Sanity, Madness, Sanity

George Santayana: "Sanity is a madness put to good use."

Michel Foucault: Madness can lead to a dissolution of the unity between body and soul (mind).

Suggestion: While muddling through our maddening days, let us not continue the divisions that undermine our very attempts to unify; let us not presume that democracy sanitized is democracy sane.

But, yes, let us restore some sanity!

Image Credits: www.rallytorestoresanity.com

A Question of Propriety: When Play Meets Seriousness

Stephen Colbert recently spoke on behalf the United Farm Workers (UFW) in an address to Congress on "Protecting America's Harvest." The hearing was meant to acknowledge concerns about farm worker jobs as well as the sustainability of America's largest industry: agriculture. Serious stuff, to be sure. Colbert, acting in (parodic) character, delivered a pointed speech.

To put it simply, a number of people (House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer in particular) expressed their displeasure over the speech--not because it mocked many of the fundaments undergirding the argument that undocumented workers are stealing American jobs (though it did mock them), but rather because it did so with such dead-on exactitude. There is, of course, the obvious question as to the limits of humor in particular contexts. This example is no exception. Certainly a congressional hearing is not a scene in which one might expect a parodic enactment of a critique meant to level a certain perspective, let alone a blatantly performative judgment on the inertia of the government with respect to contemporary framing woes. However, it is important to note the limits of straight reason as well. Supposed reason, after all, has perpetuated the abovementioned theory and contributed to a similar mode of rationale that sustained the passing of one of this country's most egregious anti-Immigration laws in history. It is reason that has led to massive corporate farming. It is reason that expects large-scale, industrial farming to be sustain itself by the almighty "invisible hand." Reason. Its serious stuff, to be sure.

Colbert's "performance" was certainly controversial, and therefore seriously problematic for some. Yet it speaks directly to the power of humor to speak directly--especially when, amidst the myriad problems that require serious attention, the government, as Colbert indicates, "isn't doing anything." True enough: play is not the same as reason, and humor is necessarily incongruous in its argumentative stance. But that does not make it any more unreasonable than reason itself.

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Rally to Restore Sanity

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." -William Shakespeare, Hamlet

The Rally to Restore Sanity.

"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly." -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

March to Keep Fear Alive.

Enough said...for now.

It's Not My Lot Today And It's Yours Tomorrow

One of the prevailing criticisms of humor as a mode of socio-political judgment is that it does not provide any material action. That is, humor can serve as a social and political palliative, a means for placating even our darkest demons, but it cannot exorcise (or exercise) them out of existence. Let me be clear in saying that such is quite possibly one of humor's most powerful qualities (its means for placating... and, by extension, calling into question those very social and political mores that undergird the actions that may or may not be taken in a particular context). Thus, I do not completely buy the premise, especially considering the an enactment of humorous discourse can be as motivating and mobilizing as a speech, nevermind the fact that humor as critique enables changes of attitudes and reconsideration of givens, arguably the roots of action (or inaction). Then again, critics are right to, perhaps, expect more of humor and to hold "the comic's" feet to the fire. But let us not burn it in effigy before recognizing its embodiment, first in ideas, then in action. Especially when such a comic as the one below drives at a serious political point...and especially when the rhetoric of figures like Glenn Beck humorlessly laughs its way both to the bank and to the political battlefield. Indeed, we might do well to consider humor as our lot today so that action can likewise be ours tomorrow.



Image Credit: John Darkow / Columbia Daily Tribune

The Parodic-Travesty of Campaign Financing or Farce in Following the Money

Money has long been not only an accessory but an accomplice to politics in America--and vice versa. Furthermore, with the Supreme Court's decision to protect corporate speech as (individual) free speech in the political arena, we saw a powerful move to strengthen the collusion between corporations and campaign finance. As Andrew Cohen notes, such undertakings "no doubt [mark] the beginning of a new struggle between right and left, corporate and individual, government and the governed, which strikes at the core of our modern-day capitalistic democracy."

That struggle was played out, first in both Bill O'Reilly's and Glenn Beck's recent apologies for the Fox Newscorp decision to give $1 million to the Republican party and subsequent contentions of conspiracy between covert contributors to the Democratic party, and then on the satirical stage of "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart recently performed an already classic parody of Glenn Beck and his twisted logic. On August 18, Stewart qua Beck returned in another first-rate parodic, albeit terse, performance.



The topic: the parodic travesty of campaign financing.The target: Glenn Beck (and Bill O'Reilly, and the circuitous money trail of campaign financing, and Fox News, and the Republican Party, and...).

Campaign financing has long been a relatively clandestine enterprise. That's a $1 million (controversial) contribution has been so easily exposed is telling in itself, but Stewart parody tells more. As Mikhail Bakhtin argues, "the process of parodying forces us to experience those sides of [a discourse] that are not otherwise included in...a given style. Parodic-travestying...introduces the permanent corrective of laughter, of a critique of the one-sided seriousness of the lofty direct word, the corrective of reality that is always richer, more fundamental and most importantly too contradictory and heteroglot to be fitted into a high and straightforward [language]." As Stewart demonstrates, the straightforwardness of what he parodies is actually quite laughable--perhaps even more so than than the outlandish connections O'Reilly and Beck attempt to make in implicating democrats in illegitimate political financing.

Still, a travesty is, understood simply, a burlesque (or grotesque or hyperbolic) imitation of a work or discourse. To say that travesty aligns with parody, itself an imitative and "doubled" rhetorical tactic, requires no sleight of hand, which is why Stewart's contention that "[The $1 million donation] is travesty" is all the more a propos. As Hari Sevugan, secretary of the DNC, notes, "Any pretense that may have existed about the ties between Fox News and the Republican Party has been violently ripped away." Adds Stewart, "I really think, if anything, the Republicans should be paying Fox News millions and millions of dollars, not the other way around." This after crude mockeries of Beck's demeanor and hilariously on point depictions of his near-salacious intrigue with his own faulty reasoning.

Campaign financing has long been "corrupt." What is more, it is axiomatic, indeed proverbial at this point, that to discern the nature of power one need only follow the money. But there is another parody, I think, that says something about a pot calling a kettle...you get the idea. Such is why what is revealed, what is concealed: travesty troubles, parody procures.

Photo credits: Indecisionforever.com.

Race Card as Ideograph?

Michael Calvin McGee’s landmark essay, “’The Ideograph’: A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology,” laid the groundwork for understanding idiographic—and idiomatic—language as socially and politically charged, let alone ideologically inscribed. Since Obama’s inauguration in 2008, along with talk soon thereafter of America as a post-racial society, one wonders of the actual verity of putting race behind us when it is at the fore of so many of our (ethical) discussions. That Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are both on trial for ethics violations certainly does not present a singular example of corruption in politics. It is laughable that anyone—especially in a…“post-racial” society—could equate blackness with corruption, whiteness with purity. Post, however, does mean beyond. The question remains what such talk of “posts” will do to the ideographic nature of our conversations about race in the twenty-first century and beyond, as well as what “playing the race” card today actually indicates amongst different people. We might consider as a counter-question here what further discourse might have been around the Gulf oil spill had the BP chief executive officer been…“corrupt.”

This clip from The Daily Show touches on some interesting considerations.

Photo Credits: www.mediate.com

So Serious, So Playful or A Dark Laugh of "Iconoclasm"

It is possible for one to tell a joke that hints of racism without being a racist oneself. When The Onion published the article "Black Guy Asks Nation For Change" on March 19, 2008, for example, I doubt if anyone was up in arms to accuse the satiric newspaper of racial defamation. The same might be said of their declaration just eight months later, which exclaimed "Holy Shit We Elected A Black President."

Furthermore, that a sitting president (or even presidents past) might be the subject of harsh criticism by way of derogatory political humor is certainly not new. Yet there is something about the now over-a-year-old image of President Obama as The Joker from "The Dark Knight" that is not simply laughing at a president's appearance on "The View," a slipshod early handling of a massive oil spill, or an ostensibly socialist national health care program. For the Tea Partiers, it's all grist to the mill. An initial point of consideration is the fact that its creator, whose identity was some time ago revealed, has not himself been considered a racist. It is possible for one to tell a joke that hints...I digress.

