Category Archives: theory

Our society allows infinite aggressions

I am sort of reviewing my newly arrived copy of Legman’s Rationale of the Dirty Joke, but thought I’d share the opening lines of the book with you:

“Under the mask of humor, our society allows infinite aggressions, by everyone and against everyone. In the culminating laugh by the listener or observer–whose position is really that of the victim or butt–the teller of the joke betrays his hidden hostility and signals his victory by being, theoretically at least, the one person present who does not laugh. Compulsive storytellers and joke-tellers express almost openly the hostile components of their need, by forcing their jokes upon frankly unwilling audiences among their friends and loved ones, and upon every new person they meet. Often they proffer this openly as their only social grace. the listener’s expected laughter is, therefore, in a most important but unspoken way, a shriving of the teller, a reassurance that he has not been caught, that the listener has partaken with him, willy-nilly, in the hostility or sexuality of the joke, or has even acceded in being its victim or butt.” (Rationale, 1st Series, first page.)

I’ve finished my analysis of the introduction here.

No index

Report obscene mail to your postmaster[1].

To Gershon Legman, what would his blog have been like?

Rationale of the dirty joke: An analysis of sexual humor (1968) – G Legman
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

My copy of Gershon Legman’s Rationale of the Dirty Joke arrived in the mail today, I had ordered it somewhat “by accident” after finding out about Neurotica magazine (a magazine Legman was involved with in the 1950s) via Scott McLemee’s new blog Quick Study. My first impressions are: no index (I have a British edition of 1969, but I do not believe it is present in the American edition either) but also no bibliography, of which my version says it is available in the American edition.

One of the first things I check in a non-fiction book is the TOC — I’m always interested in a good ontology — Legman in this case confirms that he essentially relied on the ontological model Freud first set forth in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious(1905).

I read about 13 pages in this 700+ page book and found it clear and amusing. There were favorable references to Games People Play , Children’s Humor : a Psychological Analysis (1954) by Martha Wolfenstein (who was analyzed by the art historian and lay analyst Ernst Kris) and The Mask of Sanity (1941) by Hervey Cleckley.

Only now do I find out that Taschen and Simon & Schuster have reprinted Rationale. Maybe they have an index?

Simon & Schuster reprint

[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Links: Freud’s Legacy by Richard Webster.

Easy access to id material without being overwhelmed by it …

‘Groovy Age of Horror Curt”s third post in a series Horror, High and Low on the merits and theory of genre fiction comes just in time as he is about to delve into the depths of Nazi exploitation fiction in a series he announces as The Nazis Are Coming. Needless to say, I am a bit of a fan of this guilty pleasure genre myself and I am happy that he introduces this chapter (other chapters have included vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein, nurses) with the cautionary words: as long as it firmly remains fantasy.

“I hope this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: I, a hardcore liberal, no more endorse Nazism politically than I, a hardcore atheist/naturalist, endorse belief in the supernatural elements in the horror novels I review here. Nazis are bad for real life, but they obviously resonate powerfully in the imagination as embodiments of evil, sadism, and power. Like so much else, they’re good for fantasy–as long as it firmly remains fantasy. “

The emphasis on fantasy reminds me of the cathartic theories on gruesome fiction and the aestheticization of violence that were en vogue in the sixties and seventies.

Contrary to the cathartic theory, Curt’s current piece recognizes — by way of the theories of Ernst Kris, presumably from Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art (1952) — the possibility of being overwhelmed by id material, of not being able to distinguish the line between fact and fiction. This shines a particular light on media effects studies where for several decades, discussion of popular media was frequently dominated by the debate about ‘media effects’, in particular the link between mediated violence and real-life aggression.

An excerpt:

A more mature critical attitude, one that has made that reconnection, rather manifests a healthy flexibility described by Ernst Kris as,

The capacity of gaining easy access to id material without being overwhelmed by it, of retaining control over the primary process [i.e., while indulging it], and, perhaps specifically, the capability of making rapid or at least appropriately rapid shifts in levels of psychic function . . .

I think this truly positive account of genre fiction is what’s needed to put Jahsonic’s “nobrow” position on its firmest footing. I’m no more interested in Danielle Steele than Jan is, but now we’re in a position to say something about her–at least to the extent that we’re in a position to say something about genre fiction in general. Likewise, when Jan likens exclusively highbrow critics to someone who “only know[s] two colors, let’s say green and blue,” we’re now in a position to complete that metaphor by filling in the blanks of what the other colors represent that are missing from that palette–the warm colors, appropriately enough! —source

On a more personal note, Curt’s post above is the most articulate response so far since I started posting in the nobrow category. Curt’s blog Groovy Age has reinforced my position that one can only come to the nobrow if you know both ‘brows’.

Groovy Age is the only horror blog I read precisely because it knows its way around in ‘high theory’, referencing Freud and Ernst Kris. Fortunately Curt’s high theory does not detract from the sheer fun and excitement that oozes from its pages. I am already on the lookout for his 2008 nunsploitation chapter.

A new Bible for the white race

The Origins of Love and Hate (1910 – 1965) – Ian Dishart Suttie

The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (1948) – Robert Graves
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

I can’t remember how I happened (oh yes, now I do, search terms used matrist+patrist, see my previous post on the work of Gordon Rattray Taylor) but I found this interesting text by the recently deceased Robert Anton Wilson on the relationship between James Joyce and Eastern philosophy. Some excerpts:

Throughout the long day of Ulysses the thoughts of Stephen Dedalus and Mr. Bloom repeatedly return to the East; and this is not without reason. Ulysses is so profoundly Oriental in mood and conception that Carl Jung has recommended it as a new Bible for the white race. Molly Bloom’s fervent “Yes” mirrors the author’s acceptance of life in its entirety – an acceptance that transcends the dualisms of light and dark, good and evil, beautiful and sordid.

…

Some Sinologists trace this “Eternal Female” back to a Chinese “Urmutter” myth of pre-Chou times, but Lao-Tse was far beyond primitive mythology. He was using this myth as a pointer, to indicate the values that must have been in the society which created the myth. The distinction between Patrist and Matrist cultures made in such books as Ian Suttie’s The Origins of Love and Hate and G. Rattray Taylor’s Sex in History (not to mention Robert Graves’ The White Goddess ) places the Taoists as representatives of a Matrist social-ethical system living in Confucian Patrist China. —cached source

Molly Bloom’s fervent “Yes” from her famous soliloquy:

“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. “

For the Italian aesthetician Benedetto Croce

Under construction: trying to align some random thoughts regarding genre theory and how much difference and repetition we need in our lives.

“For the Italian aesthetician Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), an artistic work was always unique and there could be no artistic genres.” quotes Daniel Chandler in his excellent An Introduction to Genre Theory. I’ve always opposed this take on genre theory because I have a hard time with modernist concepts such as authenticity, the cult of originality, the great man theory and the resistance of things to be generalized. I like generalizations. I am a lumper, more than a splitter.

Last week however, I went through a small film experience that was analogous to blind wine tasting, which re-balanced my perception of genre theory. I saw the trailer to David Lynch’s new film INLAND EMPIRE without expecting it because I was in a mainstream cinema. As I thought to myself …. this is something special, I came to realize that this was Lynch. And it dawned on me that Lynch’s work does not belong to a genre but is unique or sui generis (of its own kind).

Other examples of genre-defying artists abound: take someone like mannerist painter Arcimboldo, reggae musician Lee Perry, novelist Céline, filmmaker Jacques Tati and most if not all eccentric artists.

Quotes sustaining the lumper view:

“It can be argued that all novels, no matter how “literary”, also fall within the bounds of one or more genres. Thus Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a romance; Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is a psychological thriller; and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a coming-of-age story. These novels would usually be stocked in the general or possibly the classics section of a bookstore. Indeed, many works now regarded as literary classics were originally written as genre novels.”

Quotes sustaining the splitter view:

“There is no great work of art which does not convey a new message to humanity; there is no great artist who fails in this respect. This is the code of honor of all the great in art, and consequently in all great works of the great we will find that newness which never perishes, whether it be of Josquin des Pres, of Bach or Haydn, or of any other great master. Because: Art means New Art” — Arnold Schoenberg

So I’m thinking about this interplay between genre on the one hand and uniqueness on the other. Has David Lynch’s uniqueness inspired a new genre or will his style of filmmaking die with him? What can be said about the cinema of Lynch? Where does one draw the line between the history of art and the sociology of art? Is there any way to develop a genre theory which includes both strains?

I thought of the concepts used by Ken Wilber (derived from Koestler) holon and holarchy and the concepts used by Deleuze difference and repetition. Also, Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance and the species problem, an analogy from biology ……………..

Duration is that which decomposes

Via Methods and Black Squares comes this lovely multimedia poem by Deleuze who states:

“Who introduced duration to the novel before cinema? It was Flaubert with Mme Bovary.”

Gilles Deleuze, photo credit unidentified

La durée c’est ce qui se décompose

Ha!
La durée c’est une
défection . La durée c’est,
tomber en poussierrrrrrrrrrr.
Oui, oui.
C’est Flaubert. C’est Flaubert.
Et. Et.
Si ça dure, ça se décompose.
[silence]
Ce n’est pas du tout Bergsonien.

Muybridge’s Complete Human and Animal Locomotion

How much death and terror

The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing (2006) – Timothy J. Clark [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

How much death and terror can nature contain and still be posited as a value — as a world that human beings reach for, steadying themselves. (p. 174)

Via a review of Bart Verschaffel in De Witte Raaf 125, see also this post at This Space. More on the art critic — and former member of the British SI — here, more on horror in the visual arts here.

