The Spectacular Evisceration of Lebron James

As Lebron James prepares to return to his former team for the first time following taking his talents to South Beach, he finds himself in uncharted territory, as one of the most hated figures in professional sports.

Lebron’s image has taken a decidedly steep descent since his hour-long television special announcing his free-agency decision.

While there are many theories as to the turn his image has taken, mine involves using Guy Debord’s notion of spectacle as a theoretical lens to deconstruct Lebron’s relationship with sports fans.

Debord describes spectacle as: “The illusory paradise that represented a total denial of earthly life is no longer projected into the heavens, it is embedded in earthly life itself.” (Thesis 20) and “The real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.” (Thesis 36)

Lebron James was raised by spectacle, his High School games were featured on ESPN, and his market profile resulted in a $90 million contract from Nike before he began his NBA career. The spectacle crowned him King James, anointing him as the next great sporting icon, and proclaiming the rest of us as ‘witnesses’ to his ascent to the throne.

Lebron James was also raised on spectacle, he belongs to the portion of the population Debord referred to when he wrote: “The spectacle’s domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which the entire generation has effectively lived constitute a precise and comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also what it will permit.” (Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, 7). Having been surrounded by media for most of his life as most North Americans typically are, he is immersed in the “world view that has been materialized… view of the world that has become objective” (Thesis 5) constructed by the spectacle.

Lebron’s athletic gifts were highlighted within the spectacle, which also attempted to construct a narrative around his life that was similar to that of archetypal superstar athletes. The story of a humble boy from a humble background playing for his hometown team was a powerful interpellative force that aligned Lebron with many of the great athletes considered superstars before him. Debord wrote: “The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. It’s sole message is: ‘what appears is good, what is good appears.’” (Thesis 12). If Lebron is constructed within the spectacle as the next coming of Michael Jordan, then who is the audience to question the logic of the spectacle?

The spectacle built Lebron, and he was more than willing to use it to further his image. His televised free-agency decision, along with its two-hour pre and four-hour post analysis, attracted millions of viewers. And as he joined the two other top free agents to form a Gold-medal adorned triple-threat in Miami, dancing on stage and laying claim to the next 6-7 NBA championship trophies, the professional sporting spectacle seemed poised to rise to previously unforeseen heights.

Debord wrote: “The spectacle is the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life. Commodification is not only visible, we no longer see anything else; the world we see is the world of commodity.” As a free agent, Lebron was the most sought after commodity in the NBA, and the decision special was the ultimate spectacle, celebrating his commodification alongside millions of viewers with a seemingly vested interest.

And now things aren’t things aren’t working out as planned, and as he returns to play his hometown (kind of ) and original team, with his new team floundering around .500, Lebron finds himself fighting against the reverse tide of the spectacle, as it uses it’s logic to further and further distance itself from the disappointment it ultimately set up. Debord wrote: “Since no one may contradict it, it has the right to contradict itself, to correct its own past.” (Comments… 28)
Spectacle is the promise that is never delivered, a constructed worldview based in images that appears superior to reality, but which in reality is a worldview that can never be attained. The spectacle may consider Lebron king, but in sports the crown is earned, and that truth is undeniable, even within the parameters the spectacle creates.

While undeniably supremely gifted as a basketball player, Lebron’s career has not had the same trajectory as the peers the spectacle places him among. He simply has not achieved the levels of success requisite to be placed alongside the legends of sport. Yet the spectacle places him among them nonetheless, and this stature is one Lebron wholeheartedly endorses.

But Lebron’s lack of success, for whatever reason, failed to live up to his construction within the spectacle. This caused ambiguity within the spectacle that was quickly subverted through the free agency extravaganza of 2010. The free-agency decision was fascinating because the superstar was choosing where he was going to build his legend, deciding where he would finally affirm his position among the greats of sport. Debord wrote: The society of the spectacle (is) where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its’ own making. “ (Thesis 53) The spectacle was using it’s own logic to propel itself forward…

But then Lebron forgot he is not the entire spectacle himself, merely a component of it. By choosing the Miami HEAT in free agency, he opposed the entire narrative the spectacle had constructed for him. He left his hometown team, who had contested the spectacle themselves within negotiation, attempting to use the constructed narrative to convince him to remain. When he did leave, he did so in a callous manor (on a TV special), spurning not only his home team and its’ narrative, but also teams in New York and Chicago where the media presence would have only increased his profile within the spectacle. Miami as an NBA destination offered little spectacular appeal outside of the notion of the ‘big three’ that had come through free agency. As well, the HEAT are a team with a firmly entrenched superstar in Dwayne Wade, one who has already achieved more success than Lebron by winning an NBA Championship. In joining another established star, on his team, Lebron ignored an essential component of the archetypal superstar, that they achieve their status as a result of individual achievement along with their team. By going to Miami Lebron abdicated his role as king of spectacle, choosing to share the throne.

Heavy is head that carries the crown, but the spectacle offers no space for understanding outside its' own priority . Debord wrote: “With the most scientific assurance, the spectacle can identify the only place where disinformation could be found, in anything which can be said that might displease it.” (Comments, 47) His desire to play with friends in a less competitive environment was another step in opposition to the archetypal alignment the spectacle provided him with.
As the losses mount, the worldview constructed by the spectacle around Lebron is dissolving. Lebron cannot live up to the unreasonable expectations set out for him by the spectacle as the archetypal superstar athlete, he cannot carry a team to multiple championships in the way the spectacle constructed Michael as having done (despite the talent of his Bulls teams), and as a result the logic of the spectacle has turned on him.

The spectacle used to be about building him up, but now he is a living, breathing metaphor for the death of the spectacle. Ultimately the world of images presented by the spectacle is false, and cannot live up to itself. Regardless of his teammates, Lebron would have had his work set out for him achieving the level of Michael, inside or outside the spectacle, his actions and claims surrounding his free-agency decision were done for the benefit of the spectacle, but now reality has set in and its not as easy as his role in the spectacular narrative as the King of basketball may have liked it to be.

Now that he is not working in favour of the spectacle, it is working to marginalize and deligitimize him. Coverage that was previously favourable or sympathetic is quickly becoming vitriolic. The audience of the spectacle is disappointed and angry that the spectacle has let them down yet again, but because they are captured within its logic the spectacle is allowed to scapegoat Lebron as though it his fault he cannot live up to the worldview it constructed. Debord wrote: “The spectacles instruction and the spectators’ ignorance are wrongly seen as antagonistic factors when in fact they gave birth to each other.” (Comments… 28)

The logic of the spectacle has reversed, and now his every move within it pushes him further away from his previous role as king, so when he asks in his newest commercial “Who do you want me to be?”, he continues to abdicate his throne. The spectacle tells the audience, it does not ask.

The spectacle will find another king, and Lebron will continue to be the scapegoat for its’ perpetual failure.

But there is hope for Lebron, after the spectacle has completely eviscerated him, he has the opportunity for resurection if he can recreate the magic that made him the subject of spectacle in the first place. Debord wrote: “The spectacle is the material reconstruction of the religious illusion.” (Thesis 20)

The comeback archetype is also extremely powerful in both sports and spectacle, ask Mike Vick…

Suit Up: The Commercial Exploitation of the 1980’s ‘New Man’ through the Dialectical Tensions between Aspiration and Debasement.

The suit is an established signifier of masculine distinction. Though feminine fashion has traditionally shifted along with the seasons of the calendar year, the suit remains a standard for male attire. Yet despite its’ ubiquitous presence in the closet of Western men, the foundational piece of male fashion can still serve the purpose of distinguishing the class and status of most men. With only slight variations and few accompaniments, the shirt, trousers and jacket work to homogenize the male body through their choice of adornment. At least it does for those who can afford to purchase and functionally wear the suit; the first mark of distinction. A suit is neither rugged nor functional; it can be considered a poor choice in dress for anyone who has to perform physical labour. At this fundamental level the suit separates classes of men: only those whose employ or social status removes them from physical work or labour are likely to be seen wearing a suit. Men who do not need to worry about their clothes getting dirty, torn, or tattered over the course of a days’ activity are often considered of a higher station in the class hierarchy, where their means afford them the luxury of wearing a suit. Men in lower classes often wear clothing better suited to their employment, and a suit is a luxury that is simply not practical for regular wearing. Though the suit has been around for centuries in a variety of incarnations, the modern men’s suit has been a sartorial standard since the beginnings of urbanization, a standard with it’s own rules and regulations that require knowledge to navigate. Diana Crane wrote: “Since it achieved its present form at the end of the nineteenth century, there have been strict rules about exactly how a business suit is to be made and worn… These rules enhance the usefulness of the business suit as an indicator of social class. Knowledge of subtle changes in the basic style of the garment is more likely to be available to those with the best tailors.” (173) Following the Second World War as returning veterans were re-assimilated into society, part of the process consisted of the continued homogenization of men and their bodies through their dress. The uniforms they had grown accustomed to while battling the Axis were switched in favour of a new uniform. The ‘organization man’ who toiled in an office wearing a suit was considered ‘white collar’, as opposed to the subordinate class of ‘blue collar’ man who wore no suit.

