Copyright by Matthew Scott Archer 2004
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Copyright by Matthew Scott Archer 2004 The Dissertation Committee for Matthew Scott Archer certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Living the Master Plan Committee: ____________________________ Kathleen Stewart, Supervisor ____________________________ Pauline Strong ____________________________ John Hartigan ____________________________ Kamran Ali ____________________________ Ronald Greene Living the Master Plan by Matthew Scott Archer, M.A., B.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Texas at Austin May 2004 Living the Master Plan Publication No.________ Matthew Scott Archer, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2004 Supervisor: Kathleen Stewart I think of Living the Master Plan as an experimental ethnography. It might be better to say, in the words of Deleuze and Guattari, that it is a cartography. Whichever you prefer to call it, it is certainly an attempt to write critically about contemporary trends in American culture. I use multiple sites and subjects, including myself, to chart out the lines and machines which give shape to our lives. My map will take us into emerging forms of belonging, where community and corporatism converge and capitalist modes of valorization become our ethical foundation. Besides simply describing these emerging entities, I hope to provide a new context in which to evaluate them. Homeowners’ Associations, Master Planned Communities, and the property management firms specializing in their management are my privileged sites throughout. I map them out not only as new versions of community, but also as expressions of State desire. In iv writing these sections I tried to present what goes on in a Homeowners’ Association in a way that the inherently intimate operation of the State becomes visible and isomorphic with all sorts of local and internal arrangements. The Master Planned Community is also a place where matter seems charged with an affective agenda. This points toward a kind of cultural function and political practice that has received scant critical reflection. v Table of Contents How did it come to this? …………………………………………………………….. 1 Corporate Bodies Beyond Flesh …………………………………………………… 7 Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………. 20 Writing Machine ………………………………………………………………………… 22 Fuzziness ………………………………………………………………………………….. 35 Freedom Games ………………………………………………………………………… 36 Self Destruction …………………………………………………………………………. 39 Fascist Democracy …………………………………………………………………….. 42 Ethical Difficulties ………………………………………………………………………. 48 Actively Passive …………………………………………………………………………. 50 Renters are Second Class Citizens ……………………………………………….. 64 Class Relativity ………………………………………………………………………….. 67 Submission Games …………………………………………………………………….. 69 Energy Crisis ……………………………………………………………………………… 70 Actively Passive …………………………………………………………………………. 79 Democratic Fascism …………………………………………………………………… 88 Racist Submission Games …………………………………………………………… 93 Capitalism as a Social Machine ……………………………………………………. 101 Ideology, Power and Affect ………………………………………………………… 103 Full-Serve Lifestyles …………………………………………………………………… 136 Seductive Architecture ……………………………………………………………….. 155 Body Beyond Flesh …………………………………………………………………….. 162 Complexity ……………………………………………………………………………….. 163 Machines ………………………………………………………………………………….. 164 Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………. 166 Machines ………………………………………………………………………………….. 167 Grids of Existence ……………………………………………………………………… 172 Paranoia …………………………………………………………………………………… 177 The Intimate Physics of Space and Psyches …………………………………. 179 The Shit of Freedom and Submission …………………………………………… 188 Dreams of Security ……………………………………………………………………. 193 Light and Theft …………………………………………………………………………. 194 Seductive Architecture ……………………………………………………………….. 199 The Art of Existence …………………………………………………………………… 201 Art of Inhabiting ………………………………………………………………………… 207 Standardization …………………………………………………………………………. 213 Seductive Architecture ……………………………………………………………….. 215 The Habit of Daydreams …………………………………………………………….. 220 Taming Flows ……………………………………………………………………………. 223 Caring for Cracked Forms …………………………………………………………… 229 Faces and Landscapes ……………………………………………………………….. 233 Segments of Existence ……………………………………………………………….. 238 vi Arboreal Matters ……………………………………………………………………….. 242 Floral and Grass-Roots Matters ……………………………………………………. 245 A Layered Life of Abstraction ………………………………………………………. 248 Architectural Control and the State Form ……………………………………… 249 Reasonable Conduct …………………………………………………………………… 260 Despotic Democracy …………………………………………………………………… 265 State and Diagram …………………………………………………………………….. 269 Davis-Sterling Common Interest Development Act ………………………… 281 Desire and Training ……………………………………………………………………. 