Williams

The text of Raymond Williams takes us to a very especial reflection: the problem of the concept of “culture” and the idea of “mass”. In this biographical writing, Williams argue that is important to brake the idea of culture as a property of the elite. Instead of that, the English thinker state that “Culture is ordinary”. This means that everybody takes part of “culture” and the idea that “culture” is everywhere. He disagree about people who think that “culture” is “going down”. Williams proposes that culture it is in a process of expansion in the world (middle 50s), but both “kinds” of culture, “good and bad” are getting more important and with a bigger presence in the society.

Williams links this idea with the concept of “mass”. He rejects the conception of mass that some people, especially Marxist, have about it. He thinks that many of these people see “the mass” as a group of ignorant people who must be leaded and taught about everything, because they are not able to do anything by themselves. He rejects this idea of the mass as a kid and says that the concept of mass was created after the Industrial Revolution in order to separate and discriminate people. The mass is “the other”, the one that it is not like “us”.

One of the idea that I found very interesting, was related to the vision that “the working class” have, in his opinion, of the Industrial Revolution. He grow up in an industrial city. His family were workers in different areas, but all of them were a product of the Industrial Revolution. It is very interesting that he goes against who think that the Industrial Revolution was a machine of oppression and life destroyer. For him, this process was a satisfactory one. Without that, they (his family and “the working class” in general) would never have the chances that they got and that they have now (when the text was written).

It is interesting too the way he critics the Marxism. Especially, when he disagrees about the idea of anticipating the future. One of the main proposal of Marxism is, precisely, to say that the socialist revolution was coming, and the, finally, the communism would be reached. When he rejects this idea is making and important shape in the Marxist tradition. Doing this, Williams is taking the Marxist thought to a new stage of seeing the world, a world that has changed a lot and that it is trying to go on after the IIWW.

Benjamin

The Work of art is probably of the most famous text of the XX century. Here, Benjamin discuss, among many things, the relation of art with the technical reproduction of it. According to the German philosopher, art has something called “aura” that only exists in the primary work. This aura is lost when the art is reproduced by any technique. “Aura” is the here and now of the art, is related to its existence in history.

The best example of the relation between art and technique is the photography and the cinema. The first one, started a “fight” against the paintings in the XIX century, especially when the painters where trying to get closer to “reality”. Bejamin talks about the relation of painting and photography and the way the second one changed the first one. Also, the cinema, that put the image in movement and later added sound to it, transformed the relation of art and the masses.

Since this transformation took place, the notion of art and its relation with the audience changed. The idea of reception of the works of art appeared. This is very clear in the case of photography and cinema. The main purpose of developing this art was to be exposed to the big audience (especially the cinema). From this transformation of the relation between art and the audience we can make the connection of art and politic. It has no sense to think the relation between those two elements before the age of technical reproduction.

Benjamin is looking for a kind of art that can not be used by the fascism. He is interested about the “politicization of art” that communism would do. This, in the opposition of the aestheticization of politics that according to the author it is the mechanism that fascism regimes use in order to control the population.

Even when the author starts and ends his text talking about the relation about art and politics, I think this one it is not clear at all at the text. I don’t see how he connects the “problem” of this new era in art, and the problem and the relation of art and politics.

My first question when I faced those four texts was, how can I read them? Then, I realize that there was actually a kind of “order” to do it. Of course, is not the way to do it, but was a guideline. That`s the interesting thing about reading and following a debate or a confrontation of different authors. Sometimes, we read two different texts that talk about similar issues, we can put them to talk between them, and then, to discuss among other texts that discuss similar topics or ideas. Anyway, is always more interesting, at least for me, to read something that is “directed” (of course Derrida would not agree with this) to someone. So, I took the road of read those texts as a discussion. First, I read Austin, then, Derrida`s text called “Signature event context”, then, the Searle`s text (I will keep his name), and finally, the Derrida`s answer to Searl.

Following this reading I will not focus on any text to deep, and I will try to figure out how can the big picture looks like (if there is one). Austin (along with Wittgenstein) was one of the first philosophers in start developing a philosophy of language in the XX Century. As we know after his reading, his main focus is in the relation of language and the world that would be outside of it. In other words, and it is what gives the title of his main work, “How to do things with words”. His idea (or at least how I read it) is/was that language can escape the limits of the own language and have a relevant role in some kind of “extra linguistic” circumstances. In other words, some utterance are able to modify reality of people. A good example of this it is when a priest (in a Christian tradition) says “I now declare you man and wife”, and starting from that moment, the couple is actually married. Of course, in order to have a “happy ending” for this situation, Austin says that there is a group of conditions that must be fulfilled. The situation in what this utterance is involved would be the context (for me, one of the most relevant concepts of the discussion). If some of the conditions is not fulfilled, let’s say that the woman was already married or the scene happened on a stage in a theatre, the utterance loose it’s performative force.