The contemporary, yet traditional version of the man’s suit can be attributed to the Protestants, who achieved a great measure of success in the early days of industrialization. The ‘Protestant work ethic’ of diligence and temperance was reflected in the modest clothing they wore, and it became a prevailing style in the conservative business world. Marcel Danesi wrote: “Puritans ethics and fashion in the workforce have influenced British and North American business culture… The business suit is a contemporary version of puritan dress. The toned down colours (blues, browns, greys) that the business world demands are the contemporary reflexes of the Puritans fear and dislike of color and ornament.” (Danesi, pp. 148-149) For men considered above the ‘blue collar’ labourers in the class hierarchy, the suit does appear somewhat egalitarian, in that it does have every man looking similar. Edward Buscombe wrote: “(The suit is) adaptable to a variety of occasions, both business and leisure. It’s classless, or at least relatively so; the plutocrat and the office worker wear the same uniform. The film star is dressed like the rest of us.” (203) Despite this normalized appearance, there are means of differentiation that occur within the basic construct of the suit. Subtle modifications in a suit’s design are used as modes of intense classification, separating the plutocrat and the film star from the rest of us. The worn suit classifies men through its display, as there is an accompanying body of knowledge required to choose, wear, and appreciate the proper suit. The ability to develop the peculiar cultural capital surrounding the suit is strongly indicative of an individuals’ position in the class hierarchy. Those who possess the means and the time to develop an understanding of the nuance that marks the differentiation in suits display their position within high taste culture by their suit choices. This means of distinction became especially relevant in the 1980’s with the arrival of the ‘new man’, his newfound sartorial interests, and the subsequent importance in the cultural capital surrounding the suit. This paper will examine the role Men’s fashion magazines Esquire and GQ played in exploiting the ‘new man’ archetype by using the suit to compel men towards the dialectic of aspiration and debasement in a fashion aesthetic that had traditionally been a feminine domain.

The ‘new man’ is considered an ideal of the upper-middle-class Western male that is considered to have developed in the beginning of the 1980’s. The new man was alleged to have been more interested in activities and behaviours traditionally considered feminine. Polly Toynbee wrote of the myth of the new man as one who: “Gets up at night to the crying baby, cooks with gusto, washes up, attends not only ante-natal classes but also the baby clinic… He is thoughtful and considerate to his wife, shares sensitively, and the children now turn to him just as often as they turn to their mother for comfort. And he doesn't just do it on Mothers' Day.” The new man’s motivation came from a rejection of their father’s post-WWII personal ethic and the cold, sober and dispassionate approach that they appeared to bring to family life. As Toynbee wrote: “The new man has one guiding light. He doesn't want to be like his father.” This rejection of the previous generation’s masculine values extended to appearances, where one of the many qualities assumed by the new man that had traditionally been considered feminine was an interest in fashion. While their fathers wore non-descript suits made as utilitarian as possible in the spirit of WWII conservationism, the new man valued appearance to the extent that sartorial decisions became meaningful. Joanne Entwistle wrote: “That decade has been seen as a significant moment in the history of men’s fashions, representing a break in traditional notions of masculinity… the ‘new man’ of the 1980’s was seen indulging in pleasures of consumption previously associated only with ‘femininity.’” (The Fashioned Body, 174)

The new masculine values were representative of a larger shift in masculinity that had began with industrialization, continued through and after the wars, and was finally putting itself on display through the new man. The traditional role of the male had been to provide for their families through physical labour. As men and their families moved off their farms and into industrialized life in the cities, their roles in building industrialized societies remained largely physical and labour–based, and as industrialization continued and the industrialized wars commenced, men took predominant roles in fighting for and defending their nations. As the wars ended, the men who served in combat were expected to return to roles much different than those they were accustomed to before they left. The shift for this generation of men from the battlefields to the offices that continued up until the 1980’s was accompanied by a steady increase in the role of women in society. Women had evolved from almost anonymous homemakers to fighting for status and opportunity similar to their male counterparts. As such, though not at nearly comparable numbers, by the 1980’s having women in positions of power within the workplace was becoming more common. With traditional notions of masculinity appearing less relevant, the new man was representative of a shift in the definition of standard masculinity. Tim Edwards wrote: “Masculinity is seen as increasingly dependent on matters of style, self-presentation and consumption as opposed to more traditional models of masculinity centered on work and production, or to put it more simply, masculinity is perceived to be increasingly predicated on matters of how men look rather than what men do.” (111) This shift in masculine values surrounding the new man did not occur unaided or as a natural progression. It was a theme that was heavily exploited by different commercial media with the purpose of pushing men into more consumptive behaviours. By getting men to embrace values and activities traditionally considered feminine, it was hoped that men would begin to consume at levels closer to their female counterparts. “The New Man was seen as the result of a series of shifts within commercial culture itself since the Second World War, including the rise of tailoring en masse for men and the development of various entrepreneurial initiatives in the 1980’s… the New Man was seen precisely as a figure of spectatorship constructed at the level of advertising itself.” (Edwards, 110) One of the main media industries used to exploit the new man archetype in the attraction and maintenance of audience is the men’s fashion magazine, which burgeoned in the 1980’s as a new source of emulative inspiration for a generation of men for whom adornment became a source of identity. The new men found themselves mirrored on magazine pages that also offered them a mainline into the body of knowledge surrounding the suit, encouraging any and all aspirational men to consume their way up the class hierarchy through fashion.

The notion of fashion is rooted in ephemeral beauty, that there is an attainable pure aesthetic through adornment at a particular moment. It is a projection of ones’ desired identity during the moment of wearing. As a result, proper exhibition of fashion requires not only possessing the clothing, but also the proper knowledge surrounding the clothing, as well as the ability to wear the clothing. The cultural capital surrounding the clothing becomes as important as the clothing itself. Entwistle defines fashion as: “The combined accumulation of forms of cultural, social, symbolic capital: to be in fashion, one has to know particular designers, labels, fabrics, styles. However, knowing is also about being able to demonstrate this knowledge through bodily enactments and expressions.” (The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion, 41). The ability to differentiate ones self through the use of fashion allows it to play a unique role in the negotiation of individual and group identity as a means of displaying ones individuality through adornment. Yet the ability to express ones self through fashion is largely contained within the body of accepted fashion standards. In this sense fashion is a collectivizing process, especially for men who face the immediate constriction of the suit. As Jennifer Craik wrote: “Cycles and changes in men’s dress have been longer and less dramatic… Men’s fashions typically have used a smaller range of fashion garments, with a basic wardrobe consisting of shirt, trousers and jacket… men’s fashions have offered few choices at any one moment and therefore acted to impose conformity on those adhering to fashion.” (178) No matter the fashion, whether one is ‘in’ or ‘out’ of fashion, they are nonetheless contained within it as a paradigm. Fashion and one’s personal choices are a ubiquitous element of society. As a result of this tension, fashion becomes a sorting device. Individual tastes and choices made within the context of the established fashion hierarchy become a means of establishing ones place within the social hierarchy. This separation occurs on the foundation of the Western colonial binary of civility, the premise that the bourgeoisie could be considered the height of human possibility and achievement, and that all others are uncivilized in comparison and should aspire to this greater ethic. Civility encouraged the cultured individual to express their station in life through their choice in fashion, as Craik noted: “Fashion relates to particular codes of behaviour and rules of ceremony and place. It denotes and embodies conventions of conduct that contribute to the etiquette and manners of social encounters.” (10) The emphasis on male adornment encouraged inclusion and continued participation as it provided the potential for improvement in social status. In wearing the right suit properly, the man projects his possession of cultural capital that suggests a series of attributions about his character. As a result, the development of the body of situated knowledge about the suit and how to wear it has became not only a marker of high taste, but a performance of personal valuation as well. Pierre Bordieu wrote: “The objects endowed with the greatest distinctive power are those which most clearly attest the quality of their appropriation, and therefore the quality of the owner, because their possession requires time and capacities which, requiring a long investment of time… therefore appear as the surest indications of the quality of the person.” (281) The choice of ones suit and the body of knowledge put into choosing and wearing it properly are therefore a means of valuating an individual, of immediately appraising their virtue.

With the competition in the cultural and economic climate of the 1980’s, the importance of the new man’s appearance as contributing to his espoused persona opened the door for a men’s magazine market that thrived through the encouragement of consumption as a means of creating value around oneself. By showcasing men in everyday situations wearing advertised products and providing a glimpse of the cultural capital required to wear them properly, the men’s magazine industry inspired the aspirations of a generation of men. Georg Simmel wrote: “The fashionable person is regarded with mingled feelings of approval and envy; we envy him as an individual, but approve of him as a member of a set or group. Yet even this envy has a particular coloring. There is a shade of envy which includes a species of ideal participation in the envied object itself.” (304). While the magazines may have inspired a new audience of men through the creation of aspiration, they maintained their audience through the process of debasing previous suits and their surrounding cultural capital. The dialectical tension between the aspiration and debasement in the magazines delivered an interested, invested audience to advertisers who were interested in their products regardless of their affluence. Though seemingly opposing, aspiration and debasement, wanting something and not wanting it, work in tandem and require each-others support. Aspiration itself has an endpoint, the possession of what is aspired to. In order to re-engage aspirational feelings, whatever is possessed must be debased and devalued, so that something new can be placed on the aspirational pedestal. Debasement is also used as a protective mechanism by those who dictate what is aspirational, allowing them to keep space between themselves and those who continue to possess what they aspire. The men’s fashion magazine exploits the tension between aspiration and debasement to create a cycle of continuous consumption of fashion by men that would rival the consumptive patterns of women’s fashion despite the constriction of the suit.

Men’s fashion magazines like Esquire and GQ provided inspiration for emulation as personal style became a consideration for the new man. These magazines provided information on what to wear, as well as how and why to wear it. Style suggestions were complemented by images of men turning the seemingly mundane extraordinary through their choice of attire. Mark Tungate remarked: “This generation of men is the first that has been acclimatized to spending money on fashion. It started with the rise of style magazines in the 80’s when men started seeing images of themselves projected back at them for the first time. Suddenly you were looking at pictures that resembled you.” (172) The men in the images seemed to be going through daily activities while adorned in the latest in mens fashions, which outside of leisure wear, consisted predominantly of the suit. The images on the magazine pages were accompanied by brief stories, commentary, and/or factsheets that provided a brief or partial glimpse into the body of knowledge surrounding that style of suit. By displaying luxury products and providing the situated knowledge for their proper use, the magazines created a market for those who aspired to a higher station of life; the magazines provided a simulacrum of their desires and expectations.

