The audacity of the credit card companies and banks holding defaulted loans is sometimes beyond belief. The list of outrageous acts and statements made by banks defies mere greed and elevates itself to bombastic arrogance and the borrower must be defended.

The nerve of some banks and credit card companies to refuse to speak with a third party representative on behalf of a defaulted borrower, especially when the representative carries a Power of Attorney and has significant experience, helpful to both the client and the bank. Yet this issue pops up from time to time.

The reason is simple. The Banks and Credit Card companies have figured out that the borrower is allot easier to intimidate into making payments they cannot afford and accepting settlements that are beyond reasonable. Experienced debt workout specialists, with Power of Attorney are simply going to get a much better deal, as they know what works and what does not work, they are not easily intimidated, and have great expertise on how to arrange a reasonable fair workout resolution that is in the best interest of the borrower and within acceptable parameters for the bank/credit card company.

This does not work for the Banks /Credit Card Companies as they are more interested in beating you up and taking every last dollar you may or may not have.

Recently we have experienced such absurdity, the bank refusing to deal with us as third party representatives with Power of Attorney on behalf of one of our clients. Shame on them, how blatantly absurd. Surely anyone can understand the basic requirements of allowing one to be represented by an expert consultant with Power of Attorney. Of what possible business is it of the bank whoever represents the borrower? How dare they butt in to the borrower’s right to be represented? How over reaching.

In fact it is my belief that this is a serious breach of a banks fiduciary responsibility to the borrower and could result in a lender liability suit.

Thus, I have hired counsel, a legal expert in bank law, who agrees completely with me that the bank has no right to interfere with a clients right to be represented. I am starting at the lowest level, asking counsel to prepare an all encompassing review of the law in memo form with Federal Law citations.

The conclusion will be obvious. Such actions are an absolute breach of the borrower’s rights and could result in an action against the bank.

If this does not remove the barrier, I will consider filing a suit against the bank and if necessary litigating the issue. Surely the borrower has some unalienable rights that the banks cannot take away from them and I believe this is one of them.

If others reading this blog has confronted this issue and needs such back up support, please email me and we can discuss my sharing this memo with you.

We cannot allow the banks to walk all over our rights, you may be in default but this is a business matter which must be resolved with a business conclusion, not by intimidation and a prevention of appropriate representation.

I will report further as the issues are explored.

Trauma is an event too shocking to be experienced. If it is to be incorporated into the self at all, a traumatic event must be experienced as representation and repetition.

While I try to shrug off all this Neo-liberalism this, and Neo-liberalism that, as other blogsters are using fancy acronyms for Neo-liberalism as if they are busy making entries in the Merck manual, this one passage of qualifications and analogies from the Neo-liberal hating Levi Bryant I find interesting (yes, he has equated Neo-liberalism with Nazism recently):

While I do not disagree with Rowan William’s thesis that the picture of the human as an intrinsically self-seeking creature constitutes a false anthropology, I have noticed that there is a tendency to treat the core of neo-liberal capitalist ideology as consisting almost entirely of this false anthropology. What is missing in this conception of neo-liberal ideology is the legal and normative framework that underlies this way of relating to the world and others. On the one hand, in order for neo-liberal capitalist ideology to get off the ground it requires what what might be called a “pure subject” or a “subject-without-qualities”, not unlike Descartes’ cogito or Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception. At the heart of neo-liberal capitalist ideology (NLCI) is not so much a subject pursuing self-interest, as a legal subject functioning as the substrate of property, commercial obligations and debts, and divorced from social context and conditions of production.

One can see right away from the bolded material that analogies abound. Levi objects to an anthropological view being read as the core of Neo-liberalism, because there is a framework (legal normative) in which (?) a substrate operates (legal subject) onto which various formal economic relations adhere.  What Levi denies, in something beyond a point of emphasis, is that the “heart” or the “core” of Neo-liberalism is the self-interested subject. Instead it is a mere formalism of “subject” and its laws. To put it briefly, it’s not the self-seeking, self-interested desiring-subject, it’s the structured-subject (legally and philosophically) that is the troublesome kernel of Neo-liberalism. Let’s leave aside the kind of rhetorical slippage between philosophical “subject” and legal “subject” here, is it really correct to say that THIS is the core/heart of Neoliberalism (whatever that is)?

From my perspective the attempt to minimize the anthropological myth, the idea that human beings are essentially and naturally selfish beings, and instead draw a different heart/core made of some kind of structuralization, misses something. The entire legal and normative framework, we would say, came into existence and into justification in the very strong context of the belief that human beings are self-interested beings, essentially. The entire formalized drive towards privatization is made in response to this picture of humanity, it is naturalized within it. While I’m not sure who is saying that Neo-liberalism is nothing but this myth – David Graeber does make a vivid anthropological argument that “even” exchange is something that is done between enemies, suggesting that economic models of abstract equivalencies are necessarily mythologically self-interested ones - I am also unsure how much of the “framework” and its formalized subject could operate without it. In fact, as Spinoza knew just at the cusp of the Cartesian subject, one cannot cut off the conception of the cogito from the idea of its separate faculties of Willing and Judgment. In order undo the abstract subject, willing and freedom have to be radicalized. The desiring subject, how it desires, and what it desires for is integral to the very isolation of the said “substrate” of the subject in the first place. In fact, all of this stems to a great degree from Representational conceptions of knowledge and related questions of autonomy, freedom and desire.

I don’t really know what good finding the heart or the core of Neoliberalism does, other than create a kind of rhetorical force to steady the aim of our critique. But I do doubt that our narratives about how humans naturally (or if one is in Lacanian moods, structurally) desire are not every bit as important as the laws and norms that are created to regulate and shape those desires. I personally find the Neo-liberalism stigma mark to be something of a canard, designed by those that think “radical break”, getting “outside”, is the only way towards justice, but in any case, philosophies of “lack” (including much of what flows from Hegel, and those that hunger after essentialized “nothingness” or “absence” or “object”) have a great deal to do with foreclosing the possibilities of thinking about the “subject”, or better, the self beyond its normative product-buying, object-chasing behavior. One  also has to ask, as we pre-occupy ourselves with “objects” as essential and constitutive relations, are we not already caught up in economies (of desire, of real capital) which presuppose the “lack” which drives them, sinking deeper into our mental concrete the assumptions which secure the relations we would wish to change or improve upon.

