Feminism

http://infamousbrat.blogspot.com/2006/06/feminism.html

Student-Teacher relationship - should there be an exception?

A 25 year old Spanish teacher was arrested for having sex with her 18 year old student on May 25 in Texas. Now, her arrest is "raising questions about the law" of convicting a teacher who indulges in a sexual relationship with his/her student. In this case, both the 'participants' were/are consenting adults. Should the teacher be convicted? (20 years of imprisonment is the verdict if she is found guilty)

You can read more about this incident here:
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060611131209990005

The law upholders are arguing that the teacher took advantage of a young child. I do agree with them to a certain extent but I also wonder if the two were not in a student-teacher relationship, would their sexual relationship be objected to? I asked a friend, who is now thirty, if he would have dated an 18 year old when he was 25. He said he would have. There were plenty of 25 year olds hitting on me when I was 18. There are plenty of 25 year olds who hit on and/or are dating 18 year olds now. No one seems to have an objection against that since both the parties involved are above the legal age of 18 and are consenting adults. On the other hand, in the case in question, the relationship is objectionable because it involves a teacher and her student. If the two had met 'outside' of school setting, there would have been no problems but now that, unfortunately, they met 'in' a school setting, the accused faces nearly 20 years behind bars if convicted.

I certainly don't commend teachers sleeping with their students but neither do I think that 20 years of imprisonment is acceptable in this particular case. If the student was not an adult, I would not have argued against the arrest or the prospective sentence but TWENTY years just sounds so harsh for this particular scenario. I am sure that even Beccario would disagree with the Texan Law at this point of time. Beccario states that punishment had a preventive, not a retributive, function; punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; the certainty of punishment, not its severity, would achieve the preventive effect. Considering that, I, personally, believe that the teacher MUST be fired from her job, not allowed to teach again, and be put on probation for a certain period of time if need be ... but 20 years of imprisonment? Sounds ridiculous.

This is more of an ethical issue than it is legal. Should a teacher never develop feelings for his/her student and vice versa? Same applies to other professions as well though. There was a case in rural Canada somewhere a few years ago where a doctor was expelled from the local physicians association for he married one of his ex-patients. It violated the association's terms in regards to medical ethics wherein a physician can't have a sexual relationship with his/her patient. The reason why such relationships are disregarded are to protect patients from being exploited when in a vulnerable state. Similarly, a student-teacher sexual relationship is criminalized to avoid students from being exploited by their teachers. Therefore, I have absolutely no qualms about throwing teachers into jail who prey upon their students ... but should a teacher who slept with an adult student be punished equally as harsh as a teacher who invited a 14 year old boy into her cabin and raped him?

Curious.

Bounded Existence

Throughout the western civilization – ancient world, medieval world, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment – philosophers/authors have believed that there are boundaries set by nature that a human being must respect in order to attain happiness and better the society on a whole. In the ancient times and the medieval period, these naturally set boundaries were rigid but over time, as there was a shift of importance towards reason during the Reformation and the Enlightenment, these boundaries were pushed and the roles became interchangeable, but not without consequences. The texts – Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics: Book 1, Aquinas’s Summation of the Catholic Faith, Shakespeare’s Othello, and Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – reflect and discuss these boundaries and the consequences associated with them.

The belief in the ancient Greco-Roman period was that the maintenance of a balance between extremities that life presents itself with, and adherence to the boundaries, thus, created, brings happiness to an individual, which benefits the society on a whole. Aristotle, a figure from the Greco Roman period, states in The Nicomachean Ethics: Book 1 that “every art and every inquiry, and in the same way every action and choice, seem to aim at some good” (Cunningham and Reich 118). He mentions that “since there are many actions and arts and sciences, there are also many ends: of medicine, health; of ship building, a ship; of military science, victory; of household management, wealth” (Cunningham and Reich 118). He further states that in order to work towards a certain end, we need to know the end that we desire – “the highest good” – because, then, it would “be more likely to attain what is required” since we have a target to work towards just “like archers who have a mark to shoot at” (Cunningham and Reich 119). Moreover, he claims that politics is the “most authoritative, most eminently a leading art” since it involves balancing between various branches of “arts” – “military science, household management, and rhetoric” – that fall under it (Cunningham and Reich 119). He stresses on the importance of balance in making politics a “leading art” when he states:

This art [politics] determines which of the sciences is to exist in each city and which each person is to learn, and to what extent. Since it uses the rest of the sciences and decrees what one must do and refrain from doing, its end would include those of the others, so that it would be the good for man. Even though the end be the same for an individual and a city, that of the city seems to be greater and more perfect, both to achieve and to preserve. It is worthwhile even for a single individual, but fairer and more divine for a people or a city. (Cunningham and Reich 119)

