culture, 21c

‘The left wing and the right wing belong to the same bird.’ ~ Unknown

culture, 21c

I keep thinking about how the world is defined by emptiness. There seems to be at least two kinds: decaying, simulated and meaningless (pervasive in a capitalist society); in contrast to a Zen concept of the ‘beauty of the blank space.’ The latter is closer to something I experienced when mountain-biking through the woods and resting by the river after intense climbs followed by joyful, speedy descents. A fertile void for exploring deeper dimensions of storytelling, it is an emptiness that feels paradoxically full.

The real world exists although politicians repeatedly ignore it. Despite having a clear mandate to fix everything from potholes and the NHS to unfettered migration, they continue to treat the public as a kind of simulation, which is probably why politicians can say stupid things like ‘black Labradors are right-wing’ (and sincerely believe such an idiotic sentiment will resonate with the people rather than make them roll their eyes). A mayoral candidate for London, an unabashed Thatcherite in her youth, can claim to represent the working classes with no hint of irony whatsoever (and no doubt be supported by said demographic, such is our extraordinary culture of amnesia).

Breakdancing and the patriarchy: I came away from Raygun’s Netflix documentary feeling more sympathetic than I thought I would, despite her naivety. It never ceases to amaze me how apparently educated people (usually with PhDs) pretend not to understand the real world when it happens. She claimed to be shocked after her silly performance at the Olympics drew so much vitriol. She expressed surprise at the nastiness that left me thinking, what, you mean that thing called the Internet, which, for the last 10-15 years has been nothing but a vile cesspool of intolerance, bile and hate? You thought somehow the rules wouldn’t apply to you! I couldn’t help but note the irony of her mentioning (as is obligatory for just about all academics) the evils of the patriarchy; yet it was one of the patriarchy’s most patriarchal patriarchs of all, Sir Richard Branson, who gave her a lifeline and actually saw something joyful in her performance at the Olympics.

Working in the NHS, I would say about a third of my colleagues are a mix of immigrants and ethnic minorities. All perfectly nice people every bit as professional and capable as my British colleagues (although we do get a few agency staff who just sit and stare at their phones, but then that’s true of a lot of Brits as well!) Still, almost no ethnic minority and/or immigrant I’ve come across corresponds to the ‘simulation’ I keep reading about. In fact, most of them seem more ‘westernised’ than me! Regardless, the sign is considered more real than the real (particularly if you read timid rags like the Guardian or waste your time in contemporary art galleries).

Contrary to those pathologically happy morons you see in adverts (man’s most obnoxious of creations!), capitalism’s main products are emptiness and despair. iPhones and social media are the evolution of an alienating spectacle: ‘separation perfected’ par excellence; people have never been so unified in isolation – from the world as much as from themselves.

Nobody believes their own hype quite like a British journalist. Similarly, the arts are increasingly colonised by the posh – descendants of the old bourgeoisie and hence enthusiastic to latch onto whatever ‘current thing’ gains woke points and changes nothing. When I say the arts and entertainment have become ‘bourgeois’, I am referring to a culture increasingly centred on judgement, competitiveness and the Machiavellian – from the all-pervasiveness of sport and talent shows (cooking, singing, painting and glass blowing etc, etc, etc and etc) to Game of Thrones and the Traitors: celebrations of judgement, winning and screwing people over. You don’t see much coming from, say, an anarchistic perspective nor left-wing principles of solidarity. Instead, we get the ‘liberal-left’, that is to say the bourgeoisie, who have landed upon a commodified activism (commonly referred to as ‘woke') which, by way of its predictable tropes through simplistic and one-dimensional characters and story-telling, does little more than annoy rage-bait ‘journalists’ of Spiked and the Telegraph variety. The ultra-conformist capitalist spectacle rolls on unabated. Diversity remains an illusion. In fact, I would go as far to say that we are witnessing an inversion of the arts: a culture of intolerance and illiberalism mirroring the Right to create a symbiosis rather than a resistance. Much like a journalist smugly believing his own hype, the arts likewise do not stand opposed to an inherently violent and destructive system.

I support a Jewish state – as a creative, I think I’d rather live in Israel than an Islamic dictatorship! I also acknowledge a sort of collective trauma playing out on the part of Jews after such horrors as the Holocaust, but this does not excuse Israel’s actions. Gaza lies in ruins, it’s literally rubble and, while I don’t subscribe to the term ‘genocide’, based on my (very) limited understanding of the situation, I consider Israel to be in serious breach of humanitarian law and should face up to its crimes (as any country should – US and UK for the illegal invasion of Iraq, Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine etc).

I don’t go in for the prevaricating around the 'evils of Hamas' and the naïve idea that the Palestinians can simply vote their way out of their predicament, as if implementing democracy in the midst of a warzone is as simple as placing a meaningless ‘X’ at your local polling station! Such conceited armchair quarterbacking can only come from those educated at our elite schools and universities – yeah, you’d know what to do! Israel has killed more journalists than Saudi Arabia but, sure, if you were a Palestinian living among endless rubble under such a constant, deadly and well-funded spectre, you’d of course know how to navigate yourself – and a traumatised population – safely and peacefully out of an armed siege! Do one.

In a world where thoughts, almost certainly not arrived at independently, are siloed, commodified and sold back to us, is it possible to create a sign that decolonises the mind? I think this is one reason why I prefer to think of myself as a writer rather than an artist – ‘art’ comes with too many assumptions attached, most of them negative though not wholly undeserved (and it only has itself to blame!).

dub spectrum was developed with the intention of reconnecting with a DIY ethos lost in 21c's linear society, which appears to have given rise to an increasingly literalistic culture as detrimental to truth as it is to art and the imagination. Add to that the arts mirroring the intolerance of the Right, a return to indie is imperative.

2026