Negativland: It's All in Their Heads

Last Sunday night, I had the rare opportunity to see Negativland in Dallas at the Sons of Herman Hall. I have long enjoyed their provocative releases, lawsuit-related art, and the wit of their sampling compositions.

It was amazing to see their "live radio show" and the cooperative mixing that they do so well. I even put on the blindfold for a while and just listened, though if I hadn't taken if off for the last half of the show, I would have missed some wonderful visual gags. After a while, though, I noticed something missing: laughter.

Granted, there were a few really funny bits scattered throughout the night but ultimately the show, which included a massive amount of spoken samples from religious and secular media, became didactic and even strident. While part of the problem seems to have been that the samples themselves were didactic and strident, the show was reminiscent of those Negativland routines that stop being funny and become bang-on-the-head preachy, a word I use intentionally.

One may forgive the "band" their lapse in thinking that Dallas is still "the tightly clasped buckle on the Bible Belt" rather than the exciting and diverse global city it has become. It was apparent that they considered themselves in enemy territory, albeit with a crowd of friendly fans. While Negativland has often mocked religion to great effect, as with "Christianity is Stupid," the strain of issue polarization seems to have taken its toll. Granted, there were many thought-provoking samples filled with useful advice or ludicrous assertion, but after the 100th repetition of "God is dead," my eyelids started to feel heavy and Sunday night started to feel more like Sunday morning. Specifically, I think that I laughed more when I used to go to church as a kid.

Maybe it's the deadly serious business of thwarting busy-body fundamentalists and violent extremists that sucked the fun out of the room and left Negativland in reactionary black & white mode. The Message, which was pounded into the crowd with tedious regularity, is that religion is "all in your head." That's also the name of the tour, and converts are called "Headites." This would have been mildly amusing had the man one seat away from me not reacted to the show with Holy Roller enthusiasm, nodding and quaking and gesticulating wildy. It was a stark reminder that there is more to this discussion (or presentation) than belief versus atheism. Worse, if the show was any indication, we now have to grapple with the belief atheists have about what believers believe, naturally drawn from the craziest representatives.

Sure, it's all in your head (and mine) but what does that mean, exactly? Presently, science is still addressing fundamentals like the nature of consciousness and the neurophysiology of ostensible mystical experience. Putting it succinctly, we still don't understand our own capacities nor can science adequately address the subjective experiences that are claimed as gnosis, experiences of some Otherness arrived at through various means which cannot be conveyed through speech or text. Pending future findings and methodologies for approaching this dilemma, it's possible to see the emergent New Atheism as a creature that can't seem to shake its own dogmatism, with a sad tendency to ape the very worst aspects of religious fundamentalism. Like Reagan with the "war on drugs," Negativland and the New Atheists have closed the debate for us and wrapped it up with a bow of bombastic mockery.

And so I was shown the error of my own belief that I would be laughing that Sunday night. And the art of Negativland, presented with great skill, ultimately collapsed into polemic rubble of the sort that is now all too familiar to readers of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. With a few exceptions, the foibles of religion are depicted as if all religionists are crazed hillbillies and mouth-frothing lunatics. In the process Negativland seems to be inaugurating the First United Church of Atheism, the Headites. It would apparently be a gag if it didn't seem so very earnest. With plenty of unexamined assumptions and an Us versus Them mentality, Negativland is coming to your area with the New Dogma. It's as subtle as a blow to the head and about as funny.