Comments on: WWMS?

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:21:08 +0000

We’re all talking past each other. We can’t exist without changing the world, with every breath we take, every cake we bake, every lobster we take for a stroll.

By: eszter

eszter — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:04:55 +0000

CT is the path to cultural capital, I guess.

John, you only figured this out now?:)

Harold, yes, I enjoyed the Roman remains quite a bit as well.

By: abb1

abb1 — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:09:05 +0000

Bad Jim, if you like brassiness here’s a good one by Lenin: “Marx’s teaching is all-powerful, because it is correct.”

By: Harold

Harold — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:26:54 +0000

A few summers ago, we went to the Marx museum in Trier. We were not tempted at all by the shirt with the slogan: “The philosophers have tried to interpret the world. The point, however, is to change it.”

In fact it is all too easy to change the world—for the worse—the point is to understand it.

When we came home I read somewhere that this is in fact a mistranslation and that Marx’s original meaning was not quite so stupid. I think he meant something along the lines: “the point is to understand the world in order to change it.”

Slogans do lend themselvesto stupidity, though. The last thing the world needs is more anti-intellectualism. I preferred the French slogan of 1968—“less action, more talk.” (But not “no action, only talk.”—perhaps it should be “Less slogans, more thought!”)

Bought a mug.

That museum put us off going to any more German history museums for a while. It was unbelievably dull.

Trier is very nice. Especially the Roman antiquities. It was a hugely important outpost of the Roman Empire.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:34:10 +0000

abb1, I’m partial to the quote partly for its brassiness but mostly because it’s a capsule definition of pragmatism, or a variety of it: instead of speculating about something, perform an experiment.

By: Dr. Minorka

Dr. Minorka — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:08:23 +0000

“I don’t think too many people in the town where I grew up would get why I’d want anything with Marx on my walls.”
I’m not sure. Times are changing. There is a widespread feeling that the post-1989 system has failed, too. Next general strike: December 17. The electoral support of the governing Socialist Party (self-reliance, privatizing the health care, and in general everything what is left from the pre-1989 times, etc.) has practically disappeared. The right-wing opposition (strongly opposing the privatization) could receive twice as many votes as the socialists if elections were held today.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:53:49 +0000

I’d never heard of this museum until I read Eszter’s post, but then it was mentioned by a colleague at dinner last night (in Cairns, North Queensland!), and I quoted the postcard. CT is the path to cultural capital, I guess.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:23:07 +0000

#18 cites: “Literacy is the Path to Communism.”

This is certainly understood in some societies. The elite of Mende society in Sierra Leone used literacy (in Arabic) as a strategic political weapon, and restricted access to literacy education in order to maintain their political power.

By: a very public sociologist

a very public sociologist — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:48:45 +0000

I do love radical chic, but then I’ve got the politics to fit :P

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:38:24 +0000

2: “I guess in Germany it will be a long time before everyone is on the same track again.”

You say that like it’s a bad thing…

By: abb1

abb1 — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:36:30 +0000

…my favorite quote: “The philosophers have tried to interpret the world in several ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

It was used as a slogan in the USSR; what’s so good about it? I always disliked it, the hubris of it.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:15:21 +0000

I once had a poster, from the S.F. Cost Plus, featuring a monster out of the Apocalypse, entitled “Literacy is the Path to Communism.” (Back somewhen it may have been commonly assumed that literacy and communism were both good things.)

A couple of years ago I took a tour of Highgate Cemetery. I was pleased to note that the tomb of Marx was engraved with my favorite quote: “The philosophers have tried to interpret the world in several ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

I was even more gratified to find a German version of this, in an intricate spherical sculpture near the train station in Potsdam, on the way to Sans Souci.

By: gmoke

gmoke — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:04:18 +0000

Not Marxist but definitely Hungarian and possibly right up your alley, from Bruce Sterling and the Doors of Perception folks:

http://www.score-network.org
KITCHEN BUDAPEST
Kitchen Budapest, a new media lab, which opened in June, is doing fascinating work: a robot lawnmower that reproduces photographic images on the landscape; (((okay, hold everything: who the hell can’t like a photographic lawnmower))) an intelligent autonomous raft that’s still floating down the Danube; a local network for displaying local videos; and a web 2 platform called GETS that that enables local level service exchange. Three months on, their first catalogue is already online and and is also available upon request in printed form. Kitchen also have residency openings for such programmes as “Pimp My Gadget” for next year. Kitchen has to be one of Europe’s liveliest labs.
http://www.kitchenbudapest.hu/hu/2007summerpdf
LANDLINES

By: nick s

nick s — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:48:39 +0000

The Lev Yashin goalie shirt, in particular, is a triumph of minimalism. Though the tedious ongoing discussion of 'why Commie chic? why no Nazi chic?' will apparently never be settled by reference to design principles. You'd think that the deriders of Commie chic would be sufficiently gleeful at its commodification.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:06:51 +0000

Thanks for the Soviet poster link, Atlas, that’s a neat resource.

I remember (just barely) some really great posters and slogans. After all, artistic/graphical talent existed under those conditions as well so they were put to such use.