Another cry for the supremacy of basic instincts rises from the depths of the Cult commercials: “Party now – Apologize later.” A seated man holds the head of a young woman close to the aforementioned balls whilst looking the spectator in the eye with a sober look. The girl, however, looks utterly drunk in a diagonal approach to his membrum virile, as if she had fallen over and happened to land her head on the thing. Once down and greated by a welcoming yet sustaining hand, the girl seems to have thought, “What the hell, now that I am down here…”

The Cult commercial calls for the rule of base and basic instincts: “Go ahead! Exploit the drunk girl, you can always apologize tomorrow!” “Drink the Cult Party Maker and let go of your inhibitions.” Of course, as the guy seems relatively sober and excessively smug, the major part of the Cult imbibibing must have been done by the girl. In that case, Cult presents itself as a date rape drug and the spectator is asked to identify with somewhat of an anus. But it’s okay, you can apologize tomorrow.

The Cult people have always been vulgar visceral vultures and vendors of vomworthy venom and Diesel always tried to dress your dirty deeds in denim. But whereas Diesel and Cult incessantly ask the limbic question “How low can you go?” others still try to sell you the meaning of life and the sanctity of the spirit:

“As a gift Kimmidoll shares common beliefs and aspirations with friends and loved ones. As a decorative item for the home they represent a common connection shared by people all over the world. As a collectible each doll is unique and meaningful connecting with one of life’s true values.”

As described on the Kimmidoll web site, the product is a rip off of Japanese Kokeshi dolls. Each kimmidoll is a depiction of a given character. Ami, for instance, presents herself thus: “My spirit unites and builds. By embracing my spirit in everything you do and in all your relationships, you help to create a more peaceful, joyful and loving world for all.”

I think Kimmidoll might well be surpassing the vulgarity of Cult and Diesel here. Diesel tries to sell you on the ballsy way through life dressed in whatever appalling apparel they are peddling at the moment. Cult incites uninhibited partying and general bastardly behavior as the “true” rock and roll life style. Kimmidoll inspires truth, beauty and all that other stuff by means of designed dolls with a hint of japanese mystique and authenticity. They all sell authenticity, the real deal. Whether authentic courage, fun or harmony, they ask you to realise yourself by way of their offerings. This is unsurprisingly obvious and commonplace. The only surprise is that the filthy marketing people who deliver themselves of these campaigns, these cultural abominations, are unable to dream up more visionary conceptions of spectacular authenticity and that the unconsciously credulous consumer keeps on paying their salaries. The vision splendid of the critical mind has indeed, it seems, faded into the ever dimming light of common day.

Polite Vomit

Norwegian airline Widerøe accept the potential oral effluent of their customers with polite and polished ease. One side of the complementary vomit bag carries the inscription “uff da… (ooops…)” while the other one conveys the best wishes of the airline: “god bedring! (get well soon!)”. Isn’t that nice?!

When the ethopoetic relation to textual fragments becomes constitutive of the I by which you meet your reader, your fellow, your brother, with whom you then establish a doxopoetic relation, there is trouble. The fragments are presented as a totality by the name of I. “I” is the incorporation of the different fragments who bear the rather technical name, hypomnemata, meaning memory aid or substantification of memory. But is this totality possible? Is the incorporation of hypomnemata possible without an irreducible difference or maybe even “Différance” between the fragments and their meaning?

It is probably time to whip up an example. L’Oréal once used the slogan “Because I’m worth it”. This slogan became “Because you’re worth it” and then simply “You’re worth it”. All slogans were and are pronounced by various heroes of popular culture – models, actors and even a race car driver. I say! It’s so elegant, so intelligent!

The first slogan, of course, indicated that this distinguished representative of the entertainment industry is a delighted user of the given product. The idea probably was, that the viewer of this distasteful spectacle should cry out “I want that, too!” because the viewer wants to be just as cool, rich and recognized as the celeb. It is worth noting that the celebrity is worth it, i.e. is living up to the standard of the product and not the other way around.

