In the last century light has become a technical industry. Governments regulate and control who uses radio for almost every purpose—whether the purpose is recreation, military-related, or simply music. Licensing fees determine who broadcasts what, and to whom, and the process around even getting a license is a mess: one need only read case histories . Political and marketing forces have been instrumental in this determination—and they always will be, for better or worse.
But the technicalization of radio is not an issue here: we are not advocating for an anarchistic free-for-all where radio waves compete by way of power of transmission, or anything else. We are also not concerned with media policy. It is a sad day when cynicism takes over and one ceases to care about making a difference in the world-at-large, when one reconciles the way the world works with the way the world is, or must be. We've reached that point. Media policy no longer concerns us. When nothing is under our control, when the other speaks to us passively, as though in a lecture hall, and never hears our voice specifically, nor needs to, we become cynical. This isn't about free speech. We're not talking about spreading democracy or sticking up for the little guy. Or sticking up for ourselves. We are aware of our own self-loss in something larger. We welcome advocates for anything: good for them. We welcome people gesturing, going out, showing themselves and responding to the world. Those who fight for us, against us, who stand out, are our heroes. But we are not them, and never will be. Our actions, by design, are not heroic. Our own actions, due to reasons that exist at the core of this essay, are not entirely clear, but neither are they irrelevant.
In fact, they are essential.
We need to trace these reasons. What we are looking for is first of all to bring to the forefront a basic situation through description, one which localizes our own actions (see below) while providing the basis for a more general understanding of our basic situation (see conclusion). Our own description of cynicism above isn't technically complete because we haven't yet begun developing our own logic of action, which is different than complete cynicism. We don't distrust everything or everyone, and we don't advocate it. Rather, we find ourselves in a curious position: a position of powerlessness, the ability to act upon others (temporarily?) stripped from us. We blame nobody: we don't blame the government, others, or ourselves. But to face this position is the first step towards something, whatever that something is. This ambiguity is what we must trace, even if only brings us closer to the ambiguity without illuminating it.
* * *
I have an AM radio station, which I half-jokingly call RadioTim. It plays in Loring Park, Minneapolis, and on a good sunny day can cover a few good blocks. At night it becomes completely overpowered by other AM stations due to atmospheric conditions. This isn't itself a problem, as probably only a few people have heard my station or would listen to it anyway, but this points out a more pressing issue. Why broadcast if nobody is listening? --If, in fact, by design, it is basically impossible for me to have listeners, as that would require licensing which I am neither willing nor capable?
Recently I began a new project. I bought, borrowed, and set up a bunch of different radios in my apartment and set them all to tune in to RadioTim. Each radio, when I am broadcasting, has its own tone, texture, and tonality. Some are rich in static; some are clear; some are overloaded, and emit an overdrive that is both appealing and appalling. They are located all around my apartment, so my bass can come from one place, guitar from another, and drums from yet another—some radios do better with different sounds (just so happens). So everything is surrounding me, and standing in the middle of my studio apartment with all the perfected volumes is almost overwhelming. Noise is everywhere. Invisible light is converted to audible sound. Everywhere light is, sound is.
I transmit at 1690AM. My own transmission is not explicitly intended politically or as a protest, but it is an action. And a local action is it. I am not responding to the other. I am not speaking my mind to the masses. I am not fighting truth or organizing a community. This is explicitly local.
Sometimes life feels alien: to quote Paul Ricoeur (surprise!):
"Life with the other might as well be our common dream, our analogous self-loss in the anonymous 'they.' Thus self-affirmation is a gesture of going out, of showing oneself, of bring oneself to the fore and confronting oneself. 'They' do not respond to the question, 'who thinks so, who is making this noise?' because 'they' is no-one. Some one must stand out of the mass in which each—or all—hide. In contrast with the 'one,' I take my act on myself, I assume it….
