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08/16/2005 Archived Entry: "The Politics of 15 Minutes"

The Politics of 15 Minutes
The recent camp out in Crawford has sparked interest in a number of places. I spent part of the day distressed about much of this, not because of a war I don't support, and not because of one specific person's very tragic loss. I feel more distressed by the 15 Minutes of Fame policy which drives national attention and frames a good deal of political debate. We grant this woman 15 minutes and catapult her voice into the arena. There are 2,000 (?) American parents whose voices we have not heard. Why hers? Why is she the voice of the anti-war movement now? Can she say anything, offer any kind of analysis of the war and its causes, and still represent a movement? Or, as I often argue regarding meaning making, is the question of representation no longer valid? But then that means we should let any claim about any situation stand, no matter how ridiculous, racist, or plain old wrong? In the 15 Minutes of policy making we have grown accustomed to (mostly through the logic of CNN), representation is not a valid move, even though the belief in representation still reigns.
Normally, I find comfort in Warhol's 15 Minutes: celebrity and the Web as cause for new kinds of rhetorics. But this political dimension doesn't feel new at all; it feels quite old. Politics always fails to "represent." Cliches and hyperbole the rule of thumb. In the 15 Minutes of policy stances, as in this Crawford issue, complex issues become reduced to the instant celebrity of some person, who, in turn reduces such complexities to right/wrong divisions. Then a large group rallies around the instant celebrity triumphing the right or left agenda.
I've given up on politics....but still I want to sympathize and join one side of this false binary division of right and left, and that side is the left. And yet I can't. While I want to say end the war, I can't join the left because every time I hear a position from the left regarding geo-politics (and the war is one part of that, causes of terrorism another, global capital another), I cringe. I find the arguments presented so uninformed, so basic, so much the product of black and white thinking (the very same black and white thinking Bush evoked when he proclaimed the world as "with us or against us") that I turn my back. I don't turn to the right (who I see in much the same way), but I turn away. If all situations are going to be reduced to political sound bites and instant notoriety, then why bother with politics at all? This rhetorical move I find so distressing will produce no results other than continuation of the same. It is not a solving rhetoric, but rather a glamour rhetoric. A look at me rhetoric. That is, of course, a productive rhetoric, but its productive status has little to nothing to do with "change." Its production is more or less at image, superficial gestures to garner attention. I like that gesture when we are discussion advertising, identity, writing, or theory in general. I find it less interesting when we discuss complex global issues and problems. A contradiction on my part? Probably. But I don’t mind the contradiction, for if I did, I would be denying the levels of complexity which make up all meaning at the meta-level as well. It is working with complexity (networks) that will produce better responses to geo-political issues, not binary divisions of right and wrong.

Posted by Jonathan @ 08/19/2005 09:23 PM EST

I've always thought a large part of the problem with American politics is our two-party system, enforced by legislation which keeps any "minor" parties beaten down, and the winner-take-all electoral college and legislatures. So the us/them blue/red binarism becomes ingrained. Of course, our culture's overall competitive mentality enforces this as well: if you aren't the winner (not a winner) you are a loser. There are some good books on this; I've read one (I'll have to look up the citation) which points out that third parties were much more viable and in fact quite politically effective in the US until the red scares of the 30s and 50s. Post-Perot "reforms" finished the job the red-baiters started.

I think about this more in relation to student writing (the silly notion of "the other side," as if everything is reducable to sides, and to two) than I do politics, since I have more control over the former than the latter.

15 minutes also fails in representation because of its selectivity. Palatable causes get their time. But fringe stuff remains in the dark.

Posted by cbd @ 08/17/2005 12:06 PM EST