In this paper I will examine the way that Michel Foucault's theory of the will to knowlege mediates the construction of a postmodern identity within consumer culture. To do this I will apply the differentiation made by Douglas Kellner between the modern identity and the post modern identity to the theory of "the society of the spectacle" proposed by Guy Debord. I will also examine the role that imagery created by consumer culture plays in construction of identity and the need that individuals have for tools to mediate the kinds of imagery they consume.
Within the first volume of Foucault's The History of Sexuality, one encounters three salient theories which Foucault develops over the course of the text. The first theory that Foucault forwards is that the repressive hypothesis - the assertion that since the 19th century western societies have sought to repress human sexuality and sexual urges - is false. In its place, Foucault offers that "... Rather than massive censorship... what was involved was a regulated and polymorphous incitement to discourse." (Foucault, 34).
In problematizing the repressive hypothesis Foucault questions the relevance that sexuality plays in the formation of ones personal identity. "...There emerged a completely new technology of sex... Through pedagogy, medicine, and economics, it made sex not only a secular concern but a concern of the state as well; to be more exact, sex became a matter that required the social body as a whole, and virtually all of its individuals, to place themselves under constant surveillance"
(Foucault, 116).
This recognition of how social institutions regard sex reveals the constructed nature of sexuality. Rather than ones identity being derived from the sexual self, Foucault forwards that identity and sexuality are both social constructions. The nuanced relationship that they have with each-other is not hierarchical, but give and take. This redefining of sexuality's role in the formation of ones identity also problematizes "identity" itself. If - as Foucault suggests - ones identity is not ones sexual self, what then does identity consist of?
This is a question that Douglas Kellner addresses in his text Media Culture. "...Identity has been increasingly linked to style, to produce an image, to how one looks. It is as if everyone must have their own look, style, and image to have their own identity, though, paradoxically, many of the models of style and look come from consumer culture, thus individuality is highly mediated in the consumer society of the present..." (Kellner, 233).
Kellner's assertion that identity is linked to look, style, and image fits with Foucault's belief that the creation of identity draws from numerous sources. Like sexuality, image is both an input that forms identity as well as an output of identity. The salient point found in Kellner's thought is the role that images from consumer culture play in creation of identity. However, this point raises several more questions, specifically, where do images of identity within consumer culture originate? And, what is consumer culture?
Foucault has already answered the first question in his debunking of the repressive hypothesis. When he described a "polymorphous incitement to discourse," Foucault was referring to the way individuals within consumer culture willingly submit the intimate details of their lives to social institutions of power. "... Sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology [etc.]," (Debord, 42) these institutions within consumer culture ingest information from individuals and output data, text, and images.
The second question - what is consumer culture? - is addressed by Guy Debord in his text The Society of the Spectacle. "...The world at once present and absent that the spectacle holds up to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its development is identical to people’s estrangement from each other and from everything they produce."
Debord is saying that "the society of the spectacle" is a culture of consumers living within the economic system of global, late capitalism. He is also describing the world in which we live today; a world in which the value of a quality or quantity is proportional to its potential to exist as a commodity. In this society, identity - like everything else - has been commodified.
Kellner describes the process of this commodification when he makes the distinction between the idea of the modern identity, "...An innate essence which determines what I am..." and postmodern identity, "...that identity is constructed not given, that it is a matter of choice, style, and behavior rather than intrinsic moral or psychological qualities... ...Postmodern identity, then, is constituted theatrically through role playing and image construction..." (Kellner, 242).
These two forms of identity fit within the society of the spectacle in an interesting way. If - as Debord believes - the spectacle constitutes the entire culture in which we live - and our identities are informed by roles and images we consume from culture - then the idea that one can "just be" (possess a modern identity) is false. Within consumer culture the modern identity only exists as a form of ignorance to the fact that every identity is postmodern. To clarify, the postmodern identity is an image or role that one constructs and performs. It is based on images and images of roles that one consumes from culture. The institutions of consumer culture produces images based on input from individuals. This output is consumed by individuals and used in the creation of identities. Individuals (possessing identities) then submit more information to the institutions of consumer culture and the cycle repeats. The nature of the postmodern identity is intimately linked to image, specifically images produced by consumer culture. This begs the question; what do the images of consumer culture look like?
Jonathan Crary addresses this concern in his text Techniques of the Observer, "... the historically important functions of the human eye are being supplanted by practices in which visual images no longer have any reference to the position of an observer in a 'real,' optically perceived world..."
(Crary, 2).
Crary is describing the form that images produced by consumer culture now almost exclusively take. He is specifically referring to the creation of digitally manipulated imagery and entirely digital images and environments. The proliferation of these sorts of images within consumer culture is of great concern to Crary because they present themselves as reality, when in fact they have never - and in many cases could never - actually exist.
Non-real imagery of the sort described by Crary is given a name by Jean Baudrillard in his text Simulacra and Simulation, "...Today's abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that preceded the territory - precession of simulacra..." (Baudrillard, 2).
Baudrillard and Crary are both concerned with the quality of image that is being produced by consumer culture. They both believe that the digital imagery consumed by individuals through advertising, the internet, film, and television are overwhelmingly hyper-real in nature. The question that is found within the subtext of their concern can be explicitly stated as, "If the imagery produced by consumer culture is overwhelmingly hyper-real (simulacra) - and individuals construct identities from images taken from culture - are those identities simulacra as well?"
The relevance of this question is addressed in the second theory - the concept of biopower - presented by Foucault within The History of Sexuality, "... An explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..." (Foucault, 140).
This reification of groups of people into "populations" is a technique of consumer culture that is enabled by the creation of simulacrum identities. The knowledge that this system of control exists is an aspect of Foucault's third theory, the will to knowlege.
The will to knowledge in essence is the will to power; but instead of taking power by force, or by "right", one obtains power through knowledge. In the case of consumer culture, power is obtained over populations through the same input of information and output of imagery that turns identity into simulacrum. Conversely, individuals within a population may gain power over consumer culture through the knowledge that this process is occurring. Knowledge of this process also gives individuals power to consume images that are not products of consumer culture.
What does imagery that is not a part of consumer culture look like? In a visual culture of television, cinema, and the internet how does one discern if the media one is consuming is authentic - not hyperreal - in its production? One example of modern film production that attempts to address this concern is the Dogme 95 movement created by directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in the mid 1990's (wikipedia.org). Von Trier and Vinterberg laid out a declaration and a set of guidelines to aid filmmakers attempting to create a new type of film that could not be effected by the production values of consumer culture. "...Today a technological storm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetics to God. By using new technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in the deadly embrace of sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hide behind. Dogme 95 counters the film of illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules known as The Vow of Chastity..."
The "elevation of cosmetics to God" that the Dogme movement attempts to circumvent is synonymous with Baudrillard's description of the hyperreal. The "Vow of Chastity" that filmmakers working in the Dogme 95 style take are ten guidelines that von Trier and Vinterberg believe are necessary for the creation of films that owe no debts to the production values of consumer imagery. The rules of this style of film production are useful in attempting to create new films, but also can serve as a makeshift measuring stick for texts that already exist. This is not the intended purpose of the Dogme 95 movement, but in making such a comparison one can observe the sort of films that von Trier and Vinterberg are trying not to make.
