John Steppling

"The idea of fine art which emerged in the eighteenth century, symbolized by Kant's aesthetics—and there was no concept of aesthetics in traditional philosophy—and then by the discourses by Reynolds, that that's on the way out, it's going. I think art is becoming very ideological, and it's less interested in mediating this special experience called the "aesthetic," which you can get outside of art but which is intensified and more concentrated within the, so to say, closed circle of discourse which is art." Donald Kuspit "The double nature of pleasure is something that I wanted to trace out. For pleasure to be what it is, it has to exceed a limit of what is altogether wholesome and … [Read more...]

"The central fact for me is, I think, that the intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public, in public. And this role has an edge to it, and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues who are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug." Edward Said “He who affirms the Devil creates or makes the … [Read more...]

"The relationship between the intellectuals and the world of production is not as direct as it is with the fundamental social groups but is, in varying degrees, "mediated" by the whole fabric of society and by the complex of superstructures, of which the intellectuals are, precisely, the "functionaries." Gramsci (Prison Notebooks) "Art is always in some kind of relation with non-art. It does not, indeed it cannot, take place in a bubble cut off from the rest of culture." David Campany "If it is true that little boys bring back the past with bows and arrows, it is also true that youths easily become cliquish, seeking friends and above all a father, which their own one often was … [Read more...]

"...our new stories have a strong tendency to stabilize a world arranged according to the needs of techno-capitalism. The second is more subtle: they all involve the assumption that everything can be explained in mechanistic terms, that everything is, in a sense, robotic.” Curtis White “The American city has no problems that are its own because, in the last analysis, our cities aren’t cities at all. They are structures for the maintenance of social inequality.” Curtis White "In 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most … [Read more...]

"Soldiers had become insensitive living dead..." Erich Maria Remarque "In the midst of this dystopian nightmare, there is the deepening abyss of inequality, one that not only separates the rich from the poor, but also increasingly relegates the middle and working classes to the ranks of the precariat. Concentrations of wealth and income generate power for the financial elite and unchecked misery for most people, a fear/insecurity industry, and a growing number of social pathologies." Henry Giroux "The concept or notion of 'child' or 'childhood' was absolutely marginal until the modern period. However, with the gradual loss of the generational difference implied by modern, democratic, … [Read more...]

"Several issues are at stake here: the state of education in America, the paralysis of the critical faculty of students, the death of dissent, and the political orientation of the American intelligentsia." Guido Giacomo Preparata "The look of the past can be retrieved, preserved and disseminated in an unprecedented fashion. But awareness of history A an interpretation of the past succumbs to a faith in history as representation." Alan Sekula "The love of the world is night." Jean de Fecamp 11th century “I truly believe that the lack of adequate images is a danger… I have said that before and I repeat it again and again, and as long as I can speak I will speak out for that. If … [Read more...]

"Europe's old regimes were civil and political societies with distinct powers, traditions, customs, and conventions. Precisely because they were such integral and coherent social, economic, and cultural systems, they were exceptionally resilient...The old order's civil society was first and foremost a peasant economy and rural society dominated by hereditary and privileged nobilities. Except for a few bankers, merchants, and shipowners, the large fortunes and incomes were based in land. { } In fact, political society was the linchpin of this agrarian society of orders. Everywhere it took the form of absolutist authority systems of different degrees of enlightenment and headed by hereditary … [Read more...]

"Richard III, as he climbs great steps, gets smaller. As if he was seized and absorbed by the Grand Mechanism. Slowly he becomes only one of its wheels. He stopped being a hangman and became a victim." Jan Kott "Lear, as character rather than king, becomes the vehicle for another kind of ‘subjection’, evoking an ideological subjectivity in which the reader/spectator can ‘live’ an imaginary resolution of irreconcilable class projects." James H.Kavanagh "I smash the tools of my captivity, the chair the table the bed. I destroy the battlefield that was my home. I fling open the doors so the wind gets in and the screams of the world. I smash the window. With my bleeding hands I tear … [Read more...]