The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

November 9, 2001


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Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 15:44:58 -0500
From: CTHEORY EDITORS <ctech@alcor.concordia.ca>
To: ctheory@concordia.ca
Subject: Article 47-Japanese Noise Music

 _____________________________________________________________________
 CTHEORY          THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE          VOL 24, NO 3
                       http://www.ctheory.net

 Article 97    11/08/01          Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
 _____________________________________________________________________


 Full With Noise: Theory and Japanese Noise Music
 ================================================


 ~Paul Hegarty~


 1. Scratching the Surface
 -------------------------

 "Full with Noise,..." is about noise music, specifically the version
 that has come to be called Japanese Noise -- itself composed of many
 different strands. The first half deals with the question of noise.
 What is it, whose is it, and how can we think about it. Also, how
 does noise inflect our thinking, rather than being an object; at what
 point does noise lose its noiseness and become meaning, music,
 signification? Or -- is there even a point where noise can subsist?
 Mostly, the text below takes the view that noise is a function of
 not-noise, itself a function of not being noise. Noise is no more
 original than music or meaning, and yet its position is to indicate
 the banished, overcome primordiality, ~and cannot lose this
 'meaning'~. Noise, then, is neither the outside of language nor
 music, nor is it simply categorisable, at some point or other, as
 belonging exclusively to the world of meaning, understanding, truth
 and knowledge. Instead, noise operates as a function of ~differance~.
 If this term is what indicates and is subsequently elided, in/as the
 play of inside and outside (of meaning, truth, language,
 culture....), then we can form another binary with identity on one
 side and ~differance~ on the other, but with this difference - that
 differance is both one term in the binary, and that which is the
 operation of the binary. This is what noise is/does/is not. For James
 Kahn, noise drifts across the binary empirical/abstract, such that
 "when noise itself is being communicated, [...] it no longer remains
 inextricably locked into empiricism but it transformed into an
 abstraction of another noise" [1].  In other words, noise is (taken
 to be) empirical, belonging to the world that is there in itself, a
 world of sounds without conscious sources. When such a view is
 mobilised, by the dadas, the futurists and so on, then noise becomes
 second order: a demonstration of the noise that subsists beyond.

 As Kahn rightly notes, there is no noise without the thought of
 noise, and ideas about sound can therefore "make an audible event
 called noise louder than it might already be" [2] - noises come from
 specific places and specific conceptualisations. At some level, the
 use of noise is a bid (however unwitting) to master it (at least in
 Western modernism), and reduce its quality as noise: "avant-garde
 noise, in other words, both marshals and mutes the noise of the
 other: power is attacked at the expense of the less powerful, and
 society itself is both attacked and reinforced" [3]. This of course
 includes the "actual" others of the Western male - woman and the
 foreign other particularly significant here. For the purposes of this
 essay, it is the use of the exotic other that might be at stake. Kahn
 observes that the early modernists" love of "the primitive" led them
 to (in)appropriate so-called primitive musics, and "thus, the
 grinding sound of power relations are heard here in the way noises
 ~contain~ the other, in both senses of the word" [4].

 Perhaps this is what is going on in trying to theorise Japanese noise
 music, even when rendering this a theoretical agent. Maybe crucial
 cultural elements are missing, leading to presumptions about what is
 being produced, based on underinformed hearing. This may be so. But
 what needs to be added is that if noise is to be noise, then an
 authentic reading (of true meaning) cannot be, cannot take place.
 More importantly, Japanese noise has its roots as much in free jazz,
 experimental rock music and contemporary classical music, as in
 traditional or classical Japanese musics. Part of the "noise" that
 unites highly disparate musics under the banner of noise music is
 precisely a disruption of Western music and its genres.

 Japanese Noise music has existed since the early 1970s, and since the
 late 1980s has been increasingly influential. This essay concentrates
 on the figure seen to epitomise Japanese noise: Merzbow, essentially
 the work of Masami Akita, and even then, only a tiny fraction of his
 output. The second half of the essay, including the conclusion, is an
 attempt to create a Merzbow/theory object -- failing.


 II. Scraped Subjectivity
 ------------------------

 A recent exploratory political document states that "noise is sound
 which has a negative effect on people (unwanted sound)."[5] According
 to C.S. Kerse, noise is "sound which is undesired by the recipient",
 "a sound without musical quality or an unwanted or undesired sound"
 (_The Law Relating to Noise_, 8).  Noise, then is subjective, and
 this is what vexes the Law, which exists, according to Jacques
 Attali, as result of the transformation of noise into music, into a
 regulated system, which heralds all regulated systems, all that comes
 from the buried sacrifice at the origin of society.

 Attali: "Primordially the production of music has as its function the
 creation, legitimation and maintenance of order. Its primary function
 is not to be sought in aesthetics, which is a modern invention, but
 in the effectiveness of its participation in social regulation. Music
 - pleasure in the spectacle of murder, organizer of the simulacrum
 masked beneath festival and transgression - creates order"[7].

 Is noise subjective? Could we not instead say that noise has to do
 with the subject: that which occurs as/at the limit of the subject;
 that which signals an immanence outside of the subject/object divide,
 however reclothed in phenomenology? It would not then be enough to
 say "one person's noise is another's music" in some liberalist
 fantasy - rather we would have to acknowledge the constructedness of
 the "subjectivity of noise".

 Technical books on acoustics often assert that noise is in some way
 biologically coded - 'we' perceive certain sounds as noise because
 the vibrations are too close to the frequencies, rhythms, wavelengths
 of bodily functions. Others are noise because they are too alien.
 This is not totally false, but what is really at stake here are
 discourses which presume that there is an absolute, shared biology,
 layered with personal freedoms of judgement, feeling and so on. Such
 a stratification is also not false, but that does not make it
 natural, nor the specific layering a given: it makes an apparent
 end-result (or beginning-result), where there could simply be process
 [8].

 If we are to listen to noise as music, noise designed as music, noise
 perhaps designed to stay noise, but to be heard in the conditions
 music is listened to, then something must give. Two possible models:
 firstly, learn to live with it - adopt an Adorno pattern (didactic)
 over a Hegel pattern (post-Hegelian, (un)phenomological), unwittingly
 championed by John Cage, and argue that we can, as result of
 listening to noise, rather than hearing it involuntarily, relearn how
 to approach the world and its cultural 'world' (of course, world and
 'world' can be quickly reversed); second model - create a situation
 which exposes the 'noise-afflicted subject' to remain so - through an
 act of sovereignty (something in Bataille that seems to be mastery,
 but undoes itself) consign the subject and its supposedly subordinate
 vessel to chora-ness.

 How to be a body without organs without being a fusion-loving hippie:
 after the schizo, paranoid, hysteric bodies, comes the masochist
 body: retrained and subjected as the last choice of the subject, the
 masochist body is "further" than the schizo body, leaking its
 internal organs, becoming pathway, becoming solid, becoming-becoming.
 The masochist body has the option of losing itself as organism
 through restraint, enclosure, containment (whilst also becoming
 someone else's body without organs, becoming body of the other): "it
 has its sadist or whore sew it up; the eyes, anus, urethra, breasts
 and nose are sewn shut. It has itself strung up to stop the organs
 from working; flayed, as if the organs clung to the skin; sodomized,
 smothered, to make sure everything is sealed tight" [9].  As a result
 we have a version of 'the' body without organs: it "is what remains
 when everything is taken away. What you take away is, very
 specifically, is the [masochist] phantasy, the whole made up of
 significations and subjectifications" [10]. Except that not
 everything has been taken away - the ears remain open.[11] Is this so
 the masochist body can hear instructions? Is this because the body
 without organs is really about listening?[12] It is perhaps that the
 ears constitute 'an' organ that we cannot control, so to leave 'it'
 open is to close the possibility of control through closing - if the
 ears were closed, the masochist would again be in charge of the
 soundworld. The ears become wound.

 A suspicion remains that the unclosed ears maintain a link to the
 world of sense - whilst the ears themselves might constitute a wound,
 it is an enabling wound, one that (like the pain now disallowed as
 warning signal) allows the possibility of processing the world into
 meaning. To block the ears would also instigate a possibility of
 self-awareness as organism, although a sense of panic, if it
 occurred, would be the undoing of this. Even so, the end-result, once
 we consider the ears as hearing device, whether open, closed,
 blocked, unblocked, the body without organs but with ears is a
 naturalised one, one that returns us to a primordial condition (even
 if a primordiality that was not primordial, but becomes that which is
 returned to as if it were primordial).

 The body without organs whose ears are filled with noise, however, is
 more (or, more accurately, less) of a body without organs: the
 noise-filled ear is no longer capable of hearing the voice of reason,
 the warnings of danger, the patterning of sound we somehow have
 always come to believe constitute not-noise. The body without organs
 does not hear or listen to noise, but is (in) the hearing of noise
 that exceeds the body that first lost in the sound of its muffled
 breath, the movement of liquids and gases, the slight panic
 pulse.[13]

 Deleuze and Guattari are right to note that the body without organs
 is about the failure to become: "There is no attaining the Body
 without Organs -- you cannot attain it, you never finish getting to
 it -- it's a limit."[14] The body without organs cannot become
 itself, or anything else, and the way in which this specifically
 cannot happen is through the multiple failure of hearing/ears: its
 mysterious amnesty in _A Thousand Plateaus_, its failure through
 noise to process sense, the failure to stop processing, the failure
 to return to the 'true' body, and the failure that is the return to
 the "true" body (in, for example heightened awareness of the body's
 function -- although even if this were possible, it would constitute
 a forcible intervention in the functioning of the body). The body
 without organs is the failure of completion, the failure of this
 failure (organ resistance). The failure is the process of becoming,
 and becoming-failed is the noise of the attempt to get to the body
 without organs - the supplemental 'place' where it cannot be, where
 only it 'is'.

 Another story of the ear related by Kroker is one in which "the ear
 finally comes into its own. But not the old ear attached to a living
 head".[15] The ear moves into (non)being as a post-masochistic organ
 without a body. But as we have seen, also an organ without a body
 without organs.


