Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Postscript: if we hold Frankfurt himself to that standard, can we
really say that his book has made the world a measurably less
bullshitty place? Lowering the bar, can we even say that *his readers*
have taken an oath to lead bullshit-free lives, lives I suspect would
resemble Jim Carrey's life in _Liar, Liar_? Isn't his book just an Andy
Rooney rant about politicians, postmodern jargonistas, and other
chronic offenders to Common Sense (whatever that is) disguised as
_Epistemology for Dummies_? (No, I haven't read the book. Yes, I saw
the movie.)
  

    <scribbled by mark-dery>
  

    <scribbled by mark-dery>
  

    
(wickett): Not in the least, I imagine. I'm an egg-eating rat gnawing
on the tails of Tyrant Lizards. Of course, I could console myself with
the reassuring belief that I'm Changing the World One Mind at a Time,
but would that be True, in the capital-T Frankfurt sense? I haven't the
faintest.
  

    
Believe me, nobody's changing the world. And nobody's changing minds,
not even their own.
  

    
(hi mark)
  

    
(loris): Paulina! How nice to hear. The gang really *is* all here.
  

    
(jonl): Tell it to Marx. Or MLK. Or Mahatma. 
  

    
Sort of my point: where is the contemporary Marx, MLK, or Gandhi? We
live in a context where it's unlikely that any one person will make a
difference in that same way. "It takes a village" or a collaborative,
probably always did.
  

    
Marx didn't "do" anything, the way the other two did. He was a
philosopher. 

Gandhi had oh, about a million helpers by the time he marched to the
sea. 

And MLK would have been the first to tell you he didn't act alone and
was only the convenient figurehead of a huge movement. 

Today's movement seems to have rejected figureheads. Very likely not a
bad idea. 
  

    
(jonl): It takes both, I think. Our age has made a fetish of the Wise
Crowd, inverting the late 19th century's fear of the mob. (I waffle on
about this binary opposition at the usual cigar-chewing length in _The
Pyrotechnic Insanitarium_.) The voguishness of the Gospel of the
Distributed Network, "leaderless resistance," smart mobs, wise crowds,
and other bottom-up/out-of-control paradigms notwithstanding, there
still seems to be a role for the lone visionary, or maybe just the
individual foolhardy enough to lead the charge, or motivated enough to
start shoveling, or brainy enough to hatch a Big Idea that spreads from
mind to mind.
  

    
Philosophers don't "do" anything? Thinking isn't doing? Marx's ideas
had no effect on the course of history? The fact that Gandhi was able
to mobilize the million and bring an empire to its knees argues against
the notion that we can be galvanized into action by an idea? MLK was
nothing more than a "convenient figurehead"? (My obsessive-compulsive
attention to detail impels me to point out that nowhere did I say MLK
or Gandhi acted alone. Which is relevant how, in any event?) The point
of debate, in high-school forensics-team terms, was: RESOLVED: No one
can change anyone's mind. I have no idea what "today's movement" is, or
for that matter how we know Martin Luther King was a mere "figurehead"
(an assertion that flies in the face of every historical account of
his role in the civil-rights movement). 

In other news, 100% More On-Topic, The New Yorker just promo'd my book
launch-cum-lecture this Wednesday. If you're in New York, come join
the madding crowd.

>>GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN: READINGS AND TALKS/ MARK DERY
 
The cultural critic Mark Dery marks the publication of his latest
book, “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-By Essays on American
Dread, American Dreams,” with a discussion of “invisible literatures,”
J. G. Ballard’s term for “scientific journals, technical manuals,
pharmaceutical company brochures, think-tank internal documents, PR
company position papers.” (300 Nevins St., Brooklyn. 718-222-8434. May
23 at 7.) 

May 23 7:00 p.m.

CABINET
300 Nevins St., Brooklyn
718 222 8434
cabinetmagazine.org/events/


Read more
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/readings/mark-dery-cabinet#ixzz1vWUhAzJh

Product placement at its most unimprovably brazen. Marx would be
appalled.
  

    
You need to read more about the civil rights movement, methinks. 
  

    
There is a constant historical tension of new media and those who
master and exploit the tools and technologies enhanced by it. So, today
we see the crowd and the single voice, collaboration and personal
branding. It all goes with the territory, and all needs to be
critiqued.
  

    
 >Our age has made a fetish of the Wise Crowd, 
 >inverting the late 19th century's fear of the mob.

That is a tidy, intriguing and quotable point.
  
