228. Jean Jaurès & Blade Runner

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Jean Jaurès

Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel

Due to a tragic beverage accident, there will be no more of Reflections on Violence until my copy of the book dries out and I can un-stick the pages. (This could well be the first time a copy of Reflections and an issue of Dwell magazine have been damaged in the same incident.) This delay doesn't especially bother me as I really wanted to talk about Jean Jaurès. 

By chance, I just ran into an article about Jean Jaurès and his assassination at the start of the Great War. I have to say I tend to prefer Jaurès to Sorel in what little I've read. And what does Sorel mean by,

"Jaurès, who was very much mixed up in all the ups and downs of Dreyfusim, had rapidly judged the mentality of the upper middle class, into which he had not yet penetrated"

Jaurès was clearly haute-bourgeois. He had admirals in the family, for God's sake. I'm tempted to switch to a book about Jaurès, if I can find a good one. His philosophical background and his pacifism appeal to me, but then I suppose that's because I'm a timid middle class boy.

I do wonder what Sorel said at the time of Jaurès' assassination. I'm sure he was in favor of war. And the claims that Russia assisted the election of Poincare sound awfully familiar. History is so interesting.

Blade Runner 2049

The original Blade Runner is one of my favorite films. It's the movie I probably know best, line for line and scene by scene, which is why I had reservations about seeing this sequel. 

I finally saw it at the multiplex closest to me (the Metreon, which I've written about before). By chance, I picked the 6:30pm showing which was in theater 13, which happens to be the new Dolby Cinema. If I had known this was an option I would have actively selected it, but my online movie guide doesn't distinguish the Dolby Cinema the way it does IMAX. So there I was in a theater with the most comfortable seats, probably the best screen, and most amazing sound watching a film that was so much more polished and perfect than the original... and by the end I just wanted to see the original in that venue.

What does it mean that Ridley Scott has been involved in the recent sequels to what I believe are his two best films -- Alien and Blade Runner -- and yet neither film comes close to recreating the magic of the original. (And here I hear the words of Deckard's boss at the beginning of the film coaxing, and then compelling him to return to his Blade Runner job, 

Deckard: I don't work here anymore. Give it to Holden, he's good.
Bryant: I did. He can breathe okay as long as nobody unplugs him. He's not good enough, not good as you. I need you, Deck. This is a bad one, the worst yet. I need the old Blade Runner, I need your magic.)

But I would love to hear that Vangelis soundtrack in this new theater.

I hate to say this, because Joss Whedon is enough of an ego maniac as it is, but he probably would have been a better choice to have taken on this project. Firefly had the same, gritty, dirty, believable look and feel at the original Blade Runner. He would have needed to work with an exceptional cinematographer, visual artist, and composer... He probably would have botched it, too.

The android/AI/slavery theme is probably the best thing in the new film, but since I haven't seen other recent films that deal with this subject, I don't know how original or profound this take is. It worked for me mostly because of my recent reading of Absalom! Absalom! 

Blade Runner

I re-watched my VHS tape copy of Blade Runner. A friend -- we were planning on seeing the new film together -- had just watched one of the more recent edits and had complained about how dark it was. My tape version was low-res, dark, smokey, and, of course, very wet -- the essence of Ridley Scott's style at that time. It was so good.

Yes, there are sloppy details you just have to ignore, but the look and sound and feel of the original just works so much better for me than the recent film did. Also, I realized last night, the story is nice and simple. Deckard is tasked with hunting down four replicants and we follow his progress with that. At the same time we are following the replicant's efforts to get to their maker, Tyrell. These two simple stories cut back and forth. Rachel, the sixth replicant, becomes the wildcard and new focus of Deckard's life, and of the film, by the middle, and this is even more true at the end. 

This was one of the first things Sean Young (Rachel) was in, and she instantly had a reputation for being "difficult" which works perfectly for this character. Was that just lucky casting or were they looking for someone who was a bit of a bitch? 