 Noise can be seen as structural: in the realm of law, of good
 citizenship, it is "undesired", or "excessive" sound.[16] In the
 realm of Law as that which operates rationality, noise is that which
 has always to be excluded -- the exclusion having always already been
 and (not) gone, in order that the Law exists. This seems to indicate
 noise as a category, like the sublime, of domesticated exclusion. But
 noise can be conceived of as process. For Russolo, "[the timbre of
 noise] is no longer an ~effect~ bound to the causes that produce it
 (motive energy, striking, friction through speed, bumping, and so on)
 owing to and inherent in the purpose of the machine or thing that
 makes the noise",[17] and if noise is process, is always a
 becoming-noise -- or, alternatively, (not) coming into (not) being as
 noise, this exclusion (what we take to be in the exclusion) is undone
 when noise 'is', as noise is the coming-undone of noise/organised
 sound. Most particularly when noise 'is' where it cannot be --
 music.[18]

 Noise also has to contain judgement: it is 'unwanted'. Can noise be
 wanted - clearly that would then define the noise in question as
 not-noise. If we are happy with tautology, we can stay there. Or -
 let us presume that noise is always unwanted as a function of wanting
 (desire, if you must) - it might even be "what you did not know you
 wanted" -- as suggested by Attali, when he writes that new music
 always emerges as noise in what is to become "the old order":
 "despite the death it contains, noise carries order within itself; it
 carries new information";[19] as of course suggested by that prime
 mover of de- and re- territorialisation, the 'capitalist machine'.
 The unwanted is not a function of some lack-oriented mysticism about
 desire, but the actuality of wanting, once removed from
 subject/object control. More simply, though, what if you actually do
 want to hear something that is noise - in the shape of unorganised,
 unpredictable, violent (sometimes in terms of volume) sound? Attali
 makes the case that 'music' is heading toward noise, in the form of
 unavoidable background music[20] and in its increased
 standardisation, where "it is trapped in identity and will dissolve
 into noise".[21] The judgement 'I want to listen to noise' is a
 deterritorialised one - it is occurring without the subject
 intervening. Nonetheless, it might be the sign of the dying Subject
 grasping for some form of Authentic Existence before disappearing
 (accompanying the world of "performance art" into a world of
 hyper-simulated sacrifice).[22]

 Music, according to Attali, is "the organization of noise".[23] Noise
 has an existence outside of our conscious control, which is partly
 natural, partly social environmental: "life is full of noise and
 [...] death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, noise of
 beast".[24] Life, then, is rationalised, brought into line, and
 rigorously limited. A general economy of sacrifice, murder, waste is
 lost, in music, "originating in ritual murder of which it is the
 simulacrum".[25] Attali, however, cannot go so far as to see that
 noise cannot be natural -- that it is the equivalent of the Nature
 left behind at the signing of the social contract -- only coming into
 (not) being as retrospective, excluded and forbidden. He clearly
 states that noise is that which is to be excluded, but not that the
 endless and impossible exclusion is where noise 'is' -- crossing and
 not crossing the line that is (not) there, as with Foucault's
 transgression line. Why is death silent? At a literal level it is
 noisy -- organs becoming extinct, collapsing, expanding, rotting --
 an endless carnival even before the arrival of other creatures. Death
 is silent in the sense of the subject not being there to hear it. Is
 this what occurs in Cage's silences? Is the hearing subject absented,
 rather than, as Cage wished, brought forcibly into the presence of
 sounds usually unheard?[26] Silence, however, is structurally
 speaking, death - the death of the system of organised sound,
 priority of voice, meaning, music.[27] The death that is fully
 recognised by the system that excludes it. Silence, unlike noise,
 does structure, or let come into structure, systems of meaning. Noise
 is too much, is excess as the working of excess (not just the
 excessive product).

 Noise is excluded for being too natural, but also for being
 unnatural. Rupert Taylor, in a burst of retrospective utopianism,
 asserts that "at the same time man was learning to create pleasurable
 stimuli to his sense of hearing, in other words to create music, he
 was beginning to pollute his surroundings and blunt his hearing by
 making more and more loud and unpleasant crashes and bangs, grindings
 and rumbles" (_The Law Relating to Noise_, 16). Much, maybe all
 considerations in terms of noise as a social issue presume noise is
 that which is to be reduced (not wrongly, but...) -- so that we can
 return to what is best for us ("like water and air pollution, most
 noise is the result of the decision for technological progress at the
 expense of the human environment".[28, 29] The "human environment",
 endlessly stabilised, is not nature, however, and is not to contain
 silence. In fact, contain silence is precisely what it does, offering
 endless background noise (sometimes in the form of music) in order to
 actively silence, argues Attali.[30]



 III. Endless Oscillation of the Material
 ----------------------------------------

 Merzbow (aka Masami Akita) plays the double game of ambience Attali
 identifies: omnipresent sound, becoming noise; noise becoming
 background.  Merzbow music consists of the debris of music, of sound:
 pulses, feedback, hisses, whirs, blasts, distortions, pure tones,
 shrieks, machine noise -- all played extremely loud.[31]  But this
 music is noise "all the way down" -- there is no space for
 recognisably musical sounds to be overlaid with distortions (as in
 1980s music in the wake of punk), just combinations of noises, that
 do not settle into a mantric pulse, or continual explosion ("not
 music at all, but rather the intensive expenditure of sound and
 silence").[32] The listener struggles to find a way through, in or
 above the noise music but gives up at a certain point: rhythms are to
 be found, frequencies to be followed -- it is not just random, but -
 eventually "the listener" is pulverised into believing there is a
 link. Noise music becomes ambience not as you learn how to listen, or
 when you accept its refusal to settle, but when you are no longer in
 a position to accept or deny. Perhaps the "experienced listener" can
 manage whole albums, concerts -- Merzbow has the answer in the shape
 of the 50CD ~Merzbox~. The possibility of mastery, of "learning to
 hear anew" etc. -- ~held out as if possible~ -- endlessly broken (to
 keep the possibility open as indefinite promise) by alteration, by
 blurring of the strata of sound, is what feeds the continual excess
 of noise music. Noise music is the endless sacrifice of art music
 didacticism and of restricted economy "noise" (metal, hardcore of all
 types).[33]

 It seems like a claim could be made for Merzbow to be ~the~
 avant-garde, perpetually renewing the art, moving the boundaries
 etc., but actually noise music inhabits the failure of the
 avant-garde to be, to come to be. Schwitters wanted his ~Merz~ to
 redefine our relation to the material, to value, to what art could
 be. This then is brought to the interior, and ~shores up the monument
 of art~. Merzbow does not want to live in a house full of crap, or
 outside it, neither does it want to live in a new crappy house: it
 wants to knock down the house it lives in, to live in it. Even this
 is too much, though: Merzbow actually wants to find a rundown house
 made up of broken stuff, and break it. Over and over.

 The reason Merzbow cannot be avant-garde (or is the avant-garde that
 cannot be: i.e., the avant-garde) is that the breaking is static:
 like Paul Virilio's *speed*, Merzbow's destruction of music attains a
 point of stillness, one composed of total movement (and like
 Nietzsche's "moment" of eternal return). The world of 'the now', this
 now, always now, comes together as interface, as the non-place of
 speed as non-movement.[34]  This in turn signals the possibility of
 "crash music",[35] emerging at a new stage of hearing (generally
 neglected with the presumption that the digital world is one of
 images alone), such that we can now take noise/"crash music" to be
 "so seductive because of its fascinating logic of an always promised
 imminent reversibility: pure ecstasy/pure catastrophe".[36] This
 imminent reversibility, occurs ~as solid~, as immanence.

 Merzbow eludes Adorno's critique of aleatory music (whilst wilfully
 staying within its purview): "today's artists would rather do away
 with unity altogether, producing open, unfinished works, or so they
 think. The problem is that in planning openness they necessarily
 impart another kind of unity unbeknown to themselves".[37] The
 apparent aleatorics of noise signal an endless closing, a ceasing
 filling, but always, at any one time, ceaseless. Noise music (which
 is admittedly not the same as Adorno's actual target -- the music of
 Cage or those who followed in the 1960s and 1970s, but bearing in
 mind his even stronger 'critique' of jazz, I think we might be able
 to infer a line of tech flight to noise music), seems to fall into
 Adorno's trap: in terms of the title which takes on an increased
 significance, as we search to impose some form of sense, even if we
 do not necessarily seek to do this. Not having any titles would be
 just as caught within the loop: the subject now the ineffable
 abstraction of sound, noise, music etc., or as with some abstract
 painting, the subject becomes the Subject, working itself through on
 the canvas. The title (in Merzbow's music) sets up a process wherein
 it cannot become the subject of the music: there is no metonymy,
 mimesis, metaphor to be had - and yet, the title makes it ~as if~
 such things were possible - as with the structure of the 'pieces'
 (Akita: "When I use words, say album titles, they are not chosen to
 convey any meanings. They are merely selected to mean nothing".[38]

 With this in mind, Merzbow's ~Antimonument~ (1991) can be seen as a
 mission statement -- both for and against Schwitters, Merzbow attacks
 the solidity of Hegelianised Western culture, through five tracks of
 seemingly arbitrary lengths, made up of arbitrarily selected sounds,
 moving along but not. In fact, ~Antimonument~ is quite 'readable' -
 centred on arrhythmic, treated percussion: the monument has yet to be
 left behind -- but this is still music with the music taken out -
 hardly any attack in the percussive sounds, distortion, and
 unpredictable 'interruptions' by hisses, static and so on
 constituting the material proper. Akita specifies that the reference
 to the ~Merzbau~ is one of decreasing relevance: "the name is only
 important to my early work, which I thought related to the concept of
 ~Merzbau~".[39, 40] ~Antimonument~ is Akita leaving the building. The
 building, the monument that is progressively deserted in
 ~Antimonument~, as the tracks grow sparser, is a double one: it is
 the leaving of a traditional Japanese music (that Merzbow never
 completes -- "Japanese sounds and instruments are used but their
 character is often purposely extinguished in the mix",[41]), and also
 the leaving of the Western monument. Why should he even be near this,
 except in a Western-centred model? Because philosophically,
 musically, politically and economically, Japan has not stayed outside
 the Western monument. This despite a certain exoticist attribution of
 lack of meaning, of, therefore, an atheoretical purity -- "Japanese
 artists use Noise simply as cathartic release without the
 philosophical underpinnings" [42] -- emptying the space to fill it,
 if not with Western meaning, then with Western emptiness. Masami
 Akita is interested in philosophy: in Eastern: "Japanese Noise
 relishes the ecstasy of sound itself and the concepts come from the
 sound. It is a tradition of eastern philosophy to base theory on real
 experience" [43], and in Western: in the form of explicit references
 to contemporary theory (Derrida, Foucault, and Bataille, whose use is
 contemporary), and implicit ones: "noise is the nomadic producer of
 difference" [44].

 In today's restricted (but generalised) music economy, we have had
 the ludicrous 'world music', and also the real world music Attali
 hints at: ambient pap. Alongside these particular versions, is
 another (anti)global music: Japanese noise music: a refusal through
 over-acceptance of Western genre, such that genre does not work:
 hence Japanese noise music's different take on violence and sound,
 away from heroic (tragic) mastery of or submission to "the horror,
 pain etc., of the world" (this despite the importance of bondage as a
 reference for Masami Akita). Against generic noise, but with the
 noise of genre.

 There is a sense of progression in Merzbow's oeuvre, as the materials
 alter, and the recording capacities of CD technology allow a greater
 range of frequencies to seep in. David Keenan argues that
 ~Noisembryo~ (1994) "is the quintessential Merzbow release"[45] due
 to its power, volume, and force - this, then is what had been aimed
 at all along, in the teleological version. Noise, however, does not
 necessarily have anything to do with these factors, and their having
 an apotheosis. The "sheer noise" of the mid 1990s releases could be
 described as a different sort of zenith in terms of the fact that
 there just is 'more'. Instead of a Hegelian progress, a Sadean,
 additive process. This 'more' has to be more than more; otherwise we
 are just in the realm of groups such as Whitehouse, whose purpose
 often seems to be to ~attain~ a position of mastery over noise.[46]
 This more than more is, perhaps inevitably, a less: Merzbow can never
 get to the zenith, because Merzbow's music is doomed to fall: it is
 always open to assimilation as music -- or, it is not assimilable,
 and therefore it claims transcendence. Or, in some notional
 noise/music dialectic, in being on the limit, it fails to resolve,
 and fails to fail - because it is noise music, it cannot belong,
 dwell. Instead it is dwelling, part of a plateau, rhizome etc., with
 'the listener', noise as becoming-noise, as well as becoming-music.

 ~Noisembryo~ opens with a blast of noise that endlessly mutates
 across the album, interrupted by (the noise of?) silence three times.
 Always differentiated, this is noise that does not settle, where even
 the volume -- or mass of sound -- cannot be perceived as consistent
 as the pitches of the specific strata are continually shifting,
 whilst not at any one time covering the whole range. This album is
 noise as the immanence beyond, beneath, above the noise/music divide:
 noise as the emptying immanence.

 It might seem that some form of communing, however perverse, might be
 possible. If so, it is that community which is not realisable, the
 one 'present' in Bataillean sacrifice -- Thacker notes that in Music
 for Bondage Performance (1991) we see "the body of music filled with
 excess and volume, presented as the tension-filled inability of
 excess to fulfil itself",[47] and this "body of music "is" the body
 of listener, the music as material, the hearing as solid, and the
 un-communion of these, all at once. Thacker further claims that noise
 is the accursed share of the sound worlds, and therefore itself in
 the position of that which is to be sacrificed.[48]

 But it is Bataille's conception of immanence that is of interest
 here, as its dividing off of animal from human stands in parallel to
 that of noise and music, with the former term the always (to be)
 excluded that can return, but which 'we' cannot be. Bataille suggests
 that the animal is like "water in water",[49] which seems to be what
 is happening if immersed in noise, if liable to suggest some kind of
 sacrificial wholeness, a form of rescue.[50] Japanese noise will not
 get us there, any more than sacrifice. Immanence is not only what is
 beyond (performative negativities like object, nature, the other) but
 what is (not) beyond: that which is the beyond of the beyond, only
 insofar as there is no such place to be.

 Bataille: "I am able to say that the animal world is that of
 immanence and immediacy, for that world, which is closed to us, is so
 to the extent that we cannot discern in it an ability to transcend
 itself. [...] It is only within the limits of the human that the
 transcendence of things in relation to consciousness (or of
 consciousness in relation to things) is manifested."[51]

 There is no place for the object or the subject's transcendence,
 coming to be, getting beyond that coming to be in knowing about it,
 or being known, when immanence is the field. The 'consciously'
 constructed sound of ~Noisembryo~ moves into the smooth space of
 immanence as it eludes the knowable world of other noise (of noise
 'in the world'), which is held at a distance. This set of sounds
 brings the distance near, and this just as much when blasts of
 'different coloured' noises slide across each other, a third of the
 way into "Part Two" as when 'the' noise falls away into a distorted
 drone halfway into "Part Three". Noise as event, as excess of
 eventness, because unlike late serialism, it does not leave gaps
 peppered with inane atonalities. It is gap, non-tonality.

 For Deleuze and Guattari, the non-place of the body without organs is
 (in) immanence, and is itself (as immanence) the non-place of
 desire.[52] However, they do not see any totally free music being the
 way, as "a material that is too rich remains too
 'territorialized'"[53] -- too diffuse, too noisy. Such emphasis on
 getting outside music has held us back/in, as "people often have too
 much of a tendency to reterritorialize on the child, the mad,
 noise".[54] We are back once more with Deleuze and Guattari's still
 open ears: open but not too open (not open enough?). These are ears
 that can learn, that can discern patterns, and the undoing of
 patterns, not ears that might be held forcibly open.[55]

 What happens when you hit something like ultimate noise (it cannot be
 described as pure)? Where is there to go? In order for it to always
 (fail to) be ultimate, it must go nowhere, but go it must,
 dromological. Before the sovereignty of ~Merzbox~ (which is largely
 older materials in any case), comes ~Pulse Demon~ (1995). The title
 obliges an attribution of purpose: we know what Merzbow is up to,
 maybe he is becoming increasingly Hegelian, and attempting to map all
 noise, with this being his exploration of 'the pulse'.  I suspect
 there are no more or less pulse actions in this album than any other
 mid 1990s Merzbow albums.[56] What is indicated is the arbitrariness
 of signification, an arbitrariness which serves to highlight another
 difference between Merzbow and Western 'avant-garde' music:
 randomness, as Deleuze suspects, is not really very interesting, but
 arbitrariness - chance as destiny, read as if there were variation
 (or indeed as if there were not) - carries noise as process, as that
 which intervenes 'between' noise and organised sound. ~Pulse Demon~
 is undeniably 'organised sound' - it has differentiated tracks,
 titles for these, and seemingly significant times: we might get the
 impression that if all this noise has been split into 6.42
 ("Woodpecker no.1"), or 24.53 ("Worms Plastic Earthbound"), that the
 duration might be significant. But many (possibly all) Merzbow
 'pieces' of this period are cut, not ended. Their ~beginning~ is
 often cut, so there will never be a sense of attack -- we are
 immediately in the realm of distortion, hiss, pulse, squawks etc., --
 of the effects of actions, not the direct products -- noise all the
 way down. The organisational frame of the album undoes the
 possibility of this being 'pure noise' or even an exploration of
 duration (very few Merzbow albums consist only of one track). Instead
 we are in the curious position of listening as if it were noise (i.e.
 because framed as if it were music). Any settling into listening to
 this 'stuff' as if it really were either noise or music is very much
 the 'consolation' Nietzsche hints at in _The Birth of Tragedy_ as
 being our way of minimising the otherness of sounds presented in a
 musical frame.[57] Such a 'consolation' is not an individual failing,
 but a systemic success of failure to fail.

 IV. Is Nothing not Enough?
 --------------------------

 Once again, and still: what if we do not want the consolation
 (consolation of noise being music really; of noise being natural; of
 noise being an escape, a line of flight that might go somewhere; of
 noise being a ruse of power)? Noise can perhaps never escape (it
 might be the 'as if' escape were possible), as it comes in with
 voice, language and meaning.[58] Derrida asks of philosophy (here, as
 often, standing for sense, rationality, discourse, (search for)
 truth, etc.) whether it can exceed itself: "can one violently
 penetrate philosophy's field of listening without its immediately --
 even pretending in advance, by hearing what is said of it, by
 decoding the statement -- making the penetration resonate within
 itself [...]?" ("Tympan", xii). Derrida's answer is, as always, that
 the outside of philosophy (or of organised sound as philosophy) is to
 be found at work in/on/as the inside of philosophy - with the inside
 being the outside of the outside, and the process that (never fully)
 establishes the divide. Zarathustra's hammer instead is the condition
 of its other, and the othering between Same and Other (xii-xiii),
 such that we should be interested in the limit itself, and not what
 is beyond it, the marginality of the margin itself, and so on.
 Japanese noise might be such a negotiation of the limit, but one that
 only works as such because it declares itself outside, is the
 declaration, the announcing of outside. The 'real' noise in noise
 music is this (not) crossing of the line that is (not) there: noise
 is not the other of the other that equals the same, but the other of
 the other as non-line, as what cannot be the same and cannot inhabit
 otherness. Where Derrida is outflanked by Merzbow is that Derrida
 says you cannot get outside, you cannot consciously undo philosophy
 with a hammer, therefore you should not do it -- instead you should
 not attack directly (xv); should take an interest in "timbre, style,
 and signature [as they] are the same obliterating division of the
 proper" (xix). Why ~not~ do it? Why not do it, knowing it cannot be
 done, that your noise is fatally compromised, part of failure?[59]
 Merzbow is the getting outside that is not the completion of a new
 "inside", but an endless outside, fated to be inside only to fail to
 ~ever be~ because of this arbitrary and perverse relation to the
 inside (of organised sound). Where Derrida says "no", Merzbow is an
 immanent "yes".

 Notes
 -----

 [1] James Kahn, _Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts_
 (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1999), p. 25.

 [2] Ibid., p. 20.

 [3] Ibid., p. 48.

 [4] Ibid., p. 45.

 [5] _European Commission Report: Position Paper on European Union
 Noise Indicators_ (Luxembourg: European Communities, 2000), p. 71.

 [6] C.S. Kerse, _The Law Relating to Noise_ (London: Oyez, 1975), p.
 8. Rupert Taylor also describes noise as "unwanted sound" (_Noise_
 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 22).

 [7] Jacques Attali, _Noise: The Political Economy of Music_
 (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 30. Originally
 written in 1977, this text remains vital in assessments of freedom,
 control, subversion, radicality, recuperation etc. in terms of
 human-produced sound. The argument here that "Japanese noise" is that
 which specifically exceeds his argument should in no way be taken as
 criticism of Attali. One criticism that could be made of Attali is
 that he presumes that music has a single origin/reason/purpose. Music
 could be said to be always already plural. Such would be the argument
 of Philip V. Bohlman's "Ontologies of Music", in Nicholas Cook and
 Mark Everist (eds.), _Rethinking Music_ (Oxford and New York: Oxford
 University Press, 1999), 17-34 -- even if this article provides
 nothing in the way of ontology, as understood since phenomenology.

 [8] Arthur Kroker: "Hearing has always been alchemical, a violent
 zone where sound waves mutate into a sedimentary layer of cultural
 meanings, where historical referents secrete into contemporary states
 of subjectivity, and where there is no stability, only an aural logic
 of imminent reversibility" (_Spasm: Virtual Reality, Android Music,
 Electric Flesh_ (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993). The alchemy is
 one the body, the ears, the sound, noise, codings, listening
 practices etc. and cannot be definitively described or known, except
 as a statement about how a particular society, at a particular time,
 seeks to encode, to end transformations.

 [9] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Minneapolis:
 University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 150.

 [10] Ibid., p. 151 (translation modified).

 [11] The body of organs, of identity (not forgetting that organs
 without a body might be more dangerous still) has privileged the eye,
 and in contemporary culture, makes this privileging a site of
 control: "the eye is a masochistic orifice in the age of panoptic
 power, capable of endless discipline and of being seduced beyond
 bodily subjectivity into a floating free fall within the society of
 the spectacle", leaving the ear repressed, except in terms of
 receiving "spectacular" sound (muzak, MTV) (Kroker, Spasm, 49). The
 body without organs, though, would not free us from this, but drive
 us further in, playing masochism beyond jouissance. "Freeing" the ear
 would not liberate us, either. Rather, the ear has to become
 masochistic, in the Deleuzian sense (see "Coldness and Cruelty" in
 _Masochism_ (New York: Zone, 1994), 9-138) instead of being forced to
 submit. It must then renounce both control and contract. There is, of
 course, another story of the eye -- Bataille's, followed up by
 Foucault, in which the upturned eye, removed, trans(un)figured, is
 the site of the loss of meaning. Eugene Thacker assimilates this
 story with noise music: "the visuality of Bataille transgressing
 itself is analogous to the music of noise" ("Bataille/Body/ Noise:
 Notes Toward a Techno-Erotics", (63), in Brett Woodward (ed.),
 _Merzbook: The Pleasuredome of Noise_ (Melbourne, Cologne: Extreme,
 1999), 57-65). The comparison is perhaps too easy as the ear does not
 have the status of the eye, nor is music of noise in itself capable
 of the reversibility of the eye, which seeks to be both medium and
 control of media.

