Senior Seminar

Plato wrote his interpretations of the teachings of Socrates, a rational idealist who envisioned an ideal society for the ancient Greeks. When reading in Book III of The Republic the discussion Socrates has with Glaucon of the necessary classes of which his perfect society consists, I wonder where the poets, artists, musicians, and dramatists fit in. Those who were given to tragedy and emotion seem, in Socrates’ idealism, to have been regarded with disparagement. Socrates, in The Republic, Book X, devalues these artists as imitators, imitation being the farthest from the truth (593b). Friedrich Nietzsche, a realist who saw society not as it should be, but as it was, over 2000 years later in The Birth of Tragedy, does not agree. He saw art as what makes life worthy of being lived. Mark Rothko, an American abstract expressionist painter who emigrated from Russia at the age of seven, drew from many sources, including Nietzsche and Plato, to reflect on society and cause the individual to ponder the meaning of life at a deeper level. If Socrates is correct and art is seen as merely imitation, then surely it would hold little value. If Nietzsche is correct and art is what saves man from an existence of despair, art is necessary. Rothko, an intellectual, a thinker and highly educated artist who immersed himself in philosophy, music, and literature, was unable to lift himself from the despondency of his later years and committed suicide at the age of 66. Art did not save him, yet his art lives on to inspire and transform.

The case against imitation begins in Book III when Socrates is discussing with Adeimantus whether the guardians, the keepers of his ideal society, ought to be imitators or not. Socrates states the guardians are to imitate only men who are courageous, moderate, holy, and free, not slavish or anything else shameful, and “they must neither do nor be clever at imitating, so that they won’t get a taste for the being practiced from its imitation” (395c). Socrates goes on to denigrate acting as a form of imitation — an art form he seems to hold in low esteem. After this, the conversation shifts to one with Glaucon about music. Socrates extols music, but with a limited view; it is to incite courage in warlike deeds and to persuade in moderation (399b). He is also adverse to change and innovation, stating, “there must be no innovation in gymnastic and music, contrary to the established order . . . For they must beware of change to a strange form of music, taking it to be a danger to the whole” (399b). He then explains his reasoning, “For never are the ways of music moved without the greatest political laws being moved, as Damon says, and I am persuaded” (424c).

In Books VI and VII, we learn of Plato’s “Theory of Knowledge,” which is illustrated in his allegory of the cave, with imagination representing the lowest level. In the allegory of the cave, these imaginings are the shadows of the actual objects seen by a mankind imprisoned in such a way as to have never seen the light of day or the reality that it illumines. This world of shadows, images and reflections, is the visible world, a world of opinions created by poets, dramatists, artists, and image-makers. The next level is that of belief, or perception of actual objects. This is on a higher plane than that of imagination, but it is still in the realm of opinion and is still contained in the visible world. This knowledge is based on what is observed, how things seem, and is the knowledge of the typical Athenian democrat.

The next two levels bring us up from the lowly realm of opinion in the visible world to the loftier realm of knowledge in the intelligible world. In the allegory of the cave, we have left the world of shadow, of everyday belief and artistic fantasy, to come into the light of the sun. The difference here is that the objects of the intellect are not concrete, but rather are conceptual. And whereas the concrete, the things we see, are always subject to change, the conceptual things are unchanging and immutable. Plato’s name for these concepts is “forms.” Visible objects are but a representation of their true form or idea. To Plato, forms are the most real and are what make true knowledge possible.

In Book X, Plato goes on with his argument against poets, artists, musicians, and dramatists, expounding on the concept that they are imitators. He brings in the theory of the forms, giving an example of a couch. There is the idea, or form of the couch, one built by a carpenter, and one represented in a painting by a painter. To Socrates the painting is but an “imitation…surely far from the truth” (598c) and “third from what is” (599a). He accuses the painter of “deceiving children and foolish human beings” (598c). Socrates then criticizes the poets, especially Homer, for speaking about that which they do not know. He asks Homer if any of the cities are better governed because of his writings.

But should art be limited just to the purpose of governing, defense, or usefulness? For ancient Greeks, life was wrought with suffering and the struggle for existence. They were at the mercy of nature, chance, and affliction. Life was fundamentally terrible. Werner J. Dannhauser, in Nietzsche’s View of Socrates, states that out of this realization, the Greeks created the Olympian gods, placing an invented world of art between themselves and the suffering they bore at the whims of nature (50). The epic and tragedy were art forms born of this creation. Fredrich Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, disagrees with Socrates about the value of art in society. He says that art and poetry are essential for human existence. He recognized that the early Hellene, by nature capable of the most severe suffering, would comfort himself by gazing into tragedy, for “art saves him, and through art life saves him — for itself” (Nietzsche 40). Nietzsche goes on to explain how man, having gazed into the true essence of things and having acquired knowledge that he can do nothing to set right a world so out of joint, will despair. No solace has any effect. There is a longing for death. Once truth has been seen, man feels revulsion and is in extreme danger. It is here that “art alone can re-direct those repulsive thoughts about the terrible or absurd nature of existence into representations with which man can live” (Nietzsche 40).