In other words, if one refrains to limitations within boundaries like the balance within the discipline of politics, knows what to indulge in and what to step back from, it would be to his/her own benefit, and, most importantly, it would benefit the society. Furthermore, Aristotle claims that “politics aims at and what is the highest of all goods of action”: happiness (Cunningham and Reich 119). Happiness, Aristotle says, “is perfect and self sufficient, the end of action” since “we always choose it for itself and never for something else” and “that which taken by itself alone makes a life desirable and lacking in nothing” (Cunningham and Reich 120). According to Aristotle, “the highest good” that man seeks is happiness, and it can be attained through the art of politics (Cunningham and Reich 119). Since politics involves a balancing of various extremes as discussed, it can be deduced that this balance is imperative towards the realization of a happy life: the eternal human goal. Moreover, going by Aristotle’s logic, if a single individual is happy, the whole society is benefited from the process. Therefore, the boundaries set up in order to strike a balance in life to gain happiness and the roles that originate because of those boundaries are finite, and they need to be adhered to if one wants to accomplish the goal of happiness for his/her own self and the society.

However, Aristotle does not overtly speak of the negative consequences of not adhering to limitations set up by the need to maintain a balance between extremities in order to live a happy life. Although it is implied that if a human being chooses to walk away from a life of balance by not staying between the finite boundaries, he/she would not achieve happiness, and, thus, not fulfill life’s goal.

Furthermore, the belief system in medieval period, like the Greco Roman period, also followed the idea that human existence is refrained to a certain set of boundaries. In the medieval period, however, a boundary is set by nature between humans and God instead, and it cannot be transcended by human reason alone. Aquinas, in his text Summation of the Catholic Faith, establishes a boundary between human beings and God by stating that reason or human intellect cannot fully comprehend God. Reason and revelation, according to Aquinas, have to go hand in hand for a human being to realize God. The faith in God resulting from realizing Him makes one happy as per Aquinas just like evasion of extremities did for Aristotle. Therefore, a concrete boundary existed between God and human beings during the medieval period since it was necessary to create a distinction between the two in order to generate human faith in God’s superiority and thereby, bring about happiness to those who accepted God.

In the text Summation of the Catholic Faith, Aquinas bases his logic on the assumption that God exists and attempts to explain that God is superior to human beings by creating a boundary between the two. He creates a hierarchy wherein human beings are at the lowest rung with angels in the middle and God at the topmost level based on “gradation of intellects” (Thompson 72). When comparing the relationship of a human being and an angel to that of a simple person to a philosopher, Aquinas states:

Consider the case of two persons of whom one has a more penetrating grasp of a thing by his intellect than does the other. He who has the superior intellect understands many things that the other cannot grasp at all. Such is the case with a very simple person who cannot at all grasp the subtle speculations of philosophy. But the intellect of an angel surpasses the human intellect much more than the intellect of the greatest philosopher surpasses the intellect of the most uncultivated simple person; for the distance between the best philosopher and a simple person is contained within the limits of the human species, which angelic intellect surpasses. (Thompson 72)

Using the aforementioned example, Aquinas creates an infinite boundary between angels and human beings, which separates them even more than the finite boundary that exists between a simple minded man and an intellectual. The distance thus created reduces human intellect to a minimal in comparison to that of the angels. Further, Aquinas compares angels’ intellect to “divine intellect” and creates a boundary between them too (Thompson 72). He says:

The divine intellect surpasses the angelic intellect much more than the angelic surpasses the human. For the divine intellect is in its capacity equal to its substance, and there ore it understands full what it is, including all its intelligible attributes. (Thompson 72)

By “divine intellect”, Aquinas is referring to the knowledge that God possesses (Thompson 72). He concludes that since even angels cannot comprehend God, human beings, who are far inferior to angels in terms of intellect, have no chance of being able to grasp knowledge of God with solely their reason (Thompson 72).

Further, like Aristotle, Aquinas believes that “no one tends with desire and zeal towards something that is not already known to him” (Thompson 73). “That is why”, says Aquinas, “ it is necessary for the human mind to be called to something higher than the human reason here and now can reach, so that it would thus learn to desire something and with zeal tend towards something that surpasses the whole state of the present life” (Thompson 74). The way that Aquinas suggests for “the human mind to be called to something higher” is through Christianity, which, according to him, “in a unique way promises spiritual and eternal goods and so there are many things proposed to men in it that transcend human sense” (Thompson 74). In other words, Aquinas believes that it’s important for human beings to work towards a higher good that encompasses knowledge of God and the path to do that is by giving oneself to Christianity upon acknowledging the unquestionable boundaries that exist between humans and God; this thought is further expressed by him, when he says:

It is also necessary that such truth be proposed to men for belief so that they may have a truer knowledge of god. For then only do we know god truly when we believe Him to be above everything that it is possible for man to think about Him; for, as we have shown, the divine substance surpasses the natural knowledge of which man is capable. Hence, by the fact that some things about God are proposed to man that surpass his reason, there is strengthened in man the view that God is something above what he can think. (Thompson 74)

The human reason, however, according to Aquinas, can be synthesized with the divine revelation to work towards the goal of God-realization. First step is acknowledging the existing boundaries between humans and God, second step is to give oneself into revelation through Christianity, have faith in the “divine revelation” and “although the human reason cannot grasp fully the truths that are above it, yet, if it somehow holds these truths at least by faith, it acquires great perfection for itself” (Thompson 75). In addition to that, Aquinas puts up a condition that God will only reveal Himself to a human being if He chooses to do so. “In the presence of contrary arguments”, says Aquinas, “our intellect is chained, so that it cannot proceed to the knowledge of the truth. If, therefore, contrary knowledges were implanted in us by God, our intellect would be hindered from knowing truth by this very fact” (Thompson 77). To sum up, Aquinas uses logic based on the assumption that God exists to create a boundary between humans and God in order to lure people towards the Christian faith, which was a predominant factor in the medieval times.

Further, the Reformation was embarked by a time when the status of reason was elevated over revelation. The experimentation of pushing beyond the previously recognized boundaries in order to initiate interchange of roles between the two separated realms began in the Reformation. Shakespeare, in his plays, exploits the roles that human beings tend to play in the society based on the established boundaries between genders, color, race etc. Although he does experiment with exchange of roles by eliminating the boundaries, he is convinced that breaking the boundaries has negative consequences associated with it. In his play Othello, Desdemona breaks boundaries pertaining to both gender and race to marry the man she loved, and in the end, the same man, who she rebelled against her boundaries for, kills her.

In Othello, Desdemona, a white senator’s daughter, rebels against her father, Brabantio, to marry Othello, a black army General in service of the Venetian state. She breaks the boundaries set by her race and color in order to be with the man she loves. When questioned about her decision to marry Othello by her father, she states:

My noble Father,

I do perceive here a divided duty.

To you I am bound for life and education,

My life and education both do learn me

How to respect you, you are the lord of duty,

I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband,

And so much duty as my mother showed

To you, preferring you before her father

So much I challenge that I may profess

Due to the Moor my lord. (Thompson 411)

Moreover, she breaks gender roles as well when she chooses to stay with Othello close to his battlefield rather than staying with her father. She further adheres to breaking gender roles when she considers herself as a companion to Othello rather than merely his wife. When she justifies Othello’s anger to Iago and Emilia, she calls herself an “unhandsome warrior” considering her-self to be Othello’s companion in arms. This was iterated earlier as well when Desdemona opts to be with Othello when he is fighting a battle by stating that her heart has become a soldier just like her husband, and that she would live with her soldier husband wherever he goes. She says:

That I did love the moor to live with him,

My downright violence and storm of fortunes

May trumpet to the word. My heart’s subdued

Even to the very quality of my lord.

I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,

And to his honors and his valiant parts

Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.

So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,

A moth of peace, and he go to the war,

And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear absence. Let me go with him. (Thompson 413-14)

Further in the play, Othello gets manipulated by his ancient, Iago, and accuses Desdemona of cheating on him. In a fit of rage as a result of jealousy, he ends up killing Desdemona. Desdemona’s death is the negative consequence of her having rebelled against the boundaries and restrictions set on her by the society. To sum up, Shakespearean drama reflects the thoughts of Reformation period when human reason was beginning to get more credit than revelation. Shakespeare was not just thinking in terms of God, as in medieval times, anymore. He based his works on the Reformation assumption that there is confusion between the external and the internal world. Shakespeare, like Aristotle and Aquinas, was also caught up in the concept of nature being supreme and acknowledgement of boundaries that originate as a result. However, the main difference between the Reformation period and the ancient times as well as the medieval times was that earlier it was believed that nature could be grasped within finite boundaries but in Reformation, nature became infinite and boundaries became more malleable.

Furthermore, in the Enlightenment era, reason completely prevailed over revelation. Reason answered all problems. Boundaries became completely interchangeable. The most striking difference between the Reformation and the Enlightenment in terms of transcending boundaries was that the latter did not have any negative consequences in relation to breaking boundaries. Writers like Mary Wollstonecraft focused on the importance of overcoming boundaries in order to make progress as a society. Wollstonecraft in her text A vindication of the Rights of Women puts forth her idea that women must break free from the established gender roles in order for the society to be morally correct. She believes that dependency of women on men, which is deeply rooted in the society, is immoral and the only way to upgrade the society’s moral standards is through breaking the boundaries that restrict women’s intellectual freedoms.