Thorstein Veblen attributed the aspirations of the lower classes to the assertion and expression of one’s location in the class hierarchy through conspicuous consumption. “Veblen argued that fashion was one aspect of conspicuous leisure, conspicuous wealth and conspicuous waste he held to be characteristic of an acquisitive society in which the ownership of wealth did more to confer prestige on its owner than either family lineage or individual talent.” (Wilson, 50) As a result, Veblen saw a co-relation develop between the expense of an object and it’s attributed beauty, one became based on the other. Something cannot be expensive unless it is beautiful and something cannot be beautiful unless it is expensive. The expenditure of exorbitant amounts of money on luxury objects, an example of conspicuous consumption, is considered valorizing. Veblen wrote: “The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.” (95) Veblen described the relationship between beauty and expense with his code of pecuniary beauty, writing: “the canon of expensiveness also affects our tastes in such a way as to inextricably blend the marks of expensiveness, in our appreciation, with the beautiful features of the object, and to subsume the resultant effect under the head of an appreciation of beauty simply.” (97) The overt display of wealth by some provided a source of class and status identification through exhibition, and this dynamic trickled down throughout the various stratifications of society. To Veblen, those higher in the class hierarchy create the standards that form the basis for the lower classes as well. As a result, the values associated with conspicuous consumption shape groups of people who do not have the means to pursue similar consumptive patterns to those of a higher class stature; those groups of people who cannot afford instead aspire. Veblen wrote: “The leisure class stands at the head of the social structure in the point of reputability; and its manner of life and its standards of worth therefore afford the norm of reputability for the community. The observance of these standards, in some degree of approximation, becomes incumbent on all classes lower in the scale... the members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in the next higher stratum, and bend their energies to live up to their ideal.” (70) The creation and maintenance of aspiration is the driving force behind the men’s fashion magazine, aspiration for the products they promote is the basis for aspiration of the lifestyle perpetuated on the magazines pages. Only the highest class, whose image is the basis for the aspirational projections of the magazines, may be immune to their interpellative power. Everyone else can find something in the range of products featured on the magazines pages worth aspiring to. According to Douglas Holt, aspiration occurs: “For the majority with relatively small and declining incomes, living in a society that so emphasizes material satisfactions constructs relative material deprivation as an intense lack, and thus, their tastes are structured around attaining glimpses or simulacra of elite comforts.” (Holt, 19)

The images of the exorbitantly expensive suits featured in the pages of magazines like Esquire and GQ provide a glimpse into a world of fantasy for the lower classes that will seemingly invite their participation based on the consumption of the featured products like suits. The display of the suits alone may be enough to drive the aspirations of those who would like to be able to afford to wear them, but what about those who can afford the suits? For those with the means to purchase the clothing featured on its’ pages, men’s fashion magazines also offer entry into the body of situated knowledge which truly differentiates both the suit and the wearer. Information about the proper style and cut of a suit, or on the ideal choice of fabrics, allows those of slightly elevated stature to begin to develop the body of knowledge possessed by those above them. Veblen referred to this body of knowledge and its enactment as ‘punctilious discrimination, the ability to: “discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the ignoble in consumable goods… this cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application.” (64)

Discriminating taste as a distinguishing characteristic traditionally relied on the privileging of the body of knowledge solely to those who had the time and the means to develop it. Men’s fashion magazines provide a condensed version of this body of knowledge for those with neither the time nor the means to develop it for themselves. The information is incomplete and intended to promote the products on the pages of the magazine, but in this way it feeds the aspirational tendencies further. The partial information identifies that the body of knowledge in fact exists while simultaneously prioritizing it. Those who buy the suits in the magazines cannot merely be satisfied with wearing them, they must wear the right suit and wear it properly. Ideally the right suit worn correctly would provide whoever is wearing it with attributions of the higher class that are impeded by their individual pecuniary strength.

Within the magazine the projection of elevated stature through adornment draws the aspirations of those who desire a high level of distinction, while the images complement the body of knowledge. But closing the proximity between aspiration and possession must be counteracted, by creating new space through debasement. While the men’s fashion magazine provided a source of knowledge and inspiration for the lower classes, for those at the top of the class hierarchy the magazines began erasing established barriers of class distinction that were exhibited through the suit. The ready availability of the body of knowledge negated their ability to distinguish themselves from the masses; making the information more available made it more common. Those at the top of the class hierarchy do not want new members, the dissemination of their body of knowledge weakens their stature while subsequently improving the stature of those in lower classes. The fact that the information put forth by the magazines is condensed or partial takes away from its supposed refinement because it requires a mere fraction of the effort put forth to truly develop the body of knowledge required in choosing what suit and why. As a result the aspiration of particular styles and trends become opposed through debasement, and the cycle of aspiration begins again.

Debasement can be considered a pattern of behaviour used by those in higher classes to ensure their distinction as such against an onslaught of imitative aspiration. Following Veblen’s notion of lower classes aspiring to those higher up in the class hierarchy, eventually the interests of the high class become too common, as those of lower stature increasingly possess and display them. Not only the item itself, the appropriation of practices and performances of connoisseurship surrounding objects increase the perception of their value, providing stature to the mundane while enhancing the esteem surrounding established objects. But as these practices and performances become known and understood by those who are not considered to be of the stature to possess them, the value associated with these items becomes lessened and they are consequently considered inferior, or debased. In their place, new items are valorized and the cycle begins anew. Georg Simmel describes the process: “Just as soon as the lower classes begin to copy their style, thereby crossing the line of demarcation the upper classes have drawn and destroying the uniformity of the coherence, the upper classes turn away from this style and adopt a new one, which in its turn differentiates then from the masses; and thus the game goes merrily on. “ (299). The protection of an individuals’ distinctive projection is instigated as items previously considered their domain become appropriated by the lower classes. As this occurs the distinction surrounding the item becomes lost along with interest in the item; it is debased. The function of debasement is the maintenance of class distinctions by the creation of binaries between existing practices and the constriction of new practices with the explicit purpose of exclusion.

The constant and consistent recreation of standards of taste for the higher classes are a means of distinguishing their position in the social hierarchy through the retention of a body of knowledge which valorizes both the item and the owner. Herbert Gans described the process as occurring as: “Popular culture borrows content from high culture with the consequence of debasing it… When an item of high culture is borrowed, however, the high culture public may thereafter consider it tainted because its use by the popular culture has lowered its cultural prestige.” (38-39) When an item or behaviour is considered debased, something must take it’s place, and in this way the process of debasement also works to ignite and propel aspiration. Just as an objects prominence grew throughout the class hierarchy earlier due to it’s association with a higher stature of class, so do the debased objects quickly become devalued for the lower classes. Once the esteem surrounding an object fades, its ability to valorize its’ owner fades along with it. Debased items offer nothing to any of the aspirational classes, because everything that made them aspire to it is lost. In its place is a new object with appropriated practices and performances and a body of knowledge that valorizes it and provides its owner with distinctive qualities through possession. The aspirational classes strive to catch up and the process continues onward.

Debasement is particularly relevant in the fashion industry, whose economy is based on cycles and seasons and the constant and consistent shifting of standards of propriety and the body of knowledge surrounding them. The projection of taste and subsequent virtue that results from the wearing of certain clothes can only occur if they are the right clothes at the right time. Simmel wrote: “Fashion also supplements a person’s lack of importance, his inability to individualize his existence purely by his own unaided efforts, by enabling him to join a set characterized and singled out in the public consciousness by fashion alone.” (310) As the value of a fashionable appearance became a focus of men in the aspirational lower classes, they began to learn, choose, wear, and appreciate different types of suits, those styles become commonplace, exemplify standardization and lose any distinctive or valorizing quality for the wearer. The top of class hierarchy then turn to the fashion industry to defend their ground by debasing the distinctive qualities of those particular suits in favour of new ones that require a new, distinctive body of knowledge.

One problem facing the truly distinguished gentleman from the poseur is that now anyone with desire and a credit card can go and don themselves in the most fashionable of attire. Simmel wrote: “The increase of wealth is bound to hasten the process considerably and render it visible, because the objects of fashion, embracing as they do the externals of life, are most accessible to the mere call of money, and conformity to the higher set is more easily acquired here than in fields which demand and individual test that gold and silver cannot affect.” (299) In the past one’s wealth was displayed by their ability to possess objects deemed of the highest quality, but in contemporary society highly valorized objects are more readily available. The demarcating lines between classes become increasingly blurred through the mere financial barrier to valorized possession. As a result, the practices, performances, and body of knowledge surrounding an object become the gauge for an individuals’ stature. The object or item has become second to the cultural capital surrounding it. For men and suits, this involves a body of sartorial knowledge, the understanding of the tradition and nuance in the suit and its features, requires a body of intellectual, social and educational knowledge that can only come from having the opportunity to learn these things. Anyone can wear an expensive suit, but only those who know how can wear it properly. Mens fashion magazines provide a brief, weightless, and easily digestible glimpse into the cultural capital surrounding the most current fashion. They provide their readers with images combined with tips on how to dress like those at the top of the class hierarchy, contrasting the new styles against the old ones that have been debased and replaced. To properly examine and elucidate the aspiration-debasement dialectic, we will use the covers’ of 1980’s issues of both Esquire and GQ as examples.

The magazine cover carries many similar attributes and values as the suit in its relationship to the body it is presenting; the magazine cover is in effect a suit for the magazine. The cover creates its’ value through ephemeral attraction, it is intended to catch its’ audiences attention, presented to the world as a representation of the contents inside of it. To examine the role of Men’s fashion magazines in the development and maintenance of the dialectic of appropriation and debasement, the following case studies are a series of semiotic analyses on magazine covers from both Esquire and GQ from the 1980’s. Though not all covers of both magazines during that era featured images of men in suits, there are elements of the aspiration-debasement dialectic at work in many of them. For the purposes of this paper, case studies were chosen based on the criteria of a suited male in the image.

