Brain Drain Blog

Archive for the ‘Literary Theory’ Category

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.

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.

Dear class:

I can get behind Lyotard’s?postmodern theory on several levels:

• I’m down with the fact that reality is not real, that it is?rather “simplicity, communicability” (75) in the name of?the “unity of experience” (72).
• I even prefer?the raw honesty of the aesthetic sublime over the beautiful and perfect modern form.
• AND I get that the postmodern “puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself” (81).

What I need some help with is how:

The artist and the writer , then, are working without rules in order to formulate the rules of what will have been done. Hence the fact that work and text have the characters of an event, hence also they always come to late for their author, or, what amounts to the same thing, their being put into their work, their realization (mise en oeuvre) always begin too soon. Post modern would have to be understood according to the paradox of the future (post) anterior (modo). (81)

Please tell me this means that?artist and writer?are working without a planned form, aside from their experience of writing about an event,?and that the outcome, or presentation of the unpresentable,?is?only revealed to them?once the work is finished.

Its either that or?time travel.

It’s a glorious summer vacation filled with already profuse blooms. We have three nests on the house, have been visited by?our bear,?and a rock wall?is slowly but surely materializing?around the entire length of our driveway thanks to my two very rough and beaten hands.?

Still, with this wonderful flurry of spring activity, the brain doesn’t have an off switch. Listening to Car Talk on Sunday’s leisurely?drive had me thinking about?theory?as Ray posed?this week’s puzzler:

In 1951, when I was 10, our folks told me that Aunt Bertha would not be coming for Christmas …. Before the week was out she was dead. The county medical examiner of course had to list a cause of death on her death certificate. Now I can’t be 100% sure, but I think that Aunt Bertha could very well have been the last person in the U.S. to die of, and have this listed as his or her official cause of death. There were many Americans who died of the same thing in 1951, and before, but none after. The question is, what did Aunt Bertha die of?

The answer?

RAY: Aunt Bertha died of a rare disease called? old age. Starting in 1952, the Bureau of Health Statistics which is part of the CDC, decided that you couldn’t just die of old age, you had to have a reason, like you fell on your knitting needles, got hit by a bread truck, or something like that. I think they listed 130 official reasons for death … They wanted everyone to be pigeon-holed. So Aunt Bertha, because she died a week after Christmas (She could have died like at 11:59 on New Year’s Eve) could have been the last person in 1951 to die of old age.

TOM: What do you do, pick something out of a hat?

RAY: Yeah. In fact when you’re about 75 they send you a flier: Please pick a cause of death from the list below.

So, what would the theorists say? Foucault is rolling in his grave,?pigeonholed?as an AIDS victim, the last declarative statement of his identity within a legal and medical system of labels. Baudrillard’s cause of death? The murder of his reality. Any other determination?is a hyperreality for those of us left behind?while he escapes into the ether. And Derrida??He’s haunting?Albany’s student ghetto as giant brain stripped of the assumptions of doom drawn from words like pancreatic cancer. I think I bumped into his ghost outside Valentine’s some years ago. Then again, maybe I just had one too many Jack and Cokes and was feeling a wee bit too brilliant.

That’s as deep as I intend to get today. The sun is calling and there are giant rocks to be rolled into position. (Gravity is my greatest tool.) I’ll be back when I’m not diligently concentrating on keeping my fingers… or soaking in the hot tub.?Is?having my life back?really as?decadent as it feels??I have become human once more.

THE TEXT
For our final presentation, our group filmed our own docu-parody wherein characters dressed as one theorist speak lines reflecting the viewpoint of another. Essentially, they all bumble around?being ridiculous, acting out parts we think will produce sufficient commentary.

MY CHARACTER SUMMARY
While it is difficult to comment on a film you have yet to see, I can tell you that?the character I created is?a woman pimped out against her will. She eventually becomes?a cyborg with found parts and learns that she is with child, MiniBorg. Dreaming of?the child’s future, she?spouts off some Derridian dissallusionment?about the failure of?merriment when it is created from broken toys, planning to circumvent this for the sake of her child.

THEORETICAL LENSES
Haraway with a dash of Derrida
My interpretation of the text is obviously influenced by Donna Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs.” To focus first on the character of Oppressed Woman, she is?nameless and only called “baby.” It is?as though her own identity is something she cannot claim, yet her body is taken. She is pimped out, a slave to the male dominated power stucture the likes of which Haraway seeks to escape. Haraway believes that the cyborg can exist?outside the confines of Western duality. As new beings, they can be recoded. In the film, once Oppressed Woman becomes Cyborg, she is empowered and moves on.

