I was very intrigued by the question in Butler’s chapter Precarious Life:

“Have the humanities undermined themselves with all their relativism and questioning and ‘critique’, or have the humanities been undermined by all those who oppose all that relativism and questioning and ‘critique’? (Butler 129)”

She answers this question at the end of the chapter after talking about humanization and dehumanization mechanisms:

“If the humanities has a future as cultural criticism, and cultural criticism has a task at the present moment, it is no doubt to return us to the human where we do not expect to find it, in its frailty and at the limits of its capacity to make sense. We would have to interrogate the emergence and vanishing of the human at the limits of what we can know, what we can hear, what we can see, what we can sense. This might prompt us, affectively to reinvigorate the intellectual projects of critique, of questioning, of coming to understand the difficulties and demands of cultural translation and dissent, and to create a sense of the public in which oppositional voices are not feared, degraded or dismissed, but valued for the instigation to a sensate democracy they occasionally perform.” (Butler 151)

In order to shape an environmentally friendly future we need to humanize and listen to all voices, not just the human ones. We need to ‘listen’ to the plants and animals and analyze their struggles for survival in a world that becomes ever more precarious. We also need to listen to each other in the way Butler describes without fearing, degrading or dismissing, but valuing the other voices. Today the humanities seem to be at the forefront of dehumanizing voices that are not in consent with main stream academia. I believe that this is the reason why the humanities have become under so much attack. The humanities could contribute so much to the environmental debate, but only if they remain open to all voices and refrain from categorizing and deflating everyone into the two groups of victims and perpetrators. The current debates in academia are resembling more a chorus of one opinion than a multitude of voices struggling to understand the world. The humanities should represent the voices of the government and of the victims in Japan concerning the accident. They should not dehumanize the Japanese government nor the victims. Only then can a dialogue between the two voices produce a knowledge of the actual needs and conflict solutions.

Throughout the semester we have heard different voices warning us about the future of nuclear energy. We heard from the victims of the two nuclear disasters and we heard from the victims of the atomic bombs. These voices need to be put into dialogue with the voices of pro- nuclear advocates. It is important to hear their voices as well and to try to understand what seems to be impossible to understand. I would have loved to listen to an interview with a pro-nuclear government official, being questioned about what he/she plans on doing with the nuclear waste. The credibility and strength of an argument comes from testing it against counter arguments. This is what need to happen more with the anti-nuclear movement, especially in Japan. I believe that the humanities should encourage public debates in Japan about the pros and cons of nuclear energy with all valid questions being ask from both side to each other.

There are also very many voices that are speaking about the future of our earth and it is the job of the humanities to place the different ideas and ideologies into dialogue with each other. This way the important questions are being looked at and tried to be answered. If we shut out the voices that we deem irrelevant we might miss important contributions towards the common cause of saving our planet.

Going forward I want to consider this responsibility the humanities have to let all voices be heard and whenever I will write something to include as many voices as possible on the topic.

Bibliography

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, 2004.      Print.

Let’s Join TEPCO!, sung by Barakan, is based on Takada Wataru’s 1969 anti-war song Let’s Join the Self-Defense Force, but that one was based on Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger’s song Andorra.

The song starts out with Barakan inviting the audience to join TEPCO, just like the anti-war song invites everyone to join the Self-Defense Force. But at the same time, it sounds like an invitation to a paradise vacation. The image shown during the first line “Everyone in the audience, does anyone want to work for TEPCO?” is that of Las Vegas in the 1960s as a place where people went to watch nuclear testing. This sets the tone for the song as a mockery of all the promises of TEPCO about how nuclear energy is the solution to all of our problems. Throughout the movie there are pictures of soldiers looking at a nuclear mushroom cloud. I believe that the song is trying to connect nuclear energy and disaster to war with these images, because it contrasts these images with the image of the stamp that says “Atoms for Peace”. The stamp is shown twice in the song and it accompanies the lyrics “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”, which sounds like a call to war. This is just one example of how contradictions are used as irony and a wake-up call in the song.

Another example of this type of contradiction can be seen when Barakan sings “We’ve got everything you want!”. During that line an image of a Chernobyl liquidator crew is shown and reminds us of what terrible gruesome deaths many of these poor men awaited. I think the line has a dual meaning: On one hand it is reminding us of a commercial line for a luxury vacation spot, but on the other hand it is implying that when working at TEPCO you will get what you don’t want: Disease caused by Plutonium and Uranium radiation. These two are listed in the line before.

The song has a lot of religious references as a mockery of the propaganda acting like silly religious promises that TEPCO cannot deliver. One example is the refrain line: “All the real men are coming to die for TEPCO like flowers that bloom and fall to earth”. It could be referencing the Bible in which Jesus promised that God will take care of you even more so than of the flowers of the field that bloom one day are gone the next day (Matthew 6: 28-30). Another religious reference is the refrain line “It’s like heaven on earth”. This could be referencing the Bible as well. In the “Our Father in Heaven” Prayer, the most known Christian prayer, the plead to God is to let his kingdom and will come “as it is in heaven on earth”. The song is mocking TEPCO leaders acting like gods that promise heaven on earth with the nuclear energy, but they cannot perform miracles and they are not almighty which are qualities you need in order to make nuclear energy a “heavenly gift”. You would need to be able to make the waste disappear and also the radiation after an accident. You would also be able to be in complete control of the nuclear reaction which is definitely something humans are not. The line that follows immediately says: “All those who support nuclear power, please assemble under the reactor.” The song here is mocking supporters of nuclear power as worshippers of it. The lines are accompanied by an image of the Chernobyl memorial of the liquidators in front of the sarcophagus and an image of the inside of the reactor cells. Both images are referring to idolizing something. The image of the inside of the reactor cells is kind of eerie and other-worldly in the way they glow in this mysterious blue light. When the song invites to “assemble”, which is a word that is used very commonly for religious gatherings, the audience imagines a religious service with people worshipping the inside of the reactor.

Barakan mocks the lies of TEPCO in another part of the song as well. When the line “Plutonium is not really so scary” is being sung, an anime character is shown wearing a green helmet and drinking a green drink (see image). This character is from a propaganda video for children and the song is mocking it. According to Matthew Penney, “the 1993 video Our Reliable Friend Pluto was produced by the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation, a group associated with the Japanese government. In it, a cute cartoon stand-in for radioactive element plutonium tells children that not a single case of cancer can be traced to him and that he is even safe to drink!” The expression “Plutonium is not really so scary” is child talk. You talk to children like this when you want to comfort them and say something like “See, now that wasn’t so scary, was it?”. I believe it references to how the government and the nuclear industry treat the citizens: They are little stupid kids that can easily be convinced that there is nothing ‘scary’ about nuclear energy. You can see this propaganda video with English subtitles on http://www.evilyoshida.com/thread-11110.html.

There are many more examples of the contradictions and mockery in the song, but I was only able to point out a few. The melody chosen originates from another mockery song that makes fun of the ridiculous defense budget of Andorra. Pete Seeger sings that he wants to go to Andorra, because it is such an amazing place. And then he makes fun of everything that is wrong with Andorra. This theme is picked up by Barakan, setting a light-hearted melody to a mockery. I believe that music like this is needed very much to express the irony and mockery that many citizens feel in Japan and around the world.

Works cited

Penney, Matthew. “Songs for Fukushima.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (1970). May 2019. <https://apjjf.org/site/view/4672>.

We are living in a time, where it often feels as if we are being presented with recycled culture, often in forms of re-makes or remixes. Younger generations are often unaware of the re-make/remix status of various media that they consume and even if they are aware of some factors, they are almost never aware of the entire story. Jay Z and Mr. Hudson’s Young Forever (2009) is a splendid example of this. Few who were not old enough to remember Alphaville’s Forever Young (1984) could have ever imagined that Young Forever took the chorus and ‘hook’ from an 80’s group. Even fewer could imagine that Alphaville is actually a German group whose lyrics “evoked images of nuclear destruction defiantly singing, ‘Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while/Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies/Hoping for the best but expecting the worst/Are you gonna drop the bomb or not’” (Klimke and Stapane [my printed version doesn’t have page numbers]), but this is indeed the truth as outlined in Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s. Although keeping the exact same chorus and song text, that Klimke and Stapane indicated as ‘evoking images of nuclear destruction, Jay Z and Mr. Hudson’s version loses what the Alphaville version aimed to accomplish.

Clearly 2009 was drastically different than 1984. This is especially true when considering the lack of East-West Cold War tension and the threat of the ‘bomb.’ With that being said, however, some of the goals that activists, including musicians, set out to achieve during the 80s are still left largely unfinished and in some instances in much worse conditions than they were in the past. One aspect that is certainly left unfinished and that many would say is in a worse position now than it was then is the environment.  Jay Z and Mr. Hudson could have used their sampling to further a similar ‘anti-nuclear’ message to contemporary listeners, but decided to send their track in an entirely different direction from Alphaville’s and send a ‘live in the moment’ or ‘yolo’ type message with their track. At first glace, a Jay Z track about any kind of nuclear agenda seems unlikely. However, it is not all that uncommon to see rappers go outside of their ‘traditional’ zones. For example, Lil Dicky, who is known for rapping about lighter themes, like saving money, recently released Earth (2019) as a clear move to raise awareness about human impact on earth.

Even though Jay Z could have taken a more active stance in Young Forever, his and Mr. Hudson’s sampling represents something that is lacking in Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s (or at least chapter five). This lacking refers to misinterpretations of music. Klimke and Stapane point out some strong arguments for how a variety of artists used their music to promote political messages. Young Forever takes the heart of Forever Young, quoting the exact same text that Klimke and Stapane highlight as critical to their evoking of images of nuclear destruction and gives the text an entirely different meaning just 25 years after its original publication. This is only one example of a text gaining a different meaning other than its intention. There are many musical texts that come to mind, like the Beastie Boys Fight for your Right (1986) and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA (1984), both of which were received in different, almost opposite ways, than originally intended. Fight for your Right was intended to mock partying, but to this day remains a party anthem, while Born in the USA was meant to be a critique of the US/living situation of the main character, but quickly became seen as one of the ultimate American songs. Although the songs mentioned by Klimke and Stapane certainly sent the messages that they mentioned and were received by the audience, there is also the chance that the message could be altered as in the case of Young Forever or not received by the general public as in the case of Fight for your Right and Born to Run.