In A vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft talks about how a woman is not given the status of a human being in the society. A woman is equated to a child by the men in the society and, thus, made dependent on men. Wollstonecraft discusses the aforementioned men induced dependency when she says:

One cause of this barren blooming [is] a false system of education, gathered from the books written on [women] by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers. (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289)

She advocates the need of women to step out of roles pre-assigned by society and to venture out of their restricted existence through education (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289). She states that “women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, everything else is needless, for at least, twenty years of their lives …” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 290) but “the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289). She believes that education is essential for a woman to be able to build her “character, run her family, raise her children, and not leave the domestic affairs, which she can easily take care of, to the man of the household and, thus, reduce dependency on men. She brings up the point “that [women] spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty” to which she further poses a question that “can [such women] be expected to govern a family with judgment, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world?” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289). Therefore, according to Wollstonecraft, “it is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 291) and independence can only be achieved by women if they step out of their gender roles and transcend the existing boundaries between men and women.

Wollstonecraft does not acknowledge any negative repercussions of women leaving the roles they are apparently conditioned into according to her. She is extremely optimistic of a positive advancement if the boundaries between genders are broken down. Her ideas incorporate the Enlightenment sentiments in regards to the sureness related to reason. Enlightenment differed from the previous eras mainly in the sense that it was believed during Enlightenment that any naturally created boundary can be overcome using reason as a tool.

In conclusion, as shown by using literary examples from the four eras of western civilization – ancient world, medieval world, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment – it was acknowledged throughout the civilization that there are some boundaries that human beings are bound by. However, there were notable differences between the perceptions of these boundaries during each respective era. In the ancient world, boundaries within extremities of life were supposed to be adhered to in order to maintain a balance in life and, thus, achieve happiness, which was ultimately the purpose of life. Moving on, the medieval world focused on the concrete boundaries between God and human beings, which worked towards bringing people to Christianity by stressing the supremacy of God. Later, in the Reformation period, the same boundaries were viewed as conquerable, as opposed to the previous eras, but it was also believed that if these boundaries are pushed too much, there might be associative negative consequences. Furthermore, during Enlightenment, reason was implemented to completely vanquish the aforementioned boundaries and the result of breaking them down was only viewed with optimism.

Bibliography

Cunningham, L. and Reich, J. (2006) Culture & Values - A survey of the humanities. USA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Thompson, K. (1988) Classics of Western Thought: Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation. Fairfield, USA: Quebecor Printing.

Wollstonecraft, M. (1792) GNST 300 Fall 05/ Winter 06 Reading Package: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. University of Calgary Press.

Analysis of Photographs: The Controversy

Figure 1: Viet Cong Execution by Eddie Adams (1968)

Figure 2: Sudan Famine Victim by Kevin Carter (1994)

“The word photography, which is derived from the Greek words for light and writing, was first used by Sir John Herschel in 1839: the year the invention of the photographic process was made public” (Camera Canada, 2005). Photography, ever since its invention, has been an important part of the visual culture. One of the interpretive tools used to analyze photographic images is semiology, which is also referred to as ‘the study of signs’ (Rose, 2001: 69). The semiotic approach takes a photographic “image apart” into parts such as iconic, indexical and symbolic signs, and “traces how it works in broader systems of meaning” (Rose, 2001: 69). This is where “interpretive debate among semiologists over the status of signs in photographic images” arises (Rose, 2001: 82). While some semiologists believe that the signs present in every photograph are solely adequate to understand its meaning, others argue against that by stating that there are some points in certain photographs that elude analysis (Rose, 2001: 82). I agree with the latter and believe that there are some things in a photograph that escape the objective, analytical scrutiny and yet, leave an impact on its viewer.

John Tagg and Roland Barthes, respectively, represent the two unique schools of thought pertaining to the analysis of photographs using semiology. John Tagg is an advocate of the view that photographs can be only given meaning by studying them within “certain institutional apparatuses” whereas Roland Barthes, one of the pioneer semiologists, is an exponent of the view that “there are points in some photographs that shock the viewer with their intractable reality” (Rose, 2001: 82, 167). One major difference between the two is that Tagg’s approach towards interpretation of photography is objective and focuses on producing meaning of an image only within the realms of an “institutional framework” (Tagg, 1988: 3), whereas Barthes’ approach is “subtle, poetic, and at home with both imagination and imaginative language” (Price, 1994: 9). Therefore, Tagg is in constant opposition with Barthes in relation to the “intended use of a photograph” (Price, 1994: 10). Barthes believes that photography communicates reality – the truth – without the interposition of any external agencies of power. According to Tagg, on the other hand, the use intended by a photograph through the “power of representation” of visual objects is always suspended in institutions of power, which “cannot be articulated” (Price, 1994: 11). Keeping that in view, Tagg rejects Barthes’ assertion that “from a phenomenological viewpoint, the power of authentication exceeds the power of representation” (Barthes, 1982: 88) in photography when he says that “what exceeds representation, however, cannot, by definition, be articulated” (Tagg, 1988: 4). In addition, Tagg also refutes Barthes’ claim that a photograph is “an emanation of past reality: a magic” (Barthes, 1982: 88) when Tagg states that “the photograph is not a magical ‘emanation’ but a material product of a material apparatus set to work in specific contexts, by specific forces, for more or less defined purposes” (Tagg, 1988: 3). In other words, Tagg believes that the analytical signs present in a photograph are enough for it to convey its meaning completely as opposed to Barthes’ poetic view that some things do evade interpretation by the analytical tools.

