As criticisms of consumerism and the “consumerist society” propagate and proliferate at a compounding rate, I believe it is necessary to examine the nature not only of the “industrial age” and capitalistic ventures, but the nature of the criticisms themselves. I fear that a great deal of critical “scholarship” has fallen under the same paralyzing guise of consumerist intentions; in a phrase, scholarship borne in critical social analysis has assumed a consumerist function within itself. Mass production has become the primary impetus behind the majority of contemporary academic publication; now, in an attempt to accumulate profit, garner fame, and make the bestsellers list, authors and publishers alike have created a hybrid form of critical evaluation, a method of social and economic analysis that both draws from and reinvents mass opinion. This is not the age of critical thought advocated by the radical schools of philosophy that grew out of the mid-20th century’s turbulence, nor is it drawn from the traditional models borne in the Enlightenment and, in some cases, the Hellenistic era: rather, the very tools of criticism have now fallen victim to the mass consumption of the industrial age, thus rendering potential uses of evaluative functionism an impossibility.

This symptomatic response to the philosophy of late capitalism—namely, the fact that critical evaluation, which at one point was removed and detached from its subject material, has now been conquered by its economic counterpart—fundamentally alters the equilibrium of critical responsiveness; the nodes of social and philosophical criticism are controlled by the consumerist drive, as are the research methodologies and strategies of analysis. Every aspect of legitimate critical functionism has become a subset or extension of its capitalistic nexus: like a black hole, the economic nebulae, created in the singularity of the unrepresentable consumerist impulse, has reached, with its massive gravitational pull, the furthest outposts of radical philosophical discernment.

I suppose the late capitalistic era deserves credit, in a sense—the greatest critical tools fashioned by such thinkers as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Lucaks, Marcuse, Baudrillard, and so forth have turned against their original intentions; the need for economic expansion, coupled with the mass entity of the “silent majorities,” has generated an inexplicable anomaly that, with economic, political and social mechanisms, has even come to assimilate its counteracting principles into its aqueous infrastructure (for the structurality of the mass itself cannot be fully articulated, and avoids definition through its ubiquitous and seismic presence). But here we encounter an odd paradox: where I hesitate to grant agency to non-singular entities, it seems as though we have no other option but to categorize this mass anomaly as an instrumental force of singular manipulation: though composed of various components, participants and social functions, it moves and acts under the four main features of capitalism. It is, in a sense, the natural and organic realization of consumerism incarnate: it is both the “invisible hand of the market” as it is the market itself; it is both the driving energy behind consumerism as it is the momentum of consumerism itself, the very structural and institutional foundation of consumption and its associated conceptual framework.

This paradoxical agency-non-agency dichotomy only further subjugates our critical potential. The more we attempt to employ analytical faculties in the hopes of facilitating either intellectual or social progression, the more we encounter the looming presence of this mass entity. It devours our understandings of critical evaluation and simultaneous challenges our very interpretations of reality: its roots grow so deep as to undermine the conceptual underpinnings of conceptual realism. It channels its impulsive energies into a narrow venue, a defined medium of social subversion: the more we try to avoid it, the more it injects its control. Like the tools of dissent, dissent itself is a natural and controllable byproduct of the entity—it allows for, and draws support from, this limited subversion. It is the essential realization of Mosca, Trevelyan and Chomsky: the very confines of debate are defined and advertised by this mass entity. But beyond—and yet still interrelated to—the boundaries of dissent lies the boundaries of realism: our conceptions transition, often sloppily, into Zizek’s “staged fake,” a cultural panorama that moves about and performs under the same declarations and instructions as would a poorly-scripted play. Reality itself melts away into an ambigous combination of loosely-associated consumerist images; it is the “world of lights and sounds” without the conceptual framework of the “lights and sounds” themselves insofar as the singularity has no referential node. Contrary to many contemporary theories, the anomaly lacks even internal cohesion: not only does internal referencing not exist, but it lacks all substantive and structural capabilities to formally construct any point of reference whatsoever. Its entire existence rests solely on the conceptual framework of the lost conceptual whole. The staged fake replaces the “real” conceptual reality without the reference to an external symbolic order; due to its lack of internal reference, it must exist as a constantly-changing, fluid system of assimilation and synthesis—it absorbs, assimilates, and transforms rather than designing, creating or developing any unique symbolic order.
This is both a completion of Baudrillard’s work as it is a formal rejection of its undermining theoretical proposal: while I agree with, and seek to augment, the theory of the silent majorities, I am not convinced that this singularity, this ever-changing, ever-evolving, ever-energy-dependent order has any symbolic substructure of its own. I see how it must necessarily “conquer”—for lack of a better term—all the social, economic and political systems directly or indirectly connected to it, and I understand that its method of assimilation, though a clear derivate of its existence, is difficult to identify as a result of its obtuse, holistically-unholistic nature. Its consumption is limitless, so it must indeed consume its very own structural components—those components, in turn, are recycled in a never-ending process of consumption. Its foundation metamorphs into its fuel: the compounding rate of consumption—the demand for not only goods and services, but the conceptual structure behind those goods and services—reaches such a high capacity that the system cannot end, but only continue to consume, assimilate and transform. But Baudrillard is wrong to suggest that this “silent” mass has any sort of internal cohesion; on the contrary, it seems to operate under the stipulations of swarm theory—there is no clear “leadership” component, no element in the order that defines or directs the myriad other constituent parts. Indeed, its multifaceted foundation is not so much a foundation at all, but a loose affiliation of consumer-oriented parts: the affiliation kept together only through the limitless demand for more. We once again find a problem with the agency of the system: while no singular component acts as a formal organizational instrument, the apparatus assumes an odd set of characteristics, moving and evolving in much the same way organic organisms adapt to environmental changes. It seems only appropriate to allocate agency to a system that lacks any principal element while at the same time actively seeking to ensure its survival and pursue means of growth—without agency delegation, would an analysis be possible at all? And with the system having already assimilated the critical tools necessary to deconstruct and dissect its structurality (if we can go so far as to call it that), are we left with any possible alternatives?

