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American Psycho

August 7, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, life as we know it, reviews / No Comments

American PsychoAmerican Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Too many reviews seem to judge a work based on whether it is true or not. Taken literally, this story is ridiculous. Taken metaphorically, it may be truer. But truth is pretty irrelevant. What matters more to a story is how it allows to navigate a new world… and from that new world understand our current one.

This book is disturbing. Horrific. In a way, it’s meant to shock, disgust, titillate. So in that sense it is a shallow story. What makes the story unshallow is that you realize in the end that all the characters, even the women, are predators. They may not kill, but the dismantling of women into sex objects where the narrator uses the bodies of women for his own designs (against their will) and then takes from them everything (he debases them, to put it lightly) is a major part of the critique. In fact it seems to be the most outlandish direction of the novel. But it’s not. What is most disturbing is the overdetermined emphasis on superficiality. Name brands, images, looks, having a good time. Women are part of the furniture, part of decorum. Everything in this world is simply going out to eat, seeing and being seen. There is no future here, there is only the repetitious, nausea of endless drive to consume (murder, rape, debase) and then do it over and over again. Everything becomes a simulation, a dream, to follow the violence of capitalist consumption so does Bateman carry on violent consumption.

In a very strange way though, Ellis takes some of the easy way out. He shows women as sex objects by presenting them as sex objects. He shows us the horror of rape by presenting rape. He shows us superficiality by pushing on us the superficiality of the worlds we navigate. The disjointed dialogue, the inability of the characters to feel or understand one another. Ellis could have shown this to us in a variety of ways but instead chooses to do so with many winks and nudges. Hey, isn’t it horrible that this attractive woman is being mistreated? Lets mistreat her in the text by describing her untimely demise. The debasement of women though, is okay, because it’s not anyones fault but this despicable Bateman fellow.

Additionally, the inability to maintain coherent subjectivity, arguably the most interesting parts of the story seem only to be best played at the end, when Ellis ends the story just when the language and narrative break up seem to be getting the most interesting.

I admit. I was colored by the movie. I expected an ambiguous ending, one where it didn’t happen and it did happen. There is none of that. There is only the beginning of an interesting disarray and then the story ends, as if it can’t get any worse. Ellis took the entire 400 pages to get us to the font of what this is and then leaves us there, as if the indictment was enough, he doesn’t want to tell us what any of it means. Perhaps he doesn’t know what it means either. Perhaps he has no idea what to make of this, he’s just trying to entertain us.

I don’t think he only wants to entertain. I think he wants to illuminate us. If that’s so, he did a nasty job of it. He took way too long to get to this point, as if he blew his load way too soon and decided to cover it up by ending on a few statements from the narrator. The narrator’s decay at the end is never brought to full bloom, he is never allowed to completely fall apart.

That is a weakness. It’s a powerful tale (now that you’ve gotten us with the debasement of beautiful women, of yuppie self indulgence and confusing narrative) but so what? Are we to expect that Bateman is now the new boogey man? That he is going to continue on and on forever? Bateman is an unreliable narrator. I can’t help but think that Ellis did a poor job framing the entire story; that even with an unreliable narrator, Ellis could have found a truer beginning that is an opening and thus a greater finish one that closes off the opening. Instead we have a dinner party that goes nowhere but annoy and a lunch whose conversation is completely vacuous.

Sure feels like a cheap shot at yuppies (no doubt a story about even vacuous people shouldn’t be vacuous) with a lot of empty entertainment (as rape and snuff fantasies). Lord knows yuppies can take a cheap shot, but only if you don’t already think they are capable of being much more.

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The Archaeology of Knowledge

August 7, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, manifesto, reviews, Theory / No Comments

The Archaeology of KnowledgeThe Archaeology of Knowledge by Michel Foucault
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In many ways, this book serves as a pause for Foucault. It’s a mostly incomplete work in the sense that he describes what he has done and what he is going to do. And that’s all. So I guess I am saying this is very much a kind of aesthetics manifesto, or a discipline manifesto.

This book is also extremely influential for cultural criticism, as it highlights an approach to discourse, citing what discourse is and how discourse is to be understood as its own field.

What makes this book annoying, and in my opinion incomplete, is that while Foucault is able to say what he is intending to do and what level of “cut” Foucault is taking to be the object of study, Foucault is still unable to unexplain how or why this occurs or of what benefit it will be. In a real way works like Madness and Civilization and The Order of Things allows Foucault to see a connection of language that is a consistency in its own right, but he is unable to account for how to really understand what this level of slice means or how it fits in.

