“… something happened twenty or twenty-five years ago, with the collapse of socialism, and, at the same time, the Western social-democratic worker state losing its power of sustaining political imagination. What disappeared at that point was the belief that humanity, as a collective subject, can actively intervene and somehow steer social development. In the last thirty years, we are again accepting the notion of history as fate. Thirty or forty years ago, there were still debates about what the future will be – Communism, socialism, fascism, liberal capitalism, totalitarian bureaucratic capitalism. The idea was that life would somehow go on on earth, but that there are different possibilities. Now we talk all the time about the end of the world, but it is much easier for us to imagine the end of the world than a small change in the political system. Life on earth maybe will end, but somehow capitalism will go on.”

— Slavoj Žižek

See Žižeki tsitaat meenus mulle, kui sattusin lugema Kaja Kallase (kellega me muide oleme head ja ammused sõbrad) hiljutist tviiti, mis kõlas järgnevalt:

Kapitalismi lõpu ennustajad unustavad, et see põhineb kahel inimomadusel, mis ei kao: ahnus ja võistlustahe (soov elada naabrist paremini).

Minu ja Kaja vaated kapitalismi puutuvas on mõistagi mitmes olulises punktis väga erinevad — ning suurelt osalt on see erinevus kahtlemata taandatav tõsiasjale, et mina olen tänase Eesti mõistes oma poliitilistelt vaadetelt selgelt vasakpoolne, samas kui Kaja on valitseva paremerakonna parlamendisaadik. Kuid isegi kui see lähtekohtade ja sümpaatiate erisus hetkel kõrvale jätta, on mul tunne, et selle remargiga on mitmeid väga tõsiseid probleeme.

Kõige üldisemal tasandil postuleerib too lause, et kapitalism põhineb kahel muutumatul inimomadusel (ma usun, et see nimistu ei olnud mõeldud lõpliku ja kõikehõlmavana, aga see ei ole hetkel kuigi oluline) ning on seega loomulik ning ajatu asjade korraldus. Selline seisukoht paneb mind muidugi imestama, et mil moel tulid inimesed toime oma ahnuse ja võistlustahtega siis, kui kapitalismi veel ei olnud? Kui need – ahnus ja võistlustahe – on inimloomusele omased (mis on omakorda lähemat tähelepanu vääriv mõte, mille juurde ma allpool tagasi tulen), siis kuidas sai inimkond hakkama kuni 17. sajandini, mida üldiselt vast peetakse kapitalismi kui majandus- ja ühiskonnakorralduse tekke perioodiks? Rääkimata sellest, et oma tänasel kujul äratuntavasse vormi ei jõudnud kapitalism enne 19. sajandi keskpaika.

Muidugi, üheks võimaluseks sellele kiuslikule küsimusele vastata oleks öelda, et inimühiskond on alati kapitalistlik olnud, lihtsalt nad ise ei teadnud seda — nagu Molière’i kodanlasest aadlimees, kes endalegi üllatuseks avastas, et ta on kogu elu proosas kõnelenud. Kui aga käsitleda kõiki ühiskondi — alates Sumeri linnriikidest ja lõpetades kõrg-keskaegse Euroopaga — kapitalistlikena, kaotab see määratlus ju lihtsalt oma sisu. Samas, kui siiski nõustuda, et näiteks Vana-Kreeka linnriigid või Mongoli impeerium või Tokugawa šogunaat ei olnud “kapitalistlikud”, olemegi tagasi küsimuse juures, et ometigi olid need ühiskonnad, milles inimesed elasid ja hakkama said. Võib-olla olid need siis ajad, kus inimesed olid sunnitud elama “ebaloomulikult” ja õnnetult?

