I seemed to survive my Discourse course. It looks like at least an A-. The Propaganda course, though is a different matter,
Somehow, I need to go back to the basics and review fundamentals. The semester started with recovering from eye suergery, but there was promise, but now, as usual, it is disappointing, and I will have to pick up the pieces to find out how to stop the carnage.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Mush and Authorship
There is a thin line between romance and insanity. There is, however, no insanity in the mass marketing of romance novels. Yet in the major publishing breakthroughs that Radway describes, there is a mixed view of authorship.
Looking at the history portrays, those who wished to publish a book did so by footing the entire bill for production costs, and paid the printer. The authorship, though, was in the hands of the one risking the expenses. The printer merely printed. Later, as it occurred to the publishers that they might wish to make a business of their trade, they sought to increase the readership or encourage repeat sales. The point is that now the publishers involved themselves more in the books by way of promotion, and had a say as to authorship, in that they began to put forth more capital, edited, and even carried out vast promotions of books and writers (34), which is what made the breakthrough for the romance novels. The original authors’ success in these books depended heavily upon the wit and ingenuity of the booksellers. With such contributions, these publishers do deserve a share of the authorship of the romance novels. Once again, the idea of multiple authorship prevails.
Looking at the history portrays, those who wished to publish a book did so by footing the entire bill for production costs, and paid the printer. The authorship, though, was in the hands of the one risking the expenses. The printer merely printed. Later, as it occurred to the publishers that they might wish to make a business of their trade, they sought to increase the readership or encourage repeat sales. The point is that now the publishers involved themselves more in the books by way of promotion, and had a say as to authorship, in that they began to put forth more capital, edited, and even carried out vast promotions of books and writers (34), which is what made the breakthrough for the romance novels. The original authors’ success in these books depended heavily upon the wit and ingenuity of the booksellers. With such contributions, these publishers do deserve a share of the authorship of the romance novels. Once again, the idea of multiple authorship prevails.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Other and Authorship
The idea of Marxists doing away with personal involvement in authorship should itself fall under scrutiny, if not thrown straight away into the garbage bin. Who are they to say the individual does not count?
This leads to a deeper question: Who has the right to determine authorship? There is indeed a personal presence in that whoever is the author determines what truth shall be. From Cook, it is possible with a limited budget to oppose the established film industry and argue for the importance of women. Bhabha writes of the authorship of the British Empire through an English Bible. The imperial authorship determined through force, truth for the Indian subjects, and that imposed truth is not easy to unshackle, even decades after the end of colonial rule, and JanMohamed writes of similar imposition of authorship in Africa, with the addition of the enslavement. Micheaux showed that it is indeed possible for people of color, at least in the United States, to challenge the authorship of the larger media and present to the world another truth about themselves.
From Projansky and Ono I see those in power have determined that the author is dead, but for Asian identity—and there are many—to be alive in film, the Asian authors have resurrected the auteur. It would seem such resurrections still happen.
This leads to a deeper question: Who has the right to determine authorship? There is indeed a personal presence in that whoever is the author determines what truth shall be. From Cook, it is possible with a limited budget to oppose the established film industry and argue for the importance of women. Bhabha writes of the authorship of the British Empire through an English Bible. The imperial authorship determined through force, truth for the Indian subjects, and that imposed truth is not easy to unshackle, even decades after the end of colonial rule, and JanMohamed writes of similar imposition of authorship in Africa, with the addition of the enslavement. Micheaux showed that it is indeed possible for people of color, at least in the United States, to challenge the authorship of the larger media and present to the world another truth about themselves.
From Projansky and Ono I see those in power have determined that the author is dead, but for Asian identity—and there are many—to be alive in film, the Asian authors have resurrected the auteur. It would seem such resurrections still happen.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Fanfic refereeing
I like the idea of using technology to referee writings. One has to do it anyway in professional circles. More people can read and make suggestions in a much shorter time.
One aspect from last week is that the population of fans is an unruly bunch, not much distant from intellectual Neanderthals, but here I can see that there is a strong etiquette involved in the solicitation of comments for work. The Karpovich article also shows just how entrenched fandom is as a result of new technology. It is not going to fade away, no matter how draconian the original authors of the fiction are.
One aspect from last week is that the population of fans is an unruly bunch, not much distant from intellectual Neanderthals, but here I can see that there is a strong etiquette involved in the solicitation of comments for work. The Karpovich article also shows just how entrenched fandom is as a result of new technology. It is not going to fade away, no matter how draconian the original authors of the fiction are.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Dark Side of Authorship
One site I really liked was this one
http://www.fanlib.com/s/Of_Vulcan_Bondage__Chapters_14_17/3163nk#page13
This site includes adventures after Spock and Chapel are logically married.
Here is my bizarre story.
Loretta looked around, amazed. Where was she and where was the ship?
Only moments before, she was in the transporter room, with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, and one of the chosen few to meet the leader of the planet Hovli, which the Enterprise was now orbiting. The leader looked her warmly in the eyes, and suddenly she was—here.
It took her some time to realize that someone was calling her name, and even more time to grasp that the leader was still looking at her.
“It is so good to look at you,” said the woman.
“Wh-where--?” Loretta asked.
“I decided to save time and bring you down to our world directly. You can call me Vriell,” said Vriell.
Loretta stared at the tall woman, who was still looking at her. Presently, she recovered her bearing and said, “I’m just a yeoman, and I would respectfully submit that you needed to allow us down in the proper manner--”
“I did not want to wait,” Vriell said. Her grin was wider. “You are just who I am looking for.”
“What do you mean?” Loretta asked.
“You have red hair, as I do,” said Vriell. You are tall as I am, and you have such a wonderful mind.”
Loretta raised an eyebrow in such a way that even Spock would be slightly proud of. “What is the nature of your interest?” she asked.
“I wanted the Enterprise to come so we could find suitable wives.”
Loretta took a step back. “You mean husbands,” said she.
“By no means,” said the still-smiling Vriell. “We have no need for men here. We want wives, females to come and live among us and be part of our joy.”
“How can you maintain a society without men?” Loretta asked.
“Easy,” Vriell said. “Look around.”
Loretta did so. Se found herself in a large park. Women strolled in various clothing. Some were in what appeared to be conventional swimsuits, but there was no lake to be seen. A woman greeted the others, and seemed to wear a law enforcement uniform. Overhead, Loretta saw two aircars of an older model, and in the distance, a power generator.
Though there were many women in the park, Loretta saw no men, and more troublingly, no children.
“Our founding mothers,” Vriell said, “simply divided the tasks of civilization amongst themselves, and centuries later, we have carried on the tradition. Our cities have grown, and we are in a period of prosperity.”
“But how can you grow without children?” Loretta asked. “I have yet to see a child here.”
Loretta also had yet to see Vriell turn her eyes away. She took another step back.
Vriell took a step forward. “We have no need of children and the old, perverted means of manufacturing them. Instead, here we have artificial reproduction. If we want more in the population, we simply turn a switch and thousands of fully grown and beautiful women result.”
“But what if the—er—couples,” Loretta choked, “actually wanted children. What then”
“We simply head to Fornas, a nearby impoverished planet, and pick up little girls on the streets. No one will miss them.”
Loretta took another step back, only to feel a wall. “If you can produce women at will,” she asked, “then what do you want of us?”
Vriell took another step forward. “We always want fresh blood,” said she. “Our new arrivals donate blood to the reproduction bank, which will increase our selection.
“You know you won’t get away with this,” said Loretta, who was running out of words.
“Actually, we can and do,” said Vriell. We will bring all the females to our world and leave the men to themselves. We might rid them of their life support systems and either burn up their ship, or add it to out fleet. But now, enough of this, for you won’t worry about your friends ever again"
Against her will Loretta felt a surge of ecstasy and joy as she stared into Vriell’s clear, orange eyes.
______________________
I did not like to write this piece, and I certainly would not submit it to the fansite I looked at. I can understand the wedding of Spock and Christine, but not between two women, much less men.
Besides feeling emotionally filthy writing this perversion, I do see that there is value in writing a story based on someone else’s characters and universe, as it might edify the soul of the individual fan, but I still take the side of the original authors of the series. They, as authors, have the right to shape the direction of the world in question, or as I would put it, the reality the world provides. I suppose the poachers can roam in the universe of the Federation, but it is not their Federation, as Jenkins indicates they know. If the fans wish to, they can always use the original series as inspiration and create new universes with new characters, and leave the Enterprise behind, rather than feed off them.
On the other hand, I, immersed in commercial culture, would want fans around, as they, because of their addiction, would buy my books. I would not want them to “get a life,” unless such action increases book sales. I am of two minds here.
http://www.fanlib.com/s/Of_Vulcan_Bondage__Chapters_14_17/3163nk#page13
This site includes adventures after Spock and Chapel are logically married.
Here is my bizarre story.
Loretta looked around, amazed. Where was she and where was the ship?
Only moments before, she was in the transporter room, with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, and one of the chosen few to meet the leader of the planet Hovli, which the Enterprise was now orbiting. The leader looked her warmly in the eyes, and suddenly she was—here.
