My reading digest for 31 October 2006:
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Revised and Enlarged Ed. Penguin.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Standford, CA: Standford UP, 2002.
Wallace, James M. “A (Karl, not Groucho) Marxist in Springfield.“ in The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer, edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard, and Aeon J. Skoble. 235-251. Chicago: Open Court.
The discussion that has lingered longest since last week in my life has been over the reading by Wallace, “A (Karl, not Groucho) Marxist in Springfield.“ I have talked about it with both Luke and Joscelyne, both of whom are Simpsons adherents, and with my best friend from Iowa, who, also cites the Simpsons frequently.
There is so much resistance when we are told that something we love is actually a conservative text that reinforces social structures that we disagree with. I don’t have so much resistance with the Simpsons, I think because I came to the conclusion awhile ago that it wasn’t that transgressive, really. I guess I had come to that conclusion with most “alternative“ commodities, like punk music, after reading some Adorno a few years ago. I was bummed. And I desperately want to defend some things that I like too but that isn’t really that good or that subversive.
My friend Nick (from Iowa) and I talked at length on the phone about art, subversion, and criticism. I explained the article that we read, and he said he agreed to an extent, but that it still opened up the possibility for criticizing. He felt that since the Simpsons so openly criticized capitalism and rich people and absurd things in our culture, that it opened up the ability for the masses to critique it as well. I disagreed and forwarded him the pdf for the article in an email. (Nick was an English and Philosophy undergraduate, but I know that he was very turned off by the way philosophy was written in a way that is inaccessible to most people and that is overly jargonistic.)
Nick and I also talked about what constitutes art a wee bit. While I don’t know if I believe this, I argued that if something is to be called art in a Mass Culture society, it must be subversive against power systems and not reinforce them — I said this in response to his assertion that the Simpsons was art. I think it is a smart, well-crafted show. I guess really the discussion of what is art is not as pointed as what underlies that question: what is it that we should value? Using the term art is arbitrary and distracts us from the real questions: What should we value? I think we should value those acts (including texts) that call the system into question and provide a glimpse of hope for a future free from suffering.
But I look at my daily life, and I look for what I consume and value. It’s not stuff that is necessarily subversive. Although sometimes I read against it to find the subversiveness, to deconstruct it. I know that each text/act’s power is contingent on its rhetorical situation, so the audience matters a lot (thus, drag is only subversive in certain situations, when the audience can be affected in the right way). But when I listen to punk music on my iBook or iPod, how much am I buying into a system. And I’d like to think that I can enjoy this music separate from the narratives that it passes on, but really, is that possible when I am so busy that I just listen to this music? I know that I’ve bought into the cynicism of punk in the past (and still do sometimes), believing as the Sex Pistols argue, that there is “no future.“
I don’t want to believe in that. I want to believe in hope for the future, but I like punk music. What is the morality of enjoying mass culture goods that you disagree with? This is a question that matters no matter where your consciousness lies. I remember being in high school and wondering if I could listen to music that proclaimed things that I stood against as a Christian. Now I wonder if I can listen to music that is misogynist. Or music that is cynical. What does it do to me to listen to this?
Especially when I am too busy and stressed to take time to think about everything I read, see, feel, consume. Indeed, there is too much to think about everything. This is all the more so true now than years ago, with the Internet, ambient advertising, iPods, music in every restaurant and bar, etc. God, how soon will it be that advertisements are sent to fetuses in utero? Is that already happening? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Ugh, I feel like I have written myself back into depression. It doesn’t help that it’s been a long weekend constituted by mostly homework. I’ve started the Marcuse reading for Tuesday; I should leave this writing behind and go back to that in order to read something a little uplifting.
