A Brief History of the Mug Shot From Alphonse Bertillon to Andy Warhol

Top: Alphonse Bertillon's self-taken mugshot (1900)

Bottom: A canvas from Andy Warhol's Most Wanted Men series (1964)

 

I. 

 

Thanks to Donald Trump, everyone is talking about mug shots ... An informal term for a police photograph, typically taken soon after an individual's arrest in order to help with future identification [1].    

 

The act of photographing criminals began soon after the invention of photography in the 1840s, but it wasn't until 1888 that French police officer and biometrics expert Alphonse Bertillon standardised the process in terms of lighting and angles, etc. [2] 

 

His mug shot selfie, reproduced above, is typical; one side-view image and one face-on, against a plain background. Such photos are often compiled into a rogues gallery of images or a so-called mug book, although, in high-profile cases, the mug shot might also be circulated via the mass media and feature on wanted posters.

 

It is thanks to the latter phenomenon that mug shots gradually came to have a certain cachet and became fixed within the cultural imagination; the faces of gangsters such as Clyde Barrow, John Dillinger, and Al Capone, became as well-known as famous film stars and a whole host of Hollywood celebrities would eventually pride themselves on having had their own images captured by a police photographer.

 

Fascinated by both crime and celebrity, the American Pop artist Andy Warhol created a large mural of twenty-two mug shots in 1964 entitled Thirteen Most Wanted Men - a work which I would like to discuss below ...

 

 

II. 

 

Although Warhol had been commissioned to create a work for exhibition at the 1964 World's Fair in New York, Thirteen Most Wanted Men almost certainly wasn't what those who invited him to decorate the façade of the New York State pavilion had hoped for; in fact, the expectation was that he would produce a celebratory work that would represent the best - not the dark underbelly - of America. 

 

Partly inspired by a 1923 work by Marcel Duchamp, in which the French artist placed his own face on a wanted poster [3], Warhol decided to screen-print large-scale copies of images from a booklet published by the New York Police Department, entitled The Thirteen Most Wanted, and containing mug shots of dangerous criminals (including a child murderer) whom the authorities were anxious to arrest. 

 

As an anonymous critic writing for the Christie's website notes: "By elevating the criminal visage to a form of high art Warhol is aligning these nefarious figures with his own earlier celebrity portrayals." [4]   

 

Unfortunately, two weeks before the fair was due to open, Warhol was officially informed that he must remove or replace the work within 24-hours. Not wanting to do either, Warhol instead gave his permission for the 30-metre wide canvas to be painted over with silver house paint prior to the opening of the Fair [5].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Mug, of course, is an English slang term for (usually an ugly) face, dating from the 18th century. Often, when posing for a mugshot, a person will pull a face in an attempt to distort their features, thereby making future identification by a law enforcement agent a little more troublesome (thus we speak of mugging for the camera).  

 

[2] Bertillon was one of the founding fathers of forensic anthropometry; i.e., a system of identification based on the finding that that several measures of physical features - such as the size and shape of the skull - remain fairly constant throughout adult life. Bertillon concluded that when these measurements were made and recorded systematically, individual criminals could effectively be differentiated. 

 

[3] Created in 1923, Duchamp's Wanted: $2,000 Reward lithograph was the final work of art he completed before leaving New York that year to return to Paris. 

      Duchamp pasted two mug shots of himself on a joke poster he'd come across and had a printer add another alias to those already listed; that of his recently invented alter ego Rrose Sélavy. Duchamp re-created the (now lost original) work throughout his career and hoped it would played a significant role in the (de)construction of his artistic identity.

 

[4] See the essay on the Christie's website entitled 'Warhol's Most Wanted' (16 May 2018): click here.

      One can't help wondering why it is that the male homosexual gaze so often lingers on the faces and bodies of violent felons; is it the inevitable result of criminalising love? Or is it simply an inconvenient truth that evil attracts and has a more photogenic quality? Richard Meyer touches on these questions in his book Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Art (Oxford University Press, 2002).

