Pamphleteers: Reflections on the Practice of Pamphleteering and the Historicity of Media and the Public Sphere

The Arts of Autonomy – A Blog, No. 1

David Bebnowski (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) [email protected]

Picture 1: Live performance by The Weakerthans, kall_e from Ottawa, Creative Commons

Everyone has a couple of songs buried in their Weakerthans’ acclaimed poet and singer, John unconscious that can be triggered and resur- K. Samson. That said, I did not think too much face at any time, becoming steady companions about what exactly he was singing about over for a few hours or days. One of these songs for the years. Yet now, listening to “Pamphleteer” me is “Pamphleteer” (song with lyrics) by the with the ears of a scholar analyzing pamphlet- Canadian indie-rock band The Weakerthans. eering, I have begun to develop a new under- The song has been stuck in my head over the standing of the song. last few weeks. It is easy to see that this has to This understanding might indeed provide us do with me starting to work in a project fo- with the opportunity to elaborate on pamphlet- cused on pamphleteering. But what is “Pam- eering. A close reading – and listening – of phleteer” about, and can it perhaps provide “Pamphleteer” delivers some insight in the dif- more general insights on the act of pamphlet- ferent realms of study connected with the prac- eering? tice of pamphleteering, its mediality and, in I am a listener to and not an analyst of music. I connection with that, the historicity of the liked “Pamphleteer” for its musical composi- pamphlet and the public sphere. tion and a certain play of words by the

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The Pamphleteer as an Activist fatigue, the pamphleteer shows commitment to “Pamphleteer” is a song about, well, a pam- the cause: to make himself heard, he takes a phleteer and what a pamphleteer does. In the stand against the icy forces of both nature and first verse of the song, Samson introduces the industrialized work schedules alike. As an ac- pamphleteer as a person who is standing on a tivist he cannot really escape his role, as be- corner, trying – and failing – to get passers-by comes clear in the second part of the chorus, in to take his pamphlets. The reason for this, it which the protagonist tells us about the rise and seems, is the end of the workday, which tends dissolution of movements to demonstrate a to make people turn away their “rush hour certain tragic commitment to his actions: “how faces”. The pamphleteer picks up his (let’s causes dance away from me, I am your pam- think of him as a male person) stack of pamphleteer”. phlets and presses one to his chest, only to see All these interpretations from the first verse the other leaflets tilt and fall to the ground. and parts of the song’s chorus merge into a pic- This comedic scene delivers a sense of melan- ture that is ideal-typical for pamphleteers. That cholia, purposelessness, and maybe even activists write and hand out pamphlets goes al- shame that is carried throughout the song. It is most without saying, since pamphlets are this melancholic sentiment that gives way to counter-discursive and take their causes as ab- the personal and/or political traits of the pam- solute, showing a great sense of conviction and phleteer. He is an activist, likely an anti-capi- commitment (Angenot 1978). The slow instru- talist. We can assume as much from his inter- mentals in C-minor, however, double down on pretation of the worn-out crowd rushing home the melancholy of the lyrics and evoke a sense after work and his confession to be “weary of “left-wing melancholia” as a force to keep with right-angles”. Do these depictions not alive and reinstate a left-wing project, as Enzo convey a certain sensitivity to the alienating Traverso has written about (Traverso 2016). forces of capitalism that also shape the urban- This melancholia is an invitation to think about ized cityscape? the pamphleteer’s sentiments and social life.

Feelings at Work: The Practice of the Pam- phleteer The first verse of “Pamphleteer” ends with a sense of escapism. After the stack of papers falls to the ground and the pamphleteer wishes for the winter to be over, he is carried away by a romantic feeling for an absent person. He sees this person in every mirrored window and in everything he was not able to “overcome”. The verse then fades into the first chorus, in which the protagonist provides a heartwarming Picture 2: -30C Morning in Winnipeg, Alex Wiebe, Creative Commons narration about a brief encounter with that person. The lines, “how I don’t know what I

should do with my hands when I talk to you. His activist commitment is expressed in no- How you don’t know where you should look, tions of annoyance at the few hours of daylight so you look at my hands”, not only expand on and the wish for winter to be over. Reading the song’s romantic, funny and melancholic these statements against the palpable feeling of traits, but moreover, in doing so they serve as

