Organic art = the patterns of life (5)

4.  Western Late-Modernity sows the seeds of After-Modernity

Long ago it downed on me that there is no way to untangle the arts from societal evolution and its economic, political or geo-political aspects. All are intertwined and their interconnections are what creates the reality of what happens in our present societies.

Understanding our present implies that we get a handle on the evolution of these interconnections from the past, to the present, to the future.

Only when we understand our present can we feel the ways of our species in the future and then we adapt our being accordingly in the present …

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4.1. Concepts in their historical context


Modernity is the worldview shared by the populations of the world during this last historical era of power societies which are themselves the 2nd stage of societal evolution (1ststage : tribal societies → 2nd stage: power societies).

Societies did not transition from their tribal form into their power form in one go and similarly they did not enter Modernity all at once. Societal transitions are always gradual. Some societies lead the way while others follow. The transition of the whole world to Modernity was operated in 3 stages:

1. the first stage = Early-Modernity. It emerged originally in Western Europe around the 12th-13th centuries slowly giving rise to merchant capitalism, “great voyages of discoveries”, and the establishment of colonies. The art of that period is a mix of Christian art, a past practice that gradually declined, and secular art that gradually expanded while propagandizing the values of the new rich long distance merchants and other bourgeois (portraits of those in the mansion, landscapes around the mansion and stills on the tables of the mansions).
2. the second stage = High-Modernity. It starts, around 1750, with philosophic rationalism and the industrial revolution that finances the expansion of the colonial adventure, of Western European nations, to the quasi-entirety of the world.
   Between approximately 1750 and 1850 religious art is mostly disappearing freeing the entire art-space to secular works. Sometime after 1850 Modernism emerges and, with hindsight, we observe that it has been the most important artistic turning point in the history of art. It was a turning point because, after lasting for just over a century, the failure of the avant-garde to realize its objectives became the opportunity that propagandists sized upon to take ownership of art and to transform it into a financial spectacle …
   The end of Modernism also coincides with the independence of most former Western colonies. These 2 events are somehow linked to the actions of US Foreign relations institutions.
3. the 3rd stage = Late-Modernity. This is the age of an old Modernity on its trajectory to passing away. The turning point to that 3rd phase takes place around approximately 1940-1960 with the putsch of propagandists to own art. After that they encouraged the rise of Postmodernism with the intention to destroy all grand narratives in order to lethally handicap all opposition to their neoliberal transformation of the economies of the world.
   Without any grand narrative left, on the level playing field of the market for ideas, the neoliberal experiment was unopposed for half a century. Its propagandists took the credit for the fall of the Soviet-Union and imposed the Washington consensus’ cocktail of neoliberal prescriptions to the rest of the world which kept Washington in the driver seat of the economy-world from the 2nd World War till the financial crisis of 2008.
   Fifty years of globalization have hollowed out Western economies. Factories were delocalized, industrial jobs vanished, wages stagnated or fell in real term provoking the ire of the remaining blue collar workers. In the meantime the profits of the MNC’s and the returns to their big capital holders were at a historic high.
   While the West was self-immolating China learned, from the MNC’s newly invested factories, how to build itself in the ‘factory of the world’ and very soon it had a 300 million size middle-class of consumers...
   Before any one knew it the center of gravity of the economy-world had shifted from New-York, the command center of the nervous system of the West, to Beijing the command center of the nervous system of Eurasia.
   The awakening for Westerners was a nightmare but for Chinese it was like a sweet dream come true. Conflict was rife. The West entered in an infernal spiral of decay and started to agitate …

4.2. the financial and ideological spectacle


All along the 19th century, under the impact of rationalism and the industrial revolution, Europe witnessed very rapid changes. Science appeared to offer a vision of reality based on the observation of multiple dimensions from the microscopic, to the macroscopic, and further into pure abstract ideation.


Being friends with intellectuals and scientists the members of the avant-garde took part in discussions about this new wave of scientific perception (1). And soon they started to apply their understanding of these new ideas to their visual signs of reality. Their approach radically rejected all past modes of visual representation at the exception perhaps of primitive arts that they thought were falling in a different category without really grasping what the difference was based upon.


The artists who painted, or sculpted, these primitive art-works were primarily animist men of knowledge who dabbled in visual representations in order to share their worldview with their fellow tribesmen. Their prime activity was creating knowledge. Creating visual signs was secondary. In contrast the members of the avant-garde were pure image makers for who the knowledge base of their time was at best an object of curiosity that motivated their rejection of all past modes of representation.


