I Want My Dada!

The first World War was sold as -- and thought to be -- a noble, necessary endeavor that was to end all wars. Soon it became evident that this first-mechanized war was a heartbreakingly horrific slaughter house of epic proportions.

The senseless decimation of virtually all the young men who -- with fervor and patriotism -- eagerly enlisted to "defend" their nation so repelled a group of artists and writers that they felt compelled to question the very meaning and purpose of artistic and cultural values.

Thus the Dada Movement was born. All (so-called) modern thought was called into question. It was reasoned that at that point in history we had become so barbarous that precious human life was chillingly expendable for the most ill-conceived and deceptive purposes.

Today, this is all known too well by many and ignored by just as many more.

When the government and its citizens are in a witting and unwitting dance of death with the media play the tune, I implore, I compel, and I all but beg those in the creative community to once again question and challenge and redefine the purpose of culture and its affect.

I want my Dada!

Comments

[GenericBlogger]

WW1, the Great War as it was known before WW2 was anticipated and some countries were prepared because there was a significant level of political tension in Europe.

On June 28, 1914 a Serbian attended a procession in Sarajevo, raised his pistol and assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne. He unwittingly started a chain of events that led to WW1. Countries nearby and thousands of miles away and across oceans were dragged into this war through alliances mimicking tangled webs. Most countries engaged in this war thinking the war would be over by the end of 1914 and the troops would be home for Christmas. Planners and strategists underestimated the war's duration by about four years. They didn't know or understand the impact and limitations of the mechanized technology, chemical weapons, mixing traditional infantry warfare with mechanized weapons, and having so many countries involved in one war.

WW1 was the first mechanized war but low tech by today's standards. It was the first major war in which tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons were used. Artillery, machine guns, ships and submarines were not new to warfare but their strength and destructive power were unprecedented. Despite the glamorized dog fights, aircraft were primarily used for reconnaissance. The war was prolonged by the stalemate of trench warfare for almost four years. This warfare dominated the conflict because mechanized weapons weren't powerful enough to end trench stalemate till near the end of the war. Tanks eventually helped to break the stalemate but after almost four years and after far too many casualties. The primitive chemical (gas) weapons were not decisive.

WW1 was a bloody costly war of attrition with massive collateral damage. If WW1 was barbarous what was WW2 that had anywhere from 2 to 7 times the casualties of WW1 depending on whose statistics are used?

WW1, the war to end all wars had one very interesting irony. Some historians believe it was the seed for WW2 which should have spawned a more robust Dada Movement. Vietnam inspired artists and musicians. Ironically, seemingly, the Iraq War muffled them.

[nightslider]

your wrong,its not that they are quiet .their muffled by the corporate lackeys that control the media,albeit Disney World,look at the trouncing and outcry that ensued when three young ladies said they were embarrassed to call Bozo their president, and you dont think that sent a message to the artists? perhaps your perspective on reality needs a makeover.
Better yet how about some new lenses for that kalidescope

[GenericBlogger]

Criticizing the Iraq War is like walking on egg shells because the criticism is appropriate to Dubya's administration but not the military. Criticisms must be carefully worded and delivered to avoid criticizing the military. In previous years criticizing Dubya was a no no for many.

Not all artists are employed or managed by corporations. Unfortunately many artists who are employed by corporations are muffled but many who are not are more free to speak but they fear public retribution and rejection of their work. The 350 word limit of the posts kept me from making this point to your satisfaction.

You are referring to the Dixie Chicks. It was sad that they were criticized by many war supporters, their music was banned from radio stations, and many didn't buy their music. For all intents and purposes, they were vindicated during the last Grammy Awards, at least by the music industry and their sales are bouncing back. They may not regain all their lost fans, customers or radio stations but they are regaining respect and making new fans.