The most popular movie of 1994 - the year before the creation of the Dogme 95 style - was Forrest Gump, with a domestic box-office gross of $329,691,196 and six Academy awards including best director and best picture (imdb.com). Forrest Gump is not a Dogme 95 film, a fact which is observable when you compare it to the ten parameters which define that style.
The first "Vow of Chastity" states that, "Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found)" (wikipedia.org). The story-line of Forrest Gump begins in the 1950's and progresses through the 60's, 70's, and 80's with fastidious attention to detail in re-creating each decade with accurate props, sets, and dressed locations.
The second states that, "The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot)." Forrest Gump relies heavily on music to build dramatic tension as well as to add to the authenticity of the various decades that the characters found themselves in.
The third states that, "The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place." In re-creating battle scenes from the Vietnam War, Director Robert Zemeckis utilized helicopter shots to capture scenes of soldiers from above.
The fourth states that, "The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera). Forrest Gump has many scenes that take place at night or indoors which utilize artificial sources of light specifically for production purposes.
The fifth states that, "Optical work and filters are forbidden." In one scene in Forrest Gump, the title character - played by Tom Hanks - is digitally inserted into preexisting film footage so as to appear to shake hands with president John Kennedy.
The sixth states that, "The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)" During the portion of Forrest Gump which takes place during the Vietnam War, Gery Sinise's character - Lt. Dan Taylor - has his legs shot off.
The seventh states that, "Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now)." As already stated, Forrest Gump spans several decades in its timeline.
The eighth states that, "Genre movies are not acceptable." This is a criteria which Forrest Gump may meet. The film has funny moments but is not a comedy, has war but is not a war movie, and is historical without being a reenactment of any one instance in particular.
The ninth states that, "The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)" Forrest Gump has an aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and many of the special effects were shot and edited digitally.
The tenth states that, "The director must not be credited." Robert Zemeckis is credited for directing Forrest Gump.
In making this comparison one can see the way in which films with one set of concerns and production values compare to another set with very different ones. Although the tenets of Dogme 95 may not be the best criteria to judge the "hyper-realness" of an existing film, a system of checks and balances similar to it may be.
To conclude, the images that consumer culture produces are consumed by individuals and used in the creation of identities. The images of consumer culture are predominantly hyperreal in their nature, and and upon consumption forward the creation of identities that are necessarily hyperreal as well. To avoid the form of social control offered by the simulacrum identity it is of interest to individuals to develop a system of analysis with which to gauge the relative hyper-realness of a given image.
Showing posts with label A Bunch Of Bullshit I Wrote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Bunch Of Bullshit I Wrote. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Gay's World: Party Time? Excellent.
Gays World is brought to you by some Noah's-Ark Bullshit: Party on Gays.
(Turn the volume to a good reading level so the track can play like background music to the post.)
It's Tuesday, It's 11:30ish, it's time to party with your wack-cellent host the Catholic church and with them as always it NARTH. Party-on Gays, and Fuck-you NARTH.
In today's Star Tribune there was an article about how the Catholic church still hates gay people. I was not surprised to hear this. I was taken aback at the turn the Diocese' tactics have taken in channeling their hate and homophobia. This shit has most likley been standard policy for awhile - it doesn't sound like the kind of shit that you apply to your organization of billions over night - I've just haven't heard the Catholic™ brand of reactionary fear phrased like this before.
Basically the church says homosexuality is a disease (that's shit I have heard already) and that through therapy, confession, and prayer The Gays can "develop their heterosexual potential". That's the part that threw me.
Really? Develop their heterosexual potential? Schyah, right.
That soft fucking legal-eese, associated-press-approved, politically-correct language... Fuck. It gets me every time.
The Catholic church maintains that they aren't raging homophobes, they just like their gays like they like their priests: celibate, repressed and out of touch with their sexual selves, excepting children, of course. The Catholic clergy basically says, if you're a Gay, just don't be gay anymore.
Yeah, they're real creative.
The majority of the gay people that I know are down with Sigmund Freud, even if they don't acknowledge the fact. Freud maintained that the sexual self is the essential self - basically that your sexuality is a manifestation of your "true self".
Personally, I don't believe that shit - not whole hog anyway - but for many a gay, that shit is policy number one.
Ask a Gay to describe themselves. Being gay is usually pretty central to a Gay's identity (obviously there are exceptions ).
The Gays are a minority and get shit on by conservatives and religious fundamentalists just like every other minority. The way they defend themselves from bigotry and violence is through the solidarity of their comunity/subculture. The Gays' point of solidarity - being gay - is what unites them against crazies like the Pope, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachman, and NARTH.
Which brings me to the obvious question that the Star Tribune article begs: If there is a NARTH - National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality - why isn't there a... NARTH - National Association for Research and Therapy of Heterosexuality (maybe they could find a different acronym).
But you get what I'm saying right?
If the extant NARTH is an "educational" "resource" for gays that want/are pressured by the Catholic church to try to act straight, why isn't there an organization for the heteros who want to get down with some homoerotica?
Think about it, by being straight you immediately eliminate half the market for sexing.
If the thought of having sex with another man is currently repugnant to you, but you have an open mind and like to fuck a lot, a class or organization that could "educate" you into finding men attractive might be right up your alley. (play)
Which brings me to this video from Illdoctrine about the use of the slang terms "pause" and "No Homo" in vernacular speech, specifically in Hip-Hop. That shit is way funny.
The salient point within JSmooth's analysis of the parenthetical use of "No Homo" can be found when he says, "... as a general rule, if you're not the original target of an insult, you cant be the one to reclaim it..." - as a general rule.
I interpret that shit to mean "If you aren't the original target of an insult, the only way you can reclaim it is with some creative linguistic acrobatics."
So, as a a straight guy, I propose that if one writes some ambiguous shit that could be construed as homoerotic and one does not give a fuck, the appropriate parenthetical addendum to said written shit would be either "play" (opposite of pause), "HOMO?" (if one wants to leave that shit ambiguous), or "YO HOMO" (If one want's to go for the gusto, "Yo" being snonomous with "Yes").
If there is going to be an "incitement to the proliferation of discourse", we are going to need some better/comprehensive/more robust linguistic options than are currently available,
Motherfucker.
(Turn the volume to a good reading level so the track can play like background music to the post.)
It's Tuesday, It's 11:30ish, it's time to party with your wack-cellent host the Catholic church and with them as always it NARTH. Party-on Gays, and Fuck-you NARTH.
In today's Star Tribune there was an article about how the Catholic church still hates gay people. I was not surprised to hear this. I was taken aback at the turn the Diocese' tactics have taken in channeling their hate and homophobia. This shit has most likley been standard policy for awhile - it doesn't sound like the kind of shit that you apply to your organization of billions over night - I've just haven't heard the Catholic™ brand of reactionary fear phrased like this before.
Basically the church says homosexuality is a disease (that's shit I have heard already) and that through therapy, confession, and prayer The Gays can "develop their heterosexual potential". That's the part that threw me.
Really? Develop their heterosexual potential? Schyah, right.
That soft fucking legal-eese, associated-press-approved, politically-correct language... Fuck. It gets me every time.
The Catholic church maintains that they aren't raging homophobes, they just like their gays like they like their priests: celibate, repressed and out of touch with their sexual selves, excepting children, of course. The Catholic clergy basically says, if you're a Gay, just don't be gay anymore.
Yeah, they're real creative.
The majority of the gay people that I know are down with Sigmund Freud, even if they don't acknowledge the fact. Freud maintained that the sexual self is the essential self - basically that your sexuality is a manifestation of your "true self".
Personally, I don't believe that shit - not whole hog anyway - but for many a gay, that shit is policy number one.
Ask a Gay to describe themselves. Being gay is usually pretty central to a Gay's identity (obviously there are exceptions ).
The Gays are a minority and get shit on by conservatives and religious fundamentalists just like every other minority. The way they defend themselves from bigotry and violence is through the solidarity of their comunity/subculture. The Gays' point of solidarity - being gay - is what unites them against crazies like the Pope, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachman, and NARTH.
Which brings me to the obvious question that the Star Tribune article begs: If there is a NARTH - National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality - why isn't there a... NARTH - National Association for Research and Therapy of Heterosexuality (maybe they could find a different acronym).
But you get what I'm saying right?
If the extant NARTH is an "educational" "resource" for gays that want/are pressured by the Catholic church to try to act straight, why isn't there an organization for the heteros who want to get down with some homoerotica?
Think about it, by being straight you immediately eliminate half the market for sexing.
If the thought of having sex with another man is currently repugnant to you, but you have an open mind and like to fuck a lot, a class or organization that could "educate" you into finding men attractive might be right up your alley. (play)
Which brings me to this video from Illdoctrine about the use of the slang terms "pause" and "No Homo" in vernacular speech, specifically in Hip-Hop. That shit is way funny.
The salient point within JSmooth's analysis of the parenthetical use of "No Homo" can be found when he says, "... as a general rule, if you're not the original target of an insult, you cant be the one to reclaim it..." - as a general rule.
I interpret that shit to mean "If you aren't the original target of an insult, the only way you can reclaim it is with some creative linguistic acrobatics."
So, as a a straight guy, I propose that if one writes some ambiguous shit that could be construed as homoerotic and one does not give a fuck, the appropriate parenthetical addendum to said written shit would be either "play" (opposite of pause), "HOMO?" (if one wants to leave that shit ambiguous), or "YO HOMO" (If one want's to go for the gusto, "Yo" being snonomous with "Yes").
If there is going to be an "incitement to the proliferation of discourse", we are going to need some better/comprehensive/more robust linguistic options than are currently available,
Motherfucker.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Locked Down: 'Toons in the Stupermax
My Fellow Gangmericans:
There are a lot of gangs in prison.
That shit be scary.
Both prison and gang people.
It's funny how they - the prison gang bangers - remind me of cartoons I watched when I was a kid. All these goofy looking guys, covered in ink, committing heinous acts of violence...
I can see the connection.
The anvils and dynamite in Road-Runner are kind of different than the shankings and gang-rape in Pelican Bay State Prison, but since I played all those violent video games during my formative years, the comedic effect hits my funny bone in the same general area.
YAHTZEE! I frickin' found it.
Addendum 1: A bunch of bullshit I wrote.
Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax.
The SHU - Security Housing Unit - is a function of the Supermax prison system designed to contain the "worst of the worst" of felons. Mostly the SHU holds known gang leaders and higher ups in the gang social hierarchy. Prison systems that utilize a SHU facility do so with the specific goal of isolating gang members from interacting with members in the greater prison population as well as those outside of prisons. The only way out of the SHU - aside from parole or death - is to snitch or give up information regarding past or current gang activities.
The American Radio Works audio documentary Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax presents a vision of the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison that does not live up to the stated expectations of what a SHU should be.
In the documentary Michael Montgomery makes the distinction between street gangs that also operate in prison and prison gangs that have moved out onto the streets. In the first segment Montgomery interviewed Armando Frias Jr. about a murder he committed on behalf of the gang Nuestro Familia (NF), a gang that formed in prison and now operates in the outside world. Nuestra Familia is controlled by street bosses and leaders serving time in prison, including some that are currently incarcerated in the SHU system at Pelican Bay.
Montgomery's interview with Epitacio Cortina - a former NF boss and felon who served time in the SHU - revealed that prison gangs like the NF recruit members primarily in prisons. The education of new recruits takes place behind prison walls with the assumption that members will one day be released back onto the streets where they can continue to carry out the gang's agenda. Cortina elaborated on how senior members serving extended or repeat sentences pass on criminal knowledge,
"...how to do bank robberies, how to do armored car robberies, how to do home invasions..." as well as knowledge of the different methods, codes, and languages that the gang uses for communication between prison and the street.
Gangs like Nuestra Familia and The Mexican Mafia that have large portions of their membership inside of prisons enforces solidarity by killing members who snitch or try to leave the gang. The flip side to this is that gang members gain reputation and status for doing their time without rolling over or giving up information on their fellow members. It is also common knowledge that ratting out your people is one of the three ways to get out of confinement in the SHU. With this in mind it is unsurprising to hear testimony from people like Raul Leon who talk about doing a life sentence in the SHU with a casual pride.
Leon's swagger is given credence by sociologist David Ward when he compares the personality type of a cocksure SHU lifer to that of a military medal of honor winner. Ward's comment on the status that long time SHU inmates receive as, "...the strongest of the strong..." is reminiscent of the SHU's stated objective to house "The worst of the worst". Conflating these two clichés to create criminals that are more hardened, committed, and relentless than they were before entering the system seems to be the ultimate result of the SHU within prisons.
The "worst of the strongest" paradigm is illustrated by SHU resident David's recollection of what going to prison meant to him as a younger man.
"...I think that it's hard for normal people to understand, but the way I used to look at prison when I was younger was like it was kind of like college. I had to go there to further myself. If I wanted a career in what I was doing, then I needed to go to prison and make a name for myself in there in order to do so..."
Montgomery informs the listener that David "apprenticed" under a senior gang member while serving time in the SHU. The use of the word "apprentice" to describe a relationship that david had with another detainee inside of the SHU contains several assumptions and begs several questions. It is assumed that to successfully engage in a master/apprentice relationship that some modicum of communication must take place. If the SHU exists to inhibit inmates - specifically inmates engaging in gang activity - from communicating with each-other, how is it possible for David - the apprentice - to contact anyone, let alone a senior gang member who could further Davids goal of "career membership" within his gang.
David also commented, "...I always looked at the SHU as like a piece of steel that you could sharpen yourself with [sic]...".
David is only one inmate and can not represent the entire demographic of SHU detainees with his personal statements of resolve. However David was one of few inmates to be interviewed for this radio documentary and his words and philosophy present a significant point of view to the listener. With David as a specific example of a life-long criminal who has circumvented the SHU's strict policy of isolation and null-communication - specifically between active gang members - and effectively achieved "worst of the strongest" status, I forward that the SHU system of detention does not achieve its stated goals.
Addendum 2: I've refrained myself from making the entirety of all that bullshit I just wrote a link to this video from JSmooth's illdoctrine.com.
The man knows his shit.
There are a lot of gangs in prison.That shit be scary.
Both prison and gang people.
It's funny how they - the prison gang bangers - remind me of cartoons I watched when I was a kid. All these goofy looking guys, covered in ink, committing heinous acts of violence...
I can see the connection.
The anvils and dynamite in Road-Runner are kind of different than the shankings and gang-rape in Pelican Bay State Prison, but since I played all those violent video games during my formative years, the comedic effect hits my funny bone in the same general area.
