the pornography of politics

A few years ago, former Prime Minister Sir John Major said of an increasingly politicized British political body, "[s]pin is the pornography of politics".

Pornography has a unique and almost ironic ability to entice us by saying absolutely nothing. It offers nothing new, nothing exciting or unknown. It represents the total and absolute eradication of seduction and therefore the subsequent destruction of desire. Yet congruently, pornography remains capable of producing the illusion of seduction, and thereby remaining one of the most profitable businesses in the United States.

Two commonly stated yet rarely thought out axioms: sex sells and sex is repressed. How else but through a simulation could these two ideas simultaneously exist? It would appear that sex is used to sell nearly every product (except those often directly sexual, as if doing so would be vulgar), yet continues to remain taboo. Of course, the ability of sex to sell is contingent upon its feeling as taboo. If we did not think it naughty, the images of nearly naked supermodels selling us clothing they aren't even wearing would no longer work. Yet what is the seductress here? Something within this image of sex lures us in, enthralls us enough to associate positive (in the capitalist sense) emotions with an arbitrary product. The seducer can no longer be that which remains physically hidden, as the picture reveals almost the entire woman's body. By an act of inversion, it appears that the affectivity of an image increases as more is shown. The revelation of a woman's body increases its seductability, implying that the allure has little to do with what is actually being shown.

Of course, there are parts of the image that will forever remain hidden, and one could possibly posit a theory that suggests the genitals are key. The looker, not quite a voyeur, remains enthralled because the quintessence of woman remains hidden in underwear. However I am not apt to believe that the entire crux of desire rests upon these areas. No, instead they remain the symbol of desire thereby distracting us from the vulgarity of obviousness; that taboo exists within the communication of sexuality itself, not within the image.

Of course, I borrow this idea from Foucault, who says that society, "speaks verbosely of its own silence, takes great pains to relate in detail the things it does not say, denounces the powers it exercises, and promises to liberate itself from the very laws that have made it function...What lead us to show, ostentatiously, that sex is something we hide, to say it is something we silence" (The History of Sexuality, 9)? In other words, Foucault is asking how, in a society surrounded by nonstop sex, we can claim it is repressed? Repression is communicated through the expression of sexuality. These expressions of sexuality are thought to be naughty and shocking - as contrary to the stuffy, Victorian-style decency that supposedly regulates our behavior. Pictures of naked women package this feeling of liberation and sell it to us through jeans, shorts, shoes, cars, beer, hamburgers, vacation packages or just about anything else one can imagine. Unfortunately for a consumerist culture, edginess is not something you can wear. Hegemony, however, is.

Which leads us to pornography. Porn is a pristine example of hegemony at work, as it packages and sells the feeling of excitement and liberation through reinforcing the existing power structure (power structure here being the sexual commodification of women's bodies in all its manifestations, from social to spiritual to economic). If pornography were actually taboo, it would show loving, caring relationships. It does not.

Pornography and politics are similar in the respect that both subjugate through a false hope of agency. Neither challenge mainstream structures of power, yet both remain marketable by selling the allure of doing just that. Spin is especially guilty of being vulgar, as it intentionally sells the image of salvation through enslavement. Work shall set you free. If politics were actually taboo (aka politicians who were real mavericks or agents of change), they would seek to destroy the power structure. If politicians actually believed in family values, mothers would collect a salary for staying at home. If they believed in alternative sources of energy, they would have to lead a fight not only against oil, but against masculine domination of nature.

Spin is the pornography of politics because it turns us on without offering us anything we don't already know. It is both masterful and pathetic all at once. Isn't that what we want, after all?

eroticized subjects of meaning

Continuing with my obsession of Baudrillard, in Cool Memories he says, "Lacan is right: language does not convey meaning. It stands in place of meaning. But the result produced are not effects of structure, but seduction effects. Not a law which regulates the play of signifiers, but a rule which ordains the play of appearances..."