  

    
In the shuffle, I contributed to the loss of my real point about
"changing minds," which goes deeper, I think, than we have gone. We
assume that we are wired for intention and can change minds, even the
world, but I think our impact is less than we imagine (though I don't
want to fall completely into a deterministic mindset). There are
complex forces at work, driving the eddies and currents of thought and
action within our lives. 
  

    
I'm not so much interested in changing minds per se.  Rather I'd like
to think about what we either take for granted in everyday life as a
starting point of social analysis or those symbols and meanings that
emerge from popular culture that express what are our major
preoccupations.  This is the area that I find most fruitful to explore
as cultural criticism.

The opposition here to "culture critics" is not hard to understand. 
Academics have abused the subject  by balkanizing it with "post,"
"anti," "neo," and "revisionist" positions into abstracted and rarefied
constructions that either lose the subject or eviscerate it. Popular
"media" culture critics have worse by rendering the subject impotent,
treating it as silly or irrelevant to most people.

But yet there are people who are worth reading. They are informed by
the classics and they actually follow a method.  I've learned to
approach all social phenomena as narrative as a starting point. 
Analysis then is examining how the writer, or the subject, or the
cultural product is "telling its story" and then how it fits those
insights into the social world.  

I've lost patience with all the new trends that try to diverge from
the classics and narrative analysis.  There are 2 guys who have helped
me develop a framework.  Clifford Geertz, the anthropologist looked at 
culture as an interlocking web of significance and meanings.  The guy
analyzed Balinese cockfights as the starting point to understanding
that culture. He turns it into a tour de force. Walter Benjamin, the
culture critic, looked at modern life as if it were film montage and he
looked at history as being social forms that an archeologist would
look at first in the present.  He was obsessed with shopping arcades in
Paris and by following their story, he uncovered how capitalism
transformed into the consumer society that dominates most of our
consciousness. All the rest is commentary for me.

I like your stuff Mark and as far as I'm concerned, it fits into those
criteria.  But you start to lose me when you do the equivalent of
stand-up or schtick.  You become vulnerable then and open yourself to
charges of "bullshit."  It is unfair, but what can you do?
  

    

mark-dery writes:

'As noted in an earlier post, I *have* crammed for my exam by trudging
 through a few reviews of the book, as well as a brief excerpt from it,
 and have listened to an hours? worth of interviews with the author,
 about his book. Thus, I can pretend to a Cliff?s Notes acquaintance, at
 least, with _On Bullshit_, though hardly to its fine points.'

It seems worth noting that the book ON BULLSHIT is only 67 pages long
in its Princeton University Press hardbound edition. (It's also available on
Kindle.)

'In fact, you *do* seem to be asking for a sales pitch, a request at
 odds with your later, worthier suggestion that I seize the opportunity
 to ?explicate the social value of your project...to say more
 about...its strategic and/or social relevance.'

I think the contradiction you perceive goes away if you understand me to
be using "sales pitch" in its literal rather than metaphorical sense. To me,
explicating the social value of your project *could* be part of a successful
sales pitch, but I really wanted to hear more about what you think your
books contributes to our collective understanding of culture. My use of the
word "apologia" was designed to remove the suggestion of trying to part a
customer from his lucre.

'Benjamin, a card-carrying Frankfurt Marxist, was unquestionably a
 cultural critic. So, one out of three, which as I say invites the
 suspicion that you haven?t ventured very far into the briar patch of
 the very thing you?re weed-whacking.'

It's interesting to me that you give so much attention to what my referents
probably say about my credentials. But I've already noted my lack of
credentials, so this seems to me to be unnecessary.

I disagree with your exclusion of Plato and Foucault from the ranks of 
cultural critics, although if your point is to underscore that they're
not primarily classified as cultural critics, I could hardly disagree.
On the other hand, I never said they are.

'Likewise, I?m not sure what you mean when you say cybercrit, but it?s
 a vasty deep, from me to Bruce Sterling to William Gibson to Jaron
 Lanier to Neil Denari to Andrew Ross to Friedrich Kittler to Virilio to
 Baudrillard to Constance Penley to Donna Haraway to Arthur Kroker (no
 endorsement implied, by the way) to Sandy Stone to Erik Davis to Julian
 Dibbell to Geert Lovink to Lev Manov to the technofeminists (with
 Sadie Plant carrying the battle standard) to the Afro-futurists (a term
 I coined, as you may know) to Douglas Rushkoff to Steven Johnson to
 Scott Bukatman to Gary Chapman to Langdon Winner to the Father of Us
 All, Marshall McLuhan.'

