#but to highlight the irony that she is attacking migrants and terrorizing the people who welcomed her here

[leng-m]

Dang, I did not have "Filipino immigrant starts a cult in Saskatchewan and titles herself Queen of Canada" on my 2023 bingo card.

[insideanairport]

Aeron Bergman,  Alejandra Salinas: Telepathy 传心术 (2018) by INCA Press

❍❍❍

Telepathy 传心术 is an amazing book on the intersection of art and neoliberalism. The book is part of a series titled distinction, after Pierre Bourdieu's iconic book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. A must-read book [for all artists] about the connection of ‘Judgement of taste' and class.

Bergman and Salinas's objective is political and work-centered. They are interested to highlight the distinction between art and neoliberalism in a sociological way. What happens to the greater field of art (artworks, artists, institutions, etc.) under the contemporary dominance of neoliberal hegemony? A similar attempt was made from a cultural stand (rather than a socio-economical stand) in 2012 by Nikos Papastergiadis under the title, Cosmopolitanism and Culture by Polity Press.    

Throughout the book, Bergman and Salinas are referring to neoliberalism as 'neoliberal capitalism’. In some parts, it seems like there are no differences between neoliberalism and capitalism. In other parts, it seems like 'neoliberal capitalism’ is a bigger hybrid monster that is made out of the two (occasionally replacing it with hyper-competition, Kleptomanism, Parasitoid démarche, etc.).

As artists and art writers, they stand next to their contemporaries such as Groys, Osborne and Bishop. In terms of political economy, history and philosophy, they are referring to Aihwa One, Philip Mirowski, Chin-Tao Wu, Reymond Williams, Theodor Adorno, Hanna Arendt and Georg Simmel. In their critical analysis, they are attacking F.A. Hayek -a right-wing European conservative asshole economist- who is brilliantly introduced in the book as ’neoliberalism’s founding thinker’. Hayek’s 1944 book, Road to Serfdom is mentioned as the main intellectual originator of today’s neoliberal ideology. Hayek’s political philosophy is extremely individualist and anti-socialist. Similar to other western colonial libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Garrett Hardin, Hayek is pro-competition, and in favor of private property, free market enterprise and minimal government. He also believes that individualism has created the Western civilization and therefore it has to be preserved and flourished (from the dangers of communism and socialism).

Hayek can be seen as the exact opposite of John Maynard Keynes. Although, as an essentialist, Hayek believed that Nazism was a ’necessary’ outcome of socialism -rather than a 'reaction' to socialism! Like many other European essentialists, he biasedly saw Naziism as a totalitarian socialist movement rather an ultra-nationalist racist movement made to establish the Aryan white race on top of the human pecking order through military force.

Bergman and Salinas cleverly connect the inception of neoliberal ideology to Hayek and the post-war Europe where individualism and market freedom was sold to people as an alternative to other modes of governmentality. The notion of 'being free', 'freedom of movement' and 'freedom of choice' is crucial for them. Out of David Harvey’s neoliberalism, they have discovered another monster that to me seems somehow bigger and mightier. Maybe, from the art and cultural perspective, the situation is more depressing than it seems (something that Chin-Tao Wu argued in Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the 1980’s). Neoliberalism is presented like a huge whirlpool that drags everything cultural inside of it, and along with it race and gender are also sucked in to disappear. Racism here is presented as an outcome of this neoliberal whirlpool, or a signifier of its existence. This class-conscious point of view is so strong that it might dismiss the other forms of social racism, just to blame everything on the neoliberal capitalism and the ruling class that is enforcing it. On the other hand, social racism is not the object of this book, unless it intersects with the neoliberal ideology.

The power of the book lies in the ability to introduce interesting terminology that connects the challenges of cultural production to market-driven business ideas. The writers introduce and dissect phenomena such as the genius artist (Genii), WEIRD art, Vile Maxim (Adam Smith), Skilled versus Deskilled artist, Aesthetics of psychopathy, Pseudo-collaborations and the Law of Janteloven in art. The section on The Law of Janteloven is my personal favorite, firstly because I didn’t know anything about it. And Secondly, due to my experiences in the art field, especially in the last 2 years. Instead of trying to describe it, I decided to quote the whole section of the book here:    

P. 170 Norwegian Janteloven is a strange, related phenomena: it is hyggeling, (cozy), to be well-adjusted to majority opinion! Janteloven promotes nationalist group hegemony as a cover-up to buttress the usual hegemonic structures. Hostility towards difference is implemented across all social classes as a hands-off, efficient form for a self-policing population. The concept of Janteloven comes from the Danish Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose in his 1933 book, En flyktning krysser sitt spor. He captured the oppressive spirit of social adhesion so closely that Janteloven is now in the general vocabulary of Scandinavia. Here are a few key Laws of Jante, the unspoken moral operative: 

"You’re not to think you are smarter than us. You’re not to convince yourself that you are better than us. You’re not to think you are good at anything. You’re not to laugh at us. You’re not to think anyone cares about you. You’re not to think you can teach us anything.”