Nietzsche felt Socrates lacked any capacity for mysticism and that his logical nature was over-developed, creating an emptiness in his relation to art, even blaming Socrates for the death of tragedy (Nietzsche 69-71). As we have seen, however, for Socrates, tragedy was useless and even detrimental to society. In his optimism of promoting a perfect society there was no place for the submission to emotion and illusion. He wanted a striving for the Pure and the Good. Emotion and illusion were not pure and good, they were signs of weakness and a lack of truth. Dannhauser, in Nietzsche’s View of Socrates, says that what happened after Socrates’ influence is that dialectics began to overshadow art, which became ancillary to philosophy. This changed art because dialectics is essentially optimistic, ending with a positive conclusion or lesson learned (Dannhauser 64). Nietzsche saw optimism as a futile emotion, setting one up for disappointment. Plato, when writing of Socrates, was an artist, but his art was overshadowed by the dialectic. The basic lessons of Socratic optimism, with their ultimate purpose of the improvement of society, shone throughout.

Mark Rothko went beyond Socrates’ belief that art is mere imitation, using it to make a statement on society. Jacob Baal-Teshuva in his book, Mark Rothko, writes that the artist was fascinated with Plato and ancient Greek mythology, and, during the years of World War II, depicted barbarism and civilization, pain, aggression, and violence on a metaphoric level (33). Later, Rothko wanted to give painting the same kind of expressive power as music or literature. Like Nietzsche, Rothko believed that music was the true language of emotion. It was his great love, inspiration, ecstasy, and consolation. It was Nietzsche’s writings about music and art in The Birth of Tragedy, combined with his reverence for Aeschylus which contributed to Rothko’s later idea of art as drama. In late 1947, Rothko wrote in the winter issue of Possibilities,

“I see my pictures as dramas, their figures as actors. They arose from the need for a group of actors who can move on the stage without inhibitions or shame.” He said that the greatest achievements of the century were those in which the artist took up the probable and mundane and showed the isolated figure of the individual, alone in his moment of greatest helplessness. The essay ended with the assertion that it didn’t matter whether painting was abstract or figurative. “The point is to end this stillness and loneliness and to be able to breathe and stretch one [sic] arms again.” (Rothko qtd. in Baal-Teshuva 42)

Another statement by Rothko reveals his intent:

I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions… The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point. (Rothko qtd. in Baal-Teshuva 57)

I have found much richness, beauty, and truth in the writings of Plato. Though I would agree with his assertion that the gift of reason can save us from the vulnerabilities of life, I cannot accept his lowly regard for art. I do agree, though, that when art is mere imitation, it is lesser than that which comes from deep within. That is what Nietzsche had discovered when he wrote about prolonged pain in The Gay Science, “I doubt that such pain makes us ‘Better’; but I know that it makes us more profound” (Nietzsche 36). This was definitely true of Rothko, whose art went beyond the dialectic and was made more profound by his experience with pain and tragedy. Diane Waldman writes at the conclusion of her introductory essay in Mark Rothko, A Retrospective,

No longer is his art earthbound, sensual, corporeal. He had attained a harmony, an equilibrium, a wholeness, in the Jungian sense, that enabled him to express universal truths in his breakthrough works, fusing the conscious and the unconscious, the finite and the infinite, the equivocal and the enequivocal, the sensuous and the spiritual. Now he had left behind all that spoke of the carnate, the concrete, He had reached the farther shore of art. (69)

Baal-Teshuva, Jacob. Mark Rothko. Köln: Taschen, 2003.

Dannhauser, Werner J. Nietzsche’s View of Socrates. London: Cornell University Press, 1974.

Nietzsche, Freidrich. The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Ed. Raymond Geuss and Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.

Plato. The Republic. Translated by Allan Bloom. Perseus, 1968.

Rothko, Mark. Mark Rothko: Taschen Portfolio. Köln: Taschen, 2003.

Waldman, Diane. Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1978

The Author has been dead since 1968. Which Author? All of them, and none of them. Who killed the Author? No one, because the Author never actually existed. Or so says Roland Barthes. 1968 was the year in which he published his essay, “The Death of the Author.” Near the beginning, Barthes says that, “...writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (1466). Is this itself a little oblique? The introduction to the anthology from which I take this essay notes that Barthes is “resolutely committed to unlearning the routines of intelligibility” (1457). We can take this commitment to unintelligibility either as an invitation to attempt to unravel Barthes’ meaning, or as an invitation to throw the book in which we find his essay against the wall, and then to stride purposefully from the room. But let’s press on. Perhaps a concrete example from Barthes’ essay will help elucidate his meaning. Barthes begins by speaking of Balzac. In his story “Sarrasine,” Balzac describes a castrato disguised as a woman : “This was woman herself, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive worries, her impetuous boldness, her fussings, and her delicious sensibility” (1466). This leads Barthes to wonder who is speaking. Is it Balzac the author, speaking from a place of authority, putting forth literary ideas on femininity? Is it Balzac the individual relating his personal experience of women? Is it not Balzac at all, but the musings of the main character of the story? Is it universal wisdom? (1466). Barthes answers his own questions in this way: “We shall never know, for the good reason that writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” (1466). He states, “As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begin.” (1466). So there is a disconnection between the writing and that to which it refers - the experience, the event, the emotion. Perhaps we should pause here and consider the following statement by Anthony Hartley, from his Introduction to The Penguin book of French Verse:

