Jacques Derrida is a postmodern philosopher and writer. His beliefs about modern life, the crisis of language and the arbitrary nature of signs has led him to be categorized as a post-structuralist, along with Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes. All of these writers have been influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure (first structuralist), and caused philosophy to be reassesed as a formal type of discourse. In particular, Derrida founded the stratergy of deconstruction, revealing multiple meanings of the same word, which are unconsciously in combat with each other in the text they are found. Like Foucault, Derrida strongly believed that present “meanings” are those that are stablized and enforced by dominant cultures which take advantage of the fixed meaning.
“One pole of the binary...is usually the dominant one, the one which includes the other within its field of operations.”[1]
The single meanings that favour these political ideologies form logocentrism which postmodernism opposes. Postmodernism is also the newest form of Skepticism, (a rejection of Relativism) that began in the Western world with Cartesian Doubt.
In “The Gift of Death” (in which, “Tout autre est tout autre” is found) Derrida mentions his opposition to Kant’s conept of deontology and Sophists concept of contract theory. Using many examples, many taken from modern life experiences, Derrida writes with sophistication; if a slightly repetitive nature. Like many postmodern thinkers, in their writings they usually cover familiar ground within the first section, and then distance themselves from their influences and their contemporaries. For example: Barthes and Derrida both disagree with Saussure’s belief that linguitsics would evolve into a general science of signs, or join semiology fully; but in “The Gift of Death” Derrida finds himself facing an inevitable conclusion of dubiosity.
The motivation for certain dominant cultures to strengthen the link between some signs and the thing signified is obvious, and is therefore not really arbitrary. It is gravitated by forces of empires that fix meanings for political / monetary reasons. Barthes and Derrida conclude that as language is constantly evolving there cannot possibly be a final, strict, definitive translation. Perhaps an authoritive one, but this is doubted as being definitive due to the bias of the strongest political power.
This concept, in “The Gift of Death” separates Derrida from his colleagues. As Derrida writes about authority, he persuades the reader to accept that there actually is a final authority that can decode what that final translation is, but it is hidden from us. While his associates determined that there is no authority other than forced ideologies from strong political motivations, accordingly there can be no meaning attatched to any sign. Derrida believed that there was a definitive meaning that an authority higher even than governments knew, that may be established, but impossible to check. This authority is God.
Because many concepts rely on this untestable condition, there is a consistent mention of “as if”’s within alot of his books. “A ‘fictional’ condition, an imagined and therefore phantasmatic possibility that is not a lie, but which either has not happenned, or which, more significantly, cannot be experienced as such.”[2]
Derrida uses this unreachable jurisdiction as a type of asymptotic sublime that allows his other concepts to be aligned with. In this universe model, various concepts in “The Gift of Death” can exist unchallenged by previous ideas covered by Barthes, Saussure and Strauss. One such example can be found covered in the final chapter, “Tout autre est tout autre”, as one half of this tautological equation can be substituted by the constant of God; the infinitely other or wholly other.
Talking of equations, Roland Barthes also suggested language was neutral, not unlike mathematical symbols, and constants that could be applied to translate for things utilising signs. My personal frustration with this mode of thought is that it follows that some form of result should follow, after dutifully plugging in signfied objects, to allow a meaning to occur, (even if it is not wholly definitive). All the more reason to observe how different that meaning can vary depending on the ‘equation’.
Tom Stoppard covered a similar perspective of mine that he mentioned in his 1982 play “The Real Thing”:
“Words are innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other; so that if you look after them they can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos.”[3]
This outlook of interchanging signs like mathematical symbols may seem simplistic and nieve, but it does point toward accessing comprehension, whereas I see postmodern thinkers revelling in the hopeless unravelling of language.
Thus, while connotation and context can direct meaning to a closer approximation of its intended meaning, relying on these external factors only points out the slipperiness of its own free-floating signs. More importantly, the role of the observer is central to understanding the intended translation. This belief is taken from scientific discourses, such as Einstein’s theory of relativity and Bohr’s quantum mechanics. Yet science attempts to find definitive truth through extremely thorough precautions against prejudice, in order to find and then describe how nature operates. Can this be applied to language? Is it possible to use formulae to alleviate the crisis of knowledge / translation? Derrida believes so.
The important distinction in Derrida’s stratergy of deconstruction is that while there may well be multiple meanings for a word, some of these meanings are paradoxically opposing. Which of the two opposing sides is privilged and stablizied by politics create hierarchies of power. Derrida not only views the meanings as not fixed, but deferred; as in they are not yet decisively known, but hypothetically can be.
“Difference can never be wholly captured within any binary system. Any notion of a final meaning is always endlessly put off, deferred.”[4]
In fact, with skepticism pushed to its extreme, the only pure fact that any one person can be totally sure of is not even Descrate’s Cogito, but merely x=x.
This is exemplified by “Tout autre est tout autre”; a tautology. Tautologies seem to be one dimensional, but infact can mean anything. ‘It is raining or it is not raining’, and ‘pigs exist or they do not exist’ are tautologies. Neither sentence is wrong, and neither sentence has anything to do with pigs or rain. Propositions alone can be tautologies. Not all propositions are tautologies, but all tautologies are propositions. “A proposition is what is expressed by a declarative sentence in some language; it is either true or false.”[5]
Herbert Spencer described Darwin’s theory of evolution with “the survival of the fittest”. this has been labelled by many creationists as a tautology, and by extension, used to challenge evolution in general. Who survives? Those whom are fittest. Whom are fittest? Those who survive. The general concept of the derision of this phrase comes directly from the fact that “evolutionary theory is untestable because fitness is defined in terms of actual survivorship.”[6]
Even Derrida concedes that “Tout autre est tout autre” could be “so isolated and capable of being transmitted out of its context, too much like the coded language of a password”[7] that it can risk meaning nothing. But like Derrida’s quest for absolute meaning, there are elements of the eternal at play.
