The 'Conspiracy Theory' Theory

When we starting studying some of the structuralism theorists, I started looking for the hidden overarching structure behind things in my everyday life in order to find something about which to blog during the month of February. When I looked for structures in literary texts I was reading for other classes, the logic behind the theory seemed pretty straightforward. It was enlightening to see how writer where influenced by ideological structures or social structures. The editors of our text describe structural as a theory that see “culture, like language, [as] a system characterized by an internal order of interconnected parts that obey certain rules of operation,” and, once I began to notice the internal order of things I could recognize the rules of operation. This was supposed to inform my own actions, and, hopefully, help me make more intellectual choices. However, when I started looking for structures of internal order, I started feeling like a conspiracy theorist and, frankly, a little paranoid.

Structuralism resembles conspiracy theories, because it takes something unexplained gives it a comprehensive and innate logic—a logic that assumes there is an ‘interested party’ who is manipulating the situation (ie the facts, the plot, the language, etc) to some degree in order to reach a desired conclusion (that is, the ‘meaning’ of the novel). Professor Suh warned us that theory would change the way we looked at the world; similarly, conspiracy theories color perceptions. Structuralism as a theory informed the way I looked at everything I did, but, as enlightening as that is, life took a very marginalized form. When my sister told me her dream, I was repulsed by the Freudian implications that arose in my theory-driven mind, my favorite Poe short story took an irritatingly nihilistic turn, and capitalism, in the form of lunch at a fast food restaurant, became the source of all evil that killed my rags to riches dream. I was bitten by the theory bug, and, like a lunatic conspiracy theorist, I was a little nutty about seeing only the abstract in every mundane daily interaction.

A scene from a television show, The Pretender, allows us to take a closer look at the delusions of a conspiracy theorist. Jarod, the titular star of the show (and not the conspiracy theorist), has the intelligence and empathy to assume the careers and roles of any person in society. He assumes the role of a surgeon after reading medical texts for a short period of time and becomes probably the best doctor in the hospital. His value was not just in picking up skills merely from books, but in recreating real-life situations because he understood how situations made people feel. He supposedly solved a test-pilot accident by mentally recreating the mindset of the pilot as the plane was crashing. This ability makes him a “pretender,” someone who can pretend to be someone else. A secret organization called the Center attempts to use Jarod’s gifts before he escapes and becomes a vigilante for justice.

During one of his assumed jobs, Jarod encounters a crazy old man, who believes that aliens try to mind read people through television. The man clearly can’t tell that Jarod is part of a real conspiracy, but he is paranoid about everyday objects like television. It turns out that this innocuous old man was a part of the Manhattan Project, and he feels guilty about the bombing of Hiroshima. So, he tries to expose the truth, any truth, that he fears is being covered up in order to commit atrocities. Jarod identifies with him, and, eventually, tells him to check out the Center and start exposing its activities. The old man misses one level of cover-up—Jarod’s work at the Center—because he is so fixated on a crazy theory.

This introduces the idea of multiplicity that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari discuss in their breathtakingly beautiful work, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Structuralism, as a theory, doesn’t exclude the notion of having other structures that help explain any one text or subject, but Deleuze and Guattari go even farther in saying that each theory in itself is what they call an assemblage. Additionally, they recognize that such structures aren’t actually there, but are helpful in interpreting works. The perception of a real structure undermines structuralists’ analysis. Like the old man failed to recognize the subversion of a normal roles within his conspiracy structural perception of the world (normal humans and aliens attempting to harm us), he didn’t realize that Jarod was masquerading as a normal human, a test-pilot, when he is really linked to a secret organization that had its own self-interested if not malignant intentions in mind.

Deleuze and Guattari’s introduction to post-structuralism replaces the 'conspiracy theory' theory with a networking-style theory. They use the analogy of rhizomes, but it reminds me of something another English course called quotationalism. Literature is known for quoting other literary works. When an allusion is made, it signifies the entire of the other text merely by referencing it. Quotationalism allows writers, or television shows, take short-cuts or strengthen their arguments by evoking supplementary texts and recognizing the multiplicity within their original concept. While multiple allusions in literature make the work obtuse, television easily transmits thousands of visual analogies and verbal allusions in every show. Thus, shows like The Highlander gets referenced in Saturday Night Live skits about the Jonas Brothers and connect three target audiences—40-somethings, college students, fourteen year old girls—in a way that is funny but also unconsciously acknowledges the unreliable nature of framing things with structures.

If any of these audiences didn’t understand the references, the SNL jokes wouldn’t hit home, but the obscure references would still be ridiculous and therefore funny. Likewise, when we acknowledge the illusonary nature of theories, we can frame a situation in a way that makes it easier to understand without becoming paranoidly attached to that particular interpretation. Theory is a tool, and not all theories are applicable to every instance. Freud doesn't need to define all dreams, and Lacan doesn't have to have the last word on Poe. However, somewhere in the back of my mind, Freud and Lacan will be there. After all, what's a good conspiracy without that lurking doubt?

Zoe Adler: The Human Rhizom

After my preliminary reading of Deluze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus I found that I seemed to instantly connect with the notion of continuous experiences. At first, I was not completely sure as to why my interest was particularly peaked. Perhaps it was my seventh grade anarchist re emerging, working to abolish the social boundaries forcing us to “render imperceptible, not ourselves, but what makes us act, feel, and think” (Deluze and Guattari, 378). Or it could be the focus on introspection and individuality, proving that everything in the world is different depending on who experiences it. Maybe it was grasping the concept of a rhizome, which is made of plateaus allowing “a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or external end” (D&G, 378) thus abolishing the notion of specific beginning and ending points. Overall I decided that my interest was initially peaked by the universality proposed, possibly appealing to my inner hippie vouching for everyone loving each other and somehow finding a connection. Taking this underlying concept I instantly thought about my web of friends and interestingly enough as I reread A Thousand Plateaus I began to draw more and more information leading me to believe I, Zoe Adler, am a rhizome, with “no beginning or end…between things,” (D&G, 378).