I also like that the film sticks to central LA rather than roaming all over the west. I figure the flame belching towers of the opening are supposed to be Torrance, so I think that's as far south as the film goes and most of it is set downtown. And of course the film gets extra credit for using the Bradbury Building as a shooting location.

The heart of the film is the relationship between humans and replicants. (I don't think the film is as effective if Deckard is a replicant. Plus, that would make him a really shitty replicant, given how both Leon and Roy hand him his ass.) The crucial, semi-rape scene in the first film has an echo in the semi-three-way of the new film with replicants interacting with an AI (Joi). But this is, while interesting, a little confusing since aren't replicants really just "wet" AIs? The notion of a replicant "needing" the company of an AI is certainly interesting. And what happens with Deckard's dog in the new film? We have no idea.

227. Training the classes

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Cafes

Another Cafe is the only cafe at my level of my hill. I've written about it in the past, and I do like it, but it's a little more expensive (and I'm cheap) and it's often over-crowded. Today it's raining but I still needed to go out and do some shopping and thought I would give it a try. Alas, it was too crowded for me to get a seat. I am happy for them -- they are not in an obvious location for a cafe, so it's good to see them getting so much trade. I just wish I could get a seat too.

I had to walk three more blocks to this Starbucks.

Chapter 2

Violence and the Decadence of the Middle Classes 

Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel

Dear God! That wasn't what we covered in the last chapter?

p81  ...Civil war has become very difficult since the discovery of the new firearms, and since the cutting of rectilinear streets in the capital towns. [The end of effective barricades.] The recent troubles in Russia seem even to have shown that Governments can count much more than was supposed on the energy of their officers. Nearly all French politicians had prophesied the imminent fall of Czarism at the time of the Manchurian defeats, but the Russian army in the presence of rioting did not manifest the weakness shown by the French army during our revolutions; nearly everywhere repression was rapid, efficacious, and even pitiless. The discussions which took place at the congress of social democrats at Jena show that the parliamentary Socialists no longer rely upon an armed struggle to obtain possession of the State. [The Great War YouTube series has recently covered the 100th anniversaries of both Russian revolutions in 1917, so Sorel was only right about this up to a point. All governments have tipping points.]
...

p82 Everything becomes a question of valuation, accurate estimation, and opportunism; [he's talking about Jean Jaurès here] much skill, tact, and calm audacity are necessary to carry on such a diplomacy, i.e. to make the workers believe that you are carrying the flag of revolution, the middle class that you are arresting the danger which threatens them, and the country that you represent an irresistible current of opinion. The great mass of the electors understands nothing of what passes in politics, and has no intelligent knowledge of economic history; they take sides with the party which seems to possess power, and you can obtain everything you wish from them when you can prove to them that you are strong enough to make the Government capitulate...
...

p85 Jaurès, who was very much mixed up in all the ups and downs of Dreyfusim, had rapidly judged the mentality of the upper middle class, into which he had not yet penetrated. He saw that this upper middle class was terribly ignorant, gapingly stupid, politically absolutely impotent; he recognized that with people who understand nothing of the principles of capitalist economics it is easy to contrive a policy of compromise on the basis of an extremely broad Socialism... [Édouard] Vaillant does not possess those remarkable qualities of suppleness of mind, and perhaps even peasant duplicity, which shine in Jaurès, and which have often caused people to say that he would have made a wonderful cattle-dealer.
...

I'm assuming this isn't a charming Gallic complement.

He restates what Marx has to say about the end of capitalism and the evolution to the proletarian stage,

p88 Socialists should therefore abandon the attempt (initiated by the Utopians) to find a means of inducing the enlightened middle class to prepare the transition to a more perfect system of legislation; their sole function is that of explaining to the proletariat the greatness of the revolutionary part they are called upon to play. By ceaseless criticism the proletariat must be brought to perfect their organizations; they must be shown how the embryonic forms which appear in their unions may be developed , so that, finally they may build up institutions without any parallel in the history of the middle class; that they may form ideas which depend solely on their position as producers in large industries, and which owe nothing to middle-class thought; and that they may acquire habits of liberty with which the middle class nowadays are no longer acquainted. 

This doctrine will evidently be inapplicable if the middle class and the proletariat do not oppose each other implacably, with all the forces at their disposal; the more ardently capitalist the middle class is, the more the proletariat is full of warlike spirit and confident of its revolutionary strength, the more certain will be the success of the proletarian movement.

p89 The middle class with which Marx was familiar in England was still, as regards the immense majority, animated by their conquering, insatiable, and pitiless spirit, which had characterized at the beginning of modern times the creators of new industries and the adventurers launched on the discovery of unknown lands. When we are studying the modern industrial system we should always bear in mind this similarity between the capitalist type and the warrior type; it was for very good reasons that the men who directed gigantic enterprises were named captains of industry. This type is still found today in all its purity in the United States...

...If... the middle class, led astray by the chatter of the preachers of ethics and sociology, return to an ideal of conservative mediocrity, seek to correct the abuses of economics, and wish to break with the barbarism of their predecessors, then one part of the forces which were to further the development of capitalism is employed in hindering it, an arbitrary and irrational element is introduced, and the future of the world becomes completely indeterminate.

p90 This indetermination grows still greater if the proletariat are converted to the ideas of social peace at the same time as their masters... 

...Jaurès is as enthusiastic as the clericals about measures which turn away the working classes from the idea of the Marxian revolution... he founds his own hopes on the simultaneous ruin of the capitalistic and revolutionary spirit.

I haven't invoked Naphtha, but I have been thinking about him, and also the monks of The Brothers K. Naphtha would not be with Jaurès on this point, but, as keen as he was to see the fall of the middle class, I don't think the Marxist revolution depicted here would suit him either, as it would seem to preserve the machinery of the industrial/scientific age. I don't believe the Soviet Union was what he was hoping for.

...how can they hope to give back to the middle class an ardor which is spent?

It is here that the role of violence in history appears to us as singularly great, for it can, in an indirect manner, so operate on the middle class as to awaken them to a sense of their own class sentiment...

p91 To repay with black ingratitude the benevolence of those who would protect the workers, to meet with insults the homilies of the defenders of human fraternity, and to reply by blows to the advances of the propagators of social peace... is a very practical way of indicating to the middle class that they must mind their own business and only that.

I believe also that it may be useful to thrash the orators of democracy and the representatives of the Government, for in this way you insure that none shall retain any illusions about the character of acts of violence. But these acts can have historical value only if they are the clear and brutal expression of the class war: the middle classes must not be allowed to imagine that, aided by cleverness, social science, or high-flown sentiments, they might find a better welcome at the hands of the proletariat.
...

...Must we believe that the Marxian conception is dead? By no means, for proletarian violence comes upon the scene just at the moment when the conception of social peace is being held up as a means of moderating disputes; proletarian violence confines employers to their role of producers, and tends to restore the separation of the classes...

Proletarian violence not only makes the future revolution certain, but it seems also to be the only means by which the European nations -- at present stupefied by humanitarianism -- can recover their former energy... A growing and solidly organised working class can compel the capitalist class to remain firm in the industrial war; if a united and revolutionary proletariat confronts a rich middle class, eager for conquest, capitalist society will have reached its historical perfection.

...Let us add... if properly conducted... [proletarian violence] will suppress the Parliamentary Socialists, who will no longer be able to pose as the leaders of the working classes and the guardians of order.


In terms of class identity, Sorel reminds me a bit of Foucault, except that I'm not sure if Sorel is always saying what he really means. He's laying down the rules for propagating class war, but isn't he also giving away too much if that's the outcome he really wants? You can also take what he says here as a guide to undermining class war. 

And I'm particularly confused about his attitude towards his own, middle, class. Is he trying to buck it up or destroy it?