اندیشهفلسفهخردگفتگوحکمتمعناپرسشفرهنگ
Political Science
Theoretical Foundations of Social Activism (Expo – Bokhari)
Kaveh Behbahani sees the twelve-million-dollar expenditure on the Dubai Expo, at a time when children lack basic heating, as a textbook case of spectacle logic, and argues that even at the risk of being labelled populism, elementary needs must take priority.
Kaveh Behbahani: The spark for this discussion was struck by my thoughtful architect friend, Ali Emtiaz. In notes published in the Shargh newspaper, he asked his colleagues to spend the cost of participating in Expo 2020 Dubai (twelve million dollars) on equipping the country's deprived schools with heaters, or at least to have a less costly and, in turn, more meaningful presence at the expo in question (equipping 120,000 classrooms, where 3 million Iranian children study, with heaters also costs 12 million dollars).
When he raised the subject with me, it made no difference to me. Replace the expo with X, where X signifies a kind of logic of spectacle in a society where some segments are deprived of their basic needs; then, with the utmost respect for my compatriots, I would suggest that X is not a priority. And, as it happens, one of my reasons is the very label attached to opposition to the logic of spectacle: populism! To be honest, I believe the specter of populism is on its way. Amidst all this spectacle, ostentation, "tabarruj" (conspicuous display), and the voracious appetite for seeing and being seen, populist whispers and bellows have become the common currency of the marketplace.
The scandal of the years of "elite" leadership in these recent, tear-filled years will be the stepping stone to the painful bridal chamber of power's sweet-toothed revelers and demagoguery (/populism). Any balm on the chronic wounds of the excluded and the erased might perhaps reduce the speed of the populism train with its frail cultural body, shaped by so much misfortune. Of course, I do not hide that I am deeply pessimistic about it. But what has been granted to humankind except effort? This conversation took place at the Contemporary Architects Forum with Dr. Yaser Mousapour. Although we did not agree on the outcome, there was much empathy, and I learned a great deal from this dialogue. In what I have said, I have tried to offer an exposition of the logic of spectacle and then address the moral dilemma in question: X or the heater.
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Audio of Kaveh Behbahani's talk titled "Architecture – Social Activism, the Logic of Spectacle"
Images accompanying Kaveh Behbahani's talk
Audio of Yaser Mousapour's talk at the session on Theoretical Foundations of Social Activism
Audio of the conversation between Kaveh Behbahani and Yaser Mousapour
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Videos published from this session on Aparat:
Theoretical Foundations of Architectural Activism (Expo – Heater) Part One
Theoretical Foundations of Architectural Activism (Expo – Heater) Part Two
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Discussion1 comments
عالی بود.. ایکاش تمام شهرداری ها در ایران این اصول معماری کل نگر را لحاظ می کردند.