Recognizing this fundamental difference, in the activities of the animist men of knowledge and the members of the Modernist avant-garde, we come to understand why the avant-garde never really succeeded to attain the objective it had fixed for itself:

1. the animist men of knowledge made visual signs to share their views about reality (worldview) with their fellow tribesmen. Their image making was a tool to fix their ideas in the minds so that their society would be highly cohesive and would thus reproduce over the long haul. Their endeavors were rewarded with the most incredible success. Their model of society survived indeed for tens of thousands of years and all this in climate conditions that were very harsh in comparison to the stable conditions that ‘power societies’ labored through.
2. the members of the avant-garde wanted to make visual signs of their societies’ changing views about reality. They sensed that a new worldview was in the making and they wanted to surf on it. Unfortunately they had no real understanding about what that changing worldview was all about. Their visual signs were experiments, in expressing their feelings, out of which they hoped would emerge a representation of that new worldview. But this was all a very naive take on how human societies work. And as would be expected the outcome, after a few decades of such experiments, was a complete failure. Their failure was two-fold:

• it was an abject failure in terms of content. The subject of their works never satisfied their original objective which was to give deeper representations of a multi-dimensional reality that was emerging in the perception of their society.
• it was also an abject failure in terms of form. Frustrated by their failure to identify the true nature of their subject-matter the members of the avant-garde naturally experimented with form… Some of these forms were later adopted in design and architecture like Cubism for example. But the fact of the matter is that the confusion was such in the minds of these creators that many modernists artworks appeared incoherent, senseless, grotesque and sometimes rather ugly I must say In "What is art?" Tolstoy proposes that form acts as the “tactical principle” of art. The nature of visual art is to be observed by as many visual eye-balls as possible in order to impregnate the minds, of as many people as possible, with the content of the work. Tolstoy argues that what attracts the eyes and the mind is beauty. Beauty tricks the observer to go over to the work so as to have a more analytical view. And as such the tactical principle without any doubt is inducing the triumph of the art strategy which is to impregnate the mind of the observer with the meaning that is at the core of the work’s content. Ugliness, as a matter of fact, repulses peoples’ eyes and minds and so they look away. And Modernism suffered of this particular kind of rejection by society at large ...

The minds, of the vast majority of citizens in Western countries, were not attracted to observe Modernist works. Their minds, on the contrary, were repulsed and so they turned away. They rejected Modernism because of the incoherence of its content, but perhaps even more so, because they were repulsed by its form. Imbued as they were by their sense of superiority the members of the intelligentsia did not catch the historical significance of this popular rejection of Modernism. But it was surely not lost on everybody.


In the eyes of propagandists in the institutions of US Foreign Relations this rejection appeared as an opportunity :

• to use art as a powerful tool to spread their propaganda with the hope to shift the loyalties of the intellectuals and artists, from Marxism, to neocon-liberalism and postmodernism,
• to attract European artists and merchants to New-York in order to ensure the shift of the art market from Paris to New-York thus, – gaining an economic advantage, – and erasing the anxiety generated, in US elites’ minds, by their perception of living in a cultural desert.

At this point allow me a digression. In an earlier chapter I indicated how living species are governed by the dance between their polarities. The individuals act as the positive energetic pole that is in charge of infusing more complexity in their societies while societies act as the negative energetic pole that ensures their conservation and reproduction over the long haul thus ensuring the perpetuation of the species. I also indicated that the roles of both poles are equally vital for all living species.


US ideology is privileging the role of the individuals while disparaging the role of society and so it propagandizes individualism. Soviet ideology was privileging the role of society while disparaging the role of the individuals and so it propagandized societal collectivism. Both ideologies are flat wrong, for, they go counter to the imperative of the principle of life which is to reproduce. The lesson of Late-Modernity, for the human species, should be just that. We went counter, to the imperative of reproduction of the principle of life, so now we have to assume the consequences including eventually our own extinction.


Living species rely on the interconnectedness of their two poles, and the balancing of their energetic forces, to ensure their reproduction over the long haul. In other words along the tortuous path of their biological and societal evolution living species are forced to recognize that :

1. the individuals can’t survive outside of their society,
2. that society collapses when it atomizes. Societal atomization means that the individuals go their own individual ways and societies lose their cohesion and eventually die.

The human species till now has still not recognized that societal atomization concludes with collapse. Let’s hope that our species survives the consequences of its stupidity after discovering in Late-Modernity how vital the imperative, of reproduction of the principle of life, really is.


