Q: What do America, Marxism, and Dr. Phil have in common?

A: They are all eponyms. An eponym is a person who lends his or her name to a particular place, thing, or abstract idea. While the persons (Amerigo Vespucci, Karl Marx, and Dr. Phil) fit the more traditional concept of an eponym, from the greek word meaning "giving name," the named phenomena in an eponymous relationship is also frequently referred to as an eponym. Eponyms flourish in many important fields. They are quite easy to identify in science and math. Perhaps more relevant to the subject of this blog, we might point to their influence in literature, philosophy, and art. Take, for example, the numerous types of sonnets: Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Elizibethean, and Spenserian. Plato lends his name to philosophical perspectives on many subjects: Realism, love, ideals. And let's not forget R.E.M.'s greatest hits C.D. entitled "eponymous"--probably jokingly, since it is therefore not an eponym. A nice bit of theory-on-the-periphery comes in with Stephen Stigler's essay "Stigler's Law of Eponymy." In it, Stigler claims that "no scientific discovery is named after the original discoverer." In a nice self-referential, meta flourish, Stigler attributes the idea--not to himself--but to the prestigious sociologist Robert K. Merton. This has many theoretical implications. First of all, it is a resounding endorsement of post-structuralism: proper names are meaningless, illogical, and basically random except, perhaps, in how they influence our subsequent use of language and knowledge. To further augment this reasoning, one nearly need to remember that someone completely unrelated to an idea, or a completely fictional person, can also give birth to an eponym. Amerigo Vespucci certainly didn't discover America--that honor would have to go to the natives living there, the early norse explorers, or Columbus. Let's not forget that other famous television psychiatrist of "Frasier" fame. But this example is a good illustration of a second point. An eponym necessarily leads to aporia--a theoretical confusion where one is confronted with an interpretive fork in the road, if not a whole set of silverware. If "Frasier" the show refers to just the one character, are the others ancillary and of secondary importance. It might not be profoundly important whether the dog Eddie is or is not a necessary part of the show, but what about the guests on Dr. Phil who are not Dr. Phil? And what about the other people similar to Dr. Phil who are not Dr. Phil? Dr. Laura, Sanjay Gupta, and Dr. Drew must feel left out. An eponymous relationship naturally focuses on the person who "gives the name" to the detriment of others. It is no coincidence that epochs, Wars, and nations are often named after the leaders who founded them. There is, in fact, a Marxist tinge to Stigler's law of eponymy since Stigler explains the law by noting that the eponymous figure is often more affluent, recognizable, and socially accepted than the true inventors, discoverers, and creators. But according to Stigler's theory, eponyms are not generally haute bourgeoise thieves, searching for unnamed nouns with which to be associated. They are usually coined after the fact, by the literate portion of society as a whole, in order to lionize certain historical figures while forgetting entire classes. And yet, even here, reality can pierce through the most surreptitious, diabolical plans. After all, an eponym is only good as long as the entire eponymous relationship stands on solid ground. I'm sure Halley would be glad to know that, a few years after his death, a famous comet was named after him. Would he still be glad if it careered toward earth? I'm guessing he wouldn't, it's just common sense, and that is what Dr. Phil "is known for."

Deconstructing Phil. is Back From the Dead

First, there are a few administrative details to consider: Today’s post has no citations since I originally developed it as an outline for a video weblog. The quotes, of course, are still good. I’d also like to provide a quick apologia for the fact that it’s been over 2 months since the last post and, in fact, there have only been 7 entries since January. Mostly, this is the result of a short hospital stay, a few Existential crisises, and the gloomy exigencies of finishing the first year of law school. Instead of using my powers of critical theory against Dr. Phil, I’ve felt compelled to channel my theoretical might at the institution of law school so as to counteract the acknowledged goal of brainwashing students into forgetting everything they’ve ever learned or thought. And I think I’ve been moderately successful. Constitutional law taught me that our nation’s most hallowed document was written by a homogeneous bunch of dilettantes who, in many fundamental ways, misread Rousseau, Locke, and Hume while only selectively admiring aspects of the ancient Roman Republic and Greek city-states. Criminal law suggests that society punishes it’s own members not out of utilitarian benevolence or retributivist motivation, but simply because without incarcerating and institutionalizing certain individuals, no one would ever feel free. In Contracts and Property, I learned that the current legal system—immensely complex and steeped in antiquated traditions—exists primarily to turn simple acts—like buying and selling goods, or living on a tiny piece of land—into situations of meta-exploitation where everything and everyone—even the greatest titans of business—is controlled, represented, and manipulated by a select class (lawyers) with the singular objective of preserving that one exceedingly important legal concept: stare decisis, precedent, tradition, the status quo. This doesn’t relate to the Dr. Phil show, but what of value ever could?

Actually, the Derridian concept of hauntology might make interesting, even if strange, bedfellows out of yesterday’s episode and today’s blog. You see, instead of using his 40 minutes with America to discuss the superego’s regulation of unconscious drives, the contemporary role of the ubermensch, or even Antonio Gramsci’s idea of a hegemonic superstructure, Dr. Phil examined the supernatural (Boo! or, should I say: Boooooooooooooo!). Even with such an abnormal topic as the paranormal, it is easy to imagine how it could turn into a legitimate pursuit, like a critique on pseudosciences, or an illustration of how the reason and logic behind belief is only persuasive to those who, as Slavoj Zizek says: “already believe.” Dr. Phil, on the other hand, decided to take on the subject by talking with James Van Praagh, who he called “a world renowned medium” but who also happens to be the executive producer of a Fox show and the author of a new book, both on the subjects of ghosts and clairvoyance. Dr. Phil opened the show with the remark: “I’m a skeptic. I was trained in the scientific model.” However, I’m not sure the scientific model includes plugging lousy t.v. shows and scam books by following a self-purported medium as he wanders through Hollywood graveyards and studio lots and “reads” audience members. We might be able to make up a bit of what is lacking by “reading” Derrida, particularly Spectres of Marx. Derrida quickly points out that the very first sentence of The Communist Manifesto is “a specter is haunting Europe, the specter of communism.” After numerous allusion and citations from Hamlet, where ghosts appear and reappear, upsetting the very fabric and core of existence, Derrida introduces hauntology—a mixture of a haunting and ontology. Hauntology is where being and not being co-exist, where the traditional dichotomy of “to be or not to be” is exposed as an illusion. Derrida’s motivation seems to be partially to critique Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History which predicts “an end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government” in “unimprovable” liberal democracies which will lead to “an end of history.” With hauntology, Derrida hypothesizes that the end of communism heralds not the “end of history” but a rebirth of the ghost of Marxism. It is only through the rupture with the past, through the relationship of otherness with the self, through differance, that one can find the present and pressence. Many of the mentalist’s reliable tricks depend on hauntological phenomena. Fake psychics, like James Van Praagh, often talk extremely fast so that the audience is forced to pick out certain parts and disregard others, hopefully the inaccurate statements. Similarly, vague and general statements are habitually used. Van Praagh saw that Dr. Phil’s dead father “was proud of him,” that “there must be a mausoleum” in a cemetery, and that a particular audience member had a dead relative who died in intensive care. The psychic’s initial reading is not complete until it partly reappears and partly dissappears—as the real ghost in the room—in the readee’s replies. The psychic—and here especially we must include Marx— isn’t really telling his or her audience anything, but rather asking them to look inside their past. When Van Praagh asked an audience member if her dead motorcycle-riding, hard rock playing father had a tattoo, maybe of a rose, the response was “not that I know of.” But that is not an end to the history of the question. Von Praagh quickly responded: “Well, will you find out?” This is the “performative interpretation,” transforming what it interprets and that which simultaneously settles and unsettles being. Hauntology, then, is the remainder—the whole/hole—left after the “cold readings” of history, ontology, and non-deconstructive theory. It’s not that long until everything becomes hauntologied, that “something which one does not know, precisely” and which “comes back in advance from the past.” These words I’m writing have already died, but they will reappear, as the ghosts of what they once were to anyone interpreting them, just as I awaken the ghost of Derrida as he spoke with the spirit of Marx, who communed with Hegel, ad infinitum. Derrida claims that “the future can only be for ghosts. And the past” and this is entirely because of ghostly repetitions. Hauntology and psychics both “desynchronize us” in this way. This is true in the television world too, since shows—including Dr. Phil—are taped weeks, if not months in advance of their first air date where they will gain significance and meaning. But it is meaning inside a new and different discourse. For instance, one can easily imagine a Dr. Phil episode on school violence where a bully is interviewed. If, in between the taping and the broadcast, this same student were to brutally attack another student or go on some sort of rampage, it is clear that this has an enormous effect on how the show will be received. In a strange turn of events, as she was promoting her show, it was Jennifer Love Hewitt and not Dr. Phil who made the stupidest comment of the episode: “I have lots of people who I know will pass away one day.” The Derridian take on this is at first the obvious one: well, of course, all people die. And yet there is something which not-lives forever: hauntology. Confusion and hauntology often mix, it is to be expected, because we are all an active part of it: the ghosts to come, happy that we are not yet realized and the perverse grave robbers digging up the past for our own consumption.