What happened to the Dixie Chicks sent a message to other artists and corporations. It didn't stop Sean Penn and Jessica Lange. More speak out now that the fear of lash back is less. I don't expect corporations to open the gates allowing a flood of criticisms to be voiced. The war is still highly controversial. Where is the next Norman Lear to remove the gag from TV?

Many artists are writers, poets, song writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, choreographers, performers, cartoonists, movie directors, and others involved in creative tasks. Not all of them are employed by corporations, many are self employed or part of associations or other organizations. Some depend on government grants for their income. Many are concerned that if they criticize the war, the public won't accept their work.

With all due respect, my perspective on reality is fine even though everyday I learn something new.

Respectfully, I offer two things for your learning experiences. Avoid jumping to conclusions and work on your spelling.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Tanks are the new Maginot line.

They are steel death boxes for US troops in Iraq.

[GenericBlogger]

Humvees not tanks are the Iraq War's Maginot Line.

[Stevelagain]

I agree with TJ, we are no more barbaric or less than the barbarians down through the ages. People are always the same. The written word has helped because it makes it possible to learn more. But then again, there are many "enlightened" among us who are busy rewriting history with a politically correct bias, thus making it impossible to really learn.

A fatal flaw of the left is to push the illusion that we are too enlightened for war and to allow the brutal to expand and to oppress because they see war as worse than, say, genocide. They see a terrorist state like Iran with Nuclear weapons as more desirable than destroying those weapons before they are built.

But in the end the monsters will wind up at your door if you dare not confront them where they live.

[kawika]

Are u for real?

[kawika]

I am a a 100% disabled vet and you just don't get it do you?

[godlessclif]

Do you think Ahmadinejad is the Grendel and Bush is Beowulf? This is the real world. The USA is packing 10,000 warheads not counting the ones in Paducah waiting to be turned into fuel rods.

Less then one percent of those bombs could destroy
the entire planet.

[foolme1ns]

once again, they would not destroy the planet. They would destroy every living thing on the planet, but the planet would survive. A dead hulk, a fitting tomb stone to the stupidity of the "survival of the fittest" notion taken to its ultimate level. It is no longer enough for someone to win, everyone else must lose. Never carrying the thinking far enough to realize that when everyone loses, EVERYONE LOSES!!!!

Some idiots even see some sort of strange glorification in the idea that they can bring about "the end of the world". They believe THEY will be taken up to heaven to live with the most peaceful, most liberal man that ever walked this earth, if only they can kill every living thing on it. RAPTURE!!!!

[MajorKong]

Funny how you guys always manage to find another monster. It's always 1938 and there's always another Hitler on the horizon and anybody who doesn't want to start a preemptive war is Neville Chamberlain.

[4State]

This is madness, typical fearmongering.

Fatal flaw? Too enlightened for war?

The terrorist state right now is flying the stars and stripes.

[TJTelecaster]

Excellent point Richard but the truth is that man is a failed species we are every bit as barbaric as we were 1,000 or 2,000 years ago..

If you really study history nothing has changed in 6,000 years except the ability to kill more people from a greater distance with less effort that is the measure of science..itself..

There is only salvation of the individual but as a species we are doomed failed without divine intervention the 21 st century will be bloodier than any other even the 20th..

Bush and the corporate fascists will begin the blood letting with the attack upon Iran..

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Dadaism may or may not have saved a life, Mr. B, but the sincere request made by you to the players 'on stage' EVERYWHERE to do SOMETHING, ...anything - no matter how trivial it may seem at the time, is most appreciated.

It's long passed time we questioned this seemingly government sponsored 'corporatist barbarism' for its blatant disregard of peace, life, limb, family, community, civilization, environment and SANITY,


...committed in the name of profit$.


Thanks, Mr B.

[frug]

What is left of Dada has been co-opted by the entertainment industry, and rendered trite and tame. In our day, the impact and surrealism of what is broadcast live into our living rooms has trumped any shock or revelatory value that art might have once had. The collapse of the World Trade Center was the most dada moment of our time. A dada of evil, but there we are.