A few years latter, Derrida spoke in a philosophical meeting about the issue of writing. Then, at least in my read, he made a distinction about writing and spoken language, and didn`t take much care about the last one. His main focus is about written language. But after making his main proposal about it, he started to discuss some issues related to Austin`s work. I think that one of the main points was about his (Austin) notion of context. According to Derrida there is no way to access to any kind of “objective” or “total” context , so there would be no way to establish the circumstances that surround any speech act. But is further than “just the context”, is a matter about intentions. For the French philosopher, there is no way either to access to the “real intentions” of any speaker. That`s one of the main characteristic of writing (for him), that can survive even after the dead of it’s author and the receiver. In order words, the writing exists by it self. Doesn’t need concepts like intentions, author, context of production, etc.

After this “aggression” to Austin, one of his disciples decided to reply to Derrida. For Searle, Derrida had a misreading of Austin’s text (actually, for Searle seems to be that Derrida didn’t understand a word). The American philosopher states that all Derrida`s argument are lack of force and make big confusions about concepts like iterability and permanence. For Searle, speech acts do exist and elements such as context and intentions may be accessed in order to study them.

Of course, Derrida answered. In his very characteristic style, the French philosopher answer to the short “reply” of Searle with almost a whole book (I can’t unmentioned this element). Derrida starts with an exercise of deconstruction about Serle`s text. First, he discussed the authorship of it making fun of the “copyright” of the text, and finally, reducing him to an acronym that, of course, looks like his name: Sarl. It seems to be that one of the mains point of disagreement about them are the ideas of “truth”, “real”, etc. In some way, and I agree about that, Searle claims to have “the right reading” of Austin. Finally, the text discuss about the notion of context, the role of signature (especially talking about Searle`s copyright and his own signature at the end of his previous text), in other word, going back to the arguments presented in SEC. And of course, never stops of making fun of Searle.

More than focus and choosing some positions, I would like to keep the issues that are being discussed here. As I said before, for me one of the main concepts (and that is extremely interesting when we want to think about other disciplines outside literature and philosophy) is the concept of context. Some people believe that knowing the context of an utterance we would be able to get to the “real signification” or the “intention” under it. Derrida, as we saw, doesn’t. And on the other hand appear the concept of writing (can we make a direct relation with the notion of text?). Both ideas are, nowadays, on opposite sides. That’s why for me this debate is interesting. Because show a discussion about something that is still in the arguments in literary theory. That means, at least for me, which is an issue that must be keeping discussed.

It is impossible to read this text and to not remember about The trial of the same author. It seems to be that both stories were written in the same period of time. However, in this story, the main issue is completely the opposite of the one in The trial. In The Penal Colony Kafka take us to a “world” that could exist anywhere, and to a situation that makes us think about thousands of different things. The issue that I would like to discuss here is about the application of justice and the way that justice is applied.

My favourite quote of the text is this one: “The basic principle I used for my decisions is this: Guilty is always beyond a doubt” (7). Guilty about what? About whatever the condemned were acussed. It is interesting that the officer consider “The apparatus” a court. For him, that is the place where justice is applied. And the defendant is always Guilty. That’s why they don’t use the word “defendant”, they always refer to him ad “the Condemned”, with capital letter. Condemned is his new name. The subject is lost to become just “the Condemned”. Of course, this point takes us to another, the problem of justice. This issue has been discussed for thousands of years in the philosophical tradition of law. Justice, however, is not the same as law. But here, in the penal colony, there is a kind of law under all the stuff related to the “apparatus”. The law is that anybody who is accused of something (it seems to be that only for superiors) becomes guilty. This argument remember me one of the perspectives that appear in Plato’s text, The Republic (My apologize, but I don’t remember the character). There, one character says that justice is what the best for the most powerful is. That line came into my mind when I read the text (even when Plato disagree about that argument). But it seems to be that justice, in this text, is what the powerful says. The stability of “justice”, or what justice is for the officer, start to shake after the arrival of the new Commandant. This character (that actually never appear in the story) is the one that disturbed the officer and his “procedure” of justice. The officer is so upset about the new situation that try in a desperate way to keep thing working as it used to be. Sadly for him, all his efforts bring dead to him.

Other point of the story that I found interesting, is the punishment of the body. After the Condemned is “found” guilty, without a trial, the punishment is not to be in jail for a certain period of time. They inscribed his fault in his body. Is the body the one that will be serving his sentence forever.

Final issue. I thought too about Bakhtin`s idea of dialogue. I like to think a text as a dialogue. I would like to go deep about the quote I used at the beginning and ask the text to whom is talking, and “who” is talking when the officer says what it says.