I didn’t know Colbert read Lacan!

America used to live by the motto “Father Knows Best.” Now we’re lucky if “Father Knows He Has Children.” We’ve become a nation of sperm donors and baby daddies. But there’s more to being a father than taking kids to Chuck E. Cheese and supplying the occasional Y-chromosome. A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?
- I am America (And So Can You!) – Stephen Colbert

Here is some theory for you: Zizek on how to read Lacan:

The true formula of atheism is not God is dead – even by basing the origin of the function of the father upon his murder, Freud protects the father – the true formula of atheism is God is unconscious

In order to properly understand this passage, one has to read it together with another thesis of Lacan. These two dispersed statements should be treated as the pieces of a puzzle to be combined into one coherent proposition. It is only their interconnection (plus the reference to the Freudian dream of the father who doesn’t know that he is dead) that enables us to deploy Lacan’s basic thesis in its entirety:

As you know, the father Karamazov’s son Ivan leads the latter into those audacious avenues taken by the thought of the cultivated man, and in particular, he says, if God doesn’t exist… – If God doesn’t exist, the father says, then everything is permitted. Quite evidently, a naïve notion, for we analysts know full well that if God doesn’t exist, then nothing at all is permitted any longer. Neurotics prove that to us every day.

The modern atheist thinks he knows that God is dead; what he doesn’t know is that, unconsciously, he continues to believe in God. What characterizes modernity is no longer the standard figure of the believer who secretly harbors intimate doubts about his belief and engages in transgressive fantasies; today, we have, on the contrary, a subject who presents himself as a tolerant hedonist dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, and whose unconscious is the site of prohibitions: what is repressed are not illicit desires or pleasures, but prohibitions themselves. “If God doesn’t exist, then everything is prohibited” means that the more you perceive yourself as an atheist, the more your unconscious is dominated by prohibitions which sabotage your enjoyment. (One should not forget to supplement this thesis with its opposite: if God exists, then everything is permitted – is this not the most succinct definition of the religious fundamentalist’s predicament? For him, God fully exists, he perceives himself as His instrument, which is why he can do whatever he wants, his acts are in advance redeemed, since they express the divine will…)

Instead of bringing freedom, the fall of the oppressive authority thus gives rise to new and more severe prohibitions. How are we to account for this paradox? Think of the situation known to most of us from our youth: the unfortunate child who, on Sunday afternoon, has to visit his grandmother instead of being allowed to play with friends. The old-fashioned authoritarian father’s message to the reluctant boy would have been: “I don’t care how you feel. Just do your duty, go to grandmother and behave there properly!” In this case, the child’s predicament is not bad at all: although forced to do something he clearly doesn’t want to, he will retain his inner freedom and the ability to (later) rebel against the paternal authority. Much more tricky would have been the message of a “postmodern” non-authoritarian father: “You know how much your grandmother loves you! But, nonetheless, I do not want to force you to visit her – go there only if you really want to!” Every child who is not stupid (and as a rule they are definitely not stupid) will immediately recognize the trap of this permissive attitude: beneath the appearance of a free choice there is an even more oppressive demand than the one formulated by the traditional authoritarian father, namely an implicit injunction not only to visit the grandmother, but to do it voluntarily, out of the child’s own free will. Such a false free choice is the obscene superego injunction: it deprives the child even of his inner freedom, ordering him not only what to do, but what to want to do.

The thirst of many honesties (hah, so punny, get it?)

Dear blog, I made a fool of myself in class. True, this is a common occurrence, but I am hardly bothered by it.

I pretended to be some sleazy salesgirl (although not as bad as those Cricket Baby girls)  trying to sell rubber tubing to companies other than medical/industrial ones.

So our professor said to take risks. To be honest, she’s right. To be honest, the other students, the ones who want to play it safe, who posted replies in their blogs that when they do something not by-the-book they get scolded, and so they rather not take such a risk…are not wrong either. The problem, is that they’re not doing something different. They’re just taking the prescription wrong.