YAHTZEE! I frickin' found it.
Addendum 1: A bunch of bullshit I wrote.
Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax.
The SHU - Security Housing Unit - is a function of the Supermax prison system designed to contain the "worst of the worst" of felons. Mostly the SHU holds known gang leaders and higher ups in the gang social hierarchy. Prison systems that utilize a SHU facility do so with the specific goal of isolating gang members from interacting with members in the greater prison population as well as those outside of prisons. The only way out of the SHU - aside from parole or death - is to snitch or give up information regarding past or current gang activities.
The American Radio Works audio documentary Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax presents a vision of the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison that does not live up to the stated expectations of what a SHU should be.
In the documentary Michael Montgomery makes the distinction between street gangs that also operate in prison and prison gangs that have moved out onto the streets. In the first segment Montgomery interviewed Armando Frias Jr. about a murder he committed on behalf of the gang Nuestro Familia (NF), a gang that formed in prison and now operates in the outside world. Nuestra Familia is controlled by street bosses and leaders serving time in prison, including some that are currently incarcerated in the SHU system at Pelican Bay.
Montgomery's interview with Epitacio Cortina - a former NF boss and felon who served time in the SHU - revealed that prison gangs like the NF recruit members primarily in prisons. The education of new recruits takes place behind prison walls with the assumption that members will one day be released back onto the streets where they can continue to carry out the gang's agenda. Cortina elaborated on how senior members serving extended or repeat sentences pass on criminal knowledge,
"...how to do bank robberies, how to do armored car robberies, how to do home invasions..." as well as knowledge of the different methods, codes, and languages that the gang uses for communication between prison and the street.
Gangs like Nuestra Familia and The Mexican Mafia that have large portions of their membership inside of prisons enforces solidarity by killing members who snitch or try to leave the gang. The flip side to this is that gang members gain reputation and status for doing their time without rolling over or giving up information on their fellow members. It is also common knowledge that ratting out your people is one of the three ways to get out of confinement in the SHU. With this in mind it is unsurprising to hear testimony from people like Raul Leon who talk about doing a life sentence in the SHU with a casual pride.
Leon's swagger is given credence by sociologist David Ward when he compares the personality type of a cocksure SHU lifer to that of a military medal of honor winner. Ward's comment on the status that long time SHU inmates receive as, "...the strongest of the strong..." is reminiscent of the SHU's stated objective to house "The worst of the worst". Conflating these two clichés to create criminals that are more hardened, committed, and relentless than they were before entering the system seems to be the ultimate result of the SHU within prisons.
The "worst of the strongest" paradigm is illustrated by SHU resident David's recollection of what going to prison meant to him as a younger man.
"...I think that it's hard for normal people to understand, but the way I used to look at prison when I was younger was like it was kind of like college. I had to go there to further myself. If I wanted a career in what I was doing, then I needed to go to prison and make a name for myself in there in order to do so..."
Montgomery informs the listener that David "apprenticed" under a senior gang member while serving time in the SHU. The use of the word "apprentice" to describe a relationship that david had with another detainee inside of the SHU contains several assumptions and begs several questions. It is assumed that to successfully engage in a master/apprentice relationship that some modicum of communication must take place. If the SHU exists to inhibit inmates - specifically inmates engaging in gang activity - from communicating with each-other, how is it possible for David - the apprentice - to contact anyone, let alone a senior gang member who could further Davids goal of "career membership" within his gang.
David also commented, "...I always looked at the SHU as like a piece of steel that you could sharpen yourself with [sic]...".
David is only one inmate and can not represent the entire demographic of SHU detainees with his personal statements of resolve. However David was one of few inmates to be interviewed for this radio documentary and his words and philosophy present a significant point of view to the listener. With David as a specific example of a life-long criminal who has circumvented the SHU's strict policy of isolation and null-communication - specifically between active gang members - and effectively achieved "worst of the strongest" status, I forward that the SHU system of detention does not achieve its stated goals.
Addendum 2: I've refrained myself from making the entirety of all that bullshit I just wrote a link to this video from JSmooth's illdoctrine.com.
The man knows his shit.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Gym-Speak
I went to the University Rec Center today and "rode" this:
It was the closest a stationary bike has come in simulating riding a real bike.
The recreation center is a pretty fucking weird place.
It is a center. For recreation.
It is the center. Of recreation.
If all recreational activity on the University of Minnesota campus were an amoeba, this would be the nucleus.
If all recreational activity were a target, Robin Hood would hit the Rec center. Now think of your own meaningless metaphor, remember to place Rec in the center.
So I was riding the bike and lifting some shit and looking at all these other people, students, professors, riding and running and lifting shit all around me.
It was kind of enthralling.
Dudes act/look/are fucking weird/funny/crazy in the gym. You can tell by a dudes stances and facial expressions - mid lift - how seriously they take themselves when they go to work out.
1. There are the dudes that are super ripped and super intense and have missile guidance systems in their brains that direct them from weight-rack to weight-rack. They operate with such efficiency that only two guys of this variety ever lift together at one time. Silent, intense, massive. Lift, spot, lift, spot, these kind of dudes stand like the last mastodon on a frozen butte, facial expression locked in a totally neutral, gray mask of muscle.
2. Then there are the ripped guys that are there to hang out because they have been hanging out in weight rooms since the seventh grade, and now it's just what they do whenever nothing else is going on. This variety of dude usually rolls in a crew of four or five really tall guys and one short guy. They kick it around the bench while one guy casually benches 500 lbs. and the others sac-tap and towel snap each-other. I would hazard that for this kind of guy, three to five hours of any given day is spent in a gym or weight-room of some kind with only about 30 or 45 minutes of actual weight lifting taking place.
3. There are the old guys. The old guys always look like they are about to fuckin' keel over, but I have yet to see one do so. Old guys usually fly solo, unless they are playing racquet-ball - old guys love racquet-ball - in which case they have enough people for doubles plus a couple of extras who kick it outside of the glass and talk business and hock loogies on the carpet.
4. There are the really fat guys that walk on the treadmill with a five pound dumbbell in each hand. They usually wear grey above-the-knee shorts that are made out of T-shirt material and really clean Newbalance sneakers. I have seen a really fat guy talking on a bluetooth, alternately reading Time magazine and drinking Powerade™ in one hand, lifting a 5er in the other, and walking on a treadmill with the pace of a toddler (really small steps, knees turned in, arrhythmically alternating between the heels and balls of his feet) all at the same time.
5. There are the freshmen/dudes that have never been in a gym before and have the heroine sheik/sickly vegan look. These dudes always do the elliptical cross-trainer machine and can do more chin-ups than you because they weigh 95 lbs.
6. There are the Hell's Angels looking dudes with super gnarly tattoos and burly beards/shaved heads. These dudes range in age from 17 to 60ish and are in varying stages of beefy.
7. And there are the dudes that are there a couple times a week to ride the stationary bike, listen to slayer, lift a little and hit the sauna.
There are a lot of kinds of dude.
Thank me Captain Obvious.
While I was being #7 this evening, I was thinking about how these different kind of gym dudes offer a glimpse into different kinds of male personalities. The setting of "The Gym" engenders interactions that make it almost instantly apparent who the alpha males are and who the beta males are.
I'm sure that one google search could provide me with innumerable studies, flow charts, and taxonomies of the different forms of male-ness that have been classified by psychologists and other bullshit of that ilk, but I'm trying to work this shit out by myself. Here is what I've got so far:
Alpha Male: Type One - The guy that leads a group and has to be in charge at all times. This dude can hang out with other dudes as long as the other dudes are cool with always taking a beta position. Type ones always have to have the biggest dick in the room.
Alpha Male: Type Two - The guy that can kick it with anyone and doesn't care who the "leader" is. Type twos are down to take the lead sometime, but are also alright with other people stepping in and taking control.
Alpha Male: Type Three - The lone wolf. This dude can't really hang out ever because he is super into his own shit and doesn't really like other people. The lone wolf is super assertive and confrontational but only if another Alpha questions his autonomy.
Beta Male: Type One - Dudes that are not the one in control but aspire to acquire Alpha status.
Beta Male: Type Two - Dudes that are not in control and don't care.
Beta Male: Type Three - The guy that chooses Beta status and actively works to maintain it.
Beta Male: Type Four - Dudes that were Alpha at one point but got relegated to Beta status because they fucked up too much.
Outlier Male: Type One - The stringent feminist guy who lives to subvert systems of patriarchy.
Outlier Male: Type Two - The dude who can successfully act any of these types without actually being it or inadvertently becoming the Type he is acting over time.
This list is incomplete and inaccurate. Dudes can be mixes of any number of these types, or a dude can shift over time from one to another.
I'm sure context is a key factor.
I mostly need to write and think about the shit I have been reading and the shit I have been writing and re-read the shit I have been reading and then write about it some more.
Duh.
It was the closest a stationary bike has come in simulating riding a real bike.
The recreation center is a pretty fucking weird place.
It is a center. For recreation.
It is the center. Of recreation.
If all recreational activity on the University of Minnesota campus were an amoeba, this would be the nucleus.
If all recreational activity were a target, Robin Hood would hit the Rec center. Now think of your own meaningless metaphor, remember to place Rec in the center.
So I was riding the bike and lifting some shit and looking at all these other people, students, professors, riding and running and lifting shit all around me.
It was kind of enthralling.
Dudes act/look/are fucking weird/funny/crazy in the gym. You can tell by a dudes stances and facial expressions - mid lift - how seriously they take themselves when they go to work out.
1. There are the dudes that are super ripped and super intense and have missile guidance systems in their brains that direct them from weight-rack to weight-rack. They operate with such efficiency that only two guys of this variety ever lift together at one time. Silent, intense, massive. Lift, spot, lift, spot, these kind of dudes stand like the last mastodon on a frozen butte, facial expression locked in a totally neutral, gray mask of muscle.
2. Then there are the ripped guys that are there to hang out because they have been hanging out in weight rooms since the seventh grade, and now it's just what they do whenever nothing else is going on. This variety of dude usually rolls in a crew of four or five really tall guys and one short guy. They kick it around the bench while one guy casually benches 500 lbs. and the others sac-tap and towel snap each-other. I would hazard that for this kind of guy, three to five hours of any given day is spent in a gym or weight-room of some kind with only about 30 or 45 minutes of actual weight lifting taking place.
3. There are the old guys. The old guys always look like they are about to fuckin' keel over, but I have yet to see one do so. Old guys usually fly solo, unless they are playing racquet-ball - old guys love racquet-ball - in which case they have enough people for doubles plus a couple of extras who kick it outside of the glass and talk business and hock loogies on the carpet.
4. There are the really fat guys that walk on the treadmill with a five pound dumbbell in each hand. They usually wear grey above-the-knee shorts that are made out of T-shirt material and really clean Newbalance sneakers. I have seen a really fat guy talking on a bluetooth, alternately reading Time magazine and drinking Powerade™ in one hand, lifting a 5er in the other, and walking on a treadmill with the pace of a toddler (really small steps, knees turned in, arrhythmically alternating between the heels and balls of his feet) all at the same time.
5. There are the freshmen/dudes that have never been in a gym before and have the heroine sheik/sickly vegan look. These dudes always do the elliptical cross-trainer machine and can do more chin-ups than you because they weigh 95 lbs.
6. There are the Hell's Angels looking dudes with super gnarly tattoos and burly beards/shaved heads. These dudes range in age from 17 to 60ish and are in varying stages of beefy.
7. And there are the dudes that are there a couple times a week to ride the stationary bike, listen to slayer, lift a little and hit the sauna.
There are a lot of kinds of dude.
Thank me Captain Obvious.
While I was being #7 this evening, I was thinking about how these different kind of gym dudes offer a glimpse into different kinds of male personalities. The setting of "The Gym" engenders interactions that make it almost instantly apparent who the alpha males are and who the beta males are.
I'm sure that one google search could provide me with innumerable studies, flow charts, and taxonomies of the different forms of male-ness that have been classified by psychologists and other bullshit of that ilk, but I'm trying to work this shit out by myself. Here is what I've got so far:
Alpha Male: Type One - The guy that leads a group and has to be in charge at all times. This dude can hang out with other dudes as long as the other dudes are cool with always taking a beta position. Type ones always have to have the biggest dick in the room.
Alpha Male: Type Two - The guy that can kick it with anyone and doesn't care who the "leader" is. Type twos are down to take the lead sometime, but are also alright with other people stepping in and taking control.
Alpha Male: Type Three - The lone wolf. This dude can't really hang out ever because he is super into his own shit and doesn't really like other people. The lone wolf is super assertive and confrontational but only if another Alpha questions his autonomy.
Beta Male: Type One - Dudes that are not the one in control but aspire to acquire Alpha status.
Beta Male: Type Two - Dudes that are not in control and don't care.
Beta Male: Type Three - The guy that chooses Beta status and actively works to maintain it.
Beta Male: Type Four - Dudes that were Alpha at one point but got relegated to Beta status because they fucked up too much.
Outlier Male: Type One - The stringent feminist guy who lives to subvert systems of patriarchy.
Outlier Male: Type Two - The dude who can successfully act any of these types without actually being it or inadvertently becoming the Type he is acting over time.
This list is incomplete and inaccurate. Dudes can be mixes of any number of these types, or a dude can shift over time from one to another.
I'm sure context is a key factor.
I mostly need to write and think about the shit I have been reading and the shit I have been writing and re-read the shit I have been reading and then write about it some more.
Duh.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Subject:Verb:Object
The conflation of masculinity and femininity resulting in divers manifestations of androgyny.
Specific example number one: Angela Gossow - Lead Vocalist for the Swedish Death-Metal group Arch Enemy.
Arch Enemy formed in 1996 with Johan Liiva (formerly of the Death-Metal band Carnage) as the original lead vocalist. The musical style, performance, and lyrical content of Arch Enemy's first two albums released in 1996 and 1998 was fast, aggressive, violent, and explicitly Satanic in nature. Gossow was asked to join after Liiva was kicked out of the band in 2000 because his theatricality or "stage-presence" was not "dynamic" enough in the eyes of the other four, male band members. The fact that Gossow was deemed more suited to be the "face" of an extreme-metal group wanting to embody brutality, (satanic) individuality, and aggression - all overtly masculine traits - in their live performance makes her a candidate for representing an atypical form of feminine sexuality and androgyny.
