An Attempt at a Marxist Critique, By a Casual Marxist Reader

Centers of calculation, as Miller says, are "center[s] on which a cycle of accumulation is focused and which possesses the power to maintain that situation by disciplining individuals and institutions across a wide spectrum of the society" (25). Miller continues, "the process of accumulation, calculation and exercise of power must not be regarded as separate" (25). In otherwords, centers of calculation construct and enforce ways of seeing and understanding things.

Maybe then centers of calculation do not "reflect" cultural or national biases, but instead, to some degree, "establishes" those biases. In this sense, centers of calculation become machines of ideological dissemination.

Ideology, in a Marxist context, relates to systems of ideas that help to maintain power structures; and ideology is imposed through a number of cultural and economic contexts. Gramsci, however, critiques Marx's argument that ideology is enforced through coercion and force, saying that the working class is complicit in the power structure as well. Hegemony, Gramsci claims, is ideology internalized by the working class, and is accepted as some kind of cultural consciousness, which in return discourages contestation and maintains social stratification.

Centers of calculation then cannot be the reflection of cultural thought. If they were, it would mean that the working class was creating the political, social, and economic agenda. Hegemony however, does not establish the rules, but instead, is a complicit willingness to follow them. If, as Miller claims, centers of calculation and the exercise of power cannot be separated, and if we know that power is exercised by those of the ruling class, then centers of calculation cannot express the thought of the people, but give the people their thoughts.

Something about travel and prior knowledge

This is a short film from the "Paris, Je T'Aime" collection, by director Alexander Payne: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kfkUF2bAvF0.

This may not be the best example for what I am trying to say, but, aside from being a beautiful and heartbreaking short film, it does reflect on some aspects of which I would like to discuss, mainly how information changes travel.

Humboldt's said, "I regretted that travelers, the most enlightened in the insulated branches of natural history, were seldom possessed of a sufficient variety of knowledge, to avail themselves of every advantage arising from their position." If we position that comment in the historical time of which it was made, it is interesting to think about the possibilities of how scientific exploration and collection would have been different if those participating in the exercise would have had "a sufficient variety of knowledge." And while I see that you could dissect and take up issue with the usage of "sufficient," arguing that it is a purely subjective term, I also see that certainly "different" knowledge would have produced "different" results; however, I don't know if it possible to confidently surmise what would have changed

If we think for a moment about the short film and Carol's experience in Paris we might be able to see my point more clearly. Carol's experience was almost completely dictated by prior knowledge and research; she knew what to see, what to do, etc.. Consequently, her trip was a bit prescribed to her previous motives (this is not to say that her feelings, however, were equally prescribed). She saw the sites and likely new a little about them.

If we look at the 1985 film, "Before Sunrise," (trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvrzpebA6k) we see that the main couple experience a night Vienna without much prior planning and their experience takes a different form. They also do see sites, but not from a factual or purely historical sense; instead their exposure and reactions are more aesthetically based, spontaneous and surprising.

I understand that these two examples are not the best (maybe thinking about the experiences of people who plan a vacation to a city would differ compared to people who have a one day layover at the same place. They might see similar things, eat similar food, but inevitably, their experiences are going to be different). But my main point is that a "difference" of knowledge will change the experience: it will change what is brought back, what is looked at, explored, how things are understood, etc. I don't know what would have changed if scientific collectors, as Humboldt said, would have had "sufficient knowledge," but I feel safe in saying, and maybe this is all a bit of a oversimplified reduction, that something would have.

The Frailty of a Google Image Collection

My wife and I went to Paris for our Honeymoon. When we visited Montmartre we got in a little argument. Two years later, late at night, I  found myself desperately wanting those moments back. For the comfort of nostalgia and in an attempt to change my memory, I search "Montmartre" on the Google image search. I got page after page of images, but nothing really helped. I had quickly amassed a digital collection of images, but as I looked through them, the moment that I was trying to reconstruct and change at the same time, kept a distance from me. I was hoping that because I could not return to the place when I wanted to, that the collection would somehow put me there and allow me to understand the moment, change it, deal with, etc. 

