Obama is the Catherine Mackinnon for oppressed white NASA engineers
By shag carpet bomb • Feb 6th, 2008 • Category: Catherine MacKinnon, Election 2008, Imperialism, Janet Halley, Obama, TheoryOK. I alluded to this analysis already, but I hadn’t realized I wasn’t very clear until I repeated myself and realized, fromt he response, that it was too opaque the 1st time. Here, I’m showing Obama’s rhetoric consists of empty signifiers. How his speeches are “all things to all people”. What makes white ppl so reassured and included?” Why do white men project one message on obama, Black men other messages, Latinas other messages, white women still other messages, etc. etc.? How is it that they see themselves in the loving embrace of the “Yes We Can” speech?
I have already argued that this speech exemplifies a hyper-patriotic nationalism. Patriotic themes are common to all years divisible by four. But what makes OBama’s rhetoric special is the ease with which he insists on the unification of the we — out of the many, one — by othering certain groups: native americans, the environment, the left, and any group outside of the US since it is the US’s special duty to “repair the world”. I run ahead of myself.
Anyways, since I got half a dozen email thanking me for this post at LBO, I figured it was worth archiving:
Obama is the Catherine MacKinnon for the oppressed white guys and NASA engineers. Remember last week when I said that his “yes we can” speech was premised on othering and it made effective use of the copula? Well, watch, this is how he manages to be an empty signifier. Obama’s rhetoric is successful only in part because of the repetition. That’s a hallmark of all good orators. It’s the copula or the “collapsed continuum” that makes it really work: that creates the one out of many, the e pluribus unum.
Now first, let me borrow Halley on MacKinnon. MacKinnon is master at fucking her readers with the copula. I call it Count Copula. Her sentences are breathless with the and, and, and — comma, comma, comma, — repeat, repeat, repeat, — pound, pound, pound — bang, bang, bang, — and, and, and. Here’s how you are fucked:
“Socially, femaleness means femininity, which means attractiveness to men, which means sexual attractiveness, which means sexual availability on male terms. What defines woman as such is what turns men on.”
and
“The way subordination is done in pornography is the way it is done in prostitution is the way it is done in the rest of the world: rape, battering, sexual abuse of children, sexual harassment and murder are sold in prostitution and are the acts out of which pornography is made.”
Is the way it is X, is the way it is Y, is the way it is Z, is the way it is A, is the way it is B, …. Until you are convinced by the end that pornography is prostitution is rape is battering is child molestation is harassment is murder… and back round again to prostitution and pornography.
If you are a blogging radfem, then it is pornstitution. You don’t even need to separate the two words: bang, pound, fuck, slap, smack, crush them together. There is nothing about them that is different, so need for two words or separation.
Halley, in her book Split Decisions, teases out these kinds of lists in various feminist and queer theory texts. She contrasts collapsed or imploded continuums with exploded continuums. The former is convergentizing, moving everything toward one another possibly to the point of collapse or implosion. The latter is divergentizing, moving and repelling away from each and all toward explosion.
Watch how Obama uses the copula — and why I argued last week he lays the ground work for a hypernationalistic patriotism that I find terrifying. You start with the Constitution where it is our _DESTINY_ as a nation. Never mind how those documents counted slaves as 3/5 of a person or anything…
Yes we can. It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can.
The collapsed continuum or the convergentizing, imploded list begins:
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists
as they blazed a trail toward freedom through
the darkest of nights.Yes we can.
Notice that slaves and abolitionists get the spotlight followed by the Yes We Can which also segues into the next pair in the list:
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores
and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
Here, whitey gets to have his say and feel represented, right there with abolitionists and slaves.
- Slaves and abolitionists
- Immigrants and pioneers
They are the same. They are parallel.
Slaves to immigrants.
Abolitionists to pioneers.
Next, though, and for no explicable reason, he interrupts the pattern of a pair followed by the connector, Yes We Can.