The disconnection of these 2 poles inevitably results in the collapse of societies and of civilizations which is followed by the die-off of the individuals and eventually the extinction of the species…


After this parenthesis let’s come back to the US actions after the 2nd World War. In reality the war did not stop; the enemy changed and the war was fought with different instruments. This time it was fought on ideological grounds resulting, in dramatic regional conflicts, and in very destructive effects on both Western society-culture and Soviet society-culture. In the end, under the weight of its excessive military investments, the rather small soviet economy was hollowed out and shortages of food and other products left its citizens befuddled and angry. Soviet society finally collapsed in 1991.


Art has been at the core of the US ideological war (2).


“For decades in art circles it was either a rumor or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

… Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US.

… The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organizations.

… In 1947 the State Department organized and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled "Advancing American Art", with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert.

… For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded." (3).


Indeed. US propagandists succeeded to divide and weaken the European intellectuals, the artists, and the left. But perhaps more importantly they beat up Cobra (4), Many artists, and also many art merchants, left Europe for New-York consecrating the place as the new art capital of the world and by the same token appeasing American anxieties for being a cultural and artistic desert. The shift from Europe to the US of the art capital of the world had the effect of changing the nature and the place of art in society.


The Modernist avant-garde, even if it failed to realize its objectives, had nevertheless had the intuition that art somehow relates to the worldview of society at large. Its failure and the shift to New York of the center of gravity of the art-world definitively annihilated that intuition. Finance henceforth reigned supreme. Art became a spectacle and the historical nature of art, while not completely annihilated, was relegated to the margins of society … yes that’s where the majority of artists are relegated now as if they were societal outcasts !


It has to be noted here that this take over of art, by the propagandists of US Foreign affairs institutions and the merchants, was paralleled by the liberation of European colonies from their masters. By that I mean that the take-over of art and the liberation from colonialism happened in the same time frame. The liberation of European colonies was instigated, at least partly, at the initiative of the same institutions (5). The US was interested to trade with the European colonies and helped thus weaken the grip of the colonial powers. Other factors were at play like, for example, the cold war but opening the colonial territories to US trade was without any possible doubt one of the determinant factors … 

4.3. Postmodernism rejects worldviews



Modernism was an essay to give visual signs about a changing worldview at the turn to the 20th century. Bertrand Russel’s thus summarized this changing worldview “… as a result of the new control over the environment which scientific knowledge has conferred, a new philosophy is growing up, involving a changed conception of man's place in the universe" (6).


Jean-Francois Lyotard (7) viewed Modernism as ‘passé’ and argued that science changed everything. In his view science has developed as the major force of production of the post-modern knowledge economy. And in that sense knowledge is now produced – or to be sold for consumption, – or to be invested as a factor of production integrated in a new product. What this implies is that knowledge is no longer an end in itself for society as it was in the past when the acquisition of knowledge was relying on the observation by the men of knowledge and the transmission of their worldview to the minds of their fellow citizens.


With post-modernism this model of knowledge acquisition and transmission has lost its “usage-value” and has been replaced by an “exchange value” through the commodification of knowledge which has rendered grand narratives obsolete.


As a matter of fact Leotard’s presentation is itself a worldview. Based on the idea of the commercialization of knowledge, which is an indisputable fact I have to add, he peddles the ideology of communication “transparency” which induces the idea that the State is non-transparent. This immediately questions the relationship between State and MNC’s and the power distribution among them. Postmodernism appears thus to be no less than a grand-narrative about culture that opens the gate for its economic and political counterpart neoliberalism.


With postmodernism the reproduction of society, and the functions of its institutions, are being withdrawn from human intervention. Machines are taking over from man. But then the question begs to be asked “who is going to own the necessary information for the machines to take the decisions?”. And the answer is necessarily “big capital holders” who are going to reintroduce the grand narrative of class flight …


But what has postmodernism to say about trust, societal cohesion, and societal reproduction?


We are being told that “language games are the minimum relation required for society to exist”. In this view “societal atomization” results in relations being build between the individuals, in flexible networks, based solely on language games that handle their pragmatic transactions. Wow! Like a well oiled machine. This is all so out of place in the reality of human life.


Lyotard is unequivocal. “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodernism as incredulity toward metanarratives”. Postmodernism rejects worldviews for the simple reason that they do not represent the absolute truth about what is reality and so it embraces stories about what I call “bit and pieces of reality”. This is kind of thinking in the shadow of science which does not propose an absolute truth about reality but focuses instead on understanding the working of bits and pieces of reality that will help its financiers to create new products that will satisfy their inexhaustible thirst for more profits.


