Who Has Choice?

There is currently a wonderfully written article on The Atlantic Monthly‘s website entitled, “Put Your Shirts Back On: Why Femen is Wrong,” by Uzma Kolsy that I urge all of you to read. But my post isn’t about Uzma’s writing. It is about the comment section.

First cover of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. November 1857.

I love reading articles from The Atlantic—possibly because they are free and often deal with topical cultural/gender/racial issues. But what is often times more revealing, and interesting, than the articles themselves are the comments made by The Atlantic‘s readers. First, let’s acknowledge something: all of those leaving comments must sign in somehow; whether that is through Facebook, Gmail, or whatever online system the kids use these days to remember their friends’ birthdays. They must take the time to sign in and leave a comment. So, it is with some effort and time that they devote to their often inane and dimwitted comments. Okay. Have I lost you yet? I’ll get to my point in a moment.

The article concerns Femen‘s activity regarding Muslim/Islamic culture—and their assumptions about a monolithic, oppressed Muslim female who must be represented, spoken for, and rescued (if you do not know who Femen is, please follow my .org or wiki link). Uzma argues that Femen’s “core flawed presumption” is that “Muslim women are oppressed because Islam is inherently oppressive” (Kolsy). She goes on to write that instead of removing their shirts and presumably speaking for, i.e. representing, Muslim women, they should donate their time to Muslim charities and social organizations. Her bulk argument is that the Femen organization is not helping Muslim women by considering them “unfree” or “oppressed,” but rather they are, first, bringing negative and fallacious attention on Islam, and secondly making Orientalist, racist and sexist presumptions about a women’s right to “choose” the hijab, or any other clothing.

Now, I have “cherry picked” two incendiary comments from the article to diagnose, and I realize that not all people think this way, but I wanted to mention that I am aware of that bias. I would also like to acknowledge that by highlighting these quotes I realize I am bringing a type of promotion or fame to these ideas—which I certainly do not promote or champion. Here are two comments made by readers of the Atlantic article in question:

1) “Muslim women are not making choices. They are making choices within a very limited set circumscribed by men, or by their mothers or other women who have a vested interest in the system.”

2) “If the Muslim women of the world did remove their hijabs in solidarity, you know exactly what would have happened to most of them: they would be beaten, if not murdered. Whipped back into compliance by men who are cowards and cannot trust their own wives to fend off the advances of another man.”

Now, here comes the controversy: I agree with point one, but on the condition that it be changed to “no one is making choices”. “Choice,” for me, is a highly contentious term. Many of us take it for granted that we have “choice” or that we feel the necessity to exercise some conception of “choice” on a daily basis, e.g. I “choose” to write this late at night instead of sleeping, even though I know I have to get up early (I will refrain from using ironic, and rather annoying, quotes from now on). But the problem is that a division wedges itself between those who have choice, i.e. those free to act, think, vote, etc., and those without choice, i.e. those oppressed by some larger force like culture, class, religion, etc. But the thing is: we are ALL influenced by immutable social forces, such as ulture, class, religion, gender, etc.; these things ALL enforce our decisions, actions, and lives.

Let’s be obvious for a moment. Do you wear glasses? Yes? Then you have a different mindset than someone who does not. Thought about corrective surgery? Investigated the price? Someone with 20/20 has not. Think about your glasses? Their care and cleanliness? Do you think about wearing contacts when you pick out sunglasses? A person with 20/20 has not had these thoughts. “Sure,” you say, “that’s biological”. Right. Okay… Guys, where do you buy your underwear? Target? Walmart? Is it Hanes? or Fruit of the Loom? Have you ever bought a single pair of Calvin Klein underwear at Macy’s for the price of four pairs of Hanes? No? You should. Because you have that choice.

Choose…

Here’s where it gets sticky. You don’t have that choice, but you think you do because a nice mix of consumerism and late capitalism is an empowering and entitling narcotic. The danger is when that entitlement bleeds over into politics, ethics, gender, sexuality, etc. That you think you have choice is all that matters to Ronald McDonald, underwear factory owners, or managers at Target or Walmart. Even if you try to prove to me that you have choice, you are doing so out of a condition—sure, go buy the Calvin’s, gentlemen, you will love them! That condition is that you are trying to prove something to me, so the action is a necessary one, not chosen. Even a seemingly random act has a causal condition. But when we use the term choice, we are isolating a phenomenon in order to distinguish that act from others as important. We are telling a story. You are selecting, most often unconsciously, what information to exclude and what to include based on your experiences and the inherit desire for social acceptance. And that story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning isolates and solidifies the cause, the middle is the detail-y bit, and the end, well, the end is our moral justification—”I may have done something wrong, but here is why I did it. Do not condemn me“.