There’s no particular reason, it seems, to stop the pattern. A good rhetor would see it through. But Obama needs to slip something n there. He smashes a bunch of things together:
It was the call of workers who organized;
women who reached for the ballot;
a President who chose the moon as our new frontier;
and a King who took us to the mountaintop and
pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Notice the list of five above followed by the list of five below:
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
How bizarre, to slip in Kennedy and the space program in there, as if it was about workers struggles or about suffragettes’ struggles or about civil rights struggle.
This is how it appears that he’s all things to all people. I find that list of five followed by another list of five, as if each in the latter list is amplifying what was listed in the former. Amplifying or giving it shape or something. I’m not sure.
And then he rounds it all of with “repair the world”. THAT terrifies me quite frankly.
more later. i am a sick puppy tonight and need to rest.
shag carpet bomb is
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I think he needs the moon (and the mountaintop) because otherwise the imagery is all horizontal, and the flatness doesn’t really imply ‘getting better.’ He should get some of Reagan’s speech writers. They were masters of the vapid vertical image.
The one that slays me is the founding fathers (many of them slave-owners, sanctioning slavery in what founding they did) followed by slaves and abolitionists ! All going “yes we can !” as if it was the same “can” and not “Yes we can destroy all fetters to the development of bourgeois property and retain the use of free labour !” followed by “Oh no you can’t !”
And also, Barack O. unforgivably forgot Bob the Builder !
If you are going to criticize her ideas and quote her, at least have the respect to spell her name correctly. It’s Catharine MacKinnon.
Friendly Editor:
if you are going to make such a big deal over a capital letter, at least be more graceful about it.
And this post was about Barack Obama, not Catherine MacKinnon.
Anthony
it’s kinda bizarre. Every other place I mentioned her name - tag, in body of post — it was spelled correctly.
Also, friendly Managing Editor sez: editors don’t scold the writer, particularly if it is obviously a typho.
be back later. shag has been a sick dog.
was gonna say though anthony, friendly editor is a law student who got her via a search on “janet halley”. must be she missed queer dewd’s posts. heh.
On the other hand, there is the style employed by that famous figure in Christian history Martin Luther. If you’re going to criticize them, be sure to make fun of their name too. When Luther applied this principle to one of his opponents in the controversies over Luther’s proposals for the reform of the church, the poor man became Dr. Snotspoon. Complaints about the lack of civility in contemporary American politics make me chuckle.
great story.
i remember posting something from David Hawkes about the Milton’s flame wars. great stuff. some wanker, IIRC, was all offended by it for some reason that I’ve completely forgotten.
sorry i’ve been awol. i was sick all weekend. aside from some posts on lbo, i was too sick. then, recuperating this week, and working a couple extra hours yesterday to make up for lost time, well…. just. too. whooped.
by the way chuckie, i totally agree with you about obama’s need to go vertical. the metaphors were all flat.
Anthony Kennerson:
I believe spelling and capitalization are two separate issues here and in general. Before pointing out faults in others’ commentary, please remember to comprehend what you are talking about.
And her name is NOT spelled correctly, regardless of the K….Catherine vs. Catharine.
I’m afraid your credibility becomes questionable when you can’t even spell the name of the person you are berating….
Uhhh…pardon me, Correction Specialist/Friendly Editor, but I am well aware of how Catharine MacKinnon’s name is spelled; people can make typos, you know.
If you are capable of reading my essays in my blog, you will be more than aware of my opinions on MacKinnon and her brand of feminism. I hardly need nor want your approval to speak my mind.
My credibility is not the point here, fool….and last time I checked, this blog belonged to Shag, not to you. You have a problem with me or my views or my misspelling, then take it there.
Otherwise, take a chill pill and relax.
Anthony
By “take it there”, I meant “take it to my blog”.
Anthony
You fuckers all have way too fuckin much time on your fuckin hands
Speak for yourself, Dilbert.
Do us a favor this National Masturbation Month…and go fuck yourself.
Anthony
And sorry for being absent from this blog for so long, Miz Shag…been busy with work and the blog and all.
Anthony