One of the results of the formation of classical French in the seventeenth century was the increased precision in use and abstraction in the meaning of words. This precision carries a degree of generalization. A house can only always be exactly a house, if it refers more to the idea of a house than an individual building on the horizon. But, in referring to the idea, it will have lost some of its power of affective communication . It will be a house, but it will not strike anyone as the house in which they live. This process...has been carried further in France than elsewhere, since the opposition to new words and slang managed for a long time to prevent the renewal of affective language from these sources. (326)

In other words, French has a much greater tendency toward abstraction than, say, English, and the perception with which French writers view writing and language is a result of the function of the French language, and not necessarily completely applicable to writing in languages other than French, for example, English. So perhaps we need to keep in mind that both of the theorists we are considering in this essay, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, originally wrote in French, which is presupposed toward abstraction. These problems of disconnection are perhaps not as inherent in other languages such as English.

At any rate, we may find it instructive to ask what Barthes’ motive is - why is it necessary for Barthes that the Author be dead? I think Barthes gives quite a good statement of his purpose toward the end of his essay: “Classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; for it, the writer is the only person in literature. We are now beginning to let ourselves be fooled no longer by the arrogant antiphrastical recriminations of good society in favour of the very thing it sets aside, ignores, smothers, or destroys; we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (1470) So we see that Barthes’ agenda is actually one of liberation for the reader. Reading is itself a creative act, a collaboration which helps invent the text, a text which contains and potentially reveals a multiplicity of meanings. There is no one Author, no one fixed reductive truth in one Authorial voice. This is certainly a laudable sentiment, isn’t it?

Well - yes and no. It is both expansive and reductive. For the sake of his argument, Barthes must break the Author down into little components, which he then invites us to attempt to prioritize. He then questions the process of trying to create and prioritize these little components. Which component is the real one? he invites us to ask, to which do we give primacy? But he invites us to do this only so we can see how ridiculous it is to break the author down into little components and try to prioritize them. So why are we invited into this process in the first place? I would say Barthes invites us into this process so that he can further his argument. But is this in fact the process we use when we read? Do we need to de-compose the Author in order to find significance in a text? Do we try to find the one voice which has priority over the others? A good writer of fiction indeed does not speak in one fixed, unified voice. We expect the Author to speak in a multiplicity of voices, the voices of the characters the author creates. And whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, we judge the Author’s success at least partly on his skill in creating convincing and realistic voices for diverse characters. We approach a work of fiction with expectations of encountering a multiplicity of personalities. We may read non-fiction in a different way - as we read a history, or a scientific treatise, or a textbook, or a newspaper article - we may be attempting to get as close as we can to the actuality of an event. Here we may seek an authorial voice, an explanation, but if we read critically at all, we won’t accept the Author’s voice as the final immutable Word. We will read the text as presenting elements of either explicit or implicit opinion And when we read an essay, or a bit of philosophy, are we looking for one meaning? Hopefully an essay (like Barthes’, for example) will shoot off little sparks of meaning, perhaps even contradictory meanings, which invite the reader into a collaboration, an imaginary dialogue, with the author. Do we really expect the voice of one big immutable Author in a text, a Voice delivering Ultimate Truth? I would say - not usually. And is there not an inherent contradiction in Barthes’ writing his essay, using his authorial voice to announce the death of the author, who by the way, never actually existed? Who then wrote Barthes’ essay? You? Me? No one?

The Author was Dead as of 1968, but in 1969 Michel Foucault replied to Bathes essay by asking, “What Is An Author?” His answer, as might be expected, is a little complicated, but in brief, I think the answer is, the Author is an idea, a construct. Foucault invites us to view the Author as “a function of discourse” (1628). In the middle of his essay, he makes the following points, which I will briefly paraphrase:

1. The author becomes real as a result of legal discourse. There are at least two ways in which this happens: One, the author is liable for his writings; if, for example, they are deemed subversive, or slanderous, or obscene, or in any way unlawful, the writer as individual is subject to punishment; and two, copyright rules establish ownership - writing is the legal property of an individual, the author who creates it, who writes it down.
2. The author function is not universally accepted in all discourse, nor is it necessary. For example, who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh? It has no identifiable author.
3. The author is a projection the reader or critic creates to give meaning and unification to a text.
4. A writer of fiction is a “plurality of egos.” He presents us with a multiplicity of personalities, of voices (We have discussed this already in our comment on Barthes) (1628).

These are all excellent points. One wonders, however - if the Author is a function of discourse, a construct, why is Foucault’s name at the top of his essay? Why isn’t his essay signed, “What Is An Author,” by “A Function of Discourse?” If the author, any author, is a construct, why does Foucault use the pronoun “I” sixteen times in the first three paragraphs of his essay? Is this pronoun “I” a construct, a function of discourse? Or is Foucault saying that every author is a construct except Foucault?