I've read quite a few of these writers, and some I find quite worthwhile.
Of those I find myself agreeing with, I'll list Sterling, Gibson, Dibbell,
and McLuhan. Of those I find myself primarily disagreeing with, but still
worth reading, I'll single out Lanier and Chapman. And there are perfectly
pleasant writers you list that I agree with some of the time and disagree
with at other times, notably Rushkoff and Johnson. But all I'm doing here is
underscoring the fact, which I made clear above, that I'm an interested
reader, not scholar of cultural criticism, either in general in its cyberish
variety. 

Which brings to light what I think the writers I name in the preceding
paragraph have in common: they're writing for a larger audience than the
academy provides. They are observing and criticizing culture and making
their thought available to the culture they criticize -- I think because
they want to promote general insight and progress. 

Which brings me to this:

'The point
 of debate, in high-school forensics-team terms, was: RESOLVED: No one
 can change anyone's mind.'

I can hardly disagree about the intellectual poverty of this particular
high-school enterprise. But I reject the premise. If we can't change each
other's minds, then all human progress is impossible. 

I'll note that I think you misinterpret me and/or Strawman-Argue me in
various points, but this topic isn't about my philosophy--it's about
yours--so won't indulge in a comprehensive response.

Instead, I'll come back to your philosophy. Can you say why you responded
to my interpretation of a (fairly short) Frankfurt essay, plus reviews of
it, plus Frankfurt's own hour-long interview about it, rather than just 
respond to the essay itself? I'd understand if you said you didn't want
to read a multi-hundred-page tome just to respond to some amateur
philosopher on the WELL. It seems, based on your response, however, that
you spent more time reading about Frankfurt than you would have spent
if you'd just read the essay in itself, which is not exactly an unknowable
Kantian "ding an sich."
  

    
This idea of "changing minds" is based on a rather simplistic idea of
"mind," IMO.  
  

    <scribbled by mark-dery>
  

    
(mnemonic): You do realize that I was arguing *contra* Jonl and his
fellow moderator, *for* the proposition that Ideas Can Change the
World? For the love of Mike (Godwin), I wouldn't be the left-wing
Jeremiah I am, trying to save the world through Zombie Studies and Lady
Gaga teardowns, if I believed otherwise.
  

    
(dlwilson): 

A wonderful, brain-fizzing comment. My thoughts, on the fly:

>>Rather I'd like
to think about what we either take for granted in everyday life as a
starting point of social analysis or those symbols and meanings that
emerge from popular culture that express what are our major
preoccupations.  This is the area that I find most fruitful to explore
as cultural criticism.<<

I'll second that emotion.

>>The opposition here to "culture critics" is not hard to
understand.<<

Unsurprisingly, I find it utterly incalculable. It strikes me as
mutton-headed anti-intellectualism of the worst sort. Maybe you can
enlighten me on this point. 
 
>>Academics have abused the subject  by balkanizing it with "post,"
"anti," "neo," and "revisionist" positions into abstracted and
rarefied
constructions that either lose the subject or eviscerate it.<<

With the greatest respect, I think that misunderstands how the history
of ideas moves forward---through ancestor worship, on one hand, and
Oedipal patricide on the other. Meaning: revisions, posts, neos, and
the like are part of a conversation with the dead, minds that have come
before ours, and whose ideas are the plank on which theory---if you
prefer, philosophy---proceeds. it's a timeline. The prefixes you
mention are simply increments on that intellectual yardstick. Yes, some
ideas are thornier than others. Yes, some require specialized jargon.
How is that different from the "art history" denigrated by that
culturally illiterate Babbitt I mentioned earlier, Romney's running
dog? Or Geertzian anthropology? Or the dismal science?  

>>But yet there are people who are worth reading. They are informed by
the classics and they actually follow a method.<<

This sounds terribly reactionary. I catch a decided whiff of the
canon, here, and of Hirschian notions of _Cultural Literacy_ in the
Eurocentric sense or, worse yet, a call to return to the golden age of
the Great Books Program, when Northrop Frye ruled the world. What are
the classics? Why must we kneel before them forever? What if my method
is post-disciplinary, incorporating every analytic tool at my disposal,
as I noted at the beginning of this interminable thing? [[insert
genial emoticon]]

>>I've lost patience with all the new trends that try to diverge from
the classics and narrative analysis.<<

By the way, they call rap "hip-hop" now. But seriously: the insistence
on a Golden Age, on a Time Before the Fall, is an unmistakable symptom
of conservatism, an irising shut of the mind's aperture. I'd urge you
to give the other analytic approaches I've mentioned throughout this
discussion a whirl---the subcultural studies of Dick Hebdige and Henry
Jenkins, the semiotic and structuralist analyses of Barthes and Eco,
the poststructuralist historiography of Foucault, and so forth.

