The current thread on cultural objectivity/subjectivity on museum-l
reminded me of a current thread on primarily European listservs about "The
Californian Ideology", a paper written by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
of the HyperMedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster in
London. The paper is interesting both for the issues it raises about the
future of culture and technology and also for it's somewhat simplistic view
of how culture works in the United States based, it seems, on our
commercial and cultural exports. There is an excellent web site with
different versions of the paper and the debate:

http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/HRC/ci/calif.html


There's a very entertaining rebuttal of the paper by Mark Stahlman, who
points out that much of this "Californian Ideology" is, in fact, English.
His article is posted on the ReWired web site run by David Hudson, an
American journalist living in Berlin.

http://www.rewired.com/96/Fall/1118.html


The French wife of a friend of mine pointed out that it is sometimes very
difficult for European intellectuals, especially the French, to understand
that there isn't a cultural/political "hub" in the United States where
cultural policy is made and mandated to the rest of the country. That is
due, in part, to the fact that in many states the cultural/educational
centers are diliberately  not the governmental centers. Her French friends
are under the impression that there must be a place somewhere in the middle
of the country where these things are managed called
NewYorkLosAngelesWashingtonDC.






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ROBBIN MURPHY
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