MiniBorg, the bastard child of Oppressed Woman and Mickey Mouse, is a genderless zygote bridging the gap between male/female, physical/non-physical, human/machine… and cyborg/mouse. This last lovely twist?joins humans?and machines with animals at once, breaking down all the barriers. Because cyborgs have no origin story, no dominating patriarchal tradition or otherwise, there exists possibility for freedom from Western dualisms which Haraway names as:

?Self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man? (Haraway 2296).

Haraway?also says that?”social and historical constitution, gender, race, and class cannot provide the basis for belief in ?essential? unity” (2275). We must deconstruct the labels, the sense of other, and in turn?deconstruct oppression.

?The conception of MiniBorg, the little “hu-mouse-chine,” demonstrates Derrida’s?decentering as he says:

Ethnology could have been born as a science only at the moment when European culture . . . had been dislocated . . . forced to stop considering itself as the culture of reference?? (Derrida 918).

The same holds true for a male dominant culture. In the film, the Marxist Pimp is the obvious power center, but not for long. Hope lies with the MiniBorg Messiah who will?dislocate Marxist Pimp?power and create a new center. As Haraway says, illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. In this case, that’s a good thing.

In both our docu-parody and our commentary, the characters and presenters have been incorporated onto disc. They/we are now cyborgs as technology is part of us/them. This is one more way of merging with and educating through communications machines, recoding meaning for ourselves. Of course, Haraway would say the we are all cyborgs already, with or without the disc.

While theory presents an opportunity to look at the world through a new and different lens, a strong tendency also exists to reinforce beliefs I have always held. By examining the writing I have produced throughout the semester, a core theme is revealed time and time again. The only truth is that there is no absolute truth. For this reason I cannot label nor limit myself as one type of theorist, or even a combination of several. Because theory opens a window into the era when it was produced, I find value in every one whether or not I agree with every aspect it presents at present. Of all the theorists, Derrida, Fanon, Rubin, and Haraway have captured my interest most within my blog, yet all call to me as they reveal the social constructs of reality.

When I first encountered Derrida?s theory of deconstruction, I found the text incredibly dense. Deciphering which ideas were his and which belonged to philosopher Levi-Strauss proved difficult. In my frustration, I italicized and quoted every instance of Derrida?s name as if it were a curse word. In my confusion I was prone to believe that:

?Derrida? uses the term ‘bricolage’ to admirably describe Levi-Strauss? method of study. He likes that Levi, a jack-of-all-trades, finds no central set of rules with which to study his myths but uses the known aspects at hand like tools.?

I later learned that Derrida was not applauding this method of crafting theory. Bricolage was Derrida?s way of deflating Levi-Strauss? absolute definition of metaphysics. From what I understand now of Derrida?s opinion, no allusion to cursing required, the function of bricolage is neither good nor bad. It simply is what it is. Bricolage allows for no absolute center, no one truth, but instead ?can always be completed or invalidated by new information? (Derrida 922) much like Levi?s essays themselves. I fully appreciate that we must move forward using what we have at our disposal. At the same time, we must also allow for the understanding that truth is relevant only until supplemented by new information, essentially creating a new center.

If I label myself a post-colonialist, although I prefer not to, this would explain my affinity with this theory. The intellectual event that created a shift from a European center was the culmination of World War I, the holocaust, scientific discovery and modernism as a new art movement (Barry 67). These details are less evident in the language of Derrida?s essay, ?Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.? It is mentioned most directly where he says, ?ethnology could have been born as a science only at the moment when European culture . . . had been dislocated . . . forced to stop considering itself as the culture of reference’” (Derrida 918). This ideas becomes far more obvious through the explanation in Peter Barry?s Beginning Theory where he says:

in modern times a particular intellectual ?event? which constitutes a radical break from past ways of thought ? ?man? as the Renaissance slogan had it, was the measure of all other things in the universe: Western norms of dress, behavior, architecture, intellectual outlook, and so on, provided a firm center against which deviations, aberrations, variations could be detected and identified as ?Other? and marginal. In the twentieth century however, these centers were destroyed and eroded. ? In the resulting universe there are no absolutes or fixed points, so that the universe we live in is ?decentred? or inherently relativistic. Instead of movement or deviation from a known center, all we have is ?free play.? (Barry 66-67)

