Despite their near complete adoption into American culture, Lichtenstein's paintings--on display in a retrospective of the artist's work at the Art Institute of Chicago--are still striking when seen in person. Their familiar quality seems to speak anew even as the bits of dialogue Lichtenstein included feel like distant memories recollected.
The question they pose is, in fact, the same question critics asked--with various degrees of spite and awe--when Lichtenstein's trademarked style was first displayed in New York galleries: what can a cartoon tell us as a work of art? How can a cartoon be hung next to a Matisse with any degree of seriousness?
Pop Art always attempted to question the very basis of art and the fundamental (if unspoken) assumptions about art's subject matter. But what separated Lichtenstein from Warhol (read as: what elevates Lichtenstein over schtick) is that his work is built on the same material as traditional art--his dot patterns made by hand and brush, not falling on the "theory" of the photocopier and its implications for modernity.
And yet Lichtenstein's work brings to the fore a manufactured quality in art. His brushstroke paintings highlight the immense effort it takes for a master artist to put brush to canvas and destroys the myth of the "natural" artist by systemically and openly re-creating the basic effort behind any painting. His landscapes re-imagine the most obviously natural images by siphoning them into the most basic elements of structure and color. The result is the overlapping of modern sensibilities and timeless scenes as the viewer can't help but feel both simultaneously.
The effect stems, of course, from Lichtenstein's infamous dot style. But the un-masked imperfections--smeared paint, differing levels of pressure on similar dots, etc.--belie a kind of authenticity in human creation. These works are a display of how the modern consciousness breaks down its reality. The point is not that Lichtenstein's mistakes set him apart from Warhol because he actually made dot after dot--rather, it's that the paintings themselves bare the mark of a human imperfection by combining a manufactured perception with the subject matter that shapes modern persons.
Nowhere is this quality more evident than in Lichtenstein's portrayal of George Washington. The painting captures a likeness through a creative process that is highly mechanical, creating a cartoonish portrait of an American legend. The work discloses a subconscious level of idealization in the very historical events tangible in American culture today. To equate, stylistically, the first President with Mickey Mouse is to put on a display a certain structural fact of how we engage with historical persons and events.
Though his developments have become far less revolutionary, Lichtenstein's paintings maintain their prescience by tracing the similarities between the natural and the manufactured.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
In Defense of Aaron Sorkin's 'Newsroom'
I haven’t had cable in a few years now, so I’m not quite up to par on TV culture. But I scored a lucky break with a family sign-in for HBO GO to get my Game of Thrones fix, and through that detour to Westeros I’ve found myself in Aaron Sorkin’s slightly revised tour through recent history, Newsroom. After watching the first season’s ninth episode, I checked Wikipedia to find out when I should expect the sure-to-be season ending cliffhanger (NB: it’s set to air this Sunday). I was shocked to find out that absolutely everybody hates this show.
Okay, not everybody. But it’s sitting at a middling 57 on Metacritic and it’s garnered some rather vitriolic reviews from the Wall Street Journal, Time, and, maybe worst of all, The New Yorker. Those oh so high-minded, high-brow elites that the show--a tale of a news anchor and his feisty executive producer hellbent on reforming nightly news culture--is supposedly catering to have absolutely demolished it. So now here I am coming to the defense of Newsroom against the media high culture’s cannibalization of its HBO brother.
The detractors all offer some version of the same basic complaint--Newsroom is Sorkin being a pretentious blowhard. That’s Time’s word for it, anyway. Apparently, the show’s depiction of anchor Will McAvoy and his team has sacrificed plot and subtlety for dull and infuriating commentaries that can’t carry the personal stories of the characters and we’re left with a dead fish floating on college-educated disgust of the media’s coverage decisions. As The New Yorker tells it, the show is something like a step-up in douchebaggery from college frat boys who proudly declare that they get their news solely from The Daily Show.
Ignoring the irony of The New Yorker declaring something too pretentious to watch, the fact that Sorkin’s scripts don’t hide his characters’ elitism is the show’s most interesting aspect. Newsroom simply is a depiction of what might have happened if someone in the media had taken all the discussions about what’s wrong with the media seriously. It chronicles McAvoy’s elitism--and the effort to not piss off absolutely everyone. (An effort that seems to be failing, it seems.)