Social unity has always been extremely important in my life. More simply put, I love my friends and they have always been a huge part of my life. It goes beyond that though, it seems that somehow it is made evident who is destined to be my closest friends because they simply keep reappearing in my life with no discernable pattern or timeline, a kind of “cyclic unity of the eternal return” (D&G, 380). However through my constantly expanding social roots I am able to continue meeting new people while simultaneously preserving my old friendships. Another aspect of my social plateau that interests me is the fact that none of my best friends get along, which reminded me of the statement “not every trait in a rhizome is necessarily linked to a linguistic feature” (D&G, 380) implying that not all of my friends need to be tied together in any emotional form. Further it reveals that friendship and social situations do not necessarily have clear-cut reasons for happening; some of my closest friends are people who could not be more different from myself. What it comes down to is that like myself, “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be” (D&G 380). This coincides with my desire to relate to people on new levels, and I feel that our societal environment would be changed exponentially if everyone simply attempted to go out of their comfort zone and attempt to cordially connect and relate to others. As corny as it may be, I truly believe kindness and strong social bonds are extremely important.

Now, to most it would not seem strange to have the same people in your life from the ages of about four to eighteen, but with my particular case it is fairly surprising. By attending various alternative and private schools I was never ensured that people from my neighborhood would be attending school with me. Let me explain the two main friendships prompting me to think that people return to my life for a reason.

Cayley Bowles and I first attended school together at the age of 5, but were not friends. We were acquainted with one another at a very young age, forgot about each other, and continued with our rigorous elementary school academic career. In third grade I switched schools and left Cayley behind without a second thought. We had never done anything together outside of school and therefore in my mind we were not friends, I simply knew who she was. Later, in fourth grade, my mom began working with Cayley at my old elementary school and we saw each other a bit more often. However it was sporadic, only a couple times, and ceased to continue. When middle school rolled around Cayley somehow, completely independent of one another, appeared at the same student welcome party that I did involving a quaint class of 32 girls. What were the odds? I was so surprised to see her there! We still were not very close, not to mention we could not be more different. Cayley spent half of her life in the water playing water polo, another quarter playing soccer, and then left her spare time to swimming. I have never enjoyed athletics much, and was intimidated by her tomboy appearance. We then decided to carpool out of convenience, and continued to do so for the next three years, everyday! Ultimately we went to different high schools, but would always run into each other and began to get closer. Our friendship actually blossomed at different schools, which I feel is interesting. Rhizomes have “lines that always connect back to each other” (D&G, 382) just as Cayley and I always seem to be reunited. Many could have marked the end of our friendship at the end of middle school, but that “is a regrettable characteristic of the Western mind…” attempting “to relate expressions and actions of exterior or transcendent ends, instead of evaluating them on a plane of consistency,” (D&G, 384)

Another one of my best friends, Julia Shapiro, first appeared in my second half of elementary school. Again we knew each other but were not close. She also attended my all girls’ middle school, and we became close in seventh grade. Coincidentally she lives on the same street as Cayley, also. We went our separate ways for high school, but when I switched high schools junior year it turns out that she was attending the same school. Then, we developed our friendship and have remained very close.

Although these stories sound fairly simple, it is pretty strange in Palo Alto and is unique to my family as well. Interestingly, Cayley and Julia have no interest in each other and do engage in any form of communication whatsoever. Thus revealing that there is never any discernible answer, no absolute solutions or conclusions that can be drawn because each experience depends on the individual. Lastly, it seems that Cayley and Julia seem to be appearing in my life with no fixed time pattern. There will always be deviations and I think of our friendships as continuous planes, just as a rhizome is made up of endless plateaus.

Blood Sucking Fiends

The inspiration for this blog came from my observation of the multitude of recurring vampire images that occur in the media today. The vampire myth has been around for millennia. Figures that compare to our modern understanding of vampires existed in Mesopotamia, Hebrew culture, Ancient Greece and Rome, Southeastern Europe, and many others. Vampires have been discussed in popular literature (Bram Stoker anyone?), psychopathology, myths, and there is even talk of political overtones. There are many different myths and roots of the vampire, but it is interesting that there is such a large wave of new vampire media.

In the movie industry, there is of course the Twilight craze, based on a novel by Stephanie Meyer, this interpretation is based on a love story, and is typically associated with romance and morality. Also, I recently saw Let The Right One In, a Norwegian film that won 42 awards in the indie circuit about a young vampire who befriends a young boy. This film was more concerned with an exploration of the more classical vampire myths themselves. Television has True Blood, an HBO series with the premise that vampires exist in modern society and have “come out” after synthetic blood allows them to coexist peacefully with humans. This series seems to explore the political side of the vampire myth. There is a lot of references to minority legislation, as well as the coexistence of human law with a higher law—in this case the vampires have their own governing body--. Literature has Twilight, and I believe Anne Rice still makes vampire books. Newcomer Christopher Moore wrote two books, You Suck, and Bloodsucking Fiends. His novels are satirical comedy. The vampire functions only to carry out an absurd plot where the idea that someone is a vampire is more of a nuisance and something to be mocked than an otherworldly concept to be revered or feared. Little kids have been dressing up as vampires for Halloween for years. There are sexual fetishes and pornography that adopt this myth. It seems you can find vampires anywhere you look. I’m actually interested in looking at these trends for a thesis topic, but for the purpose of this post, I would like to interpret this according to Deleuze’s and Guattari’s excerpted work, “A Thousand Plateaus.”

