Does the above quote by Deleuze apply to Theatre? Or better yet: can it apply to theatre as an art form? I think it does apply. The state of contemporary theatre ranges roughly from the profit-driven musicals on Broadway to the more independent, thought-provoking theatre pieces. Yet theatre, as with any other art, is plagued by clichés. When Deleuze says “…it is first necessary to erase, to clean, to flatten, even to shred, so as to let in a breath of air from the chaos that brings us the vision,” he is undoubtedly referring to the need to escape clichéd art in order to create something new. But aren’t theatre-makers and artists continuously in the process of creating new pieces of theatre? Is that not what automatically happens with art?

Well, yes and no.

Art as entertainment, whether film or theatre, does not necessarily care about cliché or the new. Take James Cameron’s Avatar. Being the highest grossing film of all time, it has wowed audiences around the globe with its stellar advancements in 3D technology and filmmaking. It’s visual candy. As to plot, however, it couldn’t be more overused. Technologically advanced Imperial power seeks a rare commodity (ridiculously called ‘Unobtainium’), and invades a peaceful, nature-loving planet and its people. Pocahontas, Fern Gully and Dances With Wolves have the same plot. The same line of argument could be said of entertaining theatre musicals. There is something fundamental here that I have not discussed, and that is the question of what theatre does as an art form. The old mantra is that the theatre is the ‘mirror to life,’ that is, theatre is supposed to reflect the human experience back to us (the audience). By mirroring humanity back to itself, theatre in fact gives us an insight into humanity. It reflects. Against this notion of the theatre, Deleuze argues that all art is a matter of creating the new, one of composition, not reflection.

It is against this backdrop that the contemporary theatre scene (at least in Canada) can be seen as merely recycling over-used concepts, forms and ideas. It is not striving to the next level; rather it has halted, stopped still-fast and frozen. Contemporary theatre is frozen in place and it is happy to be there for the time being. As in the quote above, the contemporary theatre-maker needs to confront a world of abused, over-used and exhausted concepts and composition, in order to truly create something new.

The immediate question to be put forth to such a bold claim would be to ask: doesn’t this occur with every generation of artists? That is to say, is not each artistic movement eventually superseded by another, which revolts and retaliates against the previous one? Is this not indeed how the history of theatre and art in general has progressed?

There is truth in this objection; yet again I think Deleuze presents us with an interesting reply:

“Other artists are always needed to make other slits, to carry out necessary and perhaps ever-greater destructions, thereby restoring to their predecessors the incommunicable novelty that we could no longer see. This is to say that artists struggle less against chaos (that, in a certain manner, all their wishes summon forth) than against the ‘clichés’ of opinion.”

This point is crucial to grasp, I think. Deleuze is saying here that by acknowledging or recognizing the clichés of an art form, the artist is able to “make other slits,” that is, open up the space for the new amongst the exhausted and reused. The important thing to remember is that although it may seem that with each artistic historical epoch, the emerging generation will react against the previous, this reaction can only be transformed into something new if it recognizes clichés. It is the same with theatre, I think. The theatre of ‘telling the stories of the minorities and underprivileged” is a thing of the last century and so it belongs there. Theatre-makers, artists and theories working in the new century need to realize the old in order to be able to create the new. The theatre is in need of a transformation, a change. In a word: revolution. Deleuze called this process of transformation ‘becoming,’ meaning that art form has yet not realized its full potential. A calling, so to speak. Theatre is in the process of becoming, it is in need of revitalization in order to propel itself further. Yet it cannot do this ‘blindly.’ Who will heed the call?

What is a conspiracy theory? Wikipedia defines it as a term “...used almost exclusively to refer to any fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by conspirators of almost superhuman power and cunning." We have all heard of one conspiracy theory or another, perhaps the most famous and controversial recent theory is the one surrounding 9/11. The theory purports that the attacks of September 9, 2001 were an inside job, meaning the United States Government not only knew about the attacks but they were the ones who orchestrated it.

The Internet sensation film Zeitgeist (which I hate) helped to spread this theory and popularize it among the masses. Just type in the film’s name into Facebook and you will see hundreds if not thousands of groups devoted to spreading its truth. The theory and film try to show that 9/11 was an inside job by drawing upon ‘evidence’ (i.e. the buildings falling straight down as if having been rigged, etc). This method is the exact opposite of the scientific method. The scientific method starts out with a hypothesis and then sees whether or not the experiments fit the theory. Based on what their findings are, the hypothesis is either proven true or false, and a conclusion is drawn. Conspiracy theories on the contrary, start out with a conclusion (i.e. 9/11 as an inside job) and then seek out bits of factual data to support their conclusions. The 9/11 conspiracy theory is ridiculous. There are several conditions needed for this theory to be true:

i) bureaucratic organizations work 100% efficiently

ii) billions of dollars were spent and hundreds of thousands of people and corporations were employed to execute 9/11. None of whom ever got drunk at a bar one night and said to the guy next to them “Hey, I’ve got something to tell you…”

iii) the phenomena of political Islam in no way had anything to do with the attacks

It is crucial to note that perhaps the most astonishing fact about the 9/11 conspiracy is that it is wholly Americanized. What I mean is that the theory takes into consideration the U.S. government and its power, all the while ignoring the rise of political Islam (which is different from Islamic ‘fundamentalism’) as a social and political movement. So why do people buy into this theory if its more or less unfounded? The reason, I think, has to do with the function of belief.

Belief is a very powerful thing. Any form of ideology, whether religious or political, has the ability to provide a sense of certainty. Ideology is basically any system of ideas which provide meaning to our reality, for example science, religion, political outlooks, which all aid in explaining reality to us. Ideologies are psychologically necessary. It’s a myth to think one can be free of ideology for even that in-itself is a form of ideology! Are conspiracy theories ideologies? Yes, but the crucial thing to grasp is that some ideologies are more fashionable (i.e. religion or science) than others. The guy who thinks that the whole world is run by ten people who call themselves the La-Le-Lu-Li-Lo or The Patriots, sounds like he belongs in a video game. Yet the point is that he has a genuine held belief that this is the truth. So if conspiracy theories can be thought of as forms of ideology, does that mean that they have their own relative truth?

No. It doesn’t.

Most conspiracy theories tend to distort reality and grossly misrepresent society and culture. A film like Zeitgeist gained popularity not because it had any truth to it, but rather because it was able to seemingly combine religion, capitalism and 9/11 together into a related plot about how the world works. The issue with its analysis is that anyone who has ever taken an intro to political science or has any basic logical reasoning can figure out that what they espouse is utter nonsense. If what they do is nonsense, then why do so many people buy into it? Well I think one of the main reasons for this is the attraction to a theory that can weave together current events and make it somewhat coherent. Again, as an ideology, the film Zeitgeist apparently explains our whole reality and dispels and doubts we may have had, and there is something comforting about that. There is something comforting about not having to critically think about every single piece of information. That brings me to perhaps my most hated thing about conspiracy theories: they lack of critical thinking that goes into it. Take any conspiracy theory you like: Holocaust was staged, Moon landing was staged, 9/11, etc. They all seem to unravel the event or period in history they’re about right in front of your eyes and you do not even have to critically engage it. As soon as you start to consider their evidence you start to buy into their rubbish. Their motto is akin to something like: obey, don’t think! Next time you hear someone talking about 9/11 being an inside job, I hope you stop and think critically about what is being said instead of accepting it as truth.

