I've been thinking about my biographers lately, and wondering what sort of materials they will have at their disposal to write my life. The internet makes archiving things so much easier, but it's also so much easier to erase things totally (at least I think it's easier to click a button than to burn or throw something away). Out of sympathy to my future biographers, I promise to never delete another email, or throw away any note or notebook or photo, never throw away anything that I've owned. Keep all receipts, bills, and bank statements.
This blog isn't about me, it's all about my biographers.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
artifacts
Yesterday, I went to the British museum and looked at artifacts. There were many ancient things from all over the world but, to me, the most interesting artifact was the museum itself. Arguably, this is actually what's most important to everyone who goes there, who don't go to see Celtic spoons or Turkish tiles, they go to see the museum itself, and to be able to say that they went there. Viewing every gallery, the entire museum, is more important than any of the individual displays.
But, maybe that's just me.
Of the actual displays, I particularly enjoyed the pieces from persepolis. But, along with most of the other artifacts on display, I couldn't help but see on these objects the traces of imperialism and colonization.
But, maybe that's just me.
Of the actual displays, I particularly enjoyed the pieces from persepolis. But, along with most of the other artifacts on display, I couldn't help but see on these objects the traces of imperialism and colonization.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
there is no true culture
I dont believe there is such thing as authentic culture that can be discovered and described, authentic as in essential, or more true. For instance: food. It always puzzles me when people ask me whether Thai food tastes "authentic" or not, as if they judge whether or not hamburgers are "authentic" American. In that case, its either a good burger or bad burger, not a burger that is representative of American culture and cooking. That said, it seems like there are patterns of behavior among localized groups that can be generalized and described, but not as authentic or true.
Now that I'm in England, this is something I've been thinking about. Especially that culture might primarily be a commodity that is sold in souvenir shops, restaurants, sites, and books, or used as a strategy to sell specific commodities. I'm also interested in the ways that history is used to the same ends. London has many "historic" sites, but I wonder to what extent they exist as carefully produced and reproduced commodities. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but its hard for me to get excited about things being authentic or historical when those terms are used primarily as selling strategies.
Now that I'm in England, this is something I've been thinking about. Especially that culture might primarily be a commodity that is sold in souvenir shops, restaurants, sites, and books, or used as a strategy to sell specific commodities. I'm also interested in the ways that history is used to the same ends. London has many "historic" sites, but I wonder to what extent they exist as carefully produced and reproduced commodities. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but its hard for me to get excited about things being authentic or historical when those terms are used primarily as selling strategies.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
objectification
1. The other day, my brother's ipod was stolen out of his backpack when he forgot it for an hour in the bathroom of a bubble tea shop. I'm not sure what there is to say about this, I'm sure an easy route is to talk about depraved human nature, but I don't believe in that (or think it's very interesting, unless it's in a Cormac McCarthy novel, perhaps, which isnt the same animal). What's interesting to me is how the theft was anonymous, and yet I almost certainly saw the face of the person who stole it, and I wonder if they knew who they were taking it from, and if they saw my sister in law bring the bag out.
2. Quite often I hear advertisements or various media criticized because of the ways in which they objectify women, or turn women into objects. Maybe I just don't understand the ways in which the word is being used, but I don't think this is a very strong or illuminating criticism, because nothing can be represented without objectification, including the self. On here, I cannot represent myself or even use 'I' without turning myself into an object to be utilized and analyzed, where a part stands in for the whole.
But, that isn't to say the concerns about how women are represented are unfounded. However, I do think that some of the other criticisms are not backed very well. For instance, lets say that an advertisement is criticized because of the way that it not only turns women into objects but turns them into sex objects, or how representations sexualize women, or split the body from an inner self. But this seems like a projection of the response of the viewer to the image, rather than something that is inherent in the representation. Things are only sexual if they are perceived to be sexual. The criticism is a projection of the feelings of the viewer onto the object, rather than something in the object/image that is discovered and revealed.
