Warming up to [hopefully] tomorrow's post on "extreme tourism", I have to highlight this excellent blog post about a figure who exhibits many of the vices, and few of the virtues, of the independent researcher. It is not the first time I've mentioned the author in question on this blog. Regarding his network of readers, to whom numerous works have been cleverly niche marketed over many years, it seems plausible that they could share many of the characteristics Randall Collins talks about in The Sociology of Philosophies. Collins says there is a theory of network "submergence", as well as "emergence", by which we might understand how disenchanted figures drop out of formal curricula to develop their own positions. These may typically, although not exclusively, involve the adoption of arcane/marginal epistemologies such as the occult, or a hard as flint political philosophy that is not intended to transcend party level.
From what I can tell, there are some important questions that would need to be brought to the table when negotiating the kind of rapprochement I intimated in my previous post, (which I hope to explore further in the "extreme tourism" post) i.e. how is philosophy defined for sociological purposes?
Once every so often I try to be a bit reflexive on this blog by talking about the nature of the blogosphere, and as alluded to by the title of this post, the place of this blog in it. I think it is already 2 years ago in "Why Bother Having Sitemeter on This Blog?" that I raised a swag of related issues. Over time I feel that my intuitions have been reinforced, to the extent that things have pretty much come full circle. I guess the initial attraction of blogging was how liberating it felt compared to both the academic thesis I'd just finished, and the academic papers I work on as a freelance editor. Indeed, one of my very first posts, "Words of advice for young people..." and later, "scholarshit", captured some of my feelings about academic gatekeeping methods. I figured, if nothing else, posting regularly would help sharpen up my writing skills.
So then I started to blog, when suddenly it hit me: the kind of theory I'd critically engaged with in my academic work had not disappeared, but simply migrated into the new medium (on this blog, this is usually taken to mean the application of Continental philosophy to popular culture). Does this mean then that everything in both spheres is just relativised (and reified) into one gigantic "will to power"? Only to a certain extent, because the importance difference is this: the blogosphere is a clusterfuck:
In other words, the blogosphere is a tendentious medium bereft of the gatekeeping mechanisms of academic publishing that provide some modicum of parity and objectivity. For the advantage in the academic world is its approximation of that great Australian democratic innovation- the secret ballot. When a paper is submitted, it is subject to a double blind peer review process, whereby the author does not know who will be reviewing their work, and the reviewers don't know who the author is. This helps indemnify the piece from the more insidious characteristics of the blogosphere. Consider this contrast; even if a blogger chooses to write anonymously, they can still easily become a prisoner of their own creation, at least when posting on their own blog. Afterall, one is left open to forms of censure requiring no reasoned response, but simply the removal of any links ("trace evidence" if you like) back to the [original] critical post. Modifying Richard Dawkins' biological metaphor of the "selfish gene" somewhat, this means that the sharing of links can potentially function as nothing more than vehicles for bloggers to ensure their own reproduction. Once you realise this, the economics of attention in the blogosphere, as measured by numbers of links, hits, or even comments, appears more dubious than citation practices in academia (where at review level authors are at least assured of detailed referee reports that can help the author develop their work, even if the reports are very critical).
I had my suspicions at the outset though, which is one of the major reasons I chose for the iconography of this blog the mummified space jockey transmitting from the outermost rim of the information grid. I also knew that social theorists/sociologists were, for the most part, conspicuous only by their absence in the blogsophere. But like I also said, I am hardly one for valorising academic publishing for its own sake. I instead look forward to the day when there is a more equitable distribution of resources, thanks to the push towards open access publishing as the new model. One of the major problems therefore is the monopoly on access that academics currently enjoy, thanks to the exorbitant subscription prices publishers slap on their ejournals, which prevents independent researchers from accessing them through academic libraries. This problem is compounded by the cost of databases, which gives the independent researcher little alternative to resources such as Google Scholar.
Having said that, in the interim I like to dream of more cooperative models eventuating. Believe me, sour grapes are not, and have never been, the underlying issue here. If they were, I would need to have previously made a concerted [unsuccessful] effort to ingratiate myself into the inner circle. Neither myself, or the other team members on this blog, have ever bothered to do this. So when I question myself, all I have to do is think of the kinds of critical issues that might have arisen had, for example, another [popular] blog dedicated to one particular famous science fiction author, instituted to the letter the kind of critical methodology explicitly foregrounded in the published work of that blogger's academic supervisor (to wonder aloud though, is not necessarily to imply opportunism on the part of that blogger, I am just curious about the potentially detrimental effect on that blog's status as a nodal point in its associated interpretive community).
