FINAL BLOG ESSAY

FINAL BLOG ESSAY

Don DeLillo’s “Falling Man”, “Project Rebirth” and Roland Barthes’ “Mythologies”:

Mythologizing the Signs of 9/11

The events of September 11, 2001 altered the sociological, economic, and political landscape of the United States forever. For many weeks and months after the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, people walked the streets of New York City in a suspended state of unprocessed grief. It seemed as though as a New Yorker, the emotional core of all of us was temporarily removed—and we were left to our own devices as to how to effectively process our grief. We had the sensation that time had halted, our innocence was destroyed, and that the nation was traumatized almost beyond repair. People didn’t seem to be able to express their grief, and were left without a system of signs and signifiers to give this event meaning.

Personally, I will never forget hearing the everyday sounds of the birds chirping that day as I exited a taxi that I was lucky enough to secure to transport me from my office near Lincoln Center to my home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. It struck me then that I had no prior proficiency on how to process something so devastating and violent, and I found myself staring at CNN literally for 3 days nonstop.

With an event so catastrophic, the national feeling was that we needed a national commemoration, something to physically remember all of the people in our lives who were lost. This collective desire to memorialize elevated 9/11 into a nationalist mythology, preventing its integration into a more thought provoking historical narrative. Barthes discusses this in Mythologies when he notes that myth “postulates a kind of knowledge, a past, a memory, a comparative order of facts, ideas, decisions”, yet when “it empties itself, it becomes impoverished, history evaporates, only the letter remains” (Barthes, 1972, p. 117).

Myth, according to Barthes, “is a type of speech defined by its intention…much more than by its literal sense… in spite of this, its intention is somehow frozen, purified, eternalized, made absent by this literal sense” (Barthes, 1972, p. 124). He goes on to state “myth is the most appropriate instrument for the ideological inversion which defines this society” (Ibid, p.142). The object of the mythology functions to frustrate purpose and meaning. Myth causes a duplicity of meaning, for its function “is to empty reality: it is, literally, a ceaseless flowing out, a hemorrhage, or perhaps an evaporation, in short a perceptible absence” (Ibid, p.143).

To quote Barthes:

"A conjuring trick has taken place; it has turned reality inside out, it has emptied it of history and has filled it with nature, it has removed from things their human meaning so as to make them signify a human insignificance". (p. 143)

According to Barthes, the object of the mythology does not bestow meaning upon itself, but upon the event of object to which it gestures (in this case the victims of 9/11 or the events of 9/11 itself). Barthes designates myth as a triad (or 3 pronged) pattern of semiotics instead of the dual pattern (Barthes, 1972, p.113), which consists of the signifier (the form of the myth), the signified (the mythical concept) and the sign (the myth’s signification-an amalgamation of signifier and signified).

The myth of the “faceless victims” of 9/11 was given meaning through the mainstream media with the image of the “Falling Man”. Based upon a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew. "Falling Man” became a symbol of all the people who decided to take control of their own fate and die the way they wanted, not in the way the terrorists intended. There were several attempts to identify the “Falling Man” and although it cannot be completely confirmed, many people believe the man to be Jonathan Briley, a 43 year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant.

The Falling Man seemed to be one of the pivotal myths of that day, because it "removed things from their human meaning as to make them signify a human insignificance". It pointedly demonstrated that human life can be exterminated at any time and at any place (a normal day at work), and the power lies in the fact that it made all of us think about what we would do in the same situation.

In Don DeLillo’s novel, Falling Man, the mythology of the “Falling Man” takes on a different form through the work of a performance artist. The performance artist recreates the look of the famous photograph by strapping himself into a harness and suspending himself from a high building in a heavily trafficked area, thereby hanging in the Falling Man’s well known pose. He appears several times throughout the novel, seen by the character Lianne. He seems to by a symbol of the day that Lianne and her family are trying desperately to avoid, yet their attempts are repeatedly rendered futile.

The plot of the novel centers on one family’s attempts at coping with the traumatic events of 9/11. The family uses myth to help them evade the reality of the attacks. The child of the protagonist couple (Lianne and Keith) and his friends spend their time looking towards the sky for a man named “Bill Lawton” (a modified version of “Bin Laden”), who “has a long beard. He wears a long robe” (DeLillo, p.74).