The whole of societal evolution is based on the simple premise that individual anxiety leads to distrust between the individuals which weakens societal cohesion which in turn weakens the capacity of society to reproduce over the long haul and thus jeopardizes the reproduction of living species …


The ignorance of the imperatives of the principle of life by the promoters of postmodernism is baffling to say the least and is now being sanctioned in this late phase of Late-Modernity. The principle of life sets in motion the process of societal evolution in order to ensure the realization of its own imperatives :

• its reproduction over the long haul
• its complexification along that road

The principle of life materializes in the form of living species and, as we have seen here above, their societal evolution is powered by the dance between their polarities. The actions of both poles are necessary to satisfy the imperatives of the principle of life. So they bargain a win-win balance that ensures the realization of both these imperatives.


This win-win balance starts with the recognition that trust between the individuals is a basic necessity of life. And the whole process of realizing life’s imperatives goes something like this: – trust between the individuals → societal cohesion → reproduction of societies → reproduction of the species over the long haul.


In matter of fact the basic reality of our humanity is that the individuals hate the anxieties fostered by unknowns. Such anxieties ultimately result in distrust between the members of a society …


“Humans have no problems with unknown "unknowns" for the good reason that unknown "unknowns" simply don't pop up in their consciousness but they feel utterly ill at ease when faced with known "unknowns" such as those nagging questions resulting from the inaccessibility of the whole universe to the human mind. Such known unknowns become obsessions that drive people in the throat of anxiety from where they search to escape at all costs. This is how, along our entire history, societal groupings have been seen coming in the picture by proposing approximations of reality, and of what the unknown is all about, to be shared by their citizens in order to sooth their anxiety. When shared by all citizens such approximations crystallize in a societal view of the world or a worldview that all consider as being the truth of the matter and this rewards those societies with higher levels of cohesion which, in turn, facilitate their reproduction from generation to generation. " (8).


The citizens of societies sooth their anxiety by sharing approximations of reality. It is the fact to share with others that instills trust among them… So the rejection by postmodernism, of worldviews or grand narratives on the ground that they don’t represent the truth about reality, is just flat ignorance of the imperatives of life.


Having said that I view Postmodernism as follows :

• it is an ideology that helped weaken Western worldviews and left the door wide open for the expansion of neoliberalism without there being any opposition left,
• it is a grand-narrative that strengthens the cultural context of neoliberalism thus easing, if not its popular adherence, at least its popular acceptance,
• it will be viewed in history as one of the determinant factors that participated in the demise of the historical nature of art which opened the curtains on the financial spectacle that is tearing apart Western postmodern societies…

4.4. Neo-Liberalism rejects the role of society



I sketched the context for the emergence of neoliberalism in part 1, of this chapter, “about concepts”. Let’s now further examine how neoliberalism triumphed.


By the mid-sixties big capital observed that its profits had stopped to rise. The imperative, of the reason that is at work withing capital, is unlimited growth. So big capital holders debated what would be the path forward to satisfy this imperative.


Observing that their investments were realized, mostly, in their countries of origins their answer was to expand their reach to all countries on earth. This they thought would expand the volumes of sales and thus generate those higher returns they were after. This meant a globalization of the reach of capital while workers and public governance remained stuck within the borders of their nations. With this strategy capital was reaching two targets with one stone !


To further affirm their advantage, against workers and national public governance, big capital holders then proceeded to weaken the state institutions of national governance. This was done by promoting an ideology that favors individualism and free markets over state intervention. Postmodernism had promoted the same kind of ideology in the realm of culture and knowledge so Western societies had been prepared for this expansion to the realm of economics and politics under what came to be known as neoliberalism or new liberalism.


Over the following decades we observe that the competences of states were being reorganized along the following lines :

1. austerity policies ruined state finances and the institutions in charge of the execution of social redistribution policies, or of welfare programs, were left to rot. When populations were sufficiently frustrated by the inefficiency of these institutions the answer of the powers that be was to dismantle them and to let private corporations take over their functions.
2. trade policies and international agreements were being gradually shifted to institutions under the control of MNC’s. States were made captive of these institutions which now have the judicial power to condemn them for reparations for any shortfall in their profits caused by state policies. The internal institutional restructuring of nation-states + the capture of the external relations of the state by big capital → dramatically weakened nation-states
3. in order to quell any popular resistance to the interests of big capital Western states were set to focus primarily on the institutions of power: police, intelligence and army. From the start the target of neoliberalism was to ensure the triumph of big capital in its class war against the working people. Increasing levels of inequality were thus baked in the implementation of its policies and expecting a popular resistance the powers that be prepared their answer. Big capital and its servants focused on the institutions of power to break any resistance to their plans …

The significance of this restructuring of state institutions should have been evident for all from the get go but it was not.


