Indifferent and numb

This week’s reading was in the form of an article by Jonathan Meade about Zaha Hadid's  “The first great female architect” and Alain Badiou “This crisis is the spectacle; where is the real?” a short chapter in his book.

To start off with Jonathan Meade’s article, I immediately am taken with the title “The first great female architect” - ouch, hope you’re not reading Denise Scott Browning - but I suppose this goes into depth as to what is defined as ‘great’. Is Zaha great because she is a genius? brilliant architect? a business woman? or is the great used in the same way as ‘Great Britain’, not so much a nod to its brilliance but rather in reference to its expanse, after all she has created a worldwide brand. Maybe I am over thinking it, so let’s move on.

Meade's language and tone is thrown backward and forward. I read it as if he wanted to write an article about a great architect, was left puzzled upon meeting the architect but remembered he was seeing the architect at the weekend at a party so couldn't be too harsh. Glowing little snippets from the text such as "Zaha has style all right, but not a style." contrast with the overall condescending tone.

When I first read the interview, I instantly forgot it, that’s not to say I didn't find it interesting but rather I didn't gleam anything from it apart from Zaha is a woman and an artist/architect that has five computer screens. Maybe its that I am indifferent to Zaha Hadid's work, neither liking or disliking it, that I pick some critical and some amusing tones.

Alain Badiou's chapter I found far more engaging. Not because I necessary agree with it, in some cases I outright disagree. Condemning the world into a world of either black or white - good guys and the bad guys - us and them just screams of an agenda. But then again of course he has an agenda, he has written a book called "The Communist Hypothesis".

"Capitalism has always ensured that we pay the price for a few short decades of brutally inegalitarian prosperity" Wow, some emotive language used there and makes for a convincing argument that certainly captures the attention of the reader, but on the whole I'm numb to most political talk because it all boils down to theories of the grass being greener if only we did it my way.

Of course what he writes about is something we are all experiencing and currently living through, and yet he is accurate in describing us, the public, as viewers of our own fate, waiting for those who have basically won a popularity contest to make the right decisions ("Save the banks" or not) and see us through to the good times again.