foster putties for adoption

Meet Brad and Janet, a double-classed duo who had one too many Time Warp dances (bouncing unwanted and neglected from home to garage and who knows where else--backstory here). Brad and Janet are white Devons and approximately eight years old. They are not bred to standard and have a few anomalies (namely, missing hair and declawed feetses), but this suits them well for their loveable, punk attitude. With the assistance of a babblefish, we interviewed each of them for a personal statement. Here's what they told us:

BRAD: "I like to butt my human with my face and lovingly slobber on them when I do. I enjoy letting the whole world hear my purr. I am not shy and will tell you when I want to be loved, especially when my humans are ready for bed. I will sleep on your face if you let me. I like you to cradle me and rub meh bellah! I've got an impressive elevator butt. I'm a big boy as far as Devons go, which means there's just that much more of me to love. Me had meh gobs removed, so I'm a really sweety. Dammit, Janet: I love you! Peace out."

JANET: "Oooh, I love love love to have my face rubbed, and if you rub it continuously you can do almost anything to me, like stick a thermometer up my butt! I have the most mesmerizing, beautiful light blue eyes and sometimes, if you stare into them a long time, I will hang my tongue out. I like to sleep still and quietly next to my human at night. And don't let my tiny, six pound girlish figure fool you: I am a real piggy, and will gentle remind my human with my cute little meow that it's time to eat at least an hour before it's really time. I'm told I have the cutest meow, a nice contrast to Brad's aggressive head-butts."

Both Brad and Janet prefer to stay together, as they've known nothing else and would be lonely without each other to sleep on. They are neutered and spayed, up on all vaccines, and tested negative FIV/FeLV. The best home for this pair is one in which they are the only pets, as this is all they have known until the foster home. Owing to the extreme heat, Brad and Janet need to be adopted in Texas and transported in an air conditioned vehicle only. Interviews and adoption fee are required. Email the Devon Rex Rescue League for more information on adopting these two wonderful putties. More glamour shots here.

i was a teenage clubkid

Music: David Sylvian: Secrets of the Beehive (2003)

A lost but found best friend from my high school days emailed me to report that the one-time playground of our youth, Plastic, now has a community page on facebook. Plastic was a dance club that catered to a goth/industrial/techno-kid jet-set. When not doing drugs in a basement somewhere, my friends and I often ended up at this club. Plastic, however, was the second-best to my first club of love, Boys and Girls. Boys and Girls was a more grown-up version of Plastic, a poly- and ambisexual bar that I started going to when I was 14; these were the days when carding was, um, not taken that seriously. I cannot believe I'm old enough to remember that, but yup: carding used to be a joke. Anyway, when carding started to be an issue the state closed down Boys & Girls. A year later the same owners opened Plastic, and it wasn't until about a year after that until they got their liquor license. Us "old timers" (hah!) got our underage drinking again, but if you were a new face, tough. You had to do coke instead.

What has me amused to no end about the Plastic group---aside from bringing back a flood of mostly happy memories---was that someone managed to photograph me. Understand between the age of 14 and 20 I would not agree to have my photograph taken, I mean, I was a real jerk about. The only extant photos from this period are year book photos, which I reluctantly agreed to, and a handful of various candid shots for high school year books. So here is, my friends, the only extant social photo of me, to my knowledge, at 16-17 years of age.

Ah, if one could only retain such a girlish figure . . . and a tolerance for hour-long hair-do sessions. They don't make the stuff you used to get your hair like that anymore. You have to settle for non-CFC Aqua-Net these days.

Looking at us teen "club kinds" from back then, I recalled my favorite songs from that era: Nitzer Ebb's "Join in the Chant," Renegade Soundwave's "Cocaine Sex," Front 242's "Headhunter," Eon's "Spice," and Professor X's "Professor X Suite." Fun times, long before mortgages and car repairs and water damage and debt. Click the photo for a bigger version.

on marriage

Music: Amon Tobin: Bricolage (1997)

This weekend I officiated a wedding between two very loving, very smart people in Denton, Texas. This is the third couple I have married in as many years. I originally married some friends back in Louisiana at their request, because they wanted something fun, different, and non-religious. The same story with Gigi and Billy this weekend: they wanted something more their "style," which means, something both sincere and respectful but fun. I was a little nervous, because I don't know the couple or their families very well, but I managed to pull off my part without any mistakes. The couple did their part very well, too (including some water works). It was, in my opinion, a marvelous ceremony and I felt good leaving the couple to their promises to be good to and for each other.

I have been thinking about marriage a lot in the past month or two, for both personal and professional reasons (as if I could keep them separated). Personally, this week is an important break-up anniversary with one of the two people I thought it might be possible to make a life-long commitment to. Professionally, many of my beloved friends are urging a boycott of a conference hotel because its owner opposes LGBT marriage. And then there's the personal/private ambivalence I have toward the history of the institution: you don't have to go very far back in history to learn that marriage was originally a male sex-right over the bodies of women as property. The history of marriage, in other words, ain't pretty.

Part of my ambivalence about "gay marriage" is that its history and conceptual lineage is one that excludes homosexual desire. I saw Judith Butler give a moving speech once in Minneapolis about opposing gay marriage that has always stuck with me. I don't remember the specifics, but in general her claim was that gay marriage only furthers the oppressive social and cultural prohibitions against gay desire. In a sense, gay marriage represents the "surburbinization" of gay desire, cleaning it up for hetero-respectibility. Making a promise to a life-partner outside of legal recognition, she suggested, is perhaps even more sacred and meaningful.

Such ambivalence is not limited, of course, to gay marriage, but marriage in general. Only until relatively recently could we argue the institution was beneficial to both parties.

Yet, contradictory creatures as we are, I've agreed to marry people many times now. A divorced friend and I were talking outside of the place we were having the rehearsal dinner. She said she didn't believe in marriage, but supported her friend. I drew the analogy about the hotel boycott and said I felt the same way, but then underscored the legal issues (and their importance). I found myself articulating my own rationalization for being an Officiant for weddings in a way that suddenly made sense. You know, sometimes you have positions but don't realize what they are, exactly, until you are forced to express them in speech. So there I was, defending marriage: "It's a solemn promise to be good to someone else." And what's wrong with a promise? Marriage is a big kind of promise, and I said that it deserves the gravity we tend to give it. Making a promise to another person for life is pretty interesting, moving, and important. So few things do we do in life that has such lasting consequence.

Standing under the gazebo, looking into the groom and bride's eyes, I felt the gravity of what we were doing, and was moved by it. They had prepared their own vows, and as they said them many people were sobbing, including my friend who does not believe in marriage. We were all taken with the spirit of sincerity, and perhaps unlike other couples I've married, this seemed like the kind of marriage that will stick. My father is a wedding photographer, and I've grown-up going to weddings; you can feel those that are for show, and then, those that are the "real deal." This time, everyone could tell that the promise was not for show, but for each other. Standing there with my collar on, watching these two make a pact and mean it, I felt a conviction in public promise-making that I hadn't felt before. The cynic in me evaporated.

In the end, despite its history and ideology, I think marriage is a sacred promise that showcases the best of what human beings have to offer to each other: their words, keeping their words. Perhaps I find such a promise so important because so few people these days keep their word; so few people these days seem loyal to one another (and certainly not in the workplace; all bets are off there!). I see no reason why anyone should not be afforded the opportunity to make another public promise to another human being. Such a promise need not be in the eyes of the law, but certainly in the eyes of those whom the lovers hold dear.

Some years ago I had my fortune read by psychic, and many years before that, a Tarot reader. Both women said the same thing: I will not marry, but I will have children. There's no way to tell if I would ever personally leave the surly bonds of bachelordom for marriage (though I'm open to being persuaded; lately I've been quite doubtful). Regardless, this weekend I did finally make up my mind about the institution of marriage: I'm for it, gay, straight, and everything in between.

the prayers and tears of hillary

Music: Brothers and Sisters: Fortunately (2008)

I spent this morning reading old magazine and newspaper articles about Hillary Clinton's remarks shortly before the New Hampshire primary last January. I then thought about these articles and essays as I worked-out, waterproofed my patio furniture, shopped for sweat pants and free weights, and bought a buttload of water slightly flavored with a hint of citrus. I then wrote about the prayers and tears of Hillary, trying to make the draft of my public address talk more interesting and insightful. I wrote right through Judge Judy, one of my favorite shows. I started to get a headache and decided to make dinner (an Omaha New York Strip, and this on a Tuesday, thank you very much Low-Carb for my Fat Ass Lifestyle---that's LCFMFAL for short, not to be confused with ROTFLMAO, which I don't do anymore on account of a deep, soul-wrenching sadness and the extra animals in the house and the damage they do to the floor. Wouldn't it be great, though, if you could literally laugh your ass off? I would laugh my beer belly off too).

After a hiatus working on an impossible butterfly jigsaw puzzle while listening to House and Prime Time Medical Mysteries about this guy who has a wart disease that made him look like a tree, I decided to think and write some more, while I have the luxury to do so. School begins next week---or, at least, the meeting part of it---and that usually means for me that research comes to a screeching halt until the holidays, especially because I've got a new prep.

The phrase "the prayers and tears of Hillary" is a play on a book I enjoy by John Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida. I first discovered Caputo's work trying to work through Kierkegaard's dissertation and have been a fan ever since. In many ways Caputo helped me to break-out of the deadlock of my own religious past to think about religion in a different way. Prayers and Tears is Captuo's attempt to explain Derrida's late work in terms of "religion without religion," in terms of certain dispositional postures toward others or the Other (and these shadow-dancing with Levinas). What's interesting about the title is the image it is meant to reference: a sight of Derrida praying, then affirming, then raising his head to reveal tear-stained cheeks. Moving piety from an avowed atheist; what does this mean, then, the prayers and tears of Hillary?

It means a candidate who had nutcrackers marketed with her image on them is capable of deep emotion, that beneath the composure there is someone buried whom the mass media was desperate to unearth. It means to reference the public release of emotion as a final hail Mary---one that worked, but not enough.

To understand why, it's important to recount that the pie-eyed celebration Obama's oratory stands in very sharp contrast to the repeatedly printed sentiments about Hillary, many of which replaced Rodham with "Shrill." Hillary's Witchypoo voice was so parodied that she eventually decided to laugh at herself:

"Do I really laugh like that?" asks Clinton, and then quickly assents. Perhaps a better way to go than let the Guardian keep describing your "forced jackal laugh." After the SNL appearance, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC asked, "could you actually live in this country for eight years having to listen to her voice?" And as I've blogged before, Public Radio International ran a news story in which they hired a British acting and voice coach to perform a comparative analysis of Obama and Clinton's voices.

As the work of Karlyn Kohrs Cambpell has suggested, Hillary has been victimized for her failures to properly perform femininity, a terrible catch-22 to be in as a female politician. An attention to Hillary's vocal delivery, however, demonstrates how these performances are principally vocal and related, not to arguments, but to tone. This implies that the ideology of sexism is much more insidious, much more deeply ingrained than many might suppose: we don't simply think in discriminatory ways; we hear in those those ways. Much brain research as suggested that the very first form of likeness we learn is gender, and that this discrimination is not based on sight---thank you very much Freud---but sound. Affect comes before the signifier.

This implies that feelings and affective rapport is prior to representation (or what Diane Davis would term "identification"). It suggests that our first, hard-wired habits of discrimination thereby get articulated to gender norms first, before race, before name, before faith, so "early" that in fact our habitual responses to gender-in-voice are of the knee-jerk variety (but would differ, of course, from one culture to the next).

The knee-jerk quality of discrimination based on vocalic tone are easier to see/hear in the case of Hillary's oratory. The ideological underpinnings of tone and gender were perhaps no more obvious than in a Portsmouth coffee shop a day before the New Hampshire primary last January. The headlines that day ran as follows: "Hillary Clinton Gets Emotional"; "Play of the Day: Hillary Chokes Up"; "Teary Eyed Clinton Vows to Fight On"; "The Tracks of Her Tears"; and the most popular headline, "The Crying Game." When asked by a fan how she keeps so "upbeat and wonderful" while campaigning, she answered:

Clinton cinched the primary, and reporters were quickly to claim her quivering voice was to blame. Until that day, reported Time magazine, "Clinton seemed to carry herself like a President trapped inside a woman's body." Notably, the words chosen by Clinton deliberately confronted any easy separation of public and private, busting open the domination of the signifier with what was undeniably genuine feeling: "This is very personal for me," confessed Clinton, "it's not just political. It's not just public." What accounts for the "just" is the personal and private, the publicized conflation of the two.