Justin (Keith and Lianne’s son) believes that the towers were hit but that they did not collapse even though his parents had told him the truth. He is creating his own mythology of the event in order to "empty reality" (as Barthes puts it) that is too painful for him to face.

Protagonist Keith Neudecker seems to be the character that was traumatized by the events of 9/11 more than the others in the novel since he witnessed them and lost several of his work colleagues and poker buddies. He seems to want to deny and avoid his feelings by gambling excessively in Las Vegas casinos and carrying on an extramarital affair with a woman named Florence. To Keith, the signs of the world he was used to no longer exist in the same way. Everything around him was different. As DeLillo states:

“It was something that belonged to another landscape, something inserted, a conjuring that resembled for the briefest second some half-seen image only half believed in the seeing, when the witness wonders what has happened to the meaning of things, to tree, street, stone, wind, simple words lost in the falling ash”. (p. 103)

DeLillo seems to constantly stress the interrelated nature of memory and language, and the loss of both that can come from living through such a traumatic event. In the narrative of Keith's escape from the site of the attacks, he never mentions speaking (a loss of language) to anyone until he gets to the hospital and is being examined (pp. 3-6). Keith seems finally able to recover his traumatic memories of 9/11 towards the very end of the novel. To quote the text:

“Things came back to him in hazy visions, like half an eye staring. These were moments he’d lost as they were happening and he had to stop walking in order to stop seeing them”. (p. 243)

Part of the mythologization of the events of 9/11 seems to be centered on the creation of a set of standard narratives (i.e. the hero accountant, the hero firefighter, the unsuspecting wife who received the final phone call from the husband or wife, the person who decided not to go to work that day). Each one of these narratives holds the promise of some type of redemption: the creation of the narrative of the hero used in the realm of public discourse or in the narrative world of a novel in one character’s attempt to reclaim his history through recovered memory.

The narrative of the redemptive hero and the narrative of the American spirit of rebirth are both prominently featured in the documentary, “Project Rebirth”. The film shows time lapse photography to demonstrate the rebuilding efforts around the World Trade Center Site, and interplays this footage with a series of compelling stories of people who lost family members or close friends on that fateful day. Each interviewee is followed over the course of several years, always interviewed on the anniversary of the attacks.

In the film, one of the most effective stories for me personally was told by Tim, a NYC Fireman who lost his best friend and boss in the attacks. In one clip, his grief has caused him to detach from his life purpose in much the same way as Keith Neudecker from “Falling Man”. One quote that sums up this well:

“I feel like I’m….I lost my track, and I don’t know…I am afraid I won’t find a track again. I’m kind of all over the place, you know? And I used to be very focused on my life, and now I just have no idea”.

The simple phrase “9/11” has become the symbol that engenders a series of images and narratives that on one hand emphasize the suffering of the American populace, and on the other hand elevate our role as a victimized nation into a redemptive hero myth that reinforces a tenacious and victorious national identity. The image of the “falling man” and other famous images from that day have taken shape in our culture to signify more than the actual visual content of the image-they allow us to process our collective memory and to collectively grieve for he memories of the patriotic loved ones who died as unsuspecting victims from simply going to work on that day.

Thoughts on Readings 4/29/09

The Politics of Nature by Bruno Latour

This week, I led the class discussion on the chapter listed above written by Bruno Latour. I am going to post some of the thoughts I used to get the class discussion started.
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Latour focuses his writings on political epistemology, or the "political philosophy of nature". Latour believes that political ecology has nothing to do with nature. In fact, he presents the idea that discussion of nature is problematic because it permits those who are participating in political discourse to "short circuit" debate.

Latour uses the allegory of the Cave as generated by Plato to define the relationship between Science and society. He believes that the Philosopher and the Scientist have to "free themselves from the tyranny of the social dimension, public life, politics, subjective feelings,popular agitation (OR THE DARK CAVE) if they want to see the truth. The social world creates a prison--but the Scientist (equipped with the pure laws of nature) is the one person who can leave the Cave and come back with "INCONTESTABLE FINDINGS THAT WILL SILENCE THE ENDLESS CHATTER OF THE IGNORANT MOB".

