Image, mirror, screen: "the world has become a mere multimedia representation"

What kind of politics are possible in worlds of immediate images? Is language a necessary condition of democracy and if so in what way?

Paul has been working through a reading of Agamben, particularly with regard to Agamben's discussion of a kind of language in itself, a language that doesn't transmit meaning or rely on arguments or texts or discussions or debates. I've been calling it politics for mumblers (out of fondness for Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka).

But there is a serious matter here, one that involves images and affect. If in the US (to specify a location) the population is moving toward post literacy, can they, we, govern themselves/ourselves? How? For it seems that we have media for democracy but accompanied with an inability to use language, to speak, to discuss, to reason.

For some, this is an advance precisely because the imbrications of Enlightenment reason in colonialism, imperialism, militarism, and immiseration. For others, the challege is redeeming the ideals invested in communicative possibility. For me, the matter is one of the conditions of possibility: I can't see in the current conjuncture, in communicative capitalism, conditions that could render democracy viable.

Link: Subcomandate Insurgente Marcos (via wood s lot):

In fragmented globalization, societies are fundamentally media societies. Media is the great mirror, not of what a society is, but of what it should appear to be. Full of tautologies and obviousness, media society is short on reason and arguments. Here, repeating is demonstrating.

And what is repeated are images, like those grays the globalized screen is showing us now. Debray tells us: "The equation of the visual era is something like: the visible the real the true. This is idolatry revisited (and, indubitably, redefined)." (Re'gis Debray, op. cit., p. 200). And the intellectuals of the right have learned the lesson well. It is even one of the dogmas of their theology.

Where was the leap made which equated the visible with the true? Tricks of the globalized screen.

The entire world, or, more accurately, of all knowledge, is now in the hands of anyone with a television or a portable computer. Yes, but not just any world and not just any knowledge. Debray explains that the center of gravity of information has been displaced from the written to the visual, from the recorded to the direct, from the sign to the image. The advantages for the intellectuals of the right (and the disadvantages for the progressives) are obvious.

Analyzing the behavior of information in France during the Gulf War, the power of the media is revealed: at the beginning of the conflict, 70% of the French expressed hostility to the war. At the end, the same percentage supported it. Under the battering of the media, French public opinion "did an about-face" and the government obtained their blessing for its participation in the war.

We are in the "visual era." Information is thus presented to us in the obviousness of its immediacy, therefore what they show us is real, therefore what we see is true. There is no place for critical intellectual reflection. At best there is space for commentators who "complete" the reading of the image. The visual is not made, in this era, in or der to be seen, but rather to impart "knowledge." The world has become a mere multimedia representation, which suppresses the external world, able to be known to the same degree that it is seen. Yes, the beginning of the third millennium, the 21st century, and the resilient philosophy in our "modern" world is absolute idealism.

Some conclusions can now be drawn: the new intellectual of the right has to carry out his legitimizing function in the visual era; opt for the direct and immediate; move from sign to image and from reflection to television commentary. He does not even have to make an effort to legitimize a totalitarian, brutal, genocidal, racist, intolerant and exclusionary system. The world which is the object of his "intellectual function" is the one offered by the media: a virtual representation. If the Nation-State is redefined in the hyper-market of globalization as one more business, and those who govern as sales managers, and armies and police forces as security bodies, then the arena of Public Relations belongs to the intellectual right.

In other words, in globalization, intellectuals are "multipurpose": gravediggers for critical analysis and reflection, jugglers with the millstones of neoliberal theology, prompters for governments who forget the "script," commentators of the obvious, cheerleaders for soldiers and police officers, Gnostic judges who hand out labels of "true" or "false" at their convenience, theoretical bodyguards for the Prince and announcers of the "new history."