Further, two Pulitzer Prize winner photographs from within the past four decades are analyzed using semiology to decide between the ideas outlined by Tagg and Barthes. The first consideration (Figure 1), the 1968 winner photograph - Viet Cong Execution - was taken by Eddie Adams during the Vietnam War. This photograph shows the police chief General Nguyen Ngoc Loan in the process of executing a Vietcong prisoner, Nguyen Van Lem; Lem is yet to be shot at. The three kinds of signs, according to Peirce, that can be applied to undergo a semiotic analysis of this photograph are iconic, indexical and symbolic (Rose, 2001: 78). Iconic signs are characterized by likeness between the ‘signified’ and the ‘signifier’, and “in indexical signs, there is an inherent relationship (physical or causal) between the ‘signified’ and the ‘signifier’” (Rose, 2001: 74). “The signified is a concept or an object” and the signifier refers to “a sound or an image that is attached to a signified” (Rose, 2001: 74); the signified and the signifier combined together compose a ‘sign’. In the Viet Cong Execution photograph, the ‘signifier’ is the gun in the hand of the General pointed at Lem whose face clearly portrays – the ‘signified’ - fear. Therefore, the iconic and indexical signs combined convey the meaning that Lem is about to be executed by the General. Furthermore, symbolic signs have a “clearly arbitrary relation between the signifier and the signified” (Rose, 2001: 78). In this particular case, this photograph is (or could be) symbolic of the Marxist view of powerless suffering at the hands of the powerful. Thus, the Viet Cong photograph can be easily “taken apart” into signs and interpreted through the means of semiology but despite that, there are a couple of things that remain unanswered for me. When I look at the photograph, the facial expression of the man in the military uniform in the extreme left of the photograph catches my attention. He is about to witness an execution and I am unable to deduce from his face whether he is pro or against the execution; I cannot describe his facial expression. Another thing that disturbs me, and that I cannot describe using any one of the discussed ‘signs’ is the fact that Lem is going to die. It is an abstract feeling that I cannot aptly put into words. Therefore, the “analytical language of signs” is not sufficient to describe the impact of this particular photograph (Rose, 2001: 83).

In addition to that, an interesting fact about the Viet Cong photograph is that according to the photographer Eddie Adams, the victim, Lem, had just murdered “a South Vietnamese colonel, his wife and their six children” and therefore, the General’s act of executing Lem was justifiable (Riper, 2000). Eddie Adams later wrote in Time:

The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.
Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People
believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are
only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do
if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught
the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American
people? (Wikipedia, 2005)

This also supports the view that, sometimes, a part of analysis might be missing in the interpretation of a photograph merely based on its signs.

The second photograph (Figure 2) taken up for consideration is Kevin Carter’s Sudan Famine, the 1994 Pulitzer Prize winner; Kevin committed suicide shortly after taking this picture due to depression. This photograph is of a starving child crouched with head to the ground and a vulture looking over at the child waiting for the inescapable (death of the child). The first glance at this photograph results in an experience of a shock at a mental and an emotional level. The feeling of helplessness is redundant. For interpretation sake, when the photograph is analyzed, it is deduced that the ‘signifiers’ in the photograph are the vulture and the starving child, and the ‘signified’ is inevitable death of the child from starvation. The association of a vulture with death is very strong since it is a globally known fact that all vultures are scavengers and they only prey on the helpless. A weak child who is almost dying as a result of starvation makes an ideal prey for a vulture. The fact that there is nothing a viewer can do to help the child hits the viewer the hardest as well as the fact that this was a reality at one point of time. Another sign that jumps out from the photograph is the topography of the environment that the child and the vulture are in. The grass is burnt out and so is the rest of the vegetation in the back, which is indicative of a famine as well as a lack of civilization around who could save the child from dying. It is a disturbing feeling to know that the photographer behind the camera might be the only person there to help this child (which he did not for safety reasons; journalists are advised not to touch famine victims because they might have transmittable diseases (Riper, 2000)). The signs – the child, the vulture, the topography – all contribute towards a better understanding of the meaning of the photograph but they fail to articulate the resultant emotional and mental disturbance upon viewing this picture. Therefore, this example also backs up Barthes’ postulation that there are certain points in some photographs that are beyond the field of objective meaning.