It is Alain Badiou’s conjecture that, what he appropriately names The Communist Hypothesis, needs to be rethought for the twenty-first century. Badiou holds that during the closing decades of the 19th century, the eternal idea communism was hypothetical (i.e. simply meaning, the very notion of positing a society without class and without inequality). In the 20th century, however, things were different. For Badiou, the 20th century tried to implement communism as a social system, rather than trying to posit it. It is important to note that Badiou rightly rejects the failed attempts of the 20th century, and holds that even though there was merit in their effort, they were disastrous. We are not entering a moment in history where communism as an idea, needs to be posed yet again. That is to say, like with the 19th century, the 21st century needs to reformulate the how of trying to implement communism. This means something very specific, for Badiou, who writes:

“In many respects we are closer today to the questions of the 19th century than to the revolutionary history of the 20th. A wide variety of 19th-century phenomena are reappearing: vast zones of poverty, widening inequalities, politics dissolved into the ‘service of wealth’, the nihilism of large sections of the young, the servility of much of the intelligentsia; the cramped, besieged experimentalism of a few groups seeking ways to express the communist hypothesis . . . Which is no doubt why, as in the 19th century, it is not the victory of the hypothesis which is at stake today, but the conditions of its existence. This is our task, during the reactionary interlude that now prevails: through the combination of thought processes—always global, or universal, in character—and political experience, always local or singular, yet transmissible, to renew the existence of the communist hypothesis, in our consciousness and on the ground.”

When he concludes with “…to renew the existence of the communist hypothesis, in our consciousness and on the ground,” Badiou suggests that for those who still seek an alternative to global capitalism that is not founded on right-wing reactionary religious movements, the question of communism must be put on the table once more. But what does this rethinking of communism mean for revolution? Is the concept of an armed revolution something of the past, or can it be reformulated and rethought? It can be argued that given Badiou’s position on rethinking the how of communism, revolution as a final push to overthrow the system belongs to the 20th century, or in Badiou’s own language, it belongs to the second phase of the communist hypothesis.

I think it's safe to claim that Badiou’s position is more or less concerned with late capitalism, that is, capitalism as it exists in Europe and North America. For Badiou, the Third or underdeveloped world does not necessarily come into play when the notion of rethinking communism is at stake. To this, Badiou replies:

“Confronted with the artificial and murderous division of the world into two—a disjunction named by the very term, ‘the West’—we must affirm the existence of the single world right from the start, as axiom and principle. The simple phrase, ‘there is only one world’, is not an objective conclusion. It is performative: we are deciding that this is how it is for us. Faithful to this point, it is then a question of elucidating the consequences that follow from this simple declaration.”

Badiou’s courageous act is to reject the false division of ‘West’ and ‘East’ that is so redundantly advertised by the politically correct, proto-fascist Liberals and postmodern thinkers such as Butler and Laclau. Against them, Badiou declares a ‘single world’. For Badiou, differences among people, their cultures and views do exist, but this does not negate a single, universal world:

“The single world of living women and men may well have laws; what it cannot have is subjective or ‘cultural’ preconditions for existence within it—to demand that you have to be like everyone else. The single world is precisely the place where an unlimited set of differences exist. Philosophically, far from casting doubt on the unity of the world, these differences are its principle of existence.”

For his rejection of the politically correct mantra of the multicultural liberals, Badiou’s proposition is the only serious rally call to the defeated and exhausted Left. At a time when many Leftists have either changed their political views and assimilated into the system, or have joined the ranks of those who purport the Rainbow Coalition (i.e. identity politics of gays, African Americans and other minorities) thereby forgetting any anti-capitalist thinking, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek stand opposed. Even Hardt and Negri's misuse of Gilles Deleuze only serves as an interesting way to think about our postmodern capitalist world (i.e. immaterial labour, potential of liberation through technology, etc), yet it does nothing to properly rethink the eternal Idea of communism as a viable society, as an alternative to what we have here and now.

Badiou’s entire Oeuvre, then, is one concerned with revolution. The key is, for Badiou who calls the notion of revolution an Event, revolution occurs in different forms and in different fields: the political, the scientific, the artistic and the amorous. His entire philosophical project is concerned with the outburst of the event and the subjects which must have a fidelity towards said event. Badiou’s intervention into the Left is itself an event, it is simultaneously an event for philosophy and politics because it seeks to entirely rupture and rethink both fields. Also, as a subject to this event, my fidelity for Alain Badiou remains strong.

Badiou, Alain. The Communist Hypothesis. New Left Review 49 (2008). New Left Review. Jan. & Feb. 2008. Web. 12 Dec. 2009. <http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2705>

Comments

• January 8, 2010, Kevin writes: Borna, As you have stated -- "Even Hardt and Negri's misuse of Gilles Deleuze only serves as an interesting way to think about our postmodern capitalist world (i.e. immaterial labour, potential of liberation through technology, etc), yet it does nothing to properly rethink the eternal Idea of communism as a viable society, as an alternative to what we have here and now." The following condition(s) of a Revolution immediately abort the Event of its very happening. This all due in part to an activity/event of H&N 'immaterial labour'. We cannot simply lay out bond and exchange to the eternal idea of Communism, as a revival to our current capitalistic mode within the U.S (or any division of the world at that). And although we have witnessed the failed attempts and outcrys of a Communistic expression. Revolution above all rest with a delirious tongue, this being said we must work on the other side of time. That of which naturally disassociates itself with the image of history as the time-image itself.

"What a swamp the world could become without the call of socialism, the hope of socialism, and the 'danger' of socialism." -Mansoor Hekmat

What is going on today? The on-going global financial crisis signalled the fragility of liberal-democratic capitalism, not just in the West, but also on a world scale. Yet the mainstream consensus is that the social order will continue, that the crisis was merely a momentary hiccup that can be fixed and patched, that capitalism will go on. The question is what reform changes will be made to the global market to allow it to continue?

At the Marxism 2009 convention, Slavoj Žižek made the point that if there is anything we can learn from the on-going financial meltdown it is that capitalism as the way it has processed to exist up to this point cannot go on. Something needs to drastically change or else, according to Žižek, we will suddenly find ourselves in a society with new forms of ghetto slums, new social barriers and walls.

The central question, then, is what can be done? There are some who reject that we are on the road to disaster, those who claim that with reformist policies and regulations we can make society better, in short: a capitalism with a human face. To these one should make the point about the tremendous issues that liberal democratic capitalism faces: religious fundamentalism, ecological disaster, world hunger and poverty and so on. The point is that liberal democratic capitalism simply cannot account for these tendencies. What is the alternative, then? Can we not simply try to make the best of the situation, dealing with economic crisis after crisis, while we live relatively happy lives?

One is reminded here of the line by Winston Churchill, who once said of liberal democracy that it is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried (i.e. socialism, fascism). Yet who still believes in genuine democracy today? The last Canadian federal election had the lowest turnout in Canadian history, a startling 59.1%. What is this, if not an indication of the lack of belief in the democratic process?

Now, many will be quick to bring up the example of the Obama victory, where even apathetic youth turned out to vote for the first black President. Certainly, there must be some democratic force here? The simple answer is: yes. The Obama victory was not only historic in terms of anti-racist struggle and black history in America, but also for its attempt to restore faith and hope to millions of Americans that had lost assurance.

The cold truth is that Obama, being one man working within the framework of the already established capitalist system, cannot accomplish all that he himself has become a symbol of: freedom and equality. This is the realization that is it in fact the inherently flawed social order itself (capitalism) which must be altered.

In his latest book on politics, Žižek states in the introduction “Critical Leftists have hitherto only succeeded in soiling those in power, whereas the real point is to castrate them…" This is aimed, of course at the intellectual scene of the 80s and 90s, where the Left was dominated by post-structuralist and post-modernist forms of thinking.

