Edelstein2002a

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Sylvre Lotringer, theorist andfounding editor of the magazineSemiotext(e), passed commentthat the upcoming Semiotext(e)anthology, titled Hatred of

Capitalism, was to be delayedfollowing the events ofSeptember 11. Log asked LeoEdelstein, co-editor ofPataphysics magazine, if hewould interview Lotringer aboutthis curious situation.

Jack Smith suggested the title Hatredof Capitalism in an interview you didwith him. What made you decide touse it as a title for the Semiotext(e)anthology?

Its a long story. Chris [Kraus] and Ihave talked about it for years, but itsonly recently that we decided topublish an anthology of Semiotext(e),both theory and fiction. I was opposedto it at first, because these kinds ofthings often look like a first-classfuneral. Hurry up, please. Its time.But now that we missed all thesignificant deadlinesthe 20th and25th anniversaries are over and the

30th will fall in the year 2004werefree to go ahead. This is a good timebecause no one expects it. Andactually it marks a new departure:were moving the distribution to MITPress, and we have a lots of thingsgoing on.

And then theres Jack Smith, theunderground filmmaker and directorof Flaming Creatures. Thats where itall began, at least as far as I amconcerned. The interview I made withhim (its in the book too) wassomething very special, and not justby its weirdness. Meeting himintroduced me very early on, in themid-70s, to the New York artworld asit existed then, a mixture of crazinessand creativity, anarchism, paranoia,immediacy, flashing insights,everything I was discovering at thetime in the US, by bits and pieces, inartists and writers like John Cage orWilliam Burroughs. That was quite a

leap from academe, where everythingis rationalized to death. Jack Smith

was the first to give me a sense ofwhat being an artist is about. Heimmediately warned me against theFrench obsession with language. I cantell, he said, that you somehow got

hung up on the issue of language.Forget it. Its thinking... If I could thinkof a thought that has never beenthought of before, the language willfall into place in the most fantasticway, but the thought is whats goingto do it. For a semiotician, it was arough lesson, but it worked. The waySemiotext(e) handled theory has a lotto do with that. Using theory to think,to look around you, not to get lost init. The funny thing is that Jack himselfdidnt follow up on his own

suggestion. He was repelled by thetitle Semiotext(e) and urged me to callit instead: Hatred of Capitalism. Butwhen I offered to give this title to ourdialogue, he backed off and called it:Uncle Fishhook and the Sacred BabyPoo Poo of Art. I dont blame him. Itwas more fun, and it was about hisown work. Uncle Fishhook was thename he gave Jonas Mekas, nowdirector of the Film AnthologyArchives in New York, whom he

accused of having ripped off his film.This fantasy of persecution became amajor obsession after FlamingCreatures was censored for obscenity,ending his career.

In any case the title Hatred ofCapitalism remained available, and weused it for the anthology. Its a bitmore abstract, but it serves itspurpose. We both liked it because itwas such a crazy and nave idea. Jackbelieved that if you put an explicit title

on something implicit, that was almostenough. You had to be more and morespecific about what youre thinking.This applies as well to the kind ofwriting that Chris introduced later on,in the late 80s, with the first-personfiction of the Native Agents seriesshe created. No one realizes howmuch one should hate capitalism.Someone had to say it.

What did Jack Smith object to most incapitalism?


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He hated its ugliness, its insane wasteand what he called his pastycheerfulness. The idea that you haveto be happy all the time. From that tohatred, I must say, it was quite a leap

and I wasnt exactly crazy about itmyself. Hatred isnt what I strive for.In a sense it was the opposite of whatwe were trying to achieve withSemiotext(e). But then Jacks hatredwasnt blind or destructivenothingto do with the callousness andfanaticism of Osama Bin Laden. It wasa rejection of everything that reducedlife to a shoddy business. Jack was justlonging for a more communal life, fora celebration of beauty in everydaythings. Capitalism (Uncle Fishhook)

had reduced him to a reclusive,paranoid position, and he decided tomake explicit what had happened tohim because it was paradigmatic ofcapitalist society as a whole. He casthimself as a victim, of course, andkept whining that he was doing thedirty job, cleaning Augias toilets.Nobody wants to open a can ofworms, he said, but thats the thingthat has been handed for me to do. Infact hatred had become the source of

his creative energy, a way of existingas an artist, of bringing out constantlynew material for his work. Hesucceeded in turning his life into apermanent performance that beliedthe cynicism of life in late capitalism.It allowed him to turn his defeat intostrength, making of his internalcollapse a prodigious entry into whatwas happening outside. You cant stopan artist from being an artist and iflove or money wont do, then hatredcould do it. It did it for him.

Does hatred do it to you?

We took it more ironically, of course.Another funny thing was Baudrillardsreaction to our project: he complainedthat the title of the anthology was old-fashioned. Well, thats the least youcould say. It was untimely, inNietzsches sense. It was meant to bea wake up call. A challenge to thinkthings through. No one could haveclaimed such a title at this pointnot even us! But precisely: trying too

hard to be fashionable in a capitalistsociety is just courting waste. Youalways have to be a bit ahead ofthings, and a bit off, if you want toexist in real time. The title isnt

representative at all of the texts weanthologized (Chris did most of thework), except in one respect: it ispolemical. This is what Chris said ofthe Native Agents fictions, but thisholds true to the theory as well. Theyall address the readers and they dontlet them go before theyre made tothink for themselves. None of thesetexts wallow in the pastycheerfulness that Jack Smith hated somuch. Ulrike Meinhof would be theclosest in the anthology to be

polemical in the etymological sensepolemos means being at war.But the Red Army Faction ended upplaying the terrorist game and theonly one that ever wins that game isthe state. Bush Jr. and co. are theperfect example of that. Osama BinLaden was, literally, a godsend forthem. They couldnt have dreamt ofanything better than this massiveterror to impose massively their ownorder on a local and global scale. And

this no one would dare say it rightnow in America. The cold brutality ofthe attack, the thousands of livescrushed to the ground, the gapinghole at the heart of Manhattan,nothing can justify thatbut takingadvantage of the situation withunabashed cynicism and bullying thewhole world into a righteous and ill-defined crusade is not acceptableeither. Deleuze and Guattari saw itvery early on: capitalism is at oncecynical and pious. Theres nothing

more hateful than that combination.

So the title wasnt just ironical. Youactually stand behind it.

We wanted our reference to bepolitical and in some senseunacceptable. We chose the title:Communists Like Us for Guattari andNegris book for the same reason afterthe collapse of the Soviet Union. Whowould have wanted to be a communistthen? So I thought it was the righttime to reclaim it. In a sense the


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communist idea (not its reality) hadnever been thought through. It wascorrupted from the start by dictatureinside and capitalism outside, the twoworking hand to hand to keep the lid

on. The cold war was some kind of adeath dance and we all had to watchour steps. Hating capitalism seemslike a luxury at this point becausewhat else is there? But accepting thatas a fact already is playing thecapitalist game: cynicism by day andnew age by night. Its Dr. Jekyll andMr. Hyde. Jack Smith kept repeating: Ineed something to hate. Something isbetter than nothing, and this is whatwere finally left with in this society ofplenty. Everything for nothing. At least

hate is a strong passion, and mostother affects are just special effects ofthe system. Love, sex, fame, fortune,all pre-cooked, all heavily tamperedwith. You have to hang on tosomething if you want to goanywhere. But where is there to go?Most people I know live in the hope ofhaving their picture in the obituary ofthe New York Times. Not even thefamous five minutes of fame in yourlifetimea few lines in a trashcan.

Hatred can make you think, but reallyits thinking that counts, not hatred.Celine is full of hatred, but it is not hishatred thats admirable, its hiswriting. I wish the title could havebeen in French instead of in English, itwould have come closer to what wehad in mind. In Haine du capitalisme,the du works both ways: hatred isinherent to capitalism. What isdefinitely hateful about it is the hatredthat it secretes: hatred of life reducedto meaninglessness.

Where were you when the U.S. wasattacked and how did the immediateaftermath affect your relation toSemiotext(e) anthology?

I was in Los Angeles. I was woken upearly in the morning and rushed tosee images of the towers in flame onTV. I thought it was an hoax, a re-make of Orson Wells War of theWorlds. I found the anchors ratherlame and the whole showunconvincing. Then my daughter

called in panic from New York and itdawned on me that the unbelievablehad happened. William Burroughstalked about an outrage of that sort inthe late 70s, a low-yield A-bomb

exploding in lower Manhattan but toexperience it even at a distance is adifferent thing. I regretted not beingwith my friends in New York. The wayeveryone reacted to the disaster, thecollective spirit they demonstrated,was truly admirable.

September 11 was something else.After we caught our breath, westarted worrying about the book. Thetitle was no longer old-fashioned andhumorous, it was glued to this horribleevent. What should we do? Osama BinLaden had stolen our title. My friend inHollywood, Michael Oblowicz, a rock-video director, swore that everyone inthe industry adored him. They foundOsama glamorous and really sexywith this cute AK-47 as a backdropand his gentle smile. He had becomean instant star. I really started hatingthat guy. We didnt exactly symbolizeAmerican arrogance and might, likethe World Trade Center and the

Pentagon, so why is he doing this tous? You couldnt even be undergroundand be well left alone. Now the entiremedia was rabidly attacking us. Iturned on to CNN and I couldntbelieve my eyes. They hate us, adebater said. They hate our way oflife. And then a writer from theNational Review said: They hatecapitalismand suddenly I saw thewriting on the wall...

The title Hatred of Capitalism was

not exactly meant to be a crowd-pleaser to start with...

No, of course, but I didnt expect it tobe burning hot either. What I had inmy mind was someone young readingour anthology in the crowded NewYork subway, one hand hanging onthe bar, and vaguely embarrassed bywhat people around would think of thetitle. That much I liked. Chris and Iboth got very worked up after

September 11 and decided to changeit. But nothing else seemed to work.


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And then we started seeing The Flagspopping up everywhereon doors,roofs, pick-up trucks, an ocean ofSpangled Banners covering thecontinent, huge advertisements

flapping in the wind, and the medialike hyenas on the scent, blessing Godand America and going for the kill.That made us think again. And so wekept it.

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Edelstein2002a