Hilary's Affective Coming-Out garnered ambivalent reactions: many polled said they changed their mind about her, while the already committed found firmer resolution. The press was more divided; while much of it was positive, the more cynical argued that "political crying has gone form anathema to acceptable to mandatory," becoming the "latest political calculation for attention." Despite the fact nary a tear dropped and that Hillary was in control of her speech, countless newspaper headlines suggested sobbing and crying. And the NEW posterboy for hypocrisy, John Edward, implied Clinton's emotional display made her unfit for the "tough business" of the presidency.

So, what's the point with these examples? The point here is that tone is deliberately pointless, but it is not normless; assuredly, for example, on this side of language tone is gendered: as the cultural reception of Hillary demonstrates, aggressive tones are less permitted in the female voice than they are in the male voice. But these examples also show how difficult a line Hillary's speech had to tow---and I think how the maternal figures centrally in that double-bind. The coffee shop break and its controlled emotion helped Hillary in the polls, but it was too late. In retrospect, this firm by "soft" Hillary might have helped her campaign (something that started with that 60 Minutes interview some years back but which too many people forget).

It would seem the old adage, that politicians don't cry or show emotion, no longer holds today. It may very well be "crying" or "emoting" is a requirement, as some cynical journalists have suggested.

I didn't have time to finish researching it today, but some social scientists at Penn State have a forthcoming book about crying. I read today they have discovered a dramatic shift in attitudes toward the public displays of emotion, especially after Nine-eleven. Hillary's quick and VERY controlled display is evidence of a changing attitude, on her part and that of the public, about showing emotion. Obama does it with his voice modulation and tone; he seems to relate to people as people. Gosh, I'm so tired I cannot complete the thoughts I had hoped to pull together for the blog. Sorry. I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll cry on my pillow. If I do, I'll try to film myself and post it on YouTube.

public address as public release

Music: The Faint: Fasciinatiion (2008)

A public release on public address: this year the Eleventh Biennial Public Address Conference is being held at the site of its debut some twenty years ago at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I'm very excited to report I've been invited to participate, however, even if I wasn't I'd be going because the conference honoree is my "intellectual mother," as she is certainly for many: Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. How could I miss honoring her? One cannot, and should not, most especially because this group comprises the "home team." One of her many advisees, a bloggrolled and sometimes commenter here, John Murphy, will be delivering the keynote!

With the exception of my hiccup, the conference program is jam-packed with goodness, and this in an election year, of course. Although I admit that this will be my first conference, you don't have to be invited to attend, and apparently many do. I know this is tough for some folks who need to be on the program to get travel funds from their institutions (which is why I've yet to go until now, to be honest), but if you could swing it, the registration deadline is coming soon. Check the website for more details (and as someone noted to me in private, there is a cheaper, Friday-only registration possibility).

That release out of the way, I'm relieved to dispatch another: today I finished a draft of my talk. Since my work is not normally associated with "public address," I've agonized for some months how to address the audience. I think I have figured something out, hopefully something that will make connections between the center of public address practice and my own interests. Of course, I'm hammering away on what I trust will be a more or less welcome claim, that Communication Studies gave up the object of "speech" too soon. I'm also going to talk about the object of "uncontrolled speech" at some length.

I'll refrain from posting my talk because (a) it's not polished/in its fifteenth revision; and (b) I want to leave something for those who will be attending the conference. Maybe after the conference I can post the whole thing, or better, turn it into something worthy of publication. Well, my book-in-progress incorporates all the stuff I say anyway, but, you know, in "my field" the name of the game is still arrrrrrrticles. Anyhoo, here's a tease from the introduction:

The cry, the grunt, the scream, and the yawp: these vocal utterances are aligned with the sexual because they are not meant for public company, certainly not for public scrutiny. Of course, I would underscore the term "sexual" in its broadest sense here, not reducible to the genital, but rather consisting of a broad range of bodily stimulations that result in pleasure, pain---or both---from the visual enchantments of cinema to the uncomfortable bliss of endorphins on mile ten of that marathon you just ran yesterday. The cry, the grunt, the scream, and the yawp index the body in feeling. These also bespeak an absence of self-knowledge, a loss of control, even a tacit mindlessness frequently associated with extreme emotional states.

The cry, the grunt, the scream, and the yawp represent what we could simply term uncontrolled speech and today I want to suggest to you that uncontrolled speech plays a much larger role in public life than many have supposed. The trick is to understand involuntary or uncontrolled speech as that which measured speech always threatens to reveal---that every time we witnesses masterful eloquence, there lurks the possibility of a hiccup or belch waiting to rupture the ruse of public propriety. For just as the measured talk of two friends flirting in a diner portends the promise or threat of a coming scream, so does a president horrify and infuriate with an impending "duh" or the possibility of an unthinking, barbaric yawp. In this sense, I will argue that the unspoken-uncontrolled is the regulatory organ of eloquence.

In plainer language, my thesis today is that uncontrolled speech, represented by the cry, the grunt, the scream, and the yawp, is the normative constraint of public address, and that this constraint is sexual in character. As a corollary, I will suggest that the object of speech, and by extension, oratory, should remain central to the study of public address. Until the mid-twentieth century, the study of oratory included a robust understanding of speech that put argument and affect on equal footing. I want to suggest an attention to uncontrolled public speech not only helps us to recover that affective or pathetic dimension of rhetoric that has been repressed, but that such attention also helps us to make better sense of this contemporary implosion of public and private, of politics and entertainment, of prurience and propriety.

To this end my talk is organized into three parts. With reference to contemporary examples of uncontrolled speech, I first turn to a discussion of the sexual significance of speech as such. As a number of you are expecting, and perhaps some of you dreading, here I will draw on the insights of psychoanalytic theory in order to explain the ambivalence of speech as such (I promise to go gentle on the jargon if you agree to let yourself laugh—that is, if you let yourself go in public). Then, in the second part of my talk I bring an understanding of uncontrolled speech to bear on the polarizing oratory of presidential candidate, Barak Obama. Finally, I will discuss how the discipline formerly known as speech communication abandoned speech's affective dimension in pursuit of academic respectability, eventually abandoning the object of speech itself.

paris for president

Music: David Helping: Sleeping on the Edge of the World (1999)

After seeing the McCain "celebrity" ad, co-founder of FunnyorDie.com Adam McKay decided to approach Paris Hilton and ask if she wanted to film a response. He pitched the idea of a counter-montage: images of The Golden Girls, Yoda, the Crypt Keeper, and Colonel Sanders would fade into one of John McCain, all of which to the voice-over, "he's the oldest celebrity in the world, like, super-old . . . but, is he ready to lead?" Paris would then appear and explain she's also a celebrity and therefore running for president. She would explain her own bi-partisan energy policy, say "see you at the debates, bitches," and suggest a pop star as a running mate. She would close by suggesting she would paint the white house pink, and then would blow the spectator (a kiss).

Paris loved the idea, and filmed the bit while vacationing in the Hamptons over the course of three hours. Wearing a revealing bathing suit. And yummy fake eyelashes. And trying to keep her delicious left lazy eye from being lazy. And creating an inviting vector to the center of the screen---and everything else---with her long long lean-long legs (and if you get that lyrical reference, I owe you a drink). But then, when she moves to discuss policy, there will only be a dead-on head shot---so that we take her seriously, you know, without her half-naked body all out there.

This is the most brilliant political publicity I've seen since Rev. Wright's speech at the Press Club.

Of course, it's no secret that I've been a fan of Paris for some years. Six, to be precise, though for some reason my blog posts about her only go back to 2006. Admittedly, I cannot discern if my feelings for Paris are hetero- or homoerotic (I suppose that's the kick inside), but this is (a little) beside the point for this evening's post. The montage is not a complex as McCain's, as clearly something much less subtle is at work here. So, my jollies aside, what is the significance of this "response?" What is the rhetorical significance?

In the debate world an argument that we used to advance (and that probably still is) was known as "perception is key" (PIK). The idea behind PIK was that the "truth" was irrelevant, only what folks perceived to be true was the key (sounds like the market, no?). That is, the signified didn't matter, only the referent assumed by a given audience---something assumed to be external to, you know, "empty rhetoric." The notion plays into the realist imbecility I spoke about in the previous post: so invested is the perceiver in extra-linguistic, extra-representational "truth" that the source or vehicle of that truth doesn't matter. "The truth is out there," as the X Files motto goes. The McCain Borg knows this, which is why today's hater-ad goes something like this:

The truth is way, way, out there now. "Is the biggest celebrity in the world ready to help your family?" Clearly such a question means the McCain camp is relatively unflapped by the Hilton spoof or the controversy surrounding their crusade against celebrity. Why? Because she only reinforced the central message: Obama is all style, not substance. Although contexualized differently---and in a way I will suggest is subversively cynical below---Paris unwittingly echoed McCain's message. In short, the McCain Machine is betting on the referential idiocy of priming, the same logic that the campaign against celebrity critiques!

Ok, ok, you're right: circulation is not the same thing as priming. But the logic is one of repetition, and I would suggest it works similarly in both cases. As recent research by social scientists is starting to bear-out, myths, misinformation, urban legends, and the like are perpetuated by attempts to correct them! Not in every case, of course, but in general our brain "reacts" to corrections to disinformation in ways that recall the original memory. I just know my colleagues in political communication have a similar theory (it's too late in the evening to call them and ask). Hilton's critique of McCain's ad ironically perpetuates the original message.

And what of celebrity? Paris is an excellent example of a kind of embodied priming because she is routinely described as being "famous for being famous." In other words, she circulates (or rather, her image circulates, and if these collapse we get hysteria or psychosis, a la St. Britney)---Paris Hilton is a signifier. The more we see her, the more she revolves, and the more we see of her (um, in like many senses). She floats about, scantily clad, from screen to screen.

So in both cases, the circulation of mistruth (Obama is not only a celebrity, duh!) and celebrity operates on a logic of repetition that, well, that Daddy Burke tells us creates pleasure. Here we happen upon the ritual aspects of the political campaign, the rhythms, the beatings. Now, abruptly, here's a definition from The Oxford English Dictionary:

1. Due observance of rites and ceremonies; pomp, solemnity. Obs.
2. 2. A solemn rite or ceremony, a celebration.
3. 3. The condition of being much extolled or talked about; famousness, notoriety.
4. 4. concr. A person of celebrity; a celebrated person: a public character.

The definition is for "celebrity," of course, and I think it's interesting the term's obsolete origins refer to some sort of uptight ritual. Rituals are repeated, of course. Here we go again.

But with a difference. Paris gets to break with the solemnity and point out a fact that seems lost on the McCain campaign. The "old white-haired dude" is a celebrity too. She gets to point out the irony of the advertisement, if not the outright absurdity of some sort of referential plenitude. What Paris reminds us, with her "hotness," is that politics is ultimately about people and with whom they form attachments, not principles. Principles only adhere when we have someone to associate them with.

Or to put this in other language: there is a thing, an object, that keeps up the force of repetition and circulation. A person. The signifier may go all by itself---the letter may have agency---but it needs bodies for meaning. Obama is a celebrity because he is a certain kind of politician; people faint at his rallies, swoon to his voice. The didn't do that with Dubya. Hilton is a celebrity not simply for being a celebrity, but rather, because there is also something about her that is appealing. To me, she is hot, to others, she's someone to laugh at (I would still say underneath that is an attraction of sorts). She stays in circulation because there's something about her person that, say, that bad signing guy from American Idol doesn't have. Let's just call it: charisma. It's a person thing, not language.

And as I've said, McCain won't be winning any wet t-shirt contests. So what of his person, his charisma? He's trying to continue his circulation by attacking the attractiveness or appeal of Obama (and Paris). This will only reconfirm his followers, not make new converts. For new converts---this mysterious undecided---he's going to also need to push the need for a stern father (his persona) a bit more, a firm but loving father (paging Dr. Lakoff).

The flip dismissal and mockery of political campaign ads by Hilton and her new friends says to me this election is really already decided, that these ads are largely superfluous. Indeed, what makes the ad funny to so many is that everyone knows to trust political ads like generic toilet paper. In this ad Paris sounds competent and smart. Hmm? Perhaps she has always been? Perhaps the ad only makes her seem so? Such questions are a symptom of the death of electoral deliberation in the age of blissed-out publicity. Fortunately, they're not a symptom of the death of contingency.