As Derrida carefully dissects, he points out the former “Tout” can only be an indefinite pronominal adjective: (someone), while the latter can only be an adverb of quantity: (absolute, radically infinite). This I agree with, making the second “tout” referring to God and the sublime.
When Derrida elaborates and states that the “autres” used must be a noun and an adjective respectfully, the fog of confusion clouds over once again. If we are to believe Derrida, then the sentence is structured like so: “[adjective] [noun] est [adverb] [adjective].”
Is there a sentence that can be substituted like Stoppard implies?
I will attempt a theoretical newspaper headline: “Frustrated Reader is Gently Frustrated”.
Does this really denote x=x? Obviously the reader is getting frustrated gently, but surely Gently Frustrated is NOT a Frustrated Reader. Or is this just a malfunction of the English language that we cannot observe that the other way does actually make sense?
Another example: “Tired Student is Very Tired.” Mirrored, the sentence only needs some extra baggage from pronouns to make it: “(He is) very tired, (this) tired student” (which French often has a remarkable way of requiring or not requiring depending on context and who the speaker is). But what of the “est” and its movement? Is it important to note where it now lies in order to make any kind of sense, or is it pointless to even worry about this? The point that Derrida is making is that there is one side of this equation that depends upon a wholly other, absolute infinite side, just as much as the whole equation has inexhaustible, infinite readings. I see this as an aspect of religious faith, accepting truth without need for evidence nor a lackm of doubt. Therefore, because it requires lack of doubt (faith) in order to utilize an equation so deeply drawn from skepticism, the equation is obsolete.
But perhaps this is the point. Which powers decide what it can mean is where Derrida takes us when he writes of complacency and the glossy functioning of societies that can overlook murders and crimes because of how it can be advantageous not to notice. Where Derrida finally applies this apparently useless formula is when he connects mass murder to singular murder; sensing a single crime in the same level of importance as many. This is done by the infinite, inexhaustible nature of the equation.
Derrida then questions the subtle differences between individuals being allowing to starve, and individuals being put to death. This is linked by the sacrifice and effort a single person may contribute, to save many people, when the safety of the single person is put in jeopardy by doing so. Derrida uses Abraham as an example of an excused murderer, (not really through complacency, but by faith). But the effect and the undeniable facts are the same, Abraham is a murderer “however, is not the spectacle of this murder, which seems untenable in the dense and rhythmic briefness of its theatrical moment, at the same time the most common event in this world?”[8]
This inexhaustible equation, when reversed, shows that perception of many people can be made “infinitely singular”, and this is certainly done by media that attempts to downplay certain statistics, such as number of people killed by war or natural disaster. It is easier to deal with a single death, emotionally and economically, and by concentrating on the plight of one individual the event seems more personal, more understandable and also more digestible. It also downplays the amount of money required to fix the entire problem and directs the viewer to see the circumstance as an event that occurred to an individual. Sympathy and rapport are obtained, and in doing so, the illusion of a singularity is achieved.
In every media driven, and media covered politically based war there are “countless victims, each of whose singularity becomes each time infinitely singular - every other (one) being every (bit) other”[9]. The “smooth functioning”[10] of highly mediated countries is what allows people to die due to its “mechanisms of external debt”[11], and in the interests of upholding their own position of power.
[1] Hall, Stuart Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices: Culture, Media and Identities, London: SAGE Publications, Ltd, 1997. p 235
[2] Wolfreys, Julian Derrida: A Guide for the Perplexed New York: Continuum Books, 2007. p12
[3] Stoppard, Tom The Real Thing, 1982
[4] Hall, p 42
[5] Sober, Elliot “Philosophy of Biology”, 2nd Ed., Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. p70
[6] ibid. p70
[7] Derrida, Jacques The Gift of Death, Chapter 4 (of 4), 2nd Ed., Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008. p 82
[8] ibid. p 85
[9] ibid. p 82
[10] ibid. p 85
[11] ibid. p 86
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Critical Reading of Crary's "Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory"
Johnathon Crary is a professor of Art History at Columbian University, and historian writer who has written of the media, cinema and subjectivity within twentieth-century modernity.
In ‘Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory’, Crary attempts to determine the origin of the “spectacle”; not merely situationist related, (as a response to modern art and contemporary capitalism), but also the term used by Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’, and to its wider implications in mass media, particularly television.
Early in his writing, Crary clearly points out the varying, typical meanings and uses found for the word, and how they may have changed dramatically since the turbulent and challenging 1960’s. But what interests Crary is how and why they have changed to “designate a certian set of objective conditions”[1] and has become part of a complex power establishment, a “constellation of forces and institutions”[2] that is strengthened by the abilities the spectacle offers and compells contemporary society. More importantly, Crary questions what can be done now to resist such impact, and thus begins his writing about the disparate ways that this understanding of “spectacle” has operated in different political methods, in order to subvert its different approaches. But, in all the examples given, the spectacle remains a word for describing the act of coercing belief from the general public in order to either scare them, subdue them or turn them into consumers like Benjamin’s concept of the ‘phantasmagoria of equality’. As already noted, Crary concentrates on attempting to connect spectacle with the history of television, which allows the finding of a specific date more focused.
The science historian, Bruno Latour has written extensively about the need for visual display (such as a covert graph) in order for the public to believe, so long as it is accompanied with an ‘inscription’ to translate. In Walter Benjamin’s case, the visible world is where a sence of hapiness can be adhered to with the “measurable...terms of signs and objects”[3] , but it is the act of copying and the “capactity to produce equivalences”[4] that the new classes initially subverted the power of the spectacle. Thus, the nineteenth century classes challenged the importance of originality by counterfeiting. The flow of Crary’s writing is suave, as he allows this response to lead us to the industrial revolutiuon and its explosion of the ‘unessential sectors of capitalism’ (according to Marx). The author defines the newly emerging meaning of spectacle, which I believe it has not wavered far from since, at this historical point “when sign-value takes precedence over use-value”[5].