I find the use of the term choice abhorrent and despicable when used to distinguish one group from another as those possessing choice and those not possessing it. In its most casual and vulgar form it is employed to justify personal morality, and isolate and punish the other individual’s failure to achieve—”I have been able to do this, therefore you are able to do this. If you do not, then that is your choice“. This example ranges from arriving to work on time, living a healthy lifestyle, to earning a degree. Rather than choice, I prefer the terms desire and decisions. These terms allow for social influences and a range of numerous possibilities—as opposed to the either/or of choice. As far as I am concerned, choice is an absolute: either everyone has it or no one does. There is no way to clearly distinguish between those who have choice and those who do not. By creating that distinction to judge others lives of which we often know very little, we reveal the forces that have shaped our own morality; and more often than not, we reveal our bigotry, our fears, our hatred, and our ignorance. Just as some of those individuals making comments on Uzma Kolsy’s article have done.

Related articles

• Put Your Shirts Back On: Why Femen Is Wrong (theatlantic.com)
• Topless Jihad: Why Femen is Right (theatlantic.com)
• FEMEN Topless Jihad: Who’s Got Feminism Right, FEMEN Or Muslim Women? (akandezainab.wordpress.com)
• “FEMEN needs to recognize that Muslim women do in fact have agency, and the idea that Muslim women…” (anoncentral.tumblr.com)

The Trial, by Franz Kafka

The Trial by Franz Kafka

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While I don’t think my opinion of Franz Kafka’s The Trial is unique, I think it offers a different approach then the traditional “man vs. modernity” synopsis. Let me be clear: I think this struggle is a prominent feature of Kafka’s work, and it is meant to be noticed by the reader; but, for me, the event of Josef K.’s trial is far too fantastic to be a theatrical polemic against the coarse, lifelessness of bureaucracy. I think Kafka trickier than that.

My analysis begins here: I do not think that Josef K. is in direct conflict with a bureaucracy or those who represent the bureaucracy (the thugs, the judges, the lawyers, etc.). What I mean to state is that Josef K. has invented his trial. It is not real.

While I usually refrain from a Psychoanalytic approach to texts, my reading of The Trial begins with that this thought: Josef K. is dreaming. (Phew, now I can commence a more sensible, e.g. Marxist, reading of the text). Josef K. is an overworked, overstressed, unappreciated, undersexed, lonely, and paranoid CFO. His shadows in life are Dostevsky’s Underground Man (Notes from Underground), Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (The Overcoat), and more recently, Tyler Durden—not to mention many others that I do not have at hand.

The first time I recognized the dreaming was during the second of two shrieks that K. hears during his court proceedings. The second is on page 71. Kafka writes:

“K. was now approached by a guard, who could be recognized chiefly by a saber whose scabbard, to judge by its color, was made of aluminum. K. was amazed by this and even reached out toward it.”.

While the shrieks are not odd as an event, their peculiarity is derived from their abruptness and seemingly unnecessary nature. In the first, we never find out what happens to the screaming man; in fact, most everyone at the trial ignores the couple as though it never occurred. For the latter, the guard leaves with an intent to examine the scream himself. What caught my attention was K.’s motion to grab the saber. What an odd detail. And it is only with curiosity that K. attempts this maneuver. He does not wish to escape or attack the guard; he is like a child exploring every oddity he encounters. He is a man grasping for meaning; for reality; like a pinch for the dreaming man who discovers the guard’s scabbard is aluminum, only then to suddenly wake up.

Now, once I had made a decision to venture down this “dream” path, I noticed it everywhere. For instance, in the beginning of the chapter featuring the Painter. It begins, “K. was sitting in his office, already thoroughly fatigued in spite of the early hour” (111). It is my contention that K. often falls asleep and dreams these fanciful events. The visit to the Painter is surreal: the heat, the paranoia concerning his jacket, and finally the escape through the rabbit hole just above the Painter’s bed that, of course, leads to the court halls. Or in the chapter with Block, the Merchant. Kafka writes: “This resolution drained K. of a great deal of energy… he worked at unusually slow pace, stayed late at the office” (166). And again, in the chapter featuring the Flogger, Kafka takes note that K. is “almost the last to leave [the office] that night;” indicating that K. may have fallen asleep and dreams the absolutely absurd scene featuring Franz and Willem (80). And of course, “the next day… he had difficulty concentrating on his work, and in order to finish up he had to stay at the office slightly longer then he had the day before” (86). K. is almost disappointed that Franz and Willem are not being flogged that night as well, and in a rage makes his assistants clean out the junk room.