As Latour puts it:

"Although the world of truth differs absolutely, not relatively, from the social world, the Scientist can go back and forth from one world to the other no matter what: the passageway closed the all others is open to him alone. In him and through him, the tyranny of the social world is miraculously interrupted when he leaves, so that he will be able to contemplate the objective world at last; and it is likewise interrupted when he returns, so that like a latter-day Moses he will be able to substitute the legislation of scientific laws, which are not open to question, for the tyranny of ignorance. Without this double interruption, there can be no Science, no epistemology, no paralyzed politics, no Western conception of public life".(page 11)

Questions for discussion:

• What do you think Latour means when he refers to the tyranny of the social world?
• What does Latour mean about the scientist being like a latter-day Moses?
• Latour refers to the narrow door between the Cave and the world of Ideas now being a broad boulevard, in what ways does he mean that this change has occurred????

Latour talks about the reason behind this "double rupture" by the "epistemology police" can only be political or religious.

Question for discussion:

• What would be the relevant examples of the double rupture as it applies to recent scientific advancements?
• How has legislation been impacted by the transforming effects of the Cave? Are there ways in which the Bush administration acted as the Cave?? How???

Latour supposes that there is a Constitution that organizes public life into two houses:

HOUSE 1--OBSCURE ROOM DEPICTED BY PLATO (ignorant people in chains).

HOUSE 2--WORLD MADE OF NONHUMANS, INDIFFERENT TO HUMAN IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE.

Genius of the model---role that a small percentage of VERY powerful people play who can move between the two houses.

Thoughts on Readings 4/22/09

Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
An ancient Greek tragedy that has been read and reviewed since 415 BC. The plot deals with Prometheus, who is being punished for stealing fire, and for undermining the God of Gods, Zeus.

Aside from the formalities of the story, what is the narrative trying to tell us? What was Aeschylus trying to achieve? This is a tricky question with no clear answers, in my opinion.

The story seems to parallel the classic Western/Christian tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, except the fire that Prometheus stole seems to me to be more a metaphor for modern technology. We can use knowledge and technology to advance society, but what are the consequences that we don't even understand? Like many of the other writers (Dewey comes to mind) this seems to be a theme that reoccurs. However, this change seems to be happening in a evolutionary pattern--it almost seems destined by fate.

There seems to be a division among the dueling divinities, all the gods are battling (Zeus versus his brothers). So, against this background of a change of technology, there is this power stuggle.

While reading this I couldn't help but consider who the audience was for this ancient play. How was it received? Was it a religious experience seeing a play? Was it the retelling of an ancient legend? I suspect the latter, but it took on a heightened dimension seeing it unfold in dramatic form. The dramatist had to retell the story, inject it with ideologies, and create a perfect experience.

In researching this play, I saw that there were possibly two "sequel" plays in the trilogy, but that there is controversy of whether these plays actually exist. Which left me thinking, what would happen in Volume 2 and 3?? Does advancement and knowledge defeat raw power?? A constant struggle examined for centuries.......

Thoughts on Readings 4/15/09

The Public Sphere by Jurgen Habermas

Habermas discusses the historical/sociological formation of a new "bourgeois public sphere" that sprang out of the feudal sovereignty of the high middle ages. He says that in the eighteenth century the concepts of public sphere and public opinion arose for the first time. There was a split at this time whereby society appeared in clear contrast in motivations from those of the states. Similar to the distinction between "public vs. private" that was discussed in Dewey, this new construction created the concept of a collectivist public opinion.

As Habermas notes:

"The bourgeois public sphere could be understood as the sphere of private individuals assembled into a public body, which almost immediately laid claim to the officially regulated 'intellectual newspapers' for use against the public authority itself". (p. 352)

He goes further into the role that the development of a free press had on this. He states:

"The press remained an institution of the public itself, effective in the manner of a mediator and intensifier of public discussion, no longer a mere organ for the spreading of news but not yet the medium of a consumer culture". (p. 353)

Habermas stresses that the freedom of the public sphere was crucially linked to its' separation from the dominant hegemonic structure of both the church and the state. This public resource of information and ideas has collapsed in the face of consumerist culture (again, a common theme which shows itself again here).

The media transformed itself from a place where the public obtained its' ideas to a instrument of political power and a medium for advertisements which bolstered society's consumerist drives.

The Virtual Sphere: The Internet as a Public Sphere by Zizi Papacharissi

The second reading this week (written in 2002) ties directly into the first and examines if the Internet can be seen as the tool to create a new "bourgeois public sphere". As Papacharissi states: "Does cyberspace present a separate alternative to, extend, minimize, or ignore the public sphere"?

The answer is complicated and far from definitive. First, Papacharissi states that cyberspace represents more of a "public space" than a "public sphere" and that the distinction in an important one to make. As a public space, the Internet provides the forum for political and social debate--"a virtual space enhances discussion; a virtual sphere enhances democracy". (p. 380)

I felt that this essay raised a number of interesting questions around the topic without answering any of them. Papacharissi brings in the findings of many disparate scholars (Dewey, Fraser, Tcqueville), all of whom seemed to present different ideas when applied to the topic at hand.

However I have to agree with Papcharissi that having vast amounts of information at one's fingertips does NOT create a perfect situation for a public sphere to take shape. As Papcharissi states:

"At the same time, access to the Internet does not guarantee increased political activity or enlightened political discourse. Moving political discussion to a virtual space excludes those with no access to this space. Moreover, connectivity does not ensure a more representative and robust public sphere". (p.382)

Every member of my family uses the Internet to different degrees and in different ways. I use it almost every day for academic research and communication, my father uses it to shop for accessories for his sail boat, my mother only uses it occasionally for email exchange, and my sister hardly uses it at all. Hardly the environment for a robust new public sphere.

Thoughts on Readings 4/8/09

The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen (pictured) was a noted Norwegian-American sociologist and economist who believed that economic structure is informed by a Darwinian "survival of the fittest" mentality. This is to say that he believed that the type of work that you perform is typically directly related to your social status and economic class.

Reading his "Theory of the Leisure Class" made me think almost immediately of the system of "wants" vs. "needs" that was described by Marcuse. In the system outlined by Veblen, we "want" that which will make our social standing greater in the eyes of our colleagues and compatriots. And this "want" expresses itself not only in physical possessions but attaining a level of physical surroundings that impresses upon others our social and economic status.

As Veblen puts it:

"In order to gain and hold the esteem of men it is not merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put on evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence. And not only does the evidence of wealth serve to impress one's importance on others and to keep their sense of his importance alive and alert, but it is of scarcely less use in building up and preserving one's self-complacency. In all but the lowest stages of culture, the normally constituted man is comforted and upheld in his self-respect by "decent surroundings" and by exemption from "menial offices". (p. 24)

Veblen asserts that the stratification of modern industrial society can be related to the simple social stratification of early tribal cultures. The inter-relationships operate in the same way, it is just that the potential rewards are much shinier. Veblen compares the role of women in barbarian society (their specific categorization as "trophies of war") to the modern view of the perfect "happy housewife" cooking and cleaning to make the domicile of her Wall Street warrior of a husband as pleasant an example of the "decent surroundings" mentioned in the quote above.

Thoughts on Readings 4/1/09

Mythologies by Roland Barthes

In "Mythologies", Roland Barthes examines the creation of modern myths by modern society through the use of a commonly accepted social value system. Barthes lays out the fundamental principles of semiotics by using a series of "mythologies" (presented in individual essays) that cover a wide range of cultural practices, events, and objects that are given meaning by a system of social signs that are widely accepted by all. These "Myths" are conveyed through a form of discourse, that is they are not defined by the object of their message, but by the method in which the message is conveyed. This discourse is not confined to oral speech, as Barthes describes it:

"It can consist of modes of writing or of representations; not only written discourse, but also photography, cinema, reporting, sport, shows, publicity, all these can serve as a support to mythical speech. Myth can be defined neither by its object nor by its material, for any material can be arbitrarily endowed with meaning...". (p. 110)

I think that these concepts are illustrated in the best way in Barthes essay on the phenomenon of wrestling entitled "The World of Wrestling". In it, Barthes distinguishes between judo or boxing (which Barthes categorizes as a sport with rules and systems of fair behavior) and wrestling (which Barthes would describe as falling into the realm of theatre). Barthes explains the emotional "story" of the wrestling match which dictates clearly how the audience should feel. The protagonist is typically fighting a salaud (French term for "Bastard"), and his looks betray his role in the fight. He is unquestionably ugly, and to quote Barthes:

"Not only is ugliness used here to signify baseness, but in addition ugliness is wholly gathered into a particularly repulsive quality of matter....so that the passionate condemnation of the crowd no longer stems from his judgement, but instead from the very depth of its humours". (p. 17)

Barthes seems to think that the role of the semiotician is to recognize these myths and to expose or point out to us the carefully constructed nature of the images to which we attribute meaning. I kept thinking of the cultural differences at play in his writings and also the way in which the evolution of social behavior over time has changed the examples that Barthes uses to illustrate his points.