 

[5] The official reason given was that the Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, was concerned that the images of mostly Italian-Americans would be offensive to a significant section of his electorate. However, it is also believed that Warhol himself was dissatisfied with the work and so more-than happy to have been afforded the opportunity to paint it over in his favoured colour of negation. 

      Warhol would later use the original silkscreens to produce paintings in his Most Wanted Men series and many of these were exhibited in Paris, Cologne, and London, in 1967-68.

 

On the Evil Genius of the Image: Notes on the Mugshots of Donald Trump and Hermann Göring

Mugshots of Donald Trump (24 August, 2023) 

and Hermann Göring (22 June 1945)

 

 

So much has already been said about Donald Trump's instantly iconic mugshot taken at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia - apparently the most viewed photograph in the world - that there's not much for me to add. 

 

The muted grey background is rather flattering and deflects from the harshness of the lighting. Trump, wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie, stares down not just the anonymous prison photographer, but all of his political opponents and critics in the mainstream media. 

 

It's a fuck you look of angry defiance and with this one image, Trump brilliantly turns the tables on those who had hoped to humiliate him and, perhaps, seals victory in the 2024 presidential election. For this photo, available on a wide range of merchandising (i.e., commercial propaganda), has already helped the Trump campaign to raise millions of dollars.   

 

Malcolm McLaren may have showed us how to create cash from chaos, but it's Donald Trump who best understands how to monetise notoriety and I think that the conservative commentator Candace Owens is right to describe Trump's approach to doing politics as punk rock (something that Johnny Rotten had pointed out years ago) [1]. 

 

Even those who loathe Trump concede that this picture is, in its simplicity, visually compelling. One that has not only historical but cultural significance; i.e., one that can be discussed in relation to art as well as politics. Zach Helfand amusingly - and rightly - discusses it within the context of work by Da Vinci, Henri Fantin-Latour, and Andy Warhol [2].  

 

Helfand also suggests that the Trump mugshot has a precedent in the arrest photograph of Hermann Göring, which, as I think readers will agree, is an excellent spot. For we see in this image of the president of the Nazi Reichstag the exact same mixture of indignation and contempt for his enemies as in the Trump photo; it's a portrait of a powerful man cornered, but unbowed.

 

One wonders, in closing, why it is exactly that good people never seem to produce such captivating images: Is is because they always like to smile and signal their virtue? Is it because they lack menace? Or is it simply the case, whether we like to admit this or not, that evil has a more photogenic quality?  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the Candace Owens podcast on the The Daily Wire (20 August 2023) in which she gives her take on the Trump mugshot and discusses the positive reactions of other black Americans: click here. 

      As for Johnny Rotten, the former Sex Pistol declared his support for Trump several years ago - and voted for him in 2020 - seeing in him something of a kindred spirit (anti-liberal, anti-establishment, anti-woke). See Drew Wardle's 2021 article in the online magazine Far Out, in which he expresses his disappointment with Rotten's MAGA brand of conservatism and offers a possible explanation for it: click here. 

 

[2] See Zach Helfand, 'The Trump Mug Shot's Art-Historical Lineage', in The New Yorker (28 August, 2023): click here. 

 

 

Video bonus: to watch Trump's own take on having his mugshot taken on Forbes Breaking News (1 Sept 2023): click here.  

Bodies

"I'm not a discharge / I'm not a loss in protein 

I'm not a throbbing squirm"

 

 

I. 

 

The debate around the issue of abortion is often loud and ugly, with those who take up the polarised (and politicised) positions of either pro-life or pro-choice often viewing the matter as one in which there is no compromise possible. 

For the former, abortion is wrong in most if not all circumstances on the grounds that human life begins at conception and an unborn baby deserves protection. For the latter, on the other hand, affirmation of a woman's right to bodily autonomy is sacrosanct over and above all other considerations, including any supposed rights of an embryo or foetus.    

But, of course, no issue is cut and dried and abortion is (in every sense of the word) a messy business. To discuss it fully requires consideration of complex moral, legal, and medical questions. I'm not, however, here to address the question of abortion from the perspective of a priest, a lawyer, or a doctor. Rather, I'm interested in it in relation to a controversial song by the Sex Pistols entitled 'Bodies' ...     