Each chapter of The Trial could exist on its own. There is very little narrative continuation between the chapters, i.e. the characters appear and disappear just as easily and are rarely mentioned again, and the plot does not require any cohesiveness. They are episodic and farcical; as a man trying to piece together a dream in an attempt to make sense of it all. But this dreamlike state does not erase the “man vs. modernity” aspect. All it does is make it an indirect conflict. It is not K., the physical character of the novel who is overworked and paranoid, it is his dream that confronts the bureaucracy—mainly because K.’s position does not allow him freedom to confront it. He is it. He is at the top of the bureaucratic food chain (so to speak), and he knows there is absolutely NO way out. The trial is his invention. It is his psychosomatic illusion wrestling with his position and his responsibility as CFO. The trial is his way out.

Lastly, I have to add that the priest’s story of the doorkeeper is perhaps one of my favorite moments of this text. There is so much to draw from it as an allegory or metaphor. And the literary criticism of a text within a text is an astounding feat for any author. Not to mention that it is positioned as the initial conception of the Law. I think it is K. that waits at the metaphorical door. He does not realize he is free, which is exactly why he believes that the doorman deceives the man; because K. believes he has been deceived by the grandiose promise of life, steady employment, trust in the system, etc., and now that he has ascended to his coveted position any chance to be truly free is over. After all, “Worker bees can leave. / Even drones can fly away. / The queen is their slave” (Durden).

My read shelf:

The Aura and the Art Museum

This post has been inspired by a fellow blogger, one Peter Galen Massey. Recently, he and I had a reply-style discussion that mentioned the value of art and Walter Benjamin‘s interpretation of “aura”. This discussion has inspired my reconsideration of Benjamin’s work, and my own recent visit to the Art Institute of Chicago—where a Picasso exhibit is currently featured.

So, let’s start with the basics. Walter Benjamin, an exiled German Jewish philosopher, critic, historian, etc. wrote a significant essay entitled, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. (Here’s a link to the pdf). Benjamin defined something he called “aura”. This “aura” is a work of art’s unique presence in time and space. So, one would feel this “aura” if one viewed Monet‘s original Lily Pad paintings. It is akin to authenticity, except “aura” is a thing (for lack of a better term) that the original art work possesses (due to its history, its changes in ownership, its chemical changes, etc.). The thing is that this “thing” that the original work of art possesses can not be felt/interpreted/experienced by a subject, e.g. you, if it is a copy. So, that Mona Lisa on your coffee mug does not possess “aura”. You dig?

You know why? Because, as Benjamin states, “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art” (221 of Illuminations). So, any replica loses this “aura”. Only the original possesses an “aura”. (In an exchange of letters between Georg Lukács and Benjamin, Lukács told Benjamin that he was (paraphrasing here) not Marxist enough. I totally understand that now). And with that, let me make a bold statement: that aura stuff is bull**it.

Works of art are locked up behind gates, guarded by numerous security guards, and under constant surveillance. You know why? Aura. Those paintings represent a movement, a theory, a statement, a something; but, Man must eat first, before he or she contemplates art. So, we set aside our earned $30 and stand in line to enter our local Art Institute that houses works of art that should make us feel something (aura, perhaps?). And we see said art, and, lo and behold (!), it produces this feeling! “Yes, I am inspired! I will paint! I will draw! I will siiiiing!” But what inspires this inspiration? Is it aura? No. I will not grant mysticism to oil on canvas, nor charcoal on paper. What inspires us is our own expectation: the room, the lighting, the locks, the guards, the waiting, the entrance fee, etc.; that is what produces this so called “aura”. We don’t need to know about aura to feel this feeling. It is already in our collective consciousness simply by the fact that these works of art are placed in special spaces that are reserved just for them. This grants them an “aura,” not some mystical pronouncement or terminology. It is a collective will to place a value on certain objects (reification…), a value that does not exist, that is what makes these objects special and elite.