The magazine cover attracts its’ audience through the shaping of image and text to complement each other in the presentation of a united message. The image which may be open to varying interpretations has its’ meaning constrained by the words that appear with it on the page. Roland Barthes referred to this relationship as anchorage, explaining: “When it comes to the ‘symbolic message’, the linguistic message no longer guides identification but interpretation, constituting a kind of vice which holds connoted meanings from proliferating, whether towards excessively individual regions.” (39) The words not only work to moderate the intended meaning of the cover, but the image works to reinforce and elevate the message contained within the words. The design standards for magazine covers during the 1980’s encouraged the allowance of the background of the photo to be seen. The lack of visual clutter on magazine covers during that era, which is prevalent on contemporary covers, allowed for a more focused set of intended connotations. This is the point of anchorage, to encourage a specific direction of thought surrounding the image in question. Barthes wrote: “Anchorage may be ideological and indeed this is its principal function; the text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching, it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance.” (40) For magazine covers in the 1980’s, despite a limited amount of text with which to anchor the image, there remain two predominant groups of text, the main captions or headlines, and the title of the magazine itself. While there is other subordinate text that often fills the remainder of the page, its’ messaging is often overshadowed by the title, image, and key text, and for the purposes of these case studies, it will not be considered.

The titles of the two magazines being examined carry with them strong connotations of hierarchical masculinity. The first, Esquire, is a word that traditionally has denoted a man of privileged upbringing, while the second, Gentleman’s Quarterly or GQ, has itself become itself a colloquial descriptor for a well-dressed man due to the magazines popularity. Immediately through their titles the two magazines are attempting to assert themselves as locations and sources of the style aligned with elevated stature within the class hierarchy. The titles work to constrain the men in the images as ‘esquires’ or ‘gentlemen’, and these images in turn display their intended meaning. The magazine title features the largest, boldest letters and is typically the most predominant text on the cover. Subordinate to the magazine title is the caption or headline text that informs the reader on the content of the magazine. Although rather than merely inform they are intended to tease, attract, and engage the reader into further examination. They represent an initial, decisive message to potential and existing audience about the overall intended connotations of the content within the magazines pages. They also work in harmony with the image to further constrain the intended meaning of the cover, often quite overtly. Of course this text must change to suit each issue, as does the content of the image each month, and it is within these changes that the development and maintenance of the aspiration-debasement dialectic occurs.

The September 1980 issue of Esquire magazine (see appendix) provides a strong example of this dynamic. The most predominant text is large, bold and black in the centre of the page, it reads: “Who Will Make Money in the 1980’s?” There is subtext that is smaller, italicized, coloured red, and runs before the main text that reads: “We know you’re smart, ambitious, and you talk a good game. But…” The image is of a smiling man in a suit walking along a sidewalk, about to step into an uncovered manhole. Above the sidewalk is nothing but white space, which allows focus to remain primarily on the predominant text, then subsequently on the subtext and image. The question in the predominant text, “Who Will Make Money in the 1980’s?” is the foundation, and seemingly the solution for, feelings of aspiration. As mentioned earlier, the magazine promised its’ audience a glimpse of high class style as well as a window into the cultural capital required to appreciate it’s distinctive qualities. However, none of this is possible without money. The magazine is aligning its name and its’ associated connotations with the values surrounding making money, doing so in lettering that takes up almost a quarter of the page. The subtext: “We know you’re smart, ambitious, and you talk a good game. But…” is a direct assertion of distinction, and a statement that foreshadows the notion of debasement. It calls into question attributes directly associated with financial success, suggesting these traditional qualities will not necessarily provide the audience with what they desire. This text anchors the image of the suited man about to step into an uncovered manhole, making it a visual metaphor that reinforces the message of the text. The man in the image is not wearing a traditional, dark, sober, business suit, he is instead wearing a light beige suit with pants that appear to have a bit of a wider cuff, which takes on the slight appearance of a bell-bottom. The style of suit worn by the man in the image is strongly associative with the styles predominant in the 1970’s, and he is about to step into an open manhole with a large smile on his face, indicating that he knows no better. The man is carrying a briefcase and a newspaper, signifiers commonly associated with the archetypal businessman. That’s who the man in the image is intended to be, an archetype the audience can associate with. As he is about to step into an open manhole, which carries connotations of human waste and filth, he is about to be ‘flushed’ into the toilet of the past. The cover suggests that within the pages of the magazine is the solution for survival in the ‘new world’ of the 1980’s, and that the first step has nothing to do with improving traditional business skills, but with losing the dated suit. Who will make money in the ‘80s? Answer: Those who not only carry the requisite skill set, but who do not look like they are from the 1970’s. The audiences traditional notions of what it takes to succeed, as well as what a successful man looks like are summarily debased, while at the same time the fundamental aspirational question remains in big, imposing letters.

The September 1986 issue of Esquire magazine (see appendix) provides another strong example of the use of the aspiration-debasement dialectic used to attract and maintain audience. The cover features the aforementioned archetypal male of the 1980’s, the new man. The image is predominantly filled by Tim McCarver, an all-star and champion baseball catcher turned broadcaster. As an acclaimed athlete, McCarver undeniably embodied the traditional notions of masculinity. As a baseball player, he represents ‘America’s Pass-time’, the everyman’s game that is steeped in tradition. In the image he is featured wearing a grey suit with wide, bold stripes along with a purple and gold tie and a pocket square. A living archetypal American male is dressed as a new man, and seemingly enjoying himself based on his grin. McCarver is holding a baseball in his hands and one of his World Series championship rings is visible, both strong signifiers that reaffirm his association with traditional masculinity. The aspirational notions that accompany athletics and celebrity in contemporary culture are transferred from McCarver as an individual to the clothes he is wearing by association. By juxtaposing the ideal male with the new man, the cover debases established notions of masculinity in favour of aspiration towards the more flamboyant style of the new man. The predominant text which anchors the image reads: ‘How to Buy Clothes’, with the subtext reading: ‘The Essential Guide for the American Male.’ The text creates aspirational anxiety by using the term ‘essential’. The word carries dual connotations of being absolutely necessary while at the same time being a mark of authenticity. The styles are not only required of the modern man, but indeed display his essential character as a man. McCarver affirms as much as the essential American male, baseball in hand and all, so his appearance then could be considered by association to be the essential male appearance. He is intended as metonymical representation for classic American masculinity, and anchored by text that tells the audience the magazine will inform them on ‘How to Buy Clothes’, it debases conventional masculine style in favour of the more colourful and extravagant style of the new man. If Tim McCarver, a “man’s man” enjoys the new style of dress, ‘essential’ men everywhere should be experimenting with more colourful suit arrangements. In fact the image in concert with the text suggests that the style of the new man had become the new measure of masculinity, framing fashion typically considered effeminate as aspirational while debasing the restrained moderation of the classic men’s suit.

(NOTE: These next two kind of suck. I only had a handful of magazines to look through as GQ's website's cover archive link is dead. Lame, I know.)

The magazine covers for GQ took a while stylistically to catch up with Esquire in the 1980’s, initially using excited singular adjectives as their key text. But by 1983 they began to use text to more effectively anchor the accompanying image. The September 1983 issue of GQ magazine (see appendix) features predominant text that reads: “ The Great Fall Looks for Success”. The text directly infers that style is a requisite for success, and it anchors the image of the head and partial chest of a smiling man in a suit, an image which reinforces the text. The man is dressed for success, and the magazine promises to show its’ audience how to do the same within its’ pages, encouraging aspiration towards the man in the image. The text states that success has a specific look, aligning appearance with achievement so that they are codependent. Not only can appearance lend the impression of achievement, but success also requires style in order to be recognized. This text encourages everyone but the admitted abject failure to aspire to the “…Looks for Success” as one should either aspire to be more successful than they are. At the same time, those who are successful should fear their prosperity would go unacknowledged without the proper sartorial choices. There is also a secondary meaning to the text however, in that “The Great Fall Looks for Success” also suggests that success has a particular look for the fall. In the tradition of feminine style, which runs in cycles along with the seasons, and style of seasons past are debased in favour of the newest trends. This was the major goal and eventual achievement of Men’s fashion magazines during the early 1980’s, to create consumptive patterns in men that more closely mirrored their female counterparts. In this way the use of text and image on this particular cover can be considered derivative, but nonetheless effective. The great looks for success in the spring or summer will simply not suffice if one is to look successful in the fall. All previous suits and the cultural capital around them are made meaningless, debased in favour of the new look of success. If the new “…Fall Looks for Success” are the means of presenting oneself as successful, than by association those who do not participate cannot look successful. Not looking successful means looking like a failure, further encouraging the aspiration-debasement dialectic in the name of appearance-based valuation.

The January 1984 issue of GQ magazine (see appendix) features the face and upper-chest of actor Donald Sutherland, and established and acclaimed actor who appeared in three films in 1984. Dressed in a sport jacket with tie and topcoat, the image of Sutherland is anchored by the predominant text: “Living With Style”, which is coloured red. Considering his position at the time as a celebrity, the image along with the text indicates that Donald Sutherland lives in style, and that those who aspire to merely live themselves with style, or live in the style of Sutherland, can find helpful information within the pages of the magazine. The cover promises to not only show you how to dress with style, but the text promises to provide you with the cultural capital to live in harmony with style, to make style part of the audiences daily existence. The use of the word “Living” carries connotations of participating in a specific lifestyle based on style; the accompaniment of living life in a stylish way. But the word also connotes notions of life itself. In this way the magazine aligns style with the living, and lack of style with the dead. The inference is that aspiration for style is aspiration for life, as without style there is no living, only death, or perhaps non-existence. Notions of debasement run parallel to the aforementioned connotations associated with the cover. If living with style (as displayed by Donald Sutherland) was the mark and measure of masculinity during that era, then the traditionally masculine lack of interest in style, the lack of desire for a nice suit and the cultural capital that allows one to wear it properly became debased as a result. It is not a specific trend or style that the magazine cover intends to debase, but the entire tradition of masculinity and its stubborn functionality. To ignore style was to appear old, antiquated, or dead; the new man lived, and lived with style.