In the same way, images are essentialized by the viewer/critic rather than the images being essentialist in themselves. For instance, I might criticize an image for how it turns women into sex objects. My claim is that the image itself projects a way that all women should be viewed, or a gaze that should be assumed when turned towards women. But once again this seems like a projection of the viewer rather than something inherent, when I say that an advertisement is making claims about all women, I am the one who is making that woman (or women) stand in for all women in all cultures. And that, to me, is sometimes scarier than the image itself, because then I am complicit, and even if I reject the totalizing/sexualized image, I replace it with a different essentialization, which I think is not very much improvement, if any.
That isn't to say that there are not real problems in advertising, or music, or videos or video games, only that many of the criticisms are not very self conscious about the methods of their criticism (and of course, I'm not talking about professional critics, just pop criticism that I hear from the people around me).
Anyway, I'm just using the issue of women and advertisement as an example, but it really bleeds into a lot of identity criticism.
2. Quite often I hear advertisements or various media criticized because of the ways in which they objectify women, or turn women into objects. Maybe I just don't understand the ways in which the word is being used, but I don't think this is a very strong or illuminating criticism, because nothing can be represented without objectification, including the self. On here, I cannot represent myself or even use 'I' without turning myself into an object to be utilized and analyzed, where a part stands in for the whole.
But, that isn't to say the concerns about how women are represented are unfounded. However, I do think that some of the other criticisms are not backed very well. For instance, lets say that an advertisement is criticized because of the way that it not only turns women into objects but turns them into sex objects, or how representations sexualize women, or split the body from an inner self. But this seems like a projection of the response of the viewer to the image, rather than something that is inherent in the representation. Things are only sexual if they are perceived to be sexual. The criticism is a projection of the feelings of the viewer onto the object, rather than something in the object/image that is discovered and revealed.
In the same way, images are essentialized by the viewer/critic rather than the images being essentialist in themselves. For instance, I might criticize an image for how it turns women into sex objects. My claim is that the image itself projects a way that all women should be viewed, or a gaze that should be assumed when turned towards women. But once again this seems like a projection of the viewer rather than something inherent, when I say that an advertisement is making claims about all women, I am the one who is making that woman (or women) stand in for all women in all cultures. And that, to me, is sometimes scarier than the image itself, because then I am complicit, and even if I reject the totalizing/sexualized image, I replace it with a different essentialization, which I think is not very much improvement, if any.
That isn't to say that there are not real problems in advertising, or music, or videos or video games, only that many of the criticisms are not very self conscious about the methods of their criticism (and of course, I'm not talking about professional critics, just pop criticism that I hear from the people around me).
Anyway, I'm just using the issue of women and advertisement as an example, but it really bleeds into a lot of identity criticism.
Monday, July 20, 2009
decay
From Darwin's Plots by Gillian Beer:
"These examples show one of the difficulties on the path of evolutionary theory. It is a theory which does not privilege the present, which sees it as a moving instant in an endless process of change. Yet it has persistently been recast to make it seem that all the past has been yearning towards the present moment and is satisfied now" (11).
While I don't question her arguments in regards to biology, it seems that this does not necessarily transfer into other realms. The church constantly behaves as if the early church was the best model we have for what Christianity should be, and that the early Christians had better theology. Summarily, we try to discover what it was that they believed so that we can believe likewise, and sometimes it seems as if the arguments over what Paul did or did not mean when he said what he said wouldn't even be important unless we believe that what Paul and the early church believed is what we should follow. Similarly, that the early church best understood Jesus and what he meant in his teachings, and how we are to follow him. Are there any good or compelling reasons to believe that? Especially when the gospel accounts so consistently emphasize how much Jesus' followers didn't understand. That alone seems to be encouragement to press forward, rather than backwards, to discover new ways of meaning rather than trying to replicate old ways of meaning.
I think, also, that this quest for origins is accompanied by the idea that the world is consistently getting worse (more sinful), that there was a time (even in our own or our parents' own lives!) when things were better, more pure, and people really, genuinely followed god. We have to return, then, to the better time of before, we have to have revivals to bring back to life something that used to be alive.
I'm all about survival of the fittest, or maybe just of what Neruda writes, "Let us be weary of what kills, / and of what doesn't want to die." Extinction and death are important parts of life, and revival just means killing the new life. Let's be scared of anything that doesn't change.
In other news, in the library today I discovered an Un-American Activities in Washington State Report from 1948. It was transcript of various hearings of "Un-Americans," which translates to commies. I was proud of the English professor who refused to testify, and instead quoted Shakespeare and Plotinus at his interrogators.
"These examples show one of the difficulties on the path of evolutionary theory. It is a theory which does not privilege the present, which sees it as a moving instant in an endless process of change. Yet it has persistently been recast to make it seem that all the past has been yearning towards the present moment and is satisfied now" (11).
While I don't question her arguments in regards to biology, it seems that this does not necessarily transfer into other realms. The church constantly behaves as if the early church was the best model we have for what Christianity should be, and that the early Christians had better theology. Summarily, we try to discover what it was that they believed so that we can believe likewise, and sometimes it seems as if the arguments over what Paul did or did not mean when he said what he said wouldn't even be important unless we believe that what Paul and the early church believed is what we should follow. Similarly, that the early church best understood Jesus and what he meant in his teachings, and how we are to follow him. Are there any good or compelling reasons to believe that? Especially when the gospel accounts so consistently emphasize how much Jesus' followers didn't understand. That alone seems to be encouragement to press forward, rather than backwards, to discover new ways of meaning rather than trying to replicate old ways of meaning.
I think, also, that this quest for origins is accompanied by the idea that the world is consistently getting worse (more sinful), that there was a time (even in our own or our parents' own lives!) when things were better, more pure, and people really, genuinely followed god. We have to return, then, to the better time of before, we have to have revivals to bring back to life something that used to be alive.
I'm all about survival of the fittest, or maybe just of what Neruda writes, "Let us be weary of what kills, / and of what doesn't want to die." Extinction and death are important parts of life, and revival just means killing the new life. Let's be scared of anything that doesn't change.
In other news, in the library today I discovered an Un-American Activities in Washington State Report from 1948. It was transcript of various hearings of "Un-Americans," which translates to commies. I was proud of the English professor who refused to testify, and instead quoted Shakespeare and Plotinus at his interrogators.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
some things used to be different
Recently, I read about various debates in Victorian biblical hermeneutics. One of the questions (that I think is still being debated today) is whether or not the bible can/should be interpreted as all other literature and writing is interpreted. 1) I hold pretty strongly that the bible being 'scripture' doesn't free it from the problems (and peculiarities) of all other writing. 2) No one reads literature as a set of moral lessons or instructions. Discourse and ideologies are examined, but narrative is not reduced (at least in literature studies) to attempts to discover how I should eat or who I should sleep with or live with (but of course writing has these political/ideological/moral conversations). But even if such lessons are prescribed, this doesn't transfer into prescription for how to live my life.
Attempting to turn writing into instructions, morals, ideologies to follow is disrespectful of text and author, and transforms the text into propaganda, or uses it for the purpose of propaganda. Similarly, trying to find an emergent discourse or lesson out of a text (what does the story of David and Bathsheba teach us? what does "The Bible" say about faith and deeds, etc) is really blinding. The bible is not the location of a single or coherent theology, it is many theologies. The bible is not the location of one coherent or systematic truth. What interests me more at the moment is thinking of the bible in terms of dialogue: each book with the others, with itself, with its readers, with other literature that has appropriated the bible and biblical narratives. And trying to find "lessons" in the bible is the source of the problem, it flattens the entire bible and the many voices found within.
Also. I've been thinking about history lately. I read an article on transatlantic literature in the nineteenth century last week, and one of the arguments being made was that the American writers in that time period were very concerned with the issue of history, precisely because their country was new and in this sense they had a chip on their shoulder compared to their european counterparts. What I see there, then, is deliberate rejection of ignorance of history in early US history. I don't know how widespread this was, but it is easy for me to see how this might have evolved into the current America (or American church). BUT, let's not talk about cause and effect, because that can be easily rejected, because I simply don't have evidence.
Instead, I'll say that I wish the church in America had more of a sense of and appreciation for history, especially hermeneutical history, for which interpretations that seem to be traditional and orthodox (the infallibility of the bible? "literal" creation story? etc.) are either new species of interpretation or were moot questions historically. Even more of an understanding of modernity, and conceptions of truth that were developed in modernity (perhaps post-modernity would not seem threatening to people if they understood that much of what is being rejected is not something that has been passed on from the beginning of the church or civilization or time, what is being rejected is a species of belief that is still relatively young, if powerful. But no one wants to study history: it's terrifying to learn that the present is not the same as the past, and is not always better.
