The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin, explains how art reproduced by machines are different to the original art. We can have technological advancement to reproduce art for the masses to view, but the experience of looking at the art would be different. There is a special “presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be”(1053) of the original art. There is history behind the original work and there is a unique aura because it existed for a certain amount of time without being destroyed. Benjamin also writes, “The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition”(1054) meaning all reproduced work will never be authentic, but the acceptance of mechanical reproduction will diminish the aura of the original artwork.

The authenticity of the original is backed by ritual and how it was used historically. Art at first may start out as rituals, but it slowly merges with our lives which turns art into art used for exhibition. With art losing its authenticity, due to  reproduction , it will become more political. Art will lose its original meaning and therefore transform into something else. As Benjamin writes, “But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function is reversed. Instead of being based of ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.”(1057). An example of this can be a hat. In the beginning a hat is used for blocking out the sun, but as the hat became massively produced, the hat evolved to have other uses such wearing it as aesthetics. Recently, Trump’s red hat transformed a hat into something political. When we look at a red hat now, there is some sort of connection with Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”

What I found interesting in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction was the epilogue. It talks about two different ideologies: Fascism and Communism. In the first part of the epilogue, it talks about how Fascism “attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate”(1071). It talks about how Fascism doesn’t give the proletarians their rights, but allow them to express themselves. The epilogue eventually leads to how Fascism’s aesthetics in political life will ultimately lead to war. This is interesting because war help set a common goal for the country and allows them to develop new technological advancements. Marinetti says, “War is beautiful because it initiates dreamt of metalization of the human body…War  is beautiful because it creates new architecture…”(1071).

Fascism allows people to express their opinions, but their rights won’t be granted. As the article states, “The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.”(1071).  Wouldn’t that create alienation in the country? The workers will be forced to produce new products for the country which they may not have sympathy for. At one point the workers will tire out from producing products and lead to a breakdown. For Communism, they politicize art to control the masses. They use propaganda to motivate the masses towards a certain goal. This would be a better method for not alienating workers in long term aspect. People will get tired of war, while using art to motivate people can be change subtly to enforce the country’s political agenda.

In “Capital,” chapter 1, by Karl Marx,  Marx examines commodities, the work put into making them,  their use value, and their value. He first examines commodities and their meanings. He takes a look at nature and how, for example, wood is turned into a table to gain value and while it is still wood,  is only seen as a commodity in table form.  That is what man does to nature to create commodities. They make a use value for things of nature. He then goes on to say that the value of these commodities are not only because of their use value, but the product of labor put into them. He writes “In all states of society, the labor-time that it costs to produce the means of subsistence, must necessarily be an object of interest to mankind, though not of equal interest in different stages of development.”  He explains that the time and labor put into a product increases its perceived quality and value. Also, the type of labor that is put into products increase these areas in the same way. This is detrimental to the worker, Marx says, because their value is then “stamped upon the product of that labor” and are seen as valuable by the products of their labor. Mark’s called this fetishism which is attached to products of labor.  the production of commodities create the value of commodities, and thus workers, in society.

This of course still exists in our society today, but it also has changed a bit too. For example, when we look at things like Etsy or flea markets or any place we where we are going to buy something that is “handmade,” we value it much more than if we were to get the same thing made in a factory. Even if both products look the same, we are drawn to the ones where we know the time and labor that has been put into making it. It’s the same way with art.  Oftentimes when looking at a very expensive piece of art people talk about how it took this person five years to create this, which is why it is so good, same with music. But it is also different in our society today because a lot of high-priced, high valued commodities are mass produced in factories where a small amount of time and work has specifically been put into the product you are getting. For example, the brand new iPhones, Macs, or anything of that nature which are very expensive and very desired are not something where someone has set down and put in a lot of work to create the exact product you’re getting. You are getting something from a factory assembly line. In a way, it goes against Marx’s idea that the more produced something is, the less valuable it is . He has the idea that when everyone wants it or has it and it’s mass-produced it loses value, but in our society it’s the opposite. The more popular and used things such as an iPhone, which most people have, are still very high priced and we value them and look at them as a special commodity. But the workers who make these items are still under the same idea that Marx talks about of alienation of work. Most people still work way more than what they should to survive. They’re alienated from their jobs and from society as well, solely to make money. For the most part, Marx’s idea still exist widely in our society.