As I have learned in Modern Poetry, distrust of language as a center, particularly since it had been used as harmful propaganda, spurred literary works such as Woolf?s ?Mrs. Dalloway? and Eliot?s ?The Wasteland.? Language, the broken tool, is reordered and thus newly centered. Creativity also experienced a new freedom of personal and political expression in the forms of painting, sculpting, performance and poetry. Painters Dali, Picasso, and Loy broke free from their identity as painters by writing poems and as poets they painted, freeing themselves as a total being. This idea can also be applied to the limitation of our national borders. As I see it, under control of the Bush Administration, America today is in dire need of a similar decentring away from the Empirical. Like the bumper sticker says, ?I love my country but I think we should start seeing other people.? We must allow for decentralization in order to stop the oppression in places like Darfur. As this cycle begins once more, Derrida appears to be a theorist for all time.

Interestingly, decentralization is something that I had latched onto prior to reading Derrida. On January 23rd I wrote, ?rather than the traditional approach of unifying the diversity in art, something Bakhtin obviously abhors, he prefers that we celebrate our creative differences.? Bakhtin knocked criticism of authorship off its center by supplementing the idea of heteroglossia within a text. This created a new consideration for both the author and the voices of the characters simultaneously. On February 2rd in regard to the value of language I questioned:

Although this seems to prove that Saussure?s value system is a good place to start, is societal value so absolute? What if value shifts slightly between the process of expression and interpretation, dependant upon the individual?s world of reference.

Granted, while these ideas are not fully formed, they positively hint at shifting centers. By the time Derrida?s assignment appeared on the syllabus for February 3rd, I was well on my way to requiring a well structured theoretical argument to articulate my own point of view.

Once I grasped Derrida, his theory began to appear in every day application. At the end of my initial post I wrote, ?This is MY hypothesis, and it too will either be verified or invalidated by new information in class.? Interestingly, while parts of my first interpretation were incorrect, I had grasped the greater message. There is no absolute truth because new information will always combine with the old to form a new center. On February 5th, in a test post practicing the inclusion of video, I used the concept in jest:

In my Saussure post, I unfairly present my cat, Kringle, as a flesh eating monster. I now offer you his softer side, ?Derrida Style.? Decentralizing that singular murderous aspect, allowing for supplemental information, you can now arrive at a more accurate truth.

Truth may not have been the best word choice for Kringle?s totality, yet the idea of supplementary information changing the initial understanding is poignant.
?I recognized these ideas in other theorists as well, particularly in regard to identity. Gayle Rubin in ?The Traffic of Women? quotes Derrida. ?We cannot utter a single destructive proposition which has not already slipped into the form, the logic, and the implicit postulations of precisely what it seeks to contest? (Rubin 1678) On February 6th, in relation to this statement, I noted that:

Rubin made me understand Derrida much better ? I saw the cultural baggage we unintentionally carry in conjunction with examination of the role women occupy in society. This was profound for me. I was suddenly struck by how I?ve lived both theories without knowing.

In my analysis, I had studied fathers giving away their daughters at weddings. I suddenly became aware of my inability to create new meaning in a failed attempt at bridal liberation during my own wedding. To call for liberation recognizes the ownership from which liberation is necessary. Through theory, the external constructs of my reality had been revealed and my understanding shifted. As a woman, I was other, woman and property in a way I hadn?t considered. Betraying my own self, I was complicit in reinforcing the fact through a presence-absence dichotomy.

While Rubin helped me to understand Derrida, both helped me to understand Fanon. On March 13th I wrote of Coetzee?s novel Disgrace, ?Lurie?s sense of being is fixed, set. Recall Fanon. The mind, in conjunction with the body, is being. This is not to be mistaken with identity. Identity is imposed in relation to and as supplement of ?other.? Being is who you are before that happens.? Fanon says of his own realization in a quote I used in my post:

I analyzed my heredity, I made a complete audit of my ailment. I wanted to be typically Negro ? it was no longer possible. I wanted to be white ? that was a joke. And when I tried, on the level of ideas and intellectual activity, to reclaim my negritude, it was snatched away from me. Proof was present that my effort was only a term of the dialectic. (Fanon 132)

To revisit the Derrida quote Rubin chose above, I see that Fanon too has difficulty escaping the stereotypical center of racism. I had noted on March 18th that ?Negritude embraces both the French meaning of black and derogatory Martinique meaning of ?nigger.? Those who accept this inclusive definition empower themselves to redefine their own meaning.? Although the concept is an admirable attempt at reclaiming identity, even this falls short for Fanon. As he speaks of black or white, the sense of ?other? is continually called into being by way of a binary dichotomy.

