Dear Zizek!
We did it! We made it to the end of literary theory —almost. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to write about you! again; you! see, you! were in my last post too. 

Legally Blonde Final

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In Legally Blonde, “We did it!” is how Elle Woods finishes her valedictorian speech to the Class of 2004 of Harvard Law School. She throws her hands up in the air and squeals. I emulated her in my elementary school valedictorian speech; the response was laughter, whether jeering or not, I did not care much; I wanted to be Elle Woods, an independent woman who eventually rejects the man for whom she had gone through so much trouble, gets a law degree from Harvard, and wins a high-profile court case against almost everyone’s expectations. Is this embarrassing yet? Throughout my entire childhood, I always wanted to be Elle Woods; I still do, in fact, but I find myself wondering whether Elle Woods and countless other role-models such as Cristina Yang of Grey’s Anatomy, who embody fiercely independent women —notice I don’t use the verb to be — whether they are simply black holes, figments of the imagination, onto which I project my own, even inaccurate (due to all the hailing) desires. I guess I already know the answer, but what fun is that? When, according to you!, it’s all about the process. Anyway, what if everyone is the knight, especially in this culture where better is never good enough and best is impossible? What if everyone is a masochist? I think you! would agree, if you haven’t already stated it, that masochism is indeed universal and that we all have an eternal desire to be in the progressive and repeated state of desiring whether the object of desire is physical pleasure or not.

As human beings, we have an irritating tendency to look to the future and set “goals.” To make these goals, we tend to look toward someone older or more advanced in some area in order to do so; we have to build on what we already know, so we choose our role-models. Just like the knight cannot see the Lady for who she really is, we cannot see who our role-models really are, whether they are distant celebrities or our friends and family themselves. We see their Ideal-I in place of their scattered mess, namely, what they choose to express, and we are completely ignorant to what they have chosen to censor after a life-time. Therefore, we are left with a limited, censored, and edited version of themselves, Freud’s typical dream, a selfie, an instagram portfolio, if you will pardon my jargon, a black hole, or a distorted view of things. This distorted image of the other which the other voluntarily provides incites a desire because the other is perfect and we are this uncensored, scattered mess who cannot reach our Ideal-I. This is where I would argue against Lacan. When we look in the mirror, we do see the ideal version of ourselves, and, yes, internally, we are forever incompatible with the perfect, complete version of ourselves, but I would emphasize what Lacan does not, if I understood him correctly. The mirror stage is more than a solidifying stage en route to identifying yourself as separate from others; it is a stage in which you realize you are separate from yourself, which is all the more terrifying and not the least bit relieving because, due to censorship when engaging in the creation of intersubjective meaning, everyone else has seemingly achieved the Ideal-I already.

Since the mirror stage, we are incomplete, severed, and the possibility of desiring provides us with relief from that concept because when desiring we are at least trying to become whole again. Once we see the lady for who she really is, our outlet is destroyed. Moreover, once we see the lady for who she really is, our entire world is destroyed. Imagine knowing the censored parts of everyone or seeing everyone as dehiscent messes. There would be no boundaries or defining lines which order in our society demands. Our world depends on desire or unattainability, that black hole, the unattainability of the Ding an sich within us and without us.

Zizek!, I still want to be Elle Woods, but now I know she isn’t the Lady I thought she was.

P.S. You should watch 500 days of Summer. Joseph Gordon Levitt, who plays the protagonist,Tom Hansen, will tell you why.

Tom develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she’ll give his life meaning because he doesn’t care about much else going on in his life. A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person.

Okay, JGL doesn’t know that it’s impossible to fall in love with the actual person, but everything else he says is pretty spot on.

I’m not quite sure if this is too late in the section, or completely aside the questions we examine. But questions of identity and its epistemic origin, for me, relate directly to our society’s fundamental liberal concept: property. Since I’ve read Locke (and probably since I was a kid), I’ve conceived of property as an object on which labor–as some form of energy directed at an object and meant to manipulate or alter it–is performed. Of course, I’ve never found this understanding satisfactory.  For instance, intellectual property has remained incomprehensible to me with this definition. How could one claim ownership of an abstraction?