The men’s fashion magazine industry, along with other mass media, intended to exploit the archetypal new man to create consumptive patterns that were closer to those seen in women. By framing style as a virtue that can signify success, the magazines prodded men into aspiring to style as a measure, and indicator of success. Traditional skills were not necessarily antiquated, but a value based on appearance became established. The role of fashion as a cultural industry in concert with other cultural industries is to align the audience into specific patterns of consumption of the industries’ design. What was new about the ‘new man’, besides the acceptance of more maternal responsibilities, was the manufacturing of desire surrounding appearance. By getting the 1980’s generation of men to embrace fashion, the industries also trapped them within the constrictions of the fashion economy, at the whim of the aspiration-debasement dialectic. The notion of dressing for success developed a momentum during the new man era that continues forward. Design standards may have changed along with the fashion trends in the three decades since the new man era, but both magazines continue to employ similar tactics to attract and maintain their audience. The emphasis on male adornment remains today, and while the slight variations on the proper style of suit continue to shift, magazines like Esquire and GQ continue to provide their audience with a glimpse of the suits and it’s associated cultural capital. Though definitions of masculinity have continued shifting since the 1980’s, there has been no return to the sober, utilitarian fashion ideals that existed before the new man era, afterall what commercial calue is there in that? Commercial exploitation of the new man was the beginning of a trend of encouraging greater consumption by men through the media, a trend that grows on today. It marks a moment where the commodification of men shifted from emphasis on their value as labourers, to emphasis on their value as consumers, an open market of half the population available to be exploited for commercial gain.



Works Cited:
Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath, 1976. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1977. 

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. Trans. Richard Nice, 1984. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984. 

Buscombe, Edward. ‘Cary Grant’. Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. eds. Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson New York, NY: Routeledge, 2000.

Craik, Jennifer. The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion. London, England: Routeledge, 1994.

Crane, Diana. Fashion and its Social Agendas. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Danesi, Marcel. The Quest for Meaning: A Guide to Semiotic Theory and Practice. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Edwards, Tim. Cultures of Masculinity. New York, NY: Routeledge, 2006.

Entwistle, Joanne. The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion. Oxford, England: Berg Publications, 2009.

-----. The Fashioned Body. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2000.

Esquire Magazine. (1980, Septmeber)

------. (1986, September)

Gans, Herbert. Popular Culture and High Culture. (rev. ed.) New York, NY: Basic Books, 1999. 
Gentleman’s Quarterly Magazine. (1983, September)

------. (1984, January)

Holt, Douglas B. (1998) ‘Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption?’. Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 25.

Simmel, Georg. On Individuality and Social Forms. Trans. Donald N. Levine, 1971. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1971. 

Toynbee, Polly. ‘The Incredible, Shrinking, New Man’. Guardian UK. Nov. 6, 19 Retrieved April 8, 2010 from:http://century.guardian.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,,110228,00.html

Tungate, Mark. Fashioning Brands: Branding Style from Armani to Zara. London, England: Kogan Page Limited, 2005.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973. 

Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London, England: Virago Press, 1985.

On the connoisseurship of connoisseurship...

Today we’re going to take some time to develop a body of knowledge surrounding connoisseurship. I want to start with a couple of questions: What is a connoisseur? Do you consider yourselves connoisseurs of anything?

As scholars we are in a privileged position to be afforded an opportunity to study some of the finer things in life, similar to those with the affluence to develop their own cultural capital.

Where we will differ today is that rather than look at specific objects of connoisseurship, we will instead look at connoisseurship as spaces where class politics and distinctions are developed

We are effectively going spend a pleasant afternoon becoming connoisseurs of connoisseurship.

We’ll begin by taking some time to discuss what a connoisseur is, before we look at some criticisms of the connoisseur. Following that we’ll put on the theoretical lenses of Veblen, Bordieu, and Gans to look at connoisseurship before taking a look at the blurring lines between connoisseurship and fandom in postmodernity.

Before we go any further, lets watch a couple of videos on connoisseurship:

Ernest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM3QqTcM55k
Columbo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3g3TARlQfU
Sadat X: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO1SWelNk48



What is connoisseurship?

Connoisseurship is rooted in the French word for knowledge: ‘connaissance’. A connoisseur is someone with a developed body of situated knowledge about specific objects, or groupings of objects considered to be of high taste. This body of knowledge is put into a performance of actions and language that create distinction between the connoisseur and everyone else.

In the West, our understanding of art and culture is hierarchical, there is a tacit assumption that understanding and appreciation of finer objects can only be achieved through proper understanding and expert bodies of knowledge.

The connoisseur is an expert, distinguishing themselves from the consumer through their knowledge and appreciation of quality. The body of situated knowledge a connoisseur possesses allows them to form critical judgments on an object, and the integrity of the connoisseur is the guarantee of worth for objects of connoisseurship.

Connoisseurship involves the development and display of mastery of the senses; the triumph of the mind over the baser instincts indulged by the lower classes. Determinations of quality are established and shaped through connoisseurship.

Distinctions of value are used as a tool of connoisseurship as well as the goal of the practice. In this way connoisseurship is completely self-referential, the connoisseur is continually deferring to themselves and those like them in creating and reifying standards of quality. As a result, in order to be considered a connoisseur one must be recognized as such by others

In: ‘Considering the Connoisseur: Probing the Language of Taste’, by one Dr. Charlene Elliot, found on page 14 of Google Scholar if one enters the term: ‘connoisseur’ by the way, the author posits the four determinants of a connoisseurship as: consumption for status purposes, the witnessing of taste, specialization or discrimination in goods consumed, and the cultivation of particular language to negotiate the terrain.

In order to be considered a connoisseur, one must publicly enjoy consuming products considered of the highest quality, while knowledgably reasoning, and participating in their enjoyment and consumption, in the proper way.

Connoisseurship is best considered a circular process affecting both the object of attention and the means of perceiving said object. Not a fixed set of attributions; the "truths" of connoisseurship are generated in practice and put on display through performance.

In this way, and for our purposes this afternoon we will look at connoisseurship as defined through both practice and performance, consumption and discrimination in practice, and the witnessing of taste and cultivation of language in performance.

Connoisseurship has been around since antiquity. Initially the connoisseur was concerned solely with the notions of attribution and authenticity. Their goal was limited to examining works of art to for personal style determine authorship and provide attribution.

Giorgio Vasari wrote Vite in 1568 and in it, provided one of the first modern descriptions of connoisseurship. Carol Gibson-Wood, author of: Studies in the Theory of Connoisseurship: From Vasari to Morelli, described that in Vite, Vasari was: “Assuring his readers that his statements about the authorship of art works have been confirmed by an authority greater than the word of Ghiberti, Ghirlandaio, or Raphael: the authority of his own eye. He is referring to the practice of what is now called attribution or connoisseurship: the identification of authorship by examining a work’s style.”

So the tradition of connoisseurship is in the authentication of fine art, but what about quality? As the connoisseur is considered the definitive guarantor of an objects quality, their practice and performance of calculated mastery over their senses must be given every impression of objectivity, even if the practice itself is subjective.

In Evaluating Your Collection: The 14 Points of Connoisseurship, Dwight P. Lamon defers posthumously to Charles F. Montgomery of Winterthur Museum. Montgomery wrote:

“The true connoisseur will cultivate habits of skepticism, humility, and objectivity. He will avoid avarice (read: insatiable greed) and flee like the plague the desire to get a great bargain. Instead of leaping to conclusions, he will be skeptical. Remembering that ‘pride goeth before a fall’ the wise connoisseur will also exercise the virtue of humility. The humble collector will not, like a peacock, parade his knowledge before the seller and in doing so stop the flow of information that might be had for the asking, or court the reactions always engendered by the know it all.’”

Montgomery goes on to provide 14 different measures for determining value for works of art as a connoisseur, including: Overall Appearance, Form, Ornament, Materials, Finish, Colour, Craft Techniques, Trade Practices, Function, Style, Attribution, History of Ownership, Condition, and Evaluation.

If this sounds very empirical, it is. The application of scientific principles to practices of connoisseurship is due to the visual bias of art and the ability to establish common agreements on the visual appearance of objects. As in science, the observability of art was the basis for comparison and evaluation.

In his seminal 1908 work Rudiments of Connoisseurship, Bernard Berenson wrote: “Connoisseurship, then, proceeds as scientific research always does, by the isolation of the characteristics of the known and their confrontation with the unknown.”

The development of fixed rules and standards through this scientific approach to connoisseurship created the structure around which comparison and value could be imposed on the quality of an object.

Berenson defined connoisseurship as: “The comparison of works of art with a view to determining their reciprocal relationships.” In this way Berenson positioned the connoisseur as the valuator of quality, but he also maintained that the role of the connoisseur was also to determine authenticity, writing:

“Connoisseurship is based on the assumption that perfect identity of characteristics indicates identity of origin- an assumption, in it’s turn, based on the definition of characteristics as those features that distinguish one artist from another.”

Of course connoisseurship moved beyond the artworld and into a myriad of cultural objects, all appropriated to the highest of classes through the development of a body of knowledge around their consumption. This extended the principles of connoisseurship that were established by those like Berenson to senses other than the eye. But, the application of the same empiricist approaches of connoisseurship to non-verifiable senses is problematic.

