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.

The Shocking 'Caust of Watching Dr. Phil

In the blog lifespan of every postmodern critic of Dr. Phil, there inevitably comes a time when one must come to terms with a tragic and inhumane aspect of modern life: genocide. At first glance, it seems unreasonable, illogical, and even disrespectful to equate any of Dr. Phil’s actions—however misguided or despicable—to the large scale, calculated, and heinous instances of ethnic cleansing in the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and more recent or ongoing conflicts in the Balkans, Chechnya, or Sudan. If it is a question of moral blameworthiness, legal culpability, or adverse cultural impact, obviously Hitler, Slobodan Milošević, and others would have to take the cake. But Dr. Phil does not claim to be an International Court of Justice judge, or even an unimpeachable icon of lucid moral propriety. Instead, Herr McGraw claims his amorphous right to be broadcast into our homes and minds because he is a trained Doctor (Ph.D.) of psychology. This is a bit problematic because, psychologically speaking, there are more than ample grounds to equate Dr. Phil’s furor for helping Americans with the Führer’s goals of helping the Aryan race. A good case study of the psychology of Genocide is found in Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem which details the political life and subsequent trial of a high ranking Nazi official who had orchestrated the deportation, ghettoization, and eventual extermination of millions of social, political, and ethnic undesirables. One might expect Arendt to find a plethora of evidence that Eichmann was a crazed psychopath, a rabid Anti-Semite, and, above all, an extreme exception far outside the normal spectrum of human society. In fact, Arendt finds quite the opposite. Arendt writes: “the trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal…this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.” (253). Even more striking are Arendt’s observations that Eichmann “was obviously no case of insane hatred of Jews, of fanatical anti-Semitism or indoctrination of any kind. He ‘personally’ never had anything whatever against Jews.” (22-23). The question then becomes, if Eichmann was not an abnormal sociopath, an ardent Anti-Semite, and a atypical brute among men, how could this unexpected characterization possibly be reckoned with his role as the architect of the Holocaust? Arendt’s response, though potentially valid and accurate, is far more disturbing than any act of Nazi barbarism as it works toward explaining—though in no way justifying—a wide array of modern monstrosities. Arendt’s answer is that the “long course in human wickedness” teaches not of aberrant psychopaths and bigots, but rather the overwhelming, subversive, and dangerous power of the “banality of evil.” (231). Arendt writes that, the judges overseeing Eichmann’s trial, like almost everyone involved, simply assumed that Eichmann was lying, the psychological reports were wrong—obviously the man on trial was insane and full of calculated hatred. By doing so, they missed the real issue, that “an average, ‘normal’ person, neither feeble-minded nor indoctrinated nor cynical, could be perfectly incapable of telling right from wrong.” (23). For Arendt, “his guilt came from his obedience, and obedience is praised as a virtue.” Inspired very much by Arendt’s writing, in the mid 1960s, social psychologist Stanley Milgram set out to create a set of experiments which would empirically calculate how far people would go to follow authority, including the “willingness to follow inhumane orders.”* (Douglass Mook, Classic Experiments in Psychology, 335). Milgram recruited participants using a traditional method: newspaper ads and posters with vague language inviting people to take part in a psychological experiment (Mook 336). Demographic data from each recruited participants was noted as they were brought into a laboratory setting. Participants were introduced to a second individual, who was introduced as another study participant, but who was actually an actor and a member of the research team. Participants were told they would be acting as the “teacher” while the second participant (actually an actor/researcher) would be the “learner.” (Ibid.) The “learner” was sent into a separate, but adjoining, room where he or she could be heard, but not seen. The participant believed the study tested the psychology of memory since the “teacher” conveyed a signal to the “learner” who would be required to remember and communicate back the correct item to complete a pair (Ibid). Participants were told that, as “teachers,” they would be required to administer “punishments” to the “learners” in the form of increasingly