Brain Drain Blog

Posts Tagged ‘ideology’

SPOILER WARNING!

The grand finale of Galatea 2.2 has gummed up my works. Too much input. My neural net is still churning and I mean this in the most profound and complimentary way.

In the end, the joke is on everyone. The true bet between Lentz, Powers and the scientific team is never whether a machine can learn to think, but whether a human can make meaning where none exists. Powers, the Center?s token humanist, is taken for a ride in believing that Helen, his beloved neural net, is cognizant? or is he? Helen?s abilities surprise even Lentz, the largest skeptic of all. While the joke on Helen is that the human condition is vile, corrupt and undesirable, most interesting is the joke played on the reader, having believed the fallacy alongside Powers the entire time.

For?my?own ignorance,?I blame adulthood. Had I been a child, I would have seen the prank. Pardon my jest, repeating a philosophy conjured by Powers, but having finished his novel, I now understand. The innocence of childhood protects us from the?horrors of?humanity. Once innocence is lost, we shield ourselves from?the harsh?reality of our existence using fiction to process that which we cannot understand. We only hope to stumble upon answers. That hope?is our only redemption.

I find fascinating a work of fiction that moves beyond the scope of entertainment, using its own structure to examine its worth. It becomes particularly potent for this English Lit. major as I am forced to ask myself:

• What value does the study of literature hold?
• Is meaning inherent within a text or do we make meaning as we back-propagate new data through the filters of lived and learned experience?
• Does the difference of inherent or made meaning ultimately matter as we struggle to understand the point of our existence?

Since called upon to decide, I say this. I believe that ideology makes meaning on a cultural level. Within that ideology, literature holds a great deal of power, particularly in its ability to persuade. From fables, myths and war propaganda to presidential elections and the civil rights and environmental?movement, people will always chose the side most representative of their individual reality. Without literature, we would never have the ability to share such complex ideas or decide what our personal reality requires to exist.

For these reasons, having a deep understanding of literature, both the ways in which it operates and its limitations, grants us the power to move toward the goals we deem fit. While this in no way ensures collective agreement, or the chance to single handedly change the world, we have, at the very least,?the power to organize?around a small seed of understanding and find companionship or, as Powers hopes, love in that one simple connection. To read, to be read, to exchange ideas and make meaning as it applies to the here and now of our existence? This is only the beginning of my thoughts on?what literature is to me.

And?with that ponderance I leave you, offering my sincere gratitude for taking the time to make meaning of what I?ve had to say.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by the makers of Viagra?and Geritol.

Which reminds me… This is one of those books, like Don Quixote, that should be read three times in life, somewhere around the ages of?22, 35, and 60. I find that my young classmates identify with A. at 22,?interpreting?Powers as rather lecherous. Still feeling 22 at heart, I (at 37) suffer from the same disbelief as Powers – that so many years have passed and so little has been learned. I only hope that, by my next reading, I will have staved off the bitterness suffered by Lentz, disheartened by literature and the world at large.

Between the pages of 155 and 268, our narrator, Powers, and Dr. Lentz struggle with their traditional masculine roles, feeling that they must care for and protect their women. Lentz feels responsible for his wife Audrey?s stroke occuring directly after their argument while?he was intentionally unreachable.?Guilt ridden?for not taking enough care, he visits her waning consciousness with daily devotion at the Center. Powers also cares for his lost and confused C. but learns that:

The more care I took, the more I turned her into the needy one. And the more I did that, the needier she became. We construed her neediness between the two of us. And that was not care on my part. That was cowardice. (240)

Together, Powers and Lentz search for some sort of answer to the masculine condition through the production and training of Helen, the beloved and experimental neural net in Galatea 2.2. Lentz, although he can?t change the past, has the desire to change the future, developing a way to back up the brain in the case of memory failure. Powers interprets and mulls this goal:

We could eliminate death. That was the long-term idea. We might freeze the temperament of our choice. Suspend it painlessly above experience. Hold it forever at twenty-two. (170)

We have yet to learn what Powers gains from the experiment, but perhaps Donna Haraway might offer a clue.

Pulling out the ol’ Norton, I brushed up on Donna Haraway?s ?A Manifesto for Cyborgs?, several quotes of which were rather pertinent to Helen. First off, ?a cyborg is a cybernetic organism? a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction? (2269). Already, in this one definition, the cyborg blurs the boundaries of human, animal?and machine as well as reality and fiction.