Liberal philosophy, if I am not mistaken, is premised on the sanctity of individual liberties and a conception of labor that allows for the equal opportunity to elaborate on  one’s property. As I’ve mentioned, we attain property through the physical and mental exertions that our labor imparts on an object. In this sense, our body is our most basic property from which we exert the necessary energy to acquire more property. Such a conception is premised on a body that is, in a sense, impermeable to all but our minds–we retain total control of it biologically. Foucault would argue against this point but he would not challenge the prima facie assumption of a body-mind duality that is coexisting yet theoretically separated. Our section on psychoanalysis, however, has illuminated an all too significant aspect of ownership: identification. We choose to own most of our things in a social act that allows other people to read our clothing, for instance, as a signifier of our social standing (among many imbricated identities). The conscious decisions we make in presenting an image of ourselves to the world through an ensemble of stuff is the most patent and ubiquitous performance which Butler identifies. I want to forget her thematic focus on gender for a moment, and focus instead on the deep chasm she spells by breaking the Cartesian binary of mind-body.

How does a body that is permeable and shaped by the social discourse affect notions of property? I think a conception of identity, according to the Lacanians, is an apposite model for this little exercise. Identity formation is a reciprocal process in which the Self construes the Other as an object allowing for a sense of subjectivity, while the concomitant subject construes a Self in the Other so as to gain a sense of objectivity. Property is, in this sense, the identification of the Self in the object to which we have directed our labor. We own our bodies through the act of identifying and claiming a unifying principle with them. I could conceive, along these lines, of an intellectual property, yet I still find the concept moronic.

Why is female masculinity important? Well first we must see how Halberstam defines female masculinity to understand the importance of this term. Halberstam says “The term female masculinity  stages several different kids of interventions into contemporary gender theory and practice: first, it refuses the authentication of masculinity through maleness and maleness alone, and it names a deliberately counterfeit masculinity that undermines the currency of maleness.” (2639) Wow that was a whole lot to digest but what I take from this statement is that we should not be looking at masculinity as only accessible through being a male. Therefore if we do not see it only as male that means we are allowed for either gender to be able to have access to a type of masculinity. Masculinity is define from it’s differences from femininity It is important to note that when Halberstam is talking about masculinity she/he is talking about it in regards to the white male normative who embody this phallus power. Female masculinity is counterfeit because it allows females to take away the misogyny and social power out of male masculinity. It is also define as counterfeit because it does not possess strictly only male nor female traits but some where in between.

Now to the point of my argument. The reason why female masculinity is important is that it takes away the white normative perspective of whats masculine. It allows us to realize how much power it really has opposite to femininity. Halberstam says “Such accounts can only read masculinity as the powerful and active alternative to female passivity and as the expression therefore of white male subjectivity.”(2639) When we look at female masculinity and we do not acknowledge masculinity as only for males we can take away that power. We also see that female masculinity becomes powerful and active unlike like femininity where it contains passive trait. This is exactly what pisses off over masculine white males who want to keep this status quo. The third point to Halberstam’s female masculinity is “female masculinity may be an embodied assault up compulsory heterosexuality, and it offers one powerful model of what inauthentic masculinity can look like, how it produces and deploys desire, and what new social, sexual and political relations it can foster.” (2639) The example of a butch female comes to mind when we think about a powerful model that represents a masculine female.

I explained the very basic of Halberstam’s theory of there being a female masculinity. Now I wish to apply the basis of her theory to a theory of my own that I have been thinking about for a long time now. I apologize now if my language is excessive but I’m trying to drive home a point. http://www.tmz.com/2015/12/04/the-game-fight-stitches-mug-shot/