Nothing is sewed up in advance, just patterned---if not petered---out.

the ominous parallels

Music: All India Radio: Echo Other (2006)

[Booming kettle drum]: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to lead?" So begins the narration on McCain's latest web-based, negative ad to take on Obamania, to date the most controversial of the presidential campaign. The controversy stems, of course, from its rapid, opening montage: shots of the large crowd who came to hear Obama speak in Germany are layered over a paparazzi-covered shot of Britney Spears, which quickly dissolves into a shot of Paris Hilton, then to a shot of Obama. These images are layered over a soundtrack of people chanting "O-BAH-MAH! O-BAH-MAH!" while a female voice asserts the senator is "the biggest celebrity in the world." The enthymeme, of course, is obvious: Paris and Britney are stylish but lack substance and character. Obama is stylish, therefore, he too lacks substance and character.

Controversy about the ad is not limited to pointing out fallacious reasoning. Some have argued the advertisement is a coded message to evangelical Christians that Obama is indeed the Antichrist. Others have asserted the juxtaposition of purportedly promiscuous white women with Obama is the equivalent to a racial slur. I think both of these readings are a bit of a stretch. I do think the ad is more complicated than it initially appears, however, and the key to unraveling this complexity is Sergei Eisenstein's montage theory.

Montage, Eisenstein argued, is the "nerve of cinema." He thought that if one could "determine the nature of montage," then one would be able to "solve the specific problem of cinema." In other words, montage was the skeleton key to cinema's specificity. That specificity, he believed, was dialectics: montage juxtaposes different shots---much like thesis and antithesis---in order to achieve a sort of sublative shock-effect. This is done in a number of ways: though time and rhythm, tone, intellectual appeal, and so on. Tonal montage is perhaps the most relevant here, as it refers to the use of emotional resonant images "on top of one another" to create either a calming or jarring effect. The montage of Britney, Paris, and Barack is clearly a tonal one, designed primarily to provoke an emotional response over the concept of celebrity.

The tonal montage of the McCain ad does follow Eisenstein's dialectical theory: young white women are juxtaposed with a black man in order to point up a presumed similarity (this is why I don't buy the racist reading; it's about a deeper structural homology, not racial difference). Despite their obvious differences, Obama is like Hilton and Spears because they are transnational celebrities. They are valued, the ad suggests, because their images have exchange value. These are transactable people in the popular imaginary; they circulate. The likeness that emerges from the tonal montage is thus their common circulation value. Hence the question posed by the ad, "but, is he ready to lead?" could be rendered as a simple statement: circulation value does not qualify one to be president.

More is going on here, however, than a critique of celebrity circulation. Most definitions of celebrity tend to associate circulation value with a false sense of intimacy: we feel affection for celebrities as individuals we know personally. This affection need not be outright adoration, as both Britney and Paris are loved to be hated, of course. Nevertheless, celebrity is defined not simply by circulation but by the affection that is a consequence of circulation, positive or negative. This is to say that McCain's add is not simply asserting Obama is all style and no substance; it's also suggesting that people love Obama because he circulates, and that this love may be misplaced. For this reason, the "Obama as Antichrist" reading is not too far off the mark (though it is, of course, off the mark): the chanting of Obama's name that provides the ad's soundtrack is meant to evoke another historical celebrity, a German man who was loved because of his beautiful circulations, his aesthetic sensibilities, his strident eloquence, and his ritual or cult value.

What the McCain montage reveals is a "negative" message about the folly and blindness of love. It warns the viewer not to fall prey to what Lacan termed a "realist imbecility," an error that we tend to make in which the signified is lost in favor of some trans-contextual referent. Here I'm riffing on Joan Copjec's observation that television (and other media outlets) tend to clamor for the referent at the expense of the "marks of enunciation." What Copjec means by this is that the signified is irrevocably tied to a person, someone who speaks and bears forth meaning in an intersubjective manner; a referent is presumed to be external to interpersonal presence (think here of history as a field of truth that stands outside of the enunciation of the victor—documentary without a voice-over). Copjec talks about the "realist imbecility" of the mass media when they attempted to expose the patent lies and misdeeds of Ronald Reagan: "So absorbed were the news staffs in pinning down the president's lies and errors---his referential failures, let us call them---that they neglected to consider the intersubjective dimension of the whole affair; they forgot to take account of the strength of the American audience's love for Reagan." Analogously, I think this is precisely what McCain's ad is really going after---the love of Obama. Yes, it's a "style versus substance" kind of argument, but I think the evocation of the term "celebrity" takes the critique further: don't vote for a man because you love him; vote for a man because of issues (like, for example, off shore drilling).

If we read the McCain ad in this way, the message is basically "don’t' vote with your heart." I find this message, consequently, fascinating and rhetorically savvy. Let's face it: McCain is a hard man to love. There's absolutely nothing sexy about him, and in a wet t-shirt contest he would loose. McCain is the Battlestar Galactica equivalent of Colonel Saul Tigh. It would make sense, then, that his handlers align "sexy" with fascism, and "eloquence" with love appeals. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are celebrities in part because they are sex-objects; they have prurient appeal. So, too, does Obama: he has Sam Cooke appeal, he makes women faint, he sexes you up.

What the recent McCain montage thus communicates is a choice: either you pick the grizzled old man who (drinking issues aside) has the intellectual fortitude to make hard decisions, or you choose the smooth-talking lover who circulates like the popular jock. Do you want a lover, or do you want a daddy?

Me? I'll take the lover. But unlike a lot of Obamaniacs, I like to use protection. Anyway, my point is this: This presidential campaign is in some sense a battle over love. I think the McCain camp is right to warn us about the blindness and folly of our affections. Even so, I think eight years of death is enough; love is not always a bad affect. How did that Lita Ford song go? "C'mon pretty baby, kiss me deadly!"

rinse, repeat . . . panty wad

Music: Apoptygma Berzerk: Harmonizer (2002)

Since we're on the topic of the profession this week, I thought I'd share that my panties are in a wad about a review of a co-authored essay I'm revising for resubmission this week. Before I detail the character of said wad, however, the requisite preliminary wind-up: if you are a professor at a research institution, you are expected to publish books and articles to keep your job. The perils and joys of publishing have been discussed here frequently, so I won't retread the usual grousing and encouraging tips (for beginning scholars, I've got some pages here that walk-through the process with an example). I will say, though, that if you're going to publish, you will have to revise. Never expect to get an article accepted at first pass. If your article is good enough, you will receive a request to "revise and resubmit" the essay from the editor. You should always regard those as a foot in the door. Revise well and things are usually promising.

I've only had three articles accepted at first pass. Ever. Eight years. Three articles. I think it is quite telling that all three articles were not with "Communication Studies" journals. Eight years. Three articles. Not communication. As a recent flap on a professional listserver demonstrates, for many folks in "my field," Communication Studies is synonymous with the National Communication Association. Now, while it is true that's where I tend to associate my professional "home," I like to think of my work as "interdisciplinary," straddling cultural studies and performance studies and English rhetoric/composition, among other fuzzily defined fields (right now I'm trying to get my lern on in media ecology). It always seemed to me the term "communication" was so vacuous and huge I could stick anything I want under the banner. Hell, folks publish navel-gazing in the name of communication, so why can't I write about poop can call it "communication?" (I know what you're thinking, and my response is: exactly!)

In addition to the extreme reviewers one sometimes gets (profiles of types here), I have to say, perhaps, my hugest most biggest pet peeve is the statement, "this has nothing to do with communication." What the eff does that mean? I'm sure y'all get this in your various fields: "this is not political science," or, "this is not anthropology." I can even understand how those statements can be justified. But it just sounds ridiculous for a Communication Studies scholar. What, exactly, isn't communication? Hell, aside from publishing about rhetoric as a way of knowing, my advisor made a name for himself by writing about silence. I remember when at LSU, one of our most talented graduate students wrote a pretty darn interesting paper on a sit-com and submitted it for review at Communication Quarterly. The editor sent the essay back, without any reviews, saying that "this is not communication scholarship." I was so mad I sent him a letter telling him it was his responsibility to publish an editorial statement that specified what is and is not communication research (he never did).

So, I've sufficiently built up this post to paste in the source of my ire. So, like, ummmm . . . me and a cherished mentor wrote an essay on a film. We argue the film expresses certain social anxieties. That's the gist (I don't want to give too much away, as it's still in review). Anyhoo, so one of our reviewers writes this:

First and foremost, I'm not clear on your theoretical moorings or intentions for this project. Certainly, I understand that you are situating it in psychoanalysis, but you employ that as a methodological tool: what do you hope to explore, interrogate, trouble, or contribute to in terms of theory? Along these lines but notable on its own terms as well, this project really has nothing to do with Communication---the only Communication pieces that you cite are the ______ pieces (more on those in a moment) on [the film]. This analysis could just as easily have come out of Film Studies or English or Comparative Literature. While interdisciplinarity of approaches and lenses is more than appropriate---it is often a strength in criticism---you really don't have that here so much as a methodical psychoanalytic critique that isn't anchored to anything substantive outside of that, and given your interest in publishing in a Communication journal, the absence of that particular foundation is especially conspicuous. There are a number of Communication scholars (other than_____) that have taken up the crisis in masculinity, [the film], and psychoanalysis, but you reference none of them here.

Ok, aside from the obvious bullshittery of "there are a number of Communication scholars [who] have taken up the crisis of masculinity, [the film], and psychoanalysis"---this is a patent falsehood---what kind of boundary pissing is this? A reading of the film as expressive of social anxiety is not good enough?

No, it's not for this reviewer. The problem is that s/he equivocates with "Communication" as either a substantive domain or as code for some sort of citation practice. Worse, I think the underlying warrant here is a conflation of those two things: "Communication" consists of whatever communication studies scholars are publishing in communication studies journals. To wit: Communication is what communication studies people publish. It's not clear what journals the author has in mind, but I'm willing to play bingo on the NCA square: our scholarship has nothing to do with communication because we are not citing research published within NCA journals. This is among the most stupid demands of scholarship I can imagine, especially when we're called on the carpet for not citing scholarship that doesn't exist.

So, if I were to amend my reviewer profiles, I would now add the Disciplinarian: no matter what you write, it's not "communication" and therefore deserving of rejection. The reviewer never tells you what communication is, of course, but assumes you understand it from some sort of citational protocol you apparently missed.

on catching-up

Music: Pandora: Steve Roach: Early Man (2001)

Since summer teaching and grading ended, I've been catching up on the "immediate to-do" list, which seems to get longer and longer every summer. This summer it has expanded to two whole index cards. Mon Dieu! Today I finished one of those items on the list:

• agency encyclopedia entry
• eclectic criticism chapter
• ideology encyclopedia entry
• review essay for journal
• Fight Club paper revision with Tom
• draft public address talk
• vocalic projectic essay R&R
• prep rhetorical criticism class
• prep EVP talk for psychology department
• contract with graffiti office to finish walls
• contract to repair water damage
• draft 6 myths of psychoanalysis essay with Chris
• revise "Zombie Trouble" with Shaun
• replace radiator fan
• make public address conference arrangements
• make NCA arrangements
• make fall speaker series arrangements
• write CD kitchen essays for August
• finish textbook proposal
• finish book chapter!

This, of course, is a lot to achieve in four three weeks. I don't predict I will succeed, but at least I know what train (wreck) lies ahead. I tend to tackle to-do lists like this as one would credit card debt: pay down/write the smaller stuff first, then move on to the bigger stuff. Correction: do the stuff with deadlines first, beginning with the smaller stuff. So the encyclopedia entries and the reviewing come first, then the R&Rs, then the draft of the public address talk.

Regardless, here's the latest bit, a small description of invention in "eclectic criticism" for undergraduates, which apparently I am said to do:

"The Rhetoric of Exorcism: George W. Bush and the Return of Political Demonology," by Joshua Gunn. Published in the Western Journal of Communication 68.1 (Winter 2004): 1-23.

In the months that followed the attacks on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001, "we the people" were traumatized and frightened. In the fall of that year and the spring of the next, I remember I was frequently flying across the country in search of my first academic job. Like everyone else I encountered in an airport, I was an anxious traveler. In early 2002, I vividly recall sitting in an airport bar in Dallas on a layover when President George W. Bush delivered one of his many, many speeches on Nine-eleven. All of us in the bar were staring at the television set, transfixed, disturbed, worried. Bush's speech was designed to comfort us, especially the folks in that bar, who were waiting to board an airplane. But I was unnerved by the speech, which used a number of biblical metaphors and the kind of language I remembered in church growing up. I was also startled that, as of yet, few media commentators were discussing the religious overtones of Bush's speechcraft.