I was unsuccessful.

This is a sampling of the Google results I found that night and I poem that came out of my frustration.   

The 18th Arrondissement

Montmartre, you and your guided tours, your lines and dots on maps,
Picasso’s house, Dali’s drawings, the Moulin Rouge, La Sacré Cœur.

You and your moments of understanding on the cobblestone roads that
surreptitiously draw patrons further and further up, until they must walk

down those stairs. You, whom now cannot be put together by a Google
image search, but remains as a fragmented memory, scarred by words

I cannot remember but know were simply awful. You, holding us in
your ancient hands, sculpted by the brushes of painters, by the orgasms

of lovers. You didn’t know I would get so mad when the Metro station
left the park but stayed on the map. You didn’t know what to do when

you heard me get angry and saw her block the perfect breeze with her hands,
turn from your offerings and mine, and begin to walk away, heading towards

the faint shadow of the Eiffel tower. You could have screamed as I am tonight,
and slapped my face with your hardened hand, telling me to fold the map up

and use my arms to hold her. But you remained silent, allowed the distant
ringing of a police car, the creepily lucid song of the Carousal and the moans

of others feeling the city move beneath their moving bodies, to block out her subtle
tears and scarring cheeks. You, this place, this city, this feeling, this sky,

her hand which momentarily left mine. This futile search for pictures of you to
somehow change this memory I have, to somehow remake that moment when

I knew what it meant to love and destroy; to see you, that place, in perfect stillness
and know that a breeze is touching your face and my body inside of yours.

You—perfectly crumbled before me, hammer in my hand, digital camera by my side,
watching as you walk away and that church, that hill behind us, that perfect place,

blurred by the spilled paint of an idiot’s anger. You cannot be found tonight, though
you sleep in the next room, though you wake up across the sea; though hundreds of

thousands of images are retrieved, you, that place, gently holding my hand, then letting
go, is lost on a canvas washed, but still maintaining some semblance of a marred

moment. You. Montmartre. You. I cannot say sorry enough, so let your hands fall to your
side and let your face be dried by the sun, let this hand touch your cheek. At least.

Telling (and showing) the collection, pt. 2

My previous post began to look at the role narrative plays in the act or presentation of collections. In that post I said that maybe narrative is used to clarify the intention of collector, to make clear why the collection was made. This week we are asked a similar question and so instead of starting over again, I want to just comment on a comment that was made on the previous post.

The comment: "JM said...
An interesting take on collections and narratives, and certainly one that I can get behind. Although I was being all selfish and thinking that the reader/viewer/visitor of the collection is the one who ultimately makes the narrative, I see the power of the narrative for the collector to do just what you said, to fill in the gaps. Then again, that assumes there will only ever be the one narrative: the collector's."

In the original post I neglected to see the role of the audience as a reciever. I argued that the audience, through mis-interpretation, required of the collecting party a narrative to justify the actions, but I didn't neccessarily consider the audience's role after the narrative has been told. I would, to some degree, agree with JM's "selfish" impulse to think that the audience (reader/viewer/visitor) makes the narrative. Reception of a narrative is certainly an often private and individual act (albeit, maybe influenced by social factors) and so a presented narrative is definately going to be different for different people (I don't think that a narrative has one, true meaning). Where I disagree with JM is in the final statement. A narrative presented by the collector does not constitute only one narrative. The collector, knowing that they need to explain their intentions for the collections, creates an accompnaying narrative. That narrative attempts to "fill in the gaps." But, when the narrative reaches an audience, it is recieved by the audience, and interpreted. The act of interpretation then creates a number of derivitive narratives: narratives that come from the original, but are changed by the audience. Therefore, even though the author has created one narrative, there is not only one exisitng narrjavascript:void(0)ative.

So, is the act of narration in vain? I don't know. What I do know is that the act of identifying authorial intention often turns into the act of interpretation.

I still think that narrative is possibly used by someone to clarify (refer to previous blog), but I see that that clarification might not necessarily work as intended, for the simple fact that just as the original act (the one that required a narrative) was intepretated by an audience, the resulting narrative is likewise exposed to intepretation.