WEBVTT - About That Nazi Salute

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<v Speaker 1>Call zone media.

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<v Speaker 2>The richest man in the world does a Nazi salute

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<v Speaker 2>while giving a speech at the inauguration of the new president.

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<v Speaker 2>He does a second one in another age. It is

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<v Speaker 2>the most significant event in world history. It's maybe the

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<v Speaker 2>third most fascist event of the day. NBC re uploads

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<v Speaker 2>the address and cuts away from the sig hail a

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<v Speaker 2>broadcasted live. You refresh your timeline. Everyone is arguing about

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<v Speaker 2>whether it was even a Nazi salute. You watch the video.

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<v Speaker 2>It's a Nazi salute. The second one is a Nazi salute.

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<v Speaker 2>None of the headlines will say that Elon Musk did

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<v Speaker 2>a Nazi salute. The articles won't say it either. You

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<v Speaker 2>can't tell whether they've been cowed to submission by the

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<v Speaker 2>threat of a defamation lawsuit, or if they're already running

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<v Speaker 2>cover for the new regime. You scroll through your timeline.

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<v Speaker 2>They made my gender illegal, tried to repeal the fourteenth

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<v Speaker 2>Amendment through executive order to end birthright citizenship. You can't

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<v Speaker 2>follow it. It's too much. The world has become a spectacle,

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<v Speaker 2>and that spectacle is trying to kill you. Welcome to

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<v Speaker 2>ikodap and here I'm your host, Mia Wong. In societies

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<v Speaker 2>where modern conditions of production prevail. All of life presents

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<v Speaker 2>itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. So wrote the

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<v Speaker 2>French social theorist Gee to Board in his seminal nineteen

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<v Speaker 2>sixty seven work The Society of the Spectacle. The Board

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<v Speaker 2>is typically written off as just another theorist of early

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<v Speaker 2>mass media, and today his work is generally confined to

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<v Speaker 2>the art world, which is, to be fair largely a

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<v Speaker 2>demonstration of the fact that nobody who talks about him

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<v Speaker 2>has ever gotten past the opening paragraph of the book

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<v Speaker 2>and made it to the part where he demands the

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<v Speaker 2>formation of armed workers councils. But this is the age

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<v Speaker 2>of the spectacle. In ways when Nightmarish that de Board

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<v Speaker 2>could ever have predicted, his elaborate metaphor is rendered thuddingly

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<v Speaker 2>literal quote. Everything that was directly lived has moved away

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<v Speaker 2>into representation, and indeed living has been replaced by the

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<v Speaker 2>image of living. This phenomena is called instagram. The spectacle.

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<v Speaker 2>Society of the Spectacle opens is not a collection of images,

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<v Speaker 2>but a social relation among people mediated by images. Today

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<v Speaker 2>we literally call the collection of images we use to

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<v Speaker 2>relate to each other social media. Quote. Lived reality is

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<v Speaker 2>materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, while simultaneously

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<v Speaker 2>absorbing the spectacular order, giving it positive cohesiveness. A reality

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<v Speaker 2>TV star, the old human symbol of the spectacle, in

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<v Speaker 2>which everything that was directly lived has been transformed into

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<v Speaker 2>a representation, is now a president the second time, driven

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<v Speaker 2>by streamers and influencers and podcasters, who stand as the

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<v Speaker 2>new human symbols of the spectacle. They have invaded real

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<v Speaker 2>society and now rule it directly. In the nineteen sixties,

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<v Speaker 2>the debate was whether you could ignore the spectacle because

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<v Speaker 2>it wasn't real. The Board's elegant solution was that contemplating

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<v Speaker 2>the spectacle makes it real. None of that matters anymore.

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<v Speaker 2>You can't ignore the spectacle because it's here. It has

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<v Speaker 2>physically invaded the world. Donald Trump is the president. The

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<v Speaker 2>richest man on earth is Nazi, saluting Elon Musk. The

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<v Speaker 2>autonomous force to Board, described as a spectacle, no longer

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<v Speaker 2>operates at the abstract level. It is the president of

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<v Speaker 2>the United States. Everything is rendered thuddingly, transcendently literal into

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<v Speaker 2>Board's usage. The spectacle is the management of society by

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<v Speaker 2>mediating people's social relations through images. This sounds complicated, but

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<v Speaker 2>on an intuitive level, you already understand this. You and

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<v Speaker 2>I relate to each other through the one way mirror

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<v Speaker 2>of a podcast app. You relate to others by reacting

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<v Speaker 2>to their TikTok videos. You watch the bombs fall on

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<v Speaker 2>Palestine on Twitter. You relate to each other and the

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<v Speaker 2>world through images, and that relation is a system of control.

