David M. Boje 2001; updated Aug 2005. Main Site is at http://peaceaware.com/special/1/
Festivalism is the dream of a metamorphosis of capitalism into something less predatory. We can make the transition from predatory capitalism to festivalism. Festivalism is what comes after not only modern, but postmodern. It is what is manifesting in the postmodern turn. Festivalism begins with the deconstruction of advertising, texts of spectacle, and exploitation, but begins where postmodern ends. Festivalism is about being a less violent capitalism. There are many ways. Some are being ecological by being vegetarian; it is about being Green by eating greens not animals. Festivalism is respect for all species, all life. For me Festivalism is the ultimate Ahimsa (practice of non-violence).
Figure 1 - What if the sign read "Street Festival: Temporary Spectacle Closure?"
Festivalism transcends global racism, by purchasing garments made by liberated workers paid a living wage, purchasing non-logo goods by workers who are not wage slaves to predatory capitalism. When the slaves of the equator make the garments for the north and south, that is global racism; when the Third World works in slavery to franchise the consumerism energy gluttony of the First World, that is global racism. The aim of Festivalism is a reconstruction of Spectacle and Carnival into Liberatory dialog between leaders and people. Festivalism is a theatric alternative to spectacle, brought about by carnivals of resistance. See for example "Infringement Mandate: The infringement Festival is an interdisciplinary festival open to all critical artists." (source)
Thinking Critically about the historical process - There is a dialectic of Spectacles of Oppression with Carnivals of Resistance that can work our here and there into a synthesis of Festivalism. For background on Spectacle of Oppression - See Games of Power study guide and Septet Exercise).
Spectacle and Carnival are an interplay of dialectic contradictions (For more on Dialectic, see What is Situation, Boje, 2002b). In the Society of the Spectacle (Debord, 1967) predicts the spectacles such as Enron accumulate and distribute and turn into megascandals. Spectacles are produced to control the masses in ideologies of domestication, but sometimes spin into megascandal.
Carnivals of Resistance continue to proliferate to protest spectacles: from anti-WTO in Seattle in 1999, J18 International Day of Protest in 1999, S26 2000 in Prague, Quebec 2000, G8 in Italy 2001, and the continuing blockade of NikeTown in Melbourne. Spectacle resists attempts by the people to engage in carnival protests of resistance, often by violent means, more often with pseudo promises of reform and inclusion.
However, as Paulo Freire (1970: 126) in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, argued "any apparaent dialogue or communication between the elites and the masses is really the depositing of 'communiqués,' whose contents are intended to exercise a domesticating influence." Elites, says Freire (1970: 146) will use physical violence to keep people from thinking. When students, for example, stop being mere spectators in the historical process, and engage in the street theatre of carnivals of resistance, the elite is frightened. The spectacle doubles its tactics of domination, to reduce students to a mass of unthinking bodies. Students in Spectacles of domination are forbidden to speak; they grow accustomed to domestication. Augusto Boal's (1974, 1991) uses theatre as a way to think critically about theatres of oppression. I have worked up a study guide of how to use Image, Invisibile, and Forum Theatre as a way to transform how leadership is taught to students in the Business College (Boje, 2002a, Leadership Theatre Event). The idea is to use theatre as a way to dialog with students in a critical analysis of our social reality. It may be possible to discovery and transform dehumanizing states of affairs in student lives.
To think critically about the historical process, the dialectics of our time, is to invite spectacle repression and the forces of domestication. A critical consciousness explores the causes of oppression and domestication. Elites are afraid that when carnivals of resistances invite people to think critically then liberation could erupt at any moment. Critical consciousness, critical thinking, and Liberatory praxis is a threat to the status quo and its hegemony.
Figure 2: Spectacle, Carnival, and Festival
Spectacle is opposed by the theatrics of Carnival, and somewhere out there is a more Festive theatrics. Festivalism is more about Dionysus than Apollo, more about dance than regiment. Festivalism resists the Society of the Spectacle, but somewhat differently than Carnivalesque theatrics. Figure 1 depicts Festivalism as a synthetic dialectical outcome of the continued opposition of spectacle and carnival. Festivalism would be a transformation of rigid, authoritarian domination by bureaucratic institutions of power.
An example of carnival is a Sweatshop Fashion Show that brings awareness of who makes our clothes and the Friday evening NikeTown Blockade in Melbourne. An example of carnival is the street protests that began in Seattle to contest the WTO and has spread throughout the world to protest current models of globalization. An example of Festivalism, is the pursuit of fun and aesthetics.