It took her some time to realize that someone was calling her name, and even more time to grasp that the leader was still looking at her.
“It is so good to look at you,” said the woman.
“Wh-where--?” Loretta asked.
“I decided to save time and bring you down to our world directly. You can call me Vriell,” said Vriell.
Loretta stared at the tall woman, who was still looking at her. Presently, she recovered her bearing and said, “I’m just a yeoman, and I would respectfully submit that you needed to allow us down in the proper manner--”
“I did not want to wait,” Vriell said. Her grin was wider. “You are just who I am looking for.”
“What do you mean?” Loretta asked.
“You have red hair, as I do,” said Vriell. You are tall as I am, and you have such a wonderful mind.”
Loretta raised an eyebrow in such a way that even Spock would be slightly proud of. “What is the nature of your interest?” she asked.
“I wanted the Enterprise to come so we could find suitable wives.”
Loretta took a step back. “You mean husbands,” said she.
“By no means,” said the still-smiling Vriell. “We have no need for men here. We want wives, females to come and live among us and be part of our joy.”
“How can you maintain a society without men?” Loretta asked.
“Easy,” Vriell said. “Look around.”
Loretta did so. Se found herself in a large park. Women strolled in various clothing. Some were in what appeared to be conventional swimsuits, but there was no lake to be seen. A woman greeted the others, and seemed to wear a law enforcement uniform. Overhead, Loretta saw two aircars of an older model, and in the distance, a power generator.
Though there were many women in the park, Loretta saw no men, and more troublingly, no children.
“Our founding mothers,” Vriell said, “simply divided the tasks of civilization amongst themselves, and centuries later, we have carried on the tradition. Our cities have grown, and we are in a period of prosperity.”
“But how can you grow without children?” Loretta asked. “I have yet to see a child here.”
Loretta also had yet to see Vriell turn her eyes away. She took another step back.
Vriell took a step forward. “We have no need of children and the old, perverted means of manufacturing them. Instead, here we have artificial reproduction. If we want more in the population, we simply turn a switch and thousands of fully grown and beautiful women result.”
“But what if the—er—couples,” Loretta choked, “actually wanted children. What then”
“We simply head to Fornas, a nearby impoverished planet, and pick up little girls on the streets. No one will miss them.”
Loretta took another step back, only to feel a wall. “If you can produce women at will,” she asked, “then what do you want of us?”
Vriell took another step forward. “We always want fresh blood,” said she. “Our new arrivals donate blood to the reproduction bank, which will increase our selection.
“You know you won’t get away with this,” said Loretta, who was running out of words.
“Actually, we can and do,” said Vriell. We will bring all the females to our world and leave the men to themselves. We might rid them of their life support systems and either burn up their ship, or add it to out fleet. But now, enough of this, for you won’t worry about your friends ever again"
Against her will Loretta felt a surge of ecstasy and joy as she stared into Vriell’s clear, orange eyes.
______________________
I did not like to write this piece, and I certainly would not submit it to the fansite I looked at. I can understand the wedding of Spock and Christine, but not between two women, much less men.
Besides feeling emotionally filthy writing this perversion, I do see that there is value in writing a story based on someone else’s characters and universe, as it might edify the soul of the individual fan, but I still take the side of the original authors of the series. They, as authors, have the right to shape the direction of the world in question, or as I would put it, the reality the world provides. I suppose the poachers can roam in the universe of the Federation, but it is not their Federation, as Jenkins indicates they know. If the fans wish to, they can always use the original series as inspiration and create new universes with new characters, and leave the Enterprise behind, rather than feed off them.
On the other hand, I, immersed in commercial culture, would want fans around, as they, because of their addiction, would buy my books. I would not want them to “get a life,” unless such action increases book sales. I am of two minds here.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wikiship
Wikipedia does three things the Jenkins deems important. First, it allows me to access new technology to edit and add data. Next, it accomplishes the DIY in that the I am responsible for the information I read and contribute, and I am able, if I wished to provide information in not only text but also images.
There are two opposing ideas here. One is
knowledge culture and commodity culture (136). The tension is that the commodity culture is more proprietary, and the other is not. Sites with the commodity culture will be less inclined to allow users such access for fear of losing authorship, or profits. Wikipedia is of the knowledge culture and wishes to help the readers to gain access to information. Still the site keeps strict adherence to maintaining the copyright laws, and on this point I approached the assignment with great trepidation. I half-expected Moses to call down another plague as I, a mere mortal, dared to alter a page on the Holy Web, even if my contribution consisted merely of asking copyright questions.
Jenkins appears to want me to be free from such fears. Indeed, the presence and success of Wikipedia is to show that the newer model of authorship can work, and readers can indeed contribute to knowledge without an original author’s potential loss of profits or reputation, though, undoubtedly, there would have to be adjustments for those of the commodity culture. There are promising trends with the way some media giants handle fan fiction.
With Wikipedia, I was part of a myriad of users, putting in information. I became part of what Levy through Jenkins described as “Collective Intelligence”, not the mindless organization of ants or bees, but an individual in this giant project (136).
There are two opposing ideas here. One is
knowledge culture and commodity culture (136). The tension is that the commodity culture is more proprietary, and the other is not. Sites with the commodity culture will be less inclined to allow users such access for fear of losing authorship, or profits. Wikipedia is of the knowledge culture and wishes to help the readers to gain access to information. Still the site keeps strict adherence to maintaining the copyright laws, and on this point I approached the assignment with great trepidation. I half-expected Moses to call down another plague as I, a mere mortal, dared to alter a page on the Holy Web, even if my contribution consisted merely of asking copyright questions.
Jenkins appears to want me to be free from such fears. Indeed, the presence and success of Wikipedia is to show that the newer model of authorship can work, and readers can indeed contribute to knowledge without an original author’s potential loss of profits or reputation, though, undoubtedly, there would have to be adjustments for those of the commodity culture. There are promising trends with the way some media giants handle fan fiction.
With Wikipedia, I was part of a myriad of users, putting in information. I became part of what Levy through Jenkins described as “Collective Intelligence”, not the mindless organization of ants or bees, but an individual in this giant project (136).
Monday, March 24, 2008
Star Trek and Authorship
Star Trek ran through a weekly series (oft too far past my bedtime to watchas a child, so I became familiar with the episodes only when I reached college), then it was taken off the air, then resurrected through movies, then a new cast brought back weekly series on television(NexGen), then that went, while it branched off into different aspects for example, Deep Space 9.
The original series has many allusions to older models, some in science fiction and some in earlier models. Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy, the ships doctor and surgeon, reminds me of the relationship between Captain Aubrey of the 18th and 19th century Royal Navy and his Doctor Maturin in the Patrick O’Brian novels. Jack Aubrey is not without major faults, and neither is James Kirk, hardly superhero types.
As for science fiction, the voyages of Captain Kirk’s Enterprise to "strange new worlds" remind me of the one voyage of a spaceship in the science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet, involving a trip to a strange world of Altair IV, with deadly secrets. Robby the Robot served Morbius, the scientist as his advisor, while in Star Trek, that role was embodied in Mr. Spock, a logical, non-emotional Vulcan, serving Kirk.
The powers-that-be in Hollywood will soon restart the original series with new actors. It will be interesting to see if they rely upon tradition.
Collins uses Batman and Bond, and cites them as superheroes. I cannot see Kirk as a superhero, and often he appears to believe he is sent by the powers above to cause pain. Still, in the earlier episodes, he behaves as a tough, no-nonsense commanding officer, while in later shows he is a weak Bond in his attempts to propagate the galaxy. Yet the show persists in the minds and hearts of rabid “Trekkies” (even I am partially infected), thus the lingering of the series.
Of course, there are Trek books, including children’s texts, and games. I am not that familiar with the current versions of the franchise, so I do not know what the games have evolved into, but the older ones dealt with crushing the Klingon ships. The goal of the games, books, TV shows and movies is to draw the reader into another world, but the Trekkies are already there! They have a clear understanding of the movies and serials. Indeed, an acquaintance of mine knew the lines to swell in my first time in college that we waited for him to say them at key points in the television episodes.
Yet Matrix according to Jenkins did very well with people who did not understand the concepts in the movie.
The complications here are that by drawing upon earlier models by earlier authors, it is hard to tell how much of true authorship is afforded the newer producers of Star Trek and other shows.
The original series has many allusions to older models, some in science fiction and some in earlier models. Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy, the ships doctor and surgeon, reminds me of the relationship between Captain Aubrey of the 18th and 19th century Royal Navy and his Doctor Maturin in the Patrick O’Brian novels. Jack Aubrey is not without major faults, and neither is James Kirk, hardly superhero types.
As for science fiction, the voyages of Captain Kirk’s Enterprise to "strange new worlds" remind me of the one voyage of a spaceship in the science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet, involving a trip to a strange world of Altair IV, with deadly secrets. Robby the Robot served Morbius, the scientist as his advisor, while in Star Trek, that role was embodied in Mr. Spock, a logical, non-emotional Vulcan, serving Kirk.