Inside the Picasso exhibit, housed under a long wooden table with glass mounted on top, there were roughly a dozen early sketches of Picasso’s before he began painting a series of portraits featuring the infamous Minotaur. These sketches were unfinished and meant to be understood and valued as such. As I walked around the table, I noticed that I was in a room full of people looking at drawings of a Minotaur f*cking a lady, or sometimes two ladies. And I thought this odd. My second thought was: this Picasso guy is a hornball! Drawing pictures of bestiality and such. What a silly fellow! I laughed a bit out loud and caught the eye of my gf who was earnestly studying the sketches, as though she was imagining the burgeoning genius that was Picasso furiously creating this bestial sketch. She shook her head at me and walked on.

After the museum we stopped at ye old coffee shop and discussed “art”. My gf called me cynical due to my slight scoffing at Picasso’s Porn. I took offense. The last thing I am is cynical, my dear reader (a philistine, most likely. But, cynical? far from it). Her defense to my above accusation of Picasso is that he is a genius. My reply was that Picasso was a man. And the sketches of porn he was drawing proves that he eats, sh*ts, loves, f*cks, and drinks just like any other man. Period. He does not possess a gift or genius, he is a man with significant artistic skill, important social connections, and the right social conditions provided so that he could develop that skill and those connections. Punkt. Full stop—as my lady would say.

My point here is not to argue that art and its value is good or bad. No. Our esteem for art reflects our own cultural value. And our culture values art. It shows that despite decades of simulacra, postmodernism, mechanical reproduction, Mickey Mouse, far too many Transformers films, and thousands of $10 Monet Lily Pad prints adorning hundreds of college dorm walls so that some girl will think some boy is smart yet sensitive in the hopes that she will have sex with him, we still value art. It is one of the best ways in which we know how to reproduce and share the human experience. It is one of the best ways to demonstrate to past and future generations that creativity is valued in our society. It is one of the best ways to inspire passion, beauty, love, hate, honor, envy, morality, sex, lust, war, happiness, frustration, etc. And it is one of the best ways to communicate our Truth. Even if it is a sketch of a Minotaur f*cking a lady… or two.

Woodbury, Walt Disney, The Walking Dead, and Why Plants are Better than Zombies

Over three years ago a co-worker of mine at ye old coffee shop was playing a game on her iPhone entitled, “Plants vs Zombies“. I was neck deep in my Literature MA at the time, and I thought quit well of myself for having never succumbed to such plebeian banality. Well, let me tell you something: I was wrong. It is now April of 2013, and I have completed “Plants vs Zombies” in its entirety three times. And it was fun.

What I noticed over the past few months is that not only was I playing “P vs Z,” but I was also deeply involved in watching AMC’s “The Walking Dead” every Sunday night. I had watched all the previous seasons via Netflix, and I was very excited to watch Season 3 on a weekly basis. I’ll leave criticism of that show to the professionals (check out The Atlantic‘s weekly series on TWD), and instead I am going to attempt to figure out exactly why I like zombies so much.

These supernatural beings should have some psychological relation and reflection to our own selves, right? Frankenstein is an allegory for capitalism, and as is Dracula, but what’s with zombies? Some are fast. Some are slow. Their origin could be a toxic event, a plague, or more often something unexplainable. But what do they represent for the fan? There is a bit of Biblical references, right? The dead rising from the grave and all that—”Judgment Day” as Ray Stantz so eloquently states in Ghostbusters. And fans of other horror genres, and critics of zombie films, will often argue that zombies are boring due to their horde-like, slow movement. After all, you just keep killing and killing, as though there is no end! But here’s the thing: that is exactly why I like about the zombie genre.

I have to work at ye old coffee shop at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Sunday. When we open—about 6:30 a.m.—they will pour through the doors not saying a word; not a greeting, a hello, a thank you; they will throw their remaining pocket change in the jar, go about their day reading the paper or making conversations with their neighbor about the weather. At 9:30 a.m., the masses will come. They will come after early church, before the later service. They will come in their sweatpants, their suits, their bow ties, or their stocking caps. They will come in SUV’s, on bikes, by foot, or lumber down from their condos right above us. And they’ll play noisy games like zoozit and kazay, a rollerskate type of lacrosse and croquet! … Oh, wait. That’s the Grinch. Sorry, I was on a roll…

Where was I? Oh yes. It is mornings like these when I realize my fascination with the zombie film: the horde. Retail/food service (the number one employer in America) is a special animal. They just keep coming. It is the nature of the business, I suppose; and if I wasn’t there for any other reason than health insurance, it is possible that those folks in their Sunday attire would not be starring in my own version of the zombie apocalypse. But they are. To me they are the walking dead. Sure, there are a few who make an impression, but for the most part I am fighting to stay alive. I am feeding them lattes and brewed coffee so they won’t eat at my flesh. I toss them a 400-calorie donut or two so they won’t tear off my arm and make me one of them. It’s life or death.