Now in waking up from anonymity I discover that I have no means of self-affirmation other than my acts themselves. “I” am only an aspect of my acts, the subject pole of my acts. I have no means of affirming myself on the fringes of my acts. This is what the feeling responsibility reveals to me (Freedom and Nature 57).
If the other (in my case, my listeners) helps to define me (as a radiobroadcaster), then what would it mean to have no listeners at all? How is possible to reconcile our own local powerlessness with an awareness of responsibility and self-affirmation? Is the other needed for responsibility, for a recognition of self-affirmation in the first place? Can I play RadioTim only to myself, have nobody listen to it, and leave it at that? Why does it feel like there's something more I need to do here? Ricoeur seems to be placing self-affirmation within action itself and trying to explicitly unlink it from the other. But there's something more involved with my radio. This "more" is a very pressing "more." A radio was meant to be broadcast.
The first part of this "more" might be a feeling of disappointment. I am disappointed because I cannot change the world and broadcast farther: thus, in a sense, my act is a disappointed act. In being anonymous, if gesturing-outwards is the main method of self-affirmation, then I have lost already. In large part this constitutes the question itself: I can do whatever I like, but if the world does not respond, then my own self degrades and suffers. We must then change tactics. We must recover our disappointed act. This is the course the project has taken, and must take.
Our recovery must take into account the actual description of the event itself: that of listening to RadioTim in my apartment (described above). This in turn, occurs in the context of a radio-marketing complex in which light is transmitted everywhere and surrounds everything, including saturating my apartment and even my body with light I cannot see. I am passive to this light. Nothing can be done except not see, not listen, or not interfere. But I've decided to interfere. In a sense, we could call this a "standing-out," but it would misleading because I'm only "standing-out" to myself. There is no response (or is there? - here is our trace). But this decision is essential. I've chosen something—and here we reach a guidepost in our trace.
I've taken control of 1690AM for my apartment. I've set up my transmitter and I can listen to whatever I want—speeches, music, my own music, my voice, my cat's voice, nothing, mechanical chirps. A simple decision; a rather beautiful outcome, if you would ever care to join me in playing with my radio. It's quite fun.
We now have action, RadioTim. We are not Democracy Now! We are not "The Current" or "MPR."
What our local action has brought to light is the fact that we're deluged with light, everywhere at all times, meant to be turned into sound and language by technology. This light is active-passivity, moving through brick wall after brick wall in order to reach my radios—they are mostly evangelical at 1690AM, but they don't bother me because I enjoy their insanity, and usually a couple different broadcasts overlap at night. An good selection, of course: we can listen to whatever we want. Who cares.
With one switch they are gone, though, overpowered by RadioTim in a specific locality through one local action. How can we think this action? We need to keep on with the ambiguity of our trace. Could we sum up our action as a mere rejection of the public and a forcible exclusion of that same public? Yes, but that misses the point. Our efforts never originally intended that action (we are disappointed this had to be the case). Our recovery has shown that somehow action is key to our thinking. Perhaps it would be better to say that we have now illuminated light by showing that we can act in a local sense—that in the moment of defeat (we are not MPR), we can still act. In doing so, I have become a duality: he who decides and he who acts.
To quote Ricoeur once more:
"The duality arising in consciousness is a duality within the very heart of the first person: this is why the subject of the action intended in the project is the same subject who is implicit or explicit in the very act of deciding and intending the project: I who decide am the I who will do (Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature, 47-48).
Thus, our small recovery is underway. Locally, non-politically, therapeutically. Direct local interference in the publicly/privately controlled spectrum of light on a local level has shown us something ambiguous and hard to pinpoint but nonetheless there. I who decide am the I who will do. This locality is something special; a place necessary for all response/responding, and a place necessary for responsibility. A local action, originally intended at others, has shown that others were never actually required for the very presence of responsibility. A duality in the very nature of acting (deciding) provides our own ability to act responsibly. A recovery of a failed intention has provided much more--a trace towards a deep, local, personal responsibility, even if it only means listening and smiling at my own personal radio station.
Come over and listen sometime.
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