Realistic Cynicism, Part II

BY PER GIOTTO

 

 

In the January 18^th issue of the New York Times Magazine, photographer Nadav Kander provides two photographic contributions: one is a photo essay of Obama’s incoming cabinet while the other, documenting Washington landmarks, supplements an article by Matt Bai on the predictable and rapid diminishment of a president’s approval ratings soon after his inauguration.  The former is a bit odd: Kander works with a variety of styles, many of which mimic somewhat standardized ones, and here he strives for an Avedon-like documentation of celebrity.  Many of his other photographs have the eerie composure and tones of Hollywood horror and sci-fi films, and these, too, have a somewhat nauseous cyan sheen.  While there are several excellent results – the utterly creepy portrait of Larry Summers and the wholly endearing one of David Axelrod are perhaps foremost among them –, they for the most part feel as though Nadav was capable only of approximating Avedone in style; any substance is absent.  The figures look beyond the frame almost chronically – artificially, as if pretending to be caught unawares –, and a great many of them look like they were photographed in Madame Tussaud’s for convenience’s sake.

But the Washington landmark photos are phenomenal.  They are far fewer in number than those within the cabinet portfolio but infinitely more intelligent and incisive.  More than that, they are adorable.  Nadav manages to capture the particular and peculiar willingness with which so many of us are, with some difficulty, allowing ourselves to feel hopeful about Obama’s presidency. 

And thus these old haunts of Washington – having become largely imbued with a sinister tinge, an aftertaste of the Bush Administration – appear sheepishly behind branches and trees, as if staring out at us for approval, hoping to impress us anew. They are marvelous, seeming to ask us, as we too may now be asking them, to be accepting.

It is difficult to not be tritely cynical about Obama’s presidency and the possibility of his accomplishing all that he has claimed; the seemingly naive trust so many have placed in him and his administration makes it all the more difficult to resist the temptations of disillusionment.  But beneath these familiar twinges of cynicism, I am immensely hopeful.  These photographs invest the city – and thus the Obama Administration and the entirety of the American government – with this hopefulness.  It is too early to definitively praise or condemn the administration – the charming hangdog expressions of the Capital; the Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln Memorials, the last of which is unfortunately not available online; and the White House reflect the tendency to make such prognostications –, but it does feel nice to be hopeful.

Realistic Cynicism, Part I

BY DOLORES PALLAS

 

There seems to exist a trend among older, successful writers – particularly writers who have been successful since their youths, and successful in a variety of genres and media – to place an unqualified faith in the value of whatever thought happens to cross their minds, and, moreover, to find any of these such thoughts – that is, every single one that their brains conjure forth – worthy of publication and entry into public discourse.  I think the logic goes something like this: I’ve written things that have received public acclaim, and I’ve written something just now, therefore, what I’ve just now written will receive public acclaim.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this; a fundamental part of blogging ideology lies in the belief that any thought is worthy of such an “entry.”  And it is entirely understandable: if someone believes him- or herself to hold a valuable judgment, and the publication of its exposition is possible – as it always and unquestioningly is by these long-successful writers–, why not seek a greater readership?  And, furthermore, there is a seeming infinitude of space online for these writers’ opinions to be shared; why not just let them speak and have their peace?  My practical answer for all of these is to allow these older, successful writers have their say and let it be over with.  But they still annoy me.

Noam Chomsky is perhaps the foremost figure among these older, successful writers to be victim to the delusions of his sort; and for good reason: the founder and figurehead of a discipline whose momentum is only increasing, and a justifiably celebrated thinker on matters beyond modern linguistics –a general consensus, perhaps more trendy than unbiased, grants Foucault the crown in their televised debate, but these people do so at the risk of simplifying Chomsky’s often dazzling suggestions, which he intentionally filters through deceptively jejune terminology, as if he were daring others to oversimplify his remarks; plus: this may be the only video on YouTube in which no one in the comments section calls anyone else a fag, which should merit some kind of commendation – Chomsky is no one to scoff at.  He is among the most vitally intelligent American “thinkers” alive.  But what he has succumbed to, what so many writers of his talent and success seem to succumb to, is an ossification of the alertness and intellectual flexibility that made him a notable mind in the first place.  He has stuck so stringently to the principles on which he founded modern linguistics that he risks limiting the discipline: it is so dependent upon his sole judgment – a problem in any field, but that seems to exist in this one more than any other – that any linguistic concept lacking his approval or bearing his disapproval is subject to, at the very least, being branded “controversial.”  And he pumps out new work after new work, seemingly creating new strands of his discipline with each successive text and any number of younger academics willing to examine the particulars and the holes of his latest prized suggestions.  He is immediately dismissive of any work that challenges his own, and this is severely to the detriment of both him and his field.  A remarkable article in the New Yorker offers a kind of digressive testament to this.

