Who needs the flowery bullshit?

A few years ago, back when "liking" everything that you possibly could on facebook was cool, I, apparently, was not. In fact, it could be said that I had a rather depressing outlook on life because I refused to "like" anything. It had nothing to do with any notion of non-conformity or anything like that- it just simply drove me nuts to see "Johnny Appleseed likes ZOMG IM SUCH A NINJA and 47 other things." I made one exception however, in the case of the CollegeHumor page. The site puts out a ton of funny content every day, and I was in desperate need of some form of procrastination, so it helped a lot.

Now, in our discussions about the meaning of signs and metaphors, and how it affects how we view the world around us, I find myself asking "Why the hell do we need metaphors to begin with?" I mean, don't get me wrong, I am an English major and I understand all too well the value of using these iconic and symbolic phrases to bull-shit my way through a paper, but what purpose do they really serve? If you really think about it, there are very few things that are commonly used in metaphor that could not be more simply put in common language.

For example:                     More simply put, becomes
My love for you is a rose ------------------------------------> I love you a lot.

Boom! Simple, right? Sure, it might be a little more boring and a little less sentimental, but hey, it gets the point across, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of us having language with which to speak simply to express our ideas to other people? While the English student in me recoils at the thought, it is definitely thought-provoking. When did we cross the line into this realm of metaphysical meanings for things, when at one point in human history we grunted at each other to convey important information?

 Anyway, back to the CollegeHumor thing. This question that I'm trying to get at here echoes something that popped up on my facebook so long ago. While other people might have missed it between posts by groups such as "Im glad that I'm not on fire right now" and "Damn, it feels good to be a ganstuh," CollegeHumor put out a rather interesting video about the importance of metaphor in our music. Its worth a laugh if you haven't seen it.

While it could be said that oftentimes, the songs that are portrayed in the above video certainly do illustrate the same idea as the "flowery, poetic bullshit,"  oftentimes, without the metaphor, we would find that we would hate our own music. There is something within that exchange between reality and metaphor that gives more depth to whatever it is one is trying to say. That is not to say that a metaphor says more than a nice description would. I could certainly, as an writer, describe in detail something comparable to how my love "is a rose." While it would have all of the same information and perhaps many of the connotations, it still falls short.

So to repeat the question, why do we use metaphor? Why do we use signs at all, rather than just "telling it like it is." As Saussure notes, the only real thing that gives  a word meaning is its difference in comparison to other words. Some words don't even really have a real tangible meaning. So to put this idea on a slightly larger scale, perhaps what gives metaphor its value is also its difference in comparison with other means of describing things. In his famous song Long Black Train, Josh Turner could very easily have simply said "You don't have to give in to your addictions." While the idea would certainly be true, it would not have been made very popular in the music industry. What gives the idea value is that, in comparing the metaphor to how we would, for example, explain the meaning to a friend, that there is a difference between the two. More importantly, that the difference could even be different between people. I could certainly take the meaning of the song in a completely different direction than someone trying to overcome a drug addiction.

In the end, Metaphor is important, because nobody wants to hear John Mayer sing about how his songs are going to get him laid.

The Apple Fetish

Consider the above "advertisement." What is obviously a parody on one of today's most popular companies, Apple, has quite a bit to tell us about how we take in advertising, what we like to see in our products, and what we value as a society. A few years ago, Steve Jobs, in discussing Apple's design philosophy, stated that they were going for "simple and elegant." Think of any Apple products you know. All of them are sleek, modern, and contribute to a certain sub-culture. In this image, we get a pretty good idea of a more farcical interpretation of Apple's message. One could say that Apple is about fluffy statements that make their products look more high-tech or elegant. They take things that are not necessarily revolutionary in and of themselves, and try to make them look Apple-unique and important.

Last semester, in one of my larger courses on campus, my professor told students that she encouraged students to bring their computers to take notes during class. While I preferred to stick to the ancient method of writing on a stone tablet, I was shocked by how many of my peers showed up boasting their MacBook Pros. What was really surprising to me, however, was what ensued when these people began talking about their machines. They brought up the superior computing abilities, resistance to viruses, window-jumping abilities, etc. One of the guys I spoke with, after finding out that I used a P.C. laughed, stating that I paid a bunch of money for an inferior machine. However, when I brought up the fact that my computer had twice as much RAM, a stronger processor, a better graphics card, and longer battery lifer than his MacBook, and for hundreds of dollars less, he still asserted that his Mac was better than my P.C.

