I couldn't agree more with Massumi's concern over our tendency to place ourselves (and others) upon a grid. As Davis said, this grid limits us, confining the infinite spectrum of potentiality into a narrow (and limiting) "grid" of possibility.
I think our tendency to categorize and "bracket off" people, places, events, etc is a double-edged sword (forgive the violent metaphor). It is almost impossible to function as a human in a complex world without having some tools with which to simplify things and make them manageable, to group them according to their typical characteristics and deal with them summarily. But at the same time, our tendency to categorize things to the point of oversimplification, or over-reduction, can limit our thinking to those possibilities prescribed by the categories. We need to simplify things to make sense of them, but in doing so, we lose sight of the details, and perhaps limit our thinking.
From the latter Massumi reading, I was intrigued by his thoughts about Reagan and Clinton. Of Clinton, Massumi remarks (in part IV of Chapter 1) that when his public image faltered in the social domain (because of a health care reform bill), confidence in his competence as an economic leader fell as well (leading to a stock market decline). Massumi notes the irony: the public was much more prone to react to a non-economic factor (the President's seemingly tainted public image) than to the economic one (it would actually have been GOOD for the economy that the health care bill failed, indicating, in an economic sense, that people should have celebrated Clinton's seeming incompetence, and bought more Stock instead of sold it).
We find ourselves in situation that's intriguingly similar. Our current President is fighting, tooth-and-nail to reverse the economic recession begun in 2008, while also having sustained an almost irreparable scar on his public image because of a predominantly social measure (again, interestingly, a health care reform bill). And the effect is once again "bleeding" into the public's confidence of his economic efforts (which are at an all time low, polled as of this weekend, 60% of Americans are dissatisfied with his efforts at reviving the economy). After reading Massumi, I'm convinced that the majority of people are going through the same thing we did in the Nineties. We're conflating economic and social performance. Massumi says that this is evidence that affect is "real"; a tangible factor which we must consider at every turn, just as we consider the weather when deciding what to wear. He posits that it is even more than real, it is everywhere, transversal (crossing bounds, as it did with Clinton, and, I argue, Obama) as well as infrastructural (as crucial a factor in our way of life as roads, bridges, power lines).
I agree with you that oversimplifying categories tends to limit our thinking. But I see it as a trade off. If we were to spend every minute processing information and fully thinking about all that comes our way, we would never have the chance to enjoy life. Our shortcuts in cognitive thinking do lead to error and limitation, but they give us the gift of time.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting topic when you talk about the cycle of Clinton and Obama. Talk about history repeating itself! You have a point that our society tends to conflate economical and social performance. I wonder what would happen if the majority of the population became aware of affect. Would the cycle that has been seen in Clinton and Obama continue with any of our future presidents?
I also agree with your "double-edge-sword" observation. We need to oversimplify and stereotype to understand situations. There are also, most likely, evolutionary advantages to doing so. For example, generalizing "safe" and "unsafe" situations and areas and situations can keep us out of harms way, generalizing "suitable" or "ideal" and "unsuitable" or "less than ideal" mates can help ensure our next generation is a genetically sound one, and generalizing "in-group" and "out-groups" enhances the sense of community, from which we receive protection, and makes us wary of "out-groupers" who may, whether due to fear or a simple lack of motivation for beneficence, fail to treat us in a way that enhances our likelihood of survival.
ReplyDeleteHowever, each of these generalizations also carries with it a danger of extending beyond the use of survival, and impoverishing other areas of life. The example of generalizing places and situations as "safe" or "unsafe" can lead to a failure to venture into those areas when it would benefit us or others to do so, as well as introduce harmful social stigmas. Conceptualizing an "ideal" and "less than ideal" mate can turn into Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act. And over-emphasizing "in-group" and "out-group" differences can turn into racism, xenophobia, hate crimes, segregation, and many other deplorable and harmful things.
"A mob's a monster, heads enough but no brains"
ReplyDelete- Ben Franklin
I agree with your double-edged sword point, but I do have a qualifier. Healthy people (to use Brennen's definition) use that tendency to compartmentalize and understand things they cannot comprehend or do not have time to fully dissect and break apart into smaller components to really get down to the nitty-gritty of the matter. We cannot possibly suck the marrow out of everything we are surrounded by to know everything.
To Elphie's point about stereotyping and over generalizing though, I think, as more often than not, moderation is the key. Allow me this hypothetical, instead of over emphasizing in-group and out-group distinctions, what if we did the opposite, and treat everyone as an absolute individual, a tabula rasa. It would be much more difficult to address identifying characteristics without something to contrast it with. I think that a moderation of the in-group/out-group thinking is necessary for a functioning society (although I am in no way advocating racial profiling, racism, hate crimes or anything of the like).
Finally, to your point that "[W]e need to simplify things to make sense of them, but in doing so, we lose sight of the details, and perhaps limit our thinking", I would say that is only partly true. Sure, when we first come on to something we do not understand we simplify it to grasp it, but as we need to deal with it further we break it down into those details so we can understand it at another level. Sure things slip through the cracks - like the for me, the Chinese language. I have no use for it at the present, so I have compartmentalized it as a language I do not understand and have not tried to understand the details. But in the future, I might need to understand Mandarin or Cantonese, and if that time comes I will then dive into the details.