For example, in the essay on stripping called "Striptease", Barthes contends that the act of removing clothing is the erotic part of the entire process. He states that when the stripper becomes totally naked, the eroticism is immediately removed and we are looking at something non-erotic. Barthes states:

"The end of the striptease is then no longer to drag into the light a hidden depth, but to signify, through the shedding of an incongruous and artificial clothing, nakedness as a natural vesture of woman, which amounts in the end to regaining a perfectly chaste state of the flesh". (p. 85)

I kept thinking about how the "accoutrements" of stripping have changed so much since the late 1950's when Barthes was writing this essay. Back then, the striptease was an art form, with eloaborate costumes designed to transport the men to places of fantasy while they admired the female form. Now, stripping is much more about the naked bodies of the dancers (aside from tiny underwear and/or high heel shoes), not about creating a theatrical fantasy through a dance which slowly exposed the dancer.

I am reminded of the legendary Bettie Page, who passed away a few months back. She was a model who became the undisputed pin-up queen of the 1950's and 1960's, taking thousands of photographs and making many short films in different costumes that were elaborate creations of imaginative fantasy. She possessed an innocence that I think embodies what Barthes is referring to as the myth of eroticism. R.I.P., Bettie Page.

Here is Bettie at her best:

Thoughts on Readings 3/11/09

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society by Herbert Marcuse

"The most effective and enduring form of warfare against liberation is the implanting of material and intellectual needs that perpetuate obsolete forms of the struggle for existence" (p. 4)

I found this week's reading to be a very interesting and critical deconstruction of a concept that I find fascinating: how the capitalist structure can manipulate through a system of wants and satisfactions that exists below the surface of awareness. In other words, how a free market society can manipulate the psyche of the American consumer so that basic critical human needs (food, water, sleep) are so commonly accepted that they are not even recognized. These "needs" are replaced by a hierarchy of products that are certainly not essential to life but almost accepted as though they are.

As Marcuse puts it:

"The only needs that have an unqualified claim for satisfaction are the vital ones-nourishment, clothing, lodging at the attainable level of culture. The satisfaction of these needs is the prerequisite for the realization of all needs, of the unsublimated as well as the sublimated ones". (p. 5)

The distinction between wants vs. needs is clouded by the trappings of the mass consumerist culture that we live in. And the media is not the culprit according to Marcuse, this indoctrination begins way before the media has an influence over it.

Marcuse sums it up:

"The preconditioning does not start with the mass production of radio and television and with the centralization of their control. The people enter this stage as preconditioned receptacles of long standing; the decisive difference is in the flattening out of the contrast (or conflict) between the given and the possible, between the satisfied and unsatisfied needs." (p. 8)

I have often thought about the ways in which the media can use fear (of some previously unseen threat) to "scare" us into consumerist behavior. When the nightly news tells us of some deadly bacteria the COULD be creeping all over our kitchen counters, we run right out and purchase some anti-bacterial spray to solve this potential danger.

After the attacks of September 11, I was living in NYC and I clearly remember the press conference that Mayor Giuliani made the morning after when he encouraged the people of NYC to get out and SPEND, patronize your local establishments. The underlying message seemed to be, "we all will feel better if we shop and purchase products that should meet our immediate needs, and the local economy will get a boost as well!". I remember thinking that his comment was insensitive in light of the massive loss of life that day, but what was even more upsetting was the lack of backlash in the press. This supports Marcuse's construct that we are living in a "one-dimensional" society, a society in which individuals become integrated into the capitalist structure of production and consumption and oppositional thought patterns and actions of oppositional behavior are eradicated. Consumerism is a form of social power used to control thought patterns.

The media stimulates a culture of fear of not belonging which is already established, and this fear creates consumerist behavior which stimulates the economy and dampens thoughts of a revolutionary nature. As Marcuse states: "the intellectual and emotional refusal "to go along" appears neurotic and impotent" (p. 9).

Interesting to read Marcuse background and to see that one of his most vocal disciples was 1960's Left Radical Abbie Hoffman (who studied under Marcuse at Brandeis). Hoffman was the founder of the Youth International Party (the "YIPPIES"), and was a major figure in the Chicago riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Marcuse elaborates that the consumerist culture gives way to a better way of life, and this leads to complacency and a lack of critical thought.

