I don't know much about the stone, but I've gathered that it is an impressive shimmering piece of stonemasonry
by the Incas. The ancient walls and the famous stone serves as an
architectural wonder for tourists and much much more for the people of
Cuzco: "In every eternal stone there is the pull of country". They reveal the hidden corridors of history and speak to fellow South Americans, drawing people to visit again and again (I'll make it out there one day).
This event seems to have happened relatively closely with the "Fuck the 1%" and the "anti-Mormon" tags, I posted a few days ago, and I wanted to reflect on these events. Not necessarily in terms of their social commentary on the significance of bombing the garage doors of the rich, a church building that indelibly has a tacit impact on governance, or a revered twelve-cornered stone. This isn't to say that the semiotics behind these gestures are not interesting. They are fascinating. Why did they bomb the richest zip code in the U.S. now? What does it mean? People have been disgusted by the super rich since before Mr. Scrooge and the Grinch, why bomb them now? Having lived in Utah, and absorbed primarily with the non-Mormon demographic in the Salt Lake Valley, I fully understand the distaste people have with the "Mormon state of things". But why bomb a church building now? In both cases, my point is this: people have been talking shit for years, so why are we surprised? Feels like the proverbial tree in the forest. Just because we heard the gesture now, did it just get real? I don't think so. Shit's been real for decades, even centuries. The gesture is only an expression. We don't get mad at the poets or the musicians for expressing their discontents. But someone throws up a tag and there is an emotional response. One excuse is to say that it is illegal to vandalize and violate public property. Unless, unless it's sanctified by some fancy words on a piece of paper. An agreement to violate. Are not the mountains "public" property? And yet the U.S. carved four giant white faces into the flesh of these mountains. Not sure how much more disrespectful you can get. Contracts are made to clear away grave sites (I mean shit, a king was found beneath a parking lot). Demolish old buildings. Etc. Etc. The examples of legitimated vandalism goes on. And I am certainly fascinated by the use of power, legitimacy, and vandalism. But for this post, I'm interested in the response. The reaction to these gestures and how they become reflexive markers of graffiti being a tool to distinguish what a society holds sacred.
Anthropologically, this invokes the basic distinctions between the sacred and the profane by Durkheim. We can also talk about Mary Douglas - purity and danger. We can talk about taboo. What becomes interesting is when we take the distinctions and map them onto the respective surfaces that's been bombed. If we say that it's sacred, then is "property" sacred in the U.S.? Whoa, what an essay topic lol. Of course, churches are seen as sacred. Is the twelve-cornered stone, sacred? What does it mean for something to be sacred? Similarly we can raise the question about purity and taboo for each of these things: does it divide the hoof and chew the cud?
In each case, the 'sacred' takes on a different meaning and emotional content. The twelve-cornered stone seems to represent an identity politics. There is pride and history in those walls as indicated above. Property is the material manifestation of one's "hard-work"; something that has been "earned" - setting aside its major assumptions. What strikes me is that graffiti is an easy way to see what is sacred. Tag something and if people get pissed then it means something. Graffiti becomes a marker to test the boundaries of the sacred and profane. The act of spray painting a particular surface stamps profane on that which is sacred. Kind of like rolling a cigarette from a page from the Bible. It's sacrilige to those who hold the Bible dear. That is, the sacred carries emotional content. And when the sacred is seemingly violated in some sense, the emotions come out in chastisement.
Graffiti is this gesture and makes what is socially sacred apparent. Durkheim's notion of god as society, religion as society, or inversely society as religion brings another layer to what can be called civil religion. Bellah discusses the discourse of god in presidential addresses and politics. These utterences in many ways are independent of the particular religious beliefs of presidents and politicians. But the words come together to formulate an overarching theology of national politics. Similarly, the emotions aroused by tags bombed on "sacred" surfaces contribute to that civil religion or social religion. In the U.S. private property and churches become sacred. National monuments and structures that are imbued with pride and cultural history become sacred. In this sense, that which we call sacred carries a set of values and identity. Along these lines, in addition to 'property', we can consider 'guns' and 'healthcare' as issues of sanctity in the United States. In Egypt, it is not the surface per se that is of concern but the content of the graffiti that created a stir. In that context, it would seem that the political content is that which is sacred. But perhaps, this stretches the connotation and begs the question of how we define the parameters of is socially sacred and what can be properly construed as a social or civil religion.