I was raised in an evangelical Baptist church in a congregation that—I realize in retrospect—was itching toward Pentecostalism. I vividly remember the fiery sermons delivered by Brother Snooks (yes, that was his name). I remember the discussions we had in church about "spiritual warfare," about battling demons on a daily basis, about how listening to rock music was an invitation for demonic possession. Spiritual warfare is a concept, now fully formed in many evangelical and charismatic religious systems, that refers to the idea that mortal human beings must do battle with demons on a daily basis through prayer and various religious rituals, such as exorcism. When I heard Bush deliver his speeches after Nine-eleven, I couldn't help but think of the language of spiritual warfare.

One day, out of simple curiosity, I decided to research who Bush's speechwriters were. I discovered Michael John Gerson was Bush's chief speechwriter from 2001-2006. Gerson is an evangelical Christian who was responsible for penning many of Bush's more memorable, religious statements. It then occurred to me that the charismatic language of spiritual warfare was quite deliberate in Bush's speeches. Over lunch meetings and casual conversation I began sharing my ideas with friends. I argued that Bush's speeches spoke to two audiences: those who got the religious warfare references, and those who did not. I was surprised to learn that most of those who I shared my ideas with resisted my argument. I recall at one lunch meeting a colleague laughed aloud at the suggestion that Bush's speechwriters were employing the language of demonology. Few bought my argument that my personal background in evangelical religious beliefs gave me the authority to make arguments. In other words, if I was going to convince people that Bush's speeches since Nine-eleven were about spiritual warfare, I couldn't appeal to my own authority and experience, as valid as both were to me. I had to appeal to something in the speeches themselves.

When I was thinking about these ideas—and as Bush continued to make even more religious references in his speeches—I was invited to interview for a job in California. Part of the interview consisted of a guest lecture in a rhetorical criticism class. I decided I might try-out my arguments on Bush's speeches. I wanted to offer an argument to the students about what I saw in these presidential addresses, but I also needed to teach them something about rhetorical criticism. I cannot detail exactly how or why I landed on the approach that I did: it just came to me. Genre criticism was the way to go with Bush's speeches.

Genres are patterns that are repeated in discourse of all kinds. Most of us are familiar with film or music genres: "romantic comedy," "hip-hop," "horror," and "alternative rock" are just some examples. Speeches also have genres: a eulogy or presidential inaugural addresses, for example, are just two of many types of speech genres. Regardless of the kind of discourse, though, all genres have patterns that create expectations in people. So, if I was going to go to a funeral, I would expect to hear a eulogy, and that eulogy would praise the deceased. My expectations would be violated if I went to a funeral and a speaker began attacking the dead person as a liar and criminal.

Bush's post-Nine-eleven speeches were designed to meet expectations, so there had to be some generic norms. I printed out and read all of Bush's speeches from September 11, 2001 until November 11, 2002. As I read the speeches, I looked for repeated patterns that might form expectations in those who heard them. What I found were not so much formal patterns---that is, what a president should do and say to a general audience---as I did informal or indirect patterns that closely modeled an experience that religious people know well: the conversion experience. If you are an evangelical, you are probably familiar with this story (quite literally embedded in the song, "Amazing Grace"): a lost soul meets misfortune and woe until, having discovered Jesus and accepted him as one's own "personal savior," one is "born again." Or to put the pattern alternately, "I was blind/but now I see."

I noticed something else about Bush's speeches too. He used a lot of demonic metaphors to describe "the enemy." He kept talking about "smoking [the enemy] out of their holes" and purging other countries of "evil." What I had already unconsciously noticed at the Dallas airport bar suddenly became clear to me: Bush's speeches repeated a religious conversion narrative, but one that premised conversion on the casting out of evil. I was reminded immediately of the film The Exorcist, in which a couple of priests cast a demon out of a girl in order to save her soul. I concluded that Bush's speeches were rhetorical exorcisms.

When I went on my job interview, I taught the students about genre, and then presented them with information about Spiritual Warfare, and in particular, about the casting out of demons. In charismatic literature, to cast out demons one has to name the demon, argue with it, battle with the demon, and then cast it out. I provided the students with a copy of Bush's 2002 State of the Union address and asked them to locate the pattern of exorcism in the speech. They did, without much difficultly. At that moment I knew that I was on to something that others could see also if I just presented the argument in the right way. After my presentation, one of my colleagues urged me to write up the lecture as an article and publish it. So I did.

Writing criticism and teaching it, however, are two different things. I knew that the generic approach to criticism would not be enough, as more was going on in Bush's speeches. It seemed to me that Bush's speeches were not just patterned, but that the pattern was highly emotional and perhaps worked at levels we are not consciously aware of. So in writing up my criticism, I also decided to discuss myth (deep, culturally based patterns we all absorb as members of a community) and psychoanalysis (the idea that patterns repeat in our heads, not just out there in texts). The resulting rhetorical criticism was "eclectic" in its methodological approach: by combing close textual analysis with generic, mythic, and psychoanalytic criticism, I offered a reading of many of Bush's speeches as an exorcism. Had I done a simple generic criticism, or not thought about how the speeches work emotionally, my reading of Bush's rhetoric would have been much less insightful. It was only by "thinking outside of the box" and using the approach that best got at the dynamics of the speech that I could make a compelling case. To me, this is the key to eclectic criticism: you must let the object you are criticizing help you determine the method of analysis that you use.

agency

Music: Austin City Limits 2008 (PBS): My Morning Jacket/Deathcab FC

Writing for clarity and an audience to which one is not accustomed is difficult. I also enjoy the challenge. I also enjoy jigsaw puzzles. I am completing a new, very difficult jigsaw puzzle on my coffee table this week, probably the next couple of weeks. It depicts a bunch of butterflies: one is blue. The rest of the butterflies are all variations of orange. 1000 pieces. Jesús has already discovered and chewed up two of those pieces. Completing the puzzle will thus lack the normal satisfaction of doing a puzzle, as two pieces will be missing. But I digress. On agency:

Agency

Agency is a concept that is generally understood as a capacity to act or cause change. The person who---or thing which---acts or causes change is termed an "agent." In communication theory, agency is most commonly associated with people, as opposed to animals or things. To communicate, an agent must have the capacity, or agency, to do so. Consequently, most communication theories assume the existence of agency. Not all communication theories, however, require agency to be human in origin. Until the late twentieth century, agency was a relatively straightforward concept in communication studies. In light of human irrationality and evil in the past century, however, a number of scholars in the humanities have called many of our assumptions about human agency into question.

Terminological Confusion

The notion of an "agent" and the capacity of "agency" are often confused or conflated with closely related, but nevertheless distinct, concepts. Chief among them are "the subject," a philosophical concept that refers to a typical or "paradigm," self-conscious human being, and "subjectivity," a concept that refers to the conscious awareness of oneself as a subject.

Originally, being a subject meant that one was ruled by, or under the legal control of, a king or prince, but gradually the term came to denote one's status as a citizen beholden to the laws of a given government or nation state (e.g., "Josh is a subject of the United States"). In philosophical circles, however, the subject has come to denote a perceiving human being who is conscious of him or herself as a human being. In this philosophical sense, the subject is discussed in relation to "the object," which refers to that which is perceived by the subject, or alternately, that which the subject knows he or she is not. The philosophical distinction between the subject and object as categories, however, is not stable and the meaning can change from one context to the next. In psychoanalysis, for example, the subject denotes a self-conscious person, but the object denotes another person whom the subject loves, hates, is ambivalent about, and so on (e.g., the infant subject loves the maternal object, mother).

A subject who self-consciously acts our causes change is said to possess agency. Hence, a subject with agency is an agent. An agent does not necessarily need to be a subject, however, nor does a subject necessarily possess agency. To complicate matters, agency is often confused with the term "subjectivity" as well. Whereas the subject denotes a self-conscious person, subjectivity refers to consciousness of one's perceptions as an individual or discrete subject. Consciousness of oneself as a discrete individual (subjectivity) does not mean that one has agency or is an agent. Only an awareness of one's ability or capacity to act (subjectivity) imbues the subject with agency.

In sum: agency is the capacity to act; the agent is the source or location of agency; the subject is a self-conscious human being; and subjectivity is consciousness as a subject. All of these concepts are implicated in the idea of communication.

Agency and Modern Philosophy

Contemporary understandings of agency can be linked to eighteenth century Western thought, often termed "the Enlightenment." Although Enlightenment thought is not easily summarized, key among its goals were the use of reason to improve society and understand the natural world. In Enlightenment thought we find agency and the subject tied together in complex ways. For example, just prior to the Enlightenment the philosopher Rene Descartes reasoned that absent any knowledge or sensory perception whatsoever, an individual could know one thing: it thinks, therefore it exists (this argument is known as "the cogito"). Insofar as thinking is a type of action, this "it" that thinks is an "agent," but it is not necessarily a "subject." The it or agent that thinks is not a subject until it is conscious of itself as an agent who thinks (subjectivity). The Enlightenment thinker Emmanuel Kant extended Descartes' argument about this most basic kernel of knowledge-something exists that is thinking/acting, therefore agency and an agent exist. Yet self-conscious knowledge, he suggested, depends on exposure to the world outside our minds, or the empirical world. In other words, to be subjects we have to have sensory experience. Subjectivity, consequently, is wholly "in our heads," but requires a confrontation with the external world. The resulting concept of the "transcendental subject" advanced by Kant consisted in the necessity of both a thinking thing independent of the outside world, and the necessity of that outside world to make the thinking thing conscious of itself (subjectivity). For Kant, all subsequent knowledge subsequent to fact of self-existence is impossible without sensory experience. The meaning of the external world, however, is entirely dependent on the way in which human mind works. This view implies that the paradigm, self-conscious human being, or subject, is destined to become an agent and, thus, harbors a incipient agency at birth.

After Kant, the concept of the subject emerged as the relatively stable notion of a self-conscious agent. Consequently, in the mature subject agency was understood as the ability to cause change or act by making choices. In other words, the subject was believed to have agency because he or she could cause change by choosing among alternative actions. Insofar as choosing was key characteristic of the agency of the modern subject, Enlightenment thinkers associated agency with freedom, and by extension, individual autonomy: one became an autonomous subject by understanding and accepting his or her freedom, using reason to make choices.

Because of the influence of modern philosophy, agency became associated with self-transparency, self-knowledge, and rational choice-making. Because choice-making was understood as a component of human agency, today agency is often associated with matters of epistemology (how we come to knowledge), ethics (how we discern right from wrong), and politics (how to act collectively in the face of uncertain outcomes). In the social sciences, agency is also understood as a component of one's self-perception as autonomous. Owing to these associations, in educational settings "giving agency" to students is often expressed as a goal of teaching: by working with students on their communication stills, it is thought, communication educators can help students to better realize their agency and become social, moral, and political actors in the public sphere and in private life.

The Posthumanist Critique of Agency

The Enlightenment view of agency and subjectivity is classically humanist, meaning that it is party to a larger perspective on the world termed humanism. In general, humanism is the view that human beings have a special status in the universe, a status that is superior to the supernatural or Divine on the one had, and a status that cannot be resigned to scientific naturalism or biologism on the other. It is commonly assumed the "humanist subject" is an autonomous, self-transparent, fully conscious agent who acts rationally by making choices. In the nineteenth century, this view of the subject and agency was challenged by a number of thinkers. For example, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche argued that humans were motivated by the "will to power" and made choices that were typically self-interested. Karl Marx argued that human choices were constrained by material circumstances and frequently animated by the interests of those in power ("ideology"). Sigmund Freud argued that the choices of human subjects were often irrational and motivated by unconscious desires. Together, the critiques of the Enlightenment agency advanced by Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud laid the groundwork for what would come to be known as "posthumanism," a view that would rigorously dispute human subjectivity as the seat of agency.

Although difficult to define, posthumanism is the idea that human being is only one of many types of beings in the universe and, as such, has no special status or value (other than, of course, what human beings assign to themselves). More specifically, in the theoretical humanities posthumanism mounts a critique of the subject as self-transparent, autonomous, choice-making, and rational. Understandably, if the human subject is not characterized by these qualities, then the Enlightenment notion of human agency as rational choice-making is also questioned by posthumanism. Many twentieth century thinkers associated with posthumanism, such as Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan, for example, would not deny that human agency consists of choices; they would question, however, the extent to which such choices were conscious or reasoned, arguing that they are constrained by larger forces such as language, ideology, social norms, the threat of imminent death, and so on.

