COLUMN: The rite of Fling: a lost weekend

From Michael Pereira's, "Vox," Fall '98 From Michael Pereira's, "Vox," Fall '98Perhaps things contain memory. When Saturday night finally wears off, when the refuse of leisure time washes ashore, when the stripped gears of routine grind into motion again. Remembrance of Spring Fling certainly takes shape among its artifacts: a bottle of beer half full, ashes in an ashtray, furniture in disarray or unmade beds and amIboid outlines. Indeed, Fling opened Thursday on Superblock with a commodities carnival, setting the tone for a weekend of uncertain messages. Experience has taught us that no gift is freely given, yet there they were, smiling representatives giving things away. But who were they giving things to? Who gave the gift? The rite of Fling is therefore set apart from the linear, empty time of history. Its producers present it as a time of possibility, a moment of freedom and liberation from the quotidian. But like any officially recognized ritual of release, Spring Fling actually reinforces the order of things in its ostensible aberration. It is planned, confined, executed and over and done with all within a closely confined and bounded calendrical space. As yesterday's editorial suggested, this year's Fling was successful precisely because it conformed closely to schedule. The carnival calendar, which once structured the world year in terms of production, harvest and consumption, was historically displaced by the industrial work regimes in the era of capitalism. The idea of carnival, though, persisted into and through the last two centuries, and became a necessary intermission from the schedule of production – a break appointed and authorized by the producers. From an administrative standpoint, Spring Fling is neither neutral nor arbitrary. The structures of the past often become present commonplaces, with cosmetic allowance for time. As a geometric parallel, grand abstractions --Esuch as "the nation" --Eget particularized in the individual through myth and repetition, through flags, parades and rallies -- in a word, through ritual. We become part of a group through practice, by remembering or re-enacting events year after year. Eventually, the event or thing rehearsed is forgotten and replaced by the commemorative rite itself. Who recalls vegetation ceremony in the midst of Spring Fling? What is Spring Fling qua ritual? To determine the origins and purposes of Fling is relatively simple, once we have ascertained what Fling is not. Provisionally, Fling functions like a conventional carnival, situated within a conventional framework of power. What passes for a release is in fact part of a larger binding system. Because the contingent seems most natural and arbitrariness becomes invisible, a weekend of ostensible freedom is in fact one of the most restricted times of year. Fling thus maintains a very central place in the symbolic economy of power. You are told to have a good time between certain hours and in certain spaces --Ea mandated leisure enforced and circumscribed by armed authority. Normal rules can be transgressed, but only according to a temporary superstructure of other rules. Fling, in effect, is quite a Lenten carnival. Exposure must be countermanded by camouflage; collective celebration is interrupted by fighting; freedom from capital is cancelled by an epidemic of commodification; and the bacchanal is finally terminated by police according to a pre-formulated protocol and schedule. Perhaps this is an exaggeration for the sake of argument, but freedom is still a concept I cannot take seriously here. Getting drunk during Fling is a tacit acknowledgement of these structural restrictions, an inevitably abortive effort to escape the boundaries of beginning and end. We call intoxication an escape from the self, by which we mean an escape from the perceived constraints upon that self. Intoxication aims to evade internal inhibitions which grow from our implied consent to authority. It is a temporary escape from a reality which accrues interest in the interim, the replacement of responsibility with a blissful and short-lived blurriness. Ultimately, intoxication seeks to interrupt the time of history; and we therefore associate it with our imaginary carnival. But despite efforts at imagination, however induced, Fling remains a fixed and predictable duration, a fait accompli. Like any carnival, it has a gradual beginning and a definitive end. And as long as the random situation of the festival in time maintains the illusion of naturalness, Fling will remain a fixed quantity hidden in the service of power. To understand Fling in its contingent context leads to a potentially liberating conclusion: that the mobilizing power of Fling comes not from above, but from across, from the vast horizontal consent of the majority to stage the ritual at a given time. Fling is a scheduling agreement, and, like any schedule, subject to change. Imagination which has been appropriated can always be reappropriated. Official ceremonies, usually adapted from popular forms, can be reclaimed and stripped of their unconscious coercive power once their contingency is exposed. Hegemonic power requires the validation and participation of subjects, and usually presumes their ignorance. The purpose of this discussion is not to deny the value of Spring Fling, but to reveal its arbitrary timing and its inherent limitations. When we realize that Spring Fling is not just a student celebration, but also an an administrative event, we will then be able to transcend its temporal and spatial boundaries. An epiphany: any weekend can be a Spring Fling and Spring Fling can be any lost weekend.