In performance Gossow sartorially and theatrically conflates the traditional image of the female body with the über-masculine style and attitude of the male Death-Metal "frontman". The prime example of this conflation can be heard in Gossow's vocal ability and style. The Death-Metal "growl" has developed as an almost exclusively masculine form of singing. The harsh, deep and abrasive nature of this vocal technique has made its use by female vocalists few and far between. Gossow however has developed and employed this technique almost exclusively over un-growled or "clean" vocals on the four Arch Enemy albums on which she has sang.
At the start, when Gossow is addressing the crowd, I believe she says "GraraghRaghrt! I want to see the fuckin' place burn..."
On page 172 of Susan Bordo's "Unbearable Weight", recovering anorexic nervosa diagnosee Aimee Liu states, "I need nothing and no one else... I will be master of my own body, if nothing else, I vow..."
This statement could be Metal lyrics.
Subject: Verb: Object.
Women historically have been put into the position of object.
When a woman exercises agency and become a subject acting on an object, specifically in regard to her own life or body it sounds revolutionary, inflammatory, or extreme.
Bordo defines the schism in femininity as the requirement "...that women must develop a totally other-oriented emotional economy." She forwards that this emotional asceticism - focus on "feeding" others and denying the self - is a result of the historic control of "...Female hunger - for public power, for independence, for sexual gratification [etc.]..."
Historically women have been expected to preform, and confined to subservient roles. As women win/gain rights from power/discourse, older forms of femininity and feminine sexuality shift to take into account these new freedoms and venues for agency. The differential between what femininity was, what femininity is, and what it is becoming leaves room for the proliferation of socially rooted disorders like agoraphobia and anorexia nervosa.
Specific example number two: Lydia Lunch - Specifically - "The Cancer Has Finally Become Contagious" off of the 1987 compilation "Tellus #18: Experimental Theater".
"I hate all men... who play god, because god was the first cop"(1:00), "I don't want to see nothing I don't want to see [sic]. You wouldn't know the fucking truth if it slapped you in the fucking face, and I might just slap you in the fucking face... keep talking ass-hole" (7:45), "You're starting to sound like my mother! You sound just like my mother; well if you didn't act like such a goddamn fucking baby I wouldn't have to sound like your goddamn mother" (8:27).
Lydia lunch presents a conflation of masculinity and femininity in her artwork, music, performance and lifestyle. It makes me wince when I think about analyzing her or her work. Like she is going to reach through the words in the book or my speakers and punch me in the face.
Cultural artifact of contention number one - The internet/television advertising campaign for women's "EasyTone" Reebok™ sneakers.
Transcription of commercial:
Close up of a woman's chest, woman is wearing white brasier.
Right Breast: "Hey did you see? Nobody is staring at us anymore."
Left Breast: "Aren't we still hot?"
Right breast: "Cah-learly [sic]. You know what, it's all because of that stupid butt down there."
Left Breast: "Yeah, stupid butt, it gets all the attention now."
Cut to: panning shot of the woman's cleavage from stage left.
Right Breast: "She's so tight now, so round, so pretty."
Left Breast: "So... stupid!"
Cut to: Panning shot, left to right of the woman leaning forward.
Voice over: Mans' voice: "Make your boobs jellous with the shoe proven to tone your butt more than regual sneakers."
Cut to: Close up of the woman's butt, woman is wearing white underwear. Woman bends over, runs finger under elastic of underwear, and sticks butt towards camera.
Voice over: Man's Voice: "Reebok easy tone with balance ball inspired technology, better legs and a better butt with every step."
Subject: Verb: Object.
Commenting on this shit is so...
I mean these are SHOES... ...FOR women.
Do women personify their tits and fantasize about how they talk to their butt? Ever?
It's like the people that make this shit should...
They should already know that...
Gargh, it is fucking mind boggling.
Fuck. Shit. Piss. Fer' real.
There are a-million-and-one ways to sell sneakers.
Make something else, it's fucking simple.
Specific example number one: Angela Gossow - Lead Vocalist for the Swedish Death-Metal group Arch Enemy.
Arch Enemy formed in 1996 with Johan Liiva (formerly of the Death-Metal band Carnage) as the original lead vocalist. The musical style, performance, and lyrical content of Arch Enemy's first two albums released in 1996 and 1998 was fast, aggressive, violent, and explicitly Satanic in nature. Gossow was asked to join after Liiva was kicked out of the band in 2000 because his theatricality or "stage-presence" was not "dynamic" enough in the eyes of the other four, male band members. The fact that Gossow was deemed more suited to be the "face" of an extreme-metal group wanting to embody brutality, (satanic) individuality, and aggression - all overtly masculine traits - in their live performance makes her a candidate for representing an atypical form of feminine sexuality and androgyny.
In performance Gossow sartorially and theatrically conflates the traditional image of the female body with the über-masculine style and attitude of the male Death-Metal "frontman". The prime example of this conflation can be heard in Gossow's vocal ability and style. The Death-Metal "growl" has developed as an almost exclusively masculine form of singing. The harsh, deep and abrasive nature of this vocal technique has made its use by female vocalists few and far between. Gossow however has developed and employed this technique almost exclusively over un-growled or "clean" vocals on the four Arch Enemy albums on which she has sang.
At the start, when Gossow is addressing the crowd, I believe she says "GraraghRaghrt! I want to see the fuckin' place burn..."
On page 172 of Susan Bordo's "Unbearable Weight", recovering anorexic nervosa diagnosee Aimee Liu states, "I need nothing and no one else... I will be master of my own body, if nothing else, I vow..."
This statement could be Metal lyrics.
Subject: Verb: Object.
Women historically have been put into the position of object.
When a woman exercises agency and become a subject acting on an object, specifically in regard to her own life or body it sounds revolutionary, inflammatory, or extreme.
Bordo defines the schism in femininity as the requirement "...that women must develop a totally other-oriented emotional economy." She forwards that this emotional asceticism - focus on "feeding" others and denying the self - is a result of the historic control of "...Female hunger - for public power, for independence, for sexual gratification [etc.]..."
Historically women have been expected to preform, and confined to subservient roles. As women win/gain rights from power/discourse, older forms of femininity and feminine sexuality shift to take into account these new freedoms and venues for agency. The differential between what femininity was, what femininity is, and what it is becoming leaves room for the proliferation of socially rooted disorders like agoraphobia and anorexia nervosa.
Specific example number two: Lydia Lunch - Specifically - "The Cancer Has Finally Become Contagious" off of the 1987 compilation "Tellus #18: Experimental Theater".
"I hate all men... who play god, because god was the first cop"(1:00), "I don't want to see nothing I don't want to see [sic]. You wouldn't know the fucking truth if it slapped you in the fucking face, and I might just slap you in the fucking face... keep talking ass-hole" (7:45), "You're starting to sound like my mother! You sound just like my mother; well if you didn't act like such a goddamn fucking baby I wouldn't have to sound like your goddamn mother" (8:27).
Lydia lunch presents a conflation of masculinity and femininity in her artwork, music, performance and lifestyle. It makes me wince when I think about analyzing her or her work. Like she is going to reach through the words in the book or my speakers and punch me in the face.
Cultural artifact of contention number one - The internet/television advertising campaign for women's "EasyTone" Reebok™ sneakers.
Transcription of commercial:
Close up of a woman's chest, woman is wearing white brasier.