Yes, I know - I’m being unfair. But lately I’ve been spending most of my leisure time deconstructing myself, so it’s hard for me to present a unified, authorial voice. I’m pretty sure, for example, that I am not writing this essay that I am writing. But this is actually liberating, and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t expect you, the reader, to engage with this text, to in fact create this text. Why should I do all the work?

Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” Trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Vincent B. Leitch, ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001.

Hartley, Anthony. “The Nineteenth Century.” The Penguin Book of French Verse. Brian Wolege, ed. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973.

As the United States attempts to bring democratic government to the people of Iraq, it might be helpful to consider the relationship in this country between education and democratic society. American education theorists tend to agree that “the fundamental purpose of education should be the preparation of informed, engaged, democratic citizens” (Kyle para. 1). The educational system, largely a government supported and administered entity, is the primary method by which we Americans inculcate democratic ideals and procedures in our citizens. As a social construct, education ought to reflect the needs of society, and should therefore offer both the knowledge and the skills that enable and empower students to be better citizens, workers, and neighbors. But can the same educational models that function to support democracy in the West be successfully applied to the educational system of Iraq?

John Dewey writes that “all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race.” Democratic society benefits when its citizenry share a common foundational bank of knowledge, as well as the critical and communicative skills necessary to be productive, active participants in the democratic process. Additionally, students benefit by gaining self-knowledge and the skills needed to be effective problem-solvers, productive members of society, and informed and empowered citizens. Again, Dewey asserts that “the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals” (para. 6). Education therefore is bound to address the needs of both the individual and of society as a whole, and the goals of education should include provision of a common language of cultural heritage, as well as skills that foster productivity, critical thinking, and effective communication.

Education is the means by which cultural heritage—what Dewey calls “the inherited resources of the race”—is transmitted from one generation to the next (para. 7). Basic knowledge is a valid goal for a society, if only to promote a common language of cultural understanding among its members. Society is well served when its citizens understand something about the history and traditions of the world in which they function. Americans, for example, should have a basic comprehension of the structural and philosophical foundations of democracy, the history of the civil rights movement, and the framework of the Constitution, to name but a few examples. But how does this concept of cultural transmission apply to the educational system of a people whose history has never been associated with democratic ideals of governance? Even in America, the idea of an essential “core” curriculum has been a source of intense ideological debate; likewise the Iraqis will need to struggle to identify principles of democracy that can be reconciled with their own cultural and historical heritage.

While education functions appropriately as a transmitter of culture and history, it must also strive to develop the critical and analytical skills of the individual—the skills that ultimately provide the environment and opportunity for democratic progress. Dewey writes that “education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform” (para. 59). It is through the process of critical thinking and evaluation that citizens can question and challenge oppressive governmental and societal practices, and this capacity is crucial to democracy. Critical pedagogies push students to identify oppression and inequality, and to analyze and challenge social and political norms. It is this process of constant review and self-evaluation that makes democracy a participatory form of government in which citizens are free to question and oppose dominant ideology.

James Berlin notes that ideology—our beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and motivations—informs our social values, how we approach problems, and how we understand the distribution of power in society. Political ideology, consequently, becomes closely aligned with pedagogy (54-7). Feminist pedagogy, for example, seeks to challenge the tradition of patriarchal control by posing questions oriented towards the feminine regarding literature, language, culture, and society, while social-epistemic pedagogy views education as a means to social activism and change (Berlin 67). Ken Kyle suggests that, in America, competing educational ideologies can be classified into three distinct categories—social efficiency, social mobility, and democratic equality— based on their assumptions of the primary goals of education. Accordingly, social efficiency sees

education’s goal [a]s the preparation of skilled workers to meet the needs of business. Social mobility is premised on the belief that education’s purpose is to prepare students to compete for social positions. Democratic equality is based on the premise that democracy is a desirable state of affairs and that the principal force driving education should be the preparation of democratic citizens. (para. 4).

The challenge for the Iraqis is obvious. For the past thirty years—effectively three generations of students—Iraqis who were permitted access to the educational process were subjected to the indoctrination of an oppressive regime that was in opposition to the democratic ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. Decades of governance by fear, intolerance, abuse, and oppression have most certainly penetrated the Iraqi educational system. As the Iraqis seek to create a society that maintains the ideals of their cultural and historical heritage but which reflects a desire for greater freedom, equality, and justice, education will necessarily play a crucial role in raising up a new generation of Iraqis dedicated to democratic ideals and practices.

Dewey, John. “My Pedagogic Creed.” EBSCOHost. 15 November 2003. http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/e-dew-pc.htm.

Kyle, Ken and Charles Jenks. “The Theoretical and Historical Case for Democratic Education in the United States.” Educational Studies, 00131946. 33.2 June 2002. EBSCOHost. 15 November 2003.