But given how obvious (and common) the criticisms of Fox, CNN, MSBNC, et al. have become, it’s just silly to hate Newsroom for using them. It is incredibly stupid, as the show covers in the first season’s final third, that our country spent so, so much time worrying about Casey Anthony and Anthony Wiener’s wiener. If simply saying that is too smug for The Wall Street Journal, it may be time to give up hope.
But perhaps Newsroom’s detractors would be fine with the show if the dialogue wasn’t so damn uppity, so wordy and over-articulate with “perfectly formed op-eds fall[ing] out” whenever [the characters] speak, as Time’s James Poniewozik puts it. And that’s fair--Sorkin’s dialogue has always been a little overwrought. Nonetheless, it doesn’t ruin the show anymore than it did Sorkin’s other dialogue-heavy drama, The West Wing. And it certainly isn’t bad enough to garner some of the hate these critics have put on Newsroom.
In fact, it provides an interesting cultural criticism. We’ve reached a point where the criticism of the media (and politicians, corporations, and on and on) has become so trite that to voice them--even in an superbly crafted, hyper-articulate manner--is somehow bankrupt. If you speak publicly about Fox News being a terrible news source, you’re saying something obvious. And, what’s worse, apparently, you’re being a smug asshole while you do it. That’s the heart of criticisms against Newsroom--that it needs to stop being a smug asshole and calling out organizations everybody already hates. That’s the source of Sorkin’s terrible blowhard-ness. But all Newsroom is doing is pointing out exactly how everybody sounds when discussing these issues--issues that do actually need to be discussed. So now it’s too realistic, I guess.
Now, by no means am I saying Newsroom will be changing cable news forever. In fact, the fact that our criticisms of news consumption habits are coming from a fictionalized cable drama is rather telling about where the issue stands in our collective unconscious (that is--not highly). But it voices its criticisms in a way that pokes subtle fun at us for our own diatribes against CNN’s obsession with tweets, at our own air of superiority.
But I guess maybe the Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker are above that.
Todd Akin's Not Alone
Election season is supposed to be a time where Americans gather round and congratulate each other for displaying “democracy in action” in between bouts of infuriating dinner-table banter about poorly understood political issues. It’s supposed to be some sort of massive, beautiful event showing our defining values. But this year, we’re showing something much worse.
Let’s pause for a second and recap important issues around the globe from the past week: Syria is facing such an increase in violence that Turkey is running out of space for refugees; South African police attempted to quell a strike by killing 44 miners; Russia jailed a punk band for “hooliganism;” Egypt is defying American wishes and sending its president to Iran for the first time since Khomeini took power; and the Euro looks closer to collapse with every passing day.
Meanwhile, we’re ignoring those issues because we’re too busy explaining basic sex-ed to a Congressman. But not just any Congressman--a Congressman who sits on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
In case you missed it, Todd Akin--Representative from Missouri and Republican nominee for Senate--claimed that rape victims have some sort of biological response to “shut that whole [pregnancy] thing down” in the case of “legitimate rape”:
Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
Facing an obvious and obviously deserved backlash, Akin retracted his statement and claimed he “misspoke,” but the damage was already done. Our nation’s most respected news outlets have been forced to explain the reproduction cycle to a man who helps decide funding for the Nation Science Foundation. (The National Science Foundation!)
It is almost entirely incomprehensible. How is it possible an elected official has invented anti-rape-pregnancy powers? Is he honestly legislating on the basis of those ideas? I actually find myself doubting whether or not Akin truly meant what he said, if only to preserve some sort of respect for our government. But then I’m faced with an equally perplexing issue: is there any way that Akin’s implications could be a successful political policy?
Unfortunately, it seems they might be. Up until his comments anyway, Akin was leading his Senate race. Setting aside for the moment the questions about what “illegitimate rape” might be and where he learned biology, the conclusion Akin drew from his comments is oddly familiar:
But let’s assume that maybe [the body’s magical-anti-rape-pregnancy-emergency-shut-down-system] didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.
[NB: All issues of objectivity aside, I honestly can’t think of a paraphrase that doesn’t make Akin sound less than totally ridiculous.]