My interest is in the final line which appears to be a reinterpretation of Lacan's bar restricting signification. Lacan stages language as a signifier over a signified, the two forever resisted by a barrier. In my most loved of his works, "Agency of the letter in the unconscious, or reason since Freud", Lacan clarifies his work as not merely examining the "arbitrariness of the sign", but questioning the assumption that "the signifier answers to the function of representing the signified" (149, 150). His goal is not to suggest that the words used to describe reality are inherently meaningless, and that the sound 'dog' has nothing to do with the very ridiculously cute creature asleep on my left leg at the moment. Rather, Lacan is questioning the supposition that the sound dog even references this ridiculously cute being. We acts as though it does, and surely on some level communication is possible. But Lacan's focus is on the ways in which this very signifier (the noise dog referring to any one specific dog) never quite fully signifies anything completely.

In a particularly dense sentence, Lacan suggests that it is a metonymic structure that is the connection between signifier and signified which creates a lack in the object being referenced. Words are related to each other (I believe as individual chains in a linked fence was Derrida's metaphor), and defined by one another. Thus, in order to talk about a specific subject, many words can be needed. Without full and complete signification by any one word, we add more and more to the sentence, desperate to find a phrase, a paragraph, a sentence, a book that will achieve the goal. Each word and every substitution leaves lack, as each new word posits its lack into the object (the furry creature who still sleeps). It is this very substitution of words that drives our desire. We desire because we cannot signify (completely) and we perpetually lack because the ego is rooted in signification. The lack of a full and complete signification causes a fragmentation we constantly and unconsciously try to fulfill.

Baudrillard is perhaps suggesting that desire is more seductive. Each word's lack hides something from us in an almost sexual manner. The bar's prevention of signification tempts and allures us to explore the mysterious. We always explore the unknown in our quest to become the Knowers. What is it other than knowledge that separates god from man? We are driven to mystery, or perhaps Baudrillard would say that mystery tempts us as a seductress.

Theology aside, Baudrillard takes a Foucaultian stance in exploring the process of analyzing. Competition among multiple analyses, he says, "is quite secondary by comparison with their joint commitment to the operation of dissection and transparency. Whatever you analyse and however you do it, you are helping to give primacy to desert forms, indifferent forms" (10). In other words, truth is less concerned with which of the multiple analyses are 'correct' than with the process of figuring out. Or perhaps the only truth that exists is the process of uncovering, naming, classifying, categorizing and subsequently, destroying.

In any event and most optimistically, it is no longer feasible to determine the role truth plays in contemporary American political culture. However, the illusion of objectivity still tantalizes us, but in an environment of sound bytes and talking points, even the supposedly objective reality is merely a construction aimed at appearing to be real. As David Foster Wallace says, television no longer needs to point to reality. Instead it points only back to itself.

The veritable army of reporters that follow around political candidates no longer captures Senator Obama as an individual. They only broadcast his simulacrum, a very carefully constructed image intent, if not hell bent, on appearing real. Mr. Obama can advocate for an amorphous change without ever dismantling power by addressing himself as the 'change candidate'. The concept of change becomes good, and therefore the Senator himself becomes good, all the while the influences of power that shape society slink by unnoticed; a change candidate who's existence relies on his own failure to make change. McCain's 'Straight Talk Express' is little more than a market where the Senator sells icons to the American voting public. As symbols are apt to do, they push aside reality and 'straight talk' becomes what McCain says, rather than the reversal. The Senator will simultaneously eliminate greed on Wall Street through government regulation while eliminating greedy government regulation on Wall Street. What will remain when he is finished? The Bush Administration is able to dismiss nearly any claim by repeating its antithesis. Saying 'we do not torture' makes it so, despite people being tortured. The motivation for war changes almost nonstop - that is to say, the only motivation for war changes almost nonstop. The United States is fighting Iraq to prevent the very terrorist connections the fighting created. The prevention of Al Qaeda in Iraq is the only motivation for the war, despite it being a byproduct of the war.

We are seduced by our own confusion over politics, drawn inexplicably towards the place where two or more oppositional statements merge. We attempt to make sense of the world under a paradigm of truth that never existed, one we believe is connected to the physical world. Thus, we remain eroticized subjects of our own attempt to discern meaning.