Eva Illouz, in Cold Intimacies asks us to consider how technology changes notions of the body and of emotions.  One of the forced rearticulations occurs in the realm of the presentation of self.  As Illouz notes, when technology (specifically in the form of the Internet) mediates relationships we are simultaneously displaying our innermost private selves in an extremely public way.  The subjects of our own experiences and author of what we choose to reveal yet increasingly vulnerable to the scrutiny and objectification of others.

New technology enables individuals to do background checks on potential partners, looking into financial status, marriage and divorce histories, and criminal records (see article below).  One of the reasons given to support this technology is the claim that people do not always accurately represent themselves.  While that is certainly true in today’s world of online dating (and has always been true), we need to think about both the consequences of such technology and interrogate whether any representation of self on the Internet is “true.”

The beauty of online self-representation is that individuals can misrepresent themselves, they can omit their negative traits, use catch phrases that may not describe them but garner attention and seem more likely to attract a mate, and can even doctor photos.  Granted that this kind of misrepresentation is distinct from lying about one’s marital status but we do need to take seriously the notion that the presentation of self is always a partial truth.

The background check technology only serves to exacerbate the blurring of public and private, our simultaneous subject-object position, and allows the Internet (and consumerism) to mediate intimate relations.  As Illouz notes, “the Internet radicalizes the demand that one find for oneself the best (economic and psychological) bargain” (Ilouz 2007, 86).

CNN “Is Your Date a ‘Stud’ or a ‘Dud?’ Ask Your Phone”

Paramore- Misery Business

I’m in the business of misery,
Let’s take it from the top.
She’s got a body like an hourglass that’s ticking like a clock.
It’s a matter of time before we all run out,
When I thought he was mine she caught him by the mouth.

I waited eight long months,
She finally set him free.
I told him I can’t lie he was the only one for me.
Two weeks and we had caught on fire,
She’s got it out for me,
But I wear the biggest smile.

[Chorus:]
Whoa, I never meant to brag
But, I got him where I want him now.
Whoa, it was never my intention to brag
To steal it all away from you now.
But god does it feel so good,
Cause I got him where I want him now.
And if you could then you know you would.

Cause god it just feels so…
It just feels so good.

Second chances they don’t ever matter, people never change.
Once a whore you’re nothing more, I’m sorry, that’ll never change.
And about forgiveness, we’re both supposed to have exchanged.
I’m sorry honey, but I’m passing up, now look this way.
Well there’s a million other girls who do it just like you.
Looking as innocent as possible to get to who,
They want and what they like it’s easy if you do it right.
Well I refuse, I refuse, I refuse!

Whoa, I never meant to brag
But, I got him where I want him now.
Whoa, it was never my intention to brag
To steal it all away from you now.
But god does it feel so good,
Cause I got him where I want him right now.
And if you could then you know you would.

Cause god it just feels so…
It just feels so good.

I watched his wildest dreams come true
Not one of them involving you
Just watch my wildest dreams come true
Not one of them involving.

Whoa, I never meant to brag, but I got him where I want him now.

Whoa, I never meant to brag
But, I got him where I want him now.
Whoa, it was never my intention to brag
To steal it all away from you now.
But god does it feel so good,
Cause I got him where I want him now.
And if you could then you know you would.

Cause god it just feels so…
It just feels so good.

Fall Out Boy- Thnks Fr Th Mmrs

I’m gonna make you bend and break
(It sends you to me without wait)
Say a prayer but let the good times roll
In case God doesn’t show
(Let the good times roll, let the good times roll)
And I want these words to make things right
But it’s the wrongs that make the words come to life
“Who does he think he is?”
If that’s the worst you got
Better put your fingers back to the keys

One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
even though they weren’t so great
“He tastes like you only sweeter”
One night, yeah, and one more time
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories
“He, he tastes like you only sweeter”

Been looking forward to the future
But my eyesight is going bad
And this crystal ball
It’s always cloudy except for
When you look into the past (look into the past)
One night stand (one night stand off)

One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
even though they weren’t so great
“He tastes like you only sweeter”
One night, yeah, and one more time
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories
“He, he tastes like you only sweeter”

They say I only think in the form of crunching numbers
In hotel rooms collecting page six lovers
Get me out of my mind and get you out of those clothes
I’m a liner away from getting you into the mood, whoa

One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
even though they weren’t so great
“He tastes like you only sweeter”
One night, yeah, and one more time
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories
“He, he tastes like you only sweeter”

One night and one more time (One more night, one more time)
Thanks for the memories
even though they weren’t so great
“He tastes like you only sweeter”
One night, yeah, and one more time (One more night, one more time)
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories
“He, he tastes like you only sweeter”

To give my work some (more) context I will now look at works of artist who have done or attempted similar things to myself.

Robert Gober: when making my fountain mask I was told about the artist Robert Gober who works with objects that look like readymades but are actually handmade. He even alludes to Duchamp in his work three urinals. Maybe he’s referencing the holy trinity in a triptych like manner. I hope not, cos thats kinda the idea I’m leading into. I think the main reason I was told about the artist was due to whether I need to finish my mask off to the extremes of precision. Couldn’t find a picture of the three urinals but I did find one of this installation.

Fiona Jardine: Need to look up this artist more, but what I’ve seen is rather good. Rather.

I think its about representation, but it may also be about wall drawings, can’t remember what was the point of me looking at her right now, but I’m sure I will.

Période Handke qui se prolonge. Déception des carnets, mais pas de ces entretiens. Très portés sur la géographie au début.

Dans le livre, les lieux, pour le lecteur, sont toujours autres, et plus vastes, et aussi plus fructueux, que si on l’emmène là en lui disant, comme lors d’un pèlerinage ou un voyage guidé, voici l’arbre ou … cela me gêne. Chacun, quand il a lu quelque chose, en a l’image en soi, et il se réjouit de cette image. Mais le modèle est toujours décevant, et plutôt importun, aussi. – Ou alors le lecteur trouve lui-même, il se met en quête et part à la recherche.

