Revisiting SCUM July 5, 2013

Posted by FCM in books! Tags: SCUM manifesto

as probably everyone knows, valerie solanas shot pop-artist and celebrity andy warhol in 1968. he survived his injuries and went on being andy warhol for another 20 years. he didnt seem that upset about being shot — according to him, life was unreal anyway, he was incapable of experiencing emotion which television portrayed as strong and real but this did not match his own reality at all. his “art” was flat and commercial, revealing no inner life or imagination at all. one art critic said warhol was brilliant in his function as a mirror, reflecting our own (flat, commercial) culture back at us. culture meaning patriarchy or male culture of course, which is indeed flat and commercial. and dead. necrophilic, if you will. warhol was an inanimate object perfectly reflecting death — and this was a favorable review!

may i suggest here that andy warhol was also a walking target for other men? especially if they knew they could get away with it, how many men would’ve killed warhol themselves if given the chance? a certain segment of the (male) population would’ve happily killed him for being the son of immigrants, another would’ve killed him for being gay, another group would’ve done it while they were robbing him — he was very wealthy you know. and jealousy. or because his art sucked (the critics largely hated him). there are a million “reasons” men have for killing other men of course, but if one looks closely enough, and taking into consideration mens necrophilia generally, one might see that most (all) of these arent really reasons at all, but justifications. like, what if being gay (or whatever) isnt a reason to kill someone but a justification applied either before or after the fact to something a man simply wants to do and does? that would kind of turn things on their head wouldnt it?

so back to solanas. she shot warhol, but didnt kill him. she was incarcerated for 3 years for this and is remembered as one of the most hated women who ever lived because of what she did. or was it because of what she said? or both? note that men actually love it when women attempt to (or succeed in) maiming and killing men because that opens the door to formal, institutional and state control of us — it has nothing to do with valuing men which they clearly dont. men are simply and obviously of no value to other men, and indeed this is reflective of natural law whereby men are largely redundant, and where one woman is worth millions and even billions of men. this is the truth of the matter and men seem to understand this — whereupon they parasitically attach themselves to and leech off of women from cradle to grave (either their grave our ours).

so what could possibly be mens beef with valerie solanas and with women who dare read her and appreciate her work? (jeez, doods, thought-police much?) while the value of a man to another man (or a mans own value to himself) is approaching zero and they show us this all the time, women, since we are not men ourselves, must apply a cost-benefit analysis to determine mens worth — an objective, not a subjective valuation. for an objective valuation, the equation is benefit minus cost. isnt it? solanas named mens parasitic nature/behavior for what it is, and the concept of male parasitism falls squarely on the cost-side, and it is a devastating one. women report being life-sucked by men constantly but are mostly without words to describe this.

did valerie solanas dare identify/suggest objective criteria by which we might measure mens worth? oh dear. re-reading SCUM confirms that she did. men and mensworld are boring, fatherhood is destructive — and mens life-sucking parasitism — these things represent *costs* to women of living in mensworld and indeed of having men around at all. there is plenty of fertile radfem ground here and plenty to think about and discuss. but you know whats even more interesting to me at the moment? solanas’s SCUM manifesto was just a damn good read. it was interesting mkay? it was thought-provoking, audacious and clear.

yes thats right! valerie solanas, public enemy number one, gave women something interesting to read.