Works Cited:

Klimke, Martin and Laura Stapane. “From Artists from Peace to the Green Caterpillar”. Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fears, and the Cold War of the 1980s, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Manabe Noriko’s The Revolution Will Not be Televised examines the initial and continuing pro-nuclear messaging in the aftermaths of the 3/11 Tōhoku Triple Disaster from the government, TEPCO, and broader media. Strict control of the radio, television, and news outlets along with increasingly strict laws mean those speaking against TEPCO, the government, or critiquing nuclear power grapple with personal, social, and financial risk. Such restrictive pressures as well as cultural expectations of social ease pushed anti-nuclear organizing, cultural production, and information sharing out of shared physical space and into online platforms. Manabe shows how the movement between physical and digital space is always in flux – an artist may share an anti-nuclear song/performance on YouTube, which may be played by individuals in public space (collectively like the Frying Dutchman’s Human Error parade or individually), cycling back to online discussions and then to public performances. Space and power are both physical and digital, embedded with architectures and resisted in place and online.

Manabe thinks with Henri Lefebvre’s concept of a spatial triad, a frame for how spaces, particularly urban spaces, are shaped over time by the interlocking dependencies of 1) quotidian daily practices of people in the space, 2) the idealized images of how the space could and should work, and 3) the representation of the space such as planning models, policies, and advertisements. Lefebvre understands space as a product shaped by the interests of the powerful. The interests and practices of the powerful are then mediated to the masses through consumption of media, through sponsored public performances and events, radio, festivals. Yet, physical spaces are not simply ideals and representations of power relationships, but are reshaped and remade by the daily routines, activities, and claiming of place by the people who reside within it. One can simply look at the paved sidewalks and the unpaved but well trod foot-paths to see this shaping and reshaping; the planned and the lived experience.

Similarly, while reading and listening to the artists Manabe highlights as engaged in this process of negotiation of who owns the space, who gets to speak in this space, who can transgress demarcations of ‘private’ and ‘public’ spaces, I remembered the 2014 Bustle article Vancouver’s RainCity Housing innovative Bench Shelters  and London’s anti-homeless spikes. Both architectures readily expand to the ideals and desires of those influencing public space, to the representations of city life in such space, and the use of the space. London’s (and Washington D.C.’s) spikes discourage leaning against buildings, sitting under windows, seeking shelter; whereas the RainCity bench-shelters unfold to offer light protection from the elements and an address and phone number for housing assistance. Manabe, discussing risks for anti-nuclear musicians,  highlights similar management of physical urban space by the Japanese government – such as limiting demonstrations to a single lane, wide-parameters of ‘interference of public employee’ (bumping into someone) for arrest and detention, mid-performance arrests, barricades, and limited to no mainstream media attention (24). Lefebvre underscores while there are top-down visions and representations of a space , these visions are locked into histories and realities of the physical and experimental uses of the space, the lived-in space.

David Harvey expands these interlocked negotiations of space into realms beyond the physical space, including mental and emotional space layered within and alongside the physical. Representations of space have substantial role and influence in the production of space – meaning, as Harvey extends Lefebvre – that spaces ‘intervene’ through construction, through architecture (London’s anti-homeless architecture vs RainCity’s shelter project). These representational contexts and textures do not vanish in the symbolic or imaginary realms, rather are guidelines for how ‘thought’ becomes ‘action’ in that space. Manabe shows how the affordances of the internet – with the myriad networking, information sharing, and musical production platforms – offered Japanese musicians and citizens an alternative place to identify and analyze the visioning and representational architectures offered by the Japanese government. The ability to asynchronously and anonymously gather and share information and experiences fosters a community networked together online, which occasionally emerges collectively and co-located in physical space in the form of anti-nuclear festivals and demonstrations.

Manabe details Lefebvre’s spatial triad is present within digital spaces – lived inequalities in physical space can translate to unequal access, either in limited data plans, access to mobile phones or computers, and quality of internet connections. The physical architectures of digital access shape how users can find and connect with online communities; social norms and expectations of behavior align to the representations of space. Manabe notes that a significant percentage of Japanese Twitter users do not share their real names or personal identification – more direct and frank critique and conversation happen on Twitter than Facebook, which required a real name and seeks to digitally connect users to their in-person networks. Manabe is careful to underscore that power relationships are not completely re-made online; anonymous online identities are not fully anonymous – careful measures are taken by artists and activists to distance themselves from online persona in real-life to protect family, jobs, and social and financial standings. She highlights the ‘visioning space’ online can be co-opted and formed by activists within the digital space, but online spaces are not completely free of the top-down visioning that often occurs in urban spaces by elites and governments. Lefebvre’s spatial triad with the attending contest and representations, the marking and re-marking of who speaks, for what causes, and when are in ongoing negotiation. Manabe shows the spaces that shape organizing and critique has fundamentally changed from physical co-located place to distributed digital space, however the power relations embedded within place and place-making have not.