Peter HANDKE dans Espaces intermédiaires

Only 15.9% of councillors in London are Black or Asian. In parliament only 15 MPs are black or Asian – 13 of those are Labour MPs and 2 are Conservatives. Despite winning a post war record of 63 seats, the Liberal Democrats have no black or Asian MPs.

Labour’s team for the local elections spent a day at the Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre in Stonebridge to discuss policies and campaigning for 2010. Whilst a detailed manifesto has yet to be finalised, there was unanimous agreement that the next Labour administration will scrap the £25.00 charge for bulky refuse collection, which has led to an epidemic of dumping and introduce fairer care charges for elderly and disabled residents.

Labour has now selected candidates for all of the wards in Brent Central, two of the three Brent wards in Hampstead & Kilburn and several of the wards in Brent North. Most of the candidates attended the Bridge Park ‘Awayday’ where they were joined by local MPs Dawn Butler and Barry Gardiner.

Labour Leader, Councillor Ann John, said:

“Our team for 2010 is younger, more representative and more talented than at any time since I first came on the council nearly 20 years ago. 59% of Brent’s population are of Asian, African or African-Caribbean origin and so are 59% of our candidates. We will be the first party in the history of Brent to put forward an ethnic majority team of candidates for an ethnic majority borough. That team of candidates is committed to improve the environment, give a fair deal to elderly and disabled residents and the best possible start for our young people with additional school places and new sports facilities”.

A photograph of some of Labour’s candidates is below.



Jackie has been Britain’s biggest selling teen magazine for over ten years. Since it first appeared in 1964 its sales have risen from an initial average of 350,000 to 605,974 in 1976. Jackie is both a magazine and the ‘ideal’ girl. The short snappy name carries a string of connotations of British, fashionable, modern and cute. It also sums up all the ‘desired’ qualities the reader is supposedly seeking. The purpose of Jackie is to introduce the girl to adolescence, outlining its landmarks and characteristics in detail and stressing problematic areas. They also promote a feminine culture for their readers. They define ‘the woman’s world,’ spanning every stage from early childhood to old age, the exact nature of the woman’s role is spelt out in detail, according to her age and status.

The consensual totality of feminine adolescence means that ‘all girls want to know how a catch a boy, lose weight, look their best and be able to cook.’ The girl is channelled towards traditional female (passive) behaviour. This concept would not apply to modern society of 2009, but however it was acceptable to most around the time in which Jackie was on sale. Entering ‘the world of Jackie’ means suspending interest in the real world of school, family or work, allowing the girl to almost confide in Jackie via the Cathy and Claire page (which seeks to overcome isolation). Girls may have thought they had no one to talk to, therefore this page allowed the girl to confide confidentially to a persona of a big sister; evoking a kind of female solidarity, as well as a sense of mutual understanding and sympathy.

Although a large proportion of the magazine sees gender stereotypes being reinforced, there are times in which this does not apply. For example, a girl whose relationship was continually broken off by her indecisive boyfriend contacted Jackie to seek advice. She was told to ‘become more independent and thus more confident’.   The girls in question are encouraged by Jackie to have some ‘pride’, not to make fools of themselves and thereby become more attractive to boys simply by not being too available. Throughout the article it does seem that boys are at the centre of the problems and advice in Jackie magazine. Therefore girls are told about the ‘ideal boyfriend’, how to ‘keep their boy’ and that make up is their ‘full-time job’. All of which are worthless and materialistic.

Boys also give advice to girls in the magazine about how they should act and dress. ‘Most boyfriends hate loads of make-up they think it goes with a loud, brassy personality and are usually frightened off by a painted face. They prefer natural looks and subtle make-up’. From the age of 14 young girls are being told that their life revolves around males, and everything that they do is to satisfy males. Why should girls act how boys want them to?

Kerrang!

• Last 7 editions have been male dominataed- Negative
• 16/09/09- Paramore- Female lead singer in foreground- Positive
• http://www2.kerrang.com/2009/09/kerrang_magazine_16092009.html

Spare Rib

• Its purpose, as described in its editorial, was to investigate and present alternatives to the traditional gender roles for women of virgin, wife or mother.- Positive
• Title ironic- from the belief that Eve was created from Adam’s spare rib- Positive
• W.H Smith refused to sell it- Negative
• Anti-Capitalist- Positive
• Carried articles criticising the advertising industry and its encouragement of a materialistic consumer-culture.  An early issue of the magazine for example contains an article criticising the attempts of kitchen firms to persuade women to perpetually update their homes. Positive

Guerrilla Girls

• The Guerrilla Girls invented a unique combination of content, text, and snappy graphics that present feminist viewpoints in a humorous manner
• They chose the name “guerrilla” because they “wanted to play with the fear of guerrilla warfare, to make people afraid of who [they] might be and where [they] might strike next

Since we are planning to make it big internationally we are hoping to get representation in different countries, starting with the United States. According to wikipedia there are about four or five big players in the line of talent agencies in the States.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
International Creative Management (ICM)
United Talent Agency (UTA)
William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (WME Entertainment)

The question is; how do we get their attention? Do I have to send out my “Burt Reynolds”-picture again, or is there anybody out there who knows an agent who would be perfect for us?

Conservative MP for Southend West David Amess has accused the government of making “ornaments” of MPs, and “not particularly attractive ornaments at that.”

During the debate on the Queen’s Speech yesterday, Mr Amess attacked the Government for taking power away from MPs in the House of Commons.

Speaking in response to the proposal for a constitutional reform bill, Mr Amess said: “We have a Government who are purporting to rebuild trust in our democracy, but they are precisely the same Government who have brought trust in our system to an historic low.

“It is as if they have not been in power for the past 12 years. Our country has undoubtedly become too centralised and, under this Government, Parliament’s power has been severely weakened.

“It would have been good to have a proposal in the Gracious Speech to ditch the quangos as a priority and return accountability to Ministers. Hon. Members are fooling themselves if they do not consider why fewer and fewer people are interested in Parliament.

“It is because Members of Parliament are now ornaments, and not particularly attractive ornaments at that. We’ve lost so much power. Ministers have lost all their powers and given it away to the 790 quangos that we have at the moment, which employ just over 92,500 staff, with total expenditure at nearly £43 billion.

“A tenth of public spending goes on those quangos. Indeed, the figure is probably even higher. There probably are 1,000 quangos, depending on how we define them, and they cost the taxpayer probably as much as £60 billion.

“Sixty-eight quango bosses earn more than the Prime Minister, yet quangos face neither the ballot box nor systematic inspection. They are governed by boards that are totally unaccountable to the electorate.”

Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat MP for Northavon, interjected: “The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about the role of quangos, but he will recall from “Yes Minister” and the like in the 1980s, which were based on inside knowledge, that people could become the chair of the “Whitefish Authority”, or whatever it was.

“Does he not accept that quangoisation has been happening for decades and is not just a new Labour phenomenon?”

Mr Amess replied: “I am sure that there is an element of truth in what the hon. Gentleman says, but the role of quangos has grown out of control, to the point where this House is greatly diminished.

“Councillors have accountability, which is provided by direct elections every four years. Quangos have no such accountability. The law requires council decision-making meetings to be open to the public, with papers available to the press and public in advance.

“There is no requirement on many of the quangos for such scrutiny, yet they have much more power in real terms. There is no doubt that quangos have systematically taken power away from local communities and locally elected representatives.

“I would have hoped that we could have a measure on that in the Gracious Speech. For people to have trust in our democracy, they need to be assured that elected representatives, whether national or local, have the power to act on their behalf, but we do not. Decision making and taxpayers’ money should not be monopolised by a growing group of unelected bureaucrats.”

La Dévotion Marianne

This is not exactly how we were taught to think of Mary, and it goes against the meek mild self-effacing Mary of approximately 2000 years of western visual and devotional culture, particularly the last 200 or so years of holy card kitsch. But there is an in-your-face redistributive justice revolutionary ecstatic Mary in the text for the reading. Hidden in plain sight.

I have heard a LOT of preaching about Mary’s fear, acquiescence, willingness to set her own comfort etc. aside to accept the will of God. Not a lot about “He will be great,” or “called the Son of the Most High” or “the throne of his ancestor David” (the Great King, lest we forget) or “reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.” How do we miss that the promise of the annunciation is that Mary has a chance to be an instrumental, pivotal figure in a liberation drama with greatness and immortality as the payoff?

Her response is not oh, I’m not worthy. It’s more like — so, what’s the plan, and aren’t you forgetting something? And the “nothing will be impossible with God” line is what immediately precedes — should we suppose this is the deal-clincher? — her “OK, count me in” declaration.

Then, later in the chapter, the Magnificat contains lines that could be flying from the barricades:

Text Luke 1:46b-55 (NRSV):
My soul¹ magnifies the Lord,²
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor
on the lowliness of his servant.³
Surely, from now on
all generations will call me blessed;⁴
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud
in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful
from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.⁵
He has helped his servant Israel⁶
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

Commentary:
¹ Greek is psyche, but would like to think we could think here the echoing Hebrew nephesh, less floaty body-transcendent mentation and more juicy embodied spirit.

² Greek kyrion presumably subbing for YHWH, for which I follow Johanna Bos in arguing is best translated as the Holy God or the Holy One. (See “Who Is The King of Glory” at Wimminwise for a little more on this.) Could add “the God of Israel,” recalling that “Israel” from Gen. 32 could be read “he strives [together] with God” or “God strives.” So it is arguably not wrong to think of this as a name-constellation that points to human-divine solidarity in strife.

³ Greek epiblepw for NRSV’s “looked with favor;” RSV has “regarded;” other candidates are “looked at, gazed upon, looked into the depths, considered, cared about” the tapeinwsin or “humiliation” of his servant. We probably ought to read this in remembrance of Ex. 3:7, where YHWH observes the misery of the people in Egypt and has known their sufferings. So, not so much to be read as God commending the intrinsic virtue of humility, as God noticing and taking action with respect to the social dislocation signified in humiliation.

⁴ My dictionary suggests “blessed” usually occurs in the sense of “privileged recipient of divine favor.” Two women in scripture before Mary are called blessed: Jael (Judges 4) and Judith. Both are assassins, of military oppressors. There’s a precedent for you.

⁵ Reversal and redistribution. No more “when the revolution comes,” this is it . . .

⁶ Initially the servant was Mary, but now, it’s Israel, for which Mary has become an emblem. But Israel is emblematic, in turn, of the people who strive [together] with God. [Should we note the literary parallels here with Isaiah 42, 44, 49, etc., which, while easy to be misconstrued, seem to be pretty strongly alluded to in this speech? "Strength with his arm"? Isaiah 51:9? Coincidence? Probably not. Exile, return, pattern, meaning.]

So, my whole mental picture of Mary has changed — she is looking a lot more like a union maid, a partisan, a member of the resistance, a revolutionary, a Zapatista . . . she is raising a fist, with “the hand that cradles the rock” . . . she means business. It puts Marian devotion in a whole new light.

219363     การแทนความรู้     Knowledge Representation

การแทนความรู้และการหาเหตุผล หลักการพื้นฐานในการแทนความรู้ ข้อได้เปรียบและข้อจํ ากัดของระบบฐานความรู้แบบกฎเกณฑ์ แบบเฟรมและแบบตรรกศาสตร์ การคํ านวณเชิงเพรดิเคต โครงข่ายความหมาย การแทนความรู้โดยใช้ภววิทยา การแทนความรู้แบบคลุมเครือ

(Knowledge representation and its reasoning tasks, basic principle of knowledge representation, advantage and limitations of rule-based systems, frame-based systems and logic-based systems; predicate calculus; semantic networks; ontology of knowledge representation; fuzzy representation.)

(219363 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

For the next few months I shall be working with a new agency Mitchell Maas McLennan. If you have any enquiries about availibility then please contact Melissa or Stephanie on 020-8301 8745 or agency@mmm2000.co.uk

This is usually the point where I would include a nice graphic…

On the subjects of consumerism, nostalgia, videos/splinters, and mid-century furniture; check out this series of classic adverts from michigan-based furniture manufacturer Herman Miller.

(thanks to swissmiss via grassrootsmodern)

In case you wonder why I am not posting much now, it is because I am trying to come up with an interesting idea for my next project and the workshop next week. I can tell you right now that it will have to do with defacement of portraits in Maya art and architecture. This project will work along these theoretical lines:

Defaced people on a ballcourt panel from Cancuen

The human subject emerges from relations of exteriority and from parts to whole. In the empiricist philosophy of David Hume, Deleuze (1991) finds an alternative to the linguisticality of experience that has been part of the Kantian and Hegelian traditions. Based on Deleuze’s reading of Hume, DeLanda argues that subjective experience is formed from distinct and separable sense impressions. Ideas derived from these impressions are direct replicas of the impressions without any representational link (as a contrast to Kant’s faculties of representation). The ideas only have a lower intensity than the impressions (cf. Bergson 2004). Therefore, each kind of impression (visual, aural, passion) has a singular individuality and existence. They are heterogeneous and cannot be reduced to one another (DeLanda 2006, 48-50). Emotions and senses like sight and hearing are depicted in the expressive record in the Maya area (Houston et al. 2006). This data can be used to understand how these impressions were understood from the ideas formed by the impressions.

The subject pursues a goal through the principle of utility and establishes relations among ideas through the principle of association. The association of ideas gives the singular impressions and ideas a unity, an assemblage. Our habits of grouping ideas and comparing them transform a population of individual ideas into an emergent whole (DeLanda 2006). Habitual repetition creates a stable identity for the assemblage and habits sustain the association of ideas (cf. Turner 1994). The human being is habitual and creative at the same time.

On the personal scale, the main effect of language is to form beliefs. To believe in the ideas brings them closer to the impressions. However, it is often the intensity of a belief that drives social action, rather than its linguistic proposition and semantic content (DeLanda 2006, 48-52). Thus, human agents did not study, analyze and contemplate the monumental iconography into the cosmological and symbolic details described by various Mayanists (cf. Normark 2008a). Monumental iconography rather worked like Gell’s (1998) sense of index that directly affected the viewer. It was the intensity of the beliefs associated with the impressions of viewing the iconography that created an intense ritual arena. The iconography was also a way for a signifying regime to direct the ideas into a homogeneous form, and these ideas would then affect their components (the impressions) as well.  

The subject emerges from subpersonal components and it interacts with other subjects through short-lived assemblages called encounters, which consists of the co-presence of human bodies and materialities (DeLanda 2006, 52-53). Sartre’s (1991) concept of serial action, of how people form temporary series in relation to materialities, is a complementary perspective in the study of social encounters (Fahlander 2003; Normark 2007). Locations where series of people formed and encounters occurred can be found in abundance in the archaeological record: house lots, causeways, plazas, rooms, water reservoirs, sinkholes, caves, quarries, etc. (Normark 2006a). Encounters can also be seen in the iconography (Reents-Budet 2001), detected through the epigraphic record mentioning nobility visiting or interacting with other nobility (Schele and Mathews 1991; Stuart 1999), and the location where this occurred (Stuart and Houston 1994).

An encounter is territorialized by behaviors that define the borders, such as grinding corn in a house lot (Hutson 2004), quarrying stone (Abrams 1994), and the meeting between nobles from different sites (Martin and Grube 2000). Embarrassment and dishonor can be seen as deterritorializing processes in an encounter. We have examples of this in the iconography of defeated captives (Houston 2001; Martin 2001; Schele and Freidel 1990; Schele and Miller 1986). The same event is also a territorializing process for the victorious ruler and the organization of which the ruler was part. Such lethal encounters were eventful and allowed the participants an expressive possibility to display character, such as courage and integrity (DeLanda 2006, 55; Normark 2007). Defacement is an effect of similar encounters.

Below is the conclusion to the draft of the chapter section I began in my immediately preceding post.

NOTE TO READERS:  For the next month and one-half, other priorities will be taking me away from blogging at this site.  Accordingly this will be my last post until early next year.  I hope to put up my next post on January 4, 2010.

* * * * *

There is something voyeuristic about the fascination with which those who occupy a position of spectator with regard to the traumas of others look upon photographs of the suffering involved.  Susan Sontag reflects on that voyeurism in Regarding the Pain of Others (New York:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003), her return after a quarter-century to the concerns she first addressed in On Photography, originally published in 1977 (by the same publisher).  It is worth noting that in Regarding the Pain of Others she raises the issue of voyeurism in relation to photographs of trauma by first contrasting such photographic images to other visual images that, no matter how graphic and “realistic,” involve imaginary, and in that sense fictional or “invented,” events.  Thus, on page 42 she writes:

An invented horror can be quite overwhelming.  (I, for one, find it difficult to look at Titian’s great painting of the flaying of Marsyas, or indeed at any picture of this subject.)  But there is shame as well as shock in looking at the close-up of a real horror.  Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it—say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken [as in an example she has earlier discussed]—or those who could learn from it.  The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be.

Near the end of her book, Sontag returns to the same issue of the moral inappropriateness and illegitimacy of trafficking in photographic images of trauma, adding another dimension to her critique.  In addition to opening the door to voyeuristic abuses, the proliferation of such images serves, even aside from the intentions of those involved in its production, the powers at work in the perpetration and perpetuation of trauma inflicted by some upon others.  Thus, against the not uncommon idea that the dissemination of such images on television and in other mass media brings spectators to greater understanding and sympathy for the victims of traumatic abuse, Sontag writes (pages 102-103):

The imaginary priority to the suffering inflicted on others that is granted by images suggests a link between the far-away sufferers—seen close up on the television screen—and the privileged viewer that is simply untrue, that is yet one more mystification of our real relations to power.  So far as we feel sympathy, we feel that we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering.  Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence.  To that extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent—if not at inappropriate response.  To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may—in ways we might prefer not to imagine—be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark.