To quote Marcuse about what I see as a key idea:

"It is a good way of life-much better than before-and as a good way of life, it militates against qualitative change. Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior in which ideas, aspirations, and objectives that by their content, transcend the established universe of discourse and action are either repelled or reduced to terms of this universe. They are redefined by the rationality of the given system and of its quantitative extension". (p. 12)

I am again left thinking about how this reading applies to the present, specifically how the current economic crisis is curbing or halting consumerist behaviors, and whether this time will represent a positive return to core ideas and values. A society where we are not "numbed" by the promise of happiness through shopping, but one in which we are organized around a common set of humanistic goals.

Thoughts on Readings 3/4/09

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

"The powers of ordinary men are circumscribed by the everyday worlds in which they live, yet even in these rounds of job, family and neighborhood they often seem driven by forces they can neither understand nor govern". (p. 3)

Written in 1956, this book explores the social structure and wide span of control of the so-called "power elite", a relatively small group of people who disproportionately control a large percentage of this country's wealth, privilege, political power and access to policy making that has major global consequences. It again is a reading that has many applications to what is happening in the U.S. of today, over 50 years after it was written.

Mills (a former Columbia University professor) delves into developing a theoretical framework for exactly WHO these elite are and how they are structured so differently in the United States because of the lack of an aristocracy and the historical lack of social organization around a feudal system.

"The Higher Circles" (Chapter 1) discussed the "triangle of power" in America among the economy, politics, and the military. Each member of the power elite makes individual decisions, but those decisions are influenced by the military, politics and/or big corporations. No member of this class has absolute unilateral power that is not impacted by the big institutions within which he operates. To quote Mills:

"The decisions of a handful of corporations bear upon military and political as well as upon economic developments around the world. The decisions of the military establishment rest upon and grievously affect political life as well as the very level of economic activity. The decisions made within the political domain determine economic activities and military programs". (p. 7)

He goes on to discuss how the political institutions (government) sometimes will use their wealth and power to regulate a faltering economy. This jumped out at me as being complete foresight of the current government "bailout" of banks and mortgage lenders to stave of a complete collapse of our economy.

To quote Mills again:

"Can they afford to allow key units of the private corporate economy to break down in a slump? Increasingly, they do intervene in economic affairs, and as they do so, the controlling decisions in each order are inspected by agents of the other two, and economic, military, and political structures are interlocked". (p. 8)

This "interconnectedness" relates back to Dewey and his concepts of individual actions having ramifications for the larger public, sort of the ripple effect. Although Mills is writing in a different time, there are some parallel modes of thinking at work here.

I particularly enjoyed Mills discussion of the psychological concept of natural superiority within the elite (which he attributes to the natural course of ideas in a society in which some people possess more than others). He states:

"People with advantages loath to believe that just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves". (p.14)

I loved that quote and couldn't help but thinking of a few cable television reality shows on Bravo that I have unsuccessfully attempted to avoid: "The Real Housewives of Orange County" and "The Real Housewives of New York City". Most of the women who represent the "real" housewives are anything but real in a sense of being a middle-class working citizen. As a matter of fact, most of them came into wealth by marrying a wealthy man or operating their businesses in extremely wealthy areas of the country where they can charge exorbitant fees.

But what I find most compelling about these shows is the sense of entitlement that this new wealth brings with it...you never see an episode when one is not complaining about poor service, demanding an upgrade, criticizing someone's home that they don't feel is up to their standards, crying because they weren't allowed into an A list event. These women seem to truly believe that they are part of the "natural" elite and that being wealthy was their destiny.

In the chapter entitled "The Power Elite", Mills attempts to further define the characteristics of this small class. He mentions that there currently is no formal "program of recruitment and training", because despite what many people believe the prep school, Ivy League undergrad and law school training is NOT up to the demands made upon members of the power elite. This, of course, made me immediately think of our former President and Leader of the Free World, George W. Bush. Clearly, his elite upbringing and top-notch education did not instill in him the leadership qualities to keep this country on course for his 8 years in office.

He says there exists "the unstated need to transcend recruitment on the sole basis of economic success, especially since it is suspect as often involving the higher immorality" (p. 298).

The power elite does indeed exist in America. However, we remain unclear on exactly who or what really represents the nadir of power. The important thing to remember, is that the power triangle (economy, politics, and the military) are all the power elite and they all rule with overlapping and interconnected powers.

