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Archive for the ‘Capitalism’ Category

So far this?semester, our class?has covered:

• John Barth’s short story, “Lost in the Fun House”
• Jeannette Winterson’s novel, Written on the Body
• and Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Fight Club.?

To help define what postmodern means we have explored excerpts from:

• Simon Malpas’ book, The Postmodern (2005)
• H?l?ne Cixous? critique “Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays” (1975)
• Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition (1979)
• Frederic Jameson’s Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991).
• and Linda Hutcheon’s Poetics of Postmodernism (1988)

How?do I cohesively make sense of all this????Having drank fully from the fire hose for weeks on end, I wonder… Will I digest or?blow??This post?is where?I just vomit in my mouth a little.

As Malpas explains, “at the heart of identity there is a ?thinking I? that experiences, conceptualizes and interacts with the world” (Malpas, 57). Consequently, running rampant throughout postmodern fiction is the question of this subject’s reliability as an authority?representing truth.

• Barth’s narrator, Ambrose,?is at once a child and an adult, interweaving the blind?experience of?”living in the moment”?with 20/20 hindsight?and calling attention, through various narrative devices, to the limitations of the narrating subject both as child and adult, in other words, as narrator looking in at the main character and main character being himself.
• Winterson complicates her narrator by creating a nongender-specific bisexual who objectifies?the beloved, Louise, pitting the power of subject?vs. object, one against the other, both creating and destroying the linguistic barrier to?fully realizing true love.
• Palahniuk splits?his narrator’s identity into two dueling?subjects within the same body who both objectify not only Marla, but each other, creating a power triangle rather than a single identifiable?power source.

By complicating?the subject, these authors use fiction?to turn?the subject?in on itself and reveal it’s limitations. The point for the reader is that perspective and?representation are not natural ways of reaching some sort of truth, but are cultural devices?that, until postmodernism hit the stage, were accepted?as natural. The most we can hope for, as Stephen Colbert often points out, is mere “truthiness” (or “falsiness” as the following parody explains), which is called into question each time subjectivity becomes decentered by an alternate?version of the?traditional subject. (Hello, Derrida!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNHqX27hlz8]

Sexuality is also addressed in each piece, not just in terms of masculinity or femininity, but where the two overlap. According to theorist H?l?ne Cixous:

Traditionally, the question of sexual difference is treated by coupling it with the opposition ? a culture?s values are premised on an organisation of thought in which descriptions of the feminine are determined by masculine categories of order, opposition and hierarchy. (Malpas, 72)

Lyotard says that metanarratives order the world for a particular culture and not all cultures order the world in the same way. Because of this he believes reality is not real, that it is rather ?simplicity, communicability? (75) in the name of the ?unity of experience? (72) and that the postmodern ?puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself? (81).

• Barth calls masculinity into question by addressing the subservience of women in the ’50s and how that defines the angered narrator’s role as he matures socially in contrast with what he feels differently internally.?
• Winterson’s non-specifically gendered and bisexual narrator?draws attention to the?dysfunction of defining through opposition, creating a world of confusion for the reader while, at the same time, pointing out the problem.
• Palahniuk’s split identity, one masculinized and one feminized, are?embodied within one male person which shows that neither masculinity nor femininity encompass fully what comprises the essence of a human being.

These narrators struggle with the idea?that identity is formed through the constriction of language and social mapping?according to opposing?genders. Each illustrates that society provides no useful language or ordering of our world to address these grey areas. Postmodern work obviously strives to draw attention to the gap between the grand narrative and what actually exists.

And, although there are many more threads to follow, the HUGE question of history (revered by Jameson as fact of lived experience) versus historicity (truthiness and the closest we can get to truth) is the last item I have time to duscuss. Jameson argues that the democratization of art subjects it?to the corruption of marketing and capitalism. They are inseparable?to the detriment of?world cultures and history through?depthless representation and pastiche unless we map how the depthless came to be, “in which we may again begin to grasp our new positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spacial as well as our social confusion” (54). SOOO, the question of historical validity appears repeatedly in our fiction selections.

• Barth criticizes history by describing the role of generations of copulation in constructing social understanding of sexuality.
• Winterson explores the narrator’s serial monogamy and only in breaking the tradition does he/she find love.
• Palahniuk creates Tyler Durden who desperately wants to break free from history to redefine it from his point of view.

According to Malpas, Hutcheon?argues that parody is not dead, it is now focused to use form?to reveal a failure of form. She also finds great value studying?the unrepresentable in fiction, as?much as that?which has been represented as “history,” because both employ the same narrative devices (Malpas, 25-26). In the fiction we have read, we can see this parody in action, where our authors provide recognition of the power forms hold, and turn around to employ these forms to point out the flaws within them. We’ll talk more about this next week when we read more of Hutcheon.

Other pan drippings, grey in color, that deserve to make it into the gravy bowl are

• body/soul connections
• bodily parts in gender definition,
• disease: death in life and life in death
• and many, many more.

