Baudrillard Response

(For grad school twice a year all students congregate in Rockport to present work and be involved in a number of academic meetings. One such meeting involves an article or paper given to us in advance that we meet together and discuss. Then we are supposed to write a response to the paper and subsequent discussion. For the May '07 retreat we discussed an article by Jean Baudrillard, a preeminent philosopher who recently passed away. Here is my response.)

I am torn, if the group discussion is a non-event without the papers we are supposed to write about them, should I postpone the writing of the paper. If the discussion did not really happen, I can’t be blamed for not producing a paper about something that is not real. The very nature of my typing is transforming those two hours of my life into something else. The discussion is more dependent upon these responses then we are upon the discussion. Alas, the hyper-real credit that I seek is dependent upon the hyper-real paper, oh wait, I guess that would now make this paper a non-event because it is dependent upon someone else writing down that I receive credit for the paper. That would mean the credit is real and this paper never really happened.

Ok, maybe I shouldn’t write my paper in the same cryptic manner as the reading by Baudrillard. It would take hours to confuse myself to the degree I felt while reading his article, a less productive approach in my opinion. Writing style aside, the suggestion by Baudrillard was of great interest to me. Media has a very contradictory fascination held by me. During a communication class in college, I was told that in relationships, the thing that firsts attracts someone to their partner is usually the very thing that will drive them apart later. If you love how funny they are and how they draw people to them, later in the relationship you will hate how your partner always has to be the center of attention.

With media, my love has been with its power to instigate change. Historically, for change to occur, awareness must be drawn to the areas that need attention. Unfortunately, the old idiom holds true, the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. I think of W. Eugene Smith and the people of Minamata that he helped. I think of Lewis Hine and the child labor laws he helped to get passed. I think of how corruption in government or corporate business now becomes accountable to the public when the media is capable of bringing their dirty laundry to light.

That power that media carries also now becomes the characteristic that drives me away from it. Power has an insatiable tendency to corrupt those that possess it. Media has fallen into that category. Baudrillard gave a voice to a problem that I had of yet been unable to quantify. The news was now more the story, than the story that they purported to cover. Each event that gets deluded by the mass media becomes an afterthought to the coverage itself. The media must make an icon out of all they touch. Martyrs must be made, heroes must be created, dynasties must crumble, and conspiracies must be uncovered.

You look at the motivation of the industry and it is to get us to look, to watch. It is not about truth. If we do not look then they do not exist, so proactively news must be manufactured if it is not in existence. The story must be found because the precarious balance upon which our culture resides requires it. Nothing makes us feel more alive then the fear of death and the media creates a safe alternative for us to be able to receive our fix. Each new dramatic story, war, conspiracy, murder or speculation of crime satisfies our addiction to feel alive even if it is only hyper-real. And who better to bring these events about but the institution established to make us aware of their happenings. They are positioned as judge and jury to make up the mind of the general public before any checks and balances can be implemented to temper the public guillotine. The world is accountable to them but they are accountable to no one.

I marvel at the phenomenon currently surrounding the Major league baseball player Barry Bonds. He is a second-generation baseball prodigy. His pedigree made him a superstar before he could even walk. His father, Bobby Bonds, won the golden glove three times, was a three time all-star and was voted as the most valuable player once. He was the cousin to hall of famer Reggie Jackson and the Godson of hall of famer Willie Mays. Barry Bonds is on pace to break one of the most heralded records in all of sports. He currently has 746 career home runs and is only 9 behind the once thought untouchable record of 755 held by Hank Aaron.

He is unquestionably one of the greatest baseball players to have ever lived. Ironically, he is also one of the most hated baseball players to have ever lived. I have only been told not to like him even though I’ve never met him. My only introduction to him has been through the eyes of the media. My opinions are shaped upon hearing reactions from those that have met him, people like ESPN’s Jemele Hill who petitions to a higher power in an article, “God, can you smite Barry Bonds before he breaks Major League Baseball's all-time home run record?” The media repeatedly states that he doesn’t deserve the record because he is arrogant, conceited, demeaning, “allegedly” cheated by using steroids, and worse of all is not half the person that Hank Aaron was. Last time I checked, we were discussing the home run record not a personality contest. (Also of note, the steroid controversy exists because members of the media wrote a book called “Game of Shadows” using sources they won’t divulge, that accuse Bonds of steroid use)

