George Carlin found the sunglasses

George Carlin on American Owners and Education

Prompts for the Final

Prompt One:

To be recognized as human is to be accorded a special status, an “authentic” ethical standing, while to be dismissed as nonhuman, as subhuman, as infrahuman through racializing, sexualizing, pathologizing, infantilizing, primitivizing, or bestializing discourses is to be cast outside of culture and history, and so rendered precarious, abject. Discuss what you take to be the role of this proposition in any of the pieces we engaged with in class, especially by Adams, Althusser, Arendt, Burroughs, Butler, Carpenter ("They Live"), Fanon, Foucault, Gilroy, Haraway, Latour, Lewis, or Solanas.

Prompt Two:

The conviction that technoscientific development might achieve a level through which universal human emancipation might finally be accomplished keeps re-appearing in a number of the texts we have read over the course of the term -- from Wilde, to Marx, to Solanas (and you may well think others). The conviction that technoscientific development has arrived already at such a level but that its emancipatory promise has been diverted to the service of unjust ends re-appears in a number of others -- from Adorno, to Benjamin, to Debord, to Klein (and you may well think others). In still others -- in Barthes, again, in Adorno, in Arendt, in Fanon, in Latour, in Lewis (and you may well think others) -- we discern the concern that framing human emancipation in the instrumental terms of technoscientific development in the first place fatally deranges our grasp of and hopes for such emancipation. Through a comparison of two pieces from the course that seem to offer up conflicting views on the question, or through a reading of a single text that seems to you to exhibit ambivalence on this question, make a case that the text(s) provide an essentially progressive or an essentially reactionary view of technoscience (or instrumentality) in relation to emancipatory politics.

Solanas is Music to Our Ears

The San Fran duo Matmos released a CD in 2006 entitled “The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast” which, apparently, is a line offered up to the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. If you knew that, then you probably also knew he was a part of the LGBT community. In fact, so is/was every other person to whom each track on this CD is dedicated. Given there are 11 tracks, and that “Rag for William S. Burroughs” sounds a lot like fourteen minutes of rag-time and type-writing tapping, this is a hell of a concept album. Pitchfork wrote—and I agree—that it’s a CD full of “frenetic dance tracks doubling as reading lists.”

Curious? Copy and paste the youtube link below and take a listen to the track entitled “Tract for Valerie Solanas,” featuring as its lyrics excerpts from the SCUM Manifesto, which I’ve included below. I think you’ll see why this can only be described as “tunefully fractured electronic music” (again, thank you Pitchfork).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8jn3x2WmS0

"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy. the male. sex."

"Destroy the male sex."

“Unable to relate or to love, the male must work. Females crave absorbing, emotionally satisfying, meaningful activity, but lacking the opportunity or ability for this, they prefer to idle and waste away their time in ways of their own choosing -- sleeping, shopping, bowling, shooting pool, playing cards and other games, breeding, reading, walking around, daydreaming, eating, playing with themselves, popping pills, going to the movies, getting analyzed, traveling, raising dogs and cats, lolling about on the beach, swimming, watching TV, listening to music, decorating their houses, gardening, sewing, nightclubbing, dancing, visiting, `improving their minds' (taking courses), and absorbing `culture' (lectures, plays, concerts, `arty' movies). Therefore, many females would, even assuming complete economic equality between the sexes, prefer living with males or peddling their asses on the street, thus having most of their time for themselves, to spending many hours of their days doing boring, stultifying, non-creative work for someone else, functioning as less than animals, as machines, or, at best -- if able to get a `good' job -- co-managing the shitpile.”

Then, in the bizarre instrumental interlude that follows, it’s pretty clear that the break on the word “shitpile” was no accident. Finally:

“If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President's stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.”

Precis on Preface: Gap Between Past and Future by Cheryl Jamison

In her Preface, Hannah Arendt’s central argument deals with the responsibility of “each new generation, indeed every new human being” to “discover” and “pave” anew the gap that exists between the past and the future (13). This gap, described as a “thought-event” manifests in three-fold warfare: the struggle between the antagonistic forces of the past and the present; the struggle between man with his past; and the struggle between man with his future (10).

The preface opens with a quotation from French poet Rene Char: “our inheritance was left to us by no testament” (3). Arendt argues that “testament,” referring to tradition, ensures that possessions, valuable treasures, of a past generation are properly preserved and handed down to future generations. (Today we might use a will or living trust to ensure this process.) In short, the future, even before it had been realized, eluded man through an interval or gap in time because the past had not ensured its safe passage. This interval is an opportunity of necessity for each new generation to create its own being, its own state of existence.

The treasure, which was so valuable yet nameless, was an expression of freedom and self-realization—freedom from the encumbrances of society and the constant search of self (4). The problem, as Arendt described, is that because this treasure of freedom had not been passed down through tradition, there was no name or value assigned to it. Without this assignment of name or value, there was nothing to “think about and to remember” (6). The importance of remembrance is the necessity of a “pre-established framework of reference” (5). In other words, there must be some “thing” of assigned value—treasured possession—that attaches itself to the mind and, thereafter, is open to recollection. In fact, questions arose as to whether the treasure ever, in reality, existed. As Arendt puts it, “The tragedy began . . . when it turned out that there was no mind to inherit and to question, to think about and to remember” (6). The treasure was lost in obscurity because it had no place of “thought” in which to exist—to be known, to be recalled, and to be passed down to future generations.

Arendt argues that the gap between past and future is a “non-time-space . . . [that] can only be indicated, but cannot be inherited and handed down from the past” (13). Her call to action, as stated previously, is that new generations must find and chart its own course. This call to action is an opportunity for continued renewal of intellectual thought that pushes each succeeding generation beyond the realm of the past.

Anyone else missing pp. 218-219 in "What is an Author?"

Here's another version. Missing portion begins on page 154.

Sear up some heroes?