In Plato’s Symposium, a group of eminent Athenians gather to indulge in some wine drinking and to discuss the nature of Eros, the nature of Love. One of the speakers is the comic playwright Aristophanes, who offers the following myth: Originally humans were four-armed, four-legged, two headed creatures. They walked much as we do, except when they were in a hurry, at which point they propelled themselves along by doing cartwheels. Eventually, these creatures came to the notice of Zeus, who decided they were a little too powerful, and were perhaps in a position to challenge the might of the gods. So Zeus split them in half. Originally these creatures had been one of three sexes - all male, all female, or androgynous, half male and half female. Now that they were split, these creatures spent their existances searching for their other halves, to form once again a complete being, be it man/woman, man/man, or woman/woman (25-29).

This myth is appealing for a number of reasons. It provides a slightly grotesque, but still comic, ontology of desire - we are compelled by our natures to seek out our other half, in order to form a complete being. Since the four-legged creatures were originally all male, all female, or androgynous, we can remove the question of morality from the issue of whether persons of the same sex belong together - it is natural for creatures of any of these orientations to seek completion with their other halves. Further, Aristophanes relates that when the creatures were split, some of the halves perished; but halves that were not split from the same creature could still find fulfillment by linking up with other halves to form a complete being (29). So there seems to be a lot of leeway in this particular mythology for people to connect, and to do so is, after all, only to follow the dictates of our original nature.

Turning to the Biblical account of the creation of man and woman, we remember that woman was formed from the rib of man (Genesis 2:22). This still retains the idea that man and woman were once united in the same being, but is often interpreted as giving man priority, having been created first, and that woman is sort of a lesser man, having been created from a part of man. But we should also keep in mind that there are actually two creation stories in Genesis - the one just detailed, and the other (which actually comes first) in which God creates both man and woman as complete beings, and presumably simultaneously (Genesis 1:26). This version of the creation of man and woman is obviously more appealing to our modern sensibilities, for it implies an equality between man and woman. Whichever of the two versions we choose, we then have the business of the serpent, and the Tree of Knowledge, and the fruit thereof - and then carnality enters the world, accompanied by pain in childbirth, and then - there are many other ramifications. At this point, we should perhaps turn to St. Augustine, but I heartily commend to the reader’s attention John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which gives a much more detailed account of these proceedings, and explains very well the attendant philosophy.

Jumping ahead 2500 years (give or take a century or two), we encounter “A Childish Prank,” a poem by Ted Hughes in his collection, Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow, which builds upon both of these previous mythologies, although in a despairing and savage way. In this poem/myth, man and woman lie in Eden, asleep, without souls. Crow, a figure aligned with nature, but also with brutality and chaos, bites “God’s only son,” the worm, in half. “He stuffed into man the tail half/With the wounded end hanging out.” Then:

He stuffed the head half headfirst into woman
And it crept in deeper and up

To peer out through her eyes
Calling its tail-half to join up quickly, quickly
Because O it was painful.

Man awoke being dragged across the grass.
Woman awoke to see him coming.
Neither knew what had happened. (7)

This is brutal and grotesque. It is also powerful, and once read, not forgotten. The worm incorporates the motif of the serpent from Genesis, and the compulsion to link halves has a parallel with Aristophanes’ myth. These are joined into a dark, but original, mythology. Crow was published in 1971, yet this poem seems to come from an age so savage and primordial that Aristophanes’ mythology seems, in contrast, to come from the apex of a sophisticated and enlightened age. Hughes is perhaps tying a mythology and attendant worldview to a feeling of personal despair, but that approaches the autobiographical, and is, of course, total conjecture on my part.

We find the last mythology we will consider in The Job, a book of conversations with William S. Burroughs published in 1974. Burroughs states that women are a sort of mutation: “I think they were a basic mistake, and the whole dualistic universe evolved from this error” (116). He continues, “I think that what we call love is a fraud perpetuated by the female sex, and that the point of sexual relations between men is nothing that we could call love, but rather what we might call recognition” (Burroughs 118). This does form a mythology - it has an ontological basis, and is, I believe, to be taken symbolically, for if we take it literally, it is obviously misogynist, and appalling. Perhaps I’m being too charitable, but I feel that we can read it in another sense. We should also remember that Burroughs’ purpose is to shock us out of our complacency, and that he employs offensive statements as part of this strategy; at one point in the same conversation the interviewer asks, referring to a passage in Burroughs’ The Soft Machine, “What is the symbolism of the lesbian agents with penises grafted onto their faces drinking spinal fluid?” to which Burroughs answers, “Just a bit of science fiction, really.” (119).

I believe that what Burroughs is really addressing is the attempt at freedom from a dualistic view of the universe, and also freedom from social constraints and institutions. Ironically, Burroughs wants it both ways - his statement that women were a basic mistake implies, I think, a creation myth not unlike our version of the Garden of Eden story, in which woman was created from man, so I feel he “buys in” to a traditional mythology. Yet he also seems to want to throw the entire Judeo-Christian tradition out the window as a lot of unnecessary moral baggage. Perhaps at the time in which he was speaking, Burroughs felt somewhat defensive about his position as it is certainly reactionary.

All these mythologies imply a lot about attitudes toward questions of gender and sexuality. I consider my little attempts at interpretation a playful intellectual enterprise, and quite preliminary. Some of these stories are more appealing than others (I like Aristophanes’ a lot), but all are open to various interpretation, and, of course, raise many lines of thought, none of which we need to consider as definitive.