Festival can be accused of being used by Spectacle, as the attraction to the casino in Las Vegas, a group of artists hired to promote gambling. Or Festival can be accused of being appropriated by Carnival, as a fun way to entertain the police and security guards at a NikeTown blockade in Melbourne or Sydney, Australia. Worse, Festivalism can be accused of being non-critical art, an aesthetics for its own Dionysian lust for pleasure.
Is Festivalism a cop out, a way to do art, like Tamara de Lempicka? In the TAMARA: Journal of critical postmodern organization science, we explore how Tamara de Lempicka sold her portrait art to the rich aristocracy of Paris, while refusing to comment on the fascism all around her.
Figure 3: Portrait of a Young Girl in a Green Dress by De Lempicka
Tamara had a choice of whether to do carnival or festive art, and chose the festive (For more Tamara art). We too have a choice, to decide to engage in spectacle, the mindless consumption and production of the spectacle that is late modern global capitalism, to engage in the critique and protestation of the carnivalesque, or just wear the clothing and be spectators and gawk at the theater of power between spectacle and carnival.
Festivalism may become a stooge of spectacle. At issue, in philosophy, is the difference between a cop-out non-critical appreciative postmodernism, that only looks for the silver lining, or the choice of a more "critical postmodernism" that moves beyond building and portrait art, to the theatrics of resistance to predatory global capitalism (For more on the differences between premod, mod, affirmative postmod, critical postmodern, and the new postmodern adventure (click here for Table 1). For more on postmodern adventure, see Best and Kellner (2001).
Writing
Boje, D. M. (2002a) Leadership Theatre Event Explores uses of Boal's Image, Invisible and Forum theatre as ways to teach carnivalesque resistance and postmodern leadership
Boje, D. M. 2002b) What is the Situation http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/388/what_is_situation.htm - Explores dialectic approach to leadership
Boje, D. M. (2002c) Study Guide on Games of Power and Exercises in Theatrics of Power and Leadership for the Business College Classroom
Boje writing about spectacle and festival in the athletic apparel industry http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/AA/academicsstudyingwriting.htm#bojewriting
Boje, D. M. (2001l) "Global Theatrics of Capitalism." Contains examples of culture jamming art, missing absent referent photos, and analysis of relation between Athletic Apparel Industry spectacle of disinformation, and carnivalesque acts of street theater resistance. Appendix of 10 College of Business theatrics training experiential exercises
Boje, D. M. (2001b). Athletic Apparel Industry is Tamara-land. Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science. Vol 1 (2), pp. 6-19. http://www.zianet.com/boje/tamara/
Boje, D. M. (2001h) "Editorial: Athletic Apparel Industry is Tamara-land." SPECIAL ISSUE ON Corporate Predators and Nike, Tamara Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science. Vol 1 Issue 2 pp 6-19.
Boje, D. M. (2001e). Carnivalesque Resistance to Global Spectacle: A critical postmodern theory of public administration. Accepted for Publication for September issue of Administrative Theory and Praxis, special issue on Radical Organization Theory.
Boje, D. M. (2001g). Antenarrating, Tamara, and Nike Storytelling. Paper prepared for presentation at “Storytelling Conference” at the School of Management; Imperial College, 53 Prince’s Gate, Exhibition Road, London, July 9th, 2001. http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/ethnostorytelling.htm
Festival, Spectacle & Carnival - presentation to 2000 Academy of Management by Boje & Rosile
Figure 1: The Nested Frames of Spectacle, Festival, and Carnival (Boje, 2001)
BOOKS:
Festivalism at Work: Toward Ahimsa in Production and Consumption by David M. Boje email dboje@nmsu.edu November 2, 1999; Updated September 7, 2000 Essay prepared for Jerry Biberman and Mike Whitty (Eds.) The Spirit and Work Reader University of Scranton Press, to be published 2000.
Sage http://www.sagepub.co.uk/shopping/Detail.asp?id=9826 or See Amazon.com listing for U.S. soft cover.
BOOS ON LINE -
2. Boje, D. M. Spectacles and Festivals of Organization: Managing Ahimsa Production and Consumption. To be published by Hampton Press, 2001 (To access book, please use ID=aggie359 PASS=adventure). Contact dboje@nmsu.edu if unable to access
3. King, Donovan 2005 Optative Theory!