In his collection of writings, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx discusses the subservience one suffers in having a job. He argues that the more a worker produces, the less valuable the worker becomes because he “falls under the dominion of his product” (653). In turn the worker’s value and the product’s value become two separate entities where the product outweighs the producer. Therefore, the worker becomes enslaved to his work in many ways. As someone who works a full-time job, I pride myself on the freedom in consumerism I can enjoy as a result of the time I put in, sometimes too much time one might argue, but Marx has made me wonder if there is freedom in my consumerism or am I just bound to the system itself?

Marx begins his piece by discussing the “premises of political economy” that workers within the system have taken for granted, such as land rights, value of exchange, and most momentously, labor rights (or lack thereof). He notes that political economy has made “abstract formulae” that construct economic standards, which “it then takes for laws” (652). Marx challenges what civilians view as a system they are bound to, and reformats them as pieced-together laws not fully explained. He calls out labor work as one of the worst of these “abstract formulas” that nobody questions.

In his crusade against labor work, Marx compares the value of the laborer to the value of the laborer’s production. Marx states, “The worker becomes an even cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men” (653). Marx makes the point that in world of increasing material production, a growing importance is placed on the material itself and there exists an inverse relationship with the lessening importance of the workers themselves. He proceeds to discuss the “alienation” of the worker,” for as much as they produce, in reality, the materials which they produce as well as their actual production abilities, become separate entities from the producers themselves (653). Therefore, the worker becomes a separate and alienated entity with devaluated importance. Marx sums this argument up when he says, “The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him…” (653). Marx points out a scary fact: the more a worker produces and the more merit he puts into his job, the more the worker separates himself from his product and his work becomes defunct as the product takes over. Marx then shines light on the worker-to-“slave” aspect of this system, where people must work to gain value for sustenance on which to live (654). The more they work, however, the less valuable they become in favor of the object they produce, and it is an ever-living cycle in the system which one is consistently devaluating to the point where he or she is no longer living, but only surviving.

Marx’s argument makes me question the real meaning in my working my 40-hour-a-week job, where I work overtime to make ends meet. But do these ends justify these strenuous means? Or do I merely live in this previously constructed and unquestioned system that he mentions in the beginning of this essay? I used to consider the food I buy and the rent I pay a freedom I obtain within this system, but really I am prisoned in this cycle of work, which leads to increasing devaluation. Survival and life are two separate things, which used to be alienated, but have become merged in the system of political economics.

The notes about “Semiology and Rhetoric” before the reading made it very clear that Paul de Man, and the ideas he brought up about interpretation of literature, were not extremely welcomed by many other philosophers and such of his time. de Man was “charged with threatening the foundations of literary criticism because he radically questioned the possibility of meaning” (1363). He did this by suggesting that focusing on historical or social meanings that could be connected to texts may not be the only way to do so, but rather, one should focus on rhetoric and grammar, and the gap, aporia, between them.

de Man argues that not everything is as it seems. He starts by looking as the rhetorical question “What’s the difference?” He states that, as we know, this is not actually a question looking for an answer, but really is a statement saying “There is no difference.” Grammar always haunts rhetoric though, according to de Man, so when looking at the grammar of this sentence, it is a question, and reading it as one is not wrong, it is just a different meaning. By looking at the question through this lens, a whole new meaning arises, away from the socially understood meaning. He followed this by looking at an example in the poem “Among School Children,” where the last line says “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” Again, reading this line figuratively and literally create two different meanings, but, according to de Man, we cannot necessarily say that the poem has two meanings at the same time. He says that “The two readings have to engage each other in direct confrontation, for the one reading is precisely the error denounced by the other and has to be undone by it” (1372).

After looking at other ways that authors “manipulate” grammar, de Man writes about the word “deconstruction,” and the act of “deconstructing” literature. He writes about how a lot of literary criticism is looking at the text and decoding it in a way that makes it your own reading, which we label as “deconstructing the text,” when in reality, we have not added anything to the text that was not already there, we just found the meanings of the text. He writes “A literary text simultaneously asserts and denies the authority of its own rhetorical mode, and by reading the text as we did we were only trying to come closer to being as rigorous a reader as the author had to be in order to write the sentence in the first place” (1377). Therefore, the reader of the text did nothing besides bring out what was already laid down by the author.

He finishes this piece by writing about how unreliable literature and criticism are, in the same way that Nietzsche says that we pull apart structure to rebuild it on flowing water; no text has only one meaning, and no matter how much you “deconstruct” the text, you are not adding anything of your own to it. This argument which totally goes against most of the literary critics believe, is why there must have been so much push away from his ideas by others.