 [12] Derrida seems to "prefigure" this in writing that "to forget it
 [the role of the ear, and of listening] - and in so doing to take
 shelter in the most familial of dwellings - is to cry out for end of
 organs, of others" "Tympan", (_Margins of Philosophy_ (Brighton:
 Harvester Press, 1982), ix-xxix), xvii. This occurs because the ear
 allows hearing of one's own self and voice, leading to the
 non-conception (as unproblematised) of self-presence or "absolute
 properness" (ibid.). Derrida, however, in turn, has not questioned
 whether an ear can be less than open or closed, and could in fact be
 filled. See also Hegel, making essentially the same point: "hearing
 [...], like sight, is one of the theoretical and not practical
 senses, and it is still more ideal than sight", as it gets the
 subject to "the first and more ideal breath of the soul"
 (_Aesthetics_, Vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 890).

 [13] C.S. Kerse, citing Samuel Rosen, notes that "at an unexpected or
 unwanted noise, the pupils dilate, the skin pales, mucous membranes
 dry; there are intestinal spasms and the adrenals explode secretions.
 The biological organism, in a word, is disturbed" (_The Law Relating
 to Noise_, 7)

 [14] Deleuze and Guattari, op. cit., p. 150.

 [15] Kroker, op. cit., p. 47.

 [16] Kerse, op. cit., p. 3.

 [17] Luigi Russolo, _The Art of Noises_ (New York: Pendragon, 1986),
 p. 87.

 [18] Noise is not ~differance~ - it is an emptier of links,
 relations, processes, not that which holds them mysteriously
 together. It is Bataille's "NOTHING", not the nothing that is the
 opposite of something, or the reason why there might be something
 instead of nothing. It is the thing which stops there having been a
 reason for something over nothing.

 [19] Attali, op. cit., p. 33.

 [20] Op. cit., pp. 111-12.

 [21] Op. cit., p. 45.

 [22] The dying subject is not one reaching out for the answer, but
 reaching into its disappearance in noise. For Nietzsche, "the
 Dionysiac, with its primal pleasure experienced in pain, is the
 common womb of music and the tragic myth" (_The Birth of Tragedy out
 of the Spirit of Music_ (London: Penguin, 1993), 115). In looking at
 tragedy, he writes, we seek to go beyond its pain, and, similarly
 "with reference to artistically applied dissonance [...] we want to
 hear and long to go beyond hearing" (ibid.). Rather than take this as
 the suggestion we might learn from what is difficult, painful, etc.,
 we could take this as stating the case for not going beyond noise:
 the act of listening to noise is one of supplementarity: the beyond
 of noise (initially music)is the precondition for listening to noise,
 so as to get to "the beyond of noise" (which now is that there is
 only noise, and that the beyond of noise is what can never have been
 attained). In listening to noise, though, the loss is played over
 again always for the first time, as opposed to being the excluded
 loss of foundation (the "birth of sense"...).

 [23] Attali, op. cit., p. 4.

 [24] Op. cit., p. 3.

 [25] Op. cit., p. 4.

 [26] Michael Nyman notes that Cage discovers the impossibility of
 silence on a visit to Harvard's anechoic chamber, where he still
 hears his own body (_Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond_, 2nd
 edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 25-6. Cage's
 famous 4'33" "is a demonstration of the non-existence of silence"
 p. 26.

 [27] This has led many others, as well as Attali, to assert that
 noise is life, or nearer to life's "real processes". Russolo states
 that "noise [...] has the power of immediately recalling life itself"
 (The Art of Noises, 27). This, coming as it does from the "pioneer"
 of noise in/as music, could be taken not as a simple naturalism, but
 as a parallel with "bare" or "mere" life (Benjamin, Agamben). Noise
 for Russolo also signals the life that had already moved on from
 nature, that is the excluding of nature - i.e. the city. Masami Akita
 (Merzbow) concurs: "noise is one of the most primitive music forms in
 the modern city" (in Woodward (ed.), _Merzbook_, 11). Is this to
 naturalise noise? Only before we think about music: for noise to be
 some sort of fundamental music demonstrates Akita's awareness that
 the noise of the city comes as a result of organisation, of power
 systems, of restricted economies of signification.

 [28] Kearse, op. cit., p. 1.

 [29] Adorno claims aeroplane noise ruins walks in the forest
 (_Aesthetic Theory_ (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), 311) --
 noise is wrong because not part of true nature, but what Adorno is
 also claiming ("despite himself") is that noise is also ruinous of
 nature as acculturated Nature - as it is an uncontrolled incursion
 into a humanised sphere, immanence in the subject/object field. Hegel
 argues that to overcome this "problem", music must moderate "the
 natural": "the notes [are] not to be a purely natural shriek of
 feeling but the developed and artistic expression of it" (Aesthetics,
 vol II, 910) - so music is neither too natural nor unnatural (it is
 to express what is now left behind as natural).

 [30] Attali, op. cit., p. 20 and passim.

 [31] Amplification - the technological means for producing noise as
 volume of sound, as well as feedback systems (if not the only means)
 is an essential part of the development of noise music, which at the
 risk of being slightly determinist, arises (in the Japan of the early
 1970s) out of the combination of improvised music in the form of free
 jazz, and the improvised rock of a similar period, which relies for
 its effect, on the power of amplification, the distortions of
 feedback. James Kahn, dealing with experiments with noise and sound,
 signals the importance of technological developments in the
 alterations in ways of thinking sound, noise, music (see _Noise Water
 Meat_, 2-13 and passim).

 [32] Thacker, op. cit., p. 63.

 [33] Noise music is also the sacrifice of the "music business", the
 rendering of it as general, rather than restricted economy, through
 its disruptive methods of releasing recordings on many labels, in
 limited and peculiar editions, direct sales. Woodward notes "the
 creation and production of such items intentionally subverts late
 capitalism's notions of the marketplace, the performer/audience
 relationship and entertainment commodity production and distribution"
 ("A Machinic Scream" (33), in _Merzbook_, 33-6). Before we get
 carried away with some postmodernistic praise for the artisanal
 symbiosis between musician and listener, it is worth noting that
 concerts are infrequent, and a literal distance maintained, a
 distance allowed by the very processes of subverting "late
 capitalism". This is a deterritorialisation that stays one -- i.e.
 carries no autonomous radicality.

 [34] See Virilio, The Lost Dimension (New York: Semiotext(e), 1991).

 [35] Kroker, op. cit., p. 54.

 [36] Ibid.

 [37] Adorno, op. cit., p. 204.

 [38] Akita in _Merzbook_, p. 40.

 [39] Akita cf. Edwin Pouncy, "Consumed by Noise", _The Wire_, vol.
 198 (2000), p. 29.

 [40] Op. cit., pp. 26-32. This interview and overview is a solid
 introduction to Merzbow, whilst being caught up with the "musicality
 of the noise". Pouncey stresses the learning experience, with
 statements such as "when the listener has attuned his or her hearing
 perspective" (26), "the fact is that to understand, enjoy and
 eventually reach noise nirvana through Masami Akita's work, you have
 to listen to a hell of a lot of it" (27). These sentiments are echoed
 by David Keenan's top ten Merzbow albums (_The Wire_, vol 198, 32-3).

 [41] Akita, in Woodward, op. cit., p. 11.

 [42] Woodward, op. cit., pp. 14, 12-15.

 [43] Akita, in _Merzbook_, op. cit., p. 23.

 [44] Op. cit., p. 9 and elsewhere, as the contributors love repeating
 it.

 [45] _The Wire_, Vol. 198, p. 33.

 [46] See for example Never Forget Death (1992), which warns that
 "Torture Chamber" (a track of mounting "white noise") should not be
 played excessively loud -- i.e. because it is inherently loud.

 [47] "Bataille/Body/ Noise: Notes Toward a Techno-Erotics", op. cit.,
 p. 58.

 [48] Op. cit., p. 59.

 [49] _Theory of Religion_, (New York: Zone, 1989), p. 23.

 [50] Op. cit.

 [51] Op. cit., pp. 23-24.

 [52] Deleuze and Guattari, op. cit., p. 154.

 [53] Op. cit., p. 344.

 [54] Ibid.

 [55] To be fair to Deleuze and Guattari, Japanese noise was far from
 a breakthrough in 1980, although nearly all of today's "recognised
 practitioners" were active then. Their unfortunate espousal of the
 "influential" Varese is just one example of why caution should be
 taken with imagining Deleuze and Guattari as signposts for the
 future. In one sense this lack of awareness of the contemporary is
 itself contemporary -- not in terms of some sort of "dumbing down",
 but just in terms of the retro-future we seem to inhabit in terms of
 future music (for example in ~The Matrix~, whose future remains
 1985).

 [56] If this seems a very specific dating, it nonetheless applies to
 perhaps 20 albums. Merzbow's output is immense: in addition to the 50
 contained in ~Merzbox~, there are another 150+ recordings.

 [57] Nietzsche suggests that if music can rediscover its links to the
 emptiness that is "true reality, through an appreciation of every
 "phenomenon", then we will experience some kind of catharsis (see 94,
 in particular). In the light of the later preface, however, where
 "perhaps as laughers you will consign all metaphysical consolations
 to the devil -- and metaphysics in front of the rest!" (12), much of
 the main text suggests a proto-Bataillean recognition of a fearful,
 sacrificial, dangerous general economy of "ugly" sound, brought
 inevitably into a restricted economy where we "get something from
 it". See for example 83-4, where "consolation" with regard to the
 ineffability of things is one of "three levels of illusion" (84), not
 the hidden truth, or goal. The inevitability of the restricted
 economy can be seen in the inevitable influence of Apollo
 (rationality, wisdom, accumulation of knowledge): "the Apolline lifts
 man out of his orgiastic self-destruction, and deceives him about the
 universality of the Dionysiac event, deluding him into the idea that
 he can see only a single image of the world" (102).

 [58] This despite the ineffability claimed for noise (and claimed
 throughout history for "that which goes beyond language" - music, the
 image, the world, gods, etc). Woodward's version of this: "It's
 almost the inability to definitively describe Merzbow's music with
 the limitations of the written word that is the testament to its
 thrill and power, intricacy and convolution" ("The Nomadic Producer
 of Difference", in _Merzbook_, 9).

 [59] We can compare Derrida's deconstructing binaries with those
 Attali establishes through noise and music, as in the following:
 "Music responds to the terror of noise, recreating differences
 between sounds and repressing the tragic dimension of dissonance -
 just as sacrifice responds to the terror of violence. Music has been,
 from its origin, a simulacrum of the monopolization of the power to
 kill, a simulacrum of ritual murder" (_Noise_, 28). Noise and music
 blur when sacrifice is at issue, when music is excessive and
 essentially ritual, such that "music functions like sacrifice;
 listening to noise is a little like being killed" (ibid.).