"The 'hippy' babbles on about individuality,but has no more conception of it than any other man. He desires to get back to Nature, back to the wilderness, back to the home of furry animals that he's one of, away from the city, where there is at least a trace, a bare beginning of civilization, to live at the species level, his time taken up with simple, non-intellectual activities -- farming, fucking, bead stringing. The most important activity of the commune, the one upon which it is based, is gang-banging. THe 'hippy' is enticed to the commune mainly by the prospect for free pussy -- the main commodity to be shared, to be had just for the asking, but, blinded by greed, he fails to anticipate all the other men he has to share wtih, or the jealousies and possessiveness for the pussies themselves."

Brilliant.

A Precis: "On Coincidence" and "Immortality"

Burroughs argues, in both essays, for the abandonment of the "dead dogma" of religion in favor of dreamful and artistic space exploration.
There is a social commentary to both essays, seemingly both heartfelt and, at least at times, sardonic or wry. In "On Coincidence," religion and to some degree academia (philosophy, sociology, and psychology, in particular) are under fire. "Immortality" remarks mostly upon scientific/medicinal ethics, capitalism, and, briefly, Christianity. Citations array from Korzybski's classroom to The Methusala Enzyme, from Plato's Republic to The Boulder Camera. Burroughs tampers with his citations, substituting words within quotes ("wrong" for "long", for example) and rewriting entire scenes or plots. His own writing, plot lines, metaphors, and citations cut into each other and clash without compromise.

“On Coincidence”:
Observes that characterizing the unexpected or hard to explain as coincidence is comforting. Coincidence adamantly relies on faith.
"All thinking is wishful."
Characterizations of truth are also volatile, but they vitalize statements.
Christ spoke the truth of "the non-dominant brain hemisphere."
Julian Jaynes: The voice of a priest-king was heard by all subjects until 1000 B.C.
Science induces voices through electrostimulation.
Arthur C. Clarke: Religious origins of language, absoluteness and the definite article
Korzybski: We are still in a "platonic cave."
Scientific truths: Impossibilities validated by "the human nervous system that made and recorded the measurements," black holes beyond the scope of truths and certainty
Magical truth: Will as reigning force, the Company's magic push or pull, "lightning usually strikes more than once in the same place," the "synchronicity" of daily life
A lesson in magical truth: "Your surroundings are your surroundings. They relate to you."
Creativity as prefatory space exploration, "leave the Word-God behind."

“Immortality”:
A fitful scenario of science fiction tangled in science fact. The facts are organ transplant, cloning, and the organ trafficking that actually takes place under regulation and in the black market; the fiction is a caricatural portrait of these facts, a grisly system of immortality.
"Mr. Rich Parts" is, at first, a horrible quilt of replaced body parts. Then transplant methodology is inverted, bodies are left intact, egos are taken out and inserted into new ones.
Morality is capitalism: the successful are right; the poor, the dead are wrong.
Mentase: the youth enzyme, stolen from the young to give to the old, without the enzyme the young age rapidly, a vampiric Mentase addiction results.
Egos are "helpful little visitors," the ego is a defensive reaction and a fallacy.
"Take fifty photos of the same person over an hour."
Cloning: "the end of the ego," human as artifact
"'The thought of human non-selfness is terrifying!'"
David Rorvik: Max and Dr. Darwin popping clones
The future is "increased flexibility, capacity for change and ultimately, mutation."
Dreams: a warm-blooded necessity, sexual, travel in time, "train the being for future conditions," art as waking life correlate.
"The human artifact is biologically designed for space travel."

Precis on SCUM Manifesto

My first impressions on Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto were that it was a ludicrous, bizarre, and fallacious attack on the male sex. I have undertaken this precis to see what kind of sense I can garner from this essay.

The essay begins by bringing up the inherent advantage that women have over men because of an increased number of chromosomes, and then goes to show how this causes men to want more than anything else in their lives to be female. However, men, in an attempt to hide this jealousy of females, instead indulge in an elaborate scheme to hide their true ambitions, so that they seem "manly". This includes them architecting an economy in which they are the male breadwinners, mainly so they feel as they have a purpose in life. After it has been established that males are completely lacking and have only one superiority over females (to convince females that men are women and women are men), it moves on to demonstrate how SCUM will work to change this and create a society where women are the leaders and citizens, while males are allowed to "sit back, relax, enjoy the show, and ride the waves to their demise."

Solanas was an interesting character, a schizophrenic woman best known for her attempt to murder Andy Warhol. Sexually abused as a child, she lived as a prostitute and beggar, and years after writing SCUM Manifesto claimed that it was not to be taken literally. Based on her murder attempt and other stalker acts that earned her many years in prison and that demonstrate her mental instability, it is difficult to ascertain whether she truly meant that SCUM Manifesto was to be taken literally, or merely to kindle discussion over feminism.

SCUM Manifesto is an entreaty to all women that they realize the current domination that the inherently unsuperior male race has over them, and for this reason, I would assume that the audience she wishes to attract is any and all women. At one point she elaborates upon the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM "who are working to diligently eliminate temselves," so one may assume that she also would like to attract a male audience. However, if men are endowed with the great power of convincing women otherwise of whatever womenconceive, perhaps she does not wish to attract a male audience so that they cannot work against the SCUM movement, which is supposed to be "furtive, sneaky, and underhanded."

Solanas makes this argument to more than call into question the female's role in society, but rather, to impress upon the audience female superiority. She is taking feminism to a whole new level, and rather than advocating for equal rights, she is advocating for a society in which women are the only worthwhile part.

The thesis that Solanas provides for the work is conveniently provided in the first sentence: "Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the moneysystem, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex." Solanas argues for the need for females to seize governmental power and institute a female-dominated system, as the current system is centered around the concept that men are trying to hide their want and need to be female.

