The New Nihilism; M. Weiss

Ghoulish books called Hunting Humans and The Atrocity Exhibition fill their shelves. Faces of Death (a movie available at most video rental stores containing spliced foot age of actual killings) and hardcore pornog raphy sit next to their VCRs. Tattoos and piercing deface their bodies. Dressed in torn jeans or in the all-black uniform of their movement, they frequent the nightclubs, galleries, and bookstores of the City. What is truly frightening about terror culture is that it is gaining ground, making Mr. Weiss is a fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center, and an associate at the Law Firm of Daniel & Lezar, L.L.P. its way into the mainstream. One of the bestselling books and most popular Ameri can movies in recent years, Silence of the Lambs, was decidedly terroristic. The serial killer, Hannibal Lecter (played by Acade my-award winner Anthony Hopkins), was transformed into a Sherlock Holmes-type hero. On television, talk shows and real-life crime shows popularize violence and fringe lifestyles. After the Jeffrey Dahmer case, a California trading-card distributor released serial killer cards for kids. Rock album covers are no longer for the squeamish and many would shock a forensic physician.

College fashion is ugly. Women sport black hair and nose rings, wear men's "Doc Marten's" shoes or cowboy boots, ripped jeans, and tshirts sporting bizarre, horrify ing, or obscene logos. According to Lola, a pink-haired, nose-ringed student at New York's Parsons School of Art, "Post modernism is the rage in art schools. Ev erybody dresses in black. It's fashion." In fact, every person I talked to, whether a self-proclaimed devotee of terror culture or not, conceded that terror culture has af fected the contemporary cultural scene. Terror historian Arthur Kroker describes the new post-modernism as "playing at your local theater, TV studio, office tower, doc tor's office, or sex outlet.,,1 Borrowing much from the relativists, ter ror culture has at its core radical nihilism, a complete subversion and rejection of value. Terror culture goes beyond the relativist observation that all concepts of value or quality are contingent and socially con367 368 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1995 structed and ultimately espouses a theory of anti-value.

From the Graves of Academe To understand terror culture one must look to its genesis in academic post-mod ernism. Post-modernism, as its name sug gests, is first and foremost a reaction to modernity. "Modernity" represents a belief in progress and in the value of art, science, and religion. The modern era, according to historian Arnold Toynbee, is "an unbroken vista of progress toward Earthly Paradise" full of idealism and technological optimism.2 The modernist world is orderly and logical, and man can ultimately conquer it through reason. Post-modernism, like relativism, rejects modernity's premise that human beings will achieve a progressive realization of truth through human endeavor. As Professor Todd Gitlin of UC Berkeley expressed it, "Post-Modernism derides the search for depth as mere nostalgia."3 The post modems reject teleological belief systems; they reject the notions of progress, truth, and beauty because these notions only make sense inside our culture's current way of looking at things.

Employing these ideas, a painting move ment has emerged in New York City which rejects all distinctions between bad and good art by employing tasteless images, inept drawing, poor craftsmanship, and un schooled color. The movement's 1978 show at the New Museum of Contemporary Art had the title' 'Bad Painting.,,4 As expressed by Julie Wachtel, a post-modern artist whose works consist of traces of cartoon figures from cheap greeting cards directly onto canvas, post-modernism rejects the very "idea of quality. ,,5 The war on civilization has certainly be gun on the streets of New York. On Broad way, near Broome Street, vendors sell dis embodied mannequin parts for $5 apiece (3 for $12). On St. Marks at Second, sidewalk artists hawk obscene and grotesque pic tures: an American flag above which sits a half-clothed stripper in a Grim Reaper's cowl, mountains of skulls against a post nuclear backdrop, headless businessmen, rotting corpses in bondage. At Art 54 at 54 Grand, black and white lithographs of man gled children (triple-sized) and fallen angels sell for'$3,500. The curator tells me that the pieces sell very well. "I get a lot of interest in them. I like them. The subject matter may be a little much, but 1think that's the point.

