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2. Its Only a Game Show

What type of world does the conservative inhabit? What planet

are these people on? ThinkBig Brother.

Lets imagine we are contestants on the show or, better still, in

the Big Brother house itself, playing the game along with the

rest of them. What do we know? Firstly, this is not real. Everyone

admits, even before they arrive on set (and make no mistake this

is a purpose-built set in a television studio, not a house

requisitioned for the show) that its a wholly artificial situation.

The house has bedrooms, a spacious kitchen-cum-lounge-diner, a

garden in fact, all the amenities typical of a luxury apartment inthe ubiquitous Ikea style. It looks like a real house even if it isnt

remotely.

Then, of course, there are the housemates themselves. What

planets are they from? We know nothing about them. However,

we can safely say that, in the ten seconds since we arrived, these

are the last people on earth we would ever dream of socializing

with, let alone choose to have as friends. With their cosmetic

smiles and fake tans they look so awkward and vulnerable, like a

batch of beauty queens parachuted into a war zone. Do we really

look like them? At this point it suddenly dawns on us that the

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reason behind their panicked expressions is that they too have

only just set eyes on us. In the first few moments of being thrust

into an unfamiliar social environment group psychology takes

over; we instinctively strive for equilibrium, a happy medium of

socially acceptable behaviour (which may of course vary widely

from one situation to the next). Communication at this stage of

the proceedings is phatic, or in other words meaningless.

Hello and What do you do for a living? are not expressions

of genuine interest in us as individuals, they are merely being

employed so as to establish social contact, as well as to burn up

precious time. After all, everyone knows how embarrassing and

unwelcome breakdowns in communication can be, especially TV

producers.

Once equilibrium is established more complex behaviour patterns

begin to surface. People drop their guard and personalities

emerge. Alliances, if not genuine friendships, are formed between

housemates, for ultimately we cannot forget that this is not just a

game, its a competition. And as with all personality contests or

beauty pageants the most popular contestants come to the fore not

by virtue of individual merit but through structural opposition.

The world of the game show is one in which the talents of any

one contestant are set off against those of all the rest. The winner

is the one who manages to avoidbeing eliminated. Rest assured

s/he wont end up as the most popular housemate, but the least

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unpopularamongst us. The fact that someone will win is always

conditioned by the fact that someone else wont. For there to be

winners there must first be losers. Not only could there be no

winners without losers, winning would make no sense without

them. Losers make winners what they are.

Of course in the world of Big Brother nobody likes to admit any

of this. It may be something we suspect deep down (we all know

were losers really), but none of us would ever dream of

admitting it. Nobody appreciates being called a loser, even and

especially if its the truth. The longer we remain in this place with

a bunch of frankly unappealing strangers, the more we need to

bite our lip and bide our time. Clearly we have to watch what we

say here and to whom, since one word out of place and theequilibrium is lost and were back to where we started, all of us

pretending again, trying to avoid that horrible feeling of mutual

revulsion and antagonism. In this situation communication is key

and we must be sure to use it to our advantage.

But is there a gap between what people are saying and what they

really think? We suspect as much and there is no getting away

from it. Even during the frankest of exchanges, or in those

intimate, boozed-up revelations to a trusted confidant in the early

hours of the morning, there is, at the back (or front) of our minds,

the lingering question of whether this person is for real, or just

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having us on. Are they on the make? Is s/he telling us this

because s/he needs to get it off her/his chest, or is it simply what

s/he wants us to hear?

At least the internaldynamic of the Big Brother experience feels

like therapy. The set resembles an asylum: it has one common

dormitory. There is nothing remotely intrusive about this since

its intended to socialize the patients, to make them confront

their issues and get to know one another. Group therapy

involves discipline and communal responsibility. This is not to

say the house is a prison, at least not from the inside. Although

there is a fairly strict regime and (apparently) a set of rules

governing it all, our enjoyment is not forbidden, its positively

encouraged. In any case none of us are forced to be here and arefree to leave at any time. We are outpatients in this sense.