Ian Bogost’s article, “Don’t Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone,” discusses how people in this generation despise the act of speaking one the phone and are so conditioned to texting or video calling. He states, ” One of the ironies of modern life is that everyone is glued to their phones, but nobody uses them as phones anymore.” I personally agree with this statement because a lot of people my age rather text on apps like iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. The biggest form if communication that I know for sure a lot of kids my age and up also like to use is FaceTime. Video call is another huge way of communication not only in our generation, but even adults and much older people use it too. People rather use these forms of communication because they feel that it is more comfortable and less personal. For example, Bogost states, “When asked people with a distaste for phone calls argue that they are presumptuous and intrusive, especially given alternative methods of contact that don’t make unbidden demands for someone’s undivided attention. In response, some have diagnosed a kind of telephoniphobia among this set.”  Bogost also goes on to say that ,”When even initiating phone calls is a problem—and even innocuous ones, like phoning the local Thai place to order takeout—then anxiety rather than habit may be to blame: When asynchronous, textual media like email or WhatsApp allow you to intricately craft every exchange, the improvisational nature of ordinary, live conversation can feel like an unfamiliar burden. ”  Now this is where I would have to agree with Bogost in the sense that it’s pretty ridiculous as to why people are so opposed to the idea to having a conversation on the phone and here is why. Way before their was even  a computer or any kind of texting or video calling people used to talk on the phone all the time and there was no problem. In fact, Bogost argues that even phone call back then was way better than now because their was no risk of losing signal during a phone call like there is now because now we have wireless phones. For example he states, ” The traditional, wired public switched telephone network (PSTN) operates by circuit switching. When a call is connected, one line is connected to another by routing it through a network of switches. At first these were analog signals running over copper wire, which is why switchboard operators had to help connect calls. But even after the PSTN went digital and switching became automated, a call was connected and then maintained over a reliable circuit for its duration. Calls almost never dropped and rarely failed to connect.” I would say Bogost does have a point because like most people, I have a smart phone and my calls fail all the time when I’m in certain areas. When you have landline it’s connected to something and because of this explanation on how phone calls used to work, they were much easier to make. However, on the contrary wireless phones are more reliable than a landline because it’s portable and it’s easier access to a phone and as a  millennial myself I appreciate the privilege to text, call, and video chat whenever I please, but I do not mind being on the phone like most people do not these days. All in all, I do agree with Bogost’s main gist of this piece. I do believe we need to appreciate the phone call because I do not mind being a little bit more personal because sometimes texts and emails can be misconstrued because we cannot always tell the tone of which the person is writing in. I think I’d rather seem more personal and inviting than impersonal because in life you cannot always just text and video chat to communicate, we need phone calls as well as face-to-face interaction as well.

Melissa Guachun

Notes on Melvilles Fist: Barbara Johnson

Johnson’s analyzation shows that there are two different lens in which one can perceive Melville’s Fist-literal and figural. In this story, each character offers a different point of view that shed light into the depth within the situation presented.

When reading this passage, many people perceive the happenings through Billy’s perspective. His one dimensional and simple character mimics the lens in which he personifies which is literal. The details, actions, and characters that are perceived through Billy are interpreted as straight forward, simple, and straight-forward. The flaws in Billy’s personalities lies in his stutter, his illiteracy/unintelligence, and his behavioral filtering/obliteration. Claggart is known for his intelligence, articulate nature, and his mistrust for Billy for being capable of “possessing natural depravity”. His envy and mistrust makes him the character associated with evil. Captain Vere stands for the well being of man and relies on the history of discourse of men to guide him as a captain. Even though he is a key character, his response in this tale is perceived as unaffected, cold, and emotionally detached. He doesn’t have the patience for tolerance and acts swiftly. Billy’s version of the reading is considered literal because the plot mimics Billy’s essence of illiterate, simplistic nature. Johnson states “ His literal mindness is represented by his literacy because in assuming that language can be taken at face value, he excludes the very functioning of difference that makes the act of reading both indispensable and undecidable” (2262). Johnson makes the point that by reading the passage through Billy’s lens one can only interpret the actions and characters at face value. Billy’s simplistic nature only renders him as disadvantaged causing his ability to read and filter to result in his death. In Billy’s perception, the conflict resides in the discourse of good and evil.