See viibki meid järgmise huvitava teema juurde — ja selleks on “ahne ja võistlustahteline inimloomus”. Kõigepealt on mõistagi huvitav küsimus, et kas selline asi nagu “inimloomus” üldse olemas on — ja kui on, siis milles see täpselt seisneb. Omamoodi on muidugi võluv eeldada, et inimesel on üks ja muutumatu olemus, kõigis erinevates paigus ning kõigil erinevatel ajastutel. Euroopa kultuuris on selle vaate aluseks uskumus, et Jumal lõi inimese enese näo järele. Kui selle peale leidus neid, kes kiuslikult ära märkisid, et inimesele näib omane olevat ka hulk iseloomujooni, mis kuidagi ei saa oma olemuselt jumalikud olla, siis alates neljandast sajandist sai neile vastuseks Püha Augustinuse “pärispatu” doktriin, mille järgi on inimese jumalik loomus rikutud läbi Aadama ja Eeva keelust üleastumise ning pattulangemise. Selliselt on inimesele omased nii head kui halvad jooned — esimesed läbi oma jumaliku päritolu, teised läbi inimliku rikutuse. Inimloomus oli keskaegses kristlikus doktriinis nn. “loomuseaduse” (lex naturalis) keskseks kontseptsiooniks, printsiibiks, mis legitimiseeris tervet hulka tollaseid ühiskondlikke arusaamu ning praktikaid, alates sellest, et naiste tunnistused kohtus meeste omadega võrreldes vähem kaalu omasid kuni ilmaliku võimu allutatuseni kiriku omale. Täna on meie vaated neis asjus muidugi väga teistsugused — ja see viib mõttele, et võibolla ei ole lex naturalis siiski nii hea ja kindel teejuht, kui see esmapilgul tunduda võib. Niisamuti on aja jooksul väga tõsiselt muutunud see, mida peetakse inimesele loomuomaseks ja mida loomuvastaseks. Keskaegse arusaama järgi oli ahnus üks seitsmest surmapatust, mitte miski, mis on inimesele loomuldasa omane. See oli, vastupidi, eksimine jumaliku inimloomuse vastu.

Aga isegi kui me hetkeks võtame seisukoha, et see keskaegne vaade oli eksitus, wishful thinking, mitte kaine hinnang — ning et ahnus tõepoolest on inimesele loomu poolest omane, siis ikkagi jääb meile alles probleem mis selle teadmisega pihta hakata. See küsimus kerkis väga teravalt valgustusajastu filosoofide jaoks seoses järk-järgulise usu kaotusega Jumalasse ning seega ka inimloomuse jumalikku päritolusse. Kui inimloomus ei olnud jumalik, siis ei ole ka ju mingit head põhjust, miks see peaks olema aluseks ühiskonnale. Pigem peaks ühiskond sellisel juhul olema selleks, mis tasakaalustab inimloomuse halvemaid külgi.Thomas Hobbes, kellel teadupärast ei olnud inimese loomuse osas kuigi roosilist vaadet, leidis, et just nimelt see ongi riigi roll. Üks teine kuulus valgustusajastu filosoof — Jean-Jacques Rousseau — oli aga arvamusel, et inimloomuse varjuküljed (nagu ahnus, kadedus, julmus või uhkus) on ühiskonna tagajärg, selle poolt tingitud. Rousseau arvates tulenevad kõik need halvad jooned sellest, et me “näeme endid läbi teiste silmade”, mistõttu meie enesehinnang tuleneb sellest, mida teised meist arvavad ning see saab omakorda aluseks ahnusele ning püüule “elada naabrist paremini”.

Kui lood on nii, nagu arvas Hobbes — ja kui me peaks arvama, et ahnus ei ole voorus, mida peaks tingimata säilitama — siis oleks meil ühiskonnana mõistlik oma asju nii sättida, et ahne olemist ei premeeritaks, et see ei oleks asi, mida imetletaks ja austataks. Kui õigus on Rousseau’l, siis on ahnus, niivõrd kui see inimestele omane on, lihtsalt meie kaasaegse ühiskonnakorralduse ebameeldiv tagajärg. Ükskõik kumba pidi vaadates on raske jõuda järelduseni, et kapitalism, kui ahnuse ja võistlustahte väljendus, peaks igavesti meie sotsiaalseks reaalsuseks jääma. Muidugi, kui me just ei arva, nagu Gordon Gekko kunagisest kuulsast Oliver Stone’i filmist, et ”Greed, for lack of a better word, is good”. Aga ka siis kui me nii arvaksime, ning seetõttu kapitalismi vast suhteliselt õigustatult inimkonna arengu lõppjaamaks peaksime, ei anna see põhjust arvata, et asjad tulevikus muutuda ei võiks.

