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sebastianshaw · 3 years

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@sammysdewysensitiveeyes So, you asked me not long ago, how I’d feel about Haven as a mutant on Krakoa. As it happens, I’m on an RP Discord where I write her as such, since they allow characters there to be mutants who aren’t mutants in canon, in order to join the RP, since it’s set on Krakoa. I made her a healer, able to heal herself and others. Super on the nose, but it’s what she would want, and it also fulfills *my* desire for her not to be hurt anymore (I mean, she still can be, she’ll just recover) Anyway, in March I wrote this for her in that setting. Featuring Shaw as usual since he’s one of my other muses there and, well, you know I love writing my faves together and their conversations because self-indulgence. No obligation to read, just I remembered I had written it and was like “Oh that’s like what Sammy asked about”

Shaw’s latest job was to spread the Krakoan medicine throughout the country of India. A considerable task; India was made up of no less than 28 states and 8 union territories, with an immense and diverse population. There were the dilapidated slums and rural villages that Westerners most often imagined, but there were also bustling cosmopolitan cities, centers of business and technology and commerce to rival New York, and it was in the biggest of these that Shaw was starting---

Mumbai.

Accompanying him on the recommendation of Charles Xavier was Radha Dastoor---Haven of the healing gardens, whom he had previously met when she had helped with his back. At first Shaw had thought this was a bit racist of Charles, but it turned out not only was Haven from Mumbai specifically herself, she had wonderful connections for the tasks. Her philanthropy had connected her with doctors, hospitals, shelters, and its hidden communities of those suffering afflictions such as the oft-claimed-eradicated leprosy. But, Shaw could have done most of that himself, aside from the hidden colonies. No, where Haven came in most handy was, shockingly, her knowledge of Mumbai’s criminal underworld. Not because she had ever been involved with it, but because she had done so much work getting people out of it---the women and children she had worked to get out of human trafficking rings, the survival sex workers rescued from abusive pimps, the children enticed away from little “found families” of criminals who used them for their dirty work. . .the list went on. And of course she hadn’t been able to do all that alone, she had been funding an entire network of people to get this done, to keep the rescued parties safe and help them in getting to a new life, to block off or arrest those who tried to take them back or attack the rescuers themselves (Haven had been a target MANY times, but those had been in the days when she’d been kept safe by The Adversary’s powers. . . ) and thus she had an abundance of detectives and double agents on the inside. And because they were on the inside, they could bring in the medicine. . . and bring out the mutants being sold, enslaved, and Heaven wept at what else. Mutants that, for the moment, were staying with them in The Rajmani. Haven’s wealth was originally inherited, but she’d kept it coming---so that she could keep giving it away---through The Rajmani, a luxury heritage hotel on par with the likes of New York’s Ritz or Plaza. In income, anyway. In beauty, it surpassed them both. Well, perhaps that was subjective, but it was built within a restored Mughal Palace, and Shaw had to admit he was impressed with the great domes and slender minarets, the massive vaulted gateways and delicate ornamentation, the elegant water gardens and charbagh walkways through the carefully cultivated yet lush tropical greenery. Most of all, though, he liked learning the fact that the woman earned at least a little of her own money in some kind of sense, even if by her own admission she only owned it, not managed it. Shaw looked down on those who only inherited wealth, just as they had often looked down on him for earning his. Haven, though, did not seem to look down on him. She didn’t seem to have the proverbial stones to look down on anybody, and she certainly was around people who actually deserved it. She seemed to love being around that type, in fact, went out of her way to benefit them, centered her entire life around it. Some people, Shaw had found, were just mad like that. He suspected that it had something to do with growing up with money, taking it front granted and thus not comprehending its worse. But at least she didn’t dare think she was better than him, so she was that sensible at least. Although it was the last word he’d describe her with. No, if he were to describe Radha “Haven” Dastoor, he’d probably start with insipid, senseless, and downright delusional. But she was also. . .not an unengaging conversationalist. The reverse, actually. “The Mughals were constantly trying to invade Mumbai,” Haven explained, while Shaw nodded along. He was interested in architecture, and in martial history. “But as much of India as they had conquered, the native Marathis were just as constantly pushing them back. It was touch and go for decades. It surprises me that a Mughal structure remained without being torn down, though it was taken over.” “The native Marathis, you say---are Mughals not native? Or merely from another part of India?” “Well, that’s a complicated question, and the answer is a controversial one, so I till try to explain it as neutrally as I can,” Haven replied, and she indeed sounded neutral. They were standing together on the jharoka, an elaborately carved balcony with a roof, each with a glass of nimbu pani, though Shaw would have preferred a good Scotch. “The Mughal Empire in South Asia was begun by Babur, who came from Central Asia, specifically what is today Uzbekistan. His tribe was of Mongol origin, and the word Mughal is itself derived from “Mongol”. He actually came to South Asia to escape his fellow Uzbeks---it’s a very long story--but instead of being a refugee, he became a conqueror, starting by burning Lahore for two days and killing the last Sultan of the Lodi dynasty in Delhi, and the Lodi dynasty itself was not Indian, but Afghan. India was colonized by the Middle East long before Europe decided to try its hand. But to answer your question. . .they did not begin as Indian, no, but they were a part of our country for two hundred years and left a deep mark in our culture---clothing, food, language, art, and, of course, the buildings. But, the same could also be said of the British, and you would be hard-pressed to find anyone, including myself, who considers the British Raj to have been “Indian” simply because they were there for a long time and forced their ways upon us. At the same time, my mother is a Parsi, a people who originate from Iran, thousands of years ago---Parsi comes from “Persian”. And how can one tell me my mother, who was born and raised here, whose mother’s mothers and father’s fathers were born and raised here, that she was not Indian? And though Babur came from elsewhere, his sons and successors were born and raised here, and often to Indian mothers, and their descendants dwell here still, with no other homeland, so are they not Indian? Because if they were not, then perhaps I am not either, at least by half. Ultimately. . . it depends which Mughals, at what time period, and whom you ask, I suppose.” “And I suppose there’s also a difference between ethnicity and nationality to be considered,” Shaw said, though Haven was now losing his interest with this topic. He’d been more interest in the invasions and warring. “Ethnically, one can be anything, and still nationally be American if you were born there or otherwise have citizenship. But, I suppose you need not contemplate such matters anymore--” He cracked a wry smile as she, with a questioning look, awaited the rest of his sentence. “---after all, we are all Krakoan now, are we not? We’re all mutants, and that’s the only thing that matters.” Haven smiled back, not wryly but sincerely, “Oh, I am now, yes. But I am also still everything I was before. I have been balancing multiple identities my entire life Mr. Shaw, I believe I shall be able to continue to do so. But I must confess--” A moment of hesitation. “--I do not truly think of myself as a mutant yet.” She was not sure what reaction that she had expected to this confession, but it was not what Shaw said next. “I don’t either, Ms. Dastoor.” She looked at him in surprise. “Or rather,” he elaborated, “I do not consider myself a mutant in any sense other than in the way I consider myself to have black hair. It’s a physical fact, but nothing else. It is not a “culture” or “identity” to me, and in truth I find such attitudes to be foolish and even dangerous, not to mention a sign that an individual lacks their own personality and convictions and thus must merely default to group identity politics. Being a mutant tells you nothing about me, Ms. Dastoor, and so if I were to talk about who I am, that’s not something I’d include any more than my eye color.” “That’s an especially interesting perspective from someone on Krakoa’s Council,” said Haven, sounding very curious, “Could I ask you---” But her voice was cut off by the unmistakable sound of gunshots---and from INSIDE the building. “The children!” Haven exclaimed. It was not just her and Shaw that were lodged at The Rajmani tonight; it was where the mutants they had rescued were staying before the journey to the nearest portal tomorrow. And most were, indeed, children. As quickly as she spoke, she was moving back inside from the jharoka, but Shaw grabbed her by the elbow, easily holding her back despite her not being a small or weak woman despite her gentle demeanor. Haven was large, and could carry a grown man. But Shaw didn’t even need to be rough to halt her. “You stay put,” he said sternly, “The guards will handle this.” “Mr. Shaw---” “They are better equipped than you, Ms. Dastoor, you will only interfere--” Shaw and Haven had, of course, not come alone. Shaw had brought several trained mutants on his own payroll---not everyone needed to be one of the X-Men to be capable of handling a few humans and their toys--and they had been tasked with keeping watch over, as Shaw had earlier referred to them as, the latest flock of Krakoa’s little sheep. A statement Haven had also wondered about, though it was far from her mind now. Haven might have been about to argue with him. She might have been about to admit he was right, and she should hang back. But as with her question, she was cut off by a gunshot as she turned her face back to him and started to speak. A gunshot, and bullet through the back of her head. It exited through her right eye, and bounced off Shaw’s face and fell to the floor. She would have as well, had he not caught her as she crumpled. When her healing factor had repaired her enough that she regained consciousness, she was on Krakoa again, as were all the refugees, safe and sound. And so was Shaw. “Well, Ms. Dastoor,” he said, “You’ve been murdered---or rather, nearly so--by perfect strangers for a quirk of your genetics. Nothing can make you more of a mutant than that, wouldn’t you agree?” Haven smiled slightly, “I feel as much a mutant as perhaps a Mughal might feel Indian, Mr. Shaw. Take that as you will.” He took it ambiguously. Which was indeed how she had meant it. == END==

#fic #writing #out of shirt

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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The Bunad: roots of a nationalist symbol

The bunad is a Norwegian folk costume which exists in many regional varieties. A symbol of rootedness and belonging both local and national, the bunad is ubiquituous on Constitution Day, 17 May, but it is also used at other festive occasions. Although it is far more widespread among women than men, male bunads have become common in some social circles.

Can anyone wear a bunad? Is it a real bunad if it is made in China? Is it a symbol of origin and roots or a nationalistic symbol?

It is estimated that Norwegians own altogether 2.5 million bunads, worth more than 40 billion kroner (€500 million). In other words, one in two citizens owns a bunad, and they are expensive garments with embroideries and filigree silver ornaments, consisting of several components often including aprons, headdresses, scarves or shawls. You could easily buy a few prestigious and beautiful dresses from famous designers for the cost of a single bunad. Moreover, bunad ownership and use has grown fast in the last few decades.

The increased popularity of bunads could be put down to the growing prosperity of the population of oil-rich Norway in general. But this is hardly the whole story. A symbol of Norwegianness, rootedness and regional origins, wearing a bunad is a statement about identity. Non-Norwegians are often puzzled by its widespread use, since folk dresses are associated with minorities in other parts of Europe. Perhaps the Norwegian identity is essentially a minority identity, even though independence was achieved through a bloodless secession from the Swedish–Norwegian union in 1905.

The ongoing story of the bunad is complex and involves claims and counter-claims about authenticity, the feared and respected ‘bunad police’ and a vivid popular discourse about who has the moral right to wear which bunad. The right not to wear a bunad is generally tolerated, but there is no strong and visible cosmopolitan discourse dismissing the widespread love of folk costumes as antediluvian, reactionary, nationalist and possibly racist. Yet there is no consensus concerning which dresses should be classified as sufficiently authentic and what the criteria are and it has led to controversies.

The bunad is a particular kind of festive dress. The term is a neologism based on an archaic dialect word, introduced in urban circles by the author and nationalist activist Hulda Garborg in her pamphlet Norsk klædebunad in 1903. Writing during a feverish phase of Norwegian nationalism just ahead of independence, Garborg argued the need for a truly Norwegian and regional form of formal dress. She collected and systematised what she saw as intact and useful regional bunad traditions, and even designed some bunads herself. Interestingly, Garborg never denied the syncretic and partly invented character of the new, traditionalist folk costume. She nevertheless emphasised its role as a marker of rural, Norwegian identity.

A relevant distinction can be drawn between a bunad and a folk costume. Folk costumes are everyday and festive clothes which were traditionally worn by peasants in southern Norway, and – like certain kinds of peasant food – have been recontextualised and upgraded more recently as formal dress. Bunads, on the contrary, are reconstructed and re-designed – sometimes very nearly purely invented – costumes designed from the early 20th century onwards, and are used at occasions such as Christmas Eve, Constitution Day, weddings and other major social events, although not at funerals: bunads are bright and joyful garments. Some bunads represent minor adjustments (‘upgradings’ and modernisations) of the original folk costume, while the link is less obvious or absent in other cases.

The bunad is an important traditionalist symbol of modern Norwegianness. Most of these costumes are related to regional and minority folk costumes from Central and Eastern Europe, and the German influence has often been commented upon. More importantly, the bunad confirms Norwegian identity as an essentially rural one, where personal integrity is linked to roots and regional origins. However, 18th and 19th century peasants would often wear European-style dress at formal occasions such as weddings, or they might wear a folk costume, which gradually went out of use. In other words, there is a clear element of modern invention, which nobody denies, not only in the currently widespread use of bunads, but also in their design.

What exactly, then, is a bunad? One possible answer widely accepted is: a festive dress associated with a regional Norwegian tradition, accepted by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council as such, and widely recognised as a bunad by the public. Its popularity as a symbol of tradition has increased proportionally with the modernisation and urbanisation of Norway in the last hundred years, thereby saying something essential about the politics and poetics of identity in modern societies, where the quest for rootedness in the past increases with de facto uprootedness.

In contemporary society, many if not most individuals have two, three or four options: they can legitimately wear a bunad designed in the place where they live, in the place where they grew up, or in one of their parents’ places of origin. They cannot, however, legitimately wear a bunad from wherever they fancy. Of course, they could buy it, but their friends and relatives might frown.

Norwegians who live in the heart of urban cities and have no real rural roots are sometimes unaware of people in the heart of Bunad Norway who are deeply offended. These rural Norwegians as they see it have no time for West End ladies who claim Telemark ancestry when they buy the perhaps greatest status symbol of all bunads, namely the expensive and exclusive East Telemark bunad. They also disapprove of people wearing gold chains and earrings with their bunads.

There are frequent conflicts over authenticity framed within the bunad discourse itself. In the valley of Numedal, competition between two alternative bunads actually led to the creation of two distinct factions in the 17 May parade of 2002. Family members fell out with each other; local politicians groped for compromises. One of the alternatives, a simple folk costume, is woven in dark fabrics; the complex, reconstructed bunad sanctioned by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council is much more elaborate and colourful. The defenders of the simple costume argue that the new one, ‘overloaded with silver and embroideries’, is inappropriate and clearly inauthentic for a traditionally poor mountain valley; while the other faction see the simple bunad as sordid and joyless. Both factions claimed that their bunad was the most ancient one. The colourful and expensive alternative won in the end.