T.J. Clark offers a reversal view, that instead, it was the “construction of an observer who was a precondition for the transformation of everyday life.” but I find it less consequential to exactly denote whether it was conditioning of market niches or conditioning of consumers, because in either case the spectacle has been utilized to first define and then continually strengthen coveting in western countries (and fear in communist states). Moreover, any resistance in these western markets is suitably digested by “converting them into objects or images of consumption”.[6]
Crary continues after briefly covering the history and operation of the spectacle, to finding exactly when it began. In this writing he persuades the reader to believe that it can be designated to an exact date, and furthermore that the date is 1927. This concept is aligned with Crary’s attempt to marry spectacle to television. The synchronic acts of the beginnings of monoplies in the United States by the division of control of television, with its actual invention (or at least, its perfection) demonstrates how much control the state, coporate, military sectors believed how useful this new technology would be with its “speed, ubiquity, and simultaneity.”[7] Above all, this new form of entertainment garnered attention more than its ancestors, due to synchronized sound. Now with more commanding authority, this new technology’s hypnotic abilities were fully realized.
But not all western countries that made use of Diffused spectacle shared the United State’s questionable subjectivity. Britian’s BBC and France’s RTF (Radio-telediffusion française) are state sponsored and regulated. There is a healthy tension between “opting boradly for more entertainment, and the pressure to provide public service information and eductaion”[8] is more heated in Britian than in the United States, where “broadcasting was commercially dominated from the start”[9] which Crary points out, was 1927. Nevertheless, they have to exist in a commercial environment. For example, the BBC supplements it’s revenue from licence fees by the sale of books, recordings and DVDs and also selling programmes to other countries. Yet even in this way they still squarely operate within the system supported by capitalism utilizing coveting and conveying an illusion of need for products. The BBC’s voice, personalized by it’s announcers and newsreaders “has evolved in a populist direction, claiming common ground with audiences, and often adopting a cynical, challenging and even aggressive stance to a variety of official institutions and personalities, including government ministers.”[10] But the common sense that these characters are based on contain “basic design features of contemporary capitalist society and its consumerist values.”[11]
In American movies and television soaps, products themselves are subtly added or become the main article of the narrative so as to be overlooked.
“For decades, ‘product placement’, the surreptitious but visible inclusion of consumer items in films and television, has made people around the world aware of the American way of life. Notice how emails and mobiles are taken for granted in these films (‘One Fine Day’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’), not simply clever new technology but integral to the plots, integral to the clever and up-to-date lives that Americans apparentlt lead.”[12]
The most popular constituent of television, that relies heavily on what Crary refers to as the “reign of the perpetual present”[13] is, of course, news coverage. The subjects a news network covers, (and their order), determines what becomes most important to a nation. The news language, who is said to ‘demand’ and who is said to ‘offer’, are some of the struggles that Crary refers to as “cultural-institutional formation with a suspicious structural autonomy”[14] . The language favours certain dominant classes and operates as mild social control. Even in the most useful of all types of programmes, coveting and capitalism still influence the larger sphere of activity.
“News is also a commodity. It is expensive to gather and distribute, and must produce an audience that is of the right size and composition to be sold to advertizers. In a cynical but productive phrase, news has been defined as “that which is printed on the back of advertisements.”[15]
The expense of news networks are almost exclusively tied to the emphasis on speed and the illusion of ‘nowness’ that is actively portrayed. Inbetween being startled by violence, informed by accounts, subdued by human interest story or shocked by sensationalism, the news is presented not only as unbiased, but also as fresh, undiluted truth. Often these aspects work against one another, as time and money dissipate and executive decisions are made in favour of ratings and prestige.
“News is as conventional as any other form of television; it’s conventions are so powerful and so uninspected because of the tyranny of the deadline requires the speed and efficiency that only conventions make possible.”[16]
“Most mass media are in the hands of big companies and are subject to the same sort of influences as any other capitalist enterprise. Media organizations can be subjected to a variety of commerical influences. In the west the majority of media organizations are themselves commercial undertakings....the need to maintain profitability is likely to be an influence on their activities.”[17]
However, I remained unconvinced that the year 1927 was truly the beginning of the spectacle, merely a landmark year in its continuing influence. Nations had persuaded thousands of citizens to believe in the causes of higher classes in the name of glory and honour only ten years prior, and the seeds for propaganda to start a new world war were already being spread through radio, and spectacles such as parades, violent protests and rallies. True, television most definantly dominated the remainder of the twentieth century as a ruthlessly used and powerful tool for mass control in terms of strengthening consumerism and creation of niche markets. But in terms of social control, effective forms existed before 1927. One example, given by Crary is Goebbels mailing 50,000 phonographic records of his speeches to potential voters. The difference lies in attention and guarantee of absorbability. But the Nazi party was conscious of the advantage of television, and led the world in developing broadcasts. They favoured group reception, also adopted in USSR, in a mass viewing environment, perhaps echoing similar emotions felt in rallies or parades. Yet, this proves that the spectacle existed before 1927, as the Concentrated spectacle relies upon quoting and improving already existing types of public persuasion. Even its western counterpart, Diffused spectacle, is based on modernizing older forms of spectacle, such as printmaking distribution of the Church and its enemies. Other forms of spectacle which the Diffused spectacle is based on are news heralding, church sermons, papal addresses, royal decrees, and commissioned art pieces.
Printmaking assisted control and domination of provinces far from centres of power, and also helped promote dialects. From 1468, with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, (slightly altered from wine-making) and metal type-faces, Europe became better connected but not necessarily better informed. The Reformation and the spread of bibles translated into the vernacular caused Latin, (and influence from Rome), to quell over the sixteenth century. The spread of bibles, fearful “picture-sermons”, psalms and religious tracts spread faith in Europe, and in 1519 directly assisted Luther in destroying the “constellation of forces and institutions”[18] that it had initially glorified.
“The invention of printing hastened the exchange of ideas without which the Reformation might have never come about.”[19]
Was 1927 the beginning, or just a point of increased acceleration like almost everything else in the twentieth century?