“A Thousand Plateau’s” as we discussed in class, has many different subjects and specific concepts that it explores, but I believe the discussion is centered on their metaphor of the rhizome and especially the relation of the rhizome to books and literature. The rhizome, according to Deleuze and Guattari is defined by its relation to other parts. “A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles” ( RR 380). Beyond this simple definition of a subterranean stem, they define its existence by several properties including its connections and heterogeneities, multiplicities, and asignifying ruptures. When applying these principles to books, the idea is that the book is an “assemblage” of all these different rhizomes and the roots and stems that grow from them. “To attribute the book to a subject is to overlook this working of matters and the exteriority of their relations” (RR 378). They are debunking the structures, even chapter structures, that we typically assume mean beginnings and ends. Deleuze and Guattari argue that even chapters exist as plateaus that must be understood in multiple and in converging circular structures. I believe that this concept can be used to understand myths and recurring metaphors, analogies, and archetypes in a similar manner, especially with vampires.

As previously stated, there is no one singular story that is understood as the original vampire. The myths and characteristics have so many variables, it’s impossible to pinpoint almost any characteristic other than the drinking of blood as a unifying theme. Some vampires are mortal, some immortal. Some must kill their victims to survive, some can drink to sate their thirst only. Some vampires can’t be seen in mirrors, and some vampires can only be killed by a wooden stake through their hearts. I think the point is clear that there are many different vampires in the world, and they take many shapes and forms. Vampires are like rhizomes, “all we know are assemblages” (RR 385). These assemblages establish “connections between certain multiplicities drawn from each of these orders, so that a book has no sequel nor the world as its object nor one or several authors as its subject” (RR 385).

Deleuze and Guattari’s argument seems to say that most things are rhizomatic if you will. So why is it important that one particular myth fits their formula for being (in a simplistic sense) indefinable? Without making profound post-modern statements about the nature of thought, I think it’s important to establish that even the least educated; most “average” of citizens has accepted and internalized this argument. There aren’t thousands of screaming girls heckling Robert Pattinson because Stephanie Meyer didn’t adhere to Stoker’s notion of a vampire. They’re there because he’s objectively quite attractive and his character is quite the fantasy. People indulge in these fantasies and stories for so many reasons and their significance is so difficult to pin down to one thing. That is why there are so many explorations. If there was just one story why would anyone care. If there was only one story then there would be no such thing as human individuality, variances of style, or even different plotlines for us to indulge in. I think as literature lovers in this class we can all appreciate the variety that Deluze and Guattari defend.

Change over time essays vs Lab Reports

As a student, I have the opportunity to take many classes from a diverse array of departments. My high school strongly emphasized history and social studies; and therefore, as a high school student, I followed my peers and took World History and US history. In two classes, I was trained to eradicate everything I know about writing essay and start from scratch. I fact, I remember my teacher giving a distinct, strict, structure to write my change-over-time essay, an essay that focuses how a specific region or country changes over a span of time. In this structure, the first sentence always contains the time period and location of my essay topic. The body paragraph focuses on one of the following seven topics: Social, Political, Religious, Intellectual, Technological, Economical, and Environmental (SPRITEE, as she called it). Lastly, the concluding paragraph is a summary of the paper and contains a repetition of the thesis.

As I moved onto college, I decided to focus on Chemistry rather than History. Therefore, I took General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physical Chemistry. In these courses, rather than writing change-over-time essays, I had to write lab reports. I had to once again learn rewire my brain to write my lab reports. The lab reports are divided into various sections: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Abstract and the Introduction sections contain the background information. The Results section contains all of the concrete, qualitative and quantitative data. Finally, the Discussion section is dominant and most important part of the lab report. The Discussion contains all of the interpretation of the data and the reason why the data came out as it did.

Therefore, in writing lab reports I have to use a wholly new method of thinking and writing. Lab reports are rather stratified in comparison with change-over-time essays. In the lab reports all of the analysis is located in the Discussion section, and in the change-over-time, the analysis is located in the body paragraph, which makes up nearly 70% of the essay. Additionally, in lab reports, I focus on a hypothesis or theory and in the change-over-time essays, I focus on a thesis. A distinct difference between the two is that in writing the lab report, I set out to see if the hypothesis holds true and is not incorrect and in writing the change-over-time I have to set out to convince the reader that my thesis is correct. The lab reports hold an apologetic tone of voice. I can only prove that my hypothesis is not incorrect. Conversely, change-over-time essays hold a strong, affirmative, “my view is correct” tone of voice. I have to convince the reader that my thesis is true and correct. There exists a difference in the tone of voice because the mindset that is needed to write a lab report is different from that needed to write a change-over-time essay.

In science, everything is uncertain. Scientists set out to observe the world and create hypotheses. Once the hypotheses have been tested numerous times over and still hold up, the hypotheses then become theories. Theories are therefore not proven facts; they are just firm hypotheses. It takes hundreds of experiments to create a theory out of a hypothesis; however, it only takes one experiment that disproves the theory in order to thrash that particular theory. Science is a field built upon uncertainties and questions. Science can never make a theory into a fact. Therefore, when writing the lab report, I cannot prove that my hypothesis is correct. I can only prove that it is not incorrect. Therefore, I cannot take a “my view in correct” tone of voice. Analogously, historians set out to observe the world and create theories. However, in history, everything is based on perspective. The history recounted by the conqueror is different from that recounted by the conquered, but both histories are correct. Because history is based on perspective, historians take an affirmative, authoritative tone in presenting their theories. Historians want to convince the reader that his take on history is correct one, that his take on history is better than other historians. Therefore, because of the different purpose and mindset of Chemists and Historians, they use different methods and languages when writing.


Looking at the striking differences between change-over-time essays and lab reports, I realize that Mikhail Bhaktin’s essay “Discourses in the Novel,” is absolutely applicable to my life. The language of History and the Language of Chemistry are vastly different. The differences arise from the differences in the mindsets of Chemists and Historians. They both set out to explore the world and tests theories. However, scientific theories are based on experiments and can be easily shot down. Therefore, scientists cannot prove their theories; they can only not-disprove their theories. Thus, lab reports do not contain the authoritative tone of voice. Historians, however, do hold an authoritative tone of voice. A large portion of historical theories is based on perspective rather than experimental evidence. Therefore, historians use the authoritative tone of voice to convince the reader their perspective is the correct one. Bhaktin states that language serve its own social-political purpose. I can see that the language of chemistry is different from the language of history because each has its own purpose and mindset.

