Falling in Love Again

 Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt

First we fall in love, then we fall into language, says Roland Barthes, referring us to the fact that even the most personal or private of emotions is inevitably articulated within a shared code and culture.

For some people, however, this raises a real concern; for if the language of love is entirely secondhand, then does it not lack authenticity and is the lover not, at some level, always insincere?

Perhaps: but I'm not convinced we should let this worry us too much (if at all). 

Besides, it would be absurd to expect individual lovers to be able to create unique ways of expressing how they feel. Even if it were possible, what would be the point? For we would no more be able to understand their sweet nothings whispered into our ears, than we could comprehend Wittgenstein's speaking lion. A private language - be it of love or anything else - would be essentially meaningless (i.e. a non-language). 

Ultimately, the words I love you delight and reassure us precisely because of their familiarity and the fact that we understand them as the repetition of an ancient litany; they invite us to participate in a game wherein we all have a vague idea of the rules, even if we cannot all expect to be winners. 

In the World of Addison Lee

addisonlee.com

The ad campaign I presently love to hate the most is for business-class car service Addison Lee (i.e. the world's most pretentious mini-cab operator).

Targeted towards executives and premium leisure users, the six-figure campaign entitled 'Cool, Calm and Collected' is meant to embody the Addison Lee vision of an unrivaled and super-efficient service that enables customers to move smoothly and conveniently around the capital in comfort and style. That's certainly the line being peddled by chief commercial officer Peter Boucher.

For me, however, it suggests something very different. When I look at the above picture or one of the related images from the campaign, I see a couple in a virtual bubble of money, smugness and false security being transported through the chaotic yet strangely empty and sanitized streets of London. Such elitism and fascist utopianism is offensive enough, but one can also detect the whiff of casual sexism and racism.

The woman, for example, with dark curly hair and wearing a red dress that shows off her dusky skin colour, has obviously been chosen to add a little spice; a vague hint of exotic otherness and wild sensuality. She smiles, but she's clearly not entirely happy to be trapped in the bubble alongside her white, male, fully-covered companion. She sits a little uncomfortably and somewhat nervously with her bare legs pressed together and turned as far away from him as possible, her bare arms crossed. She might reluctantly give him a blow job, but she really doesn't want to fuck him.

He could, of course, be her colleague, but probably he's her good-looking young boss; she's obliged, therefore, not only to look across at him, but up to him with a mixture of love and respect. He, on the other hand, can look at her any way he chooses; or, indeed, as here, he can choose not to look at her at all - to keep his eyes on the road, on the future, and doubtless on his own reflection like the narcissist he is.

Suited and booted, he nevertheless keeps it casual; no tie, open-neck shirt, designer stubble ... Only the expensive haircut and neatly-folded pocket handkerchief tells us he's still very much in control and obsessed with order and detail; still holding on to the power and the privilege of his class, his race, and his sex.


Note: The Addison Lee ad campaign was created by Albion; written by George Morgan and shot by Doug Fisher. Unique Digital handled the media strategy and buying.

Skinny Mannequin Sparks Outrage

The curious and often heated debate over the size and shape of shop-window dummies is raging once again, following the appearance of a new model in Topshop (second from left in the above image) and a tweet from outraged customer Betty Hopper.

Now, whilst I understand the issue here and can see how display units might (somewhat naively) be thought of as plastic versions of real women and thus, like fashion models, be caught up in the discussion around body image and eating disorders, are stores really promoting anorexia as an aspirational lifestyle by using skinny mannequins? I don't think so. 

In fact, I have more than a little sympathy with those who argue that solid fibreglass mannequins are not meant to be viewed as ideal role models and have more in common with clothes hangers than they do with flesh-and-blood women. Usually, any realistic elements are outweighed by the abstract and frequently headless nature of the design.

In a statement issued by Topshop with reference to the mannequin in question, it's calmly pointed out that "the form is a stylized one designed to have greater impact in store and create a visual focus". The statement continues by saying that the mannequin primarily exists to display clothes and its dimensions simply enable faster dressing and undressing; "it is therefore not meant to be a representation of the average female body".

That's a little disingenuous perhaps, but it's by no means false or an outright lie and I think those who get overexcited on social media and start speaking about 'impressionable teens', or body-shaming those girls who are happily waif-like with their offensive assertion that real women have curves, need to keep things in perspective and be careful what they say.