Sadly, the repair man is here and I have to supervise the fixing of shit.

Forget?about driving a?Prius and putting solar panels on?the roof. After a looming history of Earthly abuse,?destroying something beautiful?at?Fight Club?becomes the?impetus?for Project Mayhem’s recycling program.

Pounding that kid, I wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every?endangered panda that wouldn’t screw to save its species and every?whale or dolphin that gave up and?ran itself aground. … Don’t think of this as extinction. Think of this as downsizing. … For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet and now the world expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every used drop of motor oil. … And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was?born. (115)

Do you think this was Al Gore’s motivation?

Tyler has a plan that solves the whole darn mess. He calls it Project Mayhem. If killing is part of capitalism, which he so honestly embraces (unlike?real-life?CEOs of globalization), why not use?dead bodies to fertilize the herbs that add?fragrance to lyposuctioned collagen which, once turned into soap, not only becomes an ironic tool for cleanup, it also becomes the commodification of wealthy desires sold right back?to the rich. Further, by recycling the basic tenets of capitalism, the added “Tyler Durden Bonus” is that?profit isn’t lining corporate pockets. Instead, it is?directly distributed among?Project Mayhem’s labor force. They are?no longer an underclass but recycled and heralded by Tyler as a society free from traditionally infused marketing desires. Death, life, and finance are all redistributed and reused.

If that’s not recycling, what is?

An obvious theme throughout Fight Club is the partnering perceptions of death between the narrator and his alter ego, Tyler Durden. Obvious though it may be, the intricacies challenge our own perceptions, making us ask which is right. Either? Elements of both? None? And how does this relate to the?shift from the modern?to the?postmodern?

In response to the narrator’s living death, his doctor rejects the plea for chemical escape from the emptiness of the waking dream. He says, “Insomnia is just the symptom of something larger. Find out what’s actually wrong. Listen to your body” (9).?From this advice?comes?the equation of the narrator’s empty soul with his ailing physical form. (Consider the connection of?modern?form and function.) The narrator recognizes this in himself when he says “the bruised, old fruit way my face had collapsed, you would’ve thought I was dead” (9). This idea of the body and soul as inextricably connected, the former a symptom of the latter, is echoed in the support groups for the diseased. The narrator finds it “easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will either reject you or die.” Crying cures his insomnia because, for him, “losing all hope [is] freedom” (12). For the narrator, dying bodies, if only in part, are a release from the?meaningless?empty space between birth and death. Through oblivion and destruction the ultimate end becomes the beautiful freedom of escape from society and all its rules.

Tyler sees things differently. For him, death is not the end. In chapter 1, the opening scene, a gun is jammed in the mouth of the one body that makes his conscious self?possible, and the Parker Morris building he stands on is about to slam down on the national museum. Flanked by death on all sides, Tyler says, “We really won’t die … This isn’t really death. We’ll be legend. We won’t grow old” (1). For Tyler, death is a merely the transition of being. He is enamored with becoming legend. To eradicate previous history, that which is trapped in statistic data, financial?records, and even old literature?and art is not the true essence of what makes life worth living. He wants to replace the old and dead with the realization of his own legend, “This is our world, now, our world … and those ancient people are dead” (4). The ancient dead he refers to are the living museum legends he is about to obliterate, destroying all?historical record of old ways of thinking. For Tyler, oblivion and destruction?are not the ultimate end, but a way for him to live forever. In fact, through Fight Club, he endeavors to destroy his own body or form, to?find the true meaning of?what he is made of, a notion unacheivable through the material world.

Recognizing the insanity within Fight Club, there are obviously deep seated issues with both approaches. The narrator, by using other people’s dark, dying bodies in order to recognize the sweetness of life, is cheating and he feels it most when Marla enters the support group scene. “Marla’s lie reflects my lie, and all I can see are lies … and all of a sudden even death and dying rank right down there with plastic flowers on a video as a non-event” (12). His death and rebirth are copies of a non-event. He experienced neither as something tangible or real. He avoids connecting deeply with his own mortality and must return for a nightly fix of something he has yet to internalize himself. This offers no escape from the emotionally barren life he continues to fill with material goods. Without?making fundamental life changes (abandoning the goods, living in the moment and relenquishing the desire of dying to escape) he cannot fully escape his nightmare.

Tyler, while fascinated with the idea of legacy and legend, is simultaneously repulsed by it. He finds himself in a catch 22. As with his log arrangement, creating a shadow hand at the beach where “for one perfect minute Tyler had seated himself in the palm of perfection he’d created himself,” he goes on to say, “a person has to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection [is] worth the effort” (22). The question one must ask is would sitting in the palm of perfection have been so sweet had the narrator not marked the moment by bearing witness to it? Moving forward to the high rise scene, how will Tyler survive death without tracking his new chaotic moment in an historical context the very likes which he wants to destroy? History is the very vehicle that transcends death, giving people life long after their bodies fail. (C’mon, Esther. This is where your first chapter Jesus reference enters in.)

