2006-11-11
Wst Blog 9
Due to zine-mania, this week I have been thinking a lot about Kipnis and what she means by disarticulating and rearticulating. What I have discovered is this.... once you start thinking about how to refunction things, especially with pop culture items, it kind of takes over your existence. Now it seems like every magazine I read and every billboard that catches my eye are being refunctioned in my head. However, to actually go out and physically refunction these items so that they are in the public eye takes time and money - neither of which I seem to have a lot of these days. If we are being affected by forces of acceleration and decceleration and have no time to reflect upon things as Baudriallrd claims, then it seems difficult to fit the rearticulation of pop culture into the mix. While I want to spend my time undertaking projects like zines and spraypainting on STOP signs to send a message, I wonder how likely it is that I can fit these activities into my already packed schedule. This is something that I think we all run into in our lives, the question of which causes to support, which activities to participate in, or what products of pop culture we can refunction while still doing all the things we need to do. While I can juggle school, work, volunteering, and the occasional act of vandalization in the name of a good cause, I wonder if this is enough. Kipnis seems to be asking for a major call to action, not merely the analysis of theory but the reappropriation of pop culture as we know it in order to achieve feminist goals. How do we decide what action to take, and how do we know if it is enough? Does anyone else ever feel like this, like there is just too much to do, and you're not quite sure if the things that you manage to fit into your schedule are the 'right' ones?
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3 comments:
I agree; there are so many things that should be done, and need to be done, but not enough people willing or able to do them. I think one of the reasons for this is due to our individualistic culture. Everyone prioritizes their own shit and their own lives over those that serve the masses; writing this blog and receiving my one percent so I can pass this course and get a degree seems far more important than organizing protests, or even writing a “letter to the editor” to clear up one of the many ignorant articles that are read daily. I wonder if keeping us too busy to focus on anything of any real importance is one of the many ways the Ideological state apparatus functions to maintain hegemony as Althusser may suggest. Or, with a more Marxist approach, we tend to our own lives and our own work all day to wind up tired and in front of the TV without a thought in our heads as depicted by White.
Lately I have been thinking about the exact problem you are discussing here. As much as I would love to make a feminist zine every month or work on reappropriating the raw materials of our patriarchal culture, I find it impossible to make the time. But if we truly desired to make a differnece, wouldn't making a zine or vandalizing stop signs become one of our needs? It could replace writing a blog or volunteering because it becomes a priority. We have to consider: are the many activities that fill up our schedules really things we "need" to do, or are we prioritizing them because that is what we are "supposed to do". The ideological as well as the repressive state apparatus function to instill in our minds "what is right", what our main priorities should be, and what should be placed on the backburner (such as radical acts of vandalism). Although this thought may seem easy to negate--we never want to admit that we don't have complete agency over our life choices or espceically our daily schedules--but if you really think about it, what is it that makes homework a priority over reappropriating images in our culture in effort to expose norms and make a difference? Kipnis would be disappointed. But after all, school is the main ideological state apparatus working on us to keep us in line. Maybe that's why we find writing a weekly blog more important than participating in radical feminist action.
Recent studies in my existentialist philosophy class have me pondering the same sort of questions. I find that I agree with Sartre in that we are what we will, choose and decide. But if that is the case, then meaning and value come to be in the world through our actions. So what do your actions show that you value? My actions of late show that I value my degree and myself. Period. Is that selfish? Or wrong? The kicker, though, is that there are important things in my life that just don’t show as important in and through my actions. How do I reconcile that? Kipnis seems like she’s demanding action in a Sartrean way. If there is no inherent value in anything, then it is up to us bring that meaning and value into our own lives. So make your list, check it twice, and ACT…whether that means you are blogging because you love it or merely for grades. For how can we expect to change the world if we can’t even gain meaning and value in this world for ourselves?
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