 

 

II.

 

To be honest, I never much liked 'Bodies' although it seems to be a fan favourite and the band would often open their live set with the song, so one assumes they always enjoyed playing it. 

 

Found on the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977), 'Bodies' tells the true and terrible tale of a female fan from Birmingham called Pauline, who stalked the group whilst carrying an aborted foetus in a plastic bag [1]. 

 

According to the song's graphic and expletive-laden lyrics, this schizophrenic young woman lived in a tree house in the grounds of a mental institution at one time and made even Nancy Spungen seem sane and reasonable in comparison.

 

Apparently, Pauline recounted her experiences of having had several abortions to Rotten at length and in detail and it was these stories that inspired him to write 'Bodies'. 

 

Interestingly, the song is sung from multiple perspectives and is not quite the reactionary and misogynistic anti-abortion diatribe that it is now thought to be by many liberal critics [2], including the loathsome Mark Kermode, who finds the song absolutely reprehensible and thinks it explains why it is Lydon ends up as a Trump supporter [3].

 

What it doesn't do is shy away from the tragic aspect of abortion, which some activists who identify as pro-choice are often keen to overlook, deny, or downplay. It's a difficult track to listen to, but Rotten here as elsewhere captures some of the horror, pain, confusion, and ambiguity that characterises human life conceived as a gurgling bloody mess.             

 

 

Notes

 

[1] To listen to the version of 'Bodies' that appears on Never Mind the Bollocks, click here. To watch the song being performed live at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas Tuesday, on 10 Jan 1978, click here.  

 

[2] It should be pointed out that there are also some on the right who have interpreted 'Bodies' as one of the greatest conservative rock songs; charting, for example, at number 8 on John J. Miller's list of fifty such songs in the National Review (5 June 2006): click here.  

 

[3] Whilst discussing Danny Boyle's 6-part miniseries Pistol with his (equally odious) sidekick Simon Mayo on their podcast Kermode and Mayo's Take (1 June 2022), the former makes clear his moral contempt of the Sex Pistols - particularly Rotten and particularly the song 'Bodies' - click here and go to 4:12 - 4:48.  

     

Beijing Über Alles: On the Western World's Becoming-Chinese in the Age of Coronavirus

Xi Jinping: General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party

President of the People's Republic of China

世界皇帝   

 

 

I.

 

However you wish to term it, Sinofication - i.e., the insidious process by which non-Chinese societies come under the influence of China (be it economically, politically, or culturally) - is an issue of real concern today here in the West [1].

 

Shamefully, however, it is European leaders themselves who - in the name of public safety and protecting their creaking healthcare systems - are actively dismantling liberal democracy and replacing it with an authoritarian model of society obsessed with bio-surveillance inspired by the People's Republic of China: Build Back Better, as they like to say.

 

Thus, for example, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has recently called for appropriate discussions concerning the compulsory vaccination of all EU citizens against Covid-19 (or what Donald Trump still insists on calling - with some justification considering where it originated - the Chinese virus). 

 

This comes after incoming chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, announced he too was in favour of mandatory vaccinations and extending use of digital health passes and face coverings, and following Austria's decision to implement forced Covid vaccination from February next year. In Greece, meanwhile, according to Athens-based commentator Maria Thanassa, monthly fines of  €100 will be issued to all over-60s who remain unvaccinated after the end of this month.

 

I mean, this isn't even something we might smile at any longer, is it? Byung-Chul Han is absolutely spot on to warn: "The last man does not necessarily prefer the liberal system. He is, for instance, quite happy to live under a totalitarian regime." [2]

 

The idea that, as a fateful consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, the West is drifting towards a Chinese-style regime of biopolitical sureveillance is one that Han develops in a recent essay entitled 'The End of Liberalism' that I would like to discuss below ... 

 

 

II. 