I had initially used the concept behind Negritude to defend Lucy?s behavior in Disgrace. While offering a way for her to redefine who she is on her own terms, I said:

Lucy also embraces the duality of her being, encompassing who she was before as well as who she is after transgressions were committed against her. This provides no comfort in the face of being violated, as Fanon too experiences, but to relinquish that sense of being, to retreat and accept the identity of victim as imposed by another, would allow only for absolute defeat.

I have just now become aware of Lucy?s reason for silence. Unlike the Negritude movement, where black men actively and vocally sought to claim a new identity, Lucy does the opposite. If she never breathes a word of her victimization, neither will she speak into existence the horrific domination and violation that has scarred her soul.

I could continue on about each and every additional instance where Derrida appears in the rest of my posts, but I find it important to shift gears before I wrap up. If Derrida says that to speak against something is to, at the same time, call it into existence, then Haraway introduces a fascinating escape from this repetitious system of binary oppositions. I say in my last blog post on April 21st:

Because cyborgs have no origin story, no dominating patriarchal tradition or otherwise, there exists possibility for freedom from these Western dualisms: ?Self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man? (Haraway 2296). This is brilliant and beautifully Utopian. I love it. I love Haraway.

According to Haraway, communication systems and technologies are the tools necessary to recraft our selves, to disassemble and reassemble, to recode who we are. This provides an opportunity to exist somewhere within the gray areas between black and white, the genderlessness between male and female, etc. We are all cyborg. We all have the ability to slip through our confines.

?The combination of Derrida?s ?decentring? and ?supplement,? along side the questions of true identity as discussed by Rubin, Fanon, Haraway and others have already helped to interpret texts and life events I have encountered. I will carry these and many other concepts with me throughout my career and my life. I have always recognized the fact that I thrive best in gray areas and what I have been seeking, although unaware of my own quest until now, is how to break free from the confines of Western duality. I have consistently incorporated theory into my arsenal of proof for what I already believed true, that this duality is an unjust system of binding categorization. The difference is that now I am aware of what cultural apparatuses are in place to confine us within our binary systems, and my conceptual skills better articulate my displeasure in concrete terms. This has been the process by which I have learned to use theory instead of letting theory use me.

Works Cited

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. New York: Manchester University Press, 2002

Clune, Kim. Brain Drain: I Think Its Sprained.?05 May 2007. <http://atticfox.wordpress.com>.

Derrida, Jacques. ?Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.? Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. New York: St. Martin?s Press, 1989. 914-926.

Fanon, Franz. Black Skin White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1952

Haraway, Donna. ?A Manifesto for Cyborgs.? The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 2269-2299.

Rubin, Gayle. ?The Traffic in Women.? Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. New York: St. Martin?s Press, 1989. 1663-1683.

Challenging the Reproduction of Gender Inequality in Anne Bront??s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

In Anne Bront?’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, ideological apparatuses, as defined by Marxist theorist Louis Althusser, work to mold and sustain vast differences between men and women in the early nineteenth century. Each gender is groomed to occupy a separate societal sphere, men as master of the public realm and women as mistress of the domestic. These distinctions foster inequality and oppression of women, yet they are consistently reinforced by both genders within the patriarchal system. The danger of such inequality, at worst, allows for the abuse and silent oppression of women while, at the very least, it reproduces the same oppressive social system from generation to generation. Helen Huntingdon, the novel?s heroine, is the tool by which Bront? experiments with an alternate existence. Helen challenges the traditional role of motherhood by raising her son Arthur differently than a more traditional mother, Mrs. Markham. She also takes issue with the oppressive nature of marriage for women. By examining the cycle in which inequality of gender is enforced and reproduced, Bront? successfully confronts the traditional Victorian ideals which foster inequality, vice and abuse.