So, out of sheer boredom it seems, I ventured into my sister’s room to see what she was up to the other day only to find that she had turned on a show called “My Super Sweet 16.” Now, the basic premise is this: insanely rich, insanely superficial kids throw insanely large, insanely expensive parties to celebrate the big 16. In a word, the show is insane.

After watching the show for about 10 minutes, both my sister and I could not comprehend the performance. This sounds odd, and it is—our mental capacities, combined, could not plunge the depths of this seemingly inane MTV reality spoof. Then it hit me. This show, this measly piece of media from the outskirts of some producers failed imagination, was the ultimate culmination of a purely commodified, purely commercialized age. This was the epitome of reality TV: a reality so inundated with the “lights and sounds” of Baudrillard’s work, so reminiscent of the utterly unrepresentable discussed by Derrida and Lyotard, that the only conceivable outlet of intellectual force was to submit to the “staged fake” of Zizek. After all, this can’t be the case, right? These kids can’t be this stupid, this superficial, this obsessed with Gucci, Prada, and Mercedes Benz, right? It was literally inconceivable.

Was this what our culture has degenerated into—a spectacle, a world purely of “lights and sounds,” the hollow essence of a single glimmering, shimmering night? The English language simply does not supply the vocabulary necessary to qualify the utter depravity of these child’s lives. It is a world of country clubs, private airplanes, mansions, and 1.2 million dollar cars—it seethed with the same yuppie-bleakness of upper-Washingtonian culture. Everything about this show, and I literally mean everything, was so ridiculous, so torn away from “reality” or “rationality” that these terms themselves, when used in a critical light, cannot even begin to strip the show of its internal defenses. Indeed, the lexicon of critical tools supplied by postmodernism, even, does little more than inflate the grandiose image of the spectacle itself. It was as though I was throwing water upon rocks.

So what can we do against such unrepresentable superficiality? What can we do when the very subject we attempt to deconstruct has preempted our very language, has the built-in ability to constantly reinvent the limit of its grandeur? What can we do when the system itself is braided with our society’s most deeply-embedded doctrines of commercialism and consumerism; after all, isn’t the pinnacle of the American dream unlimited wealth? I have failed, I feel, in the sense that I do not possess the material necessary to fully surmount the problems I have witnessed—neither work that has come before me nor work of my own is capable of developing a comprehensive criticism to adequately analyze the show.

I suppose I must leave with an admitted irony, then. While I am supplied with an extensive lexicon of philosophical and critical tools—tools that have been compiled over the course of human civilization—it was the spectacle of an MTV reality show that is the ultimate challenge. Where one can identify and deconstruct modern politics, modern socioeconomics, modern international affairs, modern gender studies—essentially, modern veins of every school of thought or societal process there is—one cannot even come close to facing the beast that is “My Super Sweet 16.” So we sit, I suppose, and watch as the beast lumbers closer to Bethlehem, once again caught in the liminality of Yeats poem, waiting, ever so patiently, for the spectacle to issue the second coming. Perhaps we should not ask what we can do to prevent it; perhaps our worry should be: what happens when the beast evolves, as is the necessary impetus behind the survival of a capitalistic venture?

There seems to be an ever-increasing lexicon of postmodern literature—a great deal of which is comprised of explanatory introductions. One need only peruse the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble or Borders to see the extent to which postmodern literature has asserted its influence; entire volumes are now exclusively devoted to introducing the casual reader to Derrida or Foucault, Baudrillard or Lyotard.

While I applaud the originators of the postmodern movement for their obvious intelligence and commitment to deeply-critical analysis, I fear that, instead of ushering in an age of critique and, by extension, an age of progress, the age they instigated is little more than the modern dark age. Now, this is not to say that we live in an age where there is a definitive lack or repression of scholarship; on the contrary, there seems to be an inundation of sensationalist, commodified, and ultimately superfluous literature now adorning America’s academic facade. Our “greatest” and most “accomplished” minds have either fallen silent or fallen ill—their ailment a result of an unhealthy marriage between the sanctity of our finest intellectual doctrines to the paralyzing systems of mass consumerism. Now, the intellectual hides behind ivy-covered walls, detached from the world and detached from legitimate theorizing—publications of eloquent nothingness are splashed across the newsstands, nightly news reports and tabloids of contemporary America.

The sheer quantity of literature, produced in much the same fashion one may produce any other product, resembles the embodiment of a Horkheimer and Adorno nightmare than legitimate forces of critical and creative pursuit. The language of our most popular criticisms is the language of the iron age; we have all but lost our most precious and essential understandings of intellectualism, humanism, and even postmodernism.

In political science, one can literally name the legitimate theorists in one breath: Wolin, Cohen, Roemer, Rawls, Elster, Rogers, Hayek, Mansfield—where is contemporary society’s response to real intellectualism?

Perhaps what is needed is a shift in the equilibrium of critical analyses; where the 1960’s gave rise to some of the most controversial, innovative and influential minds ever, the legacy of the postmoderns has left a responsibility, in a sense—a responsibility that we, if we are to respect their contributions to our intellectual tradition, must assume, examine and act upon. So, forget the introductory texts, the countless politically-jargonized books, the innumerable “best sellers,” and go back to the basics: there is something to be said for great writers and their original work, as I feel that a resurgence of effective and creative academia is directly contingent to the level in which we engage the ideas themselves. Perhaps a new movement is in order?

People constantly point to the fact that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for 30 silver pieces. I find it odd that the Bible even indicates how many pieces of silver Judas was given, or, for that matter, the fact that he was given anything at all. Would it have been better if it were 40 pieces, 50, 100? What about 1,000? Would it make more sense to people if Judas was offered the world in turn for his kiss? The ultimate question is thus stated: what gift is a rational exchange for the betrayal of a presumed savior?

The implication of pointing to Judas’s small acquisition is, of course, that there exists a possible level of silver that would be more rational, that would make more sense—thus, there must be some amount of silver that would make Judas’s decision more understandable.

Perhaps the problem lies solely in the fact that we live in a world too dominated by economics. The implication above points to the general process of computing opportunity costs: we weigh our options and select from the one which appears to have the greatest level of utility. But there seems to be a reality beyond economic models and calculated graphs—can we determine, through the application of economics, at what level an individual would betray his or her friends and family, at what level all that which we hold true and dear fades away as the offerings of a better “deal” are presented? Utilitarianism attempts to answer this question—can we adequately invest our faith in a system that weighs the betrayal of all that is good and right in the world against a specified amount of money, a formulaic output of silver?

The conclusion is rather obvious: regardless of the amount, a betrayal is a betrayal. 30, 50, 500—it makes no difference. Economics can help us understand many things, though it is mute when it comes to the matters of fairness, justice, and compassion. Ultimately, we live in a system driven almost exclusively by economic forces, often at the expense of humanism and genuine empathy. Thus, I think it is rather ironic when people scoff at how little Judas exchanged the betrayal of Jesus for—after all, I don’t know anyone else who wouldn’t have done the same for a mere 10 pieces of silver, let alone 30.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/27/miley-cyrus-topless-in-va_n_98836.html

Above is a link I was sent earlier today; it is an article written for the Huffington Post regarding the recent uproar about Miley Cyrus—the famed “Hannah Montana”—posing semi-topless for Vanity Fair magazine. Apparently parents and fans are upset about the semi-eroticized/sexualized cover. This got me thinking: in a society where even the most “innocent” stars are becoming the most controversial (recall Jamie Lynn Spears and her pregnancy—she was the star of Disney Channel’s Zoey 101; the show’s viewing demographic is comprised mainly of 8-16 year old girls), isn’t this sort of exposure a rite of passage? That is to say, what would have happened if Miley did not pose for Vanity Fair—it would have been a question of “when,” and not “if.” It seems as though controversy has transitioned, sloppily, into a good, a form of capital. In short, we have successfully commodified not only the product of controversy, but controversy itself—we demand it, feign disgust, eat it up, and ask for more.

Of course, Miley isn’t the only example of this. The rise of TMZ, Perez Hilton, and so forth—all are examples of society’s profound relationship with an increasingly sexualized, irresponsible celebrity culture. An entire industry has developed in response to this culture. What about those stars who aren’t posing half-nude on the cover of Vanity Fair? Who knows? They haven’t done anything explicit, anything that would upset the delicate balance of the social equilibrium. In a way, we feed on the poor choices and inappropriate actions of others. Whether we do this to supply legitimacy to our own wrong doings—much in the way Disneyland provides the essential dichotomy for Los Angeles in Baudrillard’s argument—is hard to say. But perhaps this is it; perhaps the continuously-reaffirmed fame of these celebrities is derived primarily from our desire to have a scapegoat, a sense of social closure, a medium to allocate our own misconducts to a portrait of greater offenses.

Thus, these celebrities provide a far more instrumental role than otherwise supposed. Indeed, Miley’s shoot on the cover of Vanity Fair is precisely what keeps society in order—we are able, in our collective effort, to revel in her poor choice in order to legitimize our own. After all, we didn’t pose half-nude on the front of a nationally-syndicated magazine, right? After all, we didn’t get pregnant at the age of 16 while acting on the Disney channel, right? After all, we wear underwear while wearing a skirt, right? I said that we have commodified controversy—I now want to take that a step further, and suggest that we have commodified the need for a false-legitimizing controversy. Our own experiences, our own times of cheating on our loved ones, of lying to our friends, of skipping out on class—everything, from the most terrible to the most trivial, is made more acceptable. We are able to swallow it a little better in knowing that there is still Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton—we are able to tell ourselves those little lies to get through each and every day, to maintain some composure as each week slips through our open hands, as each year draws to a close and we shuffle off to our boring jobs, dead marriages and dying ambitions. And the irony is pronounced accordingly: at one time we condemn and criticize them—as our social standards dictate, for we could never break from that false reality of expectation formed in our collective conscience—while at the same time we absolutely demand that they act in such ways. We need them to pose for Vanity Fair, to get pregnant. We need them to be bad and despicable and explicit. In a phrase, we need them to be socially subversive in order to maintain that delicate and fragile construction of social interaction. So, I suppose the next article on the Huffington Post should read: “Miley Cyrus Poses Half-nude on Vanity Fair Cover; Fans say ‘Thank You, Miley. You are Our Hero.’”

The rising trend of religious fundamentalism has brought a radical, new perspective into the public discourse ranging from topics such as individual ethics and private faith to sociopolitical policymaking, economic practices, and the very structure of institutional society. The implications of religious fundamentalism are vast, and are worth studying in their own right, but will not constitute the topic of this particular discussion. Rather, my interest—for the time being—is centered upon the apparent collision of fundamentalism and science, and the continued battle being waged between these expansive distinctions.

Over the past decade, there has been a definitive separation between faith and reason: these two camps have developed unique systems of thought and discourse, garnering members and producing various sects and groups loosely or fully affiliated with each broad ideology. On the one side stands logic, science, and the history of Western metaphysical and philosophical dissertation; on the other stands faith and the long precedent of faith-related dialogue and institutionalized doctrine and dogma. The perceived problem is this: both positions are contending for the fundamental claim to social control; science wants to reign supreme through the medium of reason and logic, and faith wants to reign supreme through the medium of indoctrination and divinity. The tension between the two ideologies continues to rise at an unprecedented rate, and small skirmishes—legal, social, economic, etc.—play out on a daily basis. As faith threatens the sanctity of science—and as science threatens the sanctity of faith—both positions have assumed increasingly-antagonistic policies. The doctrines of faith and science have now incorporated into their foundation unilateral incompatibility; as long as the other exists, says the one position, there will be no justice/truth/peace/understanding throughout our society.

