Are We A Functional Culture?

In the last issue of TAF Morbus asked, and expanded on, "Are We A Culture?" In this issue I would like to continue in that vain by asking, and hopefully expanding on, are we a functional culture? Obviously the first question that comes to mind is just what is functional culture? To begin to attempt to answer that I have to step back in time a couple of years and relate where the notion of functional culture first appeared to me.

Long before The Annihilation Fountain reared its ugly little head there was a paper magazine (anyone remember paper?) entitled Bone Games - A Journal of Functional Culture. It was a short lived experimental attempt at independent publishing which proved too costly to continue (thank god for the net). What Bone Games attempted to do, through interviews, articles, editorials, rants, etc., was define/explore just what "functional culture" was/meant to myself and a co-editor. The varied notions of functional culture, as defined in the first (and only) issue of Bone Games, that we came up with were as follows:

positively - as culture that works. Interests are in the general purposes of culture;

notions of healthy and unhealthy culture;

Industrial vs. personal culture, etc.;

the works of particular significant artists, theorists, performers, interesting people;

culture that promotes freedom, vitality, and varieties of experience;

a ‘re-constructive’ culture;

functional culture in the sense of a culture designed to produce certain results: Muzak, Gurdjeff’s ‘objective’ music, Wagner’s Opera;

the culture of deconditioning - industrial music; cut-ups;

Theories of deconstructionist vs. the notion of deconditioning;

Function and Dysfunction;

a symbiotic relation between intellect and emotion;

observance and enlightenment;

Merriam Webster's Dictionary (10^th edition) defines functional and culture as follows:

Functional: 2) used to contribute to the development or maintenance of a larger whole

Culture: 5) a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon man's [sic] capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.

When we wrote the above we were not thinking in terms of the Internet, but in the sense of culture at large, everyday culture. Our culture, as in North American generally, Canadian specifically. Is this culture we live in functional? And to expand on the question using the above examples , is it healthy? Positive? Negative? In the throes of deconstructionist de-evolution? Capitalist implosion? You get the idea. In what sense is, or is not, our culture functional? Bone Games never answered that question (maybe not answering is in itself an answer?) and I don't know that I can either, but I can muse on it for while…

In a very generalized and basic sense (which I will expand on), for the majority of us, our culture works. That's good. But what about those who, for what ever reason - I'm not arguing anyone's case here - slip through the cracks of our culture and end up on the outside looking in. Does our/their culture work for them? Or are they simply no longer certified members of our culture but outcast, cultural waste as it is? Or does it simply not matter seeing as the majority of us are OK and there are always going to be a certain percentage of square pegs that simply don't fit into our round cultural holes? I have a roof over my head, food on my table, a healthy family, access to health care should myself or my family need it, a house, car, computer, pet, etc. So is that it? On that level has our/my culture been functional for me? It serves me, and the vast many like me, as I/we serve it by being good, productive members of our culture. Seems like a symbiotic relationship with the individuals serving the whole as the whole serves the individuals. I guess this could be termed functional in that generalized and basic sense I mentioned earlier. But there are deeper questions raised by this that I want to touch on before I go any further…

The first question this raises for me is just who in this culture am I serving by being a productive member? In a Marxist sense I'm the flesh appendage on the Machine which is Culture. But there are faces, human faces, behind the mask of that machine and some of them are getting filthy fucking rich of off my sweat. So is that symbiotic relationship I mentioned really symbiotic or is it one of concealed dependence/exploitation? The faces behind the Culture Machine actually directly and indirectly control my fate to greater and lesser extents, and they do so entirely with their own concerns and actions at heart. If my employer decides to do what is in vogue corporately right now and downsize, well then my safe comfortable existence is down the toilet. In this sense I'm at the mercy of the Culture Machine as it is controlled by powers beyond myself much as say, a squeegee kid is. Possibly even more so as the squeegee kid has certain freedoms from living "outside" of the cultural norm already. Is that what the symbiotic relationship comes down to then, a trade off for both of us? I trade myself for comfort and the squeegee kid trades comfort for… freedom? Funny how all of sudden there are 256 shades of gray where there was only black and white a moment ago…