All in all, then, there is no reason to suspect the other housemates

oftotaldishonesty towards us. In the world of Big Brother we

assume that everyone has a breaking point, a natural threshold for

boredom, anger and hostility and that any of us, no matter how

together we might feel, can be pushed over the edge at any

time: this is simply what makes us human. We all have our

demons, even if some of us are more practised at keeping them in

check than others. But what about Big Brother itself? Isnt

there a degree of disingenuousness, if not exactly dishonesty,

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about its role in all of this. This faceless bisexual counselor

who monitors our behaviour day and night never reveals its

human side, either in the figure of an actual person or a genuine

personality. While s/he knows everything about us we know next

to nothing about him/her. In fact, given that Big Brothers

surveillance of the house knows no bounds it would seem that, in

reality, there is never a time when we could safely drop our guard

in the presence of others. How could we ever afford to if we are

always being watched? Wouldnt those intimate moments be

exposed by Big Brother as false or manipulative? Obviously they

might have involved genuine acts of human emotion, but if we

know we are being watched then isnt there always the risk that

our actions might appearfake?

This is the major challenge of being a contestant on this show.

Even when were being serious Big Brother confronts us with our

own superficiality. But surely the point is this: we know our own

selves better than Big Brother ever could. Big Brother onlysees

what we say and do, it cant look inside our minds. This is true up

to a point. It is a conservative world we are living in, but its still

liberal enough to enable us to think and do as we please, with the

emphasis on thinking, since the freedom of thought is the bedrock

of Western liberal democracy (as long as its done in private). But

what does privacy mean here? Does it mean when no one else

is looking? And if it does then how could we hope to think

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anything that Big Brother isnt party to? What does thinking

really amount to in a world like this apart from the attempt to

prevent Big Brother from recording whats going through our

minds? We may very well assume that no one has the power to

determine what we think, since thinking is a private act. But in

here onepracticalfalse move is enough to give the game away

and expose us for what we really are.

There is, however, a sense in which these reservations may be

completely misguided. After all, the title of this chapter presents

us with a somewhat different interpretation of things: namely, if

its only a game show then why should we care? Why should it

matter what we really think or equally what our housemates

think of us if, ultimately, we can never really tell? If ourthoughts and attitudes (at least in the house) are completely

conditioned through our attempts to avoid revealing them to Big

Brother then why bother? Wouldnt it be better to adopt a much

less paranoid, more ironic attitude that made no attempt to

conceal anything from anybody else? This might involve

discussing openly who in the house we hate, deliberately

contradicting ourselves, and generally behaving in an

unpredictable and highly irresponsible manner.

Irony, we are led to believe, perfectly suits our postmodern

condition. Postmodern irony makes a mockery out of everyone. It

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shows up the inherent stupidity and meaninglessness of our lives

through encouraging us to loosen up, lose our inhibitions and stop

worrying: life is short, so enjoy it while you can! Your wife ran

off with another man? Look on the bright side: at least she didnt

elope with another woman! On second thoughts, shame I couldnt

have been there to watch. Perhaps shell come back when she

gets fed up with him if youre really unlucky, that is Is this

postmodern approach enough to convince us that our world isnt

so bad after all? It may not have our best interests at heart but

then again who does? Rather than trying to win the competition

outright wouldnt it make a lot more sense in the circumstances

just to be ourselves, which in circumstances such as these

would amount to going with the flow or wherever the mood takes

us? The difficulty in following this advice is its inherentduplicity. In other words it exempts itself from its own advice.

How could we take advice from someone for Big Brother

isnt any one person, remember who makes a mockery out of all

principles and a principle out of all mockery?

Joking aside, lets assume for arguments sake that every world

has rules that need to be observed and that Big Brother, in being

part of ours, is no exception. Basically, the world is made up of

contradictions, but that doesnt mean it has to descend into chaos

and anarchy. Big Brother encourages us to let our hair down, but

not too much. No one could seriously contemplate could we?

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murdering one of the other housemates, or forming a religious

sect that involved sado-masochistic rituals and human sacrifice,

even if the postmodern attitude, with its celebration of irreverence

and the inherently meaningless, makes light of such things. Not

only would such behaviour not endear us to Big Brother itself, it

would in all likelihood alienate the viewing audience, those good

people on the outside looking in. Common sense demands that we

should always observe the bounds of taste and decency even if

occasionally those bounds are stretched. However meaningless

life becomes there are always other people to consider; not

forgetting above all the programmes sponsors.

