Long Sunday

"There's never been a paper bag for drugs. Until now." Or, What Is "Real Police Work"?

        (The following is by guest post author Rodney Herring, an assistant instructor in English and Rhetoric, whose weblog may be found here.)

What's up with the title The Wire? I mean, having a wire up provides the detectives with a kind of talismanic assurance, and the capacity to surveil their "targets" is fundamental to the Major Crime Unit's operations. Still, doesn't the title reflect an almost unsupported (and unearned) privileging of the police? The series is nearly unique and certainly daring in showing the ineptitude of the police, sometimes from external forces and sometimes from individual incompetence or corruption, so it's not particularly pro-BPD. Moreover, many of the episodes involve no wire at all, and plotlines such as the atrophy of the Baltimore port, the Stringer/Avon business/gangster showdown, and the Hopkins study of Tilghman Middle School all proceed smoothly with or without a wire. And yet, the show is called The Wire. Why?

That's one of the questions that has been on my mind since I began watching the series. Another has to do with what is far and away the most common evaluation I hear: "The Wire is the best television show. Ever." A couple of friends have muttered this dispassionately and a bit wearily, as though they've come to the conclusion (which they should have all along recognized as unavoidable) only after sustaining vigorous disputation from other fans. (One friend tried to sell the show to me by saying, "It's like Deadwood, but more relevant." Hmm.) In any case, at a certain point, I began to wonder about these people's judgments. Although I can't find any reason to say they're wrong, something still bothered me.

That point and that something roughly coincide with the end of Season 3. But I probably should have seen it coming, at least as early as this moment in All Due Respect (3.2):

Still More on The History of Madness

As is always the case when matters such as this arise, the criticism of particular works or, indeed, of entire corpuses of works gets tied up with issues of academic politics. This is clearly the case when the "anti-Theory" (whatever that is, of course) dogmatists at The Valve go on the offensive. For them, questions of criticism are always tied up with their institutional location and, hence, it is not without relevance when one rebuts claims raised by some by pointing out that the polemic is more about the practice of literature in American PhD departments than it is about the texts ostensibly under discussion. Such is clearly in evidence when it is possible to write, "Also, the claim that all these mean people are attacking Foucault's "dissertation" or "near-juvenalia" is disingenuous, because the book's still taught and cited regularly as authoritative, no matter what you call it."

Truthiness and Foucault

For those of you unfamiliar with it, The Colbert Report is a fake news cable show hosted by the over the top, pseudo right wing commentator Stephen Colbert.  While it may be simply described as a parody of cable political talk shows (like The O'Reilly Factor) it offers an ironic look at contemporary political discourse.   What strikes me is that Colbert seems to be able to sum up the cultural and political divide with one word - Truthiness:

The A.V. Club: What's your take on the "truthiness" imbroglio that's tearing our country apart?

Stephen Colbert: Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?

barely polite insults

Richard Wolin, writing a review of Paras's _Foucault 2.0_ for the Chronicle of Higher Education writes:

"One wonders how long it will take Foucault's North American acolytes to reorient themselves in light of Paras's impressive findings."

'acolyte' is meant to be dismissive, in an academic and barely polite sort of way, correct? And seeing this made me think: What other terms can be used to say that the followers or users of so-and-so's thought are idiots, without using the word 'idiot' or something similar?

The only other one I can think of right now is 'adept.' Here are the definitions:

acolyte
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French & Medieval Latin; Anglo-French, acolit, from Medieval Latin acoluthus, from Middle Greek akolouthos, from Greek, adjective, following, from a-, ha- together (akin to Greek homos same) + keleuthos path
Date: 14th century
1 : one who assists a member of the clergy in a liturgical service by performing minor duties
2 : one who attends or assists: FOLLOWER

adept
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin adeptus alchemist who has attained the knowledge of how to change base metals into gold, from Latin, past participle of adipisci to attain, from ad- + apisci to reach  -- more at APT
Date: 1709
: a highly skilled or well-trained individual: expert  <an adept at chess>

Can anyone think of other terms for 'follower' that not-so-subtly communicate a writer's distaste? Of the two above, which do you think is the more dismissive, acolyte or adept?