Akin’s insane statement is actually just a party line stance explained in the worst way possible. In that sense, Akin obviously provides immense firepower for Democrats against Republican birth control policies. But the perhaps more terrifying outcome is how strikingly obvious it has now become that Akin isn’t an odd man out who happened to join Congress through some Robin Williams plot line. He’s part and parcel of American politics.
After all, as Amy Davison and others have pointed out, Akin used this logic to co-sponsor a bill that limited federal funding for abortions to cases of “forcible rape” instead of “rape.” (Apparently there must be at least some bruising for a rape to be “legitimate.”) But the bill is one that Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan also supported. The GOP has pulled funding from Akin’s campaign, but it looks increasingly as though that move was not to support rape-victims, but rather to defend the consequences Akin draws from his imaginary biology from looking as silly as they do right now.
In other words, “debating” how babies are born and whether or not rape is rape without physical violence is now a significant part of how we decide the next leader of the free world and the Congress he works with. Of course, that’s not a debate at all--it’s an infantile screaming match.
It’s hard--maybe even cartoonish--to imagine this issue as a deciding factor in the leadership of a hegemonic world power. But then again, if anything has become evident at this point in the election cycle, it’s how utterly ridiculous we’re making ourselves out to be.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The Dark Knight Rises Into the Presidential Election
The two most dramatic events in the public consciousness this summer were always predetermined. On the one hand, there's the overwhelming force of seeing one of the age's most talented directors tackle beloved lore and conclude a trilogy that has renewed countless childhood obsessions. On the other, there's the utter spectacle of election histrionics.
These two events share more than a ubiquity of public discourse. Rest assured, I won't be comparing either candidate to either Batman or Bane--our politicians aren't realistic enough for that. Rather, there's a certain thematic element in The Dark Knight Rises that discloses a social condition brought to light in election season.
The issue can be seen clearly in the film's presentation of Bane's attempted Gotham take-over. (Consider this you spoiler warning.) Bane--that mysterious and brutal figure with voice altered, speech inhuman--begins a revolt from Gotham's core. With rhetoric of equality and brotherhood, he plays on social unrest to overthrow the city and break its people. The rhetoric is a farce, of course--he maintains control of the all-powerful bomb that powers his plot (or, indeed, the mastermind behind him does). To put it frankly, the masses are confused by his Communist ideas that they should have known were lies.
One of the film's most climatic scenes is the fall of Gotham--the aristocrats de-robed, innocents trounced, and the Scarecrow masquerading as judge in place of Robespierre and Saint-Just. It's a thinly veiled rehash of the French Revolution in its worst form. Bane's revolution shows mass movements to be inherently flawed, somehow fated to equal the Terror.
Opposing Bane and the mob alongside the Bat is John Blake. A blue-collar beat cop, Blake sees Bane's evil plainly but is constrained by the legal system he serves. Bureaucrats inhibit his early efforts to search out Bane before it's too late. The National Guard ignores his pleas at the final moments before Bane's bomb detonates, opting to destroy the only possible escape route for Blake and the busload of orphans he has in tow. The hero must fight both the evil mob and the intractable, incompetent government.
The film shows a distrust of both government and mass democratic action. The one is incapable, the other is inherently false. This does not mean Nolan is a secret Objectivist, asking us to rely on lone billionaires with unnatural ability and ingenuity. Rather, Nolan's Batman dives into the psychology of Bruce Wayne to demonstrate the stringent limits on any one individual's power. Batman even goes so far as to explain to Blake his reliance on others. The solution is mythic: The Dark Knight ends with the need for symbols and The Dark Knight Rises centers around that notion, tracing out the need for Batman in Gotham's collective unconscious.
So where does that leave us during this election? Batman succeeds because he's a universal symbol that inspires trust and belief--that's something we lack. Obama is our one true hope to some, but the harbinger of doom to others. Mitt Romney is the least bad alternative at best and the Ayn Rand right is simultaneously the bastion of reason and the downfall of all social bonds. In a world that lived through the 20th Century and can no longer trust in mass democratic movements, where do we turn for systemic change when our government fails?
Our dilemma is bridging the gap in political rhetoric and fixing the worst Congress in history amidst social discontent at a time when all of our symbols have been taken apart, adapted to one group or another. John Blake quit the force to inherit a Batcave--but what do we do without Batman?