 

One of the many things I admire about Han is that he doesn't sit on the fence. Thus, he opens his essay by bluntly - and I think accurately - declaring:

 

"It is almost a matter of the inexorable logic of the pandemic that society will be transformed into a permanent security zone, into a quarantine station in which everyone is treated as though they are infected." [3] 

 

And that effectively spells the end of Western liberalism based on the freedom (and right to privacy) of the individual. It's not the past lockdowns that should trouble us, but the "truly fateful insight [...] that only a biopolitics that allows for unlimited access to the individual" [4] can prevent future lockdowns and economic collapse.

 

Today, it's not California über alles which threatens, but Beijing's 21st-century model of disciplinary society that makes possible "the complete biopolitical surveillance and control of the population" [5]. 

 

Who knows the truth of how Covid-19 became a global pandemic, but the virus has entirely transformed the rules of the game and in the name of survival we will willingly sacrifice "everything that makes life worth living: sociability, community and proximity" [6].   

  

 

Notes

 

 [1] It might be noted that European humanity's becoming more Chinese was something that Nietzsche had already identified as a danger in the 1880s; see section 12 of the first essay in the Genealogy, for example. 

      One hundred years later, and it was Prince Philip expressing his concern that Westerners might become slitty-eyed if they succumb to too much Chinese influence.  

 

[2] Byung-Chul Han, The Palliative Society, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2021), p. 56. 

      As Han goes on to write: "As a survival society, the palliative society does not necessarily depend on liberal democracy. In the face of the pandemic, we are drifting towards a regime of biopolitical surveillance." [57]   

 

[3] Byung-Chul Han, 'The End of Liberalism: The Coronavirus Pandemic and Its Consequences', in Capitalism and the Death Drive, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2021), p. 85. 

[4] Ibid., p. 86. 

[5] Ibid., p. 87. 

      Of course, those zen fascist hippies in Silicon Valley will happily support the Sinofication of society; for them it's a kind of digital utopia that allows for total transparency and demands the level of absolute obedience to authority (as mandated by heaven) that Confucius advocated in his political philosophy.    

[6] Byung-Chul Han, 'COVID-19 Has Reduced Us to a "Society of Survival"', a conversation with Carmen Sigüenza and Esther Rebollo of EFE, the Spanish International News Agency, in Capitalism and the Death Drive, p. 120. 

On Private Language and Post-Truth (Or How D. H. Lawrence Opens the Way for Donald Trump)

I. 

 

D. H. Lawrence opens his 1929 essay on pornography and obscenity by claiming that there is no consensus of opinion regarding a definition of the former: "What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another". And that, similarly, nobody knows what the word obscene means: "What is obscene to Tom is not obscene to Lucy or Joe" [1].  

 

I suspect it's this line of thinking which lies behind James Walker's claim that "any attempt to define obscenity is itself obscene" [2], by which I think he means that the attempt to impose shared meaning (or common values) on the individual and their lived experience is something he finds offensive.  

 

But I'm not entirely sure that's what he means: for by the logic of his own argument - which seems to subscribe to a solipsistic fantasy of purely personal feeling and, indeed, a purely private language - how could I ever be certain of understanding what he's saying?    

 

 

II.  

 

The idea of a private language was, of course, made famous by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations (1953), where he explained it thus: "The words of this language are to refer to what only the speaker can know - to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language." [3]

 

However, no sooner does Wittgenstein introduce this idea of a language conceived as ultimately comprehensible only to its individual originator - because the things which define its vocabulary are necessarily inaccessible to others - than he rejects it as absurd. 

 

Naturally, there has been - and remains - considerable dispute about this idea and its implications for epistemology and theories of mind, etc.

 

Not that the validity or falseness of the idea will bother Lawrentians, for whom inner experience and (their own) singular being is everything. They'll simply repeat after their master: If it be not true to me / What care I how true it be [4] - surely the most intellectually irresponsible lines Lawrence ever wrote, showing disdain for facts, evidence, and reasoned debate and, ironically, opening the way for figures that James Walker certainly doesn't approve of ...

 

 

III. 

 

Arguably, Lawrence anticipates the post-truth world we live in today; one in which shared objective standards and meanings have dissolved into thin air; one in which Tom, Lucy, and Joe all get to define words however they like, à la Humpty Dumpty. Knowledge is confused with opinion and belief; fact is replaced with feeling; intelligence gives way to intutition.