2 The Arts of Autonomy – A Blog, No. 1 a great reminder that pamphleteering is a be, that does not mean that the message is eas- deeply social practice. ily conveyed. Getting in contact with people We can think of pamphleteering as a complex not familiar with one’s own political goals communication process that goes far beyond might produce an occasional adrenaline rush, linear models of sending and receiving mes- but also constant feelings of rejection. This sages. Activists are social beings immersed in could further the solidarity within the activist society. That is to say, the pamphleteer maneu- in-group to some degree, invoking feelings of vers through a complex network of social rela- solidarity that strengthen individual commit- tions. By virtue of the pamphlet, the pamphlet- ment, and potentially fostering bonds toward a eer tries to mobilize a counter-public within a counter-public. That said, not everyone is cut broader general public (Habermas 1971). out for such activity. The distribution of pam- Many questions can be asked about the nature phlets demands that activists be resilient and of these publics. Do counter-publics form show a certain degree of callousness to keep on merely through discourse? (Warner 2002) And going. what constitutes the “real” beneath the verbal signifiers? Can these possibly amount to forces Historicity: Media and the Public Sphere that transgress historicity, as the notion of a It can be felt throughout the song that with- “proletarian public” (Negt und Kluge 1972) drawing from activism due to its demanding implies? nature is always an option. The evocation of Even though these questions are fields of romantic feelings neatly serves as embodiment scholarly inquiry, they are so broad that they of these sentiments, as Samson masterfully deflect from the tasks confronting the pam- shows in the verse following the first chorus by phleteer. By portraying the pamphleteer’s writing, “the rhetoric and treason of saying that practice, Samson does not focus on the suppos- I miss you. Of saying ‘Hey, well maybe you edly great ideas in the pamphlets, but rather de- should stay’”. Yet prior to this entanglement of scribes the Sisyphean attempts of the activists activist duties and romance, we stumble across on the ground. The notion of feeling that his a notion that presents us with the historicity of hands are constantly in the wrong place while the pamphlet as a medium: “I walk this room being exposed to the views of others makes in time to the beat of the Gestetner, contem- palpable a thin line between commitment, in- plate my next communiqué”. The word Gestet- security and embarrassment in agitating peo- ner alone is enough to situate the pamphlet ple. within the broader project of a “history of com- For a pamphlet to be read, it needs to be dis- munication”, as skillfully outlined by historian tributed. Precisely this tedious task is what the Robert Darnton in many publications compar- protagonist of the song introduces us to. For ing historical literary forms from below, such the pamphlet to be handed out, the pamphleteer as the anecdote, with contemporary forms like must devote substantial time and mental re- blogs (Darnton 2010; 2014). sources to getting the attention of the people around him. And even if he succeeds in getting their attention for a moment, feelings of disap- pointment follow on many occasions. Getting in some stranger’s face to promote political views always represents a crossing of bounda- ries and is always difficult. As justified and correct as the claims in the pamphlets might

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into a journalistic public in which competing ideological factions form? Entertaining these considerations against the backdrop of a potential new electronically driven structural transformation of the public sphere, it is crucial to (re-)theorize the pamphlet at least minimally. One way to do this is to think about the traditional dichotomy between form and content. To borrow a well- known term from the worlds of design and ar- chitecture, it could be stated that the pam- Picture 3: Gestetner Rotary Cyclostyle, Dr. Bernd Gross, Creative Commons phlet’s form follows its function. This is to say that content has the upper hand in determining