Not that it's just possibly envious members of the twitterati who make nasty remarks about those girls judged to be underweight; I was surprised and disappointed to read Pascal Bruckner's negative characterization of fashion models as "flat-chested beanpoles". Is the woman with a "fuller-figure" he appears to lust after really a taboo in our society? Again, I don't think so.

Finally, if "emaciated mannequins" (another of Bruckner's pet peeves) cause anorexia and represent the triumph of ascetic idealism's dream of disembodiment, then mightn't plus-size dummies promote obesity?

The Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, certainly thinks so and recently warned that the increasing use of larger mannequins (along with size inflation of labelling) were starting to normalize overweight. This might be a slightly absurd and simplistic claim, but no more so than the one made about the Topshop mannequin. 

Philosophy For Everyone and No One (Not For All)

Owl logo of Philosophy for All:  

pfalondon.org

Philosophy for All: a phrase and a London-based, non-profit organization designed to dismay or make laugh those perverts who value the fatal love of wisdom, just as it flatters those who subscribe to the moral ideal of equality and the notion that all souls might know Plato.

From the PFA Secretary I receive news of a masterclass [!] that teachers and would-be teachers of philosophy are strongly encouraged to attend; a class that promises to show how philosophy can be made accessible, inclusive and relevant to people of all ages and from all backgrounds.

Prospective students on the day-long course are also assured they will be taught how to deal with the tricky questions that often arise within philosophy and which can cause some students a great deal of difficulty. 

Now, as regular readers of this blog will know, as a post-Nietzschean philosopher I'm all for models of thought invested with an ironic, joyful element. But la gaya scienza doesn't mean dumbing-down in the name of democracy, nor attempting to make thinking fun in a manner that robs it of all seriousness, all challenge, all danger.  

When Zarathustra speaks, he speaks to everyone and no one, never simply to all. And he expects his listeners to have first grown new ears ...

Note: Readers might be interested in Anja Steinbauer's position on this question which can be found in an article published in Philosophy Now, issue 22. Click here. Dr Steinbauer is founder and president of Philosophy for All and co-founder of the London School of Philosophy.  

Vade Retro Satana: On the Priestly Nostalgia for Exorcism

Goya's depiction of an exorcism performed by St Francis Borgia 

on a dying impenitent (1788)

According to the Pope, demonic possession is a real and growing threat in the 21st century. In fact, since assuming his position as head of the Church, Pope Francis has repeatedly displayed a multidisciplinary yet fundamentally anti-modern or neo-medieval approach to the theoretical and practical question of Satan.

It was not a great surprise, therefore, to hear that he last month gave his papal blessing to the International Association of Exorcists; an organization formally recognized by the Vatican which argues - somewhat paradoxically one might have thought - that in a secular-material world of reason that deliberately disenchants and deadens faith, the window is thrown wide open to diabolical forces.

During a convention held in Rome, the Holy Father praised those priests who specialize in the difficult work of exorcising demons and stressed how it was important for the Church to offer its love and full support for those unfortunate souls possessed by evil. 

Over three-hundred experts in the field of what might be called sacramental health care, gathered to discuss, among other things, the perils of occultism and how dabbling in the dark arts can lead to eternal damnation. A spokesman for the association - Dr Walter Cascioli, a trained psychiatrist - blamed the recent dramatic rise in demonic activity on popular books, TV shows, and films aimed at impressionable young people. Such works, he explained, not only lead morally astray, but can cause great psychological damage.

Parents, teachers, and social workers thus need to display much greater vigilance and be constantly on guard against the Devil and all his works. Signs of demonic possession vary, but include: loss of appetite, self-mutilation, unnatural body postures, supernatural strength, knowledge of sacred mysteries, and a violent rejection of Jesus and his Gospel of Love.      

Please note: I am actually writing this at the beginning of November, not April, and in 2014 not 1420. I would fully understand if readers of this post feel the need to check the calender or seek evidence for some kind of shift in the space-time continuum. Why is it whenever one reports on the latest pronouncements of the Church one feels as if one has fallen either through a black hole, or, like Alice, down a rabbit hole?    

Les Zazous

Pretty much everyone has heard of the jazz-loving teens in Hitler's Germany known as the Swing Youth, who developed a subversive Anglo-American sensibility and style in diametric opposition to National Socialism. Likewise, those who are interested in this period and in subcultural and counter-cultural forms of resistance to the Third Reich are probably also familiar with the Edelweiss Pirates. But far less well known are the French equivalent of die Swingjugend, called les Zazous.