 _____________________________________________________________________
 Paul Hegarty teaches at Trinity College, Dublin.  He also Dj's
 Japanese Noise Music.
 _____________________________________________________________________

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-


welwitschia mirabilis


some fucked like pikaia with human women with enormous breasts:some swam
into human women like opabinia with enormous and perfect breasts and
beautiful eyes:some moved among paradisic waters with porifera and
brilliant wiwaxia scavenging with human women with enormous, perfect, and
fully-rounded breasts and beautiful eyes and hair:pikaia gracilens wanted
nothing, couldn't want. it went out. it divided among the Righteous and
those of the Evident Loss. this water wouldn't boil. stromatolites towered
among the predators. "When a human dies his deeds are weighed in violence
and there is no escape. Behold the Caves of the Heathen. When there are
Flames one remains on Guard." laggonia soared among them.:olenoides were
everywhere against the porifera occupying the same shallow depression. it
was the basin of everything. opabinia inscribed itself first of all, its
jagged claws necked across the brined water. wiwakia were everywhere. "A
black, thick, burning, and nasty water which, when a disbeliever tries to
drink, will burn his face and make the skin of his face fall into
it.":27287:0:wiwaxia crawled away; laggania continued the attack. pikaia
crawled towards stromatolites in the distance. "Verily for the Righteous
there will be an Achievement.":pikaia gracilens wanted nothing, couldn't
want. it went out. it divided among the Righteous and those of the Evident
Loss. this water wouldn't boil. stromatolites towered among the predators.
"When a human dies his deeds are weighed in violence and there is no
escape. Behold the Caves of the Heathen. When there are Flames one remains
on Guard." laggonia soared among them.:some swam into human women like
opabinia with enormous and perfect breasts and beautiful eyes.

ii

some are quotes of absolute truth of The Supreme Triumph and the Evident
Loss: In the light of the Quran and the Sunnah, Saeed Ali Al-Qahtani; some
are of the Essenic Flames; some are of the Truth of Burgess; some have
found themselves among the Desert and Deserted. of Nikuko and Izanami much
have been spoken. all bodies decay in shame; none return. of the human
women, one need look no farther than the testaments, no closer than the
mirror; let it be said pikaia did not survive.

_

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 16:31:28 -0000
From: John Armitage <john.armitage@UNN.AC.UK>
Reply-To: The Cyber-Society-Live mailing list is a moderated discussion
    list for those interested <CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
To: CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: [CSL]: Noam Chomsky Interview: The Fifth Freedom

[Here's Uncle Noam. Does he ever sleep? John.]================================================
The Fifth Freedom
Gangster Pimping in the Culture of Terrorism

http://www.guerrillanews.com/counter_intelligence/206.html


Stephen Marshall: Hi Noam.


Noam Chomsky: Hello. What are we going to be talking about today?


Well. I'd like to begin with a brief discussion about your work in
linguistics and how that developed into a major concentration on U.S.
foreign policy. I'd like to then move on to the subject of the current
conflict. Looking at it from the perspective that is presented in The
Culture of Terrorism. And then I want to focus on stuff like the Fifth
Freedom and your opinion about how the Bush Administration is handling the
retaliations. Is that cool?


Sounds great.


Ok. Maybe we'll just start with the fact that your original scholastic focus
was in the field of linguistics. Some people might actually be surprised to
hear that. I wanted to ask you if there is a connection between the study of
language and that of political systems. How should we look at language in
our political studies?


Well, my professional field happens to be linguistics and I've been in it
since I was 17 years old. But it has basically nothing to do with my
interests in international affairs and social and economic issues, which
actually preceded it from childhood. Just parallel lives...


There are certainly questions about the use of language, that's a very
important question but you don't have to be a professional linguist to say
anything about those. Those are just common sense.


Take, say, a word like 'terrorism,' for example. Like most terms of
political discourse it has two meanings: there's a literal meaning and if
you want to know what that is you can look up the official U.S. code or army
manuals, they'll tell you what terrorism is. And it's what you would think,
terrorism is "the calculated use of violence against civilians to
intimidate, induce fear, often to kill, for some political, religious, or
other end."


That's terrorism, according to its official definition.


But that definition can't be used. Because if that definition is used, you
get all the wrong consequences. For one thing, that definition turns out to
be almost the same as the definition of official U.S. policy. Except, when
it's U.S. policy, it's called 'counter-insurgency' or 'low-intensity
conflict' or some other name. But, in fact, if you look at the definition,
it's essentially terrorism. In fact, almost a paraphrase. Furthermore, if
you apply the literal definition, you conclude that the U.S. is a leading
terrorist state because it engages in these practices all the time. It's the
only state, in fact, which has been condemned by the World Court and the
Security Council for terrorism, in this sense. And the same is true of its
allies. So, right now, they're putting together what they call a 'coalition
against terror', for the 'war on terror', and if you run down the list,
every one of them is a leading terrorist state.


So obviously you can't use that definition.


So therefore, there's a propagandistic definition which is the one actually
used and in that definition terrorism is "terrorism which is directed
against the United States or its allies and carried out by enemies." Well,
that's the propagandistic use and, if you read the newspapers and the
scholarly literature, they're always using that use. And that's not just the
U.S. Every country does that, even the worst killers, the worst mass
murderers do it. Take the Nazis, they were combating an occupied Europe.
They combated what they called terrorism, namely partisan resistance, which
often was, in fact, terrorism in the technical sense.


Resistance usually is.


The American Revolution is a good example - plenty of terrorism. So, the
Nazis were combating terrorism and they called what they were doing, which
was extraordinarily brutal, 'counter-terrorism'. And the U.S. basically
agreed with them. The U.S. Army, after the war, made extensive use of Nazi
training manuals... did studies which did careful analysis of them, thinking
what was right, what was wrong - meaning did it work or didn't it work -
essentially accepting the same framework, and, furthermore, immediately
started carrying out the same actions against, pretty much, the same
enemies. The U.S. Army manuals, on what is called 'counter-terrorism', drew
from German manuals and even involved the high German officers-Wehrmacht
officers - who were used as consultants. And, in every other state, it's the
same. The terrorism they don't like is called 'terrorism' and the terrorism
they do like, because they carry it out or their allies carry it out, is
called 'counter-terrorism'.


Well, this all has to do with the use of language. But you certainly don't
have to be a professional linguist to see this. This just requires having
ordinary intelligence and looking at the facts. And the same is true
throughout, I mean the terms that are used are twisted in ways to satisfy
the needs of whoever's using them, which turns out mostly to be concentrated
power centers, state or private, and that's true wherever you look.


And that's a serious issue. So you can look at the use of language and
propaganda and ideology and schools and so on, but it's really just common
sense.


In many of your writings, you have discussed the notion of state deception,
especially when it comes to historical revision. Something happened one
night during a news broadcast that made me question how immediate the
revision is becoming. I was watching CNN after Bush's address to Congress,
and they were discussing Bush's use of the word 'crusade'. And there was an
advisor or policy analyst who came on and said: "It's unfortunate that Bush
and his speechwriters didn't understand the implications of a word like
crusade." And I was shocked. I mean, do you believe that George Bush's
speechwriters would not understand the implications of a word like 'crusade'
to the Islamic people and, on the converse, aren't words like those used to
incite or trigger responses?


Well, you're right to emphasize George Bush's speechwriter because he
probably doesn't even know what he's saying. But the speechwriter's picked
the word 'crusade', and you can understand it. In English, the term
'crusade' is used quite generally. A crusade against something just means a
struggle against it. But in the Islamic world it has a different meaning, it
refers to the crusades, which were an extremely brutal and violent invasion
of their land by Christian fundamentalist fanatics who left a horrendous
trail of bloodshed.


And that's part of their history.


It's usually the victims who remember the history, not the perpetrators. So
the use of the word 'crusade' in the Islamic world carries many strong
memories and associations and Bush's speechwriters hadn't thought about it.
So they withdrew the word crusade. That's happened a couple of times
already.


The first operation against Afghanistan was called 'Infinite Justice' and
they withdrew that when it was pointed out to them that the only 'infinite
justice' is God's justice, and they were being interpreted as regarding
themselves as divinity. And they didn't want to do that for obvious reasons,
so they changed it to some other phrase. The phrase they did pick is
interesting. The campaign is now called 'Enduring Freedom'. Well, a number
of comments about that...


If you want to look at the kind of 'freedom' they have in mind, there's an
ample historical record of the kind of freedom they impose. The other point
is, nobody seems to have noticed it but, the word 'enduring' is actually
ambiguous. It can mean 'lasting' or it can mean 'suffering from'. So, I'm
enduring pain is another interpretation of 'enduring' and, in fact, if you
think of the kind of freedom they impose and enduring freedom in the other
sense, that is: 'somehow living with the horrendous consequences of it,' is
not an inaccurate description.


Nobody's pointed that out to them yet so they're still using this phrase,
but if someone does maybe they'll make another one up.


Yeah, but I wondered if it wasn't a bit of a ploy, if there isn't a bit of
incitement going on. Kind of subliminal psychological intimidation. I mean,
these speechwriters are, I imagine, are some of the best in the country.
They must implicitly understand the import and potential impact of every
word -

No, I don't think so. I think they're just mistakes.


Fair enough. Now, sticking with this analysis of language and, specifically,
the use of the word 'freedom'. In The Culture of Terrorism, you discuss
something called the 'fifth freedom'. Can you please just define that for us
and maybe describe how it has any relevance right now?


Well, there's a famous concept called The Four Freedoms. In, I think it must
have been 1944 approximately... President Roosevelt, towards the end of the
war, announced that the allies were fighting for the 'four freedoms.' That's
freedom from want, freedom from fear, I forget the exact other words, but
all good things. So those were the four freedoms we were fighting for.


We actually have a declassified record, a released internal record of the
background... what they were afraid of at the time. Remember, that at the
time the world was mostly colonies and the colonies, in fact, often
welcomed, especially, the Japanese. They welcomed the Japanese because the
Japanese were throwing out the colonial oppressors - they were throwing out
the British, and the French, and the Dutch, and the Americans and so on.


And it was understood, internally, that it was necessary to make some appeal
to the huge part of the world which was the colonial world - we now call the
south or the Third World - which would make them believe that we were really
fighting for good things. Not just to restore colonialism.


And out of that came the Four Freedoms. And by the 'fifth' freedom, I meant
the one that they didn't mention. But the crucial one. Namely the freedom to
rob and exploit, that's a freedom that we and our powerful countries, the
imperial countries, insist on. And that was the real freedom that was being
fought for.


And the colonial world, if they didn't know it already, discovered that very
fast after the Second World War. That's a good part of the history of the
last 50 years... is the record of how the great powers - primarily the
United States, because it's the most powerful - pursued their own freedom to
rob and exploit and oppress and so on. That's the real history. It may not
be taught in school here but the real history of British imperialism wasn't
taught in British schools either. It's known by the victims.


Historical revisionism. On that topic, you published an official reaction to
the terrorist attacks and the proposed U.S. reaction on October 8th. There
is a lot to that but I wanted to focus on one point you made, namely this
concept of historical revisionism. In that text, you used the words
"systemic falsification of the past" to describe the West's approach to its
history. I'd like to ask you to define that terminology for people who don't
understand it, and how it plays a role in current events in allowing them to
sustain itself. Is it a mode of behavior that can have severe human
consequences?


It's very typical over history, over time, for the world to look very
different depending on whether you're holding the whip, or you're under the
whip.