So, why Walt Disney? In March of this year, I went to Disney World in Florida (with my daughter, x-wife and my mother. Yeah, I know. That’s a whole ‘nother post.). I did a bit of research and discovered that Mr. Walt himself designed Disney World’s Main Street after his own home town’s Main Street; thus mimicking this 1950s era Americana nostalgia that may or may have not existed for the burgeoning middle class—only with hourly parades and a life size replica of Neuschwanstein Castle at Main Street’s end. Sheesh. I truly think that Walt’s Main Street resembles the Governer’s town of Woodbury in TWD (non-fans, I may lose you here).

Woodbury is modeled after this Disney-esque, Norman Rockwell Americana of some bygone era (pre-zombie apocalypse). It is fortified with large pieces of welded steel, on which a cat-walk is located for snipers to shoot incoming zombies, so that the people on the inside may live their “normal” pre-zombie apocalypse lives—barbeques, picnics, an evening stroll, etc. There is also ammo, food, normalcy, and a low zombie to people ratio. The problem is that both of these spaces rely upon a falsification of reality. No, I’m not taking the fun out of Disney World (it was a blast!), I’m simply interested in why we need to shield ourselves from reality. Why this facade of nostalgia as a precursor to enjoyment? Or, rather, enjoyment in the form of peaceful consumption? (Beyond the obvious not-taking-out-your-wallet-because-a-zombie-may-eat-your-hand reason).

Our narrative is often that these utopians cannot exist without a catch. There is one little, insignificant detail that requires this peace. For Walt it’s that crazy castle bearing down on us, reminding us that his homage to Main Street is just as fatuous as Ludwig II’s efforts to build a castle in honor of Richard Wagner with German public funds. And our concentrated belief in Main Street as representative of some blissful nostalgic love of what we think of as a “simpler time,” without our modern problems. For Woodbury it is, well was, Penny: the Governer’s zombified daughter in whose name he was running experiments on Woodbury’s citizen’s in order to find a “cure” for her. And the fact that none of the citizens faced the reality of the zombie apocalypse, and were thus unprepared for the real world. Yeah, it’s a stretch to make that comparison, but I beg this question: to what lengths will we go to secure normalcy? What will we ignore so that we may consume peacefully? Who will we keep out so that we may keep ourselves in? I for one am arming myself with a Snow Peas plant to slow them down even more, a Wall-nut or two to keep them at bay, and a Potato mine to blow them to smithereens. Trust me, I know my zombies.

A Slight bit of Complaining and Humor

It’s Tuesday, April 9th in Minnesota, and it’s raining. Tonight it will snow. Tomorrow it will sleet, and snow again on Friday. Last year it was nearly 61 degrees Fahrenheit by this time. This state amazes me (or as our local weatherman said, “Considering it’s April 9th, these temperatures are pretty incredible”). But, to my point.

My girlfriend arrived from Germany this past Wednesday, and she is leaving one week from now. We made tons of romantic plans, and are even prepared for a nice trip to Chicago from this Thursday through Sunday (yes, it will be raining and cold in Chicago). Amongst the weather, the front brakes on my vehicle started grinding the day I picked her up! I noticed a squeal or two the days before that, but paid it no mind. Now they are full-on grinding. So, I have to drop my car off tonight and borrow my mother’s car to use while my brakes are being fixed tomorrow. Sheesh!

You want more? Okay. So, on top of all this happening: I got sick. I get sick perhaps twice per year. It is bad: coughing, runny nose, fever, hot flashes, but then there is the worst part: the chills. I have this thing where when I am desperately sick, I get severe chills. So, Saturday night my gf, my daughter & and I are sitting and watching Disney/Pixar’s Brave, and we proceed to bed about 8:15. I can do nothing but fall into bed and shiver. I am freezing. Not 10 minutes later, I realize that there are 5 blankets on top of me and I still shivered for hours. Eventually I drank some Nyquil and my fever broke about midnight when I realized how many blankets I had on me and that I was sweating like a mad man! My gf spent the whole night next to me making sure I got better. After my fever broke and I woke up, she discovered we don’t have mint tea, lemon, or honey in our house to which she replied, “You guys conquered the whole world without lemon or honey!” The next morning she threatened me with her Croatian grandmother’s cure for illness by rubbing me down with vinegar and garlic. We bought some peppermint tea instead.