All this is typical of conservatives, including those self-styled

liberals who wax lyrical about the enormous benefits offreedom and liberal democracy. Big Brother gives us the

freedom to say or do whatever we like as long as whatever we say

or do meets with its own standards of communication. If we

refused to communicate properly then we really would be

threatening the future of the game. Our world wouldnt exactly

collapse. But it would become uninhabitable. Big Brother makes

little secret of the fact that the game we are playing is

meaningless. But we should all play along, not because it forces

us to, but because the alternative to playing the game i.e. not

playing is unthinkable. Winston Churchill once said that our

conservative world wasnt the best of all possible ones, it was

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simply the least bad. Even if we dont believe in its values we

should respect them for fear of making the world a lot worse than

it already is.

Communication, then, lies at the heart of the matter. As the

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, the limits

of my language are the limits of my world. Language whether

by language we mean conscious or unconscious thoughts,

dreams, verbal or non-verbal, phatic or written communication

is what we share as a community, what separates us from mere

animals, and serves to keep us all sane. Even the crazed

delusions of the schizophrenic patient require a language of sorts.

He may be communicating in a world of his own, he may be

living in a dream world, but nothing is so meaningless as toescape the attentions of Big Brother even if it makes no

apparent sense to the rest of us. Ultimately, we all exist in worlds

of our own, even if they arent exactly the ones we choose to

inhabit. This is how Big Brother operates in the final analysis,

treating each contestant as an individual patient and respecting his

or her right to confidentiality by not divulging privileged

information to the rest of the house.

But if language forms the limits of our world, and therefore what

we can ever hope to think or do inside the house, what happens

at the endof the game? Quite obviously getting to the end is the

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ultimate object of the game. In which case the object would

appear to be to outlast the terms of the game, or to beat Big

Brother at its own game. In this case we may have good reason to

assume that there is indeed life beyond Big Brother, or at least

that there exists another world outside the house. But if

Wittgenstein is right then how could there possibly be anything

beyond? The beyond, that assumedly mystical realm outside

all common sense and understanding, is still within our linguistic

powers to define, and so must still form part of our world. In

other words, there is no getting out of the house, even for the

winner.

Consider the following example. The film Cube (1997) tells the

story of six total strangers who one day find themselves quiteinexplicably locked inside a giant metal cube. The cube is

composed of a finite number of smaller, symmetrical cubes, each

one connected to the next on each of its six sides by

interconnecting passageways. No one can recall how s/he got

there. The point of the game, given the fact that everyone wants

to escape, is to find the cube that leads to the outside, doing

everything and anything in their combined powers to achieve this

end. There must be a world outside, or at least it must be possible

within the rules of the game (which emerge during the course

of the game itself) for at least one of them to find a way out.

Ultimately, however, this theory turns out to have been a total

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delusion. At the very end of the film it emerges, for the winner,

that the reality that was assumed to exist on the outside of the

cube in actual fact doesnt. Whether it was permanently lost in

the interim or never really existed in the first place is left unclear.

However, what it confirms is what (at least one of) the players

suspected all along: namely, there is no way out.

Are we destined to remain inside the house forever? We already

know that playing the game is the best possible option, even if we

remain convinced that we wont win, or if we dont particularly

care who wins. But it now seems as though Big Brother has been

playing a much more devious game than it appeared to be at first.

Playing the game just for the sake of it i.e. without any

pretensions of actually winning is one thing. But playing thegame forever is quite another. As contestants we assumed there

would be an end to all this. Now we learn that when we

eventually depart the house we are still effectively in it. But

how do we know this for sure? Obviously it remains largely a

suspicion until were actuallyout there, but there are plenty of

clues that would appear to confirm it in the meantime. For

example, Big Brother quite obviously isnt playing in thespiritof

the game. Granted, it changes the rules from time to time, which

it justifies by saying that since they are Big Brothers rules it is

entitled to alter them. The only problem is it doesnt appear to be

following them. For example, allowing evicted housemates to

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reenter the house is quite clearly a breach of its own rules. It

would therefore appear that there are two sets of rules in

operation here: the ones Big Brother intends on the one hand, and

those it chooses not to observe on the other.

If there are certain rules for some and certain rules for the rest

then it doesnt bode well for life on the outside. What is to

prevent Big Brother from making us play another game once we

leave, from putting us into another house with a bunch of even

more contemptible halfwits? We may have entered into a contract

with Big Brother stipulating our contractual obligations and

frivolously signing away our civil rights. But that was only on the

understanding that once we get out of here we were more or less

guaranteed to reap the rewards of our hard-won celebrity. For allwe know Big Brother is quite capable of disregarding that

contract completely, in which case we wont ever be able to

escape the dreaded couch.