However, Sontag is not some sort of Luddite, calling for dismantling the engines that proliferate the images of others’ sufferings.  Her view in Regarding the Pain of Others is a carefully crafted, nuanced one in which she even takes issue with her own earlier views, as expressed in On Photography.  It is not simply a matter of replacing the idea that the proliferation of such images creates sympathy with the idea that it deadens sympathy, as she had thought at the time she wrote that earlier book.  Rather, it is a matter of reframing the entire discussion.  Thus, just two pages after the passage cited immediately above, she writes in Regarding the Pain of Others (pages 105-106):  “As much as they create sympathy, I wrote [in On Photography], photographs shrivel sympathy.  Is this true?  I thought it was when I wrote it.  I’m not so sure now.”  Then she reframes the whole issue as follows:

The question turns on a view of the principal medium of the news, television.  An image is drained of its force by the way it is used, where and how often it is seen.  Images shown on television are by definition images of which, sooner or later, one tires.  What looks like callousness has its origins in the instability of attention that television is organized to arouse and to satiate by its surfeit of images.  Image-glut keeps attention light, mobile, relatively indifferent to content.  Image-flow precludes a privileged image.  The whole point of television is that one can switch channels, that it is normal to switch channels, to become restless, bored.  Consumers droop.  They need to be stimulated, jump-started, again and again.  Content is no more than one of these stimulants.  A more reflective engagement with content would require a certain intensity of awareness—just what is weakened by the expectations brought to images disseminated by the media, whose leaching out of content contributes most to the deadening of feeling.

Two pages later, on page 108, she adds:

Since On Photography, many critics have suggested that the excruciations of war—thanks to television—have devolved into a nightly banality.  Flooded with images of the sort that once used to shock and arouse indignation, we are losing the capacity to react.  Compassion, stretched to its limits, is going numb.  So runs the familiar diagnosis.  But what is really being asked for here?  That images of carnage be cut back to, say, once a week?  More generally, that we work toward what I called for in On Photography:  an “ecology of images”?  There isn’t going to be an ecology of images.  No Committee of Guardians is going to ration horror, to keep fresh its ability to shock.  And the horrors themselves are not going to abate.

“Images,” Sontag later (on page 117) recapitulates the view that even she had once espoused, “have been reproached for being a way of watching suffering at a distance, as if,” she importantly and ironically concludes, “there were some other way of watching.”   Then on the next page she continues:

It is felt that there is something morally wrong with the abstract of reality offered by photography; that one has no right to experience the suffering of others at a distance, denuded of its raw power; that we pay too high a human (or moral) price for those hitherto admired qualities of vision [those that once caused the ancient Greeks to heap praise upon vision above all the other senses]—the standing back from the aggressiveness of the world which frees up for observation and for elective attention.

“But,” Sontag replies against such contemporary disparagement of vision, in contrast to the original praise of it by Plato and the other ancient Greeks, “this is only to describe the function of the mind itself.”  Thus, she continues:  “There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking.  To paraphrase several sages:  ‘Nobody can think and hurt someone at the same time.’”

Sontag knows, of course, that there is a perfectly ordinary sense of “thinking” in accordance with which it is all too easy to do just that, “think and hurt someone at the same time.”  In that sense, torture is always a very thoughtful activity:  the torturer must plan ahead and be attentive to what he is doing, to cause the torture victim the maximum of pain, at maximal duration.  In making her remark, however, Sontag is, as it were, thinking of “thinking” in the most highly morally responsive, contemplative sense—the very sense, I might add, that is supposedly at issue in “philosophy.”

In that high sense, a truly thoughtful– “philosophical”—response to “the pain of others” requires precisely the sort of distance that a photograph introduces between the viewer and what is in view in the photographic image.  It is because of the power of photographs to create such necessary distance that, as Judith Butler has recently put it in Frames of War:  When Is Life Grievable? (London and New York:  Verso, 2009, page 96):  “In the last chapter of Regarding the Pain of Others [on page 115], Sontag seeks to counter her earlier critique of photography.  In an emotional, almost exasperated outcry, one that seems quite different from her usual measured rationalism, Sontag remarks:  ‘Let the atrocious images haunt us.’ ”

On the next page, Butler again quotes the same line, calling it “Sontag’s imperative.”   And, in fact, both Sontag’s original discussion and Butler’s later reflections on it serve to show that there is indeed a sort of moral obligation upon those who occupy the position of spectators in relation to the trauma of others–an obligation not to turn away from others’ pain but, instead, precisely to look and see what they have suffered.  Those who, voluntarily or involuntarily, find themselves in such a spectator’s position are ordered, as it were, by the very spectacle they are given to see in such photographs of the pain of others, to continue to “regard” that very pain in those images.  They are obligated, that is, to hold the pain of others so imaged “in a firm, fixed gaze,” a steady gaze in which, in the etymologically original sense of regard, they “keep guard” over that pain, letting themselves be “haunted” by it, as Sontag insists they should do.

However, Sontag’s own remark, cited above, on page 42 of Regarding the Pain of Others, about her own difficulty in viewing such images as Titian’s painting of the flaying of Marsyas, suggests that, paradoxically, it may well often be in just such “invented” images—such fictions or imaginative constructions—that the imperative to continue to look and see others’ pain speaks most clearly, most imperatively.  That is not only because, as Sontag herself observes in the same passage, beholding the fictional or invented representation can engender in the spectator a pure horror, unadulterated by the shame at one’s potential or actual voyeurism with which “real” or photographic representations tend to mix the horror.  It is also because, as fictions—literally, things made or created—“invented” images carry the message of their own having been made or created as part of their very representational content.  As I argued years ago (in my book The Stream of Thought, New York:  The Philosophical Library, 1984), following Heidegger’s remarks along the same lines in “On the Origin of the Work of Art,” that is one of the crucial ways in which what Sontag calls “invented” images differ from photographs, especially those that count as what we call “snap-shots.”