So this brings me back to the question of whether or not this culture is functional. Well, like I said, I have all the things that make my life easier from this trade off of my labour but do I really? If I am a flesh appendage at the mercy of the Culture Machine, and my comfort is a fragile thing that is up to others discretion, then how much is gained for me and my family from my labours? It seems to be an illusion to keep me, and those like me, in line. A cultural opium for masses perhaps? It almost looks as if those who have traded their comfort for freedom (however that freedom is defined) are better off than I am… But then again I wonder what I would say if I was that squeegee kid, or derelict, or single parent in some inner city slums? Would I see it from the other side saying how much I'd be willing to trade my freedom for comfort? But none of these speculations answers the question at the heart of this piece; is this, our culture, functional? Can it be functional when looked at it from the above perspective? I don't know (I warned you that I might not have any answers). Anyhow, let's move on and see what we find.

If you look at the definitions of functional culture that we came up with you will notice that each one of the definitions have a yin and yang type balance to them. Function and dysfunction, industrial and personal, unhealthy and healthy, reconstructive and deconstructive. Is that what a functional culture seeks to achieve, a balance? 50% good, 50% bad. Isn't that what the above paragraph is talking about, the haves and the have-nots? Is there a 50-50 balance between the halves and the have-nots? What if it 60% have and 40% have-not, is the culture then dysfunctional? Or is it dysfunctional if there are any have-nots? What if everyone is a member of the have group? Is that functional? Is a balance really important at all or is this whole piece just conditioning on the my part in the way that I look at things through my mid 30's, white male, educated (read biased) eyes? Always looking for comparisons, equalities, statistical averages to measure against, to make sense of. Or is it simply that we only think we are in control of these complex human/social/political systems. Personally I don't think we, or anyone else, is. These systems have made the leap from theory to practice to a true life form of their own, we're merely along for the ride. Historically speaking, inequality is, does and will continue to happen on a grand scale. And with an ironic twist it seems to happen even more so within systems designed to, if not eliminate it, then at the very least minimize it. Sounds pretty bleak and not at all functional but a fairly accurate description...

Also mention in our definitions of functional culture were 'theories of deconstructionist vs. the notion of deconditioning'. What exactly does that mean? I don't even want to begin trying to figure out what we actually meant in our intellectual gymnastics here. I mean as far as I'm concerned that attempted definition is right up there with the term Post Modernism. I could say that labeling something and attaching a theory to it simply entangles one within those theories and labels and doesn't really define anything. Of course by trying to define what we labeled as functional culture I am doing just that. OK. Rather than working from the what is functional culture angle, how about I say that I am attempting to construct an objective observation of my culture by deconstructing that very culture. No labels and limited theories. But, and there is always a but, by doing so am I deconstructing the culture or my own cultural conditioning? Uh oh, theory alert! I mean can I really be an objective cultural observer without being completely bias due to my own cultural conditioning? Is that an achievable goal from within the culture in which I was raised? Or any culture for that matter? I mean once you're living within the cultural you're trying objectively observe, even if it's not the culture in which you were raised, all objectivity is gone. I'll stop here as I feel a whirlpool coming on…

If we were to deconstruct our culture would we really be able to construe anything from the philosophical/political/social/textual shards that would be scattered about? I mean anything that we don't already know. Or should I have someone deconstruct this text and gather information about my interpretations and conclusions, however objective or not they are? Lot's of questions. Lot's and lot's of questions. Well, like said at the beginning of this piece, I may not have any answers myself, but I will conclude with this thought; on a purely personal level, I believe functional culture to be an ideal that is not to be obtained, but rather one that should always be striven for. For the moment we stop reaching for it and say that we have not only defined what it is, but are also ourselves, a functional culture, is the very moment that we will cease to be just that. Now where's that whirlpool? It's time for a dip.