Michael Scott, Reluctant Capitalist

Marxist Theory and "The Office"

I happened to read Marx’s essays “Wage Labor and Capital” and “Capital” moments after watching the latest episode of my favorite TV show, “The Office.” It occurred to me that many of the aspects of capitalist ideology that Marx examines, especially the development of the wage worker’s identity through, around, and in spite of, his work, are exemplified by the show. If you have little experience with “The Office,” I recommend taking twenty minutes to watch this episode from Season 1, titled “Health Care”, which deals with many of the Marxist ideas I will address here: http://www.livevideo.com/video/4C1349D7BB054F61BBEAD14974C1F5B4/theofficeus103.aspx

To provide a little background, “The Office” is a scripted comedy presented in a documentary format. It is ostensibly a compilation of footage of the employees of Dunder Mifflin, a paper supply company. The only footage of the characters’ lives that we the audience are able to view is that which takes place during their nine to five workday and within the confines of the physical office. Any scenes outside of the office usually depict interactions between coworkers only—rarely are there any characters that do not hold a position at Dunder Mifflin.

This storytelling perspective lays bare what Marx means when he says that life for the wage worker begins where his wage-earning activity ceases (660). At first, it may seem strange that we know very little of the characters’ families, living situations, and other aspects of their lives that are generally conceived as integral to personal identity. The show positions us as a silent coworker—we know the characters in the same, snapshot-like manner that we know our actual coworkers in everyday life. However, through the Marxist lens, we are seeing in a very literal way the majority of their life experiences. The fact of the matter is that these people, like us, spend the majority of their lives behind a desk in an office, engaging in relationships that they often consider inconsequential in their “actual” lives, the real life that begins after the workday ends, according to the capitalist myth of individualism.

Much of the humor of the show hinges on the inherently awkward and stiff interactions between the coworkers, on the discomfort of daily interactions and the power of the unsaid. Even the relationship between Jim and Pam, the great romance of the show, begins as a festival of sexual frustration and unclear relationship boundaries. This relates to Marx’s ideas regarding the disintegration of interpersonal relationships in the capitalist system.

The comic device of the awkwardness of everyday relationships reaches its zenith in the character of Michael Scott, the regional manager. As I read Marx, I began to note that Michael’s painful ineptitude seems to stem from his inability to find his place within a distinctly capitalist workplace. He is uncomfortable in his leadership role and defines himself as a “friend first and a boss second” while continually blending the public with the private. Michael’s actions are often offensive, but they can be seen as his attempts to humanize his interactions with those that work beneath him. The show often implies that Michael has no friends outside of Dunder Mifflin, and he often refers to the office as a family. Unlike the audience and the other characters on the show, Michael does not characterize the hours of nine to five as different from a personal, outside, individual life. He is unable to accept the commodification of the individual, the idea that, especially in the workplace, the “definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things” (667). Rather than treat his coworkers as slaves, he is trying to make the office for them what it is to him: the rewarding center of his life. Within the capitalist system, this endeavor is fundamentally absurd.

The other office workers, like Marx’s wage workers, are incredibly detached from their actual work; when Jim tries to describe for the documentarian what he does on a daily basis, he trails off, saying, “I’m boring myself right now.” One character does nothing at the company, and spends his time carefully concealing this fact. As the factories Marx saw during his lifetime, it is a passionless and soulless workplace. It is made clear that no one in the office feels fulfilled by his job, but they are all terrified of being fired; the job is their sole means of survival. Hence the biting irony when Michael remarks, “The office is where dreams come true!”

As we discussed in class, many of Marx’s ideas lose their strength as the capitalist system becomes increasingly more complex. Michael is not a true “boss” in Marx’s conception of capitalism in that he, too, is a wage worker. Strict hierarchies exist within Dunder Mifflin, but there is no great capitalist at the helm. Although Dunder Mifflin seems to be a perfectly capitalist company, in that they begin and end the commodity exchange process with money, they do not control the means of production. They buy paper from manufacturers and sell it to corporate clients. The entire company functions as a wage worker. Like the working class in Marxist theory, the employees of Dunder Mifflin “possess nothing but their capacity to labor” to serve their suppliers and clients (663). Indeed, employees’ only response to criticism that warehouse chain stores like Office Depot are more efficient is that Dunder Mifflin provides better customer service. This feeble claim exemplifies what Marx means when he says that the worker “not only replaces what he consumes but gives to the accumulated labor a greater value than it previously possessed” (663). The fact that we laugh at Dunder Mifflin’s attempts to justify higher prices reveals the extent to which the individual has been commodified in the capitalist system: Why on earth would we want to pay more for customer service?

The series is pervaded by a hopeful sorrow that seems to define the role of the individual in the capitalist system. This doomed hope is perhaps best personified by the character of Jim. He begins the show hating his job, and not caring if he gets laid off or not. However, as his romance with Pam progresses, he holds himself more and more accountable for his own success or failure; his apathy falls away and is replaced with a genuine desire to succeed in a career at Dunder Mifflin. Now that he has proposed to Pam and has bought a house for them, his job is far more central to his life. It is now the means by which their family will survive in the future, and Jim has abandoned the hope of progressing on to something about which he is more passionate. “The Office” demonstrates how the capitalist system forces participants to conform to its model not through force, but through coercion: in the end, they are convinced that they are actually passionately invested in the system. They see themselves not as slaves in an exploitative system but as active agents responsible for their own survival.

I find that the most interesting thing about this process is how happy I am for all of the characters. I am happy that Jim is taking responsibility in his career; I am thrilled when Michael’s genuine regard for people shines through his idiocy; I rejoice in the little and ultimately useless ways the characters cope with the absurdity of the system. I am happy when the system, in some perverse, nonsensical way, seems to work out for people. It’s this strange winking sign of life peeking out from behind the dull acceptance that attracts me to “The Office.” And when I feel mediocre, useless, dehumanized, and helpless, it reminds me that I am not alone.