Bront??s Markham family is the epitome of late nineteenth century societal views. The topics that Mrs. Markham, as an authority on traditional Victorian motherhood, uses to reprimand Helen are telling of the general opinion of her day. Her first criticism is of Helen?s wine restriction for her young son, Arthur, which in turn leads to a critique of Helen?s child rearing practices in general. “If you would have your son walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them — not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone” (Bront? 28). Mrs. Markham is arguing that a young boy?s education requires experience, not shelter, and that a mother?s role is to be unobtrusive, not overbearing. Mrs. Markham undermines her own authority by requiring a man with religious authority, the vicar, to validate her claim on this tradition. ?[M. Millward will] tell you the consequences; ?he?ll set it before you as plain as day, ?and tell you what you ought to do? (Bront? 30). In doing so, Mrs. Markham maintains a discriminatory stance for herself and broadcasts it among her parlor. In the vicar?s absence, Gilbert defends the veracity of his mother’s words, unaware of his own role in reinforcing the societal precedent. He reiterates what his mother had said, that Helen must not shelter her son like a hot-house plant. “Shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on a mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements” (Bront? 30). Laura Berry?s scholarly article, ?Acts of Custody and Incarceration in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,? addresses this ideology:

Bront??s fictions deny the idea of sentimentalized motherhood as a potential haven from imprisoning or torturous anti-familial or institutional structures. If homes imprison, mothers do not, in this novel, liberate ? The family then is the place where gender difference is created. It is by ?protection? and ?influence? that a mother forms a daughter; but ?making a man? of a boy is achieved in giving him a liberal hand. (Berry )

Essentially, as is evident within the previous passages, mothers are expected to remain in the domestic realm and to mature their sons through the freedom of experience, an effort championed by free men and sanctioned by the church. Interestingly, both genders within the same family share this male-centric point of view, one perpetuated unawares until Helen challenges the requirements of motherhood.

Mrs. Markham is not without defiance within her own household. Her daughter Rose naturally opposes her mother?s reverence toward her brothers, sensing through her societal innocence, the disparity between herself and them. She complains to Gilbert when asked to make him tea once tea time is over, ?you?we can?t do too much for you ? I?m nothing at all ? I?m told not to think of myself? (Bront? 53). Rose is young and still in training. Her burning opposition is repeatedly snuffed out by her mother’s constant discipline in accordance with the laws of gender. ?You know, Rose, in all household matters, we have only two things to consider, first, what?s proper to be done, and secondly, what?s most agreeable to the gentlemen of the house?anything will do for the ladies? (Bront? 53). According to feminist theorist Judith Butler in her essay ?Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,? the body becomes a cultural sign:

Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis; the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those productions?and the punishments that attend not agreeing to believe in them; the construction ?compels? our belief in its necessity and naturalness. (Butler 2500)

Rose doesn?t naturally understand the distinction between genders because it doesn?t naturally exist. Mrs. Markham, having fully absorbed gender ideology, believes that not only must she conform, she must teach Rose to conform as well; to submit to the rules of difference is preferable to the punishment offered if either one of them does not.

This snapshot of Victorian life demonstrates that religion, motherhood and education are the vehicles which perpetuate rather than challenge the rule of inequality. According to Marxist theorist Louis Althusser in ?Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,? an imaginary social construct is used to coerce submission to and reproduction of the labor condition. This ensures the power of the ruling class:

Of course many ? contrasting Virtues (modesty, resignation, submissiveness on the one hand, cynicism, contempt, arrogance, confidence, self importance, even smooth talk and cunning on the other) are ? taught in the Family, in the Church ?in a variety of know-how wrapped up in the massive inculcation of the ideology of the ruling class that the ? relations of exploited to exploiters, and exploiters to exploited are largely reproduced. (Althusser 1495)

The domestic realm espouses the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), particularly as it functions within the previously mentioned private, rather than governmental, realms of religion, family and education. In addition to class division, this enforced separateness also applies to gender, illustrating the masculine social power driving women into submission. Within Helen?s first marriage to Huntingdon, she has assumed the role of modesty and submission in response to his self importance, smooth talk and cunning. Helen understands the failure of this system for women and seeks an escape from its grasp.