Solanas' argument revolves around the general warrant that males are a biological accident, "a walking abortion," who are missing a chromosome. She states, "maleness is a deficiency disease." Taking this as truth, she goes on to describe how this deficiency in chromosomes causes men to be unfit for any role in society. However, this argument cannot be taken as truth. It could just as easily be said that females are overdeveloped males, who rather than have a deficiency in chromosomes, have an excessive number. It is of note that people with down syndrome suffer from an extra chromosome. Using this argument, one could say that females too suffer from a smaller mental capacity and inherent disadvantages. A second assumption made by Solanas is that the only superiority that males have over females is that to be able to convince the population that men are women and women are men. If men have this ability to convince with such success that our whole society revolves around this one simple superiority, it seems to imply that the superiority of being able to convince others is the most important of them all, as it ultimately decides how our society functions.

Although Solanas' piece could be seen as a crazy interpretation of the ills in our society, it is very well organized, with a step by step argument that does seem coherent with the basic assumptions she sets forth in the beginning of this piece. It seems to be influenced by Adorno and Horkheimer, especially in the realm of automation to create more leisure time; she states, "There is no human reason for money or for anyone to work more than two or three hours a week at the very most. All non-creative jobs (practically all jobs now being done) could have been automated long ago, and in a moneyless society everyone can have as much of the best of everything as she wants." She proposes a society wherein money has been eliminated, and machines take a prominent role.

However, it is interesting that Solanas also proposes a true democracy, where "it will be possible for every woman to vote directly on every issue by means of an electronic voting machine in her house." She is proposing equality among all females.

Finally, I think it is interesting to compare SCUM Manifesto with the movie "They Live." In "They Live," those who wear the glasses see that the zombies are not fit for their society and must be killed. They respond to the problem of the zombies by violent shooting and attacks. In the same way, those who understand that women are inherently superior to men and that men must be eliminated from society, join SCUM, who will "keep on destroying, looting, fucking-up, and killing until the money-work system no longer exists and automation is completely instituted or until enough women co-operate with SCUM to make violence unnecessary to achieve these goals." Regardless of the men who perhaps are not aggressively supporting the current society, until completely control has been established by SCUM, violence will be used to control the male population and men will be endangered. SCUM is also sneaky like the Zombies were in "They Live," as SCUM "will always aim to avoid detection and punishment."

Another interesting comparison to draw is that of males with the spectacle. In the same way that the spectacle causes people to move farther away from being to seeming, in the same way, males cause females to lose track of who they are and lets them fall into the role of Daddy's Girl. Spectacle, when seen under the eyes of mass culture, is deceptive, working towards people forgetting and denying what they are truly involved in. Males have caused females to be convinced that they are not superior, losing in the same way what they are for what seems to be.

SCUM Manifesto was a fascinating read, even if it revolved around untrue assumptions and was a bizarre read. Like "The Pyschotic Doctor Scherber," even though it teetered on the edge of being acceptable as an argument, it was very entertaining despite its horrific attack on the male sex.

Precis on 'On Coincidence'

William Burroughs sets out his piece talking about religion. How Christ heard God’s Voice, but how the non-dominant brain hemisphere only created that voice. In modern times Christ would have been institutionalized. Someone claiming they hear a voice? Someone who says that they can heal people? Do we not laugh at them and eventually lock them up because ‘they can be a danger to themselves and to others’. Burroughs seems to slightly mock this form of what he calls ‘religious truth’, which is too absolute. He then goes on to talk about ‘scientific truth’, which according to him is too black and white. A scientist saying that something is ‘impossible’ is again an absolute statement. Burroughs would like to argue for another truth; the ‘magical truth’. This does not include Harry Potter waving around a wand, but it does explain coincidence. Because according to Burroughs we all have a certain mental power with which we can influence the world around us, like the CIA pushing a guy in front of a van with a ‘magical push’. This leads him to his main point, “lightning usually strikes more than once in the same place.” One incident can cause another similar incident to take place, not only at the same location but also with the same person. An example he gives: “If you start the day by missing a train, this could be a day of missed trains and missed appointments.” Now I have to say that (but maybe this is just in Holland) the reason your whole day is filled with missed trains and missed appointments is because the train network sucks and if you miss your first train, you will most likely not be able to catch any of your other connections resulting in you being late at least an hour and missing your appointments.
Let’s move on though. Burroughs claims that by thinking certain things, we induce events around us, we see signs on the street because we were thinking a certain thing. We create the world around us. Now the last paragraph of ‘On Coincidence’ reveals his reason for writing this piece, to convert Christians and Muslims. We need to “leave the Word-God behind.” I have to say, I am always in for a good discussion about faith and why someone (or me) would be religious and if you have good arguments I can be swayed to change my mind slightly. (You can’t really talk me out of being religious though, but you can try.) But Burroughs here tries to convert Christians and Muslims by offering up another truth, a ‘magical truth’ which seems even more farfetched. We do not see a sign on the street because the sign is there and we happened to look in that direction, no, we see it because we were thinking a certain thing. There is one point in the essay where I feel like Burroughs leaves a link open for religion to bond with the ‘magical truth’. He says: “… the assumption that nothing happens in this universe (…) unless some entity wills it to happen.” The question is, why can’t this entity be God? Burroughs however, does not supply us with an answer.
I almost felt at the end, that Burroughs was simply mocking religion the whole way through by coming up with this ‘magical truth’ to show the ridiculousness of believing in something greater. But to be honest, (and after some googling) I believe that he was serious and that he truly believes in this ‘magical truth’. And I have to say, who am I to argue with him? After all, I believe in someone who in modern times would have been institutionalized.

Martine

Question to Mid-Term Post 3

Hi Prof Dale,

I had a question on prompt #3.


Prompt Three:

In his essay “Psychological Notes Upon an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia,” Freud offers up an interpretation of the autobiography of Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber. Near the conclusion of his reading of Schreber’s story, Freud makes the last of a series of curious claims on a similar theme: “It remains for the future to decide whether there is more delusion in my theory than I should like to admit, or whether there is more truth in Schreber’s delusion than other people are as yet prepared to believe.” How and why does the figure of Schreber seem to pose such a challenge to Freud’s larger effort to portray the project of psychoanalytic interpretation as a scientific practice? Are there other places in the text in which Freud seems to play out this ambivalence to Schreber’s own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it? Why might this matter so much to Freud in the first place?