Now, how to turn the above into a paper for my folklore class.

Again, I have taken a substantial break but am back to wax philosophic about meaning and significance in contemporary American culture, specifically around Presidential politics. Two things have been on my mind lately, and I've been trying to weave them into my coursework so I can explore them in a broader context.

The first is an article posted in the Times on Monday about candidates trying to "break through the media fog". The article explores the candidates frustrations at trying to control the media message. "It has reached a point where senior campaign aides say they are no longer sure what works, as they stumble through what has become a daily campaign fog, struggling to figure out what voters are paying attention to and, not incidentally, what they are even believing", says the Times. In addition, NPR's Fresh Air segment on 9-16 explored various interpretations of Obama's recent comment about "lipstick on a pig". In it, former Governor of Massachusetts, Jane Swift, claims "[y]ou're responsible for words even if they're misconstrued", and that Obama's main fault was in simply using words that could be considered offensive. As accurately described by Geoff Nunberg, it often "doesn't matter if an interpretation makes logical sense" to be believed.

Both of these news pieces point to an increasing complexity in cultural meaning. Candidates' words often get interpreted and reinterpreted multiple times, dizzily swirling around on major media outlets, then onto on podcasts and blogs and then often times back into the major outlets. A cursory examination would suggest that, in a world where 24 hour news and increased, multifarious access to the internet is the standard, there is far more time and space for interpretation. However, I think this phenomenon, if it can even be described as such, signifies a revelation in the way meaning is fluid. It is not an increase in news time and space that has created the situation, but it is this time and space which reveals a rift between words and reality.

Words, if spoken truthfully, were once thought to represent reality. With the exception of the occasional schizophrenic, lying would be a conscious choice. One could decide to tell the truth, and thus use words to accurately describe Reality. Of course, postmodernism refuted that claim, insisting multiple interpretations of reality exist, but this did not linger in the minds' of many people as they participated in democracy or read the newspaper. Now it is difficult not to find an individual who fails to recognize the ambiguity of truth and lying around this political campaign. It is no longer a question of whether or not Senator Obama meant Governor Palin is a pig with lipstick, or whether he meant that she was the lipstick on a piggish campaign. So concerning oneself with meaning of the words he used entirely misses the point - truth is (aka appears to be) no longer linear. Instead, it grows organically, out of the communication itself.

Reality seems to be infested with truths, contained within and simultaneously produced by individual narratives. It is not simply that there are multiple layers of truth being broadcast, which seem to coincide and contradict each other. If such were the case, these truths would exist within a hierarchy and battle for superiority. Truths produced by the Swift Boats Veterans for Truth would lose status as they lost credibility. Eventually, they would cease to be truths at all, and exist only as myths, speculations or blatant lies. However, so long as these truths exist in the media, they do not seem to lose credibility; in fact, they gain strength even through their repudiation.

structure(s) of power and change

In doing a morning wade through the bloggy marshlands in search of opinions that offer insight and analysis, I came across one that touches on a few points I have been considering for some time, but had not yet put into words. In the post The Postmodern Politics of the Clintons, the author refers to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Jean Baudrillard where a few ideas struck me as relevant.

The first, "If modern societies, for classical social theory, were characterized by differentiation, for Baudrillard, postmodern societies are characterized by dedifferentiation, the "collapse" of (the power of) distinctions, or implosion. In Baudrillard's society of simulation, the realms of economics, politics, culture, sexuality, and the social all implode into each other." Structures of power still remain and shape pliable bodies, but have become so complex that it is no longer possible to distinguish between them. In fact, perhaps one could argue that there are no more structures of power, but instead a power apparatus whose shape is always shifting.

The complicated and interconnected fashion of modern-day society makes it incredibly difficult for a candidate of change to have any specific appeal without appearing to be anti-mainstream and therefore absurd (Nader, for example). It is not possible to 'change' the war in Iraq without changing other complicated political systems such as economics, foreign policy, class divides, etc.