The second and third slogans, who are basically identical, intimate that the viewer is now the one who is worth it. And since the slogans still come from our distinguished representative of the electric tin can soup that is modern media, the viewer is supposed to take the bate and exclaim, “Indeed I am!” Again the viewer accepts to live up the divine glory of the soapy satisfaction brought to you by L’Oréal.

And this, finally, is somewhere near to what we were getting at! Accepting the message of the advertisement, thereby affirming what we with Althusser might call “interpellation”, and responding as intended, “I want that, too!” or “Indeed I am!”, the viewer tries to incorporate the magic of L’Oréal in his or her hypomnemotic totality. But as long as the viewer turned consumer incorporates the proposed hypomnemata via this interpellation the incorporation is impossible. If the incorporation is a result of the interpellation, the I will only exist as long as the I demonstrates its incorporation.

We should quickly remark that according to French linguist Benveniste the subject, “I”, only exists as long as the I is pronounced. We should probably have mentioned this earlier but the combination of bloggery waffle and subtle theory is not alway straight forward. So, the subject, I, depends on the pronunciation of “I”. And what the advertisement slogan is basically suggesting is, that you constitute your “I” by the pronunciation of “I am worth it!”, i.e. “I” am only as the incorporation and continuous pronunciation of L’Oréal.

We shall, of course, get back to what this pronunciation of L’Oréal actually entails. But first, yet another “To be continued”…

This ethopoetic incorporation is the writing of a corpus, the body with which you meet your peers, so that they can see your spiritual genealogy. Since this demonstration of the construction of the self by fragments is forcibly a negotiation of what is right or wrong, good or bad, and thus constitutive of a doxa (the community of values), we propose to call this relation of the ethical incorporation to the others a doxopoetic relation.

And now we get to the problem of saying I. The doxopoetic relation is a way of showing yourself as a textual corpus, and as Levinas was kind enough to remind os, to show yourself in a meaningful way is to speak. Let’s return to housekeeping for a moment. The ordering of the self as a well-kept abode is to a wide extent a doxopoetic relation. Of course, you yourself can appreciate nice furniture, a clean floor, art on the walls and a good espresso machine but when this becomes constitutive of who you are, the fragments that make up your public face or body, there is trouble. When the well kept abode of the self, whether an actual abode or an actual self, is no longer a function of your way of life, your life form, your personal praxis, but a means to the end of saying I, so that the others will see your “I” and raise you one more, then the I will condemn itself to an eternal existence as not-I.

We’ll get there eventually, don’t you worry. To be continued…

As is widely known, the greek word for housekeeping is oikonomos. In the wild currents of time this word swirled and bobbed until it multiplied and transformed into the English word economy, the French économie, the German Ökonomie, the Danish økonomi and many others (Greek words are strumpets and have bastard children everywhere). As such, a housekeeping crisis might be waitin’ ’round the bend, my Huckleberry friend, if the financial rugrats do not get their house in order in the near future.

As implied by the historical and geographical transformation of the term oikonomos, there are many different forms of economy. One among them is, as suggested above, related to money and their less than evenhanded distribution between what we might call agents. These could be nations, companies, the man on the street, the person writing this, or even actual secret agents with surprising gadgetry and a license to kill. A very different and in many ways more interesting type of economy is what a long dead Austrian psychoanalyst dubbed libidinal economy. Libido is the instinct energy or force, contained in what Freud called the id, the largely unconscious structure of the psyche. Sometimes libido is perceived as mere sexual energy but we’ll try not to mount that old hobby horse or, indeed, to mount anything or anyone – at least for the duration of this post.

Libidinal economy is thus the restrictions on pure libidinal flow imposed by the super ego. Restricted libido can be good and bad, the good one being sublimation, i.e. the productive usage of libidinal energy or the channeling thereof towards productive instead of destructive outlets. This type of economy, of course, is the housekeeping of the ego. Bear with us, we are within smelling distance of something like a point…

To be continued…