It just looks different.


For a couple hundred years, Europe and its offshoots - we're one of it
offshoots - have been holding the whip. They've been carrying out massive
atrocities against others, and that's U.S. history. That's the history of
England, France, Belgium, Germany and others. They've always been attacking
people outside and conquering the world; they didn't conquer the world in a
pretty fashion. And they have a picture which is about how they were
bringing freedom and justice and... 'maybe they made some mistakes, but it
was all well intentioned'... and so on. From the other end of the guns, it
looks very different.


Now, our systematic falsification of history... well, let's just take where
we're talking right now:


Well, we're here in New England because religious fanatics, extreme fanatic
religious fundamentalists, very much like Islamic fundamentalists, landed
here and mercilessly destroyed the indigenous population. So we're here.
That's not the way it's taught, but that's the way it was. And the founding
fathers were well aware of it. And they recognized it, sometimes with
regret, sometimes not, and it continued until the national territory was
conquered. There were, after all, maybe 7 or 8 million or maybe more
inhabitants here, they weren't around by the year 1900. And the U.S., for
example, conquered half of Mexico. Well, the Mexicans know it; we don't get
taught it in school. When the U.S. took over the Philippines, they killed a
couple hundred thousand people. Filipinos, they know it, we don't talk about
it.


And this falsification of history has consequences. In fact, we saw some of
them on Sept 11th. Here, the commentary often... much of the commentary is:
"Well, why do they hate us?" And a lot of the commentary, op eds, in The New
York Times and so on, by big thinkers, was: "Well, they hate us because we
stand for freedom and democracy and prosperity and therefore they hate us."


Well, that's a nice, comforting point of view, but it's totally false. And
some of the press, to its credit, did begin to look at the history. So the
Wall Street Journal very soon, within a few days, began running articles on
actual attitudes of people in the Middle East towards the United States.
They sampled the wealthy and the privileged - the people who they're
concerned about - not beggars and rural people, but bankers, and lawyers for
international corporations, businessmen, and they did several good studies
of their attitudes. And, it turns out, that they're very bitter and angry
and frustrated about the United States though they're very pro-American and,
in fact, all involved in the U.S. system.


And their anger is precisely the opposite of what the elite intellectuals
are saying.


They don't hate us for our democracy, they hate us because we repress
democracy. They hate us because we've supported the oppressive and brutal
and authoritarian regimes and undermined any attempt at democracy in the
region, and because of their explicit policies. So the policy of the last
ten years... the U.S. and Britain have devastated the civilian society of
Iraq meanwhile, strengthening Saddam Hussein. And they know very well, even
though we don't like to say it, that the U.S. and Britain supported Hussein
right through his worst atrocities. The ones that are now being brought up
to show how terrible he is. Like the gassing of the Kurds. A horrible
atrocity, and, yet, the U.S. and Britain supported him right through it,
continued to support him afterwards. And they know that. They also know that
the policies are destroying the civilian society and strengthening Saddam
Hussein, and that stands alongside the U.S. policies towards Israel and
Palestine.


I mean, they know, even if we pretend not to, that there has been a brutal
military occupation, now going into its 35th year, which has relied
crucially on U.S. support - diplomatic support, military support, economic
support. When Israel builds settlements to break up the occupied territories
illegally, the U.S. is paying for it. When it sends helicopters to carry out
assassinations or attack civilian complexes, they are U.S. helicopters sent
with a certain knowledge that that's how they're going to be used. On the
diplomatic front, they know, even if we pretend not to, that for twenty-five
years, the U.S. has been blocking a diplomatic settlement which has almost
total - almost, the whole world has been in favor of it for 25 years,
including the Arab states, Europe, former Soviet Union, everybody - [in
favor of] some sort of two-state settlement. And the U.S. has been blocking
it, and they're still blocking it.


Well, they know all of this. And such policies towards say, Iraq and the
consistent U.S. support for brutal and oppressive regimes. Even its own
atrocities within the region, which are not slight... its opposition to
democracy, those are the attitudes of the pro-American elements. The
wealthy, privileged elements. If you get out on the streets, you hear the
same things, it's just much more bitter and they're also furious about the
fact that the wealth of the region, which is real - mostly oil wealth - is
not being used for them, but it's going to the West. It's going to purchase
U.S. Treasury securities, or U.S. arms, or pay off U.S. and British
investment firms, well they know all that.


They're living in misery and the wealth is going to the West.


These are the real attitudes. Now if we choose not to pay attention to those
attitudes and to pretend that they're angry because we're so wonderful,
well, we're just guaranteeing that there will be more terrorist acts. If you
don't want to understand the reasons, you can be pretty sure that it will
continue. And this is true of, take any crime you like - robbery in the
streets or a major atrocity - whoever is committing it has reasons. I mean,
maybe it's just pathology, that could happen too, but usually they have
reasons. And if you look at the reasons, there's usually something behind
them, even something legitimate behind them. So, when... take the Oklahoma
city bombing, when it first happened, there were big headlines about "Let's
Bomb Beirut" or something like that. It was assumed that it had some Middle
East connection and if it had some Middle East connection, the U.S. probably
would have gone to war, like it's doing now. Well, it turned out not to have
a Middle East connection, but to be a domestic person with militia
associations.


OK, what was the reaction?


Was the reaction to bomb Idaho and destroy Montana and bomb the Republic of
Texas, which has declared independence of the oppressive government of
Washington? No that wasn't the reaction, that would have been crazy. The
reaction was to find the person who was responsible, bring him to trial,
follow legal procedures, and consider the grievances. I mean, the militia
movements come out of something. And if you look at what they come out of,
you find that there are some things that really ought be attended to.
They're important. And that's typically the case. We can choose not to do
that, but then we're just guaranteeing that the cycle of violence will
escalate, like tribal warfare - you hurt me, I'm going to hurt you more.
That's a way to go on, and we know the consequences.

************************************************************************************
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list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:05:57 -0500
From: Ron Silliman <ron.silliman@GTE.NET>
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
Subject: No comment needed

Published Tuesday, November 6, 2001, in the Herald-Leader

Bad time for Islam-themed stamp

Attacks hurt sale of issue backed by Kentuckian

By Tony Pugh

KNIGHT RIDDER WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 1, well-wishers in Chicago surrounded Aminah Assilmi
and praised her efforts to secure the nation's first postage stamp honoring
the Muslim faith.

On Sept. 11, the day of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
Assilmi was again surrounded -- this time by a group of men in Northern
Kentucky, where she lives. They were shouting anti-Muslim insults and
striking her car with bats.

The fallout from that day has shaken Assilmi, of Taylor Mill. She heads the
International Union of Muslim Women and organized a national campaign that
led to the stamp's creation.

But it might have had a greater impact on the stamp she worked five years to
win.

``It was not just a stamp. It was an expression, a symbol that the Muslim
community is accepted here and Islam is recognized as an American
religion,'' said Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi of Garden Grove, Calif., past
president of the Islamic Society of North America.

In English, the stamp bears the words ``EID Greetings.''

It also features gold Arabic script on a background of navy blue that reads
``EID Mubarak,'' or ``Happy Eid.'' The stamp commemorates Eid ul-Fitr, a
celebration after Ramadan, a time of fasting and prayer for Muslims. The
stamp also honors Eid al-Adha, a festival that marks the end of a hajj, or
pilgrimage to Mecca.

In the weeks following Sept. 11, the EID stamp met with poor sales, and even
provoked anger.

``People have gone into our post offices and said `We shouldn't be selling
that stamp,''' said Dave Failor, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman.

A West Coast radio talk show host even suggested the stamp was rubbing
America's nose in the events of Sept. 11 because EID backward spells
``Die.''

``I must have gotten 19 calls from people who were upset about that,''
Assilmi said. ``There's a large-scale fear of Islam right now. People aren't
sure, so they look at us with an added level of fear.''

Seventy-five million EID stamps were printed, and 45 million shipped. The
stamp went on sale Sept 3. No figures are available, but Failor said it is
selling well in Detroit and Chicago, which have large Muslim communities.

Elsewhere, it hasn't been popular.

``Not at all,'' said Gail Miles, philatelic specialist at the National
Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. ``Everybody says, `If it had come out at
any other time it would be doing well, because it's a pretty stamp.'''

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 20:15:49 GMT
From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@salsa.gih.co.uk>
To: country-codes@nsrc.org
Subject: FAQ: International E-mail accessibility (2001.11.09)

Archive-name: mail/country-codes
Last-modified: 2001/11/09

Based on International Standard ISO 3166 Codes
Compiled by Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond
E-mail: <ocl@gih.com>

Release: 2001.11.09


Release Notes:   a. New Top Level Domains .BIZ .INFO .MUSEUM .NAME

                 b. More 'courtesy' top level domains used:
                    CO - Colombia, MU - Mauritius, BZ - Belize,
                    CD - Democratic Republic of Congo

                 c. IQ - Iraq with limited Satellite Internet Service

                 d. Zaire (ZR) code deleted

This document is Copyright 1994-2001 by Olivier Crepin-Leblond.
Parts of this document may be reproduced in a commercial publication
ONLY if prior permission has been granted by the copyright holder.

It may however be freely redistributed in its entirety provided that
this copyright notice, its headers "Archive-name", "Last-modified",
and "Release" are not removed. If unsure, please E-mail ocl@gih.com

This document answers the question:

"Has country X got E-mail or Internet access ?".

The following table is a guide of country codes, showing the
countries which have access to Internet or general E-mail services.
The country codes have been derived from the International
Organization for Standardization standard ISO 3166 found on:
http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/

A country code is taken as a top level domain once it is registered
by ICANN, www.icann.org so *not* all country codes listed
are top level domains. At the bottom of the table, there is also
a section of general top level domains, based on the information
available at ICANN.

NOTES

I. Description of codes

FI  stands for FULL INTERNET access. This includes 'telnet', 'ftp',
    and internet E-mail.
B   stands for BITNET (Because It's Time NETwork) access although
    the address may be in internet DNS (Domain Name System) format.
    Please note that this network is being dismantled and quickly
    replaced by Full Internet connectivity.
*   (Asterisk) means that the country is reachable by E-mail. If this is
    not preceded by FI or B, it means that the connection may be a UUCP
    connection. An asterisk is included after FI or B for consistency.
C   stands for the "courtesy" top level domain. There may actually be no
    physical access as such in the country referenced by this top level
    domain, but E-mail and/or Web addresses can be obtained under it;
    in some cases, this is for an official Web server for that country,
    which is facility-managed elsewhere. In other cases, it is a
    courtesy domain provided for commercial reasons which may, or may
    not be seen as a legitimate use of that top level domain. Indeed
    some small countries have generated income by selling or letting
    their top level domain, and using the income for the development
    of their own internet infrastructure.
PFI stands for a provisional full internet connection.(+)
P   stands for provisional connection. (+)
    (+) This is used when one or more of the following is true:
       - address not verified or lack of address
       - UUCP dialup not active
       - net connection possible but not officially announced
       - premature official announcement of connection
F   stands for a country that is connected to Internet only via means
    of the FIDOnet network. It is assumed that the FIDO connection in this
    case is stable and reliable.