The Zazous were a group of mostly Parisian based hipsters living under German occupation during World War II who chose to defy their Nazi overlords and display their nonconformity by wearing outlandish clothes, carrying umbrellas, growing their hair long, and dancing to jazz, swing, and bebop.

Whilst boys favoured wearing oversized, often knee-length box jackets, peg leg trousers, and suede brothel creepers, the girls wore short pleated skirts, striped stockings and shoes with thick wooden soles. Often the girls would bleach their hair, worn in long curls, and paint their lips bright red. Both sexes also had a penchant for sunglasses, whatever the weather.

When not hanging about on the terrace of the Pam Pam café drinking cocktails, the Zazous often frequented vegetarian restaurants and ordered grated carrot salads. If there's a subtle political gesture in this choice of lunch, I have to confess it escapes me. But their decision to voluntarily wear the yellow star of David, in solidarity with French Jews, was certainly an overt and courageous sign of dissident behaviour in a country where anti-Semitism was widespread and silent complicity with the Nazis (if not active collaboration) was shamefully often the norm.  

And for this, one cannot help affording them great affection and respect. Perhaps they didn't risk their lives in the same manner as their German counterparts, but they were nevertheless detested and targeted by the Nazis and members of the Vichy government who saw them as a threat to the moral well-being of the nation.

Articles published by the authorities at the time, branded them as decadent, work-shy, anti-patriotic egoists and, after 1942, les Zazous were often attacked and beaten on the streets by pro-fascist groups, or arrested and sent to labour in the fields and farms of the French countryside. 

Disappointingly - though not surprisingly - members of the official French Resistance movement had little time for the Zazous either and afforded them no support or protection. In fact, the communists and other ultra-leftists dismissed the Zazous in much the same terms and for many of the same reasons as the fascists.

But, despite such hostility from both ends of the political spectrum, they still continued to dance, to dress-up, and make their daring and dandyish revolt into style.

I Care - But I'm Not Mother Teresa

I care - but I'm not Mother Teresa.

What do I mean by this? 

I mean that, for me, there is nothing remotely uplifting about looking after someone who is in need of care and I'm not about to sacrifice myself entirely to this tiring and depressing task in the mistaken belief that by so doing I demonstrate Christian virtue.

For unlike Mother T - a woman once described by Christopher Hitchens as a corrupt Albanian dwarf who exploited the poor and dying as extras in her own obscene morality play - I don't confuse or conflate excremental reality with transcendental fantasy. 

Indeed, I agree with Hitchens that it's deeply offensive to fetishize pain and poverty and develop a voracious appetite for human wretchedness; to literally feed off shit and gain personal salvation via the suffering of others.

We have to demoralize our idea of sympathy; i.e. free it from ideal notions of pity and charity which transport us to the foot of the Cross.

And, ultimately, all it takes to do the right thing is a little politeness of the heart or what Nietzsche terms benevolence; kindness, kisses and kuddlz have played a far greater role in building a libidinal culture of compassion or phallic tenderness, than those more celebrated values preached by the Good.  

The Nylon Riots

Nylon is a generic term for a group of synthetic polymers known as aliphatic polyamides, first produced in 1935 by Wallace Carothers whilst working at the Du Pont research facility in Delaware, USA. Although it was initially manufactured as a type of hard plastic and used commercially in nylon-bristled toothbrushes, its most famous application came after it was produced in the form of an artificial silk fabric at the New York World's Fair in 1939. After this date, silk stockings gave way to nylons and female legs would never be the same again.

Immediately popular and in extremely high demand, women in the US and elsewhere went mad for nylons and many millions of pairs were sold and worn with delight. Unfortunately, however, after America finally entered World War II, Du Pont were obliged by government order to cease production of stockings and use the new wonder material for parachutes and other such items required by the military. 

Thus, during the war, women had to make do with old or second-hand stockings; or, if push really came to shove, they resorted to a clever use of cosmetics and painted seams on bare legs in order to create the illusion that they were wearing nylons. 

Not surprisingly, stockings became increasingly sought after and (often stolen) pairs could sell for up to $20 on the black market. American women were desperate for the fighting to end, so that they they could have their menfolk back home and - just as vitally - nylons would be easily available once more. So desperate were they in fact to own new stockings, that when Du Pont shifted its production back to stockings post-war, it resulted in what have become known as the Nylon Riots.

