Mad Men "The Crash": Of Doctors, Mothers, and Lovers

In the episode before "The Crash," Don treats Dr. Rosen's wife, Sylvie, as an object, dictating his desires to her as if she were a common whore. Although Don tends to treat women with less than full respect, this time it seems as though he's gone much further. Sylvie seems to trigger something in him when she says on the phone "I need you and nothing else will do." An innocent enough phrase, but this drives Don crazy, as he tells Sylvie to wait for him, takes her book away, buys her a dress and tells her "you are mine." His possessiveness is very disconcerting and came off as strange to me in the episode.

However, "The Crash" moves toward explaining Don's behavior.

I want to suggest that in this episode we get a glimpse into Don's Freudian 'primal scene', in which Don's virginity is taken away by a whore and then he is subsequently punished for it. The episode does not revolve around a linear plot, but rather an endless interpenetrating series of doctors, mothers, and lovers. Don has difficulty telling them apart.

The series of figures begins with Don being called out of a meeting room to take a call presumably from Dr. Rosen, Sylvie's husband (doctor #1), but we find that the call actually is from Sylvie (lover and, as we shall see, mother). Doctor becomes lover, but Sylvie is calling to chastise Don for smoking cigarettes outside her door at night. She tells Don that she wanted to make him know what it feels like to be on the brink of her husband finding out. Although Sylvie at first finds Don's demands arousing, she breaks it off at the end of the last episode and confirms her decision on the phone with Don.

But Don's secretary saying that Doctor's on the phone, sets off another chain of events. Jim Cutler (or Cutter, I can't remember) says "That's a great idea, Don! I'll call my Doctor (doctor #2) and we'll get everyone fixed up." The viewer is at first confused -- is Cutler sick? No, the doctor, it turns out, Dr. Hecht, gives Don and the other creatives a shot of vitamins and some sort of amphetamine. It remains unclear what exactly the drug is -- and this only contributes to the freedom that the director and writer take with the effects of the drug. Drugs have become increasingly more prevalent in Mad Men as we move from the 50s and early 60s to the late 60s, mirroring the development of the drug culture. Roger, for instance, ends his marriage after a particularly powerful LSD trip administered by none other than Tim Leary. However, this episode pushes the trippiness further than the LSD episode, as it seems to operate in an associational way that was not shown in the LSD episode (limited to an outside perspective of Roger and Jane, the occasional blurring of the camera, and Roger's report that he is at a baseball game when he's really in the bathtub). This makes "The Crash" even more disorienting for the viewer.

The drug is supposed to allow everyone to be more creative for a long period of time so they can work on Chevy. While the other creatives (and the sober Peggy) are rehearsing lines from Alice in Wonderland and coming up with ideas, Don has his own experience. After Sylvie hangs up on him, he coughs and this throws him back to a moment in his childhood when he was told to go sleep in the cellar by the woman (not his mother) who gave him a place to stay. This place, however, is a whorehouse (we found this out in an earlier episode).

Then he goes to take Dr. Hecht's drug -- witnessing the other creatives running around like Mad Men (haha). As Don descends the stairs, he coughs again, and flashes back to a moment when a particular whore decides that he should stay inside rather than the cellar, in her room. He sees a picture of a baby on the mirror and asks "Is that you?" and she says "No," changing the subject, and says "It's a chest cold." I suspect that this may have been a daughter of the whore, whose name is Aimee (mother/doctor, lover, as we shall soon see). As he comes back to the present, he looks at a secretary and asks if they knew each other -- the vision not quite fading. As the camera pulls back, we begin to hear loud typing and noises -- including phones ringing -- then a sudden silence. The pharmakon begins to take effect.

The camera cuts to the creatives where one of them says "The strategy is about some sort of love transaction between a parent and a child involving the greatest gift of all, a Chevy." It seems as though they are thinking about fathers and sons, but we shall soon find out that the episode revolves around another love transaction between mother and son. The creatives rattle off ideas and Peggy hits upon "The child is the father of the man" -- a cliche, but one that also works well with the idea of Freudian primal scenes.

After Peggy's statement, we cut to Don running into Ken Cosgrove. Don says that he has to speak to the Chevy people in the flesh. As Don says this, Ken begins to tap dance. Don asks who taught him that and Ken says "My mother. No, my first girlfriend." -- This statement turns out to be more foreshadowing as Don's 'first girlfriend' can be figured as Aimee, who is also in the position of the mother.

Don then arrives at the creative office asking how's it going (they are repeating lines from Alice in Wonderland). He gives a cryptic and vague speech,

"I know your all feeling the darkness here today. But there's no reason to give in. No matter what you've heard this process will not take years. In my heart, I know we cannot be defeated because there is an answer that will open the door. There is a way around this system. This is a test of our patience and commitment. One great idea can win someone over."

We suspect that there is more going on here than a Chevy advertisement. Even at this point, we might suspect that Don is indirectly speaking of Sylvie (a test of his patience and commitment and the idea that he might be able to use to win her over -- how can he seduce her again). Flashing back, Aimee feeds young Don soup and Don has an epiphany that there was a "soup account" that is the answer to his question (not the question of how to sell Chevy): "I've got it." He goes back to the creatives where Wendy (who? We find that it is a Frank Gleeson -- a man who just died from cancer-- daughter) is doing the I Ching. Don asks Peggy to find the soup account, but someone else had already looked.  Don says to Peggy, again, cryptically, "You'll know when you see it and its gonna crack this thing wide open."

When Don returns to his office (presumably he already returned, but the drug's effect is taking its toll on cinematic time as there is no transition from Friday to Saturday), Wendy is there. She is wearing a stethoscope (doctor #3). When Don asks where she got it, she said it was in one of the offices upstairs (potentially Dr. Rosen's office). She tells him she's there to make him "feel better" and asks if he wants to "get it on." He ignores the question and Wendy listens to his heart, which is silent: "I think its broken." Who broke is heart? Sylvie? Megan? Betty? All the other women? The very first woman? (Aimee?).

At the same time as Don's drama, the creatives are throwing pens at Stan and one gets stuck in his arm. The camera cuts to Don listening to a song through Sylvie's (?) door ("Going out of my head over you/out of my head over you/out of my head . . ."I must think of a  way into your heart"). The song sets Don's project and gives further significance to some of Don's more cryptic speeches earlier in the work: he must find a way to 'get his foot in the door' as Ginzberg will say (more on this later), find an idea that will convince Sylvie to listen to him.

But then it cuts back to Stan and Peggy, who has become doctor #4 ("You have a great bedside manner"). Peggy moves from doctor to lover (Stan kisses her), to mother, as Peggy recalls the pain of her abortion ("I've had loss in my life") to comfort Stan, whose 20 year old cousin has died in Vietnam. Peggy says that you can't dull the pain with drugs and sex.


A musical interlude is called for at this juncture.

--------------------

While all this is going on at the office, Sally has been put in charge for caring for her little brothers in the place of Megan, who is going to audition. She thus plays a kind of "motherly" role (that she is not ready for). Earlier in the episode, we also find hints of Sally's burgeoning sexuality through Betty's comment on Sally's short skirt. We may also remember the episode where Sally has her first period. Sally's transition into a young woman is further suggested by the book she is reading: Rosemary's Baby. The satantic undertones of this book is reinforced by a seemingly meaningless comment by Stan in the creative room earlier who says "I did it! I've got 666 ideas!" The book sets the tone for the sinister scheme about to unfold.