The powers-that-be in Hollywood will soon restart the original series with new actors. It will be interesting to see if they rely upon tradition.
Collins uses Batman and Bond, and cites them as superheroes. I cannot see Kirk as a superhero, and often he appears to believe he is sent by the powers above to cause pain. Still, in the earlier episodes, he behaves as a tough, no-nonsense commanding officer, while in later shows he is a weak Bond in his attempts to propagate the galaxy. Yet the show persists in the minds and hearts of rabid “Trekkies” (even I am partially infected), thus the lingering of the series.
Of course, there are Trek books, including children’s texts, and games. I am not that familiar with the current versions of the franchise, so I do not know what the games have evolved into, but the older ones dealt with crushing the Klingon ships. The goal of the games, books, TV shows and movies is to draw the reader into another world, but the Trekkies are already there! They have a clear understanding of the movies and serials. Indeed, an acquaintance of mine knew the lines to swell in my first time in college that we waited for him to say them at key points in the television episodes.
Yet Matrix according to Jenkins did very well with people who did not understand the concepts in the movie.
The complications here are that by drawing upon earlier models by earlier authors, it is hard to tell how much of true authorship is afforded the newer producers of Star Trek and other shows.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Ownership and Authorship
What should be authorless? How about the touchtone sounds? (There is a group in Australia who would like to own all the possible patterns of the phone sounds) The sky? The air? These last two may seem ridiculous, but I would not be surprised if an enterprising individual tries to take credit for them. Cordero speaks of making certain trademarks if not authorless, then at least accessible to the public as cultural icons, for example, Barbie. His reasoning is that there are symbols which have come to define our culture, and thus should be available for American citizens to celebrate this culture. The problem is that I would not like to have something that I created taken away and dispersed to unknown billions without compensation, and also, cultural considerations change, and the icons of today may be unknown tomorrow.
I would support various songs such as the Battle Hymn of the Republic, to be authorless. While Cordero's icons are still relatively new, the Hymn has endured.
I could see an ownership model reflecting a fractured authorship, something like condos. One can "rent" or purchase the trademark or copyright for a limited amount of time, so as to allow others to use it. It would almost be like ownership of stock.
I would support various songs such as the Battle Hymn of the Republic, to be authorless. While Cordero's icons are still relatively new, the Hymn has endured.
I could see an ownership model reflecting a fractured authorship, something like condos. One can "rent" or purchase the trademark or copyright for a limited amount of time, so as to allow others to use it. It would almost be like ownership of stock.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Copyright and Authorship
What do you think the ownership rights for authors (individuals and corporations) should encompass?
I woul include all art and music and fiction and other reading, all film production, not to mention video and computer games. I would also include e-books, though I do not see how that could be enforced with effectiveness.
Where ought ownership to rest?
It should rest with the authors, but of course, WHO constitutes the authors? Copyright protections should go to individual authors, but there are corporate ones to consider. Most complex are the situations in which the individual authors, such as Disney, are transformed into corporate entities, and transformed claims for protection.
Are there cultural materials that should not be owned?
I would include libraries and museums, and information about our government that we have a right to know. The problem is that by privatizing this information, someone can deny us this right, at the very least through heavy fees. From what McLeod relates, soon, we would be in a serf-like situation when we will not be able even to go to any parks, as they will be owned privately. We would be restricted in our ability to read as access will be only to those who can pay the privatized libraries. Here easpecially we shouldpractivce Jefferson's"eternal vigilance."
What are the benefits and limitations of our current copyright and trademark laws for individual authors, corporate authors, society?
The authors have use of their work for their lifetimes plus many years after. The limitation is that after that, the copyright protection ends. Then, the power of the corporate authors comes to play as Disney, seeing its most important animals about to fall out of its control, pushed to have the copyrights extended. It would be very difficult for individual authors to do that. The corporate structure has a broader and more stable foundation, and longer reach of resources and networking capabilities. Society would reap benefits of strong expressions of culture, as in Disney, and in the films such as Star Wars. The limitation is that the laws restrict other expressions of culture
Copyright laws fight piracy of music. I am mindful of the churches which lost lawsuits because they changed the lyrics of songs of popular artists. I would sue. Even more so the piracy of entire albums by individuals or groups.
I woul include all art and music and fiction and other reading, all film production, not to mention video and computer games. I would also include e-books, though I do not see how that could be enforced with effectiveness.
Where ought ownership to rest?
It should rest with the authors, but of course, WHO constitutes the authors? Copyright protections should go to individual authors, but there are corporate ones to consider. Most complex are the situations in which the individual authors, such as Disney, are transformed into corporate entities, and transformed claims for protection.
Are there cultural materials that should not be owned?
I would include libraries and museums, and information about our government that we have a right to know. The problem is that by privatizing this information, someone can deny us this right, at the very least through heavy fees. From what McLeod relates, soon, we would be in a serf-like situation when we will not be able even to go to any parks, as they will be owned privately. We would be restricted in our ability to read as access will be only to those who can pay the privatized libraries. Here easpecially we shouldpractivce Jefferson's"eternal vigilance."
What are the benefits and limitations of our current copyright and trademark laws for individual authors, corporate authors, society?
The authors have use of their work for their lifetimes plus many years after. The limitation is that after that, the copyright protection ends. Then, the power of the corporate authors comes to play as Disney, seeing its most important animals about to fall out of its control, pushed to have the copyrights extended. It would be very difficult for individual authors to do that. The corporate structure has a broader and more stable foundation, and longer reach of resources and networking capabilities. Society would reap benefits of strong expressions of culture, as in Disney, and in the films such as Star Wars. The limitation is that the laws restrict other expressions of culture
Copyright laws fight piracy of music. I am mindful of the churches which lost lawsuits because they changed the lyrics of songs of popular artists. I would sue. Even more so the piracy of entire albums by individuals or groups.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Disney, Children, and Authorship
Here is where authorship may not be something to covet. The early discussion deals with difficult situations the children have in school, and much of their plight is blamed on the media, yet media could be used for good, to help the children.
It reminds me of Marchand. The advertisers saw themselves as lifting the masses to the world of modernity—that is, what they thought were the masses. Here, the media and others purport to help the child—or rather, their view of the child. Also, as in Marchand with the advertisers, the media especially through Walt Disney helped the public deal with the changes in the country, and were most effective (13).
Competing for authorship in the matters of children are the –media, which reach the children for miles, parents, who raise children, the Church, seeking to regulate the media and instill its moral values upon children, and the State through elected officials and teachers
The author, though, seeks to focus on the media, especially Disney, and one of the points is how Disney contributes to constructing the concept of the child. In doing this, Mr. Sammond touches on an earlier point in the course. He deals with Disney as the author and Disney as subject. Both Disney the auteur, who I remember seeing alive (yes, I am ancient) and Disney the institution have made tremendous inroads to influence how to mold children.
Another issue is that now that Disney is long dead, are his wishes still being carried out? Does authorship extend to his corporate descendants? It is safe to say that even with his success while he was alive, Disney the man could not have grasped how powerful his company had come to be, and as well, the challenges that came with such power. The leaders of the institution today have to make decisions based on that power, and thus will be acting differently from the founder, thus, they do receive credit for authorship
It reminds me of Marchand. The advertisers saw themselves as lifting the masses to the world of modernity—that is, what they thought were the masses. Here, the media and others purport to help the child—or rather, their view of the child. Also, as in Marchand with the advertisers, the media especially through Walt Disney helped the public deal with the changes in the country, and were most effective (13).
Competing for authorship in the matters of children are the –media, which reach the children for miles, parents, who raise children, the Church, seeking to regulate the media and instill its moral values upon children, and the State through elected officials and teachers
The author, though, seeks to focus on the media, especially Disney, and one of the points is how Disney contributes to constructing the concept of the child. In doing this, Mr. Sammond touches on an earlier point in the course. He deals with Disney as the author and Disney as subject. Both Disney the auteur, who I remember seeing alive (yes, I am ancient) and Disney the institution have made tremendous inroads to influence how to mold children.
Another issue is that now that Disney is long dead, are his wishes still being carried out? Does authorship extend to his corporate descendants? It is safe to say that even with his success while he was alive, Disney the man could not have grasped how powerful his company had come to be, and as well, the challenges that came with such power. The leaders of the institution today have to make decisions based on that power, and thus will be acting differently from the founder, thus, they do receive credit for authorship
Monday, February 18, 2008
ADVERTISING EVANGELISM AND AUTHORSHIP
The average citizen may look upon advertisers as a group of vandals best to be kept under house arrest, but, according to Roland Marchand, advertisers, at least those in the 1920s, look upon themselves as guardians of the progress of modernity, the catalysts needed to bring the products from manufacturers to the eager consumer. More on that in my presentation
As we always delve into the subject of authorship, with Madison Avenue, the situation is complex. In the 1920s, the copywriters would write copy, then it must be approved within the ad agency, then it must be approved by the client, the seller of the product. Do the copywriters earn full authorship, or does the head of the agency deserve it, or is authorship shared, perhaps as in the corporate world of Kompare?