Then again, perhaps there is another possibility. Is it not possible

that Big Brother, in its infinite wisdom, might see fit to bring the

whole world to an end? Not just the game, but all future games?

Is it not conceivable that Big Brother could set us free not just by

making the rules of the game null and void, but by making itself

null and void as well? Perhaps we can imagine a time when Big

Brother is finally put beyond a joke, a point at which it no longer

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defines the rules of the game, any game, owing to the complete

non-existence of anything resembling a coherent language. Such

a point would amount to a kind of media and cultural desert

where the game really would be point-less, not so much for lack

of players, but for lack of viewers. The problem with this

proposition, however, is that in imagining such a world it is

difficult to see how anything else could exist in its place,

including ourselves. As we have noted already, Big Brother

doesnt infringe upon our personalities, it reveals them in us. By

making us feel like the objects of its all-seeing eye it confronts us

with those impressions of ourselves which tell us more than we

already knew. Furthermore, Big Brother is concealed behind all

the mirrors in the house that constantly display our image to all

and sundry, even behind our backs. There is no getting away fromit (them). Break all the mirrors and we ourselves break into pieces

as well; without the specular images that the media provide we

would cease to exist.

In light of all this it would appear that we are the game. We

havent been forced into this and were not being kept in here

against our will so to suggest that Big Brother is preventing us

from leaving is to ignore the very conditions under which we

originally entered the house. We have to be reasonable. It is us

who help to set the conditions under which we play the game. It

might not seem that way at times, but think of it this way: if we

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dont take responsibility for our own behaviour then why should

Big Brother? Dont we only have ourselves to blame if we choose

to behave like a bunch of caged monkeys and Big Brother

responds by adapting the rules of the game? Granted, Big Brother

may be trying deliberately to provoke us into such puerile

displays in order to justify imposing unduly punitive measures on

the house. But why should we help morally to justify this kind of

exploitation by reinforcing our own stereotypes in the eyes of the

world?

We respect Big Brother because it and its game are the very

reason for our being here. We cant think or do without the

attention. But by the same token Big Brother is not God. We

might respect it, but we dont have to believe in it. Big Brotherhas shown its willingness to try our patience and act in bad faith.

Consequently we dont put our faith in it. How could a two-faced

despot command our blind devotion? Given that there could

never be any proof of what lies beyond the house we remain

agnostic about what will happen to us once we actually walk out

of here. No one leaves and comes back in to tell the tale, although

some do have a sort of near death experience whereby they

appear to leave the house but in reality dont. Rumour has it there

are others who, having left the house, come to inhabit a

netherworld, a world of the living-dead, a place which isnt quite

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in the house and isnt quite outside it either. But we tend to treat

such stories with a healthy dose of skepticism.

What would appear to be beyond dispute is that the winner is not

the only one who gets out of here. In that sense we are all

winners. In fact, never mind getting out, simply managing to get

in here must qualify us for some sort of prize. Perhaps we have

already achieved the object of the game without even knowing it.

Then again there may well be another possibility: namely, that if

the game doesnt necessarily begin when we think it does then

how can we be sure that the game has even yet begun? And how

could we everbe sure? Perhaps the game is about trying to find

out what the game is about, or whether the game really exists. Or

whether in a world like this the idea of a real game makes anysense at all.

3. True Faith

We live at the time of the Roman Empire. It is a time of great

tyranny and persecution, not least of our own community.

Somewhere over the horizon the Empire wages its wars whilst

here, in our own land, it rules by imposing its laws and foreign

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customs. Power corrupts absolutely: not only is the Empires

belligerent takeover of culture and society unjust but there are

even those among us who seek to profit from the occupation.

Such are the hypocritical Pharisees who claim to be enlightened

men but in actual fact are only interested in their own material

gain. With their pious double standards they are all show. They

are no good collaborators who worship false gods: money,

glamour and fame.

In this world there are two types of (pseudo-)thinkers or would-be

theorists: hypocrites, of whom we have already mentioned, and

experts. Let us consider each of them in turn.