[1] Crary, Johnathon “Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory “, October, Vol. 50, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989. p 98
[2] ibid, p 98
[3] Baudrillard, Jean La Société de cosommation: ses mythes, ses structures. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. p 60
[4] Crary, p 98
[5] ibid, p 98
[6] ibid, p 100
[7] ibid, p 101
[8] Fairclough, Norman Media Discourse New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1995. p 44
[9] ibid, p 44
[10] ibid, p 44
[11] ibid, p 44
[12] Armstrong, Richard Understanding Realism Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, 2005. p57
[13] Crary, Johnathon “Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory “, October, Vol. 50, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989. p 106
[14] ibid, p 96
[15] Fiske, John Televion Culture Cornwall, TJ Press, 1987. p 127
[16] ibid, p 128
[17] Barrat, David Media Sociology New York: Tavistock Publications, 1986. p 59
[18] Crary, p 98
[19] Gombrich, E.H. The Story of Art London: Phaidon, 2004. p 285
In ‘Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory’, Crary attempts to determine the origin of the “spectacle”; not merely situationist related, (as a response to modern art and contemporary capitalism), but also the term used by Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’, and to its wider implications in mass media, particularly television.
Early in his writing, Crary clearly points out the varying, typical meanings and uses found for the word, and how they may have changed dramatically since the turbulent and challenging 1960’s. But what interests Crary is how and why they have changed to “designate a certian set of objective conditions”[1] and has become part of a complex power establishment, a “constellation of forces and institutions”[2] that is strengthened by the abilities the spectacle offers and compells contemporary society. More importantly, Crary questions what can be done now to resist such impact, and thus begins his writing about the disparate ways that this understanding of “spectacle” has operated in different political methods, in order to subvert its different approaches. But, in all the examples given, the spectacle remains a word for describing the act of coercing belief from the general public in order to either scare them, subdue them or turn them into consumers like Benjamin’s concept of the ‘phantasmagoria of equality’. As already noted, Crary concentrates on attempting to connect spectacle with the history of television, which allows the finding of a specific date more focused.
The science historian, Bruno Latour has written extensively about the need for visual display (such as a covert graph) in order for the public to believe, so long as it is accompanied with an ‘inscription’ to translate. In Walter Benjamin’s case, the visible world is where a sence of hapiness can be adhered to with the “measurable...terms of signs and objects”[3] , but it is the act of copying and the “capactity to produce equivalences”[4] that the new classes initially subverted the power of the spectacle. Thus, the nineteenth century classes challenged the importance of originality by counterfeiting. The flow of Crary’s writing is suave, as he allows this response to lead us to the industrial revolutiuon and its explosion of the ‘unessential sectors of capitalism’ (according to Marx). The author defines the newly emerging meaning of spectacle, which I believe it has not wavered far from since, at this historical point “when sign-value takes precedence over use-value”[5].
T.J. Clark offers a reversal view, that instead, it was the “construction of an observer who was a precondition for the transformation of everyday life.” but I find it less consequential to exactly denote whether it was conditioning of market niches or conditioning of consumers, because in either case the spectacle has been utilized to first define and then continually strengthen coveting in western countries (and fear in communist states). Moreover, any resistance in these western markets is suitably digested by “converting them into objects or images of consumption”.[6]
Crary continues after briefly covering the history and operation of the spectacle, to finding exactly when it began. In this writing he persuades the reader to believe that it can be designated to an exact date, and furthermore that the date is 1927. This concept is aligned with Crary’s attempt to marry spectacle to television. The synchronic acts of the beginnings of monoplies in the United States by the division of control of television, with its actual invention (or at least, its perfection) demonstrates how much control the state, coporate, military sectors believed how useful this new technology would be with its “speed, ubiquity, and simultaneity.”[7] Above all, this new form of entertainment garnered attention more than its ancestors, due to synchronized sound. Now with more commanding authority, this new technology’s hypnotic abilities were fully realized.
But not all western countries that made use of Diffused spectacle shared the United State’s questionable subjectivity. Britian’s BBC and France’s RTF (Radio-telediffusion française) are state sponsored and regulated. There is a healthy tension between “opting boradly for more entertainment, and the pressure to provide public service information and eductaion”[8] is more heated in Britian than in the United States, where “broadcasting was commercially dominated from the start”[9] which Crary points out, was 1927. Nevertheless, they have to exist in a commercial environment. For example, the BBC supplements it’s revenue from licence fees by the sale of books, recordings and DVDs and also selling programmes to other countries. Yet even in this way they still squarely operate within the system supported by capitalism utilizing coveting and conveying an illusion of need for products. The BBC’s voice, personalized by it’s announcers and newsreaders “has evolved in a populist direction, claiming common ground with audiences, and often adopting a cynical, challenging and even aggressive stance to a variety of official institutions and personalities, including government ministers.”[10] But the common sense that these characters are based on contain “basic design features of contemporary capitalist society and its consumerist values.”[11]
In American movies and television soaps, products themselves are subtly added or become the main article of the narrative so as to be overlooked.
“For decades, ‘product placement’, the surreptitious but visible inclusion of consumer items in films and television, has made people around the world aware of the American way of life. Notice how emails and mobiles are taken for granted in these films (‘One Fine Day’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’), not simply clever new technology but integral to the plots, integral to the clever and up-to-date lives that Americans apparentlt lead.”[12]
The most popular constituent of television, that relies heavily on what Crary refers to as the “reign of the perpetual present”[13] is, of course, news coverage. The subjects a news network covers, (and their order), determines what becomes most important to a nation. The news language, who is said to ‘demand’ and who is said to ‘offer’, are some of the struggles that Crary refers to as “cultural-institutional formation with a suspicious structural autonomy”[14] . The language favours certain dominant classes and operates as mild social control. Even in the most useful of all types of programmes, coveting and capitalism still influence the larger sphere of activity.