Surveillance and Capitalism

Within the excerpt of Discipline and Punish reprinted in our anthology, Foucault connects the rise of the disciplines and surveillance to the rise of the Enlightenment discourse of liberties as well as to the rise of capitalism. This connection directly opposes an impression that I think I was supposed pick up somewhere or other: the impression that a system based on liberty (aka “democracy”) and capitalism directly oppose and combat the disciplinarity and surveillance of “other” regimes (whether they tend toward fascism or socialism…irrelevant). I believe I (we?) have been taught of a historical period in which this opposition played itself out on a world-wide stage. The Cold War, yeah? The world split between West and East, and on a smaller, physically-bounded level West Germany (FRG) and East Germany (GDR), and again between West and East Berlin, with the two halves divided by one wall (though there were actually two walls).

In view of this physically manifested distinction and the political, social, economic, ideological importance placed upon it, what results from Foucault’s argument that “each makes the other possible and necessary; each provides a model for the other,” that “in fact, the two processes –the accumulation of men and the accumulation of capital – cannot be separated?” (564) Maybe what Foucault would have hoped for: a reevaluation of the framework constituting discussions of the Cold War and East and West and a blurring of the distinctions we’ve been taught to believe in.

The Lives of Others captures, on film, life in the GDR. In the film, however, the viewer can see both the typically upheld image of the communist East and an image that complicates the other’s clear-cut, discreet unity. The story centers on Stasi Captain Wiesler’s surveillance of the playwright Dreyman and the changes he undergoes through this surveillance. Even in this set up the opposition between surveillance and capitalism is clearly created along lines of East and West. Wiesler participates as a member of East Germany’s secret police in a system of hierarchical surveillance. And while he is, on the one hand, the seer of Dreyman, he is also the seen. The scenes that show Wiesler’s own apartment depict it as impersonal and cell-like (the walls unpainted, the furniture spartan and constructed from particle board, the food pre-portioned and pre-packaged) bringing to mind the segmented, individualized cells of the peripheral ring in the Panopticon.

But disputing the division between East and West does not require disputing this presence of surveillance or discipline; to accept Foucault’s argument one must accept that everyone everywhere lives in a system based upon discipline and surveillance as opposed to the predisciplinary system supported by spectacle. Instead, to dispute the distinction between East and West involves exposing the West within the East and the East within the West. So in the film, there must be shown characteristics of the West. This mixing of East and West can best be seen in the relationships of West and East German artists and the ways in which these relationships crossed the border. Dreyman communicates and receives visits from a West German man affiliated with the West German magazine Der Spiegel. The man smuggles in a West German typewriter on which Dreyman writes an expose detailing suicide in the GDR that is to be published in Der Spiegel, in the West. Additionally, the presence of a black market in illegal prescription drugs and the presence of prostitution betray the incomplete dominance of communism and the failure of the communist State to eliminate individual consumerist tendencies within the GDR. It is possible, then, to see the capitalist and other characteristics typically limited to the West as being present within the East during the Cold War.

Conversely, the qualities used by the West to characterize and demonize the East (as a state of surveillance and discipline, devoid of the (consumerist) liberties present in the West), can likewise be found in the West. Like Wiesler’s apartment, the division of West Germany (and West Berlin) between the French, British, and Americans into three occupation zones echoes the division of cells within the Panopticon’s peripheral ring. West Germany, though representative of freedom, democracy and capitalism, was divided and controlled according to Foucault’s theory of discipline in the same way (though perhaps not to the same degree) as its eastern counterpart.

My previous observations, I think, can be seen to support Derrida’s conceptualizing of the supplement as well as investigating Foucault’s arguments. It would seem I’ve been examining discipline and capitalism not as distinct systems and discursive objects that, as Foucault argues, make each other possible and necessary, but as two concepts occupied by the history of thought that constitute them, much like Derrida’s discussion of speech and writing. In line with that discussion, the opposition between the discipline of East and the freedom of West, between the communism of East and the capitalism of West, are impossibilities; the terms are tied up in each other and cannot exist without each other; the supplement is always already present at the origin.

Maybe, then, the attempt in the West to dissect and oppose Liberty from and to Discipline (as Foucault pairs the two) results in the impossible separation constructed between East and West in the Cold War. Maybe it was the-condemnation-of the-evils-of communism-in-order-to-praise-the-glories-of-capitalism as a simultaneous masking of the already-presence of all of those communist “evils” within the West.

Creative Nonfiction and Crabgrass

In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari write that, “A book itself is a little machine; what is the relation (also measurable) of this literary machine to a war machine, love machine, revolutionary machine, etc. – and an abstract machine that sweeps them along? We have been criticized for over quoting literary authors. But when one writes, the only question is which other machines the literary machine can be plugged into, must be plugged into in order to work.” (379). This quote and many others in this essay reassured me why my favorite form of writing, to read and to write, is the personal essay.

Essays are dated back at least to classical Greece and Rome. However, Michel de Montaigne, the “father of the essay”, was the first to actually give the form of writing the name of essay. The word essay comes from the French word, essayer: to attempt, to try. As Phillip Lopate wrote in his essay, “What Happened to the Personal Essay?”, “Montaigne understood that, in an essay, the track of a person’s thoughts struggling to achieve some understanding of a problem is the plot. The essayist must be willing to contradict himself (for which reason an essay is not a legal brief), to digress, even to risk ending up in a terrain very different from the one he embarked on.”

I have often found myself quoting the essayist, Anne Lamott. She is always honest and blunt and every sentence is loaded with sarcasm and personality. That is why, when I read her work and I relate to it, I feel real comfort. I put her work into an abstract machine and, even if her experiences are not exactly like my own, I at least have the comfort of knowing that others have succeeded in emotionally or physically pulling themselves through situations and to the other side. And when I write creative nonfiction, I write to get a better understanding for myself of what I’m writing, but also, of why I feel the need to write it. I, like Montaigne, understand that when I start writing, I don’t really know where it is going to end up.

