HyperNormalisation Page #2

"In trying to join them, I felt overwhelmed

"by yet another form of bureaucracy."

What she was describing was the rise

of a new, powerful individualism

that could not fit with the idea

of collective political action.

Instead, Patti Smith and many others

became a new kind of individual radical,

who watched the decaying

city with a cool detachment.

They didn't try and change it.

They just experienced it.

Look at that. Isn't that cool?

I love that, where, like, kids

write all over the walls.

That, to me, is neater than any art sometimes.

"Jose and Maria forever."

Oh, there's a lot of things, like,

when you pass by big movie houses,

maybe we'll find one, but they

have little movie screens,

where you can see clips of, like,

Z, or something like that.

People watch it over and over.

I've seen people, I've checked them out. All day!

I've gone back and forth and they're still there

watching the credits of a movie,

cos they don't have enough dough,

but it's some entertainment, you know?

Instead, radicals across America

turned to art and music

as a means of expressing

their criticism of society.

They believed that instead of

trying to change the world outside

the new radicalism should try and change

what was inside people's heads,

and the way to do this was

through self-expression,

not collective action.

U:

V:

W:

X:

Y:

Z:

But some of the Left saw that

something else was really going on -

that by detaching themselves and

retreating into an ironic coolness,

a whole generation were beginning to lose touch

with the reality of power.

Shut up.

Shut up!

One of them wrote of that time,

"It was the mood of the era

"and the revolution was deferred indefinitely.

"And while we were dozing, the money crept in."

SOBBING:

What's your date of birth, Larry?

But one of the people who did

understand how to use this new power

was Donald Trump.

Trump realised that there was now no future

in building housing for ordinary people,

because all the government grants had gone.

But he saw there were other ways

to get vast amounts of money out of the state.

Trump started to buy up

derelict buildings in New York

and he announced that he was

going to transform them

into luxury hotels and apartments.

But in return, he negotiated the biggest tax break

in New York's history, worth 160 million.

The city had to agree because they were desperate,

and the banks, seeing a new opportunity,

also started to lend him money.

And Donald Trump began to transform

New York into a city for the rich,

while he paid practically nothing.

At the very same time, in 1975,

there was a confrontation between

two powerful men in Damascus,

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