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<v Speaker 2>As de Board describes it, that mediation takes you out

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<v Speaker 2>of the real world, a world that you can actually

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<v Speaker 2>change with your actions, and thrust you into the world

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<v Speaker 2>with the spectacle, a world where reality is quote an

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<v Speaker 2>object of mere contemplation. Today we call this the discourse.

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<v Speaker 2>The work that inspired the nineteen sixty eight revolutions called

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<v Speaker 2>it the spectacle. Why does it feel like this, the rot,

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<v Speaker 2>the decay, the unreality of the moment that consumes you

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<v Speaker 2>until one day Donald Trump is president and the next

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<v Speaker 2>he's president again. To Board has a simple answer. It's

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<v Speaker 2>because the entire political, economic, and technological system is designed

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<v Speaker 2>to make you isolated, afraid, and alone. Quote. Technology is

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<v Speaker 2>based on isolation, and the technical process isolates in turn.

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<v Speaker 2>From the automobile to television, all of the goods selected

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<v Speaker 2>by the spectacular system are also weapons for a constant

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<v Speaker 2>reinforcement of the condition of isolated lonely crowds. Later, he writes,

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<v Speaker 2>what binds the spectators together is no more than an

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<v Speaker 2>irreversible relation at the very center which maintains their isolation.

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<v Speaker 2>The spectacle reunites the separate, but reunites it as separate.

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<v Speaker 2>This is why the world feels like an endless doom.

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<v Speaker 2>Scroll Instagram, TikTok live streaming this podcast. They're all based

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<v Speaker 2>on isolation. Look at what happened to social media during

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<v Speaker 2>the isolation of the pandemic. How it came to consume

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<v Speaker 2>even more of our lives with the promise of connection

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<v Speaker 2>that simply rendered us more and more and more isolated.

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<v Speaker 2>The spectacle, given technological form in the social media app,

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<v Speaker 2>turns us into a mass in which we are all

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<v Speaker 2>somehow terrifyingly alone. We're not people who form a crowd

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<v Speaker 2>that could do anything from celebrate a holiday to burn.

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<v Speaker 2>The third precinct were spectators with listeners were viewers or

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<v Speaker 2>chat not living but commenting on the image of living.

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<v Speaker 2>The spectacle the app the image mediates or social relations

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<v Speaker 2>with each other and ensures that together in a lonely crowd,

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<v Speaker 2>we wrought in isolation and do only the two things

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<v Speaker 2>the capitalist system needs us to do. Work and consume atomize.

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<v Speaker 2>Individuals are the ideal subject of capitalism, the basis on

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<v Speaker 2>which everything is built. You entered into a free contract

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<v Speaker 2>to live under a state, says a social theorist. You,

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<v Speaker 2>the individual, gave up your labor to your boss voluntarily,

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<v Speaker 2>in another free contract between individuals, says the economist. Do

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<v Speaker 2>not organize with anyone else to get paid more for

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<v Speaker 2>that labor, or God help you. Try to create a

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<v Speaker 2>system where you aren't forced to sell your labor every day.

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<v Speaker 2>That's cheating, says the politician. Your job is to sell

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<v Speaker 2>your labor, buy these products, and comment on a world

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<v Speaker 2>in which someone else is acting. The isolation of the

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<v Speaker 2>spectacle ensures that we're incapable of collective action. Not only

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<v Speaker 2>because we're incapable of forming a collective we're not even

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<v Speaker 2>engaging in the world in which action can take place.

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<v Speaker 2>The extent of the advance of the spectacle today is

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<v Speaker 2>such that the unfolding of the economic system is designed

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<v Speaker 2>to turn every part of you into a commodity, not

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<v Speaker 2>just your labor, but your identity, your beliefs, everything that

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<v Speaker 2>you are is sold to everyone else a spectacle, and

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<v Speaker 2>in turn, everything that defines you becomes the spectacle itself.

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<v Speaker 2>In a world where there is no action, just the

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<v Speaker 2>image of someone else's actions somewhere else, a commercialized political

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<v Speaker 2>identity is much easier to adopt than actually doing politics.