The frequent rationale for questioning the fully-conscious, rational, choice-making capacity of human subjects concerns world wars, torture, genocide, and other atrocities caused by human beings. For example, although it is unquestionably the case that many Nazi war criminals made conscious decisions to do evil, it is also the case that many Nazi sympathizers aided and abetted such evil without consciously doing so. In the latter instance, the status of agency in the conduct of evil is unclear. Furthermore, insofar as human reason can be used toward evil ends (e.g., the rationally calculated extermination of millions of Jewish people during the second world war), posthumanism questions the value once afforded to reason by Enlightenment thinkers.

Because the problem of evil poses complex questions about the character of agency without any clear answers, posthumanist thinkers prefer to leave the status of the human subject open, as if the concept of the subject is a question itself, never to be fully answered. Agency after the posthumanist critique in the theoretical humanities is thus disassociated from full consciousness, choice-making, freedom, and autonomy, becoming a term for the capacity to act. The agent, in turn, can be anything that causes change or action.

Agency in Rhetorical Studies

Owing to the Enlightenment legacy of agency, scholars who study persuasive speaking and writing ("rhetoric") have traditionally taken the Enlightenment subject for granted. Since the days of Plato, Aristotle, and the ancient Greeks before the common era, rhetoricians understood the persuasive process to involve a speaker or writer who consciously developed his or her rhetoric by making conscious choices. A persuader would select a topic, then proceed to outline his or her essay or speech, selecting some arguments and ignoring others. The rhetor would choose the appropriate language and tone of her address, analyze her intended audience to help her adapt to their expectations, and so on. These assumptions about the persuader tend to assume a self-transparent, autonomous subject.

In the twentieth century, however, the influence of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud on rhetorical studies began to shift focus from the agency of the rhetor to the active understanding of audiences (a psychological move). The work of Kenneth Burke was particularly influential in this regard. Burke argued that persuasion was not the result of arguments offered by a rhetor, but rather, the result of "identification," or the ability of persuader and persuadee to understand each other as sharing a common identity in some fundamental way ("consubstantiality"). Diane Davis has even suggested that Burke's redefinition of persuasion leads us to the domain of the unconscious and the possibility that persuasion is akin to hypnosis. If this is the case, then agency in persuasive encounter is difficult to locate in any one individual, as it is a shared, unconscious, and dynamic relation between two or more people.

Because of the posthumanist critique of human subjectivity, one finds a variety of positions on the concept of agency among rhetorical scholars. There is no consensus among them about what agency means; some would even dispute this summary. Crudely, these positions can be reduced to three: (a) rhetoricians who continue to defend the Enlightenment subject and agency as conscious-choice making (humanistic agency) ; (b) rhetoricians who understand agency as a complex negotiation of conscious intent and structural limitation (dialectical agency); and (c) rhetoricians who narrowly define agency as a capacity to act, and the subject as an open question (posthumanist agency).

Agency in Social Science

Among social scientific scholars in communication studies, the concept of agency has been less controversial and the literature is decidedly larger in volume and scope. In various theories of communication from a scientific standpoint, agency is assumed to be the capacity to act and is usually associated with human subjects, as the preponderance of studies of communication concern humans. Owing to centuries-old discussions in modern philosophy discussed above, much of the work in social scientific communication theory associates agency with autonomy. More specifically, agency in communication theory can be traced to social scientific studies that investigate individuals' self-perceptions of autonomy, control, and free choice in respect to a number of cognate concepts, including Piaget's investigations of "agency," Bandura's studies on the "locus of control," and various explorations of "attributional" or "explanatory style." These and similar studies, in turn, are indebted to classical investigations by Brehm on "reactance" and Goffman's theory of "facework": Brehm's work investigated how subjects reacted to perceptions of constraint, and Goffman's focused on the ways in which subjects tend to work to preserve perceptions of autonomy and respect for others.

Closely related to common understandings of agency in social science is the concept of "power," and a number of studies in the area of social and management psychology have focused on how various power structures (social, cultural, economic, relational, and so on) influences one's perception of agency and autonomy in interpersonal dynamics. This research overlaps with scholarship conducted in organizational communication studies. Because organizational environments often foreground a tension between the human subject and the housing institution, agency has been a fecund topic of discussion and debate: to what degree do organizational norms constrain the agency of the individual? To what degree do organizational structures empower an employee? Actor Network theory has been particularly influential among organizational scholars in answering these and related questions.

Finally, owing to the powerful role of non-human structures organizations, it stands to reason that the agency of non-human things is an important dynamic worthy of study. Although the idea of non-human agency has been operative of the fields of linguistics and sociology for decades, it has only become a topic of concern in organizational communication studies in the twenty first century. In this respect, François Cooren and others have argued that non-human agencies, especially what he terms "textual agencies," are crucial for understanding organizational cultures.

See also

Actor-Network Theory, Axiology, Facework Theories, Ideology, Postmodern Theory, Poststructuralism, Power and Power Relations, Relational Control Theory, Spectatorship

Further Readings

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman.

Best, S. & Kellner, D. (1991). Postmodern theory: Critical interrogations. New York: Guilford Press.

Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.

Burke, K. (1969). A rhetoric of motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Buchanan, G.M. & Seligman, M.E.P. (1997). Explanatory Style. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (2nd. ed.). New York: Routledge.

Campbell, K. K. (2005). Agency: Promiscuous and protean. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2, 1-19.

Castor, T. & Cooren, F. (2005). The Role of Human and Non-Human Agents in Problem-Formulation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, New York, NY.

Cooren, F. (2006). Between Semiotics and Pragmatics: Opening Language Studies to Textual Agency. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden, Germany.

Davis, D. (2008). Identification: Burke and Freud on who you are. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 38, 132-147.

Geisler, C. (2004). 'How ought we to understand the concept of rhetorical agency?' Report from the ARS. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 34, 9-17.

Gruenfeld, D.H., Inesi, M.E., Magee, J.C. & Galinsky, A.D. (2008). Power and objectification of social targets. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 95, 111-127.

Law, J. & Hassard, J. (Eds.) (1999). Actor network theory and after. Malden, MA: Oxford.

Lundberg, C. & Gunn, J. (2005). 'Ouija board, are there any communications?' Agency, ontotheology, and the death of the humanist subject, or, continuing the ARS conversation. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35, 83-105.

Putnam, L. L. & Pacoanowsky, M.E. (1983). Communication and organizations: An interpretive approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Rotter, J. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80, 1-28.

Thibault, P. J. (2006). Agency and consciousness in discourse: Self-other dynamics as a complex system. New York: Continuum.

Weick, M. & Guinote, A. (2008). When subjective experiences matter: Power increases reliance on the ease of retrieval. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 94, 956-970.

Williams, C. (2001). Contemporary French philosophy: Modernity and the persistence of the Subject. New York: Continuum.

ideology

Music: Steve Roach: Early Man (2001)

A draft of an encyclopedia entry written with undergraduates in mind:

Ideology

An ideology is a concept that refers to the collective beliefs, attitudes, and values of a given group of people, from social cliques and small communities to an audience or an entire nation. Although ideologies can be positive, most scholars who study or critique them focus on those that cause harm or suffering. For example, in Western societies the ideology of "individualism" is believed to be positive, while the ideology that promotes the idea men are superior to women, "sexism," is believed to be negative. Consequently, sexism is studied and critiqued more heavily than individualism, although both ideologies are operative in the United States. In general, it is believed that ideologies work largely unconsciously and tend to promote the status quo, usually by supporting those individuals who are in power. Although the concept derives from the materialist theories of Karl Marx, the use of ideology is not limited to materialist contexts. Today, the notion of "ideology" is widely assumed and referenced in a variety of communicative contexts.

Marxist Origins

Now commonly assumed in communication scholarship, Marx's main philosophical argument is that the way the world is materially arranged determines how we think about it. Until his philosophy, it was widely assumed that society as we know it is the product of human ingenuity: a group of individuals got together and dreamed-up the way society should look and function, and then went about making society in conformity with that dream. If this was truly the case, suggested Marx, then why hasn't utopian thinking brought about a better world? When Marx was working out his philosophy in the mid- to late nineteenth century, he witnessed an increasingly prosperous class of people (capitalists) exploiting poorer people for profit. Factories were inhumane and people---sometimes even children---worked long hours for a meager wage. Despite the increasing successes and growing wealth of the individuals who owned the factories, their workers were getting poorer, even dying. Observing how willingly the working class accepted their poor conditions, Marx concluded something was wrong; thought had become "inverted" or turned upside down from what it should be. Ideology was the concept that Marx developed to help explain how this inverted thought came about.

Although it is true that one must imagine and then create a blueprint for a building before it is built, Marx argued that the ideas behind the blueprint were actually influenced by material conditions including: (a) what resources were available for building; (b) who owned the resources for building; (c) what class of individuals was ruling society; and so on. Marx argued, in other words, that the building imagined by an architect and then subsequently built would reflect the way the world was materially arranged at the time, ultimately serving the interests of those in power (e.g., those who owned the resources and means for making things).

Analogously, Marx argued that state governments tend to support the material and political interests of a dominant group of people (the "ruling class"). For example, it is often taught in American schools that the "founding fathers" of the United States of America gathered together at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 and invented the current government system, which is designed to serve "the people." A Marxist perspective, however, would emphasize that the government structure created at this convention only reinforced and stabilized the status quo: to this day, the government created by the founding fathers continues to support the most empowered in American society, which are wealthy white men. In sum, Marx reversed the way we think about thinking: it's not that we dream-up a better world and then create it; rather, it is that the material, concrete world pre-exists us, and that whatever we create will conform to the constraints of this preexisting, material world. This view is known as "materialism."

What, then, continues to maintain the existing material arrangement of society? Why do governments continue to support those in power? Even though technology is constantly changing our material and communicative interactions, why does it seem the same group of people always continues to benefit? In other words, despite obvious, dynamic change, why do political and state structures seem to stay the same? Marx's answer is "ideology." For him, ideology was fundamentally an inversion of the materialist view. If materialism is the idea that the concrete arrangement of the world influences how we think about it, then the ideology is the inverse notion that thought changes material reality. For Marx, then, ideology referred to something negative. Fundamentally, ideology referred to a kind of "inverted consciousness" that is incapable of seeing the fundamental contradictions of material reality that might lead to radical change. An individual under the sway of ideology, for example, believes that social class (e.g., rich and poor) is a natural arrangement and not the product of oppression and force. Because ideology is so powerful, argued Marx, only a violent, material disruption could change how we think about the world: revolution.

Positive and Neutral Ideology After Marx

After Marx's death in 1883 the concept of ideology expanded to include new meanings, some of which were positive. Vladimir Lenin was most influential in shifting the negative connotation of ideology toward a more neutral connotation. If Marxism mounted a critique of the status quo and its commonly held beliefs, attitudes, and values as an inversion of material conditions, then such a critique must be coming from an alternative position with its own beliefs, attitudes, and values. In other words, Marxism is itself an ideology. Consequently, Lenin argued that ideology must be understood as the political consciousness of a given group of people, most especially that of an economic and social class. After Lenin, the concept of ideology became "neutral" when it was understood that the working class, whom Marxism champions, was ideologically opposed to the capitalist ideology of those in power, the wealthy ruling class.

After Lenin, the most influential thinker of ideology was Antonio Gramsci, who further expanded the concept to denote a set of representations or mental images of reality that is gleaned from a given culture's legal and economic systems, as well as art and other forms of community expression. For Gramsci, this concept of the world also included codes for social behavior and action. Consequently, if a given groups' ideology was pervasive, then they had "hegemony" or a tacit, largely unconscious control over social behaviors, forms of art, economics, and the law. If a group's ideology has hegemony, then their beliefs, attitudes, and values seem natural and like common sense. Like Lenin, Gramsci believed ideology was neutral and governed the political consciousness of a given group, however, he argued a group's ideology only achieves hegemony over others through contest and struggle. Gramsci argued, however, that hegemony is increasingly achieved without direct force or coercion, and often with unwitting the help of intellectuals.

Althusser and Ideology

Perhaps the most recent and influential thinker on ideology today is Louis Althusser, a French Marxist thinker who Jorge Larrain has argued sought to reconcile the negative and neutral understandings of ideology. Although Althusser would agree with Gramsci that ideology is struggled over, he expanded the concept further by adding a psychological dimension: ideology concerns the imagined relationship that individuals harbor about their real, material conditions. In other words, ideology concerns how a given person thinks about his or her relationship to the "real world." Althusser argues that we have to understand ideology as a kind of necessary illusion, which we borrow from the world outside to make sense of our identity and purpose in life. No one of us, suggests Althusser, has direct access the real, material world; our relationship to the world is filtered through and by representations (at the very least, by language itself). Ideology is the main source of those representations. Consequently, some of us grow up and reckon with our real conditions of existence as Chinese citizens, while others of us contend with material reality as evangelical Baptists from the Southern United States. In this respect, for Althusser ideology is unavoidable and necessary because is the very basis of identity itself.