All he is able to say at this point is, look what this new and strange view of things is. Now that I see it, watch me go forth.

In a way, Foucault studies where he knows best. Discourse. Language. Knowledge that formulates itself and in that formulation shapes itself and its object of study. Where or how or why this happens is beyond Foucault. And that is kind of annoying. This discursive approach is a calibration to its own (in)consistencies, seemingly for its own sake. The Order of Things while more mysterious is far more ambitious that this work, which in a way, is a backwards step for Foucault to re-orient his approaches.

I suppose that in its time, this was cutting edge. This book was a major influence. Now it feels like staring at shadows.

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Being and Time

August 7, 2015 / posted in dialectics, images of being-human, reviews, Theory, Universal non-all / No Comments

Being and Time (Contemporary Continental Philosophy)Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Society in general demands that the truth of our being come from others. Our cessation given our individuality demands the truth of our being come from our self. It is these two tensions that inform the work of early Heidigger which presents an impasse for Heidigger. he is unable to resolve these two tensions.

Middle period Heidigger returns to Kant’s critique of practical reason in an attempt to find the root of freedom in our will. That given pure practical reason — the law of our being proceeds from a rational moral core, from which our freedom can be recognized as a real. If we had no rational moral center, our actions would forever be characterized by environmental contingencies and we would have no way to recognize our free will.

It is then Heidigger’s mistake to assume that our rational moral core, the truth of our being, our authenticity, be determined as a conflation of statehood and individuality. That the alignment of both is the ideal state of authenticity. This difficulty comes back to being and time when Heidigger mistakes the temporality of being with historicity. This is why Kant avoided empirical answers; that environmental contingency will always color the takeaway of rationality; that empirical reason will distort pure reason in as much as pragmatic reason (induction) can never be proved given that the future is always presented as a foreclosure of possibility; ie, out of a bag of unknown colored marbles, my taking 5 black marbles may just be a fluke. With empirical reasoning I can always be fooled by randomness.

We shouldn’t necessarily spend too much time critiquing Heidigger’s mistake of picking Hitlerian Nazism as authenticity. Standard critiques aside, as Zizek points out, despite the obscenity of the statement, Hitler’s actions do not go far enough. Hitler’s actions are reactionary. Despite attempt at genocide and his deploring bourgeois German complacency history has shown us that Hitler’s role in power was to keep as much of this bourgeois complacency the same; that the mechanizations of socialism under Hitler changed as little as possible, proving that Hitlers ideas could never have moved the German people to realize any other logic, other than that which he preached against.

The main flaw with Heidigger’s procedure is simply that Heidigger does not understand that the determination of ones resolution of being isn’t only found with the threat of death. but that a resolution of being to determine who and what we are is always a struggle given the instability of language. Heiddiger’s assumption that language is stable presents, in the Lacanian sense, a psychotic world where being is left trapped as a foreclosed possibility. Heidigger’s assumption of the stability of language leads to his annoying twists of worlds to be as literal as possible, beating on language’s door as if words have any hidden truth that can be eeked out through literalness alone. Like Heidigger’s assumption that history is a rational trace of being, something that can be mined for the truth of one’s self, his mistake of temporality for history reduces the temporal process of self realization into an impossible stance.

Thus on the one hand, we have veiling, and on the other hand unveiling. This (un)veiling is a reflection of his own ideological assumption that there being comes and goes, that the metaphysics of presence only attains its fullness when language and dasein coincide (authenticity). It would have been better perhaps, if Heidigger was able to understand the fullness of dasien in daily life as a localized distortion in history rather than the fulfillment of history. His quasi-dialectical assumption of (un)veiling is proof that this distortion lies within the presence of being itself, something that struggles within the confines of itself rather than within the confines of they-self. in terms of Lacan, Zizek is correct to say that the gap isn’t as Heidigger assumed, between mitdasein and dasein but within dasein itself. This also carries forth that there is also a constituent gap in mitdasein itself, that language is not complete, that the demands of the other (statehood, and so on) are never authentic (consistent or complete).