In class, when we discussed A Thousand Plateaus, we reviewed vocabulary and phrases from the reading. One of the phrases was “A book has neither object nor subject”. We discussed in class that nothing is definite and that time doesn’t apply to ideas in books, since they take on new meanings for everyone and reach everyone in different ways. We then related this to crab grass.

I like the image of creative nonfiction being like really bad crab grass. I am more than familiar with crab grass. We’ve actually had this ongoing rocky relationship since my early years. Gardening in my dad’s back yard has never been pleasant since crab grass staked its domain years before we moved into the house. It stretches across the backyard to each fence, to the back of the house, to the garage, and encircles every tree and plant. There is no center to it. I have no idea where it began. It just is. That’s a lot like creative nonfiction. The year of a creative nonfiction piece means nothing. Whether it was written two centuries ago or yesterday, it still speaks to everyone. George Lukàcs said that, “The essay is a judgment, but the essential, the value-determining thing about it is not the verdict (as is the case with the system), but the process of judging.” And so, even people who don’t directly relate to the nonfiction writing, can at least relate or react to the process that the writer is making since, like crab grass, creative nonfiction stretches and is able to speak to all types of people.

My favorite type of creative nonfiction is the personal essay. Just as creative nonfiction is a lot like crab grass, the personal essay, essentially, is crab grass. This reminded me of a portion of “What Happened to the Personal Essay?”. The personal essay is an odd genre, because its form is everywhere. Personal essays can be seen in New Journalism, autobiographical-political mediations, nature and ecological-regional writing, literary criticism, travel writing, humorous pieces, and food writing. Throughout the years, the personal essay has truly stretched itself throughout all kinds of writing. I was reminded of this when discussing our reading in class that, although there is difference in literature, they are all somehow connected.

The phrase “The rhizome is antigeneology” was also discussed in class. My understanding was that there is no linear progression. Also, the word “plateau” was discussed which, as I understood, referred to there being no beginning or end in history. Whether I am reading Lopate whose essay was published in 1969, or Deleuze and Guattari who wrote from the 1960s-1980s, their ideas still apply now, in 2009. Their beliefs are not old. Just as both works were implying, the readers make of writing whatever applies best to them. No matter their age or the time, writing can always be personally applied. And this is where my love for creative nonfiction and the personal essay comes from. It’s thrilling knowing that writing, no matter how personal, will always have some sort of effect on another whether they read it the day it is published or hundreds of years later. Our work is just waiting to be plugged into other “machines”, as Deleuze and Guattar call them, in order to be understood in another way. This shows that history isn’t linear. History is now. History is our future. Whatever has happened in a previous time is still in effect to this day. There is no linear.

 

Truly, literature is crab grass. And that is why I like it.

Be careful what you say, you might be talking to a theorist

Over break I was getting my hair cut, and my hairdresser (Amy) was asking me the usual questions. Are you on spring break?  Where are you going to school?  What are you majoring in?  After I’d given my answers: yes, Scripps College, and English, I received a reply that was very surprising.  Amy told me that she doesn’t “believe in college” and that she thought it was “a waste of time” using her husband’s first two degrees in history, and interdisciplinary studies as examples (his third degree in landscape architecture was acceptable to her).  Then she asked when would analyzing a book ever help someone in the ‘real’ world?  I almost laughed out loud and thanked her because her statements were almost TOO perfect for this blog.

            I wondered what Althusser would say about these statements in reference to the  “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”.  Amy’s belief about the educational system, specifically college demonstrates that she has “the absolute guarantee that everything really is so”; basically she knows she’s right (701).  Of course this seems rather given, it is her opinion after all.  Althussar would use Amy as a further example that “ideology has no history”.  There have always been those that believe higher learning to be extremely important and those who do not, and though these numbers have changed and the educational system has changed, it does not concern the individual, because ideology is immersed in everything, it “has no outside” (700). 

Well, okay but that doesn’t really provide me with any sort of response for Amy.  She has an ideology, she’s immersed in it, and there’s probably no turning back.  No offense to Althussar, he’s interesting, but I feel like this conversation needs more of a diagnosis, which is Freud’s specialty.  Now perhaps ideology is irrelevant to her statement.  Since this response was rather shocking, and somewhat rude considering she basically said that I was wasting four years of my life, there must be a reason behind this anger.  Although I did not have a long enough session with Amy to ask her about her childhood, I did learn about her husband.  He went to college and she also proclaimed that his degrees were “useless”, so it is far more likely that Amy displaced some sort of anxiety she has about her husband onto me, the unsuspecting customer.  It is also likely that education is not what Amy is really upset about.  Freud would most likely appropriate this outset of emotion to one of two things (both sexual of course).  The first is that Amy is suffering from penis envy, and this unconscious jealousy has manifested itself in her anger towards his college degrees, and in turn towards people who go to college.  The second is that Amy wishes to castrate her husband.  Not only does Amy’s profession consist of the act of cutting, but she also does not like her husband’s degrees (something she does not have, and does not want).  Although a Freudian interpretation of this conversation is extremely entertaining, I’m sure that penis envy is not the reason behind her statements.

Neither of these theorists gave me a satisfying interpretation or result, which I think Amy would say proves her point, however, I thoroughly disagree.  Every theory has limits, and some I think shouldn’t be applied ever to certain works or situations, but the process of working through them, although not always successful, is useful.  Perhaps not useful in the way that Amy defines it, but we all analyze, regardless of whether we’re in an English class, and these tools for analyzing and interpreting can be put to use anywhere, even within the context of a brief conversation.     