The hypocrite, we have said, is a careful manipulator of his ownimage, giving the outwardimpression that he is a pious man

when in fact he is a ruthless social climber. Everything he does is

geared towards convincing other people that he is something he is

not. But arent we all hypocrites when it comes down to it?

Arent we all guilty of trying to pass ourselves off as model

citizens, people who the rest of the community should look up to

and aspire to be like? Surely society needs role models, in which

case the hypocrite, for all his faults, is merely filling the gap in

the market? Not quite. Admittedly we must resist the temptation

to criticize the hypocrite under false pretences. We must be wary

not to allow our sense of anger and resentment toward him to be

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transformed into jealousy, or of sounding like spurned hypocrites,

for that really would be the height of hypocrisy. On the other

hand we are quite right to condemn the hypocrites position, for

this is someone who in occupying it partakes of its privileges

through perpetuating the myth, not merely of his own identity,

but of the position itself.

The hypocrite is a civil servant or public relations man. His job

is to serve the wider interests of the community and so he sets

himself up as the official spokesperson or medium between us,

the people, and God, or what we might call thespiritof the

community. The hypocrite glories in this role. However, since he

has no genuine belief in the community that he represents, the

interests in question remain completely beyond his sphere ofinfluence or understanding. The hypocrite is a professional

communicatorwho aims to convince us that he is providing a

great service and putting on a great show but ultimately his own

vanity is all he manages to promote. He wrestles with signs and

spends ages trying to predict the public mood and exploit existing

trends, or at least to be the first on the scene as soon as a miracle

is reported; all the better, no doubt, to tell us what it all means.

The hypocrite is an obsessive socio-cultural commentator

effectively divorced from the rest of the community for whom the

sanctimonious waffle of a self-righteous man will always fall on

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deaf ears, especially for those true believers that have already

seen the light.

In reality the hypocrite does the community a dreadful disservice.

This is a time crying out for answers. In view of the endless

degradation of our culture and ideas by the occupying power, and

of our civic leaders and cultural ambassadors repeatedly selling

out to their imperial paymasters, the question we must devote

ourselves to is this: how can we best serve the wider interests of

the community? How can we rediscover through our work the

true spirit of our age whilst standing firm against the hypocrites

of this world?

This brings us to the expert, whose primary concern is with theintellectual part of her practice, regardless of whether the

intelligence in question is scientific or artistic in nature. The

expert doesnt speak on behalf of any community and so avoids

leaving herself open to bribery and corruption. Unlike the

hypocrite she doesnt draw a veil over her own ignorance since

true knowledge isnt hers to possess. The expert works on behalf

of truth. Her task is to be its custodian, the person placed between

it and us. But doesnt this custodianship resemble all too closely

the role of the hypocrite in the way he claims to work in the wider

interests of the community? The key difference between the

hypocrite and the expert is that while the hypocrite indulges in all

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sorts of obscurantism the expert aims for the consistent exposition

of truth. The hypocrite makes a great show of his own wisdom

in public while simultaneously working behind the scenes to deny

its potential benefits to the rest of us; he isnt so much a

defender of the faith as he is its paid mercenary. By complete

contrast the experts overriding concern is with weeding out such

(pseudo-)mysticism and the superstitions that cling to pure

thought. The expert is an experimenter and a producer of

concepts. Whether or not this demands a modicum of faith is

perhaps debatable, although what is undeniable is that expertise is

always more than a mere matter of faith.

Striving for truth demands an intellectual discipline on the part of

the artist or scientist that has nothing to do with publicexhibitions, promotions or manifestos. Whether or not the truth

actually emerges in the process is not a cause for debate. Indeed,

the whole point of the process is to eliminate all debate from the

intellectuals mind, to create a blank canvass where creation can

begin, not exactly from nothing, but under experimental

conditions purged of all interference from third parties. Art and

science are both disciplines that the expert follows to the letter.

These, then, are the two types of theorists in our world. Both

claim to hold the monopoly on truth. For us, however, theory

must follow an altogether different path. For although the

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hypocrite and the expert are strongly divided in theory, they face

exactly the same problem in practice: namely, they both work for

the Empire. He who imagines the world in which he works and

the world in which he thinks to be separate realms is only

deluding himself. It is vain nonsense to believe that one can work

for the spirit of the community or greater good without serving

the interests of Empire. This is the great evil of Empire: instead of

ruling by mere force of arms it introduces conflict into the

community which then proceeds to spread like the plague. The

people become their own worst enemies, fighting between

themselves, brother against brother, in an effort to win favour

with the real enemy. Then, from the midst of conflict, the

hypocrite arrives on the scene.