The n word has been used to classify African Americans during the dark times of America. Later in music after the word became a no no word to use by mainly white people, black people took the word and changed it to “nigg@”. A ton of bad stereotypes became associated with the word. Such as being lazy, ignorant, violent, gang member and other negative views of black people. For black people this new n word was a way to change how other black people saw this word. The emergence of gangsta rap saw the word cultured used by many minorities.When you said the phrase my n word to your friends it lose the negativity that was once placed on it. In today’s society it has been culturally accepted that it is okay to use the n word if it is not in a negative tone. In reality we have two different meanings from the same word one negative and one positive that is based upon who says it. This is why I posted the story about this rapper Stitches who not only is white and uses the n word but carries the negative stereotypes that once labeled the word. This rapper name Stitches had been harassing the rapper The Game over the internet and when The Game was in Miami, Stitches waited for him outside of the club he was in for hours. He posted videos out side of him waiting, cursing out The Game and even spits on the mans vehicle. After The Game leaves the club Stitches walks up to him trying to start a fight but ends up getting knocked out and thrown in jail. Why am I telling you all of this? What does it mean? Sure the guy acts like a jackass stereotype but so what? Well I’m trying to argue that the n word needs to no longer be associated with only African Americans. Instead the negative context to this word should be allowed to apply to anyone who embodies these negative stereotype out rightly. Instead of only the view of the n word being a ignorant stereotypical black person it can be anyone trying to embody this negativity. This man Stitches exemplifies, and identifies as the negative stereotype depicted by that word that African Americans have been trying to get away from. I’m arguing that if he is not an n word then like Halberstain says about female masculinity being a counterfeit masculinity that there must be a counterfeit n word. In this counterfeit n word any person no matter the race or gender who feels the need to embodied the negativity stereotypes can identify as one. The rapper Stitches would be the model of this counterfeit. If you want to argue it is because Stitches is a white rapper and in rap it is okay to use the n word I would like to bring up Eminem. Eminem is known throughout the world as the best white rapper and some may argue the best rapper in the history of rap. Eminem uses derogatory terms which our offensive but he never uses the n word. He never needs that lyrical cultural crutch unlike Stitches. Overall in a perfect world I would like the stigma around the word to change or the creation of a word that can be applied to all races in American culture.

I came across a funny thing, embedded above, perusing Instagram today. One could argue, in a semi-serious way at least, that the meme is its own acute form of criticism, and to have Moretti’s meandering mode of inquiry summed up so concisely in sign-oriented rhetoric of the meme brings me some kind of childish delight.

All in all, I respect Moretti’s mission. I’m sympathetic to it, I fear, because I find the mode of inquiry to be such a novel one– I kneel, move my mouth in prayer, and the graph that outputs on Google Analytics looks like it make sense. Maybe I adjust the smoothing. And then when I see something that looks good, I work out the mechanics of the theoretical skeleton. Perhaps Moretti is a little misguided, resolving a complex about the study of literature’s soft gaze (whoops, hope I’m not offending anyone), and an equally potent inferiority complex that students of the humanities often have about those who embark upon the hard sciences.

So when Moretti rationalizes his methodological shift towards a quantitative mode of literary theory, I applaud. The appeal to the rigid truth of numbers, in contrast to woozy and highly subjective qualitative narratives and the human folly from which they arise, strikes me as a purifying act by Moretti, who has something to fear, and demons to exorcise. It’s a cool turn. But simultaneously, I have my own discomfort, stemming from the fact that while I recognize the incredibly permeating way mathematics can be used to explain and model the world, I want to believe in some kind of romantic verve that will elide mathematical analysis. Thus, I say that perhaps Moretti has some kind of epistemological bias (clearly a reaction to generations of a certain mode of inquiry, a history I have no interest in denying lol).

Graphs are fun, though, so there is something pleasing to the eye about recognizing similar curves such as the ones visible in Figure 1. My friend looked over my shoulder and told me that “all this shit is garbage”, calling attention to the fact that the narrow sample of countries omits a large amount of other nations. Of course, if one has hedges in their front yard, they ought to be expected to trim them. Moretti stays in the clear, though, purified by his constant chastity and a willingness to engage in what (at least has been repeated to me for years now) is the central basis of good academic work: transparent use of sources. Moretti’s unwavering faith in the research of his fellows is commendable; he writes that “quantitative work is truly cooperation: not only in the pragmatic sense that it takes forever to gather the data, but because such data are ideally independent from any individual researcher, and can thus be shared by others, and combined in more than one way.” There is something empowering about constructing knowledge in such a positivistic way that is very much unlike more Negative Nancys like, let’s say, Nietzsche.