We’re left with the utopic idea that one must give up both history and the material while embracing death to appreciate life. This is the path to living freely in the perfection of the moment. But what is perfection exactly? According to the second law of thermodynamics, all systems tend toward a state of disorder. Tyler is stuck between believing that disorder is the natural, perfect state and yet he is lost as to how to create meaning within that chaotic state. According to his actions, perfection is not natural but something to work toward, a human creation subject to individual perspective and impossible to recognize without context. He is at once modern and postmodern.

Wrestling with what death means, whether as an end or a new beginning, challenges us to think about how we order meaning in this world. I turn to the theoretical debate between Lyotard and Jameson on what the postmodern can do after the death of the modern period, in the temporal sense. Lyotard says in Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?:

Under the general demand for slackening and for appeasement [of postmodern experimentation], we can hear the mutterings of the desire for a return of terror, for the realization of the fantasy to seize reality. The answer is: Let us wage war on totality; let us be witness to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the honor of the name. (82)

This sounds much like Tyler’s symbolic eradication of a capital institution (the narrator’s disdain for the body) imprisoning and terrorizing the old meanings of the past (the narrator’s waking nightmare). It is the recognition of and attempt to break free from the modern idea that perfection is a form inextricable from function. Tyler wants a new form, or no form, or maybe just reference to old forms to create new meaning. He wants access to the freedom that lies within the grey areas, the presentation of the unrepresentable. Whatever form this takes in the end, he first and formost requires?a (the)?narrator.

Jameson, although he finds himself plagued by the postmodern, also feels that we must do it justice. In Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism he says:

This is not then, clearly, a call to some older and more transparent national space, or some more traditional and reassuring perspectival or mimetic enclave: the new political art (if it is possible at all) will have to hold to the truth of postmodernism, that is to say, to its fundamental object – the world space of multinational capital – at the same time at which it achieves a breakthrough to some as yet unimaginable new mode of representing this last, in which we may again begin to grasp our new positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spacial as well as our social confusion. (54)

Jameson’s conclusion is what Tyler butts up against in his execution of chaos and mayhem. Once you destroy what exists, what do you replace it with? Even when beginning anew, one desires to contextualize experience. For Jameson, cognitive mapping is the answer, tracing how we get to the new even as we eradicate the old beyond recognition. If you destroy the body to free the soul, the soul loses context, unless, of course, the path of destruction from “what was” to “what is” can be traced.

Available on Amazon

Racial Inequality in Public Education through the Lens of Critical Race Theory

Does the injustice of racism create systemic issues or do systemic issues create unjust divisions of race? A rally for both sides exists, but I believe that critical race theory, as opposed to conservative nationalism, better argues where the actual problems lie. To counter conservative assumptions that laziness or unwillingness to succeed is the cause of a minority?s failure to achieve upward mobility within a color-blind, equal opportunity system, critical race theorists convincingly offer better recognition of economic determinism and reject the notion of unbiased rights, merit and objectivity to explain why inequality in learning institutions exists, how racial influence upon social systems increases the level of difficulty for minority children to succeed, and why the entire legal system must be rebuilt from the ground up.

To offer a brief summary of critical race theory, it is a movement which combines scholarship and activism in response to racial disparity in America. According to Critical Race Theory, An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, critical race theory?s tenets are built upon European philosophy and theory, the American radical tradition, critical legal studies and radical feminism, reaching beyond the scope of civil rights and ethnic studies by paying close attention to the broader fields of ?economics, history, context, group ? and self ? interest, and even feelings and the unconscious? (Delgado and Stefancic, 3). Race is approached through several basic understandings embraced by the majority of critical race theorists. At the heart, race is understood to be a social construction with illusive and changing definitions that echo the societal needs of the times. If the job market finds value in one group, stereotypes of that group may wane. If the need no longer exists, oppression again becomes necessary to preserve the dominant power. This migrating level of acceptance is called ?differential racialization? and its fluidity proves that characteristics of race are not based on genetic science or biology. Even in the waning stages, the all-too-common racial discrimination in society?s everyday operation makes it difficult to detect and combat subversive practices while the ?color-blind equality? of liberalism allows for an end only to blatant discriminatory acts. Where black and white color lines do converge in a situation termed both ?material determinism? and ?interest convergence,? advancement exists for both the material interests of white elites and psychic interests of the working class, inciting few to object.

While seemingly concerned only with a simplified black-white binary to this point, it is important to recognize that critical race theory also addresses ?intersectionality,? where combinations of race, gender, sexual preference, and class overlap. In light of this, anti-essentialism recognizes that not all races share the same experience. Still, the “voice of color” provides perspective from the recipient of racism, although this concept is not fully supported when arguing that ?legal storytelling? should be used to contextualize an experience in a court of law. What has yet to be mentioned as it is relatively new in study, is that race is about power and, to that end, whiteness as privilege must also be recognized as a race. While this summary cannot adequately address the depths to which critical race theory runs, the remainder of these pages will further explain those aspects which are most useful in addressing racial inequality within public education.

