From: matthew@symphony.cc.purdue.edu (Matthew Sharp)
Subject: Re: Sex + Cars + Critics on Acid == Art!
Organization: Purdue University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:16:04 GMT

Gregory Taylor writes
} gallen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Geoff Allen) writes:
} >I lost the previous posts - but who was it who was arguing that our
} >technofetishism (and carrying it to extremes) was part of some
} >fascist artistic movement (the Futurists) and therefore it was  
inherently
} >fascist?
} 
} 
} But *inherently* fascist? I don't think I've heard *that* claim. I've
} argued quite regularly against a facile "Well, so what if Boyd Rice
} dallies with the Aryan Nation? It's only *music*" type of analysis which
} attempts to cast Marinetti and his poor widdle fwends as being co-opted
} by the i nasti fascisti, because I don't think that it squares with the
} historical record [this has been researched much more fearlessly by 
} recent Italian critics during the 1980s than by Americans, so you'd 
} have to be able to do some research in the primary language]. For me,
} the question involves trying to get your average nonreflective suburban
} industrial geek to proceed from the more historically accurate position
} of saying "Well, yes. Russolo and Marinetti were in with the Fascist
} art establishment up to their eyeballs, from the glowing essays on the
} primacy of Fascism in futurist thought from the 1933 Novocento  
exhibition
} catalogs all the way to the government stipends. But what kinds of 
} currents in futurist thought might have impelled them in that direction?
} Stuff that you couldn't reconstruct futurism *without*, perhaps?
} This whole program would for me be much more like looking at feminist
} reconstructions of Freud. What I've regularly spoken out on here is
} the "deny or excuse" stance of your average rmi junior futurist.

And why do you think that the "deny or excuse" stance exists?
Let me first say that, politically, I am inclined to believe that 
fascism is a positive thing.  Now everyone who disagrees with me
may either quit reading or continue, but no one may accuse me
of trying to "trick" anyone into believing something.

I think that the inability of people on rmi (and elsewhere, for that
matter) to accept Futurism's nice little mutually benefitial
relationship with Fascism is based primarily upon their own 
inability to deal with the "fascist tendency" which is granted
upon those who receive any sort of power.

} >Anyway, I really beg to disagree on both counts... Like the people
} >who drool over race cars etc. today, the Futurists were NOT a typically
} >fascist movement.  I remember reading somewhere (a long time ago  
really)
} >that it was Mussolini that liked them, and not the other way around...
} 
} We'll leave aside the equation which places futurists as mere  
worshippers
} of race cars [perhaps a little critique of technology and power might
} serve us better. How about computers instead of race cars?], since  
that's
} only a straw man argument. Again, I'd suggest that your reading might be
} a little out of date in terms of current scholarship. Besides, it's not
} like its being regularly written about in English. The last thing we
} saw here was the publication and translation of "The Futurist Cookbook."
} In fact, lots of the recent publication on the subject comes explicitly
} from the fact that futurism had been so thoroughly discredited by the 
} Italian public after the fall of Mussolini that it was actually  
difficult
} to *find* some of the original documents (M. Kerby told me that he had
} several experiences while researching "Futurist Performance" of finally
} finding a relative or friend who had turned out to have thrown out or
} burned the original documents in disgust after the war). From my  
reading,
} I'd be inclined to think that it's most charitable to conculde that
} the boys embraced il Duce because they really didn't care *what* it took
} to guarantee them success and support, and that one searches their  
manifestos
} in vain for the merest hint of a futurist ethic which doesn't outright
} condone their worst excesses. I think you're also off the track to  
suggest
} that futurist art is a monolithic form. After all, folks like that old
} FM-classical weenie Respighi (that's right, "The Pines of Rome" and all
} that) was *also* in the fascist pantheon.

To even suggest that the Italian futurist where not 
fascists, or even that the were fascists by force, is ludicrous.
They were, perhaps, fascists of opportunity or convenience, but
their embrace of said form of government, I feel, cannot be
said to be a move of "survival." It was a conscious, and wise
decision; one which guaranteed them an almost definite success.

} >My point is, why make the generalization that all Futurists were  
fascist,
} >or especially the statement that Futurism is inherently fascist?  Just
} >because some were forced into submission and cooperation with Mussolini
} >doesn't have anything to do with whether today's Futurists have  
anything
} >to _do_ with fascism.  One must take circumstances into account, is  
what
} >I'm really trying to say.  
} 
} I'm not making that generalization, as I've argued above. However,
} Italian futurism (unlike, say, German realism in the 30s) was  
sufficiently
} narrow in scope and limited to a small group of people whose movements
} and writings can be researched that one can claim that, indeed, most
} if not all of the futurists seem to be voluntarily tangoing with il
} Duce's pals and loving every minute of it [indeed, what might arguably
} have been their biggest contemporary exhibition happens with the  
imprimatur
} of the Fascist government - that Novocento thing]. They do not appear to
} have been forced. As to the question of historical continuity, well....
} it now appears that your nice old uncle Luigi Futuristi was buggering  
the
} hell out of all three of your cute little cousins. When you go home for
} a visit after a long time away, someone in the cafe looks across the 
} counter at you and says, "Hey. You're a Futuristi, ain't ya? Your kin
} are a bunch of child molesters, ain't they?" I'd call "taking  
circumstances
} into account" as the business of admitting to the fact that it's  
happened
} and being willing to seriously interrogate your own commitments in light
} of what happened to your nice old uncle Luigi (who is, after all,  
*family.*)

I suppose this is as good a point as any to bring this up...

My main argument with this thread is that so far the  term
fascism has been used in an almost exclusively negative manner.

From the denial or rationalization of accusations of fascism
pertaining to the Italian Futurists, to the analogy above 
between fascism and child molestation, it has been assumed,
without _any_ discussion that fascism is a widely-accepted evil.

I challenge that.  I feel that it is not.  I also feel
that it is unfair to assume that everyone feels that it is.

For one to attempt to make an apology for the Futurists is to
accept that definition.

I would imagine that most people have no problem with the
acceptance of that definition, but I also think that most
people have not seriously examined fascism without some
prejudice, which may be very well-founded if one includes
the history of the Nazis and Benito's excesses.

 
} 
} >Artists are people too, and when 99.9%of the
} >people are forced into compliance with a fascist government, you'd  
better
} >bet that most of the artists will be too, especially those taking such  
an
} >apolitical stance.
} 
} This is a great sop if you work from an ethic which allows you to 
} overlook personal culpability in light of fashion or statistics. I'd
} think that the brave and individualistic and alienated rmi sort would
} sneer bigtime at those toadies who run with the pack.

Sure, provided there was someone else to sneer first, so that
they would know _when_ to sneer.

Yeah, I know.  Same point.  Different phrasing.  I'm getting
redundant.


} Have a nice day (I'll just bet that Matthew answers this post, too. My
} money's on the "ethical" angle - were they opportunists or cowardly
} toadies?)

Damn.  Am I that predictable?


And to think, I just added "geek" to the NeXT dictionary...
--
                                        M a t t h e w  N.  S h a r p
                                      matthew@symphony.cc.purdue.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.industrial