I was not sure what you were asking for in the second question, "Are there other places in the text in which Freud seems to play out this ambivalence to Schreber's own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it? Could you please clarify what you mean by 'play out this ambivalence to Schreber's own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it?'

sam

P*$$y Envy

After reading so much patriarchal dogma that comes flowing out of such great minds in Philosophy and Critical Theory, it is nice to see all of that flipped on its head for a second. Valerie’s SCUM Manifesto’s argument is to break down the system of domination through women pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and realizing their own power.

Valerie seems to not have any particular audience except for the world she feels is caught in this backward understanding of power dynamics between truth and reality. She addresses no gender/sex in particular but does give some direction to certain archetypes of people that exist in society.

Although I love Valerie’s espousal of feminist independence and power, her supporting reasoning that brings her to the social revolution she advocates is complete misandry. Beginning with the reasoning that men are incomplete people because they have the Y chromosome (which is an incomplete X, missing the fourth leg) falls so closely akin to Freud’s women and their penis envy that I knew it either had to be satire or grossly missing a larger picture of relationships, culture, sexuality, and gender. But in putting all that aside, her argument fights tooth and nail to prove the male inferiority and how that relationship has played out into a world where men try to take over through domination, violence and sex because of their ‘lack’ (to tip my hat to Lacan). In this patriarchal system men have also convinced women to be subservient and have subjected them to the role they find themselves in today through much institutionalization. If taken all reasoning to be true in her argument, here would be the crack in the dam; if men were so lowly and incapable of thought and feeling (like she claims multiple times, in multiple ways) there is no reasoning why the higher-being, AKA: ‘woman,’ would take to such subjugation. (At this point, that’s neither here nor there). The way to fight against the system though is to become SCUM, a Society for Cutting Up Men, to stop participating in the society the way it wants us to, vehemently. To stop buying, to be brash and crude, to loot, to destroy cars and businesses, to burn and pillage, to “couple-bust” and disrupt all that we have known to be good, normal, and comfortable-and adopt a new reality.

Through violence and everything that is the opposite of what feminine is, women should live for themselves, and only themselves. Creating, through the gathering of strong, dominant, independent women (and the Men’s Auxiliary of SCUM), a new society. Divorcing oneself from the man-hate (which weighed against the amount of misogyny that has to be excused), the revolution that Valerie espouses is not so much about the man/woman binary but about the system itself, which falls akin to many-a-Marxist.

Amber Grimaldi

Tap tap tap... is thing on?

Is anybody still around?

Office with Dale

Okay so I'm a bit rusty at blogging . . . does anyone see this?

Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there.." -- Although there is nothing apparently comical about this statement, I still managed to find myself laughing aloud.

Magnetic Fields "The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure"

Some Thoughts on "No Logo"

Klein’s thesis is that a massive cultural shift began in the 1980’s and 90’s, when successful companies learned to “brand” rather than advertise. The late eighties saw a sea-change in the way that products were sold, because the most effective brands sold “experiences” rather than products. Companies that understood this thrived and still dominate- these include Apple, Disney, Nike and Starbucks. Companies that did not understand this sold less and were weaken in the economic downturn of 2000.

Klein makes her argument primarily to call attention to a state of affairs. Her audience would also have observed at least part of what she describes. She never urges her reader to take a course of action – which might be a bitter pill when one considers that brand choice often has to do with self-identity.

In “No Logo” Naomi Klein argues that products are most effectively sold not through advertising, but through branding.

Kleins’s audience is young, and perceives itself and hip and sophisticated.
Klein establishes her credibility through her knowledge of historic developments, and establishes reader sympathy by discussing events with an ironic tone. Klein pitches her argument to the same people to whom many of the “brands” pitch. She calls Wal-mart “deeply unhip” and later makes a hipster joke by calling Nike and Adidas “sneaker pimps” – a reference to a band from the early nineties that her readers would likely have been familiar. She makes allusive jokes that both further her argument and encourage the reader to identify with her. In fact, in the last paragraph she writes, “Never again would the corporate world stoop to praying at the altar of the commodity market. From now on they would worship only graven media images.” implying that just like “the chosen people” in the desert, corporations would now worship the true G-d of branding.

Pardon the irrelevance

"It requires more concentration to detect a missing comma than to epitomize Nietzsche's philosophy."

- Henry Miller, in Tropic of Cancer

Naomi Klein Precis

In her excerpt from her book No Logo, Naomi Klein traces the function of corporation from product-producer to culture-creator. Branding, Klein argues, facilitated this movement.

Klein discusses how "the making of things remained, at least in principle, the heart of all industrialized economies" in the early to mid-20th century. Marx had discussed earlier that products were drained of their historicity in the Fetishized Commodity, and arguably, the products themselves became indistinguishable from one another because of this. This may explain why criticisms emerged of the corporate structure -- they were "bloated [and] oversized," and this oversized-ness did not necessarily lead to more sales or better products but rather served as a "liability" for the CEO. Thus, corporations shrunk their literal space by moving labor overseas (as a result of trade liberalization and labor-law reform), and expanded into the public-space in the form of advertising. More insidious, as Klein argues, was the corporate expansion into the realm of idea and thought through the process of branding.

Since products were "virtually indistinguishable from one another," the corporation took on the role of creating an artificial historicity that would not be embedded into the product that it was selling, but rather into the structure of the corporation itself. Marlboro Friday struck fear into the hearts of corporations, thinking that branding had hit its peak, since consumers were readily willing to buy "private" products for a cheaper price, "claiming, heretically, that they couldn't tell the difference [between products]." However, the "abstract and unquantifiable brand name" was much more powerful than some corporations had presumed, as long as branding did not stop at mere advertising into the public space. The advertising must also exist within every element of the corporation itself, whether it was the sleek, pseudo-futuristic, pristine white interior of an Apple store (albeit those stores are hella sexy), the friendly, smiling "barista" at your local Starbucks overjoyed by her $6/hour salary, or the cheerful singing cluster of Coldstone Creamery employees, returning their gratitude for your ever-so-generous contribution of a $1 tip. Put another way, corporate structures, in order to be fully branded, must "argue" that an experience is interwoven within the purchase.