290 State/Society …………………………………………………………………………….. 291 Robert’s (Magical) Rules of Order ………………………………………………… 299 State Fantasy ……………………………………………………………………………. 306 Parking Ticket Bandit …………………………………………………………………. 312 State Desire ………………………………………………………………………………. 316 Before the Rules ………………………………………………………………………… 322 Energy Crisis ……………………………………………………………………………… 337 The Blood …………………………………………………………………………………. 338 Corporate Dreams ……………………………………………………………………… 339 The Tedious Life of a Request …………………………………………………….. 340 Machinic Landscapes ………………………………………………………………….. 368 Propelled by Offense ………………………………………………………………….. 371 Submission Games …………………………………………………………………….. 373 Propelled by Offense ………………………………………………………………….. 374 Following ………………………………………………………………………………….. 377 Submission Games …………………………………………………………………….. 378 Paranoia …………………………………………………………………………………… 380 The Parasite Model ……………………………………………………………………. 387 An Organic Life …………………………………………………………………………. 388 Therapeutic Submission ……………………………………………………………… 393 Coming Soon …………………………………………………………………………….. 394 Racist Submission Games …………………………………………………………… 396 Dealing with Drainage ………………………………………………………………… 403 State/Paranoia …………………………………………………………………………… 414 Combat …………………………………………………………………………………….. 415 Neighborhood War Machine ………………………………………………………… 417 Farcical Control and Ironic Resistance …………………………………………. 427 Trafficking in Community ……………………………………………………………. 431 Sheriff v. Gate Guard Showdown ………………………………………………… 435 Speed Bumps (a.k.a. “Sleeping Police”) ……………………………………………. 440 Debt Collection ………………………………………………………………………….. 444 Sound Control …………………………………………………………………………… 450 Light Sculptures ………………………………………………………………………… 457 Freemont Ranches …………………………………………………………………….. 462 Photo Enforced Traffic Lights ……………………………………………………… 463 vii Gates and Racism ……………………………………………………………………… 467 Permanent Social Rejection ………………………………………………………… 474 HOA v. The Developer ……………………………………………………………….. 475 Living with Trailer Park Fantasies ………………………………………………… 477 Profitable Non-Profit …………………………………………………………………… 484 “A Sense of Community” ………………………………………………………………… 488 Invasion of the Solicitors ……………………………………………………………. 490 Cost of Belonging ……………………………………………………………………… 493 The Productive Power of Belonging …………………………………………….. 495 Possession ……………………………………………………………………………….. 498 Company and Community ………………………………………………………….. 505 401k ………………………………………………………………………………………… 508 Company Towns ………………………………………………………………………… 516 Communitarianism …………………………………………………………………….. 522 Why I’m an Anarchist ………………………………………………………………… 524 References ………………………………………………………………………………… 562 Vita ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 583 viii How did it come to this? With dreary eyes I looked down at my tie and pin striped dress shirt beneath it. I gazed across the top of my wide and broad desk at the organizer scribbled with deadlines, the stack of papers in my in-box and few sheets in my out-box. With a sigh my gaze met the plastic plant in the corner and then drifted towards the softly woven fabric that stretched over the bulging partition that was my office. My rolling chair creaked. I took it all in with a bifurcated reaction. Dread swarmed me from the banal and intensely pressured series of events that my life had become. And, at the same time, I puffed a subtle chuckle at its absurdity. In my mind I heard a question, words from elsewhere strung together between each seemingly inert agent: “How did it come to this?” The answer, or at least the best answer that I can give, arced through me in the form of images and statements which I tried retroactively to weave into a narrative. I’m sitting in Dr. Polly Strong’s research methods course, wondering how to get access to the privileged and enclaved communities that my research project drew me toward. Someone mentions working as a security guard. I thought it was a great idea, a way to earn at least a meager living and do research at the same time. Polly said, “Then you might have to shoot someone.” I gulp and the security guard in my mind says authoritatively, “Move along. Nothing to see here. Move along.” I’m sitting in my mother’s living room, a young man, trying to earn money to save up for a term at Santa Rosa Junior College in the fall. Frustrated by the 1 dearth and dismal jobs I seem qualified to work, I flip the paper over my shoulder and call one of my friends to go drink booze on the hill by my house. Back then we were all possessed by a desire to party ourselves into a distracted state, and not much else. The next day my head and my mother’s front door almost split open as the hammer-like hands of our neighbor slammed against the front door. He was gruff, in manner and appearance,