Introducing French theory to America

A collection of Semiotext(e) titles that have been read.

In my previous post I wondered why Taschen does not publish on political counterculture since they have a penchant towards the realm where “high and low will no longer be perceived as contradictions”. Andrej Maltar answers in the comments section of that post that Taschen is not interested in subversion outside the aesthetic field and points us in the direction of publishers like Autonomedia [semiotext(e)] or the Pranks-issue of RE/Search. He asks “Aren’t these books very interesting in terms of contemporary political subversion?”

On Autonomedia and Semiotext(e):

Semiotext(e) is an American independent publisher. It is widely credited for having introduced French theory to America in the late 1970s via its magazine issues and Foreign Agents series. In 2000 the MIT Press began distributing Semiotext(e), taking it over from the anarchist publishing collective Autonomedia.

Without realizing it I already have two Semiotext(e) books in my library: Paul Virilio’s Pure War and his Aesthetics of Disappearance. I’ve read and very much enjoyed Pure War and started to tackle Disappearance. I bought Disappearance for its uncanny cover art.

Off-topic, a dedication to all the girls [Youtube] I’ve loved before by way of Carole King’s ‘It’s Too Late’.

Truth in nakedness

Nuda Veritas (1899) – Gustav Klimt

“Klimt certainly wasn’t the first to paint naked women,” Ruiz says. “But he also showed pubic hair, pregnant bellies, and old men and women with sagging flesh — nuda veritas! –Ruiz via [1]

..“What is interesting about Klimt (played here by John Malkovich) is that in the short space of a lifetime, he evolved from a Raphael to a Van Gogh. In Romania, where he got his first big job — and his first syphilis — he was a painter of the court, like Velazquez. Then he moved on to the painter of the Austrian Empire, paid by the state. Then he broke away and got commissions from Vienna’s Jewish bourgeoisie and became a painter of the wealthy. Toward the end, he just painted for himself. So he became rich, but he was also generous and died without money. Too many children to support!” –Ruiz via [1]

Apparently, what shocked the Viennese bourgeoisie in the 1899 oil painting Nuda Veritas is the depiction of pubic hair. Pubic hair marks the dividing line between a Venus and a Nini (see previous post), and continues to have the power to shock in the present age. I can’t be mournful about that because if there were a world where nothing were shocking, a world where a sense of the forbidden were gone, wouldn’t that be a bore?

Klimt vs. Loos

“All art is erotic”, declared Adolf Loos in “Ornament and Crime“. Long before Expressionism and Surrealism were credited with displaying sexuality openly in art, Klimt made it his creed, and it became the leitmotif of his work. –Gilles Néret, 1993

“”The first ornament that was ever born, the cross, was erotic in origin. The first work of art, the first artistic deed which the first artist smeared on the wall in order to work off his excess. A horizontal line: recumbent woman. A vertical line: man penetrating her … But man of our time, following an inner compulsion to smear the walls with erotic symbols, is criminal or degenerate … Since ornament is no longer a coherent organic part of our culture, it can no longer be an expression of our culture.” Thus wrote Adolf Loos in his article “Ornament and Crime”, which begins with the famous sentence: “All art is erotic”. The intention behind the article was to stigmatise the “erotic insalubrity” of Klimt and the other artists of the Wienner Werkstätten.” –Gilles Néret, 1993

Of niceness and nastiness

In search of Kant’s theory of taste, I bid you good night with this tune.

We can sum things up like this: judgments of taste occupy a mid-point between judgments of niceness and nastiness, and empirical judgments about the external world. Judgments of taste are like empirical judgments in that they have universal validity; but, they are unlike empirical judgment in that they are made on the basis of an inner response. Conversely, judgments of taste are like judgments of niceness or nastiness in that they are made on the basis of an inner subjective response or experience; but they are unlike judgments of niceness and nastiness which makess no claim to universal validity. To cut the distinctions the other way: in respect of normativity, judgments of taste are like empirical judgments and unlike judgments of niceness or nastiness; but in respect of subjectivity, judgments of taste are unlike empirical judgments and like judgments of niceness or nastiness. So we have three-fold division: empirical judgments, judgments of taste, and judgments of niceness or nastiness. And judgments of taste have the two points of similarity and dissimilarity on each side just noted.

…

However, our hope thus far has been merely to get a little clearer about what it is that is under scrutiny in this debate. Once we are armed with a modest account of what a judgment of taste is, we can then proceed to more ambitious questions about whether or not judgments of taste represent real properties of beauty and ugliness. We can even consider whether or not our whole practice of making judgments of taste is defective and should be jettisoned. But first things first. — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy