[lorenzo]

I just watched an interesting documentary about the emergence of crap cultures. The prototypical example would be the city of Dubai. An empty shell of kitsch, with ugly empty-headed people ("expats"), selling ugly empty stuff, to ugly empty people, who sell even crappier stuff to crappier people, - all this in a crappy urban environment that is emptier than the concept of emptiness itself.

It's this sad world of "globalised" elites who have nothing to offer to the world (they do make lots of money, though), but who somehow think they are significant.

European architects love to sell crap to these people and these cities. They love to be cynical and design ugliness for these people, just so they can have a laugh (many top architects are very open about their sarcastic outlook on these kitsch cultures).


America used to be the prime example of this culture of nothingness. The fake cities full of fake people that emerged, in empty deserts. Las Vegas is of course the symbol of this modernism. However, this fakeness, kitsch and nothingness - embodied in American cities - was in fact a historic outburst of creativity. It represented a new model of thinking ("thinking light", in contrast with Europe's mode of thinking) and of acting (acting ephemerically).

So, because America was the first culture to tap this realm of emptiness, in a creative way, it has now gotten a certain historical density. Its kitsch has become culture. Its nothingness has hardened and has come to mean something exceptional. It represents a cultural paradigm, like Europe's.


Version 2.0 of this principle of creating crap - say Dubai, with its fake people - is another matter altogether. It has no historic dimension and it will never get one - that is the drama. It is not the old world kitsch (America); it is hyperkitsch instead, kitsch that is here to stay forever. History is too dense to attach itself to the slippery walls of Dubai's fake glass and steel structures.

It is sadness emobodied in concrete and bad architecture, in shopping malls full of nonsense and empty brands, in expats who want to make money.


This historic context - from Europe to America to the uncreative mass-creation of crap in the ugly boom-cities of this world - makes me wonder how we, who are vastly superior to these globalised lowlifes, can retreat from history in style.

How do we, Europeans and Americans, make ourselves so irrelevant to the future, that we set an example for eternity: going down in style, while we leave the inferior globalised elite to dwell in and expand its emptiness?

It is no use feeling threatened by the ugliness and emptiness of these people, even though there are signs that they are trying to penetrate our culture. No need to feel threatened, because our superiority is so out of reach for them, that they can only mimick the shadows of our culture.

So once again, we, Europeans and Americans are becoming irrelevant to this world. We have no means of communicating with the inferior people who are taking over (the globalized elite of expats who sell crap to crappy people), because we are naturally superior. We don't have the means to communicate with them, but we don't want to either.

The question is: how do we retreat in style. What type of disappearing act should we prepare? Do we need to leave a trace of our superiority? Or is not leaving a trace at all the ultimate sign of our superiority?

[lotrfan55345]

I think just going on the street of any major world city and feeling the vibe...
It's more than 'kitsch'









This is real, people thrive.

[lorenzo]

Thanks, but these are all nice people in nice historic cities.

I was more talking about crappy people in crappy cities.

This kind of infantile nonsense:


It's a stain on humanity. We can only hope that these people's oil resources are depleted as fast as possible, so they can go back to their much more elegant desert tents. These, at least, have style.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'l')orenzo your analysis is obvious. Rather than understand the historic and especially thermodynamic nature of this phenomena you have reduced it to a matter of what? Taste.

[lorenzo]

By the way, Pstarr, there's not much to life outside of style, is there?

I mean, everyone gets born, everyone can breathe, eat, make babies and die. Animals do that.

But we are humans precisely because we can put style into these basal instincts.

It's all about the way one breathes, eats, makes babies and dies.

[Carlhole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'B')y the way, Pstarr, there's not much to life outside of style, is there?

I mean, everyone gets born, everyone can breathe, eat, make babies and die. Animals do that.

But we are humans precisely because we can put style into these basal instincts.

It's all about the way one breathes, eats, makes babies and dies.

[Nicholai]

I would trade this:


For this:



Any day of the week!

[Carlhole]

Yeah, but Dubai is a small peninsula of the Arabian desert. In pre-Islamic times, it was barren and surrounded by mangrove swamps. We're not talking about the Greek Isles or the South of Spain.

So, okay, maybe there were a few bushes and date palms and bits of water here and there.

Let's assume you have taste... What the hell do you do with that? If it were purely a matter of taste, the right thing to do would have been nothing at all. The desert is the desert and there's nothing that can really be developed about in an organic way that serves man and nature both.

Let's think about Las Vegas for a second. It's way the hell out in the middle of the damn useless desert, right near the biggest hydroelectric project in the world. Hmmmm... what do you do with that?

Unfortunately, Dubai is at sea level and there aren't even any hydroelectric projects around. So that sort of obvious practicality was not even there to direct the development.

So the question remains... What would a king of taste and cultivation produce on essentially barren property? I think it was simply impossible to do nothing about Dubai because of all the money - so if you can't do nothing what do you do?

Isn't Lorenzo going to reply?