The Self, the surroundings, the stroke (of genius)

Our discussion of Derrida’s différance today triggered an idea that has already been ruminating in my brain, ever since our discussion of Lacan’s “Mirror Stage”. Today we touched on the human idea of the self, what we perceive as a physically and mentally contained individual who is separate from the rest of the world. We talked about how the physical conception of the self is constantly being deferred and shifted, because as we sweat, shed skin or eat food, we are consuming and releasing various components of our body. We’ve all heard this statistic: “every [certain number] years our body is composed of completely different particles than it was [blank] years ago” (I’ve heard anywhere from six to ten years, I’m not sure if either is completely accurate, but you get the point). Our body is constantly interacting with the outside world, exchanging particles and moisture, and obscuring an essential notion of the body.

This reminded me of an idea that I found intriguing when we read Lacan’s “Mirror Stage”. Before a baby girl develops a sense of self, she may see a tiny hand move across her line of vision, but she does not understand it as a part of her “self”. According to Lacan, it is when we recognize ourselves in the mirror that we begin to understand ourselves as individuals, separate entities from the rest of the world. This is also perhaps what makes us human; you needn’t look far to see examples of animals who do not bear the same conception of the physical self. Have you ever seen a kitten hiss at its own reflection? Or a dog chase its own tail? They do not have the same human conception of a self who is physically separate from the rest of the world, an individual you can recognize in a mirror as “me”.

I recently stumbled upon a lecture by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who suffered a massive stroke and recovered years later to recount the extraordinary observations she made while her brain was deteriorating. It’s an absolutely incredible lecture, and I’d highly recommend that you watch the whole thing:



What strikes me about Taylor’s story is her description of her altered sense of self during the stroke; when she looked at her hand, her brain didn’t register it as a separate entity from the rest of her surroundings. She was reverted back to Lacan’s infantile, pre-Mirror Stage, before the baby understands herself as separate from the rest of the world. Taylor explains that one of her greatest motivations for recovering after her stroke (a long and very difficult process) was to share with the world her blissful feeling of being completely and utterly connected with the universe, with every living and inanimate object in the world.

Taylor believes everyone has the capacity to experience this sense of connectedness, albeit at a less intensive level than she experienced during her stroke. In fact, she thinks that tapping into this capacity for empathy and connectedness might bring about solutions to many of society’s problems. I can’t truly experience what she felt in that moment, but I still find her mission pretty fascinating. The human obsession with the self, the individual, is perhaps both our great strength and greatest weakness. It allows us to discover and achieve incredible things, but our egoism often leads to myopia, and a complete inability to see ourselves as part of a larger whole.

Las Vegas as a Rhizome

Over break, I went to see Las Vegas with a couple of friends. I did a bit of my lit theory reading as we were driving up, which, by the way I do not recommend—it is confusing enough without adding motion sickness into the mix. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about the drive, and about the city of Las Vegas, in terms of the Deleuze and Guattari essay “A Thousand Plateaus.”

If I understood the essay correctly—and I make no claims for my level of coherency on long car trips—they were basically arguing that everything is connected, like the root structure known as a rhizome. In fact, things are so interdependent that it is ridiculous to even talk about simple cause and effect. They used the example of a puppet. Though it is true that it is controlled by strings, those strings are not controlled by invisible will of a puppeteer, but another set of strings of nerves.

As a southerner, I am well aware of the effectiveness of rhizomes. Asparagus, which has such a root structure, grows along the side of the road in many parts of Georgia and Texas, and kudzu, also known as “the vine that ate the south” is so prolific and fast-growing that it entirely possible to lose a house to it over the course of a single summer. Both are all but impossible to eradicate.
It is easy to think of Las Vegas as isolated. After all, it is surrounded by miles of the bleakest scrubland I have ever encountered, rather ironically considering that “las vegas” is the Spanish word for fertile lowlands. We went for hours without seeing so much as a goat. The transition to Las Vegas is sudden and shocking. It seems to rise from the horizon.

What happens, though, when we consider Las Vegas as a rhizome? For one, it grows with all speed and tenacity of kudzu, and it may be just as impossible to kill. Even in the middle of a recession, they were building a high-rise apartment building right along the strip. Part of the reason that Vegas is so successful might be the fact that it, like the roots of a rhizome, has many nodes. No one casino is central, so if one fails, the others can continue on.

This is probably not quite the way that Deleuze and Guattari meant the idea, though. They might consider Las Vegas more in terms of the process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. The billboards advertising various Vegas shows and hotels started popping up practically before we left LA County. About halfway there, we encountered a tiny stand of buildings, which I will call a town only because I feel village sounds too innocent, called Baker, California, that seems to exist only to serve the streams of tourists traveling between the two cities. In this way the literal territory of LA merges seamlessly into its economic territory, and the two interact and shape each other. Las Vegas keeps billboard owners and Baker in business, and they drive the tourists onward to the city.

On the plain of ideas, Las Vegas is even less distinct. After all, what Las Vegas truly markets is hope—they don’t sell sausages, they sell sizzle. Every single person who walks up to a slot machine does so knowing that they almost certainly about to lose money, and that the machine has, at best, a 95% payout. Watching the little disks spin is not nearly amusing enough to justify the cost. The slot machine is not an object, it is an assemblage, a converges of hopes and dreams and possibility and loss and compulsion, and the city is just a larger example of the same, with a heavy dose of sin and taboo.

Or maybe I am just blinded by all the neon lights.