Sally hears a noise outside her bedroom and investigates. A large black woman is rummaging around the house. She says she's her grandmother visiting, claiming that she raised Don (mother (?)). The ensuing scene is awkward, as the viewer is suspicious (like Sally), but also find it plausible that we may learn of yet another twist in Don's past. Alternately, the woman says "Your dad is Donald Draper?" We might think that this woman raised the real Don Draper, whose identity was stolen by Dick Whitman.

But this mother is not a mother (or at least not Don's mother). She robs the house although, fortunately, does not hurt the children.

Meanwhile, Don is searching for the soup advertisement. The advertisement turns out to be an oatmeal advertisement with the words "Because you know what he needs." A mother holds the shoulders of a young boy about to bite into oatmeal. The image of the mother, however, has a beauty mark or a mole on her cheek and this causes Don to flashback once again.

Aimee is doing her makeup, but with a pencil, marks her cheek, in the exact same spot as the woman on the advertisement. She says "do you like this?" Don says, "I do." Aimee begins to seduce Don "You like my bosom." This is clearly Don's first sexual experience.

This dot, this mark, even though it is not 'natural' is the mark that links Aimee to Sylvie, who also has a dot on her cheek. If Don doesn't realize this, the viewer does. We can now begin to guess at why Don treated Sylvie like a whore: she reminds him of his mother/lover ("My mother. No, my first girlfriend" says Ken) Aimee.

After a cut to Grandma Ida, Sally, and Bobby, which increases her and the viewer's suspicion of her motives (Sally calls the police), we cut to Don in his office to perhaps the most significant scene in the entire episode:

Don (reading to himself): "This may be hard to believe, but the history can't be ignored. The history should not be ignored. Look, I don't want to waste your time, but. . ."  (calls for Peggy, resumes reading) "I don't want you to shut this door. Just let me say a few things. You and I both know. . ."

He tells them that he's "got it," showing them the oatmeal advertisement, saying that "it says it all." 

Don: Ok. I've got this great message and it has to do with what holds people together. What is that thing that draws them? It's a history. And it may not even be with that person, but it's. . it's like a. . .well, it's bigger than that.

Peggy: And that makes them buy a car?

Don: If this strategy is successful it's way bigger than a car. It's everything.I keep thinking about the basic principle of advertising. There's entertainment and then you stick the ad in the middle of the entertainment like a little respite. It's a bargain. They're getting the entertainment for free all they have to do is listen to the message. But what if they don't take the bargain at all? What if they're suddenly bored of the entertainment? What if they don't-- what if they turn of the tv? 

Ginzberg: You gotta get your foot in the door. 

Don: Exactly! So, how do I do that? Let's say I get her face to face. How do I capture her imagination? I have a sentence, maybe too. 

Peggy: Who's her? 

Ginzberg: Promise them everything. You know, you're gonna change their life. Your gonna take away their pain. [. . .] Then you hit 'em with the one two punch. What's the answer to all of life's problems? A Chevy. 

Don: No, it's not. 

First, note the slippage between the abstract notion of advertising and shared history (even if its not with that person) and the pronoun "her," which is clearly Sylvie. Is Don planning on telling her this history? Her strange and almost arbitrary connection to his first fuck? We are not sure.

So how do you do it? You become a doctor -- I'm gonna take away all your pain. Don goes home, rehearing what he's going to say to Sylvie: "Don't close the door on me. When in the course of human events. No. . .You haven't heard everything I have to say. Don't shut the door on me."

. . .But these plans are spoiled as he realizes he's been robbed (and that he left the backdoor open). Betty is there and call the city "disgusting." Don  faints. We flashback.

Aimee is charged with robbing/withholding money from selling herself on the street and is kicked out of the whorehouse. Just before she leaves, she tells him "Considering I took that boy's cherry for 5 dollars we'll call it even." Don is then beaten by the woman of the house -- called "filth" "disgusting" "shameful" "You're trash."

Don wakes up in the middle of the night. Briefly talks to Megan, who says "Sally seems so grown up, but she's really still a kid."

Cut to the morning.

Sylvie and Don ride the elevator in almost total silence ("How are you?" says Sylvie, "Busy"). Why, we should ask, has Don changed his mind about Sylvie (has he? Or is he just keeping up appearances?). What is it about the robbery and the flashback that make him realize that they should not be together? Does he realize that he was treating her like a whore? Or is he afraid of getting caught? Perhaps further episodes will shed light. Was it the drugs that cured him of his desire?

But for now, its important to see where this particular episode ends.

He calls Sally, telling her that he left the door open and that she did everything right: "Sally, I left the door open. It was my fault."

What seems to be a relatively straightforward remark becomes incredibly significant when we attach it to the many references to doors in the episode. Ginzberg: "Gotta get your foot in the door" and Don's repeating to Sylvie: "Don't shut the door on me." Its as if his obsession with Sylvie and his obsession with keeping the door open (keeping his options open?) led to the robbery.

Don goes to see Ted to tell him that he can only serve as creative editor rather than come up with advertisements for Chevy. We find that Wendy is Gleason's daughter (and know that Stan fucked her after a failed attempt with Peggy) and Ted chastises Don for the gibberish produced over the weekend: "Chevy is spelled wrong."

The last line of the episode: "I'm sorry Ted, but every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse."

A brilliant clincher to the episode.

But where will they go from here? Has Don's creativity dried up? Or is he directing his creativity toward winning Sylvie back? But if that were the case, why wouldn't he have tried to talk to Sylvie in the elevator? Is that over? Where is Don, and Mad Men, going from here? I will patiently await next week's episode.

On "Writing Studies" and recent projects

"Writing studies," is a somewhat hypothetical discipline (insofar as we still don't see research positions in "writing studies," but rather "new media," "communications," "composition,"  "rhetoric") mentioned in Sid Dobrin's book Postcomposition, as a way to mark a form of disciplinary research apart from "composition," traditionally associated with First Year Writing and 'research' on pedagogical methods. In Dobrin's own words,

Thus, the primary agenda of Postcomposition is to argue for a move
beyond the academic work of composition studies in favor of the revolu-
tionary potential of the intellectual work of writing studies, specifically the
work of writing theory, an endeavor likely best removed from the academic
work of pedagogy and administration." (Postcomposition 24). 

Too often in composition, 'writing' is tied to a subject, usually a student subject. Writing as an expression of that subjectivity or writing as constituting that subjectivity. For Dobrin, 'writing' should be the focus of a 'writing studies' such that the subject cannot be torn from the inscriptional practices themselves. I like to think of this as thinking each inscriptional practice as a performance of a subjectivity, one that can only be described through that particular assemblage of inscriptional practices. That is, "subject," is no longer an expression of a human being or a consciousness, but the particular moment of inscription. The human and nonhuman actants work together to inscribe a 'subject' (if we still even want to preserve that term, so as to preserve a sense of agency). Byron Hawk gets at this through Deleuze and Guattari's ideas of the 'molecular' and the 'molar' in A Counter History of Composition:

"Meaning, purpose, and intention all are molar and separate subject and object, but the desire and the force behind them are molecular and collapse subject and object [. . .] The subject is a molar residual, off to the side, a side effect of desiring-machines, not a single center from which desire is born" (165).