Afterall, most people share the assumption that we see the same things; we all see the tables and chairs in this room, and we all see the blue sky outside, and even if we see them from a different vantage and even if we value them differently, we still see them. We can confirm with each other that we see the same thing and that assumption pervades our society, privileging sight among the senses. The other senses are purely subjective, and it is very difficult to approximate, evaluate, and rank sensorial reactions empirically. Yet this is precisely what connoisseurs have done.

Though they are considered the institution that imposes value on cultural objects, connoisseurs do not have universal standards for their evaluations. As a result there is no base on which to formulate their judgments. Regardless they are considered the accepted authority to ascribe properties to an object and value and rank it accordingly.

But the scientific approach to classifying sense-based subjectivities and the self-referential nature of connoisseurship are merely two of its criticisms.

In his book On Art and Connoisseurship, Max Friedlander begins the chapter entitled: ‘Problems of Connoisseurship’ by proclaiming: “Charlatanism, the professional malady of experts, springs from the unstable nature of artistic judgment. The moment I formulate a statement in a way which goes beyond inner certainty, honesty begins to waiver.”

By this Friedlander means that there has traditionally been a problem with connoisseurs who lose their humility and overextend their abilities and expertise, and in doing so, valorize themselves.

Friedlander wrote: “Connoisseurship becomes more, and more specialized, takes on the character of a mystery…. circumstances which contribute to an increase in the power of the expert, and the danger of misusing the power.”

For those of a lower moral and ethical fibre, connoisseurship offers a great deal of temptation. Because their evaluations and rankings are essentially weightless, it would not be difficult for the connoisseur to use their knowledge for their gain at the expense of others. Like a mechanic who is dealing with someone with little knowledge of cars, their principles play an equal role in the valuation of the object along with the conceded value.

To Friedlander, these kind of dishonest actions not only adversely affect the collectors, but the circle of connoisseurs as well.

He wrote: “The complaints regarding frivolous and untruthful expert opinions are all too justified. They have caused a reaction, so that timorous (read: fearful) minds nowadays go to extremes in judging negatively or with reserve. The people say ‘no’ in order, at all events, to be confused with the ‘yes men.’ Now prudence is not only the mother of wisdom, but the daughter of ignorance. What must be done is to steer the right course between the rocks of a conciliatory complaisance on the one hand and a negative attitude, on principle, on the other.”

Friedlander saw that connoisseurs were forced to err too far on the side of caution in their authentication and valuation, and that too much opposition was the refuge for the timid, and risked blindness. Temperance and vigilance were prescribed for the true connoisseur.

The articles this week criticizing the wine-scoring system are casting a similar shadow of doubt on the notion of the wine connoisseur. How is even the most refined palate supposed to differentiate between an 89 and an 89.5 on the 100 point wine scale? And what is that judgment based upon? Too much black currant? Not enough? The connoisseurs subjectivity becomes the established standard from which those without the cultural capital or knowledge base form their evaluation.

Key in elevating the connoisseur in both practice and in performance, convincing the world of their integrity, is the use of language.

Language

The knowledge and use of language to valorize an object is a common practice to all connoisseurs. The use of unique and specific language by connoisseurs works to attribute and differentiate value between objects, and in doing so legitimizes the object as one of value. Any attention paid to an object by a connoisseur is indicative of its inherent value and that ladder ascends, as the more they discuss an object the more value it is prescribed.

This works in a series of directions, first off, the value judgments of connoisseurs, their practices and performances, roll downhill so to speak. Regular consumers, be they of objects of prestige or not, use similar standards for the valuation of theses objects.

Secondly, as we’ve discussed in this class in relation to Starbucks, one can apply language to a seemingly mundane object to create the impression of prestige. The appropriation of practices and performances of connoisseurship surrounding objects of value on mundane objects can increase the perception of their value.

To continue along with criticisms, as I mentioned earlier, distinctions of quality are both practice and tool for the connoisseur, and as such they are surrounded by an impenetrable armour of their own subjective discourse.

The scientific approach to connoisseurship allows the connoisseur to make value judgments based on subjectivities. Objects with a visual bias are somewhat confirmable, but the empirical descriptions of other sense are marred in subjectivities. As a result there are two tenants of scientism that are unachievable: falsification and predictability. This means that the value judgments can neither be rejected nor validated, they just exist.

This causes a great deal of self-reflexivity among connoisseurs. Just as a connoisseur can only be recognized as such by other connoisseurs, they also must support each others valuations because their whole structure is interwoven. The connoisseur must aspire to prevailing judgments and standards to remain legitimate within the on-going discourse of their particular field of expertise.

This relates nicely to the Fine reading: ‘Wittgenstein’s Kitchen: Sharing Meaning in Restaurant Work.” If you’ll recall from that reading, each chef brought their own background to their work, with their own taste preferences. Of course there is no way of differentiating between individual palates; there is no way to come to a common agreement or disagreement on how something tastes. All the chefs in the text are actually approximating their subjectivities and attempting to create common understandings of meanings through language.

With all of that in mind, lets now go through the three main theorists we’ve looked at this semester, Veblen, Bourdieu, and Ganz, and see where notions of connoisseurship might fit within their work.


Veblen

Connoisseurship to Veblen would be a means for those of a certain stature to display their body of knowledge for others to see. The discriminating taste of the connoisseur, according to Veblen:

“not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialization as regards the best quality of the goods consumed…. Since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific.”

Veblen would refer to connoisseurship as ‘punctilious descrimination’, and it is a privilege only afforded to those who have the time and the means to develop the body of knowledge that grants one the title of connoisseur. According to Veblen:

“This cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure.”

The irony here for Veblen is the hard work the connoisseur puts into understanding cultural objects that truly are intended for leisure. Of course the expenditure of exorbitant amounts of money on art and other luxury objects which become subjected to connoisseurship is valorizing, an example of conspicuous consumption. Veblen wrote:

“Throughout the entire evolution of conspicuous expenditure… runs the obvious implication that in order to effectually mend the consumers good fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities. In order to be reputable it must be wasteful…. It is here called waste because this expenditure does not serve human life or human well-being on the whole.”

To Veblen expense and beauty are co-relational, one is based on the other. Something cannot be expensive unless it is beautiful and something cannot be beautiful unless it is expensive. Veblen described this as his code of pecuniary beauty, writing:

“This diversity of views as to what is beautiful in these various classes of goods is not a diversity of the norm according to which the unsophisticated sense of the beautiful works. It is not a constitutional difference of endowments in the aesthetic respect, but rather a difference in the code of reputability which specifies what objects properly lie within the scope of honorific consumption for the class to which the critic belongs. It is a difference in the traditions of propriety with respect to the kinds of things which may, without derogation to the consumer, be consumed under the head of objects of taste and art.”

But while Veblen understood connoisseurship as a means of performing ones class distinction, he also understood that the process was weightless, that connoisseurship was a means and an end onto itself with no room outside of it’s own constrictions, writing:

“Neither in matters of art and taste proper, nor as regards the current sense of the serviceability of goods, does this cannon act as a principle of innovation or initiative… Conspicuous wastefulness does not directly afford ground for variation and growth, but conformity to its requirements is a condition to the survival of such innovations as may be made on other grounds…. The law of conspicuous waste does not account for the origin of variations, but only for the persistence of such forms as are fit to survive under its dominance. It acts to conserve the fit, not to originate the acceptable.”

Veblen’s notions of the connoisseur are at times aligned and at times opposed by Bordieu, so lets take a look at what he said about connoisseurship.

Bordieu

Bordieu has a somewhat different understanding of the notion of connoisseurship. In Distinction he wrote: “The competence of the connoisseur, an unconscious mastery of the instruments of appropriation which derives from slow familiarization… Learning it presupposes the equivalent of the prolonged contact between disciple and master in traditional education, ie. repeated contact with cultural works and cultured people.”

To Bordieu, the connoisseur does not form class distinctions, but is instead formed by their class distinctions. The ability to surround one’s self with the foundation of knowledge on which to develop connaissance of an object or group of objects is predetermined for those with the privilege to do so.

The key term in the quote above is appropriation. Bourdieu feels as though while many groups may have an appreciation for similar objects, that the upper classes appropriate them through the development of a requisite body of knowledge or cultural capital to fully appreciate and enjoy the activity or object. Bordieu wrote:

“Through the mastery of verbal accompaniment, preferably technical, archaic and esoteric, which separates informed tasting from mere passive consumption, the connoisseur shows himself worthy of symbolically appropriating the rarities he has the material means of acquiring.”

Appropriation brings distinction between classes, and it is performed through the use of specific language necessary to express and understand the cultural capital surrounding the object. Distinction is the notion that one acquires or has acquired the proper faculties to properly enjoy those things relevant to their station in the class hierarchy. Of course simply because someone has found themselves more affluent, does not mean they have the distinction of taste that elevates them within the socio-cultural hierarchy, appropriation further distinguishes between the connoisseur and the consumer, even in high culture.

This of course relates back to that old chestnut of Bordieu’s: “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classification, distinguish
themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly,
the distinguished and the vulgar.”

So connoisseurship as an act of cultural distinction provides from the top-down, social, moral, and legal classifications for those who consume them. The unification of morality with high culture and connoisseurship comes from the notion of mastery of one’s senses, and a firm resistance to the facile. For Bordieu:

“The refusal of what is easy in the sense of simple, and therefore shallow, and cheap, because it is easily decoded and culturally undemanding, naturally leads to the refusal of what is facile in the ethical or aesthetic sense, of everything which offers pleasures that are too immediately accessible and so discredited as childish and primitive.”

