Month: December 2009

On the gentle art of Winning.

For a whole month, a while back, I started my day by filling out every online-competition I could find. Using sites like Bli en vinnare [Become a winner] I’d suck their RSS dry, answering inane questions and coming up with slogans for crap I don’t really need. As a kid I used to do the same thing, and there’s something completist about filling out forms online.

Just like personality evaluations, IQ or EQ test, aptitude or Myers-Briggs analysis, there’s something rewarding with the feeling that this anonymous internet form cares about me. Also, there’s a bonus in that you’ll learn to rhyme on cue, incorporating brand names or explanations of why this shade of lipstick would make you feel glorious! It’s all about the gratification of winning — regardless of what the price might be — so in that regard it’s similar to kleptomania or any ADD condition; A completist competetive disorder.

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So about 100 competition later, an anonymous package arrived and I still don’t know what competition generated it. No accompanying letter explaining why I’m getting an iPhone charger and mount. The charger is actually rather nifty, with adapters for the whole world built into one rattling piece of plastic. The mount is of more use to someone with an actual window to affix it to, not to mention an iPod to put into it, so Jan got it for early Christmas and I kept the charger as an incentive to travel. Also, the cellphone which I disparaged about a while back arrived, with no dead fish in the package!

All is fine and well and then This American Life chimes in:

When a new Chick-Fil-A sandwich shop opens, people line up 24 hours in advance to be one of the hundred people to get a free year’s worth of chicken sandwiches. [Link to show here: In the middle of the night]

[audio:https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/TAL_395_middle_of_the_night.mp3|titles=This American Life 395 – in the middle of the night|Artist=This American Life]

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The forum of blienvinnare.com has close to 19’000 members, and the pages are full of hints and pointers for how to compete, what company has put on the best competition, how to deal with cheaters — apparently it’s common practice to take all coupons from a store to hinder others, which is bad sport — and how to complain to the organizing body in case the competition isn’t fair or has some other fault.

Some people take this shit seriously indeed, and in comparison I’m a lightweight, a dilettante dillettante amongst people who’ve made slogan-writing into a noble pursuit which can land you one years supply of cheese. If you’re inclined to read Swedish, check out the post listing what people won during the Christmas calendar competitions and perhaps you’ll see the temptation. Or weep for humanity, whichever.

Terrorism in action. The first day is OK.

I say, the power of bloggery is intense! No sooner had the previous post gone up than someone took action and pulled the power to my whole neighbourhood. Microwaves, computers, fridges, lights, everything went silent and I was left fumbling for a lighter (sometimes smokers are better of) and candles.

For all twenty minutes while my circles were broken, I relaxed and made some tea, surrendered to the liberating feeling that I actually didn’t have to do anything. And then the power came back on, of course, and I’m now at the computer writing about it and photoshopping the images I took.

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If this whole terrorism bit is to bear fruit, I hope whoever pulls off these kind of attacks has a long term strategy, or at least an idea of one, as to what would happen if the whole city would be without power for a week. I’m pretty certain that I’d like “hot water” at some point before Christmas, and would go to tire-burning lengths to acquire it.

Hey kids, let’s consider terrorism!

What with the climate summit in Copenhagen bringing back memories of my own trips to large meetings of important people, I’ve been thinking over the merits of action, and more particularly, the benefits of terrorism.

If we know with n% certainty that an 1°C rise in temperature would cause huge changes to our environment — causing human misery along with extinction of biotopes and what have you — and we are equally certain that it’s our own carbon emissions that are the main culprit behind the rise, there seems to be little room to wiggle out of actaully doing something. I don’t follow everyday politics, so very little noise has reached me about what action is being taken to remedy global warming, but let’s assume that it’s “not enough,” shall we?

So even thought there are humans who are affected now — or will likely be affected in the future — by changes in the temperature and subsequent changes in their living conditions, these changes are all mediated through the planet, and blame is easy to shift. When 6.5 billion people are shitting in the same river, it’s hard to tell whose corn you got stuck between your teeth.

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Maybe it would be simpler to see the environment as something with class interests but with no representation?

I’m depressingly convinced that positive change usually comes about only if there’s a threat of a popular uprising or other such change of power distribution. Power is never given, only taken by force — implied or otherwise. This force doesn’t have to be violent as such, but holding vigils and giving out flowers is what happens after the actual fight; It’s not that which initiates the struggle but that which kisses and makes up.

So what is a concerned citizen with a global pathos to do? Where can your limited energy and time be spent and still have an effect? Might I suggest that terrorism offers most bang for your buck? “Terrorism” is just another word for “non-governmental” after all, so besides having to carry the burden of proof you could have the moral high ground; Especially in the eyes of a hopefully grateful posterity.

But whom to terrorise, using what means and for what particular ends? No-one likes vehicles which run on petrol, but hydrogen cars aren’t much better, and who’s going to deliver the food to the store, not to mention drive me to the airport when I’m going on vacation and hey look I pooped in the river again!

Ought you to follow in the footsteps of ELF or Earth First! by burning urban sprawl or logging machinery, spiking and/or climbing trees? The slogan “No compromise in defence of Mother Earth” is alluring but doesn’t make much of a plan. The Unabomber had a plan, albeit a haphazard one, but I don’t know if he brought about any positive change; Does anyone remember much except that scraggly beard?

Perhaps we just ought to think more spectacularly: bigger, better, badder, boom; Chaïm Nissim gave the following reason for firing five rockets at a nuclear powerplant:

These terrorist attacks were part of a movement and each little piece has its importance. People fired rockets, myself for instance. We had found a bazooka by German terrorists and we fired it. We failed, as the closest rocket missed the important part that we targeted by one metre. It was nevertheless quite beautiful. And, symbolically, it was a token contribution to the larger movement. Via Wikipedia

As Chaïm writes, such spectacular action is mostly symbolic (except the actual damage to property, if you’re inclined to take offence at that) but might have a positive long term debate — setting the stage for diplomacy — but make it spectacular enough and the backlash will be awesome.

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Humanity is treating this impending environmental doom as a fait accompli and our own future is suffering the Genovese syndrome. I don’t know what would entice me to stick my neck out even though I know it might be the right thing to do, so I can’t for the life of me come up with a plan of action here. Tell me, good people, what ten buildings or industries or people or symbols do we attack — with what force — to what good purpose? What would you be willing to do, to what cost to yourself or others? Do we puncture the tires of cars or give people bikes? Is knocking out powerplants a way forward or forcefully installing micro wind turbines better? Burn buildings to reduce sprawl or occupy land by force and start a new land distribution reform?

The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, part 2.

The goal of these video tutorials is to help those who otherwise struggle with writing theoretical texts, enabling anyone to learn to write like Walter Benjamin, and more specifically to write his 1936 essay “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” which is a good starting point if one intends to write theory.

In this part, we’ll be writing the preface to essay, using the UCLA translation of the original German work. If you are serious about learning this skill I’d recommend that you’d download the English or German version and follow along. Learning by doing, as it were.


Pardon the clicking and hissing towards the end of the video — My computer threw a hissy fit when it had to open a new document, and this somehow affected only the audio.