Since?Helen is essentially a new ?other,? her existence could be constued as?a cultural encounter similar to, for example, that of Europeans and Native Americans. It is assumed from the ideology at hand that one must dominate the other. That said, how is it possible to avoid the dominant/male and submissive/female trap that haunts the majority of historical human existence? According to Haraway, the power lies within the technology.

The cyborg has no origin story? they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential. (2270-2271)

According to Haraway, Powers and Lentz are “inessential” as fathers.?Once they load the data, Helen thinks on her own. Although Powers has coded Helen with gender, it is within the power of the cyborg to blur the boundaries of such a dichotomy as the masculine and feminine. Once blurred, perhaps some revelation will be made to both about the roles of men and women in society.

While this unique?lesson of love?between man and machine has yet to be revealed , one thing is certain. Helen has already invoked much discussion about what constitutes human intelligence, blurring the distinction between true knowledge and switch flipping. Are we nothing more than weighted switches constantly back-feeding input through our neural nets, or is there something inherently human that sets us apart from a machine?

I’ll be turning pages rapidly to?find out?

Is?this?supposed to be therapeutic? I’m just asking.?I suppose?it’s cheaper than therapy, although I don’t recall seeing it on the ENG377 syllabus.

THE LIST

posts:
2007.09.02??Modern or Postmodern? That is the Question.
2007.09.06??So, What?s the Difference?
2007.09.07??Written WITH the Body
2007.09.09??‘I’ – Thinking
2007.09.14??Where the Story Starts
2007.09.17??Post Modo Condition
2007.09.19??Fight Club – The Movie
2007.09.20? Futurism in Fight Club?(add-on to previous post)
2007.09.25 ?Why Jameson?s Piece is Postmodern
2007.09.29? Life in Dying
2007.10.02 ?Fight Club Environmentalism
2007.10.05? Making Sense (???)
2007.10.08? Cindy Sherman
2007.10.10??Linda Hutcheon?(expertise project)
2007.10.15? Nikki Lee

comments:
2007.09.01? To Esther on Post/Modern Stance
2007.09.01? To Misty on Post/Modern Stance
2007.09.07? To Kim H. on Winterson
2007.09.07? To Alex on Winterson
2007.09.17? To Michael on Winterson
2007.09.17? To Christine on Winterson
2007.09.23? To Marina on Fight Club, the film
2007.09.23? To the Class Experts on Lyotard
2007.09.29? To Hannah on Fight Club, the book
2007.09.29? To Esther on Jameson
2007.10.04??To Zena on Fight Club, the book
2007.10.04??To Tammy on Fight Club, the book
2007.10.15??To Aliya on Cindy Sherman
2007.10.15? To Melissa on Hutcheon

ANALYSIS PART I: I am the One Trick Pony

As I wrestle with what postmodernism means and how it functions, I’ve discovered that I am absolutely obsessed with limits. Reading through my blog I see frustration with and examination of:?

• language as limitation on thought
• the subject’s limited ability to represent
• limits on history as merely one version of truth
• limits on context within postmodern fiction
• and limits of form?when representing the real.

Postmodernism has revealed the ways in which?I’m?confined?within the ideological?prison of my own thought,?AND it has?simultaneously?slipped me the key to freedom. Now that I?understand how?postmodernism functions, I see?it in fiction, film, magazines?and photography. It has become?relevant in my other classes and has even?jumped out at me while watching television. I love that ideology is being exploited all over the place, but still, I have one question burning deep within my soul. It’s the one?that everyone in class either fully?understands or isn’t asking.

When Lyotard says:?

“The artist and the writer , then, are working without rules in order to formulate the rules of what will have been done” (Lyotard, 81)

I still?need to?know… What the Hell does this mean?!?!

Moving on, the following?passage from “‘I’-Thinking” shows my concern for the limits of language and subject:

I found what Winterson hasn?t written is most important. Where power?exists and determines what is ?acceptable,? or at least ?attributable,? lies in our perception of how?the masculine and feminine are defined by language. (Hello Saussure, my old friend.)?Winterson?s brilliance?demonstrates the subversive by using that very device.?The notion of the free-?thinking I??is exposed for?all its cultural baggage.