People want to be a little bit shocked." St. Mark's Books at 9th and 3rd advances the war on civilization. The store is full of urban primitives (the vanguard of the terror culture movement), all in black, perusing magazine racks of obscure, photocopied magazines on anarchism, obscenity, terror, and, of course, every conceivable brand of rock and roll. On the front rack are some of the best sellers: The Atrocity Exhibition, The Torture Garden, Assassination Rhap sody, Freaks, and Hannibal Lecter, My Father. Others include the complete Mar quis de Sade collection, Venus in Furs by Sacher-Masoch, Macho Sluts, and, perch ing sheepishly, John Bradshaw's New Age self-help guide, Iron John. Readers sit sur rounding a rack full of Singin' Dose Anti Psychotic Blues #6, published in Brooklyn. This magazine, edited by "Frank," es pouses mass murder (not serial killing, which Frank calls' 'weak") and has sections on murder technique and records (17 at McDonald's in Fresno). A longer-haired customer wearing a tweed trenchcoat tells me he enjoys Frank's writing. "I got into this stuff through photography. The inter esting thing is that it keeps going and going.

It's a lifestyle; it's something you have to do. I'm trying to do crime stuff now. Freelance. Like Weegee [the nom de guerre for Prohibition-era crime photographer Arthur Fellig] only more reaL" Body Piercing Another front of terror culture's "war on everything" involves body mutilations disfiguring, scarring, and piercing. In its upstairs quarters on 5th Avenue, the Gaunt let is the premiere piercing center in New York. In its first three months it performed over 800 piercings (roughly 14 a day). Its offices are inoffensive and even stylish. Minimalist couches and glass counters sit atop polished hardwood floors. The first tip that this is not another trendy midtown hair boutique comes from the contents of the counter. It is filled with metal rings obvi ously not designed for ears. Also lying under the glass are needles, surgical forceps, jaw bones, neo-Egyptian hieroglyphs depicting genital mutilations, and what looks like chainmail. On the other side of the room is a table containing copies of P.F.I.Q. (Pierc ing Fans International Quarterly), a sort of combination hardcore pornography/how-to guide for amateur piercers. Also on the table is Androgyny and a copy of a tattoo maga zine, Body Art. The piercing rooms at the Gauntlet are extremely clean, better looking than the average doctor's office. It has been inspected twice by the Health Department, passing easily both times. The piercing is done without anesthesia. Some piercings hurt no more than installing an earring.

Others, Dan says, are "out of body experi ences." Dan, the skin-headed, multi-pierced, highly tattooed manager and master piercer at the Gauntlet (' 'the only fully qualified piercer in town"), gave an assessment of the piercing movement. "Most of the pierc ings we do are the three N's: noses, nipples, and navels. But we'll do almost anything genitals, eyebrows, whatever." Dan says that his clientele is not all alternative. "We get all different types of people from all walks of life, from Wall Street to the East Village." Publication and Performance Terror culture even has its own publica tion. Semiotext(e) is the definitive guide to terror culture. Semiotext( e) is published by Autonomedia, a cooperative run by Colum bia University's Jim Fleming and Sylvere Lotringer. It is headquartered in the French Department of Columbia University, al though it has recently expanded to addi tional offices in Brooklyn. In 1978, Lot ringer, co-editor and French professor, THE NEW NIHILISM 369 decided to change the focus of the magazine, to make it more "relevant." Thus Semio text(e) in its current incarnation is, accord ing to Adam Parfrey, editor of Apocalypse Culture, "kinda anarchistic, heretic, post punk, post-situationalist, cutting edge sub versive-type stuff."

I met Jim Fleming in the old factory building in Brooklyn which houses Semio text(e) and, incidentally, serves as Flem ing's home. Fleming came aboard in 1979, shortly after the decision to refocus the magazine. Topics covered by the magazine include animal sex, child sex, morbid sex, violent sex, and the cryptically named "crit ical sex." The schizo issue celebrated schizophrenia and included lyrics from the punk rock song Teenage Lobotomy and the Boston Declaration of Psychiatric Oppres sion. The magazine's writers include a who's-who of the avant-garde: John Cage, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Kathy Ackter, Phillip Glass, and William Bor roughs. Recent issues of Semiotext(e) have sold more than 30,000 copies. As far as avant -garde art goes, pre eminent in the creation of terror culture was National Endowment for the Arts "problem child" Karen Finley. Finley's often feder ally funded performance art has been dis tinguished by Artforum magazine as "ob scenity in its purest form. ,,6 In her taxpayer financed act Finley smears food into her genitals and defecates on stage.7 Finley's show includes descriptions of violent and perverse sex acts with priests, children, relatives, and the handicapped. 8 Following Finley's lead, former pornog raphy performer Annie Sprinkle now does her thing in artistic settings such as New York's avant-garde and federally funded performance space, The Kitchen. 9 The Kitchen also featured the extremely violent pornographic art filmsof Richard Kern, best known for his Death Trip films.10 These performances graphically illustrate the ter ror culture agenda. These artists violently attack the idea of value, championing anti value. They do not claim that what they do is not pornographic or obscene. Nor do they claim it is beautiful. It is nihilist, trying to 370 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1995 rated by their respective histories, have so many similarities? Weimar Germany fol lowed a tremendous military defeat and evolved against a backdrop of omnipresent political anarchy. Modern-day Manhattan (with all its problems), by contrasts, enjoys relative social stability, a comparatively high standard of living, and, is still the foremost city of the world's only super power. Yet Weimar and New York, despite their differences, share a common philo sophical milieu: philosophical relativism.