Since early 2008, President Obama has set himself up and been exalted as an icon of change. Since his election in November of the same year, there have been countless attempts to destroy that very icon. For the Tea Party, change is anathema to the American way, to the spirit of the Founding Fathers, to the ideals that supposedly undergird our nation. There shall be no other "idol" than the quintessence of the early republic. All others should be unmade. The "real" America, according to the Tea Partiers, its itself under attack, and Obama is the false idol of progressive liberalism.

Many have "laughed" off the following portrayal of Obama as The Joker as a playful caricature, one that has come to signify the painted, scarred smile accompanying the discursive politics of the Tea Party Movement itself.



Yet the seriousness and severity with which it is used as a dark laugh of iconoclasm begs the question of dismissiveness in this claim. Part of why the image is so powerful is because the figure of The Joker carries with it much ideological (and pathological) weight: he is a specious and deceitful criminal mastermind, an embodiment of evil with a sense of humor, a man who smiles (uncontrollably) as he kills and, therefore, cannot be trusted or kept out of sight. What is more, the Obama/Joker image looks like a mugshot, perverting the notion of the wanted man inasmuch as the president is the most public, the least hidden of individuals.

Then, of course, there is the question of race. Countless on the left have denounced the image as fundamentally racist and bigoted. Countless others from the right have defended it as just a joke, as a playful depiction driven at making a point about Obama's politics. Indeed, as Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post notes, "Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can't be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he is black." The DNC has held it up as an epitomic example of the right's unwillingness to accept racial plurality in America, let alone social tolerance. The RNC (to be specific, the Tea Party) has used it in protests, in fund-raising campaigns. The journalistic enterprise has used it as a "comic" motif of a racial problem that is at once advertised and silenced.

To be sure, the iconography of "Darky" dates back to the mid-1800's, first appearing as the dark paint on white faces in minstrel shows and vaudeville performances, and later coming to typify racism in the moniker and image of "blackface." Today, it stands as a shadow on the popular discourse and humor about race (perhaps attaining its most blatant and satirically parodic commentary in Spike Lee's "Bamboozled"). The Obama/Joker depiction thus stands as an interesting, albeit disturbing, reversal. In this image, a black face is painted white. Yet the whiteness is corrupted, maculated, adulterated. Simply put, is the dark double of ostensive American tradition. As a playful attempt at iconoclasm, its seriousness is all too irksome. As an image, it seems to reify the modes of social and political power that underlie discussions of race. It vandalizes Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque by destroying one power in order to reclaim another one that is preexistent. It laughs to destroy, but not to regenerate. It mocks official seriousness with a perversely clowning seriousness of its own. Moreover, that it is written off as "just a joke" means that, as Kimberle Williams Crenshaw illustrates, the overt message does not account for the latent, literal claims. That is, the humor "does little to blunt [its] demeaning quality," a problem only to be exacerbated as long as such "jokes" remain "within a tradition of intragroup humor." Simply put, there is no such thing as mere words, mere images, mere jokes.

Do not mistake, I am all for critiques of power. I am also an obvious proponent of humor the mocks the official, troubles the waters of normal expectation, and appropriates coded discourses in order to re-codify. Presidents and politicians, political institutions and institutions of politics should always be held up for critique. I am almost sure I laughed at this image of Bush as The Joker (Nicholson, though, not Ledger) the first time I saw it.



However, I am also sure that the ends of humorous means should always be interrogated...especially when humor is used simply to be downright mean. The humor propounded by Bakhtin was certainly, at times, abject and crude; however, it was never without an appeal to the social and political consciousness of all people, not simply those it might be said to have served. After all, laughter is a collective enterprise, and the more it operates on a "when-we-do-it-it's-right, when-you-do-it-it's-wrong" mentality, the more it will divide and destroy instead of unite and create.

Photo Credits: FirasAlkhateeb; Drew Friedman, Vanity Fair.