Therefore, branding, if it had successfully cultivated a fake culture that, in some cases, literally had nothing to do with its products, could potentially capture, colonize, and practically enslave the hearts and minds of its consumers. In doing so, the corporation carves a void within its consumers that could only be filled by the corporation itself. Who wants the Blue IBM, "looking as clunky and menacing as the now-dead Cold War," (a feeling created after the Orwellian takeoff ad) when you could be "hip" and "new" and Apple-y. Branding based its success, then, on not making the product seem worthy of your money, but rather, to make an individual feel dissatisfied with what he already possesses. Put another way, fraternities only become attractive not by the sticky floors, caked with clumsy spills of Natty Light Beer, semen, and blood, but rather when one feels like his group of friends does not offer the same "camaraderie" and "brotherhood" that can only be attained through the semesterly-membership fee and centuries-worth safeguarding of white privilege and wealth.

The implications in Klein's discussion are fairly dismal. The boundaries of experience have shrunk from the actual world to the confines and architectures formulaically designed by an unnamed, unidentifiable marketing team. In doing so, corporations have potentially dispossessed human beings of their own culture-producing capabilities. In other words, humans, who have heretofore positioned themselves within particular communities colored by their own histories and interactions with their environments, are finding themselves instead within "cultures" that have been manufactured for them, with histories that are absolutely artificial and de-particularized of actual social and historical episodes that explain their current condition. Meaning-making and lifestyle are no longer found in or built by an engagement with the world, but rather through a stagnant, virtual world. Corporations, according to Klein, have transcended their role as manufacturing products; they manufacture life dehistoricized; they are creators; they have souls; thus, they have pushed any "heretical" non-customers towards the dark tumors of lifelessness, boringness, blandness -- they are brandless.

Mythologies Today?

The ego is not master in its own house.

-- Freud

Wo Es war, soll Ich werden

-- Freud

Precis to Dr. Schreber

(by Derick Olson)

Mr. Schreber wants to be a woman. Not just any woman, but the “wife of God,” ready to be miraculously impregnated by the “holy rays” of the Creator in order to give birth to the “new race of mankind.” From the initial delusion that his psychiatrist, Dr. Flechsig, would steal his soul and transform his body into a woman's for sexual pleasure, Schreber extends the delusion to a persecution from God and finally, the impregnation from God to save humanity. In “The Phychotic Dr. Schreber,” Sigmund Freud takes on the task of interpreting such delusions.

To start, it is a question of which comes first: the illusion or the fantasy? This chicken or the egg scenario leads to two possibilities: Does Schreber thirst for eternal glory and use his transformation into a woman as a means to such glory? Or does he secretly fantasize about being a woman, and justify the desire with the idea that it is necessary for him to save humanity as a woman?

Freud argues for the latter. He begins with the larger fantasy of saving the world, and dismisses it as a justification for Schreber's desire to be a woman. He then interprets the desire to be a woman as a form of Schreber's repressed homosexuality. This latent homosexuality, Freud says, is present in everyone, but is usually exerted through “brotherly love” and “comradeship.” Dr. Schreber consciously believes that he is interested in women, but his subconscious push for his true homosexual desires cause an internal struggle that, when paired with the stress of overwork, lead to psychotic delusions. He initially justifies his love of men with a desire to become a woman. But such a desire goes “against the order of things,” so he states that his psychiatrist, Dr. Flechsig, and later God Himself, is “persecuting” him in order to make him a woman for a male's sexual gratification (which is all Schreber really wants from mankind). Finally, Dr. Schreber creates a new reality where his delusions can thrive, the post-apocalyptic world in which an impregnation from God is the only way that he (or she) can save humanity.

Freud's interpretation of Dr. Schreber seems generally sound, especially when the added allusions to Schreber's life are taken into account (the links between the love for his lost father relate to his image of God, and his wish to continue his family line despite his lack of children). Yet the conclusions are solely based on the Freudian interpretation of the mind that it all originates with the libido and its consequent sexual urges. This view leaves no room for the inverse interpretation, that perhaps Dr. Schreber's desire was for glory and recognition, and the idea of becoming a woman was just a means to that end.

Let's say that Schreber felt that his life was devoid of meaning; nobody saw his genius as worthy of the glory that he desired. He had come from a prestigious family and was active in German politics, but it was not enough. Perhaps he felt that his superior intellect was worthy of divine recognition, that he should be in direct contact with God. As Schreber fell into delusions of heavenly contact, he needed a way to separate himself from God as not to confuse his well-deserved glory to that of God's. So he took the blow to his masculinity and decided to become the wife of God. Now, in Schreber's false reality anything was possible. If he could become the mother of a new humanity, he would be the savior of all men, and gain the recognition he deserved.

It seems that there could be an infinite number of interpretations of Dr. Schreber's psychosis, and that Freud simply chose one that fit his already-established views of the mind. He takes a fairly narrow angle in his interpretation, dismissing the point that some actions may be based on non-sexual tendencies, drawing lines that favor his theories while ignoring the fact that they could be drawn in infinitely many directions, and justified nonetheless. What Freud claims to be an analysis of the subconscious may be none other than an analysis of coincidence.

While I do admit that Freud's interpretation of the issue is most convincing, his one-sided approach and complete dismissal of the inverse option seems unjustifiable. To reduce the complex nature of the mind to a mere exchange of sexual energy (which I do agree is a large part) is to ignore all other facets of humanity. Although our primordial sexual nature is a dominant trait in our lives, desires of knowledge, power, and meaning seem independent of the libido rather than the outward appearance of our subconscious urge for sex.