“News is also a commodity. It is expensive to gather and distribute, and must produce an audience that is of the right size and composition to be sold to advertizers. In a cynical but productive phrase, news has been defined as “that which is printed on the back of advertisements.”[15]
The expense of news networks are almost exclusively tied to the emphasis on speed and the illusion of ‘nowness’ that is actively portrayed. Inbetween being startled by violence, informed by accounts, subdued by human interest story or shocked by sensationalism, the news is presented not only as unbiased, but also as fresh, undiluted truth. Often these aspects work against one another, as time and money dissipate and executive decisions are made in favour of ratings and prestige.
“News is as conventional as any other form of television; it’s conventions are so powerful and so uninspected because of the tyranny of the deadline requires the speed and efficiency that only conventions make possible.”[16]
“Most mass media are in the hands of big companies and are subject to the same sort of influences as any other capitalist enterprise. Media organizations can be subjected to a variety of commerical influences. In the west the majority of media organizations are themselves commercial undertakings....the need to maintain profitability is likely to be an influence on their activities.”[17]
However, I remained unconvinced that the year 1927 was truly the beginning of the spectacle, merely a landmark year in its continuing influence. Nations had persuaded thousands of citizens to believe in the causes of higher classes in the name of glory and honour only ten years prior, and the seeds for propaganda to start a new world war were already being spread through radio, and spectacles such as parades, violent protests and rallies. True, television most definantly dominated the remainder of the twentieth century as a ruthlessly used and powerful tool for mass control in terms of strengthening consumerism and creation of niche markets. But in terms of social control, effective forms existed before 1927. One example, given by Crary is Goebbels mailing 50,000 phonographic records of his speeches to potential voters. The difference lies in attention and guarantee of absorbability. But the Nazi party was conscious of the advantage of television, and led the world in developing broadcasts. They favoured group reception, also adopted in USSR, in a mass viewing environment, perhaps echoing similar emotions felt in rallies or parades. Yet, this proves that the spectacle existed before 1927, as the Concentrated spectacle relies upon quoting and improving already existing types of public persuasion. Even its western counterpart, Diffused spectacle, is based on modernizing older forms of spectacle, such as printmaking distribution of the Church and its enemies. Other forms of spectacle which the Diffused spectacle is based on are news heralding, church sermons, papal addresses, royal decrees, and commissioned art pieces.
Printmaking assisted control and domination of provinces far from centres of power, and also helped promote dialects. From 1468, with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, (slightly altered from wine-making) and metal type-faces, Europe became better connected but not necessarily better informed. The Reformation and the spread of bibles translated into the vernacular caused Latin, (and influence from Rome), to quell over the sixteenth century. The spread of bibles, fearful “picture-sermons”, psalms and religious tracts spread faith in Europe, and in 1519 directly assisted Luther in destroying the “constellation of forces and institutions”[18] that it had initially glorified.
“The invention of printing hastened the exchange of ideas without which the Reformation might have never come about.”[19]
Was 1927 the beginning, or just a point of increased acceleration like almost everything else in the twentieth century?
[1] Crary, Johnathon “Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory “, October, Vol. 50, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989. p 98
[2] ibid, p 98
[3] Baudrillard, Jean La Société de cosommation: ses mythes, ses structures. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. p 60
[4] Crary, p 98
[5] ibid, p 98
[6] ibid, p 100
[7] ibid, p 101
[8] Fairclough, Norman Media Discourse New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1995. p 44
[9] ibid, p 44
[10] ibid, p 44
[11] ibid, p 44
[12] Armstrong, Richard Understanding Realism Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, 2005. p57
[13] Crary, Johnathon “Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory “, October, Vol. 50, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989. p 106
[14] ibid, p 96
[15] Fiske, John Televion Culture Cornwall, TJ Press, 1987. p 127
[16] ibid, p 128
[17] Barrat, David Media Sociology New York: Tavistock Publications, 1986. p 59
[18] Crary, p 98
[19] Gombrich, E.H. The Story of Art London: Phaidon, 2004. p 285
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Critical Response to Simon Critchley's "On Humour. Thinking in Action"
Simon Critchley is an English philosophy writer. He writes humorously about his subjects, from colonization to continental philosophy. Critchley states that philosophy starts with disappointment. His style relies heavily on philosophical beliefs, (some thousands of years old, such as Cicero and Plato), without regarding scientific reassessments or experimentation's on said subjects. This makes his writing more humorous because of the leaps in logic this allows, and assists his gaps in reasoning to be ignored.
In “On Humour” Critchley evaluates wit, satire and Beckett’s ‘mirthless laugh’, but closely aligns laughter specifically with humour in his 2nd chapter “Is Humour Human”. These two words (laughter and humour) are neither separated or defined, and this flaw motives my lack of enjoyment of the writing. Furthermore, Critchley does not mention Freudian notions, such as sexual repression or laughing being a release of stored psychical energy, but uses Plessner to illustrate that the gap between the physical and the psychical is in fact humans themselves. Critchley could have made use of a straightforward quote such as follows: “Thus the joke allows expression of the forbidden. Our yield of pleasure equals the psychical energy saved by our not having to repress. The joke beats the repression of the sexual and aggressive drives and is thus a mechanism of defence. It provides a release from tension. Beware the humourless and the solemn.”[1] and used it to introduce religious piety later mentioned, but instead he chooses to remain elusive. Even though Critchley has his “doubts about Plessner’s certitude”[2] the avoidance of science is obvious. This attitude of separating unique humanity from boorish animality dominates the chapter. When Critchley touches on anthropological subjects, distinctly avoiding the word ‘evolution’ and using instead ‘transformation’, it is only to illustrate the “distance of human culture from animal life.”[3] He attempts to “define the human as a dynamic process”[4] in the context of regarding “humour [as being] precisely the exploration of the break between nature and culture.”[5] It is in my opinion, this high self-esteem of humans that permeates early Western and Eastern philosophical writings, that makes Critchley ignore the various opportunities he has to direct his writing to the more important questions: “are all animals incapable of reflection?”[6] in light of Plessner’s views. Perhaps, like mentioning the word evolution, he might scare his audience so he politely skips to his next paragraph (‘A Small Bestiary’) quickly, beginning, bizarrely with “If humour is human, then it also, curiously, marks the limit of the human” as if anything had been proved previously, and then begins the adjacent paragraph (‘Outlandish Animals’) with “Humour is human.”[7] as if stating an obvious fact. The lack of Freudian or Darwinian accomplishments, chimpanzee communication, training and humour, is annoying enough without Critchley’s consistent praise for mankind that echoes ancient, obsolete philosophy.