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On the Shortness of Life

August 5, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, manifesto, reviews, Theory / No Comments

On the Shortness of LifeOn the Shortness of Life by Seneca
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seneca was a very influential thinker. One of the early romans he was also the teacher of Nero. As a stoic, one sees that they approached life reasonably, taking the aesthetic of rationality derived from their Greek heritage seriously. They made that mode their way of being.

There are no lofty concepts here. Only an attempt to exercise being without ego, life without excess, keeping ones feet on the ground at all times. Through examples from history and some personal history, (even on writing to his mother about his own state ordered suicide) Seneca orients us to live not out of fear, want self satisfaction but out of being what we are; a spot on change to go forth and be the best person we can, no more no less.

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The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

August 5, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, reviews / No Comments

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness IndustryThe Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ronson makes a strong case for leadership being psychopathic. In a sense the test and the way society is; have the same root. Both the psychopath test is about achieving certain metrics, measuring personality orientation. Society in our rationalist contemporary way, is about achieving goals, which are often defined in terms of metrics rather than irrelevant reactions, like feelings or ideals like humanity. So it makes sense that those of us who are able to concentrate on a narrow portion of sociality in order to achieve (any arbitrary thing) would be likely to miss the part of a human that makes our attention/understanding in a situation less rational.

Ronson takes a very around about way to discovering and saying what he wants to say. He seems like a contrarian as well, always asking questions and trying to see things from the other angle. Although he is nervous, he still tries to get to the root of things. He highlights several important angles; that the test’s threshold is arbitrary; that the way people label things (esp other people) creates injustices, and that ultimately the experts can be very correct about things but also very wrong when contexts change. We all make this up as we go along, hiding behind the moniker of “science” as we do it. Tracing the history of an idea is one way to undermine it, to see it as being often un-necessary, that the accidents of history could have turned out another way.

In a sense, this book is about tracing madness and civilization all over again, but from a less discourse oriented perspective and more from a journey of unraveling a particular idea that has hit on us in a random sort of way. In the process we get an amusing, human oriented story that educates us about what psychopaths are, and how the concept has been developed by psychologists — and because of that presentation we are also left unable to really understand what to do with this concept. While there are some people who are partially so, no one is really totally so. Like all labels, this is a matter of degrees of grey.

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Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism

July 29, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, life as we know it, reviews, Universal non-all / No Comments

Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and AutismLife, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism by Ron Suskind
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At first I was a little dubious about the topic. The book starts off slowly but with the sure guidance of Ron Suskind’s writing. The story is positive, triumphant. It doesn’t necessarily highlight how great Disney is, but it does give us an interesting peak as to what family is about; and how good family supports itself and is able raising children in an environment that fosters their growth. What is of interest is how the public’s perception of autism has changed to better facilitate autistic inclusion, and yet still has room for improvement.

What’s of interest here isn’t the neurotypical/autistic as a real tragedy, but more about how that divide ignores the fact that all of us function differently. Normalcy is the expectation that all of us are able to function adequately to each other. And we are; but with exceptions. What is of great profound interest is that an autistic boy is able to use Disney as a social lattice to map his interaction with his family and then with the outside world. All of us use stories and cliches to guide our interaction/expectation with the outside world. Some of us just are more able to ground our behavior on a moment to moment guide. We need less structure to foster growth, but we all still need structure. I think the conception of normalcy in some way hides this structure because this structure is expected. With autism that structure is inadequate. We need some other way of allowing for growth.

Part of growth today requires that we are able to create a smooth rationality to realize things forwards and backwards. Not all people can do this to the same degree, of course. With autism, reasoning works only within a certain configuration. This story is about a family that was able reach their son by allowing that configuration to map outwards and envelope them all.

I used to dislike Disney to a great degree. I found the narrow confides of their socialization to be unacceptable. Restraining. To a great degree I still do. I’m not saying this book has helped change my mind about what (sub)cultures and social rigidity can do/impose on people, but I think we can see that there are many modes of reasoning and none of them are invalid although not all of them are socially acceptable.

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Runaways Deluxe, Vol. 3

July 29, 2015 / posted in art, images of being-human, reviews / No Comments

Runaways Deluxe, Vol. 3Runaways Deluxe, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This volume had a much more cohesive sense as to what this group was about, and what they are doing. Although it left certain ties to be unresolved. As with comic books, this may happen, never to be resolved. Unfortunate because I would have liked the story to be resolved, although we are seeing a point here in which this series has become part of the comic book machine, always to have revelation after revelation with character after character being yanked around, killed or twisted around without any real change. The characters are aware of some of this, and yet still defined by the haunted past of the parents. In this volume, I see how the characters fade into the relief of the normal comic book super hero with shady past, to forever be held in immanence between where they would like to be and where they are running away from.