II. Networks which are not included

Networks such as MILNET (U.S. Military's unclassified portion of the
DDN - Data Defense Network) have computers all around the world. It is
generally possible to assume that wherever there is a U.S. military base,
there will be a node reachable through gateways. Similarly, you can bet
that whenever a Space Shuttle (Orbiter in NASA lingo), they're connected
to NASA's Network.

Worldwide Private company networks (banks, computer companies etc. that
have their own worldwide corporate intra-net).

Some networks based on X.400 E-mail, which offer high-cost networking
access. While those types of network are fading fast due to their
high cost compared to the Internet, some regions of the world are
still reacheable only via such networks.  The service is VERY COSTLY,
usually takes place via UUCP or X.400 connections. X.400 E-mail is
usually charged to someone and if the telecommunication carrier
cannot find someone to pay for the message transfer, it will reject
it.  Although you may be able to RECEIVE E-mail from a user on those
networks, you may not be able to reply to it.


III. Updates

    The situation changes from day to day.

The growth in international networking is such that the information
contained in this document may be out of date by the time it reaches
you.
Please send me ( ocl@gih.com ) any updates, including an example
address, for verification purposes.

Furthermore, if you are a connection provider or could provide a
low cost connection in a country, and are not listed as a provider in
that country (see "FURTHER INFORMATION" section), please notify either
Randy Bush <randy@nsrc.org>, Steven Huter <sghuter@nsrc.org> or me (or
all three of us !).
Alternatively, better still, please enter details directly on:
http://www.nsrc.org/update/  ,the provider update form.
NOTE: This doesn't include providers for North America.  If you are a
North American provider, then please DON'T contact us - there are
already thousands of providers out there.


IV. BITNET and .US sites

   There are are few BITNET nodes left in the US, but none have a
name in the format `.US', hence the US domain is only FI and *.
The slow shutting down of BITNET is nearly complete, with only a
handful of nodes in existence, most of which are directly reacheable
via the Internet under a DNS name. R.I.P. Bitnet !


V. .edu, .com, etc.

    The domains in this section are special in that some of them are
used in more than one country. The domains which have full internet
access are marked accordingly.


VI. UK and GB domains

    UK stands for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland. GB actually stands for Great Britain. GB is therefore a
subset of UK. In reality, the GB top level domain has been used mainly
for X.400 addressing of sites, while the UK top level domain is more
commonly used. While in the early nineties, there was an emphasis towards
X.400, and hence towards registration under the GB top level domain,
this policy does not stand anymore, and relatively few sites in the
UK are now registered under the GB top level domain.


VII. Further information column

While there was a time when it was possible to display all
further information about a country's connectivity on this table,
it is now impossible to do so.
We suggest downloading the Web-based version of this document from
http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html and selecting the
top level domain concerned - this will point to a wealth of
further information.


VIII. Where to find further information

  In addition to the Web form of this document, a number of sites
run on-line information databases, mail-servers, and web information
systems where further information can be found.

- www.internic.net / Network Solutions www.networksolutions.com
    Part of this site, the InterNIC database services, contains the
  Internet "white pages". The "whois" section of the "white pages"
  has registration records for top level domains. Whois can be
  accessed via the Web:
  http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
  or using the "whois" command available on some computer systems:
  (whois -h whois.internic.net).
  Registration records for a domain are sometimes useful since they
  provide Administrative and Technical Contacts for this domain
  and those may hence be able to provide further information.
  Whois can also be accessible by E-mailing mailserv@internic.net
  and subject: whois <name/domain>

- whois.ripe.net
    The Central European Registry run by RIPE, the co-ordinator for
  European Internet nodes. It contains a lot of information regarding
  European IP, etc. This is where the European WHOIS pages are found:
  http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/whois

- whois.apnic.net
    The Asia Pacific Network Information Center, the co-ordinator
  for Internet sites in Asia and the Pacific area.

- GNET: an Archive and Electronic Journal
    This is co-ordinated by Larry Press <lpress@isi.edu> and contains
  bookmarks for worldwide networking resources as well as papers
  and documents about connectivity. Access the archive as:
  http://som.csudh.edu/cis/lpress/devnat/

- Bitnet Network Information Center
    Bitnet LISTSERVs contain files which list all BITNET sites around
  the world. For a listing of all BITNET sites, in country code order,
  Transfer it from: ftp://ftp.lsoft.com/listserv-data/bitearn.nodes
  or: ftp://segate.sunet.se/listserv-data/bitearn.nodes
  Since BITNET is being shutdown slowly, the list is only updated
  when nodes are removed.  Nodes remain in only 9 countries.

- IANA, the Internet Assignmed Numbers Authority
    This site keeps a list of country code registries at:
  http://www.iana.org/domain-names.html
  It is very useful for getting in touch with registration
  services for each country.
  As the historical authority over domain names, tt has now been
  replaced by...

- ICANN, the Internet Central Authority for Network Numbers
    This organisation has taken over the process of Top Level
  Domain assignment from IANA, and the process of management
  from Network Solutions (the InterNIC). It is found on:
  http://www.icann.org

- Internet Software Consortium/Network Wizards Internet Domain
    Survey. Every 6 months, a complete Internet Domain survey
    of the Internet is attempted, with host counts in all
    countries reacheable by the Net.
   For all information: http://www.isc.org/ds

- www.nsrc.org
    This Web system, maintained by the Network Startup Resource
  Center contains perhaps the most comprehensive collection of
  historical information about country connectivity. It is housed at
  the  University of Oregon Computing Centre.
  The information is maintained in a distributed database (mySQL
  and Java web server) that allows for friends and colleagues
  around the world to help maintain the data about their
  respective networks and countries.

  It's top level reference is: http://www.nsrc.org/ and the
  coloured maps held in http://www.nsrc.org/codes/bymap/world.html
  point to further information on http://www.nsrc.org/db.

  Many thanks to Randy Bush <randy@nsrc.org>, John Klensin
  <klensin@nsrc.org> and Steven Huter <sghuter@nsrc.org> for
  setting-up this site and this collaborative effort.


IX. Archiving

    At each release, this document is archived in a number of archive
sites around the world. Amongst them:

 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/
# ftp://ftp.uu.net:/usenet/news.answers/mail/
 ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/usenet/news.answers/news.newusers.questions/

(#) those may not be accessible via Bear access or direct PC access
    in some cases.

The document is also retrievable by E-mail from rtfm.mit.edu by
sending an E-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu , blank subject line
and the command: send usenet/news.answers/mail/country-codes

The up-to-date, pre-release document is also available using a
simple mail-server robot:
Send E-mail to: <robot@gih.com> with a subject: archive-server-request
and the command: get mail/country-codes  in the body of your message.

The document is also distributed automatically once a month on a
mailing list. To subscribe to that mailing list, send a message to:
country-codes-request@nsrc.org   with the command in the body of the
message: subscribe

The whole collection of documents (monthly releases since 1992 !)
is available on:    http://www.nsrc.org/oclb


X. World-Wide-Web (WWW) documents

A Web document is available on the World Wide Web. It is based
on this FAQ, and has links to further information for each domain:

          http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html

A set of clickable international colour-coded maps is available at:

          http://www.nsrc.org/codes/bymap/world.html

The pages are kindly hosted by the Network Startup Resource Center
computer at the University of Oregon.

Web references for Top-Level information servers for a particular country
should be sent to <ocl@gih.com>. Thanks to all who have helped !


XI. Internetology

The Internet has exploded in size in the last few years.
The present document has been edited monthly since 1993, and some Web
pages have been put together to reflect on the continuing spread of
Internet/E-mail in the world since that time, between 1993 and 1997, when
most Internet development took place in terms of new countries getting
connected.

This section is called "Internetology".

It provides a graphical history of the spread of the Net in developing
countries, by taking snapshots of Internet connectivity every six
months since November 1993. All of the maps tie-up with the
information that is included with the FAQ on International E-mail
accessibility.

The reference for the Internetology pages is:

           http://www.nsrc.org/codes/bymap/ntlgy/


ISO 3166 Codes + Top level domains.

WARNING:

The link to some countries marked as being connected to Internet via
UUCP or FIDO is often an expensive telephone dialup link. The people
in those countries pay dearly for every byte of information sent to
them. It is therefore not advised to send an electronic mail to a
remote computer in such a country asking about the local weather report.

Please think twice before sending such E-mail. Thank you!