>>But you start to lose me when you do the equivalent of
stand-up or schtick.<< 

Perhaps you could tell me what, in my work, strikes you as "shtick."
Is humorlessness a salient of Deep Thought? Just the opposite, I'd
think.  
  

    
>Can you say why you responded
to my interpretation of a (fairly short) Frankfurt essay, plus reviews
of
it, plus Frankfurt's own hour-long interview about it, rather than
just 
respond to the essay itself?<<

Mike, seriously? 

Think, for a moment, about how presumptuous your request that I read
_On Bullshit_ must look from the perspective of this put-upon hack.
Since you seem to like the Germans, consider it a Gedankenexperiment.

Consider this: I've invested more time in this discussion than
Hercules invested in cleaning the Augean stables. 

Fine and well, since I agreed to do so, on the assumption that we'd be
discussing my Bright, Shiny Product (although I would've foregone the
dubious pleasure of head-butting Rocket had I known he was on the
fight
card. That said, thought-provoking comments from JonL, dlwilson, David
Gault, Roy Christopher, tcn, and others have made it time well spent).


Curiously, you opted not to read my book, which strikes me as somewhat
bad form in a topic devoted to that book, though hardly a Class A
felony. Instead, you pressed me to make a case for the book,
"demeaning" as such a "sales pitch" might be. Moreover, you exhorted
me
to make the case, more generally, for the smoke-shoveling enterprise
of cultural criticism. 

Rising to that challenge, I took an hour or so to trudge through some
10 pages of reviews of a book you invoked as useful for separating the
chaff from the grain. Incredibly, when I took time out of my
time-starved schedule to do so, you wondered why I hadn't summited the
Ding An Sich, all 67 pages of it, which would've taken me the better
part of a workday, no Evelyn Wood speed-reader I.

This is Red-Queen logic. We've lost all sight of the purpose of this
topic, and of my presence here. 

Let me answer your question with a question: Can you say why you feel
it's more reasonable to expect me to cram for my exam with you  by
reading _On Bullshit_ than it is for me to expect you to read my book
before asking, well near demanding, that I Justify My Love for
cultural
criticism?

Hell, man, *it's only
304 pages*.  
  

    <scribbled by tnf Mon 21 May 12 18:49>
  

    

mark-dery writes:

' You do realize that I was arguing *contra* Jonl and his
 fellow moderator, *for* the proposition that Ideas Can Change the
 World? For the love of Mike (Godwin), I wouldn't be the left-wing
 Jeremiah I am, trying to save the world through Zombie Studies and Lady
 Gaga teardowns, if I believed otherwise.'

What I've been asking, though, is how you are trying to save the world,
exactly? Because I can't tell how your world-saving works from what you
write here.

"Think, for a moment, about how presumptuous your request that I read
 _On Bullshit_ must look from the perspective of this put-upon hack."

I didn't ask you to read it. You've gone all looney-tunes now.

If you were a careful reader -- which, manifestly, you are not -- you'd have
understood me to be asking why you voluntarily read all those reviews of ON
BULLSHIT, which you say you read, and why you listened to a full hour of an
interview with Frankfurt, when *reading the book itself takes less than an
hour*?

If you had said something like this: "I can't commit on Frankfurt's book
because I haven't read it, and I'm disinclined to read it," I wouldn't have
blinked an eye. That would have been a perfectly reasonable response.

What seems to me to be the case, though, is that you respond to every single
questioning of your thought or writing with personal attacks. Without
exception. It seems to be the only response strategy you know.

To me, the test of whether you indulge in bullshit or not is how well you
respond dialogically to critical questions. If you're lousy at it -- and you
have shown repeatedly in this topic that you are -- then why should we trust
your own judgment a cultural critic, or as any other kind of critic?

I am inclined to give theoretical writers a break, and to try understand
their arguments intellectually even if I find myself disagreeing with them.

But I don't think you actually have a theory, or a project to change minds,
or to improve people's understanding. Your writing is not accessible or
interesting to the great majority of readers, to judge both from what I've
read elsewhere and from what I read here.

What's worse, though, even than your absence of a project, or your
consistent writing (as Frankfurt might put it) to impress rather than to
tell truths, is that you're just so very sloppy at reading what other people
write.

In other words, if you think I was asking you to read ON BULLSHIT, based on
what I have written so far, *how can I trust your interpretation of anything
else you have ever read?*

The answer, sadly, is that you're not trustworthy.