, The troops of England, France, and the United States, could not harm Germany as greatly as the Berlin relativists. In Manhat tan the relativists have had over a quarter century to work. Unfortunately, we all know the end to the Weimar story. That is not to say that our destiny will be the same. It is merely to say that the risk exists, parallel cultural phe nomena suggest parallel political devel opment. Indeed, the United States may have already exceeded the) Weimar deca dence and the concomitant demoralization of our common culture; at least in Weimar, no one proposed federal funding of the anti-culture. D . . . it was a den of unabashed perversity; one went for instance to night spots. . . to watch men in drag dance together . . . or . . . for a glimpse of lesbian sex chez soi. . . . If it was a bout of whipping you wanted, the whores parading around . . . would gratify your desire. They wore high, bright-red riding-boots as an adver tisement for their specialty, and some used to carry short whips in order to narrow any margin of doubt to a mini mum.II 1. David Cook and Arthur Kroker, The Post Modern Scene ii (1991).

2. Quoted in Mary Marien, "Life After Post-Modernism," The Christian Science Moniter, Jan. 2, 1990, p. 16. 3. Todd Gitlin, "Hip-Deep in Postmodemism," The New York Times, Book Review, Nov. 6, 1988, p. 1 4. John Russel, Review of Bad Art, New York Times, Jan. 16, 1978, p. 25 5. Levin, "Seasons Greetings?", Village Voice, Dec. 21, 1985, p. 81. This was not last week's New York City, 6. Carr, Karen Finley, ARTFOR UM, Nov. 1988, p. 148. 7. Robert Knight, The National Endowment for the Arts: but a description of Weimar Germany circa "Misusing Taxpayers' Money," Heritage Foundation Back1928. The cultural parallels are striking in grounder #803, Jan 18, 1991. 8. Carr, "Unspeakable Practices: Unnatural Acts," Vi/ their sheer extremity. A recent documen-lage Voice, June 24,1986, p. 17. tary of New York's underground scene, 9. Gregg Easterbrook, "Risque? No!, Some Art's Just d d Lousy," Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1992, p. M2.

Mon 0 New York, has been compare to 10. Amy Adler, "Post Modern Art and the Death of Weimar decadence, 12 and there can be little "JObscenity Law," 99 Yale Law Journal 1359, 1370 (1990). grounds to argue The question that con- ~ 11. Egon Lars~n, "Weimar Eyewitness," 94-95.(1976).• 12. Lynn DarlIng, "Atop the New York Trash PIle," The fronts one is how can two places, so sepa-New York Times, April 22, 1988, at Weekend 7. Ominous Parallel Much of the experience of modem-day New York echoes another metropolis, an other time. Consider the impressions of a local writer describing the hip part of town: tear down the dominant culture at all costs, attacking all fronts at once. And the nihilist project is working. One can see its effectiveness clearly while sitting in the Life Cafe at 10th and B at 2 a.m. on a Friday night. The Life is a favorite New York University hangout. (New York Uni versity, especially its Cinema Studies pro gram, attracts many aspiring nihilists.) Terror culture is taking hold in the cities and is spreading to the suburbs and small towns. It wreaks moral and physical death.

It does not take psychological expertise to realize that immersing oneself in pictures of mutilated children, hardcore pornography, and self-mutilation is not conducive to a healthy mental state.