Malcolm McLaren Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Malcolm McLaren, dead as of last week, is the test case as to why the principles of Situationism are entirely compatible with, and in fact reliant on, the principles of executive privilege as a creative force. No one believed he could credibly espouse both. Yet both systems believe that ideology is the first principle of creative life, rather than the toxic sludge it leaves behind, so where's the contradiction?

Hiring and "excommunicating" exploited creative workers in a floating cloud of superintellectualization about what people find credibly attractive: this is now the basis of our economy. As go The New York Dolls, so goes Raoul Vaneigem. McLaren deserves our respect, I guess, for illustrating this so clearly. Today, only the boss can change our relation to the economy. Only the boss can be a rockstar.

But, above all, good riddance! And long live John Lydon!