The common factor in both the examples listed above is that there are some interpretations in some of the photographs that cannot be named (coded) and yet, manage to leave an impression. Roland Barthes coined a term for this ‘impression’: the punctum. He contrasts “the punctum, the point”, to “the studium, or general knowledge available to every viewer” (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). According to Barthes, studium denotes cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph based on evident signs whereas punctum denotes personally touching details of a photograph, which establish a connection with the person or the object in the photograph (Barthes, 1982: 26-7). He further goes on to state that not every photograph has punctum but it does have studium, which he describes as being “of the order of liking, not of loving” since it “mobilizes a half desire, a demi volition” (Barthes, 1982: 27). To further elaborate on studium, he adds:

To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer’s
intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disapprove of them,
but always to understand them, to argue them within myself, for culture (from
which the studium derives) is a contract arrived at between creators and
consumers (Barthes, 1982: 27-8).

Studium, according to Barthes, can be described, is present in every photograph, and is devoid of any pleasure or pain. Punctum, on the other hand, evokes a response from its viewer by “disturbing the studium” and cannot be articulated (Barthes, 1982: 27-8). “The studium is ultimately always coded, the punctum is not” (Barthes, 1982: 51). The details in a photograph that cannot be named (coded) constitute punctum whilst the details that can be named constitute studium. Barthes clarifies this when he analyses a photograph taken by Nadar:

Nadar, in his time (1882), photographed Savorgnan de Brazza between two young
blacks dressed as French sailors; one of the two boys, oddly, has rested his
hand on Brazza’s thigh; this incongruous gesture is bound to arrest my gaze, to
constitute a punctum. And yet it is not one, for I immediately code the
posture, whether I want to or not, as “aberrant” [and, hence, is studium] (for
me, the punctum is the other boy’s crossed arms). What I can name cannot
really prick me. The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance
[punctum]. (Barthes, 1982: 51)

To summarize, the punctum can only exist in a photograph if there is no visible sign in it that can code a certain feeling or an idea that a viewer experiences upon seeing that particular photograph.

Looking back at the photographs discussed earlier in this paper, in Figure 1, since I cannot code the facial expression of the military man on the extreme left in the photograph, I would categorize his facial expression as punctum. Similarly, in Figure 2, the child with his head bowed down disturbs me beyond measure and I cannot name what it is about that posture that (in Barthes’ terms) “pricks” me, hence, the child’s posture serves as a punctum in this photograph.

Furthermore, in his book Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes suggests that there are two versions of punctum; “one is the casual, everyday notion of irrational preference for a particular detail in a photograph” which might be triggered as a result of the viewer’s personal experiences and memories (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). This is evident when Barthes talks about Van der Zee’s Family Portrait (1926):

Reading Van der Zee’s photograph, I thought I had discerned what moved me: the
strapped pumps of the black woman in her Sunday best; but this photograph has
worked within me, and later on I realized that the real punctum was the necklace
she was wearing for (no doubt) it was this same necklace (a slender ribbon of
braided gold) which I had seen worn by someone in my own family, and which, once
she died, remained shut up in a family box of old jewelry. (Barthes, 1982:
53)

The above mentioned quote also supports Barthes’ idea that “sometimes, despite its clarity”, the punctum manifests itself after the photograph is “no longer in front of” the viewer (Barthes, 1982: 53). For example, in the second Pulitzer winner photograph analyzed earlier, Figure 2, the child is wearing silver jewelry – a silver bracelet and a silver necklace – that came to my mind after I put the photograph away. The reason why that specific jewelry stood out to me is because I have seen it on almost all of the children in the Christian missionary shows on TV about children up for adoption in Africa. In addition to that, I was once considering adopting a child from Ghana; therefore, a few of the missionaries had sent me pictures of African children in which majority of them wore the same jewelry as the child in the Sudan Famine picture. Therefore, if Barthes’ idea of realization of real punctum after the photograph is put away is applied, the jewelry worn by the starving child in Figure 2 is the real punctum in this photograph for me.

Further, the second version of punctum, as described by Barthes, is “the sense in which punctum is a wound; in this instance, the photograph evokes something very powerful and unbidden in the viewer” (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). Barthes elaborates on this view when he talks about photographs in relation to the element of time: the “punctum is vividly legible in historical photographs: there is always a defeat of time in them: that is dead and that is going to die” (Barthes, 1982: 96). Here, the punctum creates the connection between the viewers’ personal experiences and death and thus, rendering a photograph divine (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). Barthes further discusses the importance of death in association with the punctum, especially when he talks about Alexander Gardner’s Portrait of Lewis Payne (1865) and his mother’s photograph from when she was a young girl (which he refers to as the Winter Garden Photograph):

In 1865, young Lewis Payne tried to assassinate Secretary of State W. H.
Seward. Alexander Gardner photographed him in his cell, where he was
waiting to be hanged. The photograph is handsome, as is the boy: that is
the studium. But the punctum is: he is going to die. I read at the
same time: This will be and this has been; I observe with horror an anterior
future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the
pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future. What pricks me
is the discovery of his equivalence. In front of the photograph of my
mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die. (Barthes, 1982: 96)

This concept is also reiterated in the viewing of Figures 1 and 2. In figure 1, the studium is that Lem is under the threat of being shot but the punctum is that he is going to die, which is a disturbing thought. Another haunting truth about this photograph is that despite Lem, the other figures present in the photograph – the General, the silent spectator on the side – are also going to die, which supports Barthes’ claim that “whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is a catastrophe” because it speaks of inevitable death (Barthes, 1982: 96). In the same way in Figure 2, the studium is that the starving child is still alive but the punctum is that he/she is going to die. In brief, according to Barthes, some photographs have the ability to create a relationship between its viewer and the reality of death through punctum by generating a forceful effect in the viewer.

Moreover, Barthes also introduces the concept of ‘shock’ in photographic interpretation. Barthes says that shock is quite different from the punctum (Barthes, 1982: 32). “Shock can traumatize but” if there is “no disturbance; the photograph can “shout” not wound” as punctum would require (Barthes, 1982: 41). Upon first glance, both Figure 1 and Figure 2 exemplify the “shock” factor that Barthes talks about. It is only after closer introspection that the studium and the punctum take shape to give meaning to both photographs.

To sum up, the response to the question whether “analytical language of signs is adequate to the task of elucidating the impact of photographs” is that it is not adequate (Rose, 2001: 83). Tagg’s highly objective approach is not very practical when it comes to photographic analysis. It is true that most of the photographs can be comprehended using just the objective tools of analysis but there are instances when some things in a photograph manage to leave an impact on the viewer and are overlooked by an objective analysis such as a semiotic analysis. Therefore, Barthes’ concept of punctum is relevant and key to the interpretation of photographs. There, sometimes, “is a sensitive point in an image which pricks, bruises, disturbs a particular viewer out of their viewing habits”, and cannot be named (coded) according to an objective method of visual interpretation (Rose, 2001: 83).




Bibliography

Books:

Mirzoeff, N. (1999) An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge.

Rose, G. (2001) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Barthes, R. (1982) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. United States: Hill and Wang.

Price, M. (1994) The Photograph: A Strange Confined Space. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Tagg, J. (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.

Online Resources:

Camera Canada. This week in photographic history. Canada’s dot.com for Cameras. 5 Dec. 2005. 5 Dec. 2005.
http://www.cameracanada.com/thisweek.asp

Riper, F. Pulitzer Pictures: Capturing the Moment. Camera Works: Special Features. 29 Dec. 2000. 22 Nov. 2005.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/imageediting/tp/beginphotoedw.htm

Wikipedia. Eddie Adams (photographer). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 5 Dec. 2005. 5 Dec. 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Adams_(photographer)

On Blogging and Bloggers

I have often wondered if I blog for my benefit or for others' benefit. Why do I blog? When I first started blogging, my intention was to use it as a vehicle to vent my frustrations and, in the process, recycle those frustrated ideas into products that some might deem 'creative works of art'. (ha!) As clocks ticked away, my addiction to 'venting' kept on steadily rising, and I didn't even realize when it was a habit ... but ... like someone wise once said - all good (or bad) things come to an end - my blogging pace slowed and I didn't post anything for weeks. Now I am back ... rather ... I want to be back ... I wonder why?

I wonder ....
If we (bloggers) blog to make our otherwise mundane lives interesting by sharing them with the world?
or
Do we have lives so interesting that they NEED be shared with the world to lighten it up?

I do wonder ....

Let me know ?

Sleepless Nights

You’ve turned me into a poet
Creativity flows unsealed
Flutter in the heart
Tingling down the spine
Eyes are tireless
Face bears a radiant glow
Neither have I felt this way
Nor have I written poems before

Every time I am down
You have the right things to say
To soothe me
And build me up again
To encourage me
By letting me be myself
Neither have I experienced it
Nor have I known affection before

It pains my heart
Moistens my eyes
To watch you see me suffer
Through those beady eyes
Always there for me to hug
When I am forlorn
Neither have I needed less
Nor have I asked for more

AH! Figment of imagination
I wish I could dream you into real
For me to love you
For you to pamper me
To hold my hand
Guide me through the dark
Neither have you done that
Nor have I given up hope

My ingenuity mocks me
Intellect doesn’t desist to chide
Wanting to converse with you
I look at you
Lying lifeless in my bed
You are nothing but a toy
Neither will you come to life
Nor would I be heard

Who would tell the world
Story behind the bruises
The pain that goes along
Helplessness that prevails
A struggling childhood
Craving for love
Neither will you share it
Nor would I

a perfect world (my first attempt at poetry)

wrote it yesterday while sittin in the car waiting for dad ......... heh please be kind.