I can never forget the passage where said supervisor writes in his book about a popular strain of cultural theory, (mirroring in many regards, the issues I can sometimes have with Continental philosophy meets popular culturein the blogosphere type writing), introduced by Stuart Hall, who he pictures as a kind of Dr Frankenstein, laboring in his [quoting from memory here as I don't have the book here with me as I write this), "filthy workshop of creation...stitching together a theoretical Frankenstein's monster out of semiotics... [and Post-Marxist theory]...much of this is of little real value, but today it is alive, alive-o!" By extension, Hall's initiatives cleared a path for later cultural studies, and acted as enablers for his British contemporaries, such as the Lacanian strand of film studies, the house organ of which was the journal Screen. Of course, this ferment of activity also provided an entry point for Slavoj Zizek into the English speaking world, and later, into the blogosphere (where it has come to dominate avant garde cultural theory).
The later example should serve as a reminder of the real world analogue to trends in the "virtual" blogosphere, which a sociology of intellectuals might suggest can be more dependent on mundane institutional considerations/niche marketing, than [desirable] normative values per se. But there is another way forward. In a spirit more of engagement than attack, I wonder if a more dialectical approach is possible, wherein each side could, to some extent, buttress the other? I might be about to make a brief contribution along these lines in a posting on "extreme tourism". Some of the reasons this generally does not come about can be found here, and, in an even more pessimistic vein, here as well. I prefer the first piece because it seems to recognize that we write in a blogosphere that is absolutely rotten with criticism, when what we clearly need is more analysis (Raymond Williams once said the same thing about the popular press). Hence it also offers some constructive alternatives, which are worth following up in the future.
I remember when Bernard Wolfe's novel Limbo was critically discussed in How We Became Posthuman. Well, I just posted on Cube, only to learn that Natali is supposed to be filming Splice. I hope it will be something like Limbo (just imagine the politics of representation involving disability rights and biotech it could raise, shades of Gattaca). I'm getting the feeling though that an adaptation of Limbo, or even something in its spirit, will have to await another day. But there's still a lot to look forward to I think with Natali's film. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
Splice was written by director Vincenzo Natali and screenwriters Doug Taylor and Antoinette Terry Bryant.[2] The script was originally meant to follow up Natali's Cube (1997), but the budget and restricted technology hindered the project. In 2007, the project entered active development as a 75% Canadian and 25% French co-production, receiving a budget of $26 million.[3] The director described the film: "Splice is very much about our genetic future and the way science is catching up with much of the fiction out there. "[This] is a serious film and an emotional one. And there's sex... Very unconventional sex. The centerpiece of the movie is a creature which goes through a dramatic evolutionary process. The goal is to create something shocking but also very subtle and completely believable."[4]
Many thanks ahuthnance for pointing out this piece to me. I see what you mean when you say that Sam Jordison keeps going from strength to strength. I particuarly look forward to his next piece on Dick's The Man in the High Castle. His appraisal of Heinlein appears balanced to me, and I was fascinated to hear of The Church of Other Worlds, as inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land. Further evidence perhaps of the various attempts that have been made to either reject, or re-enchant, modernity (spanning from communism, fascism, to liberal capitalism, communitarianism and fundamentalism).
Mhuthnance, you asked me to post [the above] on your behalf, but for some reason your blogger password didn't work, so forgive me if it looks like I'm hijacking your initiative. I notice as well that Simon Reynolds promptly tipped his hat to McGoohan's legacy too, so kudos to blissblog.
More generally speaking, the allegory of everyday life as prison has proven resurgent in contemporary social theory. Stanley Cohen is probably best known for his pioneering work on the "folk devil" paradigm, in relation to "media panic", but a later work concentrated on Escape Attempts. The later edition was subject to revision, in acknowledgement of critiques of the prior privileging of the rarefied transgressive experiences of white males.
Another representative work is Eyal Chowers'The Modern Self in the Labyrinth: Politics and the Entrapment Imagination, which was reviewed in Foucault Studies. It strikes me that a fascinating exercise would be attempting to test whether The Prisoner is somehow symptomatic of "the entrapment imagination".
Some might see the lack of easy narrative closure in the series as conflicting with such an interpretation. I can understand what The Official Companion means by the claim that if the final episode had simply provided all the answers about the purpose of the Village, in relation to McGoohan's character, The Prisoner might only have being remembered today for the big bouncing balls (making it a merely camp artifact). So although the show is reflexive, insofar as it leads the viewer to question their own motivations for wanting closure, by the same token, it is not unusual today to find this reflexivity portrayed by contemporary theorists as itself a ruse of power. For example, here is how Mark Featherstone describes the logic of deferred meaning in Vincenzo Natali's film Cube, in which a group of strangers inexplicably find themselves trapped in a gigantic punishment machine:
Moreover, as the group search for an escape from the Cube each of Natali's characters seems to play a functional part. With regard to the endless deferral of meaning, a machine that is constitutive of the search for reason, two characters are central. Quentin, a cop, the Law, is the figure who represents individual agency, his role is to both constrain and control the expenditure of desire, and assert the importance of the individual's place in the world. In contrast, Worth, the bureaucrat, stands for the dominance of structure, he represents the de-individualisation of the order of things and the dehumanisation of real being, the alien structure built onto nature. Regarding the tension implicit within this relation the following dialogue proves instructive:
Worth: "There is no conspiracy, nobody is in charge, it's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master-plan, big-brother is not watching you. If this ever had a purpose then it got mis-communicated or lost in the shuffle, this is an accident, a forgotten perpetual public works project. You think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a clear conscience and a fat pay-cheque."
Quentin: "Why put people in it?"
Worth: "Because it's here, you have to use it or admit it's pointless."
Quentin: "But it is, it is pointless." Worth: "Quentin, that's my point."
Quentin: "You make me sick, Worth."
Worth: "I make me sick too, we're both part of the system. I drew a box, you walk a beat, it's like you said Quentin, keep your head down, keep it simple, just look at what's in front of you. I mean nobody wants to see the big picture, life's too complicated. Let's face it, the reason we're here is because it's out of control."
To my mind at least, the most provocative characteristic of The Prisoner is that it is impossible to tell which side of the reflexive boundary it "really" [sics] sits, which has done much to ensure its longevity, and indeed, its prescience. Perhaps Cube is still anticipated by The Prisoner though in the sense that it too problematises any notion of "everyday life", on account of the mediation of agency by sociotechnical networks (to back up this conceptual armoury, think too of Stephen Crook's critique of everydayness as "the minotaur...a mythological figure, pale and only half formed").
One of the more detailed attempts in recent times to map the logic of the "society of control" (supposedly replacing Foucault's "disciplinary society"), is Bulent Diken's The Culture of Exception: Sociology Facing the Camp.
I can clearly remember Peter Beilharz's critical review in Thesis Eleven, which targeted what he regarded as the book's hyperbole and cynical exaggeration. But these things tend to run in circles anyway: for what it's worth, I once posted something on Dancecult about speed and social theory, where I was basically revisiting some territory I'd covered in my thesis. The irony though was how in that case it had to do with Mark Featherstone taking Derrida to task for an [alleged] complicity in the ascendant logic of accelerationism. Hence I regard the recent attentiveness to this issue in the avant garde music meets Continental philosophy/cultural studies blogosphere as revisiting some familiar territory. The telling difference from Diken and Featherstone has to do with how these bloggers are not inclined to reference either sociology or social theory per se.
In any case, evidently the power of The Prisoner remains undiminished, so Mhuthnance I'm just trying to back up your enthusiasm here. My only other thought, with specific reference to sci fi, is that it might be worthwhile to treat J.G. Ballard as a fellow traveller, with respect to his popularisation of "the entrapment imagination" (but I won't begin to comment here on the Kubrickian references described also in the aforementioned Official Companion, although I think the entrapment label is justified in that case as well). For the moment I'm leaving it as a moot point whether or not the entrapment imagination was originally sociologically inspired, in the manner claimed by Chower's book, before taking a divergent (and, according to same sociological readers, critically flawed) path through Foucault et al.
Notwithstanding these potentially important differences, there may be enough continuity remaining to see even descriptions of the postmodernization of the social as touching on aspects of entrapment. This is worth thinking about as Soja describes in this clip the spatial logic behind Los Angeles' Westin Bonaventure Hotel (which will be immediately recognisable to readers of Fred Jameson). In a similar vein, with specific reference to Ballard and architecture, is this piece on ballardian.com.
Inevitably, the interest in biosociality in all of its varieties would at some point have to allude to the cultural significance of cannibalism in the modern imaginary. I'm only just starting to gather material on this topic (and I'm further distracted by a burgeoning interest in genocide, and related terms such urbicide etc), a task which is complicated by its obvious intersection with postcolonial critique. Suffice to say, I don't currently have at my disposal the necessary means to attempt any thorough evaluation of this Thai body artist. My initial thought is that it would be necessary to begin with the concept of glocalisation (i.e. how globalising logics are adapted in accordance with local conditions). To be sure, these works spark memories of the naturalist logic featured in works such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and also the "bone house" of Joel Peter Witkin (or even George A. Romero, as featured in my previous post), but is there any other crosscutting logic of commodification at stake? I'm hoping to visit Bangkok's Museum of Forensic Medicine next month in search of some answers, and, time permitting, post them here. It will necessitate more than a splicing of quotes from, say, Baurdrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death....but until then, here is a brief introduction to Kittiwat Unarrom: Sculpted entirely from bread, these severed human heads are the work of Kittiwat Unarrom, proprietor of Thailand’s gruesome “body bakery”. The ceiling of his Ratchaburi bakery/studio is festooned with dismembered hands, feet and internal organs dangling from hooks. The Fine Art student says that his macabre creations were inspired by visits to Bangkok’s Museum of Forensic Medicine. He uses anatomy books to get the details right.
Please no citation or reproduction of any original writings or images appearing on this blog without the permission of its authors.
"Defects of empirical knowledge have less to do with the ways we go wrong in philosophy than defects of character do; such as the simple inability to shut up; determination to be thought deep; hunger for power; fear, especially the fear of an indifferent universe" (David Stove The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies 1991: 188)