This is perhaps best exhibited by the multi-cultural political correctness that has plagued the liberal and Left intellectual scene for the past twenty years. While their goal is admirable (i.e. respect for various cultures and identities), their method of employment is not. Companies, Universities and other institutions take up sensitivity training programs and initiatives in order to create a more equitable work environment. Equality is replaced by toleration. That is, I do not need to think of you as my equal, but rather I sure simply tolerate the differences I see between you and myself, between your culture and mine and so on. Žižek’s criticism of this is that it is not radical enough, it does not take capitalism by the balls, so to speak.

Communism must be put back on the table as the only viable alternative to modern day capitalism. I am not advocating violent revolution, I am simply saying, along with Žižek and Badiou, that as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, we have witnessed the death of capitalism both ideologically and economically (the financial crisis was a shocking reminder that the system is inherently flawed). For this reason, a fidelity to the Idea of communism, an idea which embodies equality, prosperity and liberty in the strictest sense, must be kept.

The 20th century was witness to the first attempt at realizing actual communism in the form of the party-State (Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc), we now know that this attempt failed, and while it was a valiant try, we cannot repeat its mistakes. So, we are in need to positing the communist hypothesis yet again. For, in the words of Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Žižek, Slavoj. "What does it mean to be a revolutionary today?" Speech. Marxism 2009. London. 8 Nov. 2009. Youtube. 6 July 2009. Web. 8 Nov. 2009.

Žižek, Slavoj. First as Tragedy, Then As Farce. New York: Verso, 2009. pp. 7

See the Wikipedia article found here

Comments

• November 17, 2009, Johnnyman writes: What do we make of the fact communist sympathy and working class agitation has appeared to be (almost ridiculously) low during this recession? It seems that the most common political reactions have been calls for regulated capitalism--people seem less interested in actually overhauling things than every before. I can never help feeling that communism is an old, dead idea that isn't relevant to the 21st century. The way things are going, it seems like everything's just going to accelerate into some kind of hyper-capitalism where the economy is sustained by a small mechanized workforce exploited by a small elite, and the rest of us just leech off the refuse. I did, however, pull that theory out of my ass in the last 5 minutes, so I could be wrong.
• November 17, 2009, B-Rad writes: Communist sympathy is certainly low amongst the mainstream media and the majority of the populace effected by said media. But the issue is then what we mean by the term 'communism'. If you're referring to the Soviet Union and the experiences of the 20th century, then that is separate from the idea of communism itself. If we take the experiences of China and Russia, then I myself do not want to see that repeated again, and as do many people. It's interesting that you think communism is a dead, old idea. Coming from a philosophy background, I can tell you that ideas never die off. Even the most backward, absurd ideas are still 'alive' in discourses. Now, 'the way things are going' doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of communism is irrelevant. As Zizek point out, if anything, our way of life cannot sustain the 'way things are going'. We will soon find ourselves is a form of society that is best portrayed in the movie 'Children of Men'. The very notion of communism, as the human strive for social equality in its entirety is something which dates back to Plato. So long as there is social and economic antagonisms, the idea of a classless and prosperous society will never fade. I recommend looking into Zizek's short book, cited below if you're interested.

i.    Frankenstein as God vs. Humanity

The first is the God/human parallel. This rather obvious parallel is that between Victor and God on the one hand, and the Frankenstein’s creature and Adam on the Other. There is tonnes of literature devoted to the analysis of this parallel. In the novel, the creature objects to his creator for having given him life (i.e. Adam/man’s objection to God). Victor, like God, has the power to give life, yet this power has horrifying consequences. The creature, having figured out that he is hideous and different than humans, curses Victor for having to live. Let’s think about this for a moment. If a God does exist, and he/she/it created life on earth, is he/she/it not responsible for human life (i.e. Adam and Eve)? The issue is, humanity never asked to live in the first place. This is the creature’s objection to Victor. Why did you give me life and the leave me? Why was I created only to suffer and feel pain? The monster is confronted with these questions, and in his rage, becomes a villainous murderer, much like the corruption of humanity in objection of God. Yet this analysis and form of interpretation is rather cliché and has been exhausted.

ii.    Frankenstein as the confrontation of the other

More recently, the trendy interpretation is that of the confrontation of the other, in Shelley’s Frankenstein. Thanks to the Politically Correct trend in the 80s and 90s, Frankenstein’s monster can now be thought of as the social other (the being that is different from me/us). Simply put, Victor is human and the creature he unleashes on humanity, is, well, not. The creature is an abomination, a monster, or as Shelley puts it: a ‘wretch.’ The monster is the other, and as such symbolizes any and all forms of otherness or ‘othering’ (i.e. foreigners, immigrants, women, gays, lesbians, and any other minority group). Many commentators have pointed out that the way in which Victor reacts to the creature, is the common way of ‘othering.’ To put it more simply, Victor sees the creature as a hideous monster that needs to be destroyed, nothing more, nothing less. The creature becomes monstrosity embodied. Now, the point of this analysis is to show the fault of Victor. If only Victor could sympathize with the creature, understand him, there would be no conflict! This plea stems from the politically correct need for understanding, respect and tolerance. Victor should tolerate the differences between himself (humanity) and the creature (other), the differences should be understood, not condemned. In the novel, Shelley gives voice to the creature. In a radical move promoting of freedom of speech Shelley gives us the perspective of the creature, Victor hears the monster’s/other’s tale.

The only thing I have to add to the ‘Frankenstein as the confrontation of the other,’ is that those who use it to try to promote a politics of tolerance and cultural respect, fail to grasp the main point that Shelley makes. This interpretation, like the one before it (God/humanity), pins Victor against the creature via Otherness. This is the cornerstone of the politics of tolerance. We must understand, respect and tolerate those who we deem as Other, as different. What they stress is difference, and an affirmation of differences between people’s cultures, religions, traditions, etc. What the overlook is the fact that they are dealing with people. Instead of focusing on what makes us different from each other (and in turn, maintaining the act of othering, and the notion of the other), we should stress what makes us the Same. Which brings me to my own interpretation.

iii.     Frankenstein as embodiment of Sameness

The shift in perspective from an emphasis on difference to the same gives us a much more compelling read of Frankenstein. While in the earlier interpretation, Frankenstein’s creature was seen as the radical embodiment of the other (and thus a token example of how a politics of correctness operates), in this focus on the Same we get something else. What do we mean when we say Victor and the creature are the same? It is simply that the two characters have more in common than the previous two interpretations let on. Both Victor and the creature have human attributes: ability to think, feel, desire, and perhaps the most human characteristic of all, self-consciousness. Both Victor and the creature have a degree of self-awareness that is usually reserved for human beings; on this account they have a basic level of sameness. Now an immediate reproach would be that such a basic level of similarity is trivial and does not refute the previous interpretations mentioned above. It may seem trivial, but I maintain that it is crucial. What makes us human is ultimately these attributes, we feel emotion, we have desires, dreams and ambitions, we think, and perhaps most importantly we question our own existence. Does the creature not possess all of these characteristics? Can we not say, then, that the creature is as much human as Victor? Let’s see what happens to the previous forms of interpretation if we keep the Sameness element in mind. What was before seen as a parallel between Victor/God and the monster/Adam now becomes a parallel between Victor/monster as both having a creator (i.e. God/Victor). That is, Victor Frankenstein’s creator is God (whether or not a actually God exists is irrelevant), and the creature’s creator is Victor. They are both mortal beings that were given life without their approval. The second interpretation (i.e. as a confrontation with the Other) becomes more interesting. While beforehand the creature (i.e. as the Other) was seen as something to be tolerated because of the differences, is now seen as something to be accepted. We can see this in the novel because there the monster horrifies Victor, even though Shelley’s point is that the real monster is ultimately Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The common view is that Victor is actually the real embodiment of monstrosity because he uses science to create life, overstepping the boundary between mortality and playing God. However, what does it mean if we can say that in one aspect, the creature is monstrous because he commits murder, yet in another sense Victor is the monster because he plays God? Can we not say that both Victor and the creature that he creates have the capacity for monstrosity? The ‘Sameness’ they both share is not only human attributes, but also the ability to dark places within themselves. Also, remember that in the novel, the creature himself realizes that he is different. And thus he feels oppressed, labeled and so on. In a strange way, the creature sees humanity as something other than himself (it is for this reason that the creature asks Victor to creates a partner for him, an ‘Eve’ to his ‘Adam’). So, even though Victor sees the creature as Other, the point is that the creature sees Victor as well. Both see the other as Other. So what does this sameness teach us in regards to the liberal politics of tolerance? Namely that we move from an emphasis on difference to an emphasis of the same and in doing so, see that the move of Othering is reciprocal. Or to put it another way, the act of Othering is universal. Nietzsche summed up their point nicely: “And when you look long enough into an abyss, the abyss also looks at you.” The point being, we may see the Other as Other, but if we look long enough, we realize that they also see us as Other. What we should do is stop stating at each other and acknowledge the fact that we are gawking at one another, that is, we should affirm the sameness in the situation and our commonalities. And who said Romantic literature is a thing of the past?

Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I have been a huge Joss Whedon fan. Whedon’s witty dialogue got me hooked on Buffy and Angel, Firefly had space cowboys (enough said) and, well, now Dollhouse is just badass. Yet, throughout his entire corpus, Whedon is dealing with concrete philosophical and existential questions. Following a Sartrean line of existentialism, Whedon explores the themes of free radical choice, responsibility and meaning. In his previous works, these ideas were more subtle and implicit (in Buffy and Angel for example), yet in his newest television show, Dollhouse, Whedon deals with these issue explicitly, it stares you right in the face.

For those of you who don’t know about Dollhouse, it’s about this secret organization which rents out ‘dolls’ or ‘actives’, people who are programmed with different personalities to suit the needs of clients. The dolls are wiped after every job, having their imprints totally erased, leaving them with very limited consciousness. Right off the bat, the very notion that technology will develop in such a way as to be able to program people with imprinted fake personalities, memories and feelings is terrifying. It’s commonly thought that what makes each human individual unique is our subjective experiences which construct our identity. These experiences (i.e. memories of childhood, the people we meet, our friends, relatives, our first kiss, what we masturbate to, etc.) make up who we are. In Dollhouse, Whedon takes these authentic, subjective experiences away from the ‘dolls’ and imprints them with fake ones. The scary part of the show is that the dolls/actives, when imprinted with fake personalities, memories and feelings, are not able to tell that these experiences are computer generates and inauthentic. That is, for the dolls in Dollhouse, their imprints are as real as your childhood or my sense of humour. They are ‘fake’ but they do not know it. But then the question becomes: what distinguishes fake from real? Have you ever had a memory flashback only to be unable to decide whether it was an authentic memory or something you dreamed? I know I have. Who’s to say that our memories are real or not? We cannot empirically prove that they are/were real. For all we know, they could have been imprinted into our consciousness so that we think they are real. This is nothing new: the concept was explored in Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica (to list two of my other favourite science fictions).

What sets apart Whedon’s Dollhouse from Blade Runner or Battlestar is that Whedon takes the question of authenticity and inauthenticity to the next level by having the dolls attain self-consciousness when not imprinted with a computer generated personality. In Blade Runner, the replicants are androids with imprinted memories, unable to tell whether or not they are actually human or a replicant. In Dollhouse however, the actives start to piece together knowledge and experience when they are not imprinted with any personality. Echo (played by Eliza Dushku) starts to develop a more concrete awareness of the Dollhouse, its staff and the general issues. When the actives are imprinted with a personality, they take on a new name, history, experience, etc. However, when they are devoid of their imprint, the actives remain docile, almost childlike. The emergence of a dialectically developing self-consciousness in the character of Echo is Whedon’s brilliance, for it signifies that even though something as unique and authentic as our personalities can be imprinted and erased, there nevertheless remains some aspect of ‘us’ (human nature?) which is able to grow. This growing aspect in the character of Echo eventually leads to the creation of a fully developed consciousness and personality. In short, Echo becomes a person unto her own; she attains her own identity. This creation of identity, on Whedon’s part, is what sets him apart from Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner), and Glen A. Larson and Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar).

Dollhouse is just starting its second season, and it will be interesting to see how these themes will develop and grow.

Comments

• September 23, 2009, Devon Wong writes: I'm glad I'm not the only Whedon/BSG/Blade Runner fan out there. I don't suppose it would be too bold to venture to say that Echo's dialectically developed sense of self is Whedon dancing around the idea of the human soul, which is also different from a lot of other sf in that Whedon doesn't make the ontological assumption that human brains are 'just' like computers, something sf does a lot mainly because most sf writers are science geeks turned writers. Non-materialist sf is relatively rare in the mainstream and must be cherished when it comes along. That said, have you seen the unaired 13th episode and the post-apocalyptic spin Whedon's putting on Dollhouse? If not, I'd highly recommend downloading it.
• September 25, 2009, B-Rad writes: Thanks for your comment. Yes I own the Season 1 DVD (huge fan and all). Your point about the material aspect within science fiction is pretty much true. And its interesting that you mention dialectics, because it could easily be argued that Echo's development of self-consciousness is a very Hegelian one (in fact it implicitly is). I'm not too sure I would agree with the notion of a 'soul', but Whedon does essentially believe that there remains something 'essential' (for a lack of a better word) about 'us' (i.e. what makes up our identity/personhood). These themes of course go back to Romanticism and the nature of humanity. I'm going to explore this theme again, in next month's issue. This time using Frankenstein!
• September 27, 2009, Devon Wong writes: Yes, something more essential is probably a better way to put it. A secularized notion of the soul is, I think, what I was trying to get at. And I'm looking forward to next month's issue.
• October 7, 2009, Tall Paul writes: Borna, you rock my life for writing an article on Dollhouse and Whedon!! Even though the show has been getting some pretty bad ratings, I'm hoping people come to their senses and start watching. Though the ratings could be caused by a terrible time slot. I remember Las Vegas (which I loved!) getting cancelled because it was stuck on Friday nights which killed it's ratings. I will pray to the Limes that Dollhouse doesn't hold the same fate.

The terms 'elitism' and 'elitist' are thrown around a lot these days. Phrases such as: “That’s so elitist!” are a charge many (including myself) use to critique others, but what do these mean exactly? What is elitism? In order to properly grasp the meaning behind the use of the term, we must first define elitism. According to dictionary.com, elitism is: “The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favoured treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.” Given the definition provided above, the usual meaning behind the phrase “that’s so elitist of you” usually has a negative connotation. If someone calls you an elitist, they are claiming that you hold yourself in a higher regard or position than others. Now anyone who has been called an elitist (as I have) will know that they do not consider themselves as elitist at all. Now, let me clarify something: of course there are elitists out there; there are pretentious people who do indeed regard themselves as better than others based usually on a false perception of themselves (i.e. a higher intellect comes to mind).

Elitism as a cop-out

The issue with the elitism charge is that it often serves as a cop-out. Instead of adequately dealing with an argument or a position, instead of engaging with the content and establishing a rigorous critique, people opt for the charge of elitism because it is convenient. It nullifies them from actively engaging with the perspective or person they find elitist. This aspect has very much to do with the nature of critique itself: when critiquing a film, or a piece of music, or a perspective, the more knowledge you have about the particular thing you are critiquing, the stronger the criticism will be. By labeling something or someone as elitist, the critique becomes very weak if you don’t give any explanation as to why it is elitist. Gilles Deleuze was well aware of the limits of negative critique and how easy it was for people to throw around the term elitism. For Deleuze, critique must first and foremost be a positive evaluation, rather than a criticism as such. You must first properly engage and deal with the subject at hand, understand it within its own plateau—fully—rather than generating a quick, dismissive critique that is often premature.