Or does the client deserve the authorship of the copy, as they have a vested interest in the result of the copy?
Does the researcher, who delves into the mind of the consumer for the agency to mine it for profits, have a say in authorship, since his reports are vital to the advertisers?
We must not forget the consumer. His inputs to the researchers give him a bid for authorship. Even more, the very lives of the agency, the client, and to some extent, the researcher depend upon the buying whims of the consumer. Could he not demand authorship? I would side with the corporate approach. Being sole author is not helpful should the sales campaign fail!
Returning to the copywriters, they did try to wrest authorship by insisting upon signing the copy and making themselves known to the public. More conservative heads stopped this. The primary reason was agencies were not free of the hand of Bourdieu, and there was that tension between the autonomous principle of hierarchization, and the heteronomous principle of hierarchization. With the first, the copywriters were proud of their work and interested in art for art’s sake, and wished to be recognized. With the second, the cooler heads understood that the primary mission of the advertising agency, even above that of evangelizing modernity, is to compel the consumer to buy something. Anything that could distract from that primary mission must, to them, be considered heresy.
As we always delve into the subject of authorship, with Madison Avenue, the situation is complex. In the 1920s, the copywriters would write copy, then it must be approved within the ad agency, then it must be approved by the client, the seller of the product. Do the copywriters earn full authorship, or does the head of the agency deserve it, or is authorship shared, perhaps as in the corporate world of Kompare?
Or does the client deserve the authorship of the copy, as they have a vested interest in the result of the copy?
Does the researcher, who delves into the mind of the consumer for the agency to mine it for profits, have a say in authorship, since his reports are vital to the advertisers?
We must not forget the consumer. His inputs to the researchers give him a bid for authorship. Even more, the very lives of the agency, the client, and to some extent, the researcher depend upon the buying whims of the consumer. Could he not demand authorship? I would side with the corporate approach. Being sole author is not helpful should the sales campaign fail!
Returning to the copywriters, they did try to wrest authorship by insisting upon signing the copy and making themselves known to the public. More conservative heads stopped this. The primary reason was agencies were not free of the hand of Bourdieu, and there was that tension between the autonomous principle of hierarchization, and the heteronomous principle of hierarchization. With the first, the copywriters were proud of their work and interested in art for art’s sake, and wished to be recognized. With the second, the cooler heads understood that the primary mission of the advertising agency, even above that of evangelizing modernity, is to compel the consumer to buy something. Anything that could distract from that primary mission must, to them, be considered heresy.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Editorship: the Power to Raise Up or to Destroy
I have found a site called http://www.zetetics.com/mac/abort.htm
The author is a Wendy McElroy and her featured essay is on the safe topic of abortion.
There is a title and there is an author. She also states her point of view early on, so the reader has a clear idea as to what she is about. She takes an abortionist stand, and it appears that she is a libertarian.
As an editor I would publish this in the Opinion page in a newspaper. The author has handled the controversial issue very well, laying out her arguments and treating the anti-abortionist objections, and the piece would most certainly attract equally refined counterarguments.
It would not do for a research journal, for then the author would have to back up her statements with references, and I would look for evidence that it has been refereed. In this case the authorship would depend on other researchers, and as I see no sign of such review, I would reject it. Of course, as editor, I also have power, and I would exercise it in killing the piece.
I would fear to accept it as editor of a Christian magazine, as I may lose the subscribers over it. Authorship—and the longevity of the magazine—is in the power of the readers. Still, I might have enough spine to publish it and ask the readers to comment on it, in which case I would have no shortage of responses.
I could also raise up her website by giving contact information, thus giving her more publicity.
I give you the entire essay below:
"When I was eighteen, I chose to have an abortion. Accordingly, the question I am addressing here is nothing less than whether I have committed murder. If the fetus is a human being with individual rights, then I am among millions of women who have committed first degree, premeditated murder, and I should be subject to whatever penalties are imposed upon that crime. The fact that I did not know I was killing a human being is irrelevant, just as the state of knowledge of a racist who kills blacks while believing them to be animals is irrelevant to the fact that he has committed murder. If you shy away from such prosecution, you are shying away from the antiabortionist position.
Before advancing the pro-choice position--to which I subscribe--it is necessary to distinguish between morality and rights, between the moral and the legal.
Peaceful activities may be moral or immoral, but they never violate rights. Taking drugs, gambling, or lying to a friend may or may not be immoral, but they are not a violation of rights. In libertarianism, the purpose of law is to protect rights, not to enforce virtue; as such, the law does not concern itself with the morality of an action but asks only if it is invasive.
Many people oppose abortion on moral grounds without considering it to be a violation of rights which should be addressed by law. I have no argument with this particular antiabortion position. My argument is with antiabortionists who attempt to translate their personal moral convictions into laws restricting what I may do with my body ... those who advocate mandatory motherhood.
Although libertarianism is often expressed as 'the noninitiation of force" or 'anything that's peaceful,' there is a more fundamental theme running through libertarian thought. The Levellers in seventeenth-century Britain called it 'self-proprietorship'; Josiah Warren, the first American anarchist, referred to 'the sovereignty of the individual"; abolitionists in opposing slavery used the concept of 'self-ownership'-that is every human being simply by being a human being has moral jurisdiction over his or her own body. The principle underlying libertarianism--the reason it is wrong to initiate force against anyone--is that it violates that person's self- ownership. This moral jurisdiction is what I mean by the term individual rights.
The concept of rights is key to the abortion issue. Antiabortionists claim that abortion violates the rights of the fetus. I contend that antiabortion legislation violates the rights of the pregnant woman. I also contend that the fetus is not a human being. It possesses no rights. Up until the point of birth, it is not a self-owner.
To say this is not to deny that the fetus is in some sense alive, or that the zygote is a potential human being. A potential is not an actual, however; it is a hypothetical possibility. To their credit, Libertarians for Life (the libertarian antiabortionist organization) do not ascribe individual rights to the fetus on the basis of its potential, but on the assumption that at the instant of conception--at the moment there is a fertilized egg-there is a human being with individual rights.
The essential question becomes: 'What does it mean to be an individual?" For only by being an individual can the fetus possess individual rights. When defining a thing, it is necessary to discover the core characteristics-the characteristics without which it would be something else. With human beings, you subtract accidental characteristics such as race, sex, and hair color until you are left with the things which cannot be subtracted without destroying humanness itself. One such characteristic is a rational faculty.
An essential characteristic--indeed, a prerequisite--of considering something to be individual is that it be a discreet entity, a thing in and of itself. Until the point of birth, however, the fetus is not a separate entity; it is a biological aspect of the pregnant woman which possesses the capacity to become discrete. At birth, the fetus is biologically autonomous and is a self-owner with full individual rights. Although it cannot survive without assistance, this does not affect its biological independence; it is simply the dependence that any helpless individual experiences.
Let's rephrase this argument: having a DNA encoding, which is all that is probably present at the point of conception when rights are assigned, is not sufficient grounds upon which to claim individual rights.
What is missing? The missing piece is individuality ... auton- omy ... a biologically discrete person. As long as the fetus is physically within the woman's body, nourished by the food she eats, sustained by the air she breathes, dependent upon her circulatory and respiratory system, it cannot claim individual rights because it is not an individual. It is part of the woman's body and subject to her discretion.
Birth is the point at which the fetus becomes an actual human being in the legal sense of that term. There is no point, other than conception, at which such a clear, objective change occurs in the status of the fetus. All other changes are a matter of degree rather than of kind and, thus, are inadequate for legal theory which demands a definable point of enforcement.
Antiabortionists often detail the physical development of the fetus, the development of toes and brainwaves, in order to give weight to the claim that it is human. But this development, by their own standards, is irrelevant, since they have already assigned individual rights to the zygote, which has no discernible features.
Therefore these features are beside the point. Moreover, this development actually supports the pro-choice position; i.e., that the fetus is a potential rather than an actual human being.
One means by which antiabortionists attempt to load the issue of abortion against the woman and in favor of the fetus is by ascribing responsibility to the woman. But there are two senses in which you can use the word responsibility. The first is as an acknowledgment of an obligation to another person. This is the sense in which antiabortionists use the word, and it begs the question. It assumes as a given the point in contention; namely, is the fetus an individual toward whom obligations can be incurred?
In contrast, the other sense of the word responsibility does not involve another person. It refers to the acknowledgment that a certain situation results from your actions and to the acceptance in terms of money, time and moral accountability of handling the situation. When a woman uses her own money to pay for an abortion, she has assumed full responsibility for the pregnancy.
There is something odd and inconsistent about the way antiabortionists use responsibility. The pregnant woman is said to be responsible for the fetus because it resulted from her choice to have sex. How then does the antiabortionist handle the rape pregnancy?
An individual is not morally responsible for a situation in which there was no choice. The consistent position is that the fetus is still a human being and abortion is still murder, in which case one wonders why the issue of responsibility has any relevance. Whether or not the woman is responsible, she is prohibited from having an abortion. On the other hand, if an exception is made in cases of rape pregnancies, antiabortionists must explain how their libertarian theory can sanction willful, permeditated murder.
