What is Faust?

It is a play by Goethe, written in the 18^th century. One can wonder, how did he know so much about capitalism at that time?

I had to read Faust in high school, as it’s a compulsory reading piece, I had to read it in German, but in a language they spoke at that time, it is like reading Shakespeare, if its not your first language it is well hard. Also, I don’t think this is the best reading for a 16 years old person… I definitely can appreciate it more now.

Anyhow, let’s put the story in a nutshell: Faust shows the tragedy of (capitalistic) development.

He was a guy who was very intellectual and successful but felt the need to live, so he makes a deal with the devil exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Mephistopheles appears, as the devils representative, he helped Faust do whatever he wanted to do, like fall in love or make other developments.

He fell in love with the ‘simple’ and innocent Gretchen, but she starts to change because of him and he realises that he wants her naivety back. The message is here that it is impossible, you never can turn back time, what’s done is done. His development had an impact on other peoples lives but he didnt want to see that losses his responsibility and continued obsessively to do things he thought were good until he realised he ruined everything.

People choose to ignore some factors that can be obstacles for their dreams and development.

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air by Marshall Berman

What is Woodstock?

Keith Richard, the Rolling Stones. The underground celebrity novelist Jack Kerouac. The babies who were born in 1944/45 – become 21-24 in 1968/69. Free education! Technological discoveries, electricity, apmplifier, plastic. The birth control= free sex. Walking on the moon. The new eye-opening drugs – the LSd. Vietnam war- the drug filled hell…
Thanks to the free education and broader understanding it inspired people… expressing themselves through music, and here we are getting the hippies and so Woodstock’s love and peace colour-parade.

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl was an interesting poem. Using crazy metaphors to explain what’s happening around us, in a way that one can picture it like it would be an old film running in front of their eyes…
All madness! The development brings crisis and angst. Recognision. The hipsters – not the cocaine addicts in Shoreditch of course.. Goethe’s Faust pops up again, different times, but always relevant, what man can do for love, even though he ultimately destroyed poor Gretchens life.

What happened after? And where are we now?

Full control. Martin Luther King was shot, so as Kennedy. The images of the earth were forbidden.
We are getting controlled by the government 24/7. Getting the only news out what is approved. And that is changed and manipulated off course. Education is getting so expensive that no one can afford it anymore. So all it matters is to get a job after, to pay the bills, and spend money, on things which is not even necessary for us.
And here in Burrough's Job, his thoughts on society are clear now, how he thought there was a conspiracy theory and that the machine manipulated us through media and drugs and language etc
So as it is. In Hungary, right now, the new government is censuring everything, they said there is too much ‘bad’ news in the television and newspapers. So from now on only 35% of the news can be negative.. “it is depressing people” that’s the excuse. So im looking forward of all the Happy news in the Hungarian telly.

‘Howl’, by Allen Ginsberg

What is Dubai?

A fake-city. As we learned now, it is a fake Las Vegas.

In the beginning of the essay Mike Davis paints Dubai as how most of the world sees it. Starting the journey on the plane just before landing, when we can see this place from above all in one go. It is amazing, shiny, gold… enormous sizes, over 600 skyscrapers…a phantasmagoric city which claims to be the Vegas or Disneyland of the Middle East. The problem is only that it is not. They don’t understand the historical process of building, they are just taking what’s already been discovered, like a “copy-paste city”…

Most people don’t realize what’s behind it – an ex-fishing village, smugglers, as Davis wrote building on the oil, the side of warzone. Modern slavery!

The difference between the Poor on one street and on the other the seven-star hotel-Rich.. they just want to be bigger and better then everyone else, preparing themselves for the time when they will run out of oil… but in recession times, will people still go there to spend their money? What is going to happen to Dubai when no one is flying there anymore?

It’s going to be a ghost city in the desert. Nothing else.

The article was written in 2006, so most of the stuff he was talking about has been built since. I have a friend who grew up in Dubai and he said the other day quite funnily that when he is home for a bit, after a night-out he is hardly finding his way back home, as buildings are changing and rising up from the ground so quickly that he finds himself rather lost…

Sand, Fear and Money in Dubai' by Mike Davis