Institutionalizing Innovation
It has been some time since I discussed the idea of Jewish Futurism. In my review of the history of various manifestations of Futurism I observed a few things that were larger over-arching phenomena related to Futurism. The first is that there was a two-fold view of what the term referred to. One view was that Futurism was/is a form of observation and projection. This aspect could have an ethical or ideological viewpoint, but could function without one. Futurism’s bias could be limited to a general sense that there would be a human future and that it would be non-apocalyptic. The second phenomenon was/is that Futurism could be a tool for positivity. Afro-Futurism is a good example of this phenomenon. It posits a future where Black people will be able to function in a world unburdened by the racism of the past and the present. The Zionism of Theodor Herzl and Ahad Ha’am can be seen as similar positive Futurisms.
However, the positive (as opposed to the mildly positive) phenomena of Futurism could become, in practice, less appealing and even downright malevolent. Italian Futurism became an integral part of Italian militarism in the First World War and afterwards allowed itself to be co-opted by Mussolini’s fascism. Ahad Ha’am, the father of cultural Zionism began to wonder whether it could actually prevail against the rising reality of the Jewish settlement in Mandate Palestine. Whatever western progressivism that Theodor Herzl imagined in his political Zionism has suffered against the early struggles of the state to deal with absorption of immigrants, the efforts to exacerbate inter-communal conflict under Likud starting with the Menachem Begin administration and the free market policies under Benjamin Netanyahu.
The throughline between Italian Futurism and Zionism is that, the positivity about the future that both projected took a beating when they tried to move from theory to the creation of societies founded on their idealistic interpretations and projections of the possible futures based on their reasonable observations of reality.
Italian and Russian Futurism were artistic movements. Cultural and Political Zionism emerged out of the literary and journalistic experiences of Ahad Ha’Am and Theodor Herzl. The Futurist products were two dimensional art, sculpture, theater and polemic. The Zionist project was the creation of an actual loosely independent Jewish society or a fully independent Jewish state. For my purposes of analysis and for my benefit as one of the principals of Der Nister it is useful to derive some of my understandings of Futurism from the discussion of art and the institutions that support the arts.
Der Nister has a hard desire to effect a change in the way that the Los Angeles Jewish community conducts itself at the organizational and at the individual level. This is an idealistic project, but not necessarily a Futurist project. We have noted trends that others have resisted acknowledging and acted on the assumption that these trends will become less resistible over time. We are the opposite of an entrenched institution with an agenda supported by an existing donor base who expect both 1) a consistent focus on their areas of interest, 2) and a say in how the organization decides what the focus of their actions will be. Civilization in a room, as Rabbi Golden likes to refer to our project, is inclusive. In practice, it is as inclusive as our time and resources allow. Our most important resource is our network of religious leaders and culture workers, a network that we are always seeking to broaden. Regardless of what we have been able to accomplish, the majority of what Der Nister is at this point, and this is what makes the project most interesting and dynamic, the achievements of Der Nister are mostly potential.
Richard Candida Smith, in his book, “The Modern Moves West: California Artists and Democratic Culture in the Twentieth Century,” writes:
“Arts organizations, whether located in schools, museums, galleries, periodicals, or elsewhere, form an interlocking set of complicated and expensive activities whose practical dynamics at any given time set terms of what types of work will be deemed most interesting and valuable. Production and dissemination of art require consistency and reproducibility. There will be variations at every step, but predictability and planning predominate over improvisation to define a system that can train students, mount exhibitions, sell work, and reflect on what the activity might signify. Materials have to be produced on a regular basis suitable for the object’s intended use. Design and production personnel have to be trained in specialized skills. For objects [read: events] to be produced at an efficient and regular rate timed to satisfy demand, ... These requirements grow even more intense when innovation is a demand of the system since the personnel and the organizations must be able to handle a greater range of possibilities while still meeting the deadlines of teaching, exhibition, and publication schedules impose.”
This situation, with interpolations, does describe a sense of where Der Nister is heading as we make the transition to being a 501(c)3 and the master of our own destiny. There is a tension between creating a stable institution and the project of social innovation and this tension is a frequent element of our internal discussions. Italian Futurism ultimately sought to support the creation of a new and toxic social understanding. Zionism discovered the limits of maintaining an ideal and actual governing. The demands of governing caused Zionist thinking to veer from idealism to national service. Der Nister, as a Jewish organization based in Musar thinking, wants to have a role in social transformation in the Jewish community. The question is, can we institutionalize innovative behavior? Can we institutionalize self-reflective behavior?
The Assemblage movement in Los Angeles around Wallace Berman, but with some inspiration from the massive Watts Towers project of Simon Rodia is an additional model for what we might do with Der Nister. The combination of different elements that are not integrated into a larger whole in the East Coast version tried to create objects where the disparate elements would be subsumed into an object with a centralized meaning. Rodia created a larger whole where the meaning was the whole. The Berman centered version, as seen in his journal Semina, maintained the meaning of the parts. The value of the whole is in the way that the parts can be moved about and create a series of recontextualizations. This could be the way that Der Nister could operate over the long-term. We have made Der Nister that in miniature. Our own specialized version of Der Nister Futurism is to make self-reflection and Jewish education exciting and stimulating through regular shuffling of the deck of Jewish culture. It is an ideal if we can keep it.
For reference on my conclusions about the Futurism topic see also my article from last year Comparative Futurisms.