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<v Speaker 2>You don't have to do politics. You can just put

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<v Speaker 2>on a red hat and watch the man on TV

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<v Speaker 2>make the liberals angry. You don't need relations with your family,

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<v Speaker 2>you have Facebook groups. Your relations to the world world

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<v Speaker 2>are relations to images. David Graber wrote that the ultimate

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<v Speaker 2>hidden truth of the world is that it is something

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<v Speaker 2>that we make and could just as easily make differently.

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<v Speaker 2>But the second, slightly less ultimate hidden truth is that

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<v Speaker 2>almost everything we think of as objects, money, capital, commodities

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<v Speaker 2>are really just relations between people abstracted out onto something physical.

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<v Speaker 2>We interact with each other by using objects as forms

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<v Speaker 2>of command. What do you think money is? Instead of

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<v Speaker 2>having real, equal social relations, And that makes it all

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<v Speaker 2>the more dire that the social relations that compose this

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<v Speaker 2>world are no longer even relations with each other at all,

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<v Speaker 2>but relations with images. The spectacle is a strategy of

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<v Speaker 2>control rights quote where the real world changes into simple images,

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<v Speaker 2>the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of

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<v Speaker 2>hypnotic behavior. The spectacle is a tendency to make one

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<v Speaker 2>see the world by various means of specialized mediations. It

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<v Speaker 2>can no longer be grasped directly. As a spectacle advances,

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<v Speaker 2>even rebellion is reduced to meaningless attacks on the symbols

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<v Speaker 2>of power, never touching power itself. Quote. But when the

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<v Speaker 2>insurgents managed to penetrate parliaments, presidential palaces, and other headquarters

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<v Speaker 2>of institutions, as in Ukraine, in Libya or in Wisconsin,

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<v Speaker 2>it's only to discover empty places that is empty of

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<v Speaker 2>power and furnished without any taste. So wrote the Invisible

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<v Speaker 2>Committee of the Distant halcyon Days of twenty fourteen, it

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<v Speaker 2>could have been written yesterday. Nine years later, the insurgents,

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<v Speaker 2>now on the right, produced their masterpiece, Brazil's even more

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<v Speaker 2>ineffectual Cousin of January sixth, known forever as January eighth,

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<v Speaker 2>on that day in twenty twenty three. For reasons that

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<v Speaker 2>are almost totally incomprehensible to anyone whose mind has not

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<v Speaker 2>been utterly melted by prolonged and terrible exposure to the spectacle,

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<v Speaker 2>supporters of defeated President JayR. Bolsonaro stormed Brazil's capital. Bolsonaro,

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<v Speaker 2>of course, had already fled to Florida. The Presidential Palace, Congress,

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<v Speaker 2>and the Supreme Court were literally empty when the protesters

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<v Speaker 2>took them. There was nothing to be one, nothing to

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<v Speaker 2>be gained. The protesters vain hopes that simply seizing the

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<v Speaker 2>symbols of power would trigger a military coup to remove

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<v Speaker 2>Lula and restore the Bolsonara regime evaporated like a morning dew,

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<v Speaker 2>leaving nothing in their wake. January sixth at least attacked

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<v Speaker 2>the site of the ritual of power while the ritual

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<v Speaker 2>was technically in progress. The attack was of course, designed

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<v Speaker 2>to stop the certification of the election Congress was at

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<v Speaker 2>least in session, even if that attack, too, was the

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<v Speaker 2>culmination of a series of ineffectual reruns of the Broke

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<v Speaker 2>Brothers Riots, in which right wing political operatives did manage

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<v Speaker 2>to steal an election by stopping the vote count in

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<v Speaker 2>Florida in two thousand. On January eighth, no one was

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<v Speaker 2>even there, So how do we get out? Lashing out

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<v Speaker 2>at the symbols of power is pointless. You can't ignore

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<v Speaker 2>them either Elon's Nazi salute really does represent something. The

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<v Speaker 2>opening of any solution is to go to the source.

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<v Speaker 2>Trump and Elon are symptoms, not the disease. The spectacle

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<v Speaker 2>is born of capitalism, management strategy designed to suppress any

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<v Speaker 2>attempt to end or even rearrange the terms of the

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<v Speaker 2>class system. Trump and Elon were likewise produced by two

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<v Speaker 2>settler colonies. They are, in their own ways, the manifestation

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<v Speaker 2>of the evil of colonialism and racism. The Board's solution

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<v Speaker 2>to these problems, of course, well the solutions that people

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<v Speaker 2>bother to read. There is a staggeringly racist section of

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<v Speaker 2>this work about how time passes in China that I

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<v Speaker 2>simply cannot recommend. But the Board's solution was workers' councils,

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<v Speaker 2>and he got his wish the next year between the

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<v Speaker 2>factory occupations of nineteen sixty eight. It nearly worked. But

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<v Speaker 2>the last workers council fell a quarter of a century

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<v Speaker 2>ago in Argentina, and there's no sign at the workers council.