Hughes, Ted. “A Childish Prank.” Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford UP, 1989.

Odier, Daniel. The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs. New York: Penguin Books, 1974.

Plato. Symposium. Trans. Alexander Nehmans and Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989.

I don’t like this assignment. I think that casting yourself, someone else, an animal or an object as strictly representative of anything else is ridiculous and is only useful if you’re selling something. An icon is used to communicate a large idea in small terms—like the icons on your desktop computer. Computer icons are simple logos that expand into complex programs. When a figurative icon is employed to convey meaning, you can’t just double-click and get the whole picture. This is why icons are dangerous, because people are expected to expand the “programs” in their heads. Depending on the individual, this expanding process might be a little much to ask of their “hard drive.”

Using iconography is how Americans sell an idea without bothering to explore its character. Polititians and advertisers constantly cast people and products as quintessential examples of abstract ideas. Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are examples. They have become icons that embody evil and terrorism. This might be a useful analogy to make for a politician, but in the end it’s limiting. For example, Saddam can’t even be a terrorist by definition because he is a leader of a whole country. Duh.

According to the Encarta On-line Dictionary, an Icon is a:

recognizable symbol: a picture or symbol that is universally recognized to be representative of something * The icon of a walking person is the international symbol to indicate that it’s safe to cross the street.

If I were to say that a rock was a good representation of me, that would mean what? -that I’m strong? - hard? - immobile? -kinda boring and good at rolling down hills? Okay, sure, a rock and I may share a few characteristics, but that’s what a metaphor is for. An icon is more powerful. An icon is like the embodiment of something else. The walking man equals, “It’s safe to walk.” They are the same. The message is not changed. This is not possible of a place or a person. A poppy is not, in actuality, California. They’re really nothing alike. Abraham Lincoln, or “Honest Abe,” was not the embodiment of honesty. He was a politician, for goodness’ sake.

Christ! Look what happened to Jesus. First he became jewelry and then he became a plastic fish-shaped bumper sticker that keeps on growing and shedding its legs. I suppose he kinda asked for it, but still…there are many icons that just get appropriated. Their lives and images become distorted in order to represent various causes with or without their consent. You don’t think Oregon actually asked the Beaver if he was down.

A Northwest icon? Okay, I realize that people need to identify with their environment. It’s good to know that Oregonians have beavers and beer and trees and computers and bridges, but what happens when these things become icons? It seems to me that the relationship changes. The industrious Columbia River as icon? Portland’s arching bridges as icon? Seattle’s “a Starbucks on every corner” as icon? The more icons I think of, the more I sound like a travel brochure. How about “Portland. The city of roses”? La-dee-da-dee-da. Pretty freaking roses. Are Portlanders like sweet smelling flowers? Do we grow in gardens? Do we have leaves and thorns? Even if you look at these qualities metaphorically as representative of human characteristics, there is nothing particularly “Portland” about the descriptions.

We could look at industry. We could define the Northwest in terms of its microbrews. Beer! The toast of Portland! We could look at it terms of its growing computer industry: The silicon forest. Wowie! Sounds majestic--like a jungle full of fake breasts.

Okay, so maybe technology and industry aren’t best suited for iconography. What about our Oregon state animal? How well does the Beaver represent the average Oregonian? We like to build things? (What city doesn’t build things?) We have buck teeth? (Well, not all of us, anyway). We build our houses in mud and eat live fish? (Okay, so maybe we do build our houses in mud and eat raw fish, but call me old fashioned because sushi still scares me).

What about our history? Maybe we can find some great icon that embodies the rugged L.L Bean in us all. How about Lewis and Clark? Yup, they were here, and boy, are they representative. Don’t all Oregonians machete through miles of wild America with the help of poor, confused Indian girls--just to get to work in the morning? Lewis and Clark…without them we would never have had a chance to displace the natives, pollute the rivers, and make lots of beer.

What else about the Northwest. Rain? Can rain be an Icon? Ah, yes, rain. The Northwest. We’ve got rain. We’re the people that get wet. Why? Because it rains all the time. Grey skies all the time! Come to the Northwest! We’re Depressed!

Okay, okay. Maybe there are some icons that do work okay. The one that comes to mind is George Bush Jr. as icon of Texas. “Whoopie! I’m the Texas Icon! Black gold, Texas tea! Boys!? Let’s form ourselves a posse and make sure that justists are served to them wranglers--right between there slanty eyes! Yeeeee Haaaa!”

Okay, just kidding. You see what I mean. My joke works on some levels, but it also ignores all the smart ed-ju-macated Texans that are out there.

I believe the idea of a person being an icon, as opposed to a symbolic figure, is where we get tripped up. I think that casting yourself as a symbolic figure is actually quite cool, if your head is in the right space. In becoming a symbolic figure, a person becomes a tool, or a mirror through which people can learn about themselves. This is what performers and writers do. They create a system of personality that is slightly simplified so that people can identify to it and learn about themselves. An icon is similar, but simpler and more direct. If you say John Wayne is a symbolic figure of the old west, he is, at least in the context of a system of understanding. He is a character in the story. If we call him an icon of the old west, he becomes emblematic of the west itself. He becomes synonymous with a part of history he didn’t even live through. He becomes like a god. How useful is that? And that is why I say: icon schmicon. Let’s keep our icons stuck to our computer screens where they belong.

