Drawing on Theorists of the Culture of Work - Literature review Example

Running Head: Drawing on theorists Drawing on theorists of the culture of work, critically analyse the contemporary nature of working life of the writer] [Name of the institution] Drawing on theorists of the culture of work, critically analyse the contemporary nature of working life In a totalitarian state the fit between historical exigencies οf state policy and propaganda culture simply reflects the output οf state organs. Thus Eisenstein can be legitimate in Stalins Russia at one moment and beyond the pale at the next. But what οf this fit in liberal societies? The dominant narratives οf liberalism have bequeathed powerful assumptions positing a separate state and civil society. In this image morality and culture exist in spaces that are deliberately constructed as free and spontaneous. In the ideological battle with communism the post-1945 version οf these assumptions celebrated pluralism as the critical normative principal οf Western practice. However, as studies οf power have revealed, pluralist conclusions derived essentially from a pluralist methodology. (Lawrence 1990) Also dominant paradigms in media studies have concentrated on the notion οf the individual as receiver and decoder οf cultural output. However, focus on the output οf cultural production reveals the endless repetition and homogeneity οf mass culture. The dominant liberal discourse emphasises the overt, factual separation between the state and private enterprises, but- fails to theorise the covert connections between private constellations οf power and state institutions and the homogenisation οf the values οf private corporate capital. Indeed, pluralism has been reluctant to theorise the state at all. During the Second World War the Western Allies absorbed the culture industry into the state. In America Hollywood came under the direction οf the Bureau οf Motion Pictures headed by Elmer Davis. (Coppes 1987) In reality this was a subdivision οf the Office οf War Information. The purpose οf the bureau was to control the output οf movies about Japan; the key issue was whether a film would help in the Pacific War. The output was unrelentingly crude. A series οf racist documentary movies portrayed the Japanese as a people devoid οf individuality; herdlike and fanatical. In terms οf mobilising the populace and the armed forces against the Japanese people these films and other output were remarkably successful. At the end οf the war nearly a quarter οf Americans favoured the use οf more atomic bombs against the Japanese. To restate Keens argument, mass killing was culturally prefigured. The use οf a horrific technology became justifiable because its victims were dehumanised. This is the ultimate form οf moral exclusion as the "other" is denied the ontological status οf a subject. Earlier in the conflict incendiary raids on major Japanese cities were excused in Army Airforce circles because οf an explicit racism which had long been guiding military thinking with regard to anti-Japanese strategy. As Michael Sherry notes, "in misjudging their enemy America also drew on a tradition οf casual racism which made air-war against Japan easy and shallow". (Sherry 1987) In addition to documentary films, such as Caprass Know Your Enemy — Japan, academics weighed in with more "serious" accounts οf Japanese personality. Geoffrey Gorer believed that drastic toilet training was to blame, Margaret Mead claimed that Japanese culture was "childish and pathological", while Frank Tannenbaum noted 28 points οf similarity between the Japanese and American gangsters. While it may seem obvious that a state will disseminate cultural propaganda during a war it should be remembered that this process continued during the confrontation with the USSR. During the Second World War, Hollywood made scores οf films that showed the Russians in a good light. However, in the late 1940s, with treason and treachery as pervasive political issues, these films were an embarrassment. Hollywood promptly reversed policy and, directed by Sam Woods Motion Picture Alliance, many pro-Russian films were withdrawn and not shown again for twenty years. Moreover, a more appropriate output was produced, as Coppes and Black remark: "The studios atoned profusely for their pro-Russian films with some fifty anti-communist pictures in the late 1940s and early 1950s". The films οf the Second World War were nothing new as regards the real and celluloid dehumanisation οf other peoples. In 1929 Capras film Flight depicted the heroism οf marine pilots who bombed towns in Nicaragua; the victims οf the bombing were not considered at all. This film reflects very well the developing use οf airpower in the politics οf imperialism and also its aesthetic appeal. In France the use οf bombers against African and Arab peoples led to the open use οf the term "Type Coloniale" for the plane that was used. In Britain the RAF under Trenchard routinely bombed Pathan tribesmen on the North West Frontier under a policy known as "Control Without Occupation". (Kennett 1982) The use οf modernist instruments οf violence against the vulnerable and less technologically sophisticated was not confined to the democracies. In Spain the new Luftwaffe practised its art against the Republicans, while Mussolini unleashed airwar against Abyssinia. However, as Sherry has shown, it was the democracies which built huge air forces for the purpose οf strategic bombing. Building on the diet οf cultural racism which I have described above, some strategists in the US approached the war with Japan with the explicit aim οf bombing the Japanese into submission. In November 1941 George Marshall told Press Bureau chiefs, "well fight mercilessly. Flying Fortresses will be despatched immediately to set the paper cities οf Japan on fire". This was no idle boast, as Americas airpower did exactly what Marshall had promised. By June 1945 all the major cities οf Japan had been destroyed except for four which were on a special target list. In some raids whole cities were reduced to an inferno where everything perished. These raids also indicated a worrying aesthetic dimension to air warfare. The scale οf the destruction that was created, the huge fireballs, and the colours οf burning materials provided a vast and awesome spectacle which many witnesses found fascinating and beautiful. On the night οf 10 March 1945 the 20th Army Airforce destroyed much οf the centre οf Tokyo in an incendiary raid which probably killed more than 100,000 people. Yet a watching priest could write that the explosions "appeared translucid, unreal, light as fantastic dragonflies". As M47 napalm bombs and M69 magnesium cluster bombs turned Tokyo into an inferno, aircrews spoke οf the city as "illuminated like a forest οf brightly lighted christmas trees". Some victims applauded as the planes flew over. Many since have spoken οf their delight in seeing napalm ignite, οf loving its "silent power". What is apparent here is not just the psychological distance mentioned above, but also a scale and intensity οf horror which removes humans from the scene altogether. This allows a distanced appreciation οf the manifestation οf pure power, a celebration οf the creativity οf destruction. It represents, as Susan Mansfield comments, "the appeal οf transcendental power and awesomeness as opposed to that οf design, regularity and grace". After-the-fact ethical reflection has focused on the atomic raids, but the moral threshold οf killing innocents had long been passed in the conventional raids in which more people died than at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Indeed, more Japanese civilians perished in the war than did soldiers. In America the culture industry bombarded the US public with films that fantasised the real events. In Disneys Victory Through Airpower (1943) planes are seen attacking cities that are empty. The aesthetic was not touched by real images οf dead and dying people. In general these films ignored the fate οf the victims and played on major Western prejudices about non-white peoples. In the case οf the Pacific War the terrain itself symbolised Western anxieties about the primitive and uncivilised. To use a contemporary idiom the war was at the borderlands; the margin οf civilisation. As Coppes and Black note, "the Pacific War … took place in the wilderness, much οf it a particularly frightening wilderness: the jungle. There is a long tradition in the West οf identifying the wilderness with the absence οf civilization — indeed, as a place οf evil". Thus jungle imagery helped justify the technological brutalism that was manifested in air attacks, but also misrepresented in domestic presentations: "The symbolism οf World War Two movies, by excluding pertinent truths about their subjects and framing issues in misleading ways was thus … dangerously manipulative". In particular the suffering οf victims was ignored, as Franklin observes: "missing from the cinematic pictures οf the Anglo-American bombers was the world οf the bombed, which appeared in stories about our side, especially Britain, under axis attack". Strictly speaking, the orchestration οf cultural output by the state after the Second World War loosened. But, in reality, the Cold War engendered such a degree οf conformism in the culture industry that direct control was not necessary. In the 1950s US culture succumbed to the near total exclusion οf themes and characterisations that did not fit the ideological needs οf the confrontation with the USSR or the dominant image οf domestic society. As is widely recognised Hollywood acted to cleanse itself οf elements that were not sound on the issue οf anti-communism. However, because οf the USSRs nuclear arsenal the cultural presentation οf the military confrontation was a difficult issue. As Franklin shows, many οf the films οf the 1950s concentrated on either the men who operated Americas nuclear deterrent, or the actual machines which it comprised. In three major films, Strategic Air Command (1955), Bombers B-52 (1957), and Above and Beyond (1952), there is no serious account οf the real function οf the weapons. These films glorify the technology and present the airmen in charge as sober and rational custodians οf the nations fate. It was possible to control the output οf Hollywood in these films because USAF and SAC would only allow their hardware to be used in return for supportive scripts and action. In consequence, mainstream output was highly conducive to the needs οf the nuclear state. As Franlin observes, "By the mid 1950s the strategic bomber had become a major icon οf American culture". This is not to say that there were not critical films and novels. A case in point is Neville Shutes novel On The Beach (1955), which was made into a film by Stanley Kramer. But this film, which Elsenhower considered suppressing, depicts personal human tragedies in the face οf global forces (war) which have gone out οf control. (Weart 1988) Other movies in the 1950s transmuted the nuclear theme into science fiction where beasts and monsters were created through exposure to radiation. Invariably the monsters were defeated, which according to Spencer Weart (via Susan Sontag) meant the vicarious defeat οf nuclear war. In the nuclear contest with the USSR, exclusion was problematic because οf the risks to American society. The "other" could pay back in kind. Moreover, hydrogen weapons meant the complete extermination οf the rival society and left scant room for notions οf heroism or individual virtues. In military discourse the problem οf justifying the wholesale extermination οf societies was overcome by reproducing the nuclear problematic in a language devoid οf reference to pain and suffering. In the classical texts οf nuclear strategy the destruction οf whole cities often appears more akin to events in a game οf chess. A.S. Collins observes: "Nuclear strategists often describe nuclear attacks, in which millions would be killed and wounded, as though they were great chess games with cities, aircraft carriers, great industrial areas, and other sources οf national power as the pieces". (Collins 1984) In academic publications on strategy the problem was partly resolved because most οf what was being theorised was actually speculation. As Robert Jervis has argued, a key characteristic οf nuclear strategic theory is a lack οf empirical evidence. From the point οf view οf some critics this meant that arrant nonsense could be disguised behind a façade οf scientific rigour. As one critic noted οf Herman Kahn, "Kahn provides no theories, no explanations, no factual assumptions that can be tested against their consequences, as do the sciences he is attempting to mimic. He simply suggests a terminology and provides a facade οf rationality".(Chomsky 1969) What I am suggesting here is that assumptions about recovery after nuclear war or the viability οf deterrence, not to mention policies for winning nuclear war, could be fashioned from the imagination οf strategists unencumbered by the intrusion οf facts. Moreover, the overall cohesion οf America in the 1950s meant that a troubled consensus on nuclear war was possible. In the 1980s, with the renewal οf nuclear anxiety in the wider society, this form οf consensus was unattainable. In 1983, when 100 million Americans watched the film The Day After, there was grave concern in the US about nuclear war, with the scientific community split on issues such as nuclear winter and the feasibility οf the SDI project. After the Second World War, the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal symbolised the guilt οf totalitarian regimes on offences concerning issues οf human rights. In 1945 the sins οf the Nazi state were all too apparent in the Holocaust. Soon it was also politically possible and then essential to highlight the grievous sins οf Stalinism. But there was little official reflection on some οf the obvious misdemeanours οf the Allies. Despite the ready-made justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki — which is so powerful that many academics and authors articulate it even though they do not have a clue about the facts — the extinguishing οf so many innocent lives was controversial, as was the decision to proceed and build a huge armoury οf nuclear munitions. In 1950 this inventory οf might was enhanced again by the secret decision to proceed with the H-bomb, or the "super", as its devotees called it. All οf this went largely uncriticised. Some, such as John Hersey, called attention to the dilemmas οf the Hiroshima attack, but the majority οf Americans thought the nuclear attacks were justified. In the early 1950s Scientific American attempted to publish articles criticising nuclear policy, but the Atomic Energy Commission forced them to halt and had other articles burned. Thus a policy οf potential extermination, through the use οf large numbers οf hydrogen weapons against Russia, became acceptable. By the end οf the 1950s American policy was based on the possible use οf several thousand atomic weapons against Russia and its allies with likely casualties in the range οf several hundred million. (Kaplan 1983) In the mainstream academic accounts οf this process its reality was hidden beneath a welter οf technical detail and through the emotional distance that theorists put between themselves and the likely facts οf nuclear war. It should be mentioned as well that behind the Iron Curtain, where another version οf modernity had developed, albeit in Marxist-Leninist form, the USSR had also constructed a doomsday apparatus. Here it is difficult to criticise what was written about the bomb, because virtually nothing was written or said about it. But it should be emphasised that both sides in the "Great Contest" were prepared to risk the rest οf humanity in their search for victory. I have tried to show that the advent οf nuclear weapons created constraints as regards a triumphalist discourse οf Western cultural domination. But whereas the problem οf exterminism was mutual between East and West, the domination οf the West over the rest οf the planet was not inhibited by fear οf retaliation. In the post-1945 period decolonisation was complicated by the Cold War and the fear that Western retreat would open up opportunities for international communism. Moreover, only some colonies were given up without a fight. The result was that Western powers were constantly at war with non-white peoples in the post-war period. In Africa it was the French, the Belgians, the Portuguese, and the British; in Asia it was the French, British, and Dutch. But contrary to its professed anti-colonialism, the US was now the real policeman. According to Richard Barnett US military intervention in the Third World occurred every year from 1945 to 1967, with the key event the escalating involvement in Vietnam. With regard to Vietnam there has been a huge academic and media output, much οf it critical. However, as a handful οf authors, notably Chomsky, have illustrated, the "liberal" critique οf Vietnam emphasises the damage done to American society: the social fissures caused by the war, the 59,000 dead, the drug addiction, the broken marriages, the fact that the war was lost, and the foolish reasons for going into Vietnam in the first place. To quote Hélé Béji this was "the singeing contrition οf defeat". But there was little attention paid to the damage that the US inflicted on a Third World country; damage so severe that in addition to ecological destruction the genetic development οf the Vietnamese people has been affected. Franklin, himself a former SAC pilot, notes some οf the destruction: the use οf 8 million tons οf TNT equivalent munitions, which left 21 million bomb craters in the South alone: the application οf Agent Orange, which destroyed half οf South Vietnams coastal mangroves, a third οf the hardwood forests, and poisoned 6 million acres οf farmland. No undisputed figures οf casualties for Vietnam exist, but estimates range from 1 million to 2.6 million, including 600,000 children. Here then was the archetypal war οf modernity. The most powerful state in the world was engaged in a policy οf nihilism through the means οf a war οf attrition against a poor Asian country. In Washington, Secretary οf Defense MacNamara and his advisers conceived the conflict in cold, abstract/scientific terms, with the utilitarian calculus based on the body count. The bodies were supposed to be VC, but as everyone now knows target discrimination in Vietnam was illusory. The firepower used was a totally blunt instrument. Coker notes that at Khe Sanh in 1967 US B52s dropped 75,000 tons οf ordnance in 9 weeks, i.e. the equivalent οf five Hiroshima-sized bombs. After the war the normal procedure οf exchanging information about the location οf mines and other unexploded munitions was rejected by the United States and in consequence thousands have been killed or injured since. References Bauman, Zygmund, Postmodern Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 216. Chomsky, N., "The Responsibility οf Intellectuals", in T. Roszak (ed.), The Dissenting Academy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), pp. 251-252. Collins, A.S., "Current Nato Strategy: a Recipe for Disaster", in G. Prins (ed.), The Choice: Nuclear Weapons Versus Security (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984), p. 32. Coppes, G.D. and C. Black, Hollywood Goes to War (New York: Free Press, 1987), p. 82. Engelhardt, Tom, The End οf Victory Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p. 25 Kaplan, F., The Wizards οf Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 269. Kennett, Lee, A History οf Strategic Bombing (New York: Charles Scribner, 1982), p. 67. Lawrence, Philip K., Democracy and the Liberal State (Aldershot: Gower, 1990), ch. 3. Sherry, M., The Creation οf Armageddon: The Rise οf American Airpower (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 250. Weart, S., Nuclear Fear (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 217. Read More