These two events share more than a ubiquity of public discourse. Rest assured, I won't be comparing either candidate to either Batman or Bane--our politicians aren't realistic enough for that. Rather, there's a certain thematic element in The Dark Knight Rises that discloses a social condition brought to light in election season.
The issue can be seen clearly in the film's presentation of Bane's attempted Gotham take-over. (Consider this you spoiler warning.) Bane--that mysterious and brutal figure with voice altered, speech inhuman--begins a revolt from Gotham's core. With rhetoric of equality and brotherhood, he plays on social unrest to overthrow the city and break its people. The rhetoric is a farce, of course--he maintains control of the all-powerful bomb that powers his plot (or, indeed, the mastermind behind him does). To put it frankly, the masses are confused by his Communist ideas that they should have known were lies.
One of the film's most climatic scenes is the fall of Gotham--the aristocrats de-robed, innocents trounced, and the Scarecrow masquerading as judge in place of Robespierre and Saint-Just. It's a thinly veiled rehash of the French Revolution in its worst form. Bane's revolution shows mass movements to be inherently flawed, somehow fated to equal the Terror.
Opposing Bane and the mob alongside the Bat is John Blake. A blue-collar beat cop, Blake sees Bane's evil plainly but is constrained by the legal system he serves. Bureaucrats inhibit his early efforts to search out Bane before it's too late. The National Guard ignores his pleas at the final moments before Bane's bomb detonates, opting to destroy the only possible escape route for Blake and the busload of orphans he has in tow. The hero must fight both the evil mob and the intractable, incompetent government.
The film shows a distrust of both government and mass democratic action. The one is incapable, the other is inherently false. This does not mean Nolan is a secret Objectivist, asking us to rely on lone billionaires with unnatural ability and ingenuity. Rather, Nolan's Batman dives into the psychology of Bruce Wayne to demonstrate the stringent limits on any one individual's power. Batman even goes so far as to explain to Blake his reliance on others. The solution is mythic: The Dark Knight ends with the need for symbols and The Dark Knight Rises centers around that notion, tracing out the need for Batman in Gotham's collective unconscious.
So where does that leave us during this election? Batman succeeds because he's a universal symbol that inspires trust and belief--that's something we lack. Obama is our one true hope to some, but the harbinger of doom to others. Mitt Romney is the least bad alternative at best and the Ayn Rand right is simultaneously the bastion of reason and the downfall of all social bonds. In a world that lived through the 20th Century and can no longer trust in mass democratic movements, where do we turn for systemic change when our government fails?
Our dilemma is bridging the gap in political rhetoric and fixing the worst Congress in history amidst social discontent at a time when all of our symbols have been taken apart, adapted to one group or another. John Blake quit the force to inherit a Batcave--but what do we do without Batman?
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Image of 'Drive'
It's been a while since I've seen Drive, but I've been thinking about it recently. I found some old notes I jotted down from night I watched it, and the way it plays with honesty and image seems remarkably prescient. It's a film that offers a startlingly complex commentary on how we approach ourselves and others, how we understand personhood.
The film is most obviously remarkable for Ryan Gosling being all Ryan Gosling-y--all sultry looks and well-lit angles. But that, in fact, is the point. The driver (Gosling's unnamed character) is pure image--the jacket, the gloves, the toothpicks. He has crafted a perfect and perfectly imaginary persona that, for all intents and purposes, defines him. But he knows it. That's the important part. He asks Benicio, the love interest's kid, if he wants a toothpick. The exchange plays on how obvious it is that Benicio sees the driver as a mythical being of sorts--a figure from the mythos of the West. In offering the toothpick, the driver hints that his overwhelming aura of cool is an affectation--"here, take a toothpick, you can do it too."
More importantly, the driver hides his criminal life. His work as a stunt driver is telling as well. He fills in for actors, often, presumably, playing at being a getaway driver--which is his true, hidden profession. But he doesn't play a getaway driver, really. He plays an actor playing a getaway driver. That is, he acts like an actor. It's a higher level of falsity, of knowing that one is pretending to pretend. The driver takes the same approach to his surrogate father role for Benicio--the driver knows that he is only pretending to be the good father that Standard was also pretending to be. They both failed because they are both criminals--the driver is just upfront about that fact. In a way.