So now I am downstairs feeling better, and, you guessed it, my gf is upstairs resting her burgeoning soar throat. But we have had some amazing moments together. Last night we went to see Silver Lining Playbook—our first actual date-movie ever after 2 years of being together!—it was great, btw. We Skyped with her parents last week, and made meals together. She had her very first PB&J ever and LOVED IT! And I got to see my gf and my daughter interact. That was fun. Of course I was incapacitated, but I noticed my gf’s caring manner.

So, we shall see how Chicago fares. I shall pack an umbrella, honey, lemon, and tissues! No garlic…

The Sublime Object of Ideology, by Slavoj Žižek

The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Žižek

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I cannot write to the impact that Slavoj Žižek’s The Sublime Object of Ideology has had upon Lacanian Psychoanalyis or Marxist Criticism. I cannot even lie enough to tell you, dear reader, that I understood the majority of this text. But I do know that of what I understood, I thoroughly enjoyed and gathered not only a new perception of the world, but the terminology with which to envision it.

Before remarking that Žižek’s writing is “____” or that Žižek’s interpretation of the Lacanian “____” is “_____,” let me state why I read this book, and why someone should read this book. I’ll begin with the latter: I cannot imagine a reason for someone to read this book. Unless, said person is interested in Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Stalinism, a general critique of the Postmodern, etc. But, these are highly individualized and specialized reasons. I read this for one of those reasons: I knew this was a seminal work, and I like Žižek’s writing. I find him quite entertaining, and I appreciate what many criticize about Žižek: namely, his blend of good ol’ Socialist humor adjacent to Marxist/Lacanian theory.

But, on with the show. For a number of years now, quite before I even knew of Žižek, I have been approaching individuals with this notion: there is no such thing as choice. Now, I don’t go saying this willy-nilly to everyone; no. Gosh, no! I only reserve it for those who I wish to engage in a bit of an intellectual battle with, i.e. someone who can, perhaps, change my mind or, better yet, harden my thought. You can work this notion from the consumerist angle of limited selection, or the lovely Leninist paraphrase, “freedom, but for whom and for what!” or any others to fit your sparring partner. But what you really want them to realize is that even what they say to me has been determined. Even me saying “there is no choice” is determined by a mix of my experiences, memory, journeys, gender, class, race, language, nationalism, heredity, and so on, and so on. But, I am totally okay with that.

You see, they (my straw men) fight to hold on to this banal notion of “individuality” being made up of “choices”—I had coffee this morning because I decided to; not because of my environment, my internal make up, my bank account, my access to coffee, the development of coffee as a commodity, etc. And when you present the absurd aphorism that “there is no choice,” the first response is fear. Go ahead, try it on the first person you meet. I’ll wait…

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

IF, a big IF, you can get past this initial fear of the loss of morality, freedom, ability, talent—not to mention the Protestant virtue of the individual—etc., then you must counter their fear. They must know that in the absence of choice, or “free will” for you old school philosophers, we still retain our individuality. There is no one like you. And there is no one like me. (Even an imitation is just that: an imitation of the thing. Even if I am an imitation, I am still this original imitation that is occurring now. God save Postmodernism). Even the hypothetical identical-twin-sci-fi-crap renders individuality a truism. Because no one can occupy your space or your time. Even if they did, the slightest deviance (say, a misplaced hair or an unbuttoned shirt collar) would alter any similarities. (And even those things would not be “choices”).