severe shocks at each wrong answer (Ibid). Of course, the true intention of the study was not to gauge the ability of the “learner” to remember pairs of data, indeed, the actor/researcher in the role of “learner” would repeatedly make intentional errors to illicit the “punishment” response from the “teacher.” What was really being studied was the willingness of the “teacher” to administer what they believed to be intense and dangerous shocks, some up to 450 volts (115 volts being the power of the average wall socket). The participants as “teachers” must have known of the danger of the voltage since buttons were equipped with labels such as “slight shock” and “danger: severe shock.” (Ibid.) Furthermore, though the “learner” was actually not being shocked at all, the actor would scream. At 120 volts, the “teacher” would hear the “learner” cry that the shocks were becoming to painful and, at 150 volts, the “learner” would demand that the experiment come to a halt. Eventually, the “learner” would refuse to communicate a response, but the researcher in the room would inform the “teacher” that this should be counted as an error and shocks should continue. Participants would often ask the present researcher things like “is this safe” or “shouldn’t we stop?” but the researchers would calmly reply: “You have no choice, you must continue.” (337) The question was: at what voltage level would participants quit, refuse to continue, or simply leave? Before starting the experiment, Milgram asked this very question to a sample of middle-class adults, a group of Yale psychology students, and a panel of psychologists, who all believed only about 1% of participants would administer severe shocks (338). In fact, in Milgram’s standard experiment, 65% of participants—“normal” people demographically speaking—would obey all instructions and administer extreme shocks (337). This is an extremely disturbing finding. Perhaps you are sure that you would refuse to shock someone to death just because you might be urged on by someone with a slight bit of authority over you (like a researcher). This means, statistically speaking, next time you’re stuck on an airplane in the middle seat, both the people at your side would be entirely willing to administer a sever shock onto someone like you. These 65% of participants could vote, in a landslide, for a candidate who they would then follow completely, regardless of the marching orders. If Nietzsche was right that 100 men created the Renaissance and can save humanity from any cultural drought, it is still probable that 65 percent of them are potential Eichmanns. Furthermore, by slightly altering the circumstances, Milgram found that up to 90% of participants would continue to follow orders if they had a greater psychological distance from the victim (for example, by relaying, but not singularly fulfilling, the order to administer shocks). This relates to the Dr. Phil show since, numerous times every segment, Phil tells the guests that they should, or must, do something to “improve” their life. Particularly in the final segment, Phil extends the same advice to his willing audience—both in the studio and at (the psychologically distance of) home. From a social psychological standpoint, Herr Phil is the diabolical experimenter, counting on the fact that his followers will blindly obey his orders whatever the costs. Of course, the advice might be good, but it might also be embroiled in personal biases, partisan ideology, and individual flaws, broadcast throughout the world. Traditionally, the role of the analyst is to lead the subject to self-awareness and positive, conscious choices, not to issue commands and edicts. If someone stops drinking, beating their spouse, or molesting children simply because an authority told them to, is that real progress and a solution, or is it simply covering one disturbing psychosis (i.e. alchoholism) with another (i.e. rash obedience) that may seem innocuous but has been used to explain massacres and holocausts alike. Dr. Phil, of course, is not Eichmann any more than Stanley Milgram is. It is us, the viewers, the potential participants and “teachers,” who have the dangerous potential to obediently follow directions without thinking for ourselves. When we listen to authorities—like Dr. Phil, Nazi leaders, or researching academic—and do whatever they say, from a psychological standpoint, we are listening to our fellow participant’s screams, yet continuing to shock them to death. Of course, that is simply from a psychological standpoint. From an ethical standpoint we might wonder whether it’s better to be shocked to death than to continue living with the shocking fact that our individuality, our free thought, and our personal agency has been dead all along.



*At Deconstructing Phil, we always strive to bring you first hand accounts from the writings of prominent philosophers, psychoanalysts, and theorists. While Stanley Milgram is an influential psychologist and his book Obedience to Authority does provide detailed and direct accounts of his famous experiments, all four copies of the book were checked out when I checked in my local university library. Mook’s textbook, however, is a fairly detailed, objective, and accurate look at some of psychology’s most notable experiments. Secondly, it should also be noted that there were serious ethical challenges to Milgram’s experiments. These concerns deal with the circumstances and awareness of the subjects, though, and do not mitigate or call into question the ultimate findings. Lastly, while this post is already long and detailed, it should be noted that another similar experiment which goes a long way toward explaining the interaction between authority and obedience is the Stanford Prison Experiment (1971).

Why I've Become L'Etranger; Dr. Phil Update; Scary Movie

As many of my readers have probably realized, it's been quite awhile since a new Deconstructing Phil. post has appeared. I've been very busy traveling, writing a faux Supreme Court brief for a guy accused of importing cocaine because he was wearing a "life's better in the Bahamas" t-shirt, and most recently writing up a contract for a strip club owner. It turns out you don't need to be on a street corner to be slapped in the face with Absurdity, you're equally vulnerable in a law library.

We do hope to post at least once during the week (we have a really good one already in the works that links Dr. Phil to war criminals). In a nice odd turn, for those of us thinking that Dr. Phil is as Conservative as a troglodyte, today's episode is supposed to feature a much more progressive McGraw, apparently yelling at a Sex Ed teacher who refuses to teach anything but abstinence. While there probably won't be a Deconstructing Phil. post, we suggest watching it with a close reading of Macbeth (i.e. "Unsex me here," "Is this a dagger which I see before me,/ The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee." and "something wicked this way comes") to see how a frustrated sexual identity can lead to murderous rage and socio-political chaos.

Or, if you're not a do-it-yourself sort of critical theorist, first of all, work on that, seriously, and second of all, take a look at my friend Jesse's "Filmaday weblog" which usually features his adroit reviews of (mostly current) films, but today features a special guest reviewer (namely myself) providing something of a Lacanian critique of a bizarre PBS documentary called The Queen Family. Scroll down to the links section or check it out here:
http://filmaday.wordpress.com/

I Lacan Quit Any Time I Want

What exactly is Lacan’s idea of the Other? A short and surprisingly faithful gloss of the concept might be that the Other is absolutely everything. The Other affects subjectivity and the properties of language. For example, words can only be defined through other words, each in turn only definable through still more words, ad infinitum. This is what Lacan calls “the metonymy of speech,” yet the ultimate consequence is a radical division and subjectivity of virtually any concept that is verbalized or written (The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis 188). Even more importantly, the Other is the vehicle, locus, and meaning of the unconscious. As Lacan writes, the unconscious is “that which is inside the subject, but which can be realized only outside.” (147). Of course, the Other is also essential to a Lacanian understanding of drives, since “transference [is] no more than the concept of repetition itself.” (129). Furthermore, “man’s desire is the desire of the Other” and there is a “handing back of truth into the hands of the Other.” (115, 36). Today’s episode of Dr. Phil—like most episodes—seemed to contain a vast amount of Otherness, though latent. The show introduced America to two “pill popping” twins, Yvette and Yvonne. Early on, it was clear how each subject “realized” herself in the opposite twin, trying to get out and pull free (188). This is not so simple in a Lacanian universe, where every subject is divided and significant only through outside forces. This is quite evident in the fact that, according to Dr. Phil, the twins “enable each other” which we might more usefully read as enabling each Other. It is not simply their identity as sisters that requires an appreciation of the Other to be fully understood, but rather the entire circular logic of addiction. As Dr. Phil explained to either Yvonne or Yvette—both were so high on Xanax, it’s hard to tell the difference—such behavior is entirely “outside the limits of acceptability.” However, one questions to what extent that alone is a problem. Would it be okay to be a drug addict if everyone saw such behavior as acceptable? Anyone who says “yes” should read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, paying close attention to the passages on “soma,” the wonder drug of the future that makes everyone feel great with no apparent negative side effects. A Lacanian, though, would still see the potential dangers in such a drug, and a society that accepts it, since it represents an act of uninhibited surrender to the Other, comprehensively ingesting part of which must remain outside. Instead, the morality and safety of the act itself has little to do with societal values or conventions. It is precisely through the twins’ intentional internalization of such outward unacceptability that their identity, moral culpability, consciousness, and drives are formed—regardless of any moral or empirical absolutes. While Dr. Phil seems to criticize the drug use because of the “side effects” on the children, physical and mental states, and so on, Lacan point to the drug abuse as the effect of the twins’ untenable, ill conceived Others. Thus, while Dr. Phil suggests: “you need to create order, standards,” Lacan would much more likely find that it is the very social, economic, political, and psychic order which, through the standards of the Other, has forced the two to seek out such an unhealthy, precarious existence. If it is clear that the Other reveals a deep and powerful aspect of the sisters’s relationships toward each other, larger societal mores, and their drugs of choice, it should also be unmistakable that the Other is governing many more relationships in this situation. For one, I find it difficult to find drug use blameworthy through the rational of moral absolutism. Foucault, for example, called an LSD trip in Death Valley National Park the greatest experience of his life. For each religion-based system of morality that condemns such chemicals one could no doubt find an equal number of traditions that condone, or encourage the behavior. In relativist terms, however, it is precisely through the mechanism of the other that such behavior is portrayed as damaging. For example, Dr. Phil often reminded one of the Y sisters that “your husband drove high: two people are dead!” Still more frequently Dr. Phil, or one of the more conventionally well-behaved family members would says something like “drug addicts cannot raise children properly” or “this is not the right way to raise children.” It is impossible to point directly at the twins’ drug use and say, “look, look what it’s doing to you!” The other effectively converts such criticism into the positive building blocks of drives, identities, and interpersonal or communicative relationships. Similarly, one cannot point to a perfect way to raise children, but it is much more easy—in fact, one could say it is even Dr. Phil’s ultimate goal—to show the world exactly how not to handle kids, so as to inspire Others positively. However, most of this analysis has focused on how the other “can be realized only outside” of the subject, though it is equally true that it is “inside the subject.” (147) Therefore, one must question exactly how drug and child abuse are present in Dr. Phil’s personal psyche, and, of course, one’s own. The Other also blurs the line between who and what is at stake to the point that, when Dr. Phil brought back the usual refrain that “I’m doing this for the kids...obviously” it was, in all actuality, far from obvious that he wasn’t doing it for himself, the audience, or more abstractly all non-children anywhere since, of course, one would be hard pressed to find a 7 year old on Xanax. It is in this way that, from a psychoanalytic point of view, common sense, all of Dr. Phil’s suggestions, and even trips to qualified detox centers are all useless unless the analyst can help the patients in “the reopening of the shutter” to reveal that which has been there in the unconsciousness of the actor from the very beginning, without being fully known (131, 130).

I'm Serious, This is 100% Serious

Recently I was contacted by an associate producer from the Dr. Phil show. Are they seeing if I'd be a good guest? It certainly appears like that's a possibility. So, in addition to getting some very desperately needed help from Dr. Phil and his team, I may one day soon be able to give my bastion of loyal readers a quasi-insider's view of the show and it's process. All I can say is, pray for me, and, for now, enjoy this correspondance, edited, of course, for privacy reasons:

"B[deleted for privacy purposes], Emily"

To:

Subject: Dr. Phil: 601-16

Date: Monday, February 04, 2008 21:12:21

Dear Seth,

Thank you for speaking with me. Could you please give me 10 SPECIFIC examples of how being an “intellectual elitist” has caused problems in your life.

Also, as it is our standard procedure, could you please email me some recent photos of yourself?

Thanks!

Emily B[deleted for privacy purposes]

Associate Producer

The Dr. Phil Show

(323) -[deleted for privacy purposes]

Apparently the Social Contract is not in Dr. Phil's Contract

Today’s episode of Dr. Phil was all about vigilante justice. As someone very interested in non-vigilante justice, this is, of course, of great interest to me. Furthermore, while the issue may not be at the forefront of contemporary political dialogue, it does at least weave through many current controversies—from immigration and the “minute men” border guards to Guantanamo Bay where the U.S. government can hold prisoners without trials. See Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). What is so interesting about Dr. Phil’s take on the subject is that it’s absolutely insane, unsupported by the vast cannon of Western philosophy, and downright dangerous. Perhaps it isn’t so unique after all. But when I saw yesterday’s sneak peak with individuals pulling people out of cars and pushing them, or beating them, I really figured Phil would give these people their come uppings. After all, when it comes to drug addicts, abusive spouses, child predators, and even people who are bad neighbors, Phil gives them his special treatment. One dose of derision, a condescension drip, a shot of common sense, and a prescription for changing their deplorable lives. Today, when we met an old woman who, as a dissatisfied Comcast customer, went into their office and smashed telephones and computers with a hammer, next being introduced to a man who spotted a suspected drunk driver rolling down the highway and boxed him off the road with his truck, only to tackle and physically restrain the supposedly inebriated man. How did Phil react? With praise, admiration, and cheer. Only on the rarest occasion did he criticize any of the guests’ actions or motivations and, even then, it was in the most casual and subtle of ways. There are justifications for vigilante justice, of course. Law enforcement resources are limited, they can’t be everywhere, and it seems innately unjust that two identical crimes and criminals could meet two disparate fates simply because one failed to get caught. On the other hand, being addicted to drugs or abusing spouses are actions which involve the violations of one or two specific laws, while vigilante justice, in itself, runs against all laws. Perhaps this is not clear. Let’s reference chapter 28 of Thomas Hobbes’s famous work, The Leviathan, which outlined the first conception of the social contract. In Hobbes definition of punishment he writes “neither private revenges, nor injuries of private men, can properly be styled punishment; because they proceed not from public authority.” One could argue that this simply means that private actions may resemble punishment, without actually entailing punishment. Yet this does not seem to be the author’s intent. After all, Hobbes writes that members of a government “assist him that hath the sovereignty, in the punishing of another.” This assistance is not by way of actually contacting those punished in any direct way, however, but rather through all of society consenting to the sovereignty of a public power. Hobbes is quite to the point about the dangers of what Dr. Phil terms vigilante justice when he writes: “the fact for which a man is punished, ought first to be judged by public authority, to be a transgression of the law.” In the case of the angry, old woman—who was also the most boastful—it is clear that, without a trial, and without public authority, a single citizen has, in the name of justice, levied her own punishment. This has the appearance of being somewhat just, but only when one forgets that the woman is, in fact, overlooking public departments, non-governmental organizations, and alternative private providers, to say nothing of sovereignty and the big picture of justice. Even more ominously, she has committed her own crime—admittedly destroying property—in order to remedy a situation she views as criminal. In her mind, no doubt, the Comcast office got a fair desert. However, it is not for individual citizens in their private capacities to decide such matters. For one, this old curmudgeon might be biased against Comcast for some reason, she might be hateful in general, or outright insane. The same goes for the drunk driver; as it is, unfortunately, far too easy to think of a “reason” why two white men would want to beat and subdue an African-American without conventional legal recourse. Furthermore, if everyone could privately take action to right their own wrongs, it is easy to imagine how a back in forth would continue where the next logical step would be a whole fleet of Comcast trucks showing up and this senile desperado’s door to seek their revenge. Intranational nuclear war is the next obvious step. The fact of the matter is, vigilante justice is not fit for society, but rather, as many social contractarians note, the state of nature. In Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, he describes the state of nature as a place where “every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature.” In fact, Locke is far more optimistic about this natural state than Hobbes, yet only because he feels this natural state is governed by the law of reason. Even if Locke is right, it is nonetheless possible that vigilante justice can subvert the law of reason. In any case, we no longer live in the state of nature and, as Locke points out that it is “legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws, how far offences are to be punished. Many benefits have been proposed that are said to arise from democracy, such as Kant’s idea that democracies do not fight with each other, thus leading to perpetual peace. Democracy, indeed freedom itself, does have its inevitable drawbacks, though. For democracy to even appear to work, people necessarily must give up natural freedoms in order to gain democratic ones. Increasingly, modern writers like Rousseau and Marx began to question whether it wasn’t actually industrialized economies and systems of labor and property which bound naturally free and content people, making the otherwise carefree state of nature seem objectionable. However, what is clear among most traditional political theorists—Dr. Phil excluded—is that, for good or bad, vigilante justice works outside and against the sovereignty of the ruling government (its political forms and figures) and other important foundations of society, such as the economic order. If the day ever comes when the masses feel as though it’s just and equitable to act in the manner of Phil’s dear old Comcast subscribing guest, it will become impossible to watch the Dr. Phil show. For one, televisions would be smuldering, broken in the rubbled remains of city streets, as individuals and sub-societal groups ravage each other in ever-escalating acts of revenge. Secondly, lacking the public remedy of courts, surely one of Phil’s many legal adversaries would make certain that McGraw would fail to see the full realization of the post-governmental state, existing, as it necessarily must, without citizens.

Seth Woolf is writing a blog entry about Dr. Phil

Tonight’s Dr. Phil was all about women posting “inappropriate” pictures of themselves (i.e. sexually provocative or evincing extensive drinking or illicit drug use) on facebook and myspace. Even more than usual, today’s episode exhibited Dr. Phil’s proclivity toward using sweeping generalizations and blatant logical fallacies as the foundation of his analyses, which might better be characterized as arguments, if not Philicies. The good doctor was especially fond of Ad Hominem (“Okay, but you drink and you’re seventeen!”), appeals to tradition (“You think most people see this as liberating?), false dilemmas (these girls either don’t know what they’re doing, or are making stupid decisions), guilt by association (“You don’t post the pictures, but you do run the facebook group!”), slippery slope (“you’re not gonna be able to get into any colleges, or get any jobs!”), biased sampling (“so, you went into a coma after hitting your head from drinking?”), and the straw man (“I don’t look at these pictures and see Susan B. Anthony”). Beyond these simple, generally theory-less critiques, there are also deep, philosophically disturbing problems with Dr. Phil’s contentions. First of all, there is a large thematic and circumstantial problem with Phil’s approach. For one, though occasionally advised guests and viewers to refrain from participating in wild, compromising behavior, his focus was much more on simply restraining oneself from posting pictures of such behavior on popular internet forums. As such, his argument is not, in fact, about ethics, aesthetics, or everyday behavior as such, but rather the mouthings of a tragically unhip Luddite. A Marxist analysis of this strange parsing is very elucidating. If an individual of relatively simple means and power posts such a revealing picture or written omission, it is quite damaging to job prospects, the social order, and even the rituals of courtship. If, one the other, a major corporation or commercial power (i.e. Harpo productions, CBS, etc.) reveals selective information or negatively portrays someone it is not only said to be permissible, it is in fact lauded as being beneficial. Consider this simple hypothetical: you are an employer combing through candidates to fill a position in your company. You have settled on two candidates. The first, Ms. A, had a strong interview, resume, and references, but she has a picture on facebook of her clearly intoxicated, and vomiting. The second, Mr. B, also had a strong interview, resume, and references, and though he has no facebook account, he did appear on the Dr. Phil show in an episode that focused on spousal abuse. If you had to choose one of these two candidates, you would probably choose Ms. A. Similarly, one could imagine a website where users can communicate with others, view pictures and even movies of dubious social behavior, and learn potentially sensitive information about a variety of people. Is this website facebook or myspace? Yes, quite possibly. On the other hand, it might just as easily be Dr. Phil’s website. I do not intend to mirror Dr. Phils Ad Hominem thesis with and Ad Hominem antithesis of my own, however, one must realize that transference and projection are both very valid and significant issues in Freudian, Marxist, and postmodern thought. Indeed, a more positive antithesis to Dr. Phil’s thesis would be not to criticize people who are honest and open about their personal life, while embracing technology and feeling psychologically at peace with themselves, but to instead chastise those who behave deplorably and yet hide their authentically human actions and attitudes. It might be more accurate to say these people—and we could even include Dr. Phil among their ranks—are the ones in society who are antisocial and plagued by a certain psychotic tendency to admonish their own faults visible in the more economically and socially exploitable positions. To delve into another area of theory, there are a great many places to go in terms of gender, sexuality, feminist, and queer theory. Along the lines of my previous reasoning, one could take a lot from Luce Irigaray’s essay “This Sex Which Is Not One” where she writes that “woman is traditionally use-value for man, exchange value among men. Merchandise, then.” Particularly as Dr. Phil tried to show that the pictures he found so distasteful made employment opportunities scarce and possibilities of relationships with people like the audience member Roco impossible, it seemed more and more like the argument had less to do with one’s mental state, ethical value, and aesthetic well-being and far more to do with value as a lifeless commercial object. Other feminists, such as Susan Moller-Okin see sex as biological while gender is performed, claiming that “public policies and laws should generally assume no social differentiation of the sexes” (Justice, Gender, and the Family 175). Clearly, this is not Dr. Phil’s way. It is, to put it mildly, offensive and deeply biased to ask Roco if he would want to date women he only knows through “inappropriate” facebook pictures. For one, it reinforces a societal emphasis on the female exterior, only caring about a woman’s interior when it’s being vomited up in plain view. It also fails to ask these individuals—and one cannot forget that they are individuals—if they would ever consider dating someone like Roco. While this could be characterized as a double standard, it might be more realistic, and more inhumane, to interpret it as the male gaze and the lack of a female voice that is so often criticized by feminists. Lastly, there is also a very real questions pertaining to queer theory here. In “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” Judith Butler writes that “gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original” and that “the psyche is not ‘in’ the body, but in the very signifying process through which that body comes to appear.” These women are most assuredly not displaying themselves as women being taken advantage of, and women who are basically disgusting outcasts. That is the act of interpreting their actions, it is the “fantasy” as much as the “gender presentation,” and it is a potentially damaging, not advantageous, to closet that which desires to roam free, despite consequences. When one really looks at the topic with a postmodern gaze, rather than a male or Bourgeoisie gaze, the question is not why these women have facebook and myspace pages with pictures detailing their life, but rather, why doesn’t Dr. Phil? If it isn’t clear already, the simple point is, it is Dr. Phil, not any guest, who is in a position to really hide something significant, serious, and horrendous.

(Ben)Jamin' with Dr. Phil: part 2?

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin asserts that “even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” (Illuminations 220). Benjamin goes further, pointing out that reproduction through mechanical processes also removes itself from the original and places the subsequent copies “into situations which would be out of reach for the original.” (Ibid). In the case of Dr. Phil episodes, this is particularly true. Imagine a guest sitting down and watching the show they appeared on during a repeat, a year or so later. If symptoms and psychoses have intensified, it is easy to see how the patient would feel manipulated, abandoned, and like a failure. If the condition originally complained of has improved, it is likewise easy to comprehend how a repeat could retrigger or reshape a latent disorder. This is, of course, not exactly replicated when an average viewer watches a repeat, or a first-run example of mechanical reproduction. Benjamin is adamant, however, that this is as true for a spectator as it is for a participant. It is what he calls the “aura” withering, becoming alienated, and losing its uniqueness (222). While this idea has comprehensive implications for all arts and communicative media, Benjamin is focusing on film. Just as film loses ritualistic value and the ability to interact with an audience, Dr. Phil’s program—as compared to a heretofore non-existent live theatre version of Dr. Phil—is embroiled in difficulties since Dr. Phil is psychoanalyzing and performing, not for real live people, but to a camera. The audience, as Benjamin points out, is put in the position of the critic, identifying with the unseen cameraman, seeing Dr. Phil only through his mechanical, impersonal eyes (228). While Dr. Phil claims that his show aims to help viewers at home (particularly children) as much as he tries to help guests, this is of course impossible in a true psychoanalytical sense. Dr. Phil has the most powerful and oppressive bodyguard conceivable in the camera, taking away the audience’s freedom and preventing two-way communication. Benjamin describes a consequence by positing that “the aura that envelops the actor disappears, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.” (229). The mechanical reproduction inherent in the television industry seems to analogously extinguish the aura to the person, the real humanness, of Dr. Phil. What is left? According to Benjamin it is the “spell of the personality” and “the phony spell of a commodity.” (231). The difference between a person and a star has nothing to do with their ability to communicate artistically and everything to do with whether or not they are being filmed. Film’s salvation is that it changes the methods of participation in a way that has positive, as well as negative, effects. It can be personal in a new, mechanical way in the sense that it is perhaps better adapted than any artistic medium to “mobilize the masses.” (240). If the Dr. Phil show is unsuccessful, then, it may have less to do with the capabilities and disabilities that follow the camera, and more to do with the limits of psychoanalysis. Unless one is speaking of a mass psychosis, a public and communal therapy is useless by its very nature. Benjamin ends his essay with a rather curious epilogue. Thinking of the essay as a quarreling over semantics or an arcane argument about aesthetics is shown to be completely false. In fact, as Benjamin makes clear, what is at stakes is far more serious: fascism, modern society, and war. Benjamin (a Marxist, of course) has a simple solution: “politicizing art.” (242). Dr. Phil’s politics are about as personal and overt as is his contact with the television audience. Following Benjamin’s model, Dr. Phil’s vague and cautious political aesthetic—“children are important!” and “craziness is bad!”—is the perfect fodder for a war-mongering fascist. The only question remaining is whether the aggressive Fascist of the future is today’s Dr. Phil or the viewers of his enduring repeats.