Claggart’s perception is then considered figural in this passage. This is where deconstruction comes into play because Claggart’s lens allows the relationship between the signified and signifier to flip. The question of being versus doing is brought into question and challenges Billy’s lens of the good versus evil archetype. Billy is deemed innocent, attractive, popular, and simple, yet he is a murderer. Claggart is “supposed” to be then considered evil by default but ends up being murdered by Billy. Captain Vere is deemed responsible for bringing justice to this matter and being the captain of these men. Yet he makes a hasty sentence, allowing a man who he thinks is innocent to be hung. The decision was done with force due to his fear of not maintaining the respect of his men if he were to let a man go free after committing murder. Claggart who is assumed to be evil questions the good nature of Billy, causing the sign of Claggart to switch (as sign of arbitrariness). To Billy, he is put under an intense emotional situation causing his stutter to render him verbally paralyzed. Claggart’s serious accusation causes Billy to respond in a serious manner. He results to physical violence as a way of verbally communicating his allegiance to his captain and men. But the action was performed in violence against his accuser which ends up being the alibi to convict him of murder and to his hanging. Johnson states “Captain Vere is a reader who kills, not, like Billy, instead of speaking, but rather, precisely by means of speaking” (2272). This makes Captain Vere and Billy both murderers in their own right. Billy’s action of announcing loyalty through his lens was perceived as proof of Claggart’s claim through Claggart’s lens. Billy’s action of filtering his answers and responses through repression. By filtering out certain words he is able to control his sign, being perceived only as “good”. He maintains his innocence by erasing, destroying, and obliterating any evidence that would challenge the persona he has constructed for himself. This challenges the nature versus doing, if Billy is making conscious attempts to edit himself into a supposed “good character” then it’s not his natural state. Then we as readers are unsure of who he really is characteristically, he becomes an anomaly. We are only aware of who he is attempting to be. This makes Claggart more human because he is sticking to his gut by calling Billy out because he is able to see through his attempts of maintaining goodness. Billy’s censorship had become so integral to his inner workings, it became a source of maintenance and control. So when Claggart accused Billy of mutiny, it sparked an impulse in him to obliterate any evidence of character abnormality. This impulse in combination with his literacy and stutter under emotional situations prompted violence. Claggart’s lens offers an insightful, articulated, and analytical approach to the reading. This is because it mimics his character traits. His lens allows a deeper understanding of how the signifier and signified are constantly in flux. Again, it proves that this reading can’t be taken at face value because of mistrust. Mistrust from Claggart’s character and mistrust from receiving filtered information from Billy. Billy’s censorship and simplistic persona acts as a blank sign, proving that blank signs often hold other meanings.

Using Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, to discuss the nature of the reader’s interpretation, Barbara Johnson starts off her discussion with the characterization of the protagonist, Billy Budd, and antagonist, John Claggart. Billy Budd is the picture of morality; he sees the world as wonderful and straightforward, blocking out anything he witnesses as alluding to the opposite. Claggart, Budd’s foil, is endlessly suspicious, seeing irony and evil in everything. Personifying the two main interpretations of the novel, the first, the perception of Budd’s execution as Melville’s “acceptance” of tragedy, the second, the perception of the execution as an ironic ending alluding to the author’s critique of society, these two characters are only the beginning of a wide range of binaries inside and surrounding the text.

However, Johnson shows us that Melville’s work questions more than the situation it poses when she introduces Captain Vere, the decision-maker in the protagonist’s execution. Yes, Billy has struck Claggart and killed him, but only because he is wrongly accused of conspiracy, of being the opposite of his loyal, straightforward self. Stuck in a dilemma, where he must choose between what feels morally proper (letting Billy go), and lawfully proper (executing Billy, because he has just murdered someone), Vere, Johnson states, is forced to judge, and turn what is quite an ambiguous situation into one of binaries. How does Vere go about this?

Unlike Budd and Claggart, who focus on the intentions of others and the hidden meaning within the world, Vere focuses on what is external in order to back up his decision. The captain is not so concerned with the “why”, but more concerned with how what has happened will affect society. Johnson states that “For Vere, the functions and meanings of signs are neither transparent nor reversible but fixed by socially determined convention“(2270). To determine what this convention is, the captain turns to sacred texts, such as the Bible, and history, eventually coming to the verdict that Budd must be executed.

Johnson shows us that the decision-making process of Vere teaches us something. Although letting Budd go might be morally correct, because the eponymous character has no evil intentions, this does not matter because it is not correct within the society that the novel is situated in. Vere looks towards sacred texts and history not because they offer inherent wisdom, but because they are important in determining the moral culture of the society within which he must make his decision. Vere believes in and understands a concept that the other characters in the novel do not; we should not look towards any sort of inherent standard, but only to that of the current playing field.