Similar problems exist in the contract model of pregnancy by which the woman is assumed to have contractual obligations to the fetus. This assumes that the fetus is not only an individual who can contract, but that it was present at the point of sex from which the obligation is said to have arisen.
In a more fundamental sense, however, the issue of contract is irrelevant. Individual rights are attributed to the fetus and the protection of rights is independent of contract. I do not have to contract with neighbors not to kill me or steal from me; my body and property are mine by right. Contract enters the picture only when I desire something to which I have no right, such as another's labor. Through contract, I acquire a negotiated claim over that person. If individual rights are granted to the fetus, then a contract is superfluous to the protection of those rights. If individual rights are not being claimed, then no contract is possible since a contract is a voluntary exchange between two human beings.
But what if, for the sake of argument, the fetus were acknowledged to possess individual rights? What consequences would this have for the pro-choice position?
The principle of self-ownership states that every human being, simply by being a human being, has moral jurisdiction over his or her own body. Thus, even if the fetus possesses rights, those rights could never include living within and off of the woman's body, for this would be tantamount to asserting that one human being could own the bodily functions of another ... that two people can have rights in one body. The word used to describe a system in which one man has property rights in another is slavery.
One of the concepts upon which 'rights" rest, from which the word derives meaning, is the concept of 'a natural harmony of interest." This does not mean that all men feel benevolence toward each other and their desires never come into conflict. It means that the exercise of my self-ownership, mv rights, in no way violates the similar exercise of your rights. My right to believe in God does not conflict with your right to be an atheist. If it did conflict, it could not be an inalienable right which all men possess; rather it would be a privilege which I possessed at your expense. Two fundamental characteristics of individual rights are that all human beings have them and that they do not conflict.
Imagine a world in which the act of swallowing a pill murdered another human being. In what sense could I claim the right to swallow? On the one hand, in what sense could I claim the right to my own body when I cannot properly control what is put into it?
This is the dilemma posed by the antiabortionists who grant the fetus a right to control the woman's body which competes and conflicts with her own right. The result is not conflicting rights, but the destruction of the framework from which rights derive meaning. Unlike gray areas of libertarian theory in which disputes arise because rights are not well defined, the alleged rights are clear and in direct contradiction. The fetus's life requires a claim on the woman's bodily functions; the woman's right to her body requires the fetus's death.
In Randian terms, this is 'the fallacy of the stolen concept." In this fallacy, a word is used while the conceptual underpinnings which are necessary to the definition of the word are denied. Thus, the antiabortionists use the concept of 'rights' without regard for the fact that the fetus is not a discrete individual, the alleged rights conflict, and the rights involve two people claiming control of one body. Whatever version of rights is being attributed to the fetus, it is not the natural rights championed by libertarianism.
Antiabortionists often counter that the fetus should have a right to the woman's body because it is a matter of life and death. But rights are not based on how important it is to have them. Nor is there a costibenefit chart giving us how much pain balances how much use of force. Rights are not granted or open to adjustment; they are inalienable. And they derive from only one source--the right to control your own body. The antiabortionists are not depriving the pregnant woman of some percentage of her rights; they are denying the right of self-ownership altogether.
The important thing about the antiabortionist position is not that it is wrong, but that it has disastrous consequences. Antiabortionists dislike dealing with these consequences and consider such discussion to be 'scare tactics.' As long as the basic thrust of their position is "there ought to be a law,' however, it is reasonable to ask what this law would look like.
If the fetus is a human being, then abortion is clearly first-degree, premeditated murder and should be subject to whatever penalties that category of crime merits. Aborting women and doctors would be liable to punishment up to, and perhaps including, the death penalty. If this is 'scary,' the fault lies not with the person who points it out, but with the one who advocates it. Antiabortionists sometimes backpedal on this issue by stating that, since abortion has not been subject to such penalties historically, there is no reason to suppose they would occur in the future. But this is evasion. The debate does not concern history, but moral theory. By antiabortionist standards, abortion is premeditated murder and they should be decrying the tradition of slap-on-the-wrist penalties rather than using them to reassure us.
Moreover, if you admit the idea that the fetus is a human being for whom the woman is legally responsible, then the woman cannot take any action to imperil the life and well-being of the fetus. Almost everything she puts into her system is automatically introduced into the system of the fetus and, if the substance is harmful, it constitutes assault upon the fetus on the same level as strapping me down and forcing drugs into my body. Moreover, life-endangering acts, such as parachute jumping, would place the unconsenting fetus in unreasonable danger. If the woman has no right to kill the fetus, she can have no right to jeopardize its life and well-being. Thus, if the fetus has rights, it is not merely a matter of prohibiting abortion; it means that the woman is criminally liable for harm befalling the fetus on the same level as she would be for harming an infant.
The important question about protecting the fetus is, of course, how will this be accomplished? There is no way that this can be done short of massive interference with the pregnant woman's civil liberties. Again, antiabortionists protest that enforcement problems are not properly part of the abortion issue, that we are simply investigating the right and wrong of the matter. But antiabortionists themselves go beyond this line by advocating laws to remedy the situation. Pro-choice advocates merely insist that this solution be clearly defined, especially with regard to whether anti-abortion legislation can be enforced without violating rights. For even if the fetus merited protection, such protection could not be rendered at the expense of innocent third parties. The impact of the antiabortionist position on birth control is another unexplored implication of that argument. Since an individual with full human rights is said to exist at the moment of fertilization and since IUDs work by disrupting fertilized eggs, women who use these devices must be guilty of attempted murder, if not murder itself. Other forms of birth control which work not by preventing fertilization but by destroying the zygote would be murder weapons and doctors who supplied them would be accessories. As absurd as this sounds, it is the logical implication of considering a zygote to be a human being.
The antiabortionist position is weak, riddled with internal contradictions, and dangerously wrong. It is a sketchy argument which does not address key issues. It uses the word 'rights" in a self-contradictory manner which denies the framework from which the concept derives meaning. Although the message is 'there ought to be a law,' antiabortionists refuse to address the question of what this law would entail or how it would be enforced. I believe this refusal serves a purpose. It permits antiabortionists to argue on the side of compassion and children without having to face the truly inhumane and brutal consequences of their theory. Self-ownership begins with your skin. If you cannot clearly state, "Everything beneath the skin is me; this is the line past which no one has the right to cross without permission," then there is no foundation for individual rights or for libertarianism."
The author is a Wendy McElroy and her featured essay is on the safe topic of abortion.
There is a title and there is an author. She also states her point of view early on, so the reader has a clear idea as to what she is about. She takes an abortionist stand, and it appears that she is a libertarian.
As an editor I would publish this in the Opinion page in a newspaper. The author has handled the controversial issue very well, laying out her arguments and treating the anti-abortionist objections, and the piece would most certainly attract equally refined counterarguments.
It would not do for a research journal, for then the author would have to back up her statements with references, and I would look for evidence that it has been refereed. In this case the authorship would depend on other researchers, and as I see no sign of such review, I would reject it. Of course, as editor, I also have power, and I would exercise it in killing the piece.
I would fear to accept it as editor of a Christian magazine, as I may lose the subscribers over it. Authorship—and the longevity of the magazine—is in the power of the readers. Still, I might have enough spine to publish it and ask the readers to comment on it, in which case I would have no shortage of responses.
I could also raise up her website by giving contact information, thus giving her more publicity.
I give you the entire essay below:
"When I was eighteen, I chose to have an abortion. Accordingly, the question I am addressing here is nothing less than whether I have committed murder. If the fetus is a human being with individual rights, then I am among millions of women who have committed first degree, premeditated murder, and I should be subject to whatever penalties are imposed upon that crime. The fact that I did not know I was killing a human being is irrelevant, just as the state of knowledge of a racist who kills blacks while believing them to be animals is irrelevant to the fact that he has committed murder. If you shy away from such prosecution, you are shying away from the antiabortionist position.
Before advancing the pro-choice position--to which I subscribe--it is necessary to distinguish between morality and rights, between the moral and the legal.
Peaceful activities may be moral or immoral, but they never violate rights. Taking drugs, gambling, or lying to a friend may or may not be immoral, but they are not a violation of rights. In libertarianism, the purpose of law is to protect rights, not to enforce virtue; as such, the law does not concern itself with the morality of an action but asks only if it is invasive.
Many people oppose abortion on moral grounds without considering it to be a violation of rights which should be addressed by law. I have no argument with this particular antiabortion position. My argument is with antiabortionists who attempt to translate their personal moral convictions into laws restricting what I may do with my body ... those who advocate mandatory motherhood.
Although libertarianism is often expressed as 'the noninitiation of force" or 'anything that's peaceful,' there is a more fundamental theme running through libertarian thought. The Levellers in seventeenth-century Britain called it 'self-proprietorship'; Josiah Warren, the first American anarchist, referred to 'the sovereignty of the individual"; abolitionists in opposing slavery used the concept of 'self-ownership'-that is every human being simply by being a human being has moral jurisdiction over his or her own body. The principle underlying libertarianism--the reason it is wrong to initiate force against anyone--is that it violates that person's self- ownership. This moral jurisdiction is what I mean by the term individual rights.
