Michael Jackson and Karl Marx

The big news story of yesterday and today was not, of course, the revelation that the United States is supplying weapons to maintain the political instability of Somalia. It was not the United States congress' treatment of the upcoming -- and possibly quite momentous -- climate change bill. It was not the frightening suggestion from China that the U.S. dollar should be replaced as the currency of international trade. No, the highlight of the last two days was the death of a single man, Michael Joseph Jackson.

As is often the case with the death of big-name celebrities, Jackson's passing has prompted massive outbursts of mourning, from people of all walks of life. Some weep openly; others are merely tinged with sadness. Some simply see Jackson's death as the closing of an era -- a road marker of nostalgia. Importantly, all these patterns of grief are linked by an underlying structure of emotion; that is, all mourners feel the loss of Michael Jackson. The reaction is fundamentally affective.

Of course, the presence of emotion at the threshold of a person's death is not strange; rather, the absence emotion would be unusual. An emotional response to the death of Jackson the person, then, makes perfect sense. However, for the vast majority of Jackson mourners, M.J. did not actually exist as a person. They did not know him personally. They did not know what he was like before becoming the King of Pop, and they did not know how becoming the King changed him. They did not know the person of Michael Jackson. All their knowledge of Jackson was and is mediated through consumables -- music, television, etc. They did not know Michael Jackson the person, but they do know Michael Jackson the product. This is why the mourning for Michael Jackson is so curious. Mourners react appropriately, as if mourning a person, but the actual object of their mourning is not a person, but a thing.

For Karl Marx, one of the major problems of capitalism is that it disconnects the worker from that which they produce; the worker has no personal stake in what they are creating and producing. This leads to a sense of meaninglessness, as one must labor to survive, but the available avenues of labor are not fulfilling. Sure, you can scrape by, but is it really living if you feel your work -- and life -- is meaningless?

Obviously, if this sort of questioning was widespread, it would cause massive social instability -- a very bad thing from the perspective of those in power, the bourgeoisie (the class of people who own the means of production). One can't have people constantly questioning the meaning and validity of their work; they would eventually get to a point where they simply stopped working. But how to infuse their lives with meaning? How to make them believe that their existence -- and their work -- is worthwhile? The bourgeoisie answer is, according to Marx, to convince the masses that commodities -- objects (not necessarily material) which can be bought and sold for money -- are the key to happiness. If you believe that buying a new car will make you happy, you will work hard and stay in your place until you earn enough money to buy that car. Of course, the car doesn't really make you happy, so you set your sights on something else you can buy. Marx calls this commodity fetishism -- a strange system in which we value commodities to the point that we think they can give fulfillment, even to the point that we react to them as if they were more than commodities.

Thus, Michael Jackson's death is a particularly interesting case of Marx's conception of commodity fetish; the commodity of Michael Jackson is being treated as if is more than a commodity, as if it possesses some intrinsic magical or spiritual value. This thing -- that is, the sum of all the purchasable and consumable Michael Jackson-ness (music, music videos, tabloid articles, concerts, etc) -- is treated with the same reverence as a person.

People today aren't mourning the loss of Michael Jackson; they are mourning the loss of a commodity, a commodity with which they have entrusted varying portions of their life's meaning. With this fetishism in mind then, the emotional reaction makes a bit more sense. If the commodity is believed to bestow some level of meaning, and the commodity is lost, then mourning the loss of the commodity is the equivalent of mourning the loss of that particular portion of meaning. And then, as icing on the cake, we make this whole business sound rational by saying that we're mourning a person, rather than a thing.

The irony is, of course, that the object of mourning -- Michael Jackson the commodity -- isn't dead.

He lives eternally in our iPods.



Oh, and if you don't have an iPod yet, go buy one. It'll make you happy and give your life a sense of fulfillment.

Thoughts on Possessions

You know, it's interesting that this immense economic panic is hitting America just as I am packing all my belongings into boxes for a move to Portland. Even as fear creeps across our nation and my own thoughts turn to my financial outlook over the next few years, the very act of packing presents a sort of moral slap to the face.

Let me elaborate. So far I have packed:

- Two boxes of books
- One box of various electronics (game systems, sound recording equipment, stuff for my laptop, etc)
- One large box of kitchen stuff (glasses, mugs, pots, pans, spatulas, etc)
- One box of school supplies and financial records
- Three other boxes of various items

Eight boxes. And I haven't even packed clothes yet. Oh, and I didn't mention my guitars, or my longboard, or my bed, or my dresser, or my bookshelf, or my TV table, or my card table, or my folding chairs.

I'm 19 years old, single, without dependents (in fact, I am a financial dependent). And I posses more stuff than many entire families do. This begs the question: Do I really need any of this?

The obvious answer is "No". In fact, I don't even need a tenth of it all.

About once a year for the last couple of years, I've tried to make a point of purging my possessions -- of giving away or getting rid of the things that I don't use, the things that I have just to have, the clothes I own but never wear. But even with such an effort, the focus is always on me. What don't I wear? What don't I need? I may be giving, but my giving is dictated by my own conception of my "needs". The effort to escape greed is ultimately ruled by selfishness.

