Reading Response #3
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology | In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life
198 Methods of Nonviolent Action | Unlearning the Origins of Photography
3.1 The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
“I already am eating from the trashcan all the time. The name of this trashcan is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating.”
In “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology”, Slavoj Žižek discusses the idea that eating from the trashcan of ideology is almost inescapable, and although painful we must force ourselves to step out of ideology. Ideology, although invisible, sustains our apparent freedom when unnoticed. The glasses in the movie “They Live” are like the critique of ideology glasses, as they allow us to see the real message underneath the propaganda and posters. Žižek shows that ideology is not just imposed but our “spontaneous relation to our social world”; as we are enjoying our ideology, we are deep within the illusion of ideology and we must escape to gain our freedom.
This video conveys really interesting ideas about ideology. The existence of ideology can prevent free thinking in a way that it forces us to “eat the trash” without seeing the truth underneath. As Žižek demonstrates, the 10-minute long fight scene, seemingly irrational, truly illustrates the danger of ideology - Armitage refuses to put the glasses on as he is unwilling to step out from the web of ideology, from the relative peace of life. In the current age of media that the digital news, ads, and articles are ubiquitous, we are constantly eating from the trashcan of ideology - while the advanced information technology allows for the possibility of personalization, our ability to independent thinking are gradually hindered as we are only seeing what we want to see or others want us to see. Under these circumstances, it would be really difficult to step out of ideologies, to maintain the ability to think individually and to discover the hindered truth beneath the appearance.
3.2 In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life
In her essay “In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life”, bell hooks begins with a personal anecdote about a photograph of her father, and discusses the power of the image that “it can give back and take away” (56). She then moves on discussing how photography can play an important role in black communities in general, as she says “cameras gave to black folks, irrespective of class, a means by which we could participate fully in the production of images” (57). Hooks argues that the issue of representation as reflected in the “struggle over images” is also a “struggle for rights, for equal access”, but the camera offered them a way to empower themselves through representation. In the end, as she discusses the significance of wall of pictures in African-American homes, which were “indeed maps guiding [them] through diverse journeys” (63), she again regards photography as “a way to resist misrepresentation” (60), a means to construct their identity while connecting the past to the present.
This essay allows me to see photography from a different perspective beyond just the aesthetic values. Photography is an instrument to document important events in life - it can record the personal glories just like her father’s snapshot as mentioned in the essay; it can connect the present with the history; or it can document the larger scale social events like the current BLM movement photos.
From a more personal standpoint, the images can convey family stories and contribute to the intimacy among family members. At the same time, it possesses cultural value as photographs can help people to construct their identity and to embrace their cultural heritage. In another book, “Black Look: Race and Representation”, bell hooks mentioned the common misconceptions and misrepresentations of African Americans due to racism: “Opening a magazine or book, turning on the television set, watching a film, or looking at photographs in public spaces, we are most likely to see images of black people that reinforce and reinscribe white supremacy.” But photography, according to her, would allow African Americans to gain full control of the production process of photographs, and therefore an effective means to represent themselves.
(Reference: bell hooks - "Black Look: Race and Representation")
3.3 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action
“198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” is a list of 198 methods of different kinds of nonviolent actions, often regarded as “the bible for nonviolent activists”. It includes different forms of protests, boycotts, interventions, etc, and contributes to our understanding of the possibilities to use nonviolent actions in large scale societal conflicts. As the article below introduces, Gene Sharp, the author, devotes his life to analyze “the practical tools of effective nonviolent actions”, and he believes that these nonviolent actions are “the most effective tool available to social and political movements”, while having permanent long-term achievements.
3.4 Unlearning the Origins of Photography
In “Unlearning the Origins of Photography”, Ariella Zoulay examines the origins of photography back into the invention of the New World in 1492, as she urges to unlearn the common conceptions of the invention of photography. According to Zoulay, photography “was rooted in imperial formations of power” - she proposes that “photography did not initiate a new world”, but it was “built upon and benefitted from imperial looting, divisions, and rights that were operative in the colonization of the world in which photography was assigned the role of documenting, recording, or contemplating what-is-already-there”.