decided not to return home; although he did relocate to London at the start of 1916. 

 

It was during his London period that Foujita dumped his wife and broke with his father. Returning to Paris in 1917, he found a new bride; the French model, painter, and former child prostitute Fernande Barrey. He also began to find success as an artist, exhibiting his work more widely and developing the style he would become well-known for.       

During the 1920s, he took advantage of both the strong art market and the thriving Paris nightlife, becoming a regular at all the popular bars and clubs, immediately recognisable due to his very distinctive look. In some ways, like his art, he was a perfect - and original - fusion of East and West. 

 

His nudes in particular were thought to be a harmonious meeting of Japanese and European aesthetics; see, for example, Nu Couché à la toile de Jouy (1922) - a beautiful and brilliant portrait of Kiki de Monparnasse and the ethereal - almost ghostly - quality of her white skin [1].   

All was going well until the tax man caught up with him. Unable to pay what he owed, he returned to Japan and hoped to make enough money there to clear his debts. His reception back on home soil was mixed, however. The public liked him, but the critics dismissed his work as mediocre and too heavily under the influence of Western art. 

 

So Foujita returned to Paris (via the US), before then travelling round South America in 1931.

 

By November 1932, he was in Mexico, where he stayed for seven months and, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, became aware of the social and political role that art could play; not that he decided to experiment with socialist realism, still preferring to paint cats and flowers rather than tractors and heroes of the Revolution. 

 

Having said that, after he returned to Japan in 1933, his work did become dominated by traditional (some might say old-fashioned, even reactionary) Japanese subjects, such as geisha, sumo wrestlers, and fishermen and, during the war years, Foujita was happy to become an official war artist and celebrate the courage of Japanese soldiers. Indeed, he became one of the nation's leading war artists and not only produced a prolific number of war paintings but oversaw special exhibits for members of the military.  

 

Following Japan's defeat, however, his reputation suffered; not only had he allowed his work to serve as propaganda for the Imperial Japanese military, but he refused to address accusations about his role as a war artist. It's probably a bit much to describe him as a fascist-imperialist, but his claims to have always been a pacifist at heart are highly suspect.  

Nevertheless, he was given a teaching post at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in the spring of 1949. Unhappy and bored in the USA, he grew increasingly nostalgic for his former life in Paris and so, the following year, Foujita moved back to France, where, he declared, he would remain for the rest of his life.  

 

In 1955, he renounced his Japanese nationality and became a French citizen. Then, in 1959, Foujita converted to Catholicism and was baptised in Reims Cathedral (the traditional site for the coronation of kings). It was at this point he took on the Christian name of Léonard and his art becomes overtly religious in character.

In 1962, Foujita conceived a plan to construct and decorate his own chapel, à la Matisse. This would be his final project. For a few months after its opening to the public in 1966, he was diagnosed with cancer and died in January 1968, aged 81. 

In 2003, his coffin was finally transferred to the small Romanesque chapel.  

 

 

III.

 

So, what then are we to make of Foujita ...? 

 

Shortly after his death, a fellow Japanese artist published an essay in which he was described as an insane narcissist who took rather too much pleasure in depicting the horrors of war. So I think it's fair to say that his reputation and legacy is complicated and controversial [2].

 

But, as Marie Arleth Skov says, what clothes and what a haircut! And anyone who loves cats can't be all bad. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Foujita seems to have had a thing for white skin; in 1922, he met Lucie Badoul, whom he called Youki, the Japanese word for snow, and she became one of his favourite models and, after divorcing Fernande, his third wife in 1929.  

[2] A successful retrospective of his work was held in 2006 at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. And in France, Foujita has always remained a celebrated figure, much loved for his paintings of Parisian streetscapes, beautiful nudes, cats, and everyday objects. He is primarily associated with Les Années folles, however, in the French popular imagination. (Don't mention the War.)    

 

 

Reflections on 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I. 

 

The American author and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) is perhaps best remembered today for a (semi-autobiographical) short story written after she suffered a severe bout of postpartum psychosis and first published in 1892: The Yellow Wallpaper ... [1]

 

 

 

II. 

 

The (possibly unhinged and certainly unreliable) narrator is a married woman who keeps a journal. Her husband, John, is a doctor and "practical in the extreme". 

 

By this she means: 

 

"He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures."

 

Rightly or wrongly, she resents the fact that he will not believe she's physically unwell and blames him for thereby retarding her recovery. And, to be fair, I can see how this might be troubling. 

 

For it's bad enough when one's useless GP insists there's really nothing wrong. But when one's own spouse - who just happens to also be a physician of high standing - "assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression", that must be really maddening. 

 

And when one's own brother - also a highly respected doctor - concurs that one is simply exhibiting signs of a slight hysterical tendency ... Well, it would be enough to make anyone want to scream and tear at the wallpaper (whatever the colour or pattern). 

 

It's an unfortunate fact that doctors and others working in the healthcare professions, are often not what one might expect or hope for. And experience over recent years has taught me to be wary of accepting their diagnoses and prescribed treatments. 

 

And so I'm sympathetic to the narrator of Gilman's story; even if, as I say, she may be unreliable on occasion and a little too romantic and overly sensitive to queer vibrations for my tastes (sometimes, a draught is just a draught and you really do just need to close the window).  

 

And I do see that John is a patronising and paternalistic prick; I wouldn't want to be married to him, that's for sure.     

 

As for the wallpaper:

 

"I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. [...] The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others."

 

I know a lot of people dislike wallpaper: and I know a lot of people hate the colour yellow - although I'm not among their number and have, in fact, just painted my kitchen in a lemon zesty colour full of enough sunshine to make Van Gogh proud [2].  

 

Still, she has a point: one should be happy - or, at the very least, not unhappy - in one's domestic surroundings. 

 

And it's wrong of her husband to laugh at her about the wallpaper. Just as it's wrong not to appreciate that Wilde was perfectly serious when, lying in his wretchedly furnished Paris hotel room, he declared that he and his wallpaper were fighting a duel to the death: One or the other of us has to go.

 

The fact that Wilde died shortly afterwards proves that home furnishings can have a malevolent - even fatal - influence on our lives and that aesthetics deserves to be taken very seriously as a branch of philosophy. 

III.

 

Like the narrator, I also used to lie awake as a child and extract a mixture of terror and entertainment out of the objects of my little bedroom. She remembers how kindly the knobs of a big old bureau were, whilst I remember the scary faces and figures made of leaves that appeared in the curtains - and that returns us to the yellow wallpaper:  

"This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn’t faded, and where the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design." 

 

Despite this, the woman grows very fond of her room; in spite of the wallpaper, or perhaps - somewhat perversely - because of the wallpaper: "It dwells in my mind so!" She spends many hours trying to follow the pointless pattern:

 

"There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit." 

 

She particularly dislikes it at night, when the moonlight shines on the undulating wallpaper and gives her the creeps: 

 

"The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move [...]" 

 

Her husband tells her to go back to sleep and not be silly. But she doesn't. Instead, she lies there in the darkness "trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately". 

 

If the colour of the paper is bad enough, it's the pattern - with its purely random design that seems to change depending on the light and time of day - that really tortures her mind:

 

"You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you." 

 

In the end, she decides the female figure she sees behind the pattern is a prisoner; trapped and desperate to escape. And she determines to learn her secret, even if she still can't stomach the yellowness of the wallpaper which makes her think "of all the yellow things I ever saw; not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things". 

 

Oh, and did I mention the paper's unique smell: 

 

"I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here. It creeps all over the house. I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. It gets into my hair." 

 

"Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like. It is not bad - at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me. It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house - to reach the smell. But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." 

 

 

IV.

 

And so, we approach the end of Gilman's remarkable tale ... and the narrator's further descent into madness. 

 

She decides, for example, that the pattern of the wallpaper really is moving; that the trapped woman is making it move as she crawls around and shakes the bars of her prison, desperate to break out. Unfortunately, "nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so".   

 

But, having said that: 

 

"I think that woman gets out in the daytime! [...] I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight. [...] I see her [...] creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!" 

 

Finally, there's only one thing for it - she has to strip the paper off the walls: 

 

"As soon as it was moonlight, and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper." 

 

The next day, when alone in the house, she attempts to finish the job, keeping a rope close by just in case the woman gets out and requires restraining. But peeling off the paper isn't easy and she grows increasingly angry and frustrated. She also now totally identifies with the woman and believes that she too has emerged out of the wallpaper:   

 

"I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! I don’t want to go outside. [...] For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way."

 

At this point, her husband John comes home and discovers her creeping around the room:

 

"'What is the matter?' he cried. 'For God's sake, what are you doing!' I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. 'I’ve got out at last,' said I [...] And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!'" 

 

In horror and despair, her husband collapses: 

 

"Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!" 

 

Is that final line a triumphant assertion of female agency and independence - or the confession of a lunatic? 

 

Maybe both: I don't know. 

 

But I do know Gilman's work fully deserves the multiple readings from many different perspectives that it has had over the last 130 years. H. P. Lovecraft was not wrong to recognise it as a classic tale which powerfully (and cleverly) delineates the madness which can overtake any one of us (whatever the colour of our wallpaper) [3].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I am reading (and quoting) from Gilman's tale as published in eBook form by Project Gutenberg in 1999. Click here to read free online.  

 

[2] See the post 'How Beautiful Yellow Is' (1 May 2024): click here. 

 

[3] See H. P. Lovecraft, 'Supernatural Horror in Literature', a 28,000 word essay published in The Recluse (1927): click here to read on the H. P. Lovecraft Archive. 

 

Thanks to Síomón Solomon for suggesting this post.