But enough of us will have bosses who make ridiculous demands of us. Yes, make an awesome PowerPoint in 5 minutes.  Impossible task that will likely result in failure. I treat this as prep. Hell, I did have a supervisor that made crazy demands of me this past summer. But I knew I wouldn’t get fired, because even if I couldn’t read her mind, I was one of the best, if not the best graphic designer intern they’ve had thus far. I know that my grade does not depend on the amount of scolding. So in way, I’m not worried about it. I calculate my risks. But I still take them.

I’d rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

A personal motto, I suppose.

Thing is, I figured that for this class, unlike any other class, risks, no matter how foolish, would be rewarded in some fashion or another.  I mean, for this class, we were totally encouraged to take risks. Make the environment our own. There’s playing it safe, and there’s playing it scared. Again, what’s the worse that can happen? Some scolding? Pft. Whatever. No one can scold you better than your own family. So really, no one scares me in that respect. Sure, I don’t bite the hand that feeds me, gives me my grade, and gives me a paycheck. That doesn’t mean I sit in wait for the next command.

Dear blog, what makes a better blog? The blog on politics and culture, or the one…that..tells my story?

In your face

I doubt that faces will become obsolete. Unless we have a truly democratic (democratic in a very rigid, almost proto-Fascist sense that democracy only works if everyone is the same)world in which we modify people’s faces to be one of a set five like in that Twilight Zone episode (although it was only women’s faces that were modified). Faces are different, and the bodies associated with the mugshot remain important.

For instance, why do people still go to concerts? We have the music. We don’t have to deal with other people, moshpits, drinking, smoking, pushing, grabbing…it’s also cheaper as certain concerts can cost $100+. We could easily watch a nice recording of them in the studio if we wanted them to dance and entertain us. But no, we go and crowd and push and deal because, as of now, nothing replaces the face, and its body.

Perhaps, that is only because of acclimation. We’re simply not used to a lack of a human being telling us what to do. We need the face and the body. We’ve always had class that way. Tuesday’s class was an interesting sociological exercise in authority. Why was everyone so content that I was “in charge”?

“If we can confidently assert that the face gives rise to meaning, then what is the nature of this meaning? In other words, if faces communicate something, what is it that they communicate?” (“What Can A Face Do?” Richard Rushton, pp220-221)

Was there something on my face? Was there something in my teeth that somehow gained me a modicum of unwanted (yet not wholly unpleasant) power. No one questioned, in fact, people wanted to make sure that I was a TA, or something else official. Yet, even when I explained there is no hierarchy between them and me, people still would address me, look at me, almost for permission to speak, or even listen to my suggestions. No one had to stay in the class, respond to my questions, or even allow me to speak. After all, in a Hobbesian world, something of my pitiful size would be trumped easily. I hold almost no capital (Bourdieu) and thus, should have had no authority. No one gained anything from allowing me to be an authority figure.

“Ultimately, the face is an instrument whose primary purpose is that of communicating; we cannot dissociate the face of the sender from the system of meaning implied by that face’s messages being sent to a receiver.” (Rushton, 221)

How did I manage to communicate power?

As witnessed in the classroom chaos, if my annoying little face didn’t step up, then the screen would have been ignored. People would have left. I doubt many would have logged onto a classroom real-time chatroom. Personally, I need to gesticulate. It adds a lot to my speech. My ability to persuade my audience is also heightened by my facial expressions, tone, volume (close to 80% of speech is body language (which makes sense because if we read a transcript of a speech we wonder how anyone could be excited by the words)).

In a way, it’s not what you say, but how you say it that matters in face-to-face interactions. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we be saying and rating on the actual material? “Don’t rate a book by its cover,” is an applicable cliché. While the saying is meant for us to be more open-minded in our judgments, shouldn’t we scrutinize more? Devil Wears Prada has an attractive cover, but the guts are so useless.

This begs the question; since verbal speech is rated on whim and pathos, then is written speech, in a way, more important? If not important, then simply better because it cannot be swayed by pretty clothes, ugly faces, shrill voices… If written speech is so much cleaner, then why do so many blogs sound like shit?

