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Post by CrucifiedDionysus on Sept 12, 2014 16:39:21 GMT
Erving Goffman has always been one of my favorite sociological thinkers. After some introspection yesterday I must say that we have arrived at a post-dramaturgical point in our social interactions in American "culture". Nietzsche's statement that we are not even actors but mere imitations of actors may have been a precursor to dramaturgical thought but his somewhat cynical criticism of a humanity that was absolutely full of itself in the 19th century has become very real and applicable to American 21st century culture. We are not even actors playing social roles... Our role has become that of bad actor. This is of course not the case for everyone, especially outliers and random individuals who tend to be some of the most oppressed people alive today. Look at television today. It is all suburban and middle-class. The infomercials are some of the worst acting and stage settings around. This "MD" was selling his "mental strength for old people" program on a stage that looked like a clearly half-assed attempt to appear like a "news" station set. It is like they don't even have to try anymore. That's how full of shit and ignorant our culture is today. Adorno would even be surprised by how far we've fallen. This is not postmoderity. It is posthumous society. We are the generation of Nietzsche's most pessimistic fear: the last men. We have even taken a bad translation of his most optimistic hope and have a Superman who is the epitome of slave morality. That bastard has been around a while though.
If I one day die of a self-improvement gunshot wound to my blown out brain, I want it known that it should be seen as a liberation and "Hey man nice shot" should be played at the celebration. Until then back to work which somehow feels like the only public setting in which I experience non-alienated labor.
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Post by Alex Forsberg on Sept 13, 2014 20:25:42 GMT
Hey I briefly read through this post yesterday but wanted to wait to reply until I could give it a more thoughtful response.
I think "post-dramaturgical" is an interesting way of characterizing American(ized) society today, with its near whole internalization of the saturated symbols of what is left of its discourse. It seems to me to harken to Baudrillard's hyperreal, or more precisely socialization through the hyperreal. The dialectical development between the "I" and "me" takes place via symbols that are mere representations of symbols. Thus as Nietzsche said, we become "imitators of actors." The cultural symbols are themselves representations of images that have essentially become reified commodities, to the point that our attempts to identify ("I") with the cultural symbols we use to represent ourselves ("me") amount to mere reflections of reflections. We are embodiments of those moments when you look at yourself in the mirror and notice its reflecting your reflection in a mirror behind you, which is thus reflecting your reflection in another reflection, ad nausea.
"Authenticity"/ "spontaneity"/ "transgression" are all themselves commodified reflections of images, so any sort of cultural subversion one may feel (s)he is engaging in ultimately amounts to a negative affirmation of the culture (s)he feels so deeply, genuinely opposed to.
We buy into those infomercials and "MD"s and all that, fully aware of the bullshit, because we ourselves are bullshit. The lie manifest as the representation of the MD is essentially the same sort of representations we come to identify as, albeit much more apparently superficial.
An implosion Marcuse's one-dimensionality
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Post by CrucifiedDionysus on Sept 14, 2014 10:12:32 GMT
Well this gap between signifer and signified has always been there. I don't really take Baudrillard's position. Basically there is a a limit of what we can "know"/of the other. The only issue is that the gap doesn't really constitute a lie but rather the opportunity to form our own vision of the signified. In no way is this the only
interpretation. Each interpretation is a truth in a different sense, based on the perspective's specific situation. Now we all too often forget to realize that our truths are our own. Which is what all to often happens and hence subversion subverting subversion. Subversives seem to feel as if they are appealing to a "truer" authority. This is why I prefer the intellectual viewpoint that intentionality sacrifices its authority due to the realization that authority or the claim to authority is in common to all subversive movements ending in mere shifts in oppression. Subversion also assumes a binary power struggle oppressed and oppressors. It's own subversion of itself is almost predictable. Yet a position such as deconstruction which merely highlights the moment this occurs either in the text or in the social construct context is not the same as many others. The Derridean style refuses authority which a subversive position would never deny.
As far as hyperreality goes, I am not really sure if I feel like it exists, but there is something to it at the same time, but I just haven't seen or felt it. Of course that doesn't mean it is not. Post-dramaturgical probably doesn't fit either, I was sort of experimenting with different terminologies to kind of see how my perspective may shift. The use of signifiers I do not think is to be avoided because of any possible commodfication of them. The gap gives the chance to play with meaning, and if it is problematic for some words it is for all of them as well. If we must use them, then we must know this time around that the rules of the game are different as are the boundaries. Thus, we don't attempt to find a universal standard as knowing that words are not precise or accurate in no way obligates us to restore the previous mishap as the standard.
I will have to reread Baudrillard sometime as it has been a while and reconsider.
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