And history is boring of course.
Attempting to turn writing into instructions, morals, ideologies to follow is disrespectful of text and author, and transforms the text into propaganda, or uses it for the purpose of propaganda. Similarly, trying to find an emergent discourse or lesson out of a text (what does the story of David and Bathsheba teach us? what does "The Bible" say about faith and deeds, etc) is really blinding. The bible is not the location of a single or coherent theology, it is many theologies. The bible is not the location of one coherent or systematic truth. What interests me more at the moment is thinking of the bible in terms of dialogue: each book with the others, with itself, with its readers, with other literature that has appropriated the bible and biblical narratives. And trying to find "lessons" in the bible is the source of the problem, it flattens the entire bible and the many voices found within.
Also. I've been thinking about history lately. I read an article on transatlantic literature in the nineteenth century last week, and one of the arguments being made was that the American writers in that time period were very concerned with the issue of history, precisely because their country was new and in this sense they had a chip on their shoulder compared to their european counterparts. What I see there, then, is deliberate rejection of ignorance of history in early US history. I don't know how widespread this was, but it is easy for me to see how this might have evolved into the current America (or American church). BUT, let's not talk about cause and effect, because that can be easily rejected, because I simply don't have evidence.
Instead, I'll say that I wish the church in America had more of a sense of and appreciation for history, especially hermeneutical history, for which interpretations that seem to be traditional and orthodox (the infallibility of the bible? "literal" creation story? etc.) are either new species of interpretation or were moot questions historically. Even more of an understanding of modernity, and conceptions of truth that were developed in modernity (perhaps post-modernity would not seem threatening to people if they understood that much of what is being rejected is not something that has been passed on from the beginning of the church or civilization or time, what is being rejected is a species of belief that is still relatively young, if powerful. But no one wants to study history: it's terrifying to learn that the present is not the same as the past, and is not always better.
And history is boring of course.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
various
The imagery in most worship music is boring. This is because most Christians worship the Bible, and not God, and do not see a difference between representations of God and God himself. Consequently, imagery in worship music becomes rehashes of the Bible rather than anything creative or new (how many worship songs reference rising "on eagles wings"?). And, for the bible-worshippers, it might actually be considered a good thing, because to come up with something new is a violation of the idea that truth is timeless and so anything new is false. Fortunately, the writers of the bible did not see things this way, since they were constantly creating new imagery (while being intertextual and referencing previous imagery). Or, songs rehash other worship songs (how many songs have referenced Amazing Grace, for instance). Creativity is not spitting out verses from the bible. That's a not very articulate rant, but it's been on my mind for some time.
Here's a thought about facts: inasmuch as facts exist (and I'm not sure they do), facts in and of themselves are meaningless. Meaning is external to the fact (for instance, if we take it as fact that Jesus died, there is no meaning in that, we must examine the implications/interpretation of the fact to arrive at meaning). Meaning is always external rather than intrinsic and internal.
I was looking the other day at a portrait photo, and thinking about how creepy portrait photos are. I'm thinking of photos of a single person against a blank backdrop, and how the blank backdrop totally strips the event of any sort of narrative or history, and how much more I like photos that are set somewhere. Perhaps this is why I dislike flower and plant photography, too, because the close up could be of any flower anywhere, and there is nothing happening.
Here's a thought about facts: inasmuch as facts exist (and I'm not sure they do), facts in and of themselves are meaningless. Meaning is external to the fact (for instance, if we take it as fact that Jesus died, there is no meaning in that, we must examine the implications/interpretation of the fact to arrive at meaning). Meaning is always external rather than intrinsic and internal.
I was looking the other day at a portrait photo, and thinking about how creepy portrait photos are. I'm thinking of photos of a single person against a blank backdrop, and how the blank backdrop totally strips the event of any sort of narrative or history, and how much more I like photos that are set somewhere. Perhaps this is why I dislike flower and plant photography, too, because the close up could be of any flower anywhere, and there is nothing happening.
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