Why do we suppose the poorest neighborhood schools in our country fill daily with more minority children than with whites? I turn to a critical race argument between two camps, the idealists and the realists. The idealists believe that racism is a mental perception that can be dismantled with good will, education and awareness. The realists, or economic determinists, believe that the explanation of perception is just the beginning of understanding as to where biased institutions hail from. ?For realists, racism is a means by which society allocates privilege and status. Racial hierarchies determine who gets tangible benefits, including the best jobs, the best schools, and invitations to parties in people?s homes? (Delgado and Stefancic, 17). Alternately, race also relegates who has the least tangible benefits, including the worst jobs, schools and insults as opposed to invitations.

The way in which schools are economically funded falls under the economic determinists? point of view. Because funding is determined by the neighborhood tax base, those areas already in poverty which tend to be populated by minorities have no chance of offering better qualified teachers, current books or technology to their students. Every year a new generation of minority children becomes oppressed by a system destined to fail them. Attending such a school means falling behind even prior to walking through the door.

Worse yet, many minorities do walk through the door and spend valuable time?learning skills that will further them in life. These children are not unwilling or lazy as many conservatives would argue. They are simply underprivileged. Perhaps a better plan would be too ensure fund disbursement equally to all schools from a centralized source while continuing to collect resources according to individual or family tax brackets. Everyone would pay the same percentage, and the quality of educators, buildings and supplies within poverty lines would vastly improve without damage done to the already functioning schools. Unfortunately, this point is moot on several levels. First, systemic change will do nothing for the child who is still socially stigmatized, and second, states prefer to retain the right to control their own school systems, bringing me to the discussion of rights in general.

While individual rights appear to be a unifying measure of government to assure fair and equal treatment of its citizens, critical race theorists find them a distraction from egalitarianism. ?Think how our system applauds affording everyone equality of opportunity, but resists programs that offer equality of results. Moreover, rights are almost always cut back when they conflict with the interests of the powerful? (Delgado and Stefancic, 23). Improving rights to include equal education for minorities and whites not only conflicts with interests of the power dynamic, I believe a deep fear surrounds this issue. There is the perception that competition for jobs and high paying salaries would greatly increase but, more importantly, educated minorities would no longer settle for blue collar jobs that fuel the well oiled machine of late capitalism. Also, those precious distinctions that delineate the elite from everyone else would blur, and how else does one define oneself if not in contrast with the ?other?? For these reasons, it is in the best interest of the wealthy white majority to hold true to the current system without adjustment for equal rights, fully preserving their appreciation for the status quo.

To add another dimension to this argument, critical race theorists believe that rights actually alienate people ?rather than encouraging them to form close, respectful communities. And with civil rights, lower courts have found it easy to narrow or distinguish the broad ringing landmark decision like Brown v. Board of Education? (24). The end result reminds us of the popular slogan of a constant struggle, ?you can?t eat your rights.? Rights are only useful to those who make the rules as they offer little more than empty promises to appease a vocal opposition to oppression.

What happens when a minority breaks free from systemic constraints and the prideful merit held by the elite diminishes in the face of the powerfully prescribed handicap? Perhaps critical race theorists have struck a conservative nerve by arguing that, ?merit is far from the neutral principle its supporters imagine it to be? and that ?merit is highly contextual? (Delgado and Stefancic, 105). Distribution changes within the minute details of measurement have the ability to rule out a large portion of the population. Conservatives Farber and Sherri appear to protect their own achievements by accusing critical race theorists of being anti-Semetic for judging a system to be corrupt when Asians and Jews performed well within it. Critical race theorists countered that Farber and Sherri confused criticism of a standard with criticism of a race. It seems to me that a minority group deserves more merit than their white counterpart for having to navigate additional barriers, which brings me back to this paragraph?s opening question.

While racial disparity can be whittled down to the finest points, the biggest obstacle is the American myth of objectivity. Conservatives will argue that the democratic theory of classical liberalism is objective, neutral, and free from governmental restriction upon individual upward mobility. This is the very ideology that allows for the merit system previously in question. Within this ostensibly objective ideal, failure, as I?ve already mentioned, is credited to the individual, placing blame on the impoverished, unskilled and undereducated for their refusal to seize available opportunities within an unbiased system.

Critical race theorists oppose this important conservative cornerstone of objectivity, declaring liberalism fundamentally flawed and criticizing it ?as overly caught up in the search for universals ? apt to do injustice to individuals whose experience and situation differ from the norm? (Delgado and Stefancic, 58). The only conservative rebuttal is a weak effort ?to show the critical race theorists? lack of concern for truth, [whereas] opponents point not only to critical race theorists? open declarations that truth is socially constructed, but also to a number of allegedly misstated facts? (Delgado and Stefancic, 58).