Significantly, to use Butler’s own prime example for her discussion in “Torture and the Ethics of Photography:  Thinking with Sontag,” the second chapter in Frames of War, the notorious photographs of American torture of Muslim prisoners during the war in Iraq in the prison at Abu Ghraib were just such “snap-shots.”  As Butler’s discussion makes clear, it is only insofar as those photographs have been taken up by others–that is, by those who are other than the original producers and consumers of the photographs (the American guards at Abu Ghraib themselves)–and disemminated “outside the scene of [their] production,” as Butler writes at the end of her chapter on Sontag (page 100), that their “circulation . . . has broken up the mechanism of disavowal, scattering grief and outrage in its wake.”

That is, she argues that it was only when such “outside” circulation occurred that the photographs of torture came to have the power to let us see the very “frame” that otherwise “blinds us to what we see.”  According to Butler, “if there is a critical role for visual culture during times of war it is precisely to thematize the forcible frame, the one that conducts the dehumanizing norm, that restricts what is perceivable and, indeed, what can be.”

That means, however, that considered in the scene of their production and in terms of their representational content–what is actually photographically visible within that same scene—the photographs from Abu Ghraib just do not problematize that “forcible frame” itself.  They presuppose it, rather than calling attention to it, and thereby leave it “out of the picture” altogether.  Only when the photographs are, as it were, forced out of that “forcible frame,” does the fact, manner, and significance of their own production, their own having been made, come “into the picture.”

In contrast, it is in the “invented” visual image—or in the “fiction” in general—of torture and abuse that what is so brought into the image is itself revealed in its own having been made, its own having been invented.  In the fiction, the fictive nature—which is to say the non-“natural”-ness, the artificiality, the “forc-ed”-ness—of what is represented, in the scene of its own production, its own making or invention, is brought to attention.

In sum:  In the face of the fictional representation of trauma inflicted upon others, the spectator is brought face to face with the fic-tion, the pro-duction, of such trauma itself.  The fictional trauma lets us see the fully fictional status of what purports to be an “act of God” in the sense that insurance companies use that expression to get themselves off the hook of liability for a disaster:  The fiction of trauma in the “objective” sense (that is, the fiction “of” trauma in the sense of the fictive, as opposed to photographic, imaging of trauma) lets us see the fiction of trauma in the “subjective” sense (the sense in which trauma itself creates fictions, makes up stories, about itself).

That holds, at least, for trauma perpetrated by some upon others, as the American guards perpetrated trauma upon the prisoners they tortured at Abu Ghraib, or the Nazis perpetrated it upon the Jews.  However, I will begin the next section of this chapter with some reflections suggesting that it holds for all trauma, not just for that in which we can distinguish perpetrators from victims.  I will argue that the internal structure of trauma is such that trauma makes a fiction of itself.

Newell Rubbermaid's corporate self-image

One point the text makes, at least implicitly, is that there is a limit to how far the cultural studies and cultural apparatuses approaches can get on their own. Relations of production matter. They are involved in the determination of the specific content of culture, however much other factors also come into play. Whoever ignores them does so at the peril of terminal irrelevance. Whoever would be rolling up their sleeves and wading into the mess that is our form of life with the thought in mind of lending a hand to the cleaning up best be respecting them.

That’s no solution, but it does seem to be something to keep in mind in thinking about what the territory to be traveled on the way to one will surely look like.

Michel Butor a été un temps professeur de géographie, au début de sa carrière. Pas préparé à enseigner cette matière, il a dû beaucoup apprendre ; et parmi les étudiantes, charmantes, celle qui est devenue sa femme. Il a tiré de cette expérience une partie de la matière retranscrite dans Degrés qui évoque notamment un cours de géographie dans un lycée parisien.

“… Un globe terrestre”
(montrant celui qui s’empoussière sur l’armoire et dont personne ne se sert jamais)
“est une représentation fidèle mais incommode; il est nécessaire d’avoir des cartes, mais, comme il est impossible de faire coïncider le moindre fragment d’une surface plane et d’une sphérique, il y a nécessairement transposition, projection, selon des systèmes divers qui ont tous leurs inconvénients, déforment toujours certains aspects, si bien qu’il faudra toujours choisir, lorsqu’on étudie tel domaine, celui qui s’y rapporte le mieux, et toujours beaucoup se méfier, surtout des cartes qui prétendent représenter l’ensemble de la terre, essayer toujours de garder présent à l’esprit le genre de corrections que l’on doit leur apporter …”.

Michel BUTOR dans Degrés

Dans quelques jours débutera au Sénat la discussion sur la réforme des collectivités territoriales. Ce projet, chacun a pu le constater, suscite de fortes réticences de la part des élus locaux et des parlementaires. En guise de hors-d’œuvre, la perspective de la suppression de la Taxe professionnelle avait d’ailleurs déjà conduit certains sénateurs de la majorité à « entrer en résistance » (sur la signification constitutionnelle de cette rébellion  cf.  http://thierrybarboni.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/mon-doigt-a-ripe/ et surtout la tribune de Gérard Grunberg : http://www.telos-eu.com/fr/article/comment_l_ump_est_devenue_un_parti_d_opposition). Avec ce texte, c’est une véritable levée de boucliers que va devoir affronter le gouvernement tant les sujets de crispations sont nombreux. Parmi ceux-ci, les modalités de création des conseillers territoriaux occupent une place majeure. Après le redécoupage législatif, le gouvernement s’attelle cette fois en effet à la fusion des mandats de conseillers régionaux et généraux, lesquels seront remplacés donc par les conseillers territoriaux.

Au-delà de la création de ce nouveau mandat, c’est surtout le mode d’élection qui est critiqué. Ces nouveaux conseillers seront en effet élus au scrutin majoritaire à un tour pour 80% d’entre eux et par une proportionnelle tronquée pour les 20% restants. Comme on ne saurait suspecter le gouvernement d’avoir, dans un emportement machiavélique, choisi un mode de scrutin qui favoriserait le parti majoritaire, on se contentera simplement de signaler que ce mode de scrutin-ci profitera nécessairement davantage au parti qui a déjà fédéré la droite, quand la gauche est encore substantiellement émiettée.