Here I refer to?Cixous’ idea that?language shapes our thoughts along problematic dichotomies such a masculine/feminine, strong/weak, etc. Winterson challenges?the reader’s?need to assign?a male or female identity?to her genderless narrator, pointing out the limitation of “thought?dichotomies”?in practice. Rereading this passage surprises me after just having just?presented on Hutcheon. While my language here isn’t quite right, the idea of the self-reflexive operation?is interesting. Both the power of language to?define, and?the limitations?as?it confines are revealed simultaneously.?Perhaps we?discussed this idea in class that day, but prior to reading Hutcheon (my hero) I didn’t think I understood. Apparently I did. Go me.

Don’t you worry. I’m not getting all high and mighty over this one small victory. I continually struggle?with other issues, particularly the end result of?mixing fact and fiction in historeographic metafiction. All?accross my?blog and strewn about comments to classmates are references to the movie The Last King of Scotland. Apologies “for bringing it up once again” generally accompany the post because I can’t seem to let it go. In “Why Jameson?s Piece is?Postmodern” it appears for the third time:

This movie is … about a very real Ugandan dictator, but his life is revealed through the perception of a fictional doctor… the main character with significant influence on very disturbing events within the film… 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!… Will Ugandan children know? I think not.

Here is where I get stuck between Jameson and Hutcheon. Like Jameson, I have this?engrained notion that context is important.?As I say later in the same post, I attribute my discomfort with this specific?historical fiction?to the fact that?this film will likely be?the only access?Ugandan children?have to their country’s history. Since?they have no?background?in postmodern analysis, they will surely mistake this representation?(one?portrayed through the lens of white culture) for the?real. This is?the result of Third World, culture consuming capitalism that Jameson talks about.

On the other hand, when it comes to my personal consumption of the postmodern, I want?the veil lifted?from the powerful ideology?that orders?my world. To understand that there is no one absolute truth, as far as I can see, is the only way to open the door to new ideas… without limitation (ha!). Hutcheon,?with her positive spin on the postmodern and its power to reveal, is – quite frankly- my hero, as I’ve already stated above. I’m not sure if I will ever resolve this internal conflict. I fully believe there is value?to?both sides of this coin.

From the argument above, my question becomes, what is real or contextual anyway? Hutcheon says that?”history” has?only ever?been a representation and access to?”reality” has only ever been an assumption. To follow this thought into the realm of photography, as I understate?when summing up?my “Cindy Sherman” post:

Interestingly,?using a doll as an unrealistic representation of a human being, although it seems to be a drastic difference of subject/object?from the first [human] pictured above, is no different in concept.?Sherman brilliantly exposes photographic “realism” as equally flawed in all.?

Sherman offers a quick and dirty example of Hutcheon’s self-reflexive form. Her photography is used to?demonstrate?the power of historic photo documentation and realism as it influences our perception of reality,?to?subvert?it using the very form we trust to be real, and to reveal the ways in which photography fails to grant acces to the real at all.?By subverting or turning the medium in on itself,?the limitations of ideology implode.?Sherman is at once artist/actress, subject/object,?woman/clich?.?When I see this mental back flip in action, it?makes my heart soar. I?want to scream?”THAT’S A PERFECT TEN!”

And yet… there is still The Last King of Scotland playing to children in Ugandan theaters. Thanks to Hutcheon and Sherman I’m left to wonder?whether concepts are more or less important?than the events that actually?happened. Is the insertion of a fictional narrator within an historical setting really any different than the history written by a textbook author with an eye toward patriotism? The more I grasp how little we’ve learned from a history we’ve assumed was real, perhaps this fictionalized account of a real dictator?bears less?negative impact?than the lessons learned from such a story.?I suppose the best we can do is handle?postmodernism?with care, limiting its political and capitalist consumption of culture?in the Third World… whatever that means.

PART II: Old Tricks, New Tricks

And the award for best posts to date goes to:

• “Life in Dying”
  I felt I made a new connection in Fight Club between body, as the limited modern form striving?to achieve a?real experience,?and the soul or idea of legend as postmodern form struggling to break free from the limitations of form. I spent FAR more time on this than any other post, engaging with?the narrative?as well as narrative- through- the- lens- of- theory, and?organizing these thoughts into essay form. Yeah, I was home alone for two days.
• “Making Sense (???)”
  Here I was able to follow several significant threads discussed in class, applying one aspect of a particular theory to every text. Addressing issues from?the complication of all our?narrators, to the problematic concept of gender, I was able to beat these topics into submission, taming my unruly, jumbled thoughts.

The award for best?comment to date:

• “To Zena on Butt- Wipe”
  This comment engaged with Zena’s question, recounted a class comment, brought in textual evidence, and also taught me a thing or two in writing it.?