She lay in the waters
Comfortable, warm
Spilling, splashing
Creating ripples
High tide, low tide
Waves in control
No ships to navigate
No jaws to fear
No dolphins to play
With the lone little mermaid.

Big brown eyes
Long, flowing hair,
a perfect tan:
She is alone.
None to share her sorrows,
None to fight with:
Her banal existence
Hopes for a morning.

Then there was light
The sun shone bright
The mermaid’s spirits soared.
But it was not to be.
Shreiking mother's voice
Broke through the tranquil morn
Time to step out of the tub:
A world was shattered.

The skylight spoke a hoarse whisper
It was dawn.

ps: happy birthday H.B. :)

Do looks matter?

I came across this blogring a couple of weeks ago, and it (as expected of me) set me off on the track of researching the age old question - do looks really matter? According to New York Times, "being beautiful does pay off " since the "economists have found that men with above-average looks are paid about 5 percent more than those with average appearance, while those who are below average in looks have wages 9 percent below the mean". The mentioned New York Times article, after discussing the research that a professor and his undergraduate student took up in investigating the effect of beauty on teaching evaluations for college professors, concludes that "it appears that the same physical attributes that made Ms. Linda Evangelista a successful model would also contribute to her success as a college professor. At least the students might stay awake in class.".

After going through a bunch of articles on importance of looks on the internet and thinking back to more-than-enough examples from my personal life, I can safely assume that looks DO matter. As Karen Moloney writes:

An astonishing 58 per cent of male chief executives of Fortune 100 US companies are six feet tall or over. But only 14.5 per cent of the population are that tall. ... Could it be that somewhere inside all of us, irrespective of our own ethnic and cultural origins, we prefer tall, good-looking people? It's almost as if we can't shake off our biological inheritance to choose in a mate, someone who would hunt, gather, cook or bear healthy children. Perhaps this bias was transformed into criteria by which we chose chieftains – people who would head the tribe and scare off invaders – and now we use it to choose senior executives.

When I first started wondering about this topic and was truly convinced that looks did not matter to me, I had a conversation with E (obviously) who asked me a question that I didn't have an answer to (as usual). He asked, "Roop, have you ever - before the invent of internet -, by choice, been friends with people who weren't good looking?" I was stumped before I, as impulse would have it, blurted - "YEAH I HAVE" - because the truth is that I haven't. All my friends from grade school and high school have been good looking - the popular crowd, if I might say - and it wasn't that I made an effort to only befriend the good looking ones, it just happened that way. Today, I can claim that I do have a few friends who I would not consider good looking and yet we are the best of friends nevertheless. A scary truth behind that statement is that I met all of them online at first. If I would've met them in person at first, I don't know if I would've been friends with them today. A scary revelation indeed - scary because it exposes my shallowness; I am subconsciously as shallow as anyone who'd want to marry Mallika Sherawat.

Based on the assumption that looks matter, Dove has succeeded in a big way with its Campaign for Real Beauty. A few of my sister's teenage friends now only buy Dove products - thanks to the Campaign and its efforts towards raising self-esteem in women all across the world - an innovational advertising trick, I must say. To give Dove credit, they did capitalize on a truth that is a part of everyone's life. Everytime I manage to sit down and watch TV, I consciously try to spot someone on TV that I would, without a thought, classify as "ugly". It never happens except when it comes to negative characters, which are at times played by (in my terms) "ugly" actors. If the media, that is so much a part of our lives these days (especially of the younger generation), glorifies the seemingly flawless Aishwarya Rai only for being the world's most beautiful woman, the drop in self esteem in people of all ages across the globe is bound to happen, which corporates like Dove are undoubtedly bound to exploit.

It's like a Catch 22 - a no win situation - where I don't want to be shallow and don't want looks to matter to me but I can't help being shallow and looks do matter to me. At this juncture, I am relatively at a loss for words {how'd that happen? :p}. Importance of looks cannot be undermined; it is a well established fact as a result of many researches all over the world. My personal experiences also reverberate the same sentiments. There is not much I can possibly think of doing except either giving in to my shallow side and letting Dove take me for a ride OR continuing to fight my shallow side in hopes of emerging victorious one day. If I choose the latter, eventually, victory might just happen. I might just end up married to a stereotypical nerd who I would've walked by without a care in Grade 9.