The Dangers of Free Association as Revealed by Modern Media

The Dangers of Free Association as Revealed by Modern Media
When reading Freud’s theories regarding the psychoanalytic approach to literature, it seems that I could never quite muster up enough enthusiasm to really want to interpret a piece of literature in this way. Although I still manage to I feel that many, if not most, of his arguments are at least understandable and fairly reasonable, I ultimately cannot like this approach because I feel that if it becomes recognized and allowed to be used as factual I feel it would be only detrimental to our society. Ultimately the problem is that I simply cannot think of a situation where Free Association specifically would lead us as a population to make any beneficial advancements, and therefore has no right to be legitimized as anything else than a literary hypothesis. I came to this conclusion because recently modern media has so kindly reminded me that when validity is granted to absurd notions situations get out of control and bad things happen.
Seemingly crude and obnoxious, Southpark was actually able to perfectly capture the thought that I never was able to fully articulate. Even though Freud believes a dream to be a “picture-puzzle” (The Interpretation of Dreams, 401) and goes further to clarify that “there is no justification for supposing that the lost pieces of the dream would have related to the same thoughts which we have already reached from the pieces of the dream that have survived” (The Interpretation of Dreams, 401) thus legitimizing Free Association, I still feel as if “it’s like everyone’s putting pieces together that aren’t there” (Stan, Southpark season 10, episode 9) as so eloquently put by Kyle Broflofsky of South Park elementary school.
It has become clear that I have a problem with the very foundation of Psychoanalysis, which grants everyone’s interpretation by Free Association as correct. I feel that when applied to decision-making and understanding the facts, such as ones subconscious desires or repressed notions, Free Association gives too much power to people who may or may not deserve such influence over people. In episode nine, season ten of Southpark, Cartman proceeds to successfully frame Kyle for the nine eleven attacks on the Twin Towers. This obviously absurd notion is brought up through Cartman’s “shocking powerpoint report on the truths behind the 911 attacks” (Cartman, Southpark season 10, episode 9) leading him by Free Association to decide that Kyle, a young boy in the fourth grade, is responsible for the attacks. It becomes obvious to Cartman that Kyle did this because “2-1+911 is twelve which contains the numbers” which are ridiculously manipulated by Cartman to be 91 which is the math score Kyle received on a math test the previous week thus proving Kyle’s involvement. Cartman proceeds to turn the entire school, and government against innocent Kyle.
Although extreme, this exemplifies that when everyone is working towards their own selfish desires unconsciously, and our desires are detrimental to society which is the entire reason they are repressed, evil will take over and never allow our society to make any progress. I feel that Free Association allows for more theories to skate by due to a strong willed individual, and if that individual somehow gains enough support for his random and personal opinion it will be carried farther and could get out of control. The key to the psychoanalytic approach is that each individual has a right to their own interpretive opinion, as in most analytical situations, but when such responsibility is given in a situation where it will be used to diagnose our unconsciouss repressed desires and lead to important conclusions, it can be easily twisted and used for evil.
Gossip Girl, another highly intellectual and excellently viewed show, is in its entirety about the negative affects of Free Association. A website is run, entitled gossip girl, where anonymous tips and photos are sent in and are up for interpretation from that point forward. Each interpretation has some validity, and gains approval the more it is exposed. This proves that the popular girls, which are the ones with the worst intentions, will control what information is believed by the mass public. I feel that this again shows what can happen when Free Association is used as more than just a mode of discussion.
I’ve been pretty hard on the psychoanalytic approach, but honestly I do find it very interesting when applied to literature. I agree with Freud in noticing “that literary texts are like dreams,” (Freud, Strangers to Ourselves, 394) and in that way Free Association is very interesting to explore. I just want to ensure that it stays only in the hypothetical and discussion phases and is not allowed to have a great impact on areas of society where it is not a fit mode of decision making.

All Freud quotes taken from:
Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan

Two by two: a few thoughts on parallels in the writings of Sassure and Marx

While reading the selections from Marx for today's discussion, particularly Capital (1867), I was continually reminded of the Course in General Linguistics (1916).  As with Sassure's notion of an implied order behind language, a mutually comprehensible system, order, pattern-- whatever it's called, it governs actual, observable activities of human society.

When Marx says that value, specifically labor-value, "converts every product into a social hieroglyphic.. we try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own social products; for to stamp an object of utility as a value, is just as much a social product as language" (669), it is easy to apply the concept of commodity as a sign to an understanding of Marx's argument.  This association reinforced my interest in the commodity's binary nature.  Like the linguistic sign is composed of signifier/signified, the commodity or product is composed of use-value/labor-value: the former, concrete, the latter, abstract.  The "shape," as Marx says, of the commodity is merely indicative of its labor-value, in the same way that the signifier provides access to what Marx would call an "aggregate" meaning-- that is to say, insofar as both the signified and the labor-value is a construct of complex and varied interrelations of composite experiences and information.  Like a linguistic sign, a commodity is a symbol exchanged between two parties who mutually agree upon a system of values and meaning to facilitate social interaction.

The use of binary systems of relation and difference has been an issue of interest to me since reading selections from writing by Helene Cioux, a French feminist deconstructionist theorist, in a Twentieth-century Women's literature course I took last year.  Cioux is concerned with the impact of established systems of thought and socio-linguistic order, particularly the binary system of oppositions--male/female, master/slave, strong/weak, winner/loser etc--upon the treatment of women and, more importantly, all people operating under this system of conflict. Cioux emphatically denies the notion that dominant thought structures--perpetuated, as Marx would agree, by the ruling classes--are "the way things are" or indicative of some kind of unalterable human nature.  Her writing itself is an endeavor to operate outside and beyond the binary-breakdown of social components.  To my dismay, I found myself frustrated by what seemed to me to be Cioux's abstract or nebulous writing style.  I felt inextricably entrenched in the dominant thought-pattern structure of binary oppositions, yet I remain confident that Cioux is correct in asserting that this way of thinking is only one possible mode of organizing the world and relational concepts.  It's prevalence and dominance is not necessarily indicative of its truth or inate-ness.

In this vein, I also found it interesting that in the brief introduction to Capital, the editor points out that Marx "attempted to provide a scientific explanation of his contention that a capitalist economic system requires the appropriation from workers of more value than they are paid for."  As I understand it, Freud, too, famously emphasized the scientific validity of his work, often in the face of open skepticism.  And Sassure, the linguist: his career implies access to objective, scientific reasoning.  These men subscribe to the myth of objectivity when a claim to scientific observation and analysis is used to validate their theories.  This claim to science can be thought of as a sign, used in the rhetoric of an argument about human behavior to convey legitimacy and value.