According to Deleuze, in order to appropriately evaluate something, you must first affirm it. Let’s use mainstream music as an example: it has become somewhat of a cultural cliché nowadays to dislike mainstream music. Indie-artsy kinds who wear their younger sister’s jeans and only buy clothes from Value Village have taught us that anything mainstream is the devil reincarnate when it comes to music. But here’s the catch: What if a band/musician starts out independent and starving, and then makes it big? The now exhausted reply is that they have ‘sold out’. Perhaps the greatest musician to ever walk the path of selling out is none other than the brilliant Bob Dylan. Dylan started out as a dirt-poor artist in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 60’s with nothing but his acoustic guitar and his voice—that is until he ‘sold out’. The thing most people who charge Dylan with selling out miss is that his music and lyrics were and still are brilliant. Again, yes, some artists do actually sell out and their music is never the same, but we must not forget that the mainstream music bashing has become a cliché which, like the charge of elitism, is used as a cop-out. Instead of actually constructing a concrete argument as to why and how Dylan sold out, the position is used to dismiss his ‘mainstream’ music as unworthy altogether.

Nature of Critique in our ‘post-pomo era’

So where does this leave us with elitism? I claim that labeling something as elitist (i.e. music, film, perspective, etc) is not only a cop-out from actively dealing with the subject matter, but that it has now become something of a cultural cliché. During his two-year presidential campaign, Barrack Obama was labeled an elitist. Whether or not this was just a ploy by the media to distract American voters from dealing with the real issues of health care and the economy is irrelevant; the point is that the term elitist/elitism, which was once used to single out the upper class elite, has now become so integrated within the (post-)modern capitalist culture that it is reproduced and disseminated by even the media. What does all of this mean? Well, I think that elitism is still a suitable form of critique if used properly and if the person making the charge fully engages and deals with the subject matter he/she finds elitist. Instead of quickly dismissing a new piece of music, or a perspective as elitist, take the time to understand it, deal with it fully, properly. Then and only then, if the subject matter/person still comes off as elitist, you will have evidence to back up your claim. As Deleuze puts it, you must first affirm the positive aspect(s) within any art, literature and philosophy before you can evaluate it. Evaluate, not critique.

Oh, one more thing. If the readers of this article think I am an elitist, I admit it. That’s right. I admit that I can come off as a bit of an elitist when it comes to certain subjects: music, video games, art, film and theory, just to name a few. But this doesn’t let you off the hook. I encourage you to take the time to understand my position of these subjects before dismissing me as an elitist!

What's In A Name?

Why do we label things? Name things? The simple and obvious answer to this is that we, as intelligent beings, need to categorize and name objects, people, places, ideas—in short our whole world—in order to function. Labels aid in our daily functioning, so to speak, yet, how does meaning function in relation to labels? Usually, when we label something—say a genre of music—we do so in order to convey meaning, to communicate an idea. But can the word, that is, the label actually relate directly to the idea or concept? Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s account of how this relationship works comes in handy here. Saussure noted that the sign is made up of two parts the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the actual word that relates to the signified (i.e. the concept or idea).

A simple example would be the word “tree” (i.e. signifier) and image of the actual material tree we get when we hear the word “tree” (i.e. signified). This seems rather straightforward; except the problem is that the image the signifier evokes (i.e. the signified) is never fully connected to the word or signifier. That is, when people read/hear the word “tree” the image that is immediately conveyed by reading/hearing that word will be different from person to person. What this means is that while the signifier is the same (i.e. the word “tree”) what it signifies, the image that it evokes, is not consistent. Ask five people to draw a tree, and each person will draw a different kind of tree.

Photo/Matthew Filipowich

So what does this amount to? According to Saussure, this means that there is no concrete reason why a sign should directly link up to a concept. The signified is only conceptual, that is, the image, which is evoked by the word “tree”, is purely conceptual because we humans think of it. For this reason, Saussure thinks that the signifier/signified relation between the word and the concept is arbitrary. Labels, then, are subject to change and alteration. A perfect example of this is music genres. Why is it that many musicians today don’t like to be pinned down and labeled as x, y or z? Despite their attempts to defy genres and labels, we find a way to categorize them regardless—the problem is we can’t seem to agree on a definite label when it comes to music. Let’s take homegrown sensation Alexisonfire as an example. Are they considered metal? Thrash? Punk? Hardcore? Post-hardcore/punk/metal/screamo/emo? You get the point. Alexisonfire has been called all of these and then some, and fans have argued endlessly for or against all of them. Die hard fans seem to get physically upset over—what seems to them—a mislabel, but the point is that it is completely arbitrary. Does it even matter what we end up calling them? Does the label/genre take anything away from the music? The inability to accurately pin down a particular band is evidence enough of the arbitrariness of labels and names. The meaning of concepts/ideas always manages to escape the labels we give them. Ideas are never fully pinned down solely by labeling and naming them. The expression: “Love is just a word, it’s the meaning behind it that counts,” sums up my point.

At this point you might be saying to yourself: “But wait, Borna, we need to label and categorize things.” And you are right. Despite the arbitrariness of labels on a theoretical level, they do play a functional role in daily human practice. Saussure maintains that it is only through the consistency of the sign and concept that communication through language is possible. What we can take away from this is not to get too hung up on labels and names, especially when it comes to music genres. It’s important not to get carried away with labels because we tend to forget the most important thing, the music itself.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be [Insert Childhood Fantasy Here]

“Man’s desire is the Other’s desire.” - Jacques Lacan

What is the object of your desire? Is it material wealth? Fame? Everlasting, unconditional and eternal love? Well, regardless of what you desire, have you ever wondered how you desire? That is, how do we know what we desire?

“Man’s desire is the Other’s desire.” These words belong to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who claims that while we may think we know what we desire, the object of our desire—what we desire—is not our own, it belongs to the Other. For Lacan, our actual desire is to have our desires recognized by others. That is to say, while we may actually believe that what we desire is to look a certain way (i.e. thick black glasses, thick beard, indie clothes...), we only desire this look because it well get us recognized by others. The classical question of “What do I desire?” now becomes: “What does the Other want from me?” So whatever our desires actually are (i.e. a certain type/look we want, the foods we eat, the kind of music we listen to, etc), we only actually desire them in order to be recognized by the Other. But who is this ‘Other’, exactly? Lacan maintains that the Other (or the big Other) is essentially no one. The big Other does not actually exist, it isn’t any real person in particular— however it only exists psychically to serve our desiring function.

Allow me to elaborate: according to Lacan, the object of our desire is to be recognized by others. For this reason, what we actually do desire (types of clothes, music, etc), we only do so as long as it gets us recognized by others. However, it doesn’t matter if the Other(s) are real, actual people, for Lacan it is enough for us to merely assume that the Other exists. Here’s an example: let’s say I want to get my eyebrow pierced. According to Lacan, my desire to get an eyebrow ring is only the object of my desire insofar as it will get me acknowledged by others. So, I want to get my eyebrow pierced not because I think it’s cool, but rather that it will make me more attractive to a certain kind of person. The catch is that the person I want to be recognized by does not actually exist—it is the big Other— but it functions as the Other in relation to our desire regardless.