Johnson ends her piece with the idea that judgement is in itself a political act, that it cannot be neutral because it naturally references the beliefs of society (usually being history), and drags out the relevant facts of the case that match those beliefs, rather than the full story. However, she only touches upon the idea of leaving a case in ambiguity before her conclusion. Is this the key to objectivity, though?

If judgement is in itself a nonobjective act, what if we refused to judge? This question is similar to Nietzsche’s in On Truth and Lying, in which he questions language and its limitations. In language, we seek to classify and rigidly define aspects of our world so we can control and better understand them. Vere does something similar in attempting to reduce the ambiguity of Budd’s crime by placing it against societal rules and standards. In both cases, we attempt to reduce the meaning of a concept so that we can push it aside and move on. However, if objectivity is what we want, then why decide at all?

On the other hand, is it possible to even live in this much ambiguity? Taking again the example of the plot of Billy Budd, how would Vere do this? Yes, the captain could throw his hands up in the air and say “I don’t know, I have no verdict”, but in doing this, in refusing to make a decision, he ends up making one anyway by keeping Budd from punishment. Interestingly, I think the main problem between binaries and ambiguity is that we can never have just one. If we try to live in black and white, we are only pointed towards the grey, and vice-versa. Life is about both ambiguity and binaries, I guess.

“The Eiffel Tower” displays Barthes at his best. Devoid of the abstruse language and neologisms which deal with his theoretical works, Barthes seems happy here when he talks about in divulging the multilayered meanings of a well-known landmark. He  describes and creates the imagination by being perceptive and his spontaneous insights.  He is also becomes unforgettable by his intellect and poetic ability, the image of this monument will always “be something other and something much more than the Eiffel Tower.” the text ties to show mythology of The Blue Guide, a which is a common travel guide in the France of Barthes’s time. Barthes talks about the guide for  the images of mountains and hills. He examines the materialistic and moral ideas found in those pictures and the  nature of the mountains,  of a hierarchical system in the hilly terrain, and the connection between the clean air of the mountains and the moral cleanliness required by Christianity. Barthes also talks about the lack of plains and plateaus pictured in the guide as representing the lack of images familiar to laymen. He then analyzes the presence of religious sites in the guide, mostly in the in the guide. Barthes also brings up the general lack of the pictures of people, and the stereotypes found where people pictures are present. The people serve more as accessories to the scenes, rather than the focus of the images.

Lastly, Barthes also analyzes the presence of material historical sites, but not the descriptions of the historical periods themselves. The materialistic wealth of the country, such as buildings, statues, and museums, becomes more important than the social history or cultural  of a place . Barthes also shows the differences between regular and mythical speech. In mythical speech, he claims, the original sign becomes swallowed in a bigger semiotic system, he calls “second-order semiological system” (81).  Myth reduces the material of the first level of this system to a signifier for the second level. The system of the original sign becomes zoned out by a larger system of mythical speech.  Barthes then in a way becomes a semiologist, when he goes into that the myth should not concern herself with the details of the original “language object,” but only with its overall meaning to the formation of the larger system of the myth. “Language object,” Barthes clearly sates that can refer either to words or to images because they serve the same signifying function in the semiological system.

There is a theory that claims that if texting came before the telephone, everybody would be amazed at the fact that we could actually talk to one another; I believe Ian Bogost would agree.

In Bogost’s article, “Don’t Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone”, he argues that millennials have developed such a hatred for phone calls that it has become a phobia, or “telephoniphobia”, to be exact. Bogost states, “when even initiating phone calls is a problem—and even innocuous ones, like phoning the local Thai place to order takeout—then anxiety rather than habit may be to blame…” Today, there is not only a dread that comes with making phone calls, but an anxiety. Bogost says this is because of social media’s ability to allow one to “intricately craft every exchange” which makes simple, live conversation seem like a burden. Another reason that factors into this phobia of the telephone is the fact that cellular networks may be to blame for their unreliability. Bogost suggests that their “unpredictability” is what leads individuals to veer from making phone calls.

Personally, I do not think this is the case. The telephone clearly is a monumental invention that has impacted us greatly, but since its introduction, there have been countless advancements with the telephone. Telephones today, or cellphones rather, have much greater uses that go beyond a simple phone call. With social media on the rise and other advantageous developments, like ordering food online, editing photos, or applying to jobs, the telephone has been altered and changed drastically. Today, a simple text may suffice for many opposed to a phone call that may seem rather time consuming, and that is perfectly fine. I do, however, believe that newer generations that are exposed to the accessibility of cellphones and the dependence on social media can lead to a kind of “phobia” when it comes to phone calls. Many individuals, even some that I have encountered, shy away from something as simple as ordering a pizza over the phone, as they don’t feel comfortable speaking.