Code  Connect     Country                  Further information
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AC    FI   * C  Ascension Island
AD    FI   *    Andorra
AE    FI   *    United Arab Emirates
AF         P C  Afghanistan(Islamic State)
AG    FI   *    Antigua and Barbuda
AI    FI   *    Anguilla
AL    FI   *    Albania
AM    FI   *    Armenia                    Ex-USSR
AN    FI   *    Netherland Antilles
AO    FI   *    Angola (Republic of)
AQ    FI   *    Antarctica                 intermittent
AR    FI   *    Argentina
AS    FI   *    American Samoa
AT    FI   *    Austria
AU    FI   *    Australia
AW    FI   *    Aruba
AZ    FI   *    Azerbaijan                 Ex-USSR
BA    FI   *    Bosnia-Herzegovina
BB    FI   *    Barbados
BD    FI   *    Bangladesh
BE    FI   *    Belgium
BF    FI   *    Burkina Faso
BG    FI   *    Bulgaria
BH    FI   *    Bahrain
BI    FI   *    Burundi
BJ    FI   *    Benin
BM    FI   *    Bermuda
BN    FI   *    Brunei Darussalam
BO    FI   *    Bolivia
BR    FI   * C  Brazil
BS    FI   *    Bahamas
BT    FI   * C  Bhutan
BV              Bouvet Island
BW    FI   *    Botswana
BY    FI   *    Belarus                  Ex-USSR
BZ    FI   * C  Belize
CA    FI B *    Canada
CC    FI   * C  Cocos (Keeling) Islands
CD    FI   * C  Democratic Republic of Congo
CF    FI   *    Central African Republic
CG    FI   * C  Congo
CH    FI   *    Switzerland
CI    FI   *    Ivory Coast
CK    FI   *    Cook Islands
CL    FI B *    Chile
CM    FI   *    Cameroon
CN    FI   *    China
CO    FI   * C  Colombia
CR    FI   *    Costa Rica
CU    FI   *    Cuba
CV    FI   *    Cape Verde
CX           C  Christmas Island
CY    FI   *    Cyprus
CZ    FI   *    Czech Republic
DE    FI   *    Germany
DJ    FI   *    Djibouti
DK    FI   *    Denmark
DM    FI   *    Dominica
DO    FI   *    Dominican Republic
DZ    FI   *    Algeria
EC    FI   *    Ecuador
EE    FI   *    Estonia
EG    FI   *    Egypt
EH              Western Sahara
ER    FI   *    Eritrea
ES    FI   *    Spain
ET    FI   *    Ethiopia
FI    FI B *    Finland
FJ    FI   *    Fiji
FK    FI   * C  Falkland (Malvinas)
FM    FI   *    Micronesia
FO    FI   *    Faroe Islands
FR    FI   *    France
FX              France (European Ter.)   France Metropolitaine
GA    FI   *    Gabon
GB    FI   *    Great Britain (UK)       X.400 & IP both use this TLD
GD    FI   *    Grenada
GE    FI   *    Georgia                  Ex-USSR
GF    FI   *    Guiana (French)
GG    FI   *    Guernsey (Channel Island)
GH    FI   *    Ghana
GI    FI   *    Gibraltar
GL    FI   *    Greenland
GM    FI   *    Gambia
GN    FI   *    Guinea
GP    FI   *    Guadeloupe (French)
GQ    FI   *    Equatorial Guinea
GR    FI   *    Greece
GS           C  South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands
GT    FI   *    Guatemala
GU    FI   *    Guam (US)                 US domains
GW    FI   *    Guinea Bissau
GY    FI   *    Guyana
HK    FI   *    Hong Kong
HM           C  Heard & McDonald Islands
HN    FI   *    Honduras
HR    FI   *    Croatia
HT    FI   *    Haiti
HU    FI   *    Hungary
ID    FI   *    Indonesia
IE    FI   *    Ireland
IL    FI   *    Israel
IN    FI   *    India
IM    FI   *    Isle of Man
IO    FI   *    British Indian Ocean Territory
IQ    FI   *    Iraq
IR    FI   *    Iran
IS    FI B *    Iceland
IT    FI B *    Italy
JE    FI   *    Jersey (Channel Islands)
JM    FI   *    Jamaica
JO    FI   *    Jordan
JP    FI   *    Japan
KE    FI   *    Kenya
KG    FI   *    Kyrgyz Republic           Ex-USSR (in .su domain)
KH    FI   *    Cambodia
KI    FI   *    Kiribati
KM    FI   *    Comoros
KN    PFI  P C  St.Kitts Nevis Anguilla
KP         P    Korea (North)
KR    FI   *    Korea (South)
KW    FI   *    Kuwait
KY    FI   *    Cayman Islands
KZ    FI   *    Kazakstan                 Ex-USSR
LA    FI   *    Laos
LB    FI   *    Lebanon
LC    FI   *    Saint Lucia
LI    FI   *    Liechtenstein
LK    FI   *    Sri Lanka
LR    FI   *    Liberia
LS    FI   *    Lesotho
LT    FI   *    Lithuania                 Ex-USSR
LU    FI   *    Luxembourg
LV    FI   *    Latvia                    Ex-USSR
LY   PFI   * C  Libya
MA    FI   *    Morocco
MC    FI   *    Monaco
MD    FI   * C  Moldova                   Ex-USSR
MG    FI   *    Madagascar
MH           C  Marshall Islands
MK    FI   *    Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic Of)
ML    FI   *    Mali
MM         *    Myanmar
MN    FI   *    Mongolia
MO    FI   *    Macau
MP    FI   * C  Northern Mariana Islands
MQ    FI   *    Martinique (French)
MR    FI   *    Mauritania
MS           C  Montserrat
MT    FI   *    Malta
MU    FI   * C  Mauritius
MV    FI   *    Maldives
MW    FI   *    Malawi
MX    FI   *    Mexico
MY    FI   *    Malaysia
MZ    FI   *    Mozambique
NA    FI   *    Namibia
NC    FI   *    New Caledonia (French)
NE    FI   *    Niger
NF    FI   * C  Norfolk Island
NG    FI   F    Nigeria
NI    FI   *    Nicaragua
NL    FI   *    Netherlands
NO    FI B *    Norway
NP    FI   *    Nepal
NR              Nauru
NU    FI   * C  Niue
NZ    FI   *    New Zealand
OM    FI   *    Oman
PA    FI   *    Panama
PE    FI   *    Peru
PF    FI   *    Polynesia (French)
PG    FI   *    Papua New Guinea
PH    FI   *    Philippines
PK    FI   *    Pakistan
PL    FI   *    Poland
PM           C  St. Pierre & Miquelon
PN              Pitcairn
PR    FI B *    Puerto Rico (US)
PS    FI   *    Palestinian Territories, Occupied
PT    FI   *    Portugal
PW    FI   *    Palau
PY    FI   *    Paraguay
QA    FI   *    Qatar
RE    FI   *    Reunion (France)
RO    FI   *    Romania
RU    FI   *    Russian Federation        Ex-USSR
RW    FI   *    Rwanda
SA    FI   *    Saudi Arabia
SB    FI   *    Solomon Islands
SC    FI   *    Seychelles
SD    FI   *    Sudan
SE    FI B *    Sweden
SG    FI   *    Singapore
SH    FI   * C  St. Helena
SI    FI   *    Slovenia
SJ    FI   *    Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands (in .no domain)
SK    FI   *    Slovakia (Slovak Republic)
SL    FI   *    Sierra Leone
SM    FI   *    San Marino
SN    FI   *    Senegal
SO    FI   *    Somalia
SR    FI   *    Suriname
ST    FI   * C  St. Tome and Principe
SU    FI   *    Soviet Union              Still used.
SV    FI   *    El Salvador
SY    FI   *    Syria
SZ    FI   *    Swaziland
TC    FI   * C  Turks & Caicos Islands
TD    FI   *    Chad
TF           C  French Southern Territories
TG    FI   *    Togo
TH    FI   *    Thailand
TJ    FI   * C  Tadjikistan               Ex-USSR
TK              Tokelau
TM    FI   *    Turkmenistan              Ex-USSR
TN    FI   *    Tunisia
TO    FI   *    Tonga
TP    FI   * C  East Timor
TR    FI   *    Turkey
TT    FI   *    Trinidad & Tobago
TV    FI   * C  Tuvalu
TW    FI   *    Taiwan
TZ    FI   *    Tanzania
UA    FI   *    Ukraine
UG    FI   *    Uganda
UK    FI   *    United Kingdom            ISO 3166 is GB
UM              US Minor outlying Islands
US    FI   *    United States             see note (4)
UY    FI   *    Uruguay
UZ    FI   *    Uzbekistan                Ex-USSR
VA    FI   *    Vatican City State
VC         P    St.Vincent & Grenadines
VE    FI   *    Venezuela
VG    FI   * C  Virgin Islands (British)
VI    FI   *    Virgin Islands (US)
VN    FI   *    Vietnam
VU    FI   *    Vanuatu
WF              Wallis & Futuna Islands
WS    FI   * C  Western Samoa
YE    FI   *    Yemen
YT              Mayotte
YU    FI   *    Yugoslavia
ZA    FI   *    South Africa
ZM    FI   *    Zambia                     intermittent
ZR              Dem. Rep. of Congo         deleted and replaced by CD
ZW    FI   *    Zimbabwe

See Note [5] for the next top level domains (whois.internic.net):

ARPA        *  used for reverse-mapping in IPv4
COM    FI   *  Commercial                 whois.internic.net
EDU    FI B *  Educational                whois.internic.net
GOV    FI   *  Government                 whois.nic.gov
INT    FI   *  International field
MIL    FI   *  US Military                whois.nic.mil
NET    FI   *  Network                    whois.internic.net
ORG    FI   *  Non-Profit Organization    whois.internic.net

New Top Level Domains

AERO           Air Transport Industry     http://www.icann.org/tlds/
BIZ            Businesses                 http://www.nic.biz
COOP           Non-profit cooperatives    http://www.icann.org/tlds/
INFO           Unrestricted Use           http://www.nic.info
MUSEUM         Museums                    http://www.nic.museum
NAME           For regist. by individuals http://www.nic.name
PRO            Acct, lawyrs & physicians  http://www.icann.org/tlds/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DISCLAIMER: while every effort is made to provide accurate information,
this list is not guaranteed to be accurate. This document is in NO WAY
an official document. The information given should not be used as a basis
for routing tables but only as general end-user information. This is a
voluntary effort. I would appreciate greatly if errors/omissions could
be pointed out to me and they will be corrected in the next release.
The information included in this document implies no view whatsoever
regarding questions of sovereignty or the status of any place listed.

--
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D. |--> Global Information Highway Limited
Phone: +44 (0)7956 84 1113 | http://www.gih.com/ | E-mail: <ocl@gih.com>
Fax  : +44 (0)20 7937 7666 |   Always 60 seconds ahead of the past...

which is exactly the point - alan

On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Ian S. Murray wrote:

> I really enjoy the new Sondheim theology, but are you competitive if you
> don't
> promise 72 virgins for holy warriors attaining paradise?
>
> If the holy are promised 72 virgins, what are the 72 virgins promised?
>
> Ian exercising his spirituality by wondering at recent Islamic
> theological statements...
>

Internet text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
CDROM of collected work 1994-2000/1 available: write sondheim@panix.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 22:58:38 +0100
From: "scientist@o-o.lt" <scientist@o-o.lt>
Reply-To: 7-11@mail.ljudmila.org
To: o-o@konf.lt, 7-11@mail.ljudmila.org
Subject: [7-11] [.dotagon]about syntax of LISP @ oth

about syntax of LISP @ oth

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/03/1726251

            Kent M. Pitman Answers On Lisp And
           Much More

           Posted by timothy on Thursday
           November 08, @11:45AM
           from the 64kb-is-the-limit dept.
           A few weeks ago, you asked Kent M.
           Pitman about Lisp, Scheme, standards, and other things --
           He"s answered your questions below, at length. At such
           length, in fact, that only the first eleven of his answers are
           shown below -- expect more shortly! Thanks, Kent.

           1) (just one thing (I) want to (know))?
           by An Anonymous Coward

           ((
                What (
                       (is) with (all)
                     ) of (the) ()s?
           )
                Hmmm?
           )

           Kent M. Pitman: This question actually got scored down to
           -1 and marked as a troll question, but I fished it out of the
           barrel and restored it because everyone asks and I might as
           well confront the issue head-on.

           Ironically it"s non-Lisp languages that allow and encourage
           you to put ()"s in any place you want, as if there were no
           meaning to the introduction of gratuitous paren groups.

           3+(2*5)+7 means the same thing in an algebraic language as
           does 3+2*5+7. In Lisp, we write:

           (+ 3 (* 2 5) 7)

           This shows you the structure and means you never have to
           learn obscure precedence rules that make expressions like
           -3! confusing in algebraic languages, where you must learn
           whether it means (-3)! or -(3!). In Lisp, the parens would
           show you immediately that (factorial -3) or (-
           (factorial 3)) was intended.

           The thing I personally like about (+ (* 2 y) x) rather
           than 2*y+x is that it simplifies my editing. I"m a touch-typist
           and I use the emacs commands to go forward and backward
           over expressions, to swap expressions, and to delete
           expressions very heavily. And I don"t have to reach for the
           mouse to manipulate large, complex expressions because
           they are paren-bounded. If I put the cursor at the head of
           2*y+x and say "go forward an expression", ought this go
           forward over 2, 2*y, or 2*y+x? Having different editor
           commands to move across a sum, a product, etc. would be
           unwieldy. Yet without that, I don"t see how the editor would
           know. In Lisp, there can"t be any ambiguity because every
           sub-expression has its own start character, so a single notion
           of "the expression in front of the cursor" or "the expression
           after the cursor" suffices.

Name: scientist@o-o.lt
Date: 09.11.2001 22:58
Email: scientist@o-o.lt
Web:

http://www.o-o.lt/agon/argument/index.php?p_cmd=entry&p_entry=84


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