From: owen (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Dec 04 2006 - 20:14:02 PST
Boycott Frameworks.
On Dec 4, 2006, at 10:52 PM, James Kreul wrote:
> On 12/4/06 8:15 PM, "Jim Flannery" <email suppressed> wrote:
>
>
>> Does it have to be typed in CAPITAL LETTERS that the boycott we're
>> talking about is supposed to be BY artists and not OF artists?
>
>
> I have to admit that I only skimmed the original post when I came
> across it,
> but it was interesting to read the original post after wading
> through the
> subsequent posts. It was particularly interesting to read Berger's
> follow-up comments on the nature of the project, and the decision
> making
> process he would follow in different contexts. (Those who are
> repeatedly
> asking the question "What would a boycott even mean?" might find that
> section interesting.)
>
> The subsequent discussion has had little if anything to do with the
> ideas
> expressed in the original post, which is too bad.
>
> I think many of us, for one reason or another, have chosen to
> participate or
> not participate in some activity for principled reasons, whether or
> not we
> call that decision a "boycott." Sometimes we do so with an
> idealistic hope
> of affecting immediate change, sometimes we do so with a more
> realistic goal
> of changing ourselves and those around us. I think if people were to
> actually read Berger's hypothetical examples, his proposed
> decisions are not
> that far off from the kinds of decisions many of us have probably
> made in
> different contexts.
>
> Those kinds of local, personal and context-dependent decisions, by
> the way,
> are not mutually exclusive from or contradictory to engaging in local
> politics and promoting change through legislators and so forth. In
> fact,
> they seem to me to be one and the same.
>
> But those advocating this position should also understand the
> different ways
> the phrase "cultural boycott of Israel" will read in the current
> American
> political context, which is too complicated to tease out in this
> email.
> Unfortunately, in the current blue state/red state mentality of
> national
> politics, there is very little room for (or apparent interest in)
> nuance.
> The knee-jerk reaction to the word in this discussion is not unlike
> the
> surface level discussions on American talk radio (be it from the
> left or the
> right). If the advocates want to be broadly persuasive, they
> unfortunately
> have to take into account that there is very little patience for a
> nuanced
> description of a complicated problem. Neither Bill O'Riley nor Al
> Franken
> would get past the word "boycott" and actually get to the decision
> making
> process that Berger suggests.
>
> [I'm guilty of over-generalizing about the discussion so far...I
> realize
> that not everyone is American, and that not everyone has over-
> simplified
> things]
>
> Meanwhile, re-reading the Berger follow-up has made me think about
> the issue
> in new ways. Re-reading the subsequent discussion has only made me
> more
> frustrated with the current state of Frameworks.
>
>
> James Kreul
> University of North Carolina--Wilmington
> email suppressed
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.