It is within the first four sentences that Critchley questions, considers and answers whether animals are capable of humour, using the rhetoric of a remote philosopher who had never seen a higher primate, (except for other humans) and proudly illustrates from “Galen and Porphyry, through Rabelais to Hazlitt and Bergson”[8] that this thought has been ingrained in philosophical thinking. It is all the more reason to question something that has passed down the centuries unchallenged and, in my opinion, unfounded.
Plessner’s concept of an eccentric human capable of having a “reflective attitude towards its experiences and towards itself”[9] could be transferred and explained as mirror neurons, existing in the brains of dolphins, elephants, greater apes (orang-utans, homo sapiens, bonobos, gorillas, and chimpanzees). An animal that has mirror neurons is capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror, and are prerequisites for any behaviour that can be described as humorous, but not necessarily including laughter. Even this thought is being challenged by neuroscientists Jaak Panksepp and Jeff Burdorf of Green State University, who are searching for laughter (and by extension, [but not proof from the former,] humour also) in rats, and in neural circuits and more ancient regions of the animal brain that we share with small mammals like rodents. After all, human brain occupies 2% of body mass; in small rodents the relative goes up to 10%.
“The concept of mirror neurons postulates a neuronal network that represents both observations and execution of goal-directed behaviour and is taken as evidence for the validity of the simulation theory, according to which human subjects use their own mental states to predict or explain mental processes of others.”[10]
If mirror neurons are present in elephants, dolphins and apes like humans, then they could all be capable of an eccentric position whereby they can have a “reflective attitude towards its experiences and towards itself.”[11]
Humorously enough, it is lying and deception that makes scientists aware of the consciousness of animals in test experiments.
“It seems clear that on many occasions animals communicate inaccurate information or intentionally avoid conveying certain types of information to others. In many cases the versatility of deceptive or misleading behaviour provides even more suggestive evidence of conscious intent than the transmission of reasonably accurate information.
de Waal has described other examples of somewhat deceptive behaviour in primates, along with intriguing patterns of friendship and reconciliation.”[12]
Critchely, who avoids evolution, addresses his chapter from postulating that “If, as ethnologists report, laughter originated in the animal function of the aggressive baring of teeth” without realizing that higher primate evolution took a turn from aggression to submission. Reflexive teeth-baring has been well proven by many scientists and primate specialists that our own smile comes from the “fearful or submissive expression. It has therefore been hypothesized that smiling evolved as an indicator of cooperativeness and altruism. In a phylogenetic analysis, van Hooff compared the way various primates employ the silent bared-teeth display and concluded that the appeasing and friendly qualities of the human smile are not unique.”[13]
If it is true that not all animal’s lives are zentrisch, that the smile originated from fear, and more importantly that it is not unique in humans, then perhaps humour is not unique either.
“Captive chimpanzees have been trained to signal “funny” in situations marked by incongruity, such as when they are representing incorrect signs. Some of these chimpanzees also signal “funny” when attempting to urinate on people.”[14] It would seem that even types of humour, (toilet humour) are not unique to humans.
But what of laughter, evolved from social signalling and having more in common sonically with animal calls than human speech? As for Critchley’s long list of philosophers through the millennia who have naively adopted Aristotle’s belief (“Galen and Porphyry, through Rabelais to Hazlitt and Bergson”[15] ) here is a longer list of scientists who have experienced, but also written peer reviewed reports about chimpanzee laughter.
“The opinion often repeated in the popular media that laughter is unique to humans is unfounded. From at least the time of Darwin (1862) there has been an awareness that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and other great apes emit a laugh-like vocalization when tickled and during play (Bernston, Boysen, Bauer and Torello 1989, Fossey 1972, Marler and Tenanza, 1977, Van Lawick-Goodall 1968, Yerkes 1943).”[16]
It is important to note that the chimpanzee laughter is breathy and grunt-like, but shares close acoustic characteristics (shapes, lengths, patterns) but is generated by a different pattern of neuromuscular activity. (Province and Bard, 1994) But even more importantly, laughter of both humans and chimpanzees occurred almost exclusively in social contexts.
Despite Critchley ignoring scientific research; discovery of the repressed mind; and chimpanzee laughter in the wild, and humour in captivity while communicating, the most annoying aspect of the chapter is his centralized view of religion coupled with his disregard for the appreciation of context. The glaring omission of other religions is never more evident than when Critchley writes “If laughter is essentially human, then the question of whether Jesus laughed assumes rather theological pertinence”[17] without even mentioning the extremely popular religion of Buddhism that is led and defined by a Messiah who laughs openly and eternally.
What the reader will quickly realize about Critchley’s use of the early Bible story is that the retort is amusing because of our knowledge of Jesus later becoming the messiah, and talking back to his mother in “messianic”[18] tones rather than modern childish ones, similar to the “sudden and incongruous humanity of the animal”[19] . The context that is not regarded when Critchley tries to persuade the reader to find hilarity of Jesus’ ministry beginning “with an encouragement to imbibe.”[20] is the mundanity of wine in the life of people in the middle-east two thousand years ago. Their methodology of drinking water without getting sick was using fermentation, as opposed to the far-east method of brewing tea. The humour aligned with finding drunkenness amusing due to its repression and being frowned upon in proper society is removed when we consider that wine was the normal beverage of choice.