The concept of rights is key to the abortion issue. Antiabortionists claim that abortion violates the rights of the fetus. I contend that antiabortion legislation violates the rights of the pregnant woman. I also contend that the fetus is not a human being. It possesses no rights. Up until the point of birth, it is not a self-owner.
To say this is not to deny that the fetus is in some sense alive, or that the zygote is a potential human being. A potential is not an actual, however; it is a hypothetical possibility. To their credit, Libertarians for Life (the libertarian antiabortionist organization) do not ascribe individual rights to the fetus on the basis of its potential, but on the assumption that at the instant of conception--at the moment there is a fertilized egg-there is a human being with individual rights.
The essential question becomes: 'What does it mean to be an individual?" For only by being an individual can the fetus possess individual rights. When defining a thing, it is necessary to discover the core characteristics-the characteristics without which it would be something else. With human beings, you subtract accidental characteristics such as race, sex, and hair color until you are left with the things which cannot be subtracted without destroying humanness itself. One such characteristic is a rational faculty.
An essential characteristic--indeed, a prerequisite--of considering something to be individual is that it be a discreet entity, a thing in and of itself. Until the point of birth, however, the fetus is not a separate entity; it is a biological aspect of the pregnant woman which possesses the capacity to become discrete. At birth, the fetus is biologically autonomous and is a self-owner with full individual rights. Although it cannot survive without assistance, this does not affect its biological independence; it is simply the dependence that any helpless individual experiences.
Let's rephrase this argument: having a DNA encoding, which is all that is probably present at the point of conception when rights are assigned, is not sufficient grounds upon which to claim individual rights.
What is missing? The missing piece is individuality ... auton- omy ... a biologically discrete person. As long as the fetus is physically within the woman's body, nourished by the food she eats, sustained by the air she breathes, dependent upon her circulatory and respiratory system, it cannot claim individual rights because it is not an individual. It is part of the woman's body and subject to her discretion.
Birth is the point at which the fetus becomes an actual human being in the legal sense of that term. There is no point, other than conception, at which such a clear, objective change occurs in the status of the fetus. All other changes are a matter of degree rather than of kind and, thus, are inadequate for legal theory which demands a definable point of enforcement.
Antiabortionists often detail the physical development of the fetus, the development of toes and brainwaves, in order to give weight to the claim that it is human. But this development, by their own standards, is irrelevant, since they have already assigned individual rights to the zygote, which has no discernible features.
Therefore these features are beside the point. Moreover, this development actually supports the pro-choice position; i.e., that the fetus is a potential rather than an actual human being.
One means by which antiabortionists attempt to load the issue of abortion against the woman and in favor of the fetus is by ascribing responsibility to the woman. But there are two senses in which you can use the word responsibility. The first is as an acknowledgment of an obligation to another person. This is the sense in which antiabortionists use the word, and it begs the question. It assumes as a given the point in contention; namely, is the fetus an individual toward whom obligations can be incurred?
In contrast, the other sense of the word responsibility does not involve another person. It refers to the acknowledgment that a certain situation results from your actions and to the acceptance in terms of money, time and moral accountability of handling the situation. When a woman uses her own money to pay for an abortion, she has assumed full responsibility for the pregnancy.
There is something odd and inconsistent about the way antiabortionists use responsibility. The pregnant woman is said to be responsible for the fetus because it resulted from her choice to have sex. How then does the antiabortionist handle the rape pregnancy?
An individual is not morally responsible for a situation in which there was no choice. The consistent position is that the fetus is still a human being and abortion is still murder, in which case one wonders why the issue of responsibility has any relevance. Whether or not the woman is responsible, she is prohibited from having an abortion. On the other hand, if an exception is made in cases of rape pregnancies, antiabortionists must explain how their libertarian theory can sanction willful, permeditated murder.
Similar problems exist in the contract model of pregnancy by which the woman is assumed to have contractual obligations to the fetus. This assumes that the fetus is not only an individual who can contract, but that it was present at the point of sex from which the obligation is said to have arisen.
In a more fundamental sense, however, the issue of contract is irrelevant. Individual rights are attributed to the fetus and the protection of rights is independent of contract. I do not have to contract with neighbors not to kill me or steal from me; my body and property are mine by right. Contract enters the picture only when I desire something to which I have no right, such as another's labor. Through contract, I acquire a negotiated claim over that person. If individual rights are granted to the fetus, then a contract is superfluous to the protection of those rights. If individual rights are not being claimed, then no contract is possible since a contract is a voluntary exchange between two human beings.
But what if, for the sake of argument, the fetus were acknowledged to possess individual rights? What consequences would this have for the pro-choice position?
The principle of self-ownership states that every human being, simply by being a human being, has moral jurisdiction over his or her own body. Thus, even if the fetus possesses rights, those rights could never include living within and off of the woman's body, for this would be tantamount to asserting that one human being could own the bodily functions of another ... that two people can have rights in one body. The word used to describe a system in which one man has property rights in another is slavery.
One of the concepts upon which 'rights" rest, from which the word derives meaning, is the concept of 'a natural harmony of interest." This does not mean that all men feel benevolence toward each other and their desires never come into conflict. It means that the exercise of my self-ownership, mv rights, in no way violates the similar exercise of your rights. My right to believe in God does not conflict with your right to be an atheist. If it did conflict, it could not be an inalienable right which all men possess; rather it would be a privilege which I possessed at your expense. Two fundamental characteristics of individual rights are that all human beings have them and that they do not conflict.
Imagine a world in which the act of swallowing a pill murdered another human being. In what sense could I claim the right to swallow? On the one hand, in what sense could I claim the right to my own body when I cannot properly control what is put into it?
This is the dilemma posed by the antiabortionists who grant the fetus a right to control the woman's body which competes and conflicts with her own right. The result is not conflicting rights, but the destruction of the framework from which rights derive meaning. Unlike gray areas of libertarian theory in which disputes arise because rights are not well defined, the alleged rights are clear and in direct contradiction. The fetus's life requires a claim on the woman's bodily functions; the woman's right to her body requires the fetus's death.
In Randian terms, this is 'the fallacy of the stolen concept." In this fallacy, a word is used while the conceptual underpinnings which are necessary to the definition of the word are denied. Thus, the antiabortionists use the concept of 'rights' without regard for the fact that the fetus is not a discrete individual, the alleged rights conflict, and the rights involve two people claiming control of one body. Whatever version of rights is being attributed to the fetus, it is not the natural rights championed by libertarianism.
Antiabortionists often counter that the fetus should have a right to the woman's body because it is a matter of life and death. But rights are not based on how important it is to have them. Nor is there a costibenefit chart giving us how much pain balances how much use of force. Rights are not granted or open to adjustment; they are inalienable. And they derive from only one source--the right to control your own body. The antiabortionists are not depriving the pregnant woman of some percentage of her rights; they are denying the right of self-ownership altogether.
The important thing about the antiabortionist position is not that it is wrong, but that it has disastrous consequences. Antiabortionists dislike dealing with these consequences and consider such discussion to be 'scare tactics.' As long as the basic thrust of their position is "there ought to be a law,' however, it is reasonable to ask what this law would look like.
If the fetus is a human being, then abortion is clearly first-degree, premeditated murder and should be subject to whatever penalties that category of crime merits. Aborting women and doctors would be liable to punishment up to, and perhaps including, the death penalty. If this is 'scary,' the fault lies not with the person who points it out, but with the one who advocates it. Antiabortionists sometimes backpedal on this issue by stating that, since abortion has not been subject to such penalties historically, there is no reason to suppose they would occur in the future. But this is evasion. The debate does not concern history, but moral theory. By antiabortionist standards, abortion is premeditated murder and they should be decrying the tradition of slap-on-the-wrist penalties rather than using them to reassure us.
Moreover, if you admit the idea that the fetus is a human being for whom the woman is legally responsible, then the woman cannot take any action to imperil the life and well-being of the fetus. Almost everything she puts into her system is automatically introduced into the system of the fetus and, if the substance is harmful, it constitutes assault upon the fetus on the same level as strapping me down and forcing drugs into my body. Moreover, life-endangering acts, such as parachute jumping, would place the unconsenting fetus in unreasonable danger. If the woman has no right to kill the fetus, she can have no right to jeopardize its life and well-being. Thus, if the fetus has rights, it is not merely a matter of prohibiting abortion; it means that the woman is criminally liable for harm befalling the fetus on the same level as she would be for harming an infant.