Hitting a tiny ball thrown at you at 90+ miles per hour, usually with movement according to how the pitcher threw it, with a wooden bat, over a wall over 300 feet away repeatedly over an extended career (Which last time I checked was the record in question, career home runs) is no longer the point. The record is no longer the issue. The reality is that someone they don’t like is going to surpass Aaron, (whom the media adore) according to them because Bond’s cheated by using steroids (despite never having tested positive for them). The media helped to create an athletic God in Barry Bonds from birth. Bonds did not thank them; in fact he shunned and ridiculed them. He has only ever publicly claimed to want to play baseball because he loves the game, definitely not for the media and surprisingly not even for the fans, he has only played for himself. The media is now pulling out all of their resources to ensure that at least in the court of public opinion, he will be a failure.

There are some athletes that play sports for the love of the game. I think the media does not like the fact that an athlete isn’t playing for them. I think they are offended when an athlete brushes them off and doesn’t want to talk to them after a game. If an athlete insults a reporter they pass it off as the athlete turned his back on the world. The reporter has now begun to operate under the delusion and grandeur that they are the voice of the people almost as if the people had elected them.

Case in point, during a press conference held with the former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, about removing some Turnpike tolls, a Boston Globe reporter started to give what seemed to be a prepared speech extolling all his ideas on the subject. Upon realizing that a question was not forthcoming, Romney interrupted by asking, “Do you have a point of view on this?” Taken aback, the reporter stated, “I represent the people, governor.” To which Romney eloquently quipped back, “No, I represent the people. You represent the media.”

We see evidences all around us of the negative power that can be extolled by the media. Unfortunately, where would we be without them? Without someone in a position to make politicians and executives accountable what heresies and atrocities may have occurred? Now here is the rub, to whom is the media accountable? Obviously, first and foremost it has to be to us, the viewing public. If our only source to information about the state of the world is through the media, what then is the likelihood that the media would tell us how and why they manipulate information to serve their own end?

I watched a documentary entitled ‘The Invisible Children” about children in small villages in the Sudan who have to ritualistically leave their homes and travel to nearby cities to sleep in masses to avoid being captured by the Lords Resistance Army and forced into becoming soldiers for their cause. As part of the brain washing the children are forced to torture and even kill each other and often forced to return and kill members of their own families to prove their training is complete. If they fail, they then become the victims to aid in other slave children’s training.

A few children have escaped from this circle of hell. There are small centers set up to help these children rehabilitate from what they have been subjected to. There was one interview I saw within the confines of these centers that I find disturbingly insightful. A young boy was so conditioned to the sight of blood he would experience terrible headaches on days when no malice was committed in front of him. He needed the violence as bad as he hated it. Is there a parallel there to our own lives?

Even in popular culture the dangers of the media are spotlighted. These stories are all fictional but I think that is where they garner their validity, we can say in fiction that which is inexcusable in reality. Even worse is if we delude ourselves to believing these things can’t or don’t happen in reality. We see how The Daily Bugle is able to twist Spiderman into a menace no matter how much good he does. Professor Dolores Umbridge, Reeta Skeeter and The Daily Prophet twist Harry Potter into someone to be feared and avoided when he only seeks to uncover the truth about someone that truly fits their accusations. In the Hudsucker Proxy, Norville Barnes is at first an idea man but later declared insane. The first title was given without him having done anything and the straightjacket definition came after his idea saved the company. The little ironic twist in that story is that the media used the accusation that Barnes stole his great idea from the elevator guy and upon seeing it in print even the elevator guy believed it to be true.

Truth, now there is a slippery slope. Since truth is subjective to the person declaring it, how can anything be true for everyone? Unbiased is a media industry pipedream that somehow we believe because we rely so heavily upon our informational I.V. that the very thought of unplugging causes trepidation. What would life be like if we couldn’t find out what was happening in the world? Or worse, what would we do if we actually had to live life instead of vicariously watching it through the media? We watch as life happens to everyone else. It is so bad the industry has even had to start manufacturing reality and putting it on TV because that is our lifeline to what is ‘real’.

This process seems perpetual, as each new story is dependent upon an earlier story to give it context. We derive meaning from the hyper-real and build upon it with the next story. Our culture has weaved such an elaborate tapestry of simulations that we forget what real is. Even in snack foods blue has become a flavor even though the only color I can logically associate with a taste is orange. Grape doesn’t taste anything like a grape, nor does banana. Pluto is no longer a planet even though it hasn’t changed its day-to-day routine or appearance. We even herald discoveries and hold inventions in great esteem when in actuality neither can claim more than open minded observation.

I find it highly unlikely that the person who discovered fire was the first to have seen it. He was simply the first to understand it. Man has never invented or discovered anything; we have simply realized things that have always existed. We were just incapable or unwilling to see and use it before then. Columbus discovering America or Newton discovering gravity, if logic holds true then fruit had been falling in America long before either of them started discovering.

As time changes so does what is real. It must be altered to conform to the reality that we are currently trying to portray. In the study of art I have a hard time accepting the definition given me about the purpose of a work of art if an artist never came out and stated their intentions. Hundreds of years can pass and we are told we know what their intent was when we rarely accurately do this with our contemporaries. I have been told numerous times what my images mean and why I have taken them and also what I believe…only to reflect and not find legitimacy in their answers. If we can’t do it now how can I believe that we can do it for a guy that lived 700 years ago in Germany? Or is this just another example of creating simulations that foster and support the prominent ideology or movement currently being circulated. History changes according to the needs of the present.

Do we run the risk of trying so hard to find meaning in history and our place in it that we are creating our own hyper-reality? Has art become incestuous to the point that an image cannot be made without being dictated to and directed by periods and movements? Or has it always been this way? Are we slaves to the intellect and history of art so much that instead of academics and historians writing about art they are, in a sick twisted sort of way, actually creating the art? Has the critic become the true artist and the artist but his pawn? Can an argument be made that Clement Greenberg is the greatest artist of our time?

Maybe we don’t live in a two party political system. We have the obvious choices, republicans & democrats but we must not forget CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC and Fox. I almost forget the lobbyist and other political interest groups that have a say in how the government is run. Just as Robert Franks most notable achievement may not have been his landmark book “The Americans” but the throngs of followers that he gave a different artistic license to and all the images they created.

This creates an obvious quandary. Can you be original without studying our predecessors and contemporaries? If we study our predecessors and the subsequent images are a result of that experience, then can we truly be considered original and not derivative? If we follow the later approach then our images could not have existed if others had not created theirs.

Creatively, we have become a slave to our past and a pawn to our present. Ironically, originality cannot exist without others. I always love hearing claims for original thought when as soon as you start looking you will probably find numerous others that thought the same thing, not to mention the countless others that weren’t able to get their thoughts published or patented. “If you think you have an original idea, stop reading or risk discovering otherwise.” (Sorry, I can’t take credit for that idea) Maybe similarities to others should be heralded instead of scoffed at because like it or not we are all part of a large orchestra and the performance cannot be completed without every member.

I find an alternative definition to originality would be to not succumb to the ebb and flow of popular trends. “To be yourself and nobody but yourself in a world that is trying night and day to make you everybody but yourself is to fight the hardest battle there is and never stop fighting.” I’m not talking about running out and getting tattoos and piercings, that’s too cliché. (That’s the problem with being different, pretty soon everybody else is being different with you.) Fashion, diets, and TV all rely upon the masses. If you have to have the latest and the greatest clothes, cars, and whatever else is currently en vogue (be that traditional or alternative) then you condemn yourself to being unoriginal.

I see art in a very similar fashion. Changing artistic styles and techniques as quickly as fashion trends seems to reek of external dependency instead of your own unique internal voice. (Not that you shouldn’t question everything, but outside forces can morph as much as they can uncover.) The proverbial tit of mass information upon which we all suckle is by nature keeping us in our infancy. It seemed Baudrillard was not inclined to say one way or another whether he deemed his observation on our culture good or bad. It was simply an observation. Having been exposed to his idea will forever make it a part of my collective being and I can no more separate myself from it then I can disavow my birthplace. (Not acknowledging it cannot change its validity) His idea has changed me.

What this knowledge will do for me, who knows? That is the beauty of life, a cornucopia of ideas and experiences culminating in a yet unknown masterpiece, or kitsch. We’ll let the critics and historians sort that one out. I will enjoy the ride and can’t wait to see Barry Bonds break the record.