I asked my IT co-workers if they owned blogs. None of the 8 people I asked did. One of them even said that unlike most of the bloggers out there, he knows he has nothing of worth to say, and would rather stay silent (and in a “morally” higher position). Why then are so many, in his and plenty others’ opinion, stupid? Worthless? Don’t enhance anything?

“So this would be a first meaning: the face is a thing that gives rise to meaning. This is, in short, a conception of the face as an object: the face is an object or instrument that indicates something.” (Rushton, 222)

I really like this quote. I enjoy the idea that something so personal as a face is an object, it’s being used for something, but often it is being used by us without our knowledge. Involuntary emotions, reactions. In the beginning of his article, Rushton

Indeed, I remember a while back I was watching an online video (I can’t find the link right now) which had this person that was an FBI or something fancy expert on faces, lies, etc. She was asked to say which person was the most honest. Turned out, that for her, Giuliani, was the most honest politician because when answering a question, his face would have a reaction first, and then he would respond. It was that honest facial reaction that made him more honest than many other politicians (and thus more trustworthy) because he didn’t think of how to react, but just did. This reminds me of the point that Rushton quoted Zizek’s discussion of Hitchhock’s movie Lifeboat (Rushton, 222).

Oh! I can’t help but think of V for Vendetta where the Chancellor communicated with his henchmen by way of a huge screen that only had his face on it. That face had power. When that electronic face screamed, people squirmed and reacted. So what was more important, the message “You messed up!” or the face screaming it? If the henchmen came into the boardroom and encountered a projected screen (similar to one that the class witnessed on Tuesday), would they respect that authority? Would they squirm anyway? I imagine not. I will attempt to add more to this thought later on.

On another note on the importance of the face…

With breakups becoming more and more common over text messages, post-it notes (Sex and the City), and oldschool phone calls (basically any way to avoid actually being in physical person with the “dumpee”)…the reaction is always indignant…Why didn’t so-and-so say it to my face?! Why is that seen as the more honorable thing to do?

Righteous indignation, I’d say. No one likes someone talking behind their back. It’s always “say it to my face.” But why is that so important? Would that change the message? Doubtful. It might even bring on more tears to see our beloved be hateful, or worse, wear the face of indifference to our suffering. Again, is it the message, or the medium (the face) that is more important?

Drawing upon Bernadette Wegenstein and the cliché of the eyes/face being the window(s) to the soul, then we come back to the idea that how something is said is more important than what is actually said.

“The human face is here to be understood as the absolute breakthrough between individuals… The very opacity of the face constitutes for Lévinas a “window” on the other: everything else can lie, but the face cannot. Individuals, when they encounter each other, cannot but react to that.” (“Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete” Bernadette Wegenstein. pp.231)

I like the line that gazing upon one another’s faces is a “breakthrough” because that is a violent action. Not that I endorse violence, but that to see, recognize and know one another is a painful thing. I wonder if this has anything to do with my British flatmate telling me that making eye contact with someone on the street is also considered rude. It’s penetrating. You’re looking into someone’s soul and, drawing from what I’ve said about the involuntary honesty written on the face, you’re taking something from them that they have not given permission for. We break through each other’s privacy in order to engage. As Wegenstein says, people “cannot but react to that”.

Back to the breakups and rumors.

Does the dumped person want to see the person’s face in order to penetrate/break through and “look into their soul”? Perhaps not to hurt them, but to find something there. Something that could not be written, literally, into the message? (Literally written, hah! Get it? Text messages are written!) This reminds me of, I believe Zizek, who wrote about believing what one sees, rather than what one hears. Are we hoping to believe the medium more? Why would the face tell us more than the message? We don’t want to believe what we’ve heard/read, so we go looking for truth in the visual. (If I had some more time I would link this to a discussion of the visual to the virtual, and go back to TV, and blogs. How do we believe them? What is more real?)

In the end, it’s too early to discount face-to-face interaction.

I guess it’s important to still keep your skin clear and moisturized.

Gosh, some makeup company should totally pay me for advertising space.