Two More Prompts

Prompt Three:

In his essay “Psychological Notes Upon an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia,” Freud offers up an interpretation of the autobiography of Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber. Near the conclusion of his reading of Schreber’s story, Freud makes the last of a series of curious claims on a similar theme: “It remains for the future to decide whether there is more delusion in my theory than I should like to admit, or whether there is more truth in Schreber’s delusion than other people are as yet prepared to believe.” How and why does the figure of Schreber seem to pose such a challenge to Freud’s larger effort to portray the project of psychoanalytic interpretation as a scientific practice? Are there other places in the text in which Freud seems to play out this ambivalence to Schreber’s own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it? Why might this matter so much to Freud in the first place?

Prompt Four:

How does the treatment of the figure of the Spectator differ in Wilde's "Soul of Man Under Socialism" from its treatment in Debord's Society of the Spectacle? What political significance attaches to these different treatments in their respective texts in your view? Discuss the relation of spectatorship to political agency in either of these pieces and substantiate your view through a close reading of salient moments in the text.

Brandits! - or – A Use of Pejorative Language in Informational Texts as a Means of Persuasive Discourse

I needs must acknowledge my love of Wikipedia. They may well be tarnished by with a lack of credible accredited accreditors of “truth” but I have found these remarkable things called “footnotes” which show a link to a source for most any claims made in articles. Others attack Wikipedia on it's lack of direction and focus since, after all, the amount of attention given to the “plot” intricacies of Lost is greater than that of public intellectual and activist Naomi Klein. Such attacks are, in essence, the sad sorrowful (and sibilant!) lament of those who worship aura and ritual. Wikipedia is thus made to suffer from their sundry authors and their collective decision that Transformers the Movie is more worthy of their time and research than Barry Goldwater. However my instinct on doing a Google® search was not to click on the official Naomi Klein web page (whose imprimatur cannot be questioned, it's “official”!) but instead to click the return listing Wikipedia's name. Haters gonna hate, but I love me some Wikipedia.

I assure the reader that this is all relevant. My love for Wikipedia is not for any concrete thing. I do not love their corporate board, their foundation, their racks of servers in air conditioned rooms. When I inform you that I love Wikipedia what I am saying is that I love the image of Wikipedia I hold. Wikipedia's brand, if you will. Her Wikipedia page makes no mention of her love or hate of the online encyclopedia but her article in the leftist rag The Guardian makes it abundantly clear how she feels about the process and idea of branding itself. She does not care for it. It's also clear that she wants us to share this view, which brings us to our first irony and paradox. If sharing is caring and Klein wants us to share her view of not caring than what is the result? Wait, that's not it.

The actual paradox we are faced with is how a seemingly informative text can act to persuade. The key distinction between informational and persuasive is the existence of a thesis. From this difference all else flows. Newspaper articles, unless they are editorials, are not meant to persuade but to inform. This is true even in the all but commie trash tabloids that masquerade as newspapers in Europe and Klein is publishing excerpts of her book within that format and those constraints. Nowhere in the selection is the author's point of view expressed in a literal fashion; that the production of goods is superior to the production of brands.

Supposedly this is being made clear to the reader simply through the informational context. Naomi Klein reports the facts on brands vs products and we, the reader, decide. This is clearly not true and can be demonstrated with a simple thought experiment. If it was the information itself doing the convincing than there would exist splits in interpretation based on the readers viewpoint. Simplistically all republican's could read it and see it as supporting their views and all democrat's could do the same for their views. But when a piece has an argumentative tint it is clear to all reader regardless of perspective which way the evidence of information leads (whether they agree with it or not). This discrepancy is the result of confirmation bias in which a recipient of information is drastically more inclined to notice and remember information that agrees with their own views. This is the default state of human dialectic, and so rhetorical methods must be employed to break through it.

Enter the pejorative. Klein's first description of brands is that they are a “seemingly innocuous” idea. Let's see. . . the antonym for innocuous is harmful. So right away we are given that, in Klein's view, brands are not good things. Words do not have to be directly insulting to be a pejorative and most of Klein's pejorative is in tone rather than actual words. For instance when she says “The price difference, apparently, was the cost of the word 'Kraft'” she is belittling the notion of a brand being worth real dollars. Throughout her piece figurative language, such as irony and metaphor (quoting an ad man calling the consumer cockroaches and using the term herself) serves to create a thesis and argue persuasively for it. For instance I have nowhere in the body of this precis made literally known my opinion on those stalinist fishwraps that European's fondly imagine to be newspapers, but it should be abundantly clear to all but the most illiterate what I think of them. Sadly you have all been misinformed, I actually like and admire much of European journalism and the Guardian in particular. Readers, you just got punk'd!

While a firm believer that word count matters less than how much each word counts I am afraid that I might be reaching a point where I've used to much to say too little. So let us end where we began (if one accepts that all of us engaged in this text form a community of dialectic, or commune than it can be said we had a nice little communist revolution!) with my looking up information on Naomi Klein. Well, she's Canadian which might explain her dislike of logos and brands by way of jealousy of our obviously vastly superior culture and marketing power. . . Wait, what's this? Not only is she the grand-daughter of communists and the child of new leftists (read: socialists) she reacted to having an active and public feminist mother by embracing full on consumerism. Hmm. . . Then her mother suffers a stroke. . . Interesting. Wonder what Freud would say? Probably something about libido and homosexual tendencies. And last is. . . kind of horrible really. A crazy person took a gun and started shooting women in an attempt to fight feminism. Out of all this Klein is reborn a feminist and she proceeds to do a Henry V and take an ax to her old vices. Context is everything and Wikipedia provided me with context and so my love for Wikipedia (the brand) is affirmed.

Your humble and obedient servant,

- Birney

Barthes

I'm assuming everybody is keeping up with the reading via our syllabus, but just in case, here's a reminder that for Wednesday you are to have read Barthes' Mythologies, one of a couple texts in the class you had to purchase or get from a library... Hope everybody is having a good weekend and enjoying the readings for this week.

They Live! by John Carpenter

What is the message? Educate, agitate, and organize.

To Whom is this message being volleyed? The film is directed to all / anyone who can see & hear, or have the film translated to them, so that the auditory & visual messages are linked with the consumerist culture of corporate capitalism, inner city strife (of blighted locales, mostly), and some semblance of the middle-class notion of these class divisions -- most luminously mobilized on a salient & visceral trajectory when a capitalist / consumerist society is economically downtrodden.

Why this sort of medium for the message? To make an exposition of the matters most relevant to the cumulative resolve therein.

Explication: THEY LIVE WE SLEEP

Some of the strongest support, in my lasting opinion, is the connotative values at work in the otherwise abrasivity of everything from the characters and the actors who portray them to the ways in which they are introduced and react to the revealing of materialized linguistic, behavioral suggestiveness being placed out for mass consumption and the manipulatory, divisive nature of those suggestions as a form of coercive and tactical maneuvering.

The glasses working as a vessel for retinal navigation through a lesser apparent landscape cause them to act in effect as somewhat of a drug, and so states Roddy Piper's character somewhere in the dialogue of the film which evolves as something of a metabolized metaphor.

I found "They" to be the most acrobatic term throughout the film, translating into the real world quite seamlessly and accurate considering the help of few assimilations w/the fantastic or supernatural varieties -- paranoia not being one of them.

"Interference" is used in the film briefly(as an explicit term) and coins the static & interceptive presences created by the dynamics of the two forces who create, observe, and perpetuate the existence of this in its identifiable form -- regardless to any paranoic flecking -- to a finite, regulatory station; similar to the way in which the device of interference may have been established to deceive any resistors from discovering, believing or exposing the intentions of any said perpetrators of deliberate injustices which may involve society in mass.

Prompts (Provided Far From Promptly)

Prompt One:

How might one make a good case that despite what appears to be a rampant and relentless megalomania in his Ecce Homo, Nietzsche is actually rather modest in the claims he makes in his book? Substantiate this claim with quotations from the text. What insights might this "modesty" provide us as we try to determine what Nietzsche’s ambitions are for the interpretive method of “affirmation” he proposes in Ecce Homo.

Prompt Two:

Discuss how [1] Klein's discussion of the Logo, [2] Debord's discussion of the Spectacle, [3] Benjamin's discussion of Aura, [4] Horkheimer and Adorno's discussion of the Culture Industry, or [5] Barthes' discussion of Myth (choose just one of these) is, on the one hand, indebted to Marx's account of the fetishized commodity in your view but also, on the other hand, departs from it in some key way.

Prompt Three:

In his essay “Psychological Notes Upon an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia,” Freud offers up an interpretation of the autobiography of Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber. Near the conclusion of his reading of Schreber’s story, Freud makes the last of a series of curious claims on a similar theme: “It remains for the future to decide whether there is more delusion in my theory than I should like to admit, or whether there is more truth in Schreber’s delusion than other people are as yet prepared to believe.” How and why does the figure of Schreber seem to pose such a challenge to Freud’s larger effort to portray the project of psychoanalytic interpretation as a scientific practice? Are there other places in the text in which Freud seems to play out this ambivalence to Schreber’s own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it? Why might this matter so much to Freud in the first place?

Prompt Four:

How does the treatment of the figure of the Spectator differ in Wilde's "Soul of Man Under Socialism" from its treatment in Debord's Society of the Spectacle? What political significance attaches to these different treatments in their respective texts in your view? Discuss the relation of spectatorship to political agency in either of these pieces and substantiate your view through a close reading of salient moments in the text.

Things Dale Said

This project of mine is almost completely for my own amusement it seems, but nevertheless I am somewhat disappointed with myself this week. I must have been tired or just beaten to the ground remembering how very depressing of a spin all of these people and their ideas can take. Neitzsche, although one of my favorite people to read (I, unlike Dale, think his humor is hilarious), is hard to swallow at times, especially reflecting on some of his darker works. Marx I resonate with on a lot of levels except for the fact that everything gets reverted into 'class struggle' which negates a lot of equally if not more important struggles from history. He really burns my muffins, but hey, what can you do? Not many people thought of women as much of anything but the incubator. His contemporaries slowly get better at some of these aspects but being new material for me, and the end of the week, I definitely needed that cup of coffee.

Consequently the quotes I did get verbatim were few and far between, and a lot of them were also dependant on Dale's particular flare (tone, gestures, context, etc.). Last week I had a lot more to pick from so I could post the ones that really made me smile when reading them over. So for those of you who bother to read this, I will make sure to use the break time to "smoke a crack pipe" and try to at least be entertaining. (And remember Dale, mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery). ;)

Last week on Things Dale Said:

[in reference to the title 'Ecce Homo'] " It becomes especially rich, though still not funny."

"Previews of coming attractions, it stays depressing - all the way through."

"'Have I been understood?' Why do you care so much?! If you love something set it FREE!"

"Just keep people talking and they'll die before they commit too many war crimes."

"We must be careful of poets."

[Sorry Joseph, but this was funny]

"That was a joke by the way."

"And like Nietzsche, not funny."

[Resentement] "Oh how terrible. But then there's also this zing!"

"If one's radical politics were committed to material through their argument, then surely it matters far less what that might say on the unsolvable question whether one entity like god would exist or not. Whether or not god exists, or not, there are a lot of existing people that believe he does, or not. And because people believe in an entity they call god, or not, those people behave differently."

"Education. Agitation. Organization."

"A person wearing a wrist watch is a different huma being than a person living in a feudal era that has never heard of wristwatches. We are a different species."

"It's just this ranting and raving and NAZI THIS and NAZI THAT! It's a very unexpected and incendiary argument to read."

[In reference to Marxist idea of 'leisure'] "Haha, yeah I know, really depressing."

"What are you some radical, dark-night individualist or something? Can't have that..."

"Alright, your teacher wants to go home. Disperse! Time for cocktails! Disperse!"

...and like a good student, who am I to question Dale? With advice like that, who is to tell me that's a bad idea?

TA Office Hours

Hello everybody.

Just a reminder of the announcement I made in yesterday's class. I will be holding office hours to discuss paper ideas and questions about the first essay next Wednesday (6/21) from 1:30pm to 3pm. Look for me in front of the main entrance to Dwinelle, just outside of our classroom window.

I'm also willing to schedule short individual appointments with students to discuss paper topics, or even just to review the texts. In general, I can make time either before or after our Wed/Thurs class meetings. email: jgar@berkeley.edu

Your Laptop Charger

Yep.. you left it in the classroom and it is safe with me. MHUHUHUHUHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAaaaaa....

Precis for Benjamin Walter's The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In order to answer the questions the perplex me, I must first lay out the problem itself. In his essay, “The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin discusses a shift in perception of what constitutes art and its affects due to the advent of film and photography in the twentieth century. According to Walter, the way we look and see the visual work of art has changed dramatically due to the creation of film and cinematography. More specifically, Walter suggests that through the mechanical reproduction of art i.e. through the process of creating a perfect film devoid of any “slippage of tongues” or imperfections; the aura of a piece of art is withered and destroyed. This withering is, in the opinion of Walter, similar to the commoditization of objects which Marx described.

The aura that Walter describes is a piece of art’s sense of meaning, uniqueness and presence. In other words, the aura represents the originality and authenticity of a work of art. As an example, Walter describes how a painting possesses an aura and yet a photograph does not because it is not unique; it is simply a copy of some piece of scenery. To Walter, a painting contains within it the power and soul of the painter who spent a multitude of painstaking hours attempting to replicate something knowing that nothing they could do would ever create an exact copy. Modern technology however, has made the dreams of many painters possible; while in the action of doing so has erased the originality and authenticity of the work of art. It has taken from the art the very thing that made it art and Walter fears the consequences of such actions.

If we lose the aura of the art, we lose the singular authority within the work of art itself. As perplexing and ominous as this thought is, Walter is even more intrigued by the tension between the new modes of perception and the aura. Walter points out that some do not see the effects which mechanical reproduction has had on the world as a negative outcome. It seems to him that the need for mass consumption and production of art has caused many to enjoy the pleasures which mechanical reproduction bring. Some feel that the cameraman, for example, intervenes with what we see in a way which a painting can never do. He directs the eye towards a specific place and a specific story in a manner which is both totalitarian and beautiful.

But Walter is still a skeptic. In his opinion, the “art” of cinematography dulls our perception of art and leaves out the essence of the art itself. When a person watches a live play, they are able to see the characters from a multitude of views rather than the narrow chosen out view that the cameraman chooses for us. In this sense, movies have no aura for Walter because while they are sometimes original, they do not leave things open for interpretation. When someone copied a painting, only a few could find the aura of it. Those few were skilled individuals who knew enough of the artist to see the subtle changes in the copier’s stroke or distribution of the characters. This lack of participation is worrisome for Walter.

Similarly, Walter feels one cannot truly participate in a movie other than to simply observe it. The movie is being played out before us like a story, yet the orator is a set of lines on a screen devoid of any emotion and the actions which occur on the screen are ever the same and do not possess the beauty of subtle changes and mistakes. The movie consumes us at the same time as we consume it. This, Walter suggests, is not necessarily a negative thing, but rather something to be noted and watched; its implications, whether detrimental or beneficial, yet to be determined. The loss of the aura has the potential to open up the politicization of art and though that opening our culture stands to be changed from one of the inspector to one of the inspected – that is to say that through our loss of the aura of art we stand the chance to lose our ability to inspect art and in turn allow the art to inspect us. We have in a sense begun a process of commoditization of art in which the art loses its aura (its essence of originality) through the mass reproduction and mechanical production of it.

While I do very much agree with Walter in his belief that the induction of mechanical reproduction of art and products has had a dramatic impact on the art itself, I do not believe that the aura which he describes is necessarily lost. Art is unique because of the vision and heart that is put into it; not how it was made. So in this sense, a picture can have just as much aura as a painting; the only difference in the form in which the artist choose to express themselves. A picture can be unique in many ways; for instance: the cameraman’s choice of lighting, angle, positioning of the object(s), and even the camera itself can all have a dramatic effect on the overall look and feel of the picture. Thus to say that photography has no aura in simply incorrect and short sighted (I realize he probably wasn’t a master on photography, however to say that photography isn’t art is like saying Picasso wasn’t an artist because he didn’t use enough red in his paintings – that is to say that art is a very subjective thing and the biggest flaw in Walter’s essay is that he assumes a limited point of view on art which doesn’t adequately speak to the idea of new forms of art).

This brings me to question Walter’s belief that we have commoditized art; if, as I previously stated, art has not lost its aura due to the mechanical reproduction of art, then it stands to reason that Walter’s argument is seriously flawed. With that ultimatum out of the way, I would like to say that I do not disagree with Walter completely. It is true that we have begun to commodify art and movies in general; however, they have not lost their artistic roots. No two movies are the same. Many of you may instantly say well what about remakes or renditions of movies? Aren’t they the same? To that I would answer with an assured no. A rendition of a movie will generally have different actors and different scenes and in that simplest sense they are different and unique. Just the fact that they differ even in the slightest from the original makes them unique and gives them their own aura. If a copy of a painting can have an aura then so can a copy of a movie. While there are undoubtedly some really bad and meaningless movies out there, they still have aura.

To sum up, I found this essay to very interesting especially when viewed from a futuristic perspective. Having grown up in a time of movies and cameras, the theories Walter presents seem strange and laudable, however I can only imagine what it must have been like to see such a dramatic change happen within your lifetime. Walter is slightly more justified in his argument by the fact that he is writing from the view of what seems to be a Marxist point of view to others who share his sentiments and beliefs. After having written my overly critical assessment of his argument, I realized that my reasons for criticizing him lie in the fact that I am from a different time period – a time period which has seen a strange myriad of art forms emerge and become accepted. I welcome any questions (I am sure I was incorrect on many accounts) and would like to hear what others thought of Walter and his essay.

-Skyler