Now nearly half a century later the result of this neoliberal restructuring might still not be understood by many but it certainly is being felt by all in their daily lives. People are hurting. But the real cause of their hurting is unknown to them and so big capital is still free to do as it pleases by manipulating them, with the smile of an Obama, or the popular language of a Trump. And when this kind of manipulation stops to work the institutions of power will show their true and ugly nature …

4.5. The fall of Modernity



Late-Modernity discovered the power of propaganda to keep societies marching forward as one. But the power of propaganda goes only so far. Western societies have been brain damaged into individualism and as a result they have atomized. What this means is that :

1. the individuals suffer from anxiety for being left alone in their loneliness and they sense that the only escape possible is in joining others. As a result we assist at a recrudescence of sects and other groups …
2. atomized societies suffer from a complete absence of cohesion between their citizens. As a result they are on the verge of collapsing …
3. the result of 1 and 2 is that democracy has failed as a system of societal governance. To keep these societies from imploding there now remains only one alternative and by that I mean the totalitarianism of neoliberal institutions of power …

What I write here should not be confused with advocacy. I’m not advocating anything. I’m just an observer. And what I observe is that Western societies are falling under the consequences that they self-inflicted upon themselves. As I see it, or they collapse, or they run a little further under the steel fist of dictators who impose their chosen path forward to all. But, in any event, totalitarianism is not a solution. It can only keep the boat afloat momentarily.


The problems, of what I call the governance-world, are so entrenched that I don’t see any workable solutions any longer for Western societies. Everything is downhill …


Furthermore, as I have already mentioned earlier (9), the Western governance-world is also confronted to what I call the great convergence of the multitude of side-effects of Modernity. Not only will this convergence hasten the demise of the Western governance-world it will also unfold without human societal answer. Is this not what is already happening? Climate change; anyone?


The Western governance-world + the side-effects of Modernity = the reality of this late phase of Late-Modernity → the death of Modernity is approaching.


In the last two chapters I’ll concentrate on my personal vision of life and art in After-Modernity.
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NOTES

(1). “ THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY “ by Bertrand Russel. Original edition 1953. Ams Press New York. (FREE pdf)
“The effects of science are of various very different kinds. There are direct intellectual effects: the dispelling of many traditional beliefs, and the adoption of others suggested by the success of scientific method. Then there are effects on technique in industry and war. Then, chiefly as a consequence of new techniques, there are profound changes in social organization which are gradually bringing about corresponding political changes. Finally, as a result of the new control over the environment which scientific knowledge has conferred, a new philosophy is growing up, involving a changed conception of man's place in the universe.“

(2)  “Speaking Out. I'm glad the CIA is 'immoral' “ by Thomas W. Braden who was the first chief of the CIA's “International Organizations Division” (IOD). In his eighties he divulged what had been the purpose of the IOD. The Saturday Evening Post, 20 May 1967.
See also:

• “ Modern art was CIA 'weapon' ”. By Frances Stonor Saunders . In The Independent.1995-10-22.
• “ Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War ” by Eva Cockcroft, in “Artforum” 1974. This article should have caused a reassessment about “The New York Art School”. But by then the art market, and the inertial weight of its investments, worked to obviate that possibility.
• “ How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art ”. By Serge Guilbaut.

(3)  “Modern art was CIA 'weapon'”. By Frances Stonor Saunders. In The Independent.1995-10-22.
(4)  CoBrA or Copenhagen-Brussels-Amsterdam.

(5) The Atlantic Charter. “ On 9-12 August 1941, Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. From that meeting emerged the Atlantic Charter. Article 3 of the charter committed both leaders to “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live”, and “to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them”. “
“ The United States and the Liquidation of European Colonial Rule in Tropical Africa, 1941-1963. “ by Ebere Nwaubani in Cahiers d’études africaines 171 | 2003

(6)  “ THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY “ by Bertrand Russel. Original edition 1953. Ams Press New York. (FREE pdf)

(7) “ The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge “ Jean-François Lyotard. Volume 10 of the collection“Theory and History of Literature” . Edited by Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse. University of Minesota.

(8)  “From Modernity to after-Modernity (23)”. Part 2: theoretical considerations. 1. About the formation of human knowledge. 1.1. The context.

(9)  In “The 6th mass-extinction and the futility of hegemony”. (Organic art = the patterns of life (4). 3. In the 20th century the 3rd world was forced to adopt Modernity in order to survive. )