Right Breast: "Hey did you see? Nobody is staring at us anymore."
Left Breast: "Aren't we still hot?"
Right breast: "Cah-learly [sic]. You know what, it's all because of that stupid butt down there."
Left Breast: "Yeah, stupid butt, it gets all the attention now."
Cut to: panning shot of the woman's cleavage from stage left.
Right Breast: "She's so tight now, so round, so pretty."
Left Breast: "So... stupid!"
Cut to: Panning shot, left to right of the woman leaning forward.
Voice over: Mans' voice: "Make your boobs jellous with the shoe proven to tone your butt more than regual sneakers."
Cut to: Close up of the woman's butt, woman is wearing white underwear. Woman bends over, runs finger under elastic of underwear, and sticks butt towards camera.
Voice over: Man's Voice: "Reebok easy tone with balance ball inspired technology, better legs and a better butt with every step."
Subject: Verb: Object.
Commenting on this shit is so...
I mean these are SHOES... ...FOR women.
Do women personify their tits and fantasize about how they talk to their butt? Ever?
It's like the people that make this shit should...
They should already know that...
Gargh, it is fucking mind boggling.
Fuck. Shit. Piss. Fer' real.
There are a-million-and-one ways to sell sneakers.
Make something else, it's fucking simple.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
GIT SUM
Adam and Eve were hanging out nude in the Garden of Eden. They were the "first people" but there were other people around too because Homo Sapiens-sapiens evolved as a group, not as two individuals that were created by a single, omnipotent, white god.
So, there were some other people around and everyone was in their birthday-suits' and even though Adam and Ever were an item, when Adam was out naming the animals and talking to God about the book God was going to commission some poor-ass dudes in the middle-east to write after they met God's son in 3,000 or so years (the bible says the earth is 5,000-something years old, "0" AD was 2,000 years ago, do the math) Eve would sometimes get-down with some of the other dudes who were hanging out around the garden. Adam was pretty oblivious to Eve's free wheelin' ways until one day when he came back from telling the Marine Iguanas that they were called "Marine Iguanas" early, and caught Eve "communing with a serpent".
Adam got all jealous and emasculated (when I say "serpent", I'm talking PYTHON) and Adam's bitch-ass was all, "I'm telling God on you Eve".
But Eve had a bunch of endorphins flowing from the vigorous cardio she had just been engaging in and she invented the "baby, don't go, I never meant to hurt you" line on the spot.
Adam was totally disarmed and unable to deal with the emotions he was experiencing, so when Eve took him by the hand and brought him over to where she had been - biblically - "getting to know the snake", he was in a really fragile state and totally receptive when she said, "Just relax and go with it..."
So Adam and Eve and this other guy invented the menage au trois and just when it was getting pretty hot and heavy, and Adam was starting to open up to the idea that sexuality exists as a continuum - not a binary - God showed up and saw them and got super pissed.
"Adam, what the fuck? I thought we were cool man, then you go and turn fag on me? You KNOW I hate gay people."
Adam totally pussied out and tried to make some wimpy excuses, but Eve wasn't the kind of woman who tolerated that kind of weak shit. She also didn't sit for the kind of bigoted bullshit God was all up on his high horse about, so she called him out on his shit.
"Hey old man, lay off. Just who do you think you are? What the fuck did you think we were going to do with these perfect, youthful, nude bodies of ours? We didn't ask to virtually loose all our body hair and walk upright. We didn't ask to share common ancestors with great apes that evolved from proto-mammals, that survived the comet that killed the dinosaurs, that evolved from gnarly sea-monsters, that evolved from bacteria, that jolted to life abioticly in a primordial sea after the earth was done accreting 4.6 billion years ago from heavy elements, that had been created in the hearts of dying stars, that originated as hydrogen and some other lighter elements after the big bang, which happened because the..."
All the while that Eve was talking God was getting more and more pissed and finally he blew his stack and just lost it,
"You think you're so smart, don't you Eve, don't you. I'll show you how smart you are, KAZAM!"
And he threw Adam and Eve out of the garden and told Adam to make Eve clean the house and do the dishes and only receive 70 cents on every dollar that Adam made and to beat the shit out of her whenever she said anything interesting or tried to empower herself.
That's the story of Adam and Eve.
Post Script: The best part of the story comes later when Eve figures out how to clone male reproductive cells from female StemCells and Adam - true to form - shits his pants.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Go on, get out of here. You're Free Now. Go on, GO...
Preface: You know in kids' movies when the kid has to let the animal go back into the wild?
The Text:
The salient point within chapter two of Guy Debord's 1967 Society of the Spectacle can be read within the subtext of aphorism number fifty-three, in which Debord states, "...this project is the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its own making." What Debord calls into question here is the value of a human life.
Debord establishes earlier in chapter two that within the discourse of the society of the spectacle, the usefulness of a given quantity is explicitly proportional to that quantity's ability to participate within, and thereby perpetuate the discourse of the spectacle. He also establishes that for any "thing" - be it an idea or a solid object - to be of use to the machinations of the spectacle, the qualities of a substance must first be quantified. This quantification serves to transmute the essence of an idea or object into a product: a commodity that fits within the spectacle's discursive specifications. The quantification that Debord concerns himself with throughout Society of the Spectacle, and is specifically addressing in aphorism fifty-three is that of the human as commodity.
The scene is set for the fruition of human reification by the actualizing of Michel Foucault's concept of biopower. When he (Foucault) describes "...an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..." (Foucault, 140) Foucault is describing a tactic of power that politically quantifies the human body. This alchemy of discourse is a method employed by the society of the spectacle which Debord specifically names in aphorism forty-two when he says, "...domination is broken down into further specialties such as sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology..."
These institutions, like the people that fill them, are products of the culture that produced them. Debord identifies these quantifiers of human life and consciousness as the internal way in which the society of the spectacle regulates its participants á la biopolitics.
The total commodification of human life that Debord identifies as the final expression of the spectacle is taken one step further by Jonathan Crarcy within his text Techniques of the Observer. Cracry first identifies that despite culture producing the way which one experiences the world, as human beings our primary form for perceiving objective reality is through sight. Historically, Crarcy argues, seeing has been believing. Humanity has evolved with the implicit constant that to see something - an object or an event - is to experience the fact of that things existence objectively.
Crarcy believes that this ability to implicitly trust the world we see in everyday life will soon be a thing of the past. When he states that, "... the historically important functions of the human eye are being supplanted by practices in which visual images no longer have any reference to the position of an observer in a 'real,' optically perceived world..." (Crarcy, 2) he is not alluding to the suspension of disbelief that one engages in when reading a novel, or the consensual illusion entered within the walls of a movie theatre. Instead Crarcy refers to the creation of an environment that we interpret as reality, but has never, and could never exist in any physical form: cyberspace. The acceptance of imagery that only exists in a digital, non-real space is a concern for Crarcy because it effectively quantifies reality.
The codification of experienced reality into "... millions of bits of electronic mathematical data..." that Crarcy is describing seems to breach the last bastion of human experience that until the "digital revolution" had been out of reach for assimilation into the discourse of the spectacle. To appreciate the potentiality that Crarcy envisions for cyberspace, first imagine an Appalachian coal-mining town at the turn of the twentieth century.