Sest isegi “ajaloo lõpu” teesi tuntuim kaasaegne prohvet, Francis Fukuyama, võtab oma End of History and the Last Man raamatu kokku järgmise lõiguga:

Alexandre Kojève believed that ultimately history itself would vindicate its own rationality. That is, enough wagons would pull into town such that any reasonable person looking at the situation would be forced to agree that there had been only one journey and one destination. It is doubtful that we are at that point now, for despite the recent worldwide liberal revolution, the evidence available to us now concerning the direction of the wagons’ wan­derings must remain provisionally inconclusive. Nor can we in the final analysis know, provided a majority of the wagons eventually reach the same town, whether their occupants, having looked around a bit at their new surroundings, will not find them inad­equate and set their eyes on a new and more distant journey.

Ever since the protest started in Zuccotti park, there has been a lot of bickering over the substance — or lack of — the #OccupyWallStreet’s main slogan: “We are the 99%”. Many people have been pointing out that their opinion has never been asked for in terms of opting in or out of this constituency. Almost immediately, a counter-movement of “We are the 53%” sprang up, meant to not-so-subtly underscore that only 53% of Americans pay federal income tax which, as the vocal members of the 53%-movement point out, pays for the social benefits of those who choose to camp out at parks and do nothing.

Actually the 53%-movement itself provides a very good reply to those who are complaining that the 99% movement is nowhere near as broadly based and representative as the title would lead us to believe. The fact that someone is paying taxes in no way means that one would hold the opinions voiced by the 53%-movement, evidenced by the fact that almost half of the people at Zuccotti park are actually employed full time. So yes, 99% movement does not represent the 99% of the population, and 53% movement does not represent each and every American taxpayer – hopefully we can put this issue aside now.

However, as the police departments across the US have stepped up the pressure against the different #occupy movements, it seems a very important development is taking place. While there have been clashes between the police and protesters (notably in Oakland), by and large the US protests have been remarkably peaceful. That is – peaceful from the side of protesters. Not so from the other side.

The first instance of excessive and unjustified use of force came from September, when the NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna’s pepper spraying two women got caught on video that immediately went viral. This was the first time when #OWS movement was picked up by mainstream media in other terms than a mere mention or expression of bewilderment. The second such case was that of Iraq veteran Scott Olsen getting hit to the head by a tear gas canister in the course of Oakland protests. A video of unconscious and bloody Olsen also started circulating immediately, and sparked instant protests in a number of cities — that in turn were countered with substantial force. Having apparently learned the lesson, when evicting the Zuccotti Park on November 14, the NYPD arrived unannounced at midnight and proceeded to block the access of the press (and even told the CBS helicopter to “vacate the airspace” above the park) — with the stated reason of aiming to “provide protection” for the media. Unsurprisingly, this caused an uproar.

Most recently, there have been two related incidents in the East coast university campuses — in Berkeley and UC Davis — where police has been dispersing crowds on campus grounds while resorting to substantial violence. Berkeley was first, and here you can read an excellent essay on what happened there. And then, on this Friday, there was a sit-in at UC Davis campus, where some 50 students set up their tents and refused to leave. The university officials decided to hail in cops in full riot gear, who then proceeded to pepper spray the sitting protesters — with everything caught on video, of course.

The handling of the case has, again, sparked an outrage. There’s this public letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi of UC Davis, a person responsible for calling in the cops, that has gathered more than seven thousand ninety seven thousand signatures of support by now. The police officer who was casually spraying people had his name and contact details published on the internet — and is unlikely to be able to use his e-mail or phone anytime soon.