Discovery (The Social II)

(Second in a series of short thoughts.)

The discovery of society introduces a radical break into history.  It is co-extensive with the destruction of what Michel Foucault calls the 'classic episteme' and the birth of the 'modern episteme'; "it is a radical event that is distributed across the entire visible surface of knowledge."  Foucault's periodization of the break suggests certain problems -- problems that are common to his entire school limiting 'the social' primarily to statistical regularities and, in the case of Donzelot, 'the policing of families' through 'social work'.  On the one hand, 'society' had been mobilized as a term designating what we might want to call a club or association; that is, a group formed between the 'public' and the 'private' for specific purposes.  In this way, The Royal Society, founded in 1660 stands out as a marker of a new use of the word.  Yet, for these natural scientists, 'society' had as of yet to be discovered.  What remains certain, however, is that by 1748, when Charles Louis de Secondat (the Baron de Montesquieu) published The Spirit of the Laws that 'society' had been discovered in the epynomous concept.  And, certainly, by 1789 it was taken for granted that society was an object of action; that is, it could both act -- society could make demands -- and, on the other hand, it could be acted upon -- society could have demands made against it.

State, Race, Sovereignty

Readers wishing to take a break from theorizing Chabert's propensity for multi-commenting as well as the propensity of Long Sundayans to theorize the behavior of those who choose to multi-comment, may wish to read a multi-blog discussion on race, the state, and sovereignty.

The discussion began with Jodi's posts on Zizek and Levinas to Long Sunday and I Cite.  Doug, at the Weblog, attempted to re-focus the discussion on state racism.  This prompted a counter-post from Jodi at I Cite and a counter-counter-post from Angela at the Archive.  I countered the counter and counter-counter posts with one of my own at Theoria.

(Readers will note that Jodi has twiced 'pulled a Holbo' claiming a pressing need to be elsewhere that is not online.  Suspicion reigns!)

Bourdieu vs. Post-Structuralism

Those of us who end up being associated with 'postmodernism' or 'theory' often find ourselves confused or infuriated by the attempt of our opponents to lump us into a single category. It is amusing, therefore, to read one of those 'postmodernists' or 'theorists' or -- more plainly -- 'Frenchmen' get upset about this lumping-in with people he views himself to be in competition with. The last chapter, indeed the last section of that chapter, in Bourdieu's Science of Science and Reflexivity sees him attempt to articulate -- for an audience in France at the College de France -- his relationship, that is departure from, philosophy and, consequently, his relationship to the stars of French academic philosophy. This section, "Sketch for a self-analysis", sees him go after, as it were, Althusser and Foucault (and, by consequence, Deleuze), primarily, but also Derrida. His problem with the first group is that they disavow the social sciences while taking the object of the social sciences for themselves and his problem with the second group, exemplified (symbolized?) by Derrida, is its 'aristocratic' tendencies. (Do recall, Bourdieu often revisited the theme of his petit bourgeois origins in relation to his thought, in general, and, more specifically, the context of the elite French academies.)

On "The Kind of Critical, Obliquely Ontological Investigation of Some Sort of Self"

(Scott Eric Kaufman (the ”Eric“ is not silent) writes:  ”Matt,  At this point, I think everyone could use some good old fashioned self-mockery, and if you and I have to be the ones to provide it, so be it...if you wouldn't mind posting my bit on Foucault to Long Sunday, I think that may actually be something incredibly useful.  Feel free to preface it with something incredibly snarky (it's what I'd do), and then let's see how the conversation at LS differs (or doesn't) from the conversation at the Valve.  A real experiment, you know.“  The following then, is his post.  It is an interesting post.  Please comment on it.)