 Raul Sanchez argues in his 2012 article, "Outside the Text: Retheorizing Empiricism and Identity," that the subject is neither an 'effect' nor an origin or something that precedes a moment of inscription:

"Identity names this singularity, which is neither a precursor to the act of writing nor merely its effect. If we no longer say that identity is expressed through writing, but rather that identity names the moment of inscription-the intrusion or emergence into Judith Butler's "grammatical time of the subject" (117)-yet is only available in and after writing as writing's condition of possibility, then we can also say that identity manifests, at once metaphorically and materially, in both the figure and the body of the writing-subject. These claims make it possible to recognize that there is neither an origin story for the "moment" of inscription nor an aporetic limit at which one must hover perpetually. They make it possible to name the act of writing, the moment of inscription, as that which marks a convergence of time, space, and linguistic code at the production of a text. More important, they make it possible-necessary, actually-to use this very convergence to embody, figuratively and empirically, the convergence itself. They make possible the writing-subject as both thing and word, object and concept."

The writing-subject in this sense is an event -- an event that draws together all of the actants, human and nonhuman. As Latour puts it in We have Never Been Modern, "History does something. Each entity is an event" (81). 

Ok, so the writing subject is linked to an act of inscription. Is writing simply any act of inscription? In broad terms, yes, it is. Every event leaves traces -- I would be tempted to say irreversible 'traces'. "Writing" ever since writing scholars' took notice of Jacques Derrida, has been refigured as 'the trace' in general. "Writing" is not necessarily about conscious invention and arrangement of an essay, but writing could be as simple as a mark on a wall or an animal's tracks. 

If this is truly the case, then scholars of "writing studies" are able to study practically anything as writing, as acts of inscription, of traces. My question, however, is what do we get by understanding in terms of 'writing' rather than 'rhetoric'? Are there not rhetorical limitations to the word 'writing'? Although his tone bothers me, I can't shake Ian Bogost's point in Alien Phenomenology that, "writing is only one form of being" (90). Of course, the problem with his statement is how he slips from 'writing' to "language" and then proceeds to deny the medium of writing and even language of a certain materiality, so brilliantly traced by Derrida. Bogost writes that in contrast to philosophical works (with the exceptions of Derrida, Nietzsche, or Wittgenstein) "philosophical works generally do not perpetrate their philosophical positions through their form as books. The carpenter, by contrast, must contend with the material resistance of his or her chosen form, making the object itself become the philosophy" (93). Here Bogost makes two mistakes: 1) seeing Derrida's form as a "book," when Derrida explicitly attempted to subvert that very medium, and 2) denying the inseparable bond between medium/form and content. 

In other words, Bogost makes no meaningful distinction between writing/carpentry outside of the fact that carpentry seems to lead us to 'doing philosophy' with objects other than the pen and paper. But if we understand writing as any trace, then these 'carpentry' projects of philosophy are just as much 'writing' as they are carpentry. Furthermore, the 'designation' writing, given its rigorous deconstruction by Derrida, avoids some of the baggage that 'carpentry' contains -- an emphasis on the 'hand made', for instance. 

Thus, carpentry just becomes a better metaphor for describing the practice of 'philosophy'. But what exactly is 'philosophical' about Bogost's projects? Of course this depends on our definition of philosophy, but if philosophy is the "invention of concepts" as Deleuze and Guattari contend, then Bogost's projects are not philosophy, even if they contain an 'affect' or a 'percept', which is the domain, according to D&G of ART. 

Within Derrida's understanding of writing, however, such art works would be considered "writing." But what do we get from describing artworks within a general system of writing? Does it erase the specificity of it being art or does it put into question the boundaries of what constitutes the art "work" (does it include all of the 'writing' and 'responses' that take place because of it? . . .and any possible future response?). 

Currently, I'm trying to adapt a significant piece of my writing on BioArt to a writing posthumanism. In my original piece, I framed the project in terms that would preserve these works as art, even if, at the same time, the artwork is always within a complex system of writing events, which will affect the function and efficacy of the artwork (critics reviews, theoretical statements from the artists, etc.). 

The question I have for myself is: what is it about BIOART that makes visible art as entwined within a writing system of human and nonhuman actants? My hunch is that by using 'life' materials as their medium, there is an increased probability of the artwork to not simply be the subject of writing surrounding it, but 'writes us' in some unique way. There is an unpredictableness, a propensity for failure that can be made visible through Bioart that reveals the general conditions of artworks: the possibility of their 'failure'. However, it is precisely the failure of BioArt that gives it's significance for biotechnological practices because the force of this failure is to recognize our inability to simply program and control life through genetic coding or otherwise. We can substitute "writing" for genetic coding, since there is no real way to control, in this age, the effects of our writing practices. What is the fate of this blogpost? What videos go viral? BioArt also is potent example of how our best laid plans can be foiled by nonhuman agency. 

But then, does BioArt simply become a stand in for any "writing?" Indeed, could not the same point be made with other artworks or even other inscriptions? Is there something that BioArt adds to our understanding of 'general writing' (that is, 'writing studies') or is the point of writing studies to show the very specificity of this writing practice? But then would we not succumb to the temptation of 'rhetorical analysis'? What words, what concepts does BioArt suggest that would be an essential supplement to our understanding of writing-as-system? 

These are the issues I am struggling with as I attempt to integrate some very specific research on an important group of artists and artworks in the biotechnological age. 

Philosophy and Autobiography: On the Heidegger Question

A good friend of mine who has just started seriously reading Heidegger (Sein und Zeit) asked me if my reading of Heidegger changes when I consider his fascist politics-- to the point that  it may discredit his thought! Related to this, I've seen a few posts by one ardent blogger who is obsessed with the argument that because Harman respects Heidegger, Object Oriented Philosophy is inherently fascist -- its an absurd argument. Anyway, at the time (maybe I was just in a bad mood) I said "absolutely not." I justified this statement in several ways. First, I said that I no more feel that Heidegger's thought is discredited than I feel Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Knut Hamsun, are somehow discredited. The idea that literary artists get a pass (or at the very least are less condemned than philosophers) on their personal lives or politics, but philosophers do not is silly to me. Philosophical work such Heidegger's has influenced an entire new way of thinking. What's the difference between Nietzsche's texts which were appropriated in the service of Fascism and Heidegger's texts which one might rightly say have passages that resonates with fascism? True, Heidegger participated in a cruel system and should be held responsibile for this, but all this says something about the texts and helps contextualize them, in no way does it mean that they somehow should be ignored or discredited. The sheer power of Heidegger's works shines through by itself; Derrida, an Algerian Jew, could not help but be captivated by Heidegger's thought! Some might try and explain this through Derrida's biography and to say that somehow deconstruction is not really "essentially" concerned with the challenge of phenomenology. But without Derrida' encounter of Heidegger -- how would his thought be different? Would we have deconstruction? We can never know.

Derrida brings us to an interesting point, since Derrida is famous for weaving "autobiographical" aspects into his work, going so far as to say in a documentary that he wished philosopher's would talk about their sex lives. However,  Derrida also puts autobiography into question -- the very possibility of an 'auto-' biography ties to critiques of presence-to-self. It is tied to the question of whether we do not also have an other-of-oneself inside oneself (a theme of philosophy since Socrates' daimon). For my purposes, this is to say that we can never divorce Heidegger from his politics and his life; however, at the same time, believing that we cannot separate these events from his texts does not imply that his texts can be explained by his politics -- as if his philosopher were some allegory of his seduction by fascism. This would be just as reductive as exculpating him from responsibility. We find a similar situation, deftly navigated by Derrida in a lecture, with Paul de Man's participation in a fascist journal. On top of that, we have Derrida himself saying that deconstruction is not in itself "left" or "right" on the political spectrum, but can be appropriated for either end.