Another problem that Bogost brings up is that telephones have shifted from private to public. Bogost states that, “the mobile phone in general and the smartphone in particular are designed to be carried first, and spoken into second”. The issue that he brings to light here is that the environment in which the telephone is used has been altered, which then alters the use, and the necessity, of the telephone in general. He mentions that phones were only placed in closed off environments, such as a bedroom, a kitchen, or an office. He says, “in these circumstances, telephony became a private affair cut off from the rest of the environment”. He compares this to telephones in public as well, which also had some sort of booth or walls to confine. Essentially, there was a level of privacy where noise could not interfere and the sound could remain intact. Today, however, is the complete opposite. Bogost argues that phones are carried everywhere, which means that whenever they are used it will most likely be an environment where the sound will be compromised. Whether it may be city streets or coffee shops, the sound frequency combined with signal loss from poor wireless signals takes away from the telephone experience entirely. Bogost states that, “not only are phone calls unstable, but even when they connect and stay connected in a technical sense, you still can’t hear well enough to feel connected in a social one”. Ultimately, mobile phones take away from the reliability that telephony once possessed. Bogost is convinced that the design of mobile phones in this modern day has only fed to the unreliability and the awkwardness of telephony. Perhaps he is right, but it is not surprising that advancements such as these have led to such a change in the basic concept that was once the telephone.

The article Egg McNothin’ by Ian Bogust explains that the international fast food chain McDonald’s now offers breakfast all day. In this article Bogust argues that making the Egg McMuffin available all day will makes it lose its anticipation and lowers its value.  Bogust starts his article with a very important point. He says “The greatest luxury is the one we cannot have—or at least, the one we cannot have very often.” All Day Breakfast made the Egg McMuffin lose its spark. Since it is available all day there is no more anticipation that makes us crave the McMuffin anymore. Bogust gives Thanksgiving turkey and dressing as an example. Thanksgiving was a great example because Thanksgiving only happens once a year. So you have to wait all year to gather around with your family to eat savory Thanksgiving turkey and other delicacies. If Thanksgiving was everyday it wouldn’t have the same effect on us as it does now. It wouldn’t bring any excitement or joy anymore because we didn’t have to wait for it. Thanksgiving would just be a regular day. It’s the same with the Egg McMuffin. Now that breakfast is available all day at McDonald’s there isn’t anything really special about the Egg McMuffin anymore or any other item on the breakfast menu for that matter. The greatness and specialty about McDonald’s breakfast is now lost. Before, if you couldn’t make it to breakfast in time you had to wait until the next day. That would lead to building anticipation and make you appreciate that product even more.

Bogust goes on to suggests that the Egg McMuffin was an idea rather than a reality. Most people were unable to make it to McDonald’s for breakfast so the Egg McMuffin quickly became a fantasy. In my opinion, I think the Egg McMuffin is pretty gross. Bogust suggest that even though the Egg McMuffin isn’t that great it was anticipation and limited access that made the Egg McMuffin a breakfast item that was heavily desired.  Waiting and limited access to items gives them much more value than having the ability to get it at any time. Now, we have gotten so used to having 24/7 access to things that it has now become the norm. Bogust continues and says:

“But far from initiating nihilistic despair, this moment invokes an invitation to rise above it. No hash browns, but perhaps fries. No McMuffin, but a cheeseburger is good enough. It’s good enough! The world restores its gentle sufficiency. The man who just-misses McDonald’s breakfast is a commoner’s Samuel Beckett, trudging ever forward despite the intrinsic absurdity of a 10:30a.m. breakfast cutoff. I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”

Bogust makes an important point with this quote. Even though you may miss out on a few things that doesn’t exactly mean that it is the end. Take another route and carry on with life. It may start off with an Egg McMuffin but, the idea of carrying on in life will take you very far. Bogust finishes his article with this “Anticipation was and remains a luxury—perhaps the greatest luxury. The surest way to spoil an extravagance is to destroy the suspense that animates it.”As Americans we are losing the meaning of anticipation. Do we even still know how to go after and chase what we want?  The society will change into a society that provides no anticipation and we will be always be stuck with an Egg McNothin’.

In response to the typically thin-skinned millennials (yes, you ones who ruin everything), I thought I’d share the proper way to talk using cellular technology, from fellow GenXer Lenny Kravitz: