“Postmodernism and consumer society” by Fredric Jameson
Abstract by Patricia Little
Description
The essay entitled “Postmodernism and consumer society” by Fredric Jameson, attempts to clarify the concept of postmodernism. Jameson’s goal in this essay is to show how postmodernism is opposed to modernism in not just themes of art and literature, but also how these differences show themselves in the general culture.
For Jameson the postmodern has two main characteristics. Firstly, he believes that the postmodern is directly influenced by the negation of its previous epoch, modernism. In order for something to be postmodern it, “Emerge[s] as specific reaction against established forms of high modernism…This means that there will be as many different forms of postmodernism as there were high modernisms in place, since the former are at least initially specific and local reactions against those models” (192). And secondly, a key feature of postmodernism is that the lines between high and popular culture are gone or at least beginning to fade. This incorporation of high and mass culture can also be seen in other areas of discourse from philosophy to literature, where normal discourse theory has been replaced by “a kind of writing simply called ‘theory’ which is all or none of those things at once” (193). Jameson considers this phenomenon (which he calls ‘theoretical discourse’) to be a sign of postmodernism and an example of the merging culture.
In order to clarify his point he says he will discuss two examples that he labels “pastiche” and “schizophrenia”. He first undertakes to clarify the term pastiche from its closely related cousin parody. He plainly explains their difference as such, “Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a particular or unique style, the wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language; but it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody’s ulterior motive, without the satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic” (195).
Pastiche reflects postmodernism and our current social atmosphere by examining “death of the subject”, which is what Jameson refers to in his definition of pastiche being a humorless imitation of dead language. He explains that the modernists felt like they were doing something new, something individual. Jameson states, and he says many agree with him, that this sense of the individual in the postmodern is gone. This theory, that there is no longer individualism, has two main positions. First, because we are in an age of corporate capitalism, the “older bourgeois individual subject no longer exists” (195). This is in contrast with competitive capitalism that allowed for a sense of individualism in the modernist era. The second position is that the idea of individuality didn’t even exist in the past or in the modern era, it in fact never existed at all. The idea of the individual “is merely a philosophical and cultural mystification which sought to persuade people that they ‘had’ individual subjects and possessed this unique personal identity” (195).
Jameson feels that these two positions are beside the point. Regardless of these positions, if there is no longer individualism, then, Jameson feels, “it is no longer clear what artists and writers of the present period are supposed to be doing”(196). Everything that can be said has already been said. Artists today must only comment or reproduce past art. This will inevitably be a bad time for art, or as he puts it, “the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past” (196).
To further his point he gives examples in film. He wants to make it clear that he is not just talking about high culture being dead, but also mass culture. To do this, he talks about nostalgia film, which he sees as remaking the past, namely pastiche. This is not only represented in what we would consider historical-type films. He gives the example of Star Wars, explaining that this is pastiche because the general construct of the film is directly mimicking the plots and provoking the same emotions of older films and TV shows of the 1930’s-1950’s.
Jameson further explains that this nostalgia/pastiche, as a representation of postmodernism, reflects a problem with the current cultures inability to represent their own time. We cannot see and feel our current existence for what it is, but are only able to relate to it through the past. Jameson says, “If there is any realism left here it is a ‘realism’ which springs from the shock of grasping that confinement and of realizing that, for whatever peculiar reasons, we seem condemned to seek the historical past through our own pop images and stereotypes about the past, which itself remains forever out of reach” (198).
From the discussion of pastiche and his film examples, Jameson moves to a critique of postmodern buildings. He is here trying to show that the same inability to feel the present as represented in nostalgia films, can be shown in our inability to relate to postmodern architecture.
As a result of our not being able to move into our new era, Jameson believes we are unable to match the “originality of postmodernist space” (198). The ability to have anything original in the postmodern era seems to contrast his previous point. However, Jameson makes his point, stating, “My implication is that we ourselves, the human subjects who happen into this new space, have not kept pace with that evolution; there has been a mutation in the object, unaccompanied as yet by any equivalent mutation in the subject; we do not yet possess the perceptual equipment to match this new hyperspace, as I will call it, in part because our perceptual habits were formed in that older kind of space I have called the space of high modernism” (198).
He illustrates this point with the example of the Bonaventure Hotel. Using the example of this ultra post-modern space he explains the various complexities and comments on how we just don’t get it. The result of this inability to understand the space results in it being changed, “recently, colour coding and directional signals have been added in a pitiful and revealing, rather desperate attempt to restore the coordinates of an older space” (201), one in which we would be more able to understand.
Jameson next moves to what he calls the new machine. In this example he uses the novel Dispatches by Michael Herr. He remarks that the novel, being highly innovative, remains postmodern. He uses this novel to explain a different space, postmodern warfare, that is equally innovative, and possibly we are to assume as misunderstood, as Portman’s building. His conclusion is, “In this new machine (shown in a Dispatches text example), which does not, like the older modernist machinery of the locomotive or the airplane, represent motion, but which can only be represented in motion something of the mystery of the new postmodernist space is concentrated” (203).
In conclusion, Jameson tries to tie all of his ideas of modernism and postmodernism to cultural production and consumer society. In his conclusion he argues that the main components that made modernism what it was, was that it was outwardly dismissed and hated by the masses. It was not part of the mass culture and was therefore able to be honest and real and showcase the individual. He seems to be saying that because current culture is marketed to the masses, this type of realism is not longer attainable. He says, “I believe that the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of this new moment of late, consumer or multinational capitalism” (204). He is clearly dissatisfied with current culture and its constant obliging to the masses. Modernism was described as “critical, negative, contestatory, subversive, oppositional and the like” (205). Jameson wonders, and really hopes, that post modernism can find a way to do the same. If the current cultural trends were more subversive, it might allow for more individualism.
Comments
The definition that Jameson is able to construct of postmodernism is a very interesting one. This seems to be a time of various ideas of postmodernism, so it is nice to read an article that tries to both explain the concept and relate it to the general society. While it is nice get a theory, this one is definitely depressing. To actually believe that there is no original thought in our own era is incredibly depressing. While I am trying to fight this definition, while reading this essay and writing this abstract, I was not really able to think of anything current that could not be considered a remake or had it’s origin in the past. I am not giving up! While I may be entirely wrong, there just has to be some hope or some example of original thought. Can we think of any?
The essay itself is a bit difficult to understand and follow. I believe the reason for this is shown in the first endnote, “The present text combines elements of two previously published essays” (205). I don’t really know if the author put this together himself, or if it was done for him. However, after having read this note, the obvious structural problems of the essay seem to make more sense. The essay is generally hard to follow after “The nostalgia mode” section. Also, at the end of the first section he promises to give the description of his topic using two key features, pastiche and schizophrenia. We hear a lot of pastiche, but that is the last time we see the word schizophrenia.
Questions
Did anyone else find the structure or his examples a little difficult to understand under his general thesis?
Do we buy the idea that the postmodern can be basically described as not having an individual voice?
Does the problem really lie in the fact that our current culture seems to be permissive of about anything? That there not being a real point of contesting is the main problem?
Monday, October 22, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Between holy text and moral void
Abstract of “Between holy text and moral void” by Bhikhu Parekh
Abstract by Jenny Lowry
I. Description of Article
Bhikhu Parekh describes Salman Rushdie’s The satanic verses as a battleground between cultures. He begins by stating that non Bombayite persons will have a difficult time understanding the text, as will many readers familiar with its cultural background. In order to understand the text is must be read through Muslim eyes (140). It is a controversial text that greatly offends most Muslims because of its highly graphic and vulgar descriptions of sacred persons and traditions. Parekh argues that two chapters in the text are “fantasized history [because the stories] are fantasies, but fantasies relating to, deeply embedded in and severely hedged in by, history” (140). In other words, Rushdie is taking truth and weaving into fiction.
II. Comments and Questions
Parekh ties the novel to immigrants (I am assuming in Britain), particularly Muslim immigrants, whose “central life” is highly embedded “with the sacred” (141). He argues that the immigrant is “mocked” by the country they are living in and their sacred lives are stripped of dignity. It seems that Rushdie’s novel is essentially doing the same thing by mocking Muslim religious beliefs.
In order to cope with their situation the immigrants use “different strategies of physical and moral survival” (141). One strategy is cynicism in which the immigrant views everything negatively. The second strategy is a “retreat to the familiar certainties of the past” (141), usually their sacred beliefs. Parekh believes that all immigrants hold some level of these beliefs and Rushdie is no exception. This tension explains the controversial nature of The satanic verses. Rushdie is torn between two extreme emotions, which is why he lashes out at the Muslim religion in his text. It seems at this point in the article, that Parekh is arguing for Rushdie’s interpretation of the Muslim religion. He seems to support him in his quest for a “literary truth” even though he clearly defines the The satanic verses as a “fantasized history.” I am not sure what literary truth Parekh has found in the text, particularly since the next section of his article he focuses on two chapters which even he argues are especially offensive.
The two chapters are obviously belittling the Muslim religion. Parekh gives examples from the text (like the twelve wives of Muhammad as prostitutes) that are insulting to Muslims (as well as most other people I would think) and states that they are clearly vulgar and offensive. Even though Parekh argues that the text is disgusting and often times comes too close to describing real people in harmful ways, he still contends that the text is a “legitimate literary inquiry” and that “the offence caused to Muslims could therefore be ignored in the larger interests of truth” (143). Parekh even questions whether the text has provoked racism against Muslim immigrants and states that “religion requires a greater degree of sensitivity” (145), yet he still contends that the text has a “literary purpose” that must be explored. He argues that it is a writer’s responsibility to explain himself and his words, but at the end of the article he states that Rushdie should be left alone.
Parekh seems to be contradictory in his feelings about The satanic verses. Perhaps he is torn between cynicism and his sacred beliefs as he argues Rushdie is. The contradictory nature of this article in which he begins to seemingly support the text, then proceeds to rip it apart, then goes on to defend the author is distressful and confusing. It appears that Rushdie is helping to oppress his own people by mocking their religious and sacred beliefs through his text. The fact that Parekh is arguing for the texts “literary truth” seems to me that he agrees with Rushdie and is in a way acting to support this oppression. Parekh states that even though the Muslims “had no friends [and] felt intensely lonely and helpless” (146) due to the oppression caused by The satanic verses, they should step down and “leave Rushdie alone to ponder over it in peace and security, and hope that he will one day provide an answer that reconciles a creative writer’s right to freedom of thought and expression with other people’s right to respect and dignity” (146). I’m sorry, but that is a complete contradiction to Parekh’s previous statement that “[Rushdie] owed [the Muslims, his own people] an obligation to understand their feelings, to explain his position, to argue with them, to do all in his power to mollify and hopefully win them over to his point of view” (145).
While I have not read The satanic verses I can definitely see how it caused controversy. From what I have read in Parekh’s article it seems that Rushdie is, at the least, guilty of providing ammunition to oppress his own people. And in my opinion, Parekh seems to support this in light of seeking a “literary truth.”
Is Rushdie participating in the oppression of his people?
Is “literary truth” always worth the consequences?
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_(novel)
http://muhammadanism.org/Quran/SatanicVerses.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/Hahn/satanicverses.htm
Abstract by Jenny Lowry
I. Description of Article
Bhikhu Parekh describes Salman Rushdie’s The satanic verses as a battleground between cultures. He begins by stating that non Bombayite persons will have a difficult time understanding the text, as will many readers familiar with its cultural background. In order to understand the text is must be read through Muslim eyes (140). It is a controversial text that greatly offends most Muslims because of its highly graphic and vulgar descriptions of sacred persons and traditions. Parekh argues that two chapters in the text are “fantasized history [because the stories] are fantasies, but fantasies relating to, deeply embedded in and severely hedged in by, history” (140). In other words, Rushdie is taking truth and weaving into fiction.
II. Comments and Questions
Parekh ties the novel to immigrants (I am assuming in Britain), particularly Muslim immigrants, whose “central life” is highly embedded “with the sacred” (141). He argues that the immigrant is “mocked” by the country they are living in and their sacred lives are stripped of dignity. It seems that Rushdie’s novel is essentially doing the same thing by mocking Muslim religious beliefs.
In order to cope with their situation the immigrants use “different strategies of physical and moral survival” (141). One strategy is cynicism in which the immigrant views everything negatively. The second strategy is a “retreat to the familiar certainties of the past” (141), usually their sacred beliefs. Parekh believes that all immigrants hold some level of these beliefs and Rushdie is no exception. This tension explains the controversial nature of The satanic verses. Rushdie is torn between two extreme emotions, which is why he lashes out at the Muslim religion in his text. It seems at this point in the article, that Parekh is arguing for Rushdie’s interpretation of the Muslim religion. He seems to support him in his quest for a “literary truth” even though he clearly defines the The satanic verses as a “fantasized history.” I am not sure what literary truth Parekh has found in the text, particularly since the next section of his article he focuses on two chapters which even he argues are especially offensive.
The two chapters are obviously belittling the Muslim religion. Parekh gives examples from the text (like the twelve wives of Muhammad as prostitutes) that are insulting to Muslims (as well as most other people I would think) and states that they are clearly vulgar and offensive. Even though Parekh argues that the text is disgusting and often times comes too close to describing real people in harmful ways, he still contends that the text is a “legitimate literary inquiry” and that “the offence caused to Muslims could therefore be ignored in the larger interests of truth” (143). Parekh even questions whether the text has provoked racism against Muslim immigrants and states that “religion requires a greater degree of sensitivity” (145), yet he still contends that the text has a “literary purpose” that must be explored. He argues that it is a writer’s responsibility to explain himself and his words, but at the end of the article he states that Rushdie should be left alone.
Parekh seems to be contradictory in his feelings about The satanic verses. Perhaps he is torn between cynicism and his sacred beliefs as he argues Rushdie is. The contradictory nature of this article in which he begins to seemingly support the text, then proceeds to rip it apart, then goes on to defend the author is distressful and confusing. It appears that Rushdie is helping to oppress his own people by mocking their religious and sacred beliefs through his text. The fact that Parekh is arguing for the texts “literary truth” seems to me that he agrees with Rushdie and is in a way acting to support this oppression. Parekh states that even though the Muslims “had no friends [and] felt intensely lonely and helpless” (146) due to the oppression caused by The satanic verses, they should step down and “leave Rushdie alone to ponder over it in peace and security, and hope that he will one day provide an answer that reconciles a creative writer’s right to freedom of thought and expression with other people’s right to respect and dignity” (146). I’m sorry, but that is a complete contradiction to Parekh’s previous statement that “[Rushdie] owed [the Muslims, his own people] an obligation to understand their feelings, to explain his position, to argue with them, to do all in his power to mollify and hopefully win them over to his point of view” (145).
While I have not read The satanic verses I can definitely see how it caused controversy. From what I have read in Parekh’s article it seems that Rushdie is, at the least, guilty of providing ammunition to oppress his own people. And in my opinion, Parekh seems to support this in light of seeking a “literary truth.”
Is Rushdie participating in the oppression of his people?
Is “literary truth” always worth the consequences?
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_(novel)
http://muhammadanism.org/Quran/SatanicVerses.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/Hahn/satanicverses.htm
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
“Subcultural Conflict and Working-class Community”
Abstract of “Subcultural Conflict and Working-class Community” by Phil Cohen
Abstract by Diane Neu
I. Description of Article
Cohen discusses the issue of urban blight and re-population in urban London. He briefly contrasts this issue with the process and impact of gentrification in sought-after urban neighborhoods (think Boise’s North End). Cohen argues that the loss of desirable working-class housing was intimately tied to a loss of skilled working-class jobs. This loss of jobs and housing led to a loss of community and collective power in the East End. This loss of a unifying culture eventually led to a distancing of the youth culture from their parent culture. Cohen details some of these youth subcultures and ends by arguing that youth subcultures are a way for youth to retrieve “the solidarities of the traditional neighborhood, destroyed by redevelopment” (103).
II. Comments and Questions (note: I made up my own subtitles)
Redevelopment
Cohen begins by describing the impact that rapid development in the fifties had on urban neighborhoods. Cohen describes the scene as follows: the poorest families were relocated to these fringe neighborhoods, and the areas they left behind were taken up by immigrants who transformed the neighborhoods to suit their own culture. What is interesting is that Cohen sees the migration to the suburbs including two opposite ends of the spectrum – both the “families from the worst slums” and the “long-resident working-class families” fled the city for the suburbs (95). Two key urban neighborhoods were left in this wake: 1) the mostly run-down rental neighborhood with little community investment and 2) the posh, gentrified neighborhood typically composed of historical homes that housed hipsters/young professionals.
After seeing the migration of working-class families, the “planning authorities decided to reverse their policy,” and they began to focus on transforming the former “slum sites” (96). This transformation took the form of high-rise developments meant to house working-class families. This redevelopment led to “the impoverishment of working-class culture” (96). The high-rises were built without any consideration for quality of life or community interaction. As such, the buildings were purely built as spaces for storage, eating, sleeping, private time with family, etc. There was no outward social discourse. The second largest impact of the redevelopment was the destruction of the “matrilocal residence” (96). (Side note: I’m not so sure I would call that a bad thing – there is no way I would want to live with my mother now). Nuclear families no longer lived with or near their extended family, and the lack of a neighborhood community meant that nuclear families were isolated units. Cohen uses housebound mothers to demonstrate the impact of severed community ties. With little social interaction and no one to turn to, the mother becomes a bit like a caged animal, lashing out “on those nearest and dearest” (97). I would have personally liked some more specific statistics and/or personal anecdotes to round out this section. Cohen talks a lot about impact, but he never really gives specifics.
Redevelopment’s Economic Impact
The late fifties saw Britain recovering from WWII. During this time, they began to apply technologies developed during wartime to private sectors of the economy. Emphasis was placed on helping those industries that had suffered or stalled in previous years. This change in the blue-collar economy meant that “the small-scale family business was no longer a viable unit” (97). Jobs in the craft industry and other skilled working-class jobs were rapidly diminishing. The family business could not contend with the larger factories and large-scale box stores. Cohen points out that even if a small store was lucky enough to be able to compete with the larger businesses in terms of customer base, they could normally not afford the higher rents that came with bigger businesses moving into the neighborhood. The youth (I find that when Cohen says “youth,” he typically means male youth) just coming onto the job market had the hardest time adjusting – they could no longer find a job and work at it for their whole lives like their fathers had. As such, many of these youth were forced to move out of the community in order to find work. The only area of the East End economy that remained relatively untouched was dockland.
Cohen explains that the attempt to modernize life in the East End was “such a disaster” because of the larger “political, ideological, and economic framework” that was in place (98). The best pieces of land had to be sold to commercial interests in order to fund the housing developments. This, in turn, led to the small family businesses being forced out, which led to a loss of jobs and community industry. The necessity of selling land to commercial interests also cut out any “non-essential services” (98). Open green space, playgrounds, community centers, etc. were sacrificed in order to bring in more money. When this same situation presented itself in the nineteenth century, a large opposition voiced their concerns over these “tower” developments. However, this community voice was lacking when the same situation presented itself in the fifties and sixties because the “labour aristocracy, the traditional source of leadership” was now gone (99). When the skilled working-class jobs left, the people’s power left as well.
Class Structures and Other Social Matters
The loss of jobs and of a community voice had far-reaching social ramifications as well. Workers lost their power in a market controlled by the “new automated techniques” (99). Skilled laborers could no longer take satisfaction from their work since there was little work to be had, and their low economic status prevented them from participating in the new commercial enterprises that were springing up around their old neighborhoods. The group that felt this shift the most strongly was again the youth just entering adulthood. Young adults began to marry at an earlier age since this was the only way to escape the confines of nuclear family isolation. At this time, there was also an “emergence of specific youth subcultures in opposition to the parent culture” (100). These young adults found themselves struggling against the culture their parents had always lived and worked in. Although, it seems to me that it wasn’t so much a rebellion as an inevitable outcome. Their parent’s culture was essentially gone, so rebelling against it wouldn’t really make that big of a statement. I don’t really see it as an oppositional subculture but as a natural progression and evolution of the social structure. The main point that Cohen seems to want to make is that these subcultures of “mods, parkers, skinheads, crombies” developed because the youth were seeking to “retrieve some of the socially cohesive elements destroyed in their parent culture” (100).
Cohen specifies that “subcultures are symbolic structures, and must not be confused with the actual kids who are their bearers and symbols” (100). I’m not actually sure what he means by that. Is the subculture not something tangible and real? He seems to be saying that the subculture itself is more of an idea or symbol for larger issues at work and that the kids who participate in the subculture are merely actors. He further articulates that “a given lifestyle is actually made up of a number of symbolic subsystems, and it is the way these are articulated in the total lifestyle which constitutes its distinctiveness” (100). I’m pretty sure that there is something to do with Barthes and the whole signification/signified/signifier/sign process here. Cohen later says that “no real analysis of subculture is complete” without “a structural or semiotic analysis of the subsystems and the way they are articulated” (101). Somebody please figure out that equation for me. I understand the concept, but I have difficult putting the labels in the right places. Cohen specifies four distinct subsystems:
1. Dress
2. Music
3. Argot (slang/jargon)
4. Ritual
Cohen gives specific examples of how these subsystems worked in specific youth subcultures. He begins with the mods and moves through the parkers and scooter boys, skindheads, hippies, and crombies in chronological order. The process of developing subcultures is described as “circular,” and Cohen reasons that this is because the subculture can never entirely break away from the parent culture (101). The youth culture merely uses the subculture as a replacement form of their parent culture. The conflict between different subcultures “serves as a displacement of generational conflict, both at a cultural level, and at an interpersonal level within the family” (102). By participating in a subculture, the youth delay “real” adulthood for as long as possible while also trying to capture the solidarity that they have found missing in their parent culture.
III. Key Terms and Links
Development/redevelopment
Planning blight
Matrilocal residence
Social class/social structure/social mobility
Subculture
Parent culture
http://www.britannia.com/travel/london/cockney/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_End_of_London
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/templates/index.cfm?CFID=11290757&CFTOKEN=13426026
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Tower_Hamlets
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50054331?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuals
Abstract by Diane Neu
I. Description of Article
Cohen discusses the issue of urban blight and re-population in urban London. He briefly contrasts this issue with the process and impact of gentrification in sought-after urban neighborhoods (think Boise’s North End). Cohen argues that the loss of desirable working-class housing was intimately tied to a loss of skilled working-class jobs. This loss of jobs and housing led to a loss of community and collective power in the East End. This loss of a unifying culture eventually led to a distancing of the youth culture from their parent culture. Cohen details some of these youth subcultures and ends by arguing that youth subcultures are a way for youth to retrieve “the solidarities of the traditional neighborhood, destroyed by redevelopment” (103).
II. Comments and Questions (note: I made up my own subtitles)
Redevelopment
Cohen begins by describing the impact that rapid development in the fifties had on urban neighborhoods. Cohen describes the scene as follows: the poorest families were relocated to these fringe neighborhoods, and the areas they left behind were taken up by immigrants who transformed the neighborhoods to suit their own culture. What is interesting is that Cohen sees the migration to the suburbs including two opposite ends of the spectrum – both the “families from the worst slums” and the “long-resident working-class families” fled the city for the suburbs (95). Two key urban neighborhoods were left in this wake: 1) the mostly run-down rental neighborhood with little community investment and 2) the posh, gentrified neighborhood typically composed of historical homes that housed hipsters/young professionals.
After seeing the migration of working-class families, the “planning authorities decided to reverse their policy,” and they began to focus on transforming the former “slum sites” (96). This transformation took the form of high-rise developments meant to house working-class families. This redevelopment led to “the impoverishment of working-class culture” (96). The high-rises were built without any consideration for quality of life or community interaction. As such, the buildings were purely built as spaces for storage, eating, sleeping, private time with family, etc. There was no outward social discourse. The second largest impact of the redevelopment was the destruction of the “matrilocal residence” (96). (Side note: I’m not so sure I would call that a bad thing – there is no way I would want to live with my mother now). Nuclear families no longer lived with or near their extended family, and the lack of a neighborhood community meant that nuclear families were isolated units. Cohen uses housebound mothers to demonstrate the impact of severed community ties. With little social interaction and no one to turn to, the mother becomes a bit like a caged animal, lashing out “on those nearest and dearest” (97). I would have personally liked some more specific statistics and/or personal anecdotes to round out this section. Cohen talks a lot about impact, but he never really gives specifics.
Redevelopment’s Economic Impact
The late fifties saw Britain recovering from WWII. During this time, they began to apply technologies developed during wartime to private sectors of the economy. Emphasis was placed on helping those industries that had suffered or stalled in previous years. This change in the blue-collar economy meant that “the small-scale family business was no longer a viable unit” (97). Jobs in the craft industry and other skilled working-class jobs were rapidly diminishing. The family business could not contend with the larger factories and large-scale box stores. Cohen points out that even if a small store was lucky enough to be able to compete with the larger businesses in terms of customer base, they could normally not afford the higher rents that came with bigger businesses moving into the neighborhood. The youth (I find that when Cohen says “youth,” he typically means male youth) just coming onto the job market had the hardest time adjusting – they could no longer find a job and work at it for their whole lives like their fathers had. As such, many of these youth were forced to move out of the community in order to find work. The only area of the East End economy that remained relatively untouched was dockland.
Cohen explains that the attempt to modernize life in the East End was “such a disaster” because of the larger “political, ideological, and economic framework” that was in place (98). The best pieces of land had to be sold to commercial interests in order to fund the housing developments. This, in turn, led to the small family businesses being forced out, which led to a loss of jobs and community industry. The necessity of selling land to commercial interests also cut out any “non-essential services” (98). Open green space, playgrounds, community centers, etc. were sacrificed in order to bring in more money. When this same situation presented itself in the nineteenth century, a large opposition voiced their concerns over these “tower” developments. However, this community voice was lacking when the same situation presented itself in the fifties and sixties because the “labour aristocracy, the traditional source of leadership” was now gone (99). When the skilled working-class jobs left, the people’s power left as well.
Class Structures and Other Social Matters
The loss of jobs and of a community voice had far-reaching social ramifications as well. Workers lost their power in a market controlled by the “new automated techniques” (99). Skilled laborers could no longer take satisfaction from their work since there was little work to be had, and their low economic status prevented them from participating in the new commercial enterprises that were springing up around their old neighborhoods. The group that felt this shift the most strongly was again the youth just entering adulthood. Young adults began to marry at an earlier age since this was the only way to escape the confines of nuclear family isolation. At this time, there was also an “emergence of specific youth subcultures in opposition to the parent culture” (100). These young adults found themselves struggling against the culture their parents had always lived and worked in. Although, it seems to me that it wasn’t so much a rebellion as an inevitable outcome. Their parent’s culture was essentially gone, so rebelling against it wouldn’t really make that big of a statement. I don’t really see it as an oppositional subculture but as a natural progression and evolution of the social structure. The main point that Cohen seems to want to make is that these subcultures of “mods, parkers, skinheads, crombies” developed because the youth were seeking to “retrieve some of the socially cohesive elements destroyed in their parent culture” (100).
Cohen specifies that “subcultures are symbolic structures, and must not be confused with the actual kids who are their bearers and symbols” (100). I’m not actually sure what he means by that. Is the subculture not something tangible and real? He seems to be saying that the subculture itself is more of an idea or symbol for larger issues at work and that the kids who participate in the subculture are merely actors. He further articulates that “a given lifestyle is actually made up of a number of symbolic subsystems, and it is the way these are articulated in the total lifestyle which constitutes its distinctiveness” (100). I’m pretty sure that there is something to do with Barthes and the whole signification/signified/signifier/sign process here. Cohen later says that “no real analysis of subculture is complete” without “a structural or semiotic analysis of the subsystems and the way they are articulated” (101). Somebody please figure out that equation for me. I understand the concept, but I have difficult putting the labels in the right places. Cohen specifies four distinct subsystems:
1. Dress
2. Music
3. Argot (slang/jargon)
4. Ritual
Cohen gives specific examples of how these subsystems worked in specific youth subcultures. He begins with the mods and moves through the parkers and scooter boys, skindheads, hippies, and crombies in chronological order. The process of developing subcultures is described as “circular,” and Cohen reasons that this is because the subculture can never entirely break away from the parent culture (101). The youth culture merely uses the subculture as a replacement form of their parent culture. The conflict between different subcultures “serves as a displacement of generational conflict, both at a cultural level, and at an interpersonal level within the family” (102). By participating in a subculture, the youth delay “real” adulthood for as long as possible while also trying to capture the solidarity that they have found missing in their parent culture.
III. Key Terms and Links
Development/redevelopment
Planning blight
Matrilocal residence
Social class/social structure/social mobility
Subculture
Parent culture
http://www.britannia.com/travel/london/cockney/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_End_of_London
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/templates/index.cfm?CFID=11290757&CFTOKEN=13426026
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Tower_Hamlets
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50054331?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuals
Thursday, October 11, 2007
"The Television Discourse - Encoding and Decoding"
Abstract of “The Television Discourse – Encoding and Decoding” by Stuart Hall
Abstract by Diane Neu
I. Description of Article
Hall discusses the role of encoding and decoding from the vantage point of television production. He discusses the process of television production as a series of codes and signs that are constructed in order to relay specific messages. He also discusses the role that television production plays in encouraging a “preferred meaning or reading,” and he also discusses the issue of misreading signs. Hall ends by discussing three types of codes and how they affect the viewer’s connotative meaning. The codes are: dominant or hegemonic, professional, and negotiated.
II. Comments and Questions
Hall argues that television is structured to produce a specific message – this message is organized and transmitted through “the operation of codes” (28). These codes are structured to relay a certain message while adhering to the “rules” of language. The successful transmission of this message requires the traditional materials of television production – film, cameras, etc. Hall refers to these materials as “substratum,” and I am not entirely sure what he means by that. Is he saying that the message that these materials transmit replace the actual transmitter? The transmitter no longer exists – only the message matters? Or is the material merely transforming the message – the message is no longer pure because it must be transmitted through another material? I am not saying that I don’t necessarily agree with all that – I’m just not sure that’s what he is saying.
Hall explains encoding as the process where an event becomes a story – essentially, by being turned into “televisual language” the “raw historical event” becomes different because of the signs and rules of language that are now imposed on it. I think he’s trying to say something about the difference between watching a newscast of an event and watching the TV version – like Band of Brothers or something. I’m really not sure what the argument is here. I have a lot of trouble following the process of encoding. What are these rules that he is talking about?
The communicative exchange (in television) is described as a sort of linear, closed circuit process where the broadcasting organizations, who already have rigid “institutional structures and networks of production” organize certain “routines and technical infrastructures” (29). These routines and infrastructures are necessary “to produce the programme” (29). I’m not sure if Hall means “programme” as just a 30-minute television program or in the method sense of the word – like a program of study or a program of events. Maybe both. The production process initiates the message that the program is broadcasting. Hall is clear that “production and the reception of the television message are not identical, but they are related” (29). He further explains that while production and reception are linked, they are still separate parts of the communicative process. Hall uses the formulaic TV Western to explain how certain discourses are heavily encoding with certain rules, content expectations, etc. The Western is a good example of a televisual language where the message being decoded by the viewer is likely to be “highly symmetrical to that in which it had been encoded” (29). It is a more straightforward discourse where the expectations of the view are inline with the intentions of the producers.
Visual Sign
Is a picture of a cow the same as an actual cow? Is it an actual urinal or a sculpture of a urinal? That’s the complex nature of visual signs. Every visual sign is encoded with numerous amounts of information – the “fundamental perceptual codes which all culture-members share” (31). Visual signs are more universal. While it can be easy to think that visual signs, because of their universality, are simple and straightforward, they can actually lead to misreadings because they appear so transparent and easy to read. We assume that the image is only saying one thing – we oversimplify the decoding process by assuming that the visual sign is empty of connotative meaning.
Connotative Sign
Visual signs are also connotative signs. The connotative sign of the visual sign is the “point where the denoted sign intersects with the deep semantic structures of a culture, and takes on an ideological dimension” (31). The connotative sign represents that point in culture where the word means something else on its own because of the perceptual codes that the word represents. Hall uses advertising as an example of a visual sign that is nearly void of denotative communication. The visual signs in advertising are full of connotative communication. Every aspect of the ad “ ‘connotes’ a quality, situation, value, or inference” (31). Hall then describes three different kinds of connotative reading: dominant or hegemonic code, professional code, and negotiated code.
Dominant or Hegemonic Code
The viewer is operating within the dominant or hegemonic code when they take the message “full and straight” (32). They read the message entirely as the maker intended it.
Professional Code
The viewer is operating within the professional code when they receive the message transmitted by a broadcasting professional. This message may be highly similar to the dominant code, but it may also contradict it is some ways. The professional code is highly linked to the dominant code, and while “the professional code is ‘relatively independent’ of the dominant code,” it still “operates within the ‘hegemony’ of the dominant code” (32). The professional code is tied to the dominant code since the controllers of the dominant code also control the news reporters, producers, etc. However, these broadcasting professionals are still able to spin the dominant code if they so choose. I think a good example of this would be when the Bush administration sends out a press release, brief, etc. Taking that message “full and straight” would be to read it as a dominant code. Some broadcasting professionals (Fox news) may deliver the message as almost identical to the dominant code, whereas other news professionals may take a different spin on it – entering the professional code. At least that’s what I think he’s saying.
Negotiated Code
The viewer is operating within a negotiated code when they acknowledge some aspects of the dominant code (usually those aspects that are removed from their immediate community), while also disagreeing with aspects of the dominant code that might negatively impact them personally. Hall gives the example of a worker agreeing that a bill to restrict union rights might make sense from a national economics viewpoint. However, that doesn’t mean that the worker won’t ardently oppose the ramifications the bill when it impacts his own salary and working conditions.
III. Key Terms and Links
Message
Substratum
Encoding
Decoding
Communicative event
Preferred Meaning
Connotative sign
Dominant or hegemonic code
Professional Code
Negotiated Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substratum
If this link doesn’t work, search for “linguistic substratum” on JSTOR. It’s the first article that comes up: “Linguistic Substrata of American English” by E. C. Hills I couldn’t figure out how to hyperlink to a subscription based service.
http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/view/00031283/ap020212/02a00030/0?currentResult=00031283%2bap020212%2b02a00030%2b0%2c0F&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26gw%3Djtx%26jtxsi%3D1%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Dlinguistic%2Bsubstratum%26wc%3Don
At one point Hall quotes Gerbner – I’m guessing he was talking about this guy: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2881)
This is from the computer side of things:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/guide-web-character-encoding
Abstract by Diane Neu
I. Description of Article
Hall discusses the role of encoding and decoding from the vantage point of television production. He discusses the process of television production as a series of codes and signs that are constructed in order to relay specific messages. He also discusses the role that television production plays in encouraging a “preferred meaning or reading,” and he also discusses the issue of misreading signs. Hall ends by discussing three types of codes and how they affect the viewer’s connotative meaning. The codes are: dominant or hegemonic, professional, and negotiated.
II. Comments and Questions
Hall argues that television is structured to produce a specific message – this message is organized and transmitted through “the operation of codes” (28). These codes are structured to relay a certain message while adhering to the “rules” of language. The successful transmission of this message requires the traditional materials of television production – film, cameras, etc. Hall refers to these materials as “substratum,” and I am not entirely sure what he means by that. Is he saying that the message that these materials transmit replace the actual transmitter? The transmitter no longer exists – only the message matters? Or is the material merely transforming the message – the message is no longer pure because it must be transmitted through another material? I am not saying that I don’t necessarily agree with all that – I’m just not sure that’s what he is saying.
Hall explains encoding as the process where an event becomes a story – essentially, by being turned into “televisual language” the “raw historical event” becomes different because of the signs and rules of language that are now imposed on it. I think he’s trying to say something about the difference between watching a newscast of an event and watching the TV version – like Band of Brothers or something. I’m really not sure what the argument is here. I have a lot of trouble following the process of encoding. What are these rules that he is talking about?
The communicative exchange (in television) is described as a sort of linear, closed circuit process where the broadcasting organizations, who already have rigid “institutional structures and networks of production” organize certain “routines and technical infrastructures” (29). These routines and infrastructures are necessary “to produce the programme” (29). I’m not sure if Hall means “programme” as just a 30-minute television program or in the method sense of the word – like a program of study or a program of events. Maybe both. The production process initiates the message that the program is broadcasting. Hall is clear that “production and the reception of the television message are not identical, but they are related” (29). He further explains that while production and reception are linked, they are still separate parts of the communicative process. Hall uses the formulaic TV Western to explain how certain discourses are heavily encoding with certain rules, content expectations, etc. The Western is a good example of a televisual language where the message being decoded by the viewer is likely to be “highly symmetrical to that in which it had been encoded” (29). It is a more straightforward discourse where the expectations of the view are inline with the intentions of the producers.
Visual Sign
Is a picture of a cow the same as an actual cow? Is it an actual urinal or a sculpture of a urinal? That’s the complex nature of visual signs. Every visual sign is encoded with numerous amounts of information – the “fundamental perceptual codes which all culture-members share” (31). Visual signs are more universal. While it can be easy to think that visual signs, because of their universality, are simple and straightforward, they can actually lead to misreadings because they appear so transparent and easy to read. We assume that the image is only saying one thing – we oversimplify the decoding process by assuming that the visual sign is empty of connotative meaning.
Connotative Sign
Visual signs are also connotative signs. The connotative sign of the visual sign is the “point where the denoted sign intersects with the deep semantic structures of a culture, and takes on an ideological dimension” (31). The connotative sign represents that point in culture where the word means something else on its own because of the perceptual codes that the word represents. Hall uses advertising as an example of a visual sign that is nearly void of denotative communication. The visual signs in advertising are full of connotative communication. Every aspect of the ad “ ‘connotes’ a quality, situation, value, or inference” (31). Hall then describes three different kinds of connotative reading: dominant or hegemonic code, professional code, and negotiated code.
Dominant or Hegemonic Code
The viewer is operating within the dominant or hegemonic code when they take the message “full and straight” (32). They read the message entirely as the maker intended it.
Professional Code
The viewer is operating within the professional code when they receive the message transmitted by a broadcasting professional. This message may be highly similar to the dominant code, but it may also contradict it is some ways. The professional code is highly linked to the dominant code, and while “the professional code is ‘relatively independent’ of the dominant code,” it still “operates within the ‘hegemony’ of the dominant code” (32). The professional code is tied to the dominant code since the controllers of the dominant code also control the news reporters, producers, etc. However, these broadcasting professionals are still able to spin the dominant code if they so choose. I think a good example of this would be when the Bush administration sends out a press release, brief, etc. Taking that message “full and straight” would be to read it as a dominant code. Some broadcasting professionals (Fox news) may deliver the message as almost identical to the dominant code, whereas other news professionals may take a different spin on it – entering the professional code. At least that’s what I think he’s saying.
Negotiated Code
The viewer is operating within a negotiated code when they acknowledge some aspects of the dominant code (usually those aspects that are removed from their immediate community), while also disagreeing with aspects of the dominant code that might negatively impact them personally. Hall gives the example of a worker agreeing that a bill to restrict union rights might make sense from a national economics viewpoint. However, that doesn’t mean that the worker won’t ardently oppose the ramifications the bill when it impacts his own salary and working conditions.
III. Key Terms and Links
Message
Substratum
Encoding
Decoding
Communicative event
Preferred Meaning
Connotative sign
Dominant or hegemonic code
Professional Code
Negotiated Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substratum
If this link doesn’t work, search for “linguistic substratum” on JSTOR. It’s the first article that comes up: “Linguistic Substrata of American English” by E. C. Hills I couldn’t figure out how to hyperlink to a subscription based service.
http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/view/00031283/ap020212/02a00030/0?currentResult=00031283%2bap020212%2b02a00030%2b0%2c0F&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26gw%3Djtx%26jtxsi%3D1%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Dlinguistic%2Bsubstratum%26wc%3Don
At one point Hall quotes Gerbner – I’m guessing he was talking about this guy: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2881)
This is from the computer side of things:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/guide-web-character-encoding
Monday, October 8, 2007
Williams' "Culture is Ordinary"
Bill Schnupp
Abstract: Raymond Williams’ “Culture is Ordinary”
I. Summary
Williams opens his piece with a short account of revisiting his childhood home in Wales, accompanied by a brief recollection of his personal history—a rhetorical strategy he employs with frequency in the piece, and not unlike what we saw in Miller’s work. From here, Williams presents us with the notion that a society is forged from its members’ formation of common meanings and directions, its growth actively debated under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery. This definition serves as segue into the main idea, that culture is ordinary, composed of two distinct parts: “the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested” (6).
To further his point, the author delivers and refutes two conceptions of culture he has encountered: I call them “down-the-nose,” and “bad-mouthing.” Those in the first example (teashop culture) are committed to the notion that the only culture is high culture—art, music, literature, etc. Williams rejects this notion for what it is, a means of maintaining a power division between cultivated and common folk, and adds that he has encountered fine examples of art in the company of so-called common people. Williams’ second rejected notion of culture is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The bad-mouthers, like those in the teashop, perceive (and are threatened by) culture as solely high culture, and label such work that of do-gooders and highbrows.
From here, Williams transitions into a brief discussion of some of the ideas of Marx and Leavis that have come to shape his own thinking. From the Marxists, Williams extracts three principles, only the first of which he accepts: culture must be interpreted through its underlying systems of production; education and hence power are restricted to those in power; and new systems of production create new culture, thought, and art. Willams refutes the second notion by stating that the working class are not restricted, but are instead gaining access to institutions of learning (as Williams himself did) and developing there own culture. English bourgeois culture has no elitist monopoly on culture, and in fact, future cultural development could do no better than to emphasize working class values neighbourhood, mutual obligation, and common betterment. The final Marxist idea is rejected on the premise that a culture is a tapestry of individual and collective meanings, of personal and social experience, and as such are living and ever-changing, impossible to dictate through a change in systems of production.
Williams then moves on to Leavis, whose idea, that as England has became industrialized and vulgar, art and thinking have suffered, Williams also rejects (though with difficulty). The basis of the rejection is in Williams’ working class roots: he and his family view the technological advances and easing of labor from industrialization as an advantage, a newly acquired from of power. This leads Williams to his suggestion of how we can move into an age of economic abundance and productive common culture: by disproving two false equations, one false analogy, and one false proposition.
The proposition is that ugliness and pollution are a price all cultures must pay for the economic power that comes from industrialization. Williams posits cleaner, less-abrasive technology and responsible industry as a solution.
The equations are that popular education gives rise to commerical culture, and that consumption of popular culture bespeaks a flawed character. Williams interprets both equations as essentially a flaw in perception. The over-crowding of industrialization, coupled with mass communication, led to the construction of “the masses,” a threat for its unfamiliarity. According to Williams, then, there are no masses, only ways of constructing people as such. This manner of thinking is what imbued popular education, and popular culture—the culture of the threatening masses—with its stigma. Along with this comes the discussion of the false analogy, which is that bad culture will drive out good culture. Williams cites rising instances of literature, quality periodicals, and literacy to debunk this idea. The author ends the piece with the idea that culture and its inherent elements are expanding, and that this phenomenon must be studied.
II. Analysis
This piece seems to me less a description of the idea of a common culture and more an account of how Williams formed this idea through the rejection of many of the ideas of Marx and Leavis. However, the oddly altruistic manner in which Williams refutes these ideas is interesting: he does not characterize them as useless simply because he disagrees with them, but instead closes his work with emphasis on how important the ideas are, how they have come to shape his own inquiry into the expansion of culture. It’s strange: the ideas he has no use for are those that have served to most powerfully shape his thinking. His idea of common culture is compelling, and echoes other readings from this semester—culture is not elitist and compartmentalized, but a continual negotiation of power via interactions, texts, and ideas.
I’m a little confused about the page 9 rejection of the Marxist notion that altering systems of production spawns new culture and thought. I may just be misreading the text, but if we accept Williams’ notion of culture—negotiations of meanings and directions, both known and unknown—then the change that came about from the industrialization (change in production from the rural and agricultural) of the author’s village in Wales does seem to have produced cultural change, as it delivered “the gift of power that is everything to men who have worked with their hands” (10). New meanings, ideas, possibly even art can’t help but arise from that kind of drastic change. Maybe someone can help me out?
I also respond to Williams’ use of the personal in this piece. He constantly emphasizes his working class roots (I enjoy it) to establish his ability to make use of both this perspective, and that of the academic, sort of a dual expert voice. There are places, however, where I question if he relies too much on the personal to stand as evidence (on page 13 he disproves the deleterious effects of popular culture by talking with family members). Above all, I think he draws on the personal, on his “common roots,” to distance himself from the bourgeois class, of which he is, in many places, disdainful. I wonder a little at how incongruous this is with his assertion that culture is common, ordinary, and shared. Why emphasize the division in light of this idea? If we all share a common culture, can there be a division?
Making another attempt at Bathes here: does anyone else feel that Williams two-part model of culture “the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested” (6), seems to qualify as linguistic/denotative (accepted/known) and mythological/connotative (new observations and meanings)?
III. Questions and Further Reading
1.What do you make of Willams’ definition of culture?
2. How do you respond to Williams’ treatment of the ideas of Marx and Leavis?
3. Is Williams rhetorical decision to employ the personal effective? Why or why not?
Links:
http://www.raymondwilliams.co.uk/
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/williamsray/williamsray.htm
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dml3/880williams.htm
Abstract: Raymond Williams’ “Culture is Ordinary”
I. Summary
Williams opens his piece with a short account of revisiting his childhood home in Wales, accompanied by a brief recollection of his personal history—a rhetorical strategy he employs with frequency in the piece, and not unlike what we saw in Miller’s work. From here, Williams presents us with the notion that a society is forged from its members’ formation of common meanings and directions, its growth actively debated under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery. This definition serves as segue into the main idea, that culture is ordinary, composed of two distinct parts: “the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested” (6).
To further his point, the author delivers and refutes two conceptions of culture he has encountered: I call them “down-the-nose,” and “bad-mouthing.” Those in the first example (teashop culture) are committed to the notion that the only culture is high culture—art, music, literature, etc. Williams rejects this notion for what it is, a means of maintaining a power division between cultivated and common folk, and adds that he has encountered fine examples of art in the company of so-called common people. Williams’ second rejected notion of culture is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The bad-mouthers, like those in the teashop, perceive (and are threatened by) culture as solely high culture, and label such work that of do-gooders and highbrows.
From here, Williams transitions into a brief discussion of some of the ideas of Marx and Leavis that have come to shape his own thinking. From the Marxists, Williams extracts three principles, only the first of which he accepts: culture must be interpreted through its underlying systems of production; education and hence power are restricted to those in power; and new systems of production create new culture, thought, and art. Willams refutes the second notion by stating that the working class are not restricted, but are instead gaining access to institutions of learning (as Williams himself did) and developing there own culture. English bourgeois culture has no elitist monopoly on culture, and in fact, future cultural development could do no better than to emphasize working class values neighbourhood, mutual obligation, and common betterment. The final Marxist idea is rejected on the premise that a culture is a tapestry of individual and collective meanings, of personal and social experience, and as such are living and ever-changing, impossible to dictate through a change in systems of production.
Williams then moves on to Leavis, whose idea, that as England has became industrialized and vulgar, art and thinking have suffered, Williams also rejects (though with difficulty). The basis of the rejection is in Williams’ working class roots: he and his family view the technological advances and easing of labor from industrialization as an advantage, a newly acquired from of power. This leads Williams to his suggestion of how we can move into an age of economic abundance and productive common culture: by disproving two false equations, one false analogy, and one false proposition.
The proposition is that ugliness and pollution are a price all cultures must pay for the economic power that comes from industrialization. Williams posits cleaner, less-abrasive technology and responsible industry as a solution.
The equations are that popular education gives rise to commerical culture, and that consumption of popular culture bespeaks a flawed character. Williams interprets both equations as essentially a flaw in perception. The over-crowding of industrialization, coupled with mass communication, led to the construction of “the masses,” a threat for its unfamiliarity. According to Williams, then, there are no masses, only ways of constructing people as such. This manner of thinking is what imbued popular education, and popular culture—the culture of the threatening masses—with its stigma. Along with this comes the discussion of the false analogy, which is that bad culture will drive out good culture. Williams cites rising instances of literature, quality periodicals, and literacy to debunk this idea. The author ends the piece with the idea that culture and its inherent elements are expanding, and that this phenomenon must be studied.
II. Analysis
This piece seems to me less a description of the idea of a common culture and more an account of how Williams formed this idea through the rejection of many of the ideas of Marx and Leavis. However, the oddly altruistic manner in which Williams refutes these ideas is interesting: he does not characterize them as useless simply because he disagrees with them, but instead closes his work with emphasis on how important the ideas are, how they have come to shape his own inquiry into the expansion of culture. It’s strange: the ideas he has no use for are those that have served to most powerfully shape his thinking. His idea of common culture is compelling, and echoes other readings from this semester—culture is not elitist and compartmentalized, but a continual negotiation of power via interactions, texts, and ideas.
I’m a little confused about the page 9 rejection of the Marxist notion that altering systems of production spawns new culture and thought. I may just be misreading the text, but if we accept Williams’ notion of culture—negotiations of meanings and directions, both known and unknown—then the change that came about from the industrialization (change in production from the rural and agricultural) of the author’s village in Wales does seem to have produced cultural change, as it delivered “the gift of power that is everything to men who have worked with their hands” (10). New meanings, ideas, possibly even art can’t help but arise from that kind of drastic change. Maybe someone can help me out?
I also respond to Williams’ use of the personal in this piece. He constantly emphasizes his working class roots (I enjoy it) to establish his ability to make use of both this perspective, and that of the academic, sort of a dual expert voice. There are places, however, where I question if he relies too much on the personal to stand as evidence (on page 13 he disproves the deleterious effects of popular culture by talking with family members). Above all, I think he draws on the personal, on his “common roots,” to distance himself from the bourgeois class, of which he is, in many places, disdainful. I wonder a little at how incongruous this is with his assertion that culture is common, ordinary, and shared. Why emphasize the division in light of this idea? If we all share a common culture, can there be a division?
Making another attempt at Bathes here: does anyone else feel that Williams two-part model of culture “the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested” (6), seems to qualify as linguistic/denotative (accepted/known) and mythological/connotative (new observations and meanings)?
III. Questions and Further Reading
1.What do you make of Willams’ definition of culture?
2. How do you respond to Williams’ treatment of the ideas of Marx and Leavis?
3. Is Williams rhetorical decision to employ the personal effective? Why or why not?
Links:
http://www.raymondwilliams.co.uk/
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/williamsray/williamsray.htm
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dml3/880williams.htm
Raymond Williams: “Culture is Ordinary”
by Mike Peterson
DESCRIPTION
In this essay, Williams takes us to his roots, his rural Welsh home, to give us an understanding of why he dislikes current (as of 1958) interpretations of culture. Williams believes that culture should be defined as both (rather than distinguished between) a whole way of life with its common meanings, as well as the processes of discovery and creativity in the arts and learning.
The two prevailing senses of culture that Williams dislikes are what he loosely labels as Teashop culture, and Drinking-hole culture.
1. Teashop culture: “The outward and emphatically visible sign of a special kind of…cultivated people” (7).
2. Drinking-hole culture: The folks who exclude the ethical content of culture and emphasize the purely technical standard—the new cheapjack who uses “scraps of linguistics, psychology and sociology to influence what he thinks of as the mass mind” (7).
Williams says that while he respects Leavis and the Marxists, he must disagree with their views of culture. Williams discusses the three Marxist ideas that “matter” in the discussion of culture:
1. That culture must be interpreted by its underlying system of production,
2. That the masses are considered “ignorant,”
3. And that for socialism to succeed, a person must write, think and learn in “certain prescribed ways” (9).
Williams goes on to say that Leavis knows more about “real relations between art and experience” than the Marxists. Williams, however, doesn’t like the dichotomy that Leavis places on pre and post industrial-revolution culture: old vs. new, valuable vs. cheap, pure vs. vulgar. Williams defends these advances in culture and technology by asking how such things are bad for society. He doesn’t imagine anyone who has ever done without these things (e.g. aspirin or electricity) would ever go back to the old ways. It is a myth of simpler times.
But then William asks, if we can defend these “good” advances, how do we answer the problem of the “new cultural vulgarity” of strip newspapers, cheapjacks, and raucous triviality? (11). To answer this question, he says, we must first debunk the legacy left by cultural critics, specifically the legacy of 2 false equations, 1 false analogy, and 1 false proposition:
False proposition: Ugliness is the price we pay for new sources of power, production, transportation, and communication.
Defense: These new sources of power may be ugly at first, but they will eventually “make England clean and pleasant again” (11).
False equation one: Popular education is responsible for the new commercial culture (11).
Defense: “There are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses” (11).
Defense: The assumption that popular education and commercial culture are cause and effect is based on Northcliffe’s correlation of the Education Act of 1870 and the rise of the “new cheap and nasty (popular) press”—the latter, Williams argues, comes from the “social chaos of industrialism” and not the masses becoming literate—there were, after all, already more than enough literate people before the Education Act to have sustained a popular press (12).
False equation two: Popular culture accurately reflects the mind, feeling, and quality of living of its consumers (12).
Defense: his observation of folks who consume popular culture indicated that one doesn’t reflect the other.
False Analogy: “Just as bad money will drive out good, so bad culture will drive out good” (13).
Defense: The increase in bad culture doesn’t mean a decrease in good culture. Culture expands, and with it all its elements.
Williams concludes that this is a starting point. The ideas of Leavis and the Marxists need to be radically revised, and it is time to start asking the real questions about the social and economic problems raised by culture’s relative rate of expansion.
KEY TERMS:
Putropia: The characteristic 20th-century “opposite” of a Utopian romance: the stories of a future secular hell. Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World, Orwell's 1984, and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are the most famous examples. Putropia, however, stops a little short of Doomsday. Doomsday is the immensely popular genre which, with considerable ingenuity and variety, disposes of life altogether. (Definition culled from an essay found at http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/documents/williams.htm).
Cheapjack: peddler of cheap, low-taste goods (for more info, visit www.walmart.com).
COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS
Favorite line: “So when the Marxists say that we live in a dying culture, and that the masses are ignorant, I have to ask them, as I asked them then, where on earth they have lived” (9).
I haven’t thought of it in these terms, but when I studied Marxism in the past (not the Terry Eagleton variety, but the yawn-inducing essays from my Political Ideologies course), I had a hard time envisioning who these ignorant masses were. They certainly weren’t to be found in my daily adventures. Ignorant people abound, but it hardly seemed accurate to pigeonhole an entire “mass” that way.
I liked reading about the false equation number two: that popular culture is an accurate reflection of the consumer. I think this is an important debate still going on today, especially when it comes to censorship. Wayne Booth, in his book The Company we Keep brought up this idea in his argument against censorship: just because a person reads about violent events, that doesn’t mean she will turn around and mimic those events, nor does it mean that the book is a reflection of her inner desires or vulgarities. A person can read Huck Finn, he says, without feeling the slightest inclination to walk away and use the word nigger, nor would seeing the word in print over a hundred times make him any more of a racist than he was before. It made me think of a well-spoken, educated, respectful business man turning on his I-Pod and listening to Snoop-Dog on his way to work, or a bored mom turning on Grand Theft Auto to take her mind off things. I’m sure the psychoanalysts would have plenty to say about this, but I bet their conclusion would be similar to Williams: you can hardly define a person by what they consume. Or would they say that’s the only way you can define a person?
When Williams talks about the two senses of culture in the beginning, I understand the first group, the teashop culturists, but the second group is a little fuzzy to me. Is the distinction between the groups the same as distinguishing between intellectuals vs. anti-intellectuals? Or high vs. low culture?
DESCRIPTION
In this essay, Williams takes us to his roots, his rural Welsh home, to give us an understanding of why he dislikes current (as of 1958) interpretations of culture. Williams believes that culture should be defined as both (rather than distinguished between) a whole way of life with its common meanings, as well as the processes of discovery and creativity in the arts and learning.
The two prevailing senses of culture that Williams dislikes are what he loosely labels as Teashop culture, and Drinking-hole culture.
1. Teashop culture: “The outward and emphatically visible sign of a special kind of…cultivated people” (7).
2. Drinking-hole culture: The folks who exclude the ethical content of culture and emphasize the purely technical standard—the new cheapjack who uses “scraps of linguistics, psychology and sociology to influence what he thinks of as the mass mind” (7).
Williams says that while he respects Leavis and the Marxists, he must disagree with their views of culture. Williams discusses the three Marxist ideas that “matter” in the discussion of culture:
1. That culture must be interpreted by its underlying system of production,
2. That the masses are considered “ignorant,”
3. And that for socialism to succeed, a person must write, think and learn in “certain prescribed ways” (9).
Williams goes on to say that Leavis knows more about “real relations between art and experience” than the Marxists. Williams, however, doesn’t like the dichotomy that Leavis places on pre and post industrial-revolution culture: old vs. new, valuable vs. cheap, pure vs. vulgar. Williams defends these advances in culture and technology by asking how such things are bad for society. He doesn’t imagine anyone who has ever done without these things (e.g. aspirin or electricity) would ever go back to the old ways. It is a myth of simpler times.
But then William asks, if we can defend these “good” advances, how do we answer the problem of the “new cultural vulgarity” of strip newspapers, cheapjacks, and raucous triviality? (11). To answer this question, he says, we must first debunk the legacy left by cultural critics, specifically the legacy of 2 false equations, 1 false analogy, and 1 false proposition:
False proposition: Ugliness is the price we pay for new sources of power, production, transportation, and communication.
Defense: These new sources of power may be ugly at first, but they will eventually “make England clean and pleasant again” (11).
False equation one: Popular education is responsible for the new commercial culture (11).
Defense: “There are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses” (11).
Defense: The assumption that popular education and commercial culture are cause and effect is based on Northcliffe’s correlation of the Education Act of 1870 and the rise of the “new cheap and nasty (popular) press”—the latter, Williams argues, comes from the “social chaos of industrialism” and not the masses becoming literate—there were, after all, already more than enough literate people before the Education Act to have sustained a popular press (12).
False equation two: Popular culture accurately reflects the mind, feeling, and quality of living of its consumers (12).
Defense: his observation of folks who consume popular culture indicated that one doesn’t reflect the other.
False Analogy: “Just as bad money will drive out good, so bad culture will drive out good” (13).
Defense: The increase in bad culture doesn’t mean a decrease in good culture. Culture expands, and with it all its elements.
Williams concludes that this is a starting point. The ideas of Leavis and the Marxists need to be radically revised, and it is time to start asking the real questions about the social and economic problems raised by culture’s relative rate of expansion.
KEY TERMS:
Putropia: The characteristic 20th-century “opposite” of a Utopian romance: the stories of a future secular hell. Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World, Orwell's 1984, and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are the most famous examples. Putropia, however, stops a little short of Doomsday. Doomsday is the immensely popular genre which, with considerable ingenuity and variety, disposes of life altogether. (Definition culled from an essay found at http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/documents/williams.htm).
Cheapjack: peddler of cheap, low-taste goods (for more info, visit www.walmart.com).
COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS
Favorite line: “So when the Marxists say that we live in a dying culture, and that the masses are ignorant, I have to ask them, as I asked them then, where on earth they have lived” (9).
I haven’t thought of it in these terms, but when I studied Marxism in the past (not the Terry Eagleton variety, but the yawn-inducing essays from my Political Ideologies course), I had a hard time envisioning who these ignorant masses were. They certainly weren’t to be found in my daily adventures. Ignorant people abound, but it hardly seemed accurate to pigeonhole an entire “mass” that way.
I liked reading about the false equation number two: that popular culture is an accurate reflection of the consumer. I think this is an important debate still going on today, especially when it comes to censorship. Wayne Booth, in his book The Company we Keep brought up this idea in his argument against censorship: just because a person reads about violent events, that doesn’t mean she will turn around and mimic those events, nor does it mean that the book is a reflection of her inner desires or vulgarities. A person can read Huck Finn, he says, without feeling the slightest inclination to walk away and use the word nigger, nor would seeing the word in print over a hundred times make him any more of a racist than he was before. It made me think of a well-spoken, educated, respectful business man turning on his I-Pod and listening to Snoop-Dog on his way to work, or a bored mom turning on Grand Theft Auto to take her mind off things. I’m sure the psychoanalysts would have plenty to say about this, but I bet their conclusion would be similar to Williams: you can hardly define a person by what they consume. Or would they say that’s the only way you can define a person?
When Williams talks about the two senses of culture in the beginning, I understand the first group, the teashop culturists, but the second group is a little fuzzy to me. Is the distinction between the groups the same as distinguishing between intellectuals vs. anti-intellectuals? Or high vs. low culture?
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Humphreys Abstract
Abstract of Sal Humphreys “Productive Players: Online Computer Games’ Challenge to Conventional Media Forms”
2005
by Tyson Livingston
Description of Article
In this article, Humphreys attempts to articulate the online computer game, specifically the Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) EverQuest, as a new form of interactive media. She indicates that because players act as producers within the game, it creates an ever-evolving text, with multiple versions being created simultaneously based on the input of players across a vast world and variety of servers. She also indicates that production on the part of the players is composed not only of text, but of relationships and community. She feels that our current laws and structure of copyright and intellectual property are not sufficient to regulate this type of producer/consumer relationship. In addition, she explores the power relations inherent within the MMOG, both between players and publisher, and between players and players, as well as the ethics of the commodification of these online communities.
The article is composed of several sections: the unlabeled introduction; What is New about EverQuest and its Genre?; Productive Players, Implications: Intellectual Property, Regulation, Commerce, and Culture; How Far can Intellectual Property Take Us?; The Regulation of Social Space; Power and Free Labour; and Conclusion.
Key Terms
MMOG (Massive Multi-Player Online Game): EverQuest would probably now be classified as a MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game)
Intellectual Property (Not to be confused with Internet Protocol. In discussions of technology the abbreviation of IP often refers Internet Protocol Address. This caused me a brief moment of confusion when she started talking about IP in terms of the EULA)
EULA (End User License Agreement)
Community
Avatar
Consumption
Production
Player Investment
Guild
Comments and Questions:
The first two sections of the piece, the introduction and What is New about EverQuest and its Genre didn’t really stir up too many questions for me. My only real main problem here was one of definition. As a player of EverQuest, and someone who has obviously invested themselves heavily in the game, Humphreys has a tendency to use “game” terms liberally with little definition, i.e. trade skills, mob, guild, etc. While she provides enough definition and explanation of the game in general to get a grasp on the subject matter, I don’t think that the average reader that does not already possess some knowledge of these type of games would feel the resonance with these terms that Humphrey is trying to evoke, and obviously feels herself. In addition, it took me a while to get a real concrete idea of what she meant when she referred to the productivity of the players. After reading several pages, I came across the statement that, “Players are creators of the text; community and networks of relationships, systems of governance and norms; relationships with other players; and characters” (41). This seemed to sum up the most important part of what Humphreys is concerned about, although it still fails to include other aspects she has spoken of such as websites, and snap-in or secondary applications designed to assist players “in-game.”
My real problems with her argument begin to arise when she starts discussing the problems inherent in creating a community within a private sphere (42). She makes it sound as if this type of situation is a new thing. Communities within private spheres have always existed and often share a symbiotic relationship with their texts, even if they do not have the “real-time” response of Internet communication. Religious communities often have a private nature with rules that govern behavior and “production.” They also have texts, some of which are contemporary and are influenced by the leaders, and congregations of their particular sphere. Professional organizations form a similar situation, some of which are sponsored by corporations and have as their goal the generation of continuous “text” which is reactionary and developmental to their particular field. These organizations have dues and oftentimes generate revenue for the sponsoring organization. Microsoft is a prime example of this with their certification and professional programs.
Many other examples of this type of relationship exist. Talk radio has had a very similar relationship, with a host and production company acting as the publisher, and callers as the user/producers. Oftentimes a sense of community develops around different talk shows as regular callers and listeners begin to appear. In addition, the pen and paper-based role-playing community has been embroiled with these issues for over twenty years, with questions of community-generated intellectual property as the subject of lawsuits and debate.
Her generalization that “This is not an online chat room or email list community. The game adds specific layers of rules, governance, fantasy, goals, and constraints” (42) is also somewhat of a fallacy. Most chat or email distribution list communities have strict rules, goals, and constraints, just like an online game. Humphreys continues to stress this issue by pointing out the existence of the EULA, and the power given to the publisher to close accounts and block access if a player does not conform to the guidelines and usages stipulated by the game company. However, even though she mentions that players willingly play the game and follow the rules, she downplays the reality that the license agreement is essentially a contract. EULAs exist in a variety of contexts to govern the legal use of software and the generation of intellectual property. For example, Microsoft’s MSDNAA program allows universities (the community) to obtain certain software packages (the text) for free. This promotes the use of the software in industry (hence the economic benefit), but Microsoft puts strict guidelines on how the MSDNAA software can be used and what can be produced with it, and essentially place restrictions on intellectual property. This situation is similar to that argued by Humphreys. Furthermore, if Humphreys wants to compare game players to unpaid laborers (45), then the EULA becomes the contract of their employment, just as it would for any volunteer employee of a corporation or organization.
Overall, I believe that the points Humphrey’s brings up regarding the interaction between community, media, and commerce to be interesting, as well as her questions regarding the power relations between the game players and the publisher and between each other. However, I think that her insistence that these relationships are a wholly new construct resulting from the MMOG is inaccurate. I believe it would be better described as an evolution, or perhaps even a culmination, of these relationships and power structures in a new media. Furthermore, I believe that her analysis needs further exploration of how copyright laws specifically treat computer code and applications, as well as ownership of Internet resources, both virtual and physical.
2005
by Tyson Livingston
Description of Article
In this article, Humphreys attempts to articulate the online computer game, specifically the Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) EverQuest, as a new form of interactive media. She indicates that because players act as producers within the game, it creates an ever-evolving text, with multiple versions being created simultaneously based on the input of players across a vast world and variety of servers. She also indicates that production on the part of the players is composed not only of text, but of relationships and community. She feels that our current laws and structure of copyright and intellectual property are not sufficient to regulate this type of producer/consumer relationship. In addition, she explores the power relations inherent within the MMOG, both between players and publisher, and between players and players, as well as the ethics of the commodification of these online communities.
The article is composed of several sections: the unlabeled introduction; What is New about EverQuest and its Genre?; Productive Players, Implications: Intellectual Property, Regulation, Commerce, and Culture; How Far can Intellectual Property Take Us?; The Regulation of Social Space; Power and Free Labour; and Conclusion.
Key Terms
MMOG (Massive Multi-Player Online Game): EverQuest would probably now be classified as a MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game)
Intellectual Property (Not to be confused with Internet Protocol. In discussions of technology the abbreviation of IP often refers Internet Protocol Address. This caused me a brief moment of confusion when she started talking about IP in terms of the EULA)
EULA (End User License Agreement)
Community
Avatar
Consumption
Production
Player Investment
Guild
Comments and Questions:
The first two sections of the piece, the introduction and What is New about EverQuest and its Genre didn’t really stir up too many questions for me. My only real main problem here was one of definition. As a player of EverQuest, and someone who has obviously invested themselves heavily in the game, Humphreys has a tendency to use “game” terms liberally with little definition, i.e. trade skills, mob, guild, etc. While she provides enough definition and explanation of the game in general to get a grasp on the subject matter, I don’t think that the average reader that does not already possess some knowledge of these type of games would feel the resonance with these terms that Humphrey is trying to evoke, and obviously feels herself. In addition, it took me a while to get a real concrete idea of what she meant when she referred to the productivity of the players. After reading several pages, I came across the statement that, “Players are creators of the text; community and networks of relationships, systems of governance and norms; relationships with other players; and characters” (41). This seemed to sum up the most important part of what Humphreys is concerned about, although it still fails to include other aspects she has spoken of such as websites, and snap-in or secondary applications designed to assist players “in-game.”
My real problems with her argument begin to arise when she starts discussing the problems inherent in creating a community within a private sphere (42). She makes it sound as if this type of situation is a new thing. Communities within private spheres have always existed and often share a symbiotic relationship with their texts, even if they do not have the “real-time” response of Internet communication. Religious communities often have a private nature with rules that govern behavior and “production.” They also have texts, some of which are contemporary and are influenced by the leaders, and congregations of their particular sphere. Professional organizations form a similar situation, some of which are sponsored by corporations and have as their goal the generation of continuous “text” which is reactionary and developmental to their particular field. These organizations have dues and oftentimes generate revenue for the sponsoring organization. Microsoft is a prime example of this with their certification and professional programs.
Many other examples of this type of relationship exist. Talk radio has had a very similar relationship, with a host and production company acting as the publisher, and callers as the user/producers. Oftentimes a sense of community develops around different talk shows as regular callers and listeners begin to appear. In addition, the pen and paper-based role-playing community has been embroiled with these issues for over twenty years, with questions of community-generated intellectual property as the subject of lawsuits and debate.
Her generalization that “This is not an online chat room or email list community. The game adds specific layers of rules, governance, fantasy, goals, and constraints” (42) is also somewhat of a fallacy. Most chat or email distribution list communities have strict rules, goals, and constraints, just like an online game. Humphreys continues to stress this issue by pointing out the existence of the EULA, and the power given to the publisher to close accounts and block access if a player does not conform to the guidelines and usages stipulated by the game company. However, even though she mentions that players willingly play the game and follow the rules, she downplays the reality that the license agreement is essentially a contract. EULAs exist in a variety of contexts to govern the legal use of software and the generation of intellectual property. For example, Microsoft’s MSDNAA program allows universities (the community) to obtain certain software packages (the text) for free. This promotes the use of the software in industry (hence the economic benefit), but Microsoft puts strict guidelines on how the MSDNAA software can be used and what can be produced with it, and essentially place restrictions on intellectual property. This situation is similar to that argued by Humphreys. Furthermore, if Humphreys wants to compare game players to unpaid laborers (45), then the EULA becomes the contract of their employment, just as it would for any volunteer employee of a corporation or organization.
Overall, I believe that the points Humphrey’s brings up regarding the interaction between community, media, and commerce to be interesting, as well as her questions regarding the power relations between the game players and the publisher and between each other. However, I think that her insistence that these relationships are a wholly new construct resulting from the MMOG is inaccurate. I believe it would be better described as an evolution, or perhaps even a culmination, of these relationships and power structures in a new media. Furthermore, I believe that her analysis needs further exploration of how copyright laws specifically treat computer code and applications, as well as ownership of Internet resources, both virtual and physical.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