On the cover page of Parade in The Sunday Oregonian is a photo of what appears an attractive, middle-aged woman with her naked back to the audience; she is looking down over her shoulder. The photo caught my concerned eye to read the rhetoric in bold, capital letters, “WHAT EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.” “Should know about what,” I thought, still agitated about a photo depicting an image of middle age as ageless beauty. It turns out that there are three articles in this “special issue” concerning women: “Should YOU Have Regular Mammograms?”, “My Advice On Estrogen,” and “The Truth About Postpartum Depression.” Because I am in the midst of this wonderful, yet perplexing, “woman’s rite of passage” (sometimes I wonder to what or where) called menopause, I immediately flipped to the article on “My Advice on Estrogen.” Much is written on this complex subject, mostly written by male physicians. While this greatly disturbs me because how can a man prescribe without ever being able to relate to the phenomenon, it also intrigues me to read what they have to say. In summary, the article is offering “startling new information on hormone replacement therapy” (HRT). During menopause the estrogen levels become low, causing an imbalance with other hormones – progesterone and testosterone. For years, menopausal women have been treated with prescribed doses of synthetic estrogens to help with the symptoms of hot flashes, mood swings, waning libido, and vaginal dryness. Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld states that the risk of HRT “appears” to outweigh the benefits of lessening the discomfort of menopause because studies are showing that women under HRT are more at risk of getting breast cancer. In conclusion, Dr. Rosenfeld gives his suggested formulas to “stop menopausal woes without HRT.”

The placement of text, photos, colors, and captions within the article lure a gender-specific audience. First of all, my eye went to Rosenfeld’s sympathetic photographic smile next to the huge letters written in red ink, “My Advice on ESTROGEN.” The color red has many connotations; in this context, it meant “emergency first-aid.” He’s dressed in the usual doctor whites, wearing glasses, and is gray-haired; he looks credible. Second, there is a photograph in the middle of the article of a hesitantly half-smiling woman, looking off in the distance as if in deep thought, with a glass of water; she is about to take a pill. The caption under the photo is in red ink, “Taking estrogen in combination with progestin was considered, until now [my emphasis], a safe way to stop the hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings of menopause.”

Interested in alternative medical practices, I continued reading the article. Upon completion, I realized how the public has been caught in not only media’s tangled web of promotions and profits, but also within the health profession’s as well. Rosenfeld’s conclusion snares like a spider’s web. His article contained some logic, until I came to the words advocating a gene analysis to determine a woman’s vulnerability to cancer malignancies, and (this is the clincher), “if positive, they should consider prophylactic removal of these organs,” meaning the breasts and/or uterus! Then, he continues in recommending antidepressant drugs, Prozac or Effexor, for mood swings!

So, instead of treating myself with hormone replacement, I’ll be a “boob-less or uterus-less idiot,” unable to feel emotions at all because of the anti-depressants. But I certainly will have prevented that dreaded disease called cancer. I cannot think of anything more horrid or illogical! Who do these male physicians think they are talking to – some ignorant or unintelligent species that needs this kind of advice of removing body parts as a prevention to a possible malignancy? This is not education; it is the promotion of fear to create a profit because surgery is much more lucrative than HRT.

The first clue should have warned me. This article was written by the editors of Parade, not by the doctor himself. Today, media and medical education are linked as one credible source. With this knowledge, I distanced myself from the article’s credibility and saw it for what it is. It represents the American medical and pharmaceutical gluttony in creating profits for surgeons and drug companies by advocating breast or uterus removal and expensive (anti-depressant) drugs that have little or no studies showing their effects on the mind and body. They prey on gullible women who think physicians are gods, which brings me back to the introduction of my paper. Why are we women listening to the male physician’s advice about the physiological deficits of menopause? This does not logically compute in my brain. Perhaps things might change if women physicians would suggest gene analysis on males, and if positive, surgically remove the scrotum to prevent prostate cancer!

Of course, the end of the article gives its disclaimer: “Although hormone replacement is currently in official disfavor, every patient is different. Consult your physician.” By the end, I had already surmised Rosenfeld was one physician I was not going to consult, but I feared for all the other women reading this article who might consider such drastic measures.

On a subconscious level, what is this saying about the menopause culture? Over three billion women go through this midlife event for an average of about ten years. In the 1960s, an all-male medical profession educated the public via medical journals that menopause is a “deficiency disease.” During midlife, a woman’s body becomes depleted of estrogen, and the treatment is to administer estrogen to ameliorate the deficiency. What was a natural event in the aging process suddenly became a disease, and only male physicians held the cure. The natural aging process of a woman becomes simultaneously subjective and subordinate to the medical industry – pharmaceuticals and physicians. And now even at the media’s stereotypical rhetoric!