Bront? intentionally creates the Markham setting ripe for Helen’s retort, allowing her to challenge not only the way in which men are socially groomed, but to rebuke the male dominant religious authority over the subject. ?Mr. Markham here, thinks his powers of conviction at least equal to Mr. Millward?s. If I hear not him, neither should I be convinced though one rose from the dead? (Bront? 30). Holding fast to her spirituality while simultaneously rejecting the domination of religion, Helen directs her rebuttal to Gilbert, specifically challenging the unseeing portion of his male point of view. She asks how he would raise a girl as compared to a boy:

You affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; — and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation … It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation ? whereas, in the nobler sex, … exercised by trial and dangers, is only further developed. (Bront? 30-31)

By exposing the duplicity between the rearing of young men and women, Helen logically questions whether or not Gilbert believes feminine character and virtue is inherently fallible. Gilbert trapped within the machine of a defunct society, objects. ?Heaven forbid that I should think so!? (Bront? 31). Herein lies exposed a great contradiction between the practice of a disguised lack of faith in women and the heralded ideal of the virtuous “angel in the house.”

Seeking balance and equality, Helen defends her practice as a mother with a strong presence in her son?s life. She breaks from prevalent expectations saying:

You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. (Bront? 31)

According to Helen’s declaration, Bront? rejects the idea that such freedom afforded young men should be fully experienced only to later be reigned in through marriage. She also rejects the opposite extreme of sheltering young girls to the point where they have no self-actuated sense of wisdom and virtue, ill preparing them for independence and strength in difficult times. Scholar Elizabeth Gruner, in her essay ?Plotting the Mother: Caroline Norton, Helen Huntingdon and Isabel Vane,? says of the same passage quoted above:

Helen?s argument here neatly defends the novel, as teaching by others? experience, and her own maternal practice, while simultaneously undercutting any conception of an essential gender identity. Masculinity and Femininity are taught in this novel and can be played, revised, changed?as Gilbert himself learns. (Gruner 312)

A compromise must be met. The possibility exists, for which Helen is an example, where each gender benefits from preparedness to function in all aspects of society rather than to perform supplementary roles from separate spheres of a distinct division.

As Rose requires constant reminders to conform to her feminine identity, Gilbert also requires more than one lesson in his education to break free from engrained gender perspective, demonstrating how deeply entrenched the importance of gender identity is to the commonwealth. The town gossip darkens Helen?s true virtue because, as a wife who left her husband regardless of his abuse, she no longer fits within the ideal of ?angel in the house.? Here the machine manipulates Gilbert once more. Performing his gender duty, he avoids Helen, punishing her for doing her gender wrong (Butler 2500). Silence aggrieves the lovers, and Gilbert finds himself ?deceived, duped, hopeless, my afflictions trampled on, my angel not an angel, and my friend a fiend incarnate? (Bront? 102). Not until Helen offers her journal, appointing a witness for her story, does Gilbert escape his torment. While he does loosen his grip on the feminine definition, the reader is left to wonder if this change is binding. Scholar Russell Poole, in his article ?Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,? argues:

Helen?s diary is often identified as the means of instruction ? but we should not exaggerate its effect ? A few of [Gilbert?s] comments as a narrator suggest that a mitigation of his more aggressive traits has occurred subsequent to marriage rather than before it and certainly not as a precondition of it. (Poole 863)

Gilbert is like a child under the instruction of Helen, one in constant need of a reminder not to fall into old habits, learning who Helen is as a person, not as a misunderstood cog in the gender hierarchy. Regardless of Gilbert?s retention level, more importantly demonstrated is the fact that silence must be broken by women and their stories acknowledged by men before change can occur.

Bront? appears to fall short under the contemporary lens of feminism when Helen?s relationship flourishes with Gilbert and their wedding merely reinserts her into the same system from which she fled. Her property becomes Gilbert?s; it is he who must grant permission for Helen?s aunt to stay in the home that was once hers; and Arthur ?he was my own Helen?s son, and therefore mine? (Bront? 469). Gilbert makes a statement of claim on both mother and son, as if they are property to be owned. This reads as if Bront? could envision no practical solution for the plight of women. Although she is not able to write Helen out of society?s grasp, all is not lost. Rather than becoming an example by which women may redeem their power, Helen, more realistically for Bront??s time becomes the subject for discourse among Bront??s readership. Scholar Carol Senf, in her essay ?The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender,? explores the value in Bront??s delineated story telling technique, one by which Helen?s tale is both divulged edited through Gilbert:

Like the unique narrative structure, the wife?s story framed by that of her husband, this emphasis on domestic life?especially on the relationships of men and women during courtship and marriage?encourages the reader to focus on questions of gender, especially to see the way that nineteenth-century notions of marriage consigned women to silence. (Senf 450)

As Helen?s full story unfolds, Gilbert and the audience of the novel learn of the horrors that can exist when expectations of women remain unchallenged. Beyond that initial lesson, a more subtle lesson is also divulged. Helen?s experience of oppression and abuse, that which had been locked within the confines of her journal until shared with Gilbert, becomes the property of Gilbert once they marry. Personal expression is no longer her own. Bront?, may not have had the vision to free Helen from the stranglehold of mastership without denying her love, yet she offers this subjection up to all of society to reform as a whole.

These social values and customs of the early nineteenth century are of importance to study because remains of those gender imbalances are still present in society today. To understand where gender inequality fails and reproduces oppression of women can help to pinpoint ways in which it can be remedied. Historic trends provide commentary through literature, allowing for study of the causes and effects within this division. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in particular, provides a most valuable social commentary as it is the first novel of its kind to reveal the harsh reality of those women who suffered the worst of oppression of the time. Without discussion of the process by which women perpetuate their oppression, the importance of the challenge posed by Bront? is unable to be fully appreciated for the impact it has had in liberating the minds of women and imparting change upon a nation.

Works Cited:

Althusser, Louis. ?Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.? The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 1476-1508.

Berry, Laura C. ?Acts of Custody and Incarceration in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.? NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 30.1. (1996): 32-55. JSTOR. 4 April 2007

Bront?, Anne. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. New York: Oxford University Press. 1992

Butler, Judith. ?Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.? The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 2488-2501.

Gruner, Elisabeth Rose. ?Plotting the Mother: Caroline Norton, Helen Huntingdon, and Isabel Vane.? Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 16. 2. (1997): 303-325. JSTOR. 4 April 2007

Poole, Russell. ?Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.? Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 33.4 (1993): 859-873. JSTOR. 28 March 2007

Senf, Carol A. ?The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender? College English. 52.4 (1990): 446-456. JSTOR. 28 March 2007

I’m?devolving into a babbling?idiot. I blame the mad dash?for the semester’s end.?In true cyborg style I warn you:
RAM IS CRITICALLY LOW.
NO MORE INPUT PLEASE.

PREFACE:
In June of 1977, my grandmother watched the launch of NASA’s Viking 1 Mars mission on TV. Before the craft sent photos back to Earth, scientists believed that?the little red planet possessed a life sustaining atmosphere. At 6 1/2 years old, my only focus was deadlocked on Dumbo and a fat blue crayon.

“Did you hear that, Kim? They’re talking about space shuttles. Someday you?could live on Mars.”

My?concentration, and life as I knew it, was shattered. Me??Trade the beautiful Earth and its pulpy coloring books for a technological shelter and an iPod? I dropped?my crayon.?Tears breached the borders of my lashes. The?flood gates?broke open.

Gram’s?hand rested on my shoulder. “Oh no. Did I scare you?”

I think now, “You bet yer ass you did, and so does Donna Haraway.”

DONNA HARAWAY, A MANIFESTO FOR CYBORGS:
Cyborgs have the ability to delve into the borderlands, or as Gloria Anzaldua would say, the last mestiza. They challenge the boundaries between?human and animal; organism and machine; physical and non-physical. My favorite quote from Haraway falls under the first category:

Biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have simultaneously produced modern organisms as objects of knowledge and reduced the line between humans and animals to a faint trace re-etched in ideological struggle or professional disputes?between life and social sciences. Within this framework, teaching modern Christian creation should be fought as a form of child abuse. (2271)

Rock on, girlfriend. Eat vegetarian. Down with religion. Equality can never come from a patriarchal Christian hierarchy.

Because cyborgs?have no origin story, no dominating patriarchal?tradition or otherwise, there?exists possibility for freedom?from these Western dualisms:

Self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man. (2296)

This is brilliant and beautifully Utopian. I love it. I love Haraway… until I remember where?she says:

Microelectronics mediates the translations of labor into robotics and word processing; sex into genetic engineering and reproductive technologies; and mind into artificial intelligence and decision procedures.?(2285)

Communication systems and technologies are the tools?necessary to recraft our selves, to disassemble and reassemble, to recode who we are. Okay. But… (This is where I cry like a 6 year old.) I don’t want to live like this. Is?this even living? Are we really already there?