But Critchley is correct in believing that those that do not laugh “invites the charge of inhumanity”[21] and is echoed by Cameron when he warns us to “beware the humourless and solemn”[22]. The very fact early christians had to “trawl the Evangelist fro evidence of levity”[23] proves that there was not a lot of humour already apparent within the New Testament anyway. But, perhaps, like Critchley’s example, we could find these funny in a new context. When Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden in the Fall, God first made them “small leather garments” (Genesis 3:21) in order to hide their nudity. Even more cringe worthy is the way that early Christians distanced themselves from other Jews by specifically not practicing kosher laws, circumcision and Sabbath, and claiming in Paul’s words, to be “Jews inwardly” and circumcized “in the heart.” (Romans 2:28 -29)
[1] Cameron, Keith Humour and History. Oxford: Cromwell Press, 1993. p 156
[2] Critchley, Simon. On humour. Thinking in Action. London: Routledge, 2003. p 29
[3] ibid, p 28
[4] ibid, p 29
[5] ibid, p 29
[6] ibid, p 29
[7] ibid, p 34
[8] ibid, p 25
[9] ibid, p 28
[10] Stamenov, Maxim. I. and Gallese, Vittorio Mirror neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003. p 135
[11] Critchley, p 28
[12] Griffin, Donald R. Animal Mind: Beyond Recognition to Consciousness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, p 154
[13] Ekman, Paul; Campos Joseph J.; Davidson, Richard J.; de Waal, Frans B.M.; Emotions Inside Out: 130 Years After Darwin’s ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals’ New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 2003. p 14
[14] Maier, Richard Comparitive Animal Behvaiour: An Evolutionary and Ecological Approach. Chicago: Loyola University of Chicago, (Allyn and Bacon, Viacom) , 1998. p 292
[15] Critchley, p 25
[16] Heyes, Cecilia M., Galef, Bennet G. Jr Social Learning in Animals: The Roots of Culture San Diego: Academic Press, Inc, 1996. p 196
[17] Critchley, p 25
[18] ibid, p 26
[19] ibid, p 30
[20] ibid, p 26
[21] ibid, p 25
[22] ibid, p 156
[23] ibid, p 26
[24] Griffin, Dustin “Satire: A critical Reintroduction” Univeristy Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 1994, page 6
[25] ibid page 7
[26] Palmeri, Frank “Satire, History, Novel , Narrative Forms, 1665-1815” Associated Univeristy Press, Cranbury, NJ, page 121
In “On Humour” Critchley evaluates wit, satire and Beckett’s ‘mirthless laugh’, but closely aligns laughter specifically with humour in his 2nd chapter “Is Humour Human”. These two words (laughter and humour) are neither separated or defined, and this flaw motives my lack of enjoyment of the writing. Furthermore, Critchley does not mention Freudian notions, such as sexual repression or laughing being a release of stored psychical energy, but uses Plessner to illustrate that the gap between the physical and the psychical is in fact humans themselves. Critchley could have made use of a straightforward quote such as follows: “Thus the joke allows expression of the forbidden. Our yield of pleasure equals the psychical energy saved by our not having to repress. The joke beats the repression of the sexual and aggressive drives and is thus a mechanism of defence. It provides a release from tension. Beware the humourless and the solemn.”[1] and used it to introduce religious piety later mentioned, but instead he chooses to remain elusive. Even though Critchley has his “doubts about Plessner’s certitude”[2] the avoidance of science is obvious. This attitude of separating unique humanity from boorish animality dominates the chapter. When Critchley touches on anthropological subjects, distinctly avoiding the word ‘evolution’ and using instead ‘transformation’, it is only to illustrate the “distance of human culture from animal life.”[3] He attempts to “define the human as a dynamic process”[4] in the context of regarding “humour [as being] precisely the exploration of the break between nature and culture.”[5] It is in my opinion, this high self-esteem of humans that permeates early Western and Eastern philosophical writings, that makes Critchley ignore the various opportunities he has to direct his writing to the more important questions: “are all animals incapable of reflection?”[6] in light of Plessner’s views. Perhaps, like mentioning the word evolution, he might scare his audience so he politely skips to his next paragraph (‘A Small Bestiary’) quickly, beginning, bizarrely with “If humour is human, then it also, curiously, marks the limit of the human” as if anything had been proved previously, and then begins the adjacent paragraph (‘Outlandish Animals’) with “Humour is human.”[7] as if stating an obvious fact. The lack of Freudian or Darwinian accomplishments, chimpanzee communication, training and humour, is annoying enough without Critchley’s consistent praise for mankind that echoes ancient, obsolete philosophy.
It is within the first four sentences that Critchley questions, considers and answers whether animals are capable of humour, using the rhetoric of a remote philosopher who had never seen a higher primate, (except for other humans) and proudly illustrates from “Galen and Porphyry, through Rabelais to Hazlitt and Bergson”[8] that this thought has been ingrained in philosophical thinking. It is all the more reason to question something that has passed down the centuries unchallenged and, in my opinion, unfounded.
Plessner’s concept of an eccentric human capable of having a “reflective attitude towards its experiences and towards itself”[9] could be transferred and explained as mirror neurons, existing in the brains of dolphins, elephants, greater apes (orang-utans, homo sapiens, bonobos, gorillas, and chimpanzees). An animal that has mirror neurons is capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror, and are prerequisites for any behaviour that can be described as humorous, but not necessarily including laughter. Even this thought is being challenged by neuroscientists Jaak Panksepp and Jeff Burdorf of Green State University, who are searching for laughter (and by extension, [but not proof from the former,] humour also) in rats, and in neural circuits and more ancient regions of the animal brain that we share with small mammals like rodents. After all, human brain occupies 2% of body mass; in small rodents the relative goes up to 10%.
“The concept of mirror neurons postulates a neuronal network that represents both observations and execution of goal-directed behaviour and is taken as evidence for the validity of the simulation theory, according to which human subjects use their own mental states to predict or explain mental processes of others.”[10]
If mirror neurons are present in elephants, dolphins and apes like humans, then they could all be capable of an eccentric position whereby they can have a “reflective attitude towards its experiences and towards itself.”[11]
Humorously enough, it is lying and deception that makes scientists aware of the consciousness of animals in test experiments.