Now, while the #OccupyWallStreet may be far from being able to resonate with anything close to 99% of americans with their message (or the respective lack of it, as many would point out) — here we are entering a whole new territory. Americans are — and always have been — fanatical about their First Amendment rights. The right to free speech, assembly and protest are as close to sacred in America as anything can be. And this is where the #OWS movement has been gaining a lot of ground lately. When americans see images of police beating up, handcuffing, pepper spraying and tearing away people who have simply linked up their arms while sitting on ground in their campus, they tend to be less interested in whatever reasons those people may have had to sit down and refuse to move at the first place, than their right to do it if they so choose.

And this is where the tipping point may be a lot closer, where the 99% may well be something real, rather than merely a cool sounding rhetoric.

I have given up on getting annoyed when I hear someone publicly mention — as it happens ever so often in Estonia — that “democracy is a rule of majority over minority.” However, when Jaak Allik took it upon himself to lecture the public from the stage that “democracy is, after all, a form of government where people vote for parties and elected representatives decide upon the matters of society by majority vote,” I could only shake my head in disbelief. I think that it would be really nice if people who are acting as our democratically elected representatives actually had a basic grasp of what does δημοκρατία mean beyond the trivial etymology of “rule by the people.”

Of course, I am not trying to argue that what Jaak Allik described is not democracy. It pretty much sums up the basic political system that is currently used in Estonia at the state level — and Estonia is certainly a democratic country. However, to say “this is democracy” is not the same thing as to say “this is what democracy is.” Rather, what Allik described is one particular form of democracy out of several possible ones. Perhaps he is actually aware of this fact that there are other alternatives that, while different, would still be democracies — and his remark was only meant to reflect upon what he considers as a “true democracy.” This in fact sounds likely, as it appears to be a view that is widely shared among the Estonian politicians of different stripes — and that has some rather important implications. But more about that later.

Robert Dahl, one of the foremost contemporary political scientists and experts of democracy, has mused as follows:

Democracy has been discussed off and on for about twenty-five hundred years, enough time to provide a tidy set of ideas about democracy on which everyone, or nearly everyone, could agree. For better or worse, that is not the case.

Thus I will (wisely, as I believe) steer clear of trying to settle the issue right here and now, and instead propose a somewhat different approach, borrowed from a recent book by Frank Hendriks. When we talk about democracy, it is a good idea to simultaneously keep in mind two different dimensions that relate to power as it is vested in the society. First of those would be a question of “who makes decisions?” Clearly, the issue is not as simple as to be neatly answered by “the people,” as “people” can mean different things. Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament, is not “people.” Those 101 men and women who assemble there are representatives of the people, and thus Estonia is a representative democracy. However, this is not the only way how people can rule, as there are ways of non-representative rule that would nonetheless be considered as democratic — and, as many people would insist, perhaps more democratic — than Riigikogu. This will give us an axis that has representative (or, in other words, indirect) democracy at one end and self-governing (or direct) democracy at the other.

On the other hand, we will do well to also consider another question, namely “how are decisions made?” There are clearly ways of deciding that are not democratic — but there are also different ways of deciding democratically. Yes, majority vote can be one of those, but this does not imply that deciding by seeking consensus would be undemocratic. Quite to the contrary — many people would argue that it is in fact more democratic way to come to a decision. If voting is a means by which we choose one alternative from several then consensus is a process of synthesizing many diverse elements. By this token, voting is a game of win and lose, where 50% + 1 majority settles the issue and forces its preference upon the minority, while consensus-based decision-making seeks to accommodate all the different parties and their legitimate concerns.

This all, obviously, merely scratches the surface and is a long way from providing an exhaustive line-up of different democratic options — for instance, in his famous Patterns of Democracy (1999), Arend Lijphart lists in total thirty-six distinct democracies. Besides, in its actual application, democracy almost never appears in a single, “pure” form. Rather, it is always hybridized, a bricolage of different methods and approaches. Thus, if we combine those two axis, we arrive at what could be called a democratic space of possibility, a certain toolbox of different options that are all democratic.