The facile is opposed by pure taste, which has a fixed, distanced, relationship with the spectator. They are there for each other, each a means to their own end. This brings an element of authenticity to the work, and again, the evaluation of authenticity was the primary tenant of the connoisseur. According to Bordieu, there is an association between authenticity and beauty, he wrote:

“The artificial representation of the object is no longer distinguishable from the nature of the object itself in our sensation, and so it cannot possibly be regarded as beautiful.”

Bordieu also noted the problem of self-referentiality as a perpetual force in the shaping of connoisseurship. Take his Derrida inspired musings on the philosophy of art, where he wrote:

“The field is the historical product of the labour of the successive philosophers who have defined certain topics as philosophical by forcing them on commentary, discussion, critique, and polemic… constitute objectified philosophy impose themselves as a sort of autonomous world on would-be philosophers, who must not only know them, as items of culture, but recognize them, as objects of (pre-reflexive) belief, failing which they disqualify themselves as philosophers.”

Connoisseurs knowledge is based on connoisseurship and works to create and legitimize the discourse of connoisseurship among connoisseurs. In this way there is an inherent imposition of structure that constricts and shapes the discourse of connoisseurship.

Bordieu understood that the pure taste of the high class would be used as the foundation on which distinctions would be made for class separation, writing:

“Empirical interest enters into the composition of the most disinterested pleasures of pure taste, because the principle of the pleasure derived from these refined games for refined players lies in the denied experience of a social relationship of membership and exclusion.”

The exclusion and distinction practiced by the higher classes through appropriation and connoisseurship was very troubling to Bourdieu, who saw the relationship created between aesthetics and ethics and wrote:

“Pure pleasure-ascetic, empty pleasure which implies the renunciation of pleasure, pleasure purified of pleasure- is predisposed to become a symbol of moral excellence, and the work of art a test of ethical superiority, an indisputable measure of the capacity for sublimation which defines the truly human man. What is at stake in aesthetic discourse, and I the intended imposition of definition of the genuinely human, is nothing less than the monopoly of humanity.”

Though far more nuanced and eloquent, Bourdieu’s understanding and interrogation of the role of the higher class, and the connoisseur by association, shed light onto the power of the connoisseur in shaping values outside the realm of their expertise. This leads me to a question:

Gans on Connoisseurship

Looking back at the Ganz reading from earlier in the semester, he never really did address connoisseurship. That said, a great deal of his work in relation to taste cultures can be used as a lens with which to examine how connoisseurship works to differentiate class.

Connoisseurship and it’s high values, standards, and learned practices could be considered the highest form of ‘taste culture’, while connoisseur’s of various objects or phenomena can be considered a ‘taste public’, and the difference between what people are connoisseur’s of can be considered ‘aesthetic pluralism.’

If one considers the parallels between the critic and the connoisseur, who are like connoisseurs in practice but perhaps not performance, then there is particular resonance when Ganz writes:

“Critics are sometimes more important than creators (in high culture taste publics), because they determine whether a given cultural item deserves to be considered high culture, and because they concern themselves with the aesthetic issues which are so important to the culture.”

The connoisseur’s valuation of an object is the only thing that provides an object with value. There is no measure for the value of cultural objects that exists; it is shaped by the traditions of connoisseurship. This is how Antique Road Show works.

People have junk sitting around their attics and garages, though they have very little knowledge about the value of cultural objects, but they have just enough to suspect that their junk may be of value. They bring it to the connoisseur on television who assigns a value based on scales and standards that can be explained, but are ultimately foundationless. They are based on consensual agreements among connoisseurs. This body of knowledge, and the ability to gain it, is the foundation of a taste hierarchy. Those who do not know must defer to the expertise of the connoisseur, and in doing so display their location within a particular taste culture. Gans wrote:

“As for taste hierarchy, it continues to exist because of the educational, occupational, and other inequalities in the country’s population and because it becomes a useful sorting device.”

Therefore for Gans connoisseurship is also a way of maintaining class distinctions. By privileging the practices and performances of connoisseurship and the body of knowledge surrounding it, those of higher class are able to keep themselves distinct from those in lower classes. Gans wrote:

“The critique (of mass culture) is a plea for the restoration of an elitist order by the creators of high culture… who are unhappy with the tendencies towards cultural democracy that exist in every modern society.”

As culture and the body of knowledge surrounding cultural objects becomes more available to those in lower classes, the higher classes defend their territory by constricting and making the objects and their practices and performances more exclusive. These actions are justified through what Gans refers to as the historical fallacy: that quality of life continues to regress and decline as urbanized, popular culture continues to grow in prominence. Gans wrote that this historical fallacy is:

“self-serving, oriented to the interests of high culture alone and to the maximization of its power and resources… that critique is partly an ideology of defense, constructed to protect the cultural and political privileges of high culture.”

When items previously of high culture and connoisseurship become appropriated by the lower classes, high culture loses interest in them, considering them to be debased. According to Gans debasement occurs: “When an item of high culture is borrowed… the high culture public may thereafter consider it tainted because its use by the popular culture has lowered its cultural prestige. Popular culture audiences, on the other hand, may be pleased if their fare is borrowed from or by a culture of higher status.”

The debasement of cultural objects could be considered a hallmark of the postmodern connoisseur, where the lines between collector/fan and connoisseur have been blurred almost beyond recognition. Gans foresaw this when he wrote:

“The consumers of culture may also ignore high culture and its’ standards as their prestige-bearing status declines and as more people are freer to choose what they and their peers want.”

With that in mind, lets delve into the postmodern connoisseur for a moment.

Postmodern connoisseurship

Connoisseurship has undergone a transformation in its postmodern age, since much like everything else, the values have imploded and the distinguishing lines have blurred. First of all, the body of knowledge or cultural capital required for connoisseurship is much more readily available than it ever has been, meaning even those of lower classes can readily emulate the appropriative performances and practices of connoisseurship. This could be considered as I mentioned a moment ago, what Ganz referred to as the debasement of certain objects.

As well, the items that have become subject of connoisseurship have shifted. In postmodernity the lack of belief in a universal, pure asesthetic means that many objects can be valued for a variety of reasons. The standards of connoisseurship are applied, and value is attached, to whole new groups of cultural objects. For example, the book I referenced earlier: Evaluating Your Collection: The 14 Points of Connoisseurship, gives a facile explanation of connoisseurship through Baseball cards, applying the principles first to the cards, then to traditional forms of art.

In this way one can be a connoisseur of any number of things and in any combination of high culture, kitsch, or anything in-between. The hierarchical boundaries do not exist as those from higher classes look down while at the same time those from lower classes look up. This has caused a bit of ambiguity when differentiating between the connoisseur and the fan.

Another example Charlene and I discussed was the notion of the connoisseur replacing the fan. For example, when we watch hockey there is a certain level of connoisseurship that provides separation between levels of fandom. On the broadcasts, the talking heads are framed as experts, connoisseurs of the sport. They take the time at breaks and during intermissions to explain the nuance of the sport to the perceived lay-viewer watching at home. Since there is no real way of qualifying a true connoisseur of hockey, they are appointed from a collection of players and coaches, chosen in not-altogether equal parts from their knowledge, expertise, accomplishment and camera-appeal. These freshly ‘donned’ experts are able to use their previous experience as coaches or players to appropriate and prioritize their cultural capital around hockey.

This notion of expertise trickles down into the legions of fans, who often assign themselves value and rank as fans due to their connoisseurship of the game. In order to be a true fan one needs to know that backstory to the team, the rivalry, and the individual players. They must know how to statistically rank players from their own team against others to provide evaluations to appreciate the action ongoing in front of them. And again, those who grew up playing the game possess a stronger understanding than those who did not.

Note: This is a set of notes from a presentation for COMS 717- Communication and Taste

Camera Lucida as Methodology

Camera Lucida is Roland Barthes final work. In this Book, Barthes is looking specifically at photographs, how the photograph uniquely affects the viewer, or spectator as they are referred to in the text. This is actually considered one of the most important books ever written about photography. To Barthes the photos have the ability to stir the emotions of the spectator in a way that is unlike any other visual form or medium. Photography has it’s own unique ‘noeme’, it’s own thought, which distinguishes it from other images. On the first page he wrote: “I wanted to learn at all costs what photography was ‘in itself’, by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images”

The questions Barthes is pursuing in Camera Lucida surround the biases of photography's distinguishing characteristics. How do photos think, or induce us to think? What is it about certain photographs that catch our attention and animate our imagination?

The book is also a eulogy to his at the time recently deceased mother, it is written around the experience of going through her old photographs. Barthes makes himself researcher as subject, he writes about his subjective experience as he looks through photographs from his and his mothers past. In this way Barthes is developing a phenomenological layer to his semiotic analysis. This is a tremendous departure from his early work in Mythologies, which is stringently structuralist.

Barthes had referenced photography in earlier essays: in ‘Photography and Electoral Appeal’ from Mythologies he proposes a brief, and solely structuralist deconstruction of photos. He wrote of ‘full face photos’ and ‘three-quarter face photos’ as having fixed effects. In ‘The Photographic Message’ from Image-Music-Text, he states his intention to investigate the “definition of the initial difficulties in providing a structural analysis of the photographic message.” This would seem to indicate a movement away from the rigidity of structuralism, but his notion of connotation as the second level of meaning in photographs was still considered imposed and structured on the spectator.

Camera Lucida is firmly rooted in his subjective experience with certain photographs. In this way it represents both an evolution in his thinking tthat brought him to the other polemic of his structuralist past, as well as an active piece of rebellion against positivism and empiricism. Rather than focusing on deconstructing normalized conventions, Barthes is interrogating why he, personally, looks at certain photos, and why even fewer ignite painful emotions inside him.

On page 21 he writes: “…the anticipated essence of the photograph could not, in my mind, be separated from the ‘pathos’ of which, from the first glance, it consists… As spectator I was interested in Photography only for ‘sentimental reasons; I wanted to explore it not as a question (a theme) but as a wound: I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe, and I think.”