So, to make the theory of “choice,” one simply must isolate an incident. Then—and this is important, which is why I used an em-dash—the incident, once severed from any prior beginnings or futile continuation, is immediately rendered moral. AND: “There are no moral phenomenon at all, but only moral interpretations of phenomena.” (Agreed, I wouldn’t acquiesce to someone who quotes Nietzsche either.) So, let’s try this:

“the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice–he must choose what is already given to him“. Furthermore, “The point is that he is never actually in a position to choose: he is always treated as if he had already chosen“. Finally, “we must stress that there is nothing ‘totalitarian’ about it. The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject”. (Žižek 186, original italics)

I feel quite vindicated in my initial philosophical challenge. And the thing is that there are a handful of other chapters and sub-chapters that made total sense to me! Totally. Like: pieces of “How Did Marx invent the Symptom?,” “the subject presumed to…” on page 210, or “Positing the presuppositions” on page 244. (The rest of the text consisting of Lacanian hieroglyphics that I hope to someday render in to perfect psychoanalytic crop circles that eventually reveal, revive and revel in the Real, the Symptom, the Imaginary, and das Ding all in one foul grand gesture in which the proletariat will finally come to total consciousness, amass in the nearest city and stare blankly, longingly at the sky waiting for Lacan to appear in some great 1960s Télévision set floating overhead. Perhaps I’ve said too much… Oder: Vielleicht, ich habe zu viel gesagt).

I think the difficulty of this text lies in the thickness of it; no, no, not the page number; um, the density; yeah, that’s it: density. So, I’ll keep it on my shelf for inefficient perusal; the proverbial “wait a second, I gotta find this quote!”. I can discuss a mere five pages of this text for hours; or, for that matter, write an annoyingly long book review on one sub-chapter. But I only write this stuff for me. And, luckily, you, dear reader, have no choice.

My read shelf:

Reading is Fun(Duh)Mental: natürlich!

I’m doing my darnedest not to make this a blog about being a parent, but sometimes, you gotta think out loud…

She doesn’t like kindergarten. At six years old, I don’t blame her. I did not like school until I was 25. (And now I teach at one! Ha!) It turns out that her reading skills are below average—again, it’s not necessarily easy to handle when you have a collected eight bookshelves in your home and a M.A. in Literature. And her friends are reading already, so they are moving ahead of her and receive special access to the “purple” folder—a folder that apparently contains special words and privileges for the more advanced readers. So, tonight we slowly read Skip Along—a book my mom learned to read with when she was young. It’s good—you know, “Go, Alice, go” type of stuff. I like it. And then before bed, and the nightly reading, I asked her to grab a book of my shelf and bring it to me.

Diary: A Novel, by Chuck Palahniuk. Not a good start, but she grabbed it hesitantly. In other words, while glancing at me for approval/permission. She brought it over and we skimmed through the many pages. She put it back on the shelf—in it’s alphabetic spot, as I requested. Then she grabbed Haunted, by the same author. “Sheesh,” I thought, “pick Orwell or something.” Nope. Next she grabbed Great Shark Hunt, by Hunter S. Thompson. Possibly cause it’s hardcover and ginormous. Possibly due to her disdain for Richard Nixon. I don’t know. Then, Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. “One of my favorites,” I remarked. She is amazed when I told her I read the whole thing. Each time I flipped through the pages, making sure to note to her the 380, 400, or 282 page length of each book. Then she grabbed part four of Joseph Frank’s biography of Dostoevsky—hefty reading. We noted the 600 pages, and I read to her about Fyodor’s trip to Baden-Baden with his then wife.

I closed the book and she remarked, “That must be like 500 words!” I smiled and replied, “Well, there about 500 words on these two pages. And there are 600 pages.” She looked at me as though an abacus made exclusively of super-bouncy balls was bouncing back and forth, back and forth in her head. I told her that each author is explaining an idea. That they needed to communicate something to everyone and anyone that they could. And because we can all read, we can understand that idea. Then I told her that she will learn to read. All of us did. I did. Mommy did. Even Grandma Jo did. And she will too, someday. Then I told her she may even write a book this big—still holding Franks’ 600-page biography. Her eyes widened and she remarked, “Maybe it will be like 100 pages! Then the book would be this big!” She motioned with her arms outstretched as far as she could.

I know everything will be fine. At least it is an empathetic struggle. You see, I’m learning (re-learning) German right now. And it’s often a struggle. Whenever my daughter trips on a word while reading Skip Along, I think of that word’s German equivalent. Most of the time I cannot recall it. Sometimes, I want to say out loud, “Gehen, Alice, gehen!” And I know that my problem with learning German is practice. Just like her issue with reading. It shouldn’t be thought of as a struggle, or a standard measurement to which she/I needs to be assessed, or some cool folder that makes us feel worse about our reading. It’s practice. Practice, along with the basic importance of why we read: Verbindung.