Named after its innovator, David Gestetner, a what constitutes a pamphlet, whereas the pam- Gestetner Cyclograph was an early copying phlet itself can take many shapes and forms. device that printed duplicates using stencils Another way of expressing this is to translate made from wax-coated paper as negatives. Alt- these claims into the language of structuralism hough the term “to gestetner” apparently found and say that the signifier floats above the sig- its way, at least partially, into everyday Eng- nified, keeping its political nature steady. lish vocabulary, its use in the song produces a fitting distanciation (Verfremdungseffekt) that Activist Dialectics inevitably confronts us with the historicity of In the song, the activist protagonist himself the pamphlet. The song “Pamphleteer” first ap- could be regarded as an embodiment of these peared in the year 2000 on the Weakerthans’ assumptions. Whereas he appears conflicted second studio album, Left and Leaving. The vis-à-vis the possibility of giving in to roman- digital revolution has taken our world by storm tic appeals, in the final verses of the song, in the 20 years since, transforming our means Samson presents us with a “dialectical” solu- of communication and information entirely. It tion to the pamphleteer’s inner turmoil. After is thus fair to ask whether pamphleteers today the pamphleteer thinks about expressing his still primarily stand on corners trying to get at- wish to make his significant other stay over- tention. Situated within the broader context of night, he leaps back into his activist inner-life, a history of communication, it raises the ques- asking for support by her or him. The protago- tion of what could be considered a pamphlet nist portrays himself not only as “one, like me today: homepages, blogs, posting in social net- remembering the way it could have been”, and works, subreddits or even tweets? To directly with this confesses that he only possesses a relate these considerations to the outlines of weak and “feeble strength”. Following this dis- our research project: what constitutes a pam- arming gesture, the protagonist presents us phletary event today? Must we adhere to man- with a renewed call for collective action in ifestos and journalistic debates on a grand self-encouraging, rather classically revolution- scale, or do “shitstorms” or campaigns whose ary terms: “So, help me with this barricade. No claims are enhanced by traditional media meet surrender, no defeat”. This solution to him be- the criteria of pamphletary events? If so, are ing torn between romance and activism shows the most modern campaigns able to form coun- that political activism is never politics alone, ter-publics, or are they completely integrated but also a source of personal and romantic ful- filment. Aside from individual emotions, this

4 The Arts of Autonomy – A Blog, No. 1 call for direct political action furthermore re- founders of left-wing publishing house Ar- minds us that real solidarity and group-build- beiter-Ring Publishing, the name of which is ing can only result from the position of the op- derived from a radical Jewish working-class pressed. That is why not only left-wing activ- organization that was particularly strong in ists present themselves as subalterns – contem- Winnipeg. porary conservative activists and the alt-right Nevertheless, the year 2021 leaves room for also seek to project themselves as future mi- doubt. Whether the addressing of “you” im- norities (such as in the trope of a “grand re- plies a call for collective solidarity or could placement”), or fantasize about being politi- also be seen as the reaffirming embodiment of cally oppressed by liberal elites. identity in hyper-modern singularity is left to us as the lyrics fade into the same circular gui- tar-picking the song began with.

Sources and Literature

Angenot, Marc. 1978. „La parole pam- phlétaire“. Étude littéraires 11 (2): 255–64. Darnton, Robert. 2010. Poetry and the Police. Communication Networls on Eight- eenth-Century Paris. 1. Aufl. Picture 4: Albert Street in Winnipeg's Exchange District, in- terlaker, Creative Commons Cambridge (Mass.)/London: Belknap. ———. 2014. „Anekdotomanie Blogging,

heute und vor zwei- hundertfünfzig Only the position of those dispossessed of the Jahren“. Zeitschrift für Ideenge- means of production, to frame it in classical schichte 3: 57–78. Marxist terms, truly opens up the opportunity Day, Meagan. 2019. „The Winnipeg General for solidarity. The first line of Marx’s Com- Strike Is Immortal“. Jacobin. 31. Mai munist Manifesto is paraphrased in one of the 2019. https://jacobin- last lines of the song, in which “a specter’s mag.com/2019/05/winnipeg-general- haunting Albert Street”. This geographical fig- strike. ure inscribes the scene into Manitoba’s capital, Habermas, Jürgen. 1971. Strukturwandel der Winnipeg, which possesses both a storied left- Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu ei- wing tradition (Day 2019) as well as a vibrant ner Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesell- music scene that produced bands like The schaft. 5. Aufl. Sammlung Luchter- Weakerthans and Propagandhi, both of which hand 25. Neuwied [u.a.]: Luchterhand. Samson was a member of. The call for collec- Negt, Oskar, und Alexander Kluge. 1972. Öf- tive action toward the protagonist’s beloved or fentlichkeit und Erfahrung: zur Orga- toward us as listeners of the song results in a nisationsanalyse von bürgerlicher und classic Hegelian dialectical synthesis, whereby proletarischer Öffentlichkeit. 1. Aufl., the protagonist develops his self-conscious- Erstausg. Edition Suhrkamp 639. ness fully in stating and reaffirming “I am your Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. pamphleteer”. This might also tell a story Traverso, Enzo. 2016. Left-wing melancholia: about Samson himself, who is one of the Marxism, history, and memory. New

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directions in critical theory. New York: Warner, Michael. 2002. „Publics and Counter- Columbia University Press. publics“. Public Culture 14 (1 Winter): 49–90.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 852205). This pub- lication reflects only the author’s view, and the Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.