These issues are addressed as individual and separate structures, albeit with some overlap. However, one cannot change a singular aspect of a complex power apparatus without effecting the entire structure. The war in Iraq is not just connected to American foreign policy, but is connected to the 'reality' in which Americans live. Our foreign policy is structured on aggressive, masculine values that privilege American interests over all else, and are designed to promote an aura of protection around the simulation in which we live. If we accept that "realm of the hyperreal (e.g., media simulations of reality, Disneyland and amusement parks, malls and consumer fantasylands, TV sports, and other excursions into ideal worlds) is more real than real", we acknowledge that in order to have any substantial political change, our current vision of reality will be destroyed. After all, the war in Iraq is about amusements parks and consumer fantasylands, isn't it? Is it not about the preservation of American interests both physically and symbolically? Certainly, oil is at the center of any American interest - the prototypical American trip to Disneyland or weeknight excursion to the mall is not possible without oil. But more so than that, Iraq is about America's right to exist in a consumer fantasyland, is it not? We fight terrorists abroad so we do not have to fight them at home and disrupt the American way of life. We are compelled to continue business as usual, or the terrorists win. Existing within this simulation is what makes us feel safe, and thus is worth the cost of people's lives.

However, the Presidential candidate whose mantra is change must break down this amorphous structure of power and address it as many separate issues. Perhaps she defaults to the past, to a time where these powers could be addressed individually, or perhaps their individuality has has always been a part of the simulation. Either way, he must be cautious about how these issues are addressed, taking care not to discuss specifics, as no details can exist that do not result in a systematic collapse of the fantasy of American life. Instead, the popular candidate is one who can remain ambitious but simultaneously inspirational - in other words, one who can be a part of the simulation and offer the feeling of change without disrupting anything. After all, isn't it typically American to attempt changing only the 'bad' but leaving the rest of the system as it was? Think of all the medications we have that are designed to identify our one 'problem', solve it and leave the rest intact.

Unfortunately, I must cut this post short but will continue on to the second point, about randomness and gambling, soon...

David Foster Wallace and Hillary Clinton

Steven Colbert brought up an excellent point about cultural representations of meaning on his show last night. He asked if the media switched its focus from Hillary Clinton to Barak Obama because they had grown tired of the female senator, and were presented with the opportunity to participate in their favorite activity, to talk about themselves and how they had given him a free pass. I was quickly reminded of David Foster Wallace's comment that "[t]elevision used to point beyond itself", at real life; but no longer is reality necessary to sustain television's popularity. Now it can point only at itself.

In this case, television needs not the reality of the democratic campaign, as it can create its own. Clinton offers examples of 'fake' television debates in a 'real' television debate, which provides television an opportunity to focus back on itself. No longer is the coverage tied to the physicality of a candidate. The story is not Clinton or her actions, but the media's portrayal of her. Popular commentators comment on their ability to offer commentary, and populate the Sunday morning news with favorites such as 'media frenzy' or 'liberal bias'. The news no longer needs to come from reality, instead news is generated from the way it is reported.

Television is already saturated with impersonations of candidates - the re-creation of so called reality in such a way that it mimics the real rather than commenting on it. But eventually people grow bored of these impersonations, so another layer of reproduction is added where candidates actually appear in the mimicry. Yet, it does not default back to reality. Instead it offers a confusing, exciting new layer where people can act as voyeurs and watch as their real live politicians mock those who mock the caricature of themselves on which they spend so much effort.

I think Colbert hit the nail right on the head - when the same old story of Clinton's imminent demise is no longer shocking, coverage desperately searches the landscape for new material, taking any chance it could get to draw attention to itself.

In the words of Baudrillard, "[i]t is not illusion which conceals reality. It is reality which conceals the fact that there is none."

Ferraro's comments

I feel a sense of obligation to comment on the Geraldine Ferraro remarks of last week, as it pertains to all things race and gender.

However, I am not sure what to say. On one hand, I think the comments she made are very worthy of an examination and have been too easily dismissed as racist or patently absurd by people who are already hyper-sensitive about the Clinton campaign's handling of race.

On the other hand, the Clinton campaign has consistently botched any attempt at commenting on race, and Ferraro's response to criticism about her claims as a form of reverse discrimination are patently absurd.

I get what the campaign was doing - as an intelligent blogger points out, the comments she made were aimed at getting a few people to think about Obama's race and shift their votes to her. In typical Clinton fashion, they were blunt enough to get a lot of people angered, but most likely only African Americans and upper-middle-class pseudo-liberal whites. But strategy aside, was it an ethical comment?

Is it appropriate to remind white-skinned blue-collared Obama supporters that they should fear Obama's race? No, it is not. Invoking reverse discrimination in hopes that the blue collar workers in question are reminded about all the times they feel a black person has been given more favorable treatment than them is absolutely absurd, and is really deplorable behavior.

Her original comment, that Obama would not be where he is today if he were not black, is what was seen as offensive. Many can interpret this remark, along with her reference to his luck, as a suggestion that he benefited from his blackness in a way that a white man could not. It is entirely understandable why people would be reticent to agree, as it suggests reverse discrimination. However, you can also interpret her comment as an analysis on modern day culture. Part of Obama's appeal is because he is black and therefore different. His inspiration is surely connected to his race. He reminds people of Martin Luther King (people conflate MLK into feelings of innocence and inspiration, and do so with Obama as well). To many, he is not a person, he is a phenomenon unlike the Democratic party has seen in a while. As I have said before, he benefits greatly from the circular logic of modern culture. People love him because everyone loves him; he is inspirational because everyone talks about how inspirational he is.

For whites, Barak Obama is a guilt free alternative to mainstream American politics. Pseudo-liberal whites can support him without having to worry about his baggage. He doesn't put anyone off and he won't pit black against white, which is the age-old pseudo-liberal dilemma - how to call yourself a liberal without feeling guilty because you don't support someone who actually gives a damn about race relations (ie Kerry over Dean, Gore over Bradley, anyone over Nader). Thus, making a comment that suggests his popularity can be attributed to his race is not over the top, and is not necessarily racist. I also think that a small portion of his success among whites is because it is harder to dislike him without being seen as racist. Say what you will about the structures of power, for a white man, it is easier to be openly sexist than to be openly racist. The abated argument is, if a white man is racist it could potentially pose a physical threat to his safety, but if a white man is sexist, who is going to beat him up? I do not think many white men are put into a position where they support Obama because they are afraid of being racist (most of these men belong to the Republican party, I'd imagine), but it is still worth a mention.

The accuracy of Ferraro's next line is more clear. She states that if Obama were a woman of any color, he would not be as successful - aka his success is in part due to his gender. This critique on the structural sexism within society needs no elaboration. A male candidate can get away with a lot more than a female candidate, and most of the hatred that surrounds Clinton can be attributed, at least in part, to her gender. People feel that she should not have stuck by her husband in the Lewinsky scandal - if the situation were reversed, and he stuck by her, he would have been revered for his sincerity and lovingness. People questioned her motives when running for Senate - when was the last time you heard about a male candidate who's motives were questioned? All politician's motives should be questioned, so why was her Senatorial candidacy so much more controversial (to non the New Yorkers who are always on about it) than
any other Senatorial race. Surely she isn't the first Senator in modern times who moved to an area and ran for office, and even if she is, so what? She campaigned and won. People claim is is manipulative with a contempt that is rarely applied to a male candidate (women aren't supposed to be political, they are supposed to be nurturing and caring). When she is masculine, we hear endlessly about her pantsuits. No one comments on McCain's masculine behavior. When she is feminine, we hear that she is faking it for politics. No one comments on Laura Bush's contrived role as a the perfect wife. She's thought of as weak because she is feminine, and too masculine because she is strong (talk about strange, circular logic)! We abhor her laugh. We detest her lack of emotion in her speeches. This list could continue on forever.

All that to say, the points Ferraro made are worth some examination. What she said is true, but the reasons she said it are, at the very least, questionable.

the face of the other

I borrowed the name of this piece from Levinas, even thought I can't profess to know much about the article whence it came. Regardless, I use it without shame.

Kristof's piece in the Times today referenced a gallop poll that claims "94 percent of Americans said they would vote for a black candidate for president and 88 percent for a woman", whereas a previous poll from a prior period professes that only 34 percent of people would vote for a Muslim. First off, I do not believe any statistical analysis that makes claims about the status of race or gender. But more importantly, I am interested in the relationship between the 88% of Americans who claim they would vote for a female president and the 66% of Americans who claim they would never vote for a Muslim president. These statistics are a sign of how ingrained structural sexism is within our society, as many people genuinely believe they would support a female candidate, while fearing the election of a Muslim candidate for the very same reasons.

I believe there are some major similarities in the reasons people would not vote for a Muslim candidate and the reasons people would actually not vote for a woman candidate, despite what claims have been made. The first question that begs to be asked is 'why would you not vote for a Muslim?' Surely, the simply answer is September 11th. The President has been quite successful reminding the American public that another act of terrorism is eminent and we should live in a constant state of suspicion. Recall that by the 5th anniversary of September 11th, the President was still referring to our 'enemy' as having 'a perverted view of Islam', as 'evil and [who] kill without mercy'.

This fear of an enemy does not go without affect. Even if most Americans attempted to make a distinction between those with a 'perverted view of Islam' and those with a peaceful view of Islam, it would be nearly impossible under a paradigm of such fear. Fear of an enemy must be rampant in our society. If it wasn't, why was national security the most important issue in the 2004 presidential elections? Why wouldn't the constant actions of the Bush Administration to increase the powers of the CIA (such as yesterday's veto of a bill that would have prohibited waterboarding) receive more attention? Why are we still in Iraq (or why did we go in the first place)? Needless to say, fear of an enemy is at the center of president-day American politics.

I intentionally use the phrase 'fear of an enemy' rather than 'fear of the enemy' because the enemy does not have a specific identity. What we know about our other is vague. He (we know it is a he, although more on this in a minute) is evil, he has a perverted view of Islam, he kills without mercy. He resides in the Middle East, his system of values are murky at best, but more likely just plain wrong. More generally, but more accurately, we know the enemy is completely different than us. His value system is the antithesis of our western, civilized way of life. Thus, it makes sense that, in a society where Muslims are seen as the antithesis of the American way of life, a vast majority of Americans would not even consider one as a political candidate, as it would compromise our system of values.

Similarly, many feel that electing a female president would also compromise our system of values. The values of consumerism and consumption are rooted in masculinity, and our public sphere (politics, culture, business) is given far more value than our private sphere (family, children, health). A perfect example is that men's work is higher paying than women's work. Citizens are controlled and forced into obeying laws through physical power, and our understanding of security is through restraint. High schools and colleges respond to a string of shootings with increased police, by installing security cameras and locking doors. Our federal government responds to terrorism with war and increased power to interrogate. We, as a society, respond to violence with more violence. We attempt to achieve peace by enforcing submission to the rules and ignoring the reasons why people want to lash out.

All that to say, our society is structured on masculine values. Voting for a woman candidate could (at least in the minds of many people) compromise these values in the same way as voting for a Muslim. Both are easily conflated as being anti-American. While it may not be stated quite so bluntly in the case of women, this is why so many people are so staunchly opposed to the Clinton campaign, or at the very least, far more sensitive to the things she says and does.

Our identities are structured not only off of this association with masculine values, but also in relation to our mythical other. If the other, our enemy, is staunchly different than us, and we are masculine, by default they must be feminine. Look at the way we emasculate the other in war with conversations about turning the Middle East into a parking lot, dominating it with 'Shock and Awe' tactics, freeing their women from the burka (because their men aren't good enough protectors to ensure the freedom of their own women). The gender of this mythical other is vague and shifting, as is their sexuality.

Thus when Americans claim that their system of values will be eroded by voting for a Muslim, they are really stating that the system of values will be eroded by moving away from a masculine public sphere. But many do not make this immediate association. Instead, they wholeheartedly believe that they would vote for a woman, just so long as she can uphold a masculine sphere without compromising her femininity. Unfortunately, structural sexism is difficult to uncover through statistics.