 

It all sounds very liberal, but it isn't. Indeed, historian Timothy Snyder argues, post-truth is pre-fascism:

 

"When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions [...] Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth." [5]  

If it be not true to me / What care I how true it be ... This could so easily have been tweeted by Donald Trump!

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence. 'Pornography and Obscenity', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 236. 

      Lawrence appears to think that a shared meaning or commonly accepted definition of a word is inherently inferior and that only the individual meaning of a word has poetic power and rich symbolism. Even the simplest of words, he says, never mind those that are complex or controversial, has both a mob-meaning and an imaginative individual meaning. And these two categories of meaning are, apparently, forever separate. The problem, however, as Lawrence sees it, is that most people are unable to preserve integrity and private thoughts and feelings become corrupted by those which come from outside: "The public is always profane, because it is controlled from the outside [...] and never from the inside, by its own sincerity." [238] Such thinking is, of course, completely untenable.            

 

[2] James Walker, writing on his Digital Pilgrimage Instagram account: click here. See the post published on 13 April 2021, concerning Peter Hitchens and D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

   

[3] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. Anscombe, (Macmillan, 1953), §243. It's crucial to stress that a private language is not simply a language understood by one person, but a language that, in principle, can only be understood by one person. 

 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 70. 

[5] Timothy Snyder, 'The American Abyss, The New York Times, (9 Jan 2021): click here. 

On Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 EV) 

Although a white European male, mature in years, I'm not a statesman or ruler of any kind, so it surprised me to discover just how much affinity I felt with Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher described by Matthew Arnold as the most beautiful figure in history.  

His Meditations constitute such a remarkably modern series of philosophical reflections on ethics, rationality, and the nature of the self, that it's hard not to love both book and man. And it's difficult also not to look at those moral and intellectual pygmies in positions of power today, exercising their authority over millions of lives, and feel a growing sense of despair.

I can't, for example, imagine Donald Trump tweeting something as lovely - or as profound - as this passage taken from Book 3, in which Aurelius stresses the importance of attending to little things in life, including small imperfections, and of affirming elements of baseness and corruption on the grounds that these too possess their own charm and belong to what Nietzsche will later term an economy of the whole:

"Take the baking of bread: the loaf splits open here and there, and those very cracks, in one way a failure of the baker's profession, somehow catch the eye and give particular stimulus to our appetite. Figs likewise burst open at full maturity: and in olives ripened on the tree the very proximity of decay lends a special beauty to the fruit. Similarly the ears of corn nodding down to the ground, the lion's puckered brow, the foam gushing from the boar's mouth, and much else besides - looked at in isolation these things are far from lovely, but their consequences on the processes of Nature enhances them and gives them attraction. So any man with a feeling and deeper insight for the workings of the Whole will find some pleasure in almost every aspect of their disposition, including the incidental consequences. Such a man will take no less delight in the living snarl of wild animals than in all the imitative representations of painters and sculptors; he will see a kind of bloom and fresh beauty in an old woman or an old man; and he will be able to look with sober eyes on the seductive charm of his own slave boys." [3.2]           

As Diskin Clay, Professor of Classical Studies at Duke University indicates, this passage not only has real philosophical interest, but an almost poetic quality.

In conclusion, we might say that whilst it's true the Ancient world cannot directly provide us with answers to the problems facing us today, there are nevertheless a number of texts containing a treasury of devices, techniques, ideas, and procedures, that may help us, as Foucault argues, form a perspective upon the present and serve as tools for analysing what's happening today. Meditations is surely one such text.         

See: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. with notes by Martin Hammond, introduction by Diskin Clay, (Penguin Books, 2006), pp. 16-17. 

George is Getting Upset! (Notes on Illeism)

There are doubtless reasons why some people refer to themselves in the third person. But outside of books, where it's sometimes used as a literary device, I'm not sure there's ever a good reason to do so. For it makes the speaker sound (at best) like an idiot; or, more worryingly, like someone with mental health issues (a sign perhaps of dissociative identity disorder).

Thus, whilst not encouraging anyone to use 'I' other than sparingly and ironically, I would strongly advise those who frequently practise third person self-referral without embarrassment or any comic intent, to reconsider - unless, that is, they don't mind being thought to have a borderline personality (like Donald Trump, for example, who frequently refers to himself in the third person).

Having said that, I'm told by someone who understands more about this subject than I do, that some individuals find speaking in the third person helps improve their self-esteem, better manage their thoughts and feelings, and successfully navigate their way through complex or stressful social situations.

In other words, a little psychological distancing from oneself (and one's anxieties) can be a very positive thing. Stephen didn't know that - but it seems to be common knowledge within certain Eastern religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, where it's viewed as a sign not of madness, but enlightenment. Jnana yoga practitioners, for example, are actively encouraged to refer to themselves in the third person; for wisdom, it is said, results from the mind's transcendence of ego.    

On Compassion Fatigue

Compassion Fatigue (2014) by Ashley Reaks

As a full-time carer for an elderly parent, 92, with Alzheimer's, I'm intrigued by - and potentially at risk from - secondary traumatic stress (STS), or, as it's commonly known, compassion fatigue; a condition characterized by a gradual hardening of the heart and increased indifference to suffering.

For the fact is, nothing is limitless - not even love - and, sooner or later, everyone involved in providing care for the sick, the vulnerable, the poor, the feckless, or the otherwise needy and dependent, reaches the limits of their patience and concern (even if they are professionally trained to work with such people and cope with traumatic conditions).

It's little wonder then that the highest idealism often results in the most grotesque forms of abuse; for in the end, caring makes sadists of us all ... As does the endless moral insistence by the liberal elite that we in the West should assume responsibility for the entire world.

Arguably, it's not people like Donald Trump and Matteo Salvini who are inuring ordinary people to the acceptance of acts of extreme cruelty, as some suggest. Rather, ironically, it's the bleeding-heart news media that has caused widespread compassion fatigue by constantly broadcasting graphic images of starving children, drowning migrants, and the victims of catastrophic natural events, making us all feel helpless and hopeless and, ultimately, resentful.
      

Desensitised and depressed by global suffering, it's understandable that many people eventually think fuck 'em and look away, deaf to all further cries for help, or appeals to their charity.

And it's this, I think, that explains the rise of populism; figures on the so-called alt-right understand how tired and fed up and anxious and angry people are already feeling, in a way that those on the self-righteous left refuse to. 


Note: this post was partly written in response to an article by the Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole in The Irish Times (26 June, 2018): click here to read online. Many thanks to Simon Solomon for bringing this piece to my attention.

Witches Versus Trump

News that a coven of American witches, assembled via Facebook and including the singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey among their number, met up outside Trump Tower in New York a couple of nights ago for the purpose of casting a powerful binding spell on the President and his supporters, doesn't really surprise me; for I am well acquainted with the delusional vanity of those who believe they possess magical powers.

Conservative Christian groups have reacted with predictable moral outrage and called for action to be taken against those who have, they say, committed an act of spiritual warfare against not just the current administration, but the United States as One Nation Under God. 

But, really, they needn't worry or get too het up; these ludicrous women don't possess diabolical or supernatural powers; just some old candles, a pack of tarot cards, and a disturbing inability to accept the fact that Hilary lost the election. 

Ultimately, this is more about political denialism than pagan occultism ...

                

On How Not to Be a Feminist - A Guest Post by Maria Thanassa

Spot the difference: Sweden's Minister for EU Affairs and Trade 
and Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, 
modestly sign a deal in Tehran, 11 Feb 2017
 Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

It takes so much more than a grand statement of intent on a web page to pursue a feminist foreign policy ...

The Swedish government's decision to suspend its own principles in Tehran because it wasn't the right opportunity to take a stand, is sadly not the first instance of the West failing to put its money where its mouth is; nor will it be the last (especially when its economic interests are threatened).

Disappointing as it may be, the failure of Sweden's government to acknowledge the rank hypocrisy of its actions is therefore hardly surprising. Nor is it any wonder that the mayor of London - all too willing to march in protest against gender inequality in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration - saw no incongruity in an EU member state signing trade deals with a theocratic regime that systematically persecutes gays and violates the freedom of expression for women.