The bunad stirs up strong emotions. After the 17 May celebrations in 2001, Queen Sonja was criticised in public for wearing sunglasses with her bunad; in the same year, Crown Princess Mette-Marit was severely reprimanded in the press for wearing a purely invented ‘fantasy costume’ rather than an authentic bunad from her home region. She has since made amends, and now has several bunads to choose between (legitimate in her case, being princess of the whole realm), including an elaborate bunad from her home county of Vest-Agder in the far south of the country. Women are generally advised by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council not to wear makeup and earrings with their bunad.

Because of the wealth of detail, a proper bunad cannot be made industrially in its entirety. This partly accounts for its high market price. Moreover, the knowledge and skill required to make a bunad is considered a cultural, local form of knowledge – a kind of inalienable possession. In the spring of 2002, a conflict erupted between the traditionalists and a young entrepreneur who wanted a slice of the market. This conflict inadvertently brought the implicit ideology underlying the bunad to the public eye. The controversy is still alive today, with cultural arguments overlapping with the economic ones.

What happened was this. A young Norwegian of Chinese origin, who originally worked as a cook, began to take an interest in bunads. He took a bunad course, learning the basics of the craft. Before going into business, he changed his name from Aching to John Helge Dahl, realising that he would have little credibility as a bunad salesman with a Chinese name. (The current owner of the company founded by Dahl is nevertheless called You Hong Bei.)

Dahl founded a company called ‘Norske Bunader’ (Norwegian bunads), and then he did the outrageous thing, namely to contract dozens of Chinese seamstresses in Shanghai to do the stitching and embroidery. The fabrics were sent from Norway, and the completed garments were returned – at a much lower price than that of the Norwegian competition. He built the bunads himself. ‘To most people, it is the quality that counts,’ he says, ‘not who has done the embroidery’. Of course, he can offer bunads at a competitive price.

The Bunad and Folk Costume Council reacted strongly against Mr. Dahl, as did Husfliden. At one point the latter threatened to sue him for plagiarism, but since bunad designs are not copyrighted, they were likely to lose a court case. Their argument was that the craft amounted to a locally embedded kind of knowledge which did not travel well, comparing it to dialects. Talking about mass production and industrialisation of bunad production, they argued that the use of foreign labour leads to cultural flattening. The resulting products were said to have no hau, to use the anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s term for the ‘soul’ of an object.

Opinions bitterly divided people. Many who defended the traditionalists said that this concerns ‘personal knowledge’. Bunad embroidery was a kind of handwriting. They argued that when anyone can take a pattern, send it abroad, and make a good profit from the product, people will ask: ‘What is it that I am spending one or two months’ salary on?’ Many argued that this kind of garment would feel alienating, and that it would not satisfy people’s emotional need to build their own history into the garment.

Another argument concerns the low salaries in China, claiming that it was immoral to hire ‘underpaid women’ to do this kind of work. Dahl’s Shanghai seamstresses were paid what he described as a good salary in China, but which is a fraction of a comparable Norwegian salary. Yet others have said that it may be acceptable to employ immigrant women living in Norway, who may have assimilated some local skills, but not to employ foreign women living abroad.

Although the Dahl case was spectacular in that it simultaneously brought out both accusations of racism and controversy concerning criteria for authenticity, his business innovation was less original than it might seem. Several producers admit that they outsource parts of their production to the Baltic countries and elsewhere where wages are low, and even Husfliden has admitted that parts of their bunads are made industrially because of the high cost of labour in Norway.

The anxieties voiced by the critics of the outsourcing of bunad production are threefold: In a thoroughly neo-liberal society (anyone can wear what she wants; anyone can design and make bunads anywhere in the world), national identity suffers because regional roots are severed; economic interests suffer because prices go down; and the personal or emotional pole of the user suffers since the garments lose their special quality.

In what exactly does this ‘special quality’ consist? What is the nature of the considerable personal capital invested into clothes?

What is reaped from this investment is a handsome profit, an enhanced sense of community and visible boundaries to the outside world. Cultural property of this kind is intangible, it is legally oblique, and it is poised to lose against both the brisk efficiency of contemporary capitalism and against the individualism of free choice.

So the main question as I see it: is what price your heritage?

Put your secret/sacred knowledge online, and the spell is immediately broken.

This kind of knowledge has to be scarce, localised and difficult to obtain, or it loses its magic qualities. Beyond pricing policies and profits, this is what stirs the souls of the people who care about the national and regional provenance of their bunad. Had they chosen a Dior dress instead, or a pair of blue jeans and a nice T-shirt, the problem would not have arisen.

Still critics argue why all the fuss? The Bunad is no different from what a kilt is to a Scotsman or a lederhosen is to the Bavarian or a sari is to an Indian. Yes and no. Each of these have differing degrees of exclusivity and symbology.

The kilt arguably was an English invention to control the Highland clans. But it became something else - a national symbol of being loyal to clan, crown and country. It used to be people only wore kilts if they had a hereditary claim to that tartan but nowadays no one really cares what tartan you wear (much to the chagrin of older generations). The lederhosen has always been a regional symbol not a national one but has been ‘McDonalised’ to an Oktoberfest fancy dress costume party. The sari is an interesting example that remains a distinctly Indian national symbol but can also now be readily worn by anyone around the world - just as well as I love wearing saris at Indian weddings and when I lived in India. But the Bunad is different because of its own distinct roots that has never left its national borders. The Bunad is a living tapestry and its threads can’t be simply out sourced to other countries.

One’s heritage should never be outsourced. To the anti-traditionalist naysayers I would say that the bunad is a special kind of garment saturated with symbolism and existential significance; it is from somewhere, not from anywhere. It’s Norwegian, born and bred.

#bunad #norway #custom #heritage #tradition #dress #folk #norge #norsk #culture #society #history

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feigeroman · 3 years

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Thomas Headcanons: Belle

Before we start with tonight’s headcanon, let me just say, right off the bat, that Belle does not have those water cannons in my headcanon. I know I normally tend to fly in the face of realism, but even I have my limits.

Belle is specifically BR #80120, built at Brighton Works in July 1955. Like most of the Standards, she only had a short working life, much of which was spent working in the Leeds area. Towards the end of her BR career, in May 1967, Belle gradually moved further north, finally settling down at Carnforth.

Although Carnforth was just a stone’s throw away from Barrow-In-Furness, Belle never worked in that particular direction, and thus didn’t come into contact with any NWR engines around this time. That being said, she was still aware of them, and for a long time was disappointed that she never got to see them before being withdrawn.

In 1968, the sheds at Carnforth were closed by BR, but immediately taken over by a preservation group. The depot was turned into a museum, Steamtown, which became a mecca for enthusiasts following the 1968 Steam Ban. Belle became one of the exhibits, having been privately purchased by a member of the group some months prior. She spent much of her time on static display, but was frequently steamed up to give demonstration rides to visitors.

Given Carnforth’s new importance as a steam centre, it was inevitable that Belle should cross paths with many famous faces who happened to pay a visit to the site. Among the better-known stars were Sir Nigel Gresley, Green Arrow, and even the famous Flying Scotsman himself - who stopped by in 1974, having just returned from his disastrous American tour. Coupled with a few acquisitions from overseas, and it would be fair to say that Belle lead quite a cosmopolitan existence around this time.

It was also during this time that Belle received her current livery. At the time, there was a trend among preserved railways of painting their engines in all manner of different liveries - regardless of their appropriateness for the class of engine. In Belle’s case, she was repainted into imitation Caledonian blue - a decision that proved highly controversial at the time, but was liked enough by the general public that the staff reluctantly agreed to let Belle keep it.

Her signature bell was another touch added at this time. To this day, a rumour persists that this is the same bell carried by Flying Scotsman during his American tour. Nobody’s been able to confirm or deny this, but they do definitely look and sound the same...

Belle remained resident at Steamtown for the rest of the 1970s, but come the start of the next decade, her future began to look uncertain. In 1980, a rift started to develop between her owner and the other members of the group - the exact details aren’t clear, and for the sake of privacy we won’t mention the guy’s name. In any case, attempts at negotiation ended acrimoniously, and the group member soon announced he was taking his leave - and that he was taking Belle with her.

In a strange case of perfect timing, the day after leaving Steamtown, Belle’s owner received a letter from the NWR, asking to borrow her for a while to help out during one of their busy periods. After a few days of correspondence, followed by a couple of visits, Belle’s owner agreed to loan her to the NWR on a long-term basis. Following further discussions, the NWR ended up taking joint-ownership of Belle, essentially making her loan permanent.

Belle entered NWR service in 1982, but her versatility and enthusiasm were such that it was difficult to decide just what work to give her. She flitted between heavy goods and semi-fast passenger trains for a while, but then found herself a nice little niche banking heavy trains up the steeply-graded lines out of Tidmouth Docks.

To facilitate this work, Belle was reallocated to the sheds within the dock complex, having initially been based at the main sheds in Tidmouth itself.

Belle has largely remained a banker engine ever since, but over the years, her work has diversified somewhat. For one thing, she’s now the main engine responsible for pulling the breakdown train - usually Rocky, although it’s not unknown for Belle to be seen with any of the NWR’s other cranes.

It should be noted that Belle only handles such rescue work on the western side of the island. The eastern side is usually taken care of by Tracy (NWR #D27).

Other than her banking and rescue duties, Belle is sometimes also to be found handling other work - from hauling extra trains, to taking over in an emergency, and even stuff like maintenance work or snowplough duty.

#thomas the tank engine #the railway series #sodor #island of sodor #north western railway #ttte headcanon #ttte analysis #ttte belle #belle the big tank engine

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rawiswhore · 3 years

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Various WWF Wrestlers x Fem Reader- "Crass Commercialism"

By the end of the 1990's, professional wrestling would be at the height of its popularity.

It wasn't too long ago that both the WWF and WCW had low ratings and the WWF nearly almost went out of business.

But by the late 90's, the WWF and WCW had some of the highest rated shows on television, people were wearing wrestling T-shirts, wrestlers were guest starring on talk shows and TV shows, and underage kids would imitate everything from wrestling gestures to wrestling moves at school.

The WWF had some of its most popular stars since Hulk Hogan.

Professional wrestling was seemingly inescapable.

And...you were one of the many pro wrestling related things that was inescapable during the late 90's.

You were the first wrestling related person to ever be on the covers of Cosmopolitan, Maxim, FHM, Stuff, Allure, and Harper's Bazaar magazine, as well as the first wrestling related person to have a photoshoot and article written about you in Vanity Fair and Vogue.

You had also caused massive amounts of controversy during your heyday in the late 90's that would be headline news and discussions about whether if the WWF's ratings should be TV-14 or TV-MA.

Wrestlers have always done commercials for things, and you were one of the many wrestling related people that did several commercials during your heyday in the late 90's and early 2000's.

Because professional wrestling wasn't inescapable enough by the late 90's, at the beginning of 1999, you did a commercial for a body wash based on some of the things you used to do in the men's locker rooms when the cameras weren't rolling.

The commercial starts off with several male wrestlers in a locker room, either sitting down on a bench or putting their clothes in a locker, or taking their clothes out of a locker.

Some of these wrestlers were wearing nothing but towels wrapped around their waists.

You couldn't really tell if the men in this commercial were wrestlers at first, some of these men in this commercial didn't have recognizable faces like Stone Cold, Kane, the Undertaker and Mick Foley.

You, however, were standing behind the door to this locker room, peeping and spying on these wrestlers changing, and you were trying to hide yourself from these wrestlers from seeing you, as well as trying to stifle your giggles and laughter.

You were dressed in a white bathrobe and holding a bottle of body wash, your eyes looking down at that body wash and grinning from ear to ear.

You then proceeded to enter the men's locker room, and as you strolled into the locker room, you shed your bathrobe off of your body, revealing your completely nude body, not a single stitch of clothes on your body.

As you sauntered through the locker room in this commercial, some 20th century love song or a 20th century song centered more around lust than love, played.

You dropped that white bathrobe onto the floor and still held onto that bottle of body wash, and as you strutted through the locker room, the camera only filming you from above your nipples, male wrestlers in the locker room turned their heads and were peering at you.

The camera cut to various wrestlers and their reactions: the Rock raised his iconic People's Eyebrow as he stared at you (of course he'd do that!), Triple H grinned while looking at you and biting his bottom lip, Shawn Michaels' eyes grew wide seeing you naked (like he's never seen you naked before!) while he held a bottle of lotion, squeezing that tilted bottle where lotion poured out, referencing he's jizzing, Christian, Edge and Gangrel took their sunglasses off to look at you, Kane slightly tilted his head and moved his hand to his mask and raised it slightly to get a better look at you naked, only for the camera to cut to Billy Gunn smiling from ear to ear as his hands were motioning to squeeze your ass cheeks while Road Dogg smiled from ear to ear and his hands made crotch chopping gestures.

Many male wrestlers were cat calling and wolf whistling at you, at least those sound effects were made, and while you strolled through this locker room naked to the shower, your eyes were looking at these wrestlers staring at you and your mouth grinned from ear to ear.

The camera was cutting to male wrestlers looking at you, some of their eyes were big, others were rubbing their hands together excitedly and grinning from ear to ear.

Some wrestlers were pulling shower curtains and looking at you with a state of shock.

Val Venis walked past you looking like he stepped out of the shower, his body was glistening wet and he had a towel wrapped around his waist, looking like he typically looks when he enters the ring on Monday nights.

Val looked at you and smiled while he walked past you, he greeted "hellooooooooo" at you and his hand patting your ass afterwards, only for your other hand to grab onto his towel and pull it off.

Val had a state of shock on his face when you did that, his eyes growing wide and his mouth agape while he looked at you, the camera filming him from the neck up, only for the camera to cut to you grinning cheekily from ear to ear at him.

Jeff Hardy had heard the cat calls while showering, the camera filming him from the neck up, which made him turn his head and see you walking towards him, he smiled and grinned at you.

When you had entered the shower, you asked loudly "Who wants to take a shower?" while smiling from ear to ear, holding up that bottle of body wash and drumming the bottle with the tips of your nails and fingers.

