Rickels returns to the Melanesian Cargo Cult, a mainstay of Aberrations of Mourning, to interpret the other term for what is at stake in Cargo: Savvy. While Cargo is carried by their ancestors, the Melanesians ascribe Savvy to the living. In the course of the Second World War, America replaces Europe and Australia on the Melanesian horizon. The Melanesians would have noted that Black Americans were in the US military. The Savvy ascribed to Americans (notably in the Johnson Movement) reflects the copresence of Blacks and amounts to a reading of American hipness as dependent on Black Savvy. The Trump Movement is the latest last hurrah of white Savvy, last seen in full array in Nazi Germany. That whiteness is by now a contact low is the estabishing shot of the denial that the Trump Movement symptomatizes.

2020

Author Laurence Rickels

Sound engineer Jochen Jezzusek

In VOICEOVER, film material is recommended for watching while listening to the lecture.

Blade (1998) should be muted while viewing.

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