The award for best classmate post goes to:

• Esther’s “I Can Spell Jameson, So It’s Not a Bad Start”
  This post came along right when I needed it, particularly since Esther posts early?if not on time. She summarizes the highlights of Jameson’s theory, adds visuals to demonstrate her argument of lacking historical reference in architecture against Jameson’s need for context, and poses a few questions for comment. You just can’t ask for more.

Based on my previous accomplishments, these next three goals?are what I plan to?strive?toward?for the remainder of?my blogging career:

• Increased engagement?with?comments
• I should get over my need to be original and address some class topics already. I’m always pushing so hard to move beyond what has already been discussed. The alternative would be to “go deep.” Wait, I do that.
• More humor. I used to be funny.
• More silly?pictures. That used to be fun too.
• Oddly, perhaps I need to spend LESS time banging out?these marathon?posts and more time on other class work – or just living life.

How to acheive these things? I could just relax. The problem is that I find this class so darn interesting.?Yeah. I happen to like?taking?our shiny, new information?out for a spin?through the?informal blog, particularly?where a?little misjudgment and hitting the guard rail is allowed. Sue me.

Available on Amazon*

HUTCHEON ON POSTMODERNISM: A Summary

by Michael Bastian & Kim Clune

Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Theorist Linda Hutcheon?finally offers?a clear?definition of?postmodernism?as compared to the somewhat slippery and?”indefineable” definitions offered thus far. “Postmodern representation is self consciously all of these – image, narrative, product of (and producer of) ideology” (28).? She combines several concepts which all work together in the following way:

Mimesis:
For our purposes, mimesis?is?the assumption that representation is, in some way, a duplication of “the real” and also that there is a “real” to represent.?(To trace the morphing?philosophy of mimesis since the time of ancient Greece, visit the Dictionary of the History of Ideas, University of Virginia.)

Using?this definition of mimesis, Hutcheon?then says, “Postmodernism challenges our mimetic assumptions about representation” (30). This is called dedoxification.

De-doxification:
Ideology constructs and naturalizes the way a culture presents itself to itself. To de-doxify this representation is to denaturalize the contrived reality that ideology assumes as truth. Postmodernism simultaneously inscribes and subverts the convention of narrative to this end.

An Example:
Hutcheon uses Angela Carter’s The Loves of Lady Purple?to exemplify the dedoxification of femininity.??A marionette is made to represent the image of the woman prostitute in the construct of male erotic fantasy.? We are left to question, “Had the marionette all the time parodied the living or was she, now living, to parody her own performance as a marionette?”? and, “to what extent are all representations of women the ‘simulacra of the living’?”(31).???

Historiographic Metafiction:
Ultimately, the job of postmodernism is to question?”reality” and how we come to know it.?It forces us to examine the ways in which we?ve chosen (or have been made to choose) to represent ourselves. Historiographic metafiction?dedoxifies assumptions of ideology by consciously?and self-reflexively working to?accomplish?two things:

1. bringing?historical context into the text in recognition of?history’s authority?and power, and
2. simultaneously calls into question?historical limitations

By?inserting elements of?fiction?within historical context,?”fact” is exposed as an author’s assigned meaning?or subjective interpretation of an event. Historical representation is revealed?to be?inconclusive,?one more narrative employing the same devices used?in fiction.?As we understand it,?this functions the same way through all mediums of postmodern expression whether fiction, photography or painting.

For more on Hutcheon’s?historiographic metafiction,?visit Victoria Orlowski’s explanation (last entry at the bottom)?at Emory.edu.?

THEORY IN PRACTICE

• Michaels’ Observation: Photographic Discourse as Evident in the Work of Cindy Sherman

What is happening in this photo? Let?s create a narrative. We see?this?woman’s?bathing suit floating next to her. We can assume she doesn?t have a spare. She?s naked, nude, in the skinny. The only articles of clothing she?s wearing are the goggles (spy goggles) and a mask (a spy?s mask). Sherman is mimicking the actions of a spy approaching an enemy?s territory.?This?woman?doesn?t want to be seen. The pool is lit up. At the same time she is a naked woman swimming in a pool that someone could be spying on. She?s acting the part of a spy and sexually promiscuous woman. Those are antique goggles; they help to represent the historical representation of a spy. Although this spy does not represent one historical event we can narrate one. Mixing the story of the naked woman and the spy together does not work. Who is she looking at? What is she looking at? These are all questions in creating the narrative. The black and white photograph makes it seem like this photograph is representative of a historical ?real?. The move to de-doxify the reflex we have to link black and white to old is uncovered because of the use of fiction (the naked spy-woman). Uncovering this not only brings to question the power that black and white photography has over us, but reifies the power it does because of the reflexes its bringing out of us. This is called historiographic metafiction; examining the history of representing history through the use of fiction to pivot it against.