Your arm holding up that bottle of body wash was covering and shielding your breast from being filmed on camera, and the camera was filming you from the waist up.

In this commercial, you were trying not to show your private parts like your breasts, ass and vagina.

There were some other wrestlers in that shower you had entered that were busy washing their hair.

Many wrestlers were walking up to you, including Billy Gunn, who was smiling from ear to ear and rubbing his hands back and forth, Triple H, Christian, Shawn Michaels, Val Venis, many of these male wrestlers were undressing their clothes off, including the ones you've mentioned but you said "no" to the ones you weren't attracted to, to which the male wrestlers that were rejected pouted and walked away.

However, you let Triple H, Christian, Billy, Shawn and Val enter the shower.

Some wrestlers in the shower like Jeff Hardy, Test and Steven Regal walked up to you.

Triple H offered to turn the water on for you, he smiled while he offered this, to which you accepted his offer, and he had his hand on one of the knobs (not his penis...or any other wrestler's dick, for that matter) and turned it, to where water began to pour out of the shower head and down to the top of your head.

Water wasn't just rinsing and soaking you, but some of these wrestlers circling around you, who were all undressed now, or at least shirtless and wearing a Speedo to make it look like they're naked.

The camera then cut to what this commercial was advertising: a new gender neutral body wash for both men and women to use in the shower, maybe even together.

This commercial demonstrated and filmed your hands caressing up and down Triple H's huge, muscular arms, lathering his arms and torso up with that wash, while his hands were caressing up and down your torso as well as your tits, lathering your body.

He wasn't the only one helping wash you, Val, Christian, Shawn, Billy, Jeff Hardy, Test and Steven Regal lent their hands out and caressed you in that body wash, foaming and lathering your body up.

Val and Billy were behind you, Billy lathering and squeezing your ass ('cuz his nickname is Mr. Ass, getit?), whereas Val's hands were taking turns caressing and soaping up your breasts, the foam from that body wash covering and censoring your breasts.

Val's as well as Triple H's hands were trying to cover your nipples from being exposed on television.

These aforementioned wrestler's were lathering your body from your arms to your ankles, slathering that body wash until it turned to foam on your legs.

This commercial demonstrated how this unisex body wash doesn't smell too masculine or feminine, it's just right for both genders, so now when you're in the shower with someone, you don't have to worry about females smelling too manly, or men smelling too effeminate.

Don't you hate it when you're in the shower with a guy and he's caressing your body with body wash, but it's feminine body wash, and he gets that feminine body wash on himself, or vice versa, you get man's body wash from your man washing masculine body wash on you.

You even mentioned that in this commercial, smiling while you mentioned it, and these wrestlers caressing your body in that foam smiled when they heard you reveal that.

The commercial then cut to that gender neutral body wash bottle just sitting by itself and had a little tagline to it at the end.

At the end of the commercial, the camera cut to Jerry Lawler entering the locker room, asking "Hey, what I'd miss?" in a shrill, high little chirp, his typical voice.

This commercial was inspired by what you did backstage when the cameras weren't rolling; how you'd walk into and enter the men's locker room naked just to get the attention of male wrestlers you thought were sexy.

#wwf #attitude era #wwf attitude #1999 #90s #fanfiction

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years

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Austria-Hungary and the European War - A Hearts of Iron IV AAR

Austria-Hungary today is one of the principal powers of Europe, a highly-industrialized, prosperous and modern country. The krone is considered a major reserve currency, the University of Vienna is held in similar esteem to Cambridge or Harvard, and the Two Crowns are as recognizable as the Union Jack or the 51-starred American flag. Tourists regularly flock to Venice, political summits are regularly held at Budapest, and Austro-Hungarian goods are sold across the world. Yet the meteoric rise of Austria-Hungary was mired in controversy particularly for its role in the Balkan Crisis and the short-lived Hungarian-Yugoslavian war of aggression, and it was only the struggle against the Axis powers that united the western and eastern halves of Europe into a single whole.

Refoundation

The Kingdom of Hungary was in a precarious position in 1936. Dismembered by the Treaty of Trianon after the Great War, Hungary had seen a succession of ministers promising to restore the prestige of the diminished state from the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic to the ardently pro-Nazi Gyula Gömbös. With the failures of both the fascist and communist movements on full display, the Regent Admiral Miklos Horthy elected to work with the monarchist parties, approving their motion for stricter budgetary controls and supporting their call for a restoration of the Hungarian monarchy, giving a famous speech on 8 October 1936 that “a regent is a steward, not a king.” The debate raged as to who would be invited to wear the crown of Saint Stephen, with Frederich Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Carl Wilhelm of Sondermanland both suggested as candidates. The former with the nationalist Unity Party and encouraged by pro-German elements along with Adolf Hitler, the latter was championed by the liberal parties in the hopes that he would introduce a monarchy modeled upon the Swedish constitutional system. However, the monarchist voices were the most powerful, and they selected as their candidate Otto von Habsburg, to restore the previous prestige that the country enjoyed under Habsburg leadership. At his coronation ceremony on 16 December, 1936, Otto von Habsburg swore to restore the kingdom to prominence, and return the provinces lost in the war. This caused an uproar within the European diplomatic community, with President Edvard Benes of Czechoslovakia and Prime Minister Leon Blum of France providing the strongest voice against the move. When pressed to reaffirm France’s eastern commitments established in the wake of the Great War, Blum was noncommittal, domestic commitments and the weakness of his Popular Front government in the wake of rising violence between the French Communist Party and the nationalist Leagues.

Yet despite the rhetoric, King Otto I took an unexpected policy direction. His first cabinet was dominated by industrial policy, looking to revitalize a decaying industrial structure by importing ideas from the more industrialized nations, particularly the United States, who benefitted from a large trade deal for U.S. Steel. Keenly aware of the limited natural resources, King Otto commissioned an institute to innovate synthetic materials, primarily Buna rubber and oil from coal liquefaction plants, bringing in ideas developed in Germany and the United Kingdom. Even more surprising, Otto convened the Danubian Railroad Summit, inviting Austria and Czechoslovakia to unite their railroad networks, which had suffered since the break-up of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. This move particularly impressed the Austrian people, which sparked pro-Hungarian demonstrations which sometimes descended into violence with pro-German groups who wanted to unite Austria with Germany into one Germanic nation. The pro-Hungarian movement owed much of its support to Otto von Habsburg himself, who had spent much of his time in exile writing on Austrian affairs and made a name for himself as a fierce critic of nationalist policies. While monarchist and Catholic voices were among the most loyal of his supporters, he also enjoyed the support of Austria’s Jewish population, largely concentrated within Vienna, as they had hoped that a government led by Otto could stand up to the Third Reich and a large majority of the middle classes who wanted similar industrial policies to help revitalize Austria’s economy. Even stranger, his fierce opposition to Nazi Germany earned him the support of anti-monarchist groups, most notable among them being the social democrats.

Upon learning of the pro-Hungarian demonstrations, Otto suggested to Kurt Schuschnigg to hold a referendum on reunification with Hungary and the restoration of the Dual Monarchy. With the threat of forcible German annexation on the horizon, Austria agreed to hold the referendum provided that Austria would be seen as an equal, and not merely a junior partner. The date of the vote was scheduled for 15 July 1937, a hot summer day. The referendum was fiercely protested by local communist groups, who boycotted the election and accused the Austrian government of manipulation by foreign powers. Otto encouraged participation by funding street parties for pro-Hungarian political groups, and the results were even better than Otto could have predicted: a landslide victory for unification. The Austrian government announced the results on 16 July, and formed itself into a provincial government under the overlordship of the Hungarian monarchy. Otto assumed the title of Emperor of Austria on 22 September, and proclaimed that the Austria-Hungary of old was reborn, and that he would not rest until all of the former Habsburg territories were brought under one banner.

The Balkans Aflame

Almost immediately, this brought a crisis to the Balkan region, with both Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia expressing concern about Austro-Hungarian ambitions in Eastern Europe, as both provinces were formed in the collapse of the previous Empire and King Otto’s rhetoric on reclaiming lost territory meant he might be thinking of annexing their territories. Indeed, King Otto embarked on lengthy negotiations with Edvard Benes, discussing the return of Czechoslovakia into the Austria-Hungary as the province of Bohemia. The young democracy had a long struggle with balancing the monarchist and republican voices within the country and the fear of Germany demanding the Sudetenland in its goal to establish a pan-German state. Surprisingly, Otto von Habsburg offered a surprising amount of compromise, promising to respect the Czech parliament as well as the language privileges enjoyed by the region during the time of the previous Austro-Hungarian Empire. Noting the political tension between Czechs and Slovaks, Otto offered to continue Benes’s plan of shared industrial growth in order to relax ethnic tensions, a prime example of Otto’s vision of an Austria-Hungary that was a cosmopolitan, poly-ethnic nation. On 1 December 1937, Benes accepted the offered terms of Austro-Hungarian overlordship, and Otto was acclaimed as King of Bohemia. His speech following his accession was careful, stating his respect for “the young parliament and its enthusaiastic supporters,” as an olive branch to the liberal, anti-monarchist factions who opposed the move. Yugoslavia lodged diplomatic protests, stating that the control of the Czechoslovakian army violated the 35,000 man limit on the Hungarian army as stipulated in the Treaty of Trianon. Otto disagreed, noting that the army was trained in Czechoslovakia before its annexation into Austria-Hungary. Benito Mussolini agreed with Hungary’s claims, and French and British did not comment directly, stating that their primary goal has always been the preservation of peace in the region.

With Bohemia within its borders, Austria-Hungary set its sights on the territories awarded to Romania in the aftermath of the Great War. Transylvania, or Siebenbürgen as the Hungarians named it had a large segment of ethnic Hungarians. Romania, ruled by King Carol II under royal dictatorship, refused the gesture out of hand; Hungarian aggression had caused the Great War and the territory was lawfully transferred to Romania as part of war reparations. Upon hearing his refusal, King Otto retaliated by stating that the treaty went against its stated objective of national self-determination and that the Romanians had violated the treaty due to its land confiscation and anti-Semitic policies. Both Otto and Carol moved their armies to the border, neither wishing to back down in a crisis. The news media of the day was alight with articles fearing another Great War that could start at any time, the Balkans lit aflame yet again.

Wishing to avoid a war, Otto suggested impartial mediation through diplomatic back-channels. With Germany hostile, and France already invested in the conflict with its post-war foreign policy guarantees but unwilling to enforce them, the United Kingdom and Italy were named as possible mediators. This move has been considered a foreign policy masterstroke by Austria-Hungary. By being the one to suggest mediation, it engendered goodwill toward France, Italy, and Great Britain. Neville Chamberlain, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, debated a compromise by returning North Transylvania to Hungary within his own Tory cabinet. Italy however, preferred a strong Hungary ever since coming to diplomatic blows with Germany regarding Austria, and recommended that the territory be ceded to Austria-Hungary. The Italian offer reached the Romanian government first, and believing that they would be facing the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies combined, ceded the territories without a fight. Chamberlain, upon learning of the compromise, believed it to be a Romanian capitulation, and never sent his proposal.

Otto turned his attention to Yugoslavia, which had been struggling with rising separatist movements among the Croats, Macedonians, and Slovenes. Yugoslavia had vociferously protested Austro-Hungarian actions in the region, but found limited support from France and Britain, particularly after Yugoslavia announced claims on Bulgarian lands in the interests of establishing a “South Slav Union” and started quietly sacking officers who opposed German interest in the Balkans. Having already been disillusioned by the failure of the British and French to prevent the re-militarization of the Rhineland, Prince Paul believed that only alignment with Germany would save Yugoslavia from being annexed by Austria-Hungary. The Jewish populations in Macedonia, Thrace, and Dobrudja were particularly anxious about the direction that Yugoslavia was taking. Citing the need to protect Bulgarian lands from Yugoslavian aggression and the need to return the favor for their assistance in the Great War, Otto declared war on Yugoslavia. Thanks in large part to the highly modernized forces produced by the Czechs and the Skoda Works, the Austro-Hungarians were quickly able to penetrate the Yugoslavian defensive perimeter on their shared border. Austrian forces swept into Slovenia, encircling and destroying isolated units. Belgrade fell in less than thirty days, and the Yugoslavian government was forced to evacuate to Skopje. Even a last minute, desperate defense in the southern theater did little to stop the advancing Austro-Hungarian troops. In less than four months, the Yugoslavian government capitulated completely.

While there were several high-profile diplomatic protests from the League of Nations, most media at the time reported great relief that the conflict was a small, contained struggle that did not erupt into a global war. Sanctions were imposed on Austria-Hungary, but these were of limited effect, as the war had ended before major actions could be agreed upon. The United States, citing the Neutrality Act, traded with neither Austria-Hungary nor Yugoslavia, France had withdrawn its guarantee of independence, and Germany declined to help Yugoslavia, unwilling to help a Slavic power. On 24 February, 1939, King Otto, having secured the territory he had lost, proclaimed the restoration and reintegration of the Dual Monarchy, and the rebirth of Austria-Hungary.

The Sudeten Crisis

Elsewhere in Europe, the great powers were slowly aligning against one another. In 1936, an attempted coup by the Spanish Army had failed and had erupted into a massive civil war. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler quickly sent support to the armies of Nationalist Spain, providing weapons, fuel, and volunteers to assist. Republican Spain had a much harder time finding international support, with only the Soviet Union sending material shipments, while French Prime Minister Leon Blum chaired a Non-Intervention Committee with the United Kingdom, the formation of which led to renewing the Great War-era alliance between the two countries. King Otto joined the Non-Intervention Committee, considering the Spanish Civil War to be a domestic Spanish matter and that the Habsburgs had not been in Spain for over two centuries. During the Civil War, an anarchist rift formed in the Republican faction, with the Regional Defense Council of Aragon refusing to obey Manuel Azaña and starting their own rebellion. The Nationalists, however, were unable to take advantage of this, as they suffered their own coalition fracture between Emilio Mola of the Spanish Directory and Manuel Fel Conde of the Carlist faction. The two factions were driven by irreconcilable divisions over the direction of post-war Spain. In desperation as 1938 began, Azaña accepted Stalin’s offer of expanded Soviet aid. Otto’s refusal to intervene caused a diplomatic rift between Austria-Hungary and Italy, who had expected support in exchange for mediating the Transylvania conflict in Otto’s favor. The Republicans eventually won the civil war on 12 November 1938, and Stalin installed Gabriel Acuna, a retired military officer and ardent Stalinist, as President of Spain, who immediately suspended elections and fired all non-Communist ministers, and instituted emergency laws to allow him to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies in favor of regional Soviets and establish a one-party state. Manuel Azaña, despondent over the death of Spanish democracy, never recovered, and died of illness shortly after the war’s conclusion in exile in France.

The loss of such a state to communism caused Germany and Italy to mend their diplomatic fences. In a famous speech, Mussolini declared: “France, Britain, and Austria-Hungary are unwilling to face the Bolshevik menace.” and signed the Pact of Steel, a treaty of cooperation with the German Reich. Shortly thereafter, the two announced a military alliance. Italy began to court Bulgaria as another possible member of this “Berlin-Rome axis,” Afterward, Italy demanded that Albania’s King Zog cede the country to be ruled in a personal union under Victor Emmanuel III, and Greece received a similar demand from Hitler in June 1939. King Zog of Albania submitted to Italian demands, stating that Albania did not have the manpower to resist Italian invasion and that he would not murder his citizens for pride. Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas defied the demands, and Germany declared war on 15 June 1939. The invasion of Greece was quickly condemned by United Kingdom Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who issued an ultimatum: leave Greece immediately or face war. When Hitler refused, the United Kingdom declared war, joined by France and the various Dominions. This was too late for Greece, which could not receive reinforcements and was forced to capitulate. The failure of the Allies to protect Greece led to a vote of no confidence in Neville Chamberlain, who was replaced by his deputy, Winston Churchill. At Stuttgart, Hitler made a grand show of turning over control of Greece to his alliance partner Mussolini. Diplomatic historians have theorized that this overture was directed at governments which were not part of the Allies, in the hopes of causing them to join the Axis powers and becoming a part of the new European order to receive similar boons of territory.

This development caused a crisis within the Austro-Hungarian cabinet. With Greece and Albania administered through Italian puppet governments, the south flank of the nation was exposed, and if Bulgaria joined the Axis powers, they would be almost completely surrounded. Austria-Hungary’s relationship with the United Kingdom had been frosty ever since the war in Yugoslavia. Several councilors suggested rapprochement with the Axis powers, or attempting to split Mussolini and Hitler to break up the Axis and align with Italy against Germany. The left suggested approaching Stalin for a defensive pact. In a defiant response to the Greek and Albanian submission, Austria-Hungary declared that the countries of eastern Europe were free and independent powers, offering independence guarantees to Romania and Poland to protect them from Axis expansionism, much to the surprise of King Carol II. Hitler began to fund pro-fascist political groups and parties within Austria-Hungary, using nationalist sentiment against the poly-ethnic nation and promoting rhetoric that Otto’s policies were causing ruination of the region, that he must be deposed and Admiral Horthy must be returned to shepherd the government, in the hopes that the 1940 elections would cause domestic unrest and Austro-Hungary distracted by concerns at home. Wehrmacht officers suggested that Hitler thought little of the Austro-Hungarian military, confident that it was full of “weak and backwards races that would crumble against German armor,” and that he wanted to maintain focus on his war with France and the United Kingdom. German groups in Austria were their prime target, but Hitler also targeted Slovaks in eastern Bohemia in an attempt to stir up the divisions that had been present in Czechoslovakia. This effort caused a rise in nativist parties in the north and south of Austria-Hungary. King Otto retaliated with a large-scale crackdown on fascist groups, typically under a flimsy excuse of violating public safety laws, but fascist sentiment grew.

Almost a year after the February Proclamation, Germany, citing the principle of ethnic self-determination and a German state for the German people, demanded that the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany. Konrad Heinlein, leader of the Sudeten German Party and a Great War combat veteran, campaigned publicly for the cession of the territory. King Otto proclaimed Konrad a traitor to the Empire, to which Heinlein responded “You lived in comfort for your nation, I lived in a prison. Which of us has given more?” Street violence followed between the Legitimist monarchist party and the Sudeten German Party, and the First Royal Army Group was positioned along the border from Tyrol to the eastern Sudeten, the Second on the border near South Tyrol, and the Third sent to Macedonia on the border with the Albania and Greece. As the deadline for the German ultimatum drew near, King Otto remained defiant, proclaiming to the emergency session of the joint National Assembly “The Germans may have their war if they dare..The Czech people gave me their trust, and I give it to every man on the border down to the lowliest private. I nor any of the citizens of this reborn nation shall sacrifice this great enterprise.” When the deadline expired, Germany issued a formal declaration of war with Italy following less than four hours later. Austria-Hungary was now at war.

Opening Gambit - The Invasion at Zara, The Greek Campaign, and a War on Two Fronts

While the Wehrmacht had hoped to push into Austria-Hungary from the north, early attempts were repulsed by the extensive fortification network in the Sudetenland and the Austrian mountains. The heavy fortifications and powerful Austro-Hungarian artillery left the theater in a precarious stalemate, neither side able to break through enemy fixed positions. The initial moves from Austria-Hungary had better luck, with the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army pushing south, deep into enemy territory in Italian-occupied Greece. Initial records from the battle had cited the brilliance of the commander, General Lajos Verees, but later analysis of the war had shown a lack of coordination between Hitler and Mussolini on the war plans for Austria-Hungary. Mussolini’s army had been organizing the annexation and administration of the new Greek holdings, the sudden increase in territory had forced Mussolini to assign many of his forces in that region to garrisons and coordination with the new puppet government while the majority of his trained forces were stationed on the French-Italian border. Several divisions had not even shown up, delayed in transit as Mussolini had to organize an Albanian and Greek regional government. The Italians that had been mobilized had made a valiant showing, but ultimately were forced to cede territory as garrison forces were scrambled at fallback positions and artillery was airlifted to provide firepower for the reeling army.

Hitler had originally intended to reinforce Italian holdings in Greece, but Admiral Karl Donitz suggested a bolder push, to reinforce Italian holdings at Zara and push into Austro-Hungarian territory, hoping to spark a panic. The Austro-Hungarian navy was barely functional, as the shipyards on the Dalmatian coast had only recently been acquired, and intelligence suggested that the Austro-Hungarian only had a few destroyers and submarines staffed with barely trained naval forces. Hitler gave his approval, and the Kriegsmarine launched Operation Blue Serpent. The results were astounding, the combined Italian and German naval force was able to overwhelm the patchwork Austro-Hungarian Navy and force a landing at Zara. From there, Axis forces overran Split and Rijeka in Dalmatia before a relief force under Austro-Hungarian general Fritz Lipfert was able to form a battle line in Bosnia. The loss of vital industrial facilities severely hampered Austro-Hungarian war production. President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal to extend the Lend-Lease Act to Austria-Hungary met with resistance even from his own party, but an impassioned speech by Harry Hopkins was able to secure the passage of the bill, and Austria-Hungary was able to manage the supply shortfall. In public recognition of the material support, King Otto commissioned a statue of an American factory worker entitled: “The Hands of Freedom.”

In a surprising and stunning move, Romania elected to send volunteer detachments in support of Austria-Hungary, which constituted themselves under Lipfert’s command as the Foreign Corps. This was done at the behest of the new king Michael. Carol II, who had long irritated his government with his wild, hedonistic lifestyle, had been deposed in a bloodless coup by his son, and declaring the need to stand against Axis oppression, sent volunteer forces to fight with the Austro-Hungarians. The Foreign Corps and the Austro-Hungarian Sixth Army set up their headquarters in Ljubjlana. Michael I also offered to mediate dialogue between Otto von Habsburg and Winston Churchill. The Copenhagen Conference was productive, with Austria-Hungary and Romania both welcomed into the Allies.

Hitler was reportedly furious. Coordination between the Austro-Hungarians and the British meant that he was facing a war on two fronts. Historians speculate on Hitler’s expectations, whether he had anticipated a greater result from Konrad Heinlein, that Otto von Habsburg would cede the Sudetenland rather than risk being encircled by the Axis, that previous bad blood between Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom regarding Yugoslavia, or that Austria-Hungary would sue for peace following the successful landings at Zara. There are no surviving written records of the strategic objectives, but military historians consider this to have been one of the greatest strategic mistakes of the 20th century.

The Push Through Italy

With Greece re-captured and under Austro-Hungarian control, the Allied War Council met in London to discuss war strategy. Of the two Axis Powers, Germany possessed the more accomplished and capable army. France wanted to push into Italy, removing the weaker power before bringing all forces to bear on Germany. Austria-Hungary, by contrast, wanted reinforcements in Eastern Europe, to liberate Dalmatia before striking at Germany to the north. Italy, Marshall Luza, leader of the Austro-Hungarian Second Army Group, believed that the Italians were contained, argued: “If we should break the German back, Mussolini will surrender and the war will be over before autumn.” The United Kingdom agreed with France, stating that if Northern Italy were cleared, France could reinforce the battle lines in Dalmatia, while the Royal Navy could keep the Adriatic clear and prevent any reinforcements to the Axis lines. With any luck, once the Axis expedition was cut off from supply shipments from the mainland, they would surrender en masse before starvation began to bite. As an acknowledgement that Austria-Hungary had some of its territory occupied, Great Britain and France agreed to detach several divisions to help hold the battle lines in Austria-Hungary, setting up an expeditionary corps headquartered in Banja Luka.

In March 1940, the Italian campaign was kicked off in earnest. Austria Hungary ordered a push from the Second Army Group toward Venice, while France ordered a major assault toward Genoa and Milan, while sending a destroyer group to secure the Corsica-Sardinia strait and support an amphibious assault on the small Italian island. The United Kingdom prepared a naval invasion from Egypt, hoping to strike Sicily once Mussolini had sent his forces northward. By April, French forces had taken Milan, but Genoa had been reinforced by a large number of infantry and armor divisions, Mussolini’s elite. Genoa was taken, but it was hard fought. Austria-Hungary had better luck, pushing through Venice and beginning the push along the Adriatic Coast. The Second Army Group experiencing a stunning breakthrough, with Italian forces falling back to Florence and establishing a fighting position in the hilly terrain outside the city. Austro-Hungarian and French troops, along with detached British divisions, met at Bologna, and theater commanders agreed to exploit the Austro-Hungarian breakthrough, bypassing the fortified Italian fighting positions in Florence. May saw further Italian retreats as the Allied forces pushed into Ancona and the successful launch of the British invasion of Sicily and the fall of Palermo, which became the main naval staging yard for further Mediterranean operations. The Royal Navy successfully contested the Mediterranean, and by the end of May Italian ships found it incredibly difficult to leave port either in the west or the east.

Operations continued into June, although hot weather slowed the tempo. Dogged resistance in the hills of Florence had failed to dislodge the Italian positions, and Allied war planners feared a stalemate that would permit the German army to redouble production efforts, push south from Germany, and possibly threaten the war effort. British efforts to push from Sicily to the Italian mainland had similarly stalled. Bohemian Marshal Luza of the Second Army Group, always an aggressive commander, suggested pushing toward Rome instead, charging Richard Tesařík with the task. Tesařík’s idea was called Operation Saber, better known as the Corneo Needle, where an infantry force would push southeast from Ancona while the spearhead of light tanks and motorized infantry would push through the center of the Italian peninsula. The Italian field officer took the bait, dispatching a relief force from Anzio to support the defense of the east. Followed closely by French infantry, Tesařík’s forces began shelling Rome to the surprise of the Italian defenders. On 28 June, 1940, Rome fell to the advancing Allies. Disheartened, the Italians pulled further south, but the isolated Florentine hill forces were unable to regroup, digging in. The dogged Italian defenders fought for two months, during which the famous war memoir “Colline Rossa” was written. As the Italian Army began to crumble, King Victor Emmanuel seized control of the Italian Parliament, arrested Mussolini, and sought an armistice. On 27 August 1940, Italy surrendered to a joint Allied delegation. Hardline Fascist holdouts persisted, moving their provisional government to Crete, but the British Navy bottled them on their island, and they played no part in the remainder of the war.

Hitler’s Gamble, the German Lemon Squeeze, and the Postwar Order

With Italy lost, Hitler faced a losing war. Strategists within the Nazi council debated, with many suggesting making a peace overture, but Hitler refused to consider it. Instead, he embarked upon a daring gamble, a westward push through the Low Countries, bypassing the Maginot Line and threatening Paris. The prevailing theory among military historians is that Hitler hoped a display of strength would force a general ceasefire before the Allied armies could march north from Italy to threaten Germany. A few days before the Italian Army surrendered, Hitler attacked Belgium and the Netherlands. However, British cryptologists at GCHQ led by Alan Turing had uncovered the plans. Belgian and Dutch defenders had fortified their positions, reinforced by the British Army, and had been able to repulse Hitler’s plan. Disgusted by the German actions, the United Mexican States, under President Lázaro Cárdenas, joined the Allies, and sent a small expeditionary force to supplement the Low Countries defense.

The Austro-Hungarian army, having secured Italy, began the slow march north to the central European mountains, spilling over the Austrian border and pushing slowly toward Munich. British and Dutch forces advanced from Frisia while French forces began to emerge from their Maginot defenses and attacked southwestern Germany. Hitler’s force, spread out, were significantly outnumbered, and began to take heavy losses.

The Allies developed their plan as a broad pincer movement, for an aggressive attack moving both north and east, not stopping until they had received an unconditional surrender. General Bernard Montgomery had caused a slight diplomatic row when he wagered with Austro-Hungarian general Géza Lakatos that the British could take Berlin before the Austro-Hungarian even got there, to which he was privately censured by Churchill for antagonizing his coalition partner.

As September came, Austria-Hungary took Munich, where the First and Second Army Groups split, with the First marching north while the Second marched west to press German divisions stationed between the French and Austro-Hungarian lines together. It was here that the combined Allied offensive received the nickname “Lemon Squeeze.” In discussion with French reporters, an unknown sergeant said “Of course we’re going until we see the French on the other side! When you squeeze a lemon, you do not stop until there is nothing left but the rind!” By November 30, the Austro-Hungarian army proved the unknown sergeant correct, as they had closed the fronts save for a holdout force of 20 German divisions near the Swiss border. At a joint session of air command, British bombers volunteered to begin all-out strategic bombing including hard-to-fly night bombing raids, where the smaller Austro-Hungarian bombers would cover tactical bombing and free up the larger British planes for more important missions.

The Belgian-British-Dutch-French breakout in the west accomplished the most success in the German theater, sweeping through northern Germany, while the Austro-Hungarian northward attack had only reached Leipzig. General Lakatos, angered that Montgomery might win his bet, ordered a redoubled effort, and detached line troops to march across the Belgian front to Magedburg, and then to march east to attack Berlin. Three days after Christmas, Austro-Hungarian forces radioed to the joint Allied command outside Berlin that they were joining the assault, much to Montgomery’s chagrin. With 43 divisions outside the gates and Hitler out of communication, the fall of the German Reich came swiftly. On the fourth of January, 1941, Hitler’s body was found within his improvised command bunker, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the German Reich formally surrendered.

While the war was devastating, the casualty count was much smaller than the Great War, with slightly over 3 million military casualties total, although this was only an 11-month conflict. At the Peace of Konigsberg, the Allied Powers set out their aims for post-war Europe. Greece was liberated and founded as the Hellenic Republic of Greece. Occupied Lithuiana was similarly reorganized, with Memel being returned. Austria-Hungary wanted to reinstate Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy and the territorial concessions of Venice, Istra, and South Tyrol, while the United Kingdom favored Ferrucio Parri and re-established borders. A compromise was hastily made, permitting the territorial concessions, but establishing Italy as a constitutional monarchy, with Victor Emmanuel having little political power. Germany was reorganized as a republic, with Konrad Adenaur becoming the first Chancellor of a newly democratic Germany. Austria-Hungary returned Albania to King Zog with much fanfare, a victory procession into his country. In less than a year, the threat of fascism was lifted from Europe, though tensions still ran high. Joseph Stalin eyed Polish territories and Bessarabia with hungry eyes, and the United Kingdom has taken a firm stand against the brutal oppression happening in Spain. Japan continues to threaten China in the Pacific, and both the United States and the United Mexican States worry about Venezuelan aggression in South America. War may come again, and the world may not be so lucky next time.

The Dual Monarchy Today in 1941

The Austro-Hungarian military is a modern and sophisticated fighting force. While not as large as the French or Red Army, the Habsburg army is a well-funded and well-equipped force with modern infantry, artillery, and armor divisions. Austro-Hungarian warfare is dominated by firepower theory, stressing a mobile defense, artillery barrages called in by forward observation units from advanced firebases, and an integrated support structure. This last notion is particularly important, as Austria-Hungary is famous for its support corps, among the most highly trained individuals in the military profession today. Austria-Hungary developed an extensive military engineering corps capable of breaching obstacles and building field fortifications to both protect its own and bypass the defenses of the enemy. The Royal Patrol School develops skilled reconnaissance squads, with its infamous “High and Low” course on mountain and forest recon being internationally notorious for its difficulty. An early adopter of military radio, the Royal Signal Corps helped to pioneer backpack-sized signals equipment and field telephones. Armor corps have dedicated maintenance divisions to keep tanks in repair, as early conflicts with Yugoslavia were littered with broken-down tanks causing delays in military timetables. Most highly prized, however, are the logistics and hospital corps, when one British general said: “If I get hurt, please let me be picked up by the Habsburgs!” These two were of special interest to King Otto, and he invested a great deal of capital into developing field surgery equipment and a highly educated logistics staff, recalling the grueling conditions suffered by Austro-Hungarian troops during the Great War. Austro-Hungarian military thinkers have emphasized the need for dedicated supply in both men and materiel, with logistics study mandatory in all officer academies. These developments came as a result of an extensive motorization program, with Otto von Habsburg famously declaring: “A modern war is a truck war,” and permitting the motorized and mechanized infantry divisions to name themselves the Hussar Corps, distinct from the Royal Hussars, a primarily ceremonial unit present at most Austro-Hungarian state functions.

Austria-Hungary also fields a small special forces program. Of particular note are the Royal Mountain Corps, based off the Alpini program in Italy. The Corps, often nicknamed the Skyscrapers or the Hold-Your-Breath Squad, often provide training and consultation to other nations on developing and maintaining a trained mountain warfare program, and inter-Allied drills on mountain warfare are often conducted in Austro-Hungarian territory. The Danubian Marine Corps primarily trains in river and marsh warfare, specializing in high-speed bridging operations.

On the sea, the Austro-Hungarian navy is not a true blue water navy. As much of the earlier Austro-Hungarian navy was disbanded, Austria-Hungary had little in the way of development with its navy, and naval warfare was often seen as a distant third priority compared to land and air warfare, much to Austro-Hungarian chagrin when the Axis were able to land forces in Zara. His Majesty’s Navy primarily acts as a coastal and Mediterranean force, primarily destroyers and cruisers and a small but well-established submarine force. King Otto, however, is looking to modernize the navy with a focus on aircraft carriers with destroyers acting as escort and heavy cruisers providing firepower from naval guns.

In the air, Austria-Hungary boasts a well-trained and well-equipped air force. The Austro-Hungarian Air Force’s most famous planes are its RMI-8 X/V and it’s RMI-16. The former is a heavy fighter, primarily an air superiority and bomber escort, a large, twin-engine heavy fighter, while the latter is a streamlined medium bomber. The Austro-Hungarian Air Force is a relatively small service, with an operational doctrine toward flexibility. Bomber pilots are expected to be able to perform at both strategic bombing and close air support missions. Drop-out rates for its Bomb School are high due to the intense demands of the course, but the pilots who successfully complete them are among the most decorated and talented members of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces.

Imgur Links for Full-Size, images are in the same order that they are in the AAR

Austria Hungary country map

Otto Assumes the Hungarian Crown

Austria Agrees to Unite with Hungary

Restoration of Austria-Hungary

Before the War Begins

The Italian Push

The German Lemon Squeeze

The Battle of Berlin

War Score and Participation

-SLAL

#hearts of iron 4 #hearts of iron iv #creative

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script-a-world · 4 years

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Submitted via Google Form:

How do I write a world where non-earth religions (I’m creating them) are both diverse, and also common place to see people participate in multiple religions’ festivities or rituals. One, because there’s distance to actual religion and entering common lifestyle. Example like on earth plenty of non Christians are holding Christmas parties, it’s a common thing and not overtly religious. Two, or why not because of the diversity, religions simply mix together. Like on earth why not have fasting like Muslims do simply become a common lifestyle custom alongside Buddhist meditations also being common lifestyle customs. Three. Like two, but why can’t someone on earth be both Muslim and Buddhist?? Does that even make sense?

I only gave you real life religions as example only, for ease of explaining, not at all what I’ll use.

Also in this kind of world, how would you see religious tolerance? Can it honestly really be in harmony? How about the bigots? There’s still got to be some won’t there? Especially when daily lifestyles, or simply in the architecture and design throw all sorts of religion in their faces they can’t avoid unless they live under a rock.

Feral:

I’m not sure what the question is here. Should some people in your world participate in religious festivals that do not align with their beliefs? It’s certainly possible, and it depends on the religion in question. Christianity is inherently an evangelical religion; “witnessing” is the call of every Christian, so Christian religious activities tend to be geared towards welcoming non-believers with the intent on making them believers. Not to mention nearly all Christian festivals were the festivals of other religions that Christians reshaped into their own. And not to mention the commercialization of Christmas specifically has fundamentally changed how Christmas is viewed by Christians and non-Christians alike; I’ve heard it said, and am inclined to believe more or less, that even Christians in Victorian England really didn’t celebrate Christmas until Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol.” So, Christmas, for example, is of such mixed ancestry and exists in such a way as to be welcome for outsiders to “celebrate” without already believing in the underlying religion. It’s very important to keep in mind that this happens in culturally Christian regions or where Christmas has been so commercialized that people couldn’t even tell you its religious significance; and a lot of people of minority religions really fucking hate it - it’s insulting to be told that displaying a hanukiah at work is against company policy because you can’t have anything overtly religious on display when you’re surrounded by Christmas trees and listening to Christmas carols like “Oh Holy Night” piped in over the sound system. So you’ll want to keep in mind that some people will view a religious festival that’s “ubiquitously” celebrated as a dominant religion being forced on them at the expense of their own religious identity. You’ll also likely have religions that don’t proselytize and have absolutely no interest whatsoever in non-believers participating in their holy days - they’re holy! They’re meant for the people who already believe.

I’ve already briefly touched on why some religions would have a problem with non-believers crowding in on their holidays, but it’s worth repeating - not all religions are like Christianity. I’d go so far as to say that no other religions are like Christianity in this particular way. As for your examples regarding “Muslim fasting” and “Buddhist meditation”? People do fast. People do meditate. And it has nothing to do with religion. A lot of what makes “Muslim fasting” Muslim is prayer and dedication to Allah; if you’re removing that religious aspect of it, then you’re just fasting. And fasting is part of a number of religions, so it’s really hard to say which religion it comes from once the religion has been stripped away. As for meditation, meditation gained a lot of traction in the West because of the explosion of yoga. Which is a religious practice in Hinduism and Buddhism (and Jainism). It’s just been stripped of the religion, and like with fasting, meditation is found in many religions around the world; it’s just not that unique.

So, Buddhism is quite famous for being adoptable into other religious practices. Like if you had asked “why can’t someone be Muslim and Hindu?” my answer would have to be a run-down of the many fundamental theological reasons why those two religions are incapable of coinciding in a single person’s beliefs; however, Buddhism or Buddhist practices can be practiced alongside most religions. It’s non-theist, so there’s no creator deity that could contradict the beliefs of monotheists, polytheists, and atheists. Buddhism and Christianity have this whole huge long history, and Buddhism and Catholicism specifically dovetail really nicely together. What you’re talking about is syncretic religion, and it’s pretty common worldwide and throughout history.

The answers to all of those questions depend so intimately on how you build your religions and what their specific beliefs are. Some religions are naturally exclusivist, or you might have soft polytheism. It’s your world and your religions; we cannot make these decisions for you. If you want fundamentalism and bigotry to be a part of your world, then you can build your religions in such a way that those things would naturally occur. If you want harmony across religions to be a part of your world, then you can build your religions in such a way that that would naturally occur. You can even have it both ways! A world is a big place, and how people interact with their religion and the religions of others depends largely on where in the world they are and who else is there with them. A cosmopolitan culture where you have everyone brushing elbows with everyone else will have people developing a tolerance and softening their hardline views that would not occur in a more homogenous society where one religion is dominant.

Delta: A note about bigotry and prejudice: In geopolitics on earth, religious intolerance tends to be about one of two things: first, the majority religion (in the western world, Christianity) feeling compelled to force itself on other populations who do not share their beliefs. Examples of this include the Spanish Inquisition and, to some extent, “evangelical aid.” In Christianity, evangelicalism is a very important concept; sharing the religion is almost as important as a person’s personal faith. Off the top of my head, as Feral discussed, I can’t think of another religion with quite the same focus; so, by eliminating this element of religion, a huge amount of conflict could be eliminated if practitioners weren’t compelled to make all their acquaintances agree with them all the time. (Which is not to say all Christians just walk around proselytizing all the time, but it is fairly common in America; though I understand it to be somewhat less common in Europe, which through both culture and law has become more secular; more on this later.)

Second, it’s also about not wanting to concede power or control. A huge motivating factor behind all the Medieval Inquisitions, including the Spanish Inquisition, was the effort to curb what people in power considered religious heresy or just straight-up religious differences. They thought it was their place to dictate a group’s religious beliefs. Spain in particular was trying to stop the spread of Islam through the growing Ottoman Empire, which comes down to Medieval geopolitics as much as it does the religious differences between Islam and Christianity. Modern Islamophobia and religious conflict falls in this category a lot, too. But if your religions weren’t tied to more extensive geopolitical conflicts, you won’t have politicians using them as leverage to take and keep power like we do, so you could reduce religious tolerance that way, too.

Finally, secularism, which doesn’t directly address your question, but I wanted to mention it. In China, the official Communist Party has been somewhat infamously aggressively secular because religion was seen as a potentially rebellious force. Soviet Russia had similar experiences, both particularly with Muslim populations with whom they have political differences with besides, religion in this instance becoming a motivating factor for rebellion.

This is different from someplace like France, which aims to simply be neutral. Europe, overall, does not share the same public religious zeal that places like Israel, America, and Saudi Arabia have, but that doesn’t mean the conflict isn’t there.

Utuabzu: Something worth considering is are these gods real in the world you’re building? If the gods are demonstrably real, religiousness will be a lot more common and people are probably going to be more accepting of those that worship different deities given that any claims about them being false are easily refuted. Another thing to consider is the difference between philosophy and religion. In the West, Christianity fills both slots for many people (Judaism and Islam also do for some). In much of Asia, however, philosophies like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Yoga (the Hindu philosophical school, one of six major Hindu schools), etc. are practiced in addition to a more localised traditional religion, often comprised of a local pantheon of gods and some degree of ancestor worship. To some degree, even Christianity is sometimes treated like this, see the Chinese Rites controversy for example. It is entirely possible to have people simultaneously believing in local animistic deities (local forest/mountain/river gods), regional major deities (Sun god, moon god, justice god etc.) and one or more universalist philosophies. Add in the possibility of mystery religions (closed faiths that do not publicise their theologies and often don’t accept converts, see Mithraism, the Orphic Mysteries, or for a modern example, Yazidiism) and ethnic religions that don’t seek or don’t accept converts (see Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism), and it is very possible to have a wide variety of beliefs coexisting in a society. If they’ve been coexisting over a long period, one would generally expect most people to be aware of the major festivals, ceremonies, etc. of each, and while some may be open to all and treated by non-believers as more of a cultural festival (probably the animist ones), others may be believers-only, or invitation-only. Some festivals might be shared by several religions, because they either come from the same root, or both revere the same prophet/saint/whatever, or both worship the same deity, or maybe just had similar festivals happening at roughly the same time and though mutual influence ended up doing them at the same time. It really depends how you’ve built these religions and what their stances on non-believers are, how long they’ve been coexisting and how orthodox/orthopraxic (emphasis on believing the right things vs. emphasis on performing rituals correctly) they are.

#pylons #religion #bigotry #google submitted

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geopolicraticus · 4 years

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The Role of Science in Enlightenment Universalism

A Commentary on Susanne K. Langer on Scientific Civilization

When I wrote about Jacob Bronowski on scientific civilization I noted that the book in which Bronowski mentioned scientific civilization was about the history of science, not about civilization, but Susanne K. Langer’s 1961 essay “Scientific Civilization and Cultural Crisis” is a discussion of civilization that takes up the idea of scientific civilization in an explicit way:

“Science is the source and the pacemaker of this modern civilization which is sweeping away a whole world of cultural values. It is with good reason that we are meeting here to discuss the role of science in civilization; I would like to carry the issue a little further, and talk about the effect of this scientific civilization on human culture throughout the contemporary world. For it is not only in countries on which it has impinged suddenly and dramatically, but also in the countries of its origin—in Europe and America—that the technological revolution, with its entirely new mental and material standards, has deeply disturbed local and even national cultures.”

I have previously mentioned this essay by Langer in David Hume and Scientific Civilization, but at that time my ideas about scientific civilization were ill-formed and not yet clear. Now I am much better prepared to appreciate Langer’s essay. Many of the observations that Langer made in 1961 were to become commonplace decades later, so the essay is quite prescient, and there is quite a bit of it I can endorse, but there is also quite a bit that was equally prescient but with which I differ.

While Langer does not reference Oswald Spengler, there are Spenglerian aspects of the distinction she makes between culture and civilization. For Spengler, culture is the expression of a people in their youth, and it is only when culture becomes decadent that culture passes over into civilization, which is by definition the decadent phase of culture. Thus Spengler wrote:

“In this work, for the first time the two words, hitherto used to express an indefinite, more or less ethical, distinction, are used in a periodic sense, to express a strict and necessary organic succession. The Civilization is the inevitable destiny of the Culture, and in this principle we obtain the viewpoint from which the deepest and gravest problems of historical morphology become capable of solution.” (The Decline of the West, p. 31)

For Spengler, then, sequence culture–civilization is an invariant coupling of two periodizations that are found whenever a culture survives for a period of time sufficient to become a civilization. Langer does not go quite this far, but she does distinguish culture and civilization, and notes that, “Like every process of fruition, civilization strains and drains the life which engenders and supports it…” and, “Finally, civilization as a whole descends like an iron grid to crush the heritage of feeling and faith and the beauty of life. Civilization… is like an outline tracing of the culture that begot it. As long as an outline lies on the painting from which it is made it takes special attention to abstract it; but moved away it appears as a stark and empty form, and imposed on another painting it makes for confusion.”

As in Spengler, cultures precede civilizations, and civilization represents a kind of falling away from the heights of culture. This characterization of civilization as a kind of template that is imposed upon circumstances not necessarily fully in agreement with the model occurs in the context of a discussion of the possibility of transplanting civilizations, which Langer presents as simple matter-of-fact.

I emphatically agree with Langer that civilizations can be transplanted, and with the Age of Discovery we saw Iberian civilization transplanted into Mesoamerica and South America, while northern European civilization was transplanted into North America. But the transplanting of civilization involves the uprooting of the transplanted civilization, and when an uprooted civilization is transplanted into foreign soil, and tended by those who did not initially build it, it becomes something else over time. Langer implicitly recognizes this in saying that civilization appears as a stark and empty form when imposed on an unfamiliar context. Eventually that stark and empty form is filled in, but it is filled with different details than those that filled it in its native clime.

Extending the organic metaphor as applied to social institutions further than most have taken it, Nikolay Danilevsky made a distinction between transplanting civilization and grafting civilization in his Russia and Europe: The Slavic World’s Political and Cultural Relations with the Germanic-Roman West (“Danilevsky” is also transliterated as “Danilevskii”; I previously discussed Danilevsky in newsletter 54). Danilevsky was a Slavophile and a Pan-Slavist who was concerned with the distinctness of the Slavic peoples, and their place in history. Danilevsky’s account of transplanted and grafted civilizations is quietly savage in his implied view of colonialism, and he anticipated Langer’s characterization of civilization as a template. Of the transplantation of civilization by means of colonies he wrote:

“If there ever were to be a universal civilization, then for its sake we would have to hope it used this means of dissemination everywhere, so that there would no longer be any other peoples besides those who produced this universal civilization, just as, for example, for the sake of agriculture it would be highly desirable for there to no longer be any weeds. And just as if for the farmer, if you will, all means of destroying weeds are permitted, so the disseminators of the one universal civilization would be permitted to destroy other peoples, which are only more or less hindrance to it. Since the ones who produced this universal civilization in its purest form could both preserve and spread it across the face of the earth, that would be the simplest, most direct and certain method of making progress. This method has been used successfully more than once in America and other places. But if this seems too radical, it would at least make sense to strip the peoples and states outside the universal cultural type of the power to oppose it, that is, their political independence (whether by means of cannons or opium—as they say, by hook or by crook), and over time to make them servants of the highest goals, an ethnographic element soft as wax or clay, without resistance taking any form seen fit to impose upon it.” (Russia and Europe, chapter 5, p. 82)

While aspects of Danilevsky’s views on colonialism sound contemporary, his recognition of the role of cultural-historical types (at the beginning of Chapter 5) in the constitution of civilization, which are essentially ethnic groups and their traditions, is decidedly unmodern—or perhaps I should say that it is an unspoken undercurrent, which remains largely unspoken because a careful and explicit consideration of the underlying presuppositions would raise uncomfortable questions in light of our modern presuppositions. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

While for Danilevsky, Europe has arrogated to itself to the role of universal civilization, in Langer’s essay we find an explicit recognition of a nascent scientific civilization as a universal civilization, though scientific civilization grew out of European civilization. Langer views science as the first truly cosmopolitan human enterprise, taking science to fully exemplify Enlightenment universalism, and moreover to exemplify this universalism while trafficking exclusively in empirically verifiable knowledge. Langer makes this point of view fully explicit, but elsewhere this is a widely held view that is entertained implicitly more often than it is explicitly stated. One must go quite far afield to find anyone who maintains the contrary and states their views explicitly, and one of the rare examples of this is to be found in Danilevsky.

I have visited a related controversy previously in Perverse Rationality, in which I asked, “If western civilization were to fail, and humanity’s only fully scientific and technological civilizations were to be found in Japan and China, would these civilizations be able to carry on the vision of science and technology to be found in the western imagination in its modern aspirations? Would science and technology, cut off from the root that brought them to maturity, be able to continue to develop? And if they did continue to develop, would they develop in distinctively Japanese or Chinese ways?” Danilevsky would have asserted without hesitation that Japanese or Chinese science would be distinctively Japanese and Chinese, just as he argued that Slavic science is a distinctive scientific tradition, so that very different futures would follow depending on whether Slavic science or European science were to be the leading power in a scientific civilization. In other words, for Danilevsky, scientific civilization is not universal and cosmopolitan, but rather a scientific civilization would be a product of the cultural-historical type from which it grew.

Recall that the Slavophiles rejected the kind of modernization pursued by Peter the Great, who looked to western European models of the Enlightenment, science, and rationalism as a model for Russia—one might even say, a template to be imposed upon the Russian people. Danilevsky would have none of this. He wrote: “…not only does the universally human not exist in reality, but to wish for it means to be satisfied with the generic level, colorless unoriginality, or simply a nonexistent, incomplete form.” (Russia and Europe, pp. 101-102) For Danilevsky, the Slavic peoples and the European peoples (whom he called Germanic-Roman) were distinct cultural-historical types, and, according to his third law of cultural-historical types: “The principles of civilization for one cultural-historical type are not transferable to the peoples of another type.” (Russia and Europe, p. 76)

To what extent is the development of science predicated upon Enlightenment universalism, and to what extent is Enlightenment universalism itself not universal at all, but a distinctive feature of the European cultural-historical type? For quite some time I have been taking notes toward writing something about the distinction that needs to be made between science and the Enlightenment (what follows, then, will have to appear in lieu of a more ambitious exposition); the two are often conflated, but they are conflated for good reason: the great men of the Enlightenment saw themselves not as formulating a new ideology, but as severing themselves from the past and using the resources of science to guide themselves into the future. Both science as a social institution and the Enlightenment as a cultural movement have their own presuppositions, and while many of these presuppositions coincide, and some of them overlap, there is also a remnant that is disjoint, and it is one of the fundamental confusions of Enlightenment thought to believe itself to be a spokesman and advocate of science, whereas in fact the Enlightenment is selective about the science it chooses to advance. This was equally true in traditional civilizations, which were highly selective in the forms and institutions of knowledge cultivated under their authority; the difference is that, after the scientific revolution, science became a much more powerful force, and hence a force that could not be neglected, nor passed over in silence.

There is a similar confusion between science and the Enlightenment on the part of scientists. The institutional expression of science today in western nation-states is primarily that of the culture of universities, where much pure scientific research is undertaken. Scientists today, in so far as they are part of the milieu of the contemporary university, are part of the culture of universities, which shape the growth of knowledge. In the same way that the culture of the university dictates what kind of scientific research is pursued and what kind of research is nipped in the bud (or never even proposed, because the potential researchers fully understand the fruitlessness of proposing research that contradicts the public ideological position of the university), the culture of geographical regions and of the nation-states that dominate cultural regions (as India dominates south Asia and China dominates east Asia) dictates what kind of science will be pursued in local educational institutions.

Scientists largely see themselves engaged in the kind of universal project of knowledge described by Langer, and not as representatives of a cultural-historical type, as described by Danilevsky—except that the milieu of the world-class research university has become its own cultural-historical type, and the cultural-historical type of the university is largely based upon Enlightenment presuppositions. The ongoing vigor of the Enlightenment project is evident through the many forms and permutations that the Enlightenment has exhibited since its appearance, and it is far from being played out at present. The dialectic of the Enlightenment will continue to animate western political institutions, and as the Enlightenment comes to be better understood and more clearly defined, the counter-Enlightenment, already present early in the Enlightenment in figures like Comte de Maistre (himself part of the western tradition, unlike Danilevsky), will be more clearly defined, and will grow in stature as a rival to the Enlightenment. The better the Enlightenment is known, the better its alternatives will be known, and it will not be until the Enlightenment engages with the counter-Enlightenment critique that the dialectic of western history can move forward.

It is a different position to maintain that history moves forward only on the basis of an exclusive embrace of the Enlightenment project, so that no engagement with the counter-Enlightenment is necessary, or even desirable. Indeed, if one fully adopts the Enlightenment perspective, one sees the sacrifices necessary to achieve the historical goals of the Enlightenment as no sacrifice at all, but a joyous liberation from an oppressive past. We find this, but less directly connected to science, in Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization, where the Enlightenment development of civilization has liberation from oppressive tradition as its telos.

Langer does not go this far. She is not insensitive to the losses entailed by scientific universalism; her essay on scientific civilization begins by recounting these losses and allowing them their full measure. In looking forward to a future scientific civilization, she acknowledges the feelings of emptiness and anomie that are often the result of the loss of tradition:

“Our technological civilization… seems to overtake and overwhelm us as though it were something foreign coming in upon us; it makes all our traditional institutions seem inadequate, so we tend to abandon them. State religion, marriage, paternal authority, deference to the aged, piety toward the dead, holiness and rank and royalty—all these ancient values have lost their inviolable status and need to be defended against the iconolastic ‘modern spirit.’ Sometimes, for all the defenses that the older generation can put up for them, a younger generation sweeps them away as relics of a superstitious, slavish, uncivilized past. But with them it sweeps away its own social symbols and the materials of its own world orientation; then personal life suddenly feels empty, and the civilization that shatters its spiritual comforts in the name of practical improvements seems to have come upon it like a superimposed power from outside.”

Presumably, the losses, while lamented, will ultimately be justified by the gains when a truly scientific civilization takes shape. And Langer does see a scientific civilization taking place. She unambiguously positions science as a universal force that is transforming the world along universalist lines, and she forecasts a world culture that will eventually emerge from science itself to create a scientific civilization:

“This is, I think, an inevitable transition which really marks one of the great crises in human history—the final emergence of world society from the long ages of self-sufficient cultural groups. For science, which is certainly the keynote of our era, is international. It is a human achievement, not a national one. The civilization which is sweeping the whole world, though it is expressed mainly in commerce and new kinds of industry, is a product of science. We are in a socially anomolous state between a world populated by societies with tribal religions and interests, and a world of global industrial organization, populated by a society with global interests but no symbols to express them, no religion to support the individual in this vast new theatre of life.”

The tribalism that Langer sees being displaced by universal science is exactly what Danilevsky called cultural-historical types, and which he viewed as the basis of civilization. While Langer’s vision of a universal science that is the possession of all will sound very familiar, perhaps even comforting, to those to whom the Enlightenment project comes naturally, and for whom likely remains unquestioned, Danilevsky’s denial of the universality of science will sound strange, perhaps incoherent. Here is Langer’s take on the universality of science:

“…scientific thinking is the only one of our great and prevailing activities which is universal in fact as well as in principle. We already claim the universality of art, and gradually come to appreciate other people's art, but it still starts by being exotic and often remains so even if we know and love it, Science is not native or exotic; it belongs to humanity and is the same wherever it is found.”

Most of us will recognize these ideas. Most of us (those of us who are westerners) will not so easily recognize Danilevsky’s contrary view. Danilevsky cites three arguments for the universality of science (p. 108), 1. Science is singular, i.e., there is one and only one science, 2. Science is cumulative, and can be taken up and put aside by different peoples as they please, but the cumulative results are indifferent to this process, and to who develops what parts of science, and 3. Science can be formulated in any language, and therefore presumes no particular audience. He grants the strength of these arguments, but disputes all of them.

Danilevsky’s argument is subtle and detailed, taking up the whole of Chapter 6 of Russia and Europe, so there is much more to it than I can summarize here. He considers all the special sciences in their turn and makes his case for each of them. His remarks on Linnaeus and Enlightenment science are particularly telling, and I hope to return to this exposition in another context. To the three arguments he cites for the universality of science, Danilevsky opposes three arguments for the national character of science:

“1) the preference shown by different peoples for different branches of knowledge; 2) the natural one-sidedness of each people’s distinctive abilities and worldview that cause it to see reality from a unique point of view; 3) a certain admixture of objective truth with individual, subjective peculiarities that (like all other moral qualities and traits) are not randomly distributed among all peoples, but grouped by nationality and, taken collectively, constitute what we call the national character.” (p. 112)

Danilevsky develops each of these points in detail, and does not hesitate to apply this view even to mathematics. We think of mathematics (and, to a lesser extent, logic) as the purest exemplification of pure science, completely devoid of the subjective admixture of which Danilevsky writes, but it is in mathematics more than in any other discipline that the infinite development of science is most obvious, and it is in the infinite extrapolation of science that Danilevsky’s argument unfolds most powerfully:

“…a one-sided perspective, or an admixture of falsehood, is inherent in everything human, and constitutes precisely the realm of the national within science… It is true that in the course of time, from the variety of national perspectives (and more importantly, through that variety) these admixtures are refined and eliminated, leaving the pure noble metal of truth. However the role of nationality (that is, of certain individual peculiarities, grouped by nationalities) in science is not reduced or weakened by this, since science opens newer and newer horizons which require the same work, it cannot produce anything except by means of admixing the individual, and thus also national, traits to the reflections of reality in the mirror of our consciousness.” (p. 110)

If science always opens new horizons of knowledge, where the purity of knowledge without admixture is not yet possible, then science—especially the most advanced science, pushing the furthest edge of knowledge into the unknown—must always reflect the peculiarities of the individuals and the ethnic community in which that science unfolds.

Science is, in principle, infinitistic, and Danilevsky implicitly recognizes the infinitistic nature of science in his argument for the continued admixture of pure and impure knowledge at the point of scientific advancement. The infinite possibilities of science means that science could be independently practiced by two distinct populations and have very little overlap, although in practice the scientific knowledge most useful and most interesting to human beings will be that science which is directly relevant to human concerns, but these human concerns will also vary with cultural-historical types. To employ the method of isolation in order to make this point clearly, we can posit the existence of two scientific civilizations, each of which takes a different branch of science to emphasize according to its own peculiar perspective, while deemphasizing precisely the branch of science that the other emphasizes according to its peculiar perspective. These two scientific civilizations could develop in parallel and yet look little like each other.

I think it is clear that Langer would have categorically rejected this conclusion, but how is the argument against Danilevsky to be made? In western thought, the preferred way to dismiss these difficulties about science (which are also difficulties for scientific civilization) has been to make a distinction between genuine science and ideological corruptions that masquerade as science, or to make a distinction between science acceptable within a given ideological framework, and other science that lies outside this ideological framework, but which, as science, is perfectly sound, but which is beyond the pale because it is ideologically unpalatable. Science outside the Overton window is still science, however much we would like to pretend that it is not, though we can at least preen ourselves on our virtue for having forsaken ideologically unpalatable science.

Since the ideological framework concerned in this connection is, of course, the ideology of the Enlightenment, how are we to know—other than through the intensity of our faith in the Enlightenment—that counter-Enlightenment science is an ideological corruption of science, rather than Enlightenment ideology itself being the ideological corruption of science? Is there any objective measure, that is to say, is there any scientific measure, by which we can determine the more corrupt ideology? If we maintain the is/ought distinction, there is, and there can be no, scientific measure of corruption. We can make a moral judgment regarding the ideology we prefer, and we can defend this judgment with moral reasoning, but science must remain silent on this point.

Churchill would not have warned us of “…a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science” if he had not seen that science, while in principle universal, is not universal in practice. Science in practice is informed by the culture that practices the science in question. The science of a new dark age might consist of all of the experiments that we cannot do, or do not do, for ethical reasons. Take, for example, the utilitarian thought experiment of a doctor with five patients in need of organs, and one healthy patient in his waiting room: is he morally justified in harvesting the organs of the one healthy patient in order to save the lives of the other five, who would die without the organs? (This is a variation on the theme of the trolley problem.) Even familiar moral theories like utilitarianism can have monstrous implications, from which we distance ourselves by the virtuous expedients of inconsistency, dishonesty, and hypocrisy.

We could posit a scientific civilization that was the mirror image of Enlightenment scientific civilization, revaluing and overturning all the moral judgments of the Enlightenment and replacing them with their opposite numbers, so that science forbidden within the Enlightenment project was affirmed by this mirror image of the Enlightenment, while science celebrated by the Enlightenment project was rejected by this mirror image. I am not suggesting that this would be an adequate basis for a scientific civilization, but we cannot exclude this possibility, even if we reject it on moral grounds.

There are, then, ways of arguing Langer’s Enlightenment universalism with respect to scientific civilization—by way of distinguishing the theoretical and practical reality of science, or by distinguishing morally acceptable and morally unacceptable science—but is this the best way to apply Langer’s insights on the problems of civilization, and upon the problems of scientific civilization in particular?

Langer was particularly known for her philosophical treatment of feeling (cf. her books Philosophy in a New Key:A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art and Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key), and she leads her essay on scientific civilization with a sketch of her views on feeling:

“…every human life has an undercurrent of feeling that is peculiar to it. Each individual expresses this continuous pattern of feeling in what we call his ‘personality’, reflected in behavior, speech, voice, and even physical bearing (stance and walk) as his individual style. On a larger scale, every human society has its undercurrent of feeling which is not individual, but general. Every person shares in it to some degree, and develops his own life of feeling within the frame of the style prevailing in his country and his time.”

This is something Danilevsky might have written, had he lived in the twentieth century instead of the nineteenth century. This undercurrent of feeling, whether individual or social, is not universal, but is roughly shared within what Danilevsky called cultural-historical types. If we challenge Langer’s commitment to Enlightenment universalism, and to a model of science based on Enlightenment universalism, I think we find a far better fit of her thought with Danilevsky’s cultural-historical types and with his observations of science being practiced within a particular cultural-historical milieu, which gives to the science in question a distinctive cast.

If there are multiple permutations of science, as its develops within the traditions of terrestrial civilization, and therefore multiple permutations of nascent scientific civilizations, we may have to sacrifice some of the presuppositions of the Enlightenment in order to acknowledge this, but it also means that we need not necessarily surrender utterly to the annihilation of all traditional cultures in the face of the scientific juggernaut that will eventually result in scientific civilization.

And if we allow ourselves a moment of optimism, in which human beings enter upon a grand future of exploration and expansion into the cosmos, this exploration and expansion would grow outward in every direction—like a big bang of the human spirit. In such a thrilling scenario, far from seeing traditional cultures swept away by modernity and science, we would see distinct scientific civilizations moving outward, each in a distinctive direction and in a distinctive way. Because the science human beings would be pursuing is infinitistic, each distinctive scientific tradition could grow without limit, and since it is at the point at which new knowledge is generated is the point at which knowledge is most distinctive to a given cultural-historical type, the further this expansion is perpetuated, the more we will affirm our human, all-too-human traditions.

#Susanne K. Langer #civilization #scientific civilization #science #Enlightenment #nikolay danilevsky #Oswald Spengler

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wolfliving · 4 years

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The Revenge of the Real: Open Call

The Revenge of the Real: Open Call Submission deadline: April 24, 2020 Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design Bersenevskaya nab., 14, building 5A 119072 Moscow Russia strelkamag.com theterraforming.strelka.com Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

How can we address the core issues of establishing a viable planetarity through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic and its urban realities?

The Terraforming program is an interdisciplinary design research think-tank convened to preemptively address issues of planetary urbanism.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, what began as speculative has become real-time. We are in “reality catches up” mode. We see this moment less as a “state of exception” than exposing multiple pre-existing conditions. We are all witnessing a massive experiment in comparative governance with the virus as the control variable. The results speak for themselves.

The rapid shift to urban lockdown and its cultures of quarantine, encapsulation, remoteness, virtuality, denial, and death have accelerated the urgency of the questions posed, which is why we are opening the project to new contributors.

Call for papers/projects The Revenge of the Real is an open call for papers, projects, and research related to these urgent topics and how they are now and will continue to affect urban life, systems, and futures. This joint initiative with Strelka Mag will feature ideas and projects that are surprising, pragmatic, unconventional, and honest—even if productively controversial. We presume that the work that most directly confronts the implications today is full of risk.

These themes below are prompts, not instructions or categories for potential submission. We invite departures from these starting points.

Epidemiological View of Society The pandemic has mainstreamed a different understanding of an individual organism as a medium of transmission—from ideas to viruses—and is defined by who/what each is connected to and disconnected from. What are the genres, variants, potentials, and contradictions of epidemiological epistemologies and techniques? 

Governing Simulations The renewed role of model simulations to map, plan, and intervene in complex biological and technical systems, including urban cultures, is at the fore. What are the critical similarities and differences between design models and scientific and financial simulations? How can the historical philosophy of simulation inform the integrity and enforceability of governing simulations?

Post-“Surveillance” The critical role of ubiquitous testing and tracking to understand the scope of the pandemic has altered how we evaluate sensing and indexing as political technologies. If conventional framings from both smart city and anti-surveillance discourses are inadequate, then what are the more productive and nuanced vocabularies needed to identify, map, evaluate, and compose broadly effective and appropriate approaches?

Resilient Automation As cities go on lockdown, automated urban platforms have become an emergency public sphere. Their successes suggest that we should see these systems not as a fragile virtual and supplemental layer, but rather as an essential social fabric. If so, how does this clarify and complicate issues of economics and equity? What are the longer-term implications for urban planning, zoning, and regulation?

Quarantine Cultures As we uncomfortably adapt to psychogeographies of isolation, we learn new vocabularies, activities, and thresholds of calm and distress. “Quarantine” means a kind of suspended indeterminate status. It is a limbo. What has changed and what will remain changed for the foreseeable future? What counts as essential industries, services, cultures, connections? Will simulations of the outside world of the immediate past suffice for longer than we realize? 

Artificial Anthropos Adaptation is also right at hand. We are remaking ourselves in relation to closures and openings around us. By embracing the artificiality of new masks and new skins, it may be possible to compose different urban interfaces directly. How have changes in a now “contactless” habitation, the micropolitics of the handshake and embrace, and dramatic shifts in urban biometrics made way for the rapid artificial evolution of the urban creatures who eventually emerge from their quarantine metamorphosis?

“Everyday Geoengineering” The challenges of climate change pose a similar confrontation with the artificial reality of our planetary condition as its starting point. Refusal to engage and embrace that artificiality, on behalf of a chastened return to “nature,” has led to catastrophic denial and neglect. How might terms like “geoengineering” be redefined to imply planetary-scale design effects, not just specific technological interventions?

Greener Newer Deals Planning needs to go beyond national works programs led by environmentalist traditions, and toward a renewed global focus on research, technology, economics, mobilization, and enforcement. How can planning for systemic maintenance and rationalization, negative emissions carbon chains, longer-term energy and waste cycles, frozen time, and/or lost and returned debts organize an infrastructural economics to meet the moment? 

Contested Planetarity At stake ultimately is how “we” are able to compose our habitation of this planetary perch, including who and what is enrolled in the composition. Planetarity itself has come into focus not only through reimagining cosmopolitanism, but also in the inhuman orbital perspectives of astronomic reckoning. How are the thresholds of what is and isn’t intractable about our species’ embedding in and on Earth a way of marking the scope of potential transformation?

Apply The Revenge of the Real open call is for essays, projects, and research.

Submit your proposal by sending an abstract (up to 250 words) and a brief bio by April 24 to: [email protected].

Submissions will be reviewed and selected on a rolling basis until the deadline. Selected participants will receive an honorarium of EUR 150 for their submitted pieces.

Read Benjamin H.Bratton’s essay "18 Lessons of Quarantine Urbanism," addressing the pandemic and how research themes of The Terraforming program relate to the crisis and the responses.

theterraforming.strelka.com

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anniekoh · 4 years

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Syllabus revision/creating time is an excuse to read all the things. But how else can I teach my social context class without cultural

A Burning Desire: Los Angeles as Femme Fatale by Tatiana Reinoza (2012) in Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas

In BURNBABYBURN, Vincent Valdez opens up the Pandora's box and asks viewers to question why Chavez Ravine is on fire, and what really happened there. His is a seductive form of visual rhetoric -- the city is a muse, the muse a femme fatale -- that causes pleasure, anxiety, and hopefully awareness, "off the record on the QT, and very hush-hush."

The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles edited by Josh Kun (2017)

In 1980, the celebrated new wave band Blondie headed to Los Angeles to record a new album and along with it, the cover song “The Tide Is High,” originally written by Jamaican legend John Holt. Featuring percussion by Peruvian drummer and veteran LA session musician “Alex” Acuña, and with horns and violins that were pure LA mariachi by way of Mexico, “The Tide Is High” demonstrates just one of the ways in which Los Angeles and the music of Latin America have been intertwined since the birth of the city in the eighteenth century. The Tide Was Always High gathers together essays, interviews, and analysis from leading academics, artists, journalists, and iconic Latin American musicians to explore the vibrant connections between Los Angeles and Latin America. Published in conjunction with the Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the book shows how Latin American musicians and music have helped shape the city’s culture—from Hollywood film sets to recording studios, from vaudeville theaters to Sunset Strip nightclubs, and from Carmen Miranda to Pérez Prado and Juan García Esquivel.

Josh Kun also curated some playlists for the book.

Mexican-American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1935–1968 by Anthony Macias (2008)

Stretching from the years during the Second World War when young couples jitterbugged across the dance floor at the Zenda Ballroom, through the early 1950s when honking tenor saxophones could be heard at the Angelus Hall, to the Spanish-language cosmopolitanism of the late 1950s and 1960s, Mexican American Mojo is a lively account of Mexican American urban culture in wartime and postwar Los Angeles as seen through the evolution of dance styles, nightlife, and, above all, popular music. Revealing the links between a vibrant Chicano music culture and postwar social and geographic mobility, Anthony Macías shows how by participating in jazz, the zoot suit phenomenon, car culture, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and Latin music, Mexican Americans not only rejected second-class citizenship and demeaning stereotypes, but also transformed Los Angeles.

Macías conducted numerous interviews for Mexican American Mojo, and the voices of little-known artists and fans fill its pages. In addition, more famous musicians such as Ritchie Valens and Lalo Guerrero are considered anew in relation to their contemporaries and the city. Macías examines language, fashion, and subcultures to trace the history of hip and cool in Los Angeles as well as the Chicano influence on urban culture. He argues that a grass-roots “multicultural urban civility” that challenged the attempted containment of Mexican Americans and African Americans emerged in the neighborhoods, schools, nightclubs, dance halls, and auditoriums of mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles. So take a little trip with Macías, via streetcar or freeway, to a time when Los Angeles had advanced public high school music programs, segregated musicians’ union locals, a highbrow municipal Bureau of Music, independent R & B labels, and robust rock and roll and Latin music scenes.

Mex/L.A.: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 by Mariana Botey, Harry Gamboa Jr, Ana Elena Mallet (2011)

The years from 1945 to 1985 are often identified as the moment in which Los Angeles established itself as a leading cultural center in America. However, this conception of its history entirely excludes the very controversial presence of the Mexican muralists, as well as the work of other artists who were influenced by them and responded to their ideas. It is likewise often thought that Los Angeles' Mexican culture arrived full formed from outside it, when in fact that culture originated within the city--it was in Los Angeles and Southern California that Jose Vasconcelos, Ricardo Flores Magon, Octavio Paz and other intellectuals developed the iconography of modern Mexico, while Anglos and Chicanos were developing their own. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Clemente Orozco, Alfredo Ramos Martinez and Jean Charlot made some of their earliest murals in Los Angeles, influencing the Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicano artists of the 1970s and 80s. "MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985" focuses on the construction of different notions of "Mexicanidad" within modernist and contemporary art created in Los Angeles. From the Olvera Street mural by Siqueiros, to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and the Disney silver-screen productions, to the revitalization of the street mural, up to the performance art of Guillermo Gomez-Pena, "MEX/LA" explores the bi-national and hybrid forms of artistic practices, popular culture and mass-media arts that have so uniquely shaped Los Angeles' cultural panorama.

#chicano #los angeles #art history #music history #chavez ravine #to read #3050

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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My first reaction to the work of Barbara Ehrenreich was one of complete indignation and contempt. A professor had assigned Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed (2001) for an English prerequisite at my commuter college—the urban satellite campus for two major universities intended to cater to low-income and nontraditional students. (Go Jaguars!) The book was a committed work of first-person journalism premised on a compelling challenge: to “see whether or not I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day.” What Ehrenreich “revealed” was the constant struggle to make ends meet, a total lack of security in employment, housing, and resources, declining health from backbreaking work, and the endless humiliations of the American blue-collar worker.

About half of the people in my class were actually “college age,” while the rest were older students with jobs and often children, but not necessarily any higher education under their belt. It was a night class, and when the professor looked around the sparsely populated room, it was usually missing one or two mothers who couldn’t find childcare that evening. Once someone stumbled over a desk, knocking a pile of books to the floor. One of my classmates—an active service member on leave—responded to the din by instinctively dropping to the ground in compliance with his training and/or PTSD. Sometimes children colored outside the classroom or students left early to go to their night shifts. Needless to say, most of us found the book boring and its “revelations” laughable. This is not to say it was an unpleasant experience, as it gave us the rare and delicious opportunity to scorn and scoff at the ignorance of the educated. But we were not impressed, to say the least.

It was years later that a friend explained to me that Nickel and Dimed was in fact a revelation, just not for socialists. “Well yeah,” she said matter-of-factly, “that book wasn’t for us, it was for professional‑managerial-class liberals.” This wasn’t my first exposure to the phrase “professional managerial class” (PMC), but it was the first time the distinction seemed so sociologically significant as to force me to revise my opinion of Ehrenreich’s work. Is she a progressive liberal whisperer, spreading the gospel of class politics to the PMC? Is such a task even a worthwhile endeavor?

…

The PMC is a somewhat mushy category. Its defenders and denialists, particularly in academia and the legacy media, often like to include such beloved professions as public school teachers and nurses among its ranks, a wishful idea of inherent fellowship among the college-educated. But such a loose classification conveniently ignores the “managerial” part of PMC. True PMC personnel exercise influence in the management of institutions. College professors, for example, have a role in managing the university—although this is certainly less so as higher education neoliberalizes (as adjuncts fill the jobs once held by tenured professors, and administrators and donors control more university operations than ever before). Still, tenured professors and administrators have a hand in the management of the middle-class labor force, including who gets to enter it. Nurses, meanwhile, don’t actually manage patients (who under privatized medicine are reduced to customers), and rarely manage much of the hospital. Likewise, public school teachers don’t actually manage their students so much as provide a service for them, and are managed almost completely by non-teacher administrations.

Squishy and permeable as it may be, PMC is still a useful term for the class of professional managers, regardless of all the disingenuous and pedantic protest. Ehrenreich, of course, was not the first to recognize or define the managers among the middle class. There was David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd, C. Wright Mills’s White Collar: The American Middle Class, and the debates between Erik Olin Wright and Nicos Poulantzas, to name a few. But Ehrenreich set out not simply to define and locate the professional managerial class, but specifically to interrogate its own self-awareness. As she writes in the introduction to Fear of Falling, “This book is about what could be called the class consciousness of the professional middle class, and how this consciousness has developed over the past three decades.”

This class consciousness, however, has been notoriously avoided by the professional middle classes themselves. In his 1976 “Notes and Commentary on the Irresistibility of the Petty Bourgeoisie,” German author (and who is better equipped to articulate the formal barriers of professionalization than a real-life veteran of the Hitler Youth?) Hans Magnus Enzensberger argued that the managerial class could be defined precisely by its inability to attain consciousness of itself as a class.

…

Proving Enzensberger’s point, the very existence of a professional managerial class is often most controversial among the sort of left-wing intellectuals who might fit the description. Take for example David Sessions’s recent Jacobin article, “The Right’s Phony Class War,” in which he rejects the “mythical managerial class” as a right-wing boogeyman conspiracy theory, referring to it as “a pseudo-sociology that pits an ambiguous ‘managerial’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ ruling class against the rest of the country—and lets the people who actually hold political and economic power off the hook.” (It’s worth noting here that theorists of the PMC do not consider it a “ruling class” by definition, but rather a category with a relationship to capital that is distinguishable from both capitalist and worker.)

By contrast, Ehrenreich made no bones about exposing the ideology of her own frenetic class. And like Enzensberger, Ehrenreich understood the importance of such a class’s apparent instability in the midst of the ongoing class war. Enzensberger believed that the center could not hold, that some of the middle class would join the “goats” of capitalism, while most would eventually be proletarianized with the “sheep,” and “reap the fruits of socialism.” Such an outcome had not come to pass when Enzensberger was writing, leaving him to contemplate the inscrutable resilience of the professional middle class.

His conclusion was that the middle classes—by virtue (or sin, if you prefer) of their position as a “multiply articulated assemblage”—retained an “adaptability” or “characterless opportunism.” His description of this ethos was damning: “Never to take a final stand and to seize every possibility: those are the only lessons that the class has learned from its variegated history.” This “adaptability” had occasionally led the PMC to progressive politics, as has occurred recently, but, he observed, this is not a fixed feature so much as a strategy that lends credibility to its secure role as the architects of cultural hegemony.

Or, rather, seemingly secure role. It turns out that all Enzensberger had to do was wait a bit longer.

…

The root of this neurosis was the historic ambivalence and dread with which the class understood itself as a tenuous “elite” that may or may not succeed in reproducing itself as a class. (Unlike other classes, each generation of the PMC had to earn its status through educational credentialing, qualifying employment, and professional achievement.) As the shock troops of Taylorism, it was as if the PMC always knew on some level that Taylorism would come for it one day as well. Later we learned that these insecurities were justified and that the “fear of falling” was a valid concern: the PMC Ehrenreich described in 1989 was a bubble, a temporary postwar glitch.

…

It seems to me that Ehrenreich has answered her own question here. The PMC have been—at best—fair-weather friends to the working class, and at worst have been even more devious exploiters by dint of their “liberal” credibility. As the class which ushered in neoliberalism, I would denounce the crimes of the PMC far more forcefully than Ehrenreich.

When the PMC are flying high, their middle-class liberal initiatives to combat poverty have been inhumanely punitive and ineffectual: policies like prohibition, eugenics, and broken-windows policing come to mind. On the institutional level, liberal think tanks like the Center for American Progress and wealthy NGOs like the Gates and Ford Foundations have reliably pushed for neoliberal policies and private sector solutions to poverty, conveniently avoiding expropriation, redistribution, and universal public programs and services.

…

So I do not weep for this sinking ship, and would instead save my tears for the members of the working class, who have been left with the check, though they may now include a number of recent PMC exiles. Which leads me to the more practical question: Will a sizable number of these erstwhile PMC join the sheep? Or will most of them instead identify with the goats, following Steinbeck’s pathetic “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”? Or will they find no class consciousness at all, drifting into lumpen listlessness, atomized from both flock and herd?

…

I am still at times asked to speak at DSA events, including a recent one for the DSA Tech Action Working Group—a decidedly PMC collection of DSA members working in tech. Inspired by Google software engineer James Damore’s infamous “anti-diversity memo,” the subject I was to speak on was “diversity in tech.” The friend who asked me to speak rightly recognized that the tech industry is no longer a small cabal of entrepreneurial specialists but is increasingly expanding into a global labor force of workers—from petit bourgeois to prole, if you will.

I cannot, however, say I found many examples of such workers at this event. Multiple representatives from HR departments spoke up, one to say that “it’s all about hiring practices,” and to urge the attendees to come to HR whenever they had a problem. One woman wanted to read a long academic article about a typesetters’ union fighting automation and other changes that would open the floodgates for underpaid, largely female scab labor. She was under the impression that this exposed the sexist nature of trade unions.

The crowd was very “diverse” in all the Ikea commercial ways that warm our Coca-Cola liberal hearts, but some of the most insightful observations came from the bearded and (presumably) cishet white males. One timidly put forth that “HR actually works for management,” while another recognized that the biggest source of “diversity” in the tech industry is highly exploited third-world call-center workers.

At first glance, the superior class consciousness of the beardy white male tech bro may appear counterintuitive, but it is a function of tech industry managerialism that he has a better view of class conflict. As an industry, tech has thoroughly absorbed “diversity” into its corporate culture and HR programming, for both legal liability and liberal credibility reasons. If you’re a woman and/or minority working for Google and your job is miserable, you are told by the whole world—and by your employer itself—that this is because you are a woman and/or minority. But, you are also told, your employer is here with sensitivity trainings, diversity initiatives, and at-will firing practices (you know, for the bad employees) to remedy all of that and to build a better work environment and, thereby, a more egalitarian world. If, however, you are a straight white man working for Google and your job is miserable, you know it’s because your job is miserable, and the company isn’t there to help you. Liberal identitarian HR obfuscations don’t work as well on exploited and precarious dude-bros.

The evening culminated during the Q and A, wherein a woman earnestly asked, “What do I do if some alt-right guy wants to be in the union?”

Visibly vexed, I replied that if an alt-right guy wants to be in your union, you won.

This statement was met with noticeable consternation, so I went on to explain that you want everyone in the union because the end goal is a closed shop. I explained that this is the very premise of a union: it is not a social club for people of shared progressive values; it’s a shared struggle, and collective politics are the only thing that can actually break down all that office bigotry you’re so concerned about. She did not appear convinced.

I use this particular anecdote to illustrate the obstacles to building a socialist PMC, but I have many others (particularly in the recent spate of white collar unionism), and herein lies the tragic irony of the great middle class exodus: even when they fall, and even when they find themselves in “Left spaces,” they are still too proximal to management—or at least believe themselves to be—to imagine much beyond human resources liberalism. Very frequently, they view blue-collar workers as inherently illiberal antagonists. (Just look at the response to the failed Clinton campaign by prominent members of the liberal media and academia, who have finally answered their favorite old canard of “Why do the working class vote against their own interests?” with accusations of innate bigotry and misogyny.)

Many dedicated socialists of the professional managerial class, from Ehrenreich to my friend who organized this event, have historically overestimated the degree to which “liberals” can—or ever really did—benefit working-class Americans. Instead, most PMC liberals tend to project their own interests onto the working class, in order to legitimize their decidedly middle-class ambitions (say, a corner office and stock options at a tech firm) through progressive politics. Thus, when middle-class fellow travelers hear the phrase “liberal elite” to refer to the progressive PMC, they assume it can be nothing more than a dog whistle, meant to incite working-class resentment against themselves. Sessions’s Jacobin article offers an explicit example of this mindset, though Fear of Falling, too, at times protests too much against the right-wing populism that makes hay by criticizing a supposedly mythical “liberal elite.”

…

It’s fair to say that the PMC’s paternalistic contempt for the working classes has been well documented, including by Ehrenreich herself, but what PMC intellectuals often fail to grasp is how much members of this class also hate one another. The PMC has historically had very little class solidarity (McCarthyism comes to mind), and their recent proletarianization—exacerbated by a hypercompetitive job market, atomization, remote work, precarity, internet social dynamics, professionalization, Taylorism, etc.—has done nothing to suppress their desire to eat their own. Ehrenreich herself recently experienced this cannibalism firsthand.

…

I’ve said before that expropriating Yale and Harvard and converting them into public institutions would be a victory in the class war. But the small liberal arts colleges of the PMC—the Reeds, Wesleyans, and Oberlins—they may actually need to be burned down.

…

Middle-class liberal Remoaners have somehow branded bourgeois cosmopolitanism as Left internationalism, throwing the Corbyn campaign under the bus for the sake of an unaccountable capitalist cabal. They’re currently attacking the Labour Party “from the Left,” some because they have mistaken the European Union for the Comintern, and some merely to keep their holidays in Mykonos convenient (not to mention mysteriously affordable these days). Many former Sanders supporters—most notably in “Left media”—have jumped ship, or attempt to play both sides, claiming to favor more “electable” candidates as they pander to liberal and identitarian hacks in the media and the Democratic Party. Socialists mistake the middle-class progressive for the comrade at our own risk; a foundation that relies too heavily on the ranks of this nervous, fickle class is doomed to crack and crumble, along with anything we try to build on top of it.

…

The PMC can—and should—be brought to commit to its own abolition, but attempting to evangelize a class that has so much difficulty even acknowledging its own existence is a futile endeavor. At this rare and fragile moment of opportunity for socialism in America, the best bet for Berniecrats is to build a strong base of workers committed to social democratic reforms. The PMC will follow, as they always do; they’re the cart, not the horse.

#Amber A'Lee Fronst #american affairs #read the whole thing #interesting perspective #professional managerial class #class politics

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