But heck, Moretti has some really great things to say, too. His note on the increased important of novels into India around the time of the 58 rebellion in colonial India is a fascinating one. His construction of the novel as a deeply indeterminate commodity bears a great bit to unpack. In the way that one can step a level up, and see three parallel axis– from bottom to top, Time, then Genre, and above Form– I imagine these three corresponding timeliness similar to Ferdinand de Sassuere’s diagram of the functioning sign, in that at any given point in time, corresponding moments in Form, Genre, and History condense inextricably into one another and are indexed within the Novel. Because for however much Moretti understands that he is asking tricky questions, he is on the money to assert that “the aesthetic sphere is the most appropriate to reflect overall changes of mental climate”, and a broad-bracketed concern with how mental climates/aesthetic attitudes cycle over time is a pretttttty good one, if you ask me.

Sedgwick defines and picks apart the many holes and well known knowledge of the words sex, gender and sexuality. Sex, or “chromosomal sex” as she likes to refer to it as, refers to the more scientific term and associations with the word ‘sex’. Meaning the actual chromosomal and physical attributes of the human body and it’s make up. Gender is a more societal construction to Sedgwick, seeing as the many ways we identify a girl or boy is by appearances and behaviors that we take in and process under our own well known and groomed in ideas of what a man or woman is or would be. Sexuality would be the actions and expectations of each gender that coincide with their gender in a sexual way.

With these definitions set in place by Sedgwick, she then poses the question of whether or not feminism is a gender or sexuality problem. She goes on to say that gender and sexuality are one in the same, both laced within each other and therefore stand hand in hand. I agree with this idea because of how mixed and how stretched every form of the words sex, gender and sexuality can become.

In these current times, sex, gender and sexuality can be bent in many different ways to accommodate different perspectives. Many people believe a definite term for these words can be met but this to me seems too concrete for these words that could have so many different meanings. Sexuality, gender and sex have so many different ideas, spaces and definitions. Gender and sexuality an idea of the self that a person finds for themselves. It cannot be pigeonholed into one specific field or definition. While this may be the same type of argument that many people have heard, in 2015 it’s ridiculous to think that a person could try to grasp the idea of gender or sexuality into a single sentence. Gender and sexuality shouldn’t be a social construct, but a personal individual experience for every person.

I think that the individual should be able to define themselves, or not define themselves at all. A lot of prejudices seem to stem from ignorance, or the reaction of people going or being outside of someone else’s range of ‘normalcy’ or what they know. This type of ignorance or discrimination is used against transgendered individuals and homosexuals (as well as countless other ‘groups’). The problem stems from people’s inability to understand gender or sex outside of the actual ‘physical’ or anatomical make up of an individual at the present time or at birth. As well as many masculine females or feminine males are ‘picked on’ by others.

Then comes the issues of feminism. Not the movement or point of feminism itself, but the backlash or understanding of feminism. Sedgwick bridges the issues of racism and classism to feminism, saying that these oppressions are all similar in a more complex way because even though they are all different, they are all processed in a similar way. Sedgwick explains how any versions or references to sex are oppressed or picked apart by society. This comes from a feeling of discomfort, which I believe stems from the ‘taboo’ or negativity that seems to wind itself around any word, idea or feeling that is sexually charged.

Going back to the beginning of history, sex was a primal instinct, and gender was meant to decide who would procreate and pass on a bloodline. As societies grew and became civilized, they became more ‘modest’. The human body was scandalous, and sex was expected but never spoken about. Even more so, sexual acts were forbidden and never spoken about. These negative connotations to sexuality, sex and gender were conceived way before feminism was ever given a name. More so, women were always shed in a bad light, expected to be pretty, not ugly, seen, but not heard. Feminism acts or qualities were given a weaker connotation, a sad truth that still holds (mostly) true today.

Thus, feminism and feminist movements are misconstrued and receive a negative backlash because of centuries of outdated, ridiculous and what should be dead ideas and connotations. Sedgwick’s piece not only investigates these ideas, but also attempts to define sex, sexuality and gender, whereas I personally believe those three terms are too loosely used and perceived to fully grasp.

This clip from the 1970s film CAR WASH features a snappy comeback to a hypermasculine Black Panther type in ways that make us think about both Butler’s and Halberstam’s arguments. The clip is taken from an amazing film, The Celluloid Closet, that surveys Hollywood’s representation of queer subjects over a long (and mostly sorry) history:

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I couldn’t resist…

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Sorry for the delay: here are the questions and see you tomorrow.