The recognition aspect is a cultural phenomenon. Our culture perpetually creates and promotes images through the media (T.V., Internet, movies, etc). We see these images as being desired by others (i.e. the image of Brad Pitt as embodying male beauty and consequently defining what a sexy man should look like). Or what constitutes as sexual femininity is defined by the culturally produced image of, say, Scarlett Johansson in magazines, etc. So, when we try to emulate the particular look/image we see being produced through our culture, we only do so because we witness those images as being recognized and desired by others (i.e. both Brad Pitt and Scarlett Johansson are considered sex symbols, etc). This works with any other cultural image—even the indie hipster scene kid who wears his little sister’s tight jeans and has a bang hair swipe is embodying a particular image only because it will get him recognized by a certain group of the Other. So, for Lacan, every single person is adhering to a cultural image, their desires belonging to the Other’s as they strive to be acknowledged and recognized. It’s important not to place any value judgments here. Whether you buy Lacan’s conjecture or not, it isn’t a good or bad, right or wrong. It is simply how Lacan accounts for human desire on a social level. I, myself, am trying to embody a particular image—i.e. intellectual 20-something that thinks he can write anything theoretically, etc— but I simply accept it. The question is, do you?

Comments

• June 15, 2009, Matthew Filipowich - Fridge writes: [...] I took 10 photos and moved the flash around the fridge behind different items of food. (my family doesn’t actually label everything in our fridge, but more on that on monday the 15th). Update: an article in this month’s Steel Bananas was about why humans need to label things. I staged this photo to go with it. Read the article here. [...]

Hamlet is brilliant, pure and simple. Writing aesthetic and pacing aside, the themes and ideas explored throughout the play are perhaps even more relevant to us now than they were in 1601. The play can be characterized as the first existential play, which takes the human condition into account. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex can be read as existential, however it does not employ the deep analysis of the protagonist as Shakespeare does in Hamlet. The character of Hamlet is multi-faceted, complex, contradictory, and dare I paraphrase Nietzsche: human, all too human.

Hamlet, aside from being in an existential crisis throughout the play, is a becoming. What do I mean by this? The character of Hamlet is always in flux, always in the process of realization, always in the process of becoming-Hamlet and the brilliance of Shakespeare’s play is that Hamlet never actualizes his full potential - he never fully becomes the Hamlet, he is always in the state of becoming. It is no coincidence that Hamlet dies at the end of the play, that is the only suitable fate for such a complex character in such an existential crisis. Hamlet must either realize his potential at the end (which would result in a somewhat boring and happy ending) or he dies while still in the process of becoming. This is why the play is so tragic. Hamlet dies without every realizing his full potential, without finishing the process of becoming.

For this reason in order to fully understand the character of Hamlet, it is necessary to embody him (i.e. act out the part). A literary analysis will only go as far as the words, but it misses the subtext, the underlying meaning that can only be obtained through a staging. There is a whole other world of meaning, a whole other plateau present in the play that can only be accessed through its realization on the stage. To fully try to grasp the complexity of Hamlet as a process of becoming, the character must be embodied and actualized on stage (or film). That is, Hamlet must first breathe and live before he can die. Let me us a very concrete example to illustrate what I mean by all this: Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ monologue. From a literary standpoint and as it is written in the play, Hamlet is merely contemplating death. From a staging perspective, however, the actor must make a choice: either Hamlet is truly melancholy and is contemplating suicide, or he is aware that Claudius and Polonius are lurking in the shadows listening to him. In the case of the former, this does nothing to change the trajectory of Hamlet’s becoming, it is the same interpretation as that of a literary analysis. The latter, however, alters the trajectory. If Hamlet is aware that both Polonius and Claudius are listening to his monologue, then Hamlet is merely playing a part, embracing his role as melancholy; in short, he is wearing the mask of Hamlet as someone with angst. The essential thing to note is that both potential outcomes are equally true and they both occur simultaneously but on different planes, realizing slightly different becomings. They are, as Deleuze put it, co-existing incompossible presents; both possibilities are distinct, yet indiscernible. The actor’s choice will ultimately change the process of the character’s becoming. Every actor who has ever played Hamlet has played him differently. Each actor playing Hamlet tackles the process of Hamlet becoming who he could have been. Each time the actor performs the scene, it is a repetition of the same play with the same characters, yet in its very repetition, it is somehow different. The difference is in the repetition.

This is the whole point of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and it is one that will never come to an end. Each time an actor takes on the role of Hamlet, he takes on the process of Hamlet’s becoming-Hamlet (i.e. realizing the ‘Hamlet’ that would have been actualized). To put it more philosophically, in Deleuzian terms, every possible way that the character of Hamlet can be actualized on stage already exists in another plane (or plateau). All the various ways in which Hamlet can deliver the infamous “To be or not to be” is already ‘mapped out’ within the virtual. All these potentials are what Deleuze calls BwOs, or body without organs. For Deleuze then, each actor that plays Hamlet needs to “make oneself a body without organs” (BwO), that is, to experiment with the various possibilities that the character of Hamlet may embrace his becoming-Hamlet. The way in which the actor makes his choices, delivers the lines of Shakespeare, etc are what Deleuze calls activating the virtual potentials by bringing them into the actual and ‘actualizing them’. Through taking on the process of embodying the character of Hamlet, the actor is forced to become Hamlet through conjunctions with other BwOs (i.e. line delivery, emotion, acting choices, etc). This is a becoming. Hamlet is always in this process, every time an actor takes on the role, the becoming of Hamlet will be different, but it will be a becoming nonetheless.

Comments

• April 15, 2009, Colin Fallowfield writes: Quite an apt, albeit brief, analysis of this canonical work. Borna, you have touched on a topic of great personal importance to me here, being the reading of drama as literature. Of course, one can mine a stage- or screen-play for any inherent and extent meanings prescribed therein, but one must remember that these works are not meant to be read as literature; they are meant to be staged. The text itself is not fully realized until a director, designers and performers have fully realized a certain vision of it. Of course each interpretation will be different, but it is in these differences that the true meaning as found: that the theatre is a living, breathing art form that transcends the written words and must necessarily exist in time and space. It is this immediate theatre that truly stirs the soul and gives life to the seemingly blank pages that one faces down in so many institutions. Well done, sir. For more on topics discussed above, see Peter Brooks' 'The Empty Space'
• April 15, 2009, B-Rad writes: Yeah man, This is something Marshall and myself have been talking about on and off since 2nd year. Glad you liked it and welcome to SB!

Got your attention, didn’t it? Good. Let me elaborate.

As a fourth-year undergraduate University student in North America (Canada to be specific), I have had my share of ‘Sensitivity training’ lectures for a part-time job at a Residence on campus, ‘Anti-Oppression training’ for Orientation Week, and so on, a service provided by my institution (which will remain anonymous). All of these training sessions and lectures all basically convey the same message: You must be politically correct!  We have all heard this term before. It refers to “…language, ideas, policies, or behaviour seen as seeking to minimize offense to gender, racial, cultural, disabled, aged or other identity groups.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness)

Ah, yes. The notion that somehow through training, lectures and power-point presentations we can regulate and control, Nay! that we can police people. How liberating.