The important question about protecting the fetus is, of course, how will this be accomplished? There is no way that this can be done short of massive interference with the pregnant woman's civil liberties. Again, antiabortionists protest that enforcement problems are not properly part of the abortion issue, that we are simply investigating the right and wrong of the matter. But antiabortionists themselves go beyond this line by advocating laws to remedy the situation. Pro-choice advocates merely insist that this solution be clearly defined, especially with regard to whether anti-abortion legislation can be enforced without violating rights. For even if the fetus merited protection, such protection could not be rendered at the expense of innocent third parties. The impact of the antiabortionist position on birth control is another unexplored implication of that argument. Since an individual with full human rights is said to exist at the moment of fertilization and since IUDs work by disrupting fertilized eggs, women who use these devices must be guilty of attempted murder, if not murder itself. Other forms of birth control which work not by preventing fertilization but by destroying the zygote would be murder weapons and doctors who supplied them would be accessories. As absurd as this sounds, it is the logical implication of considering a zygote to be a human being.
The antiabortionist position is weak, riddled with internal contradictions, and dangerously wrong. It is a sketchy argument which does not address key issues. It uses the word 'rights" in a self-contradictory manner which denies the framework from which the concept derives meaning. Although the message is 'there ought to be a law,' antiabortionists refuse to address the question of what this law would entail or how it would be enforced. I believe this refusal serves a purpose. It permits antiabortionists to argue on the side of compassion and children without having to face the truly inhumane and brutal consequences of their theory. Self-ownership begins with your skin. If you cannot clearly state, "Everything beneath the skin is me; this is the line past which no one has the right to cross without permission," then there is no foundation for individual rights or for libertarianism."
Agency and the Author
I see more confusion in who is the author. Selznick, a film director, for example, maintained his independence to make his own pictures. Still, he needed the big companies to distribute the films.
To stay independent, he needed to create a brand name and link certain developments in his films to the brand, so that anyone who watched his films would associate them with it, or what I see as an early version of a logo. He needed income, so he began to market items related to the film Rebecca (37). On one hand, his ingenious marketing lessened his dependence on the larger movie companies, but on the other hand, he faced dependency on the manufacturers for the marketed items, such as fashions and furniture.
As he was working on Gone with the Wind, Selznick grasped that he could not do it himself, but needed help. As a result, he brought in Alfred Hitchcock, another director.
He did not have the illusions of working by himself. Indeed, Selznick “understood…that individuals did not make movies but corporations did” (45). He now had Hitchcock, as well as the actors and the stage crew. The complexity of Selznick’s successful gamble rivaled that of the world of Kompare, in that authorship had become a more corporate affair.
Schatz also shows that the authorship was also a corporate thing. He explains that the movie industry changed, in that the parent company did not make films, but relied on the independents to do so. In one case, he stated that the financial giants in the East depended on the movie magicians in the West. For discussion, authorship is not only in hands of the top chieftains of the film companies, but even unto the directors and producers, let alone the screenwriters.
The idea of auteur is somewhat chastened by all this help. My understanding is that the auteur needed little assistance to craft a film masterpiece, but I can see now that this is hardly the case.
From the little I can understand of Bourdieu, he also deals with a question I asked last week as to who determines what work is legitimate. He points to a “collective belief” (35), which proclaims what a work of art is. The collective voice is dependent on those who the artist presents his work to. If he insists on making art for art’s sake, then he presents it to fellow artists. Bourdieu is biased here, and seems to say that this is the best idea. One possible reason is that the fewer people the artist presents to, the greater his autonomy, and the less money. The artist could also present to the elite, and receive praise and money from them, or—and what appears heinous to Bourdieu—the author could present to the commoners, and sink into “popular” art, and receive money and encouragement from them. In the latter two cases, the artist is dependent upon what the audience considers good art, and his autonomy is nil. From Bourdieu’s view, the author then sold out to the baser “collective belief.”
So, authorship depends on the ingenuity of the author as seen with Selznick, but it is also dependent on the staff the author worked with, and authorship is controlled to some extent by the audience of concern.
To stay independent, he needed to create a brand name and link certain developments in his films to the brand, so that anyone who watched his films would associate them with it, or what I see as an early version of a logo. He needed income, so he began to market items related to the film Rebecca (37). On one hand, his ingenious marketing lessened his dependence on the larger movie companies, but on the other hand, he faced dependency on the manufacturers for the marketed items, such as fashions and furniture.
As he was working on Gone with the Wind, Selznick grasped that he could not do it himself, but needed help. As a result, he brought in Alfred Hitchcock, another director.
He did not have the illusions of working by himself. Indeed, Selznick “understood…that individuals did not make movies but corporations did” (45). He now had Hitchcock, as well as the actors and the stage crew. The complexity of Selznick’s successful gamble rivaled that of the world of Kompare, in that authorship had become a more corporate affair.
Schatz also shows that the authorship was also a corporate thing. He explains that the movie industry changed, in that the parent company did not make films, but relied on the independents to do so. In one case, he stated that the financial giants in the East depended on the movie magicians in the West. For discussion, authorship is not only in hands of the top chieftains of the film companies, but even unto the directors and producers, let alone the screenwriters.
The idea of auteur is somewhat chastened by all this help. My understanding is that the auteur needed little assistance to craft a film masterpiece, but I can see now that this is hardly the case.
From the little I can understand of Bourdieu, he also deals with a question I asked last week as to who determines what work is legitimate. He points to a “collective belief” (35), which proclaims what a work of art is. The collective voice is dependent on those who the artist presents his work to. If he insists on making art for art’s sake, then he presents it to fellow artists. Bourdieu is biased here, and seems to say that this is the best idea. One possible reason is that the fewer people the artist presents to, the greater his autonomy, and the less money. The artist could also present to the elite, and receive praise and money from them, or—and what appears heinous to Bourdieu—the author could present to the commoners, and sink into “popular” art, and receive money and encouragement from them. In the latter two cases, the artist is dependent upon what the audience considers good art, and his autonomy is nil. From Bourdieu’s view, the author then sold out to the baser “collective belief.”
So, authorship depends on the ingenuity of the author as seen with Selznick, but it is also dependent on the staff the author worked with, and authorship is controlled to some extent by the audience of concern.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Author Individuality Under Attack
1) On the spectrum between humanism and materialism; author and subject, where do you fall and why?
I fall in the middle, leaning toward humanism
The reasons, however sentimental, are these: In the spectrum the extreme humanist side is a worship of man, which is not warranted. At the extreme of materialism, the individual has no place in the world, equally unwarranted and repugnant. I would like to believe that there is some human agency in writing, but that we are not gods.
Becker and Benjamin seem to entrench themselves solidly in the soil of materialism saying in effect that the individual is dead, Benjamin saying that the individual cannot be autonomous but must put himself in some system (220), and Becker saying that the artist cannot create in a vacuum, but needs many other hands (768). Intheir framework of socialism, I can see teir point, but teycouod not account for the great number ofpubications tere are today by free authors not entrenched in any system (I ignore the pulishers, editors, typesetters, and so forth).
2) How do the readings for this week carve out a middle space between humanism and structuralism, Hitchcock and "Hitchcock" so to speak?
There seems to be a way in which the individual can still function as an individual in the system. The Kompare article was most instructive on this, in that different groups of people do get credit for their work. HOW much they receive depends on what they do and how much they do it, but while it looks like a beehive, the workers are not absorbed into one mass.
How do the current readings connect to Tomashevskij?
He would say that there are many ways to obtain authorship, even concocting biographies to do so, that he would not have difficulties with the multi-author contingencies for television production.
Becker would shrug and say that the individuality has no place, and would also agree that television production follows necessary lines of intense collaboration similar to art (768)
Benjamin would state that assigning credit perpetuates the illusion of individuality. At the same time, with so many people involved in the production of a show, he might seem to show grudging acceptance to the notion that television is part of the way into his idea that the producers must create more producers (233). Yet if he considers the logistical nature of theatre and radio to be “means against the producers” (234) he might also look at television with a jaundiced eye. As for Foucault, he would consider anything to do with the individual author as irrelevant, but that if anything should be saved from the irrelevant author’s works it should be only that which will further production (220)
I fall in the middle, leaning toward humanism
The reasons, however sentimental, are these: In the spectrum the extreme humanist side is a worship of man, which is not warranted. At the extreme of materialism, the individual has no place in the world, equally unwarranted and repugnant. I would like to believe that there is some human agency in writing, but that we are not gods.
Becker and Benjamin seem to entrench themselves solidly in the soil of materialism saying in effect that the individual is dead, Benjamin saying that the individual cannot be autonomous but must put himself in some system (220), and Becker saying that the artist cannot create in a vacuum, but needs many other hands (768). Intheir framework of socialism, I can see teir point, but teycouod not account for the great number ofpubications tere are today by free authors not entrenched in any system (I ignore the pulishers, editors, typesetters, and so forth).
2) How do the readings for this week carve out a middle space between humanism and structuralism, Hitchcock and "Hitchcock" so to speak?
There seems to be a way in which the individual can still function as an individual in the system. The Kompare article was most instructive on this, in that different groups of people do get credit for their work. HOW much they receive depends on what they do and how much they do it, but while it looks like a beehive, the workers are not absorbed into one mass.
How do the current readings connect to Tomashevskij?
He would say that there are many ways to obtain authorship, even concocting biographies to do so, that he would not have difficulties with the multi-author contingencies for television production.