But what makes him most emblematic of this trend of older, successful writers is not his work within the discipline with which he is most closely associated but with those beyond it.  These writers are particularly keen to state what seems the obvious but has, somehow – perhaps for fear of seeming hopelessly redundant –, gone unsaid by others.  Usually this comes in the form of a sort of tame, thoughtless cynicism that masquerades as ostensibly tough, countercultural straight-talk.  Most recently, Chomsky warned Americans to not vote for Obama “without illusions.”  His reasoning, already fully digested by most thinking Americans, is that Obama may not be capable of fulfilling all that he has promised, or that, worse, he might turn his backs on us and start becoming all politician-like. Žižek, of all people – and someone who very clearly flirts with becoming afflicted with this delusion endemic to the successful –, offers a thoughtful rebuke to Chomsky’s remark.  He classifies him as the “realistic cynic” who, like Kissinger and so many other Realpolitikers before him, and like so many of us who feared Obama’s loss even amidst his soaring pre-election poll numbers, is often quite wrong.

This is precisely what is lacking in the thought processes of these older, successful writers – most of whom are also realistic cynics, as cynicism is to so many nearly, and lazily, synonymous with wisdom – and what separates them from their younger, considerably more thoughtful younger selves: the possibility that they may be wrong.  This very real, very frightening possibility is what shapes the most profound thinkers into who they become; without it, they lose their verve, their intellectual comprehensiveness, and their salience.

The Acquisition of Cultural Methods of Protest

BY FREEMAN BRANDYWINE

 

There is something a bit uncomfortable about how amused many people are by the recent “shoe-throwing” incident, in which Muntadhar al-Zaidi tossed his shoes at President Bush during a press conference in the Green Zone of Iraq in a gesture of condemnation.  The event has turned into an internet meme phenom, with parodies abounding and many an inane comment made about Bush’s acrobatic dodging abilities.  A great deal of Americans have since, undoubtedly with a certain amount of seriousness, suggested that they, too, would like to throw their shoes at Bush.  It would not be surprising if something to this effect did take place, and it seems all but inevitable that poster boards across the country will now regularly invoke remonstrative footwear.  But what are Americans actually saying by doing this, by performing or alluding to an action that, outside of the Middle East and India, is largely inoffensive?  What is the impact of a form of protest to which its significance is not, so to speak, “organic” to the culture of the protester?  Websites have since become overwhelmed with memes jokingly supplementing al-Zaidi’s shoes for items presumably assumed by their creators to be similarly innocuous and bereft of connotative substance: beach balls, baseballs, and so on.  To many Americans, there is an implicit joke in al-Zaidi’s method of denunciation, and yet they have adopted it as a potent symbol of indignation and restless dissent.

But what happens to the value of a form of protestation if it is mitigated by such a smiling reference?

Al-Zaidi – who, it must be noted, is a journalist: someone who should ostensibly show greater deference and impartiality in such a situation; but he is also someone undoubtedly affected in profoundly upsetting ways by this war, in ways that few Americans can possibly imagine – made a brave, public gesture in signification of his discontent; indeed, he did it in a manner that bore an unseemly tinge of violence, and its symbolism – though pungent as a blunt visual – may not have been particularly profound or articulate, but its visceral significance is powerful and hard to deny.  The fact that many Americans, to whom the act would otherwise be devoid of any meaning, are now considering a similar method of public denouncement is indicative of this.  The difference is that where al-Zaidi threw his shoes in contempt, any American who does so would be performing an almost satirical act of imitation: the thrust of the gesture would not be one of scorn – even though a disregard for Bush may very well be present in the action – but of reference; minds would turn to al-Zaidi, not to Bush. Al-Zaidi was furious, as so many of us are; he made a potent and compelling gesture of this.  And yet the alien nature of his attack has, for many Americans and Europeans, turned this anger into a joke with an uncomfortably Orientalist bent.