Perhaps this lack of retort comes from the deep seated realization that if one can never step outside the influence of culture and history to find objective truth, logic dictates that institutional laws and rights created by people within a society must bear the imprint of that society?s culture and history. The undeniable end product in America is a capitalist government requiring an underclass to function remains stable, suiting those in power well and reinforcing their permanence via the institutions of law and education.

Since it proves far more beneficial to examine what critical race theorists propose as a solution rather than to bicker about misstated facts, I return to my main argument. In order to encourage students of every color to reach their full potential, critical race theorists propose we, ??look to the bottom? in judging new laws. If they would not relieve the distress of the poorest group – or, worse, if they compound it ? we should reject them? (Delgado and Stefancic, 22). This, the Golden Rule, would seem to prevail among both secular and religious types alike. While I continue to support the implementation of affirmative action until the collective social conscience reaches a level of general tolerance, I cannot begin to estimate how long it will take for the tide to turn and a practice like this to be put into effect. I suspect the answer is that it will not happen in my lifetime. If the main concern of those in power is to achieve equality, this would be a wonderful place to start. Of course, if that were the main goal, it would also already have been implemented. Sadly, I believe that those who hold the power cannot yet envision an America free of social barriers in the name of a greater good. Until they, not the minorities, take the initiative to reimagine what it means to be a free American, there will always be an oppressed underclass.

Initially written to entertain myself??until I accidentally learned something.

The Twist

The one thing Frederick Jameson fears most in ?The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” is postmodernism. He believes that?the loss of a?modernist code or the historicity in?art & lit?renders it?powerless. But what about his theory itself? It seems to me that Jameson, in talking about the postmodern, ironically,?becomes postmodern.?While incorporating paintings, photography, architecture, poetry and prose, all encapsulated within a recognizable theoretical framework, is he not using?various recognizable forms to present the unrepresentable??

The Sting

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants. Had?Jameson left the reader to come to his or her own conclusion, my theory might have had a chance. Instead, we are directed to a specifically unified?interpretation from the author, killing my fun altogether.

Seriously: Words vs. Meaning

My prior argument seems about as sound as Jameson’s after today’s class discussion. While there is an element of “truth” in the argument that late capitalism drives the art market, I have a hard time believing?accusations?of postmodern ?depthlessness? and lack of context. So what can I gain from a piece I don’t feel I can connect with?

I?m trying hard to hold fast to history as a lived moment of human experience rather than some nonexistent, objective Truth or, as Aliya said, ?another metanarrative.? I think what throws me is the terminology rather than the idea. Baudrillard’s “simulacra” (copies of copies with no identifiable source) serves me better. Unfortunately, I can?t find a way to apply this to Jameson’s assessment of Warhol because I feel Warhol?s message was larger than Jameson gives credit for. So?

Preliminary Apology

I?m sorry to return to?my?lingering??The Last King of Scotland? argument.? I made a new connection today. I hope you’ll stick around to read it. (I probably won?t be able to let this go until I resolve my “fascination with” and “brutal distaste for” the film’s end result.)

Film Example: “The Last King of Scotland”

This movie is ?based on true events? about a very real Ugandan dictator, but his life is revealed through the perception of a fictional doctor. This doctor is not simply narrating. He is the main character with significant influence on very disturbing events within the film, yet it is never made clear that he is fictitious. Then, in the DVD special features, Ugandan extras said they are glad children?can watch this film and finally learn about Ugandan history.

(BIG) PROBLEM!

This isn?t history! It?s not even comparable to studying Native American perspectives?amid an overabundance?of British colonization literature. This is purely fiction and claims itself as such? in the extras. Of course, if you don?t watch the extras, you have no way of knowing to what extent the story has been created for the sake of entertainment. Will Ugandan children know? I think not.

Finally, Why Jameson Matters

I find it confusing to have experienced a?very?upsetting reaction to a movie that rocked my world. Ugandan children will learn from a presentation that represents nothing that ever took place. I think this?misrepresentation (although if it never happened it can’t be misrepresented) is what deeply disturbs Jameson. This nostalgia for historical format produces nothing real. This is where I begin to find value in Jameson’s argument.

I should start with this question: Why does this film affect me more than the thought of “Titanic” being our most prevalent reference to the actual ship sinking? (That said, should I be equally outraged?) I suspect?the difference?stems from my?access to other informational resources if I decide I want to explore them. Ugandan children do not have that privilege. It deeply upsets me that this movie?will likely be a child?s only (and brutal) source of information.

In this sense, I feel that corporate interest in box office performance is?a poignant?example of imperialistic?governance over point of view. How very arrogant to insert a white and highly educated man within the complicated Ugandan cultural structure and sell him as truth sayer, OR is this a critical commentary on white society’s rejection of?information from a black?society? I understand the enormous power of art in delivering powerful messages, and now also how inextricably capitalism infiltrates it with corruption.?In the end, the white guy is the hero. Victory?goes to?the dominant culture?in possession of enough money to?keep it that way. With this dominant/oppressive late capitalist relationship, third world, culturally based?education systems seem impossible to build, yet the quirky playfulness of pop culture is forced upon them in the name of that same almighty buck.