Imagine a corollary of transcendent good or hope and you've got something. When in comes it will probably start out small and under the radar. The "revolution" as we used to say, will not be televised.

[darker]

Dadaism saved more lives and brought more COMMON SENSE than "DOO-DOO" Bush-Fool invasion policies and shoveling out USTaxpayer money to CORRUPT CORPORATE WELFARE QUEENS, pals of Bush-Cheney.

[KarenZipdrive]

Forget my Dada, I want Jenna and Barbara's Dada...arrested and tried as a terrorist and war criminal.

[backhandpath]

TOOOOO FUNNY!!!
Aw, mymymymymymymymy...YES!

[larstein]

in other words - Bong Hits for Jesus beats Don't Taze Me Bro any day of the week.

[backhandpath]

Damn Right, Bro.

He who geteth the first stoned geteth the most beats.

[realitytrumpsbull]

The problem with Dadaism or other 'isms', is
that they tend to not be very bullet-repellent,
and, when the rifle-bearing warmongers descend
on a given community/region/country, if that
country is not prepared to repel such an
invasion, the result is either surrender or
catastrophe, the 'might makes right' approach
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The art of war has advanced and progressed now
to the point where they've got a new ChairFarce
plane with a crew of two, that can wipe out
targets the pilot can't even see, hundreds of miles away. It's got a crew of two, a man and a dog, the man's job is to feed and water the dog, the dog's job is to make sure the man doesn't actually touch any of the controls....
next year they're both jobless and the duty
will be performed by Module TX35G-8L, the
military version of the 'Roomba'...Skynet,
here we come...

[godlessclif]

Ming's robot army, oh no!!!

Are we really going to build man killing automatic
machinery that will track us down and kill us?

Didn't anyone at the Pentagon read Fred Saberhagan's "Beserker" stories. Or the Battlestar
Galactica ripoff of them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayne-lyn-stahl/the-alqaeda-types_b_27194.html?load=1&page=2#comments

[godlessclif]

Someone replying to Jayne Stahl mentioned "Good Life" from the Saberhagan novels. "Good Life" are the people Beserker Robots decide not to kill.

Unfortunately when they close comments you can only read the first page of commnets and not the other pages of comments so I can't find out who it is. The comment page change clicks don't work.

[hrhjuli]

Richard,

Unfortunately, "Dada-esque" wars seem to be inevitable for the United States and the world at large. There are 20-25% of any given population that are "authoritarian followers" according to Conservatives without a Conscience by John Dean.

I am witness to this phenomenon within my own family. My immediate family :mother father sister and brother still support the occupation of Iraq, torture, rendition and any other of the heinous policies of the Bush administration and are immune to any evidence to the contrary. My husband and I, who are Army veterans and part of the peace movement, have given up trying to enlighten as an exercise in futility.

(Aside in reference to Richard's bio : I was born in Bridgeport CT in 1960.)

[rmreddicks]

If you win the heart, the thought, the concern of even one person it's not futile. It is possible to care about people and not simply use them.

[Stranded]

An interesting and provocative idea. What would dada be in a mass-media culture which has taken all the angst and provocateur poses of the original movement and stripped them of their art-oriented, socio-political ideas?

I grew to adulthood as an artist inspired by the ideals of dada, but thirty years later I feel alienated by the very thing I stood for. You can find dada everywhere in our culture now. South Park, Jackass, the list goes on and on. There's a commercial running now for Starburst candies in which a whale vomits on two guys. Vomit equals yummy? Hmmm. What's happening here?

Some would say that corporate media have co-opted dada. I tend to think that it's just taken the need for attention to its illogical conclusions. Irreverence is the norm now. The media and corporate myth-makers have found that chaos and irony breed discontent and confusion, stoking the fires of callousness and disregard for order and self-worth, thereby making people want to soothe their alienation through... war...Jackass...yummy candies. It seems to me that the most radical art we could introduce now would be whatever the opposite of irony is. To me dada's original intent was to decry the loss of ethics and order, in a world where the mass culture still pretended to believe in them. In the looking glass culture of today, restoring order (in the zen sense, not the National Socialist sense) would be the most profound knock on the head possible.

