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What is "Books"?

12:07 / 21.08.02

Not an attempt to be prescriptive, just want to explore people's notions of what this forum is for.

Passing across my mind are ...the slight uncertainty about how to talk about Chomsky's 9-11 as a book rather than as ? ...Tom's assertion that a discussion of The Tipping Point belonged in the Head Shop, not here ...one's instinct that certain books are more likely, if not better, to be talked about in the other fora, such as Trijhaos's Modern Magick threads in Magick. I've no problem at all with any of these examples, and I'm going to be the last person in the world to demand perfectibility of categories.

Thoughts?

12:19 / 21.08.02

I tend to think of it as being for fiction - but then that's because fiction is where my interest lies. I do read some nonfiction but perhaps would tend to talk about that in other forums.

I'm glad you started this thread because you mentioned it in another and I wasn't sure what you meant.

I like the 'what are you reading' thread and read it with interest, even if it's not full of deep insights - I just like to get an idea of what other people read.

I also like it when we read books jointly, and it'd be good to start another one (once I finish Proust!).

I wonder if the reason book topics get shifted to other forums is that they move on from discussing the book itself to the topics within the book? So whereas you might be able to keep a thread about a specific book on tarot reading here, if it meanders off into discussions on tarot generally then it might be more suitable to shift it to Magick?

12:22 / 21.08.02

Actually gathering of media in the spectacle tends to privilidge fiction/entertainment rather than non-fictional content discussion. There is no real reason that this should be the case, after all, the situationists proclaimed that non-entertainment and non-fiction were constantly being recuperated into the spectacle, - but it does seem that fewer people are reading non-fiction/nonentertainment books/comic/films. In addition some of the most interesting non-fiction content relates very closely to the revolution fora, whereas it tends to get lost in the morass of "why i hate fanboys" or "top ten films" in a spectacle thread.

12:39 / 21.08.02

I s'pose Books is more to do with style than content, or "how" rather than "what".

A discussion about the subject matter of a book is probably going to be more fruitful in other fora, where even those who haven't read the book can join in or even just read about the broader implications of the subject, bringing to bear their specific interest and background reading in that area.

Even though we're all good deconstructionists and we know that no difference can be made between the style and the subject, it's usually less effort to fall back on our lazy humanist upbringing and separate the two, and use the Books primarily to discuss writing technique or issues related to genre, for instance.

15:50 / 21.08.02

That's right... I am Persephone, bringer of deconstruction. (Sorry, sorry, that's apropos of nothing, have just been dying to make that pun for, like, eleven months.)

But seriously, I suppose that form and content are less detachable in fiction than, say, Chomsky. Perhaps because non-fiction is books about the world, but for fiction the book is the world? And then there's biography and history, which I know is not fiction but which I can't see as non-fiction entirely, and which seem to live comfortably here.

You know, sleaze, I never did think about what "The Spectacle" meant & how it modifies "Books." What is the word-history of "the spectacle," by the way? I thought it was something that Tom made up, but then I just read it in that Grant Morrison interview that was bobbing up around here recently.

And Ari, I have been keeping on with Proust, too... very far behind you, I'm afraid, but onward! We must get a few more converts and set up camp soontime.

15:58 / 21.08.02

What is the word-history of "the spectacle," by the way?

< g > - I have a photocopy of the chapters from The Society of the Spectacle (by Guy deBord, as namechecked in The Invisibles: the text is available online here) and all it says, all the way down the margins in biro, in increasingly large, wobbly, and desperate letters, is "But what is it? What is it? What IS IT????"

14:25 / 28.08.02

LOL, it was me! I write that in all my margins! No, kidding... I mean, I do write that a lot. I haven't read The Society of the Spectacle before, obviously. Thanks for the link, I shall read it now.

Am thinking about moving this thread to Policy for a broader discussion of the Spectacle...

15:39 / 28.08.02

One way of viewing the spectacle is: modern life and everyone living it as interpolated by capitalism, the dominant ideology of the early 20th century. The interpolation is an invoulentary act and us such we all in habit a world dominated by ideology that is as unreal as it is binding.

Is that any clearer? anyone able to give a better explanation? I'll probably come back to this later...

16:10 / 28.08.02

Bluntly, books can be about anything. As can television programs, films, songs and websites. There isn't a single other forum in here that couldn't be discussed in relation to a book if that was your intention. That's why non fiction books are fundamentally always going to be a difficult thing to talk about in the books section, because if you move past the book in and of itself to discussions of the issues within it then you're going to be straying into other fora's territory.

Actually that's a bit harsh. Think of it this way with regard to fiction first. If you want to talk about feminism, then it's the Head Shop. If you want to talk about Emily Bronte then that goes into Books. If you want to talk about the role of women IN Emily Bronte's work, then that's Books. If you want to talk about what Emily Bronte brings to Feminism then that's in the Head Shop.

Exactly the same principle applies with non-fiction books, except it's very much harder to talk about 9/11 without discussing the OPINIONS, THEORIES and EVIDENCE of the writers within them than it is with fiction. And when you get into debate about current affairs, you are in the Switchboard. If you are getting into debates about Philosophy, then you're in the Head Shop and if you're getting into debates abotu Science, then you're in the Lab.

It's a question of focus here, and more importantly it's a question of being fluid around the site. There's no question that any subject can't be talked about. It's just that you choose the right forum for it. No area is having its remit hacked away at, it's just that communities are emerging WITHIN various fora rather than across the site as a whole... Just because it fits better in the Head Shop does NOT mean that you shouldn't discuss it. Just start the topic in the Head Shop and get everyone to join you there...

16:14 / 28.08.02

Ok - for convenience... Think about it this way... Head Shop is the Philosophy department at a university. The Laboratory is the Science Faculty. The Magick is the theology department and the Switchboard is some of the Social Sciency places - Politics & Economics for example.

The Spectacle fora are - one by one, the local Design School, the English (and foreign language literature) departments, {a new department of popular culture for comics}, a Drama department for Film and TV and a Music department at the end...

The Creation is a creative writing course held during the summer vacation, and the Gathering is the Student Union...

16:23 / 28.08.02

A nice analogy, but topics like 'Health and Gender' and 'Beyond Antipsychiatry' will always fall between two stools, being neither overtly 'science' nor 'philosophy' but a sort of 'muscular sociology/culture'.

16:59 / 28.08.02

Hullo, I feel the need to say that I did not intend this as a complaint or out of concern that "my" area is getting its remit hacked at... I'm fairly slutty about visiting all the fora in any case, it's just that I've noticed a few posts regarding books that my instinct said would fit better elsewhere & I wouldn't like to seem unfriendly if I said "Go off to the Head Shop or the Magick with that" and at the same time I feel sorry to see someone's topic languish because they thought Books was the place to put it in. However, your schema has clarified things for me & I have no problem with slippage, I rather like it.

Out of curiosity, c.f. your aspirations for the Revolution... what are your ideas about the Spectacle as a whole? Do you see it as something different, say, in the way that the Conversation is different re: standards of debate?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:02 / 29.08.02

Tom's right (well, obviously Tom's right... it's the architecture of his house we're discussing here...) about fluidity. Bear in mind that, as far as I can see, a lot of threads are moved, not because they were inappropriate where they started, but because the direction of the thread had changed into something that may fit more easily somewhere else.

The Chomsky one was difficult... as I recall, the initial post did have a request that people confine themselves to the actual FORM of the book, rather than the content... but with a subject as emotive as 9/11, and given the "interview" form of the book (it is, after all, all substance and little style), that was bound not to happen eventually (I count myself guilty of that too).

Of COURSE there'll be things that are borderline between fora- most of us share many of the same interests, after all.

Personally I tend to find the differentiation between fora more a thing to help us navigate the site, rather than a prescriptive be-all-and-end-all. If I think a topic I'm posting has dual relevance (if, indeed, I haven't just made up that phrase) then I'll post it in the one I think it would work best in. And if it doesn't, someone'll move it.

I guess as far as the philosophical aspect of books is concerned, it's gonna be a case-by-case thing. Discussing Nietzsche's style and bombast, for example, or his narrative about Zarathustra, is something I'd post in Books. If it came down to the rightness or otherwise of the Will to Power, I'd go Headshopping. And if (Godwin's law notwithstanding) it came down to Nietzsche and the far right, I'd bung it on the Switchboard. I could easily be wrong, though.

09:29 / 29.08.02

My aspirations for the Spectacle would be that it would sit somewhere between a news/reviews discussion area and something rather more interesting and rigorous. I think there is a tendency for them to be too close to the news/reviews/list-making end of the spectrum. I'd like to see more of a thread mix like this - some thoughtful and analytical, some list-making, some reviews (taking film as an example - some real some not...):

Hong Kong cinema
Forrest Gump - family movie, subversive epic or right-wing propaganda?
Mulholland Drive: Who is the dreamer? [See also here]
Theatre Roundtable
Star Trek and American Secular Humanism
Best Gay Films
Product Placement - necessary evil or intrusive money-spinner?
Continuity: Unnecessary or Important?
Where are the female directors?
Soho Writer's Festival
Gender in Science Fiction
Sum of All Fears - Watching 9/11 get assimilated into the movies...
On Ghost World
Film Four have collapsed - what next for British film-making?
If we had a British Independent Genre Cinema, would could adapt.......
Memento
What's the allure of spy films?
Cinema Barbelith
On Sight and Sound's Top Ten Movies of All Time
The Man Who Wasn't There
Kurosawa
Slave Nation
Reviews from the Edinburgh Festival
How do you decide what to see?
Dramaturgica Barbelith?
A Bullet in the Right Place Can Change the World
Star Wars: Phantom Menace and Ethnic Stereotyping
The Truth About Gay Animals
The End of Chasing Amy
Violent film-making and 9/11

Threads I DON'T like - or at least thread starters I don't like are the almost totally empty ones like this one on Battle Royale. Of ALL the conversations that could have been had about that film - violence and humour, controversy and film-making, actually decently written reviews, the place of international film-making etc. etc. we get a load of "I want to see this film. Me too" comments. It's just a shame! Make every post MEAN something. Tell us your opinions by all means, but think about them first. Be prepared to have disagreements about them. Go out on a limb and tell us your THOUGHTS for god's sake...

12:03 / 29.08.02

"The Spectacle" as a Situationist concept describes a state in which everything becomes removed from the real and instead becomes a representation of itself and everyone is reduced to the role of spectator rather than participant.

One of the key features, if you will, of the Spectacle is that it resists attacks and criticism aimed against it by creating and presenting a variety of roles or "fiction-suits" for people to wear, so "rebel", "hippie", "eco-warrior" are all characters within the Spectacle.

The Spectacle also commodifies absolutely everything and then presents the pursuit of these commodities as the only way to achieve happiness. Of course all commodities are eventually superseded - some before they leave the shelf - thus the pursuit is never finished and happiness never attained.

The condition caused by this - amongst other things - is alienation; another key situ concept and one they tried to address through various strategies such as the loss of distinction between art and everyday life.

12:47 / 29.08.02

Personally I tend to find the differentiation between fora more a thing to help us navigate the site, rather than a prescriptive be-all-and-end-all. If I think a topic I'm posting has dual relevance (if, indeed, I haven't just made up that phrase) then I'll post it in the one I think it would work best in. And if it doesn't, someone'll move it.

That's absolutely true - it's not about dividing things so savagely that interdisciplinary topics are not possible, nor is it about stopping people extending an interest or a topic about one subject into a topic about another. What it IS about is making it relatively easy for people to find things and trying to keep in mind a sense of what we want Barbelith to aspire to be about (i still want it to be the best and most intelligent and challenging online community on the web - kind of The Well Squared).

Most importantly though, what I really want to avoid is an extension of what's happened to the Magick - it shouldn't be able about a part of the forum developing a completely separate culture from the rest, and that means that you have to undertake a bit of cross-polination and if a large and weighty forum starts straying into the subject matter of a less densely populated one, then we have to grab that stuff and stick it in the place where it's most at home to keep that smaller one alive...

Unless - and it's possible that this is the case - it's time for a radical restructing of the board's forums generally...

16:53 / 29.08.02

Pragmatically speaking, wouldn't that be a horrendous pain in the ass --for you, and Cal? If you have to sort all the existing threads into newly defined categories?

If I am understanding you correctly, there *isn't* a distinction between the fora of the Revolution and the fora of the Spectacle in terms of how you want things to be talked about? So perhaps these two *together* would form the heart of the better-than-ever discussion board that you want? To me a word is just a word, but now that I know a little bit more about (The Society of) the Spectacle ...well, when you can only be a spectator, probably the main thing you do is make lists... do you know what I mean?

What it seems to me is that only one forum, the Conversation, is actually functionally different from all the others --i.e., it's okay to be thread-rotty and piss-takey there, and it gets cleansed monthly... whoop, no, just checked ...also the Gathering. So. It's interesting if you look at those two fora as the mechanisms they are for the board...

It's also interesting if you think of the Policy and the Creation as being similar to each other in the sense that they are both participative and creative --e.g., in Policy, one participates in the creation of this community.

Ah well, just thinking out loud. Let me know if you need the salt.