Having found favour as a spiritual medium a power broker

masquerading as a wise man capable of healing the wounds of

hatred and resentment the hypocrite turns our attention away

from what is really happening on the ground and claims to be in

touch with a higher reality: Behold! he declares, I have been

given a sign. The hypocrite claims to be Gods own messenger,

the only one capable of interpreting the word of God. He claims

to have had a dream, and that all we need do to make it a reality is

to take heed of what he says and follow his example. The dream

is a metaphor. In other words, we arent meant to take it literally.

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However, if we manage to get the message then we too can make

it to the Promised Land; we can make heaven a place on earth.

The hypocrite is a semiotician. What is semiotics? Semiotics is

the science of signs and their meanings. According to this

science, language can be studied as a system. In order to

understand how and why language operates we first need to

distinguish speech, or the spoken words of individuals, from the

standard language itself. In more technical terms this is often

referred to as the distinction between la parole (speech) and la

langue (the language-system). In order to express oneself through

speech there must first be a language to govern what it is possible

to say. Clearly speech must conform to the rules of language. But

this is not a question of memorizing the meaning of individualwords (often referred to as acquiring a vocabulary). It is a

question of recognizing the differences between signs.

For the semiotician the entire language-system is made up of

signs. Furthermore, each sign is composed of two related aspects.

Take the sign cat. On the one hand it is asignifier, a word that

signifies or indicates a meaning distinct from itself. There is no

natural link between the animal in question and the word that

stands for it; or at least one might imagine another word having

been used in its place (indeed, the French language has chat, the

GermanKatze, and even English has moggy). Therefore the

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relation between the signifier and the thing in question is said to

be arbitrary. In other words a signifier signifies the thing by

means of cultural association. This is its signified meaning.

For the semiotician difference is the key term. Language is a

system of differences without positive content. This doesnt

simply mean that each signifier is distinct from every other one,

although this is clearly the case. Its more important implication is

that cat gains its meaning by virtue of its difference from bat

rather than from any natural association the word might have with

the small feline mammal itself. Cat means a cat because it is

notbat; and so too with car and bar; bike and pike,

and so on. Language is nothing without positive content

without difference. Imagine a huge net: its holes are there byvirtue of the gaps in-between. Each hole is meaningful because

it is kept in place by the next one, which is kept in place by the

next, which is kept in place by the next, and so on. These

differences or holes extend right down to the level of phonemes,

which are the basic building blocks of our language. We might

say that the holes in language make up the system of language as

a whole.

The signifier cat is composed of three phonemic sounds: /c/, /a/

and /t/. Replace the /c/ sound with a /b/ sound and one has bat

instead of cat. Linguistically speaking this really is the only

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difference between them. Not only that but since language and

not the individuals who use it generates meaning the only

meaning of cat that makes sense to us is the one that differs

from bat. Not only is our individual expression ruled by

language (for there is nothing we could say that language doesnt

allow us to), language makes it meaningless. Unless we follow

the rules, unless we conform to the system of language, then we

have no place to speak at all. In other words, break the rules and

the semiotician, this hypocrite priest, will accuse us of speaking

in tongues.

The semiotician is therefore the man of holy language, for whom

reality is wholly language. He sees his role as one of putting the

community back in touch with reality, his reality, which he doesby excluding anything which doesnt make sense or appears to be

in danger of falling through the holes (but isnt this rather

difficult?). The problem, however, is that since we live in an

Empire of signs things are forced to make sense. We, the people,

are quite literally given no say in the matter. The imperial culture

and media are alien to us, produced by hypocrites, those bogus

men of faith, for an ideal community that only exists in their

imagination. Their television programmes might make sense to

them when theyre being made but as far as were concerned they

might as well be in different language. In which case the

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hypocrite represents the true meaning of the word: namely, he

who says one thing and means something entirely different.