My argument boils down to the idea that of course Heidegger's texts can be appropriated or read through his fascist politics. However, as Derrida also reminds us with regard to Marx in Positions, Heidegger's 'text' is not a unified corpus, but multiple. Heidegger is the proper name that gathers these texts, sure, but they are and are not essentially tied to them.

This post was actually inspired by reading Bernard Stiegler's long essay Acting Out in which he reflects on how he came to become-a-philosopher. For Stiegler, accident plays a large role in our becoming. I personally agree, as I find myself reading encountering texts seemingly at the "right" time which structure the way I attune myself to the world. For Stiegler, the very development of what we call the "human being" was an accident, an encounter with a "what" that constituted a who. This is why I ask: Would deconstruction exist if not for Derrida's encounter with phenomenology? What drew Derrida to Husserl, to Heidegger? Does it even matter? Yes. It matters in the sense that it will have been the case that all accidental encounters produced the possibility of deconstruction as we know it now through Derrida's disseminated texts.

My final point is one that I suspect will infuriate some, but I think is warranted. In America, the Holocaust/Hiter/Nazism has become our de-fault relay for everything. We use it as an example of the very worst parts of history. Please let me be clear: there is no doubt that the Holocaust is unjustifiable (and anyone 'justifying it' would terrify me and I hope any of my readers). However, why do we assume that everything that came out of Fascism is thus unequivocally bad? For goodness sakes, how much art has been inspired by the events. This is not a justification, it is an observation. An attempt to get away from our obsession with Hitler -- a call for a new reading, an invention of new concepts and new ways of thinking. Consider the Futurists: a fascist lot if there ever was one (and mysoginist to boot) but would we ever consider never speaking of them again or dealing with their challenges to the status quo? This is the same logic conservatives use against anyone speaking the name of Lenin, Stalin, or Trotsky positively as serious writers and thinkers. Hearing the name is anathema to those who don't read -- or who believe that everything produced by an individual associated with a political party or programme to which we disagree is useless (this cuts all ways you Dogmatic Democrats and Militant Marxists!).

But as Heidegger's lover, Hannah Arendt, tells us: evil is banal. As Derrida tells us following Kant, the radical opening to the (im)possible future also opens us to radical evil.

 I'd rather have an open future than a paralyzed present.

Reflections on Wolfe's Before the Law

I am in the process of composing a review for Cary Wolfe's Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame. In my first crack at a review, I tried to stick as close as possible to the text, tracing the main argument through the entire book, and carefully crafting my language to condense the argument of each section while staying under the 2000 word limit.

 I'm not sure how that turned out yet -- but it seems like it hardly reads like a review. The theoretical background required to understand the arguments are daunting. Wolfe both critiques and preserves moves and arguments from prominent theorists in the same section. He vacillates between abstract theory to concrete examples that illustrate how the theoretical lens makes visible aspects of the political previously ignored through politics grounded in the concept of sovereignty or humanist 'rights' discourse.

In this blogpost, I'm going to do the complete opposite of my first try at the review. I am going to contextualize the text as a whole within my own recent readings in ANT, Object Oriented Ontology, and New Materialist philosophy. I want to show how Wolfe's methods and arguments differ and correspond to these other theoretical paradigms.

Harman's Object-Oriented Philosophy may be the furthest from Wolfe's own project. Harman's philosophy, at least as elucidated in Guerilla Metaphysics, departs from particular phenomenological figures: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Alphonso Lingis. For the most part, it seems that Harman picks out passages from these thinkers that deal with objects in a quasi-mystical way; indeed, it seems that Harman is less concerned with their major arguments (particularly his treatment of Levinas, so concerned with ethics as first philosophy) than tracing thinkers who use the same rhetoric he wishes to preserve in his own philosophy. No doubt, these passages are beautiful, but one cannot help thinking that Harman does not take seriously the legitimate critiques of phenomenology, particularly those of Jacques Derrida, which he dismisses as an instance of tortured self-reflexivity. Furthermore, even Harman's use of Heidegger rarely addresses the fact that Heidegger's work is oriented toward the meaning of Being itself (late Heidegger) and the meaning of Being for Dasein (Being and Time). Harman's uses of Heidegger Heidegger make almost no reference to temporality, Being-towards-death, or even Dasein. I would argue that Harman's appropriation of Heidegger ignores Heidegger's desire to move beyond thinking of Being in terms of the "present-at-hand," as it preserves the idea of 'substance'.  

Harman quite unashamably develops a metaphysical system of relation based on autonomous 'withdrawn' substance.Harman uses the concept of "withdrawness" in order t avoids accusations of a return to naive metaphysics. While Harman's articulation of a grand metaphysical system of relations is impressive, it says little about the crucial distinctions among these entities. Because Harman does not believe the physical world should be left for scientific investiation (an epistemological endeavor) he posits a general metaphysical account of the world's constitution. But where does this ontological/metaphysical description get us if it cannot make meaningful distinctions among objects? Is this not still left to epistemological and empirical inquiry? Harman admits that the human relation to everything else is surely "more complex" than other relations among objects, but not different in kind. How is our relation more complex? What is the difference between a rock, a deer, and a human being? 

Harman's metaphysics, and his rhetorical decision to use "lists"  random objects that fascinate him (usually objects in the natural world or objects not specific to our contemporary time), flattens rather than thickens and multiplies kinds of relation. Even as Harman says that we should populate our texts with objects and things, he does little (if anything) to articulate the object's concrete specificity apart from naming it in a list with other objects. Objects are not considered in terms of their meaning but, Harman argues, should be considered because they are part of the world. Harman's metaphysics, then, is framed as an autonomous realm from ethics or politics; for Harman, we need to articulate a foundational metaphysical system first and only then can we consider and decide on these other issues. If I'm not mistaken, Harman has argued that metaphysics do not necessarily imply a particular political or ethical stance. Even if we accept that, it still might be worthwhile to 'speculate' on how his metaphysical position can be used to support and even justify particular political or ethical orientations. 

Levi Bryant's Onticology (or OOO) fares a bit better in relation to Wolfe's work, since he recognizes that each object is an autonomous system with its own structured relation to its environment. Like Wolfe, he draws on Luhmann's systems theory. However, as Wolfe's points out in a footnote to Before the Law, Bryant still remains tied to Harman's theories of relations and objects on an ontological level (with the addition of the realm of the 'virtual' drawn from Deleuze).  That is, Bryant agrees with Harman that each new relation creates a 'new object' so that objects are nestled inside other objects. Bryant and Bogost have both maintained that ontological problems are often mistaken for epistemological ones, a position I do not think Wolfe shares.  In a blog post on What is Posthumanism?, Bryant writes that the weakness of Wolfe's book, citing Harman, is that

  Wolfe still seems to think these issues in epistemological terms. Rather than seeing selective relations entertained towards other objects as a general ontological feature ofeach and every object or as a fundamental feature of the world itself, Wolfe seems to adopt the pessimistic thesis that this marks the impossibility of our knowledge.

For Wolfe, this does not just mark the impossibility of a complete knowledge (which Wolfe addresses in Before the Law as the God's Eye View) but also assures that no matter what entities we choose to consider as possessing what he calls, drawing on Heidegger, a "self-contestatory" relationship, that we will have been wrong in our decision. Does this relegate knowledge of how other beings 'see' to scientific inquiry? To a certain extent, yes, but I do not think Bryant would necessarily disagree with this delegation.. Indeed, is not scientific inquiry (or at the very least, empirical inquiry) the mode of 'second-order observation' (how something observes rather than how we observe it) occurs? If we do not rely on such empirical inquiry, then our method results in anthropomorphization. Sure, we do this anyway, but without the check of empirical inquiry into a system's observational systems, then perhaps we go too far in assuming that ALL objects function as autopoietic, closed systems. 

Wolfe argues against the ontologizing of relations in a footnote to Before the Law. Even though Wolfe agrees with Bryant's ethico political position, in the following passage, he argues "we do not need the either/or-ism of 'literally different agents': 

"when we relate to something, we literally become a different entity," that "an entity that enters into a relational network with a hammer or a computer has different powers and capacities than an entity that does not exist in these relations and is, therefore, by this logic, a different agent." (Bryant qtd. in Wolfe n131)

Wolfe responds: 

"we can simply say that we are and are not the same agents depending on the context, Bryant's 'pre-hammer' entity does not vanish when the hammer is picked up (and if he did, he, naturalistically speaking, couldn't pick up the hammer in the first place). We are (to put it in Derrida-ese) constituted by differance pre- and post- hammer" 

In other words, Wolfe does not see much benefit to following Harman's ontological distinction of separate objects. . 

For Wolfe, distinctions between system and environment, as for Luhmann, are functional distinctions. These functional decisions are based, in some cases, on  our current state of knowledge.  I think that for Wolfe, these new forms for ontology go too far in considering any and every object as worthy of speculative inquiry. We have pressing political and ethical questions that call for pragmatic action, informed by empirical inquiry, and even though, as he puts it, we will always have been wrong in our choice, we must make one conditioned action at a time. 

This is not to say that Wolfe exclusively privileges the living or even carbon based life forms. He writes, 

"The relevant question, which I cannot explore in detail here, would be the mode of embodiment in relation to recursive developmental change that allows not just requisite plasticity in the organism's individual ontogeny, but also, and therefore, its ability to thereby enter into an essentially prosthetic relation to the external technicities of code, semiosis, archive, and so on--regardless of whether the organism is made of 'flesh and blood' or silicon and silicone" 

We have to seriously ask whether it is worth thinking about the relations between a banana peel and the floor, given that the banana peel (at least so far as we know) cannot enter into a prosthetic relation as the condition for the possibility of having its relations matter to it. This is why the speculative realism of Harman and to a certain extent, Bryant, goes too far in its kind of object fetishism. Bryant even speaks of "abstractions" as "objects" that act in the world and Bogost even asks if we have an ethical responsibility to these "ideas." Ideas and abstractions are 'embodied' in particular material instances, as Bryant has argued, but do ideas matter to ideas? Do ideas mean to each other? Are ideas and abstractions really "whos" that can relate to other whats? I have my doubts. 

And Bryant recognizes, in a way that Harman never even begins to address, that entities have different capabilities. Relying on Maturana and Varela's distinction of allopoietic and autopoietic entities in Democracy of Objects, he writes, 

"where allopoetic systems often appear to have a greater degree of elasticity with respect to their qualities, autopoietic systems seem to have a greater degree of elasticity with respect to distinctions or what we might refer to as 'channels'" (173)

 Bryant's term, "channels" refers to an autopoietic system's ability to make new distinctions "thereby enhancing their capacity to be irritated or perturbed by other objects" and this is what we mean when we say that certain autopoietic entities have different degrees of 'freedom' (the freedom to develop different distinctions) (173). 

Bryant thus addresses a major problem I have with Harman: his offhanded description of relations between human and other objects as "more complex." In Bryant's terms, then, we might say that Wolfe is much more interested in investigating autopoietic systems than allopoietic systems -- at least in terms of biopolitical choices. 

The key distinction for Wolfe, however, drawing on Stiegler, is that the nonhuman animal (or the nonhuman entity) must be able to have a prosthetic relation that constitutes it as a 'who' in the first place. 

I find the following passage in Before the Law as making a similar point as Bryant, referring to evidence of 'neuroplasticity' of certain animals:

"their individual ontogenies are quite rigid and subject to a very limited set of variations. Thus, their individual ontogenies are of little importance in explaining their behavior. For creatures of sufficient neurophysiological plasticity, however, it is a different story, one in which the correspondingly high degree of individual variation in individual ontogenies give rise to more complex social and communicational behaviors necessary to coordinate them" (70). 

He expands on this in a later passage, 

"the animal behaviors and forms of communication we have been discussing are 'already-there', forming an exteriority, an 'elsewhere', that enables some animals more than others to 'differentiate' and 'individuate' their extistence--and thus to be 'thrown'-- in a manner only possible on the basis of a complex interplay of the 'who' and the 'what', the individual's 'embodied enaction' (to use Maturana and Varela's phrase) and exteriority of the material and semiotic technicities that interact with and rewire it, leading to highly variable ontogenies, complex forms of social interaction, individual personalities, and so on" (76). 

I think this relation -- the individuation of 'whos' is what Wolfe will compare later to Dasein later in the text, but not Dasein as understood by the Heidegger of Being and Time, but the 'limited' Dasein given to the 'animal' in Heidegger's Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: "having a world in the mode of not having" (79). 

Bryant agrees that each entity has its own 'world' as it appears to it and this is why it is necessary to use second-order observation. But for Wolfe it is crucial to distinguish between having a world in the mode of not having and simply that any entity (or even abstraction) always has a limited way of seeing the world.  That is, because of pressing political and ethical issues, Wolfe is most concerned with the nonhuman animal just as much as the 'human' as  'thrown' Dasein. This is because the world matters and means to a Dasein -- the Dasein cares for its own individuated being and is constituted as a 'who' by relation to a prosthetic what. The block of wood outside is not a 'who' because, so far as we know, it does not have sufficient neuroplasticity to make new distinctions, which would eventually result in a collective memory shared among the community of wood-beings. 

Indeed, Wolfe seems to make the argument that this position may even be more 'posthumanist' than Bryant's, who (at least in a blogpost) restricts the conditions of value to the existence of the human. Bryant writes, 

"No case could here be made [. . .] that there's something of intrinsic value in nonhumans such as animals or planets. Rather, we would be committed to the thesis that there are only relative values of some sort of another. . .the planet, for example, would only take on value-predicates in relation to humans. Were humans to not exist, the planet would neither be valueless or valuable, it would just be." (Bryant, qtd. in Wolfe 84). 

In contrast to Bryant, Wolfe maintains that we need to leave open the possibility that the 'to whom' it matters might not be a human being; he leaves open the possibility that "the addressee of value--and indeed of immunitary protection--is permanently open to 'whoever it might be'" (84). 

One thing is for sure, though: Wolfe emphasizes that there must be a qualitative difference (not just a difference in 'degree' as if there was a 'biologistic continuum') among "the chimpanzee in biomedical research, the flea on her skin, and the cage she lives in--and a difference that matters more (one might even say, in Derridean tones, 'infinitely' more) to the chimpanzee than to the flea or the cage?" (83). 

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Of course, we might ask, why should we have an ethical and political obligation to those beings that we learn 'have a world' in the sense of Dasein, but not to other nonhuman objects or ideas? I think this returns us to the basic question posed by Bentham: not can they reason ,but can they suffer? Although 'suffering' is  an insufficient criteria as we are not quite sure of its extra-human meaning--it is already an anthropomophism-- it seems as though that being a 'who' to which the world matters is a condition for 'suffering'. A block of wood, so far as we know, does not suffer,  nor does a cage: it just 'is'. It seems like Wolfe may suggest that an originary technicity may be a necessary condition for something to 'suffer' in the sense of Bentham. 

Still, we are left with the question: what is to be done? That is, if we cannot simply extend "rights" to various animals, then how do we enact our choice through law? Do we need to think law in terms of 'immunitary protection'? According to Wolfe, we cannot depend on outmoded terms of political sovereignty. 

And just who is this "we" that decides? I t think Wolfe is aware of the problem of assuming a 'we', but his pragmatic bent means that 'we' as human beings who are reading this book, who are helping to shape and enforce laws, must choose. We must choose to want to know rather than not want to know about the animal Holocaust taking place in service of globalization -- the mass 'letting die' so that we might live. We must choose to want to know that our consumption of meat may endanger the ecological sustainability of the planet. We must choose, we must decide, we must act conditionally -- and we must do this satisfied that we should never be content with a 'good conscience': no matter who we choose for "immunitary protection" we will have been wrong. We must act on our incomplete knowledge and hope that we will come to know and make ever more subtle distinctions, thickening and multiplying the lines rather than flattening relations through an all-encompassing metaphysical ontology. 

Wolfe writes, 

"This very act of immunitary selection and protection on the basis of the capacity to 'respond'--a capacity itself based on a constitutively prosthetic relation to technicity--can never be juridical, however, because is is always already traced with the automaticity and mechanicity of a reaction. It is a 'line', to use Derrida's formulation, that is always already 'multiple' and nonlinear, always folded and in motion, always under erasure" (103). 

The benefits of thinking in a biopolitical frame is that "it puts us in a position to articulate the disjunctive and uneven quality of our own political moment, constituted as it is by new forces and new actors not very legible by the political vocabulary of sovereignty we have inherited" (104). 

Biopolitical thinking is to think the apparatus or dispotif (the institutional practices!) that subject both humans and nonhumans. We no longer just think about the ethics of eating "animals" (as if they were a unified category) but of what Wolfe provisionally calls "flesh." 

One of the best examples Wolfe gives to illustrate the complexity of Biopolitical thought is the problem of 'synthetic meat', which, now that I think about it, challenges my idea that the notion of 'suffering' is sufficient to decide (to draw a line, make a cut) of who counts and who does not. Wolfe argues that synthetic meat according to someone like Peter Singer, would be perfectly ethical, since (presumably) no animals had to suffer in order for it to be made. Leaving aside the fact that most synthetic meat production requires serum derived from other killed animals in order to grow (and issue explored in The Tissue Culture and Art Project's artworks), Wolfe argues that from a biopolitical standpoint, the issue is not so clear: 

"From this vantage, synthetic meat might not even appear to be an 'animal' issue per se, and would be seen as utterly continous with the technologies and dispotifs that are exercising a more and more finely tuned control over life and 'making live' at the most capillary levels of social existence. Indeed, it would seem continuous with the practices of domestication, manipulation, and control of life that characterize factory farms" (96-97). 

Because it even further distances us from the animals we kill, leaving it to industrial production, some groups are against the production of synthetic meat. 

Thus, it is not only that we need to choose which animals might fall under the criteria of Dasein, but the institutional practices that fundamentally change our relationship to the nonhuman world. 

The "Holy Grail" of Design?

Colbert Interview

I just wanted to reflect briefly on a comment by a Curator of Architecture and Design when speaking to Stephen Colbert. Stephen asks, in his characteristic tone, "We have two sizes of Ipads, aren't we done?" Antonelli responds that we could have a 3rd, and a few more or that really, the "holy grail" of design is to make the Ipad disappear.

What can she possible mean by that? She elaborates: "The idea is to make everything disappear so you can be in things so you can be in the interfaces." Not only could be "in" the interface but rather the interface would be "in" us. Stephen asks, "What would I show the people who don't have one?" She says "You would show your retina."

Stephen's question reveals one problem with the ubiquitous design paradigm: not everyone can have one. If the interface is "within" in our body, even more so than now (its not as if we are separate from our interfaces; as Marshal McCluhan reminds us, our technologies are extensions of the central nervous system) than it is like saying not everyone can have such an extravagant interface.

But aside from the question of access, the deeper problem lies in our desire for the interface to "disappear." Once interfaces disappear, we forget about them as filters and reality simply becomes "the way it is." Devices are already disappearing into our every day use of them (my computer for instance) but once they become incorporated back into our bodies, it will be even more difficult to see them as mediators, as one possible mode of existence among others.

When shown the "bee vase," Stephen's remarks reveal the problem with forgetting the materiality of the interface: "Is that more or less expensive than having Chinese people do this?" Only recently has the media made visible the exploitation of foreign labor for our high-tech devices through the scandal at FoxxCon. Still, we forgot about this exploitation and go on using our devices. The "bee vase" most likely does not only exploit bee labor (animal labor is explored by Haraway in When Species Meet), but most likely human labor as well.

Thus, if our devices our microscopic (or 'nano') then we will most likely forget this labor altogether -- until the device malfunctions.

When we talk about devices disappearing into our bodies, we tend to focus on what this does to our essential "humanness." As a relatively committed posthumanist, this is not my issue; my issues are, in addition to the ones above: What about continued tech support? If our Ipod fails, we have to throw it away and buy another one. Although this creates problems in terms of e-waste, we should also consider the possibility of the possible failure, or, if not that, the regular maintenance required for devices that disappear into our bodies.

And the Ipad (or perhaps the MacAir -- see below) is a perfect example of this, since Apple arguably makes some of the most closed and mysterious "black box" technologies of any company today. If we cannot maintain our external computers ourselves and must rely on "geniuses," a crucial device for professional life in America today, how could we ever expect to be able to maintain and care for the devices that will most likely be surgically inserted into our bodies. If this were the case, we would have to subject our embodied flesh (and not just our minds) to corporate technicians/surgeons.

What if we cannot pay for such maintenance? What if, instead of having a broken phone and being disconnected from others, we go deaf, blind, dumb -- insensate to an extreme. As we know from drugs we put in our bodies (vaccinations, SSRI's, Aspirin) anything we put into our bodies affects them in unpredictable manners and if we are allergic to a medicine or our body rejects it, it can leave traces on our body and mind. The artist Stelarc ran up against this limit when he tried to change his evolutionary architecture by grafting an ear onto his arm, complete with bluetooth capabilities. The fictional novel, Feed by M.T. Anderson also explores the problem of inserting internal hardware, particularly when this hardware is controlled by for-profit companies.

Clearly we need to think about these issues when we state unproblematically that the "holy grail" of interface design is for them to "disappear." I think Antonetti is probably aware of these dangers, but if design is sold to citizens in such a manner, we may forget these dangers in our techno-optimistic visions.

"Getting it"

This post asks a deceptively simple question: "What does it mean to 'get it'?"

Recently, my friend Scott told me that with theory you either "get it" or "you don't get it" and there's no way to teach this "getting it." Its true that those people who don't get it now might get it down the line. They might read more texts or maybe they'll have an experience in their lives, something will connect and the theory makes sense.

But I want to reserve the term "make sense" for something else. Because, relatively at the same time, my friend Tim posted a text that made me grateful that there are writers that do not always have to "make sense" because they are not beholden to academic standards of clarity or the exigency of the "hot topics" in academic discourse. I wrote,

From those of us who are doomed to make a little bit of sense for the sake of a career (rather than to be sensible), its a refreshing reminder.

Tim responded to me and initally reversed my qualification: That is, all we can do is make "a little bit of sense" the career forces us instead to "be sensible." This is different from "be sensitive" (even if the difference also always puts it in relation). To "be sensible" is a call to pragmatism; Here I am specifically referring to the pragmatic imperatives of the academic discipline rather than to the philosophical position of pragmatism.

These are not mutually exclusive calls; as Tim writes,

By “being sensitive” — attentive, curious, creative– one can surmount the rather rough sensibilities of academia (I think, I hope). It’s all a matter of how to learn to play the difference– with the sense: to somehow establish a rigor sensitive to multiple demands, often contradictory. Obscure contradictions are less observable, but more important than the blatant ones. Always.

Now how does this relate to "getting it"? It's that "getting it" is "experience making sense" (to use Tim's phrase and to incorporate all of the meaning of "experience" recently gleaned from Gregory Ulmer's Avatar Emergency). "Getting it" is what we say alternately to saying "that makes sense." Both of these refer to a flash of understanding or intuition in which we grasp something, even if we are unable to articulate it, to turn it into knowledge.

It is possible to turn it into knowledge by transforming it through an expression of our insight -- this might be called the more "aesthetic" response. In academia, in contrast, the challenge is sometimes to articulate that insight by a "reading" of the text. This involves an immense amount of energy and time because part of a "reading," arguably, traces the moves of the argument. Even if it the argument is not strictly "linear," a "reading" is a tracing of the texts twists and turns, morphing into an assessment of these turns on its own terms or otherwise.

But that's not quite right either. For as academics, we just have to "get it" enough to use it in our own writing. Indeed, the move seems to be to "get it," use it, and move on -- critical reading has become unfruitful.  However, this puts young academics in a difficult spot: We shouldn't operate critically and yet we cannot break too many conventions in our own writing to be truly inventive because we are still trying to enter the discourse.

And we should never forget that there is no final "getting it," but a series of insights that unfold and are invented over time through our engagement with various "whats" (to use Stiegler's terminology). It is whether we feel (and it truly is sometimes a feeling) we can come to new insights and new knowledge with texts that we devote the time to trace their turns, to uncover a method or instructions for our own project.

Evocative Objects

When Turkle writes of "evocative objects," I find myself trying to figure out whether or not anything can be an evocative object? Who or what decides on its evocation? Are there objects that we all experience that are more likely to be evocative? Are objects evocative at some times and not others?

The key word to answering this question, I think, is companion: "In every case, the author's focus is not on the object's instrumental power--how fast the train travels or how fast the computer calculates--but on the object as a companion in life experience" (5). Even if these objects are not ever-present or these objects (physical objects) are lost, they still play a key role in the person's emotional-mental worlds for longer than one particular moment. Thus, evocative objects are not merely objects that excite the senses; in fact, the sensual aspects of the objects in the text, so far as I can remember, are downplayed in favor of thinking  how these objects contribute to a person's life narrative. Even though the senses are not excluded, as one can consider even the cookie Proust's narrator eats that sets off a chain of memory to be an evocative object, the narrative is foregrounded, which we can see in Turkle's last exhortation: "we will need to tell ourselves different stories" (326). 

Pointing out the necessity of narrative is not to criticize, but to show that evocative objects are not necessarily specific, individuated objects; that is, objects that cannot be duplicated because of their histories. The glucometer, the cello, 'keyboards', 'stars', knots, apples, Foucault's pendulum, slime mold, all may have been encountered in a specific place and time such that the experience is not repeatable (within the person's life narrative), but its any Foucault's pendulum, slime mold, or knots, that are evocative. In contrast, the rolling pin, the painting in the attic, the silver pin, Murray: the stuffed bunny, the synthesizer, are all specific. 

Except the more I think of it, this is still an artificial division. Pinch speaks not of just one synthesizer-- his own-- but also Vickers(made by another person), which also contributed to his professional, emotional, and intellectual life. Strohecker herself is obsessed with knots, but the story crystallizes around another person's specific knot. 

I dwell on this to show that there is a slippage between the specific object that forms a narrative and the object tin general that contains the same kind of potential (does it?). Pinch's specific synthesizerdoesn't evoke anything in me and, frankly, the synthesizer in general doesn't evoke anything in me. The narrative Pinch tells, however, does evoke something in me: it makes me think about how objects have helped me compose and experience different sounds. Through these stories, these objects take on more significance and meaning in my own life, as I start to recognize how  objects have contributed to larger projects in others' lives and begin to think about my own evocative objects. 

There are very few objects that I consider indispensable to my life. Surely as a scholar one of the most evocative objects for me are texts. Certain texts have changed my professional and emotional life: I think of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, James Joyce's Ulysses, Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, Jacques Derrida's Margins of Philosophy. These texts fundamentally altered my emotional and intellectual worlds. Part of the reason I began to study literature is because of my love, my passion for these objects. These texts I have undergone, I have suffered through. These texts that overflow with associations not just in my own life but to other texts in the world. These objects still are evocative for me; I still tear up at the final affirmation, the final "Yes" in Ulysses as Molly Bloom climaxes; the phrase "fear no more the heat o' the sun" immediately brings to mind Septimus Smith. BullockBefriendingBard is still one of my favorite alliterations (Ulysses). And Dasein has taken on a significance I cannot begin to explain. 

Sid Dobrin said in a recent seminar that academics have to be fans at the very least in order to succeed. We actually have to be more than fans. We have to allow our objects of study to evoke another text, another project, another meaning, another transformation. As a scholar, I still have not found that evocative object of study that requires years of dedication and research. As scholars, we need these evocative objects, these companions, to accompany us throughout our lives. 

Two examples from philosophy: I think for both Graham Harman and Jacques Derrida, in  different modes and for different reasons, the texts of Martin Heidegger can be considered "evocative objects." Similarly,  Heidegger has played a large role in my own development as a scholar, as has Derrida. These texts haunt me-- in a positive way. I have a connection to these texts that fuses my intellectual and affective worlds. 

But I need to find an evocative object of study in my own "field." Which is what? Theory, Rhetoric, Composition, Media? The theoretical apparatuses prominent in these fields right now consider all objects and relations mediators. If everything is an object and a relation (or rather, as Harman puts it, every relation creates another object), how can I decide which relations, which objects, I should study. Harman may be right that a banana peel and a foot is ontologically just valid as a human relationship -- that it is a difference in degree. However, this gives us little direction into what relations one should value as a scholar (who is not involved in the project of reviving a radical metaphysics). Harman writes in Quadruple Object: "Inanimate collisions must be treated in exactly the same way as human perceptions, even if the latter are obviously more complicated forms of relation" (46). For all of his careful definitions and terminology, what does it mean that human perception is more complicated (which is not the same thing as complex)? Furthermore, what can Object Oriented Philosophy add to thinking human relations, such as language?

I know I've drifted away from my initial question of evocative objects, but I think that Turkle's book is a good reminder (as is N. Katherine Hayles) that we still do need to think about what makes an object evocative to us? What object is worth devoting so much time and energy? Its true that not everything is "for us" or givenness for us; however, in some sense, is it not the case that anything we encounter (or choose to address in a philosophical, theoretical, or poetic work) as human beings is addressed to not-us and us (as human beings, as specific readers or thinkers, etc.). Shouldn't we think through the multiple addressees? 