If to look at the toolbox above, Estonian democracy (as representative and majoritarian) would clearly fall into upper left. Swiss democracy, however, relies on a combination of voter democracy (by the way of regular and frequent referendums that are direct and majoritarian) and consensus democracy (at the canton-level integrative decision process). Consensus democracy is also the modus operandi of EU parliamentary politics. Americans elect their president by direct majority vote — and I trust it would be difficult to argue that the Estonian way (where the president is elected by proportional representation of political parties) is somehow more democratic. #OccupyWallStreet would be an example of participatory democracy, which is also closely related to the general idea of “deliberative democracy” as it has recently been championed by Jürgen Habermas, among others. And so on.

In the end it bears to keep in mind that democracy is means rather than an end in itself, and thus it would serve us well to look at it precisely as a conceptual toolbox of different choices that can (and should) be combined. It also means that where-ever we, as a society, may at present find ourselves within that space of possibility, we should always remain open to other options within that broad space — and thus critical towards any views that argue for any single “pure” and “true” model of democracy. There simply is no such thing, any more than one could argue that a hammer is a true tool while the saw is not. All those different options have their own particular strengths and weaknesses, and while it is probably true that there may be perfectly good reasons to choose certain ones over the others at a particular time, place and situation, this should not lead us to hold that other choices are somehow inherently un- or sub-democratic.

And this leads me back to Jaak Allik’s unfortunate remark. I am quite sure that he has, in fact, heard of a thing called direct democracy. He certainly knows that Estonian constitution was adopted by the way of referendum. So what gives?

I have a nagging suspicion that the view of true democracy being necessarily representative and majoritarian belies a curious ambivalence that Estonian politicians all across the political spectrum (and up to the president) have towards “the people” as a political subject. On one hand, they all romanticize the notion of the Estonian nation awaking in 1988 and singing themselves to freedom. It was, as pretty much all the Estonian politicians publicly maintain, a true grassroots popular revolution that ended the occupation and brought Estonia the freedom that it deserved. However, now that we are free, the prevailing opinion seems to be that people should work rather than try to do politics — apart from showing up at voting booths every few years in order to tick a box, or perhaps declaring an allegiance to a political party by paying one’s membership dues. This, I believe, belies a view expressed in 1940s by Joseph Schumpeter, that “politicians are simply the response to the fact that the electoral mass is incapable of action other than a stampede.”

I would dearly hope that one of those days the people would prove them wrong.

Of course, my friend was right. And this is the reason why today’s demonstration in Tallinn in support of #occupywallstreet ended up looking akin to something that you’d get if you crossed Salvador Dali with Aki Kaurismäki.

At around noon there was a sparse crowd in the middle of the Freedom Square, with about perhaps 20% of it being made up by reporters and cameramen from all the major media companies. Most of the people seemed rather unsure about why exactly they were there, apart from the fact that it had something to do with Swedish banks and Estonian government, and the general sense of impending doom. After a brief introduction the first speaker to have the stage was Ivar Raig (a well-known Euro-skeptic) who made a token reference to #ows and then proceeded to explain how Estonia’s participation in the EFSF is €2,000 out of every Estonian pocket and thus unconstitutional. After this entirely unsurprising if still otherwise relatively sane speech, an older gentlemen took the stage in order to read out aloud his manifesto “to all the people of the world” that started innocently enough but somehow got to the point where the speaker was advocating for an international effort to “discover the speed exceeding that of the speed of light” (apparently possible under some obscure formula by Albert Einstein) that would enable the mankind to colonize inhabitable planets elsewhere in our galaxy once our Earthly resources get depleted in next couple of decades. At that point his microphone was turned off and the next speaker stepped up — and suffice to say that it only went downhill from there. Finally at around 2pm another gentleman concluded the meeting with words to the tune that “we are here not to start a revolution rather than draw attention to the fact that Europe is reeling to the left and everywhere one looks there is moral relativism and the decay of traditional family values.”