The honesty the driver shows is an odd one, of course, given that he is maintaining a secret criminal life. The ironic twist is his insistence that all his criminal dealings be based on an "understanding." He insists on clearly stating the terms of every deal with all parties involved, shedding light on things that are most often shady. And yet he does so precisely while he knowingly fictionalizes himself into this persona by dressing like he does, by consciously giving off that aura of cool.
The exceptions, and the film's most interesting scenes, comes toward the end when the driver drowns Nino. While doing so, the driver wears a prop mask from his work as a stuntman. The mask is a faux-human thing, resembling Jason Voorhees without the trademark hockey mask. It's the opposite of the driver's typical soothingly attractive look. Fitting, perhaps, that he dons the mask when brutally killing a man--a task that is not part of his criminal work as a getaway driver in which he refuses to even carry a gun. Perhaps it's also fitting, if ironic, because this murder comes as revenge for Standard's murder and as a favor for Irene and Benicio (if unasked for)--when acting in a brutally human way, acting for the pure emotion felt towards another, the driver dons a mask that makes him appear inhuman.
Either way, the mask acts as an admission that the driver's persona is unreal. It's a sign of honesty. It demonstrates that the driver's usual appearance is an act, an act he puts on in order to play a role. That role inhibits him from being truly human--why else does he seem to lack any social characteristics at the start of the film? By donning the mask, the driver is admitting that he takes on bits of culture to perform certain roles--getaway driver, murderer--in the same way an actor does.
The honesty comes from the fact that the driver doesn't hide the fact that he is playing these roles. The odd way people interact with him in the film--the long pauses and awkward conversations--results from the fact that he is familiar, but yet inhuman. He plays the role of human characters, but does so in such an imaginary way that he can't interact in a truly human way. The mask admits as much by showing that the driver must match his image to his role, unable to simply act as a person. His personhood is confused with his persona.
Two further points solidify this reading of the film. Nino, the victim on the beach, is the antithesis of the driver. Nino constantly lies, double-crosses, and schemes against his partners (and everyone else). His dishonesty is what drives the film's plot. Yet, he never once hide his criminal nature. He is open about his dishonest ways. The film's plot begins with Nino's complaint that he is known as a Jew--a fact that is perfectly true. He simply resists being known for what he is. His image is true, but shows a liar. The driver's persona is a lie, but belies an honest man.
That honesty is displayed most clearly in the second point--the driver's relationship with Irene. Immediately before the beach scene, the driver brutally murders a man in the elevator with Irene (in order to protect her). But his brutality displays a different, hidden side of him--his criminal nature. It breaks her image of him, shatters his cool persona as his rage clearly shines through during the murder. After, Irene stares at the driver--hair askew, jacket bloody--with loss and confusion and horror. This is what prompts the driver to don his mask on the beach, to change his image. The imaginary nature of his persona comes to the fore, and his relationship is damaged.
But note that the driver was always 'true' with Irene, if dishonest. That is, his persona was never quite equal to his person, but he was true in his intentions and care. In the end of the film, he leaves the money and Irene because he can only act in this fictionalized way. That mythos is how he engages with others and he simply cannot let go of it. But admitting that and refusing to pretend to be a simple person when he is dependent upon these falsified images of himself is the most honest thing the driver could do. He admits his inability to forgo his image--an act that is admits a great weakness, questions his stability as a person, and is truly heroic. That is the source of the ironic power in the film's closing song, "A Real Hero," with its refrain of "a real human being and a real hero."
The film is most obviously remarkable for Ryan Gosling being all Ryan Gosling-y--all sultry looks and well-lit angles. But that, in fact, is the point. The driver (Gosling's unnamed character) is pure image--the jacket, the gloves, the toothpicks. He has crafted a perfect and perfectly imaginary persona that, for all intents and purposes, defines him. But he knows it. That's the important part. He asks Benicio, the love interest's kid, if he wants a toothpick. The exchange plays on how obvious it is that Benicio sees the driver as a mythical being of sorts--a figure from the mythos of the West. In offering the toothpick, the driver hints that his overwhelming aura of cool is an affectation--"here, take a toothpick, you can do it too."
