Nietzsche in Wonderland (On the Importance of Making Oneself Small)

In order to reach the lovely garden lying on the other side of a little locked door through which she was far too big to pass, Alice had to take a chance and drink the magical potion contained in a glass bottle labelled so as to encourage its consumption.

Finding the strange-flavoured liquid very much to her taste, she quickly finished it off and discovered to her delight that it had the desired effect of shrinking her, until she was no more than ten inches tall and thus just the right size to gain access to the lovely garden through the little locked door.  

Why does this matter?

Well, it matters because I think it crucial that all of us dare to live dangerously and take risks like Alice. This means not only tumbling down rabbit holes and drinking hallucinogenic (potentially poisonous) cocktails, but remaining as close to the flowers, the grass and the world of insects as is a girl who is not so very much bigger than they.

In other words, it means overcoming the arrogant disdain or numb indifference that grown-ups often feel for the tiny things that excite childish wonder. For as Nietzsche wrote: "They who wish to partake of all good things must know how to be small at times."  

- Human, All Too Human, II. 2. 51

This post is dedicated to the memory of Scott Carey.

Alice in the Empire of Signs

The loss of personal identity and of those things that secure such is central to the story of Alice. But if she loses her name, her face and even her body (Deleuze insists that to pass through the looking glass is to become incorporeal), still, just like the Cheshire Cat, she leaves something behind; not a smile in this case (Alice hardly ever smiles), but a look. 

And this is why Alice remains a crucial fashion icon and why Kiera Vaclavik's current research project is of such great interest. For if, somewhat naively, she isn't entirely ready to abandon her analysis of the fictional girl-child in relation to conventional notions of age, gender, and biology, she seems nevertheless to appreciate that what really matters is the fact that Alice can be best understood as a question of style.

That is to say, Alice can be separated from all of those attributes that are usually understood to exist as natural pre-givens, but not from her hooped stockings, blue dress, white apron, and hair band. These items of adornment do not simply serve to make her look pretty, but to display her non-essential essence; they conceal the fact that there is nothing to conceal beneath appearance. Alice forms an indivisible unity with her own image.

It's an image, however, that many have chosen to adopt (and adapt) as their own; not least those breathtakingly beautiful and super-stylish Japanese girls who, around the area of Harajuku, have created their very own Wonderland, free from any weight of meaning or moral seriousness. In this empire of empty signs and artifice, fashion, forms and femininity are triumphant and Alice is Lolita Queen.