But what about the expert? Does she avoid partaking of this type

of hypocrisy? To begin with the expert is not a great

communicator. Scientists and especially artists are not renowned

for their ability to get their message over to the public, to put their

understanding into words. They work largely in isolation, which

means that it gets left up to us to interpret their works in whatever

way we see fit. Artists dont have great faith in the system (of

language). Nevertheless, despite her intimate expertise ultimately

she too is a hypocrite, for in cutting herself off from the rest of

the community she merely invites misunderstanding and

misrepresentation. Of course, the artist stands by her work, shewill always defend its right to exist. But in leaving it up to us to

determine its significance she might as well deny that she had any

hand in actually producing it. Creative competence then becomes

creative genius; she ends up giving us the impression that shes a

miracle worker, or at least an exceptional talent, in touch with

strange forces and unknown powers that the rest of us cant hope

to understand. But lets not pretend. We know exactly what these

forces are. They are the forces of Empire. As for the expert she

is nothing but an extreme hypocrite.

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We have said already that we must find our way as theorists

between these two extremes. How can we manage it?By refusing

to work for the Empire. Let us not delude ourselves as to the real

meaning of this word which is also The Word. Empire insists on

the wisdom of words. Communication, it would have us believe,

is the lifeblood of every community, seemingly so important as to

make little difference whatwe say so long as we keep on trying to

get the message through. What we end up with is so-called mass

communication in which the clamour to be heard is positively

encouraged despite the fact in trying to say something new we

merely end up repeating ourselves. All this suits our imperial

masters perfectly well, for it leads to the misapprehension that

Empire is a practical necessity for achieving the same ends, i.e.

communication, when in fact it has become the very means forfrustrating the possibility of any greater good; any positive

content. Empire perpetuates the lie that everyone is a born

communicator and a natural producer. The work we do is justified

on the grounds that we are laying the foundations for future

civilizations, when in actual fact all we are doing is shoring up

the shaky legitimacy of Empire. In the process of reproducing this

legitimacy, work becomes a metaphor for life: namely, there is no

practical alternative to earning a living, to setting an example

through the quality and integrity of ones work, for producing

works that can stand the test of time and that mean something

(that are timeless). The result of this is that the question of

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theory becomes deferred until the afterlife, to a time of post-

production (which is meaningless) and of reflection (which is

self-indulgent). The overall impression of theory is therefore one

of spiritual decay and imperial decline, which of course must be

resisted at all costs.

But what alternative is there to practice and work? There is none.

One should never think of theory as an alternative. We have

already seen how alternative theories misrepresent the true

nature of theory. The theorists task is not to debate the pros and

cons of his discipline. He is not out tojustify theory. But surely

his task is to promote it? Certainly not, for to do so would require

the communication that so misrepresents theory and makes its

theorists out to be hypocrites. Nor should the theorist placerestrictions on who can do theory based on some arbitrary

classification of theorists and practitioners. Rather than

safeguarding the integrity of theory this would only succeed in

turning theory into a second rate or inferior form of practice, a

minority theory separated from real work by virtue of it being

surplus to requirements. This is the mistake made repeatedly by

self-styled avant-garde artists who convince themselves that

their conceptual experiments are too intellectually demanding for

the mainstream. They are painfully misguided. The art world is in

the business of overturning conservatism; this is what it does.

Rather than lamenting its own minority status the avant-garde

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would be well advised to stop whining and find itself a better

agent.

It must be clear by now that what passes for wisdom in this world

is nothing of the kind, and is in no position to define the uses one

can make of theory. How could an Empire that itself has no use

for theory, that only values people inasmuch as they produce, and

condemns the rest of us to a life of passive consumption, make an

informed judgement as to the role and extent of theory in society

anyway? This brings us to the crux of the matter. The antagonism

that supposedly exists between theory and practice is a lie put

about by Empire in an effort to prevent the community from

realizing the true rewards of theory. What can the theorists do

about this? In terms of taking on Empire, nothing whatsoever. Inany case the Empire is not the true enemy, for if it were this

would prevent us from ever embracing its supporters as partners

in theory. The enemy is our own ignorance of theory, which

assumes the dual guise of the hypocrite and the expert, both of

whom will theory for the sake of their own material gain. In terms

of addressing this ignorance the task before us is to combat the

hypocrisy and expertise at work in our own understanding of

theory. How might we do this?

The answer comes in the form of intellectual emancipation. This

is not about elevating our minds to the level of philosophers but

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of bringing theory down from its ivory tower to our level,

whatever our level might be. There is certainly no preexisting

standard of intellectual attainment in theory. The idea of a

lowering or a drop in standards as is often said of students failing

to pass an examination, or of the dumbing down of a school

syllabus, has nothing whatsoever to do with being a good theorist.