My Evocative Object

Although I have yet to find the evocative object that sets off my scholarly career, I do possess at least one personal evocative object: my acoustic guitar. To this day, I have never met anyone who has the same model or even the same brand of guitar I have: a Parkwood. Everywhere I go people ask me what kind of guitar I have: "a Parkwood," I say, and no one knows what I am talking about.  I bought this guitar a long time ago, when all I wanted to do was to play pop songs like Dave Matthews. Had I knew where my musical tastes would take me (far away from Dave), I would have probably chosen a Martin or a Taylor. But the Parkwood's price was right and, to my young ear, it sounded sweet to my ear, felt right on my lap, and, most importantly, was the right price. Furthermore, it had a built in microphone so I could plug it into a PA system. The Parkwood, I was told at the time, is the Cort company's attempt at a higher end instrument. Basic Cort acoustic guitars can be purchased for about 200 dollars (sometimes less), but, if memory serves me, the Parkwood was 800. I am still not sure if this story about Cort is true, but its how I connect my guitar to a better known brand.

One of the most significant events with this Parkwood is not a particular song written, but the day I fucked it up. Late one evening, my friends and I decided to have a bonfire out on a hill somewhere--I think it was public property. We got high and played music and everyone had a grand old time. Afterwards, I slung my guitar over my shoulder, like a backpack, and started down the hill. As I was walking down, I slipped on the wet grass and fell on my back--and on my guitar. I thought I heard a snapping sound, but didn't check at the time, waiting till I got home. When I got home, I found that I had made two significant cracks on the front of the guitar and on top of the body! I was devastated and cried, but luckily it still sounds fine--although I always wonder what was lost and whether anything was gained.

A year ago, I began to play at an open mic. Toward the end of its existence, I began to do strange things on stage such as thrown down my guitar on the floor before screaming into the mic. I was afflicted with a kind of Pete Townsend-fever and had the urge to harm my guitar. One night I faked like I was going to slam it into the ground. Another night, I threw it so hard against the floor that the electronics got punched in and the battery fell out into the body of the guitar. The electronics and the guitar still works and it has the battle scars to prove its authentic history.

I once told my dad there were two different kinds of abuses of guitars, one being a far greater abuse; the first is to use it up, hit it, crack it, etc. One can consider this kind of abuse almost lovingly in the same way that we consider wrinkles and scars to be signs of wisdom as well as age. The second, however, is not playing it at all and thereby letting it gather dust in some corner. The object becomse unevocative or evocative only in the mode of a nostalgia for the days past-- no longer transformative and active, it becomes part of the furniture or the decor--memories of a time past that cannot be bothered to be relived.

In the section "Doing and Having" in Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre describes beautifully how using an object, wearing it down, makes it ever more particular and important to the point that it becomes me. Destruction can function also as an act of creation:

To utilize is to use. In making use of my bicycle, I use it up--wear it out; that is, continuous approprative creation is marked by a partial destruction. This wear can cause distress for strictly practical reasons, but in the majority of cases it brings a secret joy, almost like the joy of possession: this is because it is coming from us--we are consuming [. . .] it is to destroy by incorporating into oneself [. . .] The bicycle gliding along, carrying me, by its very movement is created and made mine; but this creation is deeply imprinted on the object by the light, continued wear which is impressed on it and which is like the brand on the slave. The object is mine because it is I who have used it; the using up of what is mine is the reverse side of my life. (757)

We could sit and critique Sartre for his denegration of the object in service of human sovereignty (the object as slave), but I think his basic point holds true. We make our mark on an object and we take it away from its status as an identical consumer product that anyone with money can buy. Sure someone can buy a Parkwood guitar just like mine, but will it bear the traces of my songs, my stories, my strums, my skin the strings rip off and embed into the fretboard? No.

However, its not just my acoustic guitar as evocative object, but any acoustic guitar. At first I had written that any guitar is an evocative object, but the designation of an acoustic guitar is important. Although I can and do play electric guitar (and electric bass), these guitars still feel a little awkward and distant from me. The electric guitar lacks the sensual response I get from the acoustic guitar. When I strum chords on the electric guitar (even with distortion) they still feel flat; the strings do not respond because they cannot create the bounce and rhythm, which makes it the perfect companion to the voice. Electric strings feel comparatively dead (even new strings) and neither the body of the guitar nor my body resonate;. An electric guitar feels other than me, like a new prosthetic arm that I have not fully incorporated into myself; my acoustic guitar is more like a metal plate in my head, attuning me to radio signals, however faint and however chaotic.

 I rarely, if ever, compose songs on electric guitar. If a song works on an acoustic guitar, effects can be added on in the arranging phase. Composing on acoustic guitar forces one to create a solid song with structure both lyrically and musically before considering how it could sound on a record. Playing with an acoustic guitar limits the kinds of sounds one can make, but as in a poetic composition, these limitations can turn to an advantage.

The guitar is necessary for me to write a song. I may have a few lines and maybe a melody in my head, but until I pick up my acoustic guitar the song remains incomplete, un-actualized, in potentia. I use the word "compose" but my songs are hardly complex compositions from a musical perspective. Surely Juliard composition majors would see my songs as amatuerish, perhaps even primitive. Tod Machover explains that "no one at Juliard  would be caught dead in practice room, or plinking out his or her music on a piano, lest he or she be accused of inadequate ear training, of a sterile musical imagination" (18). My imagination, and apparently Machover's as well, is not "sterile," its just that it is insufficient-- a prosthesis is called for to get my creative juices flowing. And really, how different is the guitar as prosthesis from the paper on which the composer's imagination is inscribed? Like Machover, my feeling for composition calls upon my intimate relationship with my guitar (18).

But as I said, not just my guitar, but any guitar (although mostly acoustic) suffices as an evocative object. The first thing I look at in someone's house or apartment is the bookshelf. The second? If they have a guitar.
because if a guitar is lying around, I am usually fiddling with it, even if I am involved in a conversation or no one pays attention. I might even sing a few lines or ask if anyone would like to hear a song. I have played guitar since I was 9 years old, so guitars in general are intimately familiar to me. Rarely do I have to consciously tell my fingers how to arrange themselves to form chords or which strings to pluck unless I am practicing a new song or technique. I can play basic chords along to most songs so much so that I can earn them on the fly (even in performances).

But I am not really a "guitarist." In fact, this admission might be one of the reasons why electric guitars feel lackluster.  Because its not the vibrations of the guitar strings and the sound they make that really get me, but rather the vibration of my entire body. Machover writes that he wanted his instrument "to be able to sing, that the bow "is where expression comes from like breathing for a singer," and that "the physical intensity of cello playing [is] a whole body experience" (14, 17, 17 ). I do not so much mold myself to the guitar (like, say, Hendrix or Clapton) to make it sing; rather, the guitar facilitates the transformation of my body, breath, and mind into both a composing and performing instrument.  For my part, I do not need my guitar to sing; I use my guitar as an accompaniment for my voice.

"Accompaniment," however, may not quite fit my meaning. My voice and my guitar are two aspects of my prosthetic body. The pressure of my pick on the strings serves as a counterpoint to my vocals and lyrics. The real star is the song. Everything serves the performance of the song. Every performance varies as I may decide that I want to hit a high note or scream and may have to adjust the volume, timbre, or pitch of my guitar-body-voice. My guitar-body-voice feeds off the room and the audience and I am barely conscious of all of the adjustments I make to strumming or singing. These moments a different kind of thinking from my academic work takes place: a thinking of affect, a thinking of the body, a sensual thinking. Its thought without words (even if I'm singing words); its thought without consciousness in its strict sense. Participating in the guitar-voice-body-song-audience-room network -- this is when I feel most alive. The acoustic guitar is my pivot point that sets in motion the network of sound, silence, and sense.

And it would all be impossible without my composition-performance prosthesis: the acoustic guitar.