So, it seems my understanding of the?postmodern is two-fold. To those in the dominant culture?it?will be entertaining and maybe even valuable and enlightening. To those without access to education it will be devoid of?”historicity”?(pastiche) and they won’t even know it. How’s that for two very different metanarratives about postmodernism?!

End-trails

1. Is?the postmodern?as elite as the modern, requiring education to appreciate while that same education is robbed from the lower classes by a capitalistic system that, by default, requires an underclass to exist?
2. If postmodern art is driven by late capitalism, and following the line of logic I just laid out, doesn’t that make postmodernism corrupt by default?
3. If either of these questions ring true, then are commercial artists?complicit in?the continuance of?oppression?

This is all so very pessimistic.

Watching movies for class rocks.?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HstQaobp4Jw]?

From the opening credits, Fight Club alludes to the unrepresentable. As the names spin off into gaseous clouds, what appears to be the universe swirls within the biologic make-up of Edward Norton’s character, yet one would think that the character would exist somewhere within the Universe. So, where does the Universe begin or end? Does it start with human perception or is human perception a byproduct of the Universe? Ooooh, the questions stew already.

In the opening scene, perspective shifts from within Norton?s character?s body, through the gun, and into Pitt?s character?s point of view. Perspective then leaves both characters (or halves of one character) and the camera travels out of body altogether. Now the point of view becomes that of the movie viewers? as we get a voyeuristic view of the explosives below the city. Throughout the morphing POV, we never fully know where one begins and another ends.

Cut to Bob?s boobs. Is he still a man with no balls and full breasts? What essentially makes a man ?manly? if not the biological pieces and parts? Can comfort be derived from any breasts but a mother?s or lover?s? Norton says yes.

Then we back up. The beginning of the movie isn?t the beginning as we traditionally know it. ?Nothing is real? Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.? And here, Baudrillard. Really, need I say more? Norton is a copy of himself on many levels. Stuck in the marketing galaxy, ?What kind of dining set defines me as a person?? What else does?

Playing Cornelius and other ?characters? so he can cry and sleep like a baby, where does Norton?s character end and his others begin? He dies and is reborn with each new meeting. But who dies and who is reborn? Cornelius, Tyler Durden?

Pitt’s image flashes in several scenes, spliced into a single frame at the hospital, the testicular cancer meeting, when Marla walks off supposedly forever. Later, we learn that Tyler splices frames between reels at the theater. Does he create himself then? Has Norton’s character created him?

Do events shape us or do we shape them? Do we own things or do they own us? Half asleep, half awake? Reality enters dreams, dream enters reality? Half alive, half dead? Not quite whole but not fully cleaved in half? Somewhere between life and death lies meaning.

?It was on the tip of everyone?s tongue. Tyler and I just gave it a name.?
?First rule of Fight Club? You do not talk about Fight Club.?
Coincidentally, that’s the second rule too.
?It wasn?t about words.?

We’re back to the failure of language again. Instead, the sublime is the pleasure derived from the pain of pummeling and being pummeled.

?Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered.?
?This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.?

The car wreck: All I could think of were the Futurists. Historically, not just in the movie, a car launches into a ditch and?gives birth to four survivors who create a Modern movement infatuated with technology, speed and chaos.

“Let go of everything you?think you know?about life…”

You can?t explain the unexplainable, sublime. Familiar themes?akin to?Wnnterson’s Written on the Body… Marla: Love as invasive. Love as pure desire. Love as a bridesmaid dress loved for only one day and then thrown aside. Narrating organs in books?left by a recluse. Cancer of the prostrate will kill. Combination of form: Movie – documentary – porn – and back again. Characters talk to themselves on screen, then they turn to the audience and talk to … ME! I have just become the object of two subjects. How beautifully postmodern.

Capitalism: The democratization of art?becomes public taste governed by money. To?free our identity from?being defined by our stuff and our menial jobs that make us slaves?to purchasing?more stuff, Capitalism must be destroyed.

Then the biggie: Dualing subjects. One fights the other for power. Can there ever be two, particularly when they share one body? According to the smoking gun, the answer is no.

I could continue with the play-by-play but we?re all watching the same thing. Suffice it to say, I loved this movie the first two times I saw it. I have a renewed appreciation this third time. Now excuse me while I retire the keyboard and get back to the milk and cookies.

Up for debate: Would?I characterize myself as a modernist or postmodernist? Why?

At this risk of sounding like a politician, this question leads me only to more?non-committal questions. For instance, must?I have produced art, designed architecture, or written literature that falls into?one of these?categories? If I have, and considering that each category’s definition seems at odds with the other two, would my position change depending on the product I produce? Or, must one merely have an appreciation?for one “ism”?over another??If there is no rock-solid?set of criteria?or temporal limit to either term, how do I plunk myself firmly in the center of something wholly indefinable?