This event seems to have happened relatively closely with the "Fuck the 1%" and the "anti-Mormon" tags, I posted a few days ago, and I wanted to reflect on these events. Not necessarily in terms of their social commentary on the significance of bombing the garage doors of the rich, a church building that indelibly has a tacit impact on governance, or a revered twelve-cornered stone. This isn't to say that the semiotics behind these gestures are not interesting. They are fascinating. Why did they bomb the richest zip code in the U.S. now? What does it mean? People have been disgusted by the super rich since before Mr. Scrooge and the Grinch, why bomb them now? Having lived in Utah, and absorbed primarily with the non-Mormon demographic in the Salt Lake Valley, I fully understand the distaste people have with the "Mormon state of things". But why bomb a church building now? In both cases, my point is this: people have been talking shit for years, so why are we surprised? Feels like the proverbial tree in the forest. Just because we heard the gesture now, did it just get real? I don't think so. Shit's been real for decades, even centuries. The gesture is only an expression. We don't get mad at the poets or the musicians for expressing their discontents. But someone throws up a tag and there is an emotional response. One excuse is to say that it is illegal to vandalize and violate public property. Unless, unless it's sanctified by some fancy words on a piece of paper. An agreement to violate. Are not the mountains "public" property? And yet the U.S. carved four giant white faces into the flesh of these mountains. Not sure how much more disrespectful you can get. Contracts are made to clear away grave sites (I mean shit, a king was found beneath a parking lot). Demolish old buildings. Etc. Etc. The examples of legitimated vandalism goes on. And I am certainly fascinated by the use of power, legitimacy, and vandalism. But for this post, I'm interested in the response. The reaction to these gestures and how they become reflexive markers of graffiti being a tool to distinguish what a society holds sacred.
Anthropologically, this invokes the basic distinctions between the sacred and the profane by Durkheim. We can also talk about Mary Douglas - purity and danger. We can talk about taboo. What becomes interesting is when we take the distinctions and map them onto the respective surfaces that's been bombed. If we say that it's sacred, then is "property" sacred in the U.S.? Whoa, what an essay topic lol. Of course, churches are seen as sacred. Is the twelve-cornered stone, sacred? What does it mean for something to be sacred? Similarly we can raise the question about purity and taboo for each of these things: does it divide the hoof and chew the cud?
In each case, the 'sacred' takes on a different meaning and emotional content. The twelve-cornered stone seems to represent an identity politics. There is pride and history in those walls as indicated above. Property is the material manifestation of one's "hard-work"; something that has been "earned" - setting aside its major assumptions. What strikes me is that graffiti is an easy way to see what is sacred. Tag something and if people get pissed then it means something. Graffiti becomes a marker to test the boundaries of the sacred and profane. The act of spray painting a particular surface stamps profane on that which is sacred. Kind of like rolling a cigarette from a page from the Bible. It's sacrilige to those who hold the Bible dear. That is, the sacred carries emotional content. And when the sacred is seemingly violated in some sense, the emotions come out in chastisement.
Graffiti is this gesture and makes what is socially sacred apparent. Durkheim's notion of god as society, religion as society, or inversely society as religion brings another layer to what can be called civil religion. Bellah discusses the discourse of god in presidential addresses and politics. These utterences in many ways are independent of the particular religious beliefs of presidents and politicians. But the words come together to formulate an overarching theology of national politics. Similarly, the emotions aroused by tags bombed on "sacred" surfaces contribute to that civil religion or social religion. In the U.S. private property and churches become sacred. National monuments and structures that are imbued with pride and cultural history become sacred. In this sense, that which we call sacred carries a set of values and identity. Along these lines, in addition to 'property', we can consider 'guns' and 'healthcare' as issues of sanctity in the United States. In Egypt, it is not the surface per se that is of concern but the content of the graffiti that created a stir. In that context, it would seem that the political content is that which is sacred. But perhaps, this stretches the connotation and begs the question of how we define the parameters of is socially sacred and what can be properly construed as a social or civil religion.
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