It occurred to me that this ideology is based from a biological determination and a Western societal belief that a woman is her hormones. With her life culturally defined by fertility aided by hormones, without her hormones, she is automatically lacking. Evaluating this mindset, a young woman has elevated her status in her reproductive role at the onset of menstruation. Her youth and her fertility become a social value. The subliminal message equates youth and fertility to femininity, and the lack of youth and fertility as the loss of femininity. By declaring menopause a biological impediment needing the replacement of hormones to at least prolong youth, the socio-political message is clear that menopause an eroding end to all that is desirable and without the physician’s assistance, the menopausal woman is doomed to loosing her femininity.

To further the social construction of menopause, the inventions of psychoanalyst’s terms continue to send messages of deficiency. For example: it is the time when a woman’s “biological clock runs down”; or a time of midlife crisis; or because her reproductive cycle ends, she experiences the “empty nest syndrome”; and because of the “empty nest,” she develops self-esteem problems. Not only does she have psychological problems, but physiologically, she experiences a decrease in her libido, vaginal dryness, hot flashes, weight gain, and mood swings, as well. All this shortage must create a trauma for any woman; therefore, in order to abolish menopause, the medical profession will relieve her by making her “feminine forever” by administering HRT.

Synthetic hormones and psychotropic (anti-depressant) drugs become the cure-all for the menopausal woman, and advertising agencies use propaganda to develop the stereotype of menopause madness. Women fall victim to the propaganda in magazines and newspapers advocating youthful beauty treatments, new products, new advice, and new discoveries on and for this biological “liability.” Pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, medical professionals, and advertising agencies benefit economically, but the menopausal woman is tossed aimlessly around between new theories, new images, and new drugs because the medical profession does not take the time to listen to or comprehend this midlife phenomenon. The social message is clear: older women are sexually invisible, menopause is a dreadful disease, and the medical industry comes to the rescue the “damsel in distress” because she is incapable of doing it on her own.

Interestingly, the socio-political message of male and female inequality is clear when talking about life cycles. Women’s physical aging is linked to sexuality and self-esteem, and men in midlife gain weight, lose hair, and develop wrinkles, too, but midlife for men does not have the social label of disease or deficiency. A man’s reproductive system does not cease; he is born with an indefinite sperm bank. The social message reverberates superiority – the male’s sex hormones are a superior model because there is never a loss or lack. Of course, the recent craze for Viagra, a stimulant for the male sex drive, perpetuates this social message. Through the Western cultural lens, education and media promote menopause as a deficiency syndrome. This communication was developed by the patriarchal medical industry as a discourse to reaffirm the biological differences of the male and female, and at the same time, the superiority of the male species through structural analysis of those differences.

Today, the news of hormone replacement therapy is riskier than previously advertised. There are statements warning menopausal women that prolonged estrogen therapy can lead to cancer or cardiovascular disease. What is a woman to do? In reading another article in Time Magazine, “The Truth about Hormones,” many women have elected to take the matter into their own hands and try naturopathic methods, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, Chinese herbs, etc. Others have decided to take the risk of remaining on the hormones because the alternative, being without, is too drastic. If cancer will kill them anyway, they would rather manage the symptoms of aging and look and feel younger in the process, even though it has risks.

Personally, I am all for empowerment, returning to the understanding of natural life cycles, and valuing the aging process. As a long time advocate of alternative methods of medicine, I remain steadfast to the ideology that the medical profession is meant to be neutral and detached from public discourse, and every woman or man does not have to fall prey to the medical or advertisement establishments. As I enter this midlife event, I have found women’s support groups to be the most helpful. Sharing this event with one another assists in understanding the normalcy and naturalness of the life cycle and encourages the value of women and the aging process through supporting one another.

But the medical and media industries, influenced by mass culture, continue to counter the naturalness of a midlife event; menopause remains a deficiency disease. To return to the original article, now the deficiency disease is inadvertently linked with the dreaded disease of cancer. Not only does the association with cancer create fear and dread for any woman, but the suggestion of removing body parts also justifies the deficiency message. Since the medical industry has defined a woman by her hormones, without her hormones, she is not a woman; therefore, she is asexual. If she’s asexual, she might as well remove her breasts and/or uterus to complete the process!

Furthermore, the media’s advice is telling the menopausal woman: it’s better to sever the fear than to face it! Yes, the saying “half an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” has some truth, but what about the ability to exercise spiritual muscle – the power of the will? Hacking off body parts and drugging the symptoms is the “fast food” approach to wellness, without giving the woman the dignity to find creative ways to fight her fears. The Western medical patriarchy echoes by saying that if menopausal women cannot resolve their issues, we will do if for them. It is evident they are clueless about this transformational process and a woman’s resiliency in overcoming challenges.

It is time to reclaim the marvel of life cycles and erase the connotations society has constructed. Aging women are not deficient in their femininity because their identity is not linked to hormones. Who a woman is encompasses much more than just hormones or the lack of them. This reclamation, I believe, can be accomplished by women supporting other women throughout this incredible life cycle journey. In addition, women must continue to intelligently re-evaluate the hegemony of the media and medical industries concerning menopause discourses and not be reticent about being “captains of their own ships.”