[iDC] (no subject)

[Luis Camnitzer]

Addressing Mark: I would follow the Theology of Liberation theoreticians and
say that morals are the bureaucratic implementation of a (usually
self-serving) interpretation  of ethics. So, I am talking more about
altruistic ethics. I grant that we don't know very precisely what they are,
but we have a hunch. Besides that there is some foundation for ethics in
emergence theory and some recent possible location in the DNA make up, it
would be futile and probably dangerous to try to pin ethics down to dogmatic
precision. But, more vaguely, I feel that we might have gone too far in the
promotion of individual navels and their lint, and that we might start
considering the common good. This does not have to be in a rigorous
scholarly fashion.  In this context I believe that there is a serious
difference between ethics and politics (one informs the other, but not
vice-versa). My very personal way of operating is based on my wish to be an
ethical being, on using politics as a strategy to plan the implementation of
ethics (in an ethical way, of course) and, in my case to use art as an
instrument for that implementation. My choice to use art for this is purely
a consequence of irrelevant personal biographical factors.

I agree that in these Bushy times ethics do have political implications,
mostly because ethical behavior seems to have become a subversive activity.
This makes art that follows (not illustrates) an ethical stand subversive as
well. But art is subversive because it subverts conventional knowledge,
which if planned, makes it part of a political strategy. This only works
when informed by ethics and that is why I am reluctant to take one word for
the other.  With politics we compromise, with ethics at least we can tell
where and why we compromise, and even if we should compromise.

In regard to what Sam raises, it is true that anything we do shapes culture,
the same as being apolitical is one form of a political stand. Producing
craftsy decorations will indeed shape culture. The question is how passive
can we afford to be in this pursuit. And Ryan, this is not about purity or
ideological grandstanding. I would say that every single reader of Idc (me
included) is bourgeois and unable to seriously "betray" his or her social
class. So here, rather than disassembling ideas until they cease to exist (a
bourgeois academic misinterpretation of subversion), the challenge is to
reappraise our function as artists and see what is to be done now.
Luis Camnitzer
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