I suppose it's far easier - and far less dangerous - for western politicians to condemn the pussy-grabbing sexism of the US administration or the burkini ban in France, than the murderous, state-approved violence against women of Islamic cultures. The question arises, however, why so few feminists dare criticise Islam when criticism is patently due.

Consider, for example, The Women's March on London: the organisers stated that the march was "for the protection of fundamental rights and for the safeguarding of freedoms threatened by recent political events". They further declared that the event would "send a bold message to the world that women’s rights are human rights ... that an attack on one group is an attack on us all." Complacency, they insisted is not an option.

One might reasonably expect, therefore, that images of female Swedish politicians deferentially veiled during an official trip to Iran, would attract some attention and some anger amongst at least some of the self-appointed champions of liberal values. To paraphrase Iranian feminist Azadeh Davachi, if western women are concerned about Donald Trump's cabinet and his views toward women, surely it follows that they have to consider women's rights in Iran.

But no, hardly a word on the matter. Regrettably, one is led to conclude that western feminists are so obsessed with dismantling capitalist patriarchy and swatting WASPs, that they are blind to female oppression within Muslim communities - including those established in towns and cities across the West.

This is the kind of partisan feminism that sees the speck of sawdust in its brother's eye, but fails to spot the beam in its own ...


Athens-born Maria Thanassa is a teacher of Greek language, literature, and film. She has a Ph.D. from Kings College, London and is the founder and director of EKON Arts. She also writes a blog that combines her love of baking, photography and poetry: Moonshine and Lemon.

Maria appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her contribution and her kind permission to edit and revise this post.  

On the Triumph of Donald Trump: Don't Say I Didn't Warn You ...

Photo credit: AP/LM Otero

I hate to be one of those people who says I told you so, but, back in 2008, in a series of essays on myth, history and cultural despair, I did suggest that - thanks to globalization - we in the West find ourselves today in very similar position to the people of Austria during the 19th century and that the potential for a new type of pessimistic and reactionary politics, based on notions of race, religion, and national identity, was thus a very real danger.   

Such a desperate response, I noted, might not be very desirable, but was perfectly understandable when mass immigration had resulted in the internal exile of indigenous populations in their own societies and concern over their future survival as ethnically and culturally distinct groups was increasingly widespread.

In order to provide some theoretical support for this argument, I referred to an essay by Jean Baudrillard in which he offered a painfully revisionist explanation for why it is that only figures on the far-right seem to possess the last remnants of political interest. This passage in particular seemed at the time - and still seems - absolutely spot on:

"The right once embodied moral values and the left, in opposition, embodied a certain historical and political urgency. Today, however, stripped of its political energy, the left has become a pure moral injunction, the embodiment of universal values, the champion of the reign of virtue and the keeper of the antiquated values of the Good and the True ..."

In short, the left has become boring and this results not only in their abject surrender, but in a situation where it’s only neo-fascist and populist politicians who have anything interesting left to say: "All the other discourses are moral or pedagogical," writes Baudrillard, "made by school teachers and lesson-givers, managers and programmers".

In daring to embrace evil and reject political correctness, I concluded, the far-right looks set to scoop the political jackpot ...

Now - just to be clear - this didn't mean back in 2008 and it doesn't mean now that I support or necessarily share the views of Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, or Donald Trump. But it does mean I can understand the attraction of these figures to voters who are sick to death of being spoken down to by those in power who think they know better than the people who have to live with the consequences of their decisions.

And it does mean I'm conscious of the more prosaic reasons why the above seem to speak to and for an angry white working-class who feel increasingly marginalized by high-tech industries and the enforced integration of ethnic minorities into their communities.

For, unfortunately, globalization doesn't only unleash flows of capital, information, and talent across national borders, it also brings with it crime, disease, and barbarism (by which I mean unfamiliar and often antithetical customs, norms, values and beliefs). And so, unsurprisingly, defensive ideologies arise that promise to counter threats to national and cultural identity and restore order.