One of the largest disturbances was in Pittsburgh, where 40,000 women queued for 13,000 pairs of stockings, inevitably leading to disappointment, hair-pulling, and eye-scratching. Following similar trouble in Augusta, Georgia, a local newspaper ran with the headline: 'Women Risk Life and Limb in Bitter Battle for Nylons' and reported how crowds forced their way into stores and knocked over display counters as well as each other.

Du Pont, who had promised that all women would be able to have new nylons by Christmas, were obliged to revise their forecast. Indeed, it took several months to finally bring production in line with the frenzy of demand, thereby bringing the mass cat-fights to an end. 

The point is this: it's not just men who love nylons; women too know that bare legs lack magic and that one ultimately gets the greatest joy of all out of a pair of really lovely stockings. 

On the Nose

Idealist philosophers, such as Kant, hate the nose: they only care about the eyes and the production of visual images and mental concepts; scents and smells, be they base or beautiful, mean nothing to them and might almost entirely be ignored.

But for those philosophers who seek to develop a form of libidinal materialism that is firmly rooted in the body and wider sensual experience - who don't wish merely to picture the world, but also to sniff it at close quarters - the nose is the most crucial of organs.

Thus it is that Nietzsche boasts that his whole genius resides in his nostrils and praises the nose as "the most delicate tool we have at our command"; a subtle scientific instrument which can detect minimal changes of condition, including symptoms of moral decay. As such, the nose deserves to be shown respect and gratitude by philosophers.

    

Lovers too know that the nose knows best, which is why they like to literally breathe in the odour of the beloved other; not merely for sensual intoxication and pleasure, but in order to make an accurate physiological assessment of their partner's health and breeding potential.

For it is believed that an individual's body odour - or what is sometimes termed their olfactive signature - is linked with an area of the genome that has crucial import for the immune system. Thus it might well be that knicker-sniffing, for example, is a form of biological imperative; one is seeking out histocompatibility and not just being a bit pervy.  

In Praise of Nivea: The Snow-White Miracle Cream

Although the ingredients for Nivea Creme are openly available on the Beiersdorf website and are little different from other commercial hand and body lotions - Aqua, Paraffinum Liquidum, Cera Microcristallina, Glycerin, Lanolin Alcohol (Eucerit®), Paraffin, Panthenol, Decyl Oleate, Octyldodecanol, Aluminum Stearates, Citric Acid, Magnesium Sulfate, Magnesium Stearate, Parfum, Limonene, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Linalool, Citronellol, Benzyl Benzoate, Cinnamyl Alcohol - the precise formulation (i.e. how these things are uniquely combined) has remained a company secret for over a hundred years.

I know that such secrecy worries some people and fuels the widespread suspicion (bordering on paranoia) surrounding both the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. I am also aware that those eco-ascetics who favour strictly organic beauty products developed by tribal peoples in the rain forests of Borneo, for example, or simply wish to splash cold water on their faces, insist that many of the above ingredients have damaging environmental and/or health effects.

One such critic, for example, writing in The Ecologist, expressed his dismay with what goes into a jar of Nivea and repeatedly played on the concerns of his readership by stressing the terms irritants and sensitizers (i.e. chemicals that, with repeated exposure, may trigger allergic reactions), and, of course, the C-word: carcinogens (i.e. potentially cancer-causing substances). 

Parafinnum liquidum, for instance, is a cheap and easy to manufacture form of mineral oil that acts as a emollient that penetrates the skin and produces a temporary moisturizing effect. But the above critic argued that it destroys the skin's natural oils and thus results ultimately in dryness. Having used the product for many years, I know the former to be true - but I've no idea whether the latter is true, for the writer provides no evidence to back-up his claim. Nor do I know if the synthetic fragrances used in Nivea, such as limonene, linalool, and citonellol can cause eye-irritation, trigger asthma attacks, produce tumours and reproductive abnormalities. They do smell nice, however.  

The point is this: we may not need to use skin creams or perfumes or expensive shampoos, but these things make happy and allow us to dream and have more importance in our lives than we might imagine; which is why it is, I think, that my mother - who is 88 and who, thanks to dementia, has lost her appetite for food, her memories of the past, and even her desire to step out of the house - still insists on applying a generous amount of Nivea Creme each evening before bedtime, in order to keep her face and hands soft and young-looking, just as she has always done. 

That's the beauty of beauty products and the magic of cosmetics and why, for me, Nivea is a snow-white miracle cream; as much of a gift of the German genius, in its own way, as the poetry of Rilke, the music of Wagner, or the philosophy of Nietzsche.