Althusser's contribution to the concept of ideology cannot be underestimated, for it underlies a relatively recent theoretical movement, "post-Marxism," that has had a strong impact on communication theory. For Althusser, one needs to incorporate an ideology to become a self-conscious person. If I am a Marxist, for example, then I know material conditions directly influence what is thinkable, that my purpose in life is to uphold the ideology of the working class, and so on. If I am a Christian, then I know material reality is but an illusion of a greater, spiritual reality, that Jesus will return to earth again, and so on. In either case, ideology gives me a sense of who I am and what my relationship to the "real world" is about. Absent ideology, I cannot "know" who I am. Hence, every communicative encounter with another person is in some sense an ideological negotiation.

Another important element of Althusser's understanding of ideology is that it is diffuse and dynamic. For an individual to assume a set of beliefs, attitudes, and values about, say, the importance of capitalism, he or she must be confronted by them in multiple venues. A given ideology is not promoted by one person or even a class of persons, but rather by multiple agencies working simultaneously and in concert: the mass media; the educational system; economic and legal structures; the family; and so on. For example, let us use the ideology of individualism, which consists in the belief, attitude, and value that every person is unique and should take personal responsibility for his or her destiny.

One is not born to value individuality, but learns it through multiple agencies over a long period of time. As a youngster one is told about one's unique and special character by one's parents; the family teaches individualism. At the church, synagogue, or mosque one is taught that Deity has a unique plan for her life; religion teaches individualism. On television, talk show hosts tout the virtues of individual achievement and personal responsibility; the media teaches individualism. At school, one is given her own desk, told to bring her own materials to class, and is cautioned that she should keep her eyes on her own paper, because one's grade is determined by singular, individual effort; school teaches individualism. In this way, different agencies—the family, the media, the education system—work to instill and reinforce the ideology of individualism. Borrowing a concept from psychoanalysis, Althusser terms the way in which multiple sources perpetuate a given ideology "overdetermination."

The Concept of Ideology Today

Since Althusser's attempt at compromise, the concept of ideology has been freed of its Marxist origins. Absent the materialist tie, the concept of ideology differs from one context to the next. In the popular media, ideology is frequently used as a synonym for one's political orientation. In academic work, however, the concept of ideology is associated with scholars who conduct criticism or critique culture (e.g., the mass media). Generally, it remains the case that those who study ideology are interested, as Terry Eagleton has remarked, "in the ways in which people may come to invest in their own unhappiness." Although some ideologies---for example, the Christian ideology of loving one's enemy---can promote good things, in general scholars are interested in the ways in which ideology can harm and oppress people, and often without their noticing it.

Owing to the psychological turn of Althusser and the more popular work of mass movement scholars such as Eric Hoffer, however, in the last half-century ideology has taken on the connotations of political brainwashing. Unwilling to believe that individuals are "dupes" of ideology, many scholars abandoned the concept. Coupled with what is sometimes termed the "poststructural turn" in theoretical debates of the late twentieth century, this negative connotation has also led some scholars to call for abandoning the concept because it is self-defeating. In a charge that recalls Lenin's reworking of Marx's negative conception, some critics argue that ideology critique presumes a privileged vantage external to ideology for the critique to be possible. Such a presumption is, in fact, ideological itself and, consequently, any claim to discern hidden or obscured contradictions is itself as an ideological ruse. Instead, critics of ideology have argued for abandoning the concept in favor of Michel Foucault's conception of "discourse" or "power/knowledge." Contemporary defenders of ideology and ideological critique frequently counter by returning to Lenin or Gramsci's more complicated notions of ideology as reflecting a deeper, material contradiction or antagonism, or by arguing that the abandonment of ideology critique is motivated by an investment in the status quo.

More recently, Slavoj Zizek has defended the utility of ideology for scholarship by offering a Leninist re-reading of the concept. He suggests that an ideology can only be known in contrast to a competing ideology. Insofar as ideology denotes the collective beliefs, attitudes, and values of a given group of people, one cannot become conscious of another set of beliefs, values, and attitudes unless there is a conflict between the sets. Consequently, ideology critique is not self-defeating, but rather self-interested.

Ideology in Communication Studies

In the field of Communication Studies, ideology is most frequently encountered as a category in rhetorical criticism and organizational communication studies. For rhetorical scholars, "ideological criticism" is a form of scholarship in which "texts" are closely scrutinized in order to uncover the hidden beliefs, attitudes, and values promoted by and/or influencing them. One popular method among rhetoricians for studying ideology across different texts is known as "ideographic criticism." This method traces a singular term, or an "ideograph," across multiple texts, which is itself symptomatic of a much larger, external set of beliefs, attitudes and values. In organizational communication studies, ideology has been studied among organizations in order to show how one becomes dominant or hegemonic, influencing organizational cultures. Finally, symbolic convergence theory straddles both social scientific and rhetorical approaches to communication by tracking ideology in terms of "fantasy themes" or "visions" that are created and exchanged among small groups of people working toward a common goal.

See also

Critical Organizational Communication, Critical Rhetoric, Cultural Studies, Ideological Rhetoric, Marxist Theory, Materiality of Discourse, Rhetorical Theory, Symbolic Convergence Theory

Further Readings

Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays (G. Brewster, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Bormann, E.G. (2001). The force of fantasy: Restoring the American dream (2nd ed.). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Eagleton, Terry. (1991). Ideology: An introduction. New York: Verso.

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. (Q. Hoare & G. N. Smith, Trans. & Eds.). New York: International Publishers.

Gunn, J. & Treat, S. (2005). Zombie trouble: A propaedeutic on ideological subjectification and the unconscious. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 91, 144-174.

Hoffer, Eric. (1951). The true believer: Thoughts on the nature of mass movements. New York: Harper & Row.

Larrain, J. (1979). The concept of ideology. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Larrain, J. (1983). Marxism and Ideology. London: Macmillan.

McGee, M.C. (1980). 'The ideograph': A link between rhetoric and ideology. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 66, 1-16.

Mumby, D.K. (1988). Communication and power in organizations: Discourse, ideology, domination. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Sholle, D.J. (1998). Critical studies: From the theory of ideology to power/knowledge. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 5, 16-41.

Wander, P. (1983). The ideological turn in modern criticism. Central States Speech Journal, 34, 1-18.

Zizek, S. (1995). "Introduction." In S. Zizek (Ed.), Mapping Ideology (pp. 1-33). New York: Verso.

death of the movie star

Music: Let's Active: Big Plans for Everybody (1986)

This week a network morning show aired a segment titled "death of the movie star," in which the narrating journalist bemoaned the end of the traditional (or "classical") Hollywood system. Perhaps as little as two decades ago, a big-name "star" could anchor a film and almost guarantee a positive return. Not so today, said the journalist, as she listed off a series of big names attached to recent Hollywood flops . . . but with one exception, of course: Angelina Jolie's role in Wanted is proving the star is not dead yet! Of course, the story was on NBC's Today and Wanted is produced by Universal, and Universal owns NBC. So what explains this strange contradiction? Why would a media company sound the death knell for the star system at the very same time as it attempts to fetishize a star? Thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School have an answer.

The classical Hollywood system---which took east coast theatre norms and subjected them to industrial standardization---eventually learned that they could not rely (at least initially) on the charisma of the stage star. "In the case of film," explains Walter Benjamin, "the fact that the actor represents someone else before the audience matters much less than the fact that he represents himself before the apparatus." By "apparatus" Benjamin means the set, the camera, and the director—an industrial set-up, as it were. This evaporates the mystique of the actor, argues Benjamin, because the actor is not making a direct connection with audiences and adapting his or her performance to them. Instead, the actor must imagine she is performing for "the masses" and must accept a kind of "self-alienation." The actor, in other words, relinquishes his or her connection to the performance to the camera, as well as his or her immediate connection to an audience. "While he stands before the apparatus," continues Benjamin, "he knows that in the end he is confronting the masses. It is they who will control him. Those who are not visible, not present while he executes his performance, are precisely those who control it. This invisibility heightens the authority of their control." If this is hard to imagine, one can remember Buggle's "Video Killed the Radio Star," which is premised in a similar logic: inscription in the field of vision and in the age of technical reproducibility forces a deeper self-alienation for the musician. Now he or she must "look good" for the "masses." New Wave artists understood this, which gave rise to their phenomenal success.

The problem with Benjamin's account, of course, is that "the masses," like "the filmic audience," doesn't really exist. These are projections of . . . the Hollywood system. Certainly box-office draw is a measure of something---something like "the mass interest"---but this ignores the fairly limited band of choice the "masses" have with Hollywood film: Dark Knight or Hellboy II? Nevertheless, Benjamin suggests that the loss of "aura" once possessed by the theatre star is supplanted by something else, "cult value"—the value of circulation and transaction, the ability of using the shot of a film actor as a "mirror image" that can be transported---just as much as the supposed power of "the masses" (which Benjamin suggests is the camera obscura of Hitler's rhetoric). The "cult of the movie star" helps to preserve "that magic of the personality that has long been no more than the putrid magic of its [film's] own commodity character . . . ." What is this "cult value?" We know it today as celebrity.

Benjamin made these observations in 1936, a decade after Rudy Valentino's untimely death caused something of hysteric outbreak in the states, and just three years before Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz would wow audiences with the magic of Technicolor, Gable, and Garland. Yet his observations were prescient, as the inevitable result---the abandonment of the cult of the star by Hollywood---would take nearly sixty years to happen. Far more insidious than the gradual disclosure of the star as just another piece of the Hollywood machine is the displacement of the actor's control to "the audience," which means the system itself. Benjamin argued this shift thins-out or evaporates altogether the spirit of political change ("revolutionary spirit") and replaces it with the ideology of capitalism. Adorno is even more lucid:

Whereas today in material production the mechanism of supply and demand is disintegrating, in the superstructure it still operates as a check in the rulers’ favour. The consumers are the workers and employees, the farmers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them. As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. It is stronger even than the rigorism of the Hays Office [a censorship bureau], just as in certain great times in history it has inflamed greater forces that were turned against it, namely, the terror of the tribunals. It calls for Mickey Rooney in preference to the tragic Garbo, for Donald Duck instead of Betty Boop. The industry submits to the vote which it has itself inspired. What is a loss for the firm which cannot fully exploit a contract with a declining star is a legitimate expense for the system as a whole. By craftily sanctioning the demand for rubbish it inaugurates total harmony. The connoisseur and the expert are despised for their pretentious claim to know better than the others, even though culture is democratic and distributes its privileges to all. In view of the ideological truce, the conformism of the buyers and the effrontery of the producers who supply them prevail. The result is a constant reproduction of the same thing.

In other words, like all organisms, the Hollywood system is self-correcting in respect to its "product." A century of self-correction has led to the "constant reproduction of the same thing," not simply the same tired plot after the next---but the same star.

The standardization (and thus liquidation) of stardom is perhaps no more conspicuous than with VH-1's Behind the Music show, in which the following career path is usually narrated: (a) star starts small and gets his/her big break; (b) everything's coming up roses; (c) just at the apex of making-it big tragedy ensues; (d) star almost loses it all, or does in fact lose it all (Tawny, no?). If there was a Hollywood version for the movie star (whatever happened to Deborah Winger? Sean Young?) we'd likely see a similar script. At least, however, Winger and Young are strong, independent individuals in "real life" no matter how their careers are scripted. What's frightening today is that, insofar as "real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies," as Adorno argued in 1944, spectators and stars alike can no longer distinguish between media-induced fantasy and "reality"---as they are, to a very real extent, one and the same (cf. Britney Spears; Baudrillard).