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<v Speaker 2>The definitive fighting form of the working class for over

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<v Speaker 2>a century is coming back. In some ways. This is liberating.

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<v Speaker 2>One hundred and seventy years ago, Marx wrote this in

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<v Speaker 2>the eighteenth through mayor of Louis Bonaparte, his own response

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<v Speaker 2>to a nation's nationalist attempt to restore its former glory

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<v Speaker 2>by invoking the name of a previous leader. The social

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<v Speaker 2>revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry from

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<v Speaker 2>the past, but only from the future. It cannot begin

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<v Speaker 2>with itself before it has stripped away all superstitions about

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<v Speaker 2>the past. In the days and weeks and months, and

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<v Speaker 2>God help us all years to come, we're going to

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<v Speaker 2>have to assemble a new fighting form, and no one

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<v Speaker 2>knows what it looks like yet. We could perhaps look

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<v Speaker 2>at the airport protests from the first months of the

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<v Speaker 2>original Trump administration, or masses of people, including a very

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<v Speaker 2>young Mia who had not quite realized what gender she was,

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<v Speaker 2>occupied airports all across the country to stop the implementation

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<v Speaker 2>of Trump's Muslim ban by physically forcing the government to

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<v Speaker 2>release the people had detained in the airports. The power

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<v Speaker 2>of those protests was that they directly located the site

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<v Speaker 2>where power was operating the airport and took them. The

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<v Speaker 2>weakness of those protests was that people went home, and

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<v Speaker 2>they went home because they had been told time and

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<v Speaker 2>time and time again by the ACLU and by other

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<v Speaker 2>legal organizations that the fight was over, that they could leave,

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<v Speaker 2>and that the Muslim Bans would be defeated by the courts.

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<v Speaker 2>Most of you lived through it. Some of you remember

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<v Speaker 2>the Muslim ban was never defeated by the courts. It

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<v Speaker 2>could possibly have been defeated in those moments, it wasn't.

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<v Speaker 2>The contest was taken away from the real sight of

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<v Speaker 2>power and into a domain largely ruled by the ruling class.

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<v Speaker 2>But we can learn from both January eighth and the

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<v Speaker 2>airport protests. Marching to a building doesn't guarantee you're actually

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<v Speaker 2>targeting power. You must understand how the system is operating

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<v Speaker 2>before you attempt to go up its works. A thousand

0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.560
<v Speaker 2>miniature January eighths is no solution at all. You must

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<v Speaker 2>do the hard work of sifting through the tangle of

0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.560
<v Speaker 2>rumors and lies and attempting to work out the actual

0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:24.040
<v Speaker 2>structure of repression. It starts with community self defense. It

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<v Speaker 2>starts with actually engaging with each other instead of the

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<v Speaker 2>mediated images generated by an algorithm. You want to break

0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.400
<v Speaker 2>out of the spectacle. Talk to the people around you,

0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.040
<v Speaker 2>talk to the trans people and the immigrants in your life,

0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.160
<v Speaker 2>and find out what they actually need. Figure out the

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<v Speaker 2>concrete steps you can take to organize the people around you,

0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:49.880
<v Speaker 2>and the steps you can take to lift them out

0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:54.200
<v Speaker 2>of their despair. We're not going to develop a new

0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:59.000
<v Speaker 2>fighting form glued to our phones alone in a digital crowd.

0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.920
<v Speaker 2>We're going to figure it out by talking to each other,

0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:07.400
<v Speaker 2>by acting in the real world, not by being rendered

0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:12.199
<v Speaker 2>passive observers of the spectacle. We're going to do it

0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:16.680
<v Speaker 2>by finding the real places where power operates and taking them,

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<v Speaker 2>and above all, we're going to do it together.

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<v Speaker 1>It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

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<v Speaker 1>For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.800
<v Speaker 1>Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.440
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.800
<v Speaker 1>now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly

0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.120
<v Speaker 1>in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.