In this piece, “The Formation of the Intellectuals” by Antonio Gramsci, a very interesting question is brought up. Basically, Gramsci wants to discuss whether intellectuals are a rare breed of their own, mixed in to society amongst commoners, or a breed that comes about just from the comparison to non-intellectuals. In my opinion, I  believe that intellectuals are merely deemed intellectuals in comparison to non-intellectuals. I think that anyone can be considered an intellectual if they are in the right place at the right time. Gramsci starts off by discussing the two types of societal intellectuals: he first describes the “organic” type of intellectual who essentially is a leader. “He must be an organiser of masses of men.” Second he describes a “traditional” intellectual, someone who was already a master of a certain field and then goes out to start a new type group. Both of these types of intellectuals are only intellectuals when being compared to people who are not intellectuals. Gramsci says “All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.” Gramsci is saying that anyone has the potential to rise up and be considered an intellectual but not everyone is given the opportunity.

This writing reminded me of our earlier readings and discussions surrounding language. Sometimes things can only be understood by knowing what they are not. Comparing is a tool that we use to understand almost everything. An apple is an apple because it is not a pear. A table is a table because it is not a chair. What is an intellectual? It can only be defined by comparing to what it is not. For example, an intellectual can only be rightly classified as such if there are other people in the field who are not as knowledgable as the intellectual and they can be compared to each other.

Gramsci goes on to say that nowadays, the rules of being an intellectual have expanded. There are so many different tasks and areas of expertise that anyone can easily become an intellectual in a specific field. However, he continues on to say this is not necessarily a good thing. “Mass formation has standardized individuals both psychologically and in terms of individual qualification and has produced the same phenomena as with other standardized masses: competition which makes necessary organisations for the defence of professions, unemployment, over-production in the schools, emigration etc.” He is saying that although this “unprecedented expansion” helps to create more opportunities for success, it also leaves less room for competition which is needed in order to move forward. Overall, Gramsci’s writing makes one think about what it really means to be an intellectual and how that definition changes as we as a society change and progress.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx describes a rather peculiar condition called “alienated labor”, and links the removal of this condition with the elimination of market exchange and the progress of the communist society. In general, for an individual to feel alienated from something or someone means that they lack a sincere identification with it. One can instead address it as something strange or alien-like, and possibly even as an obstacle in their way or as intimidating to oneself. Marx dismisses this idea that roots from capitalism, arguing that alienation occurs from the way human beings regard their own labor.

According to Marx’s theory, there are different aspects of alienation within a society. He discusses that our society is divided into two classes; the owners of property, and the property-less workers. Under this capitalist settlement, the worker not only faces the disadvantages of labor, but also must experience the feeling of being disconnected from the world. This occurs because the worker associates his life to the end product of his work, and this can often become something hostile or alien-like to the worker. The worker puts all his time and effort into the object that he is producing, yet because he does not gain anything from his hard labor, the worker is alienated from the very thing that he had made himself. In capitalism, the upper-class society gets to relish in the product of the worker; as the society demands the production of an object, and the more the worker produces, the more alienated he becomes from his work and himself. The product that he worked so hard for is no longer his property. He feels that he is contributing to a world that unfamiliar to him, somewhere he does not belong. He fears his identity is becoming insignificant compared to the objects that he produces, yet cannot fully have.

Marx continues to explain another form of alienation; the estrangement of the worker from the activity of production. The labor that the worker performs does not actually belong to him, but rather it is just a means of survival. The worker is forced to perform hard labor for someone else’s benefit; this results in the worker working not out of creativity, but rather as a means for completing the job. For example, if an artist is hired by a wealthy being who is willing to pay a large amount of money for his work, the artist will indeed create art for the person, but it will immediately be taken away from him and become someone else’s possession. In this, the artist will have a high level of alienation towards the product of his labor; his own product is now alien-like to him. The currency will not make up for the time-consuming effort that the artist put into his art. This results in the worker experiencing self-alienation, estrangement from his work and finally, disengagement from his own society.

In Marx’s “From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” one of his main points and what he portrays most strongly is the relationship between the laborer and the other and the effect that this has on the laborer. The workers or laborers are the ones that create and put out the commodities for the whole of society to enjoy. However, because of this, they become what Marx denotes as “alienated” from these commodities as well as from themselves. This idea of alienation is the most interesting in the text because specific to Marx the definition is taken in context, the alienation of the worker is what creates this major problem in the capitalist society. Marx in a way creates this definition of alienation in terms of the worker and therefore more clearly clarifies the issue. Alienation of the laborer is caused by what comes to define them: labor and here in lies the never-ending problem. Laborers are necessary to a capitalist society and in a way the backbone of it, what comes out of labor is what creates the market and upholds the economy. Political economists in general lean on this idea of the laborer as the strongest force in a society but at the same time they are paid the least and therefore are unable to even purchase the commodities that they are producing.

Capitalist society has created these rigid societal roles and have implemented them in a way which makes them close to impossible to change. Once the laborer is established as just that, it becomes their identity and thus again leads to this feeling of alienation from the self and from the commodities that are produced. This idea that the laborer needs the labor to exist is evidenced by Marx for the sole reason that the capitalist society upholds it “… enables him to exist, first, as a worker; and, second, as a physical subject”. Therefore this societal ideology of the laborer even by the laborer establishes this problem of alienation and does not allow for escape or a chance to advance. Everyone in a capitalist  society is forced to participate, you can not attempt to barter when the main mode of exchange is through currency. Therefore with everybody in a given society being forced or at least strongly coerced to participate in it the strength of the property-owner/property-less dynamic is strengthened and kept in place. With the feeling, and valid reasoning, behind the idea that there is no chances to advance for the laborer the alienation of the laborer is made concrete and becomes the norm.

Fiction is phantasmagoria. That world is filled with seemingly illusory images that take an active and trained mind to wage war against. Such a mind exists in Barbara Johnson, who, trained under Paul De Man and armed with weapons of literary deconstruction as her impetus, tackles Melville’s Fist.

Just because the apple fell far from the tree, doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. While Johnson was analyzing Melville’s Fist, she explains her method of approach while she’s applying it and she says why this approach is important, something that her teacher Paul De Man didn’t do. De Man says critics go into other extrinsic studies of text and go into political and historical context, which he doesn’t like. However, Johnson says you can’t understand the text without doing just that.

Johnson looks into the history of what critics have to say about this story and notices that they all think it’s an allegory. She refutes this nothing when she mentions, “Melville himself both invites an allegorical reading and subverts the very terms of its consistency,” (2260). The more you examine the allegory, the more it seems to fall apart. It’s a problem because Billy Bud is supposed to represent innocence and Claggart is supposed to represent guilt because of their respective behavior and personalities. However, the text actually swaps the two after Billy slaughters Claggart. Billy who is supposed to be viewed as innocent becomes the guilty and Claggart who was supposed to be viewed guilty, is now viewed as innocent. This makes the allegory null and void because what was supposed to be a straightforward connection of one thing to another, is no longer connected, rather it’s now opposite.

Johnson is always looking for a pair of oppositions and analyzes them. When she goes to identify both personas as a reader, she finds such an opposition. Billy is handsome, not sophisticated and there’s no filter for what he thinks and what he says, or between what he sees and what it actually is. Johnson says, “In accordance with this “nature,” Billy reads everything at face value, never questioning,” (2261). He sees things the way they are without second guessing. On the other hand, Claggart always thinks that there is a mediator between how things appear and how they actually are, that there is a mediator between the signifier and the signified. Claggart is paranoid and always thinks that there’s some sort of twist. So, when he sees Billy, he thinks that its all just a facade and that deep down there’s something more to Billy that meets the eye. Johnson says, “He is properly an ironic reader, who, assuming the sign to be arbitrary and unmotivated, reverses the value signs of appearances and takes a daisy for a mantrap,” (2262). Johnson borrows Sausser’s concept and says that Claggart tried to “master the arbitrariness of the sign” and “falsely accusing Billy…of hiding a mutineer beneath the appearance of baby.” (2262). Claggart accused the innocent of being guilty and in doing so the innocent actually became the guilty.

Then comes strolling along good old captain Vere to make sense of this miasma of unstable allegory. Johnson says, “Vere subordinates both self and other, and ultimately sacrifices both self and other, for the preservation of a political order.” (2270). Captain Vere is a detached reader. He is pragmatic and thinks about the affects or interpretations of an act. He takes into account historical context and puts a frame around Billy and Claggart. As such, Johnson says Vere’s “reading takes place within a social structure,” (2270). In analyzing Vere, there is another opposition that can be drawn, the first being Billy versus Claggart. Now, the opposition is Billy plus Claggart versus Vere. Vere has a special function as a judge and a attraction to the reading. We the reader, judge Vere and we judge Vere judging Billy and Claggart. While he’s framed the two personas, he not only takes into factor the intrinsic aspects, their personalities, he also takes into account the extrinsic factors, the future of the crew in terms of loss of Billy’s life vs. loss of more crew members and mutiny of the ship at the hands of Billy.

Building on the foundation of Vere’s persona as a judge, Johnson makes a clear distinction between differences within a persona and difference between two personas. Johnson says, “It would seem, then, that the function of judgement is to convert an ambiguous situation into a decidable one. But it does so by converting a difference within…into a difference between,” (2274). The difference within is that Billy is a little guilty and a little innocent and so is Claggart. The difference between is that Billy killed Claggart, which makes Billy guilty of a crime. It is with this deciding hammer of justice that is the impetus for clearing the air of ambiguity and coming to a final verdict. Vere purges the murky situation and renders Billy guilty. This method of Johnson’s deconstruction as structural analysis has an ethical driving force, to think morally, a blind eye to internal differences. As Sausser says, “In language, there are only clear differences” and it is with this ideology that the judge and the judge judging the judge, carries out the judgement.

Ferdinand De Saussure believes that language is an object in the “heterogeneous mass of speech facts”. In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure is able to decipher the concept of language and how one perceives it.

The essay begins with the “nature of the linguistic sign”. Saussure believes that individuals tend to view language as a “naming process”, as they simply list words that correspond to a thing. It is this mindset that allows one to believe that connecting a name to a thing is a simple process, however, this is not true.

Saussure begins his argument by introducing the sign, signified, and the signifier. Essentially, these terms are used in order to break down the process in which names are given. The issue, he believes, with the pre-conceived notion of ‘name giving’ is that it is not complex enough; there is no evidence that shows if it is “vocal or psychological by nature” (852). The sign, however, is what unites a “concept and a sound-image” rather than a “thing and a name”. Saussure explains that the two elements are then depicted as a two-sided psychological entity. The two elements are “intimately united”. An example of this would be how the sound that a pig makes brings the image of a pig to someone’s mind. The two are connected and there is an exchange of some sort, which honestly, is quite beautiful. It is an exchange that we do not notice, as it is embedded in our minds since childhood, becoming something that ‘just is’. Saussure, however, forces us to acknowledge this seamless bond between sound and image.

Another distinction of the sign that Saussure delves in is the fact that it is “arbitrary”. He uses an example where he points out that “sister” is not connected to any succession of sounds. However, he follows this statement with two objections that may show evidence that the sign is not always arbitrary. The two instances that he brings up are “onomatopoeia” and “interjections”. When it comes to onomatopoeia, Saussure explains different words in the French language may have the same sound, but when the Latin roots of the words are examined, their meaning is entirely different. When it comes to authentic onomatopoeia, the same idea is present. Fot example, the English term bow-wow is spelled differently than the French version, ouaoua. Saussure states that, “not only are they limited in number, but also they are chosen somewhat arbitrarily, for they are only approximate and more or less conventional imitations of certain sounds…” (855). When it comes to interjections, the same rule applies. He says that there is “no fixed bond between their signified and their signifier” (855). An example of this would be the English term ‘darn’ in comparison to the French term ‘diable’ or the English term ‘golly’ in comparison to the French term ‘mordieu’, which stems from mort Dieu, or ‘God’s death’. Evidently, there is no evidence that shows the true connection, which is what deems them arbitrary.

Saussure also mentions this idea of ‘phonetic evolution’, which is essentially broken up into two parts that, much like sound and image, seem to go hand in hand. He takes a look at parole, which is speech, and langue, which is the evolution of language. The langue is depicted as the overall ‘system’ and the speech is the ‘output’, which is essentially the right hand man for langue. In other words, language is the foundation; like the structure of a house when it is first built. It is internal, which means it has all the inner workings that one cannot see, but understands. The parole, however, is face of the house; the nic-nacs and the furniture and the individualized aspects that make a home. It is the external aspect, which is both audible and visible to the speaker. The langue, is the collective aspect. Both, however, must go hand in hand in order to obtain a true understanding of language as a whole. Without the basic language, one cannot necessarily have speech, can they? I mean, if we don’t know what we’re saying, then what’s the point? Parole consists of utterances, which are infinite and free. Langue consists of grammar, which is simple, but constrained. One is taught the basics of language, both black and white, right and wrong, and then they are able to translate these strict rules into a freeing form of sound. Just like the pairing of sound and image, the pairing of parole and langue work just the same. One is needed in order for the other to have meaning or purpose. Saussure does a wonderful job of deconstructing his study of the sign and how it branches out into a greater understanding of phonetic evolution. With the help of the basic blueprints of language, we then are able to evolve with language in order to create speech that is vast and infinite. I suppose we can add these to the list of iconic duos. I mean, with sound and image paired beautifully and parole and langue working harmoniously, pb and j, milk and cookies, and spaghetti and meatballs all have a run for their money.