Thoughts on Readings 2/25/09

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins by Karl Polanyi.

This week we read Chapters 11, 12 and 13 from Karl Polanyi's "The Great Transformation". Polanyi was a Hungarian political economist and economic historian. I decided to look into his background a bit after finishing the reading to see where he was coming from and the historical context from which he comes. I read that he was a World War I officer of the Austro-Hungarian army and a member of the editorial staff of Vienna's leading financial newspaper. He was forced into exile first from Hungary and then from Vienna, and he wrote "The Great Transformation" while in exile in London at the end of the 30's.

I don't have much of an academic background in economic history or even economic theory for that matter, so I did find it difficult to get to some of the core ideas of Polanyi at first. But once I reread the text and isolated some key quotes, his basic theory came through.

The work is basically a history of the self-regulating economic market and how the market sets up a system that is inconsistent with a sustainable society. According to Polanyi, the ongoing tension between the efforts to create and maintain the self-regulating market and the efforts to protect society from the negative consequences of the self-regulating market the "double movement". It is the classic struggle between liberal capitalism and social protectionism, here taking place as a result of the consequences of the Industrial Revolution.

He basically says that the commodification of both people (under the name of labor) and nature (under the name of land) under a self-regulating market is problematic and always leads to a self-corrective action. If the SRM is left "to evolve according to its own laws (it) would create great and permanent evils" (p. 136).

Polanyi encapsulates the issue in this way:

"The commodity fiction disregarded the fact that leaving the fate of soil and people to the market would be tantamount to annihilating them. Accordingly, the countermove consisted in checking the action of the market in respect to the factors of production, labor and land. This was the main function of interventionism". (p. 137)

Polanyi points out that the response to the negative effects of the self-regulatory market (interventionism) depended on the class of those that were impacted, and "the outcome was decisively influenced by the character of the class interests involved" (p. 161).

When reading it my thoughts kept turning back to Dewey's concepts of the "ripple effect" of behavior and how individual behavior (commerce, acquisition of wealth) can effect collective behavior (the self-regulating market). The are definitely some Dewey ideas that can be applied in the Polanyi context, even though Polyani is basing his theories more in terms of international economic structural patterns.

I also am left wondering what Polanyi would think of the current economic crisis, and ironically I am sitting blogging with President Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress on the television in the background. Facing the current recession, I would love to know what Polanyi thought of the state of the global economy. Now we are faced with a global economic recession of enormous scale, and the facts are coming out that this was directly caused by the lack of governmental restriction on bank lending. Now, the "social liberals" of the media are bringing the story to a mortified and shocked public. Free trade without governmental oversight is what the capitalist giants wanted, and now that they have made monumental errors, they ironically want the government to step in and bail them out with billions of dollars of taxpayer monies.

It would seem that Polanyi's ideas were prophetic and the "countermovement" Polanyi discusses is upon us. And so it goes.

Thoughts on Readings 2/18/09

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

I had the opportunity to read this theoretical analysis as part of a class that I had last semester, entitled "Arts in Context". The course was designed to provide future Arts Administrators with some of the analytical tools to deconstruct art and apply some of the better known critical theories to our work.

I really enjoyed the class (it provided a much needed contrast to the other classes I was taking that semester) and particularly enjoyed reading the prophetic thoughts of Walter Benjamin. In re-reading the chapter and also referring to some of my class notes from our discussion, I wanted to highlight some interesting points:

1.) He seems centered on the idea that art is based upon the critical concept of "aura". That is to say that art carries with it a physical, visual presence which creates an emotional connection with the audience. This "aura" creates a sense of authenticity, tangibility, and uniqueness-it creates a feeling that is almost MAGNETIC. This "aura" is intrinsic to an original piece of art.

2.) However, once the work of art is reproduced (with one of the many technological advancements that make this possible), the "aura" dissipates. This "aura" is diluted with continuous reproduction.

3.) Freud talks about people possessing charisma-this is the same conceptually as Benjamin's "aura".

4.) Using performance art as an example, this idea becomes very clear. Stage performances are all about connecting the actor with the audience; the audience sees and feels the actor's "aura". Film acting takes away this sense of intimate communication-it creates a sense of alienation for the actor. Control is situated differently in a film performance vs. a live stage performance. In film, the director and editor have the most control-they can use the techniques of mechanical reproduction to influence the thoughts of the audience. In a stage performance-the control is in the hands of the actors and the actor manages his/her relationship with his/her audience.