[John]

Excellent analysis. Now that you mention it, I also see the Dadaism everywhere. From SlimJim commercials to Vampire movies like the Blade series, to ultra-violent video games and all manner of bizarre video shorts on YouTube.

[rmreddicks]

Kinda' good. But I wonder about the "ideals of dada"? The idea seems a bit counterintuitive? The "anal-ysis' overwrought? All good on the head knocking bit outside of restoring order. Who's order? Mine might be kind of amusing. I'm kind of tired of these rich folks order.

[TheIndependenceParty]

I fear that Dadaism at its most powerful, has never saved a single life. But at its best perhaps it has saved a mind, or perhaps many. And once that first mind was saved, ... and then had found the second saved mind, ... then there was hope. And when they spoke together and shared their hope, other minds were saved. But Hope is not a wildfire, ... it barely survives the dark and damp at the end of each day.

And so it is that we fan it at the dawn, in simple faith that darkness will not become the lasting legacy of our kind. We must laugh with one another, smile at death, and pass our understandings as if those simple batons of thought could save the world. In the end, the mind and heart of Mankind may guide It away from self-destruction, but it is laughter that presses them forward to go on. Amid the most terrible moments in Human History, it is the smile that encouraged Man to believe there was a future at all!

[protagonia]

A mind saved is well along the way to being a life saved.

The sane invent ways to rescue themselves from the mad.

[Annisee]

Those are beautiful words, The Independence Party, thank you!

[falgiano]

the horrors that we've seen in the Iraq war (and probably even worse horrors that remain hidden from the light) have led to a decline in hope nationally, and possibly globally.

i can honestly say that the revelations of torture, lawlessness, and endless suffering in Iraq have pretty well put me off the thought of ever having children. i don't believe in the human race sometimes and that is a very sad position to be in.

i make art to keep myself alive, but it is from a place of great mourning.

[researcher]

capitalism especially unchecked capitalism has ingrained into American society greed and selfish behavior, which now shows its face as imperialism which is evident in our wars for profits to benefit the few.

imperialism is now part of the American psychic. most Americans are not that upset with all the Iraqis we are killing but that we are losing with on a credit card issued by china.

political structures and economic systems affect a societies behavior. unchecked capitalism benefits the few at the expense of the many.

"A nation that spends more year after year on military offense (and I mean offense) than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death". (Gunnels)

if you don’t think we have arrived at spiritual death yet check out the voting record of the evangels. The love your enemies and taking care of the sick are no longer part of Jesus teachings to an neo con evangel. Do a poll and I bet most of them advocate torture?

This is what happens when you let religion take over governments and worship at the altar of capitalism.

[littleblackcat]

You have identified the beast exactly. Everyone has a chance if the the playing field is level. This does not happen often. Even if it did, there will always be someone taller, faster, stronger, than someone else and before you know it, that one has been able to amass more than the weaker, shorter, and slower. Not everyone gets the breaks of good fortune. This should not be viewed that they are less deserving. You will always have the lazy, the crooked, and the shiftless and they should not gain at the expense of someone else, but no one should be allowed to prevent someone rising through hard work. What we have in this country now is capitalism gone berserk, with those in fortunate positions making damned sure no one is going to gain a share of anything.

[Doofus]

If I've got this right, there was WW1,
the most horrible of all wars ever, which
spawned the 'DaDa Movement'. Then, a few
years later, there was WW2, the most horrible
of all wars ever. (We've tried to surpass that
record ever since, but without success, yet.)

Either this was a reaction to 'DaDa', or it
would seem 'art' is of very little import in
the day-to-day activities of mankind.

[joebaggadonuts]

Aha, the limits of reason.