Autrement dit, le mode d’élection des conseillers territoriaux est bien un problème politique. Mais Guy Carcassonne, dans une tribune dans Libération du 10 novembre, a montré qu’il s’agit également d’un problème juridique : selon un principe fondamental reconnu par les lois de la République, « tout mode de scrutin majoritaire uninominal comporte nécessairement deux tours ». C’est enfin, et ce point est notablement moins évoqué, un problème en termes de représentativité des élus.

Depuis les lois sur la parité, la représentation élective en France a connu un véritablement bouleversement. Il n’est que de voir comment désormais plus aucune élection n’est évoquée sans référence au genre, bien sûr, mais aussi à l’âge voire à l’appartenance ethnique des candidats. Ces changements peinent certes encore à se traduire au niveau national. En revanche, une véritable « révolution silencieuse » s’opère à l’échelon local, et en premier lieu dans les conseils régionaux. L’ouvrage récent de Laurent Godmer, Des élus régionaux à l’image des électeurs ?,[1] offre, à ce titre, un panorama bienvenu de la représentativité des élites locales françaises. Selon cet auteur, la sélection des élites régionales est en effet déterminée par un impératif de représentation, « c’est-à-dire un référentiel structurant le logiciel de sélection des élites politiques fondé sur une logique mimétique de représentation elle-même associée à une forte homogénéisation socioculturelle des élus ». En d’autres termes, il s’agit de donner corps à la vieille idée d’une représentation-miroir des sociétés contemporaines, grâce à une représentation « morphologique » ou « photographique » : les élus sont à l’image du pays.

L’ouvrage permet ainsi de mesurer précisément l’ampleur du bouleversement à l’œuvre. Il en ressort alors que les hémicycles régionaux français connaissent, désormais, un renouvellement substantiel. Ainsi, contrairement à l’impression tenace que les femmes n’occupent pas encore toute la place qui devrait leur être consacrée à l’échelon national, il en va autrement au niveau régional. De même, les « jeunes » sont beaucoup plus présents, accédant même régulièrement à des positions prééminentes (vice-présidence) au sein des conseils régionaux. Enfin, les élus issus des « minorités visibles » disposent enfin d’une représentation conséquente, reconnue et encouragée.

L’auteur montre ainsi que le capital d’éligibilité nécessaire pour accéder aux fonctions d’élu régional s’est profondément recomposé, de telle sorte que ce qui constituait hier un handicap, tend aujourd’hui à devenir une ressource politique déterminante. Ce retournement du stigmate ne s’opère cependant pas ex-nihilo. Il a été rendu possible par une double transformation de l’activité politique. D’une part, la compétition politique est désormais déterminée avant tout par la « domination du savoir » et donc par ceux sensés en disposer, autrement dit, les diplômés. C’est ce que l’auteur appelle « l’épistémocratisation » de la sélection des élus régionaux. A cette évolution s’ajoutent les effets de la professionnalisation politique : embrasser la carrière d’élus suppose un investissement croissant dans la sphère politique, de telle sorte que les nouveaux élus sont des individus qui, de plus en plus souvent, exercent déjà une profession dans ce milieu, le cas typique étant celui des collaborateurs d’élus qui deviennent élus à leur tour.Ces transformations structurelles des mécanismes de sélection des représentants ont entraîné alors une homogénéisation sociale des élites : ouvriers et employés désertent les conseils régionaux, quand les fonctionnaires et les diplômés y occupent une place croissante (les fonctionnaires représentent 50% environ des élus régionaux en 2004).

Ce qui est perdu d’un côté en termes de socio-culturels est ainsi compensé au niveau des profils des nouveaux élus. C’est en effet dans ce cadre que les nouvelles ressources politiques vont prendre toute leur valeur et qu’être femme et/ou jeune et/ou issus d’une minorité ethnique devient un atout. L’échelon régional constitue donc une filière d’accès au mandat pour toute une nouvelle génération politique, génération dont on peut dire qu’elle est (presque) à l’image des Français. Cette pénétration par le bas tarde encore à produire ses effets à l’échelon national. La France a néanmoins largement comblé son retard sur ses voisins en la matière. De ce point de vue, les élections de 2004 ont servi de déclencheur puisqu’elles ont été l’occasion de d’accélérer un processus entamé depuis maintenant près de deux décennies.

Un élément « technique » décisif a cependant permis d’enclencher justement ce processus : le mode de scrutin des régionales. Le scrutin de liste à la proportionnelle possède en effet cet avantage de pouvoir faire apparaître (et élire) sur une liste un ensemble d’individus dont on peut raisonnablement penser qu’ils n’auraient pas eu leur chance dans le cadre d’un scrutin uninominal. On mesure encore à l’occasion de scrutin comme les municipales combien il est plus compliqué pour une femme d’être investie (et élue) qu’un homme, de la même manière qu’il est plus compliqué pour un « jeune » de s’imposer face à une personne « d’âge mûr et expérimentée ». Aussi, il convient de penser la représentativité en lien avec le mode de scrutin qui peut le mieux la rendre effective.

Force est alors de constater que le mode d’élection des conseillers territoriaux, on y revient, risque de ce point de vue de mettre à mal les avancées récentes. On ne peut que s’en inquiéter tant l’évolution en cours est fragile : elle est trop récente encore pour avoir permis à ces nouvelles élites régionales de s’institutionnaliser, de s’enraciner suffisamment. Et le risque est grand, par conséquent, d’observer avec l’élection des conseillers territoriaux, un grand bond en arrière de la représentativité. Certaines élues ne s’y sont d’ailleurs pas trompées, qui ont déjà pointées du doigt les menaces que ce mode de scrutin ferait peser sur la parité. Plus globalement, il s’agirait d’un véritable coup d’arrêt dans la mise en place d’une élite régionale représentative de la diversité de la France. En conséquence, si la réforme des collectivités locales est présentée comme une nécessaire modernisation des collectivités locales, il n’est pas sûr que cela serve la représentativité des futurs conseillers territoriaux !