The whole travesty was of course particularly tragic in the context of what is going on in NY right now, which I have been following rather closely. Sure, there must be people at Zuccotti Park too who think that our salvation lies in faster-than-light space travel, but in general #occupywallstreet raises some extremely interesting questions about the nature and legitimacy of representative democracy in today’s world. It is basically the first time after 1968 when there is a real, tangible effort to try something new, something that resists (or at least tries to resist) being absorbed into partisan politics — on this there is an interesting recent article by Bernard E. Harcourt in NY Times. This is Žižek’s proverbial “third pill” that rejects both trying to “fix the capitalism” (something that apparently rather few people outside the G20 meeting in Paris deem possible or even desirable) or struggle against it on its own terms (in a form of “list of political demands” that could then be voted upon).

In order to keep up with what is going on, I have recently been reading at a rather ferocious pace, catching up on a lot of stuff that I had long planned to read, such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Gramsci, and on to Negri, Virno, Ranciére, Laclau, Mouffe, Callinicos, Žižek and Graeber — all pretty radical fare, and absolutely fascinating. I even read Lenin this week, for the first time in my life as far as I can remember . I am still working it all through, and I won’t get into it here anyway, lest this post turn into a multi-part essay.

On a related note — a local daily paper has asked me to write them something and a couple of days ago I told them that okay, I will write an essay on radical democracy and resistance in the style of a travelogue à la Tocqueville’s De la démocratie en Amérique if they buy me a return ticket to New York, so that I can go and live this thing for a week at Zuccotti Park. Although the initial response was rather enthusiastic, the next day I received a response that their editor-in-chief had figured €600 being too much for them to dish out for that sort of a thing. I am almost tempted to go and write the thing on my own — but then again, the said editor-in-chief (name withheld to protect the innocent) was probably right in judging that this is a topic that would really interest very few people in Estonia, most of whom I suppose I know personally anyway.

In connection with the Occupy Wall Street movement, a friend pointed out what is apparently a recent piece of news from JPMorgan Chase:

JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple. The money will pay for 1,000 new patrol car laptops, as well as security monitoring software in the NYPD’s main data center.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon a note expressing “profound gratitude” for the company’s donation.

“These officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe,” Dimon said. “We’re incredibly proud to help them build this program and let them know how much we value their hard work.”

This is of course more than a little ironic considering the recent mass arrest of more than 700 people on Brooklyn Bridge.

Incidentally, I am currently reading Direct Action by David Graeber, and I must say that it is truly eye-opening — a very good, sophisticated, in-depth and intelligent account of contemporary activism. If you think Occupy Wall Street is just a bunch of hapless loonies with nothing better to do than camp in a park and eventually get roughed up by police, then this is the book you really should read. Or if wading through 600 page ethnography is not your cup of tea, you may try this article instead.

Well, it ain’t love, that’s for sure. That much physicists and economists agree upon.

When I entered Tartu University in my young and tender years to be taught the intricacies of finance it was the first fundamental point to learn and remember that without money the world would grind to a halt. The whole world, as we were supposed to see, was a giant market, brimming with proverbial hungry cobblers and barefoot bakers who would be reduced to barter their way around lest there be a wonderful invention known as money. For us future bankers, investors and other assorted financiers, this was an undisputed and universal fact about the world, it was the way how the world is, a fundamental category like “energy” must be for students of physics. And indeed, in finance — and perhaps in economics at large — the universal existence of money is something most people simply assume. If pressed, they would probably concede that there must have been times and places where money did not exist, but this was only because it was not yet discovered. This way money is seen much like electricity (which is a fundamental, primordial form of energy, waiting to be harnessed), rather than, say, an internet (which is a particular human creation).

This view of affairs has gone nowhere from the economics departments of the universities and is well alive and kicking also in the public discourse, as exemplified by books such as Niall Ferguson’s 2008 book The Ascent of Money. Suffice to say that I am personally less than convinced about Ferguson’s bold claim that “the ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man,” at least in the rather narrow sense of money as a medium, measure, standard and store of the underlying financial value of everything. In fact I have now already for a few years thought of teaching a sort of deconstructivist and comparative course on money as a broad social phenomenon, but recently a book came out that appears to have pretty much beat me to it. There’s a teaser interview with David Graeber on nakedcapitalism.com where he discusses some of the principal points of Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I think I can now just skip the idea of course and point people towards the book.

