(Ben)Jamin' with Dr. Phil: part 1?

Today is Christmas, a holiday with strong Messianic overtones. It seems only fitting, therefore, that we celebrate with an exegesis of Walter Benjamin, the Jewish philosopher who points out that “like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power.” (“Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Illuminations, 254). Benjamin writes that “there is a secret agreement between the past generations and the present one” wherein the past asserts a claim that “cannot be settled cheaply.” (Ibid.) Benjamin’s philosophy of time is probably best expressed through his conception of “the angel of history.” (257). Benjamin’s description is worth a closer examination:

“His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.” (257-258).

In fact, we call this storm the t.v. schedule. One of the particularly interesting aspects of Benjamin’s portrayal of history is what it does to the viewer. Besides the approximate deification, the viewer is actually flummoxed. For one, the angel of history cannot see where he or she is going. If it is being blown away from Paradise with such force, it also seems that it will not be able to return, at least not any time soon. Perhaps most importantly, the angel is in a constant state of parallax and vertigo as it continually sees history building as a giant trail of self-created refuse and wreckage. This can all be easily adapted to the small scale temporal world that exists on and around television. Somewhat recent inventions and industry changes such as Tivo or DVDs of popular shows do, in some ways, alleviated the pain and chaos felt by the angel. In its most basic sense, however, watching television forces the viewer to take the position of the angel. Television cannot, of course, show the future. The viewer is placated and distracted with elaborate (often trashy) images of the past in lieu of control and awareness which must remain, if anywhere, in the spontaneous blackness and snow of dead air and lost signals. It is probably no secret that sitcoms and dramas are filmed months in advance. So are many “reality” shows. Even live sports and news events are broadcast with a standard 7 second delay. This is not to say that the television universe is entirely without order. We, the angelic viewers, know when the shows we like are usually on. We’re aided by guides and advertisements, and even within programs we are introduced to motifs, patterns, and limits. If each generation places a “weak Messianic power” in the generations that it expects to follow, we might also say that we found our television viewing habits on an überweak Messianic power. As a simple thought experiment, imagine your favorite show being cancelled, perhaps inexplicably, mid-season. Would it not cause one to mourn for that which was supposed to come while losing at least some faith in what is left? But, in television, as with all things containing an important temporal component, there are far more überweak Messianic powers at stake. With relatively little leeway, we expect the tone, format, and style of our favorite shows to continue unchanged. In short, we expected to see new—and yet oddly familiar—wreckage dumped in front of us as we travel, blindly, through time. As Dr. Phil said in yesterday’s episode: “video doesn’t lie.” However, Benjamin’s model makes one question in what way video could ever tell the truth. As he writes: “every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably” and “even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins.” (255). Yet there is a very interesting added element, one which is partially unique to television, or at least modern communication and art: the repeat. While this might appear to offer a loophole, since the wreckage is returning, for a moment allowing one to see a small portion of the future, this is, in fact, not entirely the case. We will have to look backwards yet again, to Benjamin’s previous and most famous essay: “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

The Birth of Phil Studies

Today’s episode of Dr. Phil was rather uninteresting, unless, of course, you enjoy listening to former child star Danny Bonaduce recount his failed marriage and the myriad of other problems he so clearly continues to have despite being “sober.” Still, there was some theory that we could talk about. Phil made his usual reproductive futurist rant about how the important thing is the children and their lives. We get it, you’re a heterosexual—yawn. We also had the astute point by our esteemed Dr. that “there are two Danny Bonaduces—Danny Bonaduce the personality and Danny Bonaduce the real person that I know, who cares about his family and his kids.” It would be interesting to take this to the next step: people on t.v., or in any theatrical situation, are not real people. We could think of Žižek’s idea of acting “as if,” Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, Lacan’s Borromean knot, Brecht’s alienation effect, and so much more! It will be fun, and Dr. Phil is one thing, but I’m not going to do it with Danny Bonaduce, at least not until he starts calling himself a poet or a philosopher, or something like that.