You might be thinking "So what? Some kid didn't like your computer." That is not the point, however.This guy refused to believe something other than what he had been programmed by Apple to believe about computers. The advertising and culture support he received all supported the idea that this MacBook was a superior machine, which justified his purchase. He has so completely sunk in to this image of Apple the company, Apple the logo, that he rejected the idea of the product itself being something different.

In his work, The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret, Karl Marx questions determines the "worth" or "value" of something. He contends that this"exchange value" is derived, in part, from human labor. While this might certainly be true to some extent for Apple, I would assert that in terms of the Mac, the price is directly related to the "image" or "logo" of Apple.

In No Logo, Naomi Klein discusses a push in the marketing world towards a new strategy. Rather than marketing a product, many companies are now trying to push some monolithic image upon the masses. Companies like Nike try to impress the "Just Do It" image through a number of different platforms. When we think of Nike, we don't first think of shirts or shoes or equipment. We think of celebrities like Tiger Woods. We think of the Nike Swoosh. Most importantly, however, we think of sports. Nike embodies sports. Because of this, Nike has been very successful.

Apple does the same thing. By pushing this idea of sleek and elegant, yet super-powerful technology, Apple is working to create an image. Through the "virus free" propaganda, they enhance this idea. But is a MacBook fundamentally better than any other computer? In terms of the parts that go into it, the cost for labor, etc. is there anything all that special about a Mac? I would contend that really, what constitutes the huge discrepancy in price between a Mac and an identically performing P.C. is the image. To some extent, Apple is allowed to jack up its prices because of the image that it projects. Because of this "logo inflation," Apple makes people think that their parts are superior to those of competitors. Perhaps the fact that Macs are so expensive even allows them to be expensive. We ascribe a certain sense of quality to things that are expensive. If a MacBook costs more than a similar P.C. then it must be better, right? It's a vicious cycle.

It might seem as if I were trying to champion the cause of the P.C. and say that Macs are terrible. On the contrary, I think that both have their strengths and weaknesses, and I really have little preference. What is important, however, is to note that the fundamental difference between the two platforms stems not from the quality of the machine, but of the way that we perceive the companies who make them. Apple has managed to completely "fetishize" their product. By creating an image within our society about their products, they have altered the way we think about the product itself, how much we are willing to pay for it, and how we think about similar products made by other companies. I think that as a whole, we need to strive to see through what marketers want us to see in order to look with clearer eyes at what we want for ourselves.

I'm a Soul Man *trumpets*

In his essay Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault gets at a very important question. By analyzing the way prison systems have evolved, and especially how punishment has changed over time, he ends up reaching a very philosophical conclusion. He examines that punishment used to be a form of physical pain used to set an example of sorts. After a burst of humanism, imprisonment becomes more about the rehabilitation of a broken individual into society by using a host of psychological and other academic experts. Foucault exerts, at the end, that "the soul is the prison of the body." In so doing, the inevitable question erupts, "What is a soul?"

This question has been in the forefront of society for hundreds of years, and manifests its self in many different ways. From the most evident point of view, that of religion, the soul is some sort of separate, non-physical entity that represents the eternal self. Churches of many types have taught lessons that the soul, after death, continues while the body deteriorates.This is perhaps the basis for the perceptions that many of us have of the soul.

What does it mean to have a soul, however? We use the term to mean a wide variety of things. For example, some might contend that Bill O'Riely has no soul.  That is to say, that he is a mean person. Does this imply that a soul is inherently good? If we state that a murderer "has no soul," then does that contend that souls are tied to the very question of morality? And if so, how can we justify the subjectivity of morality? Is a soul's moral sense based off of the society of the person, or some human standard for morality?We also use the term to describe some genres of music.Perhaps this would imply that the soul is inherently upbeat and happy. It is something that we exhibit when we are feeling   uplifted or spiritual.

The soul often comes up in political debates. When we talk about abortion, we often discuss when "life" begins. Often, the argument is brought up that the "soul" exists at conception, and that a baby's life is somehow valuable because of this. So is the soul then what gives us the essential spark of life that makes us who we are? Can we exist independently from it? The same issue can come up in discussions about capital punishment. It is a moral quandary about our societal right to take the life of someone, and therefore the soul.  

I am positive that in writing this piece, Foucault had many of these questions on his mind. He was striving to figure out the relationship between a man and his conscience. He figured that in the modern prison system, a man's body is not tried as it once was, but his mind most certainly was. In describing prisoners, he says "A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body." In describing it thusly, he is starting a conversation that really asks us to consider what a soul really is and how it affects us.

The only problem is that nobody has the same answer, and the metaphysical nature of the idea itself forces debate. So perhaps a soul is impossible to define, but I think that we all should consider what our "souls" mean to us.