Talk about razor’s edge…

Not quite done with the Latour article. The language is a lil bit painful… very Husserlian-like Phenomenology speak. My favorite part of this article thus far is that I can’t remember not knowing so many words and having to look up completely blind. I forget meaning all the time but it is rare to come across words you just have never visually seen before. Kudos to Bruno. Of course that contributes to a problem. I have to say for the first 15 pages I was feeling a lil undereducated in the discussion to read correctly. While I have heard their names everywhere, I have very limited knowledge of Whitehead and Popper (they are philosophy and weirdly do not enter the literary criticism discussion very often). Also, the article reads as if it is speaking to a problem or counter-argument that a reader involved in the discussion would know. Having reached deeper into the “negation of a position” (my term- Latour defines most of his ideas in opposition to others rather than positing them directly) this changed, epistemology is not really what he is talking about… Ontology is directly apparent. Just the fact that he has to reject language discussion while using “logos” and “graphy” as proofs brings philology and the philosophy of language to the table (his quip trying to put down Quine is as ineffective as it is misguided- this Quine bit is pure opinion on my part- most folk don’t like Quine). I’m reticent to throw down quotes ’cause his argument doubles back on itself so some concerns maybe assuaged by the end but my hypothesis now is that this argument is a shield for something really simple and may be way closer to a discussion of hermeneutics than Latour is comfortable with-

Who are we to judge the will of God…

Seems to be another way of interpreting Shaviro’s finale. Or maybe more accurately: the network really hasn’t changed much except the vantage of our perception. That’s a big statement that I won’t even attempt to qualify because it is too big. But I would like to touch on some other issues re: Connected… First, in response to Kevin’s comment on my last entry- I don’t really mind being told that I have a poor reading of a text… But you gotta tell me why with textual examples- I trust that Shaviro (and would be depressed if this isn’t the case) is not intending to be an MTV VJ of literary and cultural allusions whose content mixes have nothing more then a cursory and popular content association but rather his product “beat matching” intent and theoretical basis. However “cool,” and Shaviro is interested in coolness, there are a lot of pop cultural and academic holes plus political bias here- the question isn’t whether they are there but whether they are justified. You say you it’s “more of a primer,” for what? If anything is important to lit and comp lit academics it is having textual proof (if that is not clear from his tremendous and thorough references). So while you suggest I should “think less of what he left out, what he’s missed, and what he’s try to weave and put together-” it seems clear from his extensive research that it might be important what he knowingly left out especially considering his particular interest in the “in-between,” “other,” and “power relations.” Maybe not… Tell me.

Shaviro’s text is engaging, fast-paced, and impressively contextualized. There are a number of lacking points that shed some doubt on the rest of the project though. Descartes project and Drugs being two. Shaviro discusses the Cartesian Evil Genius and a Just God in the build up to discussing the choice Neo has to make in The Matrix. When discussing the fantasy world created by the Evil Genius: “Descartes only proposes this fantasy as a thought experiment; he advances in order to disprove it, thereby establishing beyond all doubt the existence of a material world and the veracity of the word of God.” (89) Shaviro is not dishonest here but leaves out an important piece as to why Descartes engaged in the project at all: the advancement of science. Descartes is less interested in being a philosophical set up (much less a cinematic one) then proving to the Vatican that he should be allowed to engage in scientific experiments without being labelled a heretic. In the lineage of fantasy writing for explicating the present this seems key but more importantly as a primary step in the direction that led up to the possibility of a networked society. Why leave out? Agency might have something to do with it- all of Shaviro’s highlighted characters are acted on, always victims- but maybe a larger problem is that I haven’t read all these books, engaged all this media- how do I know what he has left out? Especially re: Femme Fatale. I can’t argue against Asia Argento being a sex object that obscures and transcends sex roles having not seen the film “New Rose Hotel” but I am highly sceptical that a Hollywood movie (even a B one) accomplishes this…  Also, his lack of use of Alan Turing, who should be all over this book and is in many ways just not explicitly, is strange. I was waiting for a 100 or so pages for him to turn up and he is gone in 2 or 3. Seems the father of AI and Modern Computing may have some unacknowledged influence here. Maybe the failure of the Turing Machine is counterproductive to Shaviro’s project?

God love him, Shaviro shows his true colors no where better then his almost haphazard side step into drug use and its representative meanings on today’s society. Firstly, his dig at Rand and Thatcher are testosterone driven women seems counterproductive- though funny. It supposes a lot about gender roles that have gone thoroughly unexplored in his account. Why? As for LSD, DMT, Testosterone, and Cocaine- he is really showing his age by choosing LSD. I would really like to have a conversation about his contentions in class because they seem so agenda based as opposed to relevant to the text. Also, he is making assumptions that seem sophmoric in many ways.

Finally, I was quite disappointed in the end. Really felt for all his exuberance he would finish stronger. He seems to fall into assumptions about the deplorable term the “human condition,” why all the science fiction stuff? He comes to an end that is more easily found in notions of place and time in Oedipus Rex. Why? Also, it’s odd how much me picks on Bill Gates. Not that he shouldn’t be picked on but you’d think he’d throw some aggression at content producers like Murdoch and News Corp or Sumner Redstone and Viacom.

Quick note on Values

Really quickly, just cause it keeps striking me and I add more as I finish the book, many of the contentions and positions taken in this book explicitly or implicitly rely on a value system or morality supplied by Shaviro’s prejudice. While politically I tend to agree with him (though sometimes dubious of his particular pop cultural taste and/or interpretations), his critique suffers greatly from his need to inject these politics to make his points. Becomes dogmatic and highly skewe(re)d. His need to define artists as people who do things a certain way is antithetical to the point he’d like to be making i.e. making a value judgement on how “actual artists” (65) feel about copyright. Especially in light of turning almost immediately around and taking Andy Warhol’s words at face value to prove his point “every emotional state is really just a performance.” (72) How can you take Warhol at word but call Beck an ironic hipster vagrant? Who makes that cultural judgement? Shaviro. He seems to be positioning himself as the ultimate academic hipster- player and player hater. Mixing pop culture and theory is dangerous. Needs hands off approach. Del the Funky Homo Sapien, whether Shaviro knows it or not, happens to be Ice Cube’s cousin. Access/Commerce become really important. Before even considering taste. Also, I am still slightly confused by his TS Eliot association. Does he identify with the “Wasteland?”