Comments

[Keith]

Jodi - great post. I have been working with some of this myself, and took it up a bit in the 2nd part of my LS post via Lazzarato, Deleuze and Massumi. I'm really just flirting with the ideas right now, and I'll have to look over this post again, but you might be interested in this piece by Lazzarato:
http://www.republicart.net/disc/representations/lazzarato01_en.htm

[Keith]

Ok - to come back to a bit of this, I take it to be correct that media is used for democracy but its result is far from democratic. I can understand the move to nullify democracy as viable given current conditions, but supposing that conditions might change, and along with them an understanding of what "democracy" might mean, there is still a chance that it be viable, even if disagreeable at present. What other options might you propose in its place?

[Jodi]

Hi Keith,
Here's my question: does the appeal to democracy and the demand for the formulation of an alternative prevent leftists from challenging or rejecting current forms in any significant way? I think the answer to this question is yes.

So, transitionally--honestly, I think a Leninist Party is a pretty good idea. Such a Party might have to 'create a new people'--if democracy is valuable, then democrat subjects would need to be created. (so, better education and literacy etc)

But, if this is too much, then it strikes me that what actually emerges is a kind of fascism where images incite fears and violence and buttress an intrusive state that redistributes wealth to the rich. An improvement would be a socialist regime that distributed wealth and opportunity to the least well off.

Also, by media for democracy what I meant in my post is that we have the conditions of communication (distribution of information and opinion) for democracy. But, I don't think that media is used for democracy. On the contrary, I think it is used to make money for the few and distract the many--even in current many to many forms.

[Jodi]

And Keith--thanks for the link; will read today. By the way, do you know if Massumi ever published a paper on Bush and affect? I heard him give this paper a number of years ago and it was great.

[Steven Shaviro]

Jodi,

Brian Massumi's essay on Bush and affect is available at: http://www.brianmassumi.com/textes/Fear.pdf.

[Monte Crisco]

El Commandante may have a point about imagery (or Lakoff's "framing") having priority over reason and rational politics but the academic left is as much at fault as corporate America. Where are the academics taking on the corporate/entertainment behemoth? That's far too quotidian and "empiricial" for most graduate philosophical types or their silly cousins in the literary bizness. Political realism, like empiricism, is generally suspect to the french sorts of aesthetes. Yes, idealism, jefe, is a real problem: and the postmodernists are as responsible as anyone for invoking "theory" and metaphysics and all the jargon of idealistic philosophy.

Besides, according to Marx, there are not really individuals as such but classes in opposition, and the class, not the person is what counts. And no way to enforce rights claims, according to onw local marxist, therefore rights claims don't matter: The official policy of the Cheka.

And for an American professor to assert that "Rights claims don't matter"--- Hmmm.---isn't that like what used to be known as sedition?

[Kenneth Rufo]

Well, this seems like a conversation that could benefit from some Baudrillard, as this is something he's pretty prolific on. Something to consider if you don't want to have to swallow the D&G backdrop that lurks in Massumi's work. I like the JB, but I know I'm kind of a minority among the academic bloggitysphere.

Anyway, Kevin DeLuca and Jennifer Peoples have a nice piece about the public screen in Critical Studies in Media Communication that argues for Seattle as an image-event that corresponds to shifts in mediated-publicness. Might be useful, I can't get the full cite if anyone wants it and can't find it, and I may even have a pdf of the essay somewhere if you're feeling particularly adventurous.

And last comment, this one self-referential, but I've been making the argument for a couple of years now that mediation requires a shift towards a more critical engagement with mimesis, which I think opens up conditions of possibility that are not possible from within either the Habermasian communicative action, nor the general question of representation (of which televisuality is but one component).

[Kenneth Rufo]

Alright, posted something a bit longer on this issue. Feel free to browse if you get bored :)

The link:
http://ghostinthewire.org/archives/2006/03/democramedia_or.php

[Keith]

Jodi: "So, transitionally--honestly, I think a Leninist Party is a pretty good idea. Such a Party might have to 'create a new people'--if democracy is valuable, then democrat subjects would need to be created. (so, better education and literacy etc)"

Ok - no real qualms with the idea of creating subjects through better education and literacy. Though as far as how to arrive at that, I'd need to think through a few things, Leninism beign one of them. My bad with saying that media is used for democracy with non-democratic results. I completely agree that the conditions are there but it is not used for democratic purposes and hence, non-democratic results. And there already seems to be a kind of fascism in place like the one you mention. The TV really does seem to be just a "box with lights" at this point, and to follow Lazzarato's use of Goddard, if you take away all the parts of the newspaper that contain advertising, you are reduced to the editorial by the editor-in-chief.