Commonly referred to as "company towns", these communities were owned in totality by a given coal company. Employees labored in the company mine, bought company food from the company store with company money that they also used to pay for their company house situated on company land. Children went to company schools and parents filled their company cars at the company service-station.
Company Towns were in effect a precursory microcosm of what Guy Debord would later describe as the society of the spectacle. The spectacle being the coal company and the society - the coal miners - being the entire world. Debord's vision of a global economy beholden to the doctrines of reification and total commodity that extends into all aspects of human life in the same way that coal companies dominated the lives of their employees. However, the spectacle as described by Debord was not yet a closed system. The global commodification of resources - vegetable, animal, mineral, and ontological - into the cultural product of the spectacle still had gaps and inconsistencies in 1967.
What Crarcy is describing "... [an] equivalent sensation and stimuli that have no reference to a spatial location..." (Crarcy, 24) is the effort of the system to close itself. Debord related a future history that warned where we were headed, Crarcy is describing the way in which we have gotten there.
The value of human life that Guy Debord is concerned with within Society of the Spectacle focuses on the quantitative - or monetary - value of a person's labor within a system that equates value with the perpetuation of the system. The quantitative ubiquity of the cultural object designated as "money" confers power through perceived value into a system that, once adopted, required its participants to perpetuate.
However, not all action in the system described by Debord engage - and by definition - perpetuated the system. An individual may have been produced by and exist in relation to the spectacle, but the singular act of existence does not implicitly engage with the spectacle directly. This is where Crarcy's admonition of the quantification of reality reminds one that the spectacle, as an expression of power, has only grown more complex since Debord gave it a name in 1967.
Crarcy's premonition of an augmented, codified, and quantified reality turns the very act of existing into a commodity. This closing of the system makes the participants completely beholden to the discourse of power and effectively neuters any potential for true resistance. If the spectacle can produce a closed system in which the world we experience in real time is totally physically constructed by the discourse of power, the resultant commodity will be denied even self-contemplation.
1. Crarcy, Jonathan (1990) "Techniques of the Observer." MIT Press: Boston, MA, 1992.
2. Debord, Guy (1967) "The Society of the Spectacle." Rebel Press: London, 2004.
3. Foucault, Michel (1984) "The History of Sexuality Vol.1: The Will to Knowledge." Penguin Books: London, 1998.
The Text:
The salient point within chapter two of Guy Debord's 1967 Society of the Spectacle can be read within the subtext of aphorism number fifty-three, in which Debord states, "...this project is the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its own making." What Debord calls into question here is the value of a human life.
Debord establishes earlier in chapter two that within the discourse of the society of the spectacle, the usefulness of a given quantity is explicitly proportional to that quantity's ability to participate within, and thereby perpetuate the discourse of the spectacle. He also establishes that for any "thing" - be it an idea or a solid object - to be of use to the machinations of the spectacle, the qualities of a substance must first be quantified. This quantification serves to transmute the essence of an idea or object into a product: a commodity that fits within the spectacle's discursive specifications. The quantification that Debord concerns himself with throughout Society of the Spectacle, and is specifically addressing in aphorism fifty-three is that of the human as commodity.
The scene is set for the fruition of human reification by the actualizing of Michel Foucault's concept of biopower. When he (Foucault) describes "...an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..." (Foucault, 140) Foucault is describing a tactic of power that politically quantifies the human body. This alchemy of discourse is a method employed by the society of the spectacle which Debord specifically names in aphorism forty-two when he says, "...domination is broken down into further specialties such as sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology..."
These institutions, like the people that fill them, are products of the culture that produced them. Debord identifies these quantifiers of human life and consciousness as the internal way in which the society of the spectacle regulates its participants á la biopolitics.
The total commodification of human life that Debord identifies as the final expression of the spectacle is taken one step further by Jonathan Crarcy within his text Techniques of the Observer. Cracry first identifies that despite culture producing the way which one experiences the world, as human beings our primary form for perceiving objective reality is through sight. Historically, Crarcy argues, seeing has been believing. Humanity has evolved with the implicit constant that to see something - an object or an event - is to experience the fact of that things existence objectively.
Crarcy believes that this ability to implicitly trust the world we see in everyday life will soon be a thing of the past. When he states that, "... the historically important functions of the human eye are being supplanted by practices in which visual images no longer have any reference to the position of an observer in a 'real,' optically perceived world..." (Crarcy, 2) he is not alluding to the suspension of disbelief that one engages in when reading a novel, or the consensual illusion entered within the walls of a movie theatre. Instead Crarcy refers to the creation of an environment that we interpret as reality, but has never, and could never exist in any physical form: cyberspace. The acceptance of imagery that only exists in a digital, non-real space is a concern for Crarcy because it effectively quantifies reality.
The codification of experienced reality into "... millions of bits of electronic mathematical data..." that Crarcy is describing seems to breach the last bastion of human experience that until the "digital revolution" had been out of reach for assimilation into the discourse of the spectacle. To appreciate the potentiality that Crarcy envisions for cyberspace, first imagine an Appalachian coal-mining town at the turn of the twentieth century.
Commonly referred to as "company towns", these communities were owned in totality by a given coal company. Employees labored in the company mine, bought company food from the company store with company money that they also used to pay for their company house situated on company land. Children went to company schools and parents filled their company cars at the company service-station.
Company Towns were in effect a precursory microcosm of what Guy Debord would later describe as the society of the spectacle. The spectacle being the coal company and the society - the coal miners - being the entire world. Debord's vision of a global economy beholden to the doctrines of reification and total commodity that extends into all aspects of human life in the same way that coal companies dominated the lives of their employees. However, the spectacle as described by Debord was not yet a closed system. The global commodification of resources - vegetable, animal, mineral, and ontological - into the cultural product of the spectacle still had gaps and inconsistencies in 1967.
What Crarcy is describing "... [an] equivalent sensation and stimuli that have no reference to a spatial location..." (Crarcy, 24) is the effort of the system to close itself. Debord related a future history that warned where we were headed, Crarcy is describing the way in which we have gotten there.
The value of human life that Guy Debord is concerned with within Society of the Spectacle focuses on the quantitative - or monetary - value of a person's labor within a system that equates value with the perpetuation of the system. The quantitative ubiquity of the cultural object designated as "money" confers power through perceived value into a system that, once adopted, required its participants to perpetuate.
However, not all action in the system described by Debord engage - and by definition - perpetuated the system. An individual may have been produced by and exist in relation to the spectacle, but the singular act of existence does not implicitly engage with the spectacle directly. This is where Crarcy's admonition of the quantification of reality reminds one that the spectacle, as an expression of power, has only grown more complex since Debord gave it a name in 1967.
Crarcy's premonition of an augmented, codified, and quantified reality turns the very act of existing into a commodity. This closing of the system makes the participants completely beholden to the discourse of power and effectively neuters any potential for true resistance. If the spectacle can produce a closed system in which the world we experience in real time is totally physically constructed by the discourse of power, the resultant commodity will be denied even self-contemplation.
1. Crarcy, Jonathan (1990) "Techniques of the Observer." MIT Press: Boston, MA, 1992.
2. Debord, Guy (1967) "The Society of the Spectacle." Rebel Press: London, 2004.
3. Foucault, Michel (1984) "The History of Sexuality Vol.1: The Will to Knowledge." Penguin Books: London, 1998.
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