5.) This reading reminds me of the 1936 Chaplin film "Modern Times". In the film, Chaplin is a worker who represents a simple cog in the machinery of the factory in which he works. Framing the film in the time in which it was produced has particular resonance (the Great Depression). The film was a critique of capitalism and mechanization.

6.) The end of the article is very interesting-it seems to hold a "cautionary message" regarding the rise of technology as it parallels the rise of Fascism. Benjamin seems to be saying that the two forces coming together will inexorably alter the state of the human race. I think that to some extent, Benjamin was correct. Certainly, the rise of technology (in particular the Internet) has completely altered the way that we communicate with our social contacts on a day to day basis. And our consumption of art is certainly altered by the Internet-many of us have never seen some of the great paintings of the last two centuries live-however, we usually have seen them wrapped up and tied with the neat bow of capitalism.

I decided to do a bit of research on the life of Benjamin to examine the cultural zeitgeist from which he emerged. Benjamin was living in France in 1940 when Hitler invaded. Being a Jew and knowing his potential fate, Benjamin tried to escape over the border into Spain. There was some resistance to his crossing at the border, so Benjamin committed suicide that evening. Ironically, the next day the border crossing rules changed and Benjamin would have crossed with no issues had he just waited a day. A tragic irony.


The Public and Its Problems by John Dewey-Chapter VI-"The Problem of Method"

I really enjoyed this final chapter of the Dewey book. It really pulled together all of his ideas and summarized what seemed to be his primary points.

He begins by discussing again the concept of individualism vs. collectivism. There is essentially no absolute version of each concept. And understanding this is essentially to creating a public and state that are mutually beneficial to one another. He encapsulates it well when he says:

"the human being whom we fasten upon as individual par excellence is moved and regulated by his associations with others; what he does and what the consequences of his behavior are, what his experience consists of, cannot even be described, much less accounted for, in isolation" (p. 188).

He seems to be breaking down the idea of the inter-connectedness of all individuals within society, and to stress the "ripple effect" of behaviors. Behaviors that seem to be isolated usually have unknown consequences for a much larger group of individuals. Being a film nerd, Dewey's statement made me think of the Frank Capra classic film "It's A Wonderful Life". George Bailey is on the verge of committing suicide, thinking that his life has not touched other lives in a significant way. An angel shows him the dark world that would exist had he not lived, and he finally sees his importance in the collective society in which he lives.

He also discusses the problem of reconciling the individual vs. the society when they are fundamentally in opposition when uniting in societies and groups. At what point are one's individual interests sublimated by the interests of the collective group? Does this necessarily have to occur? Who are the people who dictate the "collective goals" for a group?

He then outlines a new methodology for generating policies and proposals for social action. Dewey argues that they "should be treated as working hypotheses, not as programs to be rigidly adhered to and executed". He discusses the evolution of the democratic movement as one that "was coincident with the transfer of power from landed proprietors, allied to churchly authorities, to captains of industry, under conditions which involved an emancipation of the masses from legal limitations which had previously hemmed them in" (p. 204).

The next section I found to be completely relevant to the past 8 years of life in the United States under the Bush Administration. Dewey demonstrates the danger of a powerful state that does not consider the needs of the public which it serves. What happens when you have the needs of a powerful few dictating the economic and political landscape of the public? Dewey states:

"No government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but an oligarchy managed in the interests of a few" (p. 208).

I was struck by how easy it was to come up with examples of this during the dark years of the Bush Administration. Extreme tax cuts for the top 1% income bracket, a crippled health care system in which many Americans cannot afford even the most basic health care package and are left to fend for themselves and make decisions about whether they should go to the doctor or pay their mortgages, and the list goes on and on. I even thought of the widely reported story that Condoleeza Rice spend her time in NYC visiting the 9/11 site shoe shopping in the most exclusive Madison Avenue boutiques!! Are these the "experts" meant to represent the masses or the privileged elite who only seems concerned with the interests of a few?

Luckily, the public came together last November and made a decision that we were no longer going to have a government concerned with the interests of a few. Whether or not changes will be made to address this issue still remains to be seen, but I am one of the many who say "YES, WE CAN!".

There, off of my soapbox. Thanks Dewey!!!