We resist categorically this type of intellectual snobbery and old

school elitism where theory is concerned, which in any case is not

a bar we have to hurdle in order to make the grade. Equally we

must not venerate the theorist himself, treating him like a genius

whose intelligence can rub off on us if we adopt his style of

thinking. If anything we should even mistrust what the theorist

says for theorys sake, for theory is not something one ever takes

complete possession of. Each of us must instead set out to thinkto the best of his or her ability. However, one thing is certain:

there are no specialists in theory, no theory worthy of the name

that can resist the demands of non-expert thinkers, for the

freedom of theory is the freedom from intellectual domination

and the masters of theory. Theory is an exercise in equality.

Nothing and no one are excluded from it.

The task of theory is to bring about a world that is equal to its

understanding. This might sound a bit like going round in circles;

then again, instead of thinking theory in opposition to practice the

point is to extendtheory into areas otherwise reserved for

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practice. The prohibition on theorists from becoming involved in

technical or pure practice highlights the self-imposed ignorance

of practitioners not only in theory but in terms of their own

practice. Crucially, the ignorance isself-imposedwhich means

that although the Empire profits from the imaginary division of

theory and practice the practitioner is the one responsible for

actually implementing it orputtingit into practice. But couldnt

the same be said of our own theory? Dont we as theorists share

the blame for this division since without theory it would be

unthinkable? Yes. Practitioners may be responsible for

misunderstandings in their own discipline but they are certainly

not responsible for misunderstandings in theory. With this in

mind we must begin to take responsibility for preaching the

virtues of theory rather than victimising or criticising practitionersfor mistakes which have as much to do with us as they have to do

with them. In effect the practitioner is simply a theorist who

has yet to understand the relevance of his own discipline for

theory. He is the one who practices in the dark. The theorist must

lead him into the light.

The Noisetheorynoise conference held at Middlesex University,

UK in March 2004 draws attention to the imaginary division of

labour between theory and practice. Shannon and Weaver, whose

information theory provides the historical basis for media and

communication studies, define noise as a distortion of meaning,

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or any signal not intended by an information source on its journey

from transmitter to receiver. The static interference on a

telephone line is the classic example of such noise. However, for

the organizers of this conference noise is not simply a practical

problem to be ironed out by technical support staff. For example,

in relation to music, noise is not non-music. Instead, Noise is

an unmapped continent in comparison with which everything we

recognize as music remains a parochial backwater. Ordinarily

the theorists task is to define the bounds of good taste in music,

whilst the practitioner concentrates on making music that meets

with these conventions (of pitch, chord progression, tonal scale,

etc.). However, we could argue that this adds very little to our

appreciation of either music or noise, and simply defends the

status quo in music from which Empire profits. On the otherhand, if theory were to rethink the bounds of good taste in music

to include rather than exclude noise, it is possible that our

appreciation of music could not only be enhanced, but also

theoretically transformed. For example, noise might suddenly

yield new time signatures and new rhythms; it might lead to a

reassessment of the physical limitations of the human voice, or to

the redefinition of the type of sounds it can make. It may even

lead to a new cerebral type of music that isnt a product of

musical instruments so much as a redefinition of sound itself.

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The classical composer John Cage is the most well known

experimenter in the limits of sound. His most (in)famous work,

entitled 4'33", is a silent piece in which no actual music is

performed for a duration of four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

Isnt this just a facetious intellectual joke? How could such

music ever be composed? Isnt it ridiculous to gather an

orchestra together on stage simply in ordernotto make music?

Perhaps the answers to these questions (which are open questions,

and raise many more questions than we can provide answers to

here) depend on the type of expectations we have about how

music should be performed, and what we expect to hear when it

is, rather than on the possibility of listening to non-music. Must

every musical work be performed? Is live performance always the

criterion of real music? Clearly electronic music, composed andpre-recorded entirely on synthesizers, involves minimal input

from human beings, at least when performed on stage. And

there are many sounds in our environment including undefined

background noise that involve melodies of sorts, even if they

arent actually composed. Might not the rejection of John Cages

work result from narrow-minded, anti-theoretical assumptions

about what music is and how it stands in relation to noise?

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