Two long posts, both concerning theory, both beginning with a quotation of a previous discussion.  Serendipity?  The constitutional inability to resist having the last word?  Doesn’t matter.  Also unimportant: the experiment I concocted whereby I would post this here and ask Mark to post it on Long Sunday to see whether the two crowds would treat the material differently in some meaningful way.  But I digress.  (Despite not even having started yet.)  Ahem: I accused Mark Kaplan of reading Foucault’s account of historical interest naively.  I quoted this bit as proof:

So, for example, the sexual practices of ancient Greece – were these not, for Foucault, partly a way of thinking his way outside modern notions of ‘sexuality’ and the historically ingrained ‘regime’ supporting them.

And followed with this assessment:

I think Mark’s severely underestimating Foucault’s congenital pessimism, both about historical change and, more importantly, the idea that we can understand the discourses which saturate our lives in the moment that we live them.

He responded, quite rightly, that I glossed over Foucault’s notion of “the critical ontology of the self,” the practice he identifies with Kant’s Aufklärung, which my Oxford Duden German Dictionary tells me means something along the lines of “clearing up,” “solution,” “elucidation,” “explanation,” “a reconnaissance plane” or “the Enlightentment.” Some of these things are not like the others.  I’ve wondered why the English translation of the essay—"What is Enlightenment?"—failed to capture the reference there both in Kant’s German ("Was ist Aufklärung?") and Foucault’s French ("Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?").  Might this slight tick in the English be indicative of some abstractive impulse at the heart of Anglo-American Theory?  (Yes, I capitalized it, but for reasons which will eventually become apparent.) I’m not too inclined (yet) to attribute such a thing to American Theory because Kant’s work, as well as Foucault’s gloss of it, speaks directly to the problem of philosophical thought reflecting on the present moment:

'Useless to Revolt?'

Foucault, 'Useless to Revolt?' in Essential Works, vol. 3
In part, Foucault’s argument is that what is involved in revolt – the break with history, the blind trust, the abandonment of calculated returns – cannot be experienced or expressed in a wholly secular, enlightenment language. Or rather, it is religious language that meets and makes sense of the experience, the phenomenology of revolt*. Revolts do not put on the costume of religion, it is that religious categories spontaneously interpret what is happening, and are the natural forms in which revolt finds expression.

The term ‘political spirituality’ seems to us, at the other side of a seemingly irrevocable historical break, like a contradiction, a superimposition of oil on water, but for Foucault,

This startling superimposition produced, in the middle of the twentieth century, a movement strong enough to overthrow an apparently well armed regime while being close to old dreams that the West had known in times past, when people attempted to inscribe the figures of spirituality on political ground.

And what, after all, is the alternative to Foucault’s attempt - however flawed - to enter into the experience of revolt, to understand why people were ‘risking their lives’, demonstrating, and to understand it in something like its own terms, to grant validity and meaning to that experience? The alternative to this is, perhaps, once more the irrational, deluded Other, victim of 'mass hysteria', wholly governed and guided by an ideology presumed foreign to their nature. 

Foucault and Iran

My attention has been drawn to a new book about Foucault in Iran. I would like to say a couple of things about this topic, partly because I suspect that this episode in Foucault’s career will be pressed into the service of certain current arguments. In fact, I suspect the existence of those arguments ‘authorised’ the commissioning of the book – ‘topicality’ is a familiar imprimatur. The ‘topicality’ in question would be something like ‘Western left intellectuals being naïve about Islam and, motivated by opposition to the West, seduced by an Other they almost totally misunderstand.’ I’m guessing, of course. (see this article, btw)

So, just two small points. It would certainly be foolish to try and represent Foucault as some sort of typical ‘left intellectual’, as occupying that polemically convenient place. To assign him to this place runs directly against the unpredictable, contradictory lines of his thinking and action. Pro-Iranian revolution, yes; reportedly also pro-Israeli, scornfully dismissive of Marxism; who, if he found the ‘political spirituality’ of the Iranian revolt intuitively fascinating also loved and perhaps found neon fragments of utopia in the vast highways and the bars of California.