Becker would shrug and say that the individuality has no place, and would also agree that television production follows necessary lines of intense collaboration similar to art (768)
Benjamin would state that assigning credit perpetuates the illusion of individuality. At the same time, with so many people involved in the production of a show, he might seem to show grudging acceptance to the notion that television is part of the way into his idea that the producers must create more producers (233). Yet if he considers the logistical nature of theatre and radio to be “means against the producers” (234) he might also look at television with a jaundiced eye. As for Foucault, he would consider anything to do with the individual author as irrelevant, but that if anything should be saved from the irrelevant author’s works it should be only that which will further production (220)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Technology, Institutions, and Authorship
To what extent does technology determine authorship?
Who has developed the technology needed for publication? If the author has done so, then the authorship might be clearer. He or she creates it, and has control of the entire process of the operation. Becker sees this as unlikely (768). Gutenberg, if he writes his own book, may have an uncontested authorship. But if one rushes to the same printer, it may not be as clear. True, the writer composes his work, but the printers will review and edit, as well as engage in the actual printing process. How much of authorship is accredited to them? Is the printing staff to have an authorial role, or are they merely support staff (768)? I tilt slightly toward the notion that the other agents assisting the writer have more important parts besides support, but it depends on the complexity of the tasks they are involved in.
WHAT of this blog? I wrote it, but I am using technology from Microsoft ®, Blogger®, and Yahoo! ®
Of course, since I use dialup, I gain access through AOL ®. My blog content may be called my own, but I could not blog without working through the aforementioned entities. Can these claim authorship?
Becker discusses artists who stand out because of a special skill they have. The implication is that they would by their skill alone be considered authors. Yet, if others copy and master the skill, how will he claim authorship then (769)?
What are the rules of institutions in shaping constructing authors?
Authors face a web of logistics in getting in print or on the big screen, or on stage. Becker also discusses the rules involved (768). These control what the artist can use, and how he can use it (771). While he does not say the author can never vary from the standards, he does mention that it would take much effort to do so.
To Becker, standards create expectations and a type of efficiency, saving time and money, and help in the coordination of all who work on the project in question (773). Indeed, the standards seem to establish a kind of morality (773), and any artist to violate the rules would commit sacrilege.
Benjamin does not say in his article, but his discussion on the Soviet press and its institutional approach should have covered that not only does adherence to the rules of the Russian entity save time and perhaps money, but lives as well. The Soviet writers flourish because they obey the rules. It would be a very different story if they did not.
Yet how are these authors constructed? I see that the Russian writers are merely cogs in Benjamin’s Soviet machine. In Becker’s world, the authors can flourish well if they stay within the parameters of the rules (Becker 774). I would say that the institutions can produce authors who are content to make minor advances, and live within the system, yet the rules are considered challenges by the risk-hungry types who will do what it takes to make a mark in the world.
Who has developed the technology needed for publication? If the author has done so, then the authorship might be clearer. He or she creates it, and has control of the entire process of the operation. Becker sees this as unlikely (768). Gutenberg, if he writes his own book, may have an uncontested authorship. But if one rushes to the same printer, it may not be as clear. True, the writer composes his work, but the printers will review and edit, as well as engage in the actual printing process. How much of authorship is accredited to them? Is the printing staff to have an authorial role, or are they merely support staff (768)? I tilt slightly toward the notion that the other agents assisting the writer have more important parts besides support, but it depends on the complexity of the tasks they are involved in.
WHAT of this blog? I wrote it, but I am using technology from Microsoft ®, Blogger®, and Yahoo! ®
Of course, since I use dialup, I gain access through AOL ®. My blog content may be called my own, but I could not blog without working through the aforementioned entities. Can these claim authorship?
Becker discusses artists who stand out because of a special skill they have. The implication is that they would by their skill alone be considered authors. Yet, if others copy and master the skill, how will he claim authorship then (769)?
What are the rules of institutions in shaping constructing authors?
Authors face a web of logistics in getting in print or on the big screen, or on stage. Becker also discusses the rules involved (768). These control what the artist can use, and how he can use it (771). While he does not say the author can never vary from the standards, he does mention that it would take much effort to do so.
To Becker, standards create expectations and a type of efficiency, saving time and money, and help in the coordination of all who work on the project in question (773). Indeed, the standards seem to establish a kind of morality (773), and any artist to violate the rules would commit sacrilege.
Benjamin does not say in his article, but his discussion on the Soviet press and its institutional approach should have covered that not only does adherence to the rules of the Russian entity save time and perhaps money, but lives as well. The Soviet writers flourish because they obey the rules. It would be a very different story if they did not.
Yet how are these authors constructed? I see that the Russian writers are merely cogs in Benjamin’s Soviet machine. In Becker’s world, the authors can flourish well if they stay within the parameters of the rules (Becker 774). I would say that the institutions can produce authors who are content to make minor advances, and live within the system, yet the rules are considered challenges by the risk-hungry types who will do what it takes to make a mark in the world.
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Author and I
1) How is my authorship of my blog conveyed? My authorship is conveyed by my design, my fonts, my name, the colors I choose and my content.
2) What does this suggest about the category of authorship and its functions?
--As author, I have the right to determine the layout, the colors, the font, and the size, and of course, the content. Were there any pictures, I would have the right to present them any way I wish (after considering restrictions of the blog provider, and any copyright entanglements). With freedom, I have the responsibility to present a credible, genuine message. I am limited by the technology available on the blogger, and that I do not own the blogger.
Who are my current favorite authors?
I am an Old School Science Fiction Addict.
1) Isaac Asimov
2) Marge Piercy
3) Keith Laumer
4) Fred Saberhagen
5) Buzz Aldrin
What is it about their authorship that I enjoy?
One key trait of authorship is the set of experiences the author has and how he or she uses it.
Isaac Asimov's experience as a physicist he uses in science fiction to influence science fact. He explores future political systems, as well as performing surgery using microscopic tools, and even a situation in which math calcuations by hand is a lost art that resurfaces as a military weapon!
Marge Piercy uses her experience as an activist to explore unpleasant issues such as environmental consequences. She also portrays women heavily in her works , and though I have major problems with her sexual treatments, I find that she is able to make it part of the story, and I do not feel as if she is preaching. She is not afraid to tackle any issue, and an author must have the courage to portray the world as he or she sees it.
Keith Laumer’s signature is his ability to find humor in non-humorous situations. His experience as a diplomat comes to his aid to show that even in the future, the old problems the humans have do not disappear. As well, he shows how even diplomats can find courage to solve unsolvsable problems. He also expolores the issue of the no-win-scenario, and I like that, to see how his characters act.
I also like Fred Saberhagen because he attacks the illusion of peace in space. I refer to certain books and movies that assume a highly advanced civilization is necessarily a good one. He instead shows that other civilizatiosn can be very evil and that human nature does not change no matter how far from the earth men and women are.
Dr. Aldrin was the second man on the moon. Since he has been off-planet, he can write from his experiences, and not merely use imagination. His writings in sceince fiction also influence science fact, and especially how America handles space travel. He can and does show that in practical ways, the journey in space can continue. As an author, he gives the country hope.
2) What does this suggest about the category of authorship and its functions?
--As author, I have the right to determine the layout, the colors, the font, and the size, and of course, the content. Were there any pictures, I would have the right to present them any way I wish (after considering restrictions of the blog provider, and any copyright entanglements). With freedom, I have the responsibility to present a credible, genuine message. I am limited by the technology available on the blogger, and that I do not own the blogger.
Who are my current favorite authors?
I am an Old School Science Fiction Addict.
1) Isaac Asimov
2) Marge Piercy
3) Keith Laumer
4) Fred Saberhagen
5) Buzz Aldrin
What is it about their authorship that I enjoy?
One key trait of authorship is the set of experiences the author has and how he or she uses it.
Isaac Asimov's experience as a physicist he uses in science fiction to influence science fact. He explores future political systems, as well as performing surgery using microscopic tools, and even a situation in which math calcuations by hand is a lost art that resurfaces as a military weapon!
Marge Piercy uses her experience as an activist to explore unpleasant issues such as environmental consequences. She also portrays women heavily in her works , and though I have major problems with her sexual treatments, I find that she is able to make it part of the story, and I do not feel as if she is preaching. She is not afraid to tackle any issue, and an author must have the courage to portray the world as he or she sees it.
Keith Laumer’s signature is his ability to find humor in non-humorous situations. His experience as a diplomat comes to his aid to show that even in the future, the old problems the humans have do not disappear. As well, he shows how even diplomats can find courage to solve unsolvsable problems. He also expolores the issue of the no-win-scenario, and I like that, to see how his characters act.
I also like Fred Saberhagen because he attacks the illusion of peace in space. I refer to certain books and movies that assume a highly advanced civilization is necessarily a good one. He instead shows that other civilizatiosn can be very evil and that human nature does not change no matter how far from the earth men and women are.
Dr. Aldrin was the second man on the moon. Since he has been off-planet, he can write from his experiences, and not merely use imagination. His writings in sceince fiction also influence science fact, and especially how America handles space travel. He can and does show that in practical ways, the journey in space can continue. As an author, he gives the country hope.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)