I've noticed of late a little spike in things - books, ideas - being described as manifestos. This observation is entirely non-scientific, and I don't have any figures to back it up, but it seems as if the manifesto is having something of a mini-renaissance.
Firstly, there's David Shield's Reality Hunger, which seems to be causing quite the controversy a manifesto is supposed to, although it does appear to be a rather subdued controversy, mainly concerning the viewpoint that it's not-really-very-radical and thus not-really-a-manifesto. I am yet to read it, though rather itching to, as it will no doubt form quite a large part of my future studies, and more pressingly I gather there's a mention of cellphone novels in there somewhere that I have to dig out.
Secondly, there's this - You are Not a Gadget (: A Manifesto) in which the inventor of Virtual Reality Jaron Lanier decides the internet's rubbish now. I think Michael Agger may have it right in his review: "The Web hasn't lost flavor; you've lost flavor."
Thirdly - and this is what made me think there was something worth noting here - is Tony Judt's piece in the Guardian on Saturday, which in the paper version was called A Manifesto for a Brighter Future but on the net is called A Manifesto for a New Politics, which is strange, given that it's a manifesto for a traditional social democracy that realises that "radicalism has always been about conserving valuable pasts". Which may or may not be true - the piece is generally good, I think, even if it places a little too much faith in the idea of social democracy - but what is interesting is how it's called a "manifesto". Why? It isn't really, or if it is then a whole host of opinion pieces in newspapers around the world can be called manifestos. And the two books above seem to have added their colonic subtitles for reasons of provocation rather than a genuinely held belief that they are putting across something new. David Shields, perhaps, thinks he's doing that, but if some reviews are to go by, his something new is to say that non-fiction or the tinkering between it and fiction is the way forward, which isn't particularly new. And Lanier's book appears to be a collection of column articles. Which isn't new or even a coherent single piece!
And of course there's the altermodern, which had a manifesto, even if it did seem to be going through the motions somewhat.
So why manifestos? Times are rough/tough/uncertain etc, and in these sorts of times people are supposedly open to big ideas (although none so big as to actually make a difference: hence the use of the word "recovery" so often in relation to the economy), and big ideas need big statements to get them across and that means a manifesto. But it's a particularly postmodern idea of a manifesto that seems to be doing the rounds - call it a manifesto but actually aim to change very little.
Having said that, it would be exciting if we had a new age of manifestos by radical artists being published on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
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Me
- Mark
- I am writing a PhD at the University of Glasgow entitled "The Poetics of Time in Contemporary Literature". My writing has been published in Type Review, Dancehall, Puffin Review and TheState. I review books for Gutter and The List. I am also an editor and reviewer at the Glasgow Review of Books.
Putting aside the question of whether, when you put an argument through a broad enough philosophical sifter, anything at all is ever really "new"--how would you know if the arguments in these books can be properly labeled as "manifestos" if you haven't even read them? You can't--and yet you feel emboldened to lazily pronounce judgment about the content of these books and the relative novelty of their ideas based on second-hand reports or, more laughably, how something "appears."
ReplyDeleteIf you'd read Lanier, you'd actually have some insight into your own intellectual pretension and self-satisfied lazy thinking.
Of course, you could have also saved yourself and your two readers some time by just looking up the word manifesto: it means a "public declaration of principles and intentions." There's nothing to do with "new" or "coherence" etc.
I wouldn't describe myself as "emboldened" - I rarely feel emboldened to do anything, or at least not without a hefty amount of doubt, let alone "pronounce judgement" in the way you (whoever you are) describe. My posting here certainly isn't a judgement of any sort as I haven't read the books.
ReplyDeleteThe controversy about David Shields' book does seem to be rather subdued from the post on HTMLGiant that I link to. I have read that post and that is what I was referring to when I said the controversy "appeared" to be subdued.
Likewise with the Jaron Lanier book - I refer (and link) to the Michael Agger review, deferring, as it were, to the judgement of a reviewer who has read the book and formed an opinion. I have read an article in the Observer about the book and then this review. From both I got the impression that Lanier is sad about the way the internet has developed, hence the "rubbish" comment. In quoting Agger, I am agreeing with what I've read in these two articles - that the problems ascribed to the internet may be found to be personal problems Lanier has with it than with it itself.
I don't make any comment about what the books themselves say, as, yes, I haven't read them. I am commenting on the reviews I have read and what impression they give of the books.
I am aware of the official meaning of the word manifesto. As a student on a course called Modernities, I have studied the manifesto in its particular incarnations in early twentieth century artistic movements, in which a big emphasis is placed on the manifesto as a "declaration of principles and intentions", yes, but as statement of specifically new principles and intentions, as per Ezra Pound's call to "make it new". This blog is mainly intended as a place to think out ideas in relation to my studies, and as my two readers are aware of that, I didn't feel the need of qualification on my part as to my understanding of the word manifesto.