More importantly, the driver hides his criminal life. His work as a stunt driver is telling as well. He fills in for actors, often, presumably, playing at being a getaway driver--which is his true, hidden profession. But he doesn't play a getaway driver, really. He plays an actor playing a getaway driver. That is, he acts like an actor. It's a higher level of falsity, of knowing that one is pretending to pretend. The driver takes the same approach to his surrogate father role for Benicio--the driver knows that he is only pretending to be the good father that Standard was also pretending to be. They both failed because they are both criminals--the driver is just upfront about that fact. In a way.
The honesty the driver shows is an odd one, of course, given that he is maintaining a secret criminal life. The ironic twist is his insistence that all his criminal dealings be based on an "understanding." He insists on clearly stating the terms of every deal with all parties involved, shedding light on things that are most often shady. And yet he does so precisely while he knowingly fictionalizes himself into this persona by dressing like he does, by consciously giving off that aura of cool.
The exceptions, and the film's most interesting scenes, comes toward the end when the driver drowns Nino. While doing so, the driver wears a prop mask from his work as a stuntman. The mask is a faux-human thing, resembling Jason Voorhees without the trademark hockey mask. It's the opposite of the driver's typical soothingly attractive look. Fitting, perhaps, that he dons the mask when brutally killing a man--a task that is not part of his criminal work as a getaway driver in which he refuses to even carry a gun. Perhaps it's also fitting, if ironic, because this murder comes as revenge for Standard's murder and as a favor for Irene and Benicio (if unasked for)--when acting in a brutally human way, acting for the pure emotion felt towards another, the driver dons a mask that makes him appear inhuman.
Either way, the mask acts as an admission that the driver's persona is unreal. It's a sign of honesty. It demonstrates that the driver's usual appearance is an act, an act he puts on in order to play a role. That role inhibits him from being truly human--why else does he seem to lack any social characteristics at the start of the film? By donning the mask, the driver is admitting that he takes on bits of culture to perform certain roles--getaway driver, murderer--in the same way an actor does.
The honesty comes from the fact that the driver doesn't hide the fact that he is playing these roles. The odd way people interact with him in the film--the long pauses and awkward conversations--results from the fact that he is familiar, but yet inhuman. He plays the role of human characters, but does so in such an imaginary way that he can't interact in a truly human way. The mask admits as much by showing that the driver must match his image to his role, unable to simply act as a person. His personhood is confused with his persona.
Two further points solidify this reading of the film. Nino, the victim on the beach, is the antithesis of the driver. Nino constantly lies, double-crosses, and schemes against his partners (and everyone else). His dishonesty is what drives the film's plot. Yet, he never once hide his criminal nature. He is open about his dishonest ways. The film's plot begins with Nino's complaint that he is known as a Jew--a fact that is perfectly true. He simply resists being known for what he is. His image is true, but shows a liar. The driver's persona is a lie, but belies an honest man.
That honesty is displayed most clearly in the second point--the driver's relationship with Irene. Immediately before the beach scene, the driver brutally murders a man in the elevator with Irene (in order to protect her). But his brutality displays a different, hidden side of him--his criminal nature. It breaks her image of him, shatters his cool persona as his rage clearly shines through during the murder. After, Irene stares at the driver--hair askew, jacket bloody--with loss and confusion and horror. This is what prompts the driver to don his mask on the beach, to change his image. The imaginary nature of his persona comes to the fore, and his relationship is damaged.
But note that the driver was always 'true' with Irene, if dishonest. That is, his persona was never quite equal to his person, but he was true in his intentions and care. In the end of the film, he leaves the money and Irene because he can only act in this fictionalized way. That mythos is how he engages with others and he simply cannot let go of it. But admitting that and refusing to pretend to be a simple person when he is dependent upon these falsified images of himself is the most honest thing the driver could do. He admits his inability to forgo his image--an act that is admits a great weakness, questions his stability as a person, and is truly heroic. That is the source of the ironic power in the film's closing song, "A Real Hero," with its refrain of "a real human being and a real hero."
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Telling the Lie of Paul Ryan
After the 2008 crash, there were stories in most major media outlets about the role MBA-culture and finance fetishism played in the creation of false value. These were the stories that hinged on the argument that old textbooks had pictures of capital goods--forged steel and sweat-covered workers, cogs carried down an assembly line, and other comfortingly tangible industrial era relics--while today we have photos of money-stacks or graphs modeling growth: a lack of realism at the core of our economy.