Warning, Will Robinson! Tangent ahead: Sure, modern medicine provides artificial limbs that respond to mental stimuli. This ability?is truly amazing and beneficial to people who have lost body parts. But what happens when the Bionic Woman becomes a reality? (Answer: Countless?Lindsay Wagner?reproductions sell billions of?Sleep Number Beds.) What?becomes of?talent, ability?and stamina for physical training in arenas like the Olympics? We chastise those who take performance drugs for being dishonest. Sneaking in a pair of knees with?mnemonic assist can’t be good.

All Systems Online: To get back on track, I found great value in the text and got all sorts of serious while?commenting on Joei’s Blog. Pardon me while I plagiarize myself (with a few tweaks):

My take on page 2269, where Haraway says, ?Modern medicine is also full of cyborgs, of couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices?? is that people are no longer being seen as the sum of all their parts. The medical realm has created artificial limbs, and thus human/machine hybrids. Do we consider these hybrid people/cyborgs any less human, whether male or female? No.

This leads directly into the next quote?[Joei] pulled from the text.

Identities seem contradictory, partial, and strategic. With the hard-won recognition of their social and historical constitution, gender, race, and class cannot provide the basis for belief in ?essential? unity. There is nothing about being ?female? that naturally binds women. (2275)

In agreement with Joei, I say this. Gender in our society is based on biology, yet Judith Butler says that maleness or femaleness is not a ?natural? assumption based on?body parts. If some men are born with ovaries and breasts, women with male genitalia, or?some women undergo hysterectomies, all of these provide a gray area within the dichotomy of ?men??and ?women.? To invert this system of categorical breakdown, the same holds true for women as a collective. Being female, possessing the required parts, does not create unity among the group. As Haraway points out, society, history, difference in race, class, and gender are divisive.

The?end game is that cyborgs hold the key to possibility in that they breach the boundaries of dualism. The list on page 2296 [and above] shows all the ways that cyborgs circumvent the categories. This circumvention can lead to freedom because the categories of identity break down.

Shutting Down: As a web geek, I love technology.?Still, I beg, can’t?the plight of humanity be?improved?while remaining?human? Or?are cyborgs Haraway’s way of?”letting the dead monster fall?”?(Think Watchmen.) Here’s my trouble. I hold close to a Native-American-style reverence?of the Earth, its creatures and their spirits. I hate cell phones . People that wear them “hands free” on their heads look stupid.?Borders employees?are freaks. They agree to assimilation, wearing ear devices to connect with the Mother Ship’s corporate command center. Cyborgs. Sellouts. Corporate America gets?fat because communication travels faster than bodies. Sit back, sip 12 Cokes, and take it all in.

Post Script: Maybe I’m?a victim of?Horkeimer and Adorno’s theory. Brainwashing IS present in film. Do I have the utmost respect for the wonderfully villainous?Borg?on Star Trek? Yes.?Could I ever?see them as heroes, breaking through the barriers of Western duality? Not so much. They want to cruelly assimilate Captain Piccard’s individuality and that, my friends, is a crime against humanity. Similarly, AI (Speilberg’s Artificial Intelligence)?boasts the dangers of loving?the clone of?a “real boy,”?one developed through genetic and technological advancement, while cyborgs?riot against?humanity for hurting their wittle feelings. In the end it all goes to hell. I’m a sucker for this message of pending doom. I believe.

Consider this an application add-on to my?Baudrillard post below.

According to the Yahoo article,?”BBC, Geldof join forces to draw up a map of mankind,” Bob Geldof says:

This will be an A to Z of Mankind, which will catalogue the world we live in now, the people who share this planet, the way we live and the way we adapt to face common and different challenges. Mankind is the world’s most extraordinary animal.

So, after reading Baudrillard, does anybody else feel doomed?by the?Dictionary of Mankind??(Does this include or exclude womankind?) I imagine?our final headline EVER to read:

“Rocker Bob Geldof, founder of Live Aid and promoter of?general well being, studies and catalogues?mankind into?hyperreality with his new hack-stab science.”

I’m just saying.

Note to self: Never theorize over morning coffee before the caffeine takes hold.