As an interesting follow-up note on this — the above interview apparently caught the attention of Robert P. Murphy at the von Mises Institute who, quite predictably, felt inclined to rush in all guns blazing, and this in turn elicited this highly amusing response by Graeber. It is not short, but very much worth it even for the ethnographic material alone.

Oh, and if we are already on topic, here is an interesting take on one of the unfortunate outcomes of the global war on terror.

Last week I went to see “Kitchen” by Gob Squad, and I came away shocked, amazed, elevated and completely shattered. At one point I realized what is going happen, and thought to myself “wow, this is ingenious.” But I had no idea.

I had no idea how powerful it all will be, that it will be so much more than a really smart way to deconstruct the idea of theater and performance, involve the audience and re-stage a pop culture classic. And so, in the end I was sitting there, dumbstruck and blown away.

This is what Norman Mailer said about Warhol’s movie:

“I think Warhol’s films are historical documents. One hundred years from now they will look at Kitchen and see that incredibly cramped little set, which was indeed a kitchen; maybe it was eight feet wide, maybe it was six feet wide. It was photographed from a middle distance in a long, low medium shot, so it looked even narrower than that. You can see nothing but the kitchen table, the refrigerator, the stove, and the actors. The refrigerator hummed and droned on the sound track. Edie had the sniffles. She had a dreadful cold. She had one of those colds you get spending the long winter in a cold-water flat. The dialogue was dull and bounced off the enamel and plastic surfaces. It was a horror to watch. It captured the essence of every boring, dead day one’s ever had in a city, a time when everything is imbued with the odor of damp washcloths and old drains. I suspect that a hundred years from now people will look at Kitchen and say, ‘Yes, that is the way it was in the late Fifties, early Sixties in America. That’s why they had the war in Vietnam. That’s why the rivers were getting polluted. That’s why there was typological glut. That’s why the horror came down. That’s why the plague was on its way.’ Kitchen shows that better than any other work of that time.”

And by the end of the play, I realized that Warhol had ultimately failed to achieve what he set out to do.

And I realized, that Gob Squad had succeeded.

At first it was partly just me being too lazy to blog – and I had a handy excuse of having to work on my dissertation. Which of course was true – and I did work on that – but in all honesty, writing a post or two now and then is really not that much of a distraction. If anything, it is a useful distraction.

But then, in June, a rather unexpected thing happened. It all began in a perfectly ordinary way: I was asked to deliver a lecture at a workshop for The Band Network session in Tallinn on heroes (which happens to be the topic of my dissertation). It is something that I have done a couple of times before, so I figured that it will take me an afternoon or two to throw some slides together and then talk for a few hours and be done with it. And so it was, by and large, except that the lecture itself ended up considerably longer than what I had intended.

A couple of days later I received an e-mail from the director of the theater where I had given the lecture, who asked if I would be interested in getting involved in the preparation of their upcoming play on Gilgamesh. The initial wording was somewhat vague in terms of what exactly was I expected to do, but when we met a day or two later it became apparent that my task would be to take the epic of Gilgamesh (recently translated into Estonian from the original akkadian cuneiform) and turn it into a play.

Now, all this is more than a little ironic. There used to be a time when I really disliked drama as a genre — and pretty much made this opinion known whenever there was someone who cared to listen. I did go to see a play every now and then, but usually ended up kicking myself for wasting another perfectly good two hours on something I knew I’d end up hating. While I have had to revise this initial stance over the years, I most certainly am no theater enthusiast.

Given all this and the fact that there was pretty much exactly eight weeks left to the premiere I was more than a little hesitant in getting into it — but get into it I did. It would take several posts to give an account of everything that followed in the next two months, but I can certainly say that I could not be happier about that decision. It was a very tough eight weeks, but it was a blast. Of course, if I were to do this all over again I’d do many things differently, but by and large I am very happy with the outcome.

Anyway, now it’s time to get back to my academic heroes.