Why is it that for Western liberal multiculturalists, the issues of racism, sexism, class inequality, exploitation, etc are no longer about human emancipation or struggle, but about cultural difference and toleration? It is because they all undoubtedly accept the existing socioeconomic system as the best social order. Francis Fukuyama claimed the End of History at the fall of the Soviet Union, meaning that the formula to the best possible society was no longer a race between liberal democratic Western Capitalism and ideal socialism with a human face, but with the ‘triumph’ of capitalism, it had the formula. Effectively all the liberal multiculturalists seek to do is to include all marginalized minority groups into the bosom of liberal democratic capitalism. With the acceptance of the current system, they aim to create capitalism with ‘a human face’ i.e. one that is accepting, tolerant of all cultures, etc. They do this by emphasizing difference amongst peoples rather than our commonalities. The idea is simple, in order to establish harmony amongst various groups of people with different ethnic, religious, political, racial, etc backgrounds we must, as a society, ensure that offense is limited. It is not sufficient to purport that everyone is equal, because that is not the case (racism and sexism still exist, etc) and thus the only way to overcome these barriers is to emphasize the differences amongst us. That is, it is only by recognizing the differences within race, gender, religion, and ethnicity that a multicultural society can eventually live harmoniously. It is not about achieving equality amongst human beings, rather it is about learning to tolerate the Other and recognize the Other’s cultural identity. There are problems with this, both theoretically and practically.

Theoretical problems. It becomes politically incorrect for an individual who does not belong to a minority category to empathize with said group (i.e. it is politically incorrect for me to fight for women’s rights, when I am of the opposite sex), and each colour of the rainbow so to speak, needs to fight for its recognition. People, human beings, are categorized and recognized by the Other according to a particular attribute. That is, instead of emphasizing the commonalities we all share despite what makes us different from one another, the liberal multiculturalist stresses only differentiating identifiers such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, culture and creed. All values and cultures must be respected and adhered to, regardless of what said values are. This sort of cultural relativism is inherently racist: it presupposes that an individual will automatically indentify with their culture, and must be recognized as such. But people are much more complex then that. What if I cannot be boxed in to any single, recognizable culture? What if I don’t like my culture? What if I just merely happen to have been born in the Middle East, but don’t necessarily ascribe to the assumed religion of that culture (i.e. Islam)? The multiculturalist simply generalizes people into assumed cultural, ethnic, religious categorizations. Another problem with demanding mutual respect for all cultures is that some cultural traditions and values are not worthy of respect. What if respect for all cultures regardless of values conflicts with human rights? Here’s an example: Take modern Evangelical Christianity in America, which considers gay men and lesbian women to be abominations merely because they ‘go against the word of god’. This is a specific religious tradition, and according to the multiculturalist ideology, must be respected and upheld. The paradox is that if we respect the religious idea that gays and lesbians are abominations, we infringe on the rights of gays and lesbians to merely exist and have equal recognition. The contradiction with ‘respecting all cultural values’ is that in a pluralist society with a plurality of values, more often then not, values will conflict with one another. It is the human individual who must be treated as equal and with respect, not their contingent values, religions, beliefs or cultures. Human equality is more crucial than cultural equality. What’s more instead of championing equality among all human beings regardless of their differences, the advocates of political correctness merely seek to reverse power roles. That is, those groups which have been historically oppressed in (Western liberal) society, are now to be given the status if authority and those who have historically been in power, must now be subjected. This post-colonial notion is plain racist. Again, it presupposes that just because you happen to appear as if you are from a minority group (i.e.colour of skin, religion, etc) then you immediate are from said group and thus identify yourself as a minority who has been oppressed. This assumption is fallacious and it generalizes people into categories. The multiculturalist position asserts that any criticism of other cultures, etc are immediately seen as politically incorrect and wrong because they are merely a product of  ‘Western notion of objective truth’ which does not necessarily hold for other cultures. The problem with Cultural Relativism of this kind is that it sees its own position as neutral/natural, and not a product of Western liberal Capitalism. Their advocating of tolerance also comes into conflict. The idea is to tolerate all cultures and backgrounds, yet again if a certain religious or cultural value does not return the favour and incites hatred instead the whole project of tolerance crumbles. Every value/perspective is contingent upon a specific culture except its own position except the liberal multiculturalist/relativist position which sees itself as ‘outside of culture’, and every cultural value religion and belief is to be tolerated, except intolerance and criticism.

Practical.  So why tolerance? As noted above this perspective presupposes that problems such as racism and sexism within our society can only be solved by way of tolerating the Other (race, sex, etc) and the way to go about advocating tolerance is to instill them in the minds of our growing youth. As stated earlier, I have been to many ‘Sensitivity training’ sessions and Anti-Oppression lectures where the acolytes of liberal multiculturalism try to instill the politics of recognition and tolerance onto unsuspecting students. What happened to secularism and not imposing your belief system onto others? Well, as we have seen, the multiculturalist does not see his/her own position as a belief system, but as the truth. We have a name for this kind of thinking, it is called ideology. Is not the liberal multiculturalist position very definition of ideology? That of asserting your own position as somehow the truth of the situation while all other positions are seen as either relative or not as true, and any objection to this truth is seen as incorrect. Political incorrectness is seen as any language, behaviour or notion which ‘gives offense to other cultures, etc’ but the problem is with the offense principle itself. How do we measure offense? How do we distinguish between what is offensive and not offensive? Sure, there are hate speech codes and such, but they are regularly abused by religious groups who consider any critique of their belief system as hate speech, so the notion of regulating language is very, very problematic. The answer to the offense principle is that there is no way to account for what actually offends some and not others. There is no way to predict what will be considered offensive because we cannot know what past experiences people have had that may make some things offensive. For example your haircut might offend me merely because my grandfather was beaten to death by someone with the same exact haircut. Does me being offended justify creating a policy to ensure my protection? Of course not. What’s more, trying to protect individuals from being offended is ridiculous. People have a right to be offended, it’s a natural part of life, it’s how we as human beings learn to develop and grow. The idea of a society where no one is offended, ever, rings of Huxley’s Brave New World and dystopia. Nevertheless, by way of lectures, training, and presentations and not to mention instituting certain ‘equity’ policies which prohibit certain liberties, the multiculturalist/relativists are trying to churn out more sensitive, tolerant students. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an admirable intention, but their practical implementation is skewed to say the least. Oh, and it’s not working. Take it form someone who has been through their attempts at indoctrination more than once, people see through it. The notion that you can instill your perspective onto others via power-point and expect everyone to adhere to it is something which negates critical thought. As a philosophy major, it is rather insulting to my intelligence when I am told that my perspective is wrong simply because it runs contrary to their politics. It is politically incorrect to even criticize political correctness, and during these presentations if you raise an objection they dismiss it as simply ‘wrong’. They advocate tolerance yet when a perspective is intolerant of their politics of tolerance, they do not tolerant it. Or to put it more poetically, they tolerate everything except intolerance. The only way for this politics of recognition to ensure that its agenda is furthered, is by having annual Sensitivity Training sessions, lectures and presentations where the ideology is yet again dogmatically instituted. It seems that the only way for them to stop political incorrect behaviour is to couple these ‘information sessions’ with a perpetual politically correct watchdog mentality. That is, those who take up the cause of pluralism and multiculturalism make it their personal goal to correct any forms of language, behaviour or act which is not considered politically correct. No matter what the occasion. In short, the only way to stop people from ever being politically incorrect is to employ Politically Correct Thought Police who will fight you teeth and nail if you so much as hint at flirting with politically incorrect jokes. I don’t know about you, but the idea of living in a pseudo-Orwellean/1984 world is rather disturbing. Yet, the best definition of ideology is perhaps found in Marx’s Capital: ‘They do not know it but they are doing it.’

Given all the problems outlined in this piece, I would just like to add that with the current global economic crisis, the Fukuyama notion of ‘End of history’ goes out the window. As our economies continue to plunge in what has been described as the worst crisis since the Great Depression, it becomes all the more evident that certain social change is necessary in order to avoid frequent economic instability. Everyone is now uniting to see through these difficult times, we are once again reminded of what struggles we all have in common-something which slaps the politics of recognition in the face. So what is to be done? At the least a rethinking of the current dominant Western liberal multiculturaist mindset is needed. If the politically correct programs currently in place in our institutions at the moment can be considered the ‘second wave’, it’s clear that like its counterparts (feminism, anti-racist movements, etc) that we need a third wave. We need to rethink the politics of recognition and perhaps opt for a more universal politics of social change.