Having taken Modern Poetry last semester, many of the terms listed as “postmodern” by American literary critic Ihab Hassan have come to mean “modern”?for me. That said, from my perspective, this list is rendered useless. So,?for the sake of starting somewhere, I’ll use my opinion?based on?our first postmodern literary assignment, Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse.”

As Malpas says in The Postmodern, “postmodernism confronts the reader or viewer with a work that is challenging in terms of both form and content” (30).? Although Barth’s subject matter had very disturbing elements dealing with sexuality and the roles?assumed automatically?throughout the?generations, I enjoyed being able to interrogate?the?seemingly complex construction of?form and content (which, with more practice won’t seem so complex and thus?will become?modern) to reach this conclusion.

Malpas explains:

For [French philosopher] Lyotard, the role of postmodernism is thus to perform an eminent critique of the day-to-day structures of realism. What this means is that it operates within the realist context of a given culture to shatter its norms and challenge its assumptions, not with a new criteria set drawn from outside of that culture, but rather by showing the contradictions the culture contains, what it represses, refuses to recognize or makes unpresentable. (30)

This?is a perfect description of (and why I enjoyed reading) “Lost in the Funhouse.” Ambrose is trapped within and influenced by his culture, one that makes him excited and sick all at once.?From the perspective of?this 13 year old boy, I could see?the message that?culture impresses upon us through the workings of gender construction and?that to be unaware of its workings is supposed to?allow for enjoyment within the social?apparatus. This piece?reveals that going along for the ride is not always enjoyable for?either prescribed?gender, and that understanding the social mechanisms in place?doesn’t provide for a good time either. At the same time, traditional presentation of fiction and reality is?distorted via Barth’s mechanics of writing, amplifying the theme of being lost. Would I want to read this for fun on my vacation at the Jersey Shore? Not so much… and not just because the story?takes place there.?But I do enjoy the critical thinking it requires to reach my own understanding of how our culture operates.

On a global level, I turn to?Malpas’ introduction where postmodernism displays opposition within its own definition:

Some critics celebrate the postmodern as a period?of playful freedom and consumer choice, some see it as a culture that has gone off the rails as communities around the globe have their communities obliterated by the spread of capitalism, and for others its complex theories and outlandish cultural productions mark an abdication from any engagement with the real world at all.?(4)

I cannot subscribe to?just one critical stance listed above. All seem pertinent. (An example of these mechanisms in motion?comes to mind?within?the corporate practices of?Coca-Cola.) Playful freedom of consumer choice is exactly what causes the obliteration of cultures and communities, and really,?no playful freedom of consumerism?is necessary for the general survival and well being of human beings. Because I find myself aligned snuggly with all three aspects of postmodernism, I would say that’s “what I am is what I am is what you are… or what?”

But don’t hold me to it.

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP SHITTY JOBS?
Louis Althusser has the situation pegged. The (repressive) State Apparatus keeps things status quo because they can beat you into submission with their repression ‘machine.’ Ideological forces lead us to believe we have a choice even though they dictate the social norm. All this exists in an effort to ensure reproduction of labor power for the capitalists. “Relations of exploitation” contributing “generously to its own reproduction” (1492).

Damn, I want to quit and I don’t even have a job!?That’s it. I’M NEVER GOING TO WORK AGAIN.

IDEOLOGY IN PROGRESS
I saw the perfect ideological example in the documentary, The Myth of the Liberal Media. Noam Chomsky said that journalists are groomed in school to churn out information in a particular format after years of conformist instruction at Universities across the nation. When they enter the work force, they don’t have the freedom to write what they wish, although they believe they will. Instead, they must honor the capitalist machine, careful not to offend advertisers or people with connections to the boss. Each of these outside influences are considered filters on our media, preventing truth from being told.

The film?describes a journalist who investigates and writes an article about the lack of “trustworthy” used car salesmen in the area. He caught several in lies. When the article went to print, the newspaper lost thousands in advertising per day. Since used car lots provided the bulk of the paper’s advertising revenue, they had pulled out in protest until the paper wrote a retraction. When the paper rescinded it’s backing of the article, did it mean the salesmen were any less snakey? Obviously not. But the ideological pressure to conform was surely present for the journalist.

BACK TO ALTHUSSER
The intricasies of the dance between repressive and ideological State Apparatuses is intense. They are completely reciprocal. The RSA exists in the public legal realm, is unified, can survive shifts of power in government, and functions first by repression/violence and secondarily by ideology. The ISA exists in the private sector, is plural (although unified beneath the ruling ideology), and function first by ideology and secondarily by force…

Land of the free, huh? Who are we kidding. We can’t even up minimum wage without giving CEOs a tax break because THEY drive our capitalistic society and want to KEEP US DOWN. (<-She said?with a morning voice that resembles Rorschach’s.)