Also, if the conversation could benefit from Baudrillard, it could likewise benefit from Virilio. Throw those two in and you more or less have to take D&G into account as well.

[Kenneth Rufo]

A box with lights? Doesn't taste play a role in correcting for televisual excess? Or are we really that determinist in our take on these sorts of media?

[Counters currently on-air: The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, Colbert Report, etc.]

[Keith]

"Doesn't taste play a role in correcting for televisual excess?"

Yes.

[Eric]

There's another Massumi piece on Bush and affect, with the twilight of neoliberalism thrown in. It's quite good.
http://www.radicalempiricism.org/biotextes/textes/massumi.pdf

[Amish Lovelock]

Jodi,

I might be mistaken but you seem to have said that appeals to democracy and demands for an alternative hinder any attempts to reject current forms and then appealed to democracy and demand for an alternative all in the same comment. "if democracy is valuable" seems to be the key phrase here. Perhaps it is not.

[Virgil Johnson]

This is an excellent post, it proposes our macro condition, on how media is played back to us about the way things "are," it is a matter of direction through media. I agree with the point for the most part, but I think that it does not go far enough.

The media, whatever form it takes, is merely reinforcing beliefs that are deeply embedded in the very warp and woof, of who and what we see oursleves to be, and of what our formed desires consist. It is the very construction of society, of what we call western civilization that endears us to the call of any media.

We can see ourselves as part of a great Pavlovian experiment of those who move us, by the elite and tools which are used - and most love their golden chains. Humanity is controlled like rats in a man-made maze, and merely need to be kept in line by those who manage the experiment.

So why do we all move is the same direction, respond in predictable ways to whatever stimuli? It is like a social addiction - that we must live in a certain way, in specific places, and strive for certain artificially prized possessions, a manufactured attraction.

Media like TV does not play to (or any media for that matter) us in an objective fashion to influence us (although there is powerful influence), it just maintains deeply embedded illusions in our minds. People trust what they consider to be authoritative, this is what they BELIEVE in. Everything they believe is formed in them from infancy - the manufactured view of reality goes from the cradle to the grave.

We are introduced into this world by those already submersed into what "life" is all about, our homes. Than we are introduced to what I will call outside authorities - schools, teachers, ministers, institutions, police, employers, etc. Each works within the structure of what is supposed to be the "way of life."

We cannot produce that but which we are influenced with, in other words, we are brainwashed from the very day of birth. The fact of the matter is that we live in a VERY controlled environment, but we believe we are free. We say we are free to do what we want, but what we want to do has been hammered into us from infancy.

There is nothing "normal," about this state of being. This beast that has been created continues to devour humanity. It even goes after our loved ones, but we seem helpless to do anything about it - that is because we do not know any other way of living. We do not stop this madness because we have an affinity for this illusion. Some people have the temerity to call this "civilization," I call it "coersion."

In other words, what we are dealing with is not merely some loop recording outside of us that we can merely turn off. We are trapped in a way of life, that has been dictated to us from most intimate cradle of our own homes and families, and by the very workings of what we term society. Until we come to a realization of this truth, turning the media tap off will produce precious little - in my opinion. I could go on, but it is probably good to finish on this point for now.

[Jodi]

Amish, sorry, I don't follow. I intended in my response to Keith to make 2 points (and I rephrase them here at an attempt in clarity):

1. that democracy is too weak an aspiration for the left and if asserted as an aspiration is actually a diminishment, in fact, a diminishment that concedes too much to the 'status quo.'

2. that there is a kind of blackmail (in left political theory) that counters criticisms of democracy with the demand that the critic present a version of something better.

And, with these in mind, I said that I endorse some kind of Leninism as a transition (that is, I don't think democratic channels are enought or adequate at present).