But this is not the real problem—only the excess, the byproduct of a more subtle, though nonetheless greater, dilemma. The true predicament lies in the inability of mutual discourse; in fact, the two processes—faith and reason—do not even utilize the same fundamental understandings to deliberate. They approach each other from two radically different and distinct perspectives—perspectives that cannot grasp why the opposing position is one of such relative ignorance and single-mindedness. Thus, the only conceivable outcome is one of antagonism, discord, mistrust, resentment and animosity: the previous and ongoing debates between the scientific and religious communities have not even been able to establish a common venue of rhetoric, but rely specifically on unique sets of knowledge that clash over fundamental differences. Where one places inherent value on the rigidity of logic, empirical data, observation, and discernable methods, the other concludes that the intrinsic value of a principle, object, etc. is in fact the divinity associated with that principle, object, etc., and thus supersedes the synthetic apparatuses of thought due to its transcendental nature.

It is important to draw a broad distinction here: faith is not reason, and reason is not faith. This statement should be obvious and intuitive, yet it holds tremendous weight in dictating the current discourses regarding science and religion. We can extrapolate from this distinction an even broader separation: there are two specific and divergent forms of faith. There is faith in reason, and there is faith in religion. In either situation, the individual places inherent faith into a particular method of knowledge or epistemological discourse. The two systems of belief, however, are innately dissimilar in their methods of approaching the concept of knowledge and the illustration of reality. The fundamental flaw is that each discourse attempts to disprove the other through an application of its own epistemological understanding; these attempts are futile, however, due to the distinct nature of the modes of thought.

Now, there should be two obvious questions that at this point enter into the equation: firstly, are these two discourses permanently incompatible? and secondly, why can’t these two discourses create a ground of mutual understanding to better debate their respective positions?

As to the first question, I submit that these discourses are in fact inherently compatible; one attempts to answer the “how” of the universe, and one attempts to answer the “why.” It seems that irrational emotion, distrust and resentment (in the political and social sense) has taken the place of any attempt to reconcile the two positions; the members of both sides have developed dogmatic and inflexible narratives to describe their systems of thought—narratives that leave little to no room for challenge or improvement. This seems problematic, and can certainly be seen throughout contemporary society. Regardless, it seems that the holes present in one argument can neatly be filled by the extension of the opposing view—to suggest that either perspective is perfect in their design or construction seems to fall well short of an adequate philosophy.

For the second question, I am not the first to suggest that the most effective and humanistic method of reconciliation would be a simple extension of mutual respect and dialogue. Yet, this commonsensical approach seems to fall on death ears; previous attempts on behalf of both sides to open up respectful channels of communication have gone unaided and unrequited, forcing instead greater mistrust and misunderstanding between the two encampments. Nevertheless, I do not see any possible alternative: if there is to be any progress between the two conditions, then both must relinquish their relative hubris and instead develop methods of common bonding. This is not to suggest that both sides continue flinging facts, figures and ideals at one another. On the contrary, this nonsensical approach has only caused strife and conflict where there should otherwise be a common interest to preserve the sanctity of social relations and provide the opportunity for both science and faith to flourish inclusively. Though I certainly may take issue with a fundamentalist approach—just as I may take issue with the extent to which science professes its omnipotence—the general basis of a democratic state is the equal discourse of all members; without this discourse, and without the relative dissent of opposing parties, the effectiveness of a democracy wanes and eventually collapses. To suppress one side exclusively is more reminiscent of a totalitarian state than it is of a utopian model.

What more can be said? This short musing is simply that—a short musing. I have declared my general position in regards to these matters—as many have done before me—in the hopes of opening up the potential for new lines of communication to replace the current bitterness associated with both sects. As always, I would encourage those that agree with my position to further pursue this objective through activity: talk to others. Attempt to actually implement these policies of respectful dialogue. Even if that dialogue may seem incompatible at first, understand that it is through the inclusive understanding of mutual exclusivity that agreements can be met. Read more. Examine these positions in a critical light. Do whatever it takes to improve the current condition of faith and reason-based rhetoric. Be tolerant of others and do not be afraid to expect the same level of tolerance. If we, as a society deeply connected through various social, economic and political bonds, are to progress, then we have no other choice than to accept the differences of others and work together to celebrate and respect those differences while also developing methods to reconcile antipodal perspectives in the hopes of constructing a more peaceful, accessible social condition. Otherwise, we shall be caught in a purgatorial liminality while neither party progresses; a state that I am confident both sides would like to avoid.