I think this will be the last I read of this series, as by the end of this volume we see that they have gained a sense of place. The necessity of comic book series is to be lodged in that place, forever unable to move from that point of non-place. It does get tiresome to be stuck in transition, although there have been some long standing series that have comfortably crafted a sense for themselves; such as Spiderman, Batman and Superman. I suppose that kind of placement takes some time though.

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The Name of the Rose

July 29, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, manifesto, reviews / No Comments

The Name of the RoseThe Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As always, Umberto Eco is impeccable in the detailed twist of his own imagination and intellectual prowess. This tale starts off from a place of reason, in the cloister of an abby in Italy, the centerpiece of calmness in the medieval world, and ends with the full force of unreason pouring down. A mystery that is solved and revealed to be nothing more than a non-mystery in the sense of an evil master, and the chaos that ensues when we strive too deeply for what we desire.

The happenings are mysterious and too great to be recounted in a way. Towards the end, you may wonder what is going to become, how can Eco wrap this up? He does so in a way that is satisfying too. The folly of wisdom and the necessary strength of faith. Not in ourselves but as a reference to anchor us.

In a way, we still fight over the nominalisms of various movements. We take too seriously the differences we make of each other and ignore the fact that the center changes with each movement. Very poetic ending, Eco.

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Hannibal Lecter, My Father

July 29, 2015 / posted in art, images of being-human, reviews, Theory / No Comments

Hannibal Lecter, My FatherHannibal Lecter, My Father by Kathy Acker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I agree with much of the other commentators. The interview at the beginning was well worth the read. The selection of other works afterwards appear to be padding to exemplify the interview and also by giving us more of Acker’s work, but of works that may be less known.

Still, her methodology and philosophy come together in her interview and presents itself as a force. At first a critique, and then with the yet to be Pussy: King of the Pirates the making of a new mythology. Acker did manage to mature as a writer, not to destroy and create but to end with creating.

In some ways, I wish I read this first, before reading some of her other works, especially when she was churning them out in a way, the same book over and over at some point in the middle there.

It is telling to see how as a mere writer, she was able to provoke so much “bad touch” in the areas of culture, when government and legislation were involved. We cannot hide from that which we do not understand only because there is so much more we do not, cannot understand.

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Essentials of Processing Assessment

July 29, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, reviews, Theory / No Comments

Essentials of Processing AssessmentEssentials of Processing Assessment by Milton J. Dehn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There’s not much to say too much about a textbook. Or in this case, a guide to the various kinds of assessments of human potential/capability.

It’s interesting that the rationality of psychology in the area of assessment would echo itself in terms of tests. While Dehn is careful to say that these tests don’t mean anything in themselves — that capability is a relative term — what we see here is the fragmentation of assessment as the ability to recount, move and process material difference. Different kinds of processing is tested differently, as though this is all that a human being is. The coherency of intelligence per se, may be found in fluid intelligence or g but these are admittedly difficult to test. We are more comfortable with mechanical tasks in terms of accuracy and speed as those are easily rated and compared.

The overall picture though, of an assessor as scientist, is not to judge but to try to reconstruct from the fragmented volley of tests the individuals entire capability. As Dehn pushes this philosophy of a unified human mind, he also remarks that often it’s not necessary to envelope a subject with the endless number of tests to be taken. We should only test when we think there is a need to help a subject do better in a subject matter or with social issues.

While this is directly applicable to school, this ends up being entirely applicable to our human condition. We want everyone to be calibrated properly, to excel. A nation of healthy minds to do what we need to do. This is not a bad ideal but its negative quality, that of degrading what cannot be tested, what cannot be captured, of ignoring potentials that are not easily capturable through rout rationalisation is not a good thing.

This is not a heavily critical book, but as such, it reveals the undercurrent of its own judgement by trying to be as faithful to what we need processing assessment for, and how we ought to utilize it for the good of the subject.

Of course, we should not shrink from doing what we think is best, of doing what we can for others, just because we might hurt them in ways that we cannot yet understand.

All in all, an interesting reflection of how justifiable fallibilism is possible given the way a field of knowledge wraps itself in terms of how it knows what it knows through its own immanent metrics.

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