I don't know what might be or could be next. If democracy is still a good idea, which it could be after the economic conditions were there, then additional conditions that would need to hold would involve some kinds of literacy.

Virgil--thanks, I'm going to give a proper response in the am!

[brookes]

This is not really on topic, but Peter Sloterdijk has a lecture up at the Tate archive "On a Few Relations Between Surrealism and Terror," in which he discusses, among other things, the relation between the gas war and the rise of fascism in Europe--atmospheric politics. He argues that European states became "closed information domes" in which only "toxic communication" occurred. The whole lecture is worth listening to, I think, but I especially liked the following bit: "In the pathogenic air conditions of synchronically excited publics, the inhabitants breathe in their own breath again and again, and they breathe in their own lies and the lies of their leaders. [...] [L]ife in a multimedia state is like a stay in an enthusiastic gas palace." He uses this--in the discussion portion--to claim that it's fruitless to search for the roots of fascism, because fascism has no roots, i.e., it is a "surface structure/reaction" that comes and goes, like the aforementioned excited states. As an example he cites the Falklands crisis, in which the British were brought into a temporary warfaring mentality. Then, almost no one knew what had happened. This is Sloterdijk's claim, anyway. Maybe this is something for Ken to chew on.

[pebird]

Well, that's one option. Do we get to vote on it?

[Jodi]

Steve and Eric--thanks for the links.

[Amish Lovelock]

"we have the conditions of communication (distribution of information and opinion) for democracy. But, I don't think that media is used for democracy"

This and the creation of "democratic" subjects sounded like you think it should be used for democracy. And that would be an assertion for democracy which would hence make it difficult to criticize existing forms according to your line of argument here - one which otherwise I happen to agree with completely.

I don't think democracy is that much of a good idea and I do hope that a Leninist Party would not be simply a transitional phase towards it.

[Jodi]

Amish, ok, I think we are getting clear. My initial statement about media conditions was simply descriptive, not normative. And, creation of democratic subjects was speculative not normative.

[Dillinger]

It's easy enough to claim "democracy is not a good idea" without reference to any political or historical context: Plato himself claimed that. But the question should be what happens when democracy (an open society, at least in principle) has been elminiated and replaced with some form of state socialism, the closed society. From a histotical perspective there are not grounds for a claim that closed societies have been (or are likely to be) more beneficial, productive, equitable, and less brutal than open societies. Yes capitalism may have oppressive and tyrannical aspects, but what about stalin's five year plans?

Apart from historical comparisons, an argument for anti-democratic socialism meets many problems. WHo gets to decide on the political structure? whoever has enough military force to overthrow other factions? That is generally what has happened with applied marxism.

Democracy may lead to mob rule or to capitalism; but there are no assurances that some enlightened socialist leaders won't themselves set up an oligarchy, and that certainly occurred with the Bolsheviks did it not.

God or state, capitalism or communism, you're phucked: and generally without any sort of necessary protection of what might be called "covenants"--an entitlement to one's own livelihood--humans are still in a state of nature, and in many cases people living in either "democratic" or socialist societies are still participating in sort of low-level warfare, subject to various type of predation, explotiation, if not outright crime and violence.

[Jodi]

Democracies are not necessarily open societies. Open societies may actually foreclosed possibilities for political change, resistance, response. They may also purchase what is called opennes at the cost of gross immiseration. All in all, I don't think the old Popperian terms are very useful.

[Dillinger]

They are not very appealing or useful if one is a doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist, that's for sure.

There's no prima facie proof that socialism is more equitable, efficient, or inherently ethical than democracy, or any sort of govt. While Plato asserted in the Republic that democracy leads to mob rule, to madness, he also gave warnings about other types of oligarchies--and certainly a militaristic, communistic regime would have met his definition of a oligarchical tyranny.

While I think a EU-ing of the US might have its benefits, for many people it would be a loss, and many Europeans envy the sort of libertarianism of most of the US, even if that libertarianism leads to large numbers of people being shut out of the market, and to imbalances in wages/wealth.