“It seems clear that on many occasions animals communicate inaccurate information or intentionally avoid conveying certain types of information to others. In many cases the versatility of deceptive or misleading behaviour provides even more suggestive evidence of conscious intent than the transmission of reasonably accurate information.
de Waal has described other examples of somewhat deceptive behaviour in primates, along with intriguing patterns of friendship and reconciliation.”[12]
Critchely, who avoids evolution, addresses his chapter from postulating that “If, as ethnologists report, laughter originated in the animal function of the aggressive baring of teeth” without realizing that higher primate evolution took a turn from aggression to submission. Reflexive teeth-baring has been well proven by many scientists and primate specialists that our own smile comes from the “fearful or submissive expression. It has therefore been hypothesized that smiling evolved as an indicator of cooperativeness and altruism. In a phylogenetic analysis, van Hooff compared the way various primates employ the silent bared-teeth display and concluded that the appeasing and friendly qualities of the human smile are not unique.”[13]
If it is true that not all animal’s lives are zentrisch, that the smile originated from fear, and more importantly that it is not unique in humans, then perhaps humour is not unique either.
“Captive chimpanzees have been trained to signal “funny” in situations marked by incongruity, such as when they are representing incorrect signs. Some of these chimpanzees also signal “funny” when attempting to urinate on people.”[14] It would seem that even types of humour, (toilet humour) are not unique to humans.
But what of laughter, evolved from social signalling and having more in common sonically with animal calls than human speech? As for Critchley’s long list of philosophers through the millennia who have naively adopted Aristotle’s belief (“Galen and Porphyry, through Rabelais to Hazlitt and Bergson”[15] ) here is a longer list of scientists who have experienced, but also written peer reviewed reports about chimpanzee laughter.
“The opinion often repeated in the popular media that laughter is unique to humans is unfounded. From at least the time of Darwin (1862) there has been an awareness that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and other great apes emit a laugh-like vocalization when tickled and during play (Bernston, Boysen, Bauer and Torello 1989, Fossey 1972, Marler and Tenanza, 1977, Van Lawick-Goodall 1968, Yerkes 1943).”[16]
It is important to note that the chimpanzee laughter is breathy and grunt-like, but shares close acoustic characteristics (shapes, lengths, patterns) but is generated by a different pattern of neuromuscular activity. (Province and Bard, 1994) But even more importantly, laughter of both humans and chimpanzees occurred almost exclusively in social contexts.
Despite Critchley ignoring scientific research; discovery of the repressed mind; and chimpanzee laughter in the wild, and humour in captivity while communicating, the most annoying aspect of the chapter is his centralized view of religion coupled with his disregard for the appreciation of context. The glaring omission of other religions is never more evident than when Critchley writes “If laughter is essentially human, then the question of whether Jesus laughed assumes rather theological pertinence”[17] without even mentioning the extremely popular religion of Buddhism that is led and defined by a Messiah who laughs openly and eternally.
What the reader will quickly realize about Critchley’s use of the early Bible story is that the retort is amusing because of our knowledge of Jesus later becoming the messiah, and talking back to his mother in “messianic”[18] tones rather than modern childish ones, similar to the “sudden and incongruous humanity of the animal”[19] . The context that is not regarded when Critchley tries to persuade the reader to find hilarity of Jesus’ ministry beginning “with an encouragement to imbibe.”[20] is the mundanity of wine in the life of people in the middle-east two thousand years ago. Their methodology of drinking water without getting sick was using fermentation, as opposed to the far-east method of brewing tea. The humour aligned with finding drunkenness amusing due to its repression and being frowned upon in proper society is removed when we consider that wine was the normal beverage of choice.
But Critchley is correct in believing that those that do not laugh “invites the charge of inhumanity”[21] and is echoed by Cameron when he warns us to “beware the humourless and solemn”[22]. The very fact early christians had to “trawl the Evangelist fro evidence of levity”[23] proves that there was not a lot of humour already apparent within the New Testament anyway. But, perhaps, like Critchley’s example, we could find these funny in a new context. When Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden in the Fall, God first made them “small leather garments” (Genesis 3:21) in order to hide their nudity. Even more cringe worthy is the way that early Christians distanced themselves from other Jews by specifically not practicing kosher laws, circumcision and Sabbath, and claiming in Paul’s words, to be “Jews inwardly” and circumcized “in the heart.” (Romans 2:28 -29)
[1] Cameron, Keith Humour and History. Oxford: Cromwell Press, 1993. p 156
[2] Critchley, Simon. On humour. Thinking in Action. London: Routledge, 2003. p 29
[3] ibid, p 28
[4] ibid, p 29
[5] ibid, p 29
[6] ibid, p 29
[7] ibid, p 34
[8] ibid, p 25
[9] ibid, p 28
[10] Stamenov, Maxim. I. and Gallese, Vittorio Mirror neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003. p 135
[11] Critchley, p 28
[12] Griffin, Donald R. Animal Mind: Beyond Recognition to Consciousness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, p 154
[13] Ekman, Paul; Campos Joseph J.; Davidson, Richard J.; de Waal, Frans B.M.; Emotions Inside Out: 130 Years After Darwin’s ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals’ New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 2003. p 14
[14] Maier, Richard Comparitive Animal Behvaiour: An Evolutionary and Ecological Approach. Chicago: Loyola University of Chicago, (Allyn and Bacon, Viacom) , 1998. p 292
[15] Critchley, p 25
[16] Heyes, Cecilia M., Galef, Bennet G. Jr Social Learning in Animals: The Roots of Culture San Diego: Academic Press, Inc, 1996. p 196
[17] Critchley, p 25
[18] ibid, p 26
[19] ibid, p 30
[20] ibid, p 26
[21] ibid, p 25
[22] ibid, p 156
[23] ibid, p 26
[24] Griffin, Dustin “Satire: A critical Reintroduction” Univeristy Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 1994, page 6
[25] ibid page 7
[26] Palmeri, Frank “Satire, History, Novel , Narrative Forms, 1665-1815” Associated Univeristy Press, Cranbury, NJ, page 121
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)