Instead, tonight we have a bit of meta-analysis to do as it has recently come to my attention that I did not, in fact, create the field of Phil studies. I had hoped that, like Freud or Marx, I was working as a “founder of discursivity” (Foucault, What is an Author?) Therefore, it was quite a surprise to find that, over two years ago, a pair of professors from St. Lawrence University had written a good-sized scholarly article on Dr. Phil in The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, a web-based periodical from the Department of Religious Studies and Anthropology at The University of Saskatchewan. Professor Egan and Papson’s full article, “You Either Get It or You Don't”: Conversion Experiences and The Dr. Phil Show,” is available here: http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art10-drphil.html.
I encourage you to at least read the abstract. Egan and Papson are observant enough to realize that there is no religious content in the Dr. Phil show, but do assert that the episodes follow the structural pattern and the narrative of a religious conversion (particularly of the televangelist ilk) with a confession and testimonial followed by conversion and transformation. The authors conclude that “the televised presentation of reoccurring conversions functions to produce a sense of moral authority, self-empowerment, and an imagined community [and] that the boundary between the sacred and the secular blur in this highly commodified television spectacle.” Now, I have a friend who says he likes theory, but thinks a lot of theorists argue too much with each other. I find these two positions difficult to reconcile, as it should be the duty of any decent theorist to envisage critiques and theories that can hold up against the entire world to reinvent and reinvigorate its intellectual understandings and possibilities. The idea, the theory itself, might stand out in (or against) reality, but it does not reach the level of discourse until it is acknowledged, reproved, and re-proved. Egan and Papson are already, of course, part of the discourse within Religious studies. They’ve cited authorities within the field and it’s periphery (at least, not being an expert on theology, I assume that’s what they’ve done). They’ve been reviewed to reach publication, and have likely been cited or read as a result. But this is all as religion experts, or, perhaps in the amorphous field of cultural criticism. When it comes to Phil studies, however, it is safe to assume that this is—as Dr. Phil would say—their first rodeo. We can remedy that. Firstly, I think Egan and Papson are wise to bring in things like Neilson ratings and advertising. Economics and politics are central organs in Phil studies. Egan and Papson also sagaciously pick up on the fact that the Dr. Phil we see on television is actually a staged personification. The analysis has only one glaring deficit in that Egan and Papson do not seem to pick up on the fact that there is a Phil canon. Instead, they simply observe two shows, “Addiction” and “The Weight Loss Challenge.” This ignores the fact that Dr. Phil often brings back guests, revisits segments, issues, or mini-series like the Dr. Phil house and obviously expects his viewers to watch regularly, visit his website, and read his books. More importantly, it seems to skew their findings slightly. While both the episodes they chronicled might have taken on the mode and style of a conversion, there have also been many that might more aptly be described as promoting reversion (to better times, etc.), aversion (when something just needs to stop), or diversion (for preventing that which hasn’t actually even begun to occur). From outside the actual mechanism of the Dr. Phil Show, the possibilities are even more numerous. As we’ve tried to demonstrate, the show can also be seen as the location of perversion and subversion. Even limiting oneself to the domain of theology, it might be just as fitting to describe the arc of most shows as an exorcism or, in some cases, an excommunication. The fact is, the Dr. Phil canon is large and often contradictory. This is also a part of Egan and Papson’s largest mistake. While they seem to see an insidious side to Dr. Phil because he attempts to become the high priest, carving out his own commodified religion, mixing the secular and the sacred, there is an equally dark side. Failing to promote the scriptures, the pillars of psychology—the great psalmists like Freud, Jung, etc. and their seminal works—is tantamount to heresy. If Nietzsche and Marx are correct in their assertions that “God is dead” and “religion is the opium of the people,” then we must conclude that—if Dr. Phil is attempting to rule over a conversion to a half secularized, half sacred televangical reality—he is continuing to feed his guests’ various addictions, refusing help, and instead embracing philosophical death for all parties involved (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right").

Phil the Red

“I had a real job before I did this” Dr. Phil, September 24, 2007
“You cannot abolish philosophy without making it a reality.” Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right, 1884



Today’s episode, “Bishop T.J. Jakes,” had a lot to offer. Televistically, we had the added appearance of Bishop T.J. Jakes to help with 3 segments (two being the standard). Philosophically, there’s also much to work with. Work, in fact, was on of the central motifs in the broadcast. First we met a marriage about to break up, principally because the husband, Bobby, has become “addicted to commodity trading.” Then we were introduced to Hunter, a middle aged man whose “big problem” is that he is critical and negative about everything. Finally, we heard from Antoine and Tiffany, who brought a handgun out one night when they thought someone was breaking into their home. Leaving it under the pillow, in the morning, Tiffany walked in as her three year old son picked up, then dropped the gun, fatally wounding himself. She is now “working” to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The Marxist undercurrent is probably most visible in the first portion of the show. Bobby is, of course, captivated by commodity fetishism. While Dr. Phil would like us to believe that Bobby is the only one preoccupied with money, his own rhetoric, as well as the other guests, belies this defense. Kelly seemed obsessed with his obsession, both as it infantilizes her (feelings she projected onto him, calling him a “child”) and as it undercuts and exposes her own—equally fetishistic pursuit—of wages and goods. Similarly, Jakes advised that the couple “lost more than money…the real bankruptcy is the loss of the marriage, her love, the harmony.” This answer seems to do little more, though, than shift the fetishism, and resulting exploitation, from the realm of laborer to the level of personhood. In fact, Dr. Phil had perhaps the most astute comment when he interjected that “you don’t solve money problems with money.” In Das Kapital, Marx’s answer to the “money problem” of commodity fetishism’s exploitative grip is “a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour-power of the community” (1.4). Dr. Phil’s answer embodies this, albeit simplistically, when he states that “you solve them with attitude.” In any case, a theoretically Marxist approach should warn us against blindly following the orders of the bourgeoisie. What are Phil, and his associate Jakes trying to do? They’ve already turned Bobby and Kelly, their marriage, and their entire existence, into a product, one that has “value” and should not be “broken.” Perhaps they are really only trying to maintain the status quo. This seems to promulgate, not fix, the real “money problem” if, as Marx suggests, families also possess “a…system of division of labour” akin to, and supporting, the market (Das Kapital, 1.4). In the case of Antoine and Tiffany, where the “use value” of their handgun takes an instantaneous, grotesque perversion as it causes their sons death, Dr. Phil gives comparable guidance when he says Tiffany’s remaining two children need “not 80%...but 100% of their mother.” This appeared to reinforce Tiffany’s view that they are no longer “a complete family” and that she is, herself, a commodity (equally as dangerous as a gun, and apparently currently on sale, as is, for 20% off). The Marxist answer seems to be not to continue “working,” even if it is to prevent similar tragedies. Instead, it is to realize that the Bishop next to you on the right is “the opium of the people,” while the bourgeoisie to your left, giving you his recommendations might be the psychological drug-dealer (Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right). The better advice might be to abolish “religion as the illusory happiness of the people [and] demand for…real happiness” (Ibid). What does this tell us about Marxism, though? There must be something unclear, inherently difficult to act on, and maybe even undesirable about Marxist answers if people like Bobby and Kelly, Hunter, and Antoine and Tiffany are aspiring, or at least willing, to end the show in virtually the same position they started, except of course that they are helping a successful show, major network, advertising corporations, and society-at-large with little in exchange.