These arguments aren't wrong, of course--just obvious. And they lean toward the common fallacy that pointing to a problem is the same as solving it, resting on the implication that all we need to do is go back to our old ways.
The people who love to make that argument are the same ones who point to the increasing capitalization of presidential elections while screaming "campaign finance reform!" as though those three words are the mildly-informed chant necessary to transform the process that created the Congress with an approval rating so low it's actually impressive. All we have to do, we're led to believe, is go back to the good ol' days when attack ads were charming newspaper numbers and George Washington was decrying factionalism, right?
The promotion of Paul Ryan from inflammatory representative to Vice Presidential candidate is the final blow to any such optimistic longing for any good ol' day--even Ike's true conservatism.
Articles and opinion pieces are pouring out with arguments against Ryan daily--pointing out his utterly insane budget, following his support of TARP and the largest additions to the deficit, highlighting his strikingly unsympathetic (to put it mildly) voting record, and implicating him in abuse of both rhetoric and position. The very point of Ryan's nomination, however, is that the veracity of these claims and the soundness of their reason is irrelevant.
Paul Ryan joined the Romney ticket because of the symbolic value he adds. He captures a certain feeling, a mindset, a budding zeitgeist--whatever term you prefer. That symbol exists outside of Ryan's actions as congressman--how else could he be both loved and hated for different reasons with the facts in plain view? A lack of realism at the core of our politics.
Ryan plays the same role for Romney that financial trading does for the economy--he drives value without relying on tangible results. It's a matter of presentation alone, a growth model whose working parts are vague at best, but whose line still trends upward.
The public debate over Ryan--and the debate funded by the Obama campaign--may convince voters of various facts about the man from Wisconsin and may succeed in poking holes in his aura. But these arguments imply that he is a viable candidate who must be argued against. In that way, his mere nomination demonstrates how little currency reality has in politics. Just as the financial industry can't be done away with without destroying the economy, the empty symbols our politicians have become--Ryan foremost among them--are holding politics hostage.
Pointing that fact out is almost insultingly obvious, and, more important, it misses the point. Everyone knows politics is one big lie--it's just a lie we've become completely dependent upon.
These arguments aren't wrong, of course--just obvious. And they lean toward the common fallacy that pointing to a problem is the same as solving it, resting on the implication that all we need to do is go back to our old ways.
The people who love to make that argument are the same ones who point to the increasing capitalization of presidential elections while screaming "campaign finance reform!" as though those three words are the mildly-informed chant necessary to transform the process that created the Congress with an approval rating so low it's actually impressive. All we have to do, we're led to believe, is go back to the good ol' days when attack ads were charming newspaper numbers and George Washington was decrying factionalism, right?
The promotion of Paul Ryan from inflammatory representative to Vice Presidential candidate is the final blow to any such optimistic longing for any good ol' day--even Ike's true conservatism.
Articles and opinion pieces are pouring out with arguments against Ryan daily--pointing out his utterly insane budget, following his support of TARP and the largest additions to the deficit, highlighting his strikingly unsympathetic (to put it mildly) voting record, and implicating him in abuse of both rhetoric and position. The very point of Ryan's nomination, however, is that the veracity of these claims and the soundness of their reason is irrelevant.
Paul Ryan joined the Romney ticket because of the symbolic value he adds. He captures a certain feeling, a mindset, a budding zeitgeist--whatever term you prefer. That symbol exists outside of Ryan's actions as congressman--how else could he be both loved and hated for different reasons with the facts in plain view? A lack of realism at the core of our politics.
Ryan plays the same role for Romney that financial trading does for the economy--he drives value without relying on tangible results. It's a matter of presentation alone, a growth model whose working parts are vague at best, but whose line still trends upward.
The public debate over Ryan--and the debate funded by the Obama campaign--may convince voters of various facts about the man from Wisconsin and may succeed in poking holes in his aura. But these arguments imply that he is a viable candidate who must be argued against. In that way, his mere nomination demonstrates how little currency reality has in politics. Just as the financial industry can't be done away with without destroying the economy, the empty symbols our politicians have become--Ryan foremost among them--are holding politics hostage.
Pointing that fact out is almost insultingly obvious, and, more important, it misses the point. Everyone knows politics is one big lie--it's just a lie we've become completely dependent upon.
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