Making it very clear he himself was not a photographer, claiming he was ‘too impatient’ for photography, Barthes instead he frames his perspective as coming solely from that of a participant in, and viewer of photographs, no different from the majority of society. He states: “I possessed only two experiences: that of the observed subject and that of the subject observing…”

Barthes investigation in Camera Lucida is made up of two parts. He begins by investigating why certain photographs capture his attention. Barthes saw a multitude of photos every day, and many of them pass by his eyes without registering. The same thing happens with us, we see countless photos during our daily travails, they mean nothing to us, invoke no emotion. Other times something about a photo will subjectively pique our interest. There is something within the photograph which appeals to you. To Barthes there does not have to be a reason for why the photo catches your interest, just that it does. This is what he referred to this as the photographs studium, the component of a photo that elicits the most basic of attention, that separates it from all the other photos you mindlessly discard. Barthes was writing about why certain seemingly mundane photographs caught his attention, so his research material in the first part could be considered to extend to any and all photographs that he has ever seen in his life. With only his subjective interest as reasoning behind his method, Barthes is directly contradicting positivist notions of rigor in selection.

On pages 7 he writes: “So I went on, not daring to reduce the world’s countless photographs… I found myself at an impasse and, so to speak, ‘scientifically’ alone and disarmed.” And on page 9 he states: “I make myself the measure of photographic knowledge.”

Studium is based on one’s own “sovereign consciousness’, in that sense it runs in opposition to his previous structuralist notions, as they had no room for individual subjectivities. But to Barthes, studium was “coded” nonetheless. There was still structure involved in ‘studium’ because the attraction could be attributed to preferences and conventions. Studium was only the first step in understanding the noeme of photography, for it only accounted for why he liked certain photographs, not why others affected him so profoundly.

As Barthes continued musing on photographs he noticed that certain photographs had a small, unintentional element within them that not only caught his attention, but transported his consciousness, and inspired his imagination. This small unintentional element is not a key feature to the photograph, but is instead seemingly inconsequential. I say seemingly because what this tiny component of the photo does is move the spectator to a new, deeply personal place in their mind, it instigates their imagination by taking them to this unique place. “While it is only one tiny detail, it becomes the focal point of the photograph; it fills the whole picture. The photo stops becoming a sign, or a representation of a moment of past reality, it instead ‘annihilates’ that reality, and is no longer a sign, but the source of inspiration.” On page 57 he wrote: “Once there is a punctum, a blind field is created (is divined)” Punctum can either ‘Break’ or ‘punctuate’ studium according to Barthes. It can either enhance the studium of a photo, or it can destroy it altogether, if a seemingly inconsequential photo, one that would not even appeal to one’s studium, stirs deep emotion and animation.

To Barthes this transcendent detail in a photo was it’s Punctum, Latin for puncture, because this tiny component was actually deeply emotionally wounding. It doesn’t only transcend the image itself and take the spectator to a personal space in their mind, it also stays with them after the fact. This ‘divined’ space is created by the punctum of a photo and exists henceforth. One of Barthes’ methods for investigating punctum involved distancing spectator from the photo itself. On pages 53 and 55 he writes “in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes…. The photograph touches me if I withdraw it from it’s usual blab-blah: ‘Technique’, ‘reality’, ‘reportage’, ‘art’, etc., to say nothing, to shut my eyes, to allow the detail to rise of its own accord into affective consciousness.” He wants the spectator to look at the photo without using their eyes, to find and appreciate its’ punctum within their own mind.

Now for a moment, just think about how far away from empiricist notions of investigation this method is. There is no induction or deduction, no verification or falsification, there is only an individuals subjective emotions and imagination. It is not tangibly measurable and does not fit into imposed structures or codes. It is only unique experience between individuals and photographs. Barthes is directly opposing scientism by focusing solely on the embodied meaning of photographs.

Part one ends with Barthes’ dissatisfaction with his investigation. While the punctum of certain random photos did animate his imagination, he was not satisfied that he had truly answered his questions about the noeme of photography. On page 60 He wrote: “I had to grant that my pleasure was an imperfect mediator, and that a subjectivity reduced to its hedonistic project could not recognize the universal. I would have to descend deeper into myself.”

And for Part 2 that is precisely what Barthes did. He opened up the deeply personal wounds that came from his mothers’ loss through one photo, another seemingly inconsequential photo of his mother that he calls the ‘Winter Garden Photograph.’

Barthes explained that in going through his mothers’ old photographs, he was reliving the life of someone he loved dearly backwards; from the year of her death back through to her childhood. It was upon looking at the ‘Winter Garden Photograph’ that Barthes found what he referred to as: “something like an essence of the photograph.” On page 73 he wrote: “I therefore decided to ‘derive’ all photography (it’s nature) from the only photograph which assuredly existed for me, and to somehow make it a guide for my last investigation.” The ‘Winter Garden Photograph’ meant so much to him, it resonated so deeply, that Barthes seemed to have felt as though if the noeme could not be determined there, it would not exist at all.

By positioning his study this way, Barths entrenches himself firmly in opposition to any semblance of scientism. First of all, in choosing one photograph, Barthes is taking a direct challenge to empiricism, which requires replicability, verification, falsification and sample size. He is saying that he can derive a universal from his unique experience with one photograph. Barthes in his words gives himself to the image, in opposition to the rigid definitions and classifications of family provided by positivist science. His profound love and loss could not allow him to fit his mother within that paradigm for his investigation.

Though Barthes speaks in great detail of his beloved ‘Winter Garden’ photograph, it is not among the many photos in the book which he also references within the text. He simply could not include the photo that meant so much to him, as it could never have achieved a fraction of the same emotional resonance for any spectator reading the book as it did for him personally. He states this on page 73 when he wrote: “I cannot reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph. It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture… at most it would interest your studium: period, clothes, photogeny, but in it, for you, no wound.”

So I thought it would be appropriate to do an analysis similar to what Barthes performed in Camera Lucida, but in order to choose a photo for analysis I had to look into my own life, and this was difficult. In fact this whole project has been very difficult, since I was reading Camera Lucida and working on this during the sixth anniversary of my own father’s death from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. When trying to decide what to do for this analysis I ultimately realized that in my Spartan student apartment I had only one photo out, this photo.

After my fathers death as I sorted through his belongings around our old house I found this photo in his old work area. It’s a photo of me as a child, on my old sailboat on Lake Winderemere, taken by my father. I never went through our old photographs after his death, it was one of the few responsibilities I didn’t assume, but I found this one pinned onto one of the shelves in his workroom, took it, and found it in my apartment last week. That I had taken it, framed it, and held onto it, indicates its’ appeal to my studium. But as an individual who has been trained as a photographer and snapped countless shots in my day, I wondered why this photo with it’s non-descript composition appealed to me, beyond of course my fondness for my old boat.

Having thought about it after reading the text, I did in fact notice my very own punctum, it undoubtedly had to do with the timing of everything and my subsequent empathy with Barthes, but if you look closely you’ll notice the front sail is still wound-up while I’m fixing the mainsail. This is actually an error on my part; it is the normal convention to undo the front, or jibsail, first, and to let it flap while getting the mainsail set. Once the mainsails is up and tight, you’re basically moving, so the other sail should be ready. This made me think that perhaps I had been aware my father had been taking the photo and that had affected me as I rigged the boat.

In thinking of the motivation behind my behaviour on the boat the punctum transcended the photograph and inspired my imagination, as I realized that this photo may have been my father’s ‘Winter Garden Photograph’ as well. After all he was also a photographer, but our house had a limited number of photos on display, save for a wall of family photos. This photo was in his work area, one of the few spots in our cramped house that was solely his. I began to wonder why this photo would mean so much to my father.

To explain further I must put into context that my father was an orphan in Holland during WWII, the Nazi’s took everything from him and his brothers and sisters, and he came to Canada at 19 with nothing, not speaking a word of English. From there, while developing a comparably modest life to most Canadians, he found a home, and built a family.

When he was a child he couldn’t have a soccer ball because the Gestapo would take it, they had to play soccer with paper tied with string. He saw things so horrible that only on his deathbed did he begin to speak of them. So for him to have a shack near a lake in Canada for his family where he could watch his son learn to sail, may have been the realization of his Canadian dream; this photo to me captured the essence of his life’s work. That the photo is of me casts the weight of this Canadian dream, his life’s work, upon my shoulders, and that, is the puncture that I can only feel, that wounds only me.

I only looked photo briefly hours before writing this in order to follow Barthes’ method, to let the punctum develop as naturally as possible. In doing so I gave new life to the photo, and I believe this opposes Barthes notion of the photo as signifying death, or the defeat of time. While to Barthes describes photos as: “that is, and that is going to die.”, the photographs transcendence also creates a new life that exists outside the image.

In using this photograph for this project, I am not only giving it new life through my transcendent thoughts about it. But by presenting them here, as a graduate student, in this setting, I am re-actualizing and updating the same dreams my father had, and had worked his whole life for, when he took the photo originally. The photo is therefore to me not a marker of death, but an agent of life.

So the unique nature of this more phenomenological approach to semiotics is of course its’ emphasis on the individual experience with a sign as opposed to established conventions associated with them. In Part 2 Barthes differentiated between the ‘voice of banality’, or common convention, and the ‘voice of singularity’, which is unique to each individuals experience. The ‘voice of banalty’ represents his established notions of semiotics, while the ‘voice’ of singularity represents this new direction, and this new way of understanding the construction, and embodiment, of meaning within photographs. Had he not died before Camera Lucida was published, it would have been interesting to see if his work had incorporated both voices going forward. Thank you.

Note: Notes from presentation for COMS 615- Research Methods