So what's the story, here? I've been suggesting that stardom has been under dynamic transformation since the 1920s: as its cult value strengthened, its "content"---the control, individuality, uniqueness, and politics of the actor---has weakened gradually until only cult value was left. In postmodernity, pure cult value is perhaps best exemplified by Paris Hilton, a celebrity known for her circulation (in the economy of women, then on the Internet circuit, and finally, in the celebrity circuit buoyed by tabloid photographers). Movie stars are just as interchangeable. Thus the utter ridiculousness of Universal's proclamation that somehow Angelina Jolie has escaped the evaporation of the "movie star" in their film Wanted. In a qualified sense, she's not a movie star; she's a baby-crazed, child-adopting celebrity who is married to another celebrity and who happens to make "movies." Let's not call Wanted a "film," either.

cramped blog

Music: Sam Sparro: self-titled (2008)

Yesterday I received a new embosser that says "Library of Dr. Juice," and I just went nuts branding in the library. I now have a seriously sore right hand, which makes blogging---and other fun things one does with the right hand---difficult. Consequently, tonight's entry is a love of labor, writing through the pain, like Peaches does when she's . . . you know. But I don't have the stamina of Peaches. So I'll keep this brief.

Enter Righeira, the phenomenal Italian synthpop group who scored it big in Europe with their most excellent, "Let's Go to the Beach." Check out how Stefano Rota and Stefano Righi move to the beat and sing into their wrist-watch televisions:

Of course, that hit didn't make it too far over here stateside. The real winner was "I ain't got no money," which, of course, Timbaland totally plagiarized for "The Way I Are":

That 80s-hop-back-and-forth dance is most super, and brings me back to, um, elementary school. I danced that way too! . . . with the Electric Bugaloo. Still do, in fact. Woohoo! And fortunately, as my buddy Mirko alerted in a timely sent email, Righerira are back to (synth)rock our world! Check out this hot shit! (note the PS3 around Stephano's neck, a nice nod to the "Let's Go to the Beach" video):

Aieeee, my hand hurts from typing. Must rest.

jesús wubs yew

Music: The Beautiful South: Paint it Red (2000)

losing a religion that was almost mine

Music: Van Morrison: Veedon Fleece (1974)

The Jesse Jackson flap yesterday finally motivated me to post something of substance---or toward substance abuse (hello, my friend tequila!). As anyone remotely close to a screen will know, yesterday the news broke that Jesse Jackson was "talkin' trash" about Obama on FOX. Apparently unaware his microphone was hot, Jackson said to a colleague that Obama has "been talking down to black people" and that he wanted to "cut his nuts off." These comments have circulated widely because, presumably, it demonstrates division among blacks about Obama. The underlying warrant here is that all black people, especially black politicians, think alike and stand in solidarity. The news also created an opportunity for Obama supporters to spin this as good news: white people don't like Jackson, therefore, this is a nice distancing moment that will draw more whities toward the Big O.

It's a shame, however, that Jackson's "point" (pun intended) was eclipsed by his countless apologies. Jackson is angry with Obama for amplifying his "personal responsibility" rhetoric in recent weeks, instead of focusing on larger, structural issues, like "racial justice and urban policy and jobs and health care." Obama has apparently been speaking on parental responsibility for years, and has a fairly standard line on absent fathers (I agree with the problem of absent fathers, I would simply disagree that said fathers must be male). But what Jesse's "loving criticism" was to be about was the way in which Obama has intoned a therapeutic, Horatio Alger-style---or Oprah-style, take your pick--- rhetoric that downplays the social-cultural and material causes of social ills----and the deeper reasons for single-parent households (which, less face it, are not the province of African Americans, but all Americans). Obama, in other words, has amplified his personal responsibility rhetoric, moving to the right, for votes. For someone who was a has spent his life working toward structural change, the kind of change that one cannot create by oneself, Jackson thinks that by going post-race, Obama might turn into just another white-guy, neo-liberal president.

If you've read my blog for any expanse of time---and in particular, my thoughts about how Obama threw Rev. Wright and African American rhetorical traditions under the bus---you'll know why I am similarly sympathetic to Jesse Jackson. I am an Obama supporter and my vote will be for him, unquestionably, but I too am disappointed with Obama's rhetorical drift to the right. Yes, it is true he has always been more "centrist" or "conservative" than people realize, but his votes on issues have been fairly progressive and his rhetoric has seemed to build on a Left-style romantic idiom that signified allegiance with those civil rights leaders of the past who worked toward structural change. What we're witnessing in Obama's rhetoric, in other words, is a retreat from the preacherly persona and civil religion style. I don't have time this afternoon to present snippets of text, but its there: the move has been from a flirtatious, religious crooning toward an issues-focused, personal-responsibility "blame the individual" type rhetoric.

For a very brief moment I was about to let myself go into Obamania, but my cynical reserve and distaste for political kitsch kept me on the shores of Nader (not that I would ever vote for Nader; I just wish there were a true, third or fourth party in this political life). Obama's rhetorical drift to the right in recent weeks (not so much his stand on policy, which seems consistent) troubles me. Although Jackson is ridiculously unpopular, I'd vote for him over Obama.

That said, yes yes, I noticed that Jackson threatened castration. Of course, from a psychoanalytic vantage castration is the power of the father, what the child fears. Castration represents one's entrance into self-consciousness and the symbolic world. He who claims the power of castration claims the agency of language. I've seen Jackson speak in person twice, and both times he whipped me into frenzy. The man is an amazing rhetor. By claiming to want to cut Obama's nuts off, Jackson is threatening to remove Obama's rhetorical power, to muffle his speech. The motive for wanting to do so is obvious: Jackson dislikes Obama's rhetoric.

The problem with such a sentiment, aside from its meanness, is simply that no one has the phallus. Jackson is deluded if he believes he has it, just as deluded as Obama who believes the problem among African Americans is that fathers don't claim it. Hence, the irony of Jackson's statement.

So I say to both Jackson and Obama: It's the structure, stupid.

good weekend

Music: The Walkmen: Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone (2002)

Nothing is more cheering than having five people you love descend on your home for a holiday. Family is great, don't get me wrong, but you get to pick your friends (and they you), and when your house is full of people you picked, things tend to get cheerful. We had a great time. Thursday night Shaun and Emily arrived, and we gabbed into the night over Etouffée, Mean-Ass Joshritas, and board games. Yogita, Christopher, and Tracy arrived on Friday, and we made our way to Hayes county for a slammin' Fourth of July party (replete with live music . . . you can't beat that!).

Yesterday I worked a bit as my friends toured Austin, then we had a nice time at Manuels and then, later, one of my favorite hangs, the Carousel. Today Shaun, Emily and I toured some Austin, drove out to the Salt Lick for some BBQ, then we hit the Hindu Temple In-the-Middle-of-Nowhere-Texas.

I owe others writing; twas hard to get done with guests---so it's back to the grind tomorrow. But I know what should take priority: guests. Seriously. Academic rule number Positively 4th Street: once you're making a living, buddies come before work. Amen. So mote it be.

Gallery of our good time is here.

patriotism

Music: Ulrich Schnauss: Goodbye (2007)

Shaun and Emily, Independence Day guests, are on their way to Toy Joy as I take a break to catch up on some computing this morning. This afternoon we're driving out to Hayes county for a backyard Fourth of July bash, which will feature not one, not two, but three funk bands (the new Jack in the Box commercial, "Don't Stop the Funk," keeps playing in my head). If I don't hear a cover of the Ohio Player's "Fire" I'm gonna be mighty funkapointed.

Anyway, taking out the trash this morning I noticed a bumper sticker on Emily's Shaun's car: "I pledge allegiance, not blind obedience." The sentiment is apt today, a time when it is relatively unfashionable to be patriotic as an academic. Same as it ever was, frankly, only on this side of Nine-eleven even more so. Thinking about this bumper-sticker defiance also helped me to remember a short essay by Richard Rorty from 1994, "The Unpatriotic Academy."

Rorty's argument was advanced during the last (serious) gasp of identity politics as a viable scholarly approach to social change. At first blush he is dismissing so-called "multiculturalism" as antipatriotic and promoting sectarian division. But his argument is much more complicated: "a nation cannot reform itself unless it takes pride in itself---unless it has an identity, rejoices in it, reflects upon it, and tries to live up to it." In other words, identity is important, both particular and collective; "a sense of shared identity is not an evil. It is an absolutely essential component of citizenship, of any attempt to take our country and its problems seriously." Assembling under the idea of a nation, in other words, is the precondition of social change. You and I cannot call for a better world, for ending hunger, for bringing our troops home unless we give a shit about being "American." Rorty is taking identity politics at its absolute word and saying: right on, lets get down with "the people" too, that constituted body that is comprised of me in my generic sense, divested of my particulars.

The risk of patriotism is blind nationalism. The patriot is critical. The patriot demands independence from the tyranny of colonialism. The patriots said, "screw you, Britain, we're American." Nationalism, on the other hand, is a diluted patriotism, patriotism without critical reasoning. Patriotism requires shooting yourself in the foot every now and again; it's not easy to be a true patriot (to say, for example, that you support the troops while you in no way support the president, and so on). Nationalism, like suicide, is painless.

I consider myself a patriot, and I think part of my job---the teaching part, to be more precise---is in a sense a patriotic duty. Teaching others (and always myself) to think more critically, to ask more from our news sources, to participate in deliberation outside the classroom, is an attempt to create the conditions of social change. Rorty speaks of figures to be proud of: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Martin Luther King. These people we claim as "ours." But more importantly are the values that these figures promoted: equality for all, justice, the pursuit of property happiness. Even if these ideals create a lot of lip service, because we intone them relentlessly we get to call people on the carpet who are intolerant or who strive to make others unequal, we get to call-out those who would disenfranchise others. I'm proud to be able to do that and to shamelessly teach that. You cannot call-out all the evildoers all the time (sometimes you need to leave a foot un-shot), but even so, we leave in a country where one can speak to and confront power. You cannot do that everywhere in the world.

Of course, the university trends toward business. My courses are focused on higher-level critical thinking, while the more basic courses of my department, of my field, are often geared toward the marketplace. And perhaps this is why it is hard to declare one is patriot in the academy today: capitalism globalizes, it is a giant blob that erodes the boundaries of the national imaginary. Today we think of ourselves in respect to global forces, no longer a sovereign people, but a cynical body of standing stock to be toyed with by global companies in search of cheap labor. Capitalism in the academy makes every class into workforce preparedness; don't think, just make---just speak. Lose the "um" and "like" kid, and remember, in a boardroom you only put three ideas per PowerPoint slide!

So when this nation-less, workforce bias is the backdrop of our undergraduates' college experiences---this workforce preparedness training (and standardized testing for "accountability" isn't far behind, you just wait)---are we surprised to see apathetic, bleary-eyed students who can't even say the pledge of allegiance? Students who, rather, spout-off talking point scripts from their favorite cable news television channel whenever politics is discussed in the classroom? Patriotism has become an unthinking nationalism, and so we educators start to think patriotism is evil. Patriotism has become a talking point, push-buttom-click-click stump speech. Patriotism has been claimed by the talk-show right in the name of nationalist evil (the FOX flap over the Obamas' fist-bump gesture comes to mind).

Postmodernity poses quite a pickle for patriotism: as our mediated world continues to globalize, as media companies supplant resource companies as the true power-brokers in the world, and as our universities are increasingly absorbed by their business schools and athletics programs (viz., media outlets), an engaged, deliberative citizenry is no more because Mr. Smith Goes to Washington no longer informs our national fantasy. The image of citizenship has shifted from a good person speaking well in public to an 18-24 year old young person texting a vote for American Idol.

Folks have been saying this for decades, of course. But when we think about patriotism and the nation state, we're dealing with an imaginary or fantasy structure. That structure is held in place by an infrastructure that is (Baudrillard be damned) increasingly virtual, spun, floating . . . . As a consequence, what it means to be an "American" has become whether or not you watch FOX or CNN. To be a "patriot" you have to wholly subscribe to the two-dimensional political candidates that reduce "the Nation" to a shadow puppet play on the wall of a cave.

I'm tired of non-academics and media pundits assuming because I am a professor and decidedly left of center that somehow I am unpatriotic. Not true: I pledge allegiance; I combat blind obedience. Timothy Leary was a patriot; he taught me to question authority, but he didn't teach me to abandon a sense of national community (in fact, he relied on precisely that to get his message out). I am a patriot, I celebrate the fourth of July because, for me, this day represents my right to speak freely and support the equality of everyone (not just legal, but social too). This day also represents my right to be critical of the implosion of politics and popular culture. As a patriot, I also claim the right to party, to grill and smoke meats, and to blow shit up with firecrackers.

i crack myself up

I have been so busy making writing deadlines for others and caring for rescued kitties I just haven't had much time to blog. Case in point: I did finish a column for CD Kitchen that was due last week, and as I wrote it I kept laughing to myself. This column is so stupid. But you might enjoy the diversion: on firecrackers and big 80s hair.

rescue

Music: Bob Mould: Workbook (1989)

I haven't read Dante in a while, but I do believe there is a special rung in Hell reserved for those people who abuse and neglect companion animals. Yesterday I met one of these people, and it was all I could do to keep myself from punching her in the face. Let me explain.

For about five years I have been helping animal rescue organizations, primarily the Devonshire Rex Rescue League helmed by my friend Angela. I've fostered thrice, successfully placed two sweet Devons (Cosmo and Zappa), and just took on my fourth foster. This time I'm working with a pair of white cats who are supposedly Devons, but in actuality some sort of Frankenkitty. So-called "Backyard Breeders" like to breed Devons with Sphynx and vice-versa, which, of course, is a no-no because of the recessive gene issue but, you know, whatever. These people get a special place in Hell as well for breeding cats that have horrible health problems.

So, Obi died Friday, June 20. On Sunday I got a note from Angela about an urgent rescue in Austin. This was too weird of a coincidence, so I said "bring 'em on." The official story is that a man who had adopted a pair of two-year-old Devons six years ago had to be moved into a no-pet, assisted living facility. The cats were dumped into a garage of a friend for some months, then taken by his sister. The sister, herself on a limited income, could not afford the vet bills for this "loving" pair of kitties and contacted rescue for help.

After trying to contact the sister for some days, I finally received an email and we agreed that I would receive the cats "early" Saturday morning. I set my alarm for 7:00 a.m., woke up with a battle, and went about my day. Hours rolled by. At 11:30 a.m. I was very annoyed (I thought I might join a new friend for some of the Keep Austin Weird festival yesterday afternoon, but then decided the cats were more important). I sent a blunt email and left a similar phone message. The sister finally called back:

"Uh, sorry Josh. I don't have a car, so had to borrow one from a friend, and they were late in dropping off the car. I had to run a lot of errands and so I'm a little late. I should be there sometime this afternoon."

"I have to do things today; I need to know when you intend to be here. Two o'clock?"

She responded she would be here by 1:30 p.m. at the latest. At 1:40 p.m. she called and said she left the directions to my house on her desk, and so I had to give her directions again. She arrived shortly after 2:00 pm. I met her at the car, and told her to help me get the cats to my bedroom.

It's always suspicious when a pet owner doesn't have a dedicated carrier; these guys were in cardboard boxes from PetSmart (which means vet visits were infrequent if ever). And it's hard not to be judgmental when I saw the condition of the cats. They look very sick, the boy with very pale looking skin and lots of bald spots. In the photos you'll see Keelee first, the rather large boy (overweight). Keelee is on the toilet seat. Kue is cowering next to the toilet (very much underweight---too skinny). Now, the Sister said she bathed the cats last night, but they're still quite filthy. I want to bathe them right this second, but they are hissing and carrying on pretty terribly whenever I enter the bathroom. Hopefully in a day or so they'll calm down but, at present, they are not taking handling.

Keelee has a white coat, but is completely naked on his inner thighs and underside, and from his neck up. Kue is almost totally naked (almost like a Sphinx). I said something to the Sister about stress causing them to lose their coat, but she said Kue has never really had much hair, but that the antibiotics she administered last week was supposed to help. There's a small growth on Kue's right leg, which could be life-threatening.

I'm no veterinarian, but to my eyes these cats appear to be in bad shape. It could be that they are just Frankenkitties and will never "look normal," but they are also behaving in that classic "I've been mistreated" sort of way. It makes me very sad and then mad. I have often felt guilty for letting my Sphynx go weeks without a bath . . . but her dirty girl impression is nothing up against these two.

After we released the cats to their inevitable under-the-bed sanctuary, the Sister unloaded from a very dirty car a series of very dirty cat beds and a cat condo, all of which smelled like cigarettes, shit, and mothballs. I promptly threw this stuff into the dumpster after she left, except for the cat condo which is with them currently (but which will also go to the dumpster ASAP). The sister also smelled similarly (think here of Aughra from The Dark Crystal).

Of course, the paperwork on these cats has been "lost":

"Do you have their paperwork?"

"No, it's probably long gone. My brother didn't keep very good records."

"Do we know who the breeder is?"

"No, someone in New Jersey I guess. My brother took them from someone who had them for a couple of years."

"Are they up on their vaccinations?"

"Keelee is up to date. Kue isn't, because she was on antibiotics and the vet wanted to wait until that was over before we vaccinated."

"Ok. So do you have the paperwork for those recent visits."

"Oh, yeah. Um. It's on my desk at work. I can mail it to you."

"Could you scan them and email me the records as PDF files?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'll do that first thing next week."

And monkeys will fly out of my ass bearing Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh when Christ returns next week.

So the next step is vetting. First, I have to get this "thing" on Kue's leg checked out. Then, we need FIV/FELUK tests. If those are negative, then a full blood panel. Dentation problems are big with Devons, and by the smell of Keelee's breath some extractions are definitely in order. These poor kitties are a mess. I have to say, though, that getting them healthy is a good way to mourn Obi's passing.

And since I'm in the middle of a rescue, I cannot help but urge my buddies in Chapel Hill to adopt Mona. She's a very sweet, well-fed kitty who needs a forever home. DRRL also accepts donations, which are tax deductible. Click here and scroll down to the Paypal link or a snail mail address. Just $5 would be great. Please put "in honor of Obi" in the note field.

another masonic lecture

Music: David Sylvian: Gone to Earth (1985)

I am truly thankful for the words of comfort many of you offered about the loss of my companion Obi. It is nice to know that others have felt and feel similarly about their animal companions; it's a love different from that of a person, and one that is deeply felt. Certainly it is a kind of projective love, but even so, there is something like "animal presence" that extends beyond whatever form we impose on their little beings.

By strange twist of fate---or Jungian synchronicity?---two Devons here in Austin need to be rescued and fostered. I was contacted this morning about the pair and agreed to help. Something about the timing of this rescue, huh? I'll keep folks posted about this the more I learn.

Meanwhile, I'm editing and finishing-up a speech (or "lecture," as they're termed) that I was asked to deliver tonight to my lodge's annual Festive Board. A Festive Board is basically a fancy, catered dinner where we toast each other, sing songs, and regale each other with accolades. It's a nice ritual---though if you fill your shot or "firing" glass for every toast you won't be able to stand up at the end. Anyhoo, owing to my scholarly interest in the Craft I was asked to give the after-dinner speech, which is supposed to be a hybrid "research paper" and celebratory speech. I thought I'd offer up a teaser here:

The Importance of Speech, or, Some Reflections on the First Degree and Psalm 133

Lecture Delivered to Austin Lodge # 12, 23 June 2008

Thank you, brethren, for giving me the opportunity to address you on this most festive of occasions, the annual festive board, a celebration our brotherhood through speech and nourishment. As no doubt my yammering on and on tonight will attest, I would underscore that our jamboree is frequently punctuated by speeches: speeches of thanks, toasts, songs, recognitions of honor, after-dinner talks by long-winded rhetoricians who should hurry up and get on with it, and perhaps most importantly, that communal petition to Deity that we term "prayer." I said we have come together in speech and nourishment, but today I shall argue that these two nouns, speech and nourishment, are the same in Freemasonry. In other words, understanding how speech is food---and therefore the vehicle of life---is my timely topic, as you nosh away on your (just) deserts.

I will suggest to you today that the written word speaks death, that text as such is death, and that only the presence of speech can enliven it. Following the instruction of the First Great Light, we teach this lesson in the Entering Apprentice degree. When the candidate is caused to circumabulate the lodge with the Senior Deacon, he is blind. While in motion, his ear close to the measured breath of his conductor, he hears the song of the Degrees of David:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity: It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garment: as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

The 133 Psalm of David speaks of the joy of gathering, presumably when the tribes were united; brotherly love is described as a permeating perfume and a quenching morning dew. More important, however, is the way in which this joyous meaning is communicated: it is a psalm, and therefore, a song---a sacred sonnet, to be more precise. The psalm is meant to be sung or spoken in melodious speech, which is precisely what the conductor does, into the passive ear of the candidate, blindfolded and seemingly helpless, led about from the elbow by some psalm singing shepherd.

I encourage you to remember your initiation, what it was like to be blindly led about, dressed in [deleted for the public]. Importantly, the sense that was deprived of you was that of sight.

So, on what did you rely? The answer is twofold: The firm grasp of your conductor and the speech of strangers. A grasp and stranger-speech. That is to say, you relied the on touch and hearing. Perhaps not coincidentally, I will tell you as an aside that in infancy the first senses to develop are that of touch and hearing; the entered apprentice degree is in this respect a reenactment of birth into the blinding light of creation.

Nevertheless, upon entering the lodge for the first time you were [deleted for the public] and made a promise: "Arise, follow your conductor, and fear no evil." This is to say, after you declare your trust in Deity, a promise is made to you. Your declaration of trust is deemed well-founded, and the Worshipful Master makes a declaration of assurance in return: "you may trust your conductor, dear candidate, as no harm will come to you." With the promise of your faith, you in turn are made a promise. In this respect you have made your first speech pact in Masonry---the precursor to another pact, the obligation.

Today I suggest to you that the whole of Masonic teaching can be located in this specific moment in the first degree. The nourishment of speech begins here, in the moment when the candidate declares his trust in something beyond his comprehension---Deity, the Great Architect---and the Worshipful Master's return promise: "arise, follow your conductor, and fear no evil." The key to understanding the importance of this moment is the presence of speech.

Voice unheard is province of the individual, the babble of solitudinous, an agency without an ear, or as we're told of one of the saints John, the "voice of one crying in the wilderness." Speech, however, is the sound of community; speech implicates an ear. Unlike voice, which is given fullness in crying, speech implies an answer from another. Speech implicates not merely a person, but a people.

So, what does it mean to say speech implicates a people? It means that when I make a purposeful utterance, the ear of someone else---the Ear of the Other, if you will---is implied. Here I am making a distinction between VOICE and SPEECH.

Voice is the singular sound that exits the mouth of any one person. Speech, however, is voice as a vehicle of meaning. That meaning need not be word-borne; it can also be affective. One's tone of voice can communicate meaning, and therefore be deemed speech. This is why the speech of song is more reliant on phrasing and timbre that words, a point to which I will return shortly in reference to the 133 psalm.

I recently compared the first degree of Masonic ritual to birth. Insofar as touch and hearing are our first senses, both infancy and candidacy are understanding of speech yet incapable of producing it. Consider, for example, the cries of an infant: A baby is perfectly capable of a voice---frequently a loud scream. But that voice is meaningless. That voice requires the presence of another individual, usually the mother, to give it meaning. The baby cries out almost automatically, without thinking, in response to his pangs of hunger. The mother interprets that cry as speech: "my child is hungry," she says, or "my child is teething," or perhaps just simply, "my child is loudmouth pain in the butt."

Yet, by assigning meaning to the cries of the infant voice, the parent has agreed to speak for the child: "With this speech I will speak for you," says the mother. "With my speech I will comfort you." It is thus in infancy that our first speech pact was made for us over cries and lullabies.

Later in life, as we learn language, our voice takes shape in speech. It is then that we learn how to make demands on others: "I want a cookie," is typical. Later comes the narcissistic phrase of toddlers everywhere: "mine!" Indeed, the phrases "I want" and "mine" are the province of the terrible twos, followed shortly by puberty and the slow recognition of something else much more meaningful. Or rather, the recognition of something horribly meaningless: death.

It is the recognition of sex that turns children into men and women; it is the recognition of death that turns children into adults. Often this realization only occurs in one's teenage years, which is experienced as a chip in the usual invincible feelings that abide those awkward voice changes.

Indeed, speech, understood here as meaningful voice, only truly takes shape when confronting the darkness of death, the limit of some no-thing, a nothing, a silent silence. It is only when we are made to confront our own mortality that speech takes on a special status as the promise of life, that life exists. In speech that voice announces that it is, that I am. But without an ear such speech is really voice without meaning, not really speech at all, just a "me-me-me," "mine," or a "I want a Lollipop!" in the wilderness. It is only speech with a proximate ear that we are alive; only, in other words, are we something other than ourselves, a community.

Consider if you will the parallels between the first speech pact of Masonry and the psalm that succeeds it: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in community." Recall that in Psalm 131 the tribes are not at peace, but in Psalm 132 a covenant with the Lord is made. David is chosen by the Lord to lead the united Judah and Israel in psalm 132. In other words, an agreement is made between the Lord and David, which is followed by a celebration of community and brotherly love in Psalm 133. Is not this covenant reenacted in the first moments of the Entered Apprentice degree?

[more later, perhaps. or not.]