Comments

• April 7, 2009, Tim writes: This is a really great article, and very well articulated.

The Toronto Transhumanist Association is an organization which strives to promote proactive thinking about the ethical nature of technology in relation to the future of humanity. Transhumanism essentially aims at bringing the findings of modern science and human beings together in hopes of transforming the ‘default’ human condition and transcending it. Let’s be clear here: it is exactly what it sounds like. Think of Blade Runner, Star Trek: TNG’s Borg, Frankenstein, Brave New World (Huxley), Final Fantasy VII, and the latest version of Battlestar Galactica. The transhumanist cultural movement is open to the idea of altering the human condition, but in a positive way. Things like biotechnology, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and life extension are just some of the key issues for which the group aims at raising awareness.

Frankenstein // 1831

There are objections to this idea, of course, most of which are dealt with in various art disciplines. While there are several criticisms that come with this idea of the ‘post-human’, all of them rest on a central presupposition: that there is something inherently fundamental to the human condition (whether it be natural or otherwise), and any attempts to alter our humanness, would problematize what it means to be human. There are serious ethical concerns that arise with the modification of humanity such as: What does it mean to be human? Or, to put it more philosophically: what do we define as human? Whatever we define as human and identify with as essential to the human condition will run the risk of being blurred or distorted if we alter ourselves using technology and science. So what constitutes a human being and a non-human being will become indiscernible.  That is, our humanity will cease to be unique the moment it changes. Mary Shelley’s ingenious novel Frankenstein has explored the question of what the transformed human being might turn into; where Frankenstein’s monster is dehumanized for the precise reason of being an abomination all the while exhibiting all the characteristics that make human beings unique (i.e. self-consciousness, emotion, capacity for abstract thought, etc). Not only will it be indiscernible to distinguish the human, but also perhaps the greater risk is that this indispensability will lead to objectifying the altered human as other (i.e. the monster in Frankenstein is treated as a monster even though he shares all the pros and cons of humanity with Victor Frankenstein). The Replicants in Blade Runner and the Human-Cylons in Battlestar Galactica share the status of objectified other along with the monster in Frankenstein, and these are merely some of the serious criticisms transhumanists must deal with. Genetic engineering and the prospect of successfully cloning human beings have raised the debate of the post-human with thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and Peter Sloterdijk, and the controversy continues. It’s crucial to note that the Toronto Transhumanist Association along with the Transhumanist phenomena as a whole think that the transition from human to post-human can be achieved by ethical means, yet there can be no guarantee of this. For now, finding reminders of the ethical debate in examples such as Frankenstein, Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactic will ensure that the question of post-humanity will remain in public discourse.

Comments

• February 15, 2009, Marshall writes: redefining the possibilities of being is equivalent to defining the purpose of being. ie. to serve the master/creator, be it an individual, organization, or government. being born with presupposed tasks and duties therefore IMHO let's not!

At first reading, any kind of substantial meaning seems impossible due to the nature and the particular use of language Kafka employs. The reader is not given any factual information about the meeting between the Greek hero and the sirens; there is no detailed description of the scenery, no explicit information about Odysseus is communicated to the reader. Kafka’s short story is a story in the sense that it mirrors the art of orally telling a story by not blatantly giving out information, which can be immediately processed, rather Kafka merely hints at what he actually means to say and it is up to the reader to do the work of making what first seemed excruciatingly unintelligible, intelligible. By withholding the intelligibility of the story from the reader, Kafka is able to layer on a particular kind of meaning and experience that can be only communicated through the telling of a story, the telling of an experience as opposed to factual information of an encounter. Instead of giving out all the information related to Odysseus and his encounter with the sirens (location, time, setting, etc), Kafka makes us work at extracting the meaning of his story which would not be possible if he had given a detailed explications about the encounter. That is, if Kafka had given us all there was to know about the meeting of the two parties (all the information and his meaning of it), we wouldn’t have to think about it because Kafka would have done all the thinking for us. It is only in story format, that Kafka can say what he feels necessary to say, and it is in this form of writing that we as readers are able to extract some form of meaning from the experience Odysseus has with the sirens. This is what Kafka wants the reader to do, he wants us to dig deep into the retelling of this mythical encounter and learn something from this experience, there is something in this encounter Odysseus has with the Sirens, which Kafka thinks is crucial to our understanding of the world and the self. But this crucial understanding is not given to us directly; we have to work for it. Such a task by the reader cannot be done if the material being read was immediately understandable and so it has to be problematic in intelligibility if it wants to evoke thoughtful exploration.

Another way in which Kafka’s short story is a form of storytelling is that he adds his own experience to the encounter of Odysseus and the Sirens. He adds an element of his own thinking at the very beginning of the short story, in one sentence, and the conclusion of the short story is also Kafka’s own take of the Odysseus/Sirens meeting. It is this, which gives the experience of reading his story a new twist; a new meaning that was not present in the original story of The Odyssey. By altering the way in which the story is told and by adding something new to it, Kafka out of his own experience, has turned the act of reading his short story into an experience of storytelling itself. By retelling the meeting between Odysseus and the sirens in an altered version of the story, Kafka forces the reader to think critically about the encounter and derive at some new meaning which did not exist in the original telling of Odysseus’ voyage. That is, the reader is only able to extract a new experience from this story because Kafka has altered it and provided a supplementary experience of his own to the original. It is in the act of extraction, that the reading of Kafka’s short story becomes an experience in itself. The reader extracts new meaning from the story by working it out and this is only possible because of its incomprehensibility.

It is because of the ability to repeat and reproduce old stories anew, that the reader of Kafka can add his or her own experience to Kafka’s reproduction of Odysseus and the Sirens, and thus make the continuation of this story possible throughout the ages. By layering on his own personal experience onto the story of Odysseus and the Sirens, Kafka directly allows this kind of layering of personal experience to take place within the reader. Kafka’s story is not immediately graspable in its meaning, and so he forces the reader to work at deriving something intelligible from it, and in doing so, the reader discovers a personal realization that is only obtainable through processing the story in this way. This experience of coming to some kind of realization is found when one takes the time to carefully read and analyze Kafka’s The Silence of the Sirens. In doing so, the reader adds another layer onto it, which then, in turn will provide a wider range of meaning that can be extracted and derived from the evolution of the story of Odysseus and the Sirens. That is, by working out and understanding Kafka’s applied meaning in his variation of the story, the reader can arrive at some new insight about the encounter Odysseus has with the Sirens and what that exactly means in relation to the reader’s life experience. This relation will differ from one reader to the next due to the fact that personal experiences vary in individuals and thus the retelling of Kafka’s version of Odysseus and the Sirens (with additional experience provided by the one who tells it) will fluctuate. Kafka’s story remains open to be worked upon and built upon, in a sense. In this way, the unintelligibility of Kafka’s short story ensures that the story itself will live on.

Franz Kafka’s short story, The Silence of the Sirens, appears unintelligible out of the necessity to communicate a kind of experience that is only transmissible through the telling of a story in the oral tradition. Kafka’s short story inhabits characteristics of the oral tradition of storytelling and it is only because of this that it is able to convey what it needs to communicate effectively. Kafka has to withhold our instantaneous understanding of his story, in order to ensure that we arrive at a very specific meaning, which he wishes us to grasp. It is only by unpacking Kafka’s metaphoric and parable like story that we are able to grasp the particular experience he intended for us. It is by making the unintelligible, intelligible that experience once again becomes permissible despite the setbacks of modernity.