BEATING THE SYSTEM
That’s it. I have?to quit school. And I’ll protect my kids from the oppression of kindergarten by?not having any.?Not that I was going to anyway…?

(Well, I was – until I spent a?week with my husband’s family of 26 for Christmas. The two year old screamed, “No!” The 11 year old asked “Why?” THe 5 year old beat up the 6 year old, and the 19 year old tried to hop in the 24 year old’s car for hard night of drinking.)

My husband just walked by my office. I yelled, “Honey, I’M A MARXIST!! This stuff is everything I bitch about: standardized testing?, the administration… and … and… It’s one more we reason we shouldn’t have kids!”

The only reply is the sound of his shower water flowing down the drain.

I’M?NOT DEAD YET! RUN AWAY!
If ideology is socially constructed, a dream, pure illusion, why don’t we, as a human race,?envision better for ourselves??Must the greedy bad guys always win?

All in all, I’m ready to run off to my own island and govern it the way I see fit, just like the Bates’ family?on?Sealand. It went up for sale a few months ago for $998 Mil. This is my kind of situation… If only it had the land it sports in it’s name. I know, I’ll dream some up.

This assignment is interesting. I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of comics, but I’m having fun seeing?echoes of Jameson all over the place. I can even see a bit of Saussure and the French duo, Deleuze and Guatarri.

Like the reflective walls of LA’s Bonaventure Hotel,?Watchmen?reflects the genre in which it situates itself, and yet it is certainly not a direct representation.?This is a comic book – kind of. The?format, like all comic books which came before, comes complete with crime,?super heroes and cartoon-like illustrations, yet Watchmen borrows?this traditional form to create something new, a graphic novel (as in pictoral AND graphic in content).?This gives?whole new meaning to the?recycling of comics.

I’m reminded of Jameson’s description of the Bonaventure’s confusing layout with entrances that aren’t clearly marked and with no directions within. Maybe it’s just that I’m new to the whole comic thing, but it took me some time to learn how to navigate through the narrative.?In the traditional sense of reading from left to right, I could enter into the story, but I needed to allow the text to carry me through?time (flashback with the actual use of a flash image)?and space (the use of color to designate East coast, West coast, Vietnam and Mars). Like the Boneventure’s escalators and elevators, the text required me to be?receptive and adapt to the space?within the page.

This is where Saussure’s sign/signifier/signified theory comes in. While he spoke solely of speech, I learned a new?visual language, one randomly assigned but accepted and understood by the comic community. Again, I’m reminded of how color represents place while images?of flash bulbs and fireworks signal flashback.?This only works if this is true of all comics. Perhaps the Super Man and Batman “Pow” is a better example of the sign we all know to signify a punch.

More directly associated with Sassure is the?necessity for societal acceptance in the adaptation of language. Minuteman Hollis Mason in Under the Hood also talks about?this happening in his lifetime?when he says:

The arrival of Dr. Manhattan would make the terms “masked hero” and “costumed adventurer” as obsolete as the persons they described. A new phrase had entered the American language, just as a new and almost terrifying concept had entered its consciousness. It was the dawn of the Super-Hero” (Watchmen 13).

(Uh, do I credit Mason or Moore?& Gibbons for this quote? I jest.?Ah, the technicalities of a new form…)

To return to Jameson here, I have to ask – Are the super dudes parody or pastiche? I?think?parody, although Jameson would disagree. One thing is clear. These guys aren’t super?heroes in the?traditional sense. Most don’t have powers at all, except for the tall, blue freak. (I?mean that in the nicest possible way.) These clowns (I mean that in the nicest possible way too) don’t even have morals to guide their mother-freaking mental ship. The Comedian is the ultimate satirical character. He isn’t funny and he doesn’t?seem to?find the world as funny as?he says he does. His superbly f*&!ed up power is to rape a fellow super hero and shoot a pregnant woman carrying his child. Aside from?the foulest of his transgressions, I think?he’s an amusing character… but I’m kinda sick like that.

To recall Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomes, this novel is certainly the organic orb to which the metaphor?refers. There is a pulpy center called Watchmen. Off to one side is?the offshoot of the?Comedian’s journal. To the other, there is a comic book within a comic book. And somewhere left of center is?Hollis Mason’s?autobiography. This is no typical, traditional, linear representation.

Jameson would have a field day with the fact that Watchmen looks back to a non-existent social and political?history.?This brings us back to?our discussion of capitalization on both the nostalgia and originality of a piece depending on the consumer’s generational perspective. If comics are for kids, and this is definitely not, does?this idea still?work? It seems that this book targets the same audience that was once interested in comics, although it targets them at an older age. And does Watchmen lose it’s comic critique in the face of the previously released Heavy Metal, an adult cartoon that similarly looks back on “future artifacts?” Does that make it pastiche – a dead language – something lacking indiviuality? I think yes. Sure, it won awards for what it accomplished, but so do pop songs and they’ve all been done before too.