Adendum
Male erotic fantasy led me to believe that Sherman was swimming naked; her bathing suit swimming next to her. Kim pointed out, after sharing my analysis with her, that Sherman isn?t actually naked at all. The bathing suit is just distorted by the water. I created a narrative based on an ideology that I subscribe to. I assigned her femininity, false femininity, based on the image presented. The history, male erotic fantastical history, associates woman in pool with sexually promiscuous woman. We now have three fictions with which to work from, that all work to subvert the control of the form and emphasize its control over our reflexes as cattle grazing on the fields of ideologies. – Michael

(Well, Michael’s cattle reflex anyway. – Kim, who finds this all very amusing.)

• Kim’s Observation: Fiction and History as Demonstrated?in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club

Fight Club demonstrates Hutcheon’s theory well. Historical assumptions about the?subject?are called into question?alongside those of historical representation, and each are de-doxified through self-reflexive construction of this historiographic metafiction. Although one human body acts out the events of the novel,?that body is complicated by the presence of?two identities or subjects housed within it. Each has a?very different perspective and thus?drastically different representation of the same chronological events. Tyler collects?his?events and assigns meaning via his conscious state while the narrator, when he?is awake and occupying the body, assigns different meaning to the same events. In this way, perpective is limited and skewed depending upon who is in charge at the time. Additionally, because the narrator is the reader’s only source of information?about Tyler,?his?limited scope of understanding filters out?aspects of?his alter-ego.?In this way, the narrator unknowingly skews the telling of his?own history until the end when he?fully realizes that he?has become a split identity and thus the bigger picture is finally revealed to the?reader. Our ideological notions about how naturally subjectivity represents history are challenged once we realize the power the narrator has over representation as well as his limitations in revealing all sides.

Palahniuk also explores society’s historical context through capitalism. By placing ficticious characters within a backdrop specific to the 90′s, we are better able to examine various concepts and perceptions of capitalism from two perspectives than we are from one. Interestingly, neither is verifyiable truth, nor are they together, but…

(I had a train of thought to explore here,?but Michael just stole my copy of?Hutcheon and left campus.)

COLLECTIVE?THOUGHTS

We find that Hutcehon offers a logical answer to?several theoretical questions. Disputing negative generalizations of postmodern disorder, incoherence, and Jameson’s accusation of “depthlessness,”?Hutcheon says postmodernism has the specific function to?reflexively question?history by employing it’s own narrative in order to reveal the holes in such perceived truth. This specificity is new?from what we’ve seen this semester. She argues that Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra, representation as a copy of a copy, and media’s neutralization of the “real” assumes that there was a “real” to begin with. She counters that??there is nothing natural about the ?real? and there never was ? even before the existence of mass media? (31).?According to?Hutcheon, we have not slipped into?a false world because we have postmodernism.

Rather than postmodernism being a departure from contextualized history, or what?Jameson calls “a ‘revolutionary’ break with the repressive ideology of?storytelling generally,” (47)?the postmodern?relies upon that very device to decenter the?ideological?notions of authenticity and subjectivity. In the moment in which the center is questioned through narrative, postmodern stories of the oppressed “other” rise to the surface, no longer surpressed by ideology and past historical influence.? Postmodernism contradicts this notion of the real and accepts that everything has always been culturally represented.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Hutcheon says events have no meaning until certain facts are selected and meaning is assigned. Do you agree? Why?
• Since history can be fictional and fiction can reveal certain truths,?is there?a line of distinction between history and fiction at present?

OUTSIDE SOURCES
From the scholar-sphere:

• Felluga, Dino. “Modules on Hutcheon: On Postmodernity.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. November 23, 2003. Purdue U.
• Felluga, Dino. “Modules on Hutcheon: On Parody.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. November 23, 2003. Purdue U.

From the blog-o-sphere:?

Two posts from the Derivative Blog: Thoughts on Hutcheon?by a graduate student of English literature and culture at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

• ?An Enthusiasm for Postmodernism?
• Understanding the Question of Postmodern Meaning

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