Who is the us and who is the you in this law? In the case of a foreigner, person of color, and person of nonconforming gender in Norway, this you is easy to identify and developed with oppression in mind. However, in the case of white, heterosexual, male Norwegian, who is you and who is us? You is anyone who judges and acts as an individual using judgement without bannisters. You is anyone who decides that a particular majority taste is disgusting.

Janteloven is expressed in the art ecosystem too: Norway’s hippest, taste-making, popular art gallery is fittingly called Standard, and shows mostly mute, vacant work of self-censuring formalism, completely drained of any threatening content and difference…While it is sometimes argued internally that Janteloven is the reason that there are no 3 Michelin starred restaurants in Norway, in fact, Janteloven is used by Norway to promote itself as the most equal society on earth. It is dark comedy: “more-equal does not mean “equal”, and in fact, Norway is in the top 5 among industrial nations with the fastest increase of social inequality.  

Bergman and Salinas are great in finding hidden problematics in the international art ecosystem and its institutions from Whitney biannual (and its racism and whiteness), Detroit and Seattle art scene (with its billionaire elite) to Norway (with its state-funded educational projects of homogenization that tries to be more equal than all, resulting in significant inequality).

P.110 "Art displaying ambiguous is not always produced, by the artist, primarily for this purpose. Furthermore, ambiguism is often agreeable, enjoyable and legitimately entertaining, rich, full, smart, and fun. This is the result of appealing to the widest base -- and it is therefore difficult to simply dismiss all together. Ambiguism is, after all, the contemporary art of our time.”

In terms of opposition to neoliberalism, they identify religion as a force –not the spiritual/meditative personal type of religion, rather the large religious organizations and governments. The ending chapter of the book presents a question; “if health in fact can be a possible strategy for protest?” Later they identify self-health and aesthetics of health (such as Hollywood yoga and Feng shui) as a sort of market-conformism or extreme nihilism.    

p.23 In the 21st century there are very few fields that develop and utilize value systems parallel to the ruling theology of today: neoliberal capitalism. Two prominent fields that are sometimes capable of such opposition are religion (irony of ironies) and science (not the corporate version.) 

Examples of religious opposition to neoliberal capitalism include Pope Francis' statement to the Wall Street Journal that "capitalism is terrorism against all humanity." Rabbi Jonathan Sacks also spoke out: "Humanity was not created to serve markets. Markets were created to serve humankind." Another powerful example of religious opposition is the Sharia compliant Islamic finance system practiced by Iran, Malaysia, and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a growing banking system outlawing rent-seeking via usury, or ‘riba’.

The book is very insightful and would perpetuate an economic understanding of the effects of neoliberalism on art. On the other hand, it is missing the current negative ‘reactions' that has risen (whether by states or by individual groups/communities) in response to neoliberalism. The example of Norway (Law of Janteloven) was the closest that the book came across these issues, yet not only this problem was presented as ‘cultural’ but the blame was laid solely on neoliberalism which is penetrating into different countries one after another.

Scandinavia is a great example in this case, where the rise of nationalism, racism and fascism seem to be connected to the fear of eroding national sovereignty or the gradual disappearance of the social welfare system. Denmark, for example, is implementing ‘forced assimilation’ to its Muslim migrant population along with fifty other cruel laws on immigration to preserve its Danishness. A mixture of right-wing racism and left-wing strive for a sovereign nation (against neoliberalism) that sometimes leads to nationalism and race-blindness. Wendy Brown presented this idea in her 2010 book Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. She mentioned these events as ‘reactionary’ to neoliberalism rather than caused directly by it. ‘Walls�� she said, "are often amount to little more than theatrical props, frequently breached, and blur the distinction between law and lawlessness that they are intended to represent. But if today's walls fail to resolve the conflicts between globalization and national identity, they nonetheless project a stark image of sovereign power.” Étienne Balibar talks about similar issues in regard to the history of left conservatism leading to nationalism: “...every 'social state' in the nineteenth and twentieth century, including the socialist state, has been not only a national state, but a nationalist state also.” (Race, nation, classe. Les Identités ambiguës)

Similar to this case, but reversely, in 1944 Hayek blamed socialism for the creation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Unlike his contemporaries he didn’t see Naziism as a ‘reaction’ to socialism, rather he saw it as a ‘necessary' outcome of socialism. Therefore, he laid the blame on the originator of a reactionary hate movement. He didn't see the hate movement itself as an underlying issue deep into the society. A sort of issue that only comes up in the times of crisis.