And so Brexit and the triumph of Donald Trump ...

Notes

Stephen Alexander, 'Reflections beneath a Black Sun', The Treadwell's Papers, Vol. IV, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010).

Jean Baudrillard, ‘A Conjuration of Imbeciles’, in The Conspiracy of Art, trans. Ames Hodges, (Semiotext[e], 2005). 

Ben Carson: An American Idiot

Ben Carson by Gage Skidmore (2015)

Donald Trump is clearly not stupid: ignorant, perhaps, but he's mostly just a nasty piece of work; or flamboyant, as his new Russian buddy, Vladimir Putin, would say.

Ben Carson, on the other hand, who is also a candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President in the 2016 election, is not an out-and-out shit, but he does believe (and say) some very, very stupid things.

This is almost entirely due to the fact that, sadly, this retired (and much respected) neurosurgeon suffers from religious fundamentalism; a degenerative brain disorder that turns fine minds to mush.

Carson, as one commentator has put it, is an African-American who downplays the reality of slavery and continuing problems of racism in the US, and a man of medicine and higher education who denies many of the modern scientific facts and discoveries upon which our knowledge of the world is based.

Thus, for example, Carson not only thinks that evolution is a mistaken theory, but one to which Darwin was led by Satan! His argument is that something as beautifully complex as the human brain couldn't have arisen from a slime pit full of promiscuous biochemicals. In addition, Carson ridicules the idea of the Big Bang and rejects the validity of evidence provided by carbon dating.

Of course, many amongst the electorate seem to share Carson's prejudices - not to mention those who identify strongly as creationists, young-earthers, or proponents of intelligent design. But surely, even in America, there can't be many people who also subscribe to the popular medieval belief - as Carson does - that the Egyptian pyramids were not in fact ancient tombs, but elaborate grain silos, built by Joseph, son of Jacob, in preparation for a famine described in the book of Genesis.

Not only are archaeologists fairly certain that the pyramids were used for funerary purposes, but, as they also point out, they would have made pretty poor storage units for grain - as they aren't hollow!

Couple these (and many other) crackpot and controversial views to his reactionary positions on issues such as abortion, homosexuality, health care, immigration, and climate change and it becomes clear why Carson is, in the words of the song, an American idiot.

Torpedo the Ark Xmas Message 2015

Actually, as a philosopher, I try to avoid dealing in opinions - particularly personal opinions - and I can't stand opinionated persons who pride themselves on the strength of their conviction; as if something is true simply because they feel it to be so and/or sincerely wish it to be so. 

Nietzsche's often quoted but little understood remark about there being no facts, only interpretations, has had the unfortunate result of providing cheap philosophical comfort to such cocksure individuals, allowing them to assert beliefs about the world without making any reference to objective reality, or provide any verifiable evidence for their arguments. 

In other words, perspectivism - which was intended to make us think more carefully to what extent axioms of logic are adequate to reality and how truth-claims may or may not reflect a healthy will to power - now serves as a sop to those who think they are just as entitled to their views as anybody else and that all views are of equal status and validity within a relativistic universe.

It is, as I say, unfortunate. And it's certainly not my position; I might like a certain degree of pluralism, but I'm not an idiot: some ideas are mistaken or badly thought out; some views are restricted by prejudice; some opinions are simply not worth considering.

Ultimately, I share the Socratic position and think it crucial to discriminate between opinions, always remaining alert to the fact that just because something is popular or persuasive, this doesn't make it true or mean that it serves in the best interests of life.

In accepting the opinions of those who have big mouths and large financial resources with which to control the media - demagogues, such as would-be Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who either do not know the difference between the true and the false, the just and unjust, or simply do not care about the difference - we run the risk of damaging that part of ourselves (whatever we may call it) to which these things are vitally connected.

So, the conclusion of this Xmas message is this: you shouldn't worry about the opinion of everybody and anybody, but only about the well-informed analyses which enable you to decide what is right and wrong. By concerning yourself with the latter and by always asking for the evidence, you'll avoid that corruption of the soul caused by doxa. 

Torpedo the Ark!