That's why the coming economic trouble -- even if it frightens me a little -- excites me at the same time. Here is a priceless opportunity, an opportunity to stretch the limits of my comfort zone, to redefine my "needs". It is an opportunity to revive the heart of my halfhearted attempts at generosity. They say you haven't really given anything unless it hurts. Here is the real test: Can I still give when I feel I have nothing left to give away? Can I move outside of my American heritage of conspicuous consumption and embrace a lifestyle that is not about "making it" or "success" but instead focuses on what I can contribute to those around me, and those around the world? Can I give up the pursuit of myself for the sake of others?

These questions seem abstract right now, but if things continue as they are, the economy may soon turn these intangible questions into very concrete day-to-day decisions. I ask myself, honestly, if I think I will change -- if I think I can handle the challenge of being generous in the midst of changing definitions of need.

Honestly, I don't think I'm up to it.

But God, I want to be.

Book Review: What We Say Goes, by Noam Chomsky

What We Say Goes is a collection of interviews with America's leading public intellectual, the equally celebrated and reviled Noam Chomsky. In it, Chomsky touches briefly on a variety of political topics, from Israel/Palestine to Latin America to contemporary American democratic action. Since the book is essentially an organized transcript of various conversations, the text is never dry or overburdened with obtuse terms; in fact, reading What We Say Goes is just about as quick and easy as listening to a radio interview. The strength of the book, however, lies in its extensive index of sources, which allows the reader to follow up on many of Chomsky's necessarily simplified explanations in ways that a mere audio recording would hinder. What We Say Goes is an excellent introduction to Chomsky's political thought, as well as a gateway (due to its index of sources) to more advanced work in the field of international relations.

What We Say Goes at Amazon.com

A Brief Defense of the Postmodern, Part Two

When considering the postmodern, it is important to keep in mind that it focuses on the effects of an idea, not the inherent truth (or lack of it) of the idea. A potent example of this is the concept of race. Scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as "race". There is no genetic evidence for the categorization of people into racial groups. In fact, if you compare the DNA of a two white Swedes and a black Rwandan, it is more likely that each Swede will have more DNA in common with the Rwandan than they do with each other. This is because most human genetic variation can be traced back to African ancestors, so the gene pool in central Africa is far more diverse than, for example, Sweden. In rough theory then, you could recreate Swedes from Rwandans, but not vice versa. Race is an entirely arbitrary category, with no scientific or biological foundation, and yet it is an important factor in America today. Twenty-five percent of black males in the U.S. are incarcerated – not because of some biological inferiority, but because of a constructed social reality. For generations, the dominant power structure has (and continues to) view blacks as inherently inferior, and this belief, while completely false, has had very real, very tangible ramifications for millions of Americans. Individuals (and even larger systems) do not act upon what the truth is, but on what they believe the truth to be.

Obviously, there is some foundation of reality. No matter how completely one believes that one can fly a plane through a mountain, the plane will crash. Such a belief does not affect the physical outcome, but it does affect the actions of the pilot. If the pilot really believes he can fly through the mountain, he will try – despite all the evidence to the contrary. This is what the postmodern emphasizes – that events do not always make sense or proceed in a logical manner.

Within this framework, faith in logic breaks down. Well-reasoned arguments cannot be trusted, since it is known that humans will believe things whether there is evidence for them or not. Thus, within realm of the postmodern, the ability to convince and to argue moves away from a reliance on logic to a reliance on stylistic form. Arguments become less about sound reasoning and more about presenting the argument in an appealing light (TV commercials, anyone?). Therefore, I present my pro-postmodern argument within the traditional, reasoned – and explicitly modern – framework of the systematic essay. You, as the reader, are familiar with this form, and a part of you wants to legitimate what I am saying just because I am presenting my argument in a reasoned form. You may ultimately reject my argument, but I have already convinced you that it is worth considering – all with power of form.

Such an emphasis on form is, admittedly, both liberating and restricting. It is liberating in the sense that it allows the exploration of certain subjects -- such as emotion and spirituality – that are beyond the reach of science. A novel is now as legitimate and as practical as a research paper; in fact, they are now one and the same. Form is restricting, however, for the same reason it is liberating. Allowing for multiple interpretations means that the certainty necessary for scientific and technological advance is lost. Thus, there are distinct benefits for the embrace of both the modern and the postmodern.

And yet, once one becomes aware that there is a choice between the two, the very act of choosing acknowledges that the individual is actively creating and interpreting their own reality – which can only be done in the realm of the postmodern.

So strangely, once you acknowledge the postmodern, even if only to argue against it, you are forced embrace it.

A Brief Defense of the Postmodern, Part One

Let me preface this by noting that I do understand that there is no set definition of "postmodern" or "postmodernity" -- though, for the uninitiated, it important to note that the former usually refers to a system of knowing and/or scholarship, etc, while the latter refers to a distinct historical period that may or may not have already come and gone. My intent, however, is not to offer any solid definition upon which my communication is grounded. Instead, I wish to expound on some vague principles. But if the reader must be grounded in some sense, a suitably unrestricting clarification would be that I approach the postmodern as a general way of thinking that is a distinct reaction to the claims of the modern. The tension between the postmodern and the modern must not be forgotten or ignored, as this nebulous tension is the very Archimedean point from which the postmodern is oriented.

I was raised in moderately conservative evangelical Christian circles, and as such I am very familiar with many standard arguments decrying the evil of postmodernity. Chief among these complaints was that the postmodern supposedly claims that there is no absolute truth -- which, as gleeful thinkers pointed out, is an absolute statement within itself, and therefore self-contradicting and a fallacy. They are, of course, completely correct in their reasoning. However, such a standard refutation unfortunately falls victim to the utilization of a straw man argument, and as such fails to look at the true nature of postmodern claims.

The postmodern does not deny absolute truth. Such a denial is clearly folly. What the postmodern does deny is the idea that truth is always the most influential aspect of human existence. The postmodern realizes that there is absolute, immutable truth, but it also realizes that truth is always interpreted. It therefore looks not to absolutes as the origins of human thought and action, but to the systems of interpretation. In other words, the postmodern recognizes that a mountain is not just important because it is a mountain, but because you interpret the actual physical mass to be a mountain.

Consider this example: Gravity is inescapable. It affects nearly every aspect of human life. The very fact that we are held down to the earth has dramatically influenced human history -- humanity has certainly not built cities floating in the sky! And yet, one man, Sir Isaac Newton, is credited with the "discovery" of gravity. Newton did not invent gravity, nor did he fully explain it. He did not grasp it in its entirety, but still he set his incomplete understanding of this force, this immutable truth, into words. This one man's "discovery" -- interpretation -- opened the way for innumerable scientific advances, and in a very tangible sense helped define technological advances up to the present.

The postmodern does not deny absolute truth any more than it denies gravity. But it posits that truth alone is the not a complete explanation; interpretation of truth must always be considered.

Of Thought

It is impossible to act outside the realm of ideas. In fact, it is impossible to be outside the realm of ideas. We say that someone acts without thinking; this is possible. But even the most thoughtless and absentminded action operates within the scope of cognition. We may not understand why the action was performed, but we necessarily understand that it was performed. If we can think about something, even at a most abstract level, it operates within the realm of ideas due to the very fact we can think about it.

Ideas, then, are the ultimate threshold. To abstract is to reach the boundaries of human experience, perhaps even existence. This is what science can never – and scientists only recently – understand: Ideas, no matter their origin or integrity or dignity, are the source of all human activity.

When a certain thought is first brought into being by an individual, it cannot be undone. What they have birthed cannot be killed. It is impossible to imagine that the thing does not exist anymore, because to imagine such a thing requires that you think about not thinking the thought. The absence of an idea necessitates its existence. Ideas are immortal.

And since they are immortal, all existent ideas have the possibility of influencing any particular action. They may not be a direct influence, but their very existence exerts a certain influence – in essence, because they do not directly influence, they gain an alternative power. Because there could be multiple motives for a crime, we must consider them all before finding the correct one, but the very act of considering has already altered our interpretation of the case. Because there is more than one brand of automobile, we must – if only in the back of our minds – consider the differences between a Ford and a Toyota, even if the automobile we want to focus upon is a Ford.

The academic in the ivory tower (and his brother, the mystic on the mountaintop) may not seem utilitarian. The angry cognition of a frustrated five-year old may not seem important. But any pursuit of knowledge, any exploration of ideas, any voyage into thought has real-world consequences. There is no such thing as isolation. In the great avalanche of cause and effect, ideas are always the trigger.

Of Deceit

What is art?

Fundamentally, art is -- as it has been said -- a lie. Art is deceit. When we look upon some painting, whether it be of the cubist or trompe-l'oeil school, we do not really believe that the painting is what it portrays. We do not mistake a photograph of a car for an actual car, or the Mona Lisa for an actual woman. The Mona Lisa is a representation of the woman -- a representation of something real. It is this aspect of representation that makes art necessarily dishonest.

This dishonesty, however, is not limited to traditional "art". Representations of any sort fall into this category. From the Mona Lisa to totem poles to grocery lists to Hamlet to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to a conversation between friends... All are symbols. All are attempts to express. (We call those expressions that are particularly skillful beautiful, but that is a much more subjective field of inquiry.)

Still, representation's intrinsic nature of deceit imbues it with a special characteristic: The deceit can be utilized for communication. In essence, one can "mean" one thing by "saying" another. We know representations are not actually the things they depict, but in many ways the lie of art is the closest we can come to much of reality. By acknowledging the limits of the lie, we can tell stories that never actually took place, yet, when heard, still raise important questions and dilemmas that we would encounter had the story been from our own lives.

We can dance the throes of grief.

We can write the fate of nations.

We can paint the face of God.