On the day of Anna Nicole Smith's death, I got one facebook message, an email, and two text messages from concerned friends and family. In the days since, at least three people have brought up her death in conversation with me. First, the concerned person asks if I've heard that she died, then they ask for my theory (or the larger popular culture's theory, which is usually the same) as to why she died.
Anna Nicole Smith's death was not the only thing that happened in the world this last week. A lot of people died in Darfur. A war raged halfway around the world. Barack Obama decided to run for president. I can't be certain, but probably something important happened in the stock market (as I understand it, it's a place where important things happen).
But no one text messaged me any of this news. All I got was the cocaine-fueled passing of a failed reality-TV star/gold-digger heiress/diet pill spokeswoman, a meta-celebrity (famous for being famous). Of course, it's depressing (and telling of me) that I know all the attributes of Anna Nicole, and that knowledge is likely why people alerted me to her death.
What KILLS me is that I CARE about Darfur. And I LIKE Barack Obama. But no one ever text messages me this information. I'm going to use this example to make several points (seriously).
- Are we supposed to judge whether or not the social-epistemic nature of rhetoric (Berlin) or Invention (LeFevre) is a good thing or a bad thing? What if all my social world teaches me is garbage? Or are we supposed to accept it as an inevitable thing? Should I reach for higher-minded things or should I give up and embrace the network? When Berlin says I am “lodged within a hermeneutic circle” (489), does he mean that there's no chance for my escape?
- I still don't understand how I'm supposed to be simultaneously inside of a culture and critique it. Is this like asking a fish to critique water? (Or like asking a fish to critique other fish? Or maybe kelp?)
- Was the moment when I realized my place as the go-to girl for celebrity gossip a moment that Berlin would describe as a moment when I realized “the ideological design” on my “formation as subject” (101)?
1 comment:
hmmm. Just like A-N-S, Faith's posts always turn my head. I will now attempt to make some response to the seriosity that she brings to the blogtable.
1)If we buy the idea of the SE rhetoric, then yes. Judgement must be passed on all things, because all things are "there". Then you've already judged it, if it's garbage. Also, judging it to be inevitable, and therefore bad/good. Everything is higherminded if you think of it as such. I can only assume that something else has to dislodge you when you yourself are stuck.
2) I think the fish MUST critique itself, the environment, the other fish, as well as the kelp, in the demands of the SE rhetoric.
3)I don't know, but it seems sad, either way.
I should add that MOST of this post was made in all seriousness. When Berlin drops "quotidian experience" (491) I'm thinking that he